Oaxaca & the Art of Shopping

Textiles

The Zapotec people of Oaxaca have a 2500 year history as master weavers. The links to this ancient tradition are best seen today in the clothing of Indigenous women. Most Indian communities retain a particular style of dress, with variations to distinguish different villages within a region. Elaborately woven and embroidered clothing is worn not just on ceremonial occasions but throughout daily life.

Best known is the huipil, a sleeveless tunic made from three pieces of cloth. Oaxacan weavers still use cotton and wool yarn dyed with animal based colorants. Cochineal, made from the tiny dactylopius coccus insect that feeds on the nopal cactus, was the most valuable product, after precious metals, shipped by the Spanish to Europe. And no wonder: it takes 70,000 of the insects (only the females are used) to make a pound of dry cochineal. The Old World had never seen a dye of such a rich redness and fullness, and so colorfast, so stable and so impervious to change. Cochineal became the most guarded secret of the Spanish Empire.

In the Mixtec villages of the Oaxacan coast, weavers also use cotton dyed with Purpura patula pansa, a species of sea-snail, picked off the rocks of our coastline at low tide during the winter months. When the dyers squeeze or blow on the these mollusks, they give off a foamy secretion which is rubbed onto the cotton.

Although it is initially colorless, contact with the air turns it yellow, green, and ultimately purple, and is highly prized for the typical striped, wraparound skirts of the region.

Also look out for intricately embroidered peasant blouses, many incorporating elaborate beadwork. The woolen rugs and wall hangings from Teotitlan del Valle are also highly prized by visitors and collectors. Also of note are the simple woven-cotton bedspreads, table cloths, place mats and tortilla warmers, all of which can make a splendid gift.

Ceramics

The art of pottery goes back many thousands of years in the New World and demonstrates an astonishing range of creative skills and artistry. While in the West, clay has often been considered somehow inferior to stone or wood as a medium of artistic expression, many archeologists believe that pottery-making was the greatest of all pre-Colombian crafts.

Mexico remains a land of potters. Entire villages are engaged in producing ceramic products both decorative and utilitarian. San Bartolo Coyotepec is famous for the black and brilliant sheen of its pottery, Atzompa specializes in a semi-transparent green glaze using copper oxide over a tan clay.

Ocotlan de Morelos is another important center for the production of ceramics and is home to the famed Aguilar sisters who create colorful and whimsical figurines and scenes: islands populated by mermaids; colorfully garbed market ladies; monkeys and religious icons.

In the villages of San Marcos Tlapazola and Santa María Tavehua the families produce heavy red and orange terracotta tableware.

Wood

In the 1960's artists in two villages in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, San Martin Tilcajete and Arrazola Xoxocotlán, began carving and painting whimsical and fantastic animals and bizarre other-worldly creatures from copal wood. These alebrijes, as they are called, proved highly popular and today are in demand as souvenirs for visitors and represent one of the state's biggest exports to the international market.

Here on the Oaxaca coast carvers still make animal masks and figurines, especially of jaguars, a creature that has always possessed powerful metaphysical significance. Also common are devil masks and effigies of pink-faced white men. These are based on the ceremonial trappings used in traditional dances for occasions such as the Day of the Dead, Carnaval and Easter Week. You'll also find carved angels, devils (many, like some of the masks, using real teeth and horns) and the ubiquitous skeleton figures.

Other wooden implements you'll come across are children's toys, especially spinning tops and trucks, combs, spoons, bookmarks, letter openers, back scratchers and chocolate whisks.

Jewelry

The Mixtecs of Oaxaca were among the most accomplished jewelers of the ancient Americas. The exquisite gold work found in the tombs of Monte Alban is now housed in the Santo Domingo Cultural center in the city of Oaxaca. Reproductions of these magnificent pieces can be found in finer jewelry stores. Oaxaca is also famed for its fine filigree jewelry. Slender gold wire is formed into elaborate designs and inset with pearls, coral and stone to produce stunning bracelets, earrings, pendants and chains. There's lots of silver to choose from, most all of it from the Guerrero town of Taxco. Pink and black coral bead jewelry can occasionally be found here, as well as amber from Chiapas and a plethora of fine chiquira beads and shell costume pieces.

Basketry

Beautiful and useful objects made from woven palm or reeds are of the oldest and least changing Mexican crafts. Soft, pliable covered baskets, hats, beach and shopping bags, mats and laundry baskets are among the goods you'll find on the streets and in our local markets.

Furniture

Santa Catarina Mechoacan specializes in the manufacture of wood and woven-string chairs, tables and other furniture, common in many of our local homes and restaurants. It's an attractive, well-tended town.

Don't be surprised to see women-of- a-certain-age unabashedly topless in and around their homes and the furniture workshops. Among the Mixtec of the coast, once a women is beyond child-bearing years, this is her right. She may cover herself with a shawl, should she choose. In many of these towns local priests have made it a point to end this practice, but in Mechoacan, the abuelitas still let it all hang out.

Food etc.

Moles (pronounced "moe-lay") comes from molli in Nahuatl, and means sauce or stew. There are seven moles that originated in Oaxaca. Most common are the delicious rich red and black mole, dry packaged they don't need refrigeration and are widely available in local stores.

Oaxaca's delicious mountain grown, organic coffees are also easily transportable. Great gifts also are the two classic flavors that originated in Mexico: Chocolate and vanilla. Oaxaca's drinking chocolate is among the most prized in all of Mexico. I found that those chile-and-garlic loaded peanuts and the peanut and sesame seed bars called palenquetas are also a big hit.

Mezcal, Oaxaca's fiery spirit, is a great ice-breaker at family gatherings. There all kinds are available, including the liqueur-like creams, cremas, with flavors ranging from coffee and coco to kiwi and passion fruit; It goes down easily, but it packs a punch!