Chiapas Adventures Day 3: Off to Zinacantan

Magically beautiful textiles in a shop in Zinacantan

It’s a cloudy cool October morning in Chiapas, and lucky for me, my compadre Lynne has been in this region several times and knows the ins and outs of travel here. I’ve heard so many stories about these highland villages I can’t wait to see them for myself.  The indigenous people in this part of Chiapas are Maya by descent and most speak Tzotzil, a Mayan language, and many speak very little or no Spanish.

3 Mayan Crosses in Zinacantan. The Mayan use a long needle pine which is symbolic to them and you see it in churches and cemeteries. It is the representative of the Tree of Life.

 Each municipio (municipality) here has its own laws, rules, regulations, traditions and practices; which means go with a guide in order to prevent offense to the local folk. In some cases, annoying people like the Chamula and trespassing on their rules and laws can result in some pretty dire consequences to the tourist. More about the Chamula later but first we are off to see Zinacantan.

Off to pick up all the rest of our tour. Tricked out Pick up trucks were everywhere in Mexico. I'm still trying to figure out the significance.

 Ask your hotel for recommendations about tour guides or you can do your own research on the internet. Our hotel, the Parador Margarita, took impeccable care of us and their recommendations were always made with the best interests of the guest in mind.  We arranged to be picked up at 11:00 in the morning and our guide showed up to get us in a touring van/bus vehicle that seated about 12 people. Of course, we were first to be picked up and we spent the next hour trotting from hotel to hotel picking up the rest of our tour mates.

 

Our tour guide was a native Mayan from the area. He knew everything about what we were seeing.

We finally hit the road; Americans, Mexicans, a South African and a pair of Brazilians.  We left San Cristobal and headed up into the hills through what I would loosely call suburbs, past a giant shopping mall, strangely enough, and a lot of car dealerships. It was raining in earnest and I was glad I had dressed in layers and had a hooded jacket. Our guide pulled over in front of three blue green wooden crosses at a raised spot next to the road and we all piled out. He asked who spoke English and put those folks to one side while he gave his spiel in Spanish to the rest of us.

The Street of the Lost Child, and Zapatista signage in the village. The Zapatista uprising was in 1994 and its still going on, although more quietly.

 It was basically background on who the people were we going to see, their belief system and how it worked and tourist etiquette. The Tzotzil, according to our guide, have a religion that is a blend of Roman Catholic and Mesoamerican beliefs, known as syncretism. According to our guide traditional belief says there is a Tree of Life, called the yaxche or ‘ceiba’ which serves as the communication center with the levels of the world. Roots in the underworld, tree on the earthly plane and the top in the heavens. The three levels of the world are a real thing and mixed with Catholicism.

 

The front workshop with weavers and goods for sale, including some brought in from Guatemala and other villages.

This is a patriarchal society where religion is serious and central to every day life. There are a bazillion feast days and events that require attention from the faithful. Additionally, ancestors are an important part of the people’s lives and they are remembered and cared for and offerings are made to them and the known gods. The final point the guide made is that if you are not a member of the faith and of that village you must leave your tribe and go elsewhere, banished so to speak.

 

On a hard floor kneeling all day. I couldn't do it.

We refilled the van with our wet presence and headed off to Zinacantan, the main village in this indigenous municipality.  The Zinacantan are exquisite textile artists and very astute sales people for their goods. They have developed a great tourist industry around opening some of their homes for people to both shop and visit and watch them at work. Visiting a home is definitely a ‘tourist excursion’ and the demonstrations are like visiting a working village like Williamsburg. Yes, we are seeing the traditional bits, but in other parts of their homes there are refrigerators and televisions and washing machines in many cases.

The houses are built of rock and wood and metal sheeting and the one we were in had hard pounded dirt floors. It looked like different sections were under casual construction or abandoned or used for storage. There were doors in windows in some areas and some areas like courtyards were simply roofed with tarps. Although it was raining outside, inside it was nice and dry although cool. We pulled up a block up from the house we were visiting, piled out and trickled in to see what Zinacantan was all about.

The entry way of the house we visited. Construction is pretty casual and on going and dogs and cats abound, not feral, just part of the population.

An enormous show room piled with homemade wood tables and carefully stacked piles of goods and hanging goods surrounded us. Women came and went and so did dogs and a cool cat. Weavers were at work, kneeling on the floor with their looms, barefoot with sandals to one side and a plastic cushion on the ground under their knees. You can tell who is who in this area by their costumes which are not really costumes.

Children wear traditional clothing too.

 This is what they wear every day; men, women and children. The women and children far more than the men, but it was amazing to see these heavily embroidered clothes as just part of their everyday wear. This is not machine embroidered either (I don’t think) its hand done and I was told the color scheme changes every six years, part of religion and tradition.

Expect to pay a little bit  for a weaver to pose, this is how they make their living.

After wandering around and doing some shopping, bargaining is fine, but be fair, we were led down a hallway and into a kitchen. I read statistically the most injuries in Mexico are due to burns from fires and after getting a gander at the kitchen, I understand it completely.

This is the kitchen with pots, pans and a comal to cook tortillas. 

Wood fires are on an open hearth which has big pans, called comal placed over the heat to cook tortillas. We watched a young woman pinch off balls of dough and pop them into a wooden tortilla press smoothly and quickly. She turned out tortillas right and left to go with the pot of beans sitting at the front of the fire. We were invited to take a tortilla and put beans on it with a sprinkling of queso fresco to get an idea of what it would be like to cook and eat in a village.

Extra comal  hang on the wall and gourds for liquids and yes, those are metates for grinding corn and they use them every day.

This young cook was using a tortilla press and making tortillas and beans which she served to us.

Outside was a giant stack of firewood and in the other rooms of the compound I could hear a television blaring and watched young men come and go. Theses houses are not built like our houses, they are banks of rooms surrounded a courtyard full of banana trees and a garden with beans, corn,  peppers and onions in it. I grinned at the sight of the umbrella hanging in a tree outside the kitchen to permit a cook to scoot across to the rest of the house and stay dry.

The pantry.

 I borrowed the bathroom anticipating a 3^rd world experience and discovered a flush toilet, flushed by a bucket of water, but I’ll take it. Outside the toilet room, which had a door that closed and a tile floor, was a sink with running water, a bar of soap and several toothbrushes,  all in the open air next to the family parrot. One could brush ones teeth and take in what the neighbors were up to at the same time.

 

Room with a view

I explored a little bit with permission and as it was Dia de los Muertos time, the family shrine of Santos and ancestor’s pictures was full of fresh flowers and at the first phase of the annual celebration of the dead.  I loved the incense burners that were clay animals like jaguars in which is burned copal incense during festivals and rituals.

Yes, they use a lot of wood here, its stacked in the inside courtyard.

Love the umbrella hanging in the tree outside the kitchen door, helpful when dashing across the courtyard to the other rooms

 I have come to the conclusion that in this part of Mexico time is not a river, it’s a sandwich and everything that ever happened is as current now as it was when it happened. It makes ones perception of this place make far more sense. These people are still very poor in terms of how we live in the USA and they have been terribly exploited historically by the Spanish and their government, but I have seldom met a more resilient and adaptive group of people anywhere.

Copal incense burner and a bottle of coke on the altar 

the family saints are dressed in gorgeous tiny tranditional clothes.

Next to the decorated santos figures I spotted a pair of caites, antique high backed sandals, and two strange old guitar harp instruments. I wondered who they had belonged too and how they got there and how they sounded when played. The room had closets and storage on one wall and seemed to be an adjunct of the shop. Neighborhood kids peeked in the door and asked for handouts and I was intrigued to see the little boys had on miniature versions of the same shirts their mothers wore, embroidered heavily and really pretty in pinks and blues and purples. 

The family altar, the shoes are called caites and only appear in this part of the world. Traditional guitar harp type instruments on the right side.

Our guide called us back and hauled out the local hooch which is called “ Pox", pronounced posh  "Pox" is a liquor made of corn, sugar cane and wheat, pivotal in Mayan culture for its ceremonial uses and is also known as aguargardiente. It’s popular and found everywhere in Chiapas. In Tzotzil the word Pox means medicine liquor cure. There were three flavors and cinnamon is the only flavor I remember, but they all were reminiscent of good old moonshine. We each drank a tiny plastic glass of each flavor of the stuff, thank our hostesses and straggled out to head to San Juan Chamula, textile purchases in hand.

friendliest kitty ever wanted non stop pets from all of us.