Every Sunday Gloria wakes up at 3 am and begins to prepare tejate, a frothy and tasty drink made from corn and cocoa, which she will offer for sale in the Tlacolula market. A couple of hours later, her sister-in-law María and María’s daughter, Luci, do the same, but in preparation for their own day of selling pre-Hispanic-style figures and masks, comales, and a variety of other terracotta bowls, cups, plates and containers. Sundays, the women laugh, is their day of rest, when they don’t have to worry about looking for firewood, tending the fields, hauling raw materials to knead the clay — the lifeblood of their economic existence — and in the event from Maria, taking care of preparing breakfast for Luci and her older brother and taking them to school.
The family of four lives in a modest but good-sized compound with a dirt floor in San Marcos Tlapazola, a Zapotec town an hour from Oaxaca. Nearby Tlacolula is known by tourists and Oaxacan natives alike for the pageantry of its Sunday market, the wonderful chocolate-filled buns from its bakeries, the church, the proximity to the agave fields and mezcal factories, and the products offered for sale by the women of San Marcos. .
Gloria, María and Luci are 40, 38 and 12 years old respectively. While at the market, their traditional dress, consisting of brightly colored, embroidered taffeta dresses and headdresses, easily distinguishes them and others from nearby villages from the rest. Luci confesses that she also likes to wear normal clothes.
In her life, Gloria has only been to Oaxaca once. The mere idea of venturing into the big city intimidates her.
Clods of hard earth are sodden. On a concrete floor in a dark almost barren room, Maria kneads the clay then softened with water and a little sand, while she kneels and does magic on it, until a buttery smooth clay is ready to be molded. in a vase With her hands raised almost to head height, she shapes a cone, taps the inside to create a funnel, and then places it on a small piece of hard plastic on top of a flat stone, with a bit of sand as a cushion. The sand allows him to turn her shape into a sphere. She uses rolls of clay to build it. She uses a piece of corn on the cob to level the outer surface and another piece of plastic to mold the interior. A small round segment of hardened gourd helps produce the desired final exterior shape. A smooth leather strip makes it easy to create a smooth finish. Then to the next.
Gloria is sitting a few feet away, beginning to polish a small bowl that she has pulled from under a cloth that covers several others. She is using one of two highly polished golf ball-sized river rocks that her grandmother gave her. She has already lined the series of bowls with a mixture of a different, much redder clay, and water, to create a terracotta-colored paint tone. Once hard and dry, everything that Gloria and María have produced throughout the days is ready to bake.
Some potters in the town of Atzompa use above ground brick and cement kilns. Others in San Bartolo Coyotepec and Ocotlán use brick-lined underground wells. Manuel Reyes in Yanhuitlán built his own twin ovens with clay bricks, pieces of reinforced steel, and mud. But the women of San Marcos, whenever they want to fire their clay pieces, build a makeshift enclosure at ground level, variously made from discarded bed frames, pieces of rusty wheelbarrows, bent bicycle tires, old sections of other sheet metal. unusable and broken pieces of ceramic that have not survived previous firing.
Sometimes a cousin passes by in a truck to sell Gloria and María a load of branches, branches and rotten trunks, for between 400 and 1,200 pesos, depending on the size of the load. Sometimes he brings dry agave leaves, broth, and pieces of heart or pineapple that for some reason have not been harvested for the production of mezcal. The women themselves often collect similar pieces of potential fuel as they hike the hills outside their village and strap them to either side of their mule before heading home.
A day of baking can usually go by without a problem if there is no rain and any previous precipitation has not left the wood wet; if it is not too windy; and, of course, if there is a sufficient supply of combustible products on hand, and not too much scrap has been rendered useless during the initial stages of decay/disintegration.
Usually, Maria is in charge of the process, while Luci assists, and Gloria divides her time between doing other household tasks, such as cooking tortillas and being called when Maria gets tired or has been affected by intense heat, or a stage in production is time. -sensitive.
All the pottery to be baked is assembled outside, very close to the area where the “horno” will be built: a series of rustic clay pots — an order for a client who makes and sells piñatas; three comales that were not sufficiently fired on a previous occasion; clay numeral figures of different sizes and shapes, for the tourist trade of Tlacolula; and an assortment of functional pots, bowls, and plates, as well as a few small spoons and tiny strainers.
A circular base of approximately two meters in diameter is created, preferably using a box spring placed on a couple of staggered layers of brick, since such a base allows aeration. Broken pots, old metal pans, roof tiles, and anything else that comes to hand creates a containment perimeter. Small twigs and pieces of agave heart are placed below. Maria cuts agave leaves with a machete. With the help of an extremely heavy crowbar, one and a half meters long, known as a barreta, Gloria intervenes by splitting logs and pieces of dried agave. Maria and Luci build a flammable foundation on top of the spring. With cautious skill, Maria directs and assists in the placement of the pieces. Thanks to her years of experience, she knows how to achieve a better even shot and avoid breakage.
More of each kind of fuel, as well as dried tumbleweeds, is carefully placed on top of the clay pieces. Hot ash from making tortillas is poured into the crevices to facilitate incineration, while a couple of matches are lit with a few special added twigs, a natural kindling, which ensures a quick ignition. A fairly strong wind feeds an initially fledgling fire, and within seconds the fire is raging and smoke billows. More branches and dead parts of agave are thrown, with the utmost care since multidirectional wind tunnels have been created. Gloria must cover her head completely to make sure the spark doesn’t ignite her hair. They each take turns breaking free from the swirling and seemingly out of control flames. Finally, sheets of rusted metal are strategically placed on the sides and on top to control the ingress of air entering the internal parts of the enclosure.
The morning’s work done, the flames are allowed to die down, while Gloria, Maria, and Luci sit down, have a drink of fresh fruit juice, and rest. After approximately 45 minutes, the cooking will be complete. The area will be allowed to cool, while Gloria and Maria return to their simple work room, add some water to their dry clay and begin kneading before starting production again on another miscellaneous batch. Later in the day, the kiln will be disassembled, the ceramic removed in the hope of minimal breakage, and dusting of the ash removed. The women of San Marcos Tlapazola will then wrap and box their merchandise in preparation for their next trip to the market.
Most Sundays Maria can be found sitting on the floor with Luci, with an assortment of rustic clay figures and masks, as well as a selection of traditional Zapotec cooking and serving utensils, displayed in front of them, to one side of an exterior corridor in the Tlacolula Market. Gloria will be directly in front of them, serving cups of tejate to thirsty passersby.
Alvin Starkman MA, LL.B.