ethnic minorities must be saved from extinction! this case we speak about Native America (Native American, Apache, Cheyenne, Mapuche .....)
Governments must foster development. Only in this way, the original breed may have a chance to survive! We can not allow this noble breed
extinguished! W Red Power movement, W NOBLE native people, I love red leather. all tribes from the north to the south of the continent all together. against extinction
Ok, he is a good weaver I would not doubt that, but most renowned by who? By our Zapotec community? By the media? By customers? WHO DECIDES?
There is plenty of evidence that suggests Zapotecs were trading their weavings since 2000 years ago, or since the development of agri-culture 10,000 years ago, I imagine they had to figure out ways to dress, to experiment and try weaving with al sorts of fibers, like cotton, henequen or God knows what else
beautiful video i am proud to be native zapotec thanckyou for sharing this video and promoting the zapotec weving of Teotitlan del Valleb. xtuzen llubiu-u
They are the ones who have most promoted our stereotypical image of the lone Zapotec weaver making textiles, from start to finish, with their family, in the privacy of their family workshops using centuries old techniques, dyes, and designs. In truth, however, they may be at least partially responsible for many of the recent changes in Zapotec textile production they seek to obscure.
They bring down photos of Navajo textiles and swatches of color and then tell Zapotec weavers how many textiles to make, from which photo, and using which colors. Even more appalling, and perhaps just a little bit ironic, is the fact that they are the same people (many of whom have Internet sites where they sell Zapotec textiles) who have informed many of the most common misconceptions about Zapotec textiles.
The only aspect of textile production truly out of place today are the gallery owners and wholesalers from the US (mostly the Southwestern US and especially the Santa Fe and Taos area) who dictate to Zapotec weavers what they should be weaving. It is through the influence of these men and women that the Zapotec have begun to reproduce Navajo designs (to the left is a photo of young Zapotec weavers reproducing Navajo textiles for a client from the U.S.--
From this perspective, something as seemingly out of place as Zapotec weavers purchasing yarn from a wool processing plant supplied with raw wool trucked in from Puebla is in fact a perfectly natural outgrowth of the historical development of Zapotec textile production.
Building upon this pattern, today wool is trucked into Teotitlán and Santa Ana from as far away as the Mexican State of Puebla. Once cleaned and spun into yarn (frequently in Teotitlán's yarn factory), it is either purchased by weavers or distributed to them in Teotitlán, Santa Ana, San Miguel.
This arrangement developed historically from the pattern described above where merchants and traders returned from selling textiles in the Sierra and Isthmus with their muleteers loaded down with wool, yarn, and other products from that region. Merchants and traders then typically re-sold wool and yarn they purchased in their travels to weavers.
Most typically, the same merchants and long distance traders from Teotitlán and Santa Ana who sell the textiles on many occasions also provide dyed yarn and a design to weavers who make the textiles in their own homes. Weavers are then contractually obligated to sell the textile back to the merchant at an agreed upon price.
Given the multiple hands through which Zapotec textiles and the wool used to make them pass, it should come as no surprise that popular conceptions of single families and craftsmen producing textiles in their household workshops are also less than accurate. In truth, today in Teotitlán (and Santa Ana & San Miguel) Zapotec textiles are made in many family workshops that are interconnected through a large system of subcontracting between different families and villages
Most recently, some have even developed Internet sites where one can browse and purchase a Zapotec textile online (to the left is a photo of the textile market in Teotitlán). Buying a textile in any one of these places (including Internet sites), as long as one buys from a Zapotec merchant or trader, is the truly "authentic" buying experience.
It follows that, in spite of our desire to meet with and get to know the artisans who make Zapotec textiles, the most authentic buying experience would be to purchase a textile from a merchant or trader from a Zapotec community. Today many (from Teotitlán and Santa Ana) have stalls in most of the market towns in the Oaxaca Valley; store fronts in Teotitlán, Santa Ana, and Oaxaca City-- even as far away as Tijuana
it fits our romantic image of the lone craftsman but not the history and pre-history of Zapotec textile production. In short, for at least as long as Teotitlán has been Teotitlán (that is since it was subsumed into the Aztec empire and given the Nahuatl name of "Teotitlán"), the Zapotec textiles made there have most typically been taken to market and bartered with or sold by merchants and long distance traders from below "Brother Rock."
The stereotypical image of "authentic" Zapotec textile production and marketing that exists in the popular literature (travel accounts, tour guides, other web sites, and guides to purchasing Mexican handicrafts) are inaccurate. These sources suggest that purchasing a Zapotec textile directly from the person who wove it is the most "authentic buying experience." Unfortunately, this notion is a product of our own imagination and not historical reality
That the Zapotec do not spin the majority of the yarn they use is therefore not something to be hidden from prospective textile buyers but something to be celebrated and understood in its proper context-- as a centuries' old tradition of exchange of goods in open air markets.
In fact, Chichicapa, a small village hidden away in the mountains between Ocotlan and Tlacolula, has long been a producer of fine woolen yarns, which today are still sold at Sunday market in Tlacolula and at Friday market in Ocotlan. The current practice of purchasing woolen yarn is therefore not a degenerate, inauthentic practice. It is a practice that has developed more recently but which has its origin in pre-Hispanic patterns of exchange and textile production.
Contrary to popular conception and following a centuries' old tradition (of bartering for cotton at market), for at least the last 400 years Zapotec weavers have bartered for or purchased wool and sometimes yarn rather than raising their own sheep and spinning yarn themselves.
Because the local environment is not suited to growing cotton, the Zapotec of Teotitlán and other nearby villages probably bartered for raw cotton brought to market in the Oaxaca Valley from coastal regions (such as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec). Just as during the pre-Hispanic period they did not cultivate cotton, today Zapotec weavers do not own large numbers of sheep.
Our first concrete and reliable information about Zapotec textile production comes from the period of the Spanish conquest. The Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Valley of Oaxaca in the early 1520s and Aztec tribute lists from just prior to their arrival indicate that the area around Teotitlán, ¿Santa Ana?, and ¿San Miguel? supplied large quantities of cotton textiles to the Aztec "Empire" as tribute.
Archaeologists believe that this area of the Valley of Oaxaca was settled more than 2500 years ago.
Fragments of a cotton textile were found by archaeologists excavating in a cave near Mitla and ceramic spindle whorls are present in the archaeological record, but little else remains, this indicates the millenary weaving tradition of the Zapotecs.
ethnic minorities must be saved from extinction! this case we speak about Native America (Native American, Apache, Cheyenne, Mapuche .....)
Governments must foster development. Only in this way, the original breed may have a chance to survive! We can not allow this noble breed
extinguished! W Red Power movement, W NOBLE native people, I love red leather. all tribes from the north to the south of the continent all together. against extinction
jhoso891 1 year ago
This is a well edited video, good job Hani.
Ok, he is a good weaver I would not doubt that, but most renowned by who? By our Zapotec community? By the media? By customers? WHO DECIDES?
There is plenty of evidence that suggests Zapotecs were trading their weavings since 2000 years ago, or since the development of agri-culture 10,000 years ago, I imagine they had to figure out ways to dress, to experiment and try weaving with al sorts of fibers, like cotton, henequen or God knows what else
DIXZA 3 years ago
beautiful video i am proud to be native zapotec thanckyou for sharing this video and promoting the zapotec weving of Teotitlan del Valleb. xtuzen llubiu-u
teotitec 4 years ago
Beautiful video!
ronmader 4 years ago
They are the ones who have most promoted our stereotypical image of the lone Zapotec weaver making textiles, from start to finish, with their family, in the privacy of their family workshops using centuries old techniques, dyes, and designs. In truth, however, they may be at least partially responsible for many of the recent changes in Zapotec textile production they seek to obscure.
pryntel 4 years ago
They bring down photos of Navajo textiles and swatches of color and then tell Zapotec weavers how many textiles to make, from which photo, and using which colors. Even more appalling, and perhaps just a little bit ironic, is the fact that they are the same people (many of whom have Internet sites where they sell Zapotec textiles) who have informed many of the most common misconceptions about Zapotec textiles.
pryntel 4 years ago
The only aspect of textile production truly out of place today are the gallery owners and wholesalers from the US (mostly the Southwestern US and especially the Santa Fe and Taos area) who dictate to Zapotec weavers what they should be weaving. It is through the influence of these men and women that the Zapotec have begun to reproduce Navajo designs (to the left is a photo of young Zapotec weavers reproducing Navajo textiles for a client from the U.S.--
pryntel 4 years ago
From this perspective, something as seemingly out of place as Zapotec weavers purchasing yarn from a wool processing plant supplied with raw wool trucked in from Puebla is in fact a perfectly natural outgrowth of the historical development of Zapotec textile production.
pryntel 4 years ago
Building upon this pattern, today wool is trucked into Teotitlán and Santa Ana from as far away as the Mexican State of Puebla. Once cleaned and spun into yarn (frequently in Teotitlán's yarn factory), it is either purchased by weavers or distributed to them in Teotitlán, Santa Ana, San Miguel.
pryntel 4 years ago
This arrangement developed historically from the pattern described above where merchants and traders returned from selling textiles in the Sierra and Isthmus with their muleteers loaded down with wool, yarn, and other products from that region. Merchants and traders then typically re-sold wool and yarn they purchased in their travels to weavers.
pryntel 4 years ago
Most typically, the same merchants and long distance traders from Teotitlán and Santa Ana who sell the textiles on many occasions also provide dyed yarn and a design to weavers who make the textiles in their own homes. Weavers are then contractually obligated to sell the textile back to the merchant at an agreed upon price.
pryntel 4 years ago
Given the multiple hands through which Zapotec textiles and the wool used to make them pass, it should come as no surprise that popular conceptions of single families and craftsmen producing textiles in their household workshops are also less than accurate. In truth, today in Teotitlán (and Santa Ana & San Miguel) Zapotec textiles are made in many family workshops that are interconnected through a large system of subcontracting between different families and villages
pryntel 4 years ago
Most recently, some have even developed Internet sites where one can browse and purchase a Zapotec textile online (to the left is a photo of the textile market in Teotitlán). Buying a textile in any one of these places (including Internet sites), as long as one buys from a Zapotec merchant or trader, is the truly "authentic" buying experience.
pryntel 4 years ago
It follows that, in spite of our desire to meet with and get to know the artisans who make Zapotec textiles, the most authentic buying experience would be to purchase a textile from a merchant or trader from a Zapotec community. Today many (from Teotitlán and Santa Ana) have stalls in most of the market towns in the Oaxaca Valley; store fronts in Teotitlán, Santa Ana, and Oaxaca City-- even as far away as Tijuana
pryntel 4 years ago
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it fits our romantic image of the lone craftsman but not the history and pre-history of Zapotec textile production. In short, for at least as long as Teotitlán has been Teotitlán (that is since it was subsumed into the Aztec empire and given the Nahuatl name of "Teotitlán"), the Zapotec textiles made there have most typically been taken to market and bartered with or sold by merchants and long distance traders from below "Brother Rock."
pryntel 4 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
The stereotypical image of "authentic" Zapotec textile production and marketing that exists in the popular literature (travel accounts, tour guides, other web sites, and guides to purchasing Mexican handicrafts) are inaccurate. These sources suggest that purchasing a Zapotec textile directly from the person who wove it is the most "authentic buying experience." Unfortunately, this notion is a product of our own imagination and not historical reality
pryntel 4 years ago
That the Zapotec do not spin the majority of the yarn they use is therefore not something to be hidden from prospective textile buyers but something to be celebrated and understood in its proper context-- as a centuries' old tradition of exchange of goods in open air markets.
pryntel 4 years ago
In fact, Chichicapa, a small village hidden away in the mountains between Ocotlan and Tlacolula, has long been a producer of fine woolen yarns, which today are still sold at Sunday market in Tlacolula and at Friday market in Ocotlan. The current practice of purchasing woolen yarn is therefore not a degenerate, inauthentic practice. It is a practice that has developed more recently but which has its origin in pre-Hispanic patterns of exchange and textile production.
pryntel 4 years ago
Contrary to popular conception and following a centuries' old tradition (of bartering for cotton at market), for at least the last 400 years Zapotec weavers have bartered for or purchased wool and sometimes yarn rather than raising their own sheep and spinning yarn themselves.
pryntel 4 years ago
Because the local environment is not suited to growing cotton, the Zapotec of Teotitlán and other nearby villages probably bartered for raw cotton brought to market in the Oaxaca Valley from coastal regions (such as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec). Just as during the pre-Hispanic period they did not cultivate cotton, today Zapotec weavers do not own large numbers of sheep.
pryntel 4 years ago
Our first concrete and reliable information about Zapotec textile production comes from the period of the Spanish conquest. The Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Valley of Oaxaca in the early 1520s and Aztec tribute lists from just prior to their arrival indicate that the area around Teotitlán, ¿Santa Ana?, and ¿San Miguel? supplied large quantities of cotton textiles to the Aztec "Empire" as tribute.
pryntel 4 years ago
Archaeologists believe that this area of the Valley of Oaxaca was settled more than 2500 years ago.
Fragments of a cotton textile were found by archaeologists excavating in a cave near Mitla and ceramic spindle whorls are present in the archaeological record, but little else remains, this indicates the millenary weaving tradition of the Zapotecs.
pryntel 4 years ago 2