Miahuatlan, Oaxaca

      We hired a taxi in the city of Oaxaca to take us to Miahuatlan de Porfirio Diaz. The trip to Miahuatlan was meant to collect information about my wife's family in order to embellish an upcoming family reunion. During the ride we received an earful from our verbose taxi driver, Eloy D.,  (himself from Miahuatlan). "Puñualistas" (stabbers) ,,,, he said. "They only go to church to pray for good aim. They deal in guns,, the priest blesses only the used guns because they have proved themselves." Sitting in the back, my wife and I traded glances at each new revelation about the town from where her great grandmother came. Eloy was funny in a way but God, I thought, I hope we survive this. 
     Miahuatlan is a town in the southern part of the State of Oaxaca. The name, Miahuatlan in Nahuatl means Corn Flower,, and in Zapoteca it means Where the Spring Begins. It is the the site of a famous battle during the French invasion of Mexico and also plays an important role in my wife's family history. On October 3, 1866, at 3:00 in the afternoon on the outskirts of Miahuatlán de Porfirio Diaz between Graveyard and Walnut Hill , Porfirio Diaz's small poorly armed force made up of Miahuatecos called cuerudos,  (Cuerudos because they wore long leather jackets) defeated their enemies, the French. They say it was the strategy of Porfirio Diaz that gave them the victory. The Republicans had barely 1,000 untrained men, while the invading forces totaling more than 2,000, were well trained and well armed. Thanks to intimate knowledge of the furrowed terrain near the river and a successful

Cuerudo De Miahuatlan

placement of his cuerudos, Diaz and the Republican forces significantly defeated the Imperial army in what is now called "The Battle of Miahuatlan". This was the first battle of three, which began the eventual fall of the French. The brilliant general, Diaz,  emerged as the undisputed victor garnering national recognition for himself, which perhaps helped put him in a postion to seize power in 1876 after which he ruled Mexico as a controversial dictator for the next 34 years. The people of Miahuatlan remained loyal republicans during Porfiriato.This loyalty was to prove crucial to the family history. 
     When Aurora Figuero, my wife's great grandmother was just 10 or 11 years old the revolution came to Miahuatlan. Her mother, and her father, a telegraph operator, were like many there republican sympathizers. They were killed leaving Aurora, her older sister and brother orphans. They lost the house, family land, and in the revolutionary confusion their brother, who was never heard from again. Aurora and Genoveva left Miahuatlan and began to walk, first towards Acapulco, then northeast. They kept walking for 4 years eventually arriving in San Luis Potosi. Along the way they scraped out a living however they could,, harvesting castor beans to make oil, and buying and selling items to troops. I have difficulty imagining the hardships these two young women must have endured. 
     In San Luis Potosi they met a carrancista captain, Ramon Lopez, a man of fifty  something, who told the 14 year old Aurora, I am going to marry you when this is over. Aurora protested to her sister but Genoveva told her she had had enough of this life. Aurora must marry Ramon for he represented security. The story becomes hazy after this until everyone appears again years later in Tenancingo. Ramon and his Carrancistas were sent to Tenancingo because of the growing Zapatista presence in Malinalco.The Carrancistas fought and beat the Zapatistas in a battle on the west end of town. Ramon was placed in charge of the ex-hacienda in Teneria and finally decided to make his home here. The rest is an ever growing family history. That, as I said was why we had gone to Miahuatlan. My wife needed to speak with a relative of Aurora's, to learn some details and flesh out the history of this remarkable woman.

Miahuatlan Mercado

Miahuatlan Comal

 

 Miahuatlan: Lady With Firewood Next To Original Family Land

Family Reunion

                                                                                  Family Reunion Parade


    Family Reunion Marimba
     

     On the way to Miahuatlan we stopped in San Bartolomeo to see the famous oaxacan black pottery. And then on to Ocotlan to see the market. In San Bartolomeo we saw  a demonstration by Don Abram the fourth generation of his family to work in black pottery. He started with an explanation of the differences in barro then and barro now,, time in the oven (16 hours for a hard product, 8 hours for a more decorative product). After 16 hours it loses its shine but is great for holding wáter or mescal like brittle cast iron. 

 
     
     Abram began the demo by taking some clay,, and like God slapped it on a type of wheel,, not a pottery wheel with bearings but two simple plates of pottery. He could spin one plate on the other like a gritty lazy susan. The pot quickly took  a rough shape. Then took a half moon piece of hard clay inserted it into the pot formed by hand and continued to shape it until a pleasing ovaline emerged. He made a ring of clay and pegged it to the lip of the fresh pot, then with wáter and a piece of leather the size of his thumb he completed the elegant throat of the piece. 

    Some pots are cut or laced with designs. Women do the cutting,, that is they incise designs into the pots similar to the empuntadoras in Tenancingo who tie the fancy knots on the fringes of rebozos. It was Saint Bartolomeo’s day so in the adjoining room a band began to play Las Mañanitas super loud. It was Abram’s turn to cooperate by providing the food for the guests who would arrive after the parade. The band and a small gathering left his house in a procession holding their clay statue of San Bart singing and shooting off fireworks. There were maybe 25 people mostly older and I began to get the sensation that I was watching a burial more than a celebration. I mused about a discussion I had with Pedro, a guide we hired in Monte Alban. He was very Oaxacqueño and to be Oaxacan is to be more united. He said that Oaxaqueños operate outside the family in groups. In the busy middle class State of Mexico for reasons of security and a need for refuge they function better within the family and are suspicious of outside groups. The State of Mexico is as different to Oaxaca as Alabama is to Vermont. So I thought were the people in the procession in San Bart  burying catholicism? Or perhaps it never quite took hold here in this half pagan land. Same for Chiapas,,, the people from both states are religious but catholicism has been in a mild controversy with their spirits for so long. It doesn't seem to be able to completely inundate their indigenous soul. A communal zapoteca form of consciousness colors the quotidien rituals. Catholicism has pretended to be community for its participants but it rarely has extended beyond the church except in established rituals like extreme unction. The more recent communitarianism of the indigenous peoples in Chiapas and Oaxaca represents a renaissance (which has always been there as an undercurrent) offering art and community as an economic social solution that satisfies the indigenous ideology. We make, we work, we sell---------but together------sharing the creativity and the profit.  

   San Bart Banda

   Monte Alban 

     

     Eloy D., the taxista,  was very animated like a coke head passing other cars left and right over a shitty highway of holes and cracks and topes. Often while he was talking he would turn completely around to converse with us. He looked like Steve Buscemi. It was a bit scary and my head still hurts from hitting the roof of the cab when he absentmindely went over a tope at high speed.

     We stopped at El Tule the tree with the widest girth in the world. It is an oasis of convoluted trunk, crown, and just wood. It is over 14 meters in diameter. I don’t know from where they measure for the trunk is so torsioned and folded. That is 47 feet. It must be 2000 years old and has its own private watering system even though cypress is a good indicator that there is wáter underneath. I guess they felt it needed more due to its age.

     In Teotitlan del Valle we saw a wonderful demo of how they make woolen rugs. Carding, spinning, dyeing. It was wonderful to see the plant dyes and the bold colors. The wife explained the first processes and then her husband did the weaving demo.

     We visited a small town San Tomas Jalieza. There in a small zocalo were women weaving, and selling various ítems of cotton. Bags tapestries, and a braided lady who sold delicious tamales of chepil. The filling was coarse ground by hand,, very tasty.  My back ached since we climbed up to Monte Alban. I need to lose weight,, two cats at least. 

  San Tomas Jalieza

     The next day we stayed in the city of Oaxaca in order to see some museums but this was really a pretext for shopping. At the Church of Santo Domingo, surrounded by clay figures, we happened upon an upper crust wedding. I could sense that my wife wanted to crash this affair. 
 
Santo Domingo: Figures of Clay, Wedding, and Palo Verde.


  Palo Verde
     
     The reception was being held in the gardens on the side of the church. At this point however I just wanted to go to the zocalo and watch the people in the ease of the shade. The big titted women,, the young lovers, the sellers of cotton candy and balloons, the dandies and the workers,,, y todos los otros puntos de la vida que vienen a nosotros como en rebanadas,, sin títulos,,, y llenamos los espacios en blanco,, that is perhaps why it is so pleasing to watch people because we can invent the captions,,, usually more positive than the reality.