Rebozos of Tenancingo And The Origins of Ikat

 

     All the arts have their roots in decoration. Once upon a time in some ancient human pasture, unrecognizable today, a cave woman, named Manoka, from Mesopoindotaindumaya electrified by a sucessful hunt that would feed her tribe for a month, and dazzled by potions and hours of dancing, thrust her fingers into a fresh mammoth carcass coating them with blood. She proceeded to paint her chest and face with designs. Others enthralled by her enchantment began to paint their bodies as well. So moved was Manoka that soon she began to lead a loose conga line of "new" disciples and in the firelight, their distended shadows writhed upon the uneven vault of the cave. Everyone became inebriated by the spirit in the colorful movements. 

     With these few squiggles and lines that outlined her eyes, mouth, and breasts, Manoka became the madre primera of all decoration and discos too. Her rapture, however,  did not go unnoticed. It was soon co-opted by some clever tribal elders who immediately realized the power in decoration combined with human survival. They quickly turned Manoka's euphoria into calendric ritual. To "relive" and elevate a critical event in ceremony seems to have been the original engine for all decoration. Manoka was the first commemorator. Arts and crafts arose from the human need for re-creation. Adornment was a form of honor to human affairs and human form. 

     As time passed humans got "festoon fever" not only decorating their bodies, but their utensils with designs, and their walls with images. This is the moment when painting began to deviate from craft which separated like two galaxies, both created by the same big bang but now moving away from each other at light speed. The plastic arts blazed off on their own discursive path shedding the restrictions of ceremony, utilitarianism, and religion, moving into "other" ever distant dangerous meadows of pure concept. Painting moved from depictions of the hunt on a cave wall to Duchamp's ready mades. The original motivators for decoration, were abandoned for unrestricted experimentation, yet adornment and ceremony always remain the patriarchs of the plastic art family tree. 

     Craft on the other hand never completely left its utilitarian roots. It couldn't. A box is a container and an earring is a metal, stone, or bone thing. However, it exhalted and refined technique in the course of its history. It has always sought to embellish the quotidian. Craft beautified the liturgy of human ingenuity. Tattoos for special occaisions, the enriching of a fiber skirt with painted designs for a wedding or a crop cycle, the molding of a clay pot into a stylized human form, the tea server adorned with delicate silver leaves and amethyst, and the bronze baldachin over the altar of Saint Peter's Basilica are some examples.

     Let's talk about IKAT. The idea is to explore the craft that one discovers in Tenancingo, from where it came, and how it arrived here. There are theories based on the traceable history of IKAT. It seems like with all human endeavor, exchange of ideas, like a wake of stardust, were left far and wide following commerce and trade routes There was no written chronicle at the time weaving and IKAT evolved, and the fact that textiles are perishable destroys archaeological traces,, well then sometimes enlightened speculation becomes evidence.In my case imagination coupled with the former serves as evidence, perhaps with a comic twist.

     What is IKAT? The term “ikat” refers to a dyeing technique used to create the designs on fabric. It is a resist dyeing process, where bundles of yarn are marked along their length, then tightly wrapped together and then dyed as many times as is required to create a desired pattern. The tieing creates a resist to the dye. This dyeing process differs from others because the yarns are dyed before being woven into cloth. In most of the other resist-dyeing techniques, like batik for example, it is the final cloth and not the thread, that’s dyed.

Below is a very shortened version of the IKAT method used in Tenancingo. 

 

Separating threads into bundles to be tied

 

Marking wheel used to mark bundles of threads 

  

Ball in the background are bundles of threads that have been starched to facilitate marking. The bundles in the foreground have been tied. Each tie forms a resist to the dye.

                                     

Bundles have been dyed. The ties are being removed to show the white of the thread that has resisted the dye.

  

Here one can see clearly the white pattern where the ties created a resist to the dye. 

 

Here is a finished rebozo on top of threads recently dyed and untied. They are ready to be strung on the loom.

 

Dyed threads above being strung on the loom. The white background is below. The union of the resist-dyed threads (upper left) and the white background (center) produce an ocillating pattern and a whole new softened tone. If the bottom or background is tinted that adds another dimension to the mix.

      The term, “ikat”, was introduced  to the Western world when Dutch scholars were studying Indonesian textile traditions in the early twentieth century.The term IKAT originates from the Indonesian word called ‘meningkat’, which means to tie. IKAT seems to have originated in Mindanao because here and in Indonesia all the techniques of IKAT dyeing are employed. It seems to be the ground zero for IKAT. Also, Autronesians were reknown sailors who took their clothes making and decoration techniques with them on the boat. I know I know that this may contradict other theories of the origin but this is what I believe at the moment. I may change my mind later when I have other information. It's my right to vascillate. 

     

     Perhaps more than 1000 years ago, before Leif Ericson reached Newfoundland,, Polynesians, on one of their bold starry voyages touched the shores of the New World at Easter Island or other locations. From Easter Island they could have easily reached the mainland of South America. There is compelling evidence for this.There are some theories that claim the backstrap loom came to the New World via the polynesians, who received this weaving method from people in what is now the Phillipines. In the article Amazing Austronesians there are attempts to establish linguistic links between the words used for the parts of the backstrap loom in the Polynesian Maori language and Quechua speakers in Peru. It's possible that Polynesians did in fact bring the technology to Peru, yet I have my doubts that all indigenous people in South and Central America went about bare assed or using llama skins for warmth before the polynesians arrived to save them. It is a fact that weaving on a backstrap loom sprung up in various parts of the world independently. According to Maya Quiche mythology, for instance, Ixchel, the Moon Goddess was the patron of weaving. She was depicted sitting, with one end of her loom tied to a tree and the other around her waist. She is weaving with the shuttle in her left hand. There is evidence that the backstrap loom has been in use in Mexico and Central America since 1500 B.C.E. A Classic Maya ceramic figurine recovered from Jaina Island off the eastern coast of Mexico is of a weaver at her backstrap loom. This loom is sometimes called the hip-loom, or stick-loom (telar de palitos).  

     Recently, archaeological evidence discovered in the area od San Diego, California points to a much earlier date for human expansion into this continent. This evidence claims that humans arrived here 130,000 years ago, more than 100,000 years before the more accepted date. This compelling evidence is somewhat fresh and open to much controversy among those in the archaeological community. That should put a twist into everyone's timetable of everything. That earlier arrival date does allow ample time for whomever those humans were and are to develop a method for weaving fabric out of fiber instead of using skins to cover their behinds. 

     So what about Tenancingo? Why IKAT there,,,,,,and why do men dominate the weaving process? It is true that in Chile, Guatemala,Tenancingo, and a few other places in Latin America men dominate weaving. My fantasy answer: It just might lie in trade routes, and that famous real estate maxim,,,, location, location, location. Before the  autopista in Tenango that now diverts traffic away from Tenancingo to the better politically connected Ixtapan de la Sal, Tenancingo was well positioned. It was a stop on the main gold-silver route between Iguala, Taxco, and Mexico City. Dubloons of silver and gold were inevitably spilled behind by travelers which encouraged the Tenacinguenses to prosper. The people here are an industrious lot, having taken advantage of their location, plentiful water and reasonable soil. Being on "the gold and silver route" the city evolved into a commercial place. It has never been washed in pastels. Tenancingo's surface is a little grubby from the commerce that constitutes its lively corazon. In the course of 500 years it has evolved into the most important economic center in the southern part of the State Of Mexico. People stopped, ate, shit, and slept here. Another important addition to the long term commerce in Tenancingo was due to the "Galleon Trade" between Spain, Asia, and the Phillipines. Spanish ships from Asia landed in what is now Acapulco laden with cargo from the orient destined for Mexico City and then Spain. More than likely aboard ship there were exotic cloths from Manila. IKAT designs and mantones de manila were loaded on the mule train to Mexico City along with spices, doo dads, and sundry baubles. What if some Phillipine guy on the mule train, a guy who knew how to dye cloth using the IKAT method, because he paid attention to his mother,,, what if he left the group because he fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful morena in Tenancingo. With that AWOL of the heart he spread the mighty germ of textile creativity here in the form of IKAT. The method might have been adopted by indigenous people who grafted it upon their own shawls woven in cotton or other fibers, like the lady pictured below from nearby Tenancingo who weaves with Joshua Tree Fiber.

 

Weaving with Joshua Tree Fiber

     The rebozo is a blend of the traditional lienzo on native Indians,  their carrying  cloths,  indigenous shawls, the Spanish mantilla, ikat and  fabrics from Asia and  the  beautifully fringed  shawl  called the Manton de Manilla.  It is possible that the Manton was another piece of merchandise on one of those mule trains,, crates of Mantones de Manila on their way to Mexico City and Spain. The mantones de manila, like the ones pictured below, (a chinese invention in silk not a Phillipine one) could have been seen in Oaxaca and this may have started an embroidery fever there grafted onto their own traditional tilma or huipil. And what of that beautiful addition to the rebozo the "punta" Tenancingo style, long and complex.The Manton de Manila must have been revealed in Tenancingo where the people there added their own touch to the fringe adding another step and another elegance to the rebozo. Ai Ai Ai the possiblities are endless no?


                                  

                                                          Manton de Manila

                                            
                                                       Ikat from The Phiilipines 

                                       
                                                                Ikat from Tenancingo

Derwood and the Tornado

            Derwood and The Tornado

      Whenever it seemed outdoor art shows became repetitious and unprofitable I thought of Derwood. Derwood was fifth generation in Albion. He had worked his entire life in Chalmer’s water powered sawmill in small town Maine and when it closed after more than 120 years in business his life was set adrift. Derwood was somewhere between slow and retarded but he possessed the capacity to count the amount of board feet in lumber. In his epoch it had been required in school, to know how to figure how many board feet there were in a piece of wood. At the mill he was sometimes inundated by boards and planks coming off the saw yet he saw to it that each was marked with a number with a thick octagonal red crayon. All the while he kept the overall count in his head until he had a moment to physically mark that number on a peg board abacus thickly blackened with pine resin.

     Derwood was religious, sober, diligent, and honest. In Albion, Maine with its 1300 residents Derwood hobbled about awkwardly like a gnome over time becoming a fixture like an expected bloom of bluets,, however he had been rendered obsolete and was tossed upon the scrap heap of history. Too young yet for social security Derwood could be seen about the village doing odd jobs of a brutish nature, like digging post holes in the hard clay or even bailing out old septic tanks with a bucket.

     I recalled one Saturday winter morning leaving my house perched on Capitol Hill on cross country skis making for Fifteen Mile Stream. It was a frigid winter morning and there was a shallow lake of ice fog suspended above the snow. Ice fog is made up of suspended ice crystals. It only occurs when temperatures fall below -22 degrees Fahrenheit. When I left my house at 9:00 AM the thermometer on the porch registered -28. The temperature had fallen suddenly in the wee hours of morning. I had felt the cold creep into bed beside me. The night before night when it was warmer , the air must have become saturated with water vapor from the snow, then when the cold snap came down like a hammer conditions were too cold for liquid water to exist, and small ice crystals developed creating the eerie fog.

     I skied down through Mr. Gould’s fields and entered the forest. There was an opening in the fence next to the ‘barrel spring’. It was called the barrel spring because long ago someone had interred a barrel without a bottom in the earth about the vein. Even in this cold the water in the spring was visibly moving. As I emerged from the woods  I spied Derwood on the other side of the bog road embedded in the brume. He was splitting wood in front of the house of Mr. Gould. Durwood stood in front of a haphazardly piled cord of some of the largest knarliest elm I had ever seen. Mr. Gould was notorious for paying little and spending even less. He had hired Derwood to split this impossible wood, its grain tightly woven in smoke-like whorls. It could reject or hopelessly embed the sharpest axe. Derwood’s breath mixed with the fog in which he waded. His wore two sweat shirts under a soiled jacket from which trailed torn and tattered banners of cloth. On his head he wore a blue oversized watch cap baggy and doubled over at the top. He had no gloves,, probably couldn’t afford them I thought. He came down upon the elm with a wallop with his double bitted axe only to plant the axe deeply into the twisted elm grain. It was slow difficult work and no doubt Derwood was desperate to have it and had most likely contracted to split the cord for a set fee. Even a hydraulic splitter would have taken issue with this pile of devil wood. I was sure Gould had made a great bargain for himself. Derwood stopped and looked up at me knowing it would cost some work to extract the axe.

     “Peter”, Derwood said, always using the full name of anyone he addressed. How be you this cold morning.”

     “Fine Derwood, fine,, and you?” I spoke the words knowing that Derwood was anything less than fine.

     “Awww, I’m afraid Peter that I’m between a rock and a hard place.”

     “You don’t have any gloves, Derwood”, I asked.

     “No Peter they won’t let me get a good purchase on the axe handle.”

     Mr. Gould emerged from the warmth of his house and stared at us with an impatient look. He didn’t speak but I knew that his demeanor was saying get back to work and you on the skis, be on your way.

     “Well take care of yourself Derwood and remember to slab it off the edge.”

     “Thank yee Peter and godspeed”, said Derwood.

     Mr. Gould watched with narrowed eyes as I continued on my way.

     After Chalmer’s mill closed Derwood’s house began to visibly deteriorate. He could no longer afford the upkeep. First the front stairs to the porch rotted away. I often wondered how he could enter his house. Probably around back. Then the 4X4’s that held up the porch began to skew at precarious angles until after a wet snow one corner fell to the ground dragging the roofline down in a peculiar arc. What was left was supported precariously by some withering posts. It was like a form of leprosy. Eventually even smoke stopped swirling out of his chimney a sign that it too had hopelessly deteriorated. Derwood was much too proud to ask for help. Even when it was offered he would refuse.   

     That same winter, in the month of February, neither Derwood or his wife were seen about town for a week. His nephew concerned about the absence went to the house but after heavy knocking could elicit no response. The porch was treacherous and with difficulty he was able to push the door open. Once inside the nephew found a grisely sight. Most of the floor was dry rotted and had fallen into the shallow basement. He saw Derwood and his wife on a small section of floor still in its place. They lie there like two frosted dolls side by side frozen in death.

      

     That memory always rattled my soul enough to easily shake off any arrogance that might creep into my thoughts. My life was a cakewalk because I always had had what I needed and in addition I had the precious gift of time. An accident of birth, living frugally and making art had given me that. Albert Camus said that “We spend all our time making money when we should use our money to make time”.  He always magically reversed the norms to which we have become accustomed.                       

     Jesus I have always farted through silk I thought. A year ago when I was in Catskill, New York at the annual Jefferson Heights Art and Craft Fair, I remembered how crestfallen I had felt. Sales were painfully slow. My thoughts were all antagonistic and sour rejection. I should leave the art show circuit I thought for all the changes that had taken place over the last 25 years. The Jefferson Heights Show, like so many outdoor shows, had begun as a pure art show but now crafts represented more than 75% of the exhibitors. Many artists grumbled about this popular trend in the shows but I had always kept my own faith feeling the trend had actually worked out positively for me. Every year there were less art exhibitors and therefore less competition for prize money in my category. I only worried about the future when shows might become exclusively crafts. The tendency was in that direction.  Now however I had to contend with the nagging sagging slow motion sales. After three days in Catskill I had made some money, but not like in years past. This was the first year the promoters had charged admission to customers and that made a visible difference in the quantity of clients. The Greed Factor times the grinding law of entropy were at work on my optimism.

     It was Sunday about 5:30 on a balmy summer afternoon. The show had ended and I had broken down and stored my booth in my Van. Veronica Carlisle, an old friend, and my neighbor for the last three days was still meticulously packing her melted glass objects. I lingered a little talking to her while she worked. Distant claps of thunder could be heard as the sky to the east began turning gray and the large white tent billowed with gusts of wind.

     “Better hurry up Vero or everything is gonna get wet.”

     “Don’t fret Pete, I’m nearly there. You should go you have a lot further to travel than I.”

     I made my goodbyes, giving Veronica a good hug and took off up Route 9G heading north parallel to the Hudson River. At Hudson I turned to the east on 23 heading for the Massachusetts border. I crossed over just after Hillsdale, New York where the route number changed to 41. The destination was Great Barrington where I would continue north to meet the Massachusetts Turnpike. Just after South Egremont before Great Barrington a heavy rain began to fall, so heavy that the wipers on high couldn’t handle the quantity of water. The patter of the enormous drops on the van roof was deafening like an brigade of drummers. The sky had darkened to the color of wet slate as if night were falling. I glanced at my watch and saw it was 6:30 PM. It was summer in the north and darkness didn’t fall until after 9:00. This must be a whopper of a storm he thought that turns the day into night. I slowed considerably, my visibility severely restricted by the rain. In the distance distorted by the raindrops on the windshield I saw bright tail lights as if there were a line of cars stopped. I slowed to a crawl, and then stopped behind a queue of about ten cars. Traffic was stalled. I rolled down my window and asked an officer in a parka what had happened.

     “A tornado just cut a swath through here. You cannot enter Great Barrington it’s a mess.”

     “A tornado,,, in Massachusetts?”, I asked incredulous.

     “Yup, it was strong enough to tear gravestones from the cemetery and send them flying. It even picked up a Volkswagen with four kids and deposited their bodies about a half mile away. Downtown Barrington is a mess, just a tangle of trees and rubble. Sir you can’t pass through there.”

     I was stunned. I didn’t even know there could be powerful tornados this far north. I thought of the other exhibitors who might have traveled in this direction. If I had not lingered with Veronica I might have driven right into this. I must remind myself to kiss her when I see her again. I asked the policeman for an alternate route to the turnpike and was told to retrace my steps and in about a mile I could turn right on the Egremont Plain Road which would take me north into New York towards Austerlitz where I would meet up with the Mass Pike.

     The dark slate sky had turned to a lighter shade of gray but the sunlight that filtered through it was combed strangely orange. I made the New York border quickly and a few miles before Austerlitz I crossed the path taken by the tornado heading towards Barrington.

     “It passed here”, I said aloud. There was a wide cut like the initial clearing for a new highway, about 50 yards wide with abrupt sides like someone had laid down chalk lines and mowed with a giant bush hog. All the trees and bushes within the aisle had been plucked of all their leaves, yet only in this peculiar track, an erratic band that trailed off towards the horizon on either side of the road making it seem like a slice of autumn in summer. The highway was empty of cars so I stopped. On the left was an abandoned house squashed flat as if stepped on by a giant. Delicately leaning upright precariously propped against the pile of rubble was a large maple with an enormous crown of bare branches shorn of all their leaves. Thirty minutes ago it had been a shade tree. What was remarkable was that the roots were still in the ground untouched. The tree had not been uprooted. The wind had torn the trunk off where it met the ground, lifting the weight of the entire tree then depositing it twenty feet away, upright alongside the house to which it once offered shade. It was a surreal painting. I turned my head to the other side of the road. There was a high alder. Trimming the thicket of bare branches like ornaments and trailing off perpendicular to the ground were sashes of fiberglass insulation sucked from the squashed house, all extending parallel to the ground like frozen pink ribbons.

     By 8:00 the sky was swathed in charcoal. The heavy rain recommenced. I was west of Springfield and off to my right every two or three seconds the sky was illuminated by enormous multiple slashes of lightning coursing horizontally across the sky,, flashing like celestial roadmaps. With every blazing flash I was reminded of how lucky I had been. By the time I made Springfield the sky had been tranquilized and I felt I had left the worst behind. 

The Breakdown Of Social Cohesion

      A few days ago as I was exiting a warehouse, my truck filled with metal for a new door I encountered a blockade. Taxis and trucks and buses had the town completely sealed off.  At first I just opened the windows to lie down in the truck and wait until this inconvenience passed. I was somewhat comfortable listening to the taxi drivers banter. A few that were stuck with me complained but they were quickly shouted down. Anyone who dared speak up against the twenty or so taxis was berated for not supporting the "cause". That cause was to reverse the price hike in gasoline. So let me understand, I was thinking,, "you want to bring commerce to a standstill screwing all the buisness and all their employees so you can bring the government to its knees. The only people on their knees are the people in the pueblo you are raking over the coals". I am very sympathetic to many of the causes that taxi drivers undertake but this one seemed to punish the citizens."
     I lie in my truck trying to sleep it all off for three hours unaware of what was happening on the other side of town, when suddenly the taxis let a large electric company truck through and I followed him like a dog on a scent. By the time I reached the center of the town I could see hoardes of people robbing gas stations and stores. Young men on motorcycles like buzzing bees were weaving in and out between the cars laden with bags of purloined cigarettes and liquor. What I couldn't see was that this scene was repeating itself all over town. The police as usual were absent. I passed the two gas stations on the way to the hotel in which there were lines of people with jugs and in their cars robbing gas. A group of students had also stolen a tanker truck of gas and were distributing the liquid to any one who wanted it. I just kept moving on because crazy crowds scare the shit out of me and when I finally reached the hotel I locked the gate behind me. We have been closed for two days since. There are no customers anyway.  In other mexican states crowds have been looting gas stations and malls. The rampage is almost country wide looking like Oakland after Martin Luther King was shot,, people trucking refrigerators, tv's, telephones, liquor, and stereos out of stores. I always wonder seeing those images what is the attraction of those items anyway? I guess you need a refrigerator to store stolen Coca-Cola, a tv to watch yourself on the news, a telephone to post a selfie, and the liquor and stereo to party like The Masai before another hunt. I am writing this on sunday the 9th and everything is back to almost normal. I even was able to buy gas yesterday.

    I have been prompted to think about the ever increasing fragility of social cohesion in light of this past week which has seen protests and looting all over Mexico in reaction to "The Gasolinazo" or "Gas Price Punch in the Gut" by the government. Where has Mexico failed? There's a loaded question.

     
    Societal relationships influence the functioning of the state and contribute to its stability and long-term development. The State, if it is to flourish, must realize its role in promoting a healthy society. The underlying idea is that state and society are interdependent. The quality of this interdependence is what matters most. An authoritarian state like Mexico has been historically strong in maintaining a stasis quo, but weak in influencing positive social change. I think the need to "maintain" the former completely overshadows the latter. Lack of social cohesion is seen to contribute to local-level conflict, which may escalate into something far greater. This last week has seen a visible breakdown in the social cohesion of Mexico. However, this deterioration was inevitable and has been hiding itself  just beneath the surface for years. All that was necessary was a forum and the State delivered a blow in the form of higher gas prices that cracked the thinning national carapace. Out of this crack has come a flow of angry lava and an army of opportunist cucarachas. The Mexican State, since the Revolution has cultivated, a lack of trust for the government and a lack of trust between social classes. For years everyone seemed somewhat placated and able to get by due to Mexican perseverance and humor. The national capacity to bear burdens and laugh about it allowed society to move on,, but perseverence has its limits. When the limit is reached the population no longer follows the rules and mayhem becomes the norm. Someone once told me you can determine a lot about the nature of a society by studying its tax code. I think this is true and I believe that  social cohesion can also be a barometer of a state's effectiveness. Without the State's ability to  reinforce enfranchisement, address perceptions of injustice, reduce elite actions that discriminate, channel demands in society towards common goal, deliver the necessities like clean water, manage a fair system of transit which fosters mobility, prepare its people for rapid social changes in terms of access to technology, migration, and urbanization, and offer security where all these afore mentioned values can prosper,,, and this with the inclusion of all groups,, that society's cohesion will eventually fail. History says they all do. Purposeful blindness to the above necessities contributes to the undermining of social cohesion  and the increase in fragility. 

     The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto raised the price of gasoline claiming the government had finally set the national oil company, PEMEX free from government subsidies and restrictions. All according to plan. Now PEMEX could compete fairly on the world crude oil stage. No one was listening to any of the economic banter about the new formula for success except the part that said gas prices would rise by 20%. This sparked the road blockages across the country and led to widespread looting of not only gas stations but of stores by opportunistic thugs.So far small businesses have been mostly spared,, the anger taken out on larger chains and gas stations.
     I have been trying to research the "real" reason gas prices are so high and going higher in Mexico when the USA for instance pays half what we do. Mexico has always invented their own personal intramural crude oil market completely apart from anything happening in the world,, and PEMEX has been no more than another one of Mexico's several bloated unions. These unions were created by the government, chained fast to the seat of power in Mexico City, yet allowed to flourish in their personally tended gardens of corruption for years. So there you have it,, a giant post Aztec pyramid where all those connected worship at the altar of a cadre of strong arm political priests. And of course sacrifices must be made, but as in Aztec times they are taking those sacrifices from the PUEBLO.

     Mexico’s strong dependence on crude, which brings in around half of state revenue, the the profound corruption of this company-union, and all the accompanying baggage has left little money for new energy exploration projects. PEMEX is probably the least efficient oil company in the world. Nepotism and corruption for almost a century have made the cost of a barrel of mexican oil one of the most expensive in the world. Mexico in 2016 was importing 54% of its gas from elsewhere. More than 90 percent of Pemex’s investments go to maintaining current oil fields, with little money spent on exploring new wells. According to the mexican president Peña Nieto, Pemex’s new strategy will center on negotiations with private companies which will begin bidding this year for concessions at hundreds of oil fields across the nation. It's doubtful many outside companies will seek to enter a relationship with them. The trust level for making a lasting deal is very low. Although Pemex is a monopoly it is a highly ineffective organization that has been running losses for decades. These can be attributed to: (1) labor costs associated with union workers pensions (company has a $100 billion unfunded pension liability), (2) taxes (Pemex’s accounts for one-third of the federal government’s tax revenues), and (3) inefficient operations. 
     All the bullshit talk of PEMEX entering the competitive world have not flushed well with the population here. Here's my take on what is really happening. There is a tribe of elite technocrats in Mexico who think they have found a way to extricate the government from the sticky goo of PEMEX,,,, but not completely,,, like an excited  guy who pulls out at the last second his face engulfed in ecstasy ejaculating into the virgin air,,, and at the same time,, like they always do, the tecno tribe has realized this phony catering to capitalism can be just another bonanza for them as well. We are already seeing for the first time gas stations "other" than PEMEX. Chains like OXXO are selling gas in the north of the country. This is part of the so called energy reform, to invite the world in to sell gas to Mexicans,,, and the competition will just have to benefit the mexican community because that's just how capitalism works,, its nature is to make things cheaper. Maybe,, but there is a catch. Who will own those future gas stations? I think these stations will be licensed to friends within the political inner circle. PEMEX would have manage its own ship,, but in essence all gas imported into the country must still go through them. They will become an uneeded middleman helping to keep gas prices artificially high while the State still skims its taxes and all the friends of the inner circle will have a new opportunity to gain by owning a great part of the distribution system. The spin is no more government interference,, and that there will be real competition, and new faces on the gas delivery system, not tied to PEMEX,, This will lay onto our threshold, if of course, we are only patient, cheaper fuel. 
     Maybe Pemex will fail as a company,,, which I doubt the government would allow because they will be an integral part of a lucrative intramural system to cheat the public,,, and from which the State and its capon cronies will prosper. 
    I think I am seeing a glimpse of the future with the melting of social cohesion these last few days,, and if we add the Trump Effect,  well it will all be just one inclined plane towards Mad Max. Trump has used the Mexicans like Hitler used the Jews. Good way to get the masses to follow you is to create a boogey man. He is fanfaring, threatening to heavily tax car companies that build cars in Mexico,,, taking credit for saving American jobs against the bronze rapist enemy south of the border. Ironically most of the cars made in Mexico are sold here or elsewhere and not in the states. and many of the saved jobs aren't saved at all. But Trump persists berating Mexicans. I am certain at some point he will have some success in diminishing Mexican-American trade,, and more importantly investment in Mexico. You know a billion dollars in trade pass over the frontier each day,,, not counting drugs. Even a small percentage of that sum would affect either economy. The price of gas in Mexico has risen they say to be the most expensive in the world. Wages are some of the lowest. Trump's wall and possible deportations should animate Mexicans but not in the direction of social breakdown,,, in the direction of a boycott against imports from either the US or Canada?,,, yet the economies are bellybutton tied.