You see I am a creature of habits. I awake early, prepare bread jam, and coffee for the nightwatchman,, make accounts,, spend a religious moment on the toilet, then while it is still dark return to the computer with a cup of coffee, and try and learn something,,,,either about myself through the catharsis of writing, or about someone else by surfing a little. For example, although I knew who Max Weber was, I heard his name mentioned somewhere and that was sufficient to prompt a deeper investigation. If you are not familiar with him, he was the curious creature who studied various religions including confucianism, hinduism, protestanism, buddhism, and judaism in order to determine how religious precepts influenced societies' and their "economic tendencies". This is more important than it sounds. To anyone who wants to know why economic forces differ from country to country his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is enlightening. Why did western society, combine the cocktail of rationalism with sobriety, derived from religion, especially calvanism, and trade sorcery for earthly gains. When Luther pinned his paper to the wall, there was already a social alchemy bubbling. The reaction to catholic domination of politics and life in general was gaining ground. The Protestant Ethic, a more sober codigo for living, was born rapidly gaining adherents in Europe arriving in North America with the Puritans. Society hoved in the direction of ascetic enterprise. At first glance it may seem like christianity and rationalism are mutually exclusive but they seem to get it on quite well. God reveals to man the practicality of being frugal and occupying his time in production not imprudence. Man sings His praises from dawn to dusk helping to ward off temptation that might divert him from his spiritual and material reward on earth as it is in heaven. Religion benefitted from those who accumulated. The word became more widespread. Religious hymns and stern temperance avoid the word greed,,, the great tarnisher, and instead society marches forward to a more capitalistic cadence while the band plays Amazing Grace.
After calvanism took hold forest fairies, nymphs, oracles, satyrs, and the Virgin Mary were replaced with lumber futures,,, then after 300 years society came full circle and returned to magic once again in the form of stock market derivatives. Mexico, drenched in indigenous dieties and catholicism, has retained its magic for good and for bad. Mexicans have been able to avoid hauling back at the reigns of their persistent other worldiness. One always can sprinkle some garlic on their threshold for luck, or ask the Virgin to intercede,,, or just dance until dawn. Meanwhile the weeds grow up over everything. It seems that Mexicans, unlike Calvanists, are ever inebriated by life and still believe in magical fairy tales, and that may be one of the reasons it's so antithetical, and at times irresponsible, yet colorfully creatively sensually beautiful.
Am I not Here I who am your Mother?
The oracle at Delphi
The Yucatan: This is a long chapter. It reads like the Moby Dick of the hennequin industry.with more information than you ever wanted to know about this noble fiber.
A few years ago we visited a tourist attraction,,, a hacienda, called Sotuta de Peon. It was built in the 1800's. Sotuta in Maya signifies "vortex of water". There are several cenotes on the property but the water in one is constantly spinning and flushing down into the unknown. In fact on the property of Sotuta de Peon I was able to enter and swim in a cenote. Peon in this case might mean farmland because the hacienda has a long history cultivating the cactus hennequin whose tough structural fiber is used in the fabrication of rope. The hacienda Sotuta de Peon has preserved the process of growing and processing hennequin. It is more like a museum visit than a real hennequin factory, but it was the sweetest of all the haciendas that we visited. There is a family atmosphere about the place probobly because it had only been in operation for nine months at the time of our visit. In a couple of years everyone who works there will have seen it all and will be answering clients like a 60 year old waitress at the Last Chance Diner in Jersey City.
https://youtu.be/N-lwoqyM2fk
We were picked up in Merida by Arturo, the colombian who married into the family that owns the hacienda and Roberto our guide. Roberto is Puerta Rican about 60 years old and speaks spanish, english and french. This way he can give the tour to practically all who visit except the chinese. Almost all euoropeans speak english,,,so he can cover almost any situation. He met his yucatecan wife on the internet and now lives the good life here. His bright blue hawaiin shirt and straw hat at first made me think of those guys who spend all day at "the track" yet he seemed a happy fellow with a happy sort of presentation.
One of the things to experience in the hacienda is the rope making exhibition, and although thorough and enlightening it is a surrogate for the real thing. To complete the journey you might need some imagination. To be inside a real working hennequin factory with its machinery noise, heat, dust, sweat, and chafing hennequin fiber would be real first hand knowledge of the conditions under which the employees slaved,,,,what made the haciendados rich,,,what made "white" Merida look lavish during its heyday. Sotuta de Peon's rope making was more a demo on a grand scale. The hacienda retained all the machinery from the golden epoch but now it was manned and maintained by former workers turned tour guides.
It takes seven years for a plant to mature enough so that its leaves or pencas can be harvested and the rope making process may begin. Hennequin, which has not hemp,, (hemp comes from the male marijuana plant) is a tough fiber derived from the leaves of the agave cactus called sisilana, native to southern Mexico. Hennequin was used by the Mayas to make string, hammocks, crude clothing and rugs -- not much has changed. Hennequin's attraction is its toughness and resiliency. It is strong enough to hold heavy items, and allows enough play that it will not break under conditions that snap synthetic ropes. There is an episode of that History Channel show, Forged in Fire which is a blacksmithing competition between mostly male hephaestians judged by three really zealous blade enthusiasts. Knives, japanese katanas, crusader's swords, and viking battle axes are forged by the contestants then evaluated by the judges who disembowel dummies, slash pig carcasses, and cut through thick hennequin ropes. The ropes put up a fair resistence.
The hennequin boom, like the silver boom, converted the shallow soils in Yucatan into acres of spiney gold. In the 1800's factories were established and the end product was exported to every corner of the world. By the 1880's Yucatan was one of the richest states in Mexico (although ironically Yucatan has always considered itself apart from The United States of Mexico.They like baseball more than soccer there. Hennequin made vast fortunes for the haciendados who cultivated it past the turn of the last century. Yucatan produced ninety per cent of the rope and burlap bags used worldwide. The hacendados lived lives of wealth and privilege, like the silver and gold barons in mountainous Mexico. The first World War, and the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution stuttered production, however hennequin made a comeback during the second World War, but never returned to its prewar heyday. The advent of synthetics and the cultivation of the agave cactus in Brazil, Madagascar, Tanzania and Manila combined to bring the industry to its knees. There are still a few factories left and a need for baling twine but the glory days are fading.
The economic justification:
According to "economic experts" in the region rope making is not a growth industry. Here is the evidence. Plantation owners, like those who owned Sotuta de Peon who had cultivated hennequin for generations just stopped raising it commercially because they felt there was no economic future in this kind of agriculture. The family hacienda at Sotuta has been turned into a museum and offers a brief glance into the past. If you stop here, and I recommend it, you can catch a glimpse of the past when hennequin ruled.
The subtitle to the above paragraph concerning the bleak future of hennequin plantations may actually be:
"The younger generation on the plantation, the great grandsons and grandaughters, were sent to school" and there it all began to unravel. In school the noveau generation, cushioned by the fortune of their great grandparents, learned modern economics and that heavy machinery is a poor substitute for "lighter, leaner" investment portfolios,,, better for everyone, but best of all for us. This seems to be a disease in the world today. Stability gleaned from hard industry has a diminished role in modern economies. Alot is based on a more modern economic model. Industry creates an "extended" environment serving growers, workers, processors and customers yet has been condemned as being brontosauron, that is, not fast and lithe and liquid therefore it seems to have less value. Sisal rope is still made but most of it comes from Brazil or the Phillipines. Yucatan got rich from its manufacture but that wealth may have been its downfall.
As a comparison, Italians are still dominant in the shoe industry but they have used superior quality, design, and technology to stave off competitors from countries that possess a cheap labor force advantage. The Italian mentality warrents investigation. It's not waxing nostalgic to say that natural sisal rope has a place in the world. Of course the industry needs sufficient profits and a mentality that strives to improve in order to accomplish these ends but the potential is there to create a "beneficial" industry. Hennequin is a natural fiber. That is a great plus. It rots when it is used up. For instance, The John Deere company has been one of the world's largest buyers of henniquin since it first became available. Its use for baling hay is unsurpassed. Attempts were made to use wire and nylon ropes, but cows ate the nylon and got sick, or cut their gums on the baling wire, or small pieces of it ended up in one of the cow's four stomachs. I still buy sisal rope and when it weakens over time I can throw it into the compost heap.
After having proselytized about the value of heavy industry, some reflection is needed to balance it all out. Read the following account;
The process of making rope from cactus fiber is the same on a survival show with Bear Grylls as it is in a massive rope factory. The difference is scale of operation and production. Although the old hacienda process used machines it was more down home than the modern counterpart,,, more like a prewar southern cotton plantation. The difference was the slave skin color,,, bronze over black. Old or new however the process is broken down into a few steps. Remove the meat of the penca or leaf revealing the fiber, wash and dry the fiber. Separate the fibers and finally spin the fiber into rope.
In the more modern plants which are the size of two city blocks, one is greeted by deafening noise. Hacienda machines creaked, modern machines scream. Large bales of raw, yellowish fiber from which the meat has been separated are fed into machines that shred and sort the rough stringy filaments.These pre-rope strands are rolled into coils and dumped into drums, which are moved to another group of machines that slim the strands a little more. The air is laden with a mist of fine dust. In the final process the fibers have been thinned sufficiently to be twined into various thicknesses of rope.
Back to the past:
When we arrived at Sotuto Peon we were greeted in front of the hacienda by a waiter and two cool glasses of agua de Jamaica. Agua de jamaica is made from hibiscus and tastes alot like cranberry juice. We toured the inside the hacienda with Roberto. It was cool inside with high yucatan ceilings that acted like airconditioners. The birds of the yucatan chattered from the trees in this inside outside world. The place was lavish. Lavish living in the selva. French tile, french furniture, french romantic art on the walls, a yucatecan maid in full huipil uniform.
It reminded me of the royalty in Russia before the revolution. They had a romance with things french too including sending their laundry to France for a good classy washing.. What is this association between those with means who are caught in the hinterland and neo-euro culture? Here you are living in your mansion carved out of the jungle. With what do you fill it? Who are your models? They connected with the colonial glory days of Europe when the world was a few priviledged person's oyster. Those priviledged societies living in the boondocks just chose a proven haute couture in Europe and played at paste while indios toted the bales.
Painting of an Indigenous person toting a bale of Hennequin in the presidencia of Merida
I cannot help thinking like this and then there in front of me is this pleasing building. It presents a beautiful environment. So does a humble "casa maya" but in a different way. Yet there is always this dichotomy. You don't arrange a hacienda or put up a pyramid without walking on the backs of someone. Perhaps only in the twentieth century can you help erect some architectural icon and be paid a decent wage. There it was this building drawing on renaissance architectural style and decorated with objets d'art from the reigning european style. It just looked good.
The old process,,, you decide:
By the time we reached the lush backside of the hacienda we were joined by another group, some teachers from Kansas. We moved to the exhibition which began with the oldest method of making rope. We went to the side of the hacienda where there were two old simple devices when everything was done by hand. One man in his hacienda dress whites demonstrated how to comb the raw dried fiber by hand. He slapped a handfull of the hennequin upon a piece of thick wood with sharp spikes protuding upwards,,like a sadist's brush. He pulled the hennequin towards him. After several tries the hennequin was sufficiently combed. Now it could be twirled into rope.
The next ancient machine had a handle that one person twirled. A bit of henequen was attached to a hook on a wheel than spun as the muchacho spun the handle. A second muchacho slid two fingers down the spinning line of hennequin and created a string. Just when he seemed to reach the end of the string he grabbed another bunch and with those two magic fingers he connected that bunch to the original and kept on spinning. In this way he created a string about 60 feet long. After he had created three they hooked the three onto the hooks of the machine. The handle man spun the wheel, the strings fluttered a bit, suspended, whipped upwards, and then began to form a thin rope.
Combing the fiber
Spinng the fiber by hand into a crude strand of rope
This presentation was to show how they did it a long time ago. I was thinking, how did the guy make hawsers? The spinner could not have spun something the thickness of a human waist with his magic fingers. That's where machinery came in twining small ropes into larger ones.
Next Stop: The old factory across the dirt road.
We then confronted the factory. Hojas or leaves of henequen were piled in front of a conveyor that lifted them into the factory.
Inside was the noisy machine que se desfibra las hojas (separated the fiber from the pulp). Three men quickly arranged and fed the machine. Inside the defibrador is a bunch of hammers that beat the leaves into releasing their tough fiber. Most cactus have this fibrous support structure. When the meat is removed what is left is nature's ingenious tough superstructure. Really a cactus is like an ornately fabricated tightly sealed vessel of water. The green juicy pulp dropped through the floor into carts. The fibers went down too but to an area set up like the supports for grapevines. Here the fiber, still tinted a little green, was draped and dried for about six hours in the intense sun. It turned a beautiful creamy white.
Hammer mill that removes the meat from the fibrous structure of the cactus
All the machines we saw that day were run by electrical motors. During the "high" henequen era a large flywheel steam engine , made in the U.S.A. of about 50 horses powered everything.
From the factory trickled a stream of juice that was caught in a type of open cistern cut into the rock. Of course one of the Kansas teachers questioned the environmental impact. That could lead to another story but not here. The pulp cart was loaded with what looked like a precursor to guacamole was taken by mule and cart through the orchard and into the henequen fields to be spread around the plantsin order to build up the thin yucatecan soil.
Next stop,,, Carmelia and the ride.
All hennequin haciendas had their own mini railroads with rails bought from France of course. The light rails were very narrow gauge,,about two feet. The workers would move the pencas from the field to the processing area, and then the refuse from the rope making process on carts drawn by mules.These tracks meandered throughout the large plantation.
We assembled on the other side of the street again to mount a mule driven cart with a sun shade roof of henequen (burlap). Our driver positioned the thick henequen ropes strung to our motor mule, Carmelia. With a lurch we moved on down the line. Carmelia knew the routine. Roberto, the Puerto Rican guide wove a disclaimer into his spiel adding that none of the animals in the hacienda were maltreated. I can imagine this evaded a badgering by those who might be itching for a rights showdown. Oh well it is the price of education. I remember an aged trapper in Maine who lived in the middle of the great north woods. He said, corncob pipe dangling from his mouth, that when people start a bitching the first thing they do is choose a bitch about somrthing real far from their own backyard.
Carmelita leading the way
From here the route crossed the beautiful hennequin plantation to "The Mayan House", somewhere in the middle of this sea of spiney swords.
Carmelia took us on a slow ride through the henequen fields. Henequen stretched out in both directions,,,a spiny blue green garden from the moon. The first stop was the "Casa Maya". The driver unhooked Carmelia and lickety split she ran to the large tree and the shade. She threw us some "looks" and then confident that she had a her "free" moment, began feeding.
As Roberto said, Son stupida pero no son tontas ( they are dumb but they are not stupid) in reference to the Mule. There was a little hill in the midst of the henequen and atop it was a Casa Maya. In the doorway was a thin short man in white. The heat was intense when we left the cart and its cooling burlap roof,,,at least 100 degrees. We walked up the path lined with short trees and henequen. The Mayan house was that of Antonio, the human resident living museum. His house is made of a skeleton of trunks clad by sticks and plastered in mud and grass called "Pak luum" in mayan, a material that is obtained from a mixture of red earth and grass. The casa maya is oval with a tall heavily pitched palm roof. The walls are constucted of a four large wooden poles with crotches that hold other poles that are bunched and bound with hennequin forming an oval space. Instead of hard corners the house is rounded and aerodynamic with the roundness facing the seasonal winds from hurricanes. The sticks are the lathes that accept the mud plaster probobly precious here in the land of almost non-existent top soil. No nails just henequen bindings..The outside of the house is red below and dried palm colored above. There are two oposing doors. It allows plenty of air passage, especially during hurricanes preventing a disaster.
Antonio in the doorway of his Casa Tipica Maya
Inside Don Antoni0's simple oval palace
Antonio in his "kitchen"
One enters and the temperature drops 15 degrees. Antonio, the thin man in the entrance greeted us in Mayan. His simple sandals had henequen cords that ran between his chocolate toes, likel large knarled peanuts. He gave us a lesson about the simple house in the mayan tongue translated into english and spanish by Roberto. The inside had a stump for a chair, a firepit capped by a metal comal (cooking plate), a low slab of wood that served as a table. Atop the table were the jicaras (hee-ca-rahs). These have served people in the south for thousands of years. They grow on what I call a squash tree.
The jicaras served as bowls. Leaning against the wall was his machete,,,the national tool. Antonio went through a description of each item. My wife fell in love with this little old man,,,something more like a bonding with some other soul of her country.
We proceeded outside the entryway to the house and Antonio gave us a lesson, using the machete on how to cut a henequen leaf. He deftly cut the long spine on the end of the leaf, then separated it from the "pineapple" core of the plant. He ran the machete down the sides of the leaf removing the rest of the spines. He showed us how the men would pack three large bundles of henequen leaves upon their backs to lug to the carts. He did this demonstration with one leaf but I could imagine him practically doubled over from the weight. He pointed out a long pole. It was the eight foot tall three inch thick flower stalk of the henequen. It weighed surprisingly little, maybe 5 pounds. That's the magic of cactus structure. Antonio said it was great for cleaning debris from the palm roof for its lightness and strength.
As we left Antonio my wife asked that I take a picture of the two. She was crying, I think overcome by the simple nobility of this little man. Antonio asked her, "hija que paso´",as he put his arm around her shoulder. This only provoked more tears creating white streaks on her cheeks from the sunscreen. There she was, oversize purse in hand, pants always too long and rolled up, standing next to her paisano, Antonio, cheeks streaked and eyes closed.
The Cenote Duzul-Ha:
We mounted the cart again as Carmelia reluctantly pulled us peacefully along to the next stop,,,the "cenote". The cenotes (say-NOH-tays) are sink holes. In the Yucatan there are over 3000 cenotes, with only 1400 actually studied and registered.The Maya called them dzonot (ZO-note), which the conquering Spaniards translated as cenote (say– NO–tay.) Giraldo Diaz Alpuche, was a military commander in the 16th Century who was greatly impressed with these underground caverns and pools, and he tried to explain the meaning of the word cenote in the Spanish language as meaning "deep thing". The Motul dictionary, a dictionary of Mayan hieroglyphics, defines dzonot as "abysmal and deep".
Cenotes are magical, enigmatic and unique in the world and were once the only resource for fresh, sweet water in the local Yucatecan jungle. They were the sacred places of the Maya for that reason, but also because they represented the entrance to the underworld.
Stages in the Formation of a Cenote:
SOLUTION CAVERN - Naturally acidic groundwater seeping through cracks in the limestone bedrock dissolves areas of softer rock lying beneath the hard surface crust. Over time, this process creates large undergound caverns roofed with only a thin layer of surface limestone.
YOUNG CENOTE - As erosion continues, this thin roof eventually collapses, leaving an open, water-filled hole.
MATURE CENOTE - Over thousands of years, erosion gradually fills the cenote with organic and mineral debris, reducing its depth. The Cenote of Sacrifice is currently in this stage.
DRY CENOTE - As erosion continues, the cenote may completly fill, becoming a dry, shallow basin supporting trees and other vegetation.
The Yucatan Peninsula is a porous limestone shelf with no visible rivers; all the fresh water rivers are underground. Being porous, caverns and caves formed where the fresh water collects – hence the cenotes or water sink holes. The water that gathers in these subterranean cenotes is a crystal clear turquoise color with a very pleasant temperature of 78°'b0.
The stalactites and stalagmites that form inside the cenotes are true natural works of art. In many, holes in the ceiling allow the sunlight to filter into the cenotes, giving the scene a magical feeling. Located in the heart of Valladolid, this is a semi-open cenote that has a diameter of 150 feet and is 260 feet deep. This is a popular cenote for swimming in the refreshing turquoise waters. You will see a rare species of eyeless black fish known as "lub." A third of the cenote is covered with stalagtites and stalagmites and there is a walkway around the entire cenote.
In Sotuta Peon there are eight cenotes. At the time we visited they have been open for only nine months so they had the time to exploit only one. The air was filled with lime green and yellow butterflies. As Carmelia trotted she stirred up thousands into their erratic flights. It seemed a blizzard of lime green snow at times.
Really lousy foto of the butterflies
Carmelia stopped near a palapa (palm roofed open air structure) and bath house like she was controlled by satellite. When she was unhooked and she ran for the shade. All changed into their swimsuits except my wife. She stayed above ground claiming fear of the dark hole. There were two workers who managed a generator for lights and towels. We descended a wooden stairway. Even with generated light one's eyes needed to accustom themselves to the underworld after the intense Sun above. A few bats squeaked. It was a mini cavern and to me seemed a dry hole with smooth rocks below until a bat detached itself from its inverse post on the ceiling and flew close enough to the surface of the water to disturb it into visibilty. Like magic the clear water appeared in small ripples. It seemed maybe three feet deep. I eased myself into the pool. The water was very comfortable. The pool turned out to be a foot over my head. I swam about with the others, the swallows and the bats zizzzing above from time to time. I went to an edge and was able to sit comfortably with the water up to my chest. A "Lub" darted for cover. It was difficult to see it. It seemed a black catfish. Where did they come from? Their evolution must be interesting.
I have been reading a little about the ecology of cenotes, and their fauna. There are a few species of fish and crustaceans, all of which have shed all that is of no use in an under water cave. Arms, eyes etc.and developed spines for more protection. After all there are few of them. They are streamlined to minimize needs and maximize survival. There is a type of catfish that looks like a dog penis to me can breathe oxygen if it needs to. A cenote is such a closed system. It appears no "food" energy enters the system to fuel the fauna that reside there. No light, no plants, no food chain?????Studies have shown that Swallow and Bat fecal matter are the introductions from the outside world that provide the necessary imput. Not much input. That makes these ecosystems very fragile.
The main threats to the specialized species below are from various sorts of human-induced water pollution, particularly bacterial in the form of fecal coliforms and from excess nitrate. The human population obtains its water from the aquifer underlying the plateau and, until recently, disposed of its waste water into "sumideros" or septic tanks in cities and big towns, often only a few meters from where it was obtained. In Mérida, as well as in other cities, people use piped water. The situation is particularly acute under the largest city, Mérida, but it seems likely that the same situation will exist elsewhere on the peninsula. In rural areas, there is little or no sewage treatment and that industrial and domestic waste is sometimes discarded into caves. A further threat is from excessive freshwater removal that will lead to the incursion saline waters into the normally freshwater zone. The population of the peninsula is growing (censused at 2.9 million in 1995; Mérida estimated at 649,770 in 1995) and this will place greater and greater strain on the water resources of the area. Another important threat is the modification and/or the intensive use of their habitat by humans either for recreational or touristic purposes.
Waste water in some parts of Mérida is now collected and pumped to various treatment plants. The resulting treated product is injected into the saline groundwater 200 m below the surface of the aquifer. The injected water will become saline and remain below the less dense freshwater lens. This action itself may be of detriment to the health of the aquifer. Another concern is that the injection wells sometimes are not properly sealed, causing the waste water to filter to levels above the saline layer. Dissolved oxygen levels are inherently low because there is no photosynthesis and there is no ability for atmospheric exchange. Increased organic input from the waste water will increase bacterial activity which will lead to the consumption of oxygen and to anoxia in areas around the injection point.
I emerged from the underworld below to encounter my albondiga lying on a chaise made of henequen under the palapa. We enjoyed each other's company for a few moments and then the others emerged, mounted the cart, and Caramelia did her thing pulling us back to the hacienda. We had a great meal. I drank Sisal a tequila made from henequen that was very good while we watched Mexico eliminate itself from the world cup by being defeated by Argentina. The whole family that owned the hacienda was present. At last Arturo and Roberto drove us back to the hotel.
