Category: Art and Culture

Street vendors hawk la bandera nacional (the Mexican flag) in dozens of forms for several weeks in August and early September.

September 16 is Independence Day in Mexico.  Mexico’s struggle for freedom from Spanish colonization began sometime between midnight and dawn on September 16, 1810, when Father Miguel Hidalgo gave the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores) from the parish bell tower in the town known today as Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.  Mexico celebrates its Fiestas Patrias (Patriotic Holidays) on September 16 with parades of school children and military batallions, politicians proclaiming speeches, and general festivity. 

Hundreds of books have been written about Mexico’s break from Spain, millions of words have been dedicated to exploring the lives of the daring men and women who knew, nearly 200 years ago, that the time had come for freedom.  You can read some of the history on the Internet.  Another excellent source for Mexican history is The Life and Times of Mexico, by Earl Shorris.  You’ll find that book available on the left-hand side of this page.

But the best-kept secret in Mexico is the Independence Day party.  Held every year on the night of September 15, the Gran Noche Mexicana (the Great Mexican Night), the real celebration of the revolutionary events in 1810, is a combination of New Year’s Eve, your birthday, and your country’s independence festivities.  Wouldn’t you really rather hear about the party?

Jalisco town kiosko (bandstand) decorated for the Fiestas Patrias.

For years I’ve attended the September 15 celebrations in a variety of towns and cities.  In Mexico City, the country’s president leads hundreds of thousands of citizens in late-night celebrations in the zócalo, the enormous square surrounded by government buildings and the Metropolitan Cathedral.  Every Mexican town big enough to have a mayor holds a reenactment of the grito, Hidalgo’s cry for independence.  The town square is decorated with flags, bunting, and ribbons.  Cohetes (sky rockets) flare and bang.  Sometime around eleven o’clock at night, the folks, assembled in the town plaza since nine or so, are restless for the celebration to begin.  The mayor’s secretary peeks out from the doorway of the government offices, the folkloric dancers file off the stage in the plaza, the band tunes up for the Himno Nacional (the national anthem), the crowd waves its flags and hushes its jostling.  The mayor steps out onto the balcony of the government building or onto
the stage built just outside the building’s front door to sing the emotional verses. 

Dressed in his finest and backed up by a military or police guard, the mayor clears his throat and loudly begins an Independence Day proclamation.  In every Mexican town, the proclamation ends with Hidalgo’s 197-year-old exhortations: "Long live religion!  Long
live Our Lady of Guadalupe! Long live the Americas and death to
the corrupt government!"

Father Hidalgo’s 1810 banner.

The mayor and the crowd shout as one voice: "Viva México!  Viva Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe!  Qué viva!  Qué viva!"  The mayor grins and waves as the fireworks begin, bursting huge green, white, and red chrysanthemums over the heads of the attendees.

Later there will be dancing and more music, tequila and beer, and, in larger towns and cities, all-night revelry in the plaza, in private homes, and in hotels, restaurants, and events halls.

Two years ago my friend Lupita Jiménez invited me to a Gran Noche Mexicana where she was performing.  The event was scheduled to start at 9.30, but custom dictates late arrival.  By ten o’clock I was on my way.  At the salón de eventos (events hall) the parking lot was already full, but a man was parking cars on the street just a block away.  As I left my car, he said, "Could you pay me now for watching your car?  I’ll be leaving a little early." 

"How long will you be here?" I asked, a bit anxious about leaving the car alone on this night of prodigious revelry.

Lupita Jiménez in performance at a Gran Noche Mexicana in Guadalajara.

"Till six."  My jaw dropped and I handed him 20 pesos.  Six in the morning!  Surely we wouldn’t party quite so long as that! 

The sad truth is that I didn’t.  I couldn’t.  My stamina flagged at about 3:00 AM, after dinner had been served at 10.30, the Himno Nacional had been sung, a city politician had proclaimed the Grito, and fireworks (I swear to you) had been set off on the indoor stage of the salón de eventos.  Then the show started, a brief recapitulation of Mexican history starting with Aztec dancers whirling around a belching volcano and ending with the jarabe tapatía–the dance English-speakers know as the Mexican hat dance.

After innumerable trios, duets, and solo singers, the show paused for intermission at close to two in the morning.  Several of my table-mates slipped away, but I thought I could make it to the end.  The first half of the Gran Noche Mexicana had been invigorating and exciting and I loved it.  During intermission, a wonderful comedian poked fun at politics, functionaries, and Mexican life in general.  We were all roaring with laughter.  When the comic left the stage, I realized that I was exhausted and needed to go home to bed.  Just as the performers stepped onto the stage to begin the next round of song, I sneaked away. 

When I called Lupita the next afternoon to congratulate her on the success of the event, she asked if I’d stayed for the last few costume changes.  "Mija, I had to go home early.  I lasted till three, but then I just couldn’t stay awake.  I’m so sorry I missed the end." 

Lupita laughed.  "I’m glad you lasted that long, but next time you have to stay for the whole night!  You missed the best part!"

The Zócalo (main city plaza) in Mexico City, dressed up for the Fiestas Patrias.

Viva México!  Qué viva!

When I moved to Guadalajara, I started buying the newspaper Público every Friday so I could read its weekly magazine of cultural offerings in the city. Everything is included in the Público, from events for children to events at gay bars, from poetry readings to concerts to films.

Last April, I noticed that one of my favorite singers, Tania Libertad,
was scheduled to give a free concert as part of an all-Mexico artists’
conference. My friend Consuelo was as excited and eager to hear this
artist as I was. We agreed to leave the car at home, take a bus to the
Centro Histórico, and take a taxi home after the concert.

The night of the concert we jumped on a city bus and in no time were at
the huge Plaza Fundadores behind the Teatro Degollado. The stage was
set up, but most of the folded chairs were still stacked alongside the
plaza. It wasn’t that
early, but there were only a few people sitting in ragged rows.
Consuelo and I eyed one another, afraid that the concert might have
been canceled. We agreed to wait a while and pulled two chairs from
the stacks and sat down.

Just before the concert was to have started, it was announced
that the arrival of the conference participants would be delayed. The
concert had been postponed for an hour. Consuelo and I laughed and kept
up our conversation: Tania Libertad would be worth the wait.

Born in Perú, Tania Libertad now lives in Mexico City. She has
an ethereal voice and dedicates her personal and professional life to the advancement of peace in
the world. Beyond those sketchy details and the long list of recordings
including music from many cultures and genres that she has to her
credit, we knew little else about her.

And then, just as the sun went down and the cool evening breeze came up, the concert started. "Señoras y señores, les presento—TANIA LIBERTAD!" The announcer bowed and held out his hand to greet her as she swept onto the stage.

For more than an hour and a half she sang the typical boleros (Mexican
romantic standards) known to the whole audience, highly rhythmic music
from South America, and politically charged music designed to rally her
listeners to the consciousness of peace.

Her group—skilled vocalists and musicians playing keyboard, guitar,
drum, and accordion—backed her impeccably. The audience roared its
approval after every song. Finally, the musicians sat silent and Tania
sang her final song, Alfonsina y el Mar, a capella in the huge dark plaza, her crystalline voice echoing poignantly among the 19th Century buildings.

Te vas Alfonsina                            
You leave, Alfonsina
Con tu soledad                              
With your loneliness
Qué poemas nuevos                        What new poems
Fuiste a buscar?                              Did you go to look for?
Una voz antigua                              An ancient voice
De viento y de sal                           Of wind and salt
Te requiebra el alma                      Breaks your soul
Y la está llevando                          And takes it away
Y te vas hacia allá                         And you go toward the distance
Como en sueños                            As if in a dream
Dormida, Alfonsina                       Sleeping, Alfonsina
Vestida de mar.                            Dressed in the sea. 

The audience sighed as if it were one person, sat silent for a
heartbeat, applauded wildly and stood cheering long after Tania had
left the stage. When Consuelo and I finally started moving toward the
street, I noticed that there was a guard standing vigil at the door to
the tent dressing room next to the stage. "Va a salir Tania?"
(‘Is Tania coming out?’) I asked him. He shook his head, and then said,
"They’re going to let some people go in to talk with her."

All thought of leaving gone, Consuelo and I stood in the
milling crowd until we were motioned to duck through the door into the
white tent. There were just a few of us, three or four, taking turns
talking with Tania. I asked for an interview for Living at Lake Chapala.
Tania’s personal manager, Mireyda Garza, graciously said of course. Two
weeks later I received word that I could go to Mexico City to talk
privately with Tania at her home.

We sat together in her lovely living room and she began to answer my questions.

"My family didn’t know I was singing. My father was in the military, my
mother worked from seven in the morning till nine at night. My eight
older brothers took care of me—you can just imagine how that was.

"It started when I was in preschool. The teacher was planning a little
night of performances and there was to be a flamenco dancer. I wanted
to wear that costume; it was my heart’s desire. But the costume was for
a skinny girl, and I was chubby. I wanted to wear it so much!

"What did I do? I sneaked a girdle of my mother’s! It was like an
enormous bandage, and I wrapped it tight around and around myself—and
the dress fit! I tried to dance, I tried to sing, and that’s how I got
my start." Tania laughed. "Think of this, there I was, a little
Peruvian girl in black patent leather shoes, singing an old Mexican
song, "La Historia de un Amor"
What in the world did I know about the story of love? But that’s what I
sang, my very first time on stage. I was five years old.

La Historia de un Amor sung by Tania Libertad and Eugenia León.

"By the time I was seven, I was singing in contests. And by the time I
was nine, I was making records in Peru. I was born on the north coast,
where the descendents of African slaves lived, and the music I heard
there, the music I grew up with, got into my bones. It’s the music that
still fascinates me more than any other. My CD Costa Negra is really homage to that music, and my latest CD, Negro Color, carries the theme onward."

Tania talked about her father, who for a time supported her desire for
a career in music, taking her to Lima to search for a recording
contract. But, she told me, after a certain point he no longer wanted
her to sing and certainly didn’t want her to study after she graduated
from high school. Although she had made ten successful recordings in
Peru, her father wanted her to end her career.

"I wanted to go to university. The only way he let me enroll was if I promised to study what my brother studied." She grimaced.

"What did you study, Tania?" I thought I was ready to hear anything.

"Oh, you won’t believe it. I studied the science and engineering of
fisheries." She rolled her eyes until I couldn’t suppress my laughter.

"And has it been useful in later life?" Now we were both laughing.

"At least it got me into the university, where I could meet
people who were more involved in the arts and in politics—my thinking
was very far to the left, very much in tune with resistance to war,
very much looking for a way to find peace.

"When I was 20, I actually ran away from home, because my father’s
thinking was completely different from mine. I needed to be taken
seriously as a person and as a woman, and my father no longer wanted me
to pursue my career as an artist, a singer. So I hid for two weeks with
friends until my father accepted me as an adult with the rights of an
adult." She sighed.

"And then?" I asked.

"And then I started to travel and sing in other countries. I
went to Cuba in 1976 and was so intrigued with the music there. I began
to understand the new music that had so much to say politically. The
songs can be heard on different levels: as love songs, as love songs to
a country, as songs of resistance and peace. These are what we call canciones camufladas—camouflaged
songs. Since I was an adolescent, it’s been important to me to take a
stand for what I believe, to show my ideas. In Perú, so many were
extremists. And I stood up for peace, for an end to war, for people’s
right to live freely.

"In 1977 I came to Mexico. Here in Mexico, I fell in love—with the
country, with the audiences that gave me such an enormously warm
welcome, and with the music. I’ve recorded many CDs of boleros
(Mexican romantic standards) and they’ve all been very well received.
I’ve had the opportunity to sing and record with so many extraordinary
Mexican singers: Vicente Fernández, Armando Manzanero, and Marco
Antonio Muñiz, to name just a few."

"Como Han Pasado los Años" with Armando Manzanero: Tania Libertad.

I was curious. "Just how many CDs have you recorded, Tania?"

She thought for a moment. "Thirty-five or thirty-six. Or maybe
thirty-seven. It’s about time for me to make a new one. The last one, Negro Color,
was released at the end of 2004. I’ve been thinking about what the new
one will be. And so many of the CDs have sold—millions, really. I have
so much to be grateful for.

"I’ve sung on every continent. I’ve sung with so many
incredible singers from every country: Cesarea Evora, Plácido Domingo,
Mercedes Sosa, Kiri Te Kanawa, Miguel Bosé, and others, so many others.

"In 1997, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization) gave me a great honor when it named me an honorary
Ambassador of Peace, an artist for peace. It’s something that is
tremendously important to me. I was thrilled to sing for UNESCO at
their headquarters in Paris, and I take my role very seriously."

She flashed her beautiful smile. "And now I am a Mexican. A
Peruvian still, but a few years ago I also became a Mexican citizen. I
love this country, I love this city. This is where my whole life is,
this is where I live and work."

"Do you worry about the dangers in Mexico City to a well-known and visible person like yourself?"

Her look became very serious. "Of course I do. So many people have been
assaulted, so many kidnapped. As you said, it’s mostly the very visible
who are assaulted. I worry about my family. We’ve actually been
assaulted four times; it’s terrifying. There is so much violence in
society now—violence in homes, violence in the streets, violence in
films and on television. It’s taken so little time for private society
to become inculcated with everyday brutality. I don’t think it can get
much worse.

"In June, I sang in Ciudad Juárez on behalf of the efforts made to stop
the killing there. All of those young women are gone and so little
seems to be done to put a halt to that killing. Here in the Distrito
Federal, there are so many kidnappings and so much violence. Of course
we’re frightened. But on the other hand, life must continue. Our daily
lives can’t be so intimidated with what might happen. We have to do our
part to stand up for peace, stand up for a peaceful way of life. It’s
the greatest gift we can give to one another and to our future: the
right to live in peace."

There were more questions to be asked, but Tania was packing for yet another tour. The time had come to say not ‘Adios‘, but ‘Hasta pronto’—until soon.

Tania Libertad is a soaring voice, a soaring mentality. Her life work is the definition of her name: Libertad. Freedom.

For information about Tania Libertad and the locations of her world-wide concerts, please visit: her website.

On the Catholic feast of Saint Luke I invited my friend Julia to drive to San Lucas Evangelista with me to meet the coheteros (fireworks makers). It was the final day of the fiestas patronales (patron saint’s festivities) for Saint Luke and I knew his little namesake town would be in full party mode.

We drove along the main street of the tiny town looking for the church.
Usually a village church is easy to locate—I just look for the church
tower and point the car in its direction. This town was different; we
couldn’t see a tower. Finally I pulled to the side of a narrow street
and asked an elderly shawl-wrapped woman how to get to the church.

"Ay señora," she sighed, "No se puede." (You can’t.)

I was momentarily puzzled, but then light dawned. "Because of the fiestas?"

"Yes, the whole street is blocked with the rides and booths. You
need to go to the last street in town," she pointed, "and park your car
there. Then you can walk." She shook her head, scandalized by the
madness of the fiestas.

Chuckling, I followed her directions and parked the car almost
directly in front of the church, but on the rocky unpaved side street
rather than the main street. We walked a few meters to the churchyard
and immediately saw that the castillo
(the castle, a large set-piece fireworks display) was under
construction. We also noticed that the church has no tower—no wonder we
hadn’t spotted it immediately from the edge of town.

As I approached a group of men working on part of the castillo, they stood up to greet us. "Buenas tardes, how can we help you?"

I explained that I was interested in talking to the boss about the
fireworks and that I was going to write an article about the fireworks. The first young man laughed and pointed at a second young man
crouched on the ground working. "Talk to him, he’s the boss’s son.
He’ll help you." Then he laughed even harder. The young man in question
rolled his eyes and grimaced.

"My name is Gerardo Hernández Ortiz, and I’m not the boss’s
son. I’m just a helper here. You want to talk to the big boss—he’s over
there." He pointed at another man standing by the churchyard gate.
"Wait here a minute, I’ll go get him." He socked the first young man in
the arm as he walked to the gate. I watched as he talked briefly with a
man in a navy blue plaid shirt. He glanced toward me and nodded.

Very shortly that man came over and shook my hand. "I’m Manuel Zúñiga of Cohetería del Pueblo (Town Fireworks Makers). My worker said you wanted to talk with me?" I explained my interest again and he became very serious.

"You have to explain to your readers that my profession is not dangerous. The majority of accidents happen because of juguetería, the small ‘toy’ fireworks such as palomitas (poppers) and luces de Bengal
(sparklers) used by children. Those fireworks are imported from China
and are much less stable than the ones we make here in Mexico. Those
are very dangerous, very.

"Yes, there have been some bad accidents with our kind of fireworks,
like the one in Veracruz in January 2003 (28 people were killed and
more than 50 were injured when illegally stored fireworks exploded in a
central market), but those incidents are very unusual.

"Our philosophy is that one person dies, but others follow in his footsteps and the work carries on and becomes better.

"My family has been making castillos, cohetes (rockets), bombas
(bombs) and other fireworks for three generations. My grandfather, may
he rest in peace, started making fireworks in San Juan Evangelista, the
next town over there," he gestured to a spot in the distance beyond the
church, "and then the whole family moved to Cuexcomatitlán, just up the
road from here, and we’ve lived there ever since."

"It’s always been a family business. You might say that we’re Zúñiga
and Sons." He smiled broadly. "I’m Manuel Zúñiga, at your service. We
make a unique style of fireworks and we’re very good at it. We’ve won
many contests, including first place in the State of Jalisco. We’ve
been asked to be judges at a pyrotechnics contest in the State of
Mexico.

"Most people think that the Chinese are the kings of gunpowder,
that China is the world capital of fireworks. We’ve found out that the
tradition of fireworks is very strong in England and that the English
are really more knowledgeable than the Chinese. Their designs and
innovations are at the forefront. We hope to travel to England one day
to see their work in person."

I was fascinated with the construction of the various parts of the castillo.
"It looks as if you have to be an engineer to figure out how this
entire thing fits together and works," I said, reaching up to move
several parts of the mechanism.

"Yes, it’s very complicated. Every tube that you see attached to the
structure is filled with gunpowder and the chemicals that create the
colors of the designs. We use several different kinds of materials to
make the framework, like carrizo (bamboo canes) and madera de pino
(pine wood). The bamboo is very flexible, the pine is rigid. There are
other kinds of wood that we use to give more shape to the designs. Some
of the sections of the castillo are hinged so that they move up and down as they spin.

"Designs are made with long thin tubes filled with gunpowder and with
the thicker tubes that shoot fire. You might see flowers, a heart, a
horse or a cow, or some religious symbols." He walked over to a large
section of castillo
lying on the ground and traced the outline of the design with his
finger. "This one is a chalice with the communion host above it. Can
you see it?" I certainly could. "It will look beautiful when it’s lit
up tonight."

"When it’s time to put the whole castillo together, the
parts are set onto a pole. We start with the topmost part and then use
a system of pulleys to raise it up. Then we add the middle section, and
then the bottom part under that."

"Come with me, I want to show you some other things." As we
walked to the fireworks-filled storeroom next to the church, Sr. Zúñiga
continued explaining the intricacies of his family business.

"Here, this is something different. It’s a torito, a
little bull. See the shape? Late tonight, we’ll bring these out to
play." He laughed. "A boy carries this little bull over his head—yes,
after it’s lit and while it’s exploding with color and fire—and runs
through the crowd. He’ll chase whoever looks like a good victim. He
hunts for whoever looks nervous. This torito has buscapíes
fastened to it. Those are a kind of fireworks that shoots off the
framework of the little bull and skitters along the ground. It
literally means ‘looks for feet’. It’s only a little dangerous." He
grinned and winked.

I grinned too, remembering a fiesta night in Guadalajara when a small boy with a blazing torito chased me down a cobblestone street as the festive crowd laughed to see the señora running to escape.

Sr. Zúñiga talked as we walked back through the churchyard. "We work
all year round. There are 25 of us who build the fireworks.

"We’ll be in Ixtlahuacán de los Membrillos on October 21 for a visit of
Our Lady of Zapopan and in Ajijic on October 31 for the last day of the
month-long celebration for Our Lady of the Rosary. There will be a castillo in each town. Of course we’ve already started preparations for the nine-day festivities in Ajijic at the end of November."

We gazed up at the castillo being mounted just outside the cemetery fence. Curious, Julia asked him, "What does it cost to have one of these built?"

"The simplest ones start at $7,500 pesos—about $665 U.S.. The price
goes up from that to about $20,000 pesos—about $1,800 U.S.—for more
complicated castillos built on a central pole, like this one. Then there is another category of castillo,
much more complex, that starts at $25,000 pesos. For that kind, the
sky’s the limit." He shook my hand. "Can’t you stay until we burn this
one at around eleven o’clock tonight?"

"I wish I could—maybe next year." With a last look at the work in progress, Julia and I headed for the car. I knew I’d dream of castillos that night. The sky was the limit.
   

Twenty to thirty thousand years ago, early humans developed the first
string by twisting together handfuls of plant fibers. Preparing thin
bundles of plant material and stretching them out while twisting them
together produced a fine string or thread. The ability to produce
string and thread was the starting place for the development of
spinning, weaving, and sewing. All three of those indigenous textile
making traditions are still strong in today’s Mexico.

Today we’ll take a look at the
weaving of the Huicholes in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit and the
Zapotec in Oaxaca.

The fundamental aspects of hand weaving have remained unchanged
for millennia. Webster defines a loom as "a frame or machine for
interweaving yarn or threads into a fabric, the operation being
performed by laying lengthwise a series called the warp and weaving in
across this other threads called the weft, woof, or filling." Another
definition, quite to the point, states: "A loom is the framework across
which threads are stretched for the weaving of cloth."

When the backstrap loom was developed, it was easy to transport and
simple to construct. One end of the loom was attached to a fixed point,
like a tree trunk, and the other was a rod, which was held in place
with a cord that passed around the waist of the weaver. By leaning back
against the waist cord, the weaver could put tension on the warp
threads and adjust tautness at will. The backstrap loom is still used
today by Native Americans in the southwestern part of the United States
and by people in Central America and Mexico. The complexity of the work
that can be created on this loom is limited only by the skill of the
weaver, and the entire loom with the weaving in progress can be rolled
up at any time and carried from place to place.

In the culture of Mesoamerica (the region extending south and
east from central Mexico to include parts of Guatemala, Belize,
Honduras, and Nicaragua), clothing fabrics were quite diverse. In arid
locations, plants such as yucca, agave cactus, and palm fibers were
used for weaving. Where the climate permitted, cotton was the chosen
fiber. Cotton was grown in Mexico as early as 3000 B.C. Although cotton
did not grow in the region of the Aztec empire, the Aztecs obtained
cotton from the peoples they conquered. At that time, only certain
social classes were allowed to wear cotton clothing. Rabbit fur and
feathers from exotic birds decorated luxurious clothing, while bark
paper clothing was used for some ceremonial vestments. The clothing of
lower social classes was made of much rougher fibers.

In the entire Mesoamerican region, women worked using a
backstrap loom, and then sometimes embroidered fabrics and applied
shells, precious stones, and silver and gold ornaments to the fabrics
they wove. In the south of Mexico, women made weavings using ornamental
stitches or, among the Mayans, decorated with thin braided ropes. In
the northern parts of Mesoamerica, floor looms were used.

Fabrics woven in these ways were of the highest importance in early
Mexican life. At times, fabrics were used as money. Each culture of
Mesoamerica had deities who watched over those women who spun thread,
those who wove, and those who embroidered. At birth, a baby girl was
symbolically initiated into the work of weaving, and upon her death, a
woman was buried with the textile tools that she had used all through
her life. Textile making was considered to be much more than a
technique. It was a sacred gift bestowed on women by the gods.

Conquest by the Spanish and the continuing presence of the conquistadores
changed the panorama of textiles in Mexico. During the time of
colonization, new techniques of weaving, materials, designs and forms
of dress arrived in the New World. Silks, wools, and the pedal loom
needed to weave them were introduced. In addition, the Spanish brought
a strong textile influence from Asia and Egypt.

The richness, variety and liveliness of Mexican weaving are in
large part derived from the fusion of these influences. Traditional
Mexican indigenous clothing represents the union of the people, proud
of their geographic and cultural origins.

The indigenous people we meet most often in Guadalajara are the
Huichol. They use art, including weaving, for much more than
decoration or economic gain. In the February-March 2005 New Life Journal,
author Lisa Lichtig writes, "For women, the loom is the violin. Woven
bags come in various sizes and colors and are used for carrying
everything from food to sacred offerings. Each, however, is made with
special woven designs that are signatures from the heart and the dreams
of the weaver.

"In the process of learning to weave, the apprentice makes miniature
weavings as offerings to the gods. When a girl leaves her offering, she
may take one of the offerings left for that same god by another girl or
woman. She takes the borrowed offering home and copies the design, and
then returns the borrowed piece and leaves another one that she herself
has made. This practice has been a means by which designs were
distributed among Huichol women."

When the Spanish came to the New World, they brought sheep,
previously unknown to the indigenous peoples of Mexico. The Huichol
quickly learned to shear, card, spin, and weave wool. They used native
vegetable and mineral dyes to create the vibrant colors so crucial to
their designs. Today, as the Huichol herd fewer and fewer sheep,
acrylics have largely replaced wool in Huichol work. Very few weavers
still know how to make and use the old dyes.

The indigenous Zapotec are native to the state of Oaxaca, far to the
south of Mexico. Many Zapotec are extraordinary rug weavers. The most
famous Zapotec rug weaving center is Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, a
remote mountain village that has become well known everywhere in the
world due to the traditional fine weaving done there. Despite the
ten-hour drive to Teotitlán del Valle from Mexico City, the world shows
up on the doorsteps of the Zapotec weavers. Rugs from the village are
sold all over Mexico as well as in the United States and other
countries.

Before the arrival of the Spanish and their sheep, the
Zapotecos had been cultivating and weaving cotton for several thousand
years. Like the Huicholes, the Zapotecos quickly learned to card, spin,
dye, and weave wool. They have used traditional vegetable and mineral
dyes for centuries, although aniline (artificial) dyes came into use
about 30 years ago.

The secrets of the natural dyes are jealously guarded. They are
extracted from a range of plant mineral and insect sources: indigo blue
from the jiquilete plant, green from malachite copper,
and the rich red hues of the red from the world famous cochineal beetle on the nopal
cactus. Dyes are hand-ground and hand mixed. Many weavers have begun
using artificial dyes due to the difficulty and expense of creating
dyes with flowers, herbs, insects, and other natural materials.

 

Buyer’s Note: Ask your rug dealer which dyes his weavers use.
Discerning buyers or collectors insist on natural dyes. Be aware that
if a dealer claims to use only natural dyes and the price of a rug you
like seems too good to be true, his claim is probably not true.

The Zapotec weavers of Teotitlán wove on traditional backstrap looms
until the Dominican missionaries introduced harness looms in the 16th
Century. Today, some Zapotec weavers like to create modern carpet
designs based on the art of Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, or Max Escher.
Others disagree. One weaver said, "Those are beautiful designs, but
those designs are created by painters. I am a weaver, and my rugs are
the traditional designs of my people."

We’re privileged to have fine Zapotec rugs available in Guadalajara every day of the week. All of the rugs are made in
Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. These wool rugs, if properly cared for,
will last a lifetime whether you use them on your floors or hang them
on your walls.

Trio Los Panchos, from the 1950s.  They’re still playing today and everyone of every age in Mexico knows all the words to all the songs they’ve sung since their beginning.  You can hear them here: Los Panchos 

A few nights ago some friends and I were having dinner at a local restaurant. A wonderful trio (lead guitar, second guitar, and bass) played a broad
selection of Mexico’s favorite tunes while we enjoyed our
food and conversation. From the table behind us, a woman’s voice rang
out in English, "Boy, these mariachis are really good."

Her comment, one I’ve heard over and over again, made me think about
the many varieties of Mexican music. Not all Mexican music is mariachi, although many people assume that it is.

It’s just as incorrect to classify all Mexican music as mariachi as it is to classify all music from the United States as jazz. Mariachi has its traditions, its place, and its beauties, but there are many other styles of Mexican music to enjoy.

Ranchera, norteña, trio, bolero, banda, huasteco, huapango, trova, danzón, vals, cumbia, jarocho, salsa, son–??the list could go on and on. While many styles of music are featured in specific areas, others, like norteña, banda, ranchera, and bolero,
are heard everywhere in Mexico. Let’s take a look at just a few of the
most popular styles of music heard in present-day Mexico.

Norteña
Música norteña (northern music) will set your feet a-tapping and will remind you of a jolly polka. Norteña
had its beginnings along the Texas-Mexico border. It owes its unique
quality to the instrument at its heart, the accordion. The accordion
was introduced into either far southeastern Texas or the far north of
Mexico by immigrants from Germany, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. No one
knows for sure who brought the accordion, but by the 1950s this
rollicking music had become one of the far and away favorite music
styles of Mexico.

A norteña group of musicians playing a set
of trap drums, a stand-up bass, and the accordion produces an instantly
recognizable and completely infectious sound. The songs have a clean,
spare accordion treble and a staccato effect from the drum, while the
bass pounds out the deep bottom line of the music.

Norteña is popular everywhere in Mexico. Here in Guadalajara, conjuntos norteños
(bands) often play as itinerant musicians. These are the musicians who
are often hired to play serenades in the wee hours of Mother’s Day
morning, who play under the window of a romantic young man’s girl
friend while she peeps from behind the curtain, and who wander through restaurantes campestres (country-style restaurants) all over Mexico to play a song or two for
hire at your table.

The undisputed king of música norteña is Ramón Ayala. Over the past 30 years he has recorded an amazing 75 albums. His current group, Los Bravos del Norte,
is heard everywhere, ??on every radio station and every jukebox. The group
is widely imitated but never superseded. Ayala turns out well-crafted
and balanced music, featuring lyrics with universally understood human
themes. The songs, like the majority of norteñas, are
about tragedy, loneliness, broken relationships, almost unbearable
longing and pain, and about experiencing love in all its complicated
nuances.  You can listen to Ramón Ayala and sus Bravos del Norte: Ramón Ayala

Banda de Viento and Banda
Banda de viento and banda are similar musical styles:
both have a military legacy. Each has moved in its own direction to
provide different types of entertainment.

In Zacatecas, the state banda de viento plays concerts day and night.

Banda de viento (wind band, or brass band) originated in
Mexico in the middle 1800s during the reign of Emperor Maximilian and
Empress Carlota. Later, Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Dí­az
commissioned the creation of brass bands in their home state, Oaxaca,
in imitation of the brass bands that entertained at the Emperor’s
court.

The huge upsurge of popularity of brass bands in Mexico came in the
early 20th Century. After the Mexican revolution, local authorities
formed "Sunday bands" made up of military musicians who played in
municipalities’ plaza bandstands all over Mexico.

The Banda del Estado de Zacatecas (Zacatecas State Band) plays: Marcha de Zacatecas (Zacatecas March)

There are regional differences in banda de viento
style, but you can still take a Sunday stroll around many rural Mexican
plazas as the tuba oompahs the bass part, the trumpets blare, squeaky
clarinets take the lead, and the tamborazo (percussion) keeps
the beat. The Sunday municipal band concert no longer exists in some large cities (although you can hear weekly concerts in both Guadalajara and Zapopan),
but something new has taken its place: banda.

Banda music, which exploded onto the Mexican music scene in the 1990s, is a direct outgrowth of the municipal bands of Mexico. Banda is one of the most popular styles of dance music among Mexican young people. In small towns, we’re often treated to a banda group playing for a weekend dance on the plaza or at a salón de eventos
(events pavilion) in the center of the village. The music is inevitably
loud, with a strong bass beat. You’ll hear any number of rhythms, from
traditional to those taken from foreign music. It’s almost rock and
roll. It’s almost–??well, it’s almost a lot of styles, but it’s pure banda.

Few expatriates go to these dances and that’s a shame, because it’s
great fun to go and watch the kids dance. You might want to take
earplugs; the banks of speakers can be enormous and powerful.

The dancing will amaze you. Children, teenagers, and adults of all ages dance in styles ranging from old fuddy-duddy to la quebradita. La quebradita
is a semi-scandalous style of dance which involves the man wrapping his
arms completely around the woman while he puts his right leg between
her two as they alternate feet and twirl around the dance floor.
Complete with lots of dipping and other strenuous moves, la quebradita is a dance that’s at once athletic and extremely sexual.

Bolero
In the United States and Canada, it’s very common for those of us who are older to swoon over what we know as the ‘standards’. Deep Purple, Red Sails in the Sunset, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,
and almost anything by Ol’ Blue Eyes can take us right back to our
youthful romances. Most of us can dance and sing along with every note
and word.

Here in Mexico, it’s the same for folks of every age. The romantic songs from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s are known as boleros. The theme of the bolero
is love–??happy love, unhappy love, unrequited love, indifference, ??but
always love. I think just about everyone has heard the classic Bésame Mucho, a bolero written
by Guadalajara native Consuelo Velásquez. This timeless favorite has
been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and The Beatles, among
countless other interpreters of romance.

Here’s Luis Miguel, one of Mexico’s modern interpreters of bolero, singing Sabor a Mi:  Luis Miguel 

Armando
Manzanero, born in 1935 in Mérida, Mexico, is one of the most famous writers of bolero. His more than 400 songs have
been translated into numerous languages. More than 50 of his songs have
gained international recognition. Remember Perry Como singing It’s Impossible? The original song ??by Armando Manzanero ??is called Somos Novios.

Crowds memorialize Pedro Infante, one of Mexico’s greatest stars.

Agustí­n Lara was another of Mexico’s prolific songwriters. Before Lara
died in 1973, he wrote more than 700 romantic songs. Some of those were
translated into English and sung by North of the Border favorites Bing
Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and yes, even Elvis Presley. The most famous of
his songs to be translated into English included You Belong to My Heart (originally Solamente Una Vez), Be Mine Tonight (originally Noche de Ronda), and The Nearness of You.

Ranchera
The dramatic ranchera (country
music), which emerged during the Mexican Revolution, is considered by
many to be the country’s quintessential popular music genre. Sung to
different beats, including the waltz and the bolero, its lyrics traditionally celebrate rural life, talk about unrequited love and tell of the struggles of Mexico’s Everyman.

Ana Gabriel is today’s reigning queen of música ranchera.  Listen to her sing one of her all-time great songs: Y Aquí Estoy  

Ranchera finds its inspiration in the traditional music that
accompanies folkloric dancing in Mexico. Its form is romantic and its
lyrics almost always tell a story, the kind of story we’re used to in
old-time country music in the United States: she stole my heart, she
stole my truck, I wish I’d never met her, but I sure do love that gal.
Pedro Infante, Mexico’s most prolific male film star, is strongly associated with the ranchera
style of Mexican music. One of the original singing cowboys, Infante’s
films continue to be re-issued both on tape and on DVD and his
popularity in Mexico is as strong as it was in his heyday, the 1940s.
Infante, who died in an airplane accident in 1957 when he was not quite
forty, continues to be revered and is an enormous influence on Mexican
popular culture.

Ranchera continues to be an overwhelmingly emotional favorite
today; at any concert, most fans are able to sing along with every
song. This marvelous music is truly the representation of the soul of
Mexico, the symbol of a nation.

Ana Gabriel is the queen, but Vicente Fernández is the king of ranchera.
Listen to him sing one of his classics: Por Tu Maldito Amor 

Vicente Fernández, whose ranch, huge restaurant, and large charro-goods store are located between the Guadalajara airport and Lake Chapala, is the current reigning king of ranchera–??indeed, he is considered to be the King of Mexico.

Mariachi
Mariachi really is the music that most folks think of when they think of Mexico’s music. Mariachi originated here, it’s most famous here, and it’s most loved here. The love of mariachi has spread all over the world as non-Mexicans hear its joyous (and sometimes tragic) sounds. At this year’s Encuentro Internacional del Mariachi (International Mariachi Festival) in Guadalajara, mariachis
from France, Czechoslovakia, Canada, Switzerland and the United States
(among others) played along with their Mexican counterparts.

In the complete mariachi group today there are six to eight
violins, two or three trumpets and a guitar, all standard European
instruments. There is also a higher-pitched, round-backed guitar called
the vihuela, which, when strummed in the traditional manner gives the mariachi its typical rhythmic vitality. You’ll also see a deep-voiced guitar called the guitarrón which
serves as the bass of the ensemble. Sometimes you’ll see a Mexican folk harp,
which usually doubles the base line but also ornaments the melody.
While these three instruments have European origins, in their present
form they are strictly Mexican.

Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán is the most famous mariachi in the world.  Every year in Guadalajara they honor us with their presence at the Encuentro Internacional de Mariachi.  If you’ll be in the city August 31 through September 9, 2007, plan to attend one of the nightly Galas de Mariachi at the Teatro Degollado.  It’s an unforgettable experience.  Listen to them now: Entra en mi Vida 

The combined sound of these instruments makes the music unique. Like the serape
(a type of long, brightly striped shawl worn mainly by Mexican men) in
which widely contrasting colors are woven side by side–??green and
orange, red, yellow and blue–the mariachi use sharply contrasting
sounds: the sweet sounds of the violins against the brilliance of the
trumpets, and the deep sound of the guitarrón against the crisp, high voice of the vihuela; and the frequent shifting between syncopation and on-beat rhythm. The resulting sound is the heart and soul of Mexico.

Next time you go to your local music store, look on the racks of CDs
for some of the artists and styles of Mexican music I’ve mentioned. You
may be quite surprised to see how popular the different styles are in
the United States and Canada. As the population of countries North of
the Border becomes more Mexican, the many sounds of Mexican music
follow the fans. Next thing you know, you’ll be dancing la quebradita.
   

It’s Sunday morning just before dawn.  A vaquero (cowboy) in his best jeans and sombrero swaggers into the courtyard of the hacienda. His boot heels click softly on the red clay tiles of the patio. As the sun breaks over the barn roof, the mustachioed vaquero
chooses his best saddle from its wooden stand and carefully cinches it
around the belly of his favorite mount. He’s off to town, both he and
his horse dressed carefully for their day off.

Let’s take a closer look at the cowboy’s boots, his belt and his
saddle. Each of them is hand-embroidered using an ancient Mexican
technique called piteadao.
To understand the process of the embroidery, we travel to the southern
jungles of Mexico, to the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, where the tall
trees grow, where coffee is grown, where the air is steamy and thick
with humidity. Under the shelter of the jungle trees, the smaller
plants grow away from the glare of the sun.

The thread used for the embroidery is processed from a bromeliad plant called ixtle.
The plant, grown as undergrowth in tropical jungles, eco-forests, or
coffee plantations, takes approximately eight years to grow to
maturity. Usually the entire plant is harvested, allowing better and
faster growth of the young plants which have sprung up much like baby spider plants. However, only the longest and healthiest
leaves of the ixtle plant are used to produce thread.

The preparation of pita, the ixtle thread, is time consuming and arduous. The long leaves are scraped, either manually or using a hand-cranked machine, to free the ixtle
fibers. The fibers are then washed several times and hung in the sun to
bleach. Once they are bleached, they are combed and braided into
bundles called muñecas (bunches), which are sold to talabarteros(saddle
makers and artisan leather goods workers) working primarily in the town
of Colotlán, in Los Altos—the northern highland region—of Jalisco.

Colotlán is considered to be the world capital of piteado. There are more than 40 workshops producing pita-embroidered
leather goods in the town, plus 200 private micro-businesses producing
the work. Nearly 2800 townspeople dedicate their daily work lives to
this art. Their hand sewn products include belts, boots, sandals,
briefcases, wallets, purses, and their crowning achievement, saddles.
The work from this village is so well known that several belts from
Colotlán are exhibited in the renowned Prado Museum in Madrid.

The practice of the art of piteado, which has given
this town and the region international fame, dates to the last decade
of the 19th Century. This craft has been passed from father to son
through the course of generations. Today, approximately 10,000 belts
are produced in the town each month. The belts are sold everywhere in
Mexico and are shipped to international destinations such as the United
States, where a piteado belt is a hallmark of many Mexican men.

These handmade goods are not inexpensive: you’ll find less expensive imitation piteado,
sewn by machine using cotton thread, but almost all of the hand made
work is still done in Colotlán. Expect good quality genuine piteado belts to cost several hundred dollars.

There are many individual steps that lead to a finished product. Traditionally, piteado
artisans have worked individually in all of the different stages of
production, from design work to marketing. In some respects this has
limited the development of piteado as an industry, but it has ensured
the continuing tradition of the work.

Piteado is worked only on leather, most of which is brought to
Colotlán from León, Guanajuato or from San Luís Potosí. The original
designs came from Aztec traditions, but those designs have gradually
been modified over the years and have lost some of the flavor of that
culture. Today, many of the designs include Huichol elements due to the
influence of that indigenous people in the area of Colotlán. Some of
the commercial workshops have more modern designs, such as flowers and
horse heads, adapted to the requests of the customer.

The production of belts is the bread and butter of the piteado
artisans in Colotlán. Most of the belts are sold at fairs and in stores
throughout Mexico. In my travels around Guadalajara, I sometimes see
ambulatory vendors selling piteado belts.  If you make a
trip to the Mercado Libertad in Guadalajara’s Centro Histórico, you’ll find
hundreds of belts, boots, huaraches, and every other sort of piteado leather goods. Be aware that when you’re shopping for piteado and the price seems too good to be true—and the dealer swears that his products are the real piteado, hand-sewn from pita fiber—you’re probably hearing a sales pitch for inferior goods sewn with cotton. Most of these pirated imitation piteado items come from the Guadalajara area.

It’s difficult work to hand embroider a belt. The production of each
one takes a single worker a full week to complete. First, the size and
shape of each belt are traced onto the leather; then the leather is cut
into strips. Each strip is then shaped and polished. The design or
drawing for the embroidery is hand-cut into the leather with a chisel.
Once the leather is ready, the most difficult part of the work begins:
the embroidery. The mesquite wood needle is punched through the leather
using a hammer and an awl.

Using a heavy duty sewing machine, the embroiderer sews the lining to
the back of the belt, cuts it, and hand-finishes it. Finally, another
person adds the buckle, the closure, and the loops that hold the end of
the belt when it’s fastened around the buyer’s waist. Any leftover
leather is used to make brooches, earrings, pins, and other small
goods. It’s all a question of not wasting any costly materials.

The most difficult work is called alamar doble, a term that
has no adequate translation into English. The work is complex and
baroque and so specialized that almost no one outside the town of
Colotlán tries it. In the rare instances when it’s copied, a buyer in
the know will recognize that the work is done with cotton thread and is
a poor imitation of genuine piteado from Colotlán.

In Colotlán, Armando Gaeta Loera is one of the acknowledged maestros of piteado.
He began to study the art when he was barely eighteen years old. For
two years he worked as an apprentice with Rafael de León. Later he and
his wife opened their own shop. With time, he hired assistants and as
the years passed, his three sons have entered into the family business.
Today he has two workshops, one in Jerez, Zacatecas and the other in
Colotlán.

Maestro Gaeta designs and makes bags, belts, holsters for pistols and knives, cases for machetes, boots, chaps, and sombreros of piteado,
along with other smaller articles for both men and women. He uses
leather from a variety of animals: cattle, goat, sheep, deer and fox,
among others. For finely detailed work, he chooses suede and other
special leathers that are the softest and therefore least difficult to
embroider.

The work is demanding. Maestro Gaeta is often called upon
to prepare special designs for his clients, designs which incorporate
specific emblems, flowers, names, initials, or animals. The prepared
leather is properly flattened and stretched before the parts of a piece
are cut and before the design to be embroidered is traced onto the
skin. This planchada—literally, ‘ironing’—is always done from the reverse side of the leather.

After further hand processing, the designs are distributed over the surface of the leather. Maestro Gaeta
uses a hard lead pencil, a wooden square, a ruler, a marker, and a
metal compass—all the usual tools—to trace the intertwined flowers and
foliage, the horse heads, the initials or names of the owner of the
piece, and any other special requests onto the leather.

Once the drawings are finished, they are marked with a marker and Maestro Gaeta begins to make tiny holes in the leather with an awl. He then begins, little by little, to embroider with the pita,
twisted in two or three strand lengths, depending on the design and the
depth of the relief that he wants to give the embroidery. The sections
of the piece he’s making are then joined either with a hand needle or
with a special sewing machine that is exclusively for this kind of
leather work. If the piece requires a fabric lining, this is the time
it’s put into place.

The finished piteado, whether belt, boots, or saddle, is highly prized by the owner and may well be worn during competition in championship charreada, the stylized Mexican horsemanship competitions.

You’re well on your way to being a connoisseur of the fine and macho  art of piteado.
If you are reading this while you’re living North of the Border, be
sure to look at the belts you see worn by Mexican men in your area.
You’ll see examples of the art of piteado and you’ll know exactly how they’re made and where they originate.

All photos courtesy of http://www.colotlan2.com/