By the time Christopher Columbus reached the
New World in 1492, the Zapotec Indians of Teotitlan del Valle, a small
village nestled among the foothills of the Sierra Madres in the Oaxaca
Valley of Southern Mexico, had a centuries old tradition of weaving
textiles from cotton and other plant fibers.
In the mid-seventeenth century, Dominican
friars introduced the European upright loom and sheep to the New World,
and for the next three hundred years the weavers in Teotitlan wove the
finest wool serapes in Southern Mexico and Guatemala.
In spite of more recent cultural changes
among many of Mexico's native Indian groups, the high level of
craftsmanship of the Colonial period serapes is still evident in the
distinctive use of color and handspun yarns in the contemporary rugs and
tapestries woven by the Zapotec Indians of Teotitlan.
The Zapotec Indians of Teotitlan are Native
Americans for whom weaving is an outlet for artistic expression which
provides a sense of individual pride.
What's more, in Teotitlan, weaving is
intimately tied to the family unit, where everyone participates in the
production process. The older women wash, card, and spin the wool
into the fine diameter yarns used in the best contemporary Zapotec
weavings. Sons and daughters begin weaving in their teenage years
under the tutelage of their father, who creates the designs and dyes for
the unique palette that distinguishes the family's work. Because
weaving is so tied to the family unit, the success of their weaving
directly contributes to the maintenance of their distinctive traditions
and culture.
Finally, the quality of
these hand-crafted textiles is testimony to the Zapotec Indians'
traditional culture and family cohesion and serves as a reminder of the
level of skill possessed by master craftsmen -- a level that has
by-and-large been lost to the steady march of "progress" in the United
States today.
