Mexico: Black Pottery, Weaving & Ocotlan
July 2016

Black Pottery

This was another really good demonstration of a local craft (we'd already seen a superb explanation of traditional dyeing), enlivened by there being a group of school children present on a school trip.

Showroom of the family pottery works.

The black pottery is unique to the village of San Bartolo Coyotopec - there are other villages dedicated to other coloured pottery such as green.

The grandmother of the man doing the demo was the now-legendary Dona Rosa who discovered the method of creating the black pottery. Pottery made with the local clay is grey. but burnishing unfired pottery with a lump of quartz produces a beautiful black shiny surface on the finished pot.

Traditional circular wood fired pit for firing the clay pots.

We bought the plain pot on the top shelf to the right (also bought a little elephant!).

We went on the the weaving centre of San Tomas Jalietza for a demo of backstrap weaving which we have seen many, many times.. It is an impressively simple system.

Only women weave in the village and they memorise the patterns - nothing is written down.

Ocotlan

It being a Friday we were able to visit the huge market in Ocotlan where many of the hill village people come to trade.

A colourful affair with a huge variety of produce, household items, clothing and lots of hats for sale.

There is a lot of plastic being used.

Looking more like a French bakery!

A couple of stalls were selling lumps of limestone. This is added to the water to make an alkaline solution when boiling corn for tortillas. The process is called nixtamalisation and it improves the nutritional quality of the corn tortillas.¹

Traditionally in preparing the corn for tortillas the kernels are boiled with ground limestone.

Prickly pear fruit at the front.

Nuts left and centre but I don't know what the stuff is on the right.

As always on the streets of Mexico and in the markets, there is lots of food on offer.

I think the jars contain honey, the long yellow things could be yam.

More hats!

The municipal palace has beautiful colourful murals by the Ocotlan artist Rodolfo Morales.²

Mural in the Municipal Palace, Rodolfo Morales.

Prawns and dried fish.

I love the look of the mother, full of pride.

The red fruit are rambutan, on the upper right of the basket is one that has been half peeled to reveal the white interior.

Mural in the Municipal Palace, Rodolfo Morales.

There seemed to be a lot of dried leaves here, and something that looks like a chimney sweep's brush!

Peppers and avocados.

The market is large, mostly under cover but spilling out onto the surrounding streets and squares. It's very industrious - very few people in any kind of traditional dress and everyone studiously working or catching up with friends in the little square in front of the market hall or in the shady arcade of the municipal palace.

References

1. Science Direct: Nixtamalization
2. Rodolfo Morales, obituary, LA Times, Feb 1, 2001.

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