Rachel and Eric on tue 8 sep 98
Story
It is quiet in the Oaxacan country side, the hush of rain. Out there
in the hills the village potters have stopped working. The wood is wet, the
clay mine out in the field is covered over by corn, the clay mine in the
arroyo is flooded with water. The soil is soaked, no good for ground firing.
It's a lousy time to be out peddling pots too. The country roads are mud
bogs, the river crossings dangerous, the burro trails slick and treacherous.
It is no time to be a potter. There are those who do, potters who's villages
are close to the city and who have become more influenced by the seasons of
tourism than the seasons of the sky. But these potters take their chances
and take their losses. There are so many opportunities for vapor to get into
the workings and pop pots apart. As for the other potters, those far removed
from the wallets of tourists, potting has stopped for a spell. It's the
rainy season, no time to be making pottery.
And more than that, it is the rainy season, time to plant and look to the
crops. What need for a pot if there isn't food to cook in it. Working the
soil has always come before working the clay. When the rains come the
potters put aside their aprons and burnishing stones and put on their hats,
take up their hoes and become farmers. So it has been forever, starting
with the first rains in late May when the oxen are taken out to turn the
soil and finishing, given the blessing of rain, in late October and November
with the harvest and putting up.
The crop is corn, almost always corn, with some squash and beans thrown in
for variety. Corn is everything here and has been for a long, long time.
Corn is tortillas, present in every meal. In endless other incarnations:
tamales, corn drink, soup, sweet bread, etc., it is also present in every
meal. And there is no getting tired of it, corn is just plain good and
filling. The leaves are used to wrap tamales, the stalks are saved to feed
the oxen, goats and donkeys through the long dry season when forage is
scarce. The cobs are used by the potters to scrape and form their pots and
as fuel in the firing. A good harvest is security, dried and stored it
guarantees full bellies through the next year. Any surplus is money, not
just because it can be sold for cash, but because in its own right it is
currency, as good or better than cash for village commerce. The corn
currency unit of measure is an Almoud, a wooden box about half the size of a
shoe box. "How much is that pot?" "Two Almoud." Long before there where
pesos here, there was corn.
Sometime in early October the rain generally lets off. The soil slowly
dries, everything flowers, the grass is tall and food is abundant. It is a
pleasure to be alive. With the bringing in of the harvest the farmer/potter
starts thinking about pots again. She may check to see if the arroyo clay
mine has dried and begin to gather wood. December is mostly spent in the
celebrations associated with Christ's birth; parades and masses, huge feasts
and visiting. Then January, the air dry and the year new, the potters set to
work again, in earnest, filling their days with clay until the gathering
clouds of May let loose.
Eric Mindling & Rachel Werling
Manos de Oaxaca
AP 1452
Oaxaca, Oax.
CP 68000
M E X I C O
http://www.foothill.net/~mindling
fax 011 52 (952) 1-4186
email: rayeric@antequera.com
| |
|
