Rachel and Eric on thu 24 sep 98
The Tiltepec Attache
Just a month or so ago I headed my depreciating van down the Sola de Vega
highway bound for the Pacific Coast and a week tangled between the waves and
hammocks on my favorite secret beach. Pottery buyers need a break now and
then from the clay and there is none at all on the beach, though heaven
knows there's lots of grog. But on my way I searched out a little
potteryville that I heard rumor of, a place called Santa Maria Magdalena
Tiltepec or just plain Tiltepec of you haven't got that much time. For those
of you planning on going there next time you're in Southern Mexico, it's
right out side of Santos Reyes Nopala and a bit inland of Puerto Escondido
with the best surfing break in Mexico, though nary a potter to be found.
After questioning several pedestrians in Nopala I decided I had an accurate
enough picture of how to get to Tiltepec to give it a try. (The rule of
thumb in the Mexican boondocks is that if you ask one person how to get to
your destination you'll get somewhere. If you ask two people you'll get
somewhere else. If you ask three you'll probably get where you wanted to go.
I guess that's called triangulation.) I turned off the main dirt road onto a
side dirt road which took me up a tropical river valley cut by a broad,
clear, white graveled river running among boulders. The hillsides where
covered with shady green rainforest and the valley floor was dotted with
enormous Brahma bulls looking like over fertilized pit bulls, and open, tall
grass pastures that where surely once also covered with rainforest. The dirt
road was quite moist and consisted of that particular tropical soil that is
hard, slick and white. Stuff that makes your tires spin on the climbs. And
on the descents and sometimes on the flats. The tires I was sporting that
day had lost any of chance of resale value for sandal soles some time ago
and where as smooth as a burnished pot.
After a slick and bumpy half hour I slid around a bend, down through a
white gravel creek crossing and before me, up the steeply rising road was
the town of Tiltepec. I gave the climb an engine whining run, but my tires
had retired from heavy duty and half way up I gave it up and slide down to a
little pullout, quickly convincing myself that it would be best to meet this
town on foot. It looks better to walk into a town anyway. Folks can identify
with that. Driving a car into the center of town can make people suspicious,
they think you are a politician coming to blow smoke or maybe a health
worker with sharp needles.
I got out of my van and called to a young woman who happened to be going by
on a trail. I have found it to be very helpful when wandering into an
unknown village to befriend someone at the onset and let them become my
guide though the town. I asked the young woman if they made pottery here. It
was intended as an easy-answer question since I pretty much knew that this
was a town full of potters and that she herself was likely a potter. An
opener really, doesn't get much results in bars but pretty good in pottery
villages. But a 6'4" blonde guy with a goofy grin showing up all sweaty in a
village beyond Nopala is about as common an event as a similar looking guy
walking on the moon. There isn't always pre-established village protocol on
how to deal with such a phenomenon. This young woman's response, one I've
encountered before a time or two, was to pretend that this wasn't happening
and keep on walking.
I stood there for a moment mopping my brow and thinking about how I'd
approach this village in my moon boots when a man with a top of the line
potbelly greeted me from the shade of a four post bamboo hut just down the
trail. "Here" I thought, "is my cultural attache," and I went over and began
to make small talk with him.
I quickly got to the subject of local pottery and he said that plenty was
made here. He called his little son over and was about to send him out to
bring me a sample from in town when I interrupted and said I'd like to go
with along and look around, meet the potters. The man paused for the
briefest moment to collect his thoughts and then said, "Very good, I will go
with you, we will take a little walk." It would not be polite to send me out
just with his young son who might get us lost and, perhaps there would be a
little prestige in accompanying the Moon Man around town. I could see that
this was a virtuous offer on his part for he was, as I mentioned, rather
complete in the belly department etc., and the shade of this hut was an
oasis in the tropical humidity. In spite of this heat some time was spent
looking for a t-shirt for him to wear so as to be presentable. That in hand,
actually draped over a shoulder, we headed for town.
I was not sure of my attache's occupation, but as we climbed up the steep
trail to town, me following close behind him and his lowriding pants, I
determined that he may well be a plumber. Topping that rise we were both wet
with sweat, O' that tropical air, and never quite getting it on in the first
place, he abandoned his t-shirt completely, handing it to his son.
At the top of the rise the little town came into view and a lovely place it
was. It was a town of jumbled little red tile roofed houses of bamboo and
adobe looking like a strewn deck of cards. The houses filled the contours of
a hill slope cut through with twisting little creeks filled with boulders
and waterfalls and shaded by thick banana stands. There was only one road in
town and from it wandered little paths among the houses in all directions.
Behind it all was a wall of dramatic little pointy jungle hills and below,
the river.
We followed one of the little trails over a creek and up another steep
slope, I too wanting to abandon my shirt, until we came to the shaded porch
of a small house. "This woman is a fine potter" my attache announced and
then sat me down in a hammock, called to an ancient woman and said he'd be
back shortly. He went off to what I presumed was the outhouse and I tried to
make small talk with the woman.
This region of Oaxaca, I found out, is the Chatino region. These people are
Chatinos and this woman speaks Chatino, and nothing else. I don't speak
Chatino, not a word. But pottery is an international language and by the
time my bilingual attache got back from the outhouse the the potter and I
were getting along fine.
She was showing me well made, simple and clean pottery. The village style I
assume, a sort of yellow tan clay burnished with a broad stone and colored
over with vaporous fire marks. She showed me short necked bean pots and
wonderful casserole type bowls with thick little loop handles on either side
and a special clay stove made to hold a bean pot and with an opening to feed
firewood through . She also had a couple of short, fat legged, flat nosed
piggy banks with tiny red and black seeds stuck in sockets as eyes.
After much admiring and appreciation I bought what my attache and I could
carry and thanked the woman for her fine work. We then retraced our route,
sweating profusely I vetoed visiting any other potters. I was supposed to be
on vacation from pottery buying, and the beach, what lovely cool breezes
caress it. My attache readily agreed to my veto and we made a bee line for
his shaded hut stopping for a moment along the way at a little store where
I bought myself and my attache big, tall orange sodas, cold and moist with
condensation. We slurped them down and he got his shirt back from his son
for a moment to wipe sweat off his neck.
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
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