Visiting the weaving village and reflecting on three generations

by Susan­na Starr

Before doing a recap of the year, I want to go back to the last buy­ing trip in Oax­a­ca, in the ear­ly part of the year. As always, vis­it­ing the vil­lage, see­ing all the new and excit­ing weav­ings and, most impor­tant­ly, vis­it­ing old friends, is an ongo­ing joy in my life. This buy­ing trip was excel­lent once again with beau­ti­ful acqui­si­tions from the Mon­taño fam­i­ly, includ­ing the work of Fidel, Pedro and Ali­cia as well as their father, Edmun­do. Vis­it­ing Arman­do and Juan Gutier­rez, sons of Felipe, also pro­vid­ed an abun­dance of new col­ors and designs, as well as warm embraces. And Efren Lazo’s ranges of bright reds are always outstanding.

But, at this point in the lives of all my weav­ing friends as well as my own, the most excit­ing thing that’s hap­pen­ing is the third gen­er­a­tion. Edmun­do and Felipe and I go back more than 35 years. Arman­do, Juan, Fidel, Pedro, Ali­cia and Efren were small chil­dren then. Now they’re run­ning the busi­ness­es and their own chil­dren are launched into the world. This gen­er­a­tion has the advan­tage of mak­ing oth­er choic­es. Diego Mon­taño, Pedro and Karina’s son, is pro­duc­ing a line of his own small, deluxe, fine­ly woven pieces, sev­er­al of which are now fea­tured at Starr Inte­ri­ors. But his old­er sis­ter, Diana, has cho­sen a dif­fer­ent career.

We were sit­ting at Pedro and Karina’s new house, restau­rant and show­room enjoy­ing some of her won­der­ful cook­ing, when we saw some­one start up the entry and then veer off to the side. “Oh, that’s Diana,” said Kari­na and called out to her daugh­ter who didn’t want to dis­turb the clients at the restau­rant. Once she heard her moth­er and saw that it was us, she resumed walk­ing in. I was stunned. I’ve known her since she was born 22 years ago and have seen her dur­ing all these years, but all of a sud­den it seemed that I was see­ing some­one new. This tall, beau­ti­ful young woman is now study­ing med­i­cine and was wear­ing her hos­pi­tal “whites.” As I write this, I feel the same emo­tion I had then, which was so very pow­er­ful that my eyes filled with tears. I was so proud and so very hap­py not only for her and her accom­plish­ment, but for her par­ents and, by exten­sion, her grand­par­ents, my friends, Ali­cia and Edmundo.

The sto­ry of each of these fam­i­lies deserves a sep­a­rate telling. They are the core weavers that I’ve been work­ing with for almost four decades, each of whom has been a mean­ing­ful part of my life as well as pro­vid­ing the base for Starr Inte­ri­ors’ col­lec­tion of fine weav­ings. The weavers I start­ed with, my old­est friends from build­ing busi­ness­es togeth­er, are now much less active than they used to be, although still involved as I am. The sec­ond gen­er­a­tion has now tak­en the active roles and the third gen­er­a­tion is explor­ing com­plete­ly new paths of their own. But the tra­di­tion of the vil­lage remains strong and vital with every gen­er­a­tion par­tic­i­pat­ing in fes­ti­vals and spe­cial events which are the life’s blood of the vil­lage. They main­tain the tra­di­tions that go back thou­sands of years with hon­or and respect for their deep­est mean­ing. Zapotec is a lan­guage that con­tin­ues to be used. As they do all this, they are very much a part of the 21st century.

While we were there, we were priv­i­leged to attend a spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny at the church where Edmun­do was hon­ored as head of the new com­mit­tee. In an ancient cer­e­mo­ny that passed the staff to the new per­son in charge of the gov­ern­ing com­mit­tee, the mean­ing of gov­ern­ing was reaf­firmed. The per­son cho­sen for this task was picked because of his abil­i­ty to add to the guid­ance of the vil­lage in a car­ing way with com­plete ded­i­ca­tion to his office. There is no pay involved. Those who are cho­sen for the com­mit­tee which gov­erns vil­lage mat­ters for a peri­od of sev­er­al years, and espe­cial­ly the head of the com­mit­tee who has received the cer­e­mo­ni­al staff, take their respon­si­bil­i­ties seri­ous­ly and work for the com­mon good of the entire vil­lage, includ­ing pre­serv­ing the cus­toms, tra­di­tions and many cel­e­bra­tions as well as work­ing with the pres­i­dent of the municipality.

Although it is men who tra­di­tion­al­ly take on this respon­si­bil­i­ty (for thou­sands of years the women have been tak­ing on the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the home and chil­dren), the women have a strong pres­ence in prepar­ing the caul­drons of drink called tejate and the labor inten­sive prepa­ra­tion of tamales . All of them are dressed in their best embroi­dered huip­iles (blous­es) and tra­di­tion­al skirts, while the men wear their tra­di­tion­al straw som­breros. The bands that play the Zapotec music are an impor­tant part of any fes­ti­val or cer­e­mo­ny. Most of them are weavers who are musi­cians as well. Music, like weav­ing, is an impor­tant part of the cul­ture, also devel­oped over thou­sands of years.

Cer­e­monies of this kind are held in the church, a struc­ture built by the Span­ish more than five hun­dred years ago on the remains of what orig­i­nal­ly was a Zapotec tem­ple. For­tu­nate­ly, some of the orig­i­nal work is still to be seen in the arch­es, on the walls, and on parts of the exposed foun­da­tion. The glyphs and geo­met­ric designs of their ances­tors is a reminder to the peo­ple of the vil­lage of their her­itage which they keep alive through their ongo­ing con­tin­u­a­tion of cus­toms. For us, it is a glimpse into the wealth of that heritage.

Susan­na Starr — own­er of Starr Inte­ri­ors, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, speak­er, artist, writer, holds a degree in phi­los­o­phy from Stony Brook State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York.  She lives in North­ern New Mex­i­co. Susan­na is the author of the book: Fifty and Beyond: New Begin­nings in Health and Well-Being pub­lished by Palo­ma Blan­ca Press and is a board mem­ber of the Trav­el Writ­ers Asso­ci­a­tion.