Teotitlan weaving workshop: A family business
On Sunday, Rebecca, the kids and I took a day trip via a local tour company from Oaxaca. Our family trip included stops at the Tule tree, the village of Teotitlan, the ruins of Mitla, and Hierve el Agua (more on the latter two in later posts). The village of Teotitlan is a village centered around the business of weaving “tapetes” or hand-woven wool rugs. Our tour stopped at a family run workshop and watched an overview of the process of creating the dyes, the yarn, and then weaving the rugs by hand. The process was so fascinating it enthralled our entire family as we watched the 30 minute presentation by the weaving family. The presentation evenheld our 4 year old’s attention.
Harvesting of the cochineal bug from the cactus
One of the main dyes used in the wool yarn is from an insect that infests the cacti in the local area called the cochinilla. Here the gentleman is harvesting a few with his fingers — he then passed them around (again, the kids really enjoyed the hands on aspect, though Ostara wouldn’t touch them!). The cochinilla are then dried and crushed. When they are crushed, they make a deep red powder. When mixed with water, it makes a beautiful rich, rust red color (similar to what you see in the rug behind the man’s shoulders in the picture.
Crushing the dried cochineal into a red powder
After crushing the powder, the gentleman passed some around to volunteers to place in their hands with water to mix. It made a deep red liquid. Then he passed around a lime – when mixed with lime, the deep red changed to orange (due to the pH change).
They then passed around wool dyed with the oranges and reds, making very dark or very light colors depending on the underlying shade of the wool — ie. the original color of the sheep. Black sheep make very dark colors, white sheep very light, etc. Again this was all like magic to the kids.
Green tones were made from dye created from rock moss
Next they showed us how other colors were made using vegetable sources of dyes. Shades of green were made from a rock moss gathered in the nearby mountains. Yellows from marigold blossoms and blue from indigo leaves.
The woman in the picture on the right is holding a bowl of green rock moss in one hand and three shades of green wool made from it in the other. All the yarn is made from the exact same dye — the dark green from black wool (bah, bah, black sheep!), the light green from white wool, and the middle shade from gray wool.
After showing us the dyes, they then gave us a demonstration of how they weave the tapetes. We watched as the woman wove a complex pattern with a dozen different colors at a rapid pace, from memory.
Weaving demonstration
Our tour guide explained that she didn’t need a picture for a guide because it was a well-known pattern that she knew from memory. She just had to keep count of the rows. It was amazing to see the tapete begin to take shape in front of our eyes.
After the demonstration, we were lead to the showroom where there were thousands of beautiful handmade tapetes for sale.
Geometric designs on tapete from Teotitlan
Our tour guide explained some of the geometric patterns frequently seen on the tapetes. They are ancient designs — I recognized some from the pyramids of Monte Alban and the tombs of Mitla. The picture on the left shows a small tapete that our family purchased at the workshop that shows a lot of the aspects of the work that we really appreciated. Note the stair steps moving up into a spiral “maze” shape – this is said to represent the cycle of life. We are born at the bottom step, move up the steps throughout our lives, and then die at the top. In death, we enter the spiral and work our way to a new beginning, or rebirth.
I loved this tapete because of the geometric designs, and because it shows many of our favorite dyes from the cochinilla insect and the vegetable dyes.
Tree of Life Tapete
The other small tapete that we purchased was a depiction of the “tree of life” filled with different kinds of birds. We bought a very tiny version because we loved it so, although the one we truly fell in love with is this huge wall sized tapete with intricate detail.
This was one of the first stops of our Sunday family tour from Oaxaca. We knew the kids would enjoy the ruins and love swimming at Hierve el Agua. We were pleasantly surprised that they were also enchanted by the weaving workshop in Teotitlan!