Traditional methods

Pre-Hispanic processes

The backstrap loom
Before the arrival of the Spanish to Oaxaca, cotton was the primary fiber used to weave textiles. The cotton flower was harvested, cleaned and transformed into threads through a manual spinning process with instruments such as wooden needles and bowls. Once the threads were made, they were woven on a backstrap loom. This weaving technique is still used in many parts of Oaxaca, for example in Santo Tomás Jalietza. In this small community, women are the main weavers. They sit on a palm mat (petate), while one end of their thread canvas is attached to a column and the other tied to their waist. They weave the cotton threads, one by one, from one side of the canvas to the other, while pressing the fibers firmly with a piece of wood. In this way they create very detailed ancient patterns.

palm weave
The tradition of palm weaving comes from the Mixtec region in Oaxaca. There is no other way to work with the material than by hand, breaking the leaves into strips and weaving them together to create structures. Even today these techniques are used to weave hats, as protection for farmers against the sun's rays, to preserve and transport food, as well as "mats" for sleeping.

Incorporating new techniques

The money

When the Spanish arrived in Oaxaca, they brought with them new weaving techniques that incorporated new materials, such as wool, and new instruments, such as the spinning wheel and treadle loom. Some communities adopted these new techniques over time, such as the community of Teotitlán del Valle, for example. They began to use sheep wool to create textiles, and to this day they follow a traditional manufacturing process, after hundreds of years. Below we describe a simplified traditional process:

• The wool is first rinsed, usually at home or in the community river. Some locals collect rainwater and use it, as they say it is easier to clean wool.
• Once the wool has been washed and dried in the sun, it is carded. With two strong wooden brushes, the wool is combed until it is soft and clean. It looks like a cloud!
• The spinning process begins by joining a piece of clean wool with one hand, and spinning the wheel at the same time. In this way the "bobbins" of threads are formed, and the weaving or dyeing process can begin.

pedal cloth

Once the "bobbins" are ready and the cotton base has been placed on the loom, the weaving process begins. The wool threads are crossed from one side of the loom to the other by means of a thick piece of wood, which contains a bobbin with wool inside. While the instrument is passed from one side to the other, the person who weaves presses with his or her feet the enormous wooden pedals that move the cotton threads up and down and create patterns in the piece. For many people, especially women, rug making is done separately from household chores, so it can take days to make a medium-sized piece.

Variations - Chicote Loom

The chicote loom is a type of pedal loom in which, apart from using the feet to move the pedals, a shuttle is integrated that is ejected by a mechanism that releases it when pulled, making the process of passing the loom faster. shuttle from one side to the other. Commonly this mechanism is activated by pulling a piece of rope or cloth with one arm.

To date it is only used to work with cotton threads.

Natural Dyes

Traditionally natural dyes in Oaxaca can come from plants, minerals and even animals. Commonly walnut shells are boiled and used to obtain brown tones, pomegranate and cempasuchil flowers (marygold) to obtain intense yellows. The color indigo (also known locally as blue gold) is a valuable dye obtained from the jiquilite plant by soaking its leaves for weeks, then extracting the moisture by pressing with cloths and leaving it dehydrated until it becomes an easy-to-carry charcoal-like formation. . When wool or cotton threads are soaked in boiling water containing the pigment, the textiles turn blue.

In Oaxaca, one of the best-known colors of animal origin comes from the cochineal, a small insect that feeds on the local cactus and generates carminic acid. When these insects are dehydrated, ground, and added to boiling water with wool bundles, red colors can be obtained.

The mixtures of these vegetable or animal-based colors, with other natural elements; such as acids from lemon, bases such as sodium bicarbonate, iron, copper, etc... result in infinite color variations!