All Natural

Weaving in Teotitlán del Valle east of Oaxaca has been going on since 500 BCE. At first the people used cotton. But in the 1600s, a Dominican bishop brought sheep and treadle looms to the area and the people, the Zapotecans, began to weave rugs, serapes and blankets for warmth and comfort.

Today we watched a demonstration of the rug making process. It's incredibly laborious and painstaking, involving sheep shearing, carding and spinning. This part of the operation is as we would expect. But then to maintain the ancient natural tradition, women go up into the mountains to collect spring water for the dying process. How these peoples from so long ago discovered how to create dye is beyond me. Both men and women weave and begin to learn on small looms at age six.

Red is the most interesting colour because it comes from the cochineal insect that lives in a cactus plant. The material produced by the insect's ingestion is the stuff that the red dye is made from. The weaver in the photo rubbed the dried insect material mixed with water onto the palm of his hand. It's such a rich dark colour. You'll see the weaver in the photo pointing to insects on the cactus plant.

Lighter shades of red are made by adding lemon juice. Blue is made from the indigo plant, green from tree lichen and yellow from boiling wool in Mexican marigold flowers. This is a very quick overview of the procedure. You'll see the rug in the photo on our kitchen wall in Caledon when you come to visit us.

The rug we bought is a Zapotec pattern and took someone a month and a half to weave. It won't fade because a mineral is added to the final product. I hope you'll be able to figure out the weaving process sequence because the photos get jumbled up a bit somehow.