 
 
 Preserving
a Tradition
Backstrap Weaving   |
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Embroidery
Although traje (ancestral tribal dress) has all but vanished in Oaxaca City, significant numbers of Oaxacan native women make and wear traje, especially in the Mazateca, Chinantla, and Zapotec Sierra in the north, the Isthmus in the southeast, the coastal Mixteca in the southwest, and the Trique in the Mixteca Alta in the west.
Most common traje garment is the huipil, a full, square-shouldered, short to mid-sleeved dress, often hand-embroidered with animal and floral designs and embellished with ribbons. Probably the most popular Oaxaca huipiles are the captivating designs from San Pedro de Amusgos (Amusgo tribe; white cotton, embroidered with abstract colored animal and floral motifs). Others nearly as prized include the Trique styles from around San Andrés Chicahuaxtla (white cotton, brighly embroidered red stripes, interwoven with green, blue, and yelllow, and hung with colored ribbons); Mazatec, from Huatla de Jiménez (white cotton, with bright flowers embroidered in multiple panels, crossed by horizontal and vertical purple and magenta silk ribbons); and Isthmus Zapotec, from Tehuantepec (brightly colored cotton, densely embroidered with either geometric designs or a field of flamboyant, multicolored flowers).
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| The native garments have so many uses, at home, at the beach, or in more formal situations, that you almost can't go wrong buying them. |
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Oaxaca shops and stalls also sell other, less common types of traje. These include the quechquémitl (shoulder cape), often made of wool and worn as an over garment in winter, and the enredo, a full-length skirt that wraps around the waist and legs like a Hawaiian sarong.
Mixtec women in Oaxaca's warm southwest coastal region around Pinotepa Nacional commonly wear the enredo, known locally as the pozahuanco below the waist and, when at home, go bare-breasted. When wearing their pozahuancos in public, they usually tie a mandil, a wide apron, around their front side.
Women weave the most prized pozahuancos, using cotton thread dyed a light purple with secretions of tidepool-harvested snails, Purpura patula pansa, and silk dyed deep red with cochineal, extracted from the dried bodies of a locally cultivated insect, Dactylopius coccus. On a typical day, two or three women will be selling handmade pozahuancos at the Pinotepa Nacional market.
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Colonial-era Spanish stules have blended with native traje, producing a wider class of dress, known generally as ropa típica. Lovely embroidered blouses (blusas), shawls (rebozos), and dresses (vestidos) fill shop racks and market stalls all over Oaxaca. Among the most popular is the so-called Oaxaca wedding dress, made of cotton with a crochet-trimmed riot of diminutive flowers hand-stitched about the neck and yoke. Some of the finest examples are made in San Antonino Castillo Velasco, just north of Ocotlán on the Valley of Oaxaca's south side.
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In contrast to women, only a small fraction of Oaxacan men-- members of remote groups, such as mountain Mazatec and Chinantecs in the north, the Mixes in the east, and rural Chatinos and Amusgos in the southwest-- wear traje. Nevertheless, shops offer some fine men's ropa típica, such as wool jackets and serapes for highland or winter wear and guayaberas, hip-length, pleated tropical dress shirts.
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Fine embroidery (bordado) embellishes much traditional Oaxacan clothing, tablecloths (manteles), and napkins (servilletas). As everywhere, women define the art of embroidery. Although some still work by hand at home, cheaper machine-made factory lace and needlework is more commonly available in shops.
Among the most renowned handmade example is the embroidery of Santo Tomás Jalieza, the "town of belts" (cinturones), in the Oaxaca central valley south of Coyotepec. Although best known for their attractive embroidered cloth and leather belts, the townsfolk have adapted their colorful designs to clothing, purses, bags, and much more.
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| The skirts and blouses in Juchitán are of a rich purple, red, dark green or black velvet, richly embroidered with a thick layer of silk flowers and figures copied from Chinese shawls that began to arrive in Mexico in colonial days aboard the Manila galleons. |
 MAP OF OAXACA CENTRAL VALLEYS: Archeological sites and craft villages.
Archeological sites in Oaxaca: Monte Albán, Mitla, Yagul, Dainzu, Mogote.
Craft villages in the central valleys of Oaxaca: Tottitlan del Valle (weaving), Atzompa (greeen pottery), Arazola (wood carving), San Bartolo Coyotepec (black pottery), Ocotlan (clay figures, woven baskets).
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