“To buy, to sell, to barter and exchange.
To exchange, above all things, human contact.”      
--- D.H. Lawrence

Late afternoon and early evening are good times to visit the shopping streets in the city: Alcala, Garcia Vigil, 5 de Mayo; and the regional museum at Santo Domingo Church, or the church itself with some of the loveliest popular baroque interiors in Mexico, markedly similar in some ways to regional folk art. Follow your fancies and have a meal along the way like the natives at stands selling delicious local candies, cut-up watermelon, mangos and melons, ice-cream, or steamed corn with lime and ground chili.

For a visitor to focus on price is a time-consuming, often fruitless frustration because logic and uniformity are rare, and comparative price shopping can be very confusing. Bear in mind that Oaxacan handicrafts are 20% to 60% less than elsewhere, and prices are so low that saving ten or twenty pesos from one shop to the next may be more exhausting than money saving. Market place prices are usually less, but stores often have better selections (except where native clothing is concerned). The Benito Juarez and Artisans' markets are good places to buy textiles; ask to see the treasures hidden away for special customers (the merchandise is too good to be handled just out of curiosity). The shops carry some of the "alebrijes," the painted wood creatures that are in such demand.

Pottery and basketry are great bargains, because they are made in abundance for household use. The best place to buy them is in the market places, at the Abastos on Saturdays, Tlacolula on Sundays or the other regional markets. Two villages that make baskets and wonderful bird cages are Papalutla and Guelavia, south of El Tule and west of Tlacolula (reached by an un-paved road between the two), with other crafts villages en route. The bird cages are made of "carrizo," a local bamboo that grows along the waterways. Here they also make the fireworks frames shot off in all the festivals, on display in Papalutla's museum.

The Valley of Teotitlan is famous for its wool rugs, special-ordered by buyers from around the world, but you can get one directly from the weavers in the
patios of their homes and see them at their looms. You can also buy rugs all over Oaxaca on market days or in the shops, and the fantastic painted wooden animals of Arrazola, La Union and San Martin Tilcajete, which travel to stores all over Asia and the Western Hemisphere, out of these little villages that have yet to pave their streets or put in private phones (dealers call in orders to them on the phone booth in the plaza). The carvers in La Union double as farmers like most Oaxaca crafts people, who number almost ten percent of the state's four million population.

When deciding to visit the villages, if you are worried about getting around comfortably, a private car & driver can make it much easier. They provide comfort and safety, they're not that expensive and the drivers speak the language and know the artisans. Once with the artisans, be prepared for extraordinary hospitality and a demonstration of their craft. If you don’t speak Spanish, show your appreciation somehow. Make it a point to buy something; asking for a discount is okay and usually expected. These people are generous, talented, dignified, hard-working, and poor. If not for the foreign buyer, their children might be working far from home. Most of the artisans work long hours firing kilns, pedaling heavy looms, dying wool in steaming vats, or squinting at little wooden angels, lions or iguanas. If you visit them you are a special customer, because most of what they make is for people they never meet or who buy their work to turn over for a profit.

As James Norman wrote in his book (A Shopper's Guide to Mexico: Where, What, and How to Buy) about buying handicrafts: “Haggling and bargaining are an art, a vehicle for social and cultural exchange and therefore often intellectually complicated... A skilled practitioner enters the fray with patience and humor, knowing exactly what he wants, where he is going and how much he expects to shell out. He is alert and wary every inch of the way because there are always turns... Store-bought souvenirs may be timesavers, but when you go into the village markets or to the workshop of the craftsman you reduce your costs and increase your fun a hundred per cent. By going to the village workshop you eliminate middlemen and markups that refuse to be scaled down. You deal directly with the local artisan who is genuinely polite and friendly. Your contact with him will offer insights into the character of Mexico which you might otherwise get only by combing through reams of sociological studies. Also, unlike the American business or professional man, who feels that an interrupted workday is a lost day, the Mexican artist always welcomes you. He is happy to make friends.”

A number of the crafts people have become comparatively well-off making handicrafts; witness the late model trucks and two-story brick houses up and down the village streets. Painting wooden animals is probably the fastest growing industry in Oaxaca: twenty years ago there were five families in Arrazola making them; now there are a hundred and more in other villages, all working overtime. Still they will invite you in and give you all the time you need to see their work. They are enormously proud of it, and even the smallest pieces are fussed over and given importance.

Knowing the crafts people is an extraordinary experience. The women potters of international fame are dignified and gracious ladies: Dolores Porras and Angelica Vasquez in Atzompa, Guillermina Aguilar and her three sisters in Ocotlan, tiny Ramona Andres Gomez in Coyotepec. These are family enterprises, and everybody works. At the home of Luis Blanco in Atzompa, his wife Maria puts on a demonstration with her four children ages 8 to 16. They crowd around a small table in the patio and a big chunk of raw clay. She talks and laughs continually as she forms tiny balls of clay to decorate a figure in the "pastillaje" technique invented by her mother-in-law, Teodora Blanco. Each child makes his own piece, the smallest struggling with a diminutive angel, flowers in its grasp and awkward, tiny wings. In Mexico a love of both children and miniature objects is deeply ingrained; small treasures were given as offerings to the ancient gods and later to those of Christianity.

Oaxaca’s artisans lived from the work of their hands and their marketplaces for a thousand years even before the Aztecs and Spaniards exacted their tributes in cloth, feather work, jewelry, pottery, and beautifully decorated garments. That heritage can go home with you, in a rainbow of wonderful inventions, colors and memories.

  MAP OF OAXACA CENTRAL VALLEYS: Archeological sites and craft villages.
  MAP OF OAXACA HISTORIC CENTER: Hotels, restaurants, and points of interest.