A Tradition of Natural Dyes in Oaxaca - Mexico (part 1)

In the summer of 2022, I visited Mexico for almost a month. I started with a visit to Mexico City and Cuernavaca, then moved to San Miguel de Allende for two weeks to teach a workshop in natural dyeing and botanical printing.

a tradition of natural dyes in Oaxaca Mexico

After teaching, I continued to the Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca, one of the two largest states of Mexico, with my new friend Connie Chaplin from Canada (check out her place for creative workshops).

Of course, there is so much to tell about this trip, I want to start with this blog post and share with you some insights I learned from Zapotec Master Weaver Bulmaro Perez Mendoza in Teotitlan del Valle,

I will prepare a separate post about some insights from Mexico City and from another visit to the workshop home of Juana and Antonio, Juana is the sister of Porfirio Gutierrez, Master Dyer, and Weaver in the Zapotec tradition, who has a studio in the USA.

I will start this blog by stating I feel that whatever I learned by seeing, smelling, listening, conversing, and feeling in the days spent in Oaxaca, made me crave to return and do a lot more growing and learning to understand culture with such direct ancestral knowledge of natural dyes.

Oaxaca on the way to Teotitlan del Valle

We arrived in Oaxaca City after a four-hour drive and a flight. It was immediately visible, that between San Miguel, Mexico City, and Oaxaca, there are considerable differences in the 'feel' and vibe of the place. Much greener, mountainous, and more rural. The area feels like tradition and knowledge. The indigenous population of the Zapotecs (a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people) is made up of traditional farmers, weavers, metal smiths, and potters (very famous black pottery). Together with the Mayans they were the only cultures in the region to create a complete writing system that can still be seen today on the ruined stones of ancient temples.

The driver we hired, picked us up and informed us of a 'little snag' in the plans to drive to Teotitlan del Valle, which is around 30 kilometers from Oaxaca City. Citizens were blocking the village's main entrance in protest of unequally distributed government funds.

We made an attempt to drive via a back road, only to be stopped by armed police. In the end, we had to pass the main crossing on foot and were picked up by Bulmaro at the other end.

The Zapotec village of Teotitlan del Valle is said to have been established in 1465, and it is especially known today for its textile industry, mainly rugs, made on family-owned and often very old looms, working with local wool (called churro) that is either commercially dyed or dyed with natural dyes. Churro wool is coarse wool with remarkable durability and is mainly used for weaving rugs and blankets. The sheep were introduced in 1535 by Dominican Friar Juan Lopez de Zarate, who also brought with him the foot loom to replace the traditional backstrap loom. This made it possible for weavers to make longer and wider pieces and create intricate patterns. Bulmaro nowadays also uses merino and alpaca wool for his rugs, as well as non-traditional hemp, flax, and nettle. For clothing items like huipils and shawls, the weavers use local Mexican cotton (see also 1)

In the 1950s, with the arrival of foreign tourism, Teotitlan's weavings became internationally famous, and the increased demand got whole families involved in the weaving process (leaving the less lucrative fieldwork). Much of the art of natural dyes was lost when the ease and lower cost of chemical dyes made them much more attractive, especially in the 60s and 70s. Some traditions like working with Cochineal and Indigo, have been faithfully passed on from mother to daughter and from father to son. Other colorants had to be re-claimed and re-learned, in the past years, when natural dyes came back in fashion and appreciation.

Bulmaro Perez Mendoza and his two sons and their wives, employ 36 spinners and around 13 weavers, most of them family members, and they dye all of their yarns with natural dyes.

Natural dyes and naturally dyed wool skeins in the studio of Bulmaro Mendoza Perez

Entering the patio of the Bulmaro and Sons' home and workshop on Centenario street, you can not miss the colorful display of natural dyes and dyes wool skeins.

Traditional colors used here are:

Yellows

Pericón (Tagetes lucida), also known as Mexican tarragon or mint marigold. It grows wild along the foothills and is collected and dried at the end of the summer. Color similar to regular Tagetes Arecta, a rich golden yellow. Climate changes have influenced the crops a lot and the past few years have not given the usual rich harvest. (see also 2) It is not quite the same as Tagetes arecta, but I suppose it gives about the same shade.

Achiote, Annatto seeds.

Pomegranate peels AND seeds, the peels are ground on the volcanic stone with a pinch of lime to release the yellows. He also showed a green he makes from the actual pomegranate seeds with limestone, I will have to run a few tests on the subject. In my logic, this would be an anthocyanin-based dye that should fade soon but Bulmaro says it holds up very well.

Blue

Nocuana cogui, or Anil, Indigofera suffruticosa (Xiquilite).

The production of organic indigo has gradually been lost, however, the last 20 producers of Santiago Niletepec, continue to produce this fabulous dye stuff in spite of all the economic difficulties.

In Mexico, Indigofera suffruticosa can only grow in this particular area of Cerro del Añil or Niltepec, which has the appropriate conditions for its production. It has been like this since ancient times, however, each year the number of producers is decreasing, and this year, only 14 hectares were planted, since there is no support from any government program.

Despite the difficulties faced by Niltepec producers, they continue to use the deep fermentation and aeration pools built over 100 years ago to produce Indigo in an artisanal way.

The work is hard, a day's work produces only 4-5 kilos of concentrated indigo, and this is only during the production season.

The indigo vats themselves are made with organic reducers that can be all sorts, I have heard: Muitle (Mexican honeysuckle), other plant materials, bananas, and orange peels. The alkali used is wood ash and nopal ash. The main big difference from my own practice I understood here is that they A) make HUGE vats, and B) leave the skeins in for hours until they reach the desired shade. No repeated oxidations or dips. Wool is washed about a day after dyeing.

Purples and Reds

Yaga-cohui, Palo de Campeche, logwood in one of the finest grinds I have seen so far. Grown in the Campeche region of Mexico.

Of course: Cochineal (Nochetzli) for amazing shades of purple, pink, deep reds, and anything in between.

There are two types of grana: the Silvestre (wild cochineal) and the domesticated rounder type that yield much more color.

The cochineal females (who have a mouth but no eyes, the males have eyes but no mouths, yikes) latch onto a cactus tuna and grow nice and thick of the cactus juice. Then they get harvested, cleaned from the white fluff, and dried until future use.

Many many shades of wool from natural dyes

For brown shades:

Pecan leaves and hulls (but the hard shells, not the outer hulls, have never tried those myself),

Bihi, a type of acacia pods

Lichens.

For mordants, I have the understanding that the Zapotec dyers mainly use Alum. (rough rock alum) and sometimes a bit of ferrous sulfate as a post-mordant. For example, some dyers use pomegranate and ferrous sulfate to create black, but other dyers told me they will simply use naturally black sheep wool instead.

Modifiers:

Limestone (not to be mistaken for builders' lime, which is not the same thing), wood ash, and nopal ash are the alkali being used. Lime juice is the acidic modifier. From another source, I understood that some oxalic acid-rich plants are used in combination with mordanting or dyeing to adjust shades.

Cleaning:

Wool is scoured by fermenting. Many wool products still smell strongly like lanolin and I was told the lanolin assists in the dyeing process to an extent. I will have to do my own side-by-side testing to review this process. For washing, they still use soap nuts for part of the process.

a metate to grind dye stuffs

Processing Dyes

Dyes are ground using a metate and a metlapil, a kind of rectangle pestle and mortar made from volcanic stone.

Bulmaro says that especially cochineal should never be ground using metal blades as it would influence the Ph. He demonstrated how adding a little limestone to pomegranate peel immediately brought out the bright yellows. (Something I had been experimenting with before, see also this blog)

It was very exciting to see the knowledge of alkaline in combination with flavonoids demonstrated!

In general, I did not see much use of over-dyeing, and all the more clever manipulations of Ph levels and post-mordanting to create a dazzling array of wool shades for his rugs.

Me and Bulmaro discussing dyes

The weaving

Well, I am not a weaver and it is not the subject that I go wild about, but it would be unfair to tell you all about this visit and not share the amazing works that are made by Bulmaro and his family.

First of all, I can still not get over how labour-intensive this work is. Everything is done by hand, and the weaving process itself is very slow because of the patterns made.

The patterns you see above on the pillows are either natural shades of wool or naturally dyed yarns in geometric patterns and sacred Zapoteca symbols:

Triangles, like in the first picture on the left: represent mountains

Geometric pyramids represent the ancient political and religious centers of Zapotec culture.

Lightning, zig-zag patterns connected to the god of lightning and rain: Cocijo.

Agave, the staple plant for making sweet nectar, and mezcal, growing abundantly in the entire valley of Oaxaca.

Zapotec diamond, Ojo de Dios, the 'eye of G'd'

Corn, representing the underworld, partly life and heaven, corn is a sacred plant.

You can find more excellent examples of Zapotec symbols in weaving here

The rugs are more specific with illustrations of animals like birds and butterflies representing the sacred Zapotec cyclical calendar, and fruits and landscapes. The showroom has an absolutely dazzling array of colors and patterns.

Follow Bulmaro on his Instagram page for more inspiration or visit him in his studio in Teotitlan del Valle, he will be happy to show you around after you make an appointment.

Outside the home of Bulmaro Perez Mendoza

Do you want to dye shades like these? Try one of these dyes on wool after mordanting with alum at least 20% weight of fiber.

Cochineal Dried Bugs Powder (Dactylopius coccus) organic

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Logwood Powder (Haematoxylum campechianum)

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Marigold whole dried flowers (Tagetes) Organic

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"Mayan" Indigo Powder (Indigofera Tinctoria) organic

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Ill by James Vreeland

1; Gossypium hirsutum, also known as upland cotton or Mexican cotton, is the most widely planted species of cotton in the world. Globally, about 90% of all cotton production is of cultivars derived from this species. In 2021, production of cotton in Mexico reached the peak of the decade, amounting to more than 1.1 million 480-pound bales.

What most people do not know, is that this cotton exists in different natural shades of brown, yellow, red, and green. The reason white is the dominantly grown crop is because it has a longer fiber length which makes it easier to spin and because the white makes it easy to dye.

Read the downloadable and printable book about the revival of these ancestral kinds of cotton in Peru and Mexico, written by James Vreeland, for your reading enjoyment here.

2. Pericon has a deep ancestral meaning in the Oaxaca region and in Mexico as a whole. It goes beyond the scope of this blog (and my knowledge, or even my right to explain the knowledge) to go into all the details but I would like to refer you to this article about the use of pericon and tagetes on the day of the dead. This is also a great source for more plant history. And lastly: an interview with Abuelita in PDF format, about the medicinal values of Pericon