ABOUT OUR OPERATION

Clementina Iuit (at the right) and I make purses, handbags and backpacks using cloth and braid made to our specifications by village artisans who have been working with henequen for generations. We sell our products in Merida's Sunday craft market, "Merida en Domingo". If someone misses us in the market, we can always make time to receive people in our workshop.

Besides the products we make we also design and sell coiled henequen containers made for us by Marina Chuc who has been working directly with us since the "Traditional Henequen Craft Project" of 1998. We also handle rustic basketry made by our friend Paulino. He started creating his own baskets a few years ago after I noticed that he delivered rolls of vine materials to one of his neighbors. We find it satisfying to discover, encourage and challenge artisans to keep their traditional crafts alive. Over the years we have been learning, experimenting, linking woven cloth with other techniques, refining and slowly evolving to make more marketable products. Why do we continually ask questions? We are interested in what can happen. We do not need to make the exact same thing over and over. We are making craft.

A TRADITIONAL HENEQUEN-FIBER WEAVER

When we began looking for craft, I was surprised to find no visible sign of weaving, even though we were traveling in the towns pinpointed as centers for crafting henequen. One day we located a Maya woman who represented a craft cooperative that finally led us to weavers. Although weavers were busy doing things in their homes, there were no looms in sight until Doña Juana Francisca invited us into the rear of her cement block, one-room house. She did her weaving on the dirt floor of a lean-to structure where she cooked over an open fire. On the ground were what appeared to be a few well-worn sticks in a pile of henequen fiber. That was the loom she was using. I was amazed to see that the henequen cloth panels she showed us were woven on a back-strap loom. More amazing was the realization that the warp was made of single strands of fiber rather than thread; I never heard this mentioned when I spoke with craft experts. This was a revelation, and I was definitely hooked! There are subtle differences between the back-strap looms used with sisal and those used with cotton or other soft fibers. These subtleties make hard fiber cloth something more than just another woven product. The biggest difference is that the sakal (henequen cloth) is woven from strands of fiber.

GETTING STARTED

And so, our education into the ways of hard fiber weaving started there. I had no knowledge of the Yucatec Maya language, and Clementina had no experience with the Maya vocabulary related to sisal craft. We began to visit villages, observing, sometimes participating in the hand rasping, the washing and drying,  and setting up warps and looms.

After about 6 months, a state-run craft competition was announced and we decided to form a team to design and create handbags to submit for the competition. We made 3 samples dividing the work according to the specialty of each artisan...one prepared and dyed the fiber, another produced the cloth and the third made the handbag. Because we had submitted a team project we did not receive the top award but our designs were included among the most outstanding designs exhibited. We received honorable mention in the competition and pictures of the bags appeared in the local newspapers. This recognition gave our project validity among the henequen artisans.

WHAT WE'VE LEARNED ALONG THE WAY

• Removing the sisal fiber from the henequen plant is hard and time consuming; see our page describing the fiber-removing processes

• White, long, clean and smooth fibers are the best for handwork. The ideal fiber for craft purposes comes from a fresh leaf. The fiber is scraped completely free of pulp and skin then washed clean. The quality can be adversely affected by poor drying conditions.

• Henequen fiber can be bought directly from milling plants (raspadores/decorticators), but the quality of this machine-processed fiber is not usually good. Buying by weight is cheaper and often the only way to buy; If picking through the piles for good fiber is allowed, the price is much higher.

• Why is the weaving of henequen becoming more rare? Most of the traditional craftspeople that we meet live in some version of a choza (traditional hut) or a one room concrete house with a kitchen lean-to on the back. There is no room to store a large quantity of raw material and storing finished products is risky. Any material that comes in is processed and what is made must go out right away.

• Usually, women do the weaving. Craft activity is done between other chores. Sometimes only minutes at a time can be devoted to it. However, using a back-strap loom takes concentration and commitment. The human body is an integral part of the loom operation. The weaver is attached to it and the body movement of the weaver tenses the warp of the loom in order to be able to create a space for inserting a filling/the woof.

• Given the amount of skill and time that must be devoted to making craft, the income derived from it, cannot compete with modern vocations. "Modernization," "globalization" and technology" have become more and more attractive to young village people causing them to abandon their homes and their traditions. The young people that do craft prefer to make sisal coil items because: it is a more flexible process–it can be picked up and put down at a moments notice; it requires less preparation; and it is less delicate to handle.

• In Mexico, henequen is the very cheapest material, but in to the US, China makes henequen products cheaper.