In the Americas, indigenous people have maintained traditions of felting and matting tree bark to make materials for wearing (i.e., barkcloth) for some two millennia. These bark-based textiles, or barkcloth, have been made by diverse ethnic groups stretching from the Andes to Mexico, and they share similarities in manufacture and choice of raw materials: all involve felting the constituent cellulose fibers through beating with wooden or stone mallets, and all primarily use plants belonging to the Moraceae (a botanical family which includes figs and mulberries). Among cultures which developed writing—like the Aztecs and Mayans in Mexico, barkcloth was further tailored for use as paper. Such Mesoamerican paper, or amate, was once made on a large scale, but due to wholesale destruction by Spanish colonizers, traditions of making amate and barkcloth were driven precariously close to total extinction. In Mexico today, just one Otomí village (San Pablito, Puebla) still makes amate, and two Lacandon Maya villages (Nahá and Lacanhá Chansayab) still make barkcloth (albeit intermittently). Our documentary work aims to fill long-standing ethnobotanical knowledge gaps and promote holistic, botanical, and artisanal conservation. These aims include: identifying, botanically vouchering, and recording the uses of new or secondary fiber plants, including tule and jonote cuerillo for amate and bitskar and hach hu’un for barkcloth; interviewing jonoteros (bark harvesters) to evaluate their roles in supplying fibers for amate makers; providing video footage on barkcloth manufacture in Chiapas; and publishing handmade, written and printed manuals in Otomi and Maya for artisans and their children to reference.
Sample of ojite (Brosimum alicastrum) and its fibers, one of the woody plant species incorporated to amate making in the last decades. Photo credit: James Ojascastro.
Fibers of jonote colorado (Trema micranthum) drying under direct sun to be used to make amate. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
Amatero Pablo Santos cooking the fibers of jonote colorado (Trema micranthum). The inner bark is cooked for around ten hours with lime and ashes; the resulting tannin-rich cooking liquor is sometimes used to make paintings. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
Amatero Fausto Santos adding decorations to a frame of amate. The animal figure is an embroidery from Tenango de Doria, Hidalgo, Mexico. Photo credit: James Ojascastro.
A complex 1m x 1m frame of decorated amate. The cut-out patterns are made from bark fibers of mora (Morus celtidifolia) added on top of a white sheet. All the webbing in the margins is made by adhering one strip of fiber at a time. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
Amatera Yolanda Jiménez making a sheet of amate by beating the cooked fibers of the herbaceous plant tule (Typha domingensis) at her workshop in San Pablito, Puebla, Mexico. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
One of the youngest members of the Santos family adding decorations to a frame of amate. The colored strips are obtained by dyeing bleached fibers with anilines. Photo credit: James Ojascastro.
Shaman using sheets of cut-out paper to arrange an offering to Señor del Monte during the ritual of El Costumbre. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
Amate workshop in San Pablito, Puebla, Mexico. To improve their sales, artisans add cut-out patterns, paintings, and embroidery to their frames. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
Nzahki (spirits) cut from sheets of amate de mora. Photo credit: James Ojascastro.
Amate vendor in the center of Pahuatlán. Although amate makers are usually middle-aged people, elderly women usually are the ones who sell amate in the streets of Pahuatlán, the biggest village close to San Pablito, Puebla, Mexico. Photo credit: Cekouat León.
PI: James Ojascastro
Collaborator: Cekouat León
Location of Research: San Pablito (Puebla), Nahá and Lacanhá Chansayab (Chiapas), Mexico
Host Institution: Missouri Botanical Garden
Cekouat Elim León Peralta
Top banner image: Bookmarks made of cut-out patterns from dyed amate de mora (Morus celtidifolia). Photo credit: Cekouat León.
