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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY PUBLICATION NO. 6 



El Puerto is located 3 km. from Tzintzuntzan on 

 the Patzcuaro road, on the west side just at the sum- 

 mit of the pass. 



Cerrito Colorado, the '"little red hill," formerly 

 called Rosa Castilla, is the most important of the red 

 earth mines. It is an area of several hectares, badly 

 eroded into gullies and ditches, 4 km. from Tzint- 

 zuntzan on the east side of the road to Patzcuaro. This 

 area was purchased bv the Comunidad Indif^ena for 

 $50 in April 1923 from the Sra. Maria Soledad To- 

 var, widow of Villanueva. and owner of the Hacienda 

 Sanabria, which was later broken up to form the ejido 

 of Tzintzuntzan. 



The common term mina ("mine") is fairly 

 accurate to describe the quarries from which 

 earth is taken. Over the surface is a layer of 

 soil from 1 to 2 meters deep which is of no 

 value. Hence, the common technique is to begin 

 cutting away at the side of a gully where the 

 vein or layer of desired earth is exposed, little 

 by little working horizontally into the ground. 

 At the Cerrito Colorado, where the process was 

 most closely observed, the exploitable earth 

 forms a hard and resistant vein a little more 

 than a meter thick. By means of straight picks, 

 an iron point hafted to a meter-long wooden 

 handle, the miner little by little chops away at 

 the ground until he has a small pile of clods, 

 which are placed on a piece of burlap and car- 

 ried outside to be dumped into a gunny sack. 

 This process is repeated until the desired num- 

 ber of sacks are half -filled; full sacks weigh too 

 much to be packed on animals. These are hung, 

 one on each side of the pack animal, be it mule 

 or burro, in the fashion of saddlebags, and car- 

 ried to the home of the potter. 



PREPARATION OF CLAYS 



In the patios of many homes there is a cob- 

 bled floor exposed to the sunlight, the asolea- 

 dero, on which the earth is spread to dry for a 

 day or two. Other families with less space often 

 spread out their clay in the street in front of 

 the house, carefully picking it up each night to 

 prevent theft. The initial crushing is done with 

 well-rounded granite boulders up to 30 cm. in 

 diameter. The potter, kneeling, rolls the boul- 

 der over and over the clods until they are reduc- 

 ed to a fairly fine powder. Formerly the uni- 

 versal following step consisted in grinding all 

 of this powder on a metate, of the standard kit- 

 chen type, thus reducing it to a very fine dust. 



Don Bernardino Morales and Doiia Andrea Me 

 dina, for example, stick to the ancient, exhaust 

 ing method, claiming that it results in a harder 

 more compact pottery. Natividad, Dofia An 

 drea's daughter, has fallen for the new system 

 which consists in passing the powder through a 

 fine sieve, to obtain the dust. This system saves 

 a great deal of work, and is far less exhausting. 

 Older potters are very critical, and feel that the 

 traditional quality of Tzintzuntzan ware is suf- 

 fering. Natividad agrees that the metate grind- 

 ing, when well done, is superior but that it is 

 so exhausting that few persons can do it proper- 

 ly, and that the average of powdered earth 

 from the metate is no finer than that from the 

 sieve. Whatever the merits of the two systems, 

 it may be noted that sieved pottery commands 

 a price equal to that of the metate pottery, and 

 that it seems to hold up equally well. 



Figure 9. — Wooden tray. 



Probably a good deal of folklore is bound 

 up with the earths and various proportions used 

 in mixing. Thus, white earth from La Capilla 

 is considered indispensable for the largest pots, 

 and is mixed with red earth from Cerrito Colo- 

 rado. White earth from Piilicho is considered 

 almost as good as that from La Capilla. White 

 earth from El Panteon, Santiago, or El Madrofio 

 may be used in the smaller pots. The red earths 

 seem to have less distinctive qualities, though 

 that from Cerrito Colorado would undoubtedly 

 win in a popularity contest. Red earth from 

 La Mesa is usually used for the smaller pots, 

 mixed with any of the white earths.^ 



The powdered earths are measured in an oval 

 wooden tray (fig. 9) about 5 by 20 by 30 cm., 

 of the type made in Quiroga. For the largest 

 pots Natividad mixes a level tray of red Ce- 

 rrito Colorado earth with a heaping tray of 



2 The slight chemical differences shown by the red and 

 white clays suggest that the proportions used, and even the 

 use of two clays, is governed by tradition rather than tech- 

 nological factors. 



