The journey from the ancient city of Oaxaca, Mexico, north to the Valley of Tehuacán is a lesson in desert lifestyle.

Come along as we search for native peoples using native materials.

From the local weavers using the local dyes to the harvest of native desert bounty.

Major funding for The Desert       Speaks was provided by The Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation.

Additional funding was provided by Desert Program Partners.

And by Arizona State Parks.

(music) No event changed Latin America more than when the conquistador Hernán Cortez stepped off his Spanish warship onto the shores of Mexico in 1521.

The landscape he saw there was completely alien to him.

He was very familiar with the commerce and warfare he saw.

It had been going on for thousands of years.

All this would change with the technology and crops he brought with him.

All of which can be found in Mexico today.

Cortez landed in Veracruz.

After conquering the Aztec capitol of Mexico City, he turned south.

Within a year he had traveled to Oaxaca, claimed it for himself and become the Marquez of the Oaxaca Valley.

One route to Oaxaca from Mexico City passes through the Valley of Tehuacán where Cortez encountered his first New World desert landscape.

He was as awestruck as we are.

I find it odd that between two rainforests or jungly coasts here in the middle of Mexico, the Valley of Tehuacán is a desert and it's a real desert, with less rain than my hometown of Tucson, Arizona.

Well, the Valley of Tehuacán is a deep depression created by the rift that is the opening of the earth by geological movements.

And the thing, the depression in the hole and bounded by mountains, it just, these mountains just block the passage of humid air into the valley.

So they keep the rain from getting in here.

Yes.

And I take it that that allows the cactus to grow and so we see, in this tropical setting, thousands and thousands and thousands of cactusólike nowhere in the world.

Well, the Valle de Tehuacán sure looks like a desert to me.

Palo verdes, big cacti, columnar cacti like columns.

Very dry.

How much do you think it rains here?

Probably 300 millimeters, that is twelve inches.

That's the same as Tucson gets up in the North American desert.

But these huge cacti somehow survive on that teeny amount of rain.

Well, as they do in most of the deserts of North America.

Very little amount of rain and widely spaced in time.

This grove of chicos, and there must be, my gosh, there must be 30 of them in an area, oh, ten feet across.

They all look to be the same age.

They are.

Indeed they look all the same girth.

They germinated after an extraordinary period of rainfall in a given year many, many years ago.

So 70 or 700 years ago, something like that.

Something in between.

Conditions were absolutely right.

And look here's a fruit and these hundreds of seeds in this fruit somehow made it down to the ground, germinated and enough survived to make this neat little amphitheater of chicos.

Yes.

Usually they don't survive.

Yeah.

Or germinate and then die.

But they need this period of high rainfall and persistent humidity through several years.

And then they're going to reproduce again with these seeds.

You know there's some fruits up there I'd sure like to get.

You think there are any children around here we can bribe to shimmy up a cactus.

I know they're good fruit.

I've eaten them.

Yes, they're delicious.

Delicious and the seeds are also.

Look it and the color isn't all that bad either.

Let's try it.

Mmmm.

Delicious.

It's good.

I love it.

Really nice.

The Valle de Tehuacán- Cuicatlán has about ten percent of the whole flora of Mexico and a third of those are endemic only found in this region.

Well, no wonder I'm having a hard time remembering them all.

They go on and on and you feel as if there cannot be any odder place in the world.

And then boom you're out of this kind of cactus.

Something changes, the substrate changes, the soils change, God changed his mind, I don't know what it is.

And you're in nothing, there's none.

And then all of sudden there's a whole bunch again but it's a different kind.

Yes.

I always find it very difficult to understand what's controlling this very subtle distribution of plants and why some cacti attain very high densities in some places and the next hillside there's none.

On their galleons the Spanish brought mangos originally from India.

And after searching for just the right place in this desert, they found this valley called Cuicatlán.

Here, we're in a region of four microclimates.

Around here is semi-arid with an annual rainfall of 14 inches.

There is just the right amount to produce tropical plants.

Since there are nine rivers around Cuicatlán, there are many irrigation canals.

Mangos arrived here in Mexico in 1779.

The Spanish brought them but the mango itself comes from Asia.

My goodness.

It is very good.

So this is the banana mango.

It's not really banana.

Mmm.

It's very, very sweet, nice texture, not stringy.

Salt, lime and chile.

Okay.

And so they'll stick like a lollipop, they'll put a little stick in here, cut it up, put salt, lime and chile on it and eat it like a snack.

Like a lollipop or a Popsicle.

So this is real popular among school children.

It's certainly a more healthful snack than I think what our children get in the United States.

I'm going to suggest this for them.

The wealth of the region began with mangos.

The Spanish brought many crops with them.

But one essential ingredient they found locally.

One that took perfect advantage of the desert climate.

Oh, Alberto, look.

Here's those salinas, the old salt works, date back from, well, you tell me.

3,000 years ago?

Many thousand years ago, yes.

Well, I wouldn't want to try living without salt and I guess a few million indigenous people in the 9th century decided the same thing.

Salt and water are the basis of most humankind struggle.

So there are words for salt, words for water, that are the two basic needs of humankind.

I am Jervacio Salás at your service.

I am a campesino who's been working here for several years.

All of the salt works date back to our ancestors.

We still do it the same way, letting the heat of the sun cook away the liquid and harvesting the salt that is left behind.

This water that has just been poured into the pans is called agua limón because it's lemon colored, green.

And as this evaporation process goes, it changes color.

So at the beginning minerals play a major role in giving the water its color.

Here in the center of Mexico, it's a hundred miles to another source of salt.

This salt here had to be worth gold.

Oh, looks like I've got to jump down.

It's worth gold indeed.

The possession of this resource will give you total control of the area.

The salina, the salt, along with water has driven cycles of conquest.

So this little ten-acre site was worth fighting for.

The control of the salinas, along with water resources in the valley, just shield the conquest by different groups.

The last one were the Aztecs and we sort of started a war against the Popolocas.

Just for this.

Their demise, yes.

The Valley of Tehuacán is one of the first places where we have documentation of human habitation in the Americas.

There is evidence that humans were here more than 11,000 years ago.

So they experienced a very different climate and vegetation when arriving to this area.

They were hunter-gatherers.

These people was replaced by successive cultures that were later conquered by the Aztecs that were seeking new vassal states that will provide them with new products like pitayas or the rich salinas that were so important to the government of the social structure of the Aztecs, the last stage of pre-Hispanic history.

Then the Spaniards came into America and initiated the conquest.

This is the era we are now living in.

Whenever I see a great church, a grand church like this is, or convent, I always like to ask not who is said to have built it but who really built it.

And in this case.Throughout Mexico it's very common to find large churches.

Churches were imposing constructions that attracted this dense population of Indians into townships.

The convent of Santo Domingo de Guzmán located 50 miles north of the city of Oaxaca, started it's construction in 1541, 20 years after the full disembarkment in Mexico of the Cortez army in the Port Veracruz.

The Dominican friars are responsible for the construction.

However, the real constructors were the artisans and the skills of the Mixteco people.

It looks like a European building.

However, it is unmistakably Mixtecan.

It's a Mixtecan building and you can see that in the details.

The Spanish clergy brought their sacramental wine with them.

They also brought the knowledge of distillation and applied it to a plant native to the New World.

Agaves are used to produce pulcay or mezcal or tequila.

The species are different and the management of the plants, the processing of the plants, is different.

Tequila is much more sophisticated in the production while mezcal is rudimentary.

Mezcal starts with mature plants of agave.

They are inspected.

When they are ready to flower, the flower is cut so all the sugars will stay in the plant.

And one or two years later, they come and cut all the leaves, take the penca, that is the core of the plant, into the factory, into the morienda or a palenque.

But this is a round area where a big basalt stone is pulled by a horse.

The horse goes round and round and the cabezas of agave are reduced to a fibrous stalk until it's juice.

And she's taken into the back.

The master mezcalero decides when to add some water to allow the fermentation to start.

The mush is taken into the still that is fired by wood.

It's a very rudimentary still and that will allow distraction of the alcohol from all this mash.

The first few gallons that come out are the best quality in this tub.

Then, second will be second-rate mezcal where the third will be returned back to the still for the next batch.

The master mezcalero then decides how to blend the different fractions of alcohol that have come out of the still.

And then they decide to bottle it immediately as Mezcal Blanco or put it into vials of oak that will produce Mezcal Añejo that has this tan color characteristic of añejo.

The Spanish made a little money off their production of mezcal but some found their fortune in a tiny insect.

The cochineal is a minute insect, a parasite on the prickly pear.

He produces a natural red dye that chemically is an amino acid.

Historically, this pigment is used to color textiles.

The cochineal itself is a round shape; it secretes a white powdery wax-like substance, which protects it from the harsh desert environment.

The cochineal as it grows on the prickly pear is actually covered with silk.

To produce the dye it's first necessary, very carefully, to remove the silk.

It's hard to do it here because it's a delicate creature.

Here comes the silk and then when that's removed the poor beast is crushed and the result is a potent dye.

The historical significance of the cochineal dates to pre-Hispanic times when the Indians discovered this pigment while working with the prickly pear.

Its uniqueness stems from the many different shades of red the animal can produce.

When the Spaniards arrived they converted this lowly insect into a huge commercial, industrial product.

It became the third largest export, second only to gold and silver, thus generating large revenues for Spain.

There are two small towns near Oaxaca that specialize in dyes for textiles.

A few families in those towns use only natural dyes.

Specifically they use the cochineal as one of their pigments as well as other plants that produce unique colors.

I was here in Teotitlán de Valle in Oaxaca 30 years ago and even then it was known as a center for textile weaving, rugs, blankets, stuff like that.

Good quality.

And from 50 years to now they are being known anywhere in the world as I've heard.

Well, it's got to be pretty international here because if you read the signs along the street it says 'we sell blankets,' or it says 'English spoken.'

What does Teotitlán mean?

Teotitlán means the place of gods.

And if you look around, it's a really beautiful setting.

I believe that it is the wealthiest indigenous community in all of the state of Oaxaca and I can look at the countryside and see why.

But I understand that the weaving has changed somewhat in that there's a small group of weavers who decided to go back to native colors.

This is the color that comes from the cochineal.

Here it is mixed with a little bit of blue so that it looks darker.

The cochineal is beautiful.

Splendid.

The color's brilliant.

But there's nothing romantic about the preparation of it.

It's just plain hard work.

She's just been struggling just to grind it, the giant cochineal.

We are all a part of nature and we must find a balance so we don't end up destroying it.

That's why we use plants that are renewable resources.

they grow back.

We don't cut the cactus off at the root so that in following years we can harvest them again.

The cochineal is another source of income for the people.

Here we have colors originating from the cochineal that are combined with yellow from other plants to obtain different shades of red.

This fiber needs to soak in the dye for at least an hour for the dye to fix itself to the yarn.

The longer it soaks the more permanent the stain.

This process is very slow, very labor intensive.

Because of this people stopped using natural dyes.

They took the easier route using artificial coloring.

This color can be obtained from this plant, the perico plant.

They cut it off but leave the root so that it can grow again next year.

This moss produces these colors here.

This leaf is used as a fixer, so that the color sticks.

It is an acidic plant, whose leaves we bring from Matias Romero, another Oaxacan town.

We call these rocks but they're not, they are processed from indigo plants.

The beans from the huizache are collected, pulverized and added to water in this iron pot.

It produces different shades depending on the quantity of dye used.

We depend on nature for our existence.

We choose not to use artificial chemicals.

When we are working we can be eating at the same time.

Look, if I had dangerous chemicals on my skin I could never touch food.

It is a more natural way of life just as our ancestors lived.

This pattern is rich with significance from our native culture.

This design is called the path to the under world.

In our culture we don't have a hell, we have an underworld where the dead live.

So this is the path into that world.

These red colors come from cochineal, and the blue is indigo.

In this other piece the monarch butterfly is also dyed with cochineal.

This is the most popular dye because it produces a very pure tone.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans the people of middle America wove fabrics with a huge variety of fibers some of them very fine.

They also used native dyes.

Today a few groups continue to use native dyes.

But now they use wool, it's easier to obtain, easier to process and easier to weave.

Spanish and European technology now dominates the countryside but here and there in Mexico indigenous people still cling to traditional ways.

Today Oaxaca is famous for its delicious food and local craftsmanship.

And rightly so.

But did you know that these traditions are thousands of years old and have their origin in ancient Zapotecan culture.

All right here goes.

Join us next time on         The Desert Speaks as we eat our way through Oaxaca, Mexico.

Major funding for The Desert       Speaks was provided by The Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation.

Additional funding was provided by Desert Program Partners.