EMBROIDERING AN IDENTITY
Text of the Conference distributed by Ma. Immaculate Puente Andrés, Director of Lutisuc in the Audience of the Sonora Center of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, day March 28, 2007, within the framework of the exhibition “Sonora, luces de tierra incógnita. Pueblos indígenas del Noroeste de México” (Indigenous groups of the Northwest of Mexico).
(Initial Consideration) In this opportunity it is not our intention to elaborate properly a report of activities and to circumscribe to numbers and graphs of performance, but to make a reflection about the experience of communitarian work with the Pima Group.
In which moment was Lutisuc born and in what moment we decided to incline us by the creation of an artisan line, alternate to the traditional one, that contributed to recover the identity of the Pima group and help them in their difficult economic situation?
Lutisuc is born in 1997 as the dream of a group of professional women decided to put our grain of sand in the preservation of the indigenous culture of Sonora. We knew about the official institutions that worked in this area, but as civil society we decided to commit ourselves with the culture of the indigenous groups of our land. Also we had a responsibility.
We began working with the Yaqui group established in Hermosillo and the seri communities in the coast, and later we wanted to expand beyond the limits of the city, looking for some of the ethnic groups who needed greater attention. Basing on the information of investigators of INAH and Popular Cultures, we decided to know the Pima culture, in danger of extinction.
Along two years, 1997 and 1998, we potentially made several trips of exploration to the Mountain range of Yécora, knowing its traditional Easter celebrations, visiting its communities, locating leader women with the support of P. David Beaumont, Franciscan missionary who had been several years working with them, looking for information of this culture, etc.
We asked people in general about the indigenous groups of Sonora and nobody remembered Pimas, nor their location or their culture, much less knew a symbol that represented them.
We realized the necessity to rescue and reinforce their cultural identity. We presented ourselves in the Franciscan parochial house of Yécora and when we raised our interest, as an association, to support to the Pima group, the answer was clear: the mayor necessity was to recover their culture and their self-esteem as O,Ob group.
From the first moment our objective was contributing to the recovery of the Pima cultural identity and the promotion of the social development, impelling the self-management and the self-determination of the Pima group.
And, thus conscious that the work that we initiated would take us years, we began to work… without concerning the difficulties and inconvenience of the length and dangerous trip to the Mountain range, traveling monthly and sometimes two or three times per month, according the necessity. (1)
WORKSHOPS OF PIMA ARTISTIC STIMULATION:
Summers of 1999 and 2000
We began with two workshops of artistic stimulation made with children of the communities of Pilares and Kipor, in summer of 1999, and Maycoba and Yécora, in summer of the 2000, directed by the recognized plastic artist Marisela Moreno Cano. Through these workshops, of a month of duration, the children discovered the color and in small blanket fabric linen cloths and murals of 2 by 2 meters, they drew their legends and traditions, their yearnings and their fears, their environment and their celebrations. (2)
The objective was women, the method to reach them were children. We had visited several women in their homes. We asked them what they did in their leisure time, they answered to us that they liked to embroider. They showed their napkins to us with showy flowers of colors, identical to others, that exist all over Mexico. In these visits the idea of the Pima embroidering was born… why not take advantage of this interest of women in embroidering, creating designs that represented their own culture?
Thus, while the children painted, Marisela also had the order to ask the women to show her their caves. There we found old paintings of small men, coyotes, a kind of man-ape that seemed pascolas, circles, small flowers and different geometric figures. With these elements we created the outset designs that the women began to embroider, with a little skepticism, other little of astonishment and hope.
EMBROIDERING WORKSHOPS.
Years 1999 to 2004
Five women began embroidering the designs that previously, in the city of Hermosillo, the integral volunteers of Lutisuc traced to fabrics. It was an initial effort made by far enthusiasm and much patience. The first embroiderings, with new techniques and new material, were irregular and something clumsy, they seemed made by small children; nevertheless, they transmitted such enthusiasm and hope that the same volunteers of Lutisuc were acquiring them to motivate them.
The number of interested Pima women was increasing. To year 2000, during the second workshop with the children, there were already 26 women that registered in the embroidering workshops.
Knowing this, we decided to follow this line reinforcing its quality and finishing, looking for a fabric blanket of export quality and the best thread of cotton that existed in the market. At the same moment, in the city of Hermosillo we began a work of diffusion of new crafts, promoting the embroidering as an expression of the Pima culture and trying to create a market nest, within the fair trade scheme.
From the beginning, we maintained contact with them establishing three nuclei: Juan Diego, in Yécora, Maycoba and Kipor. According to a count which we made in the 2004, the Pima population of Sonora was around 800 inhabitants, distributed between these three establishments and numerous towns and ranches around them.
The activity of the embroiderings woke up a surprising interest in the Pima women. To year 2001, 95 women integrated the workshops with whom a constant communication stayed. Every month we traveled to the Mountain range, sometimes every 15 days. A little later, a new member of Lutisuc joined, Alejandrina Guerrero Miranda, experienced tutor which that dedicated full time, and in a professional way, to teach to the craftswomen one better quality and to give finishing to their work; needing almost immediately of an assistant, since we did not have the amount of supplies of embroiderings that continuously were being received from the part of the Pima women.
In summer of 2002 in these three nuclei of work, was created a workshop dedicated to seam in sewing machines. It was another step in the process of learning this crafting, in spite of the difficulty of not counting on an own place where to place the first 8 machines to sew that we took to the Mountain range. At the same time, it was taught to them how to create a doll with traditional suit, which reflected its personality.
Also we worked in recovering the traditional Pima dress, taking testimonies and memories from the oldest women. From the beggining, the elaboration of the dolls worked as the crafts of embroidering had worked.
In year 2003 we looked for resources to construct buildings where the qualification could be given in a more suitable way. Until this moment the instruction and meetings had been outdoors, having like challenge of the cold winter, the strong sun of summer and numerous rains of June to September, as well as the deficiency of basic public services in the communities (electric energy, potable water, drainage, etc).
In August 2003, the Artisan Centers of Kipor and Juan Diego were inaugurated, built following the traditional Pima way and equipped with powerful solar panels, water deposits, services and furniture necessary for a good stay of the teacher and sufficient space to teach in a suitable way. The women contributed marinates for the construction, the government the wood of the ceiling and Lutisuc the rest of the materials, thanks to the support of international organisms like CARUMANDA, of Spain, national institutions like the State Government through CECOP (State Advice for the Agreement of Public Work), the Woman Institute of Sonora, National Monte de Piedad and the municipal authorities of Yécora, among others. In year 2006 the Artisan Center of Maycoba was risen as a result of an inter institutional agreement of the Commission from Attention to the Indigenous Towns of the State.
In the centers of Kipor and Juan Diego, in addition to the crafts in embroidering, we could organize other workshops destined to the rescue and preservation of the Pima culture: pottery and traditional basketwork directed by old women Pimas who transmitted the ancestral techniques; familiar orchards; wood crafts for Pima men and the elaboration of a lottery and memorama in Pima language, where children participated again.
A legal figure was searched ,that gave legal personality, title and property to the groups of the Centers, constituting itself in a UAIM (Industrial Agricultural Unit of the Woman) of the Ejido Maycoba. Little by little, enthusiasm increased in women of different workshops and mainly with embroidering, appearing gradually a positive change in their attitude. If in first meetings silence and passive acceptance were their answer, now they found out about work or chose how they wanted to see repaid their effort, and when foreign people asked them what was their profession, they answered very confident: we embroider. The pride of their work had been really created.
An important event, that it served so much as detonator as propping of the project, was the participation, with the support of the Woman Institute of Sonora, in the National Aid of Crafts of the Indigenous Woman (3), where a knapsack with Pima embroidering was selected to be the official briefcase in the Meetings of the APEC (Economic Council of the River basin of the Pacific) where Mexico was host in 2002, in the cities of Acapulco and Guadalajara. There were 500 knapsacks those that were distributed between delegates of 21 countries that went to the event. This first order maintained Pima women embroidering intensely during the summer of 2002, in spite of strong storms of the Mountain range and the belief that the needles could attract rays. The Pima craft of embroidering had crossed border and people of diverse parts of the world carried on her backs a knapsack with Pima embroidering and designs. A small text that accompanied the knapsacks indicated its origin, geographic location and cultural identification.
This first experience with an order served, among other objectives, to strengthen: the capacity of commitment, the work organized in team, the responsibility to fulfill in time, the first control of standard quality, the recognition of this craft in an international forum, the Pima pride and cultural affirmation.... And it opened the door for orders in the future.
Consolidation Stage: 2004 to 2007
To this moment, after 6 years of embroidering and having reached a high quality, to be able to count on a market that asked for this craft and with a real interest of the women in continuing with the embroidering, we continued to the following stage. Perhaps the stage of the more risk, most difficulty but most important: to leave the project in their hands, to enable them in all the process of production so that they were really self managing and they could take their own determinations. Lutisuc would stay as a support and an endorsement. The project had matured, the Pima women considered themselves and were craftswomen; the moment had arrived for enabling them in the complete process of production, to really consolidate the project. There were months of arduous work since not only it was teaching the technical aspects, also there were intense sessions on human development, self-esteem, organization and basic slight knowledge of administration. By own choice, each craftswoman decided if she became qualified in all the phase of artisan production or she stayed just in one phase. One of each four took the determination to advance in the process and the others would lean in them for the finishing of their crafts.
In autumn 2004, the phase of consolidation in the community of Juan Diego began in the town of Yécora; in spring of 2006 in the community of Kipor and since February of 2007 it is being developed in Maycoba.
In June 2005, when finishing this consolidation phase in Juan Diego, the Pima coordinator, an indigenous woman who never had left her community, could present/display this project in the state meeting of Sagarpa (Secretariat of Agriculture, Cattle ranch, Rural Development, Fishing and Feeding) in the city of Hermosillo, advancing to the regional phase in Chihuahua, where the project was selected as successful experience and represented the Northwest Region in a national meeting in Chiapas in November of that year. (4)
The Pima woman was discovering and demonstrating that she ahead had a future with her crafts of embroidering.
Currently, Lutisuc supports them so that they buy fabrics and all extras. They learned all the production process and are able to calculate the sale price, on the basis of the used materials and the valuation of their own work.
If in the beginning of these workshops the women of Juan Diego as they visited town did not speak with the “people of reason” as they talk about non Pima persons, now they are going to ask to the municipality a public space where to sell their embroidering in the holidays or in tourist season. Their creativity has been growing and have introduced new models and designs, understanding very well that those designs are unique, that represent them and reinforce their identity like t Pima group.
To this date, the three big population centers have already their own artisan center equipped with electric and mechanical sewing machines, of familiar and industrial type, tables, chairs, shelves and blackboards, scissors, hoops to embroider, fabric, thread and needles. A complete workshop.
From the beginning and even in the first year of the consolidation stage, Lutisuc provides all the necessary materials to them for the qualification. Later we support them in presenting a proyect that facilitates de purchase of materials for their crafts. (5)
They administer their own expenses, produce and sell their crafts, directly in their homes, the artisan centers or outside the community through their coordinator.
Group Coordinators: “Cascade Qualification”
To facilitate the learning and at the same time to impel the self-management and the sustainability, from the beginning each group had a coordinator selected from between the same craftswomen and by themselves, in a democratic way and on a certain period. She, along with their aid, are the ones that at the beginning of the project were in charge to distribute and to gather the works of embroidering, to review the quality of the pieces, to notify of a meeting or qualification, to maintain updated the center, etc. From the consolidation phase of the project, the group coordinators are those that teach the craftswomen in the complete process of elaboration of their crafts. Lutisuc has taught them to teach and this effort leans with an economic allowance so that they take with commitment their role to teach what they learned.
According to the programming, these indigenous coordinators travel periodically to Hermosillo to receive qualification in Lutisuc’s. When returning to the communities they are committed to teach to the other craftswomen what they learned in the city. In Hermosillo not only they increase their skill in the machines and the finishing, also they know the stores, the craftswomen of other groups, the suppliers and the popular crafts; they have traveled and participated in events, etc. It is a qualification that opens their perspective and them integrates them to the present world without losing their identity.
Every two or three months the teacher of Lutisuc travels to the communities to supervise them. It is our version of the system of cascade qualification that involves in an important way the indigenous craftswomen and prepares them for a future of self management and determination.
“Rolling Shopkeeper”, craftswomen support system
One of the best successes than we had at the beginning to motivate the Pima women that joined the project, that continued with the learning, that were committed to give in time their work and were improving quality, was a system pay their effort, creative and adapted to their necessities.
We observed that the prices of basic products in the Mountain range were superior to those in the city, perhaps by the distance and the difficulty of transportation, and that in certain months of the year, mainly at the end of the dry season and the months of intense cold in winter, the food was scarce in the Pima families. As a way to resist this situation we created the “rolling shopkeeper”, a system of repayment in supplies that protected women incomes to the productive activities and did not invade the sphere of Pima man power, taking into account the inequality of gender in the families and the high indices of drug abuse.
All the embroidering crafts had a concrete price, fixed altogether between Lutisuc and the Pima women, that the coordinator wrote in the record of each embroiderer. The majority did not know how to read and write, but remembered very well what they had worked, how much was worth each embroidering and the total amount of money that corresponded to them. The coordinator, or her aid, kept record of what they were giving, having good care that the payment agreed with the amount that each woman had in their mind. Although they got to be more than 100 women, each one of them always has her own file in Lutisuc, with an individualized and continuous following.
Twice a year we took the rolling shopkeeper to the Mountain range, turning in tons of basic foods the accumulated work in the records. In Hermosillo we obtained donations and very good prices buying in large quantities, DIF-Sonora supported us with a driver and a truck for the transportation and Lutisuc paid the expenses of the diesel engine. When arriving to the communities, the women were waiting for us and came with wheelbarrows to gather proudly the product of their work. The system was easy to understand, there were no injustices and the enthusiasm was stimulated work since the reward was almost immediate and prices of articles were preferential.
This way, the feeding to the family at difficult times was guaranteed and the possibility that men of their families spent the money in the bar was prevented.
We took the first rolling shopkeeper in December of2000 and last in July of the 2005, correponding with the beginning of the consolidation phase and properly as part of the process of self management and determination. This system allowed us to strengthen the project and to maintain it by several years, the sufficient time so that it matured and it could continue to the following phase: the one to be leaving the complete project in the hands of craftswomen.
Creating a trading nest
At first, once received the material in Hermosillo and carried out the control paperwork of each craftswoman, we proceeded to wash the pieces and to give finishing to the crafts, put labels, to store it and leave ready for its sale.
Here we found a new challenge: finding or creating a trading nest so that the project was really productive and spilled benefits for the craftswomen. We were aware of the difficulties of the productive projects in the commercialization, reason why we needed to create buyers.
We used several strategies: exhibitions, conferences, presence at artisan markets in congresses, forums and events of cultural type. Also we designed the website giving much importance to the Link of the Catalogue, flyers and pamphlets, bazaars, with support in many occasions of local mass media (press, radio and television).
It was necessary to sensitize the society about the Pima embroidering, to emphasize its high quality since it was a fabric and thread of cotton of the best quality, special designs based on the drawings of its caves and the valuable work of an indigenous woman. We analyzed and we chose pieces meant for home that, within the present tendencies of the market, had a special ethnic character.
On the other hand, we also emphasized the aspect of solidarity towards this group that fought for its cultural identity and that lived in difficult conditions of poverty. It was a worthy way to support these embroiderers who really were making an effort to leave their poverty and to reconstruct their self-esteem.
The society in general responded with far more enthusiasm of the expected. Educative institutions and commercial companies ordered knapsacks with Pima embroidering for their congresses, official organisms began to give these pieces for their distinguished visitors, inclusively quilts and cushions like wedding presents were used... and also we could find sale spots at local and national levels. (6)
This enthusiasm resulted in greater work for the craftswomen and the reinforcement of own crafts that identified the Pima culture.
Positioning in cultural scene
One of the greatest accomplishments was the positioning of the Pima crafts of embroidering within the cultural view of Mexico. The Pima craftswomen did not exist before, same as their works. Today, they are considered in events and artisan forums in equality of conditions than craftswomen of other indigenous groups. They have gained their place. The Pima design are known and recognized and could also extend to the Pima women of Chihuahua. The Pima group has a face in the world. (7) It is very satisfying to have been part of that process.
Summary and phases of the Pima Program
In 1998, we calculated about 10 years of work for the integral program of rescue of the Pima culture. A program that included several projects focused to the common objective to support to the Pima group. Integral, because it includes activities directed to childhood, men and women, although with special emphasis in these last ones, focused to its culture and that contributes to the improvement of their life conditions. A program that has been developed in the following stages:
*** Initial: 1998-1999, of first contacts, with attendance to its welfare and festivities, in addition to workshops of artistic stimulation for children, and the sprouting of the productive project of conformation and elaboration of embroidering crafts, with designs based on the petrogliphs and paintings of its caves, directed to Pima women.
*** Implementation: 2000-2004. Reinforcement of the embroidering crafts, creation of a trade nest. Accomplishment of other cultural preservation workshops and the construction in co-participation of two Artisan Centers for hosting of activities in benefit of the Pima group.
*** Consolidation: 2004-2007. To obtain the self-management of groups of craftswomen and sprouting and impulse of women generating agents of change within the communities. It is the period of the cascade qualification, where the initial function of Lutisuc is assumed by the own group.
*** Support: 2007-2008. Total empowering of the project of the embroidering crafts from part of the Pima women, causing the interaction of the groups and the organized work. The role of Lutisuc will focus in being advisor, distributing new qualification workshops when the craftswomen ask for it and to be link and connection.
Final reflections
At this moment we felt happy and satisfied with the obtained profits. There were years of intense work with heavy trips to the Mountain range, dodging landslides, frosts, storms… trying to communicate with us with a group that initially only responded us with silence, that distrusted our honesty and did not understand much about embroidering and about that many workshops very well. Today they have understand why and proudly they show their embroidering crafts in Yécora, the artisan centers or the fairs to which they are invited. When asking what their profession is, they answer: we are embroiderers.
This last year, in the summer of 2006, we endorsed the initiative of a group of cultural promoters who looked for contact with the Pima group of Kipor for the creation of a communitarian mural, where the town could express itself. When asking them where they wanted the mural, 90% responded that in Artisan center, since they felt it truly theirs. Between the images that were painted, it is emphasized their traditional celebration of the Yúmare, the houses, the landscape and in an important place cave paintings that are appraised leaving the caves and shaping themselves in the embroidering of women with smiling faces.
Initially our presence in the Mountain range caused astonishment and curiosity, they didn’t know well what we were doing, if we were missioners of some cult, politics in campaign or people who were trying to put an assembly plant. Luckily, the facts were speaking by themselves and little by little the situation was clarified. In addition, we always counted on the support and the confidence of the Franciscan mission, the municipality, the police and its system of radio communication, of the Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Groups and people who we knew throughout the trips and the years. Its support was decisive for the success of the program, as well as the unconditional and patient endorsement of our families, the enthusiasm of the work party and volunteers of Lutisuc, ASHOKA Social Entrepreneurs and so many people and institutions in Hermosillo, of public and private organisms, state, national and international who shared our vision and trusted us resources to carry out the different projects from this program. (8)
From the beginning we have been raising questions and questioning our work: Are we doing well? Is this project really loved by Pima women? Is this workshop really reinforcing their cultural identity? In what does it benefits them? etc. Now the question that troubles us more is… from now on, what follows? After the last phase of the support, will this crafts pass the test of time?
It is difficult but we must accept with humility that this neither is an question that we can answer nor depends on Lutisuc. The project demonstrated to be successful and sustainable, and the Pima craftswomen took control of it warmly, but the final answer... it is into the hands of the new generations of Pima craftswomen.
Ma. Inmaculada Puente Andrés
Director
Referencial notes:
(1) Geographic Situation. The Pimas live in zones with altitudes of up to 1800 meters over sea level, in communities in Sierra Madre Occidental, of 28°30' North latitude and between 108° and 109° of west longitude, in the municipalities of Yécora to the east of the State from Sonora, and Temósachic to the West of the State of Chihuahua. In Sonora, it has been acceded to that zone for a little more than 20 years by an asphalted interstate highway, of two tracks that go into in the mountain range. Yécora, is 280 kilometers away from Hermosillo, the State Capital, route that is made in 5 hours since its complicated road.
(2) In addition to numerous individual paintings, 6 murals were made: Two are in the Communitarian Centers of the Kipor and Juan Diego respectively, one donated and forms part of the heap of CDI (National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Groups) in its collection on cultures of the Indian Groups of Northwest Mexico; another one is in the new facilities of Home UNACARI of DIF; assembler of Ford Company in Hermosillo exhibits itself one more in the main wall of the executive dining room of Motor Plant, these two last by donations made; and the last one is held by Lutisuc Cultural Association I.A.P. in order to contribute it for temporal exhibitions.
(3) National Aid of Crafts for meetings of the APEC* on Women Mexico 2002 summoned by the National Institute of the Women in April of 2002 (*Asian Pacific Economical Council)
(4) 10th National meeting of Interchange of Successful Experiences Rural Sustainable Development summoned by SAGARPA made in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas in November of 2005.
(5) In calls that grant resources as support, for donation or they offer them preferential rates like loan: Program of support to the Municipal Cultures and Communitarian PACMYC, Productive Projects of CAPTAINS State Commission from Support to the Indigenous Groups of Sonora.
(6) To this date, there are 8 points of sale within the State as in different cities of the country. Sometimes it has also been participated in fairs of altruistic support organized in Spain by Carumanda.
(7) Invitations to the craftswomen to participate in: V Artisan Fair of Social Companies Expo FONAES Acapulco 2006, VI National Encounter of Creative Dreams and Realities INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN ART March of 2007, Regional Meeting of DICONSA 2007, among others. In addition, Lutisuc has made cultural events for the diffusion of the Indigenous culture in Sonora, where Pima culture has special relevance, such as: 2004: Participation in the Exhibition “the Memory of Rocks” about the Pima Group, in the Museum of Sonora of Center INAH.2005: Organization of the Sonora Exhibition, “Luces de tierra incógnita. Pueblos Indígenas del Noroeste de México”, Spain 2005: Accomplishment of the First Exhibition of the Pima Culture in the Town of Yécora, municipal head of the Pima region 2002, 2004, 2005, participation in the Conferences Border Health “Information for the action” Border Health: For Information Action organized by the Binational Office of Health in Arizona, US, in communitarian health and organization and International indigenous groups.
(8): International: ASHOKA Social Entrepreneurs and Global Giving of US; National CARUMANDA of Spain
National: Government of the State of Sonora through: CECOP (State Advice for the Agreement of Public Projects), Institute of Woman of Sonora, DIF Sonora (State System for the Integral Development of the Family) and Office of the judge general advocate of Indigenous Subjects; as well as the Secretary of the Agrarian Reformation, SAGARPA Alliance With you PRODESCA, Municipality of Yécora, Sonora, Program PACMYC, Nacional Monte de Piedad, I.A.P., Monte Pío de Sonora, I.A.P., Club Rotario Hermosillo Pitic, Molino La Fama, S.A., Ganfer Foundation, A.C., Regional Cattle Union of Sonora and particular donors. |
