 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
||
 |
|
||
|
|
GLOSSARY Mexico glossary |
transcriptVictoria is originally from Teococuilco de Maros Pérez, Sierra Norte, Oaxaca |
| Section 1 | Doña Vicky, good evening. How long have you been living in Tiltepec? I’ve been living here in San Miguel Tiltepec for 21 years. |
Before living in San Miguel, where did you live? I lived in Tecocuilco, I was born in Tecocuilco, from there my father came here and we came to live here. |
|
Right, and how many brothers and sisters do you have? We’re five, four women and one man. |
|
And does your brother also work in the fields, here in San Miguel? My brother is in Mexico City. |
|
Of your family, who lives in Tiltepec? My father, another sister and I, my other sisters are in Oaxaca, I think they’re in Oaxaca. |
|
So Doña Vicky, what do you think about the changes that have occurred in Tiltepec, from when you were a girl up to the present day? Well...it’s a little difficult for me because everything is changing, it was easier to support oneself before, everything’s going up now. It’s more difficult to support oneself. |
|
How, what for example, Vicky? Well one needs to work much more now, do more work to be able to support oneself. Even the crops produce very little now, they say that they gave much more before. They used to sow a little and they got a lot, and now we have to sow a lot to get anything. |
|
And why do you think this is? Well I think that it’s because of the change in the weather, yes, it’s because of the change in the weather, well, I don’t know. I don’t know why. |
|
But have you always sown corn? We’ve always sown corn, beans and coffee. |
|
Is the cultivation of sugarcane as old as other things? Yes, that too. |
|
| Section 2 | How long has San Miguel Tiltepec had electricity? For nine years, since nine years ago. |
And how has electricity changed the life in Tiltepec? Well yes, the electricity helps us because we can do our work by night now and we can do other things in the day. Before we had to do things early because later on one couldn’t see and it wasn’t possible. Before we just used firewood and pine to see and do things in the night. |
|
How did you use the pine wood to do things at night? Well, we went to find the pine, we split it and then lit it so that we could see to grind [corn] and cook at night. |
|
And how long did the pine last? Well, yes, it lasted but we had to get a lot so that it would last us a week, 15 days, using it in the nights. |
|
But for example a candle lasts a long time, how long does a pine [firebrand] last? Well almost a long as a candle, that’s if you make them big...a metre, a metre lasts the same time as candle. |
|
And now that people don’t use pine, does it stay in the country[side] without being used? Well at the moment it stays out there, people don’t use it now. Well, they do use it but very little. They used a lot before but just a little now because there’s electricity now and we now only use pine to light fires. |
|
And the firewood you use for your stove, what type of wood is it? Well, there are many types of firewood, there isn’t just one sort. There are many types of firewood. |
|
I’ve seen that the women are responsible for going to the country for firewood here in San Miguel. Do you prefer a specific type of firewood, how do you choose it? Well, we take any type of firewood that’s dry; we take any type of wood as long as it’s dry. |
|
But isn’t there a type of wood that’s better then others? Well, just the liquidambar (sweetgum; Hamamelidaceae (witch-hazel) family) and one other type of wood, I don’t know what’s it called. It’s a yellow stick and reddish inside. |
|
Does it light well? Yes, that lights the best, oak is good too. |
|
And do you have to walk far to find firewood now or is it the same as always? Well I think that it’s the same as before because everybody has their piece of land here, close to the village, and they cut little sticks that are dry to bring them back here. |
|
| Section 3 | So everyone has their own land for firewood? Yes, everyone has their own little piece near here especially for firewood. |
And Doña Vicky do you remember how life was in Tiltepec when you were a girl? Was it similar to how it is now for your children? Well...now, no, I don’t know what to tell you because I can’t remember what it was like. |
|
Since when have you had a school here, in Tiltepec? There’s been a school here since before I arrived. I went to school here from the first year, they already had a school and teachers had come here. |
|
And has the school always been in the same place? No, because it was down there before and when they moved the village, well the school moved up here too, now we’re up here. |
|
And were there more children than there are now? Well now there are...around 50 children just in the school I think, because it only goes from first to fourth grade and before, well, there were less. |
|
Has the village been growing? The village is growing because before it was smaller. There are more children and youths now, the village is bigger. |
|
Now that your children are growing up and they’re going to ask for some land, do you think that you have enough land? Well, I suppose that it will be enough for them because it is a quantity of land. |
|
How old are your girls? The oldest is nine years old, the other is six, and the other is four, the baby is ten months old. |
|
Your baby’s going to walk soon. Very soon, she’s only got about two months to go. |
|
We’ll be seeing it soon. Have there been changes in the kitchen, Doña Vicky? Did you use to eat things that you don’t eat anymore? Well, I think that - yes, it has changed because now the people are eating eggs, meat, many things and canned sardines, all that. The old people say that they ate more beans and herbs before, they lived off that, and salsas (sauces) and avocados. That was their food, and mushrooms - of which there’s more than anything here. Everything’s changing now, they’ve forgotten about guias (local name for edible leaves of young plants) and mushrooms; now they’re almost only eating meat. |
|
And do you like meat or do you like the guias and mushrooms more? Well I like the guias and mushrooms more because...well I think that they carry less disease than the meat. With meat, well, one doesn’t know with the meat one buys. One doesn’t know how the animal grew up, where it grew, who killed it, who brought it, what diseases it had, if it died well or alone, who knows? |
|
| Section 4 | I’ve heard that the guias are delicious but I’ve never tried them. How does one prepare them? Well...guias can be prepared in many ways. You can boil them, add salt, garlic and onion making a type of soup. There are other guias that you can boil, then you take them out of the water and squeeze them and put them in salsa (sauce). Or chayote guias (chayote is an edible fleshy plant rather like squash; sechium edule, Cucurbitaceae family), we wash them and remove the stalks and add them to beans, they can be eaten mixed up with beans. There are many types of guias and there are many ways to prepare them too. |
But guia is only from the courgette, or...sorry, what does guia come from? There are many guias: from courgette, from támala (local variety of courgette; Cucurbitaceae family), from chayote, there’s guia of...huele de noche (Solanum dumetorum), hierba mora (Solanum nigrum - both edible plants of the Solanaceae family, including potatoes, peppers and nightshade), there are many types of guia. There’s one we call kuan labrédza (Zapotec name for “shrimp herb”), that’s really good, it’s good with everything and soup. |
|
There are many plants that you use. There are many plants. There are many types of plants and they’re about at different times. It’s not just one month, they don’t all appear at the same time, every plant has its time. We also eat the young leaves of the bean plant, we take the tender leaves and cook them and they’re delicious too. |
|
The same - with onion and garlic? Yes, the same, they’re cooked with onion, garlic and salt, and taste really good. |
|
I fancy some of that now. Well, you have many plants that you eat because you also eat tepejilote (small palm, Chamaedorea tepejilote, with edible fruit that resembles a small corn cob). Apart from being very good and many people eating it, it can be prepared in many ways, can’t it? Yes, there are many ways to prepare it. We roast it in the fire or with that... they make it with amarillo (literally, yellow; traditional Oaxacan sauce or stew), they make it with stock or they just eat it with salsa. The children take it from the bucket and eat it just like that, without tortilla (maize-based flat bread). |
|
They just peel it and that’s it? Yes, they just eat it like that. |
|
And you, how do you most like it? Well I’ve only eaten it with salsa (sauce) or roasted on the embers. |
|
Because I’ve also tried it with eggs, the other time in Gil’s house I ate it with eggs and a tomato salsa (sauce), I think. Yes it’s also made with eggs, you make a type of...well, if one has the patience you cover every tepejilote with egg and make it like a... torta (flan, tart). |
|
| Section 5 | Like what you call capeado. That’s right, like that. |
And what other plants that taste good are there? Well also the guia we call quelite de venado (edible herb of the convolvulaceae family; Ipomoea species) that is also very good to eat. The guia of támala (local variety of courgette; Cucurbita species) is delicious. |
|
They’re all plants, they aren’t trees? They aren’t all plants, some are vines. Those that are plants are like little trees, but very little; they’re not big trees. |
|
And is there any type of bush meat you especially like? Of the animals there are here which is the best to eat? Well the bush meat is, for example pigeon, squirrel, wild turkey (Penelope purpurascens), tepezcuintle (large nocturnal rodent) and armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus). But well, it is about once a year because they don’t go looking for them to kill. It’s just when there’s the opportunity, something is seen by chance, then we get the chance to eat it. |
|
Which of these animals do you like the most? Well... all the animals because one doesn’t get to eat them often, when you eat them they taste delicious. |
|
I’ve eaten bush meat, not here in Tiltepec but I do have my preferences, for example armadillo and tepezcuiltle. Well I’ve enjoyed tepezcuintle, pigeon, temazate (a small deer; Mazama americana) and wild turkey, what we call “mountain chicken”. That’s what I’ve liked most of all. |
|
Have you tried pheasant? Yes I’ve tried it. |
|
And what do you think? Well it tastes better than wild turkey. It’s got a better flavour and the meat is tender. |
|
People complain that these animals aren’t as abundant as before. Well, there aren’t as many as before. I think that other people come that go after them to kill them; but people here in this village don’t go after them, they just kill them when they chance to see them. I think that it’s also because they’ve cleared the land round here. They are alive - it’s not that there aren’t any, there are some, but further away. |
|
What animals have you seen and where have you mostly seen them? When you go to the corn fields or to collect firewood, roughly, where do you see the most animals? Well when I go for firewood or to the corn, the only one that isn’t afraid is the temazate. It lets itself be seen once in a while and you can see pigeons but what can one do to them? They are up high. |
|
| Section 6 | I’ve been to other places in Oaxaca and I’ve hardly seen deer. I’ve seen coati (raccoon-like mammal, Nasua narica), tepezcuintles and other animals, but never deer in the abundance that there is here, in Tiltepec. Yes, we see more because they’re not afraid. It’s a very calm animal, it’s not afraid of anything and it let’s you get very close. One sometimes sees them one when one goes along the road. |
Which animals are more difficult to see? Well...for example the wild turkey (Penelope purpurascens), tepezcuintle, armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus), well the armadillo is under ground and the tepezcuintle too, the wild turkey goes from tree to tree and at times it doesn’t let itself be seen, like that, like it is and everything, one can see temazate (a small deer; Mazama americana) up close. |
|
Do you remember that you told me about the chupa miel (literally, “it absorbs honey”; local name for a kind of bear?), last time? Ahh yes, I’ve seen one but it was a while ago, about...nine years ago when I was going to get firewood with my brother-in-law’s wife. There it was between a hole and a tree, a dog we had with us went to get it out and there were three, there were three little ones in the hole. Just that once, I haven’t seen them since then. |
|
What other animals have you seen since then? The...well squirrels, one just comes across squirrels, they’re everywhere. They come to the fallow land just below here, I’ve seen a big one come here in the mornings. I’ve also seen pigeons close by. |
|
And pigeons are big, are they big enough to eat? They are...I think they are about half a kilo, they’re not very big |
|
It is shared out in little bits. Yes little pieces for everyone, it’s just that the meat is delicious. |
|
And as far as the kitchen goes, do you like natural food or tinned food best? Well I...I don’t like sardines much, I eat very little of them. It can be bad for you too because sometimes they’ve gone off and the tins are inflated and what’s inside, well it’s no good. We eat very little; we prefer beans, herbs and avocado. |
|
There’s a famous fish here in the River Cajones, what’s it called? Bobo (probably mullet)? |
|
| Section 7 | Yes, bobo, they say that this fish is very good, I’ve never tried it. What do you think about it? Yes, it’s very good but it’s also very difficult to go and get it. Every year in the hot season, well one can only get the fish at this time of year because later the river is very deep and one can’t catch them. Yes, it’s delicious but it’s difficult to catch. |
Yes, they say it’s very heavy too. Yes, it’s very heavy and as I said the river rises a lot at these times. They say that they can't stand on the river bank now, the river’s very swollen, it’s very high. |
|
But this fish bobo, about how much does it weigh? How many kilos does a good one of these fish weigh? Well I’ve just seen it when he (her husband) has brought it, sometimes, yes, it weighs about...how much would it be? The biggest weighs about three kilos, yes, because it is big. |
|
And what is the rainy season like here, Doña Vicky? Well it’s not difficult for us, we’re used to it. |
|
But it rains less than before. Well, it continues the same, it has its time, because the rain returns and it’s the same. |
|
Have you noticed any difference in the rain between the years? Well yes, there are years when it rains very little and years when it rains a lot. |
|
There are many streams and rivers here in Tiltepec, has Tiltepec always had a lot of water? Yes there’s always been water, lots of streams. There’s always been water. |
|
Where does all the water that’s in the springs that supply the village come from? Well it comes from here, close to the village, they bring the water from just here. They come here from up there, the mountain...the mountain...I don’t know what they call that mountain up there... Cerro Negro they call it, Cerro Negro (Black Mountain). The streams come from there. |
|
And Doña Vicky, the men have their music band here in the village, I hear them practising for the festival. Do the women get together on their own… I don’t know, to do something else? Well no, only for health, there are women groups that are for health, but not for other things like that, no, there’s nothing. |
|
I’m very interested in tepejilote (small palm, Chamaedorea tepejilote, with edible fruit that resembles a small corn cob) now that I’m working with it. You were telling me that most of the people that go for the tepejilote are women. Yes the majority are women and we get together to go, sometimes just three, four of us women get together and go to get tepejilote. I mean the men don’t care about tepejilote because they are better off sowing their corn, weeding their coffee plantations, doing other work. So normally it’s us women that go for tepejilote. The same with the mushrooms, there are more women than men in the places where the mushrooms are. |
|
| Section 8 | So that’s how the work is divided up, while the men are working in the fields you [the women] go to gather tepejilote. Yes, that’s how we do it here. I think that it’s like a tradition of this village, the women are those that go for the tepejilote, go to get mushrooms and go to get guias. Well yes, we go there looking for firewood and all that, while the men are working. |
Now that I’m working with tepejilote I’ve seen that the places are really horrible to get to. Well isn’t that the truth, yes they’re horrible. |
|
How do you get to these places without falling over? Without falling over! Yes, you get a little bit of tepejilote for hundreds of cuts and bruises, for hundreds of cuts and bruises, yes it’s very nasty. I don’t believe that you’ve been to the rocks. As we all know where they are now when we arrive at a place that’s not too bad, people have already been there and there aren’t any left. Because we get there later we have to go where it’s nasty. And... the rocks are nasty where you find tepejilote, you can’t find it in nice places, it’s mostly between streams and outcrops of rock; I mean tepejilote likes rocky places. |
|
No, I haven’t been to the rocks but I’ve been to steep places, it’s bad enough like that, where the earth is loose and it’s easy to fall. Yes, because the land is very loose and the earth moves if one just stands up, one just has to go after them as far as one can, and little by little one goes along, grabbing on to the trees and plants, swaying along. |
|
From wherever you can, like I do… Yes, the truth is it’s nasty and you’re not going to find tepejilotes in a nice place; they are very accident-prone places, very nasty. |
|
About how much tepejilote do you collect every time you go? Well, every time we go, well, one can’t take animals up to where it is, so, well it’s as much as we can manage to carry in our arms, what one can manage. I suppose about 20, 25 kilos, going up on all fours. |
|
And how do you collect it? Well we take a morralito (small knapsack, bag worn on the back), we take our bags too but we have to carry a morralito to be able to pick the tepejilote and put it in the morralito as we go along, even if it’s just a little. Then one takes it out and puts it where one left the bag and then one goes a little lower. So that’s how it is, little by little, gathering it together until it’s the size one can carry. |
|
But how do you do it? Do you have a method for collecting it or do you just gather together what you see? No, everyone who goes to get tepejilote knows that it has its time; they know when the tepejilote isn’t good anymore. It grows and gets to a point when it’s very full and it’s at the point that it’s no good. It has a green colour, it’s not white any more, and then it’s bitter. |
|
| Section 9 | But the part of the tepejilote that one eats is covered by a green pod, how do you know that it’s good? Because the tip of the thing is already green, it’s already very full and it doesn’t have a tip any more. When the fruit inside is good it’s about half, less than half the size, it still has a while to go before filling out the skin; that’s when is still good. Those that are very full, very fat, aren’t... well one still takes some but they are green and bitter now. Also those that still don’t have anything, that are very small and don’t look at all fat yet. The pod is very thin and we don’t pick those either. We leave them and just take what we think is good, we leave the rest to grow for the other people that’ll go in 15 days, 20 days time. Then it’s good for other people to go and they also select and take what they think is good and they leave what isn’t good for the...Well then the fruit begins appearing and gives the seeds, likewise they leave what isn’t ready and within 15, 20 days other people arrive and they take it. So that’s how we collect tepejilote. |
Do you have a special way of cutting them? Is there a risk of them going off if you cut them wrongly or is there not such a problem? Only that one doesn’t hang very heavily from the trees, because the roots are just stuck between the rocks; only that one doesn’t up root the trees. One pulls on the fruit as one likes but not the plant. There are people who are careful not to pull up the plant and everything. |
|
And how many tepejilotes do you take off one plant? Well of what I’ve seen, only five or six tepejilotes are taken from a plant. That’s what I’ve seen plants to have. |
|
Before I went to a place where there were a lot of bitter tepejilotes, can you tell the difference between the bitter tepejilote and the normal tepejilote? Yes, because that type is thinner. It’s thinner, even the leaves are thinner than those of the tepejilote that one eats. Yes, there’s a little difference. |
|
And the fruit doesn’t taste the same. Well it’s more bitter, the one that you said you saw is more bitter; the other has a sweeter flavour. It tastes sweeter and it’s better. |
|
And when you’ve cut the tepejilote is it possible that you arrive at your houses and it turns out that some that you cut are no good? No, it’s all good because as we live here, where they are, we know more or less what type of tepejilote to pick. They’re all good; we don’t get even one bad one. |
|
And the mushrooms, Doña Vicky, when is it their season? Well there are also many types of mushroom, the hongo del jonote (fungus of the jonote tree). They come when it rains a lot and grow on fallen jonotes, jonotes (Tilia mexicana, heliocarpus species) that are rotten, from branches that have broken off or when a tree is cut. That’s where the hongos del jonote grows. |
|
| Section 10 | Are they big brown mushrooms that are like a half-circle? They’re white mushrooms. |
The underside is brown. No, they’re white on top and underneath. There’s another type of mushroom from another tree, from the changrarro (tree, Crecopia species), I think that it grows here. We call it yága yága or yága xála and it’s brown, not white. There’s another type of mushroom, the hongo amarillo (yellow mushroom) and that’s delicious but they’re only about in June and July, when it rains. There must be some down there now, for example. I think that they’ve gone looking for them but I haven’t been able to look for them. |
|
And these, how many do you get? Do you get many kilos or just a few? Well also what one can carry because with these mushrooms one cooks them and leaves them to boil for as long as two, three days and then they won’t go off. If you leave just one in the bag in which you brought them, it rots. What one can manage to get, yes - because one can find a lot. |
|
Very good Doña Vicky, thank you very much for this interview, I don’t want to take up any more of your time now. You’re welcome. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|