Warrior Women of the Isthmus

Unruly women

After securing a cheap room for the month in a pleasant hotel/brothel in the back streets of Tehuantepec (upstairs rooms are rented out normally, but downstairs rooms are by the hour), Katerina and I head out to do some sketching in the busy Mercado Central - the traditional stronghold of the women.

The vibrant outdoor section of the market lies directly on the old Trans-Isthmus Railway line. When we were here before the train was still running, and everyone had to move their umbrellas twice a day to let it pass. Today, the rails are only just visible in the dirt, with the last train passing four years ago.

I climb some steps to look out over the colourful umbrellas, while Katerina chooses to sit down amongst the throng of oversized women. Watermelons, pineapples, bananas, salted fish, prawns, live poultry and large bunches of tropical flowers are all on sale. No-one pays much attention to us until a woman selling chickens notices she is the subject of Katerina's watercolour.

"You'll pay for this! What if someone steals my chickens?" she shouts, and points at the chickens in the picture deadly seriously.

The chicken lady is a very large Tehuana in purple and blue huipil, broad pleated skirt and red headscarf, easily a character from historical times.

"I'll come tomorrow, better dressed, and with earrings, then you can paint me," she says decidedly, shuffling her large torso back onto her stool, like a mother hen concealing her eggs.

"Paint my sister," shouts another woman. "She sells shrimps!"

Katerina does so, but somehow manages to capture the shrimp woman as she pulls a painful grimace.

"The gringa (foreign girl) is just learning to paint; she does not know it well," the shrimp woman announces, and holds up the picture for all to see.

"It will be my passport to the US," she declares boldly.

"They [us foreigners] come here because it is different. They are interested in our culture. But can we go to their culture in the US? No!" she says, with a dismissive wave of her arms.

The shrimp woman speaks with the most commanding voice of all the market women, and appears to thrive on the attention, like a rebel leader rallying a mob of desperadas.

I feel compelled to join my girlfriend for moral support, and try to explain to the women that we are not from the US, but from Europe.

"Oooh!" the shrimp woman acknowledges, and returns to her stall and chooses to ignore us from then on.

I then try to sketch one of the unruly market women, but end up drawing an androgynous looking woman swatting flies. Despite this, the comments are a lot more complimentary than my girlfriend received.

"The gentleman knows better," the chicken woman says warmly.

"If he did the picture of me it would be much better. Can you come tomorrow?"

Annoyed that the market women so easily sided me, Katerina packs her stuff up and leaves.

I have to follow.

Obviously the idea of a matriarchal market has not lived up to her expectations.

Back in our room I try to calm my girlfriend down, but she has become so obsessed with how the women treated her, she can't leave it alone: "It's like they see female tourists as competition and feel compelled to put them down," she complains.

"They're the same as men vying for macho supremacy in the bar," she sums up.

I find myself agreeing with her to a certain extent. But secretly I think that what my girlfriend is really annoyed about is the fact that Tehuanas are not automatically friendly towards women. For me, though, this little revelation is all rather satisfying, because it suggests that women living in matriarchy behave as badly as men do in patriarchy.

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Thanks for reading!

Vote, comment or ask questions, I find this search for matriarchy a fascinating subject...

Next update on Monday, hopefully... Byee