La cuna de la cerámica en México: La tradición milenaria del barro bruñido en el Valle de Tehuacán.

0:10 The Tehuacán Valley in Puebla is the original habitat of Mesoamerica, as it has been inhabited for more than 10 thousand years, the region is characterized by its great cultural and natural wealth. Its first inhabitants domesticated corn and created the first ceramics of ancient Mexico. The semi-arid lands extend along valleys and mountains. We approach the Ngiwá or Popoloca indigenous community of Los Reyes Metzontla near the city of Tehuacán, Puebla, where they have been dedicated to the production of ceramics since time immemorial.

1:03 It has been proven that the composition of the ceramics from Los Reyes Metzontla is identical to pre-Hispanic pieces, which suggests that its traditional production technique has not changed much for centuries. We are located in the southernmost semi-arid ecosystem of Mexico, due to the exceptional value of the Tehuacán Valley Biosphere Reserve, UNESCO granted it the international distinction of mixed heritage site of humanity, for its natural and cultural importance. Its inhabitants over thousands of years have learned to survive and take advantage of

1:50 this arid and extreme ecosystem. We see, for example, how a cactus fence protects the house of one of the residents of Los Reyes Metzontla. Any botanical garden in the world would like to have something. similar. Look what a beautiful natural fence. Good morning, it's 7 AM and today we are going to walk to a community where they are going to show us how they have made clay for hundreds of years. There is the light of dawn. That day we got up at 5 AM to accompany the residents to extract the mud from the hills

2:37 with their white donkey. Here is the mud due to the privileged location of Los Reyes Metzontla, a contact zone of geological formations, where shales, limestones and strata of the seabed abound, the soils are stony, clayey with high contents of salts, gypsum and limestone. Good morning to everyone who came to this town of Reyes Metzontla. Good morning, thank you very much for visiting us in Reyes Metzontla. We are on a hill known as Lomas del Barro to remove the mud, but we also have the donkey to carry the mud and carry it.

3:23 With this pick we extract the mud. Here we have black mud and gray mud and there are several places where there is red, yellow, and pink mud. First we have to clean, we have to clean the top to find the mud that is lower with this pick. All this is already mud, the top part is land that is no longer occupied. Trying to carry all the mud to the dust, sometimes we bring a hauler to carry it, because everything is good. How long does it take you to remove the mud? It depends on how many sacks,

4:09 for example right now there are two sacks in half an hour we already take out, but sometimes when we come we bring about four or five donkeys which are 10 sacks it will take us about two hours, but when we don't find the mud, we don't find it. We find it quickly , we have to search, now we are scratching to find where the mud is, it is not easy, it is somewhat complicated but this is not our job. Mr. Ricardo taught us how to use his pickaxe. To chop and pull it and after it is soft, we turn it over. I'm going to get mud. Yes that's fine? Through the beak, backwards.

4:57 Tougher, that, hold it tight. I'm removing mud, it's a bit heavy work. We are going to try to extract the mud, I don't think it will work out anyway because they already have many years of experience but we are going to try. I'm already tired, if it's heavy, imagine doing this, better than the gym. They did it very well, because it is difficult to hold the beak because it can turn around,

5:45 it can get stuck and you can get hurt, but it is part of the job. Then you have to collect the mud and put it in a bag. Let it be ball and hard Now that we are in the month of March It's when it comes to be taken out because it's dry, and when May starts and onwards it's raining and you can't take it out. One digs it out and another puts it together by putting it in the sack. We have to make sure that it goes in a ball and that it's mud because then One is earth just like this one, because this one falls apart, this one is useless, it is pure earth, it has to be balled up and hard. This is done before it rains here they call it Lent time,

6:33 because if it is already raining then it is wet, it weighs more and it cannot be done so we take it out before it rains. Our grandparents have passed on all this to us, they left us this heritage of craftsmanship, here in the town of Los Reyes Metzontla we all work on it. This is a part like... we call it an Ixtle de Izote, it is a penquita, this penca is resistant to tying. Let's see... This bag can weigh approximately between 45 and 50 kg to take it to our house because we use a donkey

7:20 to transport the mud, we have to fill two bags, load it and carry it, we spend 1 hour or an hour and a half on the way. going, and back, again and there are places where the hill is steeper to extract it because we have to be very careful because if we overload the donkey we can also fall because it is very steep, so we have to have a portion let it be neither much nor little. Madam, what do you say the donkey's name is? Blanca, she is about 7 years old. The donkeys also help us a lot, so we feed them well to bring firewood. If we don't have water to carry water to the source, we will bring it with the donkeys with their gallons.

8:05 He looks very healthy. Yes, but when it rains it is green, everything is also composed. What characteristics should a donkey have? Let it be tamed. He knows what he's wearing, he's already trained for that. I'm getting ready to load the sacks. Old blankets that no longer serve us well because that's what we use for his avillo, that's what we call him avillo. We are going to try to carry this 45 kg bag, keeping our back straight. And now we have to put the rope on it. Yes. But Blanca is already used to it, I recently read that donkeys

8:51 may be in danger of disappearing because they are used less and less in the countryside and they work more and more with machines instead of with pack animals. So how many children has Blanca Señora had? Three, he has had. See this means that this donkey and his offspring see themselves continuing to exist. How beautiful... she has impressive eyes and also when you know that she has children. Thank you Blanquita, how beautiful. Go with an ease. See how she holds on without flinching, donkeys are super strong.

9:37 See how the rope goes through. You have to use force here. How many years have you been working on this? In the entire clay process, about 10 years. It is mistakenly believed that donkeys are animals of low intelligence, being undervalued compared to horses, however they can withstand high temperatures better. Their scientific name is Equus asinus, they descend directly from the wild African donkey domesticated approximately 6000 years ago. Donkeys arrived on the American continent along with the Spanish and replaced the tamemes,

10:22 who were porter men. We come to bring the clay to prepare the mud and make our crafts: cups, pots, plates, sugar bowls, biznagas, all of that, so we do it and we take it to the community center so that customers from outside can come and buy them, hopefully and You like our crafts that we do here. See how interesting how Teresa has been dedicating herself to this for several years, every morning she comes here with her little donkey Blanca and together they carry the clay with which they are going to work and they hope that their clay reaches different parts of the world. See what beautiful eyes Blanca, a mother, has.

11:14 Currently the donkeys are being replaced by vehicles which leads them to a state of abandonment. Over the years their population has decreased considerably, in 1991 there were about 1.5 million donkeys but currently less than half remain. Donkeys have an average lifespan between 27 and 40 years, they adapt easily to their environment and can perceive sounds from several kilometers away. The white donkey is gone. After obtaining the clay we would closely follow the pottery process

12:02 that ends in a beautiful piece of ceramic. For this we moved to the Burnished Clay Crafts Center of Los Reyes Metzontla. Don Abel, one of the last speakers of the Ngiwá language in the town, proudly showed us the center of the artisan community. Look, we at Reyes Metzontla have stayed in a cooperative , which is where artisans come to leave their pieces and sell them more easily. After having met Blanca the donkey and seeing what all the work is like that goes into creating these crafts, we find ourselves in the crafts center where we are going to enter,

12:48 some women are waiting for us there and they are going to explain to us the process to create these beautiful works of art that are their ceramics, their clay, we are going to learn more about them. The crafts center was built thanks to the efforts of the community and the support of the National Fund for the Promotion of Crafts as well as the Tehuacán Valley Biosphere Reserve. We are a group of more than 90 artisans, this is the store where we can sell our product in previous years because we had to go out and sell them to communities,

13:34 currently thanks to the National Prize in Sciences and Arts that we obtained in 2005 it was possible to build it, he says with two exhibition rooms, where we can find: pots, casseroles, vases, jugs, cups, glasses and modern designs. As a result of winning the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, the families' economy did improve a lot and every day there are more artisans who go from that level of craftsmanship to that of artists because there are people who already make fantastic monumental pieces . We made this trip to the heart of the Tehuacán Biosphere Reserve with the professional Biofan guides, through their tours they opened the doors of the communities to us.

14:22 Let's start creating the burnished clay. The mud collected in the hills is soaked and with the heat of the sun the consistency is given to the mass that will allow art to be created. We must heat the mud and the water with the sun, if it doesn't get sun it becomes chewy, when we put our hand in, it dissolves when it's cold, it's very chewy. First the clay is heated, washed, dissolved, the stones are removed from the roots and then it is decanted so that the smallest particles precipitate. The smaller the clay particle, the finer the ceramic will be, it interlocks. more and it becomes stronger

15:11 in such a way that it will allow them to lift the piece and let it rest for 15 days, a month if not, it does not have the strength to be able to build the ceramic pieces. We are going to dissolve the mud, remove the stones, the garbage that it brings and make it very clean. It smells delicious, it smells like rain. Look, that's the garbage that the mud brings, it brings roots. We are mixing the mud with the water, we are going to remove all the impurities such as any part of vegetation and rocks that are in the mud, we are going to help ourselves with the strainer, to catch what is floating on the surface, like these twigs and we can also use our hands to look for the rocks.

15:59 After several days in the sun, the mud looks like this. This one is already clean without stones, without garbage. Wow. It's super soft and moist. Here is the clean mud, without garbage and without roots Already going through the cleaning process, I think that this activity is very relaxing as you feel all the humidity that could get into my feet. It is very relaxing especially in a climate like here that is very hot, because they always say that having contact with the earth It is having contact with our roots.

16:45 Now I'm going to put a Paulina mask on it because they tell us that it has properties. That's lovely. Ready for the war. How delicious it feels, when they put it on your face. Since we were children, we have been involved in the work that our parents and grandparents do. As we grow, we develop those skills that we obtain through them, through the experience that they give us,

17:31 so all that work makes us Let us never stop learning, even at this age or older. I see many women here of all ages. There are 18, 20 and so on they go up to 70, almost 80. We all do it now with that desire to work is what drives us, that desire to de-stress and through the making of the pieces you can show everything you feel. What inspires you to create your art? Well, generally it is in all the flora and fauna that we have here, there are everything from animals, cacti, the infinity of flora that we have here is what inspires us as well.

18:25 Before molding the clay, it is necessary to mix it with a special rock called talc that is available a few kilometers within the town of Los Reyes Metzontla. The talc or peña allows the clay firing temperature time to be lowered in the final part of the clay process inside the oven and its heat fracture is also reduced. And what do they use this talc for? It is so that it mixes with the mud, without that the mud would not be useful, it is like sand and cement.

19:16 This is the peña, the peña that is taken out. All this is going to be crushed with a Mallet, which we call a club , a powder that we call talcum has to come out, the talcum is going to mix together with the mud that comes from the mud, this must be removed and taken to a space where it is clean and knead it make it powder take out a fine talcum powder. What the people of Los Reyes Metzontla call talc or flour. This is a metamorphic rock, a mica, and this mica makes this ceramic very different from any other, because when mixed with the mud that is around that community they make it This ceramic is refractory, you can put it in a microwave oven or a pizza oven

20:03 and it is thanks to this ingredient that archaeologists call it a degreaser. Sir, can we help you please? Here I go taking out these stones. It's like the piñata, thank you very much I give up. Look, this would be like this. See what speed with what force is more efficient. If we want to advance further, we put the tip with the hammer and take out a piece to start carrying it. Let's see, take out the piece. How do you hold that mallet? Like this and he's going to hit him.

20:50 I'm not even going to hit it. By itself it is heavy. Yes, that one is 4 pounds. Slow slow. We are using the mallet to get a larger piece of material so we can loosen it. Now we are going to put that in the boat and we are going to take it out. The extraction of talc is carried out only by men due to the risk, the stone easily crumbles on whoever is removing it, widowed potters or those who have no one to help them hire laborers or buy the stone.

21:40 It's not just any stone. We are going to bring more to take it out to a clean space so we can mash it. It's heavy, it's heavy material. Let's take it to the wheelbarrow and see if I can. Be careful, let's see I'll take it. We go like a lizard. Hold on to the rock We are going to stay and work in Reyes Metzontla Now we are going to take it to crush it. Those are males.

22:26 Here we are working the tricep. The rock is placed in small piles and immediately broken or crushed. Let's crush it a little, make the stones smaller. The objective is to grind the rock. Oops, it's heavy. It is then hit with a sturdy stick without bark to prevent any splinters from mixing with the talcum powder. Just drop the weight. After having made the rock smaller, the crushing process now follows. It is a scale that has to be balanced.

23:14 Once the size of the gravel has been crushed, the material is sieved through an open mesh. This way it is filtered and the talc is very fine. The talc is already coming out there, it is moving. I am sifting the powder to obtain only the talcum powder, which is what they are interested in mixing with the mud. Apparently this town was established here because they have all the ingredients to make pottery here, the center of the town is where this mica quarry is, this basic ingredient for the pottery of the Metzontla Kings, from there is how the town grew,

24:00 Remember that the best ceramics from Teotihuacán was that of the Tehuacán Valley, the thin orange, a ceramic that they exported. There is even evidence in Texas, in Central America of the thin orange and they have found sherds that are at least 3 thousand years old. The talc is transported to the Reyes Metzontla Artisan Center, where the potters mix it with the clay so it will have more tolerance and resistance to heat. Right now we are stirring the clay with the flour that we call it , this powder comes out of the rock of the talcum bank,

24:45 this improves the clay, it remains as if it were plasticine, well kneaded, ready to make pieces. Now the clay is ready to be molded and create unique pieces . What are you doing? I'm going to make a duckling, a chicken. The achimar step is immediately followed, with a knife the piece becomes thinner and the remnants of the clay are removed. Now it is thick but it is removed little by little until it is thin, this process is called chimar. Then it is left for about 3 or 4 days in the sun so that the piece dries well and then we can move on to the next step

25:33 , which is sanding, with sandpaper to leave it smooth and then we can polish it and this is how it looked. My name is Felipa Flores Hernández and I have the piece to polish just after sanding, I'm going to pour water on it to polish it now, we have to pour it well so that it covers all the pores until the shine is removed, two hours to polish it. The mud can be pigmented with different shades of red or yellow minerals which are obtained in the nearby hills. These are our natural pigments, white, red, yellow,

26:20 we are going to extract them from mines on the hill, and it is not so easy to get them and it is also very risky because you have to enter a mine to the bottom, they are small veins where you have It takes about 5 hours to remove it with a chisel to extract a liter. Natural and this is the after... with our red or cherry pigment. Women learn pottery from a very young age between 8 and 10 years old, they make small vessels to practice modeling and burnishing techniques . We are the Tuanda cooperative!

27:06 The cooperative is called Alfareros y Alfareras Popolocas de Los Reyes Metzontla, we have our collective brand which is Tuanda, it means water jug ​​in Popoloca. We are very pleased that through this medium you can get to know us, you can get closer to us, you allow people from outside to visit us and show us what we are as an indigenous community, a community that takes care of its pottery tradition, our hands shape it. The pieces are the identity that we have and what we want as artisans is to sell our product and go as far as you can.

27:58 All of these are hundreds of pieces that they made with their own hands. The polished ceramics are very similar to the pre-Hispanic ones as they preserve a large part of the production, modeling, false wheel, painting and polishing techniques and this coincides with the fact that the population of Los Reyes Metzontla is of Ngiwá or Popoloca ancestry, their language belongs to the linguistic group oldest in Mesoamerica: the Otomangue. If you want to buy the burnished clay you can visit the artisan center which is located just one hour from the city of Tehuacán. A whistle turtle.

28:44 The community center has some cabins for people who come to visit us from outside and want to rest, we will gladly receive them here at home. In Los Reyes Metzontla we rested and ate peacefully in the artisans center , where they have several rooms available for visitors. Plus, the potter ladies' food is delicious. Mexican-style egg, steak with nopales in green sauce, melon water and atole. Wow, a kilo of fresh tortillas. Now we come with some Mexican eggs, they are very delicious. They were waiting for us with a delicious breakfast,

29:29 they made us Mexican-style eggs, we have beans, salsa, atole and freshly made tortillas, we couldn't ask for anything better. Excellent, bravo. Here they have given us oat atole, oats are rich in protein, but it is also delicious, in burnished clay, a cup of burnished clay. Chicken broth... A delicious chicken broth. When you are in the hot territory it is illogical to think that you are going to eat something hot but this is delicious. At the cooperative we have eaten very well after a long day in the semi-desert, it is the best, one of my favorite dishes is the very healthy chicken broth and here they make it with fresh vegetables,

30:17 and look at this, we are going to bite into the chicken, how delicious, It's a thigh. The part of baking the pieces is still missing but first we went to the community of Los Reyes Metzontla to look for Isabel Carrillo, one of the potter ladies with the greatest tradition in the town, her tableware has been used in the best restaurant in Latin America, she is also wife and right hand of Mr. Abel together they make the perfect team and take their clay pieces very far. I must highlight that Don Abel is one of the last speakers of the Ngiwá or Popoloca language, there are only less than 20 thousand speakers of this language in the state of Puebla.

31:08 Mrs. Isabel shared her passion for pottery with us from her home, which also serves as a workshop. It's fresh, it's like plasticine and... I love it, the truth is that it's very relaxing to be playing it like that. To make the vessels, a false lathe or mold is used, this consists of a slightly concave plate, the clay spreads inside the plate, which is turned with one hand while with the other it is modeled to give it shape. Is the one you put below the mold? It is the mold but it is a base that we occupy only. What you see here is called a false lathe

31:54 and it is a technique typical of Los Reyes Metzontla, the false lathe allows them to make figures of many sizes, the real lathe only in small sizes and the other thing that you will see that is typical of here is this, the enrollment. That's how we do it. And each hand does a different function... The right one evens out the earth inside and the left hand presses here so that the earth that is straight does not go there so that it does not go crooked and then like this we press so that it goes up. Do you feel like you have some connection to the earth? I see that he smiles, look until his eyes shine.

32:42 Well yes because I tell you that this is my job since I grew up, my mother worked and... Can you imagine one day stopping doing this? I say that not only can I no longer move my hands, I grew up, got married and here I am always with work. And right now, what are you doing? I'm going to make a jug or a bottle. How many years have you been working with clay? Well, I started working when I was 16 years old. At 72 years old... It's a long time... I worked here, I got married and I'm still working. I started making comales, but later pots, jugs, casseroles,

33:29 vases or small jugs, or whatever comes to mind and I have that curiosity to do it. What is the average lifespan? How long can one of those last? You have to take care of it, wash it with a sponge, and if you take care of it, it lasts a long time because it is natural clay. And do you use them in your kitchen? Yes, for example right now, if you see there I have my food boiling, it smells very good... I put my beans there, I stew my food in my little pot and I also use it. And this is the clay that we use for food, the advantage that the comal has, since it is made of clay, then it heats you up even if you take off the heat it still lasts for about 15 minutes...

34:16 it is not the same as the sheet, a sheet By removing it it turns off and this does not. It smells very delicious... Before, we bartered, as they say, or exchanged, they gave me corn, I give my piece, but we didn't value the pieces, because we didn't ask how much per kilo of corn, or how much my piece, we just exchanged and now not anymore. Right now we send parcels. Right now two of my daughters work here because there was no work before. Right now there is that job here for the ladies, they are dedicated to bringing the clay and selling it and we buy it here among ourselves, we take care of the expense or they mash the trouble and sell the flour.

35:04 Right now a jar of those is costing $150 MXN . And is it tiring to go things? Yes , yes, because if they leave early, that's great. And if they took about three, four burritos, they even arrive in the afternoon, and they have to bring their tortilla to heat up there so they can eat , and then that's fine. With this job we do not suffer, we do not say that we do not have, yes there is money, although little to eat, there is. And have people emigrated less to the United States? No, they like to leave because they want life better. Yes they are leaving, yes the young people are leaving. They don't want to be here. For example, I have two children there in the north,

35:52 one of them is already in his twenties and is there. And here we are. Do you still keep in touch with your children? Yes because they sent me my phone number and I talk to them Yes, if not they call me and I call them... Yes, that's right. Don Abel shows us the large wood-burning oven that he has just built in the patio of his house. With it, he will be able to produce his crafts faster. You get inside... That's how you go, until you get here and so on.

36:39 This is where the fire comes out. Look if you want to see, there you see, look. The light does not reach these pieces, nothing. just the pure heating... Once the amount we put in at the top is settled, we close it. If they are very large pieces, at least two or three hours heating the thermometer, gradually rising until it reaches 750 °C. But before firing the clay pieces in the oven, the most important technique must be carried out : which is called burnished clay. This step consists of moistening the vessel and giving it the final finish using the stone polishing technique.

37:26 We grab the stone and begin to gently hit the edge so that it is very smooth. We have to carve and carve so that it has the shine. What is the name of the stone? This quartz stone was left to me by my mother. It is her inheritance. As one uses it, it smoothes out. Madam, do you have no vacancies? Well yes, if you like, you can learn here. When I pass the stone on it it starts to look brighter. Burnishing is the process by which this stone will provide the shine that we are seeing in the piece, otherwise it would look completely matte

38:13 and feel very funny because on the top part it is completely smooth and feels very soft as if it were porcelain. I mean, I already had the expectation that it was going to be smooth but when I touched it I was surprised, it almost slipped. I don't know if he's ever played anything smoother than this. It even feels like a layer between your fingers and the plate. Would you hire her? yes to finish all that work up there. The final step is to cook the clay so that it acquires greater hardness. The original and oldest way is the open-air cooking technique and the one we are going to do at this moment is through a wood-fired oven.

38:58 The Metzontla Kings... the kings because the patrons of the town are the three wise men and Metzontla means dried agave. The dried agave is used for the production of ceramics. What we are doing is adding these branches to increase the heat and with that the clay pieces that we have inside are fired . Why do they have to be fired? because if we leave it raw, it falls apart, it dissolves, because it is soil, then it begins to dissolve. When it is baked, all this is fixed, and then we can add liquid without breaking the piece.

39:47 This herb is Copotillo, which in the Ngigua language means rubber grass. It has fuel, it has an oil, so that is why it is so good to use in an oven. It is the herb in this area that has the most energy power. From the latest processes to enjoy the clay and that we can use it in the kitchen, all that fire goes to the upper part where the pieces are located, it is very hot... And why do they cover the upper part? so that the Izote firewood can catch fire, this is where the most difficult part of the smoke begins... it also lights and cleans the pieces on top and helps the cooking of the pieces that are up to the top, this is where we suffer the most from the smoke when the fire is on. Very calm and peaceful day because the smoke begins to rise

40:36 but when the air is blown it creates a whirlwind and we are even drowning even if we put on the mask because the smoke passes. How old is this oven? I think it's been there for months because it's already the third one. Because it almost burns every 8 days, so the entire partition wears out , so you have to build it again. This is a window to the past with the same ingredients that 4 thousand years ago the first ceramics in Mesoamerica is that of the Tehuacán Valley and it is no coincidence that the site where we have the archaeological evidence of the beginning of agriculture we have these manifestations of the beginning of civilization, such as ceramics. Tehuacán is a mixed heritage of humanity by UNESCO,

41:21 a habitat native to Mesoamerica, the site where not only corn, avocado, cotton, agaves, a variety of beans, chili, amaranth were domesticated, and this has only happened in very few places in the world where agriculture begins independently, the fertile crescent from Mesopotamia to Egypt, rice in China and in India, banana and sugar cane in Papua New Guinea in the Sahel, below the Sahara, the sorghum 5 thousand years ago Peru with the potato and Tehuacán-Cuicatlán with corn, avocado, cotton, etc.

42:06 This tradition is the only one that has been preserved until now. We did not talk about the language, the clothing, because they have already been lost, but this has persisted until now, the only thing we have to do, for example in my case, I have a daughter, because It is to continue motivating her to continue learning, she can now polish but it is up to us that future generations continue . Do you speak the language? no, almost not me. I understand some words, the one who speaks is my husband, sometimes he says a few words to me but no, there is no such way of a conversation, I like the way he speaks... but no, I can't talk to him, my mother did talk, but she didn't talk to us and we weren't curious for wanting to learn.

42:54 I only know a few little words, for example Kunia is a dog, yes I would have liked to learn and sometimes I envy people from other communities who know a language, it is very nice to listen to them. There are few people like my dad who speaks it a little. Many thanks to my daughter because she is very hard-working. Keep going. In this town the language has been lost, but it still has this cultural heritage of the technique of using its natural resources to make this wonderful ceramic so good that the best restaurants in Mexico have it on their tables. Mrs. Isabel's clay dishes have reached Pujol in Mexico City,

43:39 for several years this Polanco restaurant has been in the top 10 of the best restaurants in Latin America. I feel proud and I am glad that our china is appreciated elsewhere, I feel happy because sometimes we say they won't want our dishes here but we have already seen why I had the honor of entering that Pujol restaurant, because it is very It's nice because I went into the kitchen and went to where they eat, they gave me the mole madre they call it, and it's very delicious. Isabel What part is next?

44:25 the most difficult part to remove from the oven because you have to put your hands in there, one by one. Right now, they are going to do it, not me. They are going to do it now because they grab the gloves and that more or less to protect themselves. This glove is supposed to be for high temperatures, it gets so hot, I don't know how hot it is at 600ºC.

45:19 Being here watching this process is like being in a very hot temezcal and they put the sheets of paper newspaper so that it catches that black color. It is very important to do this right after removing it from the oven, this is when the smoke can set in. If they have cooled down, the black color is no longer possible. This load that this oven has is the work of 15 days or if not more because some of them we accumulate until we can fill an oven, look how your hands turn red... they even tremble because of how hot it is.

46:07 This is very heavy but I like to do it, it is our economic source so each process that is given to the clay is important from the extraction of the clay, to the molding, the burning, cleaning, until you see a super beautiful piece like this. At the end the clay pieces are waxed. Here we are already waxing... see this is the beeswax and it is what they use already in the final process to give the black color to the dishes and now they immerse it, here you have to be careful with the wax because it is very hot Mrs. Isabel even showed us a scar from a burn she had a long time ago. Well, here is the scar when I was burned, to put the pieces in we must be very careful

46:54 because if it falls on us it is like hot oil and it is removed with everything and meat at once, because it is super hot The clay of Los Reyes Metzontla has kept the community together for centuries perhaps millennia. Families laboriously create art, the art of giving life to the earth to make their vessels. Thank you very much for helping us transmit our culture. As farewell, the potters of Los Reyes Metzontla gave us some small souvenirs. A small clay souvenir, this could be a fox or it could be a bat from the Phyllostomidae family.

47:41 Crescencia and Felipa, who are sisters, gave us this that we are going to keep for the rest of our lives in our homes. Thank you so much.