Hammocks - 60 YEARS TO THE PRESENT

In the second half of the twentieth century, with the introduction of cotton yarn and nylon, which brings about the creation of new stitches to weave and color development as a fundamental element of the design of a hammock; with the change in the type of frame and the opening of the national and international market, the production process of the hammock is completely redefined.

            By not relying on the knowledge and management of the natural environment for the production of fibers and tools, one of the first changes is that, generally speaking, man ceases to participate in the development of the hammocks, remaining well as a predominantly female activity. She is the woman of the house who will decide, based on household economic conditions and availability of time, a hammock is made when and if it will have a commercial purpose or be for their own consumption.

            The ancient technique of contrived hammock with horizontal racks is abandoned, adopting a type of vertical frame that can be transported relatively easily from one room to another and who takes up less space in the house (see illustration and photography).

            With the introduction of cotton yarn or hemp, in addition to the diversification of colors, it gives way to the emergence of a variety of stitches or variations in the form of weaving. In the east were detected up to eleven of these, the most common, "biscotelas" called "raindrop", "dogs" and "nugget".

            As for the method of production of the raw material, money becomes the essential element to start the production cycle, thereby giving rise to a dependency of the poorest families to intermediaries that provide the thread that can not acquire for themselves.

At the upper end a piece of vile observed. The hand position is rotated indicated as sisal fiber to tender corchando

            However, following the recent history of Tixcacalcupul stresses the importance they played in the technical changes outlined both the action of institutions such as the Cultural Missions of the Ministry of Education who taught village women to weave with racks in position Vertical and hemp thread (1964), such as middlemen who created a permanent demand for hammocks for sale, thus helping to strengthen the development of this craft as a subsistence activity that is essential for many families in the village.

            Economic inequality that characterizes rural communities of Yucatan and was accentuated with the arrival of Hurricane Gilbert (1988) influences the different types of hammock that are made today.

            Some families, not having money to buy commercial yarn, resort to the strategy of dismembering the plastic bags in which they are sold fertilizer, rice or sugar and, through the old system corchado, obtain strips plastic thread with which hatched their hammocks. In the same case, lack of economic resources, are those who make their own instruments work using the old techniques. It should be noted that the hammocks that are made in these technical conditions are usually self-consumption.

            However, it has greater acceptance in the market nylon hammock results in other "hook" of low-income families. As already mentioned, this is that the broker provides the thread to weave, compromising the delivery of the product within certain time and a certain level of quality. Usually what the urdidor delivery is the "body" of the hammock, which is called maya wíinkal and the broker ends the piece by adding the "arms", or k'ab in Maya, and Maya eyelet whose name is yiich. This type of production is paid to the producer piecework, or delivered by piece.

            Thus, intermediaries are those who have control of the production process, they determine their demand rhythms and working times, set the price paid to labor and marketing hog.

HAMMOCK BEFORE 1950

In the first half of this century and even before, the traditional preparation of a hammock implied knowledge and management of low characteristic Yucatan jungle, where all the elements necessary for their manufacture were extracted.

            The fiber was used kij or henequen which is preferably planted in solar houses. The period of normal plant growth fluctuated between five or six years, after which already cuts could be made to take advantage of it.

            Once the selection and harvesting of leaves, they proceeded to scrape by using the buroché or pakché, two instruments that have practically disappeared (see illustrations).

            The scraping process consisted of juicing up the road leaving only henequen fiber. Later it was combing her hair and began to dry so that the sun's rays fall evenly on it and drying out fast and uniform. To make the thread with which the hammocks were produced had to corchar this fiber.

            The instrument with which the henequen corcha totally manual way, until now called k'ewel. This is made from a piece of tree bark called Ya'axché (Ceiba pentandra L.) and sisal twine about one meter long. Completing the instrumental is the bil, name given in the Mayan language to the compacted vegetable ash, round and porous consistency and easy release, which is used to keep hands dry while the process of corchado the agave is done that will turn it into thread.

            The frame is the next crucial to the making of a hammock instrument. During the period being intersected outlining tree-tsa tsai '(Neomillspiughia emarginata) Eight rods, as straight as possible, of a length of about two meters long. These rods were used nailing on the floor, forming a square structure in horizontal position and was the basis on which hatched.

            Urdir needles were made from the wood of trees called bojom (Cordia gerscanthus L.), Chacté '(Sweetiepanamensis), subinche' (Platymiscium yucatanum St.) or plum (Spondias lutea).

            Other elements of nature that were used in this process are: leaves ciricote (Cordia dodecandra), used as sandpaper to polish the surface of the wood tsai-Tsa, on which the hammock and cedar resin was hatched ( Cedrela mexicana Roem.) serving for people beginning to corchar agave fiber, it is smeared hands as protection to lessen blisters.

            The participation of all family members in making hammocks was most evident in the process of corchado since obtaining raw materials and manufacturing instruments work matters rested with the head of household and older children. To corchar almost always preferred to work before the sun came up because the cool and damp in the morning gives greater malleability to the fiber.

            The technique used in the warping of the old deck is called "bed or fan." The most important feature is that the base structure (frame) on which working, is positioned horizontally. In this position, given sahuin stitch or the needle it is made from the top down and vice versa.

            Regarding the fate of the hammocks, there are news that they only began to market in the eastern part of the state until the mid-twentieth century.

            Its quality is divided into thin and thick and its size small, medium and large. The quality of a hammock depended on the type of fiber that the yarn is made, being the corcharse, greater pressure and better consistency yarn fineness adopted. A hammock made with thick thread, which desbarataba or break after a few washings, was a hammock of poor quality. However they hammocks "thick" good quality calls were sold. They are called in this way because the yarn thickness was greater than the so-called "fine" hammocks.

            The girls hammocks were made with four pounds of yarn (2 kg.), Two that were used in the warp and two in the manufacture of arms. Median hammocks are hatched with five pounds (2.5 kg.), Three for warping the body and two pounds for arms. The large hammocks were made more than five pounds.

            According to residents of the community, hammocks marketing did not exist before 1915. After this date, we can speak of a kind of regional marketing through intermediaries who were in charge of selling between the different towns of the east of the state. Jutting communities for their good production of hammocks were Tixcacalcupul, Chichimilá and Chemax. People who traversed these populations to go to work in the harvest of gum to the territory of Quintana Roo were the first who started to sell hammocks.

            The coins that circulated at the time were sterling (gold), the horse -the sun and 0720 (pure silver). The price that an intermediary was paid directly to a producer by a median hammock fluctuated between $ 1.50 and $ 1.00; after this hammock sold in any of the chicle populations to $ 2.00 or $ 2.50.

            The frequency with which intermediaries who visited hatched hammocks, was fixed by the latter, who, in contrast to what happens today, had this as a complementary activity and retained control of its production.

            Trade in hammocks made of agave thread still occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, but its demand was still shrinking to almost nothing.

COMMUNITY Tixcacalcupul

Tixcacalcupul is located in the south-eastern state of Yucatan, in adjacency to the end of Quintana Roo. Is well connected because the road linking the city of Valladolid with the town of Carrillo Puerto crosses the town from north to south at kilometer 19.

According to the 1990 census, the population of Tixcacalcupul amounts to 1891 inhabitants (INEGI 1991 ). In most families work in the cornfields combined with the development of two crafts that are hipiles embroidery and warping of hammocks. Regarding the latter, Tixcacalcupul has distinguished himself for some time by the quality of its production (Teran and Rasmussen 1982).

As they tell the old community since the early nineteenth century every family prepared its own hammocks with instruments that were obtained from the mountain by its members, using fibers from two regional agaves: ki or sisal (Agave Sisal Perr) and elche elem (Agave fourcroides). Around the sixties, this way of doing hammocks was losing importance due to the spread of other raw materials that were more suited for sale to the tourism and the use of own people in the region.

 These materials were, first, the cotton or hemp thread and then the nylon thread. Along with the transformation of raw materials they emerged changes in the instruments used to weave hammocks, within families that produce and most commercial importance acquired production. Then we will address in some detail these changes, dividing the exhibition into two stages: the hammock before 1950 and the transformation of the sixties to the present.

Hammocks In Yucatán (México)

The hammock is not only an object of rest, typical Mexican tropics. For those who produce and use in their everyday culture it has many more uses and meanings. In this article we will approach some of them having as a common thread in the research community Tixcacalcupul, located in the eastern state of Yucatan.

            To get an idea of ​​the importance of Yucatecan hammock, it should be noted that along with honey occupies a prominent place as native export product of the state. Thus, during 1991 and 1992 they were sold abroad 76.756 pieces with an approximate value of $ 707us (SECOFI 1993).

            In those same two years, depending on their importance as buyers of this craft major countries were the United States, Germany, England, Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands (Ibid).

            In addition to this amount of hammocks sold abroad, are those acquired tourism in the resorts of the coast of Quintana Roo and in the cities of Merida and Campeche as well as those traded between the families themselves Peninsula.

            Compared with hammocks that occur in other states of Mexico, the Yucatan has a closed and consistent tissue, areas where artisanal tradition is determinant in the region.

            As for its use among the population of the Yucatan Peninsula, it is widespread in rural communities as the only way to sleep. Not so in cities like Merida, Campeche and Cancun where a large part of the alternating rest population in their daily use of bed during the cold season and hammock in the hottest months.

            Regarding the origin of the hammock, it should be noted that the specialists place it in the Caribbean, since before the arrival of the Spaniards in the Peninsula he slept on beds of palm mats and poles (Landa 1978: 34).