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.