Perched in the Sierra Madre mountain range in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, the colonial city of San Cristóbal de las Casas remains a bastion of contemporary Mayan language and cultural production. I arrived there in 2009 as a student of Yucatec Mayan language and researcher of contemporary Indigenous literature of Mexico, particularly the renaissance of Indigenous publishing in the 1980s.

In a downtown bookstore, I saw a display showcasing contemporary Maya art and literature. One screenprint caught my attention. Rendered on a bright red paper with a soft, feathery texture, the image depicted a Maya man adorned in a massive headdress and regalia reminiscent of those seen atop the stone stelae of the nearby pre-Columbian archaeological site of Palenque. Yet, this figure was depicted in a modern context: hunched over and riding a bicycle, etched in the style of classic Maya codices. Created by Maya artist Nicolás de Paz González of Taller Leñateros, this image clearly synthesizes the story of a modern people inseparably linked to their majestic and historic ancestry.

Taller Leñateros (The Woodlander’s Workshop) is a publishing collective predominantly run by Maya women and artists dedicated to creating bilingual texts in Spanish and Tzotzil, one of several Indigenous Mayan languages spoken in Chiapas. Founded in 1975 by American ethnographer and poet Ámbar Past, Taller Leñateros emerged from Past’s extensive fieldwork in villages of the Tzotzil Maya communities. Motivated by the recovery and preservation of language, storytelling, and ecology, Past established the collective with the mission of recycling paperand producing books for, about, and by Maya women.

During her thirty-year tenure with the Indigenous publishing collective, Past dedicated herself to what she described as the “monumental task of cultural retrieval.”1 This effort culminated in the publishing of the magnum opus: an anthology titled Incantations by Mayan Women. This volume, the first book in over 400 years to be written, produced, and published by Indigenous Maya, captivates with its impressive handmade cover featuring a three-dimensional paper-mâché mask depicting Kaxail, the Maya goddess of the wilderness. Kaxail’s eyes are excised slightly to reveal the dark endpaper lying beneath. The contours of her face—stoic lips, high cheekbones, and a dimple on her chin—are reminiscent of cla-sic Mesoamerican funerary masks.

The anthology offers a decidedly Indigenous answer to European-based knowledge and organization systems, bookmaking, and printed artwork.2 Packaged in a handmade cardboard box nearly one square foot and three inches thick, the heft of the book is immense. Comprising over 500 pages of poetry, essays, and artwork, Incantations touches the heart of the reader with intimate portraits, songs, and rituals written by TzotzilMaya women.3 Roselia Montoya, the creator of the mask plates and a contributor to the anthology, molded 3,333 masks for the book covers using a combination of natural and recycled materials such as cardboard, corn silk, rabbit skin, glue tar, and camphor leaves.

Though visually splendid, the unique experience of running one’s fingers over the coarse natural fibers of straw, raffia, and agave brought me closer to the rural world of the Highland Maya. The cut-grass scent of the book still lingers, evoking the cool humid air of the mountains I sought as respite from the marshland of the neighboring state of Tabasco, where I visited family, and the sweltering lowlands of Yucatán, where I studied.

During my visit to the workshop, the scene vividly illustrated a living vocabulary reflected in their book titles: “incantations,” “spells,” “hexes,”“alchemy.” For a moment, I questioned whether I entered a workshop or a house of curanderas (healers). In the central patio, several bins were arranged for gathering raw materials for papermaking: raffia, agave, maguey fibers, sisal, corn silk, and pine needles. However, the most striking component to the workshop is the pulp beater positioned on a metalwork table. Welded to the motor axle is a wide-toothed gear connected by chain to a stationary bicycle. The pedal-powered beater does not require gas or electricity. It reminded me of the Maya figure on the bicycle that I had seen in the downtown bookstore. Surrounding the central patio and garden of the colonial-style structure are various walkways leading to studio workspaces and rooms showcasing their accomplishments in bookmaking and handmade paper. The office walls are lined with copie sof handmade postcards, posters, and their series of books, including their smallest edition: a one-inch book containing the phrase “my heart is a book” translated into several languages.5

To wander the walkways, peering into every room, is to bear witness to an archive chronicling the creative struggles of Indigenous people who have thrived despite the challenges of twentieth-century Mexican history. Javier Silverio, the director of Taller Leñateros, shared copies of their literary-and-arts magazine, La Jícara (The Drinking Gourd). Bound as an accordion book, the magazine emulates the format of pre-Columbian codices, again, demonstrating their unique blend of ancient and modern innovation.

Reuniting with the collective in 2016, I served as a member of the organizing committee for the Saint Louis Small Press Expo. We invited and hosted Javier Silverio for a week-long residency providing papermaking workshops and artist talks to the community to amplify and expand diverse voices and makers in publishing. I worked directly with Javier as an assistant and interpreter. I was amazed by his spirit of experimentation and his meticulous approach to waste reduction and accessible approaches in papermaking, deepening my appreciation for the ethos of Taller Leñateros.

Grasses, raffia, old cuttings of denim, paper, and cardboard were all thrown into the pulp. Dried ink was revived with a little solvent to create a canary yellow pulp. He encouraged workshop participants to reach into the pulp mixture and feel its consistency before pulling sheets, giving us a tactile understanding of the handmade paper we would create together. With each pull, we returned excess water to the vat, wasting nothing. Our rapid shifts in experimentation turned the classroom into an alchemy lab.

Even after mentioning the significant environmental effects of the Chicoasén Dam—Mexico’s largest hydroelectric plant in Chiapas—Javier beamed with an air of levity and suggested using available materials to make paper, like adding pineapple to the pulp. The fruit’s acidity would aid in breaking down the paper fibers and infuse the paper with a pleasant scent. He even proposed using the leftover pineapple as a steak tenderizer sauce. Amid important discussions of cultural representation and ecological justice, Javier maintained a presence of kindness and humor. In my mind, I was transported back to the workshop in San Cristóbal de las Casas, imagining grain bags filled with fibers and paper scraps, and pots boiling with plants rendering pulp.

‍K’ucha’al mu ti’e ta tz’i’ li slekome4

Makbikun sti’ a li jun tz’i’ une,
makbikun sti’ a li jun chucho une, Kajval,

ta jun yavi’e,
ta jun kantaroe.

Makbun sat un,
makbun jelov un,

ta lajcheb jkantila
xchi’uk jun limite pox.

Chukbun li yoke,
chukbun li sk’obe, Kajval.

Ak’o spuch’an sba ti avosil.
‍Ak’o ochuk svayel.

Vo’ot me ti jba be xaxanavik ech’el une,
vuch’tabun ta yik’al ati’, Kajval,

mu xa’i li yik’al yoke,
mu xa’i li yik’al sk’obe.

Li jun tz’i’,
li jun chucho une, Kajval.

So the Dog Won’t Bark at My Boyfriend

Shut the dog’s mouth for me.
Lock his snout

with a key,
with a padlock.

Close his eyes.
Stop up his ears

with twelve candles, Kajval,
and a bottle of firewater.

Tie up his paw,
Tie up his other paw.

Make him curl up on the ground.
Make him go to sleep.

Walk ahead of my boyfriend.
Blow on him with your breath

so the dog can’t smell his tracks,
so the dog won’t sniff his hands.

Don’t let
the dog bark.

Don’t let
the mutt bite, Kajval.

‍— Xpetra Ernández

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Ámbar Past once remarked on modern languages, “The German tongue is considered appropriate for training horses, Italian for courting women, French for diplomats, Spanish is said to be for addressing God. Without a doubt, Tzotzil is a language suited to magic.”6 The Indigenous Maya artists of Taller Leñateros have woven this magical quality into their paper-bound texts. Their significant work, Incantations by Mayan Women, captivates those who encounter their books, read their stories, and most importantly, understand their historic significance in continuing the millennia-long Maya literary tradition. However, the collective’s work transcends mere literary and cultural production; they are rooted in the very process of production itself. Their vision of cultural revitalization cannot be made without the care of connecting to the past and an innovative spirit toward the future. In the face of environmental uncertainties and hardships, their mission to uplift and preserve Tzotzil cultural heritage must embody a touch of whimsy and lightheartedness. After all, as they believe,t he heart is a book.

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notes

1. Martha Gies, “Back in Print After 500 Years,” Women’s Review of Books 27, no. 2 (March/April 2010): 10, a review of Incantations by Mayan Women. See also, Sarah Valdez, “Handmade Tales: the Sustainability of Small, Local, Do-It-Yourself Latin American Publishing Collectives in the Age of Global Capitalism,” Art on Paper 12, no. 1 (September/October 2007): 64–69.

2. Stephanie J. Beene, Lauri M. González, and Suzanne M. Schadl, “Tomes! Enhancing Community and Embracing Diversity Through Book Arts,” The Radical Teacher, no. 112 (Fall 2018): 59. See also, Stephanie Esch, “Review of Unwriting Maya Literature: Ts’ííb as Recorded Knowledge by Paul M.Worley and Rita M. Palacios, Confluencia 35, no. 2 (Spring 2020): 165–167.

3. The first edition of Incantations by Mayan Women, Tzotzil translated into Spanish, was in 1998. For more about this foundational book, see also Dinitia Smith, “The Poetic Hearts of Mayan Women Writ Large,” New York Times, May 11, 2005, a review of Incantations by Mayan Women.

4. Ámbar Past with Xun Okotz and Xpetra Ernándes, eds. Incantations by Mayan Women (San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico: Taller Leñateros, 2005), 98, 99. For more, see: Susan Smith Nash, “Incantations: Song, Spells andImages by Mayan Women,” World Literature Today 83, no. 6 (November/December 2009): 72. A review of Incantations by Mayan Women.

5. My heart is a book is translated into Tzotzil Maya, Spanish, English, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Dutch.

6. Ámbar Past, with Xun Okotz and Xpetra Ernándes, eds., Incantations by Mayan Women, 273.

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