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Chango Mezcalero: Collectible Pottery bottle of Mezcal Oaxaca, Mexico

Oaxaca Clay spirits container has strange story of a San Bartolo Coyotepec

Alvin Starkman, MA, LL.B.

Mezcalero Chango has become a very collectible folk art item whose story was told rarely, if ever. While by all accounts it in the State of Oaxaca, home of Mezcal created – the distilled spirit from the baked, then Fermented agave – It is now much sought after by collectors living abroad much more.

The story of Chango Mezcalero may provide a connection between the gray and functional pottery in Oaxaca San Bartolo Coyotepec first produced during pre-Hispanic times, and the black field of contemporary ceramics or Barro Negro. Black pottery is indicated by the 1952/53 innovation of today's famous Zapotec indigenous pottery, led Doña Rosa Real and husband Don Juventino Nieto have.

What exactly is Mezcalero Chango, the mysterious Monkey-Shaped Mezcal bottle?

 

Chango Mezcalero is a sound recording in the form of a monkey, often painted in bright colors that are traditionally used for mezcal. In modern times, the monkey form as the main produced decorative folk art, sometimes with detailed etching on the gray clay, occasionally bottomless and without discharge because it unpainted, not for serving liquids.

The traditional Chango Mezcalero was used to hold, display and / or absorb a gift for Mezcal, and hence the name. The tone Bottle is that usually with a plug of cork, or a small piece of corn.

Some of the more common food includes poses of the Apes or simply holding a banana, his arms over his chest and a hand over the other covering an eye.

Chango Mezcalero served both the tourist and local trade;. It is occurring Recuerdo de Oaxaca (Oaxaca souvenir of) written on the back and as a couple, with the name of a man painted sometimes proposed at the front of a figure and a woman on the other hand, local application as personalized gifts – for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays and other rites of passage. Sometimes it is painted found, but no inscription, no means unusual, as was its original function as a combined jewelry and serving bottle on the shelves of the canteens held.

Chango Mezcalero the size is usually between 8 "and 9.5" in height. The traditional forms maintained between about 700 ml and 1 liter respectively.

Linking Barro Negro Chango Mezcalero in a historical context

 

Eighty-year-old Don Valente Nieto, only surviving descendants of Doña Rosa and Don Juventino, they say, that someone in his home town of San Bartolo Coyotepec who claimed that they or their deceased relatives were the perpetrators of the Chango Mezcalero, mistaken or false information fact. He believes his father, a gifted sculptor, restorer was used not only Chango Mezcalero, but also some creative clay vessels for holding Mezcal.

Don Valente demonstrates that it all started when Cantina Operators of Oaxaca – First, more to follow – started coming Nieto Real-farm and asked the Chango bottle to keep, display and sale of mezcal Finally another. Animal forms were requested and produced. While the talented Don Juventino created the various forms and collected Chango Mezcalero awareness.

Don Valente notes the sound forms of Chango, mermaid, owl and more stylized way, as a souvenir hidden in his father's legacy. He points to vintage photographs of his parents waiting addition to such figures waiting to be placed in a rudimentary in-ground oven for baking. Don Juventino died in 1973 at 70 years, while Doña Rosa died about seven months later, on the 80th

In fact, Don Valente parents are the recognized innovator of Barro Negro, the shiny black pottery now provides the livelihood for most citizens San Bartolo Coyotepec. In fact, Nelson Rockefeller, was an admirer of Doña Rosa and Barro Negro, and even had a large collection of their work. Before the start of the 1950 Innovation black pottery, and dating pre-Hispanic villagers were only produce utilitarian gray clay pieces, such as San Bartolo's remarks constitute Cantaro.

An alternative version of the origin of the Chango Mezcalero comes from the San Bartolo Coyotepec family of Marcelo Galan Simon, died. His granddaughter does not recommend that you use Abuelo Go to trades with his gray clay pieces including water bottles and jugs. She continues that someone once asked him to make a monkey form, he met and then began to get orders in by others. He worked with the clay, while others were painting.

With further investigations more facts emerge, I hope, the may result in additional faith to this version of the origin of the Chango Mezcalero. For what it's worth, one of Don Marcelo's Changos is on display the Museo de Arte Popular de Oaxaca, San Bartolo Coyotepec.

Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions and are subject to further information came to light when the Nieto family-Real was the creator of the Barro Negro, is now coveted by collectors of Mexican arts and crafts around the world, it too far a stretch to suggest that maybe the same family the inventor of the Chango Mezcalero was? How, why, first a Chango, perhaps there is a connection between the black face, Memin Pinguin Mexican feautured monkey cartoon character, and the origins of the Chango Mezcalero.

 

Information regarding the history and significance of the Chango Mezcalero

 

The above hypothesis, based in part on oral tradition and an examination of the various Vintage and contemporary pieces. While some of the validity of oral histories would discount vis-à-vis Oaxaca studies, they remain an important method for assembling information, including chronology, sometimes supplemented, while yielding at other times as the only viable research tool results.

In examining the relationship between the development of pre-Hispanic pottery traditions, and Barro Negro Chango Mezcalero, you have to keep note of at least three points:

• The richness, diversity and variety of pre-Hispanic art forms developed in the central valleys of Oaxaca, in stating, among other places, Oaxaca Rufino Tamayo Museum of Art Pre.Hispanic;
• Two oral traditions exist in San Bartolo Coyotepec regarding the origins of the Chango Mezcalero and much more to light come (or perhaps already said), which may well be that there never be a definitive answer – and perhaps development began at about the same time on several Workshops;
• There may indeed be physical evidence disputes the above stories about the origin of the Chango Mezcalero, and in fact, close examination the bottle suggests that at some point in time it was produced, a different tone than the Bartolo used to produce products in San Coyotepec barro.

Despite these and other limitations, this small, often colorful monkey-shaped bottle of Mezcal aka Chango Mezcalero, historian with fruit for further research and folk art collectors with at least preliminary answers to their questions.

About the Author

Alvin Starkman received his Masters in Social Anthropology in 1978. After teaching for a few years he attended Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, thereafter embarking upon a career as a litigator until 2004. Alvin now resides in Oaxaca, where he writes, leads small group tours to the villages, markets, ruins and other sites, is a consultant to film production companies, and operates Casa Machaya Oaxaca Bed & Breakfast. ( http://www.oaxacadream.com ) .

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