Ayana Young Hello and welcome to For The Wild podcast, I'm Ayana Young. Today I'm speaking with Samuel Bautista Lazo.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Our weavings are, the way I see it, they’re more than fabric, they are the living books of our ancestors. The patterns and symbols that we weave carry stories that are encoded in those sacred geometrical forms that we've memorized.

Ayana Young Dr. Samuel Bautista Lazo is a Benzaa (Zapotec) weaver from Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2013 he obtained his PhD in Engineering from the University of Liverpool in the UK, doing research in the topic of Sustainable Manufacturing. Samuel's research focused on finding ways to help industry mimic nature (where there is no waste); he created tools that engineers can use to guide them in their approach to transform waste into profitable co-products that stay within industrial loops and help build a circular economy.

After obtaining his PhD in the UK, Samuel decided to go back home and connect back with his community and family weaving heritage. Being back home struck a cord in his life and made him realize that his community was already practicing an ancient form of Sustainable Manufacturing that is still alive in the many craft traditions of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca and the eight regions in his state. From this place, Samuel has rooted even more within his community and family weaving business and from there and through the language of the ancient textiles he spends a great deal of time teaching, educating and planting the seeds for creating a future that heals the relationship of humans with the web of life.

Well, Samuel, thank you so much for joining us today. It's really lovely to be imagining speaking in different parts of the world, but still sharing similar views in a sense, when we look out our window I really appreciate that we're both with the land as they rest.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Hello, Ayana, let me greet you in Zapotec, zac laizhi, which means with the blessing of the midday sun as right now it's almost midday here and it's a pleasure, it's a blessing to be a part of your project, to share this path, and we've crossed paths fortuitously, so I'm really happy that we can have this conversation from so far, like we said, and yet so close with the rhythms of nature.

Ayana Young What a beautiful way to start. Thank you. Oh, goodness. I do wish we were together though, and I wish I was where you were even though I love winter in Alaska. But the first question I'm thinking about is as much for me as for our listeners, because I really want to, I just would love for you to paint a picture of where you are and your particular connection to the land and Oaxaca, and maybe share some of the practices that connect you to place.

Samuel Bautista Lazo I think in the West, in the literature, we're just beginning to understand how this continent got populated. But in our stories, my grandfather, my mother's dad, he tells us stories about this valley where we farm corn and milpa these days, that it used to be a great lake, and then it was like a swamp. That takes us back at least to the last ice age when this lake was formed by ancient glacier melt, and I myself have always been curious about our past. I've been trying to read as much as I can, and even more recently with Native scholars writing about our own history, from a Native perspective, and with recent findings in a place called Mitla, in Zapotec it’s called Lyobaa, there are some prehistoric caves that show, you know, paintings and handprints that date to about 10,000 years ago, around there there is a canyon where they found bones of mammoths, ancient horses, prehistoric horses, that our ancestors were probably hunting around that ancient lake, you know, who knows 20,000-25,000 years ago, that is still you know, being understood and measured with the way science works. But the way we keep our records is with stories. 

So we live in the central valley of Oaxaca, and this is where most of the Zapotec original towns were founded and I live right in front of the sacred peak that is called Gie Bets, which means the sacred vulture peak, and recently I came to the realization of what this means, I was listening to this audiobook of Talking Sand, and Tyson Yunkaporta was telling this story of how their people kept those stories of ancient burials, in the last ice, that were done at these peaks, these rocky peaks where they practiced what is known as sky burials, like they do in Nepal, where are the end of someone's life cycle, their bodies are offered to the vultures to be taken towards the sky. And I came to that realization, “Oh, this is why our mountain is called Gie Bets”, because they were probably practicing those sky burials back then. And a lot of those ceremonies have been erased since the arrival of the Spanish and with the imposition of the new religion in our culture. So right now, there are two crosses on top of this mountain, but yet the mountain is honored on every May 3rd, the whole town celebrates, and claims this mountain. There is a brass band that climbs up to the top, there are races to the top, and they share food and music, and everybody gathers. Just like in ancient times, when people hunted and gathered around this mountain, probably, you know, gathering acorns, processing acorns and hunting for meats, deer, rabbits. 

So the Central Valley is surrounded in the north by the Sierra Madre del Norte, the Northern Sierra, and the Northern Sierra’s get up to about 3200 meters, which is about 10,000 feet above sea level. And then that mountain range receives all the ocean currents and winds from the Gulf of Mexico. As it comes down into the valley, it comes down to about 5000 feet, so you can imagine all the transitions of ecosystems. We're at the top of this mountain range, we have like nine types of pine trees, Douglas firs, ferns, and lots of biodiversity. And then as we're coming down into the valley, the landscape changes. It goes to a low deciduous forest, and then at the valley, it's very dry, you know, it's almost a little like a desert bush kind of area with a lot of cacti, agaves, and so we're blessed to live, you know, in this diverse ecosystem. And then we have the valley where we're located right now. My town is called Teotitlán del Valle, and it’s really well known for its weaving traditions. And then as we go south, there is this Sierras that rises up close to 10,000 feet again and then goes down to the Pacific coast. And it's probably about 100 miles on a straight line, but if you were to drive from where we are to the Pacific, it takes about seven hours on very windy roads. And then on the other side we have tropical forests with lots of mango trees and papayas and lush vegetation. So we got it all in this narrow stretch of land. That's the narrowest part of Mexico.

Ayana Young Thank you so much for taking us through. I felt like I was floating above the land with you and totally transported to another place, and you brought up a few things in your response that I want to explore more. Of course, I want to talk about your weavings and your business Dixza Rugs, and there's also something you mentioned, I think you are getting to maybe the topic of colonization in Mexico and I'd love to unpack some of that continued tension, and in an interview you did with Of Sedge and Salt Podcast, you mentioned the ways that colonization and globalization have forced changes to the ways you interact with the land, and so much of the insidious powers of colonization manifest at intensely local levels. So yeah, I'm just interested in hearing how noticing the particular details of state control affects your relationship to the complexities of Indigeneity in Mexico?

Samuel Bautista Lazo Yes, definitely. You know, that's something that we feel, and it's changing the way we relate to the land. This happens because the government pushes for a legal structure of land ownership, and that's definitely not part of our cosmovision. So the story of how our village got founded here on this particular piece of land, is that this mountain that I was describing earlier, the sacred mountain, Gie Bets, the Vulture Peak, when our ancestors arrived to this mountain, the ancient spirit of a god appeared in the form of a macaw bird, and among thunder and clouds, the spirit presented itself and gave this land for our community to take care of, and to be the stewards of this land, but this was an act that was you know, in front of the whole community, so from that cosmovision, from that story, the land has always been a stewarded to the community, and everything that we manage, or every way in which we interact with the land, it's communal, up to this day, even though the government is pushing for private titles that you know, entitle you to a piece of land for your family or for your own person, the way these decisions are made, is still in community, we have community meetings where we decide, for example, which newlyweds are allowed a new plot of land to build their own house and grow their own food, because sometimes for some reason families have to sell their land or they split the land, and every year there's less and less available land, especially for our for growing corn, as the best lands have already been taken. But still, this is a community affair. And you can only have access to this community by being part of it, and also actually by intermarrying someone from the community, by being intimately tied to the community. So that's the great advantage that we are still preserving. 

On the other hand, though, because there is this push for everyone to get a land title and the government has this or like, in the folk tradition, we have the saying that “La Tierra Es De Quien La Trabaja”, the land belongs to those who work it, and this comes from the Mexican Revolution. When the big haciendas took over a lot of Indigenous lands, and then the farmers, the Indigenous people fought back to have those lands, to recover those lands in their hands. And because they were the ones working the land, plowing the land, harvesting, they coined that term. The land belongs to those who work it. However, this phrase, I think it's altering a very particular way in which we were doing agriculture, which is that we used to farm a plot of lands for you know, about four to eight years, and then we would let that piece of land rest for another 15 or 20 years and that when we do that, in this central valley, a lot of mesquite trees and acacias grow, that have deep roots, that you know, break up the soil, fix nitrogen, create microclimates, create an incredible habitat for many other birds and species of rabbits and other, you know, animals to nest and flourish. But now, because there is a push to always work your land, we stopped giving that piece of land a period of rest, which is the way in which we were practicing our ancient agricultural system. 

So I think that's, for example, one of the dangers in which the federal government doesn't have a deep understanding of the way in which we have related to the land. So nowadays, if you leave your land resting, you know, for more than 10 years, then in these communities, you run the risk of your little plot of land, going back to the community plot. So now everybody is, you know, always constantly plowing their lands, and working lands. And also, that's another reason is to always occupy land and show signs of farming, so that, for example, when mining companies want to show up, they cannot just go and grab that piece of land because it's unused. So when the land is being used for agriculture, noticeably, then we feel like we have a better chance of fighting and keeping the rights of ownership for that land.

Ayana Young That's really interesting on so many levels and I know here in Alaska, the mining issues are really potent. And it seems like the economic argument is the one that's most listened to, like if you can prove that the land is being used to make money in some other way, that's in a lot of ways the best, the best tactic to win. And it's sad to not allow the land to rest or even be, to protect the land. You know, it's so complicated what colonial capitalism has done, and what even those of us who are land protectors have to do in order to play in this system. It's really complex. So I really appreciate learning more from you about that, and I also would love to hear about the Benzaa, or Cloud People, and just hear about more, you know, more of your ancestry and continued presence on your ancestral land, and how that shapes you and the resistance within asserting Indigeneity, and even how that relates to your work.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Yeah, yeah. Well, it's also been a personal journey, a life journey, too, as our ancestors said, to discover my true faith and my true heart, because the process of colonization started with the big erasure of our culture. And when I grew up, I didn't have the answers. When I was a teenager, I was very confused with, you know, Eurocentric culture being so strong on radio, or on TV, you know, you didn't see Indigenous faces, you didn't hear Indigenous stories, and so it was a whole journey to recover this and reconnect as well, even though I live in a culture, in a community that is so vibrant, and that has its language, its traditions, we grow our corn according to the same cycles that our ancestors have always followed by reading the clouds. And that's why we're the Cloud People because in order to live on this particular piece of land, in order to grow corn the way we do it, we need to pay attention to the weather systems, to the clouds, and to the microclimates, to the very particular microclimates that correspond to your plot of land, so in our community, in my village. I don't like the square kilometers but I would say that you know, there are at least three or four major microclimates and everybody here has a little plot of land, that's like maybe two hectares, half a hectare, which is like an acre, and then everybody, you know, by generation after generation knows exactly when to plant corn, because a two week time frame will make a huge difference in the corn that you harvest. If you plant too early, or if you plant too late. So in this way, we're really connected to the lands and to the heavens. 

I often tell people, you know, when we plant corn, it's as if there was an umbilical cord going from our bodies, from our bellies, our navel, that grounds us to the Earth, and then that is connected to the root of the corn plant, and as we pray for the rains, as we study the clouds, our prayers, you know, are elevated towards the clouds. And then when it rains, that feeds the ground again, and feeds our bodies, and when our prayers are answered in that way, there is a full circle, you know, a full connection between the earthly and the spiritual world. 

So, a lot of the ancient stories, a lot of the, for example, the ancient calendar is based on the cycle of corn, in that indirect manner, is how our, our stories and our knowledge has survived. I think anyone that plants corn, I call it in this spiritual way, I know in the West, they call it dry farming, but for us it is spiritual farming. You know, by listening to the voices of the clouds, to the patterns of the clouds, to the needs of the land. By uniting, by weaving these two worlds together, we are connected to the tapestry of life. And I think for all the Indigenous farmers in the Central Valley, this is how they relate to their ancestors, to their ancient culture. 

Ayana Young I love thinking about how your ancestors are nourishing the land and the corn, through the bones in the soil, and yeah, the cycle of life that so many of us now in modern cultures are taken away from that cycle that's so beautiful and nourishing, and I really love being reminded of that. 

I do really want to talk about your weaving, and I think it'd be interesting to hear how the land specifically fostered your continued connection to crafts like weaving and how this practice really taps into something so connected to human life over the past thousands of years? And yeah, just how that influences your ideas of deep time and ancestry. And, gosh, I have so many questions on this. Maybe I'll just pause and let you take it away for now.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Yeah, definitely. I mean, weaving has been so a part of our history here in my village that we've come to specialize in this activity. But I think before weavers, we're all farmers, and then we weave when it's too hot to be working outside or when it's raining too much. Every village around here in the Central Valley specializes in a craft, and this craft has become more specialized through the passing of time, especially since the period of the Aztecs, the Mexica, they didn’t call themselves Aztecs, when the Mexica took over control of the ancient trade routes, that connect, I heard they connected Alaska all the way to Nicaragua, and further south. But anyway, they imposed taxes and tributes to these towns, and our town was taxed with weaving, we were weaving like 600 loads of cotton clothes that were being sent to Tenochtitlan, nowadays Mexico City, other towns specialized in the production of, for example, leather sandals or leather goods, especially in the northern mountains where they have access to oaks and tannins and barks to tan, other towns specialized in clay, basketry weaving, and then every other day we meet in main markets around the Central Valley to trade. So that within the Central Valley, we can produce most of the objects that we need to live. 

So anyway, our weaving heritage, you know, goes back, it's recorded in ancient times. The oldest objects that have been found are made with agave fibers. There were some sandals woven out of agave fibers, and there's also of course sisal ropes and other objects from there, I think they call them tumplines, which are strips of fabrics used to carry heavyweights by your forehead, those are other objects that have been found around here in the archaeological record. And I think you know, when I've been speaking to people, I've been teaching at what they call their primitive and ancestral skills gatherings and our human relation to fiber is so old, that when I imagine our ancestors arrived here during the last ice age, they were also fathering the wool from the wooly mammoths to insulate their gloves, and their boots, so just thinking about those ancient connects, it’s really reassuring, really nourishing when we are weaving.  Because even to this day, for example, the word for cotton is xilla, and the word for sheep is the same word, it’s xilla, so even though the sheep was brought by the Spanish, the word that we use for that fiber is the same word that we use for cotton, because they are processed in the same way, with the same steps. And, you know, I also imagine that weaving sheep's wool wouldn't be that much more different than probably processing, wooly mammoth wool, you know. So that connection is deep in time, as you say. 

I've come to believe, I’ve come to realize as well that in order to heal our relationship with the planet, with the different rhythms of the planet, and the different life supporting systems, we need to heal our relationship, just like we're doing, we need to heal our relationship with our food, with our clothing, and that is where weaving plays a big part. We need to look back to that skill that we’ve delegated to factories, that you know as developed countries, or when we buy industrially made fabrics, you know, we've delegated to other parts of the world that are also suffering, you know, from those are extractive practices. 

So, I think that's where our weaving medicine comes in, and that's where also, we've opened up our workshop and our family business to share this skill with the world and to tell our story, our weavings are, the way I see it, they’re more than fabric, they are the living books of our ancestors. The patterns and symbols that we weave carry stories that are encoded in those sacred geometrical forms that we've memorized. And they call for living a life of balance, for living a life that's connected with nature, that calls for clothing ourselves with the fibers that we gather around, that we can grow, that we can dye with the plants that surround us, with plants, that carry medicine, with plants that heal our bodies, plants that nourish our skin, that's a sponge that's absorbing all these molecules that clothes ourselves, with clothes that respects the makers, with clothes that speak to us and that speak to the future, with clothes that carry the stories of the past. 

I think our society right now is at a turning point where we need to listen to the voice of our ancestors, we need to reconnect to that voice, and the more I meditate on these patterns and symbols, the more I've also come to know them and see them, you know, around the world, and see how the patterns that we weave are the same that the Incas are weaving, the same that people in Nepal are weaving. I've seen patterns that we weave that are so similar to some Mongolian felted rugs, and patterns that we weave that are similar to patterns that Ayu people are weaving, and so you know it takes me back and I feel like these are ancient stories that we carried, probably, you know, since we left Africa, who knows 60 or 70,000 years ago, scientists saying that we're probably 10,000 humans exploring new ecosystems. And this really amazes me, you know, the way in which these patterns are so universal, because sometimes people say that these patterns are created by the grid that is created with the weft and the warp, that allows us to weave you know triangles and squares easily, but then, with other techniques, like Mongolians, you know, felting and tufting the rugs and using like very different techniques to create the very same pattern, or when the patterns are also painted on pottery, which is really hard to paint geometrical symbols on a round pottery, castles, tells us that there is more than coincidence to the fact that we're all creating similar patterns, because at the end of the day too, these patterns are built into our hands into our bodies, for example the cycle of life pattern that is obtained by joining the hands, you know, at the fingers, almost like a mudra, you know, and creating a little spiral. And all those patterns are built into our bodies and are built into the fractals of nature. And, and that's what we keep weaving, for 1000s of years, we keep carrying those stories.

Ayana Young I feel redundant, but I just keep wanting to point out the beauty in your responses and feel like they're definitely reminding me and hopefully the listeners too, of what it is to be human again, I think it's gotten so confusing, and we are conditioned to feel so far from source, and truth. And so much of what you're saying feels like it's connecting back to something that feels real, and I think it's really brave in a sense and I want to hear more from you too of how you feel, but that you share your culture, and share your weavings and I'm interested on how to decide when to share culture. In an interview with Tharawat Magazine, you say “It's a fine balance, no question, but sharing always came naturally to us. When we would go to the market to sell a rug, we would always invite people to see our town. We're proud of the sacred mountain, we love to show them the remnants of an ancient sacred site that preserves some of the motifs that we still weave.” And, and then you continue saying, “In the past, we were more secretive about our weaving techniques. We thought about our centuries long stewardship of these techniques meant that we had to protect them, that they were ours exclusively. However, I believe that our craft must now be shared with the world because weaving is central to the human experience and not just to our culture, I wish to share that wisdom to help make this a better world one thread at a time.” So I'm just really interested in how you balance claiming culture with sharing it, especially in a time when it seems that so much of culture is either forcibly commercialized, or, on the other hand, made to seem antiquated, or even culturally appropriated, or stolen?

Samuel Bautista Lazo Yeah, yeah, I think I see that in our community and it's really coming in from a place of fear, you know, that we lose our craft, that our designs get patented by some other company, because it has happened, you know, it has and it's happened like, there are IKEA rugs that looks exactly like our designs or like South American Inca designs or Navajo, or Hope designs and you know they’re just blatantly weaving socks and rugs and other goods that are industrially produced with those ancient symbols and stories, and yet no, no credit or let alone any retribution is given to any of our of our cultures or societies. 

So yeah, you know, people are afraid of that, but I think on the other hand, too, you know, if we don't carry on this, this message, if we don't share this medicine, if we don't let people have the experience to gather things from the wild, and to transform them with their hands and their heart into sacred objects. You know, I think people won't have that opportunity to experience that. Because you know, I think that's the only form of slow living, or that's, that's the purest form of sustainable living, because I imagine our grandmother's, you know, they they spent like, close to a year to make a huipil, which is the traditional dress that they have, they would weave it on the back strap loom, and that act of weaving is more of a ritual, rather than an activity or production method. Weaving was done by women in a ritual way, when they would sit on the grounds and tie one end of the loom to their womb, you know, to their waist. And then the other end of the loom is tied to a tree that represents the cosmic tree of creation, where all the souls of the people living before, are resonating into this reality. So in fact, in the very act of women, women are bringing together Heaven and Earth, on their tapestry, on the tapestry of life, with materials that they've gathered on the Earth. 

And so when you weave something like that, you know, when you spend a year weaving a piece of garments that will last you a lifetime that you can inherit to your daughters and granddaughters, then those objects become sacred, they become magical, they have our voice. And, and I think that's where we should gear our society towards. Sometimes I see a lot of greenwashing in the fashion industry, you know, and I think in order for the world, we're like 7 billion people on this Earth and in order to cloth everyone, in order to provide for everyone, we need to empower ourselves again, and to, to connect, you know, with those ancient skills, to connect with our environment, and to keep sharing these stories, so that this becomes the new story, the new, the new story that we choose to believe that cloths should be more sacred, should be produced in this way. Instead of you know, the cheap $5 shirt that's available everywhere and that you could throw away in a few months.

Ayana Young Yeah, fast fashion is not only spiritually bankrupting us and taking us away from a deep connection to source, but it's obviously ecologically horrendous to the Earth, let alone all of the human rights violations and slavery that it encompasses. It's yeah, the fashion industry time and time again is just, gosh, it's really insidious and destructive. And the more I've learned about it, I guess I shouldn't be shocked at this point, but when you hear the numbers of how much damage it's doing, the people and places, it's really, it's hard to take in. And yet, in so many places. That's what's being offered because culture has been removed for so many people, they've been removed from their cultures. And so I think what you're sharing revitalizes us to remember again, especially for those of us who have lost our way. Remember again, that there was a time where we all were connected to our clothes, and they were ceremonial, and they meant something. They weren't just something to buy and throw away and end up in a landfill somewhere. 

So yeah, I appreciate you, you speaking to that and reminding us of that power. I think it was Martin Prechtel, or somebody I interviewed at the very beginning of the podcast, and I remember them talking about dressing for the divine. And that's something that always stuck with me when I  get dressed in the morning. Of course, sometimes functionality matters, especially when you're going out into some weather, going to be doing something rough, but that it's an expression, it can be an expression to connecting with the divine, connecting with the land, connecting to what we love. And I really connected with that, it just opened up a whole other realm for me. 

But gosh, I do want to go back a bit, and back to the thread of how to decide to share your culture, but also how rural places can support themselves without having to extract and this is something I see so much here in Alaska, down, you know, in a lot of rural communities where there's so much pressure on economic development, economic growth, and so that in a lot of ways is why these big multinational corporations with their fracking or mining or fossil fuel extraction, I think why they build trust in small communities sometimes, because when folks are desperate to make money, and then they're being told by this big company that they're going to be able to have sustainable or long term financial or economic growth, it's something that people cling to. 

So I'm just really fascinated with this for so many reasons. And, again, in the first podcast interview you did with Of Sedge and Salt, you discuss the varying effects of tourism in your hometown, and I'd be interested in hearing more about the various challenges that come from having to present an image of culture and life to outsiders, and just also maybe detailing the challenges and benefits of tourism. Because I know, in the rural communities I've been in, even though it seems like tourism would be better than mining, which I think in certain ways it is, it can also be its own form of extraction, both culturally and ecologically, also just people coming in to buy up land, speculative investors. So yeah, just I'd love to hear your take on that.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Yes, you know, tourism and mining, I mean, they have the same goal, which is to create capital, to increase gains, and it's a dangerous window, in the way we’ve opened. Maybe 16 years ago, when my dad was a younger child, everybody here kind of lived on the same economic level, you know, everybody had adobe homes, everybody was planting corn, just living a really egalitarian life, you know, we were like, doing the same, and then with tourism opening up and arriving into our town, when they built their airport and highway, and when more and more people started to come into our town, they got really interested in rugs as a craft that they could import and sell in the US, especially because the roads are easy to transport and they're used to decorate homes and but within like, the last 50 years, you know, there is now a noticeable degree of economic difference between families. So families that happen, maybe happen to have the early connections with buyers, or families that happen to have land at the entrance of our village or are in the center of our town, you know, they've benefited more from tourism than others on the outskirts of town. So yeah, I've seen maybe my generation as I grew up, you know, those inequalities started to widen and widen. And now I see them as real, and that's just like the economic game that we've opened up to. I read in history books, you know, how the early friars wrote about towns or villages, they were surprised that our ancestors or elders, they didn’t see the value of money, you know, especially in the early days, and the joke is that why would Europeans take these beautiful sculptures made out of gold and melt them into ugly lingots of metal. We were answering like, why would you store, you know, all this silver and gold. In fact, the feather dance that we perform to pray for the rain, they use coins, more of decorative elements on their chest, instead of using it for trade, you know, it's used as an element of decoration in our regalia, and people didn't need to use money. 

When my father and my grandpa built a house, they were still using guelaguetza, which we say in Zapotec, which is kind of like a structured, formal way of helping each other. Today for me, tomorrow for you. So when they built their house, you know, they listed a few neighbors and friends, to help them out, build a house and put up the roof, and when their turn was to build their homes, you were you're obliged, societally, you know this societal structure of the guelaguetza, you're obliged to pay back in time and effort for what you have received. So people didn't actually need to use money for a long time. And I don't know, maybe it started in the 40s, when the economic pressures started to force us to get into this economic system, and probably it had to do with the droughts that we do suffer in this valley, from time to time, there's different cycles of droughts, and yeah, when people are hungry, then, you know, it's time to use money. And people started to emigrate to the US and to work in the fields there and to accumulate capital, and then when they would come back to our village, they would have just more money to spend to build their houses, to buy the necessities of life. 

Now, recently in my generation, I think we're in this economic system fully, and we are trying to keep it balanced, you know, I think that the money that comes into a village from tourism, it goes back to the community, it goes back in a way that strengthens our identity, people mostly spend money on, you know, on having the comforts of life, because at the end of the day, we do want to, you know, also enjoy the comforts of modern life, you know, have hot water, and have have a truck to do your farm chores and, and have a TV or have, you know, have the comforts of life. So people are looking towards that, but we're not in a race to become like the richest rug seller or the richest rug dealer in town. I mean, some people might, but I don't think that's the spirit of our community. What's happening with all the income that we get from our rugs, we have more, you know, bigger weddings, more brass bands, we have, like bigger festivals. You know, we have bigger parades. Every family gathering involves more and more people. And Day of the Dead, it's even bigger, it's celebrated in, you know, with more music, with more, with more food. And so I think, at the end of the day, what we value, you know, it's the well being of our families, our community, and of our own health. 

So, it is a dangerous game, for sure, because that's what capitalism does, and it corrupts people and it's very easy to get greedy. But we have some checks in place, for example, in our local traditions and customs to elect the mayor or to elect the Major Domos, which is like a person that pays for the patronage of the festivities, of the town, of the village, of the Saint, of the village. So usually when they see somebody making lots of money, they'll name them Major Domo, so they have to spend a lot of money to pay for the village parties and festivities. And in that way, you know, it's like a way of keeping balance between people that are amassing more money. However, that has kind of worked a little bit against our favor, because by becoming Major Domo, you gain more social status, and then by gaining more social status, you are more eligible to be a member of the town council. And, unfortunately, well, corruption was very prevalent in Mexico. I think up until this presidency, where at least in the discourse, we have had a strong discourse against corruption, so much so that, for this local town council that just finished governing our village, we had a major fight, to kick them out, because of some corruption practices that they fell into. And the whole village embarked in our legal battle. And we even had to close the freeway for three days to have our rights recognized by the state authorities, because we, as a community, decided to kick out the corrupt council and put a new Major in. So yeah, I mean, we were leaving this, you know, we're living it in our community, and we're trying to keep it balanced to keep it, you know, pure, because money is, at the end of the day, it's just a tool, you know, our ancestors used cacao seeds, the type of cacao seeds to trade, because they didn't want people to store you know, those points. They wanted them to share them, they wanted that to circulate. And for us, markets are sacred, you know, markets are the place where we gather as a community, where we gather with other communities, to meet each other to trade our goods to trade the blessings of our lands, the magic that we've created with our hands. And it's great to meet people, you know, in the markets. And that's kind of how, how I grew up. And how my mother grew up too, she came from a family of butchers. And they were always at the markets selling meat. So, markets are so sacred that the word for market is tianguis, and the word for the Pleiades is ladies of the markets, and the name of our village, it’s related to that, in Zapotec, it's related to that, which is like the day of the market, or the day of the Pleiades because also the sacred peak, the sacred mountain that I mentioned before, it aligns with the Pleiades around the New Years in our ancient calendar that falls around the 19th or 20th of November. So at the end of the day, you know, I think what we need to do is to bring back sacredness to the markets, to the things that we do, to our crafts, to our lives, to our bodies.

Ayana Young Gosh, Samuel, I could stay with you on this call so much longer–

Samuel Bautista Lazo And I can speak for four hours.

Ayana Young so maybe we'll have to have a follow up because there's a lot more to get into here. But thank you so much for your time and your storytelling and for transporting us. Definitely transporting me to another place and to a type of connection to deep time and human nature. It felt really good to talk to you.

Samuel Bautista Lazo Thank you so much for this opportunity. Ayana. Thank you so much. And yeah, and this is why we open up so that we can inspire people to connect with our roots, with their own communities, with their own environment. And we all inspire each other, you know, also by welcoming so many guests from different parts of the world. I've seen my parents being exposed to other cultures and to be curious about other people, about other languages, other places. So yeah, I think that's the beauty of connection.

Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Marie Siou. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, Francesca Glaspell, and Julia Jackson.