Albany, New York
February 3, 2023
A city that may have had one of the first public water infrastructures in America now looks to the nearby hills for a drink.
The Rise and Fall of the Mezcal Monkey
SANTA MARIA COYOTEPEC, OA—I find Enrique Galán in the courtyard of his house a couple hundred meters off of the main highway that bisects the small Oaxacan town of Santa María Coyotepec. He is 83 years old and sits shirtless beneath a lone mango tree as goats and chickens chase each other around the yard stirring up dust and straw. Galán meets me with a welcome, but decades of labor have taken their toll on his back and hands. Now, he is hard of hearing. His wife stands by his side in a traditional Oaxacan skirt and translates my questions from spoken Spanish to something on the verge of a scream.
Galán is from Santa María Coyotepec and so were his parents. The small town has specialized in clay pottery for nearly 700 years, according to the director of the local ceramics museum. Yet within Galán’s lifetime, the ancient artisanal sector has totally transformed. Rosa Real Mateo de Nieto, famously called Doña Rosa de Coyotepec, improved the firing process of local ceramic goods. By heating finished pots to 700℃, Doña Rosa managed to give the local clay a new sheen. Barro negro, or black clay, was born with an obsidian-like finish that no other town could replicate. The town, to this day, is known throughout Mexico for its beautiful, lustrous, ebony ceramics.
It happened that Galán was Doña Rosa’s neighbor. He still lives next door to the late ceramicist’s workshop. Shortly after she developed the barro negro technique, Galán recalls that Rosa’s husband, Juventino Nieto, began to make mezcal bottles in the shape of monkeys, called changos.
The course of Galán’s career would follow the innovations of his neighbors. He would craft thousands of barro negro changos in his lifetime. Moreover, the history of the changos, and other contemporary bottles in the shape of women and penises (called bromas or jokes,) demonstrate how local Oaxacan mezcal has transformed from artisanal to commercial. Large clay cántaros gave way to decorative clay bottles which succumbed to mass-produced plastic and glass bottles. The form of mezcal consumption that accompanied the older vessels has virtually disappeared.
The Rise of the Chango
Just down the road from Santa María Coyotepec, the archaeological site at Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán has yielded evidence of ceramics that date back to what specialists call Stages 1 and 2 of the Monte Albán settlement. These remains suggest that a pottery industry has existed for around 2,500 years in the region.
For those born and raised in Santa María Coyotepec, clay is an ancestral rite. The town has its own clay mine off in the foot of the nearby hills, but no foreigners (not even from other towns) are permitted entry. Photography, I am told, is not allowed. Here, the town collects clay free of charge for their own use. They govern the small mine themselves and there seems to be no concerns about depleting the resource. One craftsman estimates that 5 to 10 costales, or sacs, of the coveted black clay will last a shop 2 to 3 months.
Back in his courtyard, Galán explains to me that his parents made their living by selling cántaros, large clay jugs, of 26 to 32 liters to local mezcaleros. The same jugs were used for mezcal and water storage. They were always made to order and mezcal was transported on pack animals laden with such voluminous jugs. To drink the spirit, a small hose, or “manguerita,” was used to siphon off the desired quantity. “It’s not like plastic today which gives mezcal a flavor.” Galán adds wryly. Back then, mezcal was distilled in clay and then stored in clay.
Learning the craft from his “papas,” he tells me, “I worked on cántaros for mezcal, but only for a short time. After that, they came out with a new form. A man started to make changos and amphoras. Then the cantineros began to buy them and the figures started selling out.” The cantinero, or bartender, drove the demand for smaller volume decorative bottles where the mezcalero had previously ordered large jugs. The new format served a new purpose and a new clientele. Mezcal was now on the back bar.
“A man down the street brought me the first figure and the mold–of a liter, cuartillo [half liter,] cuarto [quarter liter.]” remembers Galán, “The monkeys come out of a mold because doing it by hand, they don’t all come out the same.”
Orders for the monkey-shaped bottles would come in. Galán and other barro negro ceramicists would fulfill them, molding and firing hundreds if not thousands of sculpted bottles. In addition to the chango monkeys, penises and women were also popular. “We also painted the body with color. I almost worked entirely on these figures.” says Galán “It has been 15 to 20 years since I haven’t worked on this.” But, by the 1980s, the demand had begun to subside.
The Mezcal Monkey’s Fall
As I walk around Santa María Coyotepec, I am specifically searching for changos. There is no shortage of barro negro here. Nearly every household is selling jet-black pottery out of their front room. There are jugs, garden figures, wall pieces, candle holders, and more. The town’s economy is made of clay.
Gringos come in from the touristic center of Oaxaca City on tour buses and in private cars to buy the delicate, ebony crafts as souvenirs. The ceramics are worth the trip. They represent the knowledge of the Oaxacans and the earth upon which they live. They are crafted with hyperlocal skill and knowledge.
Yet, despite my constant queries for changos, no shop has the legendary monkey bottles. The shop owners don’t even seem to know who might sell such a bottle anymore. I am sent to a blue door several blocks over. No one answers. I continue on my search. Still, the barro negro museum in the town plaza has at least a dozen examples of hand-crafted monkey bottles. The legacy is there, but it seems to have died out. The director tells me to try Enrique Galán.
Both Galán and his wife point to plastic as the ultimate downfall of the decorative clay bottles. But glass is also to blame. Lorenzo Matteo Ortiz, another local craftsman who has worked in barro negro for 36 years adds, “Already, they [mezcaleros] don’t order from us. They use bottles. Not too long ago, we made bottles in molds too. Now they don’t order cantaritos, changos, bromas.” Matteo Ortiz sells female figures and a couple bromas, but has no monkeys.
The chango mezcalero–the mezcal monkey–holds the Oaxacan mezcal industry in polished clay. In Galán’s youth, mezcal was locally produced and locally consumed. It was stored in large volumes for consumption in the house. The clay containers were also locally made. As barro negro took off, mezcal slowly established itself in urban cantinas, where imported rum mixed in Cuba Libres and foreign whiskeys traditionally dominated Mexican taste. Smaller bottles were needed, and novelty figures didn’t hurt the sales of a notoriously countryside spirit. Finally, when mezcal entered its industrial maturity, clay vessels were no longer tenable. Plastic and glass took over and mezcal reached international markets. The large cántaro was long extinct, and now the chango was dead.
I drift through Doña Rosa’s old shop. Her family sells a wide array of ceramics to tourists, but they also maintain a sort of barro negro museum. They display their grandmother’s bust proudly next to samples of lackluster unfired clay. Newspaper clippings and explanations paper the walls. Outside, a large pit kiln demonstrates how high temperatures transform the minerals into something with a special sheen.
I ask if they have changos, because there are none on the shelves. Finally, they find one in the back. It’s the last one they have in stock, I am told, but they occasionally still receive orders for them. I happily buy it–a beautiful and scarce piece of mezcal history.
On the wall next to the bust of Doña Rosa de Coyotepec, a song titled Cántaro de Coyotepec by Samuel Mondragon appears. It commemorates the character and purpose of barro negro vessels. The lyrics of one verse read as follows:
Cántaro fiel, timbre racial
del zapoteca bronceado y fuerte,
ya lleves agua o mezcal
le sirves hasta la muerte.
In English:
Faithful jug, ethnic bell
Of the strong and tanned Zapotec,
Already you carry water or mezcal
You serve him until death.
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