Francisca Santiz Gómez and her husband, Mateo de la Cruz Hernández, live in the small pueblo of Yetón (means mouth of the stone) in the municipality of Aldama, Chiapas. She still wears the San Andres huipil (type of dress/blouse worn by indigenous women) in her everyday life but can be seen with Aldama huipiles on special occasions.

Aldama is well known for its beautiful ceremonial huipiles as well as its more rustic everyday huipiles. The ceremonial huipiles from Aldama can be recognized by the symbols of the last row of the huipil that features a saint. These symbols typical of Aldama are like a signature. Each symbol on the huipil has a meaning - if you are curious, ask Francisca to show you the saints, the frogs, the flowers, the Maya universe and so on.

The huipiles from Aldama and San Andres can be read by some people like a book. Each symbol has its own style and the women can tell you if a figure comes from their village or from another town. You can see two types of everyday huipiles nowadays; the simple ones that have very fine vertical lines of two colors and just a few symbols, more ornate ones that you can see on the local women but are not easy to find for sale. Both are extremely durable and comfortable and made of cotton.

It also seems that the older ladies favor a simple white manta huipil embroidered with flowers. The women also do various other items like, pillows and rebozos.

Artesanas de Yetón

Francisca Gómez Santiz o

Mateo de la Cruz Hernández

productoresaldama@hotmail.com

967 128 2390 WhatsApp

967 128 2391 WhatsApp