Sewing a rarámuri dress...and then betting it on a race

For several months, I was in the habit of sitting down with the women in front of their houses or the little church and watching them sew. Sewing is an enormously important activity for the rarámuri women, both in the Sierra and the desert, and has fascinating anthropological implications. For example, sewing is strictly a womens' activity, and as I have sat for hours chatting with women as they sew, I have observed how this activity brings the women together to not only work, but talk. They share news, watch each other's children, have snacks together, and ultimately form very strong bonds. The "sewing circles" are also important economic activities, since the women are either making dresses which they plan to bet on a race, or they are making little rarámuri dolls ("monitos," they call them) which they sell at intersections for 10 pesos each. The ritual aspect is seen in so many places: in the repetition of the activity on a daily basis, in the colorful materials the women consider most beautiful, in the same dress pattern used over and over again.

For months I observed all of these things, but the actual practice of sewing--what it feels like to hold a needle, to make stitches, to choose and combine patterns and fabrics--did not form part of my experience with the rarámuri. It wasn't until two months ago, when two friends from New Mexico came to visit, that I finally moved from being an observer in the rarámuri sewing circles to a student, and now a (more or less) full-fledged member.

My first sewing lesson took place two months ago, one March afternoon, when my friend Flora bought several meters of blue, yellow, pink, and flower-patterned fabric and came to Oasis with me. That day, there were several sewing circles in progress throughout the settlement, as there usually are. The women generally prefer to sew outside, because the houses are small, dark, and overcrowded; outside, many can gather at one time and there is plenty of sunlight. I decided to approach Marcela and Susannah, two very kind rarámuri women, and announced that Flora and I wanted to make a rarámuri dress. They said "alright," allowed us to sit down with them, and showed us how to tear fabric into long, wide strips that we would piece together to form a skirt. But prior to tearing the fabric and stitching the pieces together, we spent several minutes discussing what colors to use. Flora suggested some combination, I suggested another, and both were rejected by the rarámuri women. This is when I first came to understand that the rarámuri women are very particular about color combinations and patterns, and there is an entire code of fashion (at least within this settlement) to follow. At their suggestion, Flora and I agreed the full skirt would be pink, with a blue piece in the middle, and a yellow hem.

My sewing lessons continued on a regular basis throughout the next six weeks. Normally, it takes a good rarámuri seamstress five to seven days to complete a full dress; I took six weeks to complete just the skirt! It started to get really embarrassing around week four, because every day women would ask me "are you almost finished?" and then laugh when I showed them my progress. But my teachers kept making me undo stitches and start over every time they were badly done, which happened very often (especially when I was doing the hems--that is by far the hardest part).

Marcela and Susannah were not my only teachers during this process. Esperanza showed me many techniques, especially when it came to making the pleats. Chavela helped me perfect the hem, which requires rolling the fabric into a very thin strip and making tiny, almost invisible stitches. Cuka, Carolina, and Maria Rosa also checked up on me frequently and offered their advice. I moved around to different sewing circles throughout the process, heard different news about different families, learned different sewing techniques, and laughed when one rarámuri woman would tell me that another rarámuri woman was teaching me badly.

Throughout Semana Santa, I sat in the basketball court sewing and watching the rarámuri men dance the ritual "fariseo" and "soldado" dances. In the weeks after, as I moved among the different sewing circles, my favorite one came to be Esperanza'a, Cuka's, Teresa's, and Maria Rosa's. I spent many, many days sitting in a shady patch in front of Esperanza's house with these women, learning new words in rarámuri and trying to understand them as they talked to each other in rarámuri.

Of course, Julissa, Jiovanna, and Lorena were with me throughout the entire experience. For one week, Julissa and Jiovanna even decided that they would learn to sew, and that I would teach them. So I, a chabochi, gave two rarámuri girls their first sewing lessons ever! I cut two strips of colored fabric, gave each girl a needle, and had them make rows of stitches using different colored thread. Julissa got pretty good, and even went on to make a little skirt for a doll, under her mother's direction. Jiovanna is barely six, but her mother says she will have to learn in the next two years.

The entire time I was working on the dress, different women and children would ask me what I was planning to do with it when I finished it. "Are you going to wear it?" several people asked me. "I'm going to bet it on a race," I replied, which always provoked a smile. My mestizo friends would tell me, "it's your first dress, you should keep it as a memory. Don't bet it, what if you lose it?" But I always thought it would be even better if I lost it! Carolina told me a few weeks ago that she recently gave up betting her favorite dresses on races, because it was painful to lose them so often. I can imagine how horrible it must feel to lose your favorite article of clothing. Every woman likes to have a lot of pretty clothes, but even when everything in your closet is pretty, there are always two or three articles that you love above all others. I try to imagine what it would be like to lose my favorite dress--a midnight blue stretch satin Calvin Klein with a sweetheart neckline. It would be fabulous to bet it against another beautiful dress and win both in the end, but I know I would cry if I lost it! After losing one very treasured dress in a bet, Carolina tried to buy it back from the woman she lost it to, but the other woman refused to sell it back. Then the woman moved back to the Sierra and took the dress with her, and Carolina never saw it again. After this incident, Carolina decided to tone down the gambling and now only bets dresses she doesn't love. But I wanted to get into the full betting craze and bet my first dress, the most special one I will probably ever make because it's my first.

Still, the moment I finished it, I knew I didn't want to bet it. I wanted to take it home, show it off to my non-rarámuri friends, who had been tracking my progress almost as carefully as the rarámuri. I just wanted to hold onto it for a few days, try it on, take a couple pictures in it, hang it proudly in my closet. As soon as I finished it, I got up and walked around the settlement to show off my accomplishment. Most of the women were at the entrance, gathering skirts to bet for a race. As soon as Susannah saw me hold up the skirt, she said, "Come on, Victoria, time to bet it." I told her I didn't want to, and she made a face at me. "Come on, Victoria," someone else said. I made a face back, but then I thought, "how many people are actually encouraged to participate in rarámuri bets?" I said, "okay," and tossed it on the ground, prepared to engage in my first skirt-betting experience.

Betting dresses on rarámuri races follows the same basic concept as any other kind of betting: two dresses of equal value must be bet against each other. Just like you wouldn't bet $10 for $5, you wouldn't bet a rarámuri dress of less value for one of greater value. Now, deciding the value of a dress is the complicated part, because it is very subjective. There are some criteria for judging the value of a dress: the quality of stitching is taken into account, as is the newness of the dress. You won't bet a brand new dress for an old, faded one; and you won't bet a dress that is falling apart at the seams for one that is tightly and cleanly stitched. But then you have to take into account the aesthetic value of the dress, and that is highly subjective and very personal. This is the part that makes the betting process take three to four hours total every time. Here is a typical scenario: Rarámuri woman from Team A has a dress that is orange and blue flowers against a green backdrop, with a white hem. She has her eye on a blue dress with pink daisies and an orange hem that she sees in Team B's betting pile. With the help of the assigned intermediary, rarámuri woman from Team A proposes betting her dress against the desired one from Team B. But the dress's owner, who we will call rarámuri woman from Team B, doesn't want to agree to the bet because she thinks Team A rarámuri woman's dress is ugly. So she says: "I'll bet you my dress, but not against the one you propose. Instead, pair it with the green-and-white polkadot I know you have in your house." Team A rarámuri woman doesn't want to, but she is willing to bet a yellow one with purple flowers and a red hem. And so the arguing and debating continues, until both women come to some kind of agreement. This conversation occurs at least fifteen times, when the women feel like being difficult (some women will bet anything against anything, just for fun), and this is why the entire betting process takes up so many hours before the race even begins.

I was really looking forward to seeing what dresses would be offered against mine. As I sat with my team, my team's intermediary took my skirt over to the other team to see if there was any interest in it. I was excited to see what options she would come back with for me. About five minutes later, she returned with a bundle of jungle-green fabric. "This is what they propose to bet your skirt for, so that you can make another dress," ("para que te pongas a hacer otra," were the exact words). My entire team broke into laughter, and then I did too. I'm still not sure if they bet material against my skirt just to mess with me, or because they really think the quality of my stitching is so terrible that they can't find a fair match for it. Either way, it was a hilarious event! In the end, I agreed to the proposed bet, but one lap into the race, the girl from the other team got a cramp in her leg and the race was called off. Everyone's bets were returned to them, so I ended up keeping my skirt for a couple days in the end. However, I'm taking it with me to the settlement every day, and I'm sure there will be another race this weekend, so I hope to bet it then!

Races: "rowera" or "carreras de ariweta"

One of the most important cultural and economic activities in Oasis are the races, which are known in raramuri as rowera. It's well known that the raramuri in the Sierra are avid runners, sometimes holding races that can last days and cover hundreds of miles of mountain terrain. They are so famous, in fact, that they are invited to compete yearly in international races, such as the Leadville 100 Ultramarathon held in Colorado (here is a link with an interesting description of the race, and the names of the three raramuri men who participated and placed first, second, and fifth! http://www.nativevillage.org/Archives/2009%20Archives/Jan%201%202009%20News/1-1-2009%20/Tarahumara%20Feat%20Inspires%20Awe.htm)


Luckily, the raramuri migrants to the cities continue to practice this tradition. Racing, and betting on the races, is alive and well in Oasis. Here is a brief description of how the races are conducted: races are always comprised of two runners. A team of "co-runners" can accompany each competing runner to make sure there is no cheating during the race (I have heard stories of runners trying to push each other off the track, or more typically, of casting spells so that the other runner will get hurt. The "co-runners" are there to defend their runner, and to serve as witnesses if anything underhanded does occur). In Oasis, just like in the Sierra, these races serve as a social gathering, during which women get together to talk, share news, and eat and drink together. The "economic activity" comes in with the betting. Part of the importance (and definitely the fun) of racing is placing bets in favor of one runner. But the women rarely bet money; they usually bet their dresses, which are colorful and unique. The race is a great opportunity to gain (and lose) clothes, important capital in their society. Additionally, I think the raramuri women have fun winning new clothes; what woman doesn't like to wear something new, after all?

Another aspect that makes raramuri races unique: the women must run with an ariweta, the raramuri word that refers to a special ring used during races. Competitors run with a long stick, which they use to pick up and throw the ring forward. This action is repeated throughout the race. I think it serves as a kind of "technique" to propel the runners forward, especially when they start to get tired. The men run kicking a wooden ball, but I've never seen this in person.

Now, onto a fun story. The women race often--about four times a week, at least--and at the urging of an anthropologist friend, I have become an enthusiastic better in these races. I always bet money, since I don't have any dresses. One day, a group of women from another settlement came to challenge a woman from Oasis. There was a frenzy all day, as women gathered dresses, tied them to each other (so that each woman could keep track of what she bet), and chattered excitedly about the prospect of big winnings. I placed a decent bet, too.

Well, the race got started, and the atmosphere was very festive, with women drinking sodas and buying corn on the cob to enjoy the race. The women were set to run 10 laps around the neighborhood, which amounts to about 10 miles. At the end of the 4th lap, the Oasis runner refused to continue because she said she had hurt her foot. I feel it's important to note that she was about half a block behind the other runner. In case of a forfeit, the other team automatically wins. But when the women from the other settlement came to collect their winnings, the Oasis women began snatching up their dresses and running back to their houses to hide them. There was a lot of arguing, a lot of yelling, and at one point I even thought there was going to be physical fighting. The Oasis women argued that the race wasn't valid, since their runner got injured; the other team countered that it didn't matter if there was an injury, whoever forfeits automatically loses.

The women from the other settlement ended up calling the police to report the Oasis women. The police!!! Talk about extreme measures! When a patrol truck pulled up in front of the settlement and three moustached officers got out, a crowd of about fifty raramuri women and all their children gathered in front of them. I ended up front and center in the crowd. "So what's the problem?" one of the officers asked them. Everyone started talking at once, so of course the policemen became even more confused and annoyed. After a few minutes, a couple women slowly explained the conflict that was occurring, but the police were still confused. Races? Betting? Dresses? They didn't know what was going on.

Once they got the story straight, an officer addressed the crowd of women with the following words: "the problem with your people is that you don't know how to pull yourselves out of poverty. You know you are poor, and yet you continue to engage in vices like drinking and gambling. This is why you stay poor--all you ever do is drink and gamble."

To my surprise, the women stayed silent. The officers went on to "resolve" the conflict by telling the women the race should be a draw, that every woman needed to retrieve what she had bet. At this point, an officer asked if anyone had wagered any money.

"Victoria did," one woman said.

"Who's Victoria?" Several women pointed at me, and the officer looked and me and said, "you?" I nodded and said, "yes, I'm part of the problem." He rolled his eyes and said, "well, make sure Victoria gets her money back."

In the end, a lot of women never got their dresses back. In all the bustle of trying to redistribute hundreds of dresses, some of them got misplaced. I never got my money back--a lot of money had been wagered, and almost all of it mysteriously disappeared. But I didn't care; witnessing this event was worth many wagers! It was upsetting to see the way the police treated the raramuri women, but it also gave me excellent insight into the blatant discrimination that takes place in Chihuahua. I have witnessed more races since, but no more conflicts like this one. I'll be sure to share more race stories in later posts!

Soon I'll post some pictures of women participating in rowera.