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!

Baby races

The last two days the rarámuri women have been organizing races between two and three-year-old girls. The women have the toddlers run back and forth the enclosed street where Oasis is located. The little girls, loving the attention and bouncing excitedly, carry a stick whittled just for their size and fling the ariweta as hard as they can. Some of the little girls don't understand the concept of racing and try to walk instead, flinging the ariweta and strolling calmly towards it, beaming proudly the entire way. But the women consider these races too serious to let the little girls just be cute and not actually compete; women bet skirts on their favorite three-year-old just as they do on any adult runner. If a little girl doesn't understand that she needs to run fast in order to beat her competitor, her mother or older sister generally joins her and encourages her by chanting "run, run!" The adult woman, along with a troop of elementary-age girls who encourage the toddler just as they see the women encourage adult runners, will start jogging beside them slowly, and the child, catching on, will start toddling faster. The problem every little girl has is picking up the ariweta from the floor--they have a hard time swooping the ring onto the long stick and most of the time they stop running completely to concentrate on picking up the ring (adorable!!!)

During one race, many women had a lot of skirts riding on a three-year-old runner named Abril. Abril adored the attention--she grinned widely and sucked her thumb as she stood in the middle of the street, staring back at all her admiring fans. The problems began when the race got underway and Abril apparently didn't understand that she needed to run in order to beat the other little girl. The other little girl, Vanessa, understood the concept of racing very well, and took off like a shot as soon as the girls were given the signal. Within seconds, Vanessa was half a block ahead of Abril and the women became frantic, shouting "run, run!" to Abril. Her mother, a young woman named Sara, ran up to her daughter and encouraged her in rarámuri, telling her she needed to start running because the other little girl was going to beat her. Abril started jogging behind her mother, carrying her stick with the ring on it, but she wouldn't throw it. Her mother told her, "throw the ring!" and Abril promptly stopped running and started crying. All the women encouraged her kindly to keep going, but she was obviously very overwhelmed and she wouldn't stop crying or continue running. The race was over after less than one lap! The ten or so women who had wagered that Abril would win lost at least 15 skirts less than two minutes into the race!

Watching the three-year-olds learning to race rarámuri-style is adorable. The toddler races have been a big event these last two days, attracting a lot of women who don't normally attend the adult races. Elementary-age girls who are usually shuffled aside when the adults race suddenly feel mature and important as they recognize their task of training a younger generation in the art of racing with an ariweta. They form small crowds around the toddlers, kneeling so that they are eye-level with them, and explain very seriously the concept of the race and how to throw the ariweta, while the child listens wide-eyed. Then, they cheer them on enthusiastically, right along with the mothers.

It is amazing to see the rarámuri women passing on the racing tradition to girls as young as three. It is normal to see girls age 5 or older running around the settlement flinging a ring from their stick, but two is very young! Two-year-olds are barely learning to walk steadily and eat with a spoon--imagine trying to teach them to run while picking up a ring with a stick and flinging it, over and over. Anthropologists have noted that the kind of "playing" with the ariweta, as I often see in Oasis, is very important in the formation of not just excellent runners, but excellent rarámuri runners, who only run with the ariweta. However, I had never read or heard of rarámuri women organizing formal events like this to train rarámuri toddlers how to actually race. I rarely see girls under the age of 10 race on real terms, with women placing serious bets on the outcome of the race. It's awesome to see the traditions being passed down to girls so young. Plus, it's just one of the cutest things I have ever seen, watching these toddlers try to race just like the adults! I'll take pictures next time and post them.

Another race story

On Thursday, I walked into Oasis and found piles of dresses on the pavement. I have come to recognize piles of dresses as a clear signal of what is going to happen that day: a race. I immediately asked who was going to race, and I was told that it was going to be a 17-year-old girl from Oasis running against another girl of the same age from the colonia Unidad. "uh oh," I thought. The last time Oasis raced against Unidad, there was an injury and a forfeit, a huge fight over who should be declared winner and therefore get to keep the dresses, and a cop intervention. I jokingly asked, "Do you think the police will come this time?" The women smiled and one of them answered, "No, I don't think so."

The day progressed and I spent the early afternoon chatting with women and watching them hurry to finish sewing dresses that they wanted to bet. Women kept asking me if I wanted to place a bet on this race, but I didn't have enough money on me that day, just enough for a snack and the bus ride home. I thought to myself that it was a good thing I wasn't betting anything this time, because the last time they raced against Unidad and fought, someone ended up losing my money and I never got it back!

When the race got underway, in the late afternoon, I was surprised to see 15 pebbles lined up on the curb. The rarámuri women always use this method as a way of keeping track of how many laps the runners have completed; every rock signifies one lap, and as the girls complete them, the woman in charge of keeping track removes a pebble. Each lap equals about one kilometer. Usually, the runners program 10 laps for each race, which is why I was surprised to see that these girls were planning on running 15 laps (15 km!)

It was the most exciting race I have ever seen. The girls were running evenly for about five laps, and then the runner from Unidad began to pull ahead. She was ahead by 3 blocks for the next eight laps. It looked like Oasis was definitely going to lose this one, and some of the women lost hope by lap ten, but then another group of girls and women started running alongside their girl, to encourage her. The girl from Unidad was running basically alone, with just one companion urging her on. She amazed me with her speed--for thirteen laps she ran without stopping, without drinking anything, just maintaining her speed. Then, during the final two laps, the Oasis runner began to catch up to her and the race got interesting again. Oasis women were in a frenzy, cheering on their runner. During the last lap, it looked like the Oasis runner might just overtake the Unidad runner, but as they disappeared over the hill, we couldn't see anymore. We would have to wait until they came back down the hill to see what the outcome of the race was going to be.

Suddenly, one of the girls that was running with the Oasis girl came running back down the hill, yelling "we won, we won!" The Oasis women wasted no time digging into their winnings, choosing who would get to keep what skirt. I thought it was strange that the girl called the race when it was so close. A couple minutes later, four women came down the hill carrying the Unidad runner in their arms. She had fainted. They lay her down on the pavement and it was clear the girl was passed out. We called an ambulance and did what we could for the girl in the meantime.

Meanwhile, a neighbor named Chita came out of her store, which is half a block away from Oasis, to see what was going on. Luckily, the runner came to after a few seconds, and after several more minutes she was able to sit up and drink something. The attention then turned to the outcome of the race. The Oasis women obviously wanted to call the race in their favor, but the Unidad women reminded them that the last time they raced, an Oasis girl had got hurt, and they had called the race a draw. The fight reached such heights that some of the Oasis women were accusing the Unidad runner of having faked passing out, in order to get out of the race.

The neighbor, Chita, is undoubtedly the moral authority of Oasis. How she came to hold such power in Oasis, I will discuss in a later post--she is a fascinating woman. But on this occasion, she exercised her power over the women by scolding them for not having a written contract with the rules of the race. "If you know you fight about the outcome when someone gets injured, why don't you come to me and have me write out a contract with the rules? This is what I told you to do next time you raced." She asked the women if they wanted a police officer to intervene, and some of them said yes, so Chita called the patrol.

This time, only one officer (one of the same ones who intervened in the last race) came to Oasis. It's not worth repeating what he said to the women word-by-word this time. Basically, he backed Chita up, saying that the women should have written contracts before races. But they always underlined this statement by saying that it would be best not to have any races at all. In the end, the women settled that Oasis could keep the dresses (which I don't think was fair! I think it should have been called a draw, like last time). The girl who had fainted was fine and went home with her friend.

It's always uncomfortable for me to watch how outsiders intervene and tell the women what they should and should not do. Invariably, they take on a paternalistic tone and I feel embarrassed for the women when they are subjected to scoldings as if they were children. I understand that those who intervene, especially the neighbors, have the best intentions in mind, but they always advise the women as if they were children, not equals. Clearly, they think their judgement is better than the rarámuri womens'. In Chihuahua, two general attitudes exist toward the rarámuri: either you are openly discriminatory towards them, or you pity them. In the end, I think it amounts to about the same, because in both cases the rarámuri are never viewed as equals in Chihuahuan society. I don't think they should be treated as equals in the sense that Chihuahuan society should ignore the fact that they live under the poverty line or deny them government help. But as it happens with most poor people, discrimination and pity tend to reduce the rarámuri to one single definition: poor. Any opportunity to connect in a meaningful way with the rarámuri becomes lost when outsiders allow these attitudes to overtake them.

Pity and its dangers is a theme I'm exploring in my writing now. Witnessing this last race allowed me to see how well-meaning neighbors who constantly patronize and pity the Oasis rarámuri actually create a rift between themselves and the rarámuri, even though if you talk to these neighbors they will boast about what a close relationship they have with the Oasis rarámuri.

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.