A Morning in Zinacantán

Fifteen minutes from San Cristóbal, Zinacantán’s hillsides glow with endless greenhouses, this town is one of Mexico’s top flower producers, supplying markets across the country.  Almost all the people here are Tzotzil Maya, and locally they call themselves Sots’leb, “people of the bat”, although you wouldn’t be able to tell that by their colorful outfits!

On the streets, women wore huipiles in deep purples and fuchsias embroidered with bold florals. Tiny shops overflowed with vibrant textiles echoing the surrounding fields.

At the church of San Lorenzo, pine needles cushioned our steps. Families knelt on the ground beneath flickering candles and swirling incense. The saints wore embroidered tunics that mirrored local textile styles. The church itself has colonial origins and was rebuilt after a fire in 1975, making its survival part of the town’s story. Unlike in neighboring Chamula, photography here was permitted, though always best to ask before raising a camera.

From there, we stepped into the home of Doña Emiliana Hernández. She is a master weaver honored with Mexico’s National Folk Art Prize. She showed us how cochineal becomes rich crimson, indigo steps into deep blue, and how clay and ash fix dyes for earth tones. One piece stood out: the huipil emplumado, a wedding blouse woven with white chicken feathers, symbolizing devotion and rooted life.

Doña Emiliana demonstrated how she weaves individual chicken feathers into the thread, a painstaking process that takes ten months to complete a single huipil emplumado. Each one is made on custom order. She showed us photos of her family, including her young granddaughter who’s just beginning to learn the techniques. The tradition continues, one careful stitch at a time.

The afternoon passed with stories, food, and the steady rhythm of daily life. By the time we left, we understood why Zinacantán’s textiles are so prized. The colors and the technique of daily life are still made the same way, by families who’ve been doing this for generations and will continue to do so.