‘We sometimes milked 3,000 snails a day!’: the dying art of milking molluscs | Indigenous peoples
R.It is a well chosen site. Managrav trees provide shade of the sun. From their swing, the two men can look at the yellow sand of the Gulf of Tchakakal. The rocks rise on both ends of the beach, and cut offs were shattered against them. Next to the camp, turtles left their paths in the sand. “They often come at night and keep us,” says Mauro Habakuk Avendano Lewis, 81, who is known to everyone as Habakuk.
While habacuc shines the fire in the camp to make coffee, his son Rafael, 42, puts a small tent at night. It is expected rain. “Campus has been in the same place for many years,” says Habakuk. “From here, we wander the coast in search of Purpura.”
The two men, members of the original Mixtec Mixtec, are, they are TintorrosThis means “pigment”. Their work on the Pacific coast is unusual: they are the last of the people who extracted the ink of the dye of a rare type of snail, Palicopurpurpurra ColummerarisThat belongs to the rock snail family. “It is one of the oldest ways that are still practicing today’s yarn dyeing,” The Mexican world of Mexican says. “It has been used by coastal Mixtecs in Oxaka for at least 1500 years.” Callstecs color Texanda.
While the sun drowns slowly below the horizon, Habacuc and Rafael began searching for Purpura and “Milk” – because it calls the process of extracting ink. Their work depends on the tide. “We can only reach snails in the low tide because they live in the area where the waves hit rocks,” says habacuc.
Men climbing from Bulder to Bulder, looking for cracks where snails cling to rocks, which are often covered with algae and very spoiled. “One wrong step can cost you your life,” says Raphael. “We have lost the relatives who fell and wipe the waves.”
And soon they find the first samples about half a meter above the water level. Its shells are dark green to black, with small, complex, and grooves on the surface. It takes strength and skill to separate them. “I must decisively withdraw the snail, and transfer it sideways,” says Raphael. “If you are hesitating, this is tightly connected.”
After a large female snail separated from the rock, pressing his foot with his finger. The snail first secretes a small amount of urine, which it describes aside. Only then is secreted by a few drops of milky material, actual ink. This contains nerve toxins, which are used by the Purpura Slaves to Purit Smiles and other marine invertebrates, which you eat after that. The material is not harmful to humans.
Raphael allows the ink to leak into a bundle of cotton thread wrapped around his left hand and restores the snail in a protected place so that he can scratch himself into the rocks. After a few minutes, the snail secretion interacts with oxygen in the air and the yarn turns yellow, and a little later, green. But it needs ultraviolet light to the sun’s rays to achieve the wonderful violet color that is located somewhere between lavender and gym.
“If today is dark, the spinning remains green or blue,” says Habacuc. “You have to moisturize it again and put it in the sun, then turn to purple, even if it has passed since it was dyed.” It is said that the purple snail will never fade and cannot be washed. “The clothes will disintegrate, but their color will continue forever,” says Habakuk, noting his white shirt with purple stains. “If the essential purple strands are dyed, then the smell of seaweed and the sea immediately emit.”
Habacuc is Dyer Mixtec in the small town of Pinotepa de Don Luis, the only place in Mexico Where they survived Purpura. He learned how snails milk from his uncle when he was 14 years old. “I have been doing this 67 years ago, and you can see it in my feet.” It refers to his toes, which are made a spiral ball from clinging to rocks. “At that time, we can walk from our village to the coast, 40 km [25 miles] Away, to the milk snail. “
Palicopurpurpurra Columellaris One day it was home to the entire coast of the Pacific Ocean in Central America, from Baja California in the north to Colombia in the south. “We sometimes milked 3000 snail in one day, and we gum from seven to eight large cotton strands with ink,” says Habakuk. But that was a long time ago. The animals have long disappeared from the shores of their youth. It is only found in Hu’ulco National Park, with many unacceptable slopes and wild bays. Even there, Tintoreros rarely finds more than 100 snail per day. “The cost of travel and food is higher than my profit from the sale of yarn,” says habacuc. “The only reason that made us continue to dye is the desire to preserve our traditions and culture.”
The snails began to decline in the early eighties, when Japanese companies discovered ink and used it to dye a good kimono. They rented the fishermen on the coast of Oaxaka for snail milk – but they threw them in the water after their milking or left them lying in the sun. “Try to snail milk almost every day – and kill it,” says Habakuk. “Roin needs the moon’s cycle to renew it.”
The snail population decreased dramatically within five years. With the support of ethnology and biologists, MIXTECS caused the alarm. The Mexican government banned Japanese companies and in 1994, it was announced Purpura Columellaris Protected species. Since then, only the MIXTecs of the Pinotepapa de Luis has been allowed with its milk.
However, the new threats arrived, as the remote coastal area witnessed a rapid development. Roads, hotels and restaurants were built. Thousands of tourists flow to the beautiful beaches and bays every year – and they ask for seafood. “Over and repeatedly, we are facing fishermen who takes every opportunity to make some bizo. They are not interested in extinct species,” says habacuc. “The government talks about protection, but it does not even monitor the beaches in the Hu’anco National Park.”
since The earthquake in 2020The future of the species was more nonexistent. During the tremor, the Pacific Panel paid a little further below the Mexican mainland, and the coast raising near Huatureco by about half a meter. Some of the rocky coastal extensions that can be accessed once on hand have become handy of fishermen and tourists. Many of the Al -Marjan family were also high. Some die slowly, with millions of small species that make up part of the food chain in Purpura Snail.
Mixtecs is the most important snail protector. Their presence in the national park deters fishermen, follows the strict rules so that the Porpora population does not harm. For example, the snails are not milked smaller than 3 cm, and the milking is banned during the breeding season, and allow snails to renew for three to four weeks between the milking.
It is already dark when habacuc and Rafael returns to the camp. They cook the beans they brought with and warm tortilla around the camp fire. “We always come for seven to eight days, we are dyed during the low tide and comfort during the high tide.” “When our tortia runs out, we go home.” The dyed yarn is distributed between the city’s weapons. There are still about 60 women working as Ansagne in Pinotepa de Don Luis.
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Tintorros Take the dyed spinning again to Pinotepa de Don Luis, where women weave them in blankets, shawls and other clothes
“Snack Borborah and the TICENCANA purple dye are sacred to us,” says 79 -year -old Sokoro Polina Lopez. Her daughter and two daughters learned about the law how to weave. “We must keep this tradition at all,” she says.
Only 14 men are left in Pinotepa de Luis who continue to imitate the dye.
“We need more educational work in order to understand fishing societies how important the snail is to stop overfishing,” says Habakuk. “We run out of time.”
Find more Covering the era of extinction hereHe followed the correspondence of biological diversity Vepi Weston and Patrick Greenfield In the Guardian app for more nature coverage
