If it’s Sunday, it must be market day in Tlacolula de Matamoros. However, it’s not just the market (one of the oldest and biggest in Oaxaca) that keeps me returning, it’s also the prevalence of fabulous murals decorating walls and sides of buildings. Unfortunately, here in Oaxaca city, there has been a growing intolerance by the powers-that-be to these cultural and often political expressions. However, in Tlacolula, they seem to be encouraged and celebrated — and the Tlacolulokos collective has elevated mural painting to a high art form.
We discovered their latest mural a few weeks ago as we were navigating out way through Tlacolula on our way back from the Feria del Barro Rojo in San Marcos Tlapazola. As with their previous work, using iconic imagery they continue to explore and honor the strength of the beautiful and brave Zapotec women of Tlacolula — this time, in what seems to be a “blue period.”
I was more than a bit puzzled by the above and very prominent words featured on the mural and had to do a little research — after all, that’s what librarians do! It turns out, “Tokiolula” refers to the 1960s and 1970s when the Tlacolula market was known for selling cheap and often counterfeit goods — mostly from Asia. That ended in the 1980s, but, unfortunately, has been creeping back.
As for Guish-Bac… “in Zapotec dialect of Tlacolula, Guish Bac is said to mean ‘in the middle of the sky’ or ‘in the middle of the path'” (Revista Cultural Bení Guish Bac Gulal – my translation) and, according to the footnotes in this dissertation, it refers to “people from Tlacolula.”
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