Salt of the Earth

Towards the end of March 1970, Anita Jones journeyed to the Costa Chica of Oaxaca in order to document textiles, festivities, and vocations in the coastal region of the Mixteca. During her stay in Pinotepa Nacional, she came to know Roberto Lopez and his wife Lucrecia Tapia, a Mixtec family dedicated to the seasonal production of salt. Roberto's saltworks were located about 29 km to the southeast of Pinotepa Nacional, along the shores of the Alotengo lagoon. To extract the salt, Roberto and his workers would gather in petate bags (made from palm), the salt deposits found in the top layer of the soil exposed by the receding waters of the lagoon during the dry season.

The tapextle then served as a filter that would clean the salted soils and create brine through a process of leaching. Leaching is a technique of removing soluble components, such as salt, from a pulverized solid by percolating a liquid that will in turn dissolve them.

The brine that was produced would drip to a rectangular deposit below the tapextle, run through wooden tubes into a repository tank, and would be carried to circular solar evaporation pools where it would rest for 4 days.

The historical documentation indicates that Roberto’s trade was practiced in the same lagoon by the Mixtecs of Pinotepa Nacional since pre-Columbian times, although they also used to employ a different technique of producing salt by the boiling brackish water. Surely the introduction of cattle and horses to the region in the 16th century, as well as the needs for salt in the mining enterprises of the colonial period, helped to maintain and develop this artisanal industry. Even nearby Afro-Mexican communities like Chacahua and Santo Domingo Armenta started to produce salt using the tapextle.

Other authors consider that its origin lies in the East, introduced during colonial times, given that the tapextle appears to be exclusive to the Pacific side of the country and there are compelling similarities with traditional salt production in China, the Philippines, and places like Tejakula in Bali.

Regardless, this artisanal craft of extracting salt from the earth that Roberto and his family practiced, forms part of a much wider and deeper cultural heritage that spans across the world.