This book of poems and stark, vivid illustrations is rooted in the female soul of indigenous Mexico. The Tzotzil women of the Chiapas Highlands are the poets and the artists. Ambar Past, who collected the poems and drawings, includes a moving essay about their poetics, beliefs, and history. In the 1970s, living among the Maya, Past watched the people endure as an epidemic swept through a village. No help came. Many children died. One mother offered her dead child a last sip of Coca-Cola and uttered a prayer: Take this sweet dew from the earth, take this honey. It will help you on your way. It will give you strength on your path. Incantations like this—poems about birth, love, hate, sex, despair, and death—coupled with primitive illustrations, provide a compelling insight into the psychology of these Mayan women poets. The Cinco Puntos edition of Incantations is a facsimile of the original handmade edition produced by the Taller Leñateros. It was reviewed in The New York Times. At the age of twenty-three, Ambar Past left the United States for Mexico. She lived among the Mayan people, teaching the techniques of native dyes and learning to speak Tzotzil. She is the creator of the graphic arts collective Taller Leñateros in Chiapas and was a founding member of Sna Jolobil, a weaving cooperative for Mayan artisans.

On December 22nd 1997, 32 women and 13 men in the los Naranjos encampment for displaced people in the community of Acteal, Chiapas, Mexico, were assassinated by heavily armed men. The voices and feelings of women that were lost among the numbers, cronologies, and political analyses of this mass of information are rescued in this book.

'We are all Zapatistas.' Subcomandante MarcosThis book began in 1994, when Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos replied to a 10-year-old girl from Mexico City who had sent him a drawing. The ensuing collection of related tales about the warrior-beetle, narrated by his pipe-smoking, black-ski-masked human squire is an extraordinary account for the general reader of current global political struggle.Marcos created a humorous fictitious character, Don Durito, a beetle with Quixotic fantasies which regards Marcos as his Sancho Panza. In this book, Marcos creates a new political genre, so-called "postdata": ironical commentaries which he affixes to his formal communiqués or declarations. In one of them he even offers to perform a striptease for government negotiators.'We are the product of 500 years of struggle...They [Mexican government] don't care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads; no land, no work, no health care, no food, no education... nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our children. But today, we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!' First EZLN declaration of war, December 31st 1993The Zapatistas are not Marxist, Rightists, or Anarchists. They seek not to replace one infrastructure of power with another, thus rejecting the normal goal of an armed struggle. They are armed but do not use violence as a tool to expand their aims. Although a localized rebellion, the Zapatistas are unified in a worldwide struggle that transcends the mainstream media's limited perspective through eloquent dictations distributed globally via the Internet.With a fresh perspective and tactics that have never been seen in relation to an armed insurrection, the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army) has changed the definition of what revolution means. From the marginalized confines of the poorest region in Mexico, a new concept of revolutionary change with a new solution to societies woes is currently being proposed.

An analysis of indigenous rights and the challenges confronting indigenous peoples in the twenty-first century

With new markets opening up for goods produced by artisans from all parts of the world, craft commercialization and craft industries have become key components of local economies. Now with the emergence of the Fair Trade movement and public opposition to sweatshop labor, many people are demanding that artisans in third world countries not be exploited for their labor. Bringing together case studies from the Americas and Asia, this timely collection of articles addresses the interplay among subsistence activities, craft production, and the global market. It contributes to current debates on economic inequality by offering practical examples of the political, economic, and cultural issues surrounding artisan production as an expressive vehicle of ethnic and gender identity. Striking a balance between economic and ethnographic analyses, the contributors observe what has worked and what hasn't in a range of craft cooperatives and show how some artisans have expanded their entrepreneurial role by marketing crafts in addition to producing them. Among the topics discussed are the accommodation of craft traditions in the global market, fair trade issues, and the emerging role of the anthropologist as a proactive agent for artisan groups. As the gap between rich and poor widens, the fate of subsistence economies seems more and more uncertain. The artisans in this book show that people can and do employ innovative opportunities to develop their talents, and in the process strengthen their ethnic identities. Contents Introduction: Facing the Challenges of Artisan Production in the Global Market / Kimberly M. Grimes and B. Lynne Milgram Democratizing International Production and Trade: North American Alternative Trading Organizations / Kimberly M. Grimes Building on Local Strengths: Nepalese Fair Trade Textiles / Rachel MacHenry "That They Be in the Middle, Lord": Women, Weaving, and Cultural Survival in Highland Chiapas, Mexico / Christine E. Eber The International Craft Market: A Double-Edged Sword for Guatemalan Maya Women / Martha Lynd Of Women, Hope, and Angels: Fair Trade and Artisan Production in a Squatter Settlement in Guatemala City / Brenda Rosenbaum Reorganizing Textile Production for the Global Market: Women’s Craft Cooperatives in Ifugao, Upland Philippines / B. Lynne Milgram Textile Production in Rural Oaxaca, Mexico, and the Complexities of the Global Market for Handmade Crafts / Jeffrey H. Cohen "Part-Time for Pin Money": The Legacy of Navajo Women’s Craft Production / Kathy M’Closkey The Hard Sell: Anthropologists as Brokers of Crafts in the Global Marketplace / Andrew Causey Postscript: To Market, To Market / June Nash

"In this well-written ethnography, Christine Eber weaves together the critical issues of gender relations, religious change, domestic violence, and drinking in highland Chiapas. . . . This is a fine ethnography that is a must-read for all interested in gender relations in contemporary Latin America. It is also one of the best current discussions on the little-studied phenomenon of religious change in Mexico. . . . Eber also provides a wonderful model of how to write a readable ethnography that treats its subjects with dignity and respect and honestly integrates the trials and tribulations of the ethnographer in the process." -Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "Women and Alcohol is a book worth reading. . . . The book's informal tone and interesting topic make it appealing to a wide audience, including casual readers and undergraduate classes. Furthermore, Eber's cross-cultural insight into alcohol dependency is relevant not only for anthropologists but also for health care professionals and others who deal with substance abuse." -Latin American Indian Literatures Journal Healing roles and rituals involving alcohol are a major source of power and identity for women and men in Highland Chiapas, Mexico, where abstention from alcohol can bring a loss of meaningful roles and of a sense of community. Yet, as in other parts of the world, alcohol use sometimes leads to abuse, whose effects must then be combated by individuals and the community. In this pioneering ethnography, Christine Eber looks at women and drinking in the community of San Pedro Chenalhó to address the issues of women’s identities, roles, relationships, and sources of power. She explores various personal and social strategies women use to avoid problem drinking, including conversion to Protestant religions, membership in cooperatives or Catholic Action, and modification of ritual forms with substitute beverages. The book’s women-centered perspective reveals important data on women and drinking not reported in earlier ethnographies of Highland Chiapas communities. Eber’s reflexive approach, blending the women’s stories, analyses, songs, and prayers with her own and other ethnographers’ views, shows how Western, individualistic approaches to the problems of alcohol abuse are inadequate for understanding women’s experiences with problem and ritual drinking in a non-Western culture. In a new epilogue, Christine Eber describes how events of the last decade, including the Zapatista uprising, have strengthened women's resolve to gain greater control over their lives by controlling the effects of alcohol in the community.