The Native Sheep of Chiapas: A Story of Fleeces, Global Markets and Women in Woollen Skirts
This article presents a brief outline of how, despite considerable external pressure, Tzotzil women have preserved their local breeds of wool sheep at a time when global markets are shifting production goals into uniform, standardized outputs. The Chiapas sheep are descended from the Churra with a similar history to the US southwest Churro landrace. The ongoing push to “improve” or modernize is a similar parallel story with pressure among modern breeders to conform to a softer fleece without kemp and a larger hanging weight at butcher time. Our foundations desire to save the last of the most primitive Churro genetics is not unique on a global scale of preserving landrace genetics worldwide. But it is unusual in the US to challenge organizations that represent a heritage breed. We automatically believe these breed organizations have the welfare of the primitive genetics at heart. But it takes individuals to constantly critique and re-think their motivations to why they are interested and/or breeding that specific animal. This story of the Chiapas sheep written by a scientist that cares about the welfare of the people and sheep in the context of how a landrace that has not been improved, benefits a whole cultural group.
Chiapas lies in the south of Mexico and is by far the poorest state. The largest ethnic group in Chiapas is the Tzotzil who number about 200,000 people, living in scattered hamlets in the mountains. Alhough the Tzotzils are financially poor, many aspects of their society and culture are worthy of our attention. One of these aspects is the unique way in which the women in the villages care for their sheep, and their philosophy about these animals and their woollen souls.
In the early 1970s, the great number of coloured sheep in the mountains of Chiapas caught the attention of government officials. At the time, this highland region had the highest density of sheep in the whole country. With good intentions, they decided to ‘improve' what they saw as a small and unproductive local sheep by means of crossbreeding with high-yielding exotic sheep breeds. This technical approach had been used in many other parts of central and northern Mexico with very good results, and most sheep farmers in those areas were able to ‘upgrade' their local sheep. By the mid 1990s, the local breeds of sheep in these areas had vanished, and thousands of black-faced crossbred sheep were producing large amounts of white and fine wool, with an important impact on the domestic economy.
In Chiapas, however, the crossbreeding programs were unsuccessful. Several foreign breeds were introduced and the outcome of such efforts was always the same: the exotic breeds failed to adapt to the local environment and the availability of native forages, and the animals died in a matter of weeks. More importantly, the Tzotzil women did not like the fleeces of these exotic animals because they could not be processed into woollen garments using their traditional spinning and weaving techniques. The wool of what the women called “Mexican sheep” was too short, too fine, and too white, as compared with the fleeces of their batsi chij, their ‘true sheep'. Government officials always blamed the Tzotzil sheep farmers for the failures, and thought that they were doomed for keeping their small and unproductive sheep.
The impact of globalisation.
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