It is essentially a feminine market. Years ago, the men of the Isthmus were practically annihilated in local warfare. For a long time the women outnumbered them by a ratio of five to one; they learned to do their own work; men became to them a luxury rather than a necessity; and to-day the position of the sexes—most strangely, in Mexico—has become completely reversed. In most markets, women predominate. In Tehuantepec so few males are evident that a visitor strolling among the counters feels like Al Jolson surrounded by the Winter Garden chorus.
THE TEHUANA MAIDENS REGARDED A MAN AS A LUXURY RATHER THAN A NECESSITY
It was very clean—as compared with similar bartering places elsewhere. Usually such places were overpowering in their odor of sweaty femininity. In Tehuantepec, however, the ladies were addicted to a daily bath, the prettier and younger ones taking it after dark, the elder ones in broad daylight, when they were to be seen disporting their massive bulks in the river that intersected the town, quite untroubled by the attention they received from the military garrison on the neighboring railway bridge.
Despite the comparative scarcity of males, the usual number of babies were in evidence. Each market-woman had an infant slung over her shoulder in a gayly-colored reboso—the invaluable Mexican shawl, which serves as towel, handkerchief, wrap, carry-all for bringing produce home, and also as a crib. While mother bargained, she fed her offspring. The loose vest-like jacket was designed for such an operation, as was the alternative garment, a low-cut lace-frilled chemise. And she fed her offspring mechanically, without once taking her attention from the business of haggling. A quick jerk of one shoulder, and the reboso with its infantile contents swung to the front; a heated argument continued uninterruptedly with shoppers who maintained that her goods were inferior to those of the lady squatted cross-legged on her right; another quick jerk, and the child swung around again to her back.
So busy were the women that they paid no attention to the few men—mostly soldiers—who strolled about. If these were the vamps that writers have proclaimed throughout the ages, one saw no evidence of the fact in the market. They were the least sex-conscious women that I have seen anywhere in Latin America. The Spanish señoritas of other parts, no matter how modest their deportment, were always supremely aware of the presence of a man. These Indian girls were intent upon their haggling; in their rush to sell their goods, they bumped the lounging men aside as though quite unaware of their existence. Once in a while, when business lulled, they glanced up to survey me casually, since I looked out of place among gaudily-dressed Indians, and I fancied that they discussed me in Indian dialect. But they did not appear fascinated. For their flirtation was limited always to the original remark:
“Buy my cocoanuts, señor!”
VI
Tehuantepec was hot. One was always thirsty. The water supply was of doubtful quality. So I spent most of my time walking home from market with another armful of cocoanuts.
The saleswomen opened them with one deft chop from a huge machete, cleaving off the heavy rind, and leaving just a tiny round hole covered by a thin peeling of the white coco-meat. When one craved a drink, one had only to poke a thumb through the thin white peeling. I consumed cocoanut-milk like a toper, until my room in the adobe hotel was littered with the empty shells.