Oaxaca has a pleasant plaza, called the Plaza de Armas, adorned with various semi-tropical trees and shrubs, in the centre of which is the ever-present band-stand. The Cathedral and municipal palace face this square. My visit here was during a fiesta and this plaza was the favourite resort of the Indians as well as myself. The Indians living in the hills took undisturbed possession at night, and groups of tired Indios wrapped themselves in their sarapes, or shawls, and stretched their tired limbs out on the cold stones; or propped themselves against the walls of a building to rest. A number of catch-penny devices were running during the evening and the favourite seemed to be the phonograph. The Indian would pay his centavo, put the transmitter in his ears and listen without a sign of expression on his stolid face. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it, because he would repeat the operation until his stock of coppers was considerably diminished.
Saturday is market day in this city, and a visit to this popular place is worth a trip to Mexico. The atmosphere of the market is truly oriental, for these people have a genius for trading as the innumerable little stands where crude pottery, rough-made baskets, home-made dulces, etc., are sold, fully proves. The entrance takes one past the dealers in fried meats, where bits of pork and shreds of beef are dished out sizzling hot to the peons under the big sombreros by women cooks who crouch over earthenware dishes placed on small braziers containing a charcoal fire, and a three course meal can be obtained for a few cents. There is always a crowd around this department, for these people are ever ready to eat, and their capacity is only limited by their purse.
THE MARKET-WOMEN OF OAXACA
THE POTTERY-MARKET, OAXACA
Next is encountered the fruit and vegetable stands. The finest fruits and vegetables, and especially the latter, that I saw in Mexico, were right here in this market and this was in the month of December. Generally the vegetables in Mexico are not large, but here were fine potatoes, great red tomatoes, gigantic radishes and elephantine cabbages. Oranges, bananas, limes, plantains and pineapples were plentiful, as well as the less-known fruits such as zapotes (a kind of melon), aguacates (a pale green fruit and vegetable combined), granaditas, mangoes, granadas and pomegranates. The cocoanut of the hotlands is mingled with the dunas, the fruit of the prickly pear, of the higher lands. With these a great many drinks called frescas, or sherbets, are flavoured, the merits of which are announced by the dark-eyed, be-shawled vendors. The women merchants, many of them smoking cigarettes, sit around on the floor so thick in places that it is almost impossible to work your way through the mixed assortment of peppers and babies; corn, lean babies and peas; charcoal, beans and fat babies; naked babies, knives and murderous-looking machetes; hats, laughing babies, shawls and other useful articles; turkeys, crying babies, chickens, dirty babies, ducks, squawking parrots in cages, pigs and other live stock, including babies of all kinds and descriptions.
The pottery market presided over by the solemn-faced, oriental merchants is a never-ending place of interest, and these artistic vessels are carried over the mountains on the backs of the Indians. Crude baskets and mats made of the palm fibre are found in abundance as well as brooms which bear no union label.
No one could afford to miss the flower department where flowers are so cheap that it seems almost a sin not to buy them. Here are velvety sweet peas, purple pansies, tangled heaps of crimson and white roses, azure forget-me-nots, pyramids of heliotrope and scarlet geraniums. For a few cents one can buy almost a bushel of these, or, if preferred, can substitute marguerites, carnations, poppies, or violets. An American will probably have to pay twice as much as a native, even after the shrewdest bargaining.
Outside the market enclosure caravans of over-loaded donkeys jostle each other as a great solid-wheeled cart yoked to a couple of meek-eyed oxen creaks by, or a tram car drawn by galloping mules thunders noisily along to an accompaniment of loud cracks of the whip, and a constant repetition of “mulas” and “arres” the “rrs” being brought out with a long trill.
