written and photographed by Mary L. Peachin
Jul 1999, Vol. 3 No. 9
Tarahumara men run swiftly up the steep trails of the Barrancha del Cobre (Copper Canyon) in simple leather thongs, one of the last vestiges of male native dress. Women, still colorfully dressed in long skirts and scarves, sell ollas (water vessels) and ceramic pots, woven baskets, beaded necklaces, and simple woodcarvings to the tourists visiting the villages along the rim of the canyon. Women are the breadwinners earning grocery money to supplement the traditional corn diet. When the men are not plowing the fields using oxen-drawn plows, they mostly just “hang out.”