The closest I came to witnessing the physical strength of the Isthmus women was a brawl at a local cantina bar on our first visit to Tehuantepec. The moment she walks out the door, however, this big woman comes storming in and marches past me up to the bar. She grabs a woman sat on a stool by the shoulder possibly a prostitute and starts a verbal attack.
The men sat nearby shuffle their chairs out of the way to give the women more space. Only the barman tries to try to intervene, with little success. It ends with the woman who marched in, marching out again, satisfied the other woman has been suitably beaten and embarrassed. None of the men in the bar say anything and continue their card game calmly.
The woman who had been beaten returns to her stool, a little shaken. During the course of history the Isthmus Zapotec women have participated in many rebellions against all their oppressors, from the Spanish colonialists to modern-day dictators. From the 17th to 19th centuries nine rebellions took place on the Istmus, and as well as the men the women also formed mobs, arming themselves with stones and knives they stowed beneath their skirts.
He came down hard on local chiefs who had not been thorough with their collections. The Spanish chronicler Manso de Contreras describes the bloody events that came to pass that Easter Monday:. In reaction the thousand or so native Indians who were gathered in the town for the Easter celebrations, suddenly started to gather sticks and stones.
The Mayor was eventually forced out of his residence by fire and smoke. He made a dash to win the church, and seek sacred protection, but in the middle of the plaza he was knocked down by a stone, and a mob of women and men descended upon him.
