Category: Copper Canyon

Down in the little town of Batopilas, tucked deep within the folds of Mexico’s Copper Canyon, I am witnessing something that is typically missing in this day and age: a craftsman in the process of creating a custom product. In this case the craftsman, José “Che” Rentería, is creating a unique pair of huaraches, sandals, for me.

I arrive in Batopilas after an exhilarating drive down the winding dirt road from the mountain town of Creel and make my way over to the Plaza de la Constitución to find the sandal maker. His door is closed and the tools covering the two wooden workbenches in front of his house lie dormant. As with many things in Mexico, I must wait.

After dinner I return to find Che working under the harsh light of a bare incandescent bulb. He wears a white shirt with the words “Austin, TX” embroidered on the breast. The lines etched in his face reflect the rugged contours of the canyon in which he lives. I tell him that I want to buy a pair of his sandals. He measures my feet with a trained eye and says definitively, “Ocho.” He asks if I can come back tomorrow. I tell him I will return around noon, and he nods his assent. With that, I am off. No deposit, no order form…he doesn’t even know my name. It is comforting to know some people still operate on trust. Perhaps it is the result of living in a place where time moves very slowly.

Che was born in Batopilas in 1934 and has lived in the same house for all of his 72 years. He makes his living as a leatherworker and is a master of the craft. Fifteen years ago he started making the unique Tarahumaran huaraches, and he is the only person in Batopilas who makes them.

The huaraches worn by the Tarahumara Indians, a sturdy people native to the Copper Canyon area, are rather simple sandals. The soles are made of old tires; the pair made for me still includes some white letters indicating that they are “All Terrain” sandals. A leather footbed is glued to the rubber with what looks like Che’s own homemade glue. What makes the Tarahumaran huaraches so distinct from other sandals is a very clever lacing system. A single leather strap per sandal, originating between the big and index toes, is threaded through two holes cut into the sole to create support for the heel. The strap is then wrapped around the ankle three times before being tied to itself by the heel. The result is a very comfortable, stable sandal. In fact, the Tarahumara, considered to be the greatest long-distance runners in the world, chose their traditional huaraches over high-tech running shoes as they ran to first, second and fifth place finishes at the Leadville Trail 100, a high-altitude ultra-marathon in the Colorado Rockies. These are simple, sturdy and functional footwear.

I return the following day at noon and find Che playing with his grandchildren outside of his house. He retrieves the bottoms of my sandals and asks me to wait while he assembles the straps. Using an old blade, he removes the hard surface from the straps with an assured steadiness acquired from years of working in this medium. The trimming ensures that the leather against the feet will be soft and comfortable. As he works, he asks me where I am from. When I say Los Angeles, he asks, “Hollywood?” I tell him that I live very close to Hollywood, and he disappears into his house, returning with a stack of photos showing him at, of all places, Universal Studios Hollywood. A few years ago he went to California to visit his daughter who lives there, and I wonder if he felt as far from home as I do here in the bottom of a canyon in Mexico.

Che finishes his work and begins the tutorial. He ties my right sandal for me, going through the motions very slowly to ensure that I understand how it’s done. I find them to be much more comfortable than I had anticipated, and they fit perfectly. “¿Bueno?” he asks. “Muy bueno,” I respond. We shake hands, his skin almost as tough as the leather with which he works, and I stride off in my new huaraches. With every step, they will serve as reminders of this old-fashioned craftsman plying his trade in this beautiful village in the bottom of the Copper Canyon.

Kevin Maddaford

In the summer of 1993, two of our California Native guides, Doug Stewart and Tarahumara woman Lynn Reineke, escorted a small group of Indians from the depths of Mexico’s Copper Canyon to Leadville, Colorado, where they astounded the world of marathon racing by coming in first, second and fourth place in a 100 mile ultra-marathon race, wearing their native garb and sandals made out of discarded tires.

Who were these strangely-dressed people, who came from obscurity to outpace hundreds of experienced runners?

They call themselves the Rarámuri, the Runners, and they inhabit the rugged and remote area of mountains and canyons in Mexico known as the Barrancas del Cobre or Copper Canyon. They are known to the outside world as the Tarahumara.

No one knows how long the Tarahumara have lived in their rugged homeland. Archaeologists have found artifacts of people living in the area three thousand years ago, but it is not known if they were the ancestors of the present day Indians.

There is no recorded history of the Tarahumara prior to the coming of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. Their first European contact may have been with Coronado’s expedition as it passed through the Sierra Madres searching for the legendary Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. In 1607 the Jesuit missionary Father Juan Fonte established the first Jesuit mission in their territory.

During the next one hundred and fifty years, the Jesuits built twenty-nine missions and introduced the Indians to Catholicism, domestic animals, the plow and the axe. Their influence came to an abrupt halt in 1767 when the King of Spain expelled their order from the New World. The Franciscans took over from the Jesuits, but their influence on the Tarahumara was minimal and the Indians were pretty much left alone until the Jesuits returned in 1900.

The Tarahumara have traditionally lived in isolated family units and small settlements. The Spaniards tried to bring them into more concentrated communities but the strong-willed Tarahumara managed to resist these efforts, and today a large number still live in small, isolated groups. During the time of the Jesuits, mineral wealth was discovered in the region and many Indians were forced to work as slaves in the mines. This and the encroachment of the Spaniards upon their lands, led to many bloody revolts throughout the seventeenth century.

Today the Tarahumara number around 50,000. They still inhabit the same region they have for centuries—the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental of northern Mexico. They live in caves and small wood or stone cabins and practice subsistence farming. The majority practice a form of Catholicism liberally inter-mixed with their traditional beliefs and ceremonies.

Among the peoples of North America, the Tarahumara are considered to be the most primitive, the least touched by modern civilization. They are also the most unmixed of any of the Indian tribes of Mexico.

Many of the men and most of the women still dress in their traditional styles. The ladies wear wide multiple skirts, full sleeved blouses, a head band or bandana, and a shawl for carrying a child or other objects on their backs. The little girls dress the same as their mothers and often carry a little brother or sister on their backs. The men wear a breech-cloth held together by a wool girdle wrapped around the waist, a cloth head band, and a loose cotton shirt.

Running up and down the steep canyons is an important part of the Tarahumara culture, not only as a means of transportation and communication in this rugged area, but as a sport in which villages compete against each other. From the time they are small children the Tarahumara take great pride in their running skills.

In the Rarámuri philosophy, respect for others is of prime importance. They give greater value to persons than to objects, and business matters take second place to respect for human beings. On our trips through Copper Canyon we also learn to respect other people, especially the Rarámuri, as we meet them, discover their unique culture and perhaps adopt some of their philosophy into our own lives.