The women who appear in this book come from different regions of Chiapas, from mountain towns and ranches and from hamlets in the distant rainforest. Some of them do not remember when they were born or how long they have lived on the earth; several of them are now over a hundred years old.

Their lives have not been easy. They have survived theMexican Revolution, the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, religious persecution under President Plutarco Elías Calles, and times of limited opportunities in which women were marginalized.

TheMexican author Rosario Castellanos wrote about the women of Chiapas, and more...

This book is a collection of twenty-eight life stories of women from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds who have lived in Chiapas during the past 60 to 108 years. One woman, Merle Greene Robertson, was not born in Chiapas but dedicated a great part of her life to studying the art of the ancient Maya. We included her as an example of the many foreigners who have been enchanted by Chiapas and have decided to make their homes here.

Why did we write down these women’s lives? For most of human history, young people listened to the life stories...

I don’t know how old I am, but I know I’m one of the oldest women in my town. There aremany women younger thanme who are all worn out. They always complain of aches and pains. I’m much older than they are and I’m doing just fine. It feels good to be an old lady and still be so strong.

I’m an Indian. I was born in Amatenango, and so was my mother, but my father came from someplace else. My father spoke Spanish, and from the time I was little I’ve been speaking both Spanish and Tzeltal. My parents...

I’m ninety-six years old and have spent my whole life in this house on Real de Guadalupe Street. I’ve lived here since I was born, almost one hundred years ago, and the house was already more than one hundred years old when my father bought it from his aunt.

My father had an extremely fussy disposition. My brothers and I always had to behave ourselves because if we didn’t, our father would become angry with us. When we’d hear him opening the door, we’d say, “Papa’s here!” and immediately be on our best behavior. Yes, he had a terrible...

My family lived in a beautiful place in the country, on the slopes of HuitepecMountain. I was born there about seventy-five years ago, the first of seven children. From a very young age I carried around my younger brothers and sisters and helped my mother wash clothes. Our family always suffered because we were so poor.

Liquor was always a part of our lives. My father was a laborer who worked in the market for ten or twenty cents a day. He would go off to work in the morning, but then he wouldn’t return home right away because he...

I was born here in this house in Amatenango seventy-three years ago. My mother was a potter, like all the women in Amatenango. My father, like all the men here, worked in the fields. Our custom is that men never make pottery. It always was and still is just the women, even the very old ones, who work with clay. My mother’s cousin, Alberto, is the only man who has ever been a potter. There’s never been a man like him in Amatenango. He’s different. He wanted to work, but not in the fields like the other men. Ever since...

I grew up in a big, pretty house by the river in Bochil. I remember it so well. My mother was from Bochil, and my father was from San Cristóbal. He studied in the seminary but later changed his mind and married my mother. I was born on March 14, 1932.

Mother used to be a teacher and a seamstress. Everymorning she would go off to teach at the school and then come home in the afternoon to do all the work in the house. We had a bakery, and we made candles too. Really, we did a little of...

Juana Koh is my name. I’m pretty old, I think. José Güero was my father and KohMaría, my mother. KohMaría, the wife of Chan K’in Viejo, is my sister. She came before me. I only had twelve brothers and sisters. That’s not very many. Only twelve. I was born in Monte Líbano, then moved to Nahá with my husband, Domingo. I was around twelve years old when I married Domingo and went to live with him and his other wife. I was the second.

I never had children. None. Domingo died many years ago when he was still a young...

I’ve always loved the outdoors. As a child I was a bit of a tomboy and played outside all the time. I was born in Miles City, a little cattle crossing in the middle of Montana. But I actually grew up in Great Falls, on the Missouri River. Every weekend I went hiking along the river or in the mountains.

I had just one brother, who was two years younger than me, and I was always putting him up to doing all kinds of crazy things. My brother and I each had a horse, and unbeknownst to our mother, we...

I never knew my father. I always lived with my mother and my four brothers and sisters, three from my father and the fourth from another man. We were all born in the community of Zetelton, in the municipality of San Juan Chamula. I am sixty years old now, and I just have one sister left, but we don’t talk much anymore.

Our life was hard. My mother was very poor. We had three tortillas to eat every day, nothing else. We ate in the morning and then nothing again until nighttime. There was no food in my childhood. No...

I was very young when General Venustiano Carranza and his revolutionary troops came to Chiapas to put an end to the plantations. They invaded the ranches and threw their owners into jail. My father had inherited two ranches, the Golonchán and the San Fernando, near Pantelhó. He was among those who were jailed.

The Golonchán ranch is where Sub-Commander Marcos and the Zapatistas are now. Very well done, I say! They did well to take overmy father’s ranch. If I ever have a chance to meet Marcos, I would shake his hand and congratulate him.

Well, when Carranza took over...

My father was a big landowner who had several ranches, one of which was La Quinta del Carmen, just outside San Cristóbal. My greatgrandfather, Ponciano Solorzano, bought La Quinta from the church bishops to use as a country house. Great-grandfather was the first liberal in Chiapas, and they murdered him because of it.

I have only wonderful memories of my father, who was a sweet, handsome, and good-hearted man. My mother was quite beautiful and very intelligent. Before she married, she ran her own business. After marriage, she looked after my father and helped him with the bookkeeping for the...

I’m Minerva Penagos Gutiérrez. I was born on the twenty-first of January in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. My mother was born in San Cristóbal. My father was originally from a well-to-do family in Simojovel.

My grandparents had coffee ranches. My father told us that he and his brothers were sent to study in San Cristóbal because it was a city with culture where they would be able to develop intellectually. They used to travel over the mountains by way of Pantelhó, San Andrés, and Chamula, and when they arrived on Sunday evenings, he loved to hear...

My memory fails me as to the year I was born, but I’ma good bit younger than my sister, Natividad, who is ninety-eight years old. I was born in El Torrente, my grandfather’s ranch in the mountains outside San Cristóbal. I moved into San Cristóbal after my mother died, so I’ve lived here most of my life. I was very sad when my mother passed away. I loved her very much. We used to eat together and sleep in the same bed.

When I was young I used to think about getting married and having a family. I said to...

My name is KohMartínez. I guess I’m about seventy-five years old. I was born in Nahá when everyone lived on the other side of the lake. My mother and father were born there too. I had five sisters and one brother. Well, I had many brothers and sisters, but some of them died. Just six of us lived. At first my father had one wife, but later he married my mother’s sister. Then he had two wives.

When I got married I was around nine years old. Yes, I was very young. When I went to live with my husband,...

I was born in 1931, just after my parents moved from Comitán to San Cristóbal. I can say that my childhood was wonderful because my parents got along very well. There was a great deal of communication in our family. My parents taught us good manners. And they especially taught us to respect everyone. We went to the best schools available.

My father came from a family that customarily sent their sons and daughters away from home to study. And so, after third grade, my parents sent me to the boarding school of the Sisters of St. Teresa in Mexico...

My parents came to San Cristóbal to find work, and that’s how I came to be born here, sixty-three years ago. After my little brother died, I was the youngest in the family. I grew up with my parents and my two sisters.

I have good memories of my father. I remember that he hugged me and held me and brought me gifts of fruit. Sometimes he gave us money. When he had none, he gave us nothing. I don’t remember that he ever hit us.

The one who suffered was my mother. It was the same story as always...

I think I’m at least seventy years old. I was born in Venustiana Carranza after the Mexican Revolution.

My mother was a good woman, and we got along well. She was a weaver, and I learned everything from her.

About my father—who knows! Yes, I knew my father, but I don’t remember anything about him. I don’t even remember how my parents got along, but they always stayed together.

I got married when I was thirteen years old. It used to be different, not like now. These days, youngsters fall in love and are always kissing. Back then, there...

My father was a cattleman, just like all the men who had land back then. But when Venustiano Carranza came to Chiapas, he did away with the rich landowners. I was born on Guadalupe, my father’s ranch near Ocosingo, on September 5, 1905. I lived through every bit of the Mexican Revolution.

Even before that, I saw the punishment handed down by Don Porfirio Díaz when he was still in power. Someone had put my father’s mule into a corral full of cattle, but, of course, the two animals don’t get along. Mule hide is tender and cattle horns are...

The first time I remember being happy was when I was around three years old and my mother and father said, “This girl is going to be named Sebastiana, after her grandmother.” My grandmother was a wonderful person. We all adored her, and so I was delighted to be named after her. From then on, my parents wouldn’t let anyone hit me. How would anyone dare to hit the beloved Sebastiana! They said, “With this name, no one will ever bother you.” I felt that my grandmother’s name protected me.

When I was growing up, my parents would say, “If...

I was born on September 3, 1936, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in my family’s house on Real de Guadalupe Street. I spent my childhood on this block, which we have shared with our neighbors in such a special way that we all feel like family. We’ve seen some friends grow old and leave us, and we’ve come to know the new generations. We have experienced childhood, youth, married life, and old age together.

I’m the second child of four siblings from a good family. We were all very close. Our way of looking at life—the rules, customs,...

I really don’t know how old I am. I was born in a little Tzotzil hamlet about a half hour from San Andrés Larrainzar. I hardly remember my parents at all becausemymother died when I was six years old. There were seven children in our family, and after my parents died, my oldest sister raised us. She taught me everything I know about life, but she’s been gone now formany years. Just me and one of my sisters are left.

My oldest sister taught me to weave thehuipilesthat San Andrés women wear every day. She taught me how...

You know that phrase, “To remember is to live”? Well, for me it is “To remember is to suffer again.”

I was born into a very wealthy family in San Cristóbal. There were many families with money back then, but there were no banks. People used to bury their money under a rosewood tree or hide it in holes in the walls or inside their home altars. Once a woman I knew who was lying on her deathbed kept pointing again and again to her altar. Relatives handed her one saint after another, but, no, she just kept pointing to...

My family lived up in the mountains about an hour’s walk from Tenejapa. I was born there around sixty-three years ago.

My father died when my little brother was just eight days old. My sister and I were still very little then, so I don’t remember my father at all.

My family was very poor. We didn’t even have our own cornfield. And our lives were even harder after my father died. We didn’t have money or land or even food to eat. My mother worked in other families’ cornfields, but the pay was very low. Since I was the...

My parents came from Spain at the beginning of the last century. They left Spain because, you see, conditions were more favorable here in Mexico. First they lived in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, then moved to San Cristóbal where my father opened a store. I was born in 1915, just after my family settled here. Soon after that, the Revolution came to Chiapas.

I had two brothers and three sisters. My sisters played together but never wanted to play withme. They just ignoredme. When they’d go to the market, I would eat all their food, and on their return, there’d be nothing...

The day before yesterday I was sprawled out on the floor, sick with a terrible cough. I felt so bad that I couldn’t do a thing. When I get a cough like that, my heart starts beating fast. When that happens, I drinkhorchatamixed with fennel and Alka-Seltzer. Today I felt so much better that I even went out to gather my firewood.

I don’t know how old I am because my parents never told me what day I was born on, here in Aguacatenango. Some people say I’m around seventy years old.

My parents worked in San Cristóbal...

Koh María is my name. Just Koh María—no last name. I don’t know how old I am. I was born in Nahá, on the other side of the lake. I had three mothers andmany brothers and sisters. My real mother was born in Nahá but moved to Lacanjá when she began to have problems here. I think someone was beating her, so she left. I was very little when my mother went away. I loved her very much. Now she’s very old and doesn’t hear or see so well anymore.

I was twelve years old when I married Chan...

My whole life changed in a very profound way when I came to Chiapas to live and work. That was more than fifty years ago. At that time the God I believed in was a God who punished and rewarded, a God who was distant, like my father, a God who scaredme a little. In Chiapas all that changed. Here I’ve found a God who is softer, more merciful.

I came into this world on April 3, 1935, on a small ranch in the state of Zacatecas. My father bought and sold pigs for a living. There were seven children...

When my father was walking on this earth, ohhh, he was nothing but a drunk! Once he fasted for three days, eating nothing but a few small tortillas. Then he went into the cave where the Earth Lords live. While he was praying inside the cave, my father saw a vision that announced that a saint would be coming to him. So he bought a box to receive the saint, knowing that it would enter his box. It was a small pine box, cut with an axe.

My father would lean over his box, with a woolen shawl draped over...

You know, I don’t even know my real name. Uuuyyy! And God only knows in what year I was born. I really can’t tell you. My great-grandson Ivan tells me that I’m 125 years old. But my daughter Rosita says I’m 108. Who knows!

I was born in Chamula. Later I ended up on the ranch of an Indian family, but I don’t remember how I got there. There had been a great famine and there was very little food, just a penny’s worth ofpanela. This was back when there was no such thing as sugar, justpanela....