Who is Matilde?

Her real name is Yuitiakame (woman who plays the violin), but she simply calls herself Matilde in Spanish. This elderly woman is from the Sierra Tarahumara in Nayarit, a region where the Huichol indians have always lived. She can't read. She can't write. She doesn't speak Spanish very well. To make things worse, she can't count very well either. But what Matilde does very well is what she learned from her family through the generations: Chaquira (beadwork) art.

She leads a very simple life. She sells her Chaquira on the streets of Guadalajara during the day, she walks back to her "Indian Refugee Centre" at night. She has close friends who she can talk and joke in her native tongue... but she is very poor, homeless and lives away from her family.

Like many other indigenous people Matilde left her roots and headed for a big city, where she hoped to earn a few more pesos. The truth is, her work is amazing, but she barely sells enough to earn her a living. Tourists take advantage of her lack of education and snap her work for a few coins.

We met Matilde selling her things on the floor, outside a church. To her amazement we offered her more money than the price that she asked for her beautiful hand-made chaquira products. She knows we will not rip her off and we will continue to buy from her, as long as she is happy to. She now turns up at the church with some artisan friends only when they have things to sell, and we will always offer them more than anyone else would pay.

Her friendships have also lead us to another family of 8 Huichol indigenous people, crammed in a room without any basic services. They have offered us their work (again, the only skills they posses) and we proudly present them to you in our beadwork section. They, as well as us, hope that you enjoy these chaquira bracelets, medicine bags, statues and necklaces.