Henequen

The Henequen Plant

In 1984 Alice and I visited Merida for a few days while on a six week jaunt through parts of Mexico and Belize. Merida truly was the white city then. Men were wearing guayaberas and white trouser and finely woven straw hats from Becal. Women also wore white, but their dresses were heavily embroidered with brightly colored flower patterns. The city appeared to us to be clean and prosperous.

What we did not realize at that time was that we were witnessing the very end of the henequen era in the Yucatan.

In the 1950's nylon rope began to to take the place of rope made from henequen and sisal. And, by 1984, the last commercially viable crop of henequen in the Yucatan was harvested. The henequen era of enormous wealth creating plantations utilizing almost slavelike "company store" cheap labor was over. The henequen rope market collapsed, and Dupont with its new synthetic products ruled. Only narrow specialty markets survive today for these natural fibers. Those markets include paper, cloth, wall coverings, mescals for drinking and carpets,

Returning to Merida in May of 2010 we found a different city. Nikes, t-shirts (playeras) with designers names like Tommy Hilfiger and jeans are now standard dress. The traditional dress can now only be seen where it is set up for tourists.

Dress on the Plaza Grande, Merida 2010

On our trip from Merida to Belize in 1984 we took a bus and rode all day through huge henequen plantations. Today it is difficult to locate where they were as they have become overgrown - reclaimed by Mother Nature.

Henequen (Agave fourcroydes Lem.) and Sisal (Agave sisalana) are two of the many types of agave. The agave is commonly called maguey in Mexico, and there are about 208 different species. Henequen is used primarily for fiber production. Sisal is a close relative to henequen and is similarly utilized. Sisal is considered to be a "finer" fiber and is used today in some blends with cotton. I purchased a guayabera and a hamaca in Merida, and both were cotton/sisal blends.

The henequen and sisal plants appear as a rosette of sword-shaped leaves 1.2 to 1.8 meters long. They grow out of a thick stem that may reach 1.7 meters (5 ft). The leaves have regularly-spaced teeth 3-6 mm long, and a terminal spine 2-3 cm long. These sword shaped leaves are harvested in bundles and they yield the long stiff fibers that were traditionally used in making twine, rope and mattress ticking. The terms henequen (alternative spellings are henequin and heniquen) and sisal may refer either to the plant or the fiber, depending on context. Both are sometimes incorrectly referred to as sisal hemp because hemp (made from the same plant marajuana comes from) was for centuries a major source for fiber. Further confusion comes from the name of the Mexican port, Sisal, from which much of the fiber product was shipped. Henequen and sisal shipped from Sisal was labeled as from Sisal. And, often everything received from that port was commonly known as Sisal.

Although now grown in many parts of the world both henequen and sisal, are thought to be indigenous to the Yucatan.

So, while in Merida we decided to visit some of the remaining vestiges of the henequin plantations. the first was Yaxcopoil.

Fiber Processing Building Yaxcopoil

This building was a theater for plays and dances

Smokestack for processing plant

Machinery for processing

Living area, gardens and pools for owners

When we traveled to Cuzamá to visit the cenotes we were on the property of the old Hacienda Nohchakan.

Entrance to processing buildings at Hacienda Nohchakan

Processing Building

Road Marker for Hacienda Nohchakan

More Nohchakan

It is hard to grasp the great wealth that was generated from these plantations. At the height of the henequen era Merida was one of the richest cities in the world. Since the henequen collapse many of the workers from these plantations have moved into the city of Merida and since 1984 Merida has grown from around a half a million to over one million people. Merida has some industry, but is primarily dependent on tourism as its economic engine.

Cenotes

Inside a cenote cavern

You can't be in the Yucatan too long before you start wondering how people could make a life here year round. You see the archeological sites with beautiful cities, temples, and agricultural areas; and except for right along the coast you don't see water. Especially in the northern Yucatan there are no obvious rivers, creeks, or lakes.

There is a lot of rain in the Yucatan at certain times of the year. The rainy season runs from June through October. It is associated with the Mexican monsoon which draws warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean landward. Yet, there are long very dry stretches. So where did the daily water come from for the people of the peninsula?

Part of the answer is that the indigenous people were acutely aware of the seasonal changes and they went to great lengths to prepare for those changes. In Uxmal, for example, there was an underground cistern (chultun) for each family unit of twenty or more people. These cisterns were carefully engineered so that the city's rainwater drainage system filled the cisterns providing water storage for the dry periods.

Another important answer to the question of water source lies in the porous limestone from which that most of the Yucatan is composed. There are systems of underground rivers and lakes throughout the Yucatan in this limestone and many are interconnected. Sometimes these rivers or lakes are exposed by a collapse of the limestone above them and deep natural sinkholes that the Mayas called cenotes (dzonot) are formed. These cenotes may appear as a lake, or sometimes there are only tiny openings into these water systems. Through these openings you may enter into a cavern often filled with beautiful stalagmites (drippers).

These caverns open onto the underground rivers and lakes. The Maya found many of these cenotes and often built large cities near them. These cenotes were their principal water source.

Looking down into a cenote from ground level entrance

Almost hidden entrance into a cenote

Steep stairway entrance into cenote

Swimmers in refreshing clear cenote pool

Alice and I went to visit a system of cenotes near the town of Cuzamá. Cuzamá is famous in the region for its cenotes and the peculiar way of visiting them. The main cenotes in this zone are Chelentún, Chacsinic-Che and Bolonchojol. The route to these different cenotes is traveled by way of trams that are small rail cars hauled by ponies. The trams run over rails that are an ingenious adaptive reuse of technology from the henequen plantation era. The track and tram system was originally used for bringing the henequen out of the fields to process for its fiber - primarily to be made into rope. Now local entrepreneurs will take you on a 7 km gallop along these rails to visit the cenotes. This gives you an opportunity to see the overgrown henequen fields and dense growth along the route. At one point along the way I smelled a very sweet familiar scent, looked in that direction and spotted a rather large honey bee operation.

Track through old henequen plantation

When we arrived at the second cenote we went swimming. The water that gathers in these subterranean cenotes is a crystal clear turquoise color with a very pleasant temperature of 78° F (25.5º C). There were fish easily visible swimming about, and it felt great to jump in as the temperature above ground was around 100° F (37.8º C).

Below is a short clip I took of a pony pulling a tram through the heavily overgrown henequen plantation. Give it a minute to load.