Olinalá

Olinalá is a town in La Montaña, the mountainous north-east of Guerrero near the Puebla border, and the seat of a municipality of about 28,000 people. Its Nahuatl name is usually read as 'near the earthquakes'. Across Mexico it is known for one thing: lacquer. Olinalá is considered the most important lacquer-producing community in the country, both for the number of artisans and for the range of what they make, from tiny tiger masks and gourds to trays, chests, folding screens and whole sets of furniture. Its lacquer has had a protected appellation of origin since 1995.

The craft is older than the Spanish. The Codex Mendoza lists painted gourds among Olinalá's tribute to the Aztecs, along with jars of yellow ochre for paint, and in the late 18th century the scholar José Antonio Alzate wrote an impassioned plea to preserve the town's lacquer workshops. The best pieces are made from linaloe, a local aromatic tree whose wood keeps its scent, though the tree has become scarce. Artisans coat the wood in layers of a lacquer made from chia or linseed oil mixed with mineral earths and pigments, polish it, and then decorate it in one of several styles: 'dorado', fine flowers, animals and landscapes painted with a cat-hair brush; 'rayado', in which a top layer of colour is scratched away with a maguey thorn to reveal the colour beneath; and 'rayado punteado'. A single piece can take about 29 steps and several days of drying.

The parish church of San Francisco de Asís, mostly late 18th-century neoclassical with walls dating back to around 1600, was badly damaged by the earthquake of 19 September 2017. INAH supervised its restoration, which gave it a new free-standing bell tower fitted with seismic dampers, and the townspeople themselves restored the lacquered decoration inside, using the dorado and rayado techniques and gold and silver leaf. The patron saint's fiesta in early October, also called the fiesta de los chiles or of the masúchiles, fills the streets with banners decorated with chillies, cempasúchil and pericón flowers, dances of Moors and Christians, the Twelve Peers of France and the tecuani, brass bands and fireworks, along with a contest of traditional lacquer. Locals also make 'quemadito', flamed mezcal with sugar, cinnamon and lime, and fruit liqueurs.