San Lucas is one of those sleepy little communities lying along the shore of Lake Cajititlán, just 20 kilometers northwest of Chapala. Well, sleepy it may appear if you walk around the plaza and fail to spot even a stray dog, but don’t be deceived by appearances. There’s plenty of activity going on behind the scenes in almost every backyard, for this little town has been home to makers of metates and molcajetes for at least 600 years and probably a lot more. Metates, of course, are flat slabs of volcanic rock for grinding lime-softened corn, while molcajetes are round mortars traditionally with three legs, used for pulverizing chili peppers, tomatoes and other ingredients used in salsas. Today, as in the past, each of these kitchen tools is hand-made from appropriate native rock which, as you might suspect, can be found in great abundance only minutes from the village.
When we first wandered into San Lucas Evangelista, we had no idea where to find the basalt sculptors, but after knocking on a few doors, we were welcomed into the home of Victor Cocula, who told us he was one of some 300 local people who follow the long standing tradition of transforming the hard local rock into practical appliances as well as works of art.
Such items, in fact, can be found in every corner of Cocula’s living room and included busts, commemorative plaques and clever water filters along with the traditional mortars. “My ancestors have been making things like these for a very long time,” Cocula told me. “In fact, only recently a neighbor dug up a metate in the local cemetery which amazed all the craftsmen of the village. It appears to be some 600 years old, decorated with the head of a dog. The quality of workmanship is extraordinary. There are no tell-tale chisel marks on it anywhere—in fact, it’s so smooth it appears to have been machined. We can’t explain how it was done, but it’s proof positive that sculptors have been at work here for a long, long time.”
By now, of course, I was dying to observe the process by which these items had been made and I immediately accepted Victor Cocula’s offer to take me to the nearby basalt mines where the rock is extracted.
It turned out the mines—quarries really—were only a half hour’s walk from the village, just up the hill on the way to El Cerro Viejo, which looms on the horizon.
We climbed down into a long, deep man-made gully which seemed to go on forever. The steep walls on either side consist of basalt boulders undermined by decades of digging, and are anything but stable. “Over the years,” said Victor’s father, “we’ve lost five people to rock falls in these mines. Two of them died quite recently.”
We arrived at the family’s favorite spot along the trench and—while his father deftly turned out a dozen “manos” (pestles), Victor walked me through the process of converting a rock into a sculpture.
He went over to a bowling-ball sized rock embedded in the wall of the trench, knocked the dirt off one spot and tapped the rock with the pointy end of his pick, producing small pits in the surface. “This rock is fine-grained but not too hard. See? All the holes are very tiny. Besides that, it has no sand embedded in it. The last thing people want is to find grains of sand in their salsa.”
He lifted the rock and, like a true Mexican Michelangelo, said: “I see a molcajete inside. I could turn this into a five-inch-diameter round one or a heart-shaped one. Now, the round one would bring me 70 pesos while the heart-shape will be worth 150 pesos, so I’ll go for the latter. OK, it looks like there’s enough rock here to put three legs on this mortar, but first I have to check if there are any natural faults.”
A few swift blows revealed just such a fault and the craftsman removed a one-inch layer, leaving the rock flat on the bottom. “Oops, not enough room for legs anymore, but it’ll still make a fine piece. Now I have to see if this rock has “hilo.”
This, he explained, means that the rock will fracture in the direction the sculptor intends, rather than “doing its own thing.”
“Qué bueno,” said Victor. “It has hilo,” and he deftly used the flat end of his pick to quickly give the rock the external shape he wanted. Then he turned the pick around and used the pointed end to begin hollowing it out. “These blows must be neither too heavy nor too light,” he commented as tiny chips flew everywhere.
“Don’t you ever get a piece in your eye? I asked, noting that neither he nor his father was wearing goggles. “Ha! All the time,” he said laughing.
“Sí sí,” chimed in his father: “chips in the eye siempre!”
The rock now looked like a heart-shaped mortar and would be carried back down to Victor’s back yard for some two to three hours of fine tuning and smoothing. But before we left the mine, my companions walked me over to an enormous boulder.
“My family, the Coculas, have a project. We want to create the world’s largest molcajete. A year ago, we made one 1.7 meters in diameter and 64 centimeters high, decorated with chiles and tomatoes. It weighs between 800 and 850 kilos and is on permanent display at the original Burritos de Moyahua restaurant in Zacatecas. This year we hope to break our record and make one over two meters long, if, of course, this big rock has all the right characteristics.”
Just moving the giant rock will involve expenses and the Coculas are looking for all the sponsors they can find. If you have any suggestions—or would just like to see some of the creations produced by the sculptors of San Lucas, you can chat with Victor Cocula almost any Sunday at the plaza in Ajijic, where you’ll find him selling mortars and sculptures made of basalt.