- Some of the finest pottery ever seen in the Northwest Mexico and the Southwestern US came from a thousand year old Mexican site called Paquime.

It collapsed a couple of hundred years before the arrival of Spaniards, but a half century ago, villagers not far away discovered the ceramic achievement of those ancient potters and were inspired to spawn an industry that has taken the art to even greater heights.

- Funding for "In the Americas with David Yetman" was provided by Agnese Haury.

Funding for "In the Americas with David Yetman" was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

- About a thousand years ago, the first potters of Paquime appeared in this region and develop their art over the next 450 years into some of the finest art that has ever been seen in North America.

The archeological site of Paquime lies near the town of Casas Grandes in Northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, about a hundred miles South of the border.

Less than a half hour to the South is the small pottery town of Mata Ortiz.

Before we cross the border into Mexico to visit the archeological site of Paquime, it's important for us to stop at a place called the Amerind Foundation.

It's where most of the early research and Paquime site began and originated and scientists from the Amerind were the leaders with Mexican leaders in excavating the site back in the 1960s.

- The Amerind Foundation is a unique private research institution that was founded back in 1937.

In our long history, we conducted archeological excavations in Arizona/New Mexico.

We also did some survey explorations in Sonora and the excavation we're most famous for was conducted in Chihuahua.

That occurred between the years 1958 and 1961.

Dozens and dozens of researchers converge on this very important ancient town in Chihuahua called Paquime.

It's a town that flourished in the 1200's, 1300's, and 1400's.

It was home to several thousand people and today is on the United Nations World Heritage Site List.

The excavation produced thousands of different photographs and images and lots of different documentation on what we discovered there.

The project that was conducted jointly with the Mexican government unearthed about one third of this ancient town and millions of objects.

There are a lot of different designs on painted Casas Grandes style pottery.

There were raising scarlet macaws, military macaws and turkeys, and you see these birds represented as painted forms on their pottery.

They also produce ceramic sculptures of their heads and their beaks and other parts of their body.

The other thing about Paquime pottery is there's a lot of depictions of people Sometimes as almost full sculptures.

Sometimes it's just painted on a vessel.

Paquime pottery is some of the most beautiful that was ever made in the American Southwest.

The communities that made it were making this pottery all over the Northwestern quadrant of the modern state of Chihuahua.

And we even find that pottery into the bootheel in New Mexico and it's traded extensively even up into Southern Arizona.

Beautiful sculptural pieces, lots of faces of both men and women that are represented in the pottery.

It's a really unique tradition.

And if you look at the early potters of Mata Ortiz who are drawing their inspiration from almost all of those different forms, then took it even further.

I mean, the potters of Mata Ortiz today are really some of the best ceramic artists in the world.

And they are pushing the envelope in the materials they use, the techniques they employ, the sculptural quality and engineering that goes into each piece of art that they create.

- This site of Paquime is most important archeological site in Northern Mexico.

This area was dominated by a culture called the Mogollon culture.

To the North, we had the Anasazi.

Northwest, I think the Hohokam and then to the West, all these groups that are in the state of Sonora across the big mountains probably was a very important trade route in which the movement of goods from North to South and from East to West and vice versa.

For example, there was an active trade in seashells coming from the Gulf of California.

It's far away and in a very rugged topography that were brought here from across Trincheras or even South into Guaymas, brought here, worked here and to produce blended bracelets or turquoises that were brought from mines as far South as - Way in the north.

- Yes, to Zacatecas or from Colorado.

- It's hard to believe that they actually were sophisticated enough to build cages and houses for the parrots, for the macaws and here they raised them for their feathers and they sent those feathers all the way up in the Anasazi country, up into Utah, up into Colorado.

And they could harvest the feathers each year without damaging the bird.

- Why they choose this place, David?

- Well, you have ideal.

You have good growing season, ample water from the river, which is over here, a very very fertile soil, a broad valley and apparently a selection of crops from many many different directions that could all be raised here.

So the corn was already here and they figured out how to expand the production.

And once you get enough production you can support artists making pottery.

- What they did is a bit, very different way of using adobes that was rediscovered recently.

cause your rum, earth, moss for that you need really high quality clay and sand that will just keep their shape once it's dry.

- But this site is what, a thousand years old?

- About 1000 years old.

And didn't last for a long time.

Well, if we consider like 300, 400 years of occupation of the site as a short time, so you have a great geological setting that will produce these landforms that eventually will produce the high quality clay that will be adequate for pottery.

- By about 1450, the Paquime civilization waned.

The potters disappear and we saw no more pottery in this area, this agriculturally prosperous region, for about 500 years.

- This is the old railroad station in the town of Mata Ortiz in the state of Chihuahua in Mexico.

It's a small town of perhaps 1,500 people.

40 years ago it was also an impoverished town.

There was very little work.

The railroad brought some jobs.

People could farm a little bit but this is pretty much desert country.

And a lot of people were poor.

Very poor.

Then something very unusual happened.

Pottery came on the scene and it has changed this town into one of the most famous pottery towns in all the Americas.

My lifelong friend, Jim Hills, an expert on Mata Ortiz, it's ceramics, and its history, has been coming here for more than 40 years.

- Well, I came to Mata Ortiz the first time around 1979 and we wanted to find the source for the beautiful pottery that was being made here.

They, the story about Mata Ortiz pottery is essentially a community story.

It's a story in which there were a number of young men in the early sixties, mid sixties that were really hungry.

They needed to feed their families and they were looking for anything they could to make a living.

And frankly, they became pot hunters.

Probably the key element that got everyone in this area, in is this region, as a matter of fact, excited about digging up pottery and selling it was the archeological dig that the Amerind sponsored between 1958 and 1960.

Many of the people in this region worked as diggers for the Amerind.

As a result, they began to see the intrinsic value in those beautiful pieces which they hadn't even looked at before.

What happened then was they went, "Wow, there is some value here" and that's how it all got started.

And as a result of that, they cleaned out all of the old ruins that were everywhere and there was no longer any beautiful pottery to find because it was being dug up and sold.

As a consequence, some of those early potters began trying to make pottery and then antiquing it and selling it as authentic pottery.

However, in about, I think it was 1975, thereabouts, an American came into the village looking for a Potter, Juan Quezada.

Because of his art historical background, he realized he found a gem.

And as a result of that, he began to sponsor Juan and encouraged Juan to do the best work that he could.

Juan then began to teach his brothers and sisters.

But Juan wasn't necessarily the first.

There were other people in other parts of the village that were also making pottery.

- From those early days of the first potters, a host of ceramicists has emerged.

People who produced pots for tourists but also create art of exquisite quality.

- (interpreter) I think there are about 600 potters here in Mata Ortiz, half women and half men.

In every house and every family, there is at least one woman that's working with ceramics.

That's the truth.

- (Interpreter) Brushes like these are made from a single hair from a girl.

During several decades, my mother worked as a ceramicist for other potters.

That's how we learned to make the different forms of pots.

I've been painting my own pots for over 17 years.

I use this kind of design in most of my creations.

It's from here, this region of Mata Ortiz.

- (interpreter) Maybe the souvenir pots haven't changed much over the decades.

It's the standard.

Same pieces over and over for the last 30 or even 40 years.

But the artists, if that's what you want to call us, are now creating the most original pieces of Mata Ortiz.

Their work has changed considerably over the years.

Almost all my work has a combination of textures, color and finishes.

I have been making pots since I was eight years old whenever I had free time.

I have been working with clay for almost 30 years.

The technique hasn't changed but the process has.

We have introduced non-traditional firing methods like electric and gas kilns.

No one used to have LED lights like this one to work under.

The work has evolved a lot over the last few decades.

This piece is called "The Womb of Mother Earth".

I chose a brown clay with a color that is not uniform.

So if we look at it from afar, it's like a yin and yang.

Like the creator of earth, creator of nature.

What are most interesting to me are the collaborative pieces I do with my wife.

She works with figurines, representations of figures from Paquime.

- This is white clay that they bring down from the place where they corrade or dig it in bags.

Got to add a little water to it.

And some of the sites where the clay is found are highly valued and protected by those who control them.

The quantity of water doesn't really matter.

It's where they want to do the best possible use of getting all the impurities out of it.

They filter it through a kind of cloth.

It's a lot of work, so they can't even begin to make the pots until they've mined the clay or bought it here, purchased it, cleaned it, and then have a product ready to go.

I thought that maybe getting clay for pots was a complicated process.

This is fairly simple, but it's not simple finding a good source of clay.

And that's one of the things that Mata Ortiz has.

After they have filtered this three times, they will allow it to dry and then they will take it back to the shop.

And that's where the production of the pottery begins.

This is the workshop of Jorge Sandoval.

And he does the old-time procedure - (speaking Spanish) - Oh, he's laid down the chorizos.

- Yes.

- He's got the base here made in this, this plaster bowl which is all it is, is a form to hold the clay in place.

And then it's chorizo, chorizo, or sausage and sausage and sausage.

But the last one is important because it has to flare out.

He's got his needle to cut the very top of the oil off.

He'll put another a chorizo, another sausage on top of that.

And then move on to that next step.

He spins it around.

Let's see how closely the ends meet.

So just by eyeballing it and experience, he knows exactly how long to make the sausages.

This part of using a paring knife gets the roughest part of it.

It's not a, a real precision shiny yet.

Smoothing operation would be a lot easier.

The incisions here are all made by a fork and this is the product ready to be prepared for it is fired.

- (speaking Spanish) - They have to leave it for three or four days to dry out completely.

- (speaking Spanish) - When it is completely dry, they will sand it down with sandpaper.

This is as smooth as eggshell and that's the fine sandpaper leaves it with that texture.

Oh, that's very nice.

So they're going to smooth the outside with mineral oil.

So they use an agate stone to polish the outside.

- (speaking Spanish) So at that point, it is ready to be painted.

- (speaking Spanish) The process of painting, depending on the detail that you want, can take from one day to one month.

(speaking Spanish) So this one took about a week to paint.

There are several ways to, to fire them.

So after it's painted, you fire them.

The first is - Reduction fire.

- reduction fire which means you get all the oxygen out of it.

- (speaking Spanish) - So the other is oxidation where you get some in there, and this is oxidation.

- (speaking Spanish) So nowadays people use electric kilns because well, it's easier and safer and you don't lose as much to breakage.

(speaking Spanish) - The firing of the pot is the most critical part of the whole process because it can make or break literally the pot.

- (speaking Spanish) - So you put the fattest ones below.

- (speaking Spanish) The firewood is mostly cottonwood and to start the fire you use a little bit of diesel oil and it gets going very quickly.

It'll last until the fire is all burned down.

That's how long it will take but it's important to have a roof over the kiln because if it's rains at all, it will wreck it.

If the ground is wet underneath it, it will wreck the pot.

It won't burn then.

This is the primitive and sophisticated way of making pots in Mata Ortiz.

- (speaking Spanish) (chicken clucking) - Antonia Esperanza has done this a hundred, hundreds of times.

What beauty!

So two of these are in the pot.

One of them had a piece that came off, popped off the neck here and landed on this pot.

This one will be okay, it's in perfectly good condition but that one she'll have to sell for less because it is not perfect.

And it has that little small chip or imperfection right near the neck.

Best thing to move the pots with is a pair of old jeans because they're made of cotton.

If there's any polyester in it or other, even other fabric it will melt and either burn you or stick to the pots and wreck them.

So you keep an old pair of jeans around to move your pots when they're burned.

So it would sell for about $80 if it were in perfect shape and maybe 30 now, the way it is.

Many people have moved to electric kilns because this doesn't happen.

But the kilns are very expensive themselves and they use fabulous amounts of electricity which itself in Mexico is very, very expensive.

- (speaking Spanish) - We're going to visit Goyin and I knew his mother and father really well.

He's got a wonderful place I'm told.

- Galleria Casa Azul, okay?

- Yes, that's it.

Wow, Dave, this is something I haven't seen ever before.

20 years ago, 30 years ago, you come into someone's home to see pots, and it would be on a bed, in a bedroom and their own pottery.

- And their own pottery.

- But today, when you come into a house like this, with this beautiful gallery, it's other people's pottery and their own pottery but it's displayed in a beautiful way.

It's gorgeous the way this is set up.

Somebody has been studying marketing.

(laughing) - I think so.

I think so.

- But marketing a product that is breathtaking.

- It is, and you know, these folks have had a chance and be in lots of different galleries.

So they have a good idea of what it should look like and what it does look like but they add their own color, their own combination of pots.

The pots are displayed beautifully.

And then the room, of course, is fabulous.

In the nineties, you didn't see color like this.

You didn't see cutouts like this on the top of these pots, it was just a round hole.

So this is really unique.

So the people of Mata Ortiz are now obviously pushing the envelope of what clay can do and how to market their work.

- (speaking Spanish) - So one nice thing about this is it has the traditional Paquime design on it but it also has colors that came from another style.

So it's a mixture of the tradition and newly incorporated colors in it.

That's a most unusual pot.

- (speaking Spanish) - Three days ago, he finished this one.

Oh my goodness.

- (speaking Spanish) - So this is, has a combination of squares so that the collectors will recognize very quickly as being a style from here.

And it's highly ornate.

- (speaking Spanish) So just one month to produce this single pot.

- (interpreter) Almost all the collaborative works have meanings.

Here's a person gazing at the stars.

In this one, the feet are behind the head representing one's own ideas or speaking with oneself.

All of these symbolic designs have their origins with Paquime.

And from there they have evolved.

The first designs are called knives.

Parallel lines joined by a semi triangle.

I combine them with other figures to make a more complex design.

I like this piece a lot.

It is called the "Needle of Faith".

It represents a broken heart mended by a needle and thread.

Another one of my pieces is a white heart.

We know that the Paquime civilization disappeared.

We have spent our entire lives working with the same clay.

The same clay they work with for 300, 400, 500 years.

Perhaps we have a stronger connection with those ancient artists, a stronger connection than the archeologists that studied them did.

- (interpreter) I'm also trying to express my culture and my community.

I'm making a group of Matachine dancers.

The Malinche is the leader of the group.

All the others follow her.

I'm making her a flower as a symbolic offering.

I am expressing the way in which we live and how we celebrate.

All our creations here in Mata Ortiz originate and have their origins in Paquime.

In the past it was common for the man to make the pot and the woman to decorate it.

But only the man would sign it.

Today, we both sign the pieces.

It may seem like something small but it really has been a big step.

We, as women, are being recognized, even in national and international competitions and exhibits.

Things have changed.

- (narrator) Some writers have referred to the miracle of Mata Ortiz but it's more the story of a people with the right resources, acknowledging local talent, and incorporating an ancient tradition that have all combined in a town that put itself on the map.

- Join us next time "In the Americas" with me, David Yetman.

- The great Amazon forest is home to the world's greatest variety of wildlife, especially snakes.

Many of these forest creatures are highly venomous.

That explains, at least partially, why snakes figure so prominently in native mythologies, oral history, and religion.

Although Mata Ortiz is a sophisticated production center for pottery, it also is an agrarian community.

It has very close roots to the fields, to the soil.

If you look at the men, you'll find that most of them have cowboy affinities.

They wear cowboy boots, cowboy shirts.

And part of that culture is horses.

Although this is a modern town, it is still a cowboy Chihuahua town in the tradition of old Chihuahua.

- Funding for "In the Americas with David Yetman" was provided by Agnese Haury.

- Funding for "In the Americas with David Yetman' was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

Copies of this and other episodes of "In the Americas with David Yetman" are available from the Southwest center.

To order call 1-800-937-8632.

Please mention the episode number and program title.

Please be sure to visit us at intheamericas.com or intheamericans.org.