Piteado

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Piteado is an artisan technique, where pita or ixtle (thread made from the fiber of maguey, Agave Americana) is embroidered onto leather in decorative patterns. The technique is used to make belts, sandals, hair bands, saddles and other leather accessories and goods. Typical designs include flowers, animals, charreada, and Pre-Hispanic symbols. Piteado is particularly popular among the charro community.

Jalisco, is famous for this type of handicraft. Nowadays, it is not the only place where piteado is made by hand, as there are several communities in other Mexican states like Hidalgo, Guerrero, Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Michoacan, and Chiapas in Mexico, but there is still also a small comunity in Samayac municipality in the Suchitepéquez department of Guatemala where people develop piteado products. There is a piteado industry in Guadalajara, Jalisco that uses automated manufacturing techniques to make piteado imitations products as well, however this industry faked the genuine products and made fraudulent versions also there is a poduction line of fake embroidery works which are traditionally done with fake wires of silver and gold.

Colotlán is home to approximately 40 talabarterías (leather shops) and is the main source of income for its inhabitants. Each workshop employs three types of workers, each dedicated to a specialized task: drawers, embroiderers, and “punteadores”.

To hand embroider a belt requires about 48 hours of labor. However the raw material (the cactus thread) used is produced in Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca. The artisans from those regions make finished and better elaborated piteado works, however because of the lack of advertising is often not possible to get the right market there. There is a promoter foundation in Veracruz, with branches in Florida and Shanghai, which embraces, supports and makes contributions of machinery and equipment to communities of artisans. This organization also encourages scientific research to improve the Cactus Tree from which the cactus fiber is obtained (Achmea Magdalenae), bringing together the communities of cactus fiber farmers-producers from northern Oaxaca, and biochemical and agricultural researchers in the Guatemalan region of Mesaltenango. This could involve supporting experimental designs of some new products, giving resources and support to those potentials artisans with great innovative creations, while continuing to preserve these natural non-renewable resources and the environment. Encourages the improve of technical on the process of manufacturing some traditional products already on the market, and also take care of be sure to preserve the heritage of this genuine art labor to news interested generation of artisans from any part of the world give them up didactic resources and practical relative materials to embroidery genuine cactus thread fiber in leathers seeking innovations on this leather and get the full properties of those cactus thread and embroidery techniques to be adapted into the development of other items similar to those traditionally already made, such as shoes, hand bags, harnesses for horses and many other things. It is said that a less sophisticated form of this art came from Spain with the conquistadors and was alter developed to perfection by the indigenous peoples of Mexico.