VICTORIA, SIEMPRE
The generations belonging to the same tradition cannot share all the attributes of a culture, since the tradition has a historical character and is, therefore, mutable; but they share so many attributes with their preceding and subsequent generations that they can be identified as cultural links in a historical sequence.
López Austin, Alfredo. Juego de tiempos / Alfredo López Austin ; reseña Jaime Labastida . — Ciudad de México : Academia Mexicana de la Lengua, 2018. Contiene: Discurso del autor al recibir el IV Premio Internacional de Ensayo Pedro Henríquez Ureña. 252 p
Generational replacements can be accompanied, soft, progressive and rhythmic, playing a solo to give way to new chords. In other cases, abrupt, marked by absences and mourning, silences that reconfigure extensive social nuclei. The latter are, without a doubt, of a different force that is also reflected in important community cohesion.
Tía Victoria’s passage of life is in this second area. Her loss is evident not only in her house and her chivita, in which her family spends time covering her steps, but also in the community in which she always participated actively, with commitment and reciprocity.
Victoria García Sánchez was a fundamental piece in the elaboration of the traditional mezcal in the municipality of Chilapa. Her work was not limited to the field in which, without pre-established or limiting positions, she practiced almost all of them. Just as she transported the mezcal for sale and distribution, Victoria also made tools, managed resources, hand milled maguey, watched over the simpleo, procured food for all the workers, tested the fermentation, composed the mezcal with the guia, hearts and the trascolita to leave it in its final taste , emptied and transferred the mezcal to its final vessels and guarded the liquid for whoever came to look for it.
The care with which she undertook every detail of her work in the chivita was parallel to the care of her home, her family and her community. Mother of ten, active member of her church as part of María´s legion, godmother of “cruces” and children alike, Victoria always had a seat, disposition, conversation and a mezcalito for anyone who asked for it.
Tía Victoria believed in luck, from a different and almost stoic approach, linked to work as a communication of capacity and appreciation of life. She knew that life makes sense only by sharing herself, by flourishing, trying to avoid envy, which is believed to stifle mezcal’s yield. The presence of Tía Victoria thus stimulated the flow and cooperation of her community, in which, in the first front and given her closeness, her children Juan and Fortunato were always present with their respective partners Verónica and Laura. Claudia, Julia and Leonor, always on the lookout here in the country, visiting whenever they could, helping in the kitchen, the chivita and anything required. Minerva, Rosa, Alejandra, Georgina and Isabel who have supported their parents for years with hard work in the fields of the state of California.
Doña Adela, collaborator and also founder of the El Tigre project with her traditional maque, upon hearing the news, could not help but point out that, finally, the work of “caregiving”, in a broad sense, that is held primarily by female figures as Victoria’s, is always strenuous, daily and almost millimetric . We might think that physical work, almost always related to the strength of male bodies, is harsh, however, care work never stops and is transversal. This is how Doña Adela explained and regretted the passing of her colleague.
There’s been a mythologized figure of the “maestro mezcalero”, a strategy that, wisely for its time, sought to make clear the recognition of those who work behind the drink. In this sense, in many cases this title was extended to the owner of the factory or who made mezcal’s final adjustments for its final taste. The criterion was, ultimately, a limited and a subjective decision. A market trap, which is not only difficult and almost impossible to corroborate, but dismisses a system that exceeds the figure of genius or solitary prodigy. We have heard questions about the fact that, in the field of traditional mezcals, the title couldn’t be conferred on women, due to the arduous field work involved in the elaboration of traditional mezcals, among them, mainly, perhaps that of the labrada. If we’d used the criteria that simplifies the community work of making traditional mezcals under this understanding, Tía Victoria García would be the Maestra Mezcalera, without hesitation. Not only because she was the one who decided the adjustment of the parts of the distillation to get the final results, she was also the owner of the factory and its instruments, but because of the transversal knowledge and the incidence of her decisions at work. However, the horizontality with which she dedicated herself to her trade, alongside her husband and at different stages with her children, magueyeros and various members of the community, gave her centrality and an innate organizational capacity that was always communicated, and in each bottle describing the work of everyone in the chiva as that of the “Patricio García Family”, that work that she also built day by day. It was not necessary to name her, under an individualist logic, as the exclusive holder of a knowledge that she made her own and from which she continued improving as she went along, making mistakes and always learning and sharing . Tía leaves a void in the community, which, in turn, is filled with her and becomes closer and united, with its own will to compensate, to continue working together, all as one, as was always done with Tía Victoria.
This relay will lead to their adaptation and learning, which requires, from the other bastion, an awareness of consumption that assumes traditional mezcals as expressions of cultures in localized communities, of bearer families that hold knowledge that is also transferred in these pains of loss. As it happens with the crafts and the knowledge that make up her work, when a living treasure transcends, as Tía Victoria was, the demand is the continuation, the community union and the permanence of the gusto histórico (historical taste), of which she was the guardian along with her peers throughout their entire lives. From the vantage point of consumption outside of the community, it is necessary, almost obligatory, to recognize and enhance the quality of traditional mezcals as the intangible heritage that they represent, share and signify for the extensive family nuclei. Contextualizing and valuing them from knowledge gives back to this heritage .
Today the commercialization of mezcal tries to distance itself from its rural origin, in some cases, in others, this romanticized image is overexploited and progress is invoked, in some others, making use of fallacies and commercializing demagogy. Looking at the culture of traditional drinks equated with what has been designed by established “industries” and “enterprises” is the first mistake made when approaching mezcal in Mexico and, very worryingly, beyond the country. It is the core mistake of the legislation decreed for it and from the logic, that many times, “lecture is taught” simplifying the diversity of customs, tools, uses, ways of doing and the people involved in the work of mezcal as tradition , which is a memory reproduction practice that, from the localized and specific, builds human history.
It may seem like a small thing, but positioning oneself before the cascade of brands, questioning the production temporalities, the management of inputs, the active participation of the community, representation and communication, exchange agreements, the positioning of the community at the center and trying to understand the other without treachery. Without this participation of those who have the privilege of approaching community life without having experienced it in situ , traditional mezcals are doomed to sad oblivion, to the trivialization of the generational effort of those who are no longer here and who built for the future.
We have all of the above to thank Tía Victoria, as a champion of the pantheon of great personalities in the production of mezcal in Mexico, who forged communality, memory and identity, which transcends with her children, grandchildren, husband and extended community that could live and participate with it. She made history in her passage through this world, giving us the opportunity to learn more about the low mountains, to share and to question perceptions and realities of the Guerrero countryside and of the country’s traditional mezcal.
Long live Xulchu, it’s mezcal and Victoria, for memory and tradition never die!
