Huehuecoyotl Mexico

Ecology is art

by Giovanni Ciarlo

After fourteen years living as a nomadic tribe of roving artists, we began building our ecovillage in 1982. During our travels, we learned to put on theatrical productions and took on mysterious names like The Hathi Babas Transit Ashram, and then The Illuminated Elephants, a traveling theatre community. Members who joined us later came from diverse activist and youth groups, or were attracted to our progressive values and way of life. After several years on the road, we decided to look for a place to settle. We found our home in the majestic mountains of Tepoztlan, Mexico. We named it Huehuecoyotl, after the Aztec god of poetry, music, dance, and mischief. This was actually the name the property had before we bought it. It is the custom in the region to give every parcel of land a traditional name. Huehucoyotl is surrounded by the Tepoztecan National Forest on three sides, making it part of the forest while remaining private and communal. It is near a steep vertical mountain, and in the rainy season enjoys abundant waterfalls dropping 60 metres down the mountain.

To begin with, old converted school buses and vans served as our homes. In one of them we shared a communal office, kitchen and a studio area for preparing our shows. We implemented a shared economy and paid all expenses collectively. We also honoured the Native American traditions. One day an old and wise Klamath elder performed a ceremony for us, in which he named our group Kilokaga Nx Nilaxi, which means ‘a small but powerful tribe looking for knowledge’.

All the houses are self-designed and built by the owners. Materials used are local wood, clay, adobe, volcanic stone, brick, ferro-cement and cob. The architecture is vernacular, and integrated with the natural shapes of the mountains. Water is harvested from rainfall and stored in cisterns, and then distributed by gravity to all the houses and recycled. Many of the houses have dry toilets or a combination of dry and flush toilets. There are often houses or rooms for rent on a seasonal basis.

Communal house and dormitory.

Location: Municipality of Tepoztlan, State of Morelos, 120 km (75 mi) south of Mexico City, 2000 m (6560 ft) altitude.

Established: 1982

Area: 3.5 ha. 50% of the land is multi-use, 40% residential, 10% forest.

Population: 22 residents, from newborn to 70. An equal number of men and women. Many nationalities in the group: Mexican, Spanish, Swedish, US, Italian, Danish, Basque, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.

Housing: 14 single homes and one duplex.

Common facilities: The common house, El Teatro (The Theater), with open space and a kitchen for events of up to 200 people. Dormitory for 30 individuals. Medium size vegetable garden for residents’ use.

Garden sculpture.

A plan of Huehuecoyotl.

Natural architecture.

Today, some of us practise a scaled-down version of nomadism. A small group caravanned for 13 years throughout Central and South America, all the way to Tierra del Fuego, until 2009. Other members continue to travel extensively, taking bilingual performances to all kinds of audiences. Others choose to work on aspects of the arts, such as theatre, music, writing, poetry, painting, holistic healing, photography, film and video, gardening, crafts, architecture and all forms of personal development. Some have written books about our adventures, recorded CDs featuring our music, printed postcards featuring Mayan calendars, produced videos presenting our lifestyle and developed a wide variety of arts and crafts produced and sold in our ecovillage. The rights of Mother Earth are promoted by our community members as an important step towards regenerating the ecological balance of our planet. Our motto is ‘La Ecología es Arte’ (Ecology Is Art).

Our daily activities, apart from the diversity of ways we earn our living, include the care of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. We also provide environmental, cultural and wellness training through events, workshops, festivals, retreats, conferences, Eco-tours, audiovisual performances and crafts production. This offers visiting groups and individuals an opportunity to explore sustainable lifestyles, healing methods and nonreligious spiritual practices. We maintain a close and flexible relationship with various neighbouring communities. Our ecovillage is located 1.5 km from Santo Domingo Ocotitlan, a Nahuatl-speaking village of indigenous farmers.

Design students with map.

Over the years, we have collaborated closely with the municipality of Tepoztlan, a traditional indigenous name dating back to Aztec times. We give theatrical performances, organize a yearly dance festival, welcome indigenous groups such as the Zapatistas of the southern state of Chiapas, support local farmers and the local organic market, and participate in local culture. Like Ocotitlan, Tepoztlan is an ancient Nahuat village in the foothills of the majestic, bio-diverse Chichinautzin Corridor, and it has become a weekend tourist destination for city dwellers. Today, many Tepoztecans devote their commercial efforts to the successful promotion of ‘esoteric’ tourism, fine traditional restaurants, and arts & crafts in its many and varied forms. In the past, we helped to form a food co-op, an alternative school, a crafts co-operative, a sewing collective and other social organizations in neighbouring towns.

Huehuecoyotl has become an experimental showcase of appropriate technologies, participatory decision-making, group facilitation, and other useful tools designed to promote a new type of consensual democracy. Permaculture, bio-regionalism, sustainable architecture, Native American studies, experimental theatre, light and sound performance, the practice of traditional and emerging ceremonies, media, communications and helping to reconstruct the social fabric of society have become the focus of our small but enduring ecovillage vision.

Children creating.

Vertical hydroponic design.

An early Huehue logo.