The story
Welcome to the cradle of imagination. As we travel through the sun-drenched Central Valleys of Oaxaca, heading toward the colorful villages of San Martín Tilcajete and San Antonio Arrazola, I want you to take a deep breath. Can you smell that?
It is the sweet, resinous scent of copal wood hanging in the dry air. It is the scent of the Alebrije. These "monsters" are world-famous today, but they weren't always Oaxacan.
The story actually begins in Mexico City in the 1930s, when a piñata maker named Pedro Linares fell into a fever dream. He saw donkeys with butterfly wings and roosters with bull horns, all screaming one nonsensical word: Alebrije. While Linares created his visions out of papier-mâché, it was here, in these dusty Oaxacan valleys, that the monsters found their true soul.
As we enter Arrazola, imagine a local carver named Manuel Jiménez. In the 1950s, he took those fever-dream shapes and realized they could be carved from the local copal tree, a wood that is soft and easy to shape when green. He transformed a city folk art into a rural masterpiece, grounding these monsters in the Zapotec traditions of the valley.
Now, as we move into the vibrant streets of San Martín Tilcajete, you’ll see workshop after workshop. Look closely at the figures sitting on the shelves. For the people here, these aren't just "monsters."
They are tonas and nahuales. According to Zapotec belief, every human is born with an animal protector, a tona, determined by the ritual calendar. When you see a jaguar with the tail of a coyote or an eagle with the scales of a lizard, you are looking at a spiritual fusion.
The process you see today is a labor of devotion. A single piece can take months to complete. First, the carver "finds" the animal within the curve of a copal branch.
Then comes the drying, a slow process to prevent the wood from cracking. Finally, the painting begins. In the most traditional workshops, artists still use natural pigments.
They crush cochineal insects for a deep red, use pomegranate peels for yellow, and lime juice to change the acidity and color of the dyes. The intricate patterns—the thousands of tiny dots and geometric "grecas"—are often inspired by the stone mosaics of the nearby Mitla ruins. These Alebrijes are the spirit of Oaxaca: wild, defiant, and impossibly colorful.
As you walk through these workshops, remember that every wing and every fang started as a simple branch, waiting for a Oaxacan hand to set it free. Enjoy the magic of the copal.