Mayahuel

Mayahuel is considered the female deity of the Maguey plant itself. A goddess in the
mesoamerican cultures most commonly depicted in different codex as a young woman with
a yellow body, sitting or standing above a maguey. She’s associated with fertility, a life
source and sustainer. Mayahuel shares iconographic elements with the stars and reflects
her origin stories, where she is arguably a star of a sort herself before journeying to the
Earth’s surface and intimately becoming a maguey. It is said Quetzalcoatl, the plumed
serpent deity, brings her to Earth, falls in love and after her sudden death, buries her and
she’s reborn in a maguey plant. This project thus helps preserve
artisanal skills related to agave fiber, from vegetable dyeing and spinning to crochet.

Handspun agave fiber, naturally dyed with Zacatlaxcalli.

First, we naturally dyed our agave fiber with "zacatlaxcalli", a prehispanic species, also known as Cuscuta Tinctoria, that was selected and recolected from the field near the artisans community. Then the agave fiber was handspun and then crocheted into leaves to recreate our Maguey leaves in the Mayahuel lamps.

Mythology is the starting point for this collaboration that celebrates Mexico's benevolent
plant, the agave. Thanks to its magical fiber, Citlalli Parra and Hall Haus have imagined a
majestic hanging lamp and a table lamp whose lampshades represent agave leaves.
These petals are crocheted from agave fibers manually spun by a community of women
artisans in the state of Hidalgo. This project thus helps preserve artisanal skills related to
agave fiber, from vegetable dyeing and spinning to crochet.