CONSULAR REPORTS.

Vol. LXXI.

COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES, ETC.

APRIL, 1903.

No. 271.

SISAL, THE YUCATAN FIBER.

The following report has been received from Consul E. H. Thompson, of Progreso:

Sisal grass, sisal hemp, henequen, or simply “sisal” are the various commercial terms applied to a fiber that is neither a grass nor a hemp and is not produced to any great extent in Sisal. The name "sisal" was applied to it because it originally reached the outer world through the port of that name.

Sisal was, up to 1871, the only port of entry in Yuca an. It is 35 miles from Merida, the capital of the State and the g at center of the Yucatan fiber market. In 1871, private enterprise, stimulated by the demands of commerce that required a shorter route to the coast, caused a broad-gauge railroad to be built to the town of Progreso. The custom-house was transferred there and Sisal as a port of entry ceased to be. Progreso is a busy port; the wharves are lined with shipping and the streets are filled with hemp bales going out and general merchandise coming in. Two railroad nect it with Merida, and a third is under way.

THE AGAVE AMERICANA.

con

The agave is one of the most characteristic plants of Mexico. One of the family, the Agave americana, produces the pulque, the intoxicating drink of the country. Great fields are covered with this plant upon the Mexican table-land, and long "pulque trains," like the milk trains of the United States, roll daily into Mexico City. This beverage is practically unknown to the inhabitants of Yucatan, and the agave that produces it is to be seen only as an exotic in No 271-03-1

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the gardens and parks. Its place is taken by another member. of the family, whose importance is more far reaching. The Agave sisalensis furnishes a fiber that not only helps to knit firmer the commerce of the whole world, but binds the sheaves of wheat so that the price of bread in every land is made cheaper for its use.

To the casual observer a field of the pulque plant and one of the fiber plant are very similar in appearance. Both have the same peculiar green, the same many-thorned leaves; investigation, however, soon shows the difference.

THE AGAVE SISALENSIS.

There are three known varieties of the species growing wild in the forests of Yucatan-the chelem, the cahum, and the citamci-and I think that I have found a fourth wild variety during my explorations in the interior. There are also two varieties of the cultivated plant-the yaxci, or green fiber, and the sacci, or white fiber. The last-named plant is the most cultivated and the one producing the sisal hemp of commerce.

The primeval inhabitants probably did not at first attempt to extract the fiber from the thick pulp, but took the leaf and wilted it in the fire, then split it, and used the splits as thongs. The leaves so treated make thongs of great strength, and as they dry they bind with wonderful force. In the primitive forms of habitation in the region, the mud and wattle "nás" are bound together by these shreds of fiber-wilted leaves. They are shapely, water-tight, and durable, and the native builder's only tool is a heavy, sharp-edged knife. Not a spike or nail or metal of any kind enters into the building.

Later the people found that if they cleaned off the thick pulp and the green corrosive juice they could get a firmer hold and so bind tighter. Then they learned to twist the shreds, and this idea led to the making of ropes and cords.

The chelem, cahum, and citamci.

The wild agave known as the chelem is, I believe, the progenitor of the cultivated sacci. The fiber is of good quality, but scant in quantity. The fiber of the cahum is long and silky, but even scantier in quantity than that of the chelem, and it is said to be brittle.

I send with this report wisps of fiber taken from each of the above-described wild varieties, as well as of those cultivated. Each wisp of fiber is the product of a single leaf. I also send leaves of each half cleaned—that is, one-half of the leaf has the pulp removed and the fiber exposed, while the other half is left just as it comes from the field, with only the spines and thorns removed.*

*Filed in the Bureau of Foreign Commerce, where they may be examined by parties interested.

The Yaxci

In ancient times the agave, or henequen, was one of the most important plants of the peninsula.

At a time when most of Europe was in the pall of utter darkness, the priests and rulers of Yucatan lived in stone temples and palaces. Up the steep sides of the myriad pyramids were carried great blocks and sculptured columns.

To move these mighty masses of limestone no powerful engines were at hand; but the Batabs of Yucatan, like the rulers of ancient Egypt, had little use for mechanical devices. Human muscle and ropes of agave were all-sufficient. If ten ropes and a hundred slaves were not enough, a hundred ropes and a thousand slaves were not lacking. The ancient artists made use of the fiber in their work. They were not content to make the figure; they made the skeleton, and upon the bones and in the flesh-like the cords and muscles of the body-they placed cords and plaited bands of fiber. Close examination indicates that the fiber used was that of the yaxci plant. Over the imbedded muscles and flesh they placed a thin, hard wash of stucco, to represent the skin and surface pigments. The writer has examined many dozen specimens of the broken figures of stucco wherein are plainly shown the casts and the knots and braid—even the very character of the fiber.

Ropes and cables for boats were also made of agave fiber, cleaned by the ancient methods and twisted by hand into the cordage needed. When there happened to be a scarcity of hemp for the cordage of the Royal Spanish navy, search was made for a new material to eke out the supply from Manila, and the fiber used by the Campeche people came up for discussion. A royal commission was ordered to investigate, and its report, made in 1783, gave unstinted praise to the new fiber. This fixes approximately the time. of the first exportation of sisal hemp. For half a century afterwards its existence seems to have been forgotten by the outside world. This fact was probably due to several causes, the principal of which was that the buccaneers made the path of Spanish commerce often seem the shortest road to ruin and death. Meanwhile, the people of Yucatan grew poorer and poorer. Men looked around to see what could be turned into the money needed for the necessities of life.

The sacci.

Attention was turned toward the fiber concealed in the leaf of the henequen, and in 1839 a kind of association was formed to make the experiment of producing the coarser fiber "sacci" on a commercial basis. It was known that the spiny-edged agave called

sacci produced a fiber coarser than that of the yaxci, but much more abundant, and consequently more profitable to cultivate, as the fiber then sold by weight and not by quality. The fiber was cleaned by native instruments, and, packed in loose bales of about 200 pounds each, was sent to New York. It found a market, but the price was such that there was but scant gain for the seller. The methods of cleaning the fiber were so slow that even with the small wages of the day the cost per pound to the planter was discouraging. The State government, recognizing the great need of a suitable machine to clean the fiber, offered a gratuity of $10,000 Mexican to the person inventing an apparatus capable of producing a stated output per hour. This finally resulted in the "raspador," the device of a Franciscan friar, which was used for many years. To-day, half a dozen machines are in the market, some of them marvels of design and potency.

At this point a brief résumé of the fiber-cleaning machines in use may be interesting. Taking them in order of precedence by priority of invention, the list must unquestionably be headed by the pacché and the tonkas.

THE PACCHÉ.

This is simply a triangular, sharp-edged piece of wood, with rounded ends as handles. The cholul is the material from which it is generally made, as it has a special quality of preserving its edge under constant use. A flat face of a "chacah" wood log is made with a hole and a peg in the upper portion. The leaf is taken, one end firmly fixed into the flat surface by jamming it into the hole and pushing the plug in after it; then the scraper is pushed away from the worker, held somewhat diagonally from the flat surface, and the pulp is gradually scraped away, leaving the tress of fiber hanging from the uncleaned half of the leaf. The leaf is then reversed, the clean fiber is fixed into the hole, and the uncleaned portion presented ready for the action of the cleaner.

THE TONKAS.

The second prehistoric implement, called the "tonkas," is a flattened piece of hard wood about 18 inches long by 5 inches wide. At its upper end it is about an inch thick, and it dwindles until at the end it becomes a thin, sharp edge, curving inward, so as to grip and scrape the pulp from the fiber. The bedboard of the tonkas has a curve to correspond with the curve in the edge of the impleThe leaf is placed between the bedpiece and the tonkas, and, while the tonkas is held firmly in one hand, the other draws the leaf sharply toward the body, this movement being repeated until onehalf of the leaf is clean. The same operation takes place on the

ment.

second half of the leaf, until the clean tress of fiber hangs soft and pliant in the grasp of the operator. The pacché is the implement most in use to-day among the natives of the interior of Yucatan. Women use it to clean fiber, but the tonkas is used only by the strongest. An able-bodied person can produce with the use of this implement from 6 to 9 pounds of fiber daily.

It is unquestionably true that the fiber produced by these ancient implements possesses qualities not to be obtained by the machinecleaned product. In the hammock-making districts of Yucatan the yaxci is cleaned by these processes, and the makers of the finest hammocks (those worth their weight in silver) will not use a fiber produced by any other method.

THE RASPADOR.

The next step in the evolution of the fiber-cleaning machine is the Solis machine, or raspador, which, in principle, is a wheel upon which are placed the edges of many pacché. The angle of application is exactly the same.

The raspador marked a new era for the commerce of Yucatan. With the aid of this machine, two men could clean in one day more than forty could with the tonkas and pacché. Its use became extended, and henequen farms began to multiply and become prosperous.

The merits of the various machines I shall not discuss. The Stephens machines are at work; the Prieto is believed by many to be the most efficient all-round machine; the Villamor follows it a close second, while the Torroella, the Lopez, and the Lanaux each has its partisans and seems to do good work. These machines are the only ones in evidence to-day in Yucatan.

Inasmuch as the inventors of the machines above mentioned have made improvements in their apparatus, I have prepared the following table from data given me by the inventors or their authorized agents:

Hemp-cleaning machines in actual use upon the plantations of Yucatan.

*The average value of the Mexican peso in 1902, according to the United States Mint, was 42.9

cents.