For the Códice Maya de México, we can say it is the oldest book in America.
I am Susana Xelhuantzi,
I am a biologist by profession,
and I have worked at the National Institute of Anthropology and History
for 40 years, doing research on archaeobotany.
The Códice Maya de México is a divinatory calendar
devoted to the planet Venus,
in which the priests wanted to write down
catastrophic events that would happen.
Some of the predictions from the Códice Maya de México
are droughts, wars, and difficult moments in the lives of the Mayans.
I never planned or thought I'd be working on this project.
I never thought I'd be working
with a book as important as the Códice Maya de México.
The role I had as a biologist in this project
was to determine the plant species
from which the Códice Maya de México was created.
The amate paper is a material
that was used, among other things, as a painting surface.
The intensive exploitation of trees by artisans,
since the last century,
wiped out the entire population of ficus trees.
The only place in Mexico where they currently continue
to make amate paper is in San Pablito Pahuatlán,
but now with a tree called Jonote.
My name is José Daniel Santos De La Puerta.
I work in amate paper craft production.
I started working with amate paper
when I was six or seven years old.
I first started by helping my parents.
We are the 4th generation of amate paper producers.
We belong to the Otomí culture.
We speak the Otomí language; it is our mother tongue.
The first part of the process is getting the raw material.
This material is known as Jonote.
Once we have collected the raw material,
we must dry it out.
So, with conservation in mind to avoid rotting
—as it is a natural resource it may rot or get spoiled—
it must be dried in sunlight.
So, after drying the fibers or raw material,
we move forward to the softening process.
So, to soften the material we must boil it.
That process takes about ten hours.
After that, the next day,
we must take the fibers out to rinse them.
Why? Because during the ten-hour boiling process
a natural resin or natural juice is released by the fibers.
Sometimes this resin acts as a natural glue.
So, after rinsing the fibers, we can whiten them.
Depending on your taste, if you are going for a white tone,
the right amount of bleach must be added.
After rinsing and washing the table, we lay out the fibers.
They can be laid out vertically and horizontally.
We take a plywood board, and we use as tools volcanic stones
from a metate volcano or from a river
It merges everything into one piece.
Here in San Pablito we are very connected with
our Otomí culture, with our Otomí language,
and most of all, with amate paper.
Without it we wouldn't be what we are now.
I really believe that this work we are doing
has a connection with my ancestors.
I consider the relationship between the Maya codices
and the modern amate sheets, to be in the pictographic writing.
There are no documents that tell us about the artisans who worked
with this material in the past.
We three botanical researchers who participated in the study
assume that they must have been artisans
perfectly trained in this task,
which was passed from one generation to the next
and which was highly valued in Mesoamerica.
The feeling of being able to authenticate the Códice Maya de México
is the best thing that has happened to me in 40 years.
My dream was that after the end of all the studies,
it would really found to be authentic, and it was.