Description
The Ballena fan is a piece designed in Mexico City and crafted in the states of Tabasco and Oaxaca. First, master artisan Julián Martínez from Nacajuca, Tabasco, hand-carves the whale tail using pepperwood. The whale tails are then sent to Chilchotla, Oaxaca, where a second master artisan, Claudio Francisco Ordaz, weaves the fan using a fiber known as G’noo Xombé Nisin in the Mazatec language, which is harvested in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Oriental in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico.