In 2015, I was traveling in the town of Totonicapán in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, a region rich in Mayan traditions. Toto, as the town is known to locals, was one of the primary settlements of the K’iché Maya before the arrival of the Europeans and was headquarters for the famed Mayan ruler Tecún Umán. The trip through the area was work-related with little time for side trips or tourist activities, but I did make a quick pass through the colorful marketplace on Market Day. Little did I know that this unplanned excursion would lead to such a whimsical discovery.

As I walked quickly through the market, I saw all sorts of fruits and vegetables and other food stuffs, handmade hammocks, and weavings made on back-strap looms in the Mayan traditions extending centuries into the past. As I walked further out from the heart of the market activity, I spied a Mayan woman sitting on the ground with a small straw mat in front of her with five curious pottery bowls for sale. Her wares were brightly colored and unlike any I had ever seen. The woman, who spoke only her native K’iché language, quickly became animated when I slowed to pick up one of the bowls. The green, blue, and yellow glazed bowls ranged from about 3 to 6 in diameter. But what made them especially peculiar to me was their design. Each bowl had been outfitted with tiny appendages meant to represent a chicken. Two tiny wings, tail feathers, and a well-defined chicken head had been attached to each bowl. There were other similar bowls in the marketplace, but none had this fanciful design. I was immediately enthralled by the playful design, and I purchased all five of the bowls.

Over the next couple of years, I would regularly scan other Guatemalan marketplaces hoping to find another chicken-head bowl though I could never find any. I went back to the market in Toto in 2017 and this time I found several vendors with the curious little bowls. I met several potters who had the bowls, but none could explain the origin of the designs. Over the next couple of years, I began a quest to learn more about he comical, chicken-head bowls. Finally, in July 2019 Kim and I travelled to Toto on a quest to find the origin of the curious chicken-head bowls. We arrived in town, and we went to the market and began asking various vendors, but nobody know when or how the chicken-head bowls had begun, just that they had been around for at least 30 or 40 years. It was clear that we weren’t getting anywhere talking to vendors.

We hired a tuk-tuk driver to take us out to visit various potters. We found one or two who had made chicken-head bowls, but none who claimed to be the first one. We also found curious variations including bowls in the same style but made in the shape of eagles or turtles.

Travelling through Toto talking to potters in our tuk-tuk

Our search continued and we finally made our way to a pottery cooperative with a shared kiln, not too far from the market. They had hundreds of the intriguing other-headed bowls, but none featuring chickens. After discussing the matter with some of the co-op members, someone mentioned a name. Quickly, the others concurred that the first chicken-head bowl potter who lived on a remote mountainside on the edge of town. But we were in luck because today was market day and he was probably in town, and somebody had his cell number! So, we called him on the phone – no answer. We sent him a WhatsApp message by text and waited, hoping he would respond. In an hour or so, he responded, and we agreed to meet at the co-op later in the day.

COPACAT - the potter’s co-op where we Señor Menchú

I was so thrilled to meet Señor Menchú, a quiet fellow with the dry, weathered hands of a potter. We talked for a while about a variety of topics before finally focusing on the chicken-head bowls. He was surprised that I was so taken by the chicken-head bowls, and we began to talk about his own work as a potter. Soon, he shared that he had been making these bowls for many years. He couldn’t remember when he started, or why exactly, he added the chicken head, wings, and tails to the bowls. It was just a curiosity, a creative break from the normal bowls made by others. It was getting late in the day, and he was clear that there wouldn’t be time for us to go to his house before dark. After years of trying to figure out this mystery, I was so pleased to finally meet the person who claimed to be the inventor of the remarkable bowls. I made a down payment on a sizeable order, and we made plans to come back in a few weeks to make a visit to his workshop.

In late August, we traveled to Toto and connected with the potter’s son who met us in town. He guided us down narrow paths and across aged concrete bridges until at last we arrived at the bottom of the mountain. The son informed us that there was no way to get to the house by car and that we would need to climb the mountain. At an altitude over 8,000 feet, we were winded when we finally arrived at their home.

The Menchú family works together in their craft, digging clay from a nearby mine, shaping it in their workshop, and firing it in a makeshift kiln.

Señor Menchú welcomed us with open arms and a big smile, proudly describing how each step of the process worked.

Now that we were friends, I asked Señor Menchú to again recount how and why he had begun creating the chicken-head bowls. He laughed a second or two and said, “I just had a bit of clay left and I decided to do something different!” He shared that a few others in the market thought they were interesting, and over time, he began to make a few to sell. Slowly, others began to copy his work. All along, I had been expecting to find some deeply meaningful origin story but, in the end, it was just a young potter playing around. Even now, Señor Menchú thinks the chicken-head bowls are comical. He’s sold a few outside of Toto, but there’s no great market for his wares. When I told him that I wanted to make-up a story about a boy and a pet chicken named Chita and about the how the chicken-head bowls were invented, he laughed at the thought. “Maybe, more people will be interested in buying some bowls from Toto!,” he joked.

Discovering Chita!

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