Fiesta of fertility rites...

For seven days and nights during the spring Velas (Candles) fiesta in Juchitan, southern Mexico, Zapotec Indian women dance in a celebration of ancient fertility rites and to confirm their matriarchal power. The women of Juchitan are very different from their Mexican sisters. Here, it is the women and not the men who rule. They are the head of the household, they control the finances, and they dominate the men physically, too. Huge and sensual, their size is a status symbol and not a reason to feel ashamed.

Rosa weighs 14 stone and is considered to be a local beauty. "We like plenty of woman here," says Jose, her lover, who is half her size. "Fatness is a sign of a woman's sexual energy and lack of inhibition in bed"

"We are not like all the whimpering little housewives of Mexico," says Carmela, Rosa's sister. A string of medieval gold coins, symbolizing her erotic merit, cascades between her enormous breasts. "Our men do what we say," she declares, passing me a piece of iguana meat, rolled in its shriveled green skin and roasted in red chillied tomatoes. This delicacy is also said to be an aphrodisiac.

Women take the best seats...

Around the dance floor (a tarpaulin on swept earth) wooden chairs are arranged in rows. Families from the surrounding villages have travelled here to show off, gossip and dance. The first four rows are occupied by the women of the Morales family, who sit solid as a female Mafia. Abrisa, 63, is head of the family and sits in the center.

Behind the women sit the Morales men, wearing sombreros, dull, black trousers and white shirts. Two dance to the oapaca music: a hopping step with hands held behind their backs, while the women sway and turn, their skirts fanning and nickel-capped teeth glittering.

Outsiders not welcome...

"We are the frame of the picture," Miguel says, when asked if the men felt overshadowed by such flamboyance. Around the edges of the arena they sit, some gazing from stools at the back, not daring to penetrate the multicolored female ghetto to ask for a dance.

Marina is a single mother which, she says, is "not a problem". Religious restrictions controlling the sexuality and the lives of so many Mexicans have been repulsed here by a traditionally rebellious spirit. This rebelliousness, that has also kept the spirit of the Velas alive, has not diminished. Outsiders are not welcomed here and can provoke rare outbursts of aggression in these normally quiet and henpecked men.