The People Huichol
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| Girl of the region. |
The Huichol people has a very significant simbol, the deer that make them different from other cultures. Their group has the caracteristics of being a group humorous, light and flexible, for this they have avoided the open warfare, neither the fighting against the Spanish non for the Mexican goverment, but they still having and manteined their traditions an freedoms.
They call themselves Wixalika, wich means profhets of healers.
They have a Peyote Cactus that have been used for years by the huichol people for the curatives properties. For them the Peyote Cactus is their centerprice of their sacred ritualism because they said that is the only vehicule or medio in wich they obtain their mystical union with the gods and this has been revered for years.
The Huihol have practiced this way of seeing beyond the normal phisycal realm for eons and live in communal balance long before the europeans arrived with their chains.
The peyoteros, as they are called, they used to pilgrimage to obtain the magic cactus from the desert of the San Luis Potosí. This place is called Wirikuta or Field of flowers,wich is hundred of miles from their traditional home.
In this place the cactus is eat by a young alike and with the direction of the shaman and the suport of the group, the peyore is free to trascend the limitacions of the ordinary sensory percepcions and see with the mind's eye, the heart of the great spirit, the interconnectedness of all things seen and unseen.
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| Cactus Peyotero this, down) |
The basis of their rituals are the songs of the shamans (marakame) and the main one says :"If you have been made of corn (eekoo) and you eat the peyote (heekoori) — the cactus that is the real core of the corn — you become the jaguar (maye) that hunts your deer (maxra) — that is your own spirit — and listen to the song of the oldest and biggest deer (Tamatz Kauyumari) — who gives you the power — and scorpion (Terooka) and the feather sticks (moowieri) to heal, sing and dance".
Their art reflects the patterns of primordial archetypes present within each of us.This art is the experience in the realm of the gods for us to see, touch, commune with becoming vehicles for our own contemplation and transformation.
Saint James and the Moors: Mexico´s Toastanes
Masked dancers take to the streets on July 25 to reenact an age old battle fought in Spain long before the conquest. The ceremonial tastoan rituals come from the 12th century and were originally known as the dance of the Moors and the Christians. In Spain's version, the dance symbolizes the expulsion of the Moors by the Christians, while Mexico's variation is commonly interpreted as the representation of the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the 1500s.
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The fearsome Tastoanes battle Saint James in a ritual dance each year on July 25th. © Kinich Ramirez, 2006 |
In Spain, Saint James was invoked by the faithful during the during the struggle to rid Spain of the Moors. From the fifth through the fifteenth centuries, troops rallied to a rousing battle cry of "Santiago y cierra España!" .He became known as Santiago Matamoros, or "Moor slayer," and was brought to the Americas along with all the other Roman Catholic saints during the conquest.
The dances may vary from town to town, but all utilize bizarre masks and wigs. In Jocotan, a former indigenous settlement on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the sound of clashing swords mingles with drumbeats and flutes as fighters on horseback make their way to the town plaza.
African Roots Stretch Deep Into México
Since 1492, the history of the Americas has been forged by three cultures: indigenous, European, and African.
The early African presence in the Americas is normally associated with the slave trade in the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, Central America, Colombia and Peru.In fact, during the colonial era, there were more Africans than Europeans in Mexico,but didn't disappear, but in fact took part in forging the great racial mixture that is today Mexico.
Prior to independence from Spain, there were numerous slave rebellions throughout the Americas, including in Mexico. The first documented slave rebellion in Mexico occurred in 1537; this was followed by the establishment of various runaway slave settlements called "palenques." Some rebellions were in alliance with Indians and mestizos even as far north as Chihuahua. In 1608, Spaniards negotiated the establishment of a free black community with Yagna, a runaway rebel slave. Today, that community in Veracruz bears its founder's name.
The African presence in Mexico is not so much denied as it is obscured. Aguirre Beltrán's work has brought to light something most Mexicans and Mexican Americans have historically been unaware of -- that they, like other Latinos, have not only Indian and Spanish blood, but African blood as well.
In times of racial discord between Latinos and African Americans, this historical confluence of cultures should serve as a reminder that both communities share common ancestors. In fact, if we probe far enough, we're all related.
The Tarasco Culture and Empire
Among the fertile volcanoes of Michoacan Lumholtz came across the Purepecha people, who were called Tarascan by the Spanish.
Their origins are still a puzzle, along with their stirrup-shaped, long-necked bottles and round temples called Yacatas. After the Conquest, Spanish missionaries organized the Tarascan Empire into a series of experimental Utopian craft-oriented villages, and today the Lake Patzcuaro area abounds with craftspeople skilled in wood, copper, cloth and clay.
The Tarascan people had established themselves in Michoacán by the 12th century A.D. South America may also have been the source for the Tarascan pottery styles and metalworking techniques that were not previously known in Mexico.
The Tarascan capital city of Tzintzuntzan was dominated by a huge platform supporting a row of five temple pyramids called yácatas. From this religious and administrative center, the Tarascans waged war against their neighbors.
The Tarascans were excellent craftsmen in many materials. Their metalworking skills were the most advanced in Mexico. Products such as honey, cotton, feathers, copal, and deposits of salt, gold, and copper were highly prized by the Tarascans. When conquered, the peoples of these regions were expected to pay tributes of material goods to the Tarascan lord.
Like the Aztecs, the Tarascans had many deities, each with their own attributes, requirements, sacred colors, associated animals, and calendrical days.
The most ancient and revered Tarascan deity was Curicaueri, the fire god. A Tarascan origin myth tells the story of how Curicaueri and his brother gods founded the settlements around Lake Pátzcuaro. The pre-Columbian Tarascans believed themselves to be Curicaueri's descendants. When rulers and priests dressed in their ritual finery and performed ceremonial dances, they were affirming the connection to their ancestor gods.
The arrival of the Spanish Captain Hernán Cortés and his men on the east coast of Mexico in April 1519 led to the end of both the Aztec and the Tarascan Empires. Knowing that the Spaniards were on their way to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, the Aztecs sent some emissaries to the Tarascans to ask for help. Instead of providing assistance, they sacrificed the Aztec messengers.
After the conquest, the Spanish crown appointed Don Vasco de Quiroga to govern the Tarascan villages. He decided that each community should be noted for the production of a specialized art form. This vision of artistic specialization and commercial production persists today.
The Yácata
The Yácata, a typically Tarascan building, appears to have been used as both a mortuary and a habitation. The structure consists of three parts whose ground plan is shaped more or less like a capital T: a rectangular stepped pyramid, a round stepped pyramid that is placed at the mid-point of the rectangle, and a stepped passageway which joins the round structure to the rectangle.
Carl Lumholtz describes three yácatas which he saw in the Sierra de los Tarascos: "The mound is built of stones, without mortar, in the shape of a 'T,' each arm about 50 feet long and thirty-two feet high. The western arm terminates in a circular construction, a kind of knob. The sides all rise in regular steps from the ground, and the level surface on top of the arms is only six feet wide, while the base is twenty feet broad. These encircling steps make the monument singularly symmetrical and graceful."
The Concheros de México.
The concheros meet to perform a circle dance and to hold all-night vigils at frequent intervals throghout the year. They hold four major dances in locations that are the sites of both Catholic churches and pre-Hipanic temples, the former usually having been constructed from the latter. The major dances are held on significant dates in the Catholic calendar, while each group also holds smaller dances, often as frequently as once a week, to dance for some significant event its own tradition, to honour a saint´s fiesta or that of an Aztec deity, or to perform by invitation on cultural occasion in some new location.
All groups, of wich there are many, dance the same dances and sing the same songs, but there is considerable divergence in the clothing worn. This variety is indicative of the range of ideas held as to what the dance except possibly the most rural, are vociferous in their various ways that the dance is about the regeneration Indianity.
Ritualization / Performativity
The vigil as more of a ritual than a performance and the dance as more of a performance than a ritua, but the concheros themselves do not talk about the two events in these terms. The Concheros, being enactors, do not make these distictions. For them a vigil is known as a velacion and is seen to be ´work´; it is above all a ´sacrifice´ nd frequently referred to as such. A dance, however, is talked about as una danz, an if one goes well it will tend to be described as a conquest; wich certainly implies more than just discharging one´s duties; that is, it is perhaps more than a ritual, rather is a performance.
When we say that something is being done as a ritual, or ritualistically, we tend to mean according to the book, according to convention or tradition, possibly, rather emptily, without innovation or meanings supplied individually (or communally) by those carrying out the activity, wich because of its habitual nature can be seen as a ritual.Thus ritualistic can have the meaning of being empty of conscious intention; perhaps; at the extreme, even of becoming, and thus being completely without meaning. In this case, ritualization might be used to describe the process whereby an action that had once had meaning has now become empty; ritualistic.
References:
- Sussana Rostas. Ritual, Performance, Media. London: ROUTLEDGE, 1998.
- Bernardo García M. Estudios sobre Historia y Ambiente en America I. México: Colegio de México, 1999.
- Harry L. Shapiro. Hombre Cultura y Sociedad. Londres: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956.
