So here's what happened last week. Truth be known, we're pretty tired following two days of fiesta: Tuesday night we went to the Purhépecha Nuevo Fuego (New Fire). It used to be that Nuevo Fuego was celebrated only every 52 years, when the 260-day and 365-day Mesoamerican calendars coincided. This time was seen as a period of heightened danger that the sun might fail to return to bring life. All the fires in all the pueblos were extinguished and subsequently re-lit from torches lit by a single fire from Teotihuacan and carried by runners out to the pueblos.
Today Nuevo Fuego is celebrated in Pátzcuaro in conjunction with Candleária. Last year it was celebrated as part of the Mexican Bicentennial Independence and Centennial Revolution festivities.
Part of Nuevo Fuego involved groups from different pueblos presenting their pueblo's traditional indigenous dance. Reed is quite intent on 'decoding' their symbolism. Sadly, the people have somehow lost connection with the symbolic roots of many of their dance traditions. Last year, Reed asked several people about the meaning of the Dance of the Moors (who occupied and ruled the Iberian Peninsula for 800 years!). He was taken aback by their reply: "We don't know what the dances mean; we just do them."
The dances aren't "dance-y" as we know dance; the steps are very basic. Instead, the dances are image-dances that use costumes and ritual patterns to tell mythic and legendary themes and dynamics. One dance especially we suspect to be pre-Spanish. Dancers' capes were made of long grasses; headdresses were dried animal bones -- probably cattle. The dancers were barefoot; the only music was made by a variety of rhythms beat on a drum that was a hollowed-out tree log. Powerful to watch, clearly it is a hunting dance of some kind. But this kind of dance is exceptional.
More common are dances involving costumes that clearly hark back to the Spanish Colonial era -- soft skirts and blouses for the women; white campesino pants and soft shirts for the men. But again, each dance relates a timeless mythic or legendary truth.
Periodically, the announcer would take time to point out the position of the constellation Orion, whose position directly overhead marks the start of the New Year. This moment is celebrated in the Purhépecha area around Lake Pátzcuaro with the Fireball Game, which is more or less a 'field hockey' game, except that the 'ball' is made of pitch and is set aflame. Players whack away at this flaming ball with sticks. Gives a whole new meaning to the notion of 'playing with fire', doesn't it?
The Fireball Game with its indigenous roots has become a real national event -- quite competitive! My Spanish teacher (himself a devoted soccer player) told me with great relish that non-Purhépechas -- teenage boys and girls! -- have now formed teams, which are quite good! So good, in fact, that they even occasionally beat Purhépecha teams!
The next day we went out to Tócuaro, pueblo of our mask-maker friend Enedina. I want to write her story. Here's the short version: born to clearly talented parents, she learned maskmaking from her father and a crochet-like handstitch technique from her mother. Enedina made the rebozo that I gave to our daughter Kyla for her wedding.
Orphaned at age 10, her uncles subsequently robbed her and her brother of her deceased father's quite considerable landholdings. Married at 14, she had 14 children (she is now grandmother to 50 grandchildren). However, she is also the only female maskcarver in Mexico; her work is world-famous, and her masks have garnered the First Prize in numerous national contests. Her pieces are owned by international collectors and the Mexican elite, including former President Salinas de Gortari.
She decided early on that all of her children would go to school -- and over the protests of her husband, they did! Four of them are now teachers. Several sons are carvers. The daughters maintain the tradition of bordado (needlework).
It was pleasant to sit on her covered patio, peeking out through the bougambilia at the blue sky, punctuated by tall green pine trees reaching toward the sky, chatting with the grandchildren and their parents. Enedina had comida with us at a small table set up on the patio. But our purpose had been to attend the Purhépecha dances. I may have described them two years ago.
There are three devils -- Pecado (Sin), Luzbel (we know him as Lucifer, the Morning Star which was ominous in many cultures; in Mesoamerican times, ritual war was waged under the Morning Star aka Venus), Astucia (Cunning or Conniving). By tradition, the community chooses the dancers a year ahead. To be selected is a high honor; each dancer makes his/her own costume. Also by tradition, the Devils wear thick black velvet capes richly stitched with fantastic, diabolical figures. One of Enedina's sons was the Pecado Devil this year; it had taken him an entire year to carve his mask. The extended family had also made his costume -- incredible handwork, a combination of embroidery and sequins worked on rich black velvet cape, gorgeous, fantastic representations of mythical diabolical creatures. But what blew me away were Pecado's gloves, which were made of feathers with long wood-carved, blood-red-painted fingernails. Wild!
Anyway, the three Devils (Diablos) confront St. Michael played by a little boy of about six years complete with halo and sword. The Diablos submit to St. Michael by laying down prone in front of him, and St. Michael symbolizes his dominance by standing with one foot placed firmly on the shoulder of one Devil. But the Devils'submission doesn't last long!
The Devils next rise up accompanied by a variety of masked characters depicting the full range of human sin. There were at least 20 characters in this part of the dance. Clearly, this is what the crowd comes to see. There was much high hilarity among the Mexicans as they recognized and cracked up not only over various "in" jokes about the infinite varieties of human foible and sin, but over the creativity and ingenuity of the dancers in depicting those same faces -- masks! -- of sin.
It reminded me of the Roman Emperor who advocated "Give them bread and circuses!" As sensitive and perceptive a critic as Octavio Paz has written that Mexicans have their fiestas in order to release pressure from their oppressive, largely powerless conditions. Paz's observation is undoubtedly at least partially true. But what is equally true is that Mexican fiestas are important celebrations of communal identity: “Fiestas remind the people of who they belong to, and of who belongs to them.”
What we know in the U.S. as individuality has at best a very light footprint in Mexico. Members of the pueblo are bound by ties of mutual obligation. The same is even more true at the family level where, again, members are bound to each other by mutual obligation. In a society whose social safety net is basic at best, it is these links of mutual obligation that support, regulate and regenerate everyday Mexican life.
In our view, it is these networks of mutual obligation that have enabled a remarkable social continuity across centuries of difficult Mexican history. Despite the arrival of the Spanish and the turmoil of the 19th century of struggle that defined the Mexican Revolution, and despite the disorder sown by today's ill-conceived 'war on drugs', life persists at the levels of family and pueblo. The fiestas are essential communal expressions and reaffirmations of those ties.
Meanwhile, back to the dance! Absolute, dissolute chaos seemingly reigns in the world, yet at one side of the stage -- in vivid contrast to the raucous antics of the diablitos -- are eight prepubescent youth in two rows: four girls dressed in white, complete with veils down their backs; four boys also dressed in white, each of the eight youngsters holding a pole (strongly reminiscent of May Poles) richly decorated with fruits and flowers.
These pre-teenagers perform a highly ritualized set of maneuvers (think Court Dancing of the Middle Ages) seemingly unperturbed by the ruckus all around them. It is absolutely wonderful -- clearly a fertility rite, but above all else ... ¡es muy mexicano! in its recognition and celebration of life's inherent Dualities: Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Winning and Losing, Order and Disorder, Life and Death, and many others. It was an incredible experience. Quite remarkable. But after seven hours of speaking Spanish intensively, both of us arrived home absolutely exhausted ¡y también muy satisfechos y contentos! (and very satisfied and content).
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