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Published: July 17th 2009
The Tzotzil village of Chamula is famous for its market and church. It is a very political town that has no tax law and has its own police force. The Mexican police and military are not allowed in the town, which has been a strong hold for many years keeping any external forces out. It is the only town that the Spanish never entered. The strength of the town's warriors at the time were too strong and since the town has always contained its own rules adn customs. It is a very rich place, with many extremely large houses, and has a population of 75,000 people in and around the town.
On the way into town, we stopped at a cemetary used by the local pagans. As they used crosses before the Catholics arrived, the crosses used at the grave sites look slightly different to Christian crosses as they have spikey ends or rounded ends. They represent the 4 cardinal points - North, South, East and West. Some graves had more than one cross and this meant that that person was more famous or well liked than others, as people other than the family placed crosses on the grave. There
was plenty of rubbish lying around the graveyard, but it is not rubbish to the locals as they are offerings to the dead. For example, if the dead person liked school, people placed pages of books on the grave site and if the person liked to smoke cigarettes, peole smoked cigarettes in honour of person at the site. Different coloured crosses represented different groups of people - blue was for young teenage girls, white was for babies, black was for men aged 40 - 60, grey was 60+ year olds (there were not many of these), and green was for young boys. Most of the crosses were of young people. There are a few reqasons for this. 1 - they don't trust the mexican doctors 2 - they practice their pagan worship that includes the drinking of their liquor and soft drink at age 12 and continue this all the way through life. The town has many problems with Diabetes and Cirrhosis of the liver. The Mexican government has built the locals a big hospital, however they do not use it. Only 2 out of 10 locals use the medical facilities provided.
The church of the 5 saints at
the cemetary burnt down in 1912, after an earthquake that shook the candles inside lighting up the curtains. The roof was low and was quick to take to the flame. After this incident, the people were angry with the saints and chooped off their hands as punishment for the fire and earthquake. Some time afterwards, the local repainted the saint's faces to look remorseful and they are now forever persecuted. The people were ashamed of chopping off their hands and so now the saints are covered so you can not see the missing limbs. The 5 saints now exist in the main church in Chamula with their sad faces, covered bodies and without mirrors round their necks which are used reflect their spirits to heaven. Every other saint in the building (and there were plenty) had a mirror around their neck with their hands visible.
Market
The bustling market sold all types of things, similar to what is sold in Aussie markets, but with extras including hand made belts, woolen animals and a few other traditional items. We visited a lady who was deaf and dumb and who was the sister-in-law to our guide. Young girls harrased people
to buy their belts and bracelets. One girl was very persistent with me and spoke very good English. She followed us to the church and told me she would wait for me to buy something when I came back out. We were not allowed to take photos inside the church and tourists in the past have had their cameras smashed and told to pay a penatly of buying 6 Coca Colas!
Church at Chamula
Inside the church, there were large banner curtains hanging from the ceiling and the church was built with a higher ceiling, as the locals had learnt the lesson of the low roof from the previous fire. There are 8 human servants for each saint, and we met the a head servant there at the time we were visiting. Green pine nieedles covered the floor once again for good luck, people offered food and eggs (and sometimes chickens, but we didn't see any), and prayed with different coloured candles that they stick to the floor. They drank their Posh and soft drink. The different coloured candles had different meanings. Green is for building developments, yellow is for illness in the family, red was related to
love issues and there were multicoloured candles to represent a combination of meanings. It is quite dangerous to have the pine needles so close to the fire of the candles, but they continue with this practise and wet the floor once they have finished.
It is a special priviledge for the people to be chosen to wash the saints clothes. They carefully remove the robes and cover the statue's modesty. Afterwards, there is a procession to a special water source, where no one is allowed to swim, and they wash the clothes. Only certain memebers of community are selected for this honour. We saw the saints being disrobed, but didn't see the procession afterwards.
The locals also work by their own clock, which is an hour behind local time. We were there at 1pm which was noon in town, so the bells chimed whilst we were in the church. The people's main saint is San Juan (Saint John), who is considered more important than Jesus, because he is the one to have baptised and named Jesus. We saw an important shaman, who is famous in the region. He has met many political leaders including past US presidents.
Back outside the church, I met the girl waiting for me and I purchased some bracelets from her. The deal was 3 for 10 pesos, and even though I only wanted 1, I bought the cheap items from her as she was friendly. Many of the children know multiple languages and speak very well to the tourists to gain income. They offer free gifts but afterwards, tell you that you know owe them a gift, etc. My little friend originally offered a gift, but I was wise to the trick and politey refused at the time.
10 seconds of fame
A Mexican student studying at the university of Manchester was part of the small group that travelled with us to Zinacantan and Chamula. She was conducting a study based on San Cristobal de Las Casas and the surrounding areas with part of her research focusing on how tourism and the indigenious cultures get along and what the tourists' points of view are of the area. She asked everyone on the tour if we minded being filmed, but no one minded taking part.
At end of tour, Carolina asked to film us talking about where we had come
from, why we chose that part of Mexico, how long we were in San Cristobal and what our interests were here. We discussed the Zapotistas with her and she filmed what our understanding was of them and how we thought their movement was utiliised in tourism in San Cristobal.
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