Raymondo and Marseea's 2009 Mexico Trip

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This is the third and final part of our San Cristobal de las Casas blog. I know the dates are out of order but it makes sense to break the blog up this way.

Wednesday, March 11th. This morning we got an early start in order to catch an English language tour with Alex y (and) Raul, to the nearby villages of San Juan Chamula (place of adobe houses (pop. 50,000 plus)) and San Lorenzo Zinacantan (land of bats (pop. 30,000 plus)). Many other tours are offered but after talking with Raul and the other agencies, this one seemed to be the best for us. Our guide today was Ceasar, pronounced Ses-are in Spanish. He was great.

Caesar explained the differences between Mestizos and the indigenous people who are descendents from the Mayans and now live in the villages we are about to visit. He described how these indigenous people just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace and that like people everywhere, they just want economic prosperity for themselves and better lives for their children, and to have their religious beliefs respected.

Even the Mexican government looks down on these people. Like Native Americans, they no longer want to be called “Indians” because of the word’s negative connotation and because the only reason indigenous people in the Americas are called Indians is because Christopher Columbus did not land where he planned to. There is considerable racism in the Mexican social structure too.

Because they are primarily farmers and the women stay home to tend to the house, gather wood and do crafts, education is not important. Boys usually go to school longer but, according to Caesar, it is up to each family to decide as there is no mandatory education requirement in Mexico. Classes for the kids in Chamula are taught in their native language. The kids in Zinacantan are educated in Spanish but speak their native language at home. Outsiders are not allowed to live in Chamula but they may live in Zinacantan.

Women in both villages only wear their traditional clothing. Women in Chamula wear shaggy black wool skirts and satin blouses trimmed with braid. Because they believe that having one’s picture taken takes away a little bit of the soul, they do not allow visitors to take pictures of them. I did finally inconspicuously get pictures of one or two of these ladies as they were selling merchandise in San Cristobal.

In Chamula, we were allowed to take pictures of the market place from a distance and of the exterior of their church but not the interior.

The women in Zinacantan wear black cotton skirts with less distinctive blouses. They have no problem with being photographed so we will post several pictures of them. The women do not cut their hair and we were told that none of the women in either village wear underwear.

Men can wear what ever they want unless they become a village spiritual leader in Chamula. Leaders are chosen by popular vote by the villagers. Candidates are introduced and the villagers show approval/disapproval by cheering or booing and throwing stuff at the unpopular candidates. Service is for one year. Being a religious leader brings much prestige to the man and his wife but it is a costly endeavor. He must have a non-living area where the floor is covered with pine needles. The ceiling is festooned with bunches of some sort of fragrant leafy boughs. The pine needles are changed twice a week. The leaves are changed every couple months. They must also buy and light candles and incense several times a day. Caesar did tell us what all this ritualistic stuff costs. I don’t remember but it wasn’t cheap. A man may save up for a long time or maybe bring back enough money from working in the U.S. to cover his costs.

The religious leader chooses a favorite saint and constructs an altar in his home where he regularly prays to this saint. (Because there is no way that I can explain it better, from here on I’m quoting from Let’s Go Mexico. I hope I don’t go to jail for plagiarism.)

"The people of Chamula expelled their last Catholic priest in 1867, and they are legendary for their resistance to the government’s religious and secular authority. The last Catholic mass was held here in 1968. The bishop is allowed into the church only once a month to perform baptisms. John the Baptist, who after the sun (God) is the second most powerful figure in Chamulan religion. Jesus Christ, who is believed never to have risen, resides in a coffin. Chamulans take their religion seriously and any unfaithful residents who change religions (to increasingly popular Evangelical varieties, for example) are promptly expelled from the village. Over 38,000 people have been expelled since 1976. "

Ray and I do not want to step on anybody’s toes but Caesar talked at length about how it would go over in France, now that they are all members of the European Union, if it was decreed that the national language of Europe was to be Greek. He asked too, what if people from here were to travel to Salt Lake City to convert their citizens to Mayan beliefs. As Caesar pointed out, these people are uneducated and unlike northern Europeans, they are easy to brainwash/convert. The trouble is, following conversion; these people are expelled from their villages and become pariahs in a country dominated by Catholicism resulting in extreme poverty to them and to their families. And as I said, they have little education and are shunned by the mestizos so it virtually impossible for them to assimilate into Mexican society and support themselves. Of course, missionaries suffer hardships to “bring the word of God” but shouldn’t they then be responsible for their convert’s lives. After expelling the 38,000 converts these villages no longer allow missionaries in but should it have taken 30 years and that many individuals for churches to realize that converting indigenous people to Protestantism was not a good idea? Except for the Mormon temple in Veracruz and an LDS church in another city, we have not seen any other LDS or protestant churches.

There are no pews in the Chamulan church. The tile floor is covered with pine needles. Statues of saints line the walls. A statue of Jesus Christ is indeed lying in a coffin. Actually, this is common in churches throughout the region. (We are now nearly 200 miles away in Oaxaca as I write this and the local cathedral here has a statue of Jesus in a coffin but he is portrayed at altars too.)

But, I digress. We visited Chamula on a Wednesday, which in their religion is considered an unlucky day so there was not much going on. There were only a few family groups praying to individual saints by placing candles on the floor in certain patterns for significant reasons. Chamulans and Zinacantans, to lesser degree, continue to practice their Mayan tradition of sacrifice. Now they use chickens. There was one dead chicken, with his neck rung, on the floor.

I asked Caesar what the people pray for. Besides the usual things such as health for a loved one, etc., they often want guidance for dealing with the sin of envy. Here, too, envy is represented by the color green.

Children are not baptized to remove the stain of original sin but to protect them from evil. Until they are baptized, parents place bracelets around the baby’s wrists and ankles to protect them.

Residents of Zinacantan adhere to traditional Catholic practices with a little bit of their native Mayan traditions too. In the church, they abide by Papal guidance but outside of the church they sometimes resort to Mayan rituals. In both villages, attempts for healing are first conducted with traditional methods before resorting to modern medicine.

We were taken to the local jail where the one prisoner was visible from the street. Women’s cells have more privacy. Before conviction and public shame, a trial is held by the village’s civic leaders and everyone gets a chance to weigh in before a sentence is handed down. We got the idea that rape and thievery are the most common crimes but they are not frequent.

In Chamula, we visited public places. In Zinacantan, we were taken to a private home where the family made and grilled tortillas and green onion tops which they served to us along with a rather firey salsa.

The group, with which we toured the Chamulan and Zinacantan villages, is on an adventure tour. They are comprised of folks from Canada, Australia, Denmark, Germany, the U.S. and a couple other countries which we can’t remember. They are traveling together with a guide but instead of being on a bus tour, they travel in a van. Their hotels are booked but they are on their own for meals and tours. They do not wear name tags and they are not being herded around like some other groups we’ve seen. There were only about a dozen of us for the ethnic village visit. We sat beside the Canadian. We did not exchange names but he told us that he was from Toronto. He told us that Canadians are hopeful about Barack Obama and how glad they are to see Bush leave office. He too, has had positive experiences with Canada’s national health care system.

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Photos

Our hostesses in San Lorenzo Zinacantan
Cooking tortillas and green onion tops for our snack. These people seldom eat meat and eat no dairy. They usually live to be in their 70' and 80'. Grandpa died at 92.

Market Place
In addition to the tapestries shown, handicrafts produced by village artisans include lovely knits, clothing, leather goods, ceramics, wooden musical instruments, toys. With all the stuff being sold, it is hard to know what came from China.

House across the street
Compared to this home, our host's home was a hovel. Remember those green candles.