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Pueblo Magico

4/10/2013

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The Mexican Tourism Board has designated a number of cities in Mexico as Pueblo Magico, an honor indicating a place of exceptional beauty, historical significance, and tourist opportunities that provide a "magical" experience. Most are colonial cities, built before 1650, in the first 150 years of Spanish occupation of the New World. Some like San Cristóbal de las Casas and Comitán de Domíngues in Chiapas were founded a mere fifty years after Cortes invaded the mainland of Mexico.

Until 1915, Comitán was known as Comitán de las Flores (of the flowers). It was renamed after its native son, senator Dr. Belisario Domingues, was murdered for speaking out against the Huerta government. President Huerta himself was one of a group of men who murdered Dominguez. They cut off his tongue as a symbolic warning to others. 

Comitán is lower in altitude than San Cristóbal where I have lived periodically for nine months. It's warmer but at a high enough elevation the hotels don't have air conditioning. It is still a place of flowers. Bougainvillea are everywhere, along with many varieties of flowering trees. Every little garden glimpsed through open gates is a flower showcase of color. The Mayans have also used colorful bromeliads from the vast rain forest in their religious celebrations for centuries. Many are now becoming endangered. 

Unlike San Cristóbal, Comitán does not have the foreign tourist draw, and thus has been spared the negative side of massive tourism. There are no wandering street vendors who thrust goods in your face while you sit at a sidewalk cafe trying to eat lunch or talk with your friends. There are almost no beggars. An assortment of shoe shine boys wander the streets with their boxes, and people sit in the shade in the Zocalo with their packets of gum and candy for sale. Little stands are posted here and there on the streets selling tacos, belts and knock-off handbags. But as a tourist, time spent in Comitán is tranquil, without constant bombardment to buy-give-buy. 

Comitán seems to have a forward-thinking city government. Many modern sculptures by some very famous Mexican artists dot the city and Zocalo. Belisario Dominguez' daughter donated her home for a modern art museum, his own home is a historical museum, and the city has a good selection of artifacts from Tenam Puente and Chinkultic in the archeological museum. Housed in that same building is a decent library with a large Internet center and several interesting historical murals. 

Around the Zocalo are small restaurants, side by side, competing with each other by having virtually identical menus. The competition is between the handsome young men who try to persuade you to eat at their particular establishment. And there's a good coffee shop in a corner of the Zocalo with modern murals gracing its interior. 

A few blocks from the Zocalo, another interesting church, frequented by the local indigenous people, is the center for many celebrations and fairs that set up in the large plaza. Iglesia de San Caralampio is a bright yellow church almost always filled with the sweet scent of thousands of flowers. Outside, the sacred jaguar is represented by a lovely sculpture atop a bright red rock.

Comitán is a center of commerce with many businesses lining the carretera, the main highway through town. It has old and modern hotels, excellent restaurants that serve traditional Chiapanecan food, and a few restaurants feature other cuisines. I ate at one, Cucina Italia, recently opened by an Canadian-Italian and his Comitán born wife. The lasagna was as good as any I've ever eaten, even in Italy. He makes the pastas. The sauces are created from fresh tomatoes, picked that morning, and delivered to the market.

The people of Comitán are friendly and courteous. The pace is slow and the desire to enjoy each moment in life is a measure of the local character. A lovely city, and well deserving of its designation: Pueblo Magico.

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When Atheists Pray

3/7/2013

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A combi in Mexico is a van, usually a Toyota van, stripped on the inside with bench seats installed along each wall, behind the driver's seat, and across the back. Packed they can hold upwards of 20 people, with many standing and holding onto bars installed across the ceiling.

I've had some amazing and frightening combi rides. One in particular was along Lake Patzcuaro when the van was packed so solidly that if it rolled, probably everyone would have remained in the same place when it righted itself. Fortunately, even though the driver was going too fast, on a rainy night with all kinds of livestock looming out of the darkness, we didn't have an accident.

Combies stop and go all the time. Anyone can flag down a combi and unless no one else can be squeezed in, the driver will stop and let more people get on. Combi drivers have a reputation for crazy fast driving around turns, passing other cars on blind curves, for sliding over the yellow line into the oncoming lane and all kinds of driving misbehaviors, yet, miraculously, you almost never hear of a combi flying off a cliff and killing everyone. Sometimes they go off the road and people get hurt, but more often than not, the drivers are just careful enough.

Combis that go between towns are usually newer and have seats like a van or school bus. The more expensive the ticket, the more comfortable the seat. Sometimes a combi is owned by the driver who pays a commission to the company he drives for (I say "he" because I have never seen a woman driver....). Sometimes they are paid only a percentage of the take for the day, another reason to pack-out the little bus.

And once in a while a driver is so bad you know your time on earth is limited, so bad an atheist would pray.

Such was the wild ride from Las Guacamayas through the mountains to Comitán.

I had a clue. I could have gone with my gut and not gotten on in the first place, but combies go to Las Guacamayas only when they are called, it's not a regular stop, and I'd been waiting for two hours. The driver was young, probably not yet 25 years old. The van was old, rusty in spots, the back tires bald, and the interior had a foul odor. I knew from experience the odor was the least of my worries.

Clue number two was the windshield. There was a big crack running across it. The top 1/3 of the windshield was covered with some kind of sun shade material to block all light The bottom 1/3 had an opaque layer of white with writing on it, something about trusting God. And directly in front of the driver, just above the steering wheel and directly in his line of vision was his radio with a springy cord holding the mic. And to block his vision even further, he had danglies hanging down that swayed back and forth as he zoomed around corners.  I'd guess he had maybe 20 percent of the normal visual range.

THEN, he had a radio blasting scratchy Mexican folk music full volume so he couldn't possibly be further distracted from the job of driving a van full of trusting passengers. Oh but I was wrong. He could be further distracted. Not ten miles into the trip we picked up a pretty girl who sat in the front seat next to him, and his driving took an immediate turn for the worse, the showing-off and driving fast to impress a girl kind of worse.

I sat in the far back, my arm out the open window, hanging onto the ladder used to put stuff on the roof. I was thrown back and forth across the bumpy seat until I thought my arm might come out of its socket. The window was a slider and it occurred to me that should we go over the edge, the window might just slice my arm off below the elbow. Of course, I might also be dead so it wouldn't matter too much.

They say travel changes you. I thought it had changed me. Long ago I took the attitude that there is only so much I can do to keep safe, the rest is fate.  But in that combi, I was back peddling like a reformed druggie at a Rolling Stones convention.

I was scared. I wasn't at all serene about the idea of a violent end. I wanted OUT. But there was no getting out. We were flying through curves on mountainous roads in the middle of nowhere, in the jungles of Chiapas, zipping past guys on horseback, for Pete's sake. What would I do, alone on that road with my backpack? Could it possibly be any more unsafe?

Ultimately we made it out of the mountains and down into a valley to a small town called Maravillas Tenejapa. I told the driver I was sick, which wasn't the whole truth, but not a lie either. He offered to let me sit behind him. I said no, I wanted out. On solid ground I found a restroom and a nice lady who was selling tortas under a porch. Together we waited in the cool shade for another combi.

This combi also had a cracked windshield with only one dangly, a cross with Jesus on it. The driver was an older man and the tires had tread. He drove fast too, but somehow it was different.

There comes a time when you have to do something, anything, to change your own fear even if you can't really change anything else.
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The Marimba

2/27/2013

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The Marimba was invented in Chiapas. Chiapa de Corzo appears to be the Marimba capital with a school and workshop where marimba building is taught. It is the music of Chiapas, with many compositions over the years created specifically for this instrument, though just about any lively piece of music can played. The bars of this type of xylophone are arranged just like a piano. The bars are made with hardwoods (rosewood from Honduras is the best, or mahogany is another expensive alternative, or padouk which grows locally.) Beneath each bar there's a resonator. The most authentic marimbas have resonator boxes built from wood that hang down, varying in size depending on the bar's tone. Commercial instruments often have aluminum tubes, and in the folk instruments made in the jungle, empty gourds are used.

In San Cristóbal de las Casas, there are concerts almost every night. A large white gazebo in the Zócalo is the center for Marimba music. It's a two story building with a restaurant on the bottom floor and a large covered performance space above. Last night the door to the upper part was open and a 5-man band with 3 guys on the one Marimba, were playing. A few people were standing around so I went up to listen. It's odd that after almost 9 months of living in this town, I'd never gone upstairs in the gazebo!

A few people over fifty and some twenty-somethings were standing around listening while a whole lot of dance floor was going to waste. The music was not overbearing and very joyous, like a fiesta! The band was clever and played several styles including a fast waltz and big band numbers.  A nice-looking young man was trying to get his girlfriend to dance with him. She was a bit embarrassed, quite a bit overweight, and not a good dancer. He was doing his best to show her the moves, but she seemed more interested in checking the messages on her cell phone. I was sorely tempted to go over and give her a good shake! "Chica! You have a handsome man here who wants to dance with you! He wants you, not some other woman. Wake up and pay attention! Twenty years from now you will remember this night, but you won't remember the stupid text messages."

As I watched them, I was unconsciously jiving to the music myself, and got noticed by a different handsome man, closer to my own age, who asked me to dance. He was good and once I figured out his signals we made a good couple. We were swinging and swaying, having a great time. Pretty soon more people came up the stairs and started dancing. "Me encanta" ("You enchant me!") he said. I headed for home after promising to come again tomorrow night. And I will, it's been awfully hard to find men to dance with. Those who can dance bring their wives. Those who can't stand around wishing they could.
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The Mesoamerican Ball Game

2/6/2013

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On the January tour of the state of Chiapas, Mexico, our group of nine explored the ruins of five Mayan sites: Tonina, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Bonampak, and Chinkultik. Each one has a ball court, roughly the same size and design. Our guides ranged from terrific (at Palenque) to so bad I fired him after 15 minutes (Chinkultik). That guy was nothing more than a local worker on break hoping to pick up a few pesos by pretending to know something.

Most of the ruins have little signage in Spanish, almost none in English, and the bulk of what you can find out about the site is either within the on-site museum, if there is one, or from people who present themselves as guides. Most of them do not speak English. Our guide in Palenque was not only a fluent  English speaker, he had interesting ways of presenting the material to make the memory of it stick and to prompt more questions. He gave the best explanation of how the Mayan world fell apart  around the year 900 AD that I've ever heard. It included political, religious, and environmental problems, the most pressing of which were overpopulation (resulting in environmental degradation and starvation) and consequent lack of control by the governors. Royalty were considered Gods, and were well educated in poetry, art, politics, religion, literature and astronomy, but they couldn't seem to get a handle on the problems besetting the city-states. Sound familiar? Unfortunately our guide didn't seem to know a lot about the ball game.

You see, nobody really knows what the rules were, or who exactly lost their heads at the end. Some say the winner was sacrificed, others say the loser. Some say the ball game was between two individuals, and others say as many as six were on opposing teams. All the ballcourts had several things in common. The shape from above looks like the capital I with a narrow section down the middle, flanked by steep walls with stone figures sticking out as goal posts, some posts have holes presumably for the hard rubber ball to pass through. At the end is stadium seating for spectators. The whole court is sunk about 10 to 15 feet into the ground. At various museums you can see the stone U-shaped device the players wore on one hip, used to whack the ball, much like soccer players do with their torsos. Only this ball was solid rubber and quite heavy. They could also hit the ball with padded forearms and stone paddles carved into the shape of a face in profile. We saw two paddles in the anthropology museum in Tuxtla Gutierrez.

I promised to find out more about the ball game for the people on the tour. I wrote to an archeologist friend, Dr. Jason Shapiro, and asked him who got sacrificed, the winner or the loser? This is what he had to say (edited a bit for brevity).

First of all, never ask an archeologist a simple question!! 

The ball game was a ceremonial game (or games) and not a sport the way we think of sports, played in different styles of ballcourts and with different rules that varied by both place and time. The oldest potential ballcourt in Oaxaca may be six thousand years old. Typically, the result was preordained and what was presented was a kind of morality play: the classic struggle between forces of light and darkness, between good and evil. The extent of the ballgame is revealed in records from the Contact Period that indicate 16,000 rubber balls were provided annually as tribute from Gulf Coast communities to the Aztecs and other powerful states in Central Mexico.

The balls were made with a combination of raw latex combined with the juice from pulverized morning glory vines that grow with and wrap around rubber trees. The juice contains chemicals that elasticize the latex and turn it into actual rubber in a way not duplicated by western science and industry until the mid-19th century.

Although the ballgame represented a very strong and central ideological mechanism, do not discount the secular attributes associated with the game, including the reaffirmation of status and power and their attendant prerogatives, including the power to sacrifice. Over time, the ballgame became more politicized, at least in Central Mexico in terms of political competition between competing cities or states.

That's background, next something specifically about the Maya.

I'm assuming that you know something about the Popul Vuh. This comment talks about the ballcourt symbolism and the Popul vuh as a Mayan origin myth. Ballcourt symbolism is closely related to Maya creation mythology as recounted in the Popul Vuh, a 17th century transcription of a traditional Maya creation myth (with all attendant problems of post-conquest accounts). Traditional people do use the same disconnect that we have between myth and history, although there are still plenty of people who read the Bible as if it were the true history of real people and events.

Evidence of the original myth is found in the archaeological record as early as 400 BC. The story recounts the activities of two sets of twins during the Third Creation (we live in the fourth Creation). In the story, the first set of twins (the maize twins) were great ballplayers who irritated the Lords of Death, and had to undergo a series of trials. The twins lost, were killed, and buried below the floor of a mythic ballcourt, except for one twin's head that was hung on a tree as a warning to others.

As luck would have it, the daughter of a lord fell in love with the skull, managed to become pregnant with a second set of twins, outsmarted her father, and gave birth to the second set of twins - the hero twins, whose actions explain how the world came to be (or at least the Maya world). One of the things they did was to find their fathers' ballgame equipment, ultimately defeat the Lords of Death, retrieved their fathers from the Underworld, and then go about recreating the world. As part of that recreation, the original twins were paddled across the sky in a canoe to the cosmic turtle (identified as Orion's belt).

The god Chak opened the turtle's back with a lightening stone, which enabled the maize twins to grow and continue the creation of humanity. The crack in the turtle is the ballcourt, which is both the entry point to the underworld, and the arena where the Maya confront death, disease and war. The twins lost the original game and died for it, but were resurrected in order to create the world. Not surprisingly, the maize gods are associated with ballcourts and are worshipped there. The ballgame itself is the ultimate metaphor for life and death - a place where fate and chance are tempted. It was also a metaphor for war. This is the real message associated with Mayan ball court.


I will never look at a ballcourt the same way again. In fact, the way the "crack" runs down the middle, steeply rising on both sides, and the way it breaks at the ends to form a T shape is just how you might imagine a pierced turtle shell to break open.

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Chamula and Zinacantan

4/26/2012

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Tour of Chamula and Zinacantan:

There are two famous Tsotsil speaking Mayan towns near San Cristóbal, related to each other but very different in customs, religion, and dress. They are about four miles apart as the crow flies, but since there is a small mountain range between them, the road goes the long way round.

Chamula was first on the tour. We stopped at the cemetery to see an abandoned church and many old and newer graves. Cesar, the guide, explained that the color of the crosses is significant, white is for babies, and green for adults, blue for the oldest people. Some graves had four or five crosses stacked one in front of the other. These signified the number of years the person had been gone. I wondered when they quit putting up a new cross every year. Would five be sufficient?

I had been to Chamula before, with a friend Brigitte, who lives in San Cristóbal, about a year ago. She is not terribly fond of Chamulans, thinks they are dirty and rude. So my impression of the town and the people was not the best. Cesar was quite lively in his discussions about their religion which is an amalgam of Catholicism and their older Mayan beliefs. They had kicked out priests on a regular basis over the last 400 years, the last one left in the 60's. However, once a month, with an invitation, a priest from San Cristobal will come to baptize babies. The people worship the saints as each one holds the same position as a previous Mayan god. Jesus and Mary are the Sun and Moon, father and mother of the world. Other saints that protect travelers, babies, wood workers, homes, etc are worshipped with old ceremonies, rituals and sacrifices of chickens (these days) not people. Although apparently a 14 year old boy was sacrificed in a crucifiction some years ago (to the horror of the local priest) so the Chamulans could have their own Christ.

On Thursday before Easter, there was an effigy of a man hanging from the arch of the church's front door. He was dressed in western clothing, had a beard and very European face, with a large pink penis protruding from his zipper. Last year at a different indigenous village, I'd seen a similar effigy. I was told it was Judas, and that he would be burned in a bonfire before Easter. That man had a sign with a poem on it which probably indicated who he really was, more than likely a politician!

In side the church were at least a thousand people, slowly moving in long lines past the saints and reclining Jesus in a glass case. The air was blue with smoke from candles and incense. Young men with large white containers of water shoved through the crowd. Somewhere in the center, a holy communion of sorts was being served, water mixed with flowers and plant extracts. Off to one side, a line of flowers in vases with many candles sat in front of two rows of seated  women who were dressed in white cloth that covered them from head to toe. These were the widows and women who had never married. Sitting and praying like this is a service they provide the community for four years, after which they are not allowed to marry again. Most of the women were pretty old.  The guide said just get in line and follow the people into the bowels of the church, but after five minutes of being squeezed on all sides, and unable to breathe the gray air,  I dropped out of the line and went outside.

Cesar called us back in when the group reassembled to tell us more about the rituals and people of Chamula. Here, men are allowed to have more than one wife, if they can afford to. Girls are given in arranged marriages, but the girl has the right to refuse if she's not happy with the proposed groom. She can't go pick one for herself though. People marry very young and have lots of children. I've seen young women nursing babies who look to be as young as 14. It's not uncommon to see little girls, 8 or 9 years old, carrying a baby in a sling just like their mothers, while the mother has another infant at her breast.

Since the Catholic church has nothing to do with Chamula and doesn't supply them with a priest, the spiritual leaders are volunteers, usually older men and their wives, who come to Chamula to oversee a year's worth of rituals. They rent a home, buy tons of fireworks, candles, sacred plants, and incense with their own money. Each day they must perform prayers, light candles and incense, and plan religious activities with the other leaders. They serve a population of about 80,000 people. Needless to say, they would have had to save up for a long time to perform this service. At the end, they return to their own homes where they are well respected by their neighbors.

Outside the church, which appeared to be on fire, there was so much smoke rising from every crack in the roof, Cesar pointed out the jail and the cops, men in black hairy tunics with a billy club of sorts strapped over their shoulders. The jail is open air and anyone can walk by and see the person incarcerated. This sort of humiliation tends to keep people in line. For serious crimes, capital punishment is in order, but since that is against Mexican law, the perpetrator must be turned over to the federal police. Other than those, all crime is handled internally in the village. They must be doing something right, because there is very little crime, and the jail was empty, except for a man sleeping in front of the bars on the women's side.

Alcohalism is a terrible problem in all the indiginous villages, and in San Cristobal too. The native people are missing an enzyme to process alcohol effectively, so many get completely plastered on one beer. To make matters worse, there is a sugar-alcohol made from locally grown cane called POX (posh) that is like white lightning. I took a sip once. My stomach burned and refused to forgive me until the next day. Pox is prominent in the rituals of the Chamulans (mixed with sacred CocaCola) and it's not uncommon to find men (mostly) lying around the plaza or slumped over walls, or on the sidewalks of San Cristóbal.

On the other side of the mountain is Zinacantan, a small city of lovely homes and clean streets. Hundreds of greenhouses spread over the hillsides like long white grubs nestled in a green lawn. The town provides flowers to most of southern Mexico. It is a prosperous town with a beautiful Catholic church filled with sweet smelling flowers and saints, covered this week because they are in mourning about losing Jesus. When Jesus rises on Easter morning, they will be uncovered.

The women wear the most beautiful embroidered black skirts, as opposed to the black hairy wool skirts of the Chamulans. The skirts (of all the indigenous women) are nothing more than a large rectangle of cloth that is wrapped with specific folds around the waist, and then belted with a wide belt that is tied in the front. On top they all wear colorful blouses, but of very different styles. In Zinacantan, they also often wear a cape that is heavily embroidered over their shoulders.

We visited the church first, and saw a procession of men bringing in a huge cross. A priest in white robes presided over the ceremony. Here people are traditionally Catholic with a few symbols and rituals left over from the old Mayan religion. Outside the three Mayan crosses (painted forest green) were decorated with fresh pine bows. (One can see the three Mayan crosses carved in some of the walls at Palenque.)The floor of the church is often littered with pine needles signifying a deep association with the natural world, and there are few pews in the church as many people prefer to sit on blankets and light candles on the floor. This church had gray walls too, from so much smoke over the years.

We visited the home of some weavers and were treated to a demonstration of back-strap weaving. The kitchen-house had a wooden roof with a large gap above the walls covering the open fire. A woman was making tortillas and served us some with a variety of interesting salsas.

Cesar told us about the Evangelicals (Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Presbyterians) who come to Mexico and try to convert people from Chamula and Zinacantan. He claims that the Evangelicals only want converts and have no idea of the destruction of people's lives that it causes. If someone decides to reject their native religion they are not allowed to be part of the community. They no longer have support or access to community resources. They don't own the means to make a living (land, a house), and most converts are relegated to a life of poverty. Some might see rejecting people as intolerance, but Cesar says those people are welcome back anytime they want to rejoin as full members, and adhere to the ideas and rules of the village. He sees the Evangelicals as intolerant because they come to the villages with the message that "Your religion is wrong, ours is right, and the only path to God is our path." He pointed out that you'll never see an indigenous person trying to convert Christians to their native religion! People who have been asked to leave are welcomed back as visitors to see their families, although this was a different story than I've heard from others in San Cristóbal. The primary reason for kicking converts out is so the villages can preserve their old religion, lifestyle, and beliefs without constant interference and upheaval. Otherwise, it would disappear. It's not unlike fighting a big logging company to preserve an old forest.

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    Sherry Hardage is a global traveler, interested in other cultures and how they solve the problems of every-day existence. 

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