Here in Cuetzalan, people speak Nahua(tl) or Totonaco or Spanish... Or whistling! Twice in the last two days, I heard the whistle language of this part of the Sierras! Down in Oaxaca, I hear there are 64 dialects. Here, in Cuetzalan, speaking the original languages is now valued, shown off in public, and supported with prizes and honors
One of the things we have loved most about being here in Cuetzalan, is how much attention is paid to preserving and celebrating the languages ... and the dances... And the costumes and music... And arts... of this area.
The women of course get to (and who knows, maybe have to) do the most to preserve language and dress.
The "Queen of the Huipil" is actually a beautiful public recognition of the young woman who can give the best speech in Nahuatl, and who can dress the best, with her shoulders draped in traditional embroidered symbols, her hair swept high in fabric, her choice of skirt and jewelry showing her allegiance to her particular town. Love it.
And we see that though kids use modern clothes, even young women still wear the very carefully embroidered huipils and town-specific jewelry, shawls, skirt colors and skirt tuck patterns. This still goes on in so many Mexican villages among older women, but it's great to see it so widespread here, even among the younger ones
And, they even still prefer use a traditional shaped baby carrier!
Though they have tended to prefer puppies lately over deer
Most important, also, as in Hawaii, when the Catholic Church banned the Totonac rituals of the flying dancers, and we presume the dance that goes with it, why, the folks here just said no.
Because Here in the steep twisty mountains they could do what they want ... and and they mostly have held fast to what they thought of the world.
Thus, the dances... And the flyers... And the costumes of Eagles, and jaguars...
And the town's adoption of St Francis, one of the catholic believers who most famously celebrated the way the mysterious divine is reflected in the miraculous natural world.
It's just not a surprise that he is the main saint of the main town.
High inside the church, on both sides of the altar, are these parts of
St. Francis' Canticle:
Be praised, my Lord, through all Your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and You give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of You, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens You have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and clouds and storms, and all the weather,
through which You give Your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom You brighten the night.
He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and rules us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
This canticle, and this saint, seems so appropriate for a people so attuned to flying through the wind and dressing as the sun.
Here in the Parroquia, Brother Sun frames Christ and the Virgin of Guadalupe (I'll probably just type "VOG" from here on!),
and is worn as a headdress in some dances... (Feather headdresses, in ancient times)
And the wind! These people fly... In all weather, and even sometimes dressed as Eagles!
And flowers...
The moon and stars...
And as for fire?
People are definitely catholic, oh definitely... On Saturday, hundreds of kids in white and their families and their godparents-for-the-day, most wearing traditional white clothes including the kids, lined up to have Firsr Communion.
And all costumed troops have lots of catholic figures on them including the VOG and the town saint, Michael or Andrew or whoever...
but, on a feast day like this, it was amazing that the processions and priests were not front and center. The dancers, who did their dances both outside the church and in it, were. And whatever blessings they received, no priest was there presiding.
And in their dances, the many elegant humble bows that are incorporated in the fliers' dance, were not just to the church, but also to the directions, and to the center, which meant, often, to the 110 foot high tree trunk they danced around and from. Pine is used for the trunk, and pine needles still coat the floor of ceremonial space. It's quite lovely.
Two days ago, we had journeyed by combi out to San Miguel Tzinacapan, a nearby village whose 'mayordomo', current village leader, has done lots of the work coordinating the Cuetzalan feria.
Each of the towns selects their mayordomo from people who are ready to guide back to their community when they've done well. During their term of office, they hold a staff of office that gives great authority -- and people respect them a lot. And they spend lots of time and their own money to be sure things are properly and reverently done.
They also bring offerings and images to the main parochial church in town, highlighting their towns specialties. The Virgen is dressed in Huipil and white... Using the baby carrier...
And they sponsor and guide their town's contestant for Miss Huipil
We had heard rumors that local political powers are chipping away at the spiritually based authority and roles of the mayordomos, in the festival, which has a big part devoted to attracting young tourists by bringing in modern popular music, but name bands, etc. so we'd heard this year not all villages might send their dancers, pole flyers, and musicians.
So we got mentally prepared for a little bit of disappointment. We really weren't that keen about the schedule of modern Mexican ska, rock, and teeny bopper music for saturday afternoon and night in Cuetzalan, and it just didn't look like anything else was planned in town.
By chance, wandering in Cuetzalan, we had seen a fading poster in a shop window about the Feast of San Miguel, which had been last Tuesday in San Miguel Tzinacapan, and it said, to close that feast, that on Saturday San Miguel was going to host a big huapango dance "from 4 on"... and that everyone should come to enjoy the baile, dancing in the the zapateado style, to huapango, which is a song style from the Huastec areas... played by a trio of fiddle, guitar and jarana... danced by couples, with a lot of stately flirtation and foot tapping.
So into a San Miguel combi we hopped, out into the green hills east of town.
Along the way, we saw something very cool... About 20 people were bringing their small,traveling statue of St. michael back from his visit to the parochial church in Cuetzalan that morning for first communion. Clouds of copal incense were wafted as they hiked it along... extremely briskly!
Well when we arrived, the main square in Tzinacapan was pretty deserted! It's a beautiful setting, though a fairly impoverished looking little town compared to Cuetzalan. You'd like living there best, if you lived close to the edge of town, with a big green yard with dogs, cats, chickens and birds. The views from town were idyllic. But not much sign of any happenings... A few folks praying in the church...though we did get to check out the full size San Miguel in his exquisite church
And many redundant smaller transportable San Miguels and other Saints
Some cute young ladies
I liked the papier-mâché mask version of the poor Moor being downtrodden under San Antonio
A few folks were around to sell each other sodas. We heard first from a young teeny bopper girl at her drink stand, who clearly was not interested in a baile huapango, that she'd never heard of it, and then we heard from the few who knew, who were setting up the 'hall', that yes, it was on, but that the music was now scheduled for 6 pm.... Which could mean 8 pm or 9 pm... We couldn't wait that long, without being sure of combi vans back to town after dark... so we were feeling disappointed.
Everyone in town seemed to be off celebrating their family members who had First a Communion, in private, and everyone looked pretty tired of fiestas,... Until I heard drums. From a back street, up to the nearly deserted square came a group of young men teens and small boys carrying masks and one playing a traditional drum! It was the San Miguel dance troup, going to town, to march behind, now, St. Francis, in wax form, in Cuetzalan, from the chapel of Guadalupe, to the Paroquia. So off we went in the combi that had been about to leave anyway, now we were all excited--- kind of "follow that van!"
The dancers pile in..
When we got back to town we realized the rumors were way wrong. Troupes of costumed masked dancers and many, many, red clothed Voladores appeared out of nowhere as did the beautiful wax candles of St Francis, flowers, etc as well as all forms of musicians. A number of these including "our group" of San Miguel dancers processed up the steep cobblestone
lanes to the Guadalupe church to have blessings, mass, and pick up the huge heavy painting of the VOG to bring to the Parroquia. Many many fireworks were set off along the way, bottle rocket types but with no bottle (sheesh, it is amazing how safely things get done even with few of the safeguards we in the U.S. insist on). For the rest of the day and all of the next, dance and then flying took precedence over everything else, at least, in the traditional, lower, half of the huge town public center. Above, the huge tented auditorium blasted music of the electrified variety nonstop... But that had not the least effect to stop the drumming, dancing and flying that went on below. Only last night, Sunday night, did the last team of dancers leave the pole and everyone put their costumes away. And Sunday night, huapango replaced the other music, on the main stage in town. So we got a little taste of it after all! Though not out in costumed, traditional, San Miguel. Which sure would have been fun.
This morning, our last, we took a combi van out to nearby San Andres Tzicuilan, just for a hike. But in town, thinking we were entering the market, we went into a big council room, where we saw the locals involved in a huge town meeting of some sort. All the men in pure white shirts and trousers, even (much of the time they do wear modern clothes). I really don't know how everyone stays so white!
Later I realized, this is probably the town that made all the gorgeous wax flowers, candles, medallions, and saints we saw displayed in Cuetzalan's parochial church:
Though it does rain so much, there's no dust, everything's green and lush. Tree ferns, bananas covering the coffee, pastures here and there, but tree canopies and vines obscure nearly everything, and you don't see much crop land cause it is very very steep.
I'm impressed the degree to which women, even young ones, have largely not switched over. Although, the other day, when I was talking to a woman while we sat against the church wall waiting for something off other, and I said how much I liked her huipil, she said, well I sure like yours too. Perhaps appreciating how much easier it would be to have something not white that she could just wash-and-wear.
Some other things I saw here that I liked included lots of stalls selling traditional medicinal plants... And the way the topography dropped off, the platform where the voladores were was so high that raptors came up and circled around... Like they were intentionally circling the voladores.
The folks in the area don't have much money at all... But they have a lot of pride in their customs, the sacredness of those dances, their language, their beautiful location. I know realistically feasts and celebrations like these have changed through time, are changing quickly and one day may be done just for the tourists. But they are not that way yet now and the young folks still seem to preserve an interest and I am really hopeful this traditional corner of the world keeps its character for a long, long time.
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