December 12, 1995. Between midnight and 4am in the historic center of Mexico City, the darkness is severed by taxi cab headlights and lamplight glows that catch on bicycle reflectors.
With almost digital regularity, bike riders pump past in either direction, making their nocturnal sacrifice in honor of Mexico's patron saint, La Virgen de Guadalupe. They are among the pilgrims who have traveled to Mexico's capital in the tens of thousands for the December 12th commemoration.
The bicyclists, many with glass-framed portraits strapped to their backs, disappear into the early morning dark. One group of devout teenagers pedaling by has opted instead to wear cloth capes bearing the image of the Blessed Virgin. The eerie sight of Virgin capes fluttering in the breeze under the glare of a stray headlamp has distracted me somewhat from the task at hand, the velacion, or candlelight ceremony which is my reason for being in the Zocalo, the town square in a city five times the size of New York.
Like them, I have come to participate in an annual outpouring of faith. As a non-Catholic, I have joined the ranks of those who recognize pre-Hispanic antecedents to the miraculous apparition alleged to have occurred in 1531 on a hill named Tepeyac.
So, I work diligently at placing eight thin candles in a circular order around a single candle in the center of a flagstone borrowed from close by. Four candles are attached at each of the four cardinal directions. Another four are placed just outside of each of these, near the stone's rim. These are attached by heating the candle based over the saumador, an urn-shaped clay incense burner which is filled with glowing coals used to burn copal, a pungent, sweet-smelling incense believed to have purifying power.
The candle-covered stone sits on the ground in front of a poster image of the Virgen de Guadalupe leaning up against the wrought iron fence surrounding the central Cathedral. I am told to follow a circular spiral order, waiting until each of nine animas, or spirit-guides, is invoked in song before torching each wick. The ceremony is an ancient one, maintained in a syncretic form by concheros, dancers who practice ritual worship rooted in signs and symbols that were old before Columbus. Our rag-tag group has assembled in the shadows of "la Catedral," the large church built by Spanish Catholics directly over the site of the great pyramid destroyed by the newcomers shortly after a victorious Cortez had established himself in the city known then as Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec empire.
Since I am new to danza -- an ecstatic physical extension of the ceremonial worship -- being chosen to light candles which represent the animas is an honor. Others are chosen to light the small votive candles placed in the shape of a cross a little further away from the image of Guadalupe. The subsequent part of the velacion involves the creation of a flower-painting, the ollin, an Aztec word meaning movement and which is depicted by two curved arcs crossing at the center apex. Respective bands of red-and-white blooms are gradually placed on a rectangular cloth over the flagstones, curving and crossing in arcs around an overturned bowl with a slender candle burning quietly in its middle.
Through their labor, the strumming of conchas -- stringed instruments made from either an armadillo shell (concha) or a dried, hollowed-out gourd -- accompanies the call-and-response choral singing of alabanzas, traditional Catholic songs. The word conchero is derived from the word for armadillo shell. It is said that after the conquest, natives were forbidden use of the drum. The sensual rhythms were considered an extension of evil pagan rites. Seeing that the Spanish often used a guitar or lyre to create music in their Catholic fervor, native Indians quickly adapted, fashioning the eight-stringed instruments that are a cross between a mandolin and a guitar.
Today, the concheros carry gourd or metal shakers during the ceremony, and the drum -- a huehuetl -- has been returned to the center of the circle. The concha remains a fixed part of the musical expression underlying danza. And the dance ceremonies themselves are most often dedicated to Catholic saints. Toward the end of the velacion, two women are chosen from the group to wrap the flowers from the ollin around two thin, wooden dowels roughly two feet long, tying them with a single piece of string. The vigil is finished when the two flower canes are complete. Strangely, I don't feel tired. We've taken breaks between portions of the ceremony to smoke, chat, or drink an atole (cereal-like mush) made from guayaba that tastes like a warm fruit smoothie. The singing has lifted our spirits, and in a final prayer, we apologize to the guardians for any mistakes or errors made in the elaboration of our ceremony.
Around 4am we break for the long walk to the Basilica, a modern church built this century at the foot of the hill where the Virgen appeared to a humble Indian named Juan Diego 464 years ago. The hike is long, and we carry the gear we will wear after sunrise for the day-long circle of dance. For a little over two hours, we march reverently toward the focal point of the celebration that has become a national holiday.
I am among several from the U.S. who have been invited to lend our strength and support to the formation of a new circle under the capitania, or leadership, of a young writer and painter named Jose Antonio Cruz. Nicknamed Tlacuilo, Aztec for painter or artist, Tonio is not yet 30 and addresses us with humble gratitude. He has made danza a significant part of his life for the last 12 years and is among a newer generation of urban "hippie-tecas" who recognize how Catholicism successfully incorporated a number of native gods, adopting them and giving them new names in order to make conversion of the Indians less difficult.
The Virgen de Guadalupe, for example, appeared to Juan Diego on a hilltop which had long before been consecrated as a holy site in honor of Cuatlicue-Guashelope (vaguely similar to "Guadalupe"), also called Tonantzin, the mother figure who was the ultimate giver and taker of life. A peasant, Juan Diego was instructed by a holy vision to visit the bishop in Mexico City. The Virgen, attired in all her celestial glory, pleaded for a church to be erected over the place where native people had previously worshipped Tonantzin. Oddly enough, according to the legend, the Bishop was unconvinced until Juan Diego returned with a cloak full of roses. Roses had never before grown on that hill, much less in mid-winter. Further still, the cloak -- the tilma -- in which the roses were carried bore an unexplicable image of the brown-skinned Madonna, Mother Mary as an Indian maiden who'd come to care for her children in the new world. Since then, all manner of miracles and visions have been attributed to the Holy Mother. Her presence in Mexico outweighs any other singular expression of faith, second only to Christ in stature.
We arrive at La Villa before sunlight, marveling at the number of charter buses and large trucks parked along the way. I count at least a hundred buses stationed on La Calzada de Guadalupe, the long avenue line at its median with a walkway, tress, and benches. At its end, a collection of structures includes the small hilltop church built upon the Bishop's recognition of the miracle apparition, a larger inaccessible cathedral at the bottom of the hill which has buckled into the ground at an odd angle. In contrast, the Basilica is a circular temple that resembles something Frank Lloyd Wright might have designed.
The crowd at 7am is phenomenal. On the ground, bodies litter every available inch. The temperature has dropped considerably, so people huddle under blankets. Hundreds of vendors hawk T-shirts, posters, portraits, paintings, glow-in-the-dark key chains, 3-D pendants, rings, books, calendars, pencils, rugs, handbags, pins, and prayer cards all bearing representations of the Virgen. The quantity of Virgen paraphernalia on sale is overwhelming, beyond anything I've imagined. She's bigger than the Rolling Stones, I think to myself. Jagger and Richards have nothing on our Holy Mother. Then I chide myself for the inappropriate comparison.
Reporters from Televisa follow us as we wind our way to a less populated area and make our offerings to the four directions. From 8am to about 9am, we rest. I try to sleep briefly, wrapped in my leather jacket, shivering in a cold that bites nonetheless. By 9:30am, the machine-gun sound of drums in high gear is a signal to clear our own circle and dress in garments patterned after our Indian ancestors. Around our ankles, we wear small nut shells from the ayoyote tree. Cut open on one side and dried, the ayoyote shells make a rattling sound, marking the complex rhythms and intricate steps which comprise the dances our circle will offer. Tonio keeps time on an improvised drum. Around us, similar circles compete for space and sound.
A noontime lunch break consists of corn tortilla tacos stuffed with potatoes, nopal cactus, and white cheese -- a feast considering our states of exhaustion and hunger. By now, the circle has grown to include over 30 dancers. As the sun reaches its zenith, everyone has stepped forward to the center of the circle to lead individual dances.
By the time we close the ceremony and break the circle, it is after 4pm. Everyone is tired but aglow with euphoric breathlessness. Helga Garci-Garza, the stout South Texas chicana under whose guidance I have entered the circle, is teary-eyed as she thanks our Mexican counterparts for the opportunity to have participated in the powerful series of events I've just witnessed. For those of us from north of the border, it has been more than an annual trek in honor of the Cuatlicue-Tonantzin-Guadalupe trinity. It has been a homecoming. n
Abel Salas misses home and hopes to find himself soon. Until then, he is happily a border brat.