by Abel Salas
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.
This article appears in December 22 • 1995 and December 22 • 1995 (Cover).