Los estamos esperando

Introduction

Armando Solórzano

My first experience with death happened when I was five years old. A truck from the Industrial Company of Atenquique, carrying fourty workers, turned over crushing and dismembering all. As an acolyte, I assisted the priest who was providing the last rites. The priest ordered me to gather the arms, legs, and heads that had been torn from the bodies and which were scattered everywhere. I disobeyed him. I had not the courage to do it and went back home. That night I did not sleep. The images of death dramatically altered my mind forever.

Two weeks later I witnessed the birth of life. Standing at the top of a mountain of corn that my father had in the storage house, I saw a cow’s intestines coming out of her body. I ran to my mother and shared the experience. My punishment was to pray five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys because I had sinned by seeing a cow giving birth. In those two weeks I entered into the greatest mystery of creation: life and death.

The explanations provided from this corner of the universe, from Zapotlán, were morbid and incomplete. From an early age I took refuge in philosophy and theology to gain an understanding of these most basic aspects of human existence. Both disciplines completely denied the indigenous mythologies of the local indigenous in example the Tlayacanques. To them, death is not an abstraction, but a reality which one loves, hates, and interact on daily basis. Above all, death is always respected. Many rituals were practiced in the community of Zapotlán of my time: blessings of the coffins, novenas, exorcism to remove evil spirits from houses, processions to the cemetery, litanies, holy water to cleanse sins, tea of lechuguilla (made from the agave plant), and especially the use of red onions to prevent the virus of death from taking over one’s body. For me, everything made sense but nothing had meaning. The celebration of the Día de Muertos was almost imperceptible. The people were tired from celebrating the Fair of Zapotlán and had no energy left to visit the dead ones. Over time the Día de Muertos began to take relevance because the people rediscovered in this celebration the foundation of their identity and destiny.

Nowadays, and as in other areas of Mexico, the celebration of the Dead in Zapotlán is manifested in vigils, popular and folk ceremonies, food and culinary traditions, the creation of altars, visits to cemeteries, the decoration of graves, theater, the personification of catrinas, and the artistic representations of skeletons. The Día de Muertos has become one of the most important celebrations to recover the worldview of the ancient inhabitants of the valley of Zapotlán. It reflects the syncretism that took place when the Tlayacanques were converted to Catholicism in the sixteenth century. This seems to follow the Mexican and Central American trend where indigenous cosmological elements were thought to be obliterated, but in fact were perpetuated in Catholic symbols and ceremonies centered on the dead.¹

In a time when the love for life seems to have lost its value, when death takes catastrophic numbers in wars, narco trafficking, abortion, interracial conflicts, and death penalties in hegemonic societies, the celebration of the Día de Muertos becomes more relevant and necessary. In fact, this celebration has opened new perspectives in environmentalist movements in the United States, in the creation of marginalized group identities, and in critical studies that analyze relations of power, immigration, and political protest.² In the same manner, the celebration of the Día de Muertos in Zapotlán can be reoriented toward the creation of community values, the reaffirmation of indigenous practices and worldviews, the reorganization of religious-popular ceremonies where the people take control of their spiritual journeys, and above all, the reaffirmation of our ancestral values rooted in mother earth and the eternal dance of life.

Celebration of the dead in pre-Hispanic Mexico

Before the arrival of Europeans on this continent, the indigenous people lived in civilizations that contemplated the purpose of life and death. In the Maya, Aztec, and Olmec cosmologies, human beings were created by gods/goddesses who never separated from their creations. During their lifetimes people kept in contact with their gods through rituals and ceremonies. At the end of life, they returned to live in harmony and to serve the gods from which they came.

For the indigenous people, there was an affinity between living and dying: the way you live is the way you die. This wisdom is reflected in our popular saying: “Como es la vida es la muerte”. There were seven ways of dying that corresponded to similar ways of living. Life in the supernatural world depended on the circumstances of a person’s death. Thus, a person could die of natural causes or normal illness, die in their childhood, die on the battlefield, or die while performing their every-day duties. The type of death determined the god/goddess that you ended up leaving with in the supernatural world. Those who died young went to a place where there were many trees, fruits, and plants. The children’s soul took the form of a hummingbird that went about slurping the nectar from the flowers. Those who died by drowning went to Tlaloc, the god of rain. Women who died during childbirth went to the Sun where they continued giving life to the universe.

It was believed that once a person died, their soul had to travel for four years until arriving at its final destination. During those years the soul has to endure cold weather, fatigue, exhaustion, and walk on the snow and the thorns of the road.³ Surviving relatives made sure the deceased had enough food, clothing, and energy to endure the journey. They buried their people fully dressed, with the instruments they used in their earthly life, and placed food in their coffins as a reassurance of their survival in the afterlife.

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, one of the Spanish friars who documented the conditions of the indigenous people, wrote in detail about the ceremonies offered for the deceased: “During the fifth day (of the fourteenth month) they used to make small arrows in honor of the dead… and placed them on their graves, together they also placed a couple of sweet tamales. These offerings remained on the graves all day; at sunset candlewood was left, and on the spot the candlewood and arrows were burnt. The resulting charcoal and ashes were buried in the graves of the dead.”⁴ Essential to this ceremony was the use of amaranth in the making of tamales. All the tamales cooked for this occasion needed to be consumed since they can’t be saved for the following day.

The commemoration of the death took place during the ninth month of the year. The indigenous people climbed to the roofs of their houses, fervently prayed to their own kin, and invited the departed to visit them: “come quickly for we are waiting for you”.⁵ The invitation had a dual purpose: on one hand, it was to honor and remember the departed; on the other, it was an occasion for the living to humble themselves and do penance.

These celebrations were based on the belief that once a year, the gods and goddesses allowed the dead to come back to the natural word to visit their relatives. The ones living in this world recognized them, fed them, and asked for advice of how to arrive in the spirit world without major pains or tribulations. At the end of the day, the deceased returned as intermediaries who would ask the gods to give their relatives a dignified death and to prepare the path for a peaceful transition.

Syncretism

European colonizers and Catholic friars failed in their attempt to completely convert the indigenous people to Catholicism. They certainly evangelized the naturals of Mexico, Central America, and South America, who didn’t freely accept the doctrines, the tactics of evangelization, and the decimation of the population.⁶ What emerged in post-Hispanic America was a hybrid religion shaped by the confrontation between Christianity and the spiritual-religious practices of the indigenous people. This syncretic religion combined the folk components of pre-Columbian polytheistic religions with the Catholicism of the Spanish colonizers.

The most vivid and energizing expression of this syncretism can be experienced in the celebration of the Día de Muertos in Mexico and Mesoamerica. Before the arrival of the colonizers, the indigenous people of the continent based their socio-political organizations on a polytheistic cosmology where the gods/goddesses lived in an intimate connection with the men and women they created. This cosmology emphasized order and harmony, and the bond between the supernatural and the natural worlds. Fundamental to their beliefs were the concern for the dead, the existence of the afterlife, and the journey people embark upon after they pass away. This overwhelming concern with death brought the anthropologist Hugo G. Nutini to declare: “The Mesoamerican cult of the dead was more intense than the Catholic cult of the dead introduced in New Spain by the mendicant friars.”⁷

The colonizers didn’t celebrate the Día de Muertos but rather All Saints Day. This latter commemoration was instituted by Pope Gregory I in the year 601. His intention was to suppress the Festival of Samain that was practiced in the Celtic countries. Similarly, the mendicant friars who came to the New Continent attempted to subdue the religious-spiritual practices of the natives. With partial success, the friars incorporated All Saints Day within their liturgical calendar in Mexico. It took approximately hundred fifty years for this celebration to take a full form.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, the friars explained to the native people that the saints were Catholic men and women who lived exemplary lives, that they were martyrs for the sake of the gospel, and that they spread the word of God throughout the world. Their lives, the friars said, should be emulated and followed as an example of a virtuous life. Underlying the notion of saint or sainthood was the belief that the saints will act as intercessors or supplicants between men and God.

These teachings undermined important beliefs of the native people. For them, the intermediaries were the dead, the ones who departed to the supernatural world and served the gods and goddesses. Men and women who died occupied a special place in their worldview. Their lives should be emulated because they dedicated their existence to satisfy the desires of their gods. As a response and complementing All Saints Day, the native people, in cooperation with more sympathetic friars, recreated the celebration of the Día de Muertos. Thus, the syncretism was evident when the indigenous people proclaimed that their deceased were saints too.

Contrary to interpretations that the culture and religiosity of the native people was destroyed by the colonizers, the Día de Muertos proves that their culture survived, took new forms, and was incorporated into the christianity that was emerging on the continent. Author Ken Dowden asserts that the history of the end of “paganism” is the history of the beginning of christianity.⁸ Such a history didn’t take place in the new continent where “pagan” rituals and catholic ceremonies intertwined and gave birth to new practices. It can be argued that since 1222 the Catholic Church in Europe had some ceremonies to commemorate the Día de Muertos, but this celebration had a different meaning. On November second, the priest or the sexton would ring the church bells to console the souls of those who were in purgatory.⁹ When the indigenous people celebrated the Día de Muertos, they didn’t believe in purgatory or in individual salvation. Their ceremonies had a more communal approach, and their deceased were neither saved nor condemned, but their gods, and the celebration had the intention to make the deceased to find the right path, never forget the natural world they inhabited, and to visit their in kind once a year.

The naturals made of the Día de Muertos a communal celebration that united not only the living but also the departed members of their communities. It was an occasion for “homecoming, remembering, and propitiating the dead.”¹⁰As a result it empowered kinship relationships and it brought a sense of destiny and transcendence. The community “became the cosmological center of existence.” Life and death issues were in the hands of the people. The natives brought back their gods/goddesses without fear of excommunication or being marginalized in their communities. The Día de Muertos became a sacred time when the living and the dead shared an indissoluble unity, a harmonized universe. Most importantly, the people became the performers of sacred rituals and ceremonies that connected them with the sources of life.

Further evidence of this syncretism in the Día de Muertos is provided by the fact that when the spaniards arrived on our continent, they found that the native people celebrated two feasts for the deceased: the “Little Feast of the Dead” (Fiesta de los Niños Muertos) in honor of those who died young, and the “Great Feast of the Dead” (Gran Fiesta de los Muertos).¹¹ Children had a special place in the cosmology of the native people since they could plead before the gods to help and protect their loved ones in the natural world. The indigenous people in Mexico and Mesoamerica prepared special ceremonies for those who died in their infancy. These celebrations slowly vanished over time, but were later recovered in the celebration of the niños inocentes, or Día de los Inocentes. that takes place on December 28. On this day, the graves of the children are decorated with flowers and toys. This religious-cultural celebration commemorates also the killing of infants in Bethlehem (Judea) ordained by the King Herod in his desire to kill the recently born Jesus of Nazareth.

The most popular tradition in the celebration of the Dia de Muertos is the consumption of the pan de muerto. In pre-Hispanic times, the essential and irreplaceable ingredient in the making of the bread was amaranth seeds. The amaranth is a tall plant, with abundant foliage and red flowers. It’s a native plant of this continent and it was used by the indigenous people for its nutritional and spiritual power. Amaranth was “a means of communion with the gods.”¹² According to several reports from the Spanish missionaries, the naturals made dough out of the amaranth’s seeds; the dough represented the flesh and bones of the gods. Once baked, the natives ate the dough to enter into communion with their almighty gods/goddesses. In this way the human and the supernatural forces maintained their unity and relationship. After witnessing the spiritual power that the natives gave to the amaranth plant, the Franciscan friars suggested to the Spanish Crown that the cultivation of this crop in the New Continent should be eliminated.

The celebration of the Día de Muertos is a triumph of a mestizo religion. This was possible because the native people were more religious/spiritual than the spaniard colonizers who tried to convert them to Christianity. Antonio Caso established that Mexican and Mesoamerican people in prehispanic America were essentially religious, their civilizations were driven by transcendental beliefs and those foundations were used by the Spaniards to advance their teachings on Christianity.¹³

Origin and form of the celebration

Local writers, scholars, and journalists have not written much or analyzed the celebration of the Día de Muertos in this city. The few articles on this subject are primarily narrative or anecdotal. There is an absence of inductive or deductive analysis, and the efforts to connect with the Nahuatl tradition or precolumbian sources have been insignificant. The existing literature is strongly influenced by western theologies and philosophies, and by post-colonial interpretations.

Questions regarding the origin of life, the meaning of death, and the raison d’être, have been central concerns in the indigenous cosmologies of the zaplotenses. In fact, the oldest historical vestiges found in the ceremonial centers of Zapotlán are related to tombs and instruments that were used in the cult of death. An example is the tomb of a Tzapotleco chief from the pre-classic period (1800-100 BC). Inside the grave, archeologists found clay figures, pottery, and fourteen female figures, which according to Esteban Cibrián, constituted the chief’s harem.¹⁴

Although this interpretation is open to different considerations,¹⁵ the fact is that the graves found in Zapotlán maintained a strong resemblance to the graves of indigenous groups who worshiped Tlaloc, the god of rain, from which it follows that the Tzapotlecos also had Tlaloc as one of their gods and hoped to meet him after their death. In prehispanic Tzapotlán tombs and burials were carefully planned and reflected the worldview of the Tlayacanques: “The corpse was placed in the tomb in a huddled position and completely wrapped. They also put the ofrendas and the figure of a small dog who would lead the deceased to the current of the river that separates this world from the world of the dead.”¹⁶ These dogs had the ability to break through the soil, to hold their breath for a long period of time, and to help the deceased to arrive to their final destination without any detour.

Since pre-Columbian times in Zapotlán the people used clay thurifers to worship the gods and the deceased. These mud censers were designed with the figure of a god and a goddess; the natives used incense or copalli to produce a cloud that would rise and bring the pleasant smell to the gods. Many of these censers were also used as burial urns where the heart of the victims, offered to the gods, were placed.

These practices were too foreign to the colonizers who, after arriving in the Valley of Tzapotlán in 1522, tried to suppress them. Following their arrival, the Franciscan friars created guilds or mercedes to transform the traditions of the natives, to organize them economically, and to evangelize them. They created four guilds; one of which was called “Las Ánimas.” The main objective was to pray for the salvation of the souls of the natives who had died, and also, to teach them the trilogy of life, death, and resurrection. By 1828, the friars had created several chapels along the valley. The Chapel of All Saints was one of the most important, and although there is no definitive evidence, we can suggest that the celebration of the dead in Zapotlán had already undergone a major transformation. In the Mercedes of Las Ánimas, the natives were allowed to celebrate their deceased with their traditions but the Franciscans added prayers and rituals of their own belief. Years later, in the Chapel of All Saints, a major transformation took place: a syncretism emerged with great force. There was a clear distinction between the celebration of All Saints Day and the celebration of the Día de Muertos: the first was an ecclesiastical celebration, the second an indigenous commemoration. Although separated, the two festivities included rituals of Catholicism and indigenous traditions. The Día de Muertos of the Tlayacanques showed that their culture was alive and survived the onslaught of the spaniards who entered the valley more than three hundred years earlier. Cibrián Guzmán, a chronicler of Zapotlán, captured this phenomenon and attributed the great success of the indigenous people of Zapotlán, during colonial times, to their ability to adapt to the celebrations of the Catholic Church. But it was more than an adaptation: the indigenous people embedded in the Catholic Church their ancient folklore and traditions. This amalgamation was reflected in a religion that consolidated three cultures: indigenous, Christian and Hispanic.¹⁷

Out of this amalgamation emerged the alabados or prayers of exaltation. This form of praise is the oldest and most popular tradition that remains alive in the celebration of the Día de Muertos en Zapotlán. It has its origin in the Tlayacanques and their need to create a cross to represent the crucifixion and death of Jesus. The cross had to be made of wood, a material that the natives carried on their shoulders from the nearest forests. When wood was scarce, they made the symbol of the cross with their hats, which they placed pointing to the four cardinal points of the town. The alabados is a popular praise; a monotonous chant that encapsulates the veneration of the cross and the Virgin Mary who witnessed Jesus’ ruthless crucifixion. The earliest verses of the alabados are reflected in the following popular chants.

It is interesting to note that the same ritual that the naturals of Zapotlán performed —of creating a cross and the songs that went with it— were very similar to the rituals used by other indigenous groups in Mesoamerica. Part of the ceremony for the dead consisted in cutting a middle-size tree “with two thick lower branches in the form of a cross.” This “tree-cross” was brought to the gate of the cemetery, and after the funeral ceremony, was erected for the reverence of the people. This life-death tree-cross was covered with multicolored paper. At the foot of the tree, people placed their offerings of amaranth, candy, and traditional foods. After twenty days the tree was burned and the ashes were sprinkled on the cemetery.¹⁹

An important tradition that survived in the Día de Muertos in Zapotlán is the use of cempasúchil (marigolds), a yellow flower used to embellish the cemeteries, the crosses, the altars of the dead, and the necklaces that people wore. According to the native’s tradition, the yellow color symbolizes death and pain. However, this meaning undergoes a metamorphosis in less than eight days. In the celebration of the patron saint of the town, Saint Joseph, which ends October 23, the same flowers have a different meaning. The marigold symbolizes maturity, the time when the corn reaches its fullness, and above all it means the Indian commitment to Saint Joseph who has saved them from earthquakes and other calamities. Thus, the people use the same flower for different purposes. On the Día de Muertos, marigold flowers become small suns that illuminate the path and provide a pleasant smell that the deceased follow until they reconnect with the living. The flowers are used to create a yellow carpet that the deceased can follow to the summit of their altar.

The altars to honor the dead have three levels, and on each of these are placed human shaped “dolls” which are made out of bread. The levels represent the three persons of the Holy Trinity, and the “dolls” signify the souls of the deceased. These dolls are known in the market as pan de muerto which is made from flour, amaranth seeds, dried fruit, and jelly. It is very sweet bread that helps to alleviate the pain and sadness of the people. At the cemetery, people leave the bread on the grave and expect the deceased to come and eat it. The bread disappears late in the evening when the cemetery closes. The birds come, pick up the bread, and fly away into the red sky that crowns the Zapotlán lagoon. Some people believe that these birds are the very souls of their deceased who eat the bread in their way back to God after visiting their relatives.

In the celebration of the Día de Muertos in Zapotlán people use candles, incense, yellow flowers, fresh water, sodas and liqueur. It is a feast to please the deceased. On the altars there are also skulls. This is a very old tradition taken from the Aztecs who kept the skulls of conquered prominent people. These skulls were exhibited by the Aztecs in the celebrations they organized for the deceased warriors and symbolized life, death, and rebirth. In Zapotlán, as in the rest of the nation, the “literary calaveras,” are also prominent. These short and festive verses are composed to satirize the politicians or well-known people in the city. They tend to be “light and irreverent, without regard to the social hierarchy or the political importance of the characters portrayed.”²⁰ The irreverence is explained in that death has no favorites, it doesn’t distinguish hierarchies of people: it takes away all alike.

The unique image and symbolism of the Catrín and the Catrina, seems to take a different slant in Zapotlán. Instead of representing a parody of the upper classes and the annihilating power of death, the figure of the dandy is used to disguise the spirit of evil, the devil and his perversions. In her story “El Catrín de ‘El Verde,” (“The dandy from “The Green Saloon”) Gutiérrez Arias depicts a gallant character who seduces the most desired prostitute of the brothel, Yesenia. After taking her to a lonely place, the catrin becomes a monster: he is transformed into Lucifer who butchers and incinerates her: “In a few minutes everything had turned into ashes”. Under these parameters, the character of the catrin belongs to the literature of death and not to the literature of the Día de Muertos.²¹

In the interpretation of the history of Zapotlán, and reflected in a subtle way in the celebration of the Día de Muertos, there is a tendency to consider the indigenous people and their traditions as pagan or illegitimate. One of the most prolific chroniclers of the city wrote: “Obviously the rites practiced by the indigenous were merely manifestations of their pagan customs, these customs suffered a juxtaposition and were redefined by the religious practices of the colonial times.”²² The widely recognized writer from Zapotlán, Refugio Barragán de Toscano, seems to share these feelings in her novel Los hijos del Bandido o Los subterráneos del Nevado. For this writer, the indigenous race is “slave of their customs and traditions; customs that have their origin in the fanaticism of their vulgar beliefs dating to ancient times.”²³

The adjective “pagan” was imposed by the Spanish conquerors on the native people because of their beliefs and polytheistic religion. However, many of these “pagan” elements were redefined by the Spanish friars and included in the mestizo Catholicism that emerged in Zapotlán. Thus, the indigenous people understood and accepted the symbol of the cross because it resembled the four cardinal points that were central to their beliefs. At the time of the foundation of Zapotlán in 1533, the town was delineated by four Franciscan crosses that were placed at its East, West, North, and South boundaries. The four points of the cross also represent the four sacred elements of the natives: water, air, earth and fire. From the point of view of the europeans and western culture, the practices of the native people were archaic and blasphemous; consequently they dehumanized the indigenous people by ascribing them to the category of savages or pagans. In our days however, the paganism of the naturals lives in the midst of a “civilized culture” and to certain extent redefines it. Thus, one of the first crosses made for Zapotlán’s Sacred Heart Church, includes indigenous symbols of the precolonial era mixed with elements of western Christianity.