CARNIVAL AS MAKING COMMUNITY VISIBLE

If you are a regular reader of this blog you may rightly have concluded that I am obsessed with “community”.   You would be right since I believe I see community much more directly in Mexico than I do in Canada.  Now you may well say, “here he goes again”.

We recently attended a carnival event in a small pueblo, an almost immediately I said, “now this is community”.  Quite different than the block parties I am accustomed to.   The event began with many members of the community gathering in the centre of town and then forming a parade of sorts with the mandatory band keeping everyone on track and bottle rockets telling everyone else to get a move on or they would miss the festivities.   At the head of the parade was a burro, nicely adorned with ribbons and balloons and more importantly, carrying the beer.  The destination was a dusty and rocky intersection about 500 meters from the pueblo.

The men unload the beer.

At this intersection a small slice of community life was enacted.   Women had brought food, tables were set up and those who wished could sit down to eat.  Since carnival in this region is often about cross-dressing there were a number of men in tight dresses, pantyhose and high heels.   Two or three of the men wore masks.  The women too assumed roles of men although they didn’t really cross-dress.  Instead they carried hand-carved wooden swords whose symbolism said -”we are men”.  Other women acted like the male cargueros of other events in that they wore cowboy hats, had the essential woven bag over their shoulders and carried and distributed the tequila to all assembled.   Aside from eating the main event was dancing.   The male-women went into the crowd and brought other men to the dance floor, young women did the same and it was in this way that we were invited to the dance “floor”.   My partner was a young woman who had flown home from Los Angles just for this event.   The old women stood together in their dark clothes, with colourful confetti in their hair, rarely smiling and talking quietly among themselves.  There were very few old men. 

Did I mention that the dresses are tight.

Here we see the women with their swords.

After an hour of dancing the group returned to the pueblo, gathering in the basketball court where the local farmers had arrived with wheelbarrows full of fruit and vegetables which they distribute to the crowd.  Everyone then went home for a while before reassembling for a dance which went on late into the night.   If the men became too drunk the women, perhaps the ones with the swords, were entitled to lock them up for the night.

So, we saw elements of many Michoacán carnival events - the torito and cross-dressed men taunting the bull and then forcing men to dance with them.  But, more importantly for me, we saw all of this performed in a community setting.  All were linked together through some connection to this little place, all categories of the community were present and a strong sense of making things happen for their own entertainment and fulfillment of traditional responsibilities.

READING THE ESCRITURA

This is perhaps my shortest post but I think it says a great deal about the culture of Mexico.  First, the story.    We recently sold property in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán and in the final stages of the  sale there was a brief,  but possibly threatening, debate over the legal description of the property.  There was an inconsistency about whether the house was in the second block or the third block.   I of course had not noticed this problem when we made the original purchase and I assume the inconsistency was there for 100 years or more.   The inconsistency may flow from the fact that the numbering on our street is not sequential.  Guests often think it should be with other houses bearing a number in the 50s, that is in the second block.  But in fact our number, 53, is in the third block.   This problem was worked out without stalling the sale but as they read the escritura (the title) aloud for all assembled,  I noticed that they defined the property in geographical terms (a much older version of the GPS points) but they also described it in terms of our neighbors, referring by name to the families on either side and across the street.

We tend to think of our property only in physical terms, but here the property was described in social terms - it is located between Señora Mendoza and Señor Valencia and Señora Gomez is across the street.   We don’t just live in a physical space but also a social space.

SAN ANTONIO

This post began with a visit to a restaurant in Morelia to celebrate a friends 70th birthday. She wanted a “funky” restaurant and the San Miguelito of Morelia was recommended by locals.  We knew nothing about San Miguelito but having hired a driver and worked our way through two road blocks - one at the Governor’s house and the other just short of the restaurant - we entered a large establishment with 3-4 sitting areas and lots of interesting “stuff” on the walls.  The first room (The Altar of Conversations) was for families with appropriate decor,  the second for business lunches (La sala de conspiracion) and the third where we were seated was called Rincón de las Solteronas (the corner for single women).  This was an amazing room, every inch being covered with images and photos which we immediately realized were religious images, about 250 in total.   But, they were all standing on their heads (boca de abajo).   The image to the side of our table was a life-sized San Antonio, of course on his head.   We gathered from the signs that this room was where one might find a partner.  It didn’t look like  singles bar.  So, what was this all about  - a religious parody?   Was the owner anti-Christian?

No!   The answer is much more interesting.   San Antonio is the saint of singles and he can be approached in the search for a mate.  While not very common today young women (San Antonio is not sexist, but the culture is) can take a small image of San Antonio to church, light 13 candles and while holding the saint on his head, make a petition for a mate.   In the restaurant singles where to take 13 one peso coins and walk around the large image 13 times and on each rotation put a peso in the hand of the saint.  Then, one writes your petition in a book at the side table.  If your petition is answered you are entitled to return to the restaurant and turn one of the images right-side-up.   We could not find one standing upright!