Cocacola rituals
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2005
1
16
72
Trip End
Jul 13, 2006
San Juan Chamula y San Lorenzo Zinacantan,
Mexico
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Chamula is especially interesting since it is the only villiage in Mexico which is self governing and all policing is handled by the local lords of the villages. Polygamy is widely practiced and the people within the village still obide by local laws and customs. Western influence is limited and those who choose to live outside local customs are expelled from the village. Sunday is market day and naturally the craziest of all days. Sundays are especially significant because the lords or politicians reside over the main square dressed in their traditional sheep fur ´dresses. Village folk are able to bring up any issues with the politicians and they will decide their fate on the spot.
47
Local customs prevent anyone (including tourist) from photographing these lords, and those that do are subject to local laws, not mexican laws. Pretty scary! Of course Samson took a few sneak pictures of the lords as they walked away. Typical.
Perhaps even more cool was visiting the church in the village where the mayan people worshipped. A mayan lunar month had just passed so the chuch was crazy full of groups of people lining up rows of candles on the pine needle covered floor- generally 8 rows with at least 15 candles in a row per group. During this prayer, many things are sacrificed including food, and even chickens are killed. The most interesting part is that during the sacrifice, traditionally a alcoholic drink is drunk and then the worshippers burp to remove evil spirits. Nowadays, worshippers replace the alcohol with cocacola or another fizzy soda since it is easier to burp up after. Que interesante! Spirituality and Cocacola? Como?
The second village, Zinacantan was a little bit more low key. The people of this village wear beautiful woven ponchos over their shirts, the more elaborate the poncho, the most important the person! We watched a few girls weave complex patterns of embroidery (without the wooden ´silk´ weaving machines) using their body as the weight to pull the pattern tight. What amazes me however is that fundamentally, they were using an identical technique of weaving that I have seen in other places such as Vietnam etc.
pretty cool hey..
adios!!
