The night before last, the celebration of our colonia's santa patronal, La Virgen de Guadalupe, erupted with clowns dancing and men draped in noisy cowbells spiralling up the street as they escorted the arcos on their way to the entrances of the church and the capilla. Our colonia's fiesta patronal is on the same day that the whole country celebrates the Virgen's feast day. Every pueblo in Mexico has a feast day and a patron saint, though often they are less well-known or less significant nationally. Xico has María Magdalena, for instance, and Coatepec has San Jeronimo. But because ours is La Virgén, our fiesta merges with the larger one that spreads across Mexico and our colonia joins in the vast celebration that celebrates La Virgen's final and most glorious appearance to a poor peasant, Juan Diego. The official Catholic Church and Mexicans have been in something of a tug of war ever since: does she represent the Catholicization of Mexico or the Mexicanization of the Catholic Church? It is pretty clear that it is the latter. As I've said before, La Virgen appears more important than Jesus in the lives of ordinary people, and as a Mexican.
Jim took the pictures below. The electricity in much of the colonia was off for some reason, so the processions took on an almost medieval quality.
Here at the start of the festivities the arc passes our streetcorner.
The clowns, payasos, dancing around our corner:
As I said, every pueblo has a patron saint, and every pueblo celebrates its saint's fiesta with dancing and arcos and cohetes and church masses and often with carnival rides and discotecas. Alfombras decorate many streets leading up to capillas and churches. In our colonia, we also have a small bull run, a la the fiesta in Xico. I know that people in Xico smile a bit condescendingly at our tiny imitation of their gigantic and nationally popular festival which takes place every July.
That every pueblo has a patron saint is the result of the Conquista. The Spanish invaders were intent not simply on conquering but on imposing the Catholic faith. You may remember that at the time of the Conquista, at the beginning of the 16th century Spain had managed to defeat the Muslims that had dominated at least the southern two thirds of the country for maybe seven hundred years. Spain was possessed by a religious fervor -- a Catholic fervor -- that fed its desire to find and conquer new worlds. In Mexico, the Spanish tried at first to replace everything not-Catholic with everything Catholic. They tore down the temples of the indigenous religion and built churches on their sites. The Spanish imposed Catholic saints on the images of local gods. It was not exactly successful, for in Mexico, old and new mixed quite completely. The indigenous dominant female deity and the Virgen María are entwined.
Many pueblos explain the choice of a patron saint by recounting a local legend that says the saint was looking for a home and had been rejected in numerous places until they found the home in the pueblo which now celebrates them. This is true in Xico, where Maria Magdalena reigns. I asked my neighbor whose family is one of the original families in the colonia how la Virgén de Guadalupe became the patron saint. She said that La Virgén had always protected the people of the Colonia whose travels to Ursulo Galván were difficult. It was to her that they turned in times of need, and indeed turn now. Every house I've been in has a little shrine to the Virgen. If I remember correctly, the Colonia was established maybe seventy or eighty years ago, a result of land reform. The national government had been redistributing hacienda land from the rich to the campesinos. The efforts to do this with one particular hacienda somewhere in the mountains near here failed, so the government gave the land for the colonia of Ursulo Galván to the campesinos, as well as the ejido surrounding it. So, not unlike the Exodus, they made their difficult way here.
The payasos are people who are dancing for La Virgén in thanks for answered prayers for healing. This is the first time payasos have been in the procession.
A view from the rear:
Here are the people carrying the crucifix and statues of La Virgén:
As darkness enveloped the colonia, the arco arrived at the church. In the picture below, behind the payasos, you can see (if you try hard) the arco going up.
Then the procession turned to go towards the capilla which is dedicate to La Virgén. Everyone got a candle. Here is a picture of all of us enveloped in incense:
The capilla sits alone atop a tall flight of steps and overlooks the whole community from on high. Only the people carrying the arco and the dancers went up. Since there was no electricity, the arco was set up by flashlight and candlelight. We watched them flickering. We knew when finally it was up by the cohetes that boomed and flashed in the darkness.
The next day, lots of the young people in the community were out making a sawdust alfombra (as in Xico) that stretched from the bottom of the Colonia to the steps up to the capilla. Rain threatened much of the afternoon and in fact fell hard enough to smudge the images. But everything is temporary in these celebrations. It is part of life, one of the lessons the fiestas impart. If rain doesn't destroy the alfombra, the procession on the actual feast day will.
Yesterday, the actual feast day, was filled with activities AND cohetes. Next year I will have to write about these. For now, the Christmas season is in full swing here.