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| The church in San Juan Chamula. |
In the church of San Juan Chamula photography is not
allowed, which is a pity because the church inside is extraordinary.
There are no benches, instead the whole floor is full of burning
candles, thousands of them. There are figures of saints in glass
cabinets all around the church, each saint in tidy clean clothes,
before each cabinet a table with more lamps burning, hundreds of
them. There are more than 40 saints in the church. The floor is
covered with fresh green pine needles. In some places the needles
have been cleared to make room for candles which the faithful light
up to pray. Every prayer requires several rows of candles in various
colours. Sometimes a row of hen eggs is added, or even a couple of
hens with their heads cut off. Usually there is a group of people
around the candles but only one person recites the prayer. The
candles are lit up gradually, row after row. Sometimes a spirit is
needed as well, one has to gulp a shot at the right moment of the
prayer. Sometimes a shot is offered to a Gringo who stands aside
watching.
Officially the church in Chamula is Roman Catholic,
but... (it is quite a big but). The town is inhabited by Indians,
namely the Tzotzil Maya, and the church belongs to them, not to the
priest. The Indians have their own understanding of the Catholic
faith. On Sundays a visiting priest celebrates a mass in the morning
but for the Indians the saints are more important. A priest
celebrates a mass but Sunday is not the day of rest here. Sunday is a
market day. Market stand are set up on the square in from of the
church, Indians dressed in the traditional manner spread their wares.
Fruit and veg, earthenware, leather sandals, colourful local
home-made fabrics. Of course factory made plastic stuff is there as
well. If you are hungry you will find some food: hot tamales,
tortillas, corn on the cob in various colours – white, black,
purple, red. Indian ladies dressed in colourful blouses and black
hairy skirts that seem to be in fashion here. Indian men in sombreros
and hairy ponchos tied at the waist. Some men in white ponchos with
yellow belts walk around the market, others in black ponchos and
sombreros with red tassels sit on benches set in a semi-circle on the
edge of the market. They look as if they are waiting for something.
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| The magistrates |
The Chamula church is a very unusual tourist attraction.
The fact that it attracts tourists at all is a side effect of the
fact that the Indians treat their church very seriously. The tourists
come and the Indians let them in but everyone is asked to contribute
towards its maintenance. The contribution is not voluntary – an
Indian stands at the door and sells a ticket to everyone who does not
look like an Indian. Everyone is also informed about the picture ban.
The Indian is friendly, one can talk to him and ask who the men in
sombreros with red tassels are.
They
are alcaldes,
the authorities of the town. They are magistrates and councillors at
the same time. On market days they sit there to judge in any
disputes. The Mexican authorities recognise the autonomy of the Maya
and let them judge in most of the matters affecting their own
community. The alcaldes
are elected in a traditional way. Only persons who earlier held other
offices can be elected alcalde.
One
of these other offices is a mayordomo.
All saints from the church have their houses in the town and the role
of the mayordomo
is to make sure the house is properly looked after. Saints have
houses in the town? I don't quite understand. The Indian at the door
tries to explain something that seems obvious to him and
incomprehensible to me. “If you want to see one of those houses”,
he says, “you can go there, there is an arch of greenery over the
gate, you'll find it easily”. I go there and indeed, I find it
easily. The mayordomo
sits in front of the house. He is quite talkative, shows me inside
and explains what I see. I don't understand much, though. The saint
has a separate house, not just an altar in the corner of a room. A
separate house in a traditional Maya style with the interior
undivided into rooms. This I understand but I don't understand the
decoration of that interior. There is a kind of an altar in the
middle of the room but it can hardly be seen as it is surrounded by a
curtain of greenery hanging from the ceiling. The greenery cannot be
just any old stuff, the mayordomo
explains to me which plants should hang in which place. The floor is
also covered in greenery, namely fresh pine needles. Both the hanging
decoration and the pine needles are changed every 20 days, which is
the length of a month in the traditional Maya calendar. In front of
the later there is a table full of candle holders in the shape of
little cows. Four times a day the candles on the backs of the cows
are lit up and prayers are said. It is supposedly a Catholic saint
but I hardly understand anything.
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| The market at Chamula. |
At
one point a group of tourists come and I eavesdrop on what the guide
tells them. He says that a mayordomo
is a man who undertakes the task of building a house for a saint and
maintaining it for a year, making sure the decorations are changed
regularly and the prayers are said on time. Who pays for all that?
The mayordomo,
of course. What does he get for that? The tourists – who come from
a different world – can't understand that someone builds a house
and maintains it for a year and gets nothing for that. He gets
respect, yes, but does it have any monetary value?
The
guide has problems following the thought pattern of the tourists. He
explains that the respect the mayordomo
gains makes it possible for him to become an alcalde
later. But the position on mayordomo
is not at all less important. It is important for the whole community
that the saints live among the people.
The saints have their houses in the town, their presence
is real, you can almost touch them. For the Indians this is precious,
they will look after their saints to make sure they don't run away.
But the most important place is the church. The amazing church with
thousands of candles burning in it.
“They
are like the stars”, says the Indian who guards the door. “We
have to keep all those candles burning to make sure the stars in the
sky don't go out...”
(If you prefer reading on paper, you will find this story, and a few others, here:)
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