| It don't remember the name of this church, but I will never forget the experience of going into it. The church is an old Catholic church located in the town of Chamula, a forty minute drive through the winding roads and switchbacks that lead out of San Cristobal. Outside of this church is this massive courtyard, with the cross (above) in the middle. Inside the church, where pictures were not permitted, most of what was Catholic had been thrown out. There were still saints though, plenty of saints. Around the inside perimeter of the church (which was essentially one big room) were glass cases containing different saints, with many incantations of Jesus and Mary toward the front of the church. Instead of pews, long pine needle-like grass was spread on the floor and people sat or knelt on the floor. About every five feet there was someone either praying/chanting in front of ten or fifteen long candles stuck to the floor, or the waxy remains of this process. Similar arrays of candles were in different stages of burning near many of the saints along the walls. Those who prayed were in groups from two to five, where one person did the chanting along with often waving objects over the candles such as eggs, coke bottles, or just their hand. When they waved the coke bottles, they would take a swig before putting it back down and returning to their chant. Our guide (who was a worker with Habitat for Humanity in the town) told us that this was the Mayan (the indigenous people in the area) form of prayer. The chanting person was like a spiritual healer that would sit with a family or individual and pray for good fortune, healing of the sick, or any of the other things people normally pray for. She said that the coke bottles used to be filled with the locally produced alcohol, but as the medicine men began to pray with more people, they found that they would often pass out by the third prayer, so they are largely filled with coke or water now. With all of these candles, the air was thick with scented smoke. The church was lit by two or three small windows high up in the building which threw sharp beams across the width of the room. There were no other lights, though the hundreds of candles and the open door at the back also helped to illuminate the room. Two or three banners were hung draping from the middle of the walls up to the center of the vaulted ceiling. Apart from this, the walls and ceiling were largely bare. Aside from the chanting and the tourists mumbling (which were at least half of the population of the church at the time we went in), there was a piercing mechanical bell version of Christmas songs playing over and over accompanied by blinking Christmas lights that adorned one of the saints. Over and over we heard Rudolph the Red-Nosed Raindeer, It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas, and Santa Clause is Coming to Town. It was pretty surreal. |
