The elders assumed a ceremonial stance… stood to attention in a line before the church… straw hats streaming with coloured ribbons. Bright bunting swept down from the white façade… above floral arches… gunpowder exploded all around. The interior was dim… grids of slender candles set upon the floor… white, yellow, red, black and green… quantity and colour of individual prescription… dependent upon diagnosis of ailment. Everything was thick with copal smoke… it billowed out of cups… drifted hazily through candlelight… upto the rafters… between great sweeping cloths. Pine needles blanketed the floor. The walls were adorned with palms and bromeliads… the saints with little white lillies. The people were assembled and engaged variously… knelt before candles, praying, swigging on moonshine. Here they’re folding and unfolding a giant banner… there they’re murmuring quiet entreaties. Still further, a band exudes lilting tunes upon harps, guitars and flutes. The place was a swarm… gently moaning, swaying through the smoke, humming. We wove through it all gingerly… the precarious arrangements of locals and offerings. A crowd had formed about one of the shamans… an old man with slanted, smiling, features. He had a fat speckled chicken in his hands… he waved it slowly over his patient, then the spectators. The bird made concerned noises and the crowd began grinning. Death came from the shaman’s hands. As its neck was fully wrung, the wings flapped in a useless show of unspent nervous energy. Tradition was alive and well in the house of God… in the church of San Juan Chamula.
San Juan Chamula is a Tzotzil speaking Mayan village that lies 10km north-west of San Cristobal de las Casas. Together with several other communities, they form one of the largest sectors of the Mayan population which number just under a million (in Chiapas, that is). Tzotzil speakers are around 70,000 strong. In addition to Tzotzil, at least seven other distinct Mayan languages are spoken; Chol, Chuj, Lacandon, Mam, Tojolabal, Tzeltal and Zoque. In Guatemal, over twenty more idioms are in use. Within each linguistically separate group there are distinct variations in dialect, custom, dress and belief… from community to community, village to village. It is a true testament to the Mayan maxim ‘Strength in Diversity’, that such variations exist.
The community of San Juan Chamula is most famed for its religious practices. They lean more heavily to the Pagan in the Pagan-Catholic complex of practices that pervade indigenous religion. Traditional medicine, for example, sees the cause of physical illness (and of health) to have spiritual origins. Many sicknesses manifest upon the loss of soul which can only be retrieved by a skilled cuarandero (healer). Sorcert and curses (as delivered by witches or brujos) can be a source of ailment also. The notion of ‘the evil eye’ is one taken seriously (Moorish in origin!) where babies are kept shrouded from all but close relatives (lest they ‘catch’ evil spirits). The purely Shamanic concept of the animal double is also alive and well in San Juan Chamula. Each person is tied to an animal spirit who leads a parallel existence to that individual… it suffers, hungers, satisfies and enjoys life at the same time but in a different place. Should the animal double become sick, ensnared or wounded… then the person to whom it is tied must suffer the same fate. If the double dies, the human dies also and vice versa. Sometimes chickens are offered up to the gods in exchange for a double who faces annihilation. They also serve to catch evil spirits (along with their eggs, which can additionally be used for divination and diagnosis of illness). Speaking generally of Chamulan cosmogyny… there are three classes of gods. There are those that inhabit the sacred places in the countryside… the forests, the mountains, the caves. There are those that inhabit the church… that is, the saints… those Christian deities that have conveniently supplecated former ones. Then there are those who dwell in the Underworld. Chamulan conception of the Universes matches that of the ancient Maya (to an extent)… as a cube or pyramid with successive heavens and hells. The earth plane is quartered by the cardinal points… N, S, E, W… and marked at the centre by a Ceiba tree whose roots claim the underworld and branches support the stars. The cardinal points necessarily form an important part of ritual workings, temple alignment, healing and astrology. They also correlate to the colours of maize… the staple diet of indigenous persons for millenia.. white, red, yellow and black. The central point of the compass is marked by the colour green (nature) but there is no green maize. The pasage of the sun and the colours of maize also correspond to the human lifecycle… indeed, the Mayan creation myth tells how the first successfully working people were fashioned from the corn plant. Necessarily, the Catholic church assumes a stance of greater religious tolerance than in former times. Speaking correcly, however, San Juan Chamula ceased to be affiliated with the Roman Catholic body in 1981… though not for a clash of beliefs. Since the 1970s, various Protestant Fundamentalist churches have been directing their attentions on Maya communities in Chiapas and elsewhere… (they are North American in origin leading some to subscribe to a CIA conspiriacy geared to infiltration, manipulation and division)… This is what the Protestants say;
‘Interested in Maya Spirituality? Then come to San Juan Chamula… and live in fear of the evil spirits that surround this town… observe their sinful ways of drunkness and idolotry… meet the false Shamans who will con you and the real ones who’ll curse you… ETC ETC ETC...’
The Chamulan people, (who have had a long history of violence, rebellion and resistance) did not take very kindly to the Protestant invaders who branded even their dancing as sinful. In 1981, a Chamulan Protestant leader was murdered and this caused the Roman Catholic Church to withdraw its priests from the community. Chamula responded by affiliating itself with Mexico’s national Catholic Church, that is the Mexico Orthodox Church… home to all the country’s Papally unrecognised saints. Specifically, the church is aligned with Saint Pacualito Muerte, Saint Paschal Death… something like a grim reaper who specialises in miracle cures. This obscure religious body is administered from a ‘Cathedral’ in the state capital, Tuxtla, and their involvement in the Chamula community is minimal… by and large, the Shamans have free reign in the local church. As for the foreign Protestants… they generally follow a pattern of withdrawal once they have evangelised a sufficient quantity of the local population… they don’t hang around for results or support. In the case of Chamula and other villages, over 20,000 people were expelled from their communities. They dwell (for the most part) in shanty towns upon the North West fringes of San Cristobal de las Casas. Nowhere has the evangelical mission succeeded so fully in obliterating the religion and culture of a people as in the Lacandon rain forest in South Eastern Chiapas. Of the Hach Winik (‘Real People’) exactly six of 700 were found to maintaining ‘traditional’ spiritual practices. Of the remaining, a significant proportion have an evangelist alignment and the remainder none at all.