Power and Persuasion: Fiestas and Social Control in Rural Mexico 9780812292497

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POWER AND PERSUASION

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POWER

AND

Fiestas and Social Control in Rural Mexico

PERSUASION Stanley Brandes

w UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS Philadelphia

Copyright © 1988 by the University of Pennsylvania Press ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brandes, Stanley H. Power and persuasion. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Festivals—Mexico—Tzintzuntzan. 2. Social control—Case studies. 3. Tzintzuntzan (Mexico)— Social life and customs. 4. Tarasco Indians—Social life and customs. 5. Indians of Mexico—Social life and customs. I. Title. GT4814.T95B7 1988 394.2'6972'37 87-19205 ISBN 0-8122-8077-6 ISBN 0-8122-1253-3 (pbk.) Portions of this work originally appeared in the Journal of Latin American Lore, 5 (1979):25—43, and 7(1981): 171-190, and are reprinted with the permission of the Regents of the University of California for the Latin American Center, University of California, Los Angeles. Photographs nos. 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, and 11 are courtesy of George M. Foster.

Second paperback printing 1990

To Nina and Naomi

. . . it is in spiritual ways that social pressure exercises itself. . . . Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Chapter 7

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CONTENTS

Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xi 1 | Studying Fiestas and Social Control 1 2 The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas 20 3 Fiesta Organization 40 4 | Contract and Exchange 59 5 I Tourism and the State

88

6 | Pyrotechnics and Politics 110 7 | Social Control Through Dance 127 8 | A Christmas Morality Play 146 9 | Fiestas and the Social Order 167 Glossary 187 Bibliography 189 Index 203

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I L L U S T R A T I O N S

FIGURES 1. Fiesta commerce in the atrium 26 2. A penitente de grillo with cirineos 64 3. A penitente de cruz with cirineos 65 4. Crucifixes in Good Friday procession 73 5. Spies eating fruit 74 6. A yuntero and oxen 82 7. An arco in the form of an eagle 93 8. Veneration of the Serior del Rescate 111 9. Part of La Obra 116 10. Artisans construct a castillo 121 11. A diablito and danzantes 131 12. Death 137

Illustrations

MAPS 1. Lake Patzcuaro region 11 2. Tzintzuntzan: principal public places 13 3. The atrium during La Danza 133

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In 1967, while still a fledgling graduate student in anthropology, I had the fortunate opportunity to spend the summer in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico. My purpose was to prepare for eventual doctoral research in Spain by practicing fieldwork and the Spanish language, both of which were new to me. That experience was so successful, from a personal and professional point of view, that once and for all it committed me to anthropology and Latin American studies. It also permanently expanded my sense of life's possibilities by demonstrating that I could obtain access to a world very remote from the one in which I was born and raised. The people of Tzintzuntzan therefore influenced me profoundly. In effect, they determined my career. For their humor, patience, good will, and genial tolerance of my periodic intrusions into their public and private lives, I am deeply grateful to them. Their friendship has been and always will be important to me. I collected the material for this volume in over a dozen field trips of varying lengths made between 1967 and 1985. Funding for those trips, as well as for time to prepare the manuscript, was provided by generous grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the University of California Consortium on Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). The University of California at Berkeley supported me further with a Humanities Research Fellowship and a grant from the Faculty Development Summer Research Program. The Mexican Studies Program, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Institute of International Studies, all on the Berkeley campus, provided ongoing assistance without which this project might never have reached completion. I wish to thank a number of people for taking valuable time to provide sympathetically critical readings of all or part of the book manuscript in progress. These include Shirley Arora, George Collier, Alan Dundes, George M. Foster, Mary LeCron Foster, John M. Ingham, Claudio Lomnitz-Adler, Jesus Martinez, Axel Ramirez, Anya Royce, James M. Taggart, and William S. Simmons. Others who have assisted in one capacity or another are Brent Berlin, Judith Brandes, Arturo Chamorro, David Collier, Maria del Carmen Diaz, Luis Diaz Viana, Robert Hartman,

Acknowledgments

Andres Jimenez, Melissa Kassovic, Steven Kassovic, Robert V Kemper, Larissa Lomnitz, Guillermo de la Peria, Pastora Rodriguez, and Alex Saragoza. Karen Beros and Christine Peterson helped me meet the manuscript deadlines established by my supportive editor, Patricia Smith. All these individuals, too, deserve sincere thanks. I first visited Tzintzuntzan, the primary subject of this study, under the tutelage of George M. Foster. Throughout two decades, he and his wife, Mary LeCron Foster, have generously shared field setting, ethnographic information, and analytical insights with me. From the outset, they wisely situated me in the home of Don Trinidad Rendon, who, together with his family, has consistently received me and my family with warmth, patience, and hospitality. I am forever grateful to these people for their unwavering kindness and support and for their guidance. For any of this volume's shortcomings, however, I alone am responsible. Finally, I wish to note that portions of this book originally appeared in the Journal of Latin American Lore, the journal of Anthropological Research, and the Journal of American Folklore. I appreciate the opportunity to place passages from my earlier work in the new context of this volume. Berkeley, California April 1987

ONE

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

The Study of Mexican Fiestas In a far-ranging, insightful overview of her chosen discipline, Elizabeth Colson once wisely observed that "Anthropologists have a liking for paradoxes" (1974: 37). Certainly, when we examine research findings that bear on the topic of order and social control, this remark could not be more accurate. Consider gossip, for example. On the surface, talking behind someone's back seems divisive, uncharitable, and contrary to the norms of human decency, and yet many anthropologists, Elizabeth Colson among them, have demonstrated that gossip contributes to social consensus. It allows people to pool information, evaluate what they have heard from various contradictory sources, and arrive at generally acceptable moral standards. Gossip also instructs and reminds people about appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Hence, one predictable consequence of gossip is not discord, as one might expect, but rather harmony. An even more extreme example is drunkenness. Drunks appear rowdy and disruptive, and their apparent inability to control what they say can be embarrassing and offensive. Yet anthropologists know that drunks often serve as penetrating social critics. Shamelessly, but with uncanny precision, they accuse onlookers of having transgressed this or that moral rule. Because of their inebriate state, drunks themselves are usually exonerated from responsibility for their indiscretions. At the same time, they operate informally, like unacknowledged spokespersons, openly reminding people of ways they should or should not behave. The drunk's supposedly disruptive conduct acts paradoxically as a controlling influence, a force for social cohesion. This book explores yet another paradox: the way in which the fiestas of rural Mexico promote order and social control, although they seem to provide a break from ordinary routine and can even appear formless and chaotic. Practically by definition, fiestas provide respites from the

Studying Fiestas and Social Control constraints and rules of everyday life. Paradoxically, however, they serve to reinforce the power relationships, moral guidelines, and informal sanctioning mechanisms by which people regulate their daily behavior. Octavio Paz, the great poet and interpreter of Mexican national character, affirms the sense of disorder that characterizes Mexican fiestas (1961: 50—51). I quote at length to convey the full meaning and power of his images. The fiesta is by nature sacred, literally or figuratively, and above all it is the advent of the unusual. It is governed by its own special rules, that set it apart from other days, and it has a logic, an ethic and even an economy that are often in conflict with everyday norms. It all occurs in an enchanted world: time is transformed to a mythical past or a total present; space, the scene of the fiesta, is turned into a gaily decorated world of its own; and the persons taking part cast off all human or social rank and become, for the moment, living images. And everything takes place as if it were not so, as if it were a dream. . . . In certain fiestas the very notion of order disappears. Chaos comes back and license rules. Anything is permitted: the customary hierarchies vanish, along with all social, sex, caste, and trade distinctions. Men disguise themselves as women, gentlemen as slaves, the poor as the rich. The army, the clergy, and the law are ridiculed. Obligatory sacrilege, ritual profanation is committed. Love becomes promiscuity. . . . Regulations, habits and customs are violated. . . . [The] fiesta is not only an excess, a ritual squandering of the goods painfully accumulated during the rest of the year; it is a revolt, a sudden immersion in the formless, in pure being. By means of the fiesta society frees itself from the norms it has established. It ridicules its gods, its principles, and its laws: it denies its own self. Yet Paz also perceives that, in the end, these extraordinary events produce a state of stability and social control. During the fiesta, in which "everything merges, loses shape and individuality and returns to the primordial mass" (ibid.), society returns to some womblike state. When the fiesta ends, says Paz, society is reborn. Losing itself in formless chaos periodically, society emerges from these temporary episodes invigorated and as strong and resilient as a newborn infant (ibid.: 51—52). From Paz's point of view, the calendar year is punctuated with fiestas to permit the continuation of normal, predictable social relations. How does Paz explain this circumstance? He argues that Mexican society swings from extreme order to extreme chaos "in accordance with 2

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

the dialectic that is inherent in social processes" (ibid.: 52). When conditions become excessively rigid and controlled, Mexicans explode into the liberty of their fiestas. After these diversions have run their course, social order is once again imposed and the harsh realities of daily life" resume. Fiestas, for Paz, are the periodic means by which society prevents itself from bursting and disintegrating. Society is maintained at the cost of these ephemeral, chaotic episodes. Paz's description and interpretation of fiestas may be disputed. After all, as a writer and artist he is free to allow fantasy and poetic imagery to permeate his discourse. He is neither required nor feels the need to adhere to canons of scholarship. What concerns him, instead, is the exploration of a critical domain: the connection between fiestas and social control. Nevertheless, because Paz is a recognized and penetrating spokesman for his people, it is appropriate to follow his lead and draw on his thoughts as a point of anthropological departure. Moreover, his discussion of fiestas echoes one of the most recurrent themes in social science research: the relationship between religion and society. This issue has long pervaded the anthropological study of Mexico. It can be traced to at least the 1930s, when pioneering scholars of folk Catholicism, such as Robert Redfield (1930) and Elsie Clews Parsons (1936), attempted to identify pre-Hispanic elements in contemporary religious beliefs and practices. These anthropologists were interested, among other things, in the question of origins: whether particular traits—that is, presumably discrete elements of ideology and behavior— could be attributed to Indian or Spanish heritage. There was little concern about the ways in which those traits were functionally integrated into some wider social or ideological system. Moreover, these authors romanticized Mexican folk religion, leaving the readers with an image of Indians as virtually free of psychic and social conflict. We can recognize in the anthropological portraits of that time the familiar unrealistic face of the noble savage. In recent decades studies of Mexican religion have reflected the eclecticism of cultural anthropology itself. The impact of religion on ethnicity has provided one major theme. Everywhere from the state of Sonora in the northwest (see, for example, Spicer 1980; Crumrine 1977) to Chiapas in the southeast (Gossen 1974; Vogt 1976), we find that ethnic identity is affirmed through adherence to religious cosmologies and ceremonials. When people cease to share the beliefs and rituals of their communities, they define themselves as outsiders, thereby facilitating their affiliation with some other group. Anthropologists have studied religion not only to identify social boundaries, but also to discover perceptual categories, particularly ideas about what it means to be human. 3

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

Gossen (1974), Taggart (1983), Blaffer (1972), and others have dissected the contradictions, ambiguities, and structural parallels in Mexican Indian ideas about humanity, on the one hand, and the supernatural and animal worlds, on the other. Often folk narratives, like those found in myth and legend, yield insight into this matter, but sometimes ceremonial life does as well (Bricker 1973; Crumrine 1976). The relationship between religious ceremony and socioeconomic differentiation has provided yet another important research area, and numerous studies have focused on an institution that social scientists call the cargo system, or the civil—religious hierarchy. Some investigators view the cargo system as synonymous with Mexican rural society itself. Hence, Manning Nash, speaking of Mesoamerica as a whole (that is, the parts of Mexico and Guatemala where high civilizations flourished before the Spanish Conquest), has called the civil-religious hierarchy "virtually the entire social structure of an Indian municipio. At the most general level of social integration this structure does for ... Indians, what kinship does for African societies, or what social class does for ladino [or mestizo] society" (1958: 68). It is impossible to understand rural Mexico without taking into account the long-term effects of the cargo system. Although my study shares many of the substantive and theoretical concerns evident in previous studies of Mexican religion, it focuses explicitly on a single domain, fiestas as mechanisms of social control. My overall goal is to use fiestas as a lens through which to view a wide variety of controlling processes, which in their totality I call power and persuasion. Fiestas in rural Mexico are, among other things, a means through which order is maintained and power relationships are expressed. They are also arenas in which norms and values are transmitted and upheld through the application of sanctions, both formal and informal. The study of power and persuasion in Mexican fiestas involves a consideration of all these order-enhancing phenomena. Hence, in the course of learning about fiestas, we necessarily learn about the general contour of Mexican rural society and culture. Power and Persuasion For the purposes of this study, the terms power and persuasion should be understood in a broad, nontechnical sense. By power I refer to the coercive and manipulative influences of formally constituted organs of church and state. Scholars have long been interested in defining power (see Cohen 1969: 5; Coser 1969: 5; Dahrendorf 1968: 135; Adams 4

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

1975: 121) and elaborating its social consequences. Although nuances of meaning may differ, almost all authors would agree that powerholders by definition exert control. They do not merely rely on convincing people to behave one way or another. Rather, they are imbued with the force of sanctions. They have certain resources at their disposal that enable them either to confer benefits or to exact punishment. Through the threat or actual implementation of such sanctions, powerholders derive their efficaciousness. Power is an appropriate concept to apply to any study of religion. After all, religious systems are based on the ultimate sanctioning force and infinite power of supernatural beings. Throughout Mexico, fiestas are devoted to the celebration of God and the saints; they are designed to capture and retain divine favors. At the local level, church and state officials become active agents of the supernatural in that they are invested with ultimate responsibility for mobilizing masses of people for collective religious action. The skill of these officials in carrying out their responsibilities on behalf of the community is at once a measure and an expression of their power. Their ability to produce significant changes in traditional celebrations is even more symptomatic of such control. For this reason, the present study is devoted largely to the study of formal religious and civil authority in the fiesta cycle. We aim to discover how this dimension of religious activity throws light on power relations within the community, as well as between the community and the outside world. Power, as Michel Foucault (1983) has shown, is all-pervasive. Through the manipulation of resources and ideas, powerholders can enforce personal and social identities and can even affect our self-image. Throughout this volume, we shall examine how images of the self are created and enforced by means of the often subtle influence of ceremonial actors. Invoking religious authority and relying on supernatural favor, fiesta leaders knowingly or unknowingly impose particular conceptions of gender, ethnicity, and other types of social relations on the general populace. As discussed in Chapter Five, the nation-state, too, has the power to modify self-images through its intervention in local fiestas. If power refers to formal agencies of social control, persuasion means the totality of informal pressures and instructive procedures that lead people to conduct their lives with regard to particular standards. Among a wide range of informal pressures, anthropologists of Mexico have analyzed phenomena as diverse as drunkenness (Dennis 1979), witchcraft (Selby 1974), and illness (Rubel 1964) for the way in which they promote social order in rural Mexico. Fiestas, too, are fraught with opportunities for personal influence and control. Especially because they are such 5

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

public events, where people can scrutinize each other's behavior openly and systematically, they are potentially persuasive instruments that impel people to behave according to the rules. Fiestas are also informal agencies of instruction. Gossen (1976) and Bricker (1973), among others, have already postulated the didactic consequences of ritual humor—that is, the ability of such humor to teach through the visual display of inappropriate behavior. Here, I am interested not only in that aspect of fiestas but also in the way fiestas instruct through metaphoric demonstration or example. Fiestas may be interpreted, in Clifford Geertz's terms (1973: 448), as dramas or stories in which people unselfconsciously act out their own feelings about themselves and society. Within a neatly demarcated frame of time and space, the norms and values of a culture are enacted, usually in condensed, exaggerated form. The instructive potential of such performances is enormous. If fiestas incorporate humor as a means of ridiculing inappropriate behavior, they also sanctify culturally approved behavior through sacred drama. Both of these controlling processes contribute to the persuasive dimension of fiestas, and both receive attention throughout this volume. Although I group a wide variety of controlling mechanisms under the rubrics power and persuasion, these terms are simply convenient analytical categories. In fact, as they manifest themselves in fiestas and everyday life, power and persuasion are nearly inseparable dimensions of any given activity. The concept of power, as I use it, focuses on hierarchical relationships, in which there are clearly identifiable authority figures who are imbued with the will and means to enforce certain rules. Yet powerful people achieve their goals, especially in the religious context, as often as not through persuasion rather than coercion. Moreover, it is often from among their equals that they rise to positions of leadership and that authority is conferred on them. Persuasion, on the other hand, is a concept that is meant to highlight the influence that social equals exert on one another. As we shall see in Chapter Four, however, the rules of reciprocity in rural Mexico assure that villagers who are theoretically equal can at least temporarily gain the advantage in a relationship and use it to exert control. Almost any institution or activity is imbued with elements of both power and persuasion, and in the interplay of these two processes social control is produced.

A Question of Terminology This study concerns controlling processes as manifested explicitly in one religious domain: the fiesta cycle. Hence, it deals with a concrete range 6

Studying Fiestas and Social Control of religious behavior and associated activities. Although beliefs and cosmology are essential components of any sacred cultural system, they receive less attention here than does the actual, observable practice of religion as such. The focus is on drama, dance, song, and liturgy, as well as the organization, financing, and mobilization of ceremonial events. A discussion of the fiesta cycle touches on the domain that most anthropologists call ritual and that folklorists in general term festival. Neither ritual nor festival, however, seems quite right for my purposes. The word ritual violates native categories. To my knowledge, no Spanish speaker, whether Tzintzuntzan or elsewhere, would conceive of a fiesta as a rito, ritual, ceremonia, or any other term that could translate readily into the English "ritual." Fiestas incorporate ritual activity, by which people in Tzintzuntzan tend to mean formal religious ceremony; however, they are much broader in scope, encompassing as well a rich complex of economic exchanges, leisure activities, local cultural events, and social gatherings. Indeed, in some fiestas ritual activities, although essential, play a rather muted role. They would seem to justify, rather than constitute, the main fiesta proceedings. Another problem with the term ritual is that it means different things to different scholars. Some anthropologists, like Anthony Wallace (1966), seem to restrict the term to the religious domain, whereas others, like Sally Falk Moore, Barbara Myerhoff, and their associates (1977), extend the term to the secular world as well. Edmund Leach (1968) has even broadened the definition of ritual to include virtually all communicative behavior, thereby rendering the term equivalent to custom in general. Similarly, Irving Goffman (1967: 56—57) conceives of ritual as including "the little salutations, compliments, and apologies which punctuate social intercourse." The term ritual, for our purposes, is overly narrow from the native point of view, but too broad and inconsistently defined from the social scientific perspective. Added to these difficulties is Robert J. Smith's justifiable objection that the term ritual has been used by the anthropologist "to preserve a semblance of respectability while discussing such amiable subjects as transvestism, drunkenness, and sex in the bushes" (1975: 3). Ritual has become a term of the trade. To study ritual sets the investigator apart as an anthropologist. Perhaps because of the word's sacred connotation, ritual also seems to be a more prestigious or elevated scholarly subject than does festival. None of these considerations, however, makes the term consonant with the meaning of fiesta to the people of Tzintzuntzan. Robert Smith (1975) argues convincingly for anthropologists to readopt the traditional term festival, which is what he uses to describe a 7

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

Peruvian fiesta. Indeed, in the sense that nineteenth-century anthropologists like Edward B. Tylor and James Frazer used the term festival, and the way that contemporary folklorists have employed it, festival is probably closer in meaning to fiesta than is ritual. What festival and fiesta have in common is what Smith (1975: 4) correctly identifies as the emphasis on occasion: "Occasion is primary. And whereas Ritual is defined as a kind of action, Festival is a kind of occasion. It is a well-bounded period of time, a period of special significance to the community." The definition of festival that Smith arrives at is very close to what Spanishspeakers1 mean by the word fiesta: "Festivals are occasions of special significance to a nation, community, or small group. One has a right to take part simply by virtue of his being a member; indeed, it is often a man's participation which confirms him as a member. The celebration is generally (though not always) institutionally sanctioned, and celebrated annually on a more-or-less fixed date" (ibid.: 5). On various grounds, however, the term festival is not ideal for my purposes either. The term has long disappeared in anthropological discourse. Unfortunately, the word festival has become associated with particular schools of thought and academic traditions from which contemporary anthropological analyses diverge. Despite some fine contemporary studies of festivals, of which Robert Smith's is one, the rubric inevitably evokes images of antiquated cultural evolutionary schemes in which community celebrations were counted among the many supposed "survivals" of past stages of civilization; of diffusionist studies, in which ritual activities were seen as radiating from some innovative cultural core; or of the multitudinous nonanalytical descriptions of ceremonial exotica, often designed to satisfy prurient curiosities and presented, as if in a vacuum, without consideration of any wider body of research. All these associations with the word festival, and more, render it dated, if not obsolete. Despite the close correspondence between the words fiesta and festival, the Spanish term is preferable. William Mangin (1954: 1-1), writing of a particular Peruvian fiesta, has come closest to defining the phenomenon in an economical way. [A fiesta is] any event marking the ritual observance of particular occasions which has as its feature an organized personnel, a systematic and traditional structure and content, and a complex of ritual obligations. Eating and the drinking of alcoholic beverages are always a part of a fiesta, while music and dancing are often included. . . . It is not restricted to a single kind of event; but at the same time, it does not take place on any occasion; those events which are marked by a fiesta can be clearly enumerated. Further, 8

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

any fiesta has a ritual character, in the sense that the fiesta and the event it marks are clearly, systematically, and inseparably associated, and that supernatural aid is expected as a result of the performance of prescribed behavior patterns. Fiestas, in other words, are literally feasts, shared events that people plan for and participate in jointly. They usually assume a traditional form— or at least are perceived by the participants to do so—and they generally are invested with sacred significance. The generic word fiesta, as used throughout central Mexico, typically refers to two kinds of events: life-cycle markers, or what Van Gennep (1960) called rites de passage, and cyclical celebrations. I am concentrating specifically on cyclical celebrations, the annual cycle of predictable breaks from ordinary daily routine. Because I am interested in explicating power relations within the community, and between the community and the outside world, this domain is the most suitable. The controls imposed by the community on the individual, both formally and informally, provide the focus of this study. The annual fiesta cycle, because of its territorial basis of organization, provides just the right kind of lens through which to observe these kinds of controlling processes. Indeed, it is largely the repetitious, cyclical nature of these events, together with their sacred meaning, that imbues them with an almost judicial authority. Although life-cycle celebrations have much in common with community fiestas, they are ego centered and family based. As such, they may be taken to constitute a separate, if related, data base and to address somewhat different problems from the ones that confront us here. Hence, I cite rites of passage only to the extent that they bear on the main topic.

The Research Site Anthropologists who have studied Roman Catholic communities in Ireland, southern Europe, Latin America, and other parts of the world discover prominent local and regional variations that can only be explained according to the immediate social and economic conditions in which they flourish. Contrary to the stereotype that reigns throughout much of the non-Catholic world, Catholic beliefs and practices are far from homogeneous. Nor do Catholics automatically and universally obey papal doctrines. The religious life of small communities is naturally affected by decisions from Rome, but these communities also draw on a rich sacred tradition, both Catholic and non-Catholic, to express what is unique about their own world. 9

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

Religious beliefs and practices everywhere always touch on problems of order and control. To explore in depth the connection between these domains, it is necessary to discover the precise content of those beliefs and practices and their meaning to the people themselves. We are equally obligated to discover the basic contours of the society and economy of the community under investigation and to learn about its recent and distant past. All of these conditions can be met only through intense fieldwork among people with whom the anthropologist has established long-term, intimate contact. Throughout the past half century of anthropological research in Mexico, rural communities and even small regions have become particularly well known. Tepoztlan, Chan Kom, highland Chiapas, and a handful of other places have generated an unusually large quantity of high-quality data and, more importantly, have contributed to theoretical debates that transcend the particular cultural settings of which they are a part. Tzintzuntzan is one such place. Thanks to the ongoing research of George M. Foster, Mary LeCron Foster, and Robert Van Kemper, the name of this community and some of its most basic characteristics are already familiar to anthropologists working in Latin America and throughout the world. Tzintzuntzan is situated about 230 miles due west of Mexico City, about 10 miles north of the colonial town of Patzcuaro, and along the shores of Lake Patzcuaro, one of Mexico's largest and most beautiful inland bodies of water. Tzintzuntzan is located approximately midway between Mexico City and the country's Pacific coast. The following description of Tzintzuntzan and the surrounding area is provided so that the setting can be visualized by readers unfamiliar with this and other similar central Mexican towns. For travelers going to Tzintzuntzan by way of Guadalajara, scores of buses depart daily from Guadalajara's Central Bus Station and travel southeast to the country's capital. Although Guadalajara is situated beyond the immense North Mexican desert, its surroundings are noticeably dry and barren of trees. This area constituted the approximate northernmost outreaches of high civilization at the time of the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest. Traveling southeast, first skirting Lake Chapala, the landscape becomes increasingly green, the cultivation more intensive, and the hills and volcanic cones steeper and more numerous. This ecological sequence marks the transition from Guadalajara's state of Jalisco to the state of Michoacan, in which Tzintzuntzan is located. After about six hours by bus, the traveler reaches Lake Patzcuaro and the market town of Quiroga (Brand 1951). The journey has led to an 10

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

Guadalajara

GULF OF MEXICO

Area enlarged

Mexico City MICHOACAN PACIFIC OCEAN QUIROGA

Janitzio r

Jaracuaro

El Ojo de Agua TZINTZUNTZAN Ichupio i Tarerio Lake Ucasanastacua ~-^i Pdtzcuaro Region

PATZCUARO^

12345 Km

Map 1. Lake Patzcuaro region

area that is dramatically different from Guadalajara. The bus has climbed from a temperate zone to the so-called tierra fria, or cold country. Lake Patzcuaro sits at 7000 feet above sea level. Even when daytime temperatures reach 80°F, which occurs only during the hottest season in May and June, the nights are cool enough to require blankets. The surrounding hills have been denuded of vegetation over the past several decades; however, they still display a verdant hue, the effects of the fortyinch annual rainfall, concentrated in the summer months, that this region predictably enjoys. A traveler, too, would undoubtedly be struck by two cultural phenomena: first, the plethora of regional crafts made of wood, straw, and clay that are displayed in the many stores along the Quiroga highway; and second, the presence of Tarascan Indians (known in their own language as the Purepecha), whose women dress in distinctively embroidered blouses and long, multipleated, black wool skirts. From Quiroga, a local bus or taxi reaches the town of Tzintzuntzan within fifteen minutes. Physically, Tzintzuntzan still displays evidence of its ancient and colonial heritages. During the pre-Conquest era, the town was capital of the Tarascan Empire, the only major high civilization in Mesoamerica to

II

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

resist domination by the Aztecs successfully. The Tarascans controlled a wide territory, virtually coterminous with the contemporary state of Michoacan and reaching north and west into adjacent states as well. Tzintzuntzan, which chroniclers at the time of the Conquest estimated to have a population of approximately 40,000,2 was by far the first-ranking Tarascan settlement. Archaeologists Gorenstein and Pollard (1983: 119) describe it as a "primate center, demographically, and . . . in [its] economic and administrative networks." In fact, the contemporary city of Patzcuaro was no more than a hamlet of a dozen or so houses at the time of the Conquest, and was counted as a dependency of Tzintzuntzan. The ceremonial and political center of the Empire was situated in Tzintzuntzan, and the major rituals on which the well-being of the subjects depended were carried out in temples situated atop broad, circular, truncated pyramids, called ydcatas. Today, five contiguous yacatas dominate one of the hills to the east of Tzintzuntzan. A small museum displaying archaeological artifacts (of which numerous specimens are inadvertently uncovered by Tzintzuntzan farmers as they plow their fields) occupies the same site. During the colonial era, under Spanish domination, Tzintzuntzan acquired the overall physical design that it still retains. Like other towns extending all the way from California to South America (G. Foster 1960: 34-49), it was laid out in a grid plan, a checkerboard pattern, with a rectangular plaza and long streets running parallel and perpendicular to one another. Although there is more daily activity in Tzintzuntzan's plaza than anywhere else in town, the main locus of religious and communal life lies elsewhere. This function is performed by the enormous atrium, or churchyard. The atrium is lined with numbers of thick-trunked, gnarled olive trees, locally reputed to be the first of this species brought to the New World. Here, also, are situated two large churches: the parish church of San Francisco, known in Tzintzuntzan simply as La Parroquia, or El Templo; and La Capilla de la Soledad, popularly referred to as La Soledad. La Parroquia dates from the sixteenth century. The original structure was destroyed by fire in 1944, after which it was rebuilt; the ornate colonial facade, however, remains intact. La Soledad, constructed in the seventeenth century, might be considered of secondary ritual importance, because most Masses are celebrated in La Parroquia. Nonetheless, during Holy Week, La Soledad assumes major significance. On this occasion, it becomes the site for elaborate ritual celebrations surrounding El Santo Entierro (The Sacred Sepulcher), an image of Jesus Christ reclining in a glass-sided coffin. At this time of year, too, La Soledad's matracas 12

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

Plaza

to Quiroga

Yacatas Presidencia Atrium

" Cemetery 25

50 75 100 Meters

to Pdtzcuaro TZINTZUNTZAN: PRINCIPAL PUBLIC PLACES

Map 2. Tzintzuntzan: principal public places

(wooden clapboard ringers) substitute for the normal Parroquia belltolling. During the rest of the year, Mass is held here at least once a month, paid for by the Cargueros de la Soledad, a brotherhood of twelve religious officers (see Chapter Three) whose obligation it is to care for the chapel and its religious images. Other buildings constructed during the first two centuries after the arrival of the Spaniards are situated around the atrium. These include a two-story convent and attached cloister, which now house the priest's living quarters, his sacristy, and a small, rustic ethnographic museum; an imposing seventeenth-century open-air chapel of a type peculiar to Mexico (McAndrew 1965), and adorned with stone carvings of shells, representing Santiago or Saint James, the patron saint of Spain; and yet another, smaller, open-air chapel, the Chapel of San Francisco, which is similarly decorated with shells and built into the facade between La Parroquia and the convent. Across the highway from the atrium is an extra-wide, short street located at the south end of town. Despite its unimposing appearance, this street is where the Presidencia, the building that houses the town govern13

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

ment, is located. During several of the most prominent fiestas, the street is converted into a temporary marketplace, where numerous wooden tables and foodstands are erected. Further south, across the highway to Patzcuaro, is Tzintzuntzan's cemetery. In 1967, when I first carried out fieldwork, only simple wooden and iron crosses marked the graves. Because of the town's increasing prosperity, prominent tombstones are now abundant. The cemetery, generally called El Panteon in Tzintzuntzan, gains significance during the Night of the Dead in November (see Chapter Five), when it becomes ornately decorated and is transformed into the scene of a picturesque, nighttime vigil. Throughout most of the colonial era, Tzintzuntzan was divided into named barrios, each with discrete borders and a patron saint. The identity of these barrios is today completely forgotten. Instead there exist named districts with somewhat ambiguous boundaries: El Centro (The Center), the general area around the main plaza; El Rincon (The Corner), a sparsely settled district bordering on Lake Patzcuaro at the westernmost edge of town; Yahuaro, the only place in Tzintzuntzan that retains its pre-Conquest name; Pueblo Nuevo (New Town), a small district located behind La Parroquia and convent; La Carretera (The Highway), designating those houses situated on the main Patzcuaro-Quiroga highway that bisects Tzintzuntzan. None of these territories is imbued with any overt religious or political significance, although they all bear reputations as relatively desirable or undesirable places to live. During an ordinary day, with the possible exception of Sunday, the casual visitor would be struck by the emptiness of most Tzintzuntzan streets. True, the highway edge of the plaza forms somewhat of a gathering point as villagers wait for buses, trucks, and vans to transport them to Patzcuaro, Quiroga, or Morelia, the state capital. Along the highway and around the plaza, too, one might observe village women shopping and small groups of tourists who have stopped to make purchases at handicrafts stands. Often there are people gathered around the health center, a small infirmary located on the plaza. But, as for the rest of town, there is just the occasional villager going about the daily round: a woman returning from the nixtamal mill, a pail of freshly ground, lime-treated corn resting on her shoulder; a man riding on horseback to one of the minus, or mines, on the edge of town from which he extracts clay for his pottery; a truckdriver delivering produce or bottled drinks to one of the numerous small stores; a child trotting off to school; a Tarascan couple walking home to one of the nearby Indian settlements. Most streets in Tzintzuntzan are cobbled. A few remain unpaved. During the rainy season, which lasts from June to October, the streets turn 14

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

muddy with the predictable late afternoon downpours. At the end of the dry season, in April and May, they can become thick with dust. For the most part, the houses are single-story adobe structures with gabled red tile roofs. Although most houses now have windows that face out to the street—a byproduct of changes in the townspeople's world view and economic situation that have occurred over the past two decades (G. Foster 1979c: 369-387)—the homes remain effectively blockaded against the curiosity of possible onlookers. Curtains are drawn, doors are closed. Adjacent yards, which in many cases border right on the street, are partitioned by high, thick mudbrick walls. The effect, for the most part, is of impenetrable buildings stretching down each side of the street. Only the storefronts provide welcome relief from this pattern. Not surprisingly, anthropologists who work in rural Mexico often rely on tienditas like these to establish their initial social contacts. One reason why fiestas are such prominent, effective mechanisms of social control is that they bring people out to the streets, plazas, and other public places, where they can observe one another. On these occasions behavior becomes a matter of public record, and ceremonial performances are transformed into official statements of right and wrong ways to behave. During fiestas the whole physical aspect of the village changes, but, as we shall see, it changes in such a way as to reinforce daily routine.

Research in Tzintzuntzan As Gerald Berreman (1972: vii) long ago pointed out, no ethnographic study can be understood independently of the experience that produces it. Although it is inappropriate here to give a full account of my fieldwork, it would seem desirable to provide basic information about how and when I collected my data and arrived at some of my interpretations. Anthropologists pride themselves on maintaining a holistic point of view, that is, on seeking interrelationships among diverse aspects of culture, without prejudging which aspects might yield the most insight into belief and behavior. Two types of interrelationships have been primary foci of stucy: first, cause and effect in which particular determinants are shown to produce certain results; and second, metaphor or analogy, in which the structure or content in one domain (for example, folktales) is shown to be reproduced in others (eating or architecture). Both types of interrelationship play an important role in the analysis of Tzintzuntzan fiestas. Both, too, require not only a holistic perspective but also holistic 15

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

knowledge. No matter what research questions are posed, no matter which domains are singled out for special investigation, a thorough grounding in the basic ethnography of a people is always desirable. The study of how Tzintzuntzan fiestas promote social control is no exception. My overall ethnographic knowledge of Tzintzuntzan derives from two sources. First, I have had complete access to the massive ethnographic corpus collected by George and Mary LeCron Foster since 1945, when they first began research (initially with the assistance of the Colombian anthropologist Gabriel Ospina) in that community. George Foster himself (1979c) has described the pace and character of his research career in Tzintzuntzan. Especially significant is his belief that studying the same people over a period of decades can yield theoretical insights and finegrained ethnographic data that might otherwise never be obtained. As a consequence of this principle of investigation, the Fosters have maintained close contact with Tzintzuntzan for more than forty years, keeping systematic ethnographic records. This experience is probably unique in anthropological research. It provides the kind of time depth that few ethnological researchers can replicate. Second, and most importantly, I base my information and analyses on my own fieldwork. Since 1967 I have been visiting Tzintzuntzan for periods varying between three months and a few days at a time. In total, I have spent more than a year in the village. Given that my relationships to friends and informants extend back nearly two decades—and that some people who are now parents were themselves toddlers when I first knew them—I often feel that I have more intimate ties to Tzintzuntzan than one could acquire in the space of a single uninterrupted year. During my visits to the village I have always boarded in the home of a family located in the district of Yahuaro. My initial field projects, carried out while I was still a graduate student, specifically focused on Yahuaro, whose inhabitants I came to know well. Gradually, I extended my contacts throughout town. By the time I began seriously investigating the fiesta cycle, in February 1977,1 could rely on people representing diverse occupations, neighborhoods, and ethnic groups. Although I have naturally acquired a coterie of close friends and key informants, I have tried to establish at least one or two new contacts with every field trip, however brief. Other "contacts" in Tzintzuntzan have included fellow anthropologists: George Foster, Mary LeCron Foster, Robert Van Kemper, Steve and Melissa Kassovic, Beate Englebrecht from Switzerland, and, in earlier years, John Durston. Although I have never formally collaborated with any of these people, we have always exchanged information freely and 16

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

have relied on one another's networks, especially as a way of being introduced to informants with specialized knowledge about topics we happen to be investigating at the time. In our daily rounds we occasionally bump into one another—at Mass, at a baptismal brunch, at a fiesta fireworks display, occasionally at an informant's home. We also meet from time to time to socialize, or to travel to Patzcuaro, Quiroga, or Morelia. For the most part, however, we go our separate ways. Does the presence of so many outsiders influence the data? Have not the people of Tzintzuntzan changed as a result? In certain ways the people undoubtedly have changed; for example, they understood the role of researcher to a degree that only a miniscule percentage of the world's population does. On the whole, however, we anthropologists are an ephemeral group, and one that feels obligated to adapt to the people's way of life.3 Both of these dimensions of our field experiences have assured that our collective presence would certainly have no major impact, whether in social, structural or cultural terms. In minor fashion, however, we are sure to have unwittingly introduced new ideas into the village (see, for example, Brandes 1974b); and, of course, we each have close friendships with individuals within the community. I have no doubt that folklorists could collect endless stories about us—stories of which we are unaware—just as the people of other intensively studied groups (Murphy 1985) have been shown to tell tales about the anthropologists in their lives. As for influencing the quality of the data or the objectivity of the research results, the presence of multiple anthropologists is considerably more of an advantage than not. In observing fiestas or other complex events, it is difficult for a single anthropologist to absorb and understand everything, much less to record it. I learned that lesson during my first field trip to Tzintzuntzan in 1967. The Fosters, my wife, and I all attended an elaborate wedding. Although all four of us were present, we each had a slightly different recollection of what transpired—and these were disagreements over basic fact, not interpretation. With several trained observers on the scene the accuracy of information is more refined, and inevitably better, than if only one person is present. Of course, even a single observer influences the data to some extent. This proposition is especially true with regard to interviews, where, in Berreman's terms (1962), impression management inevitably occurs. Informants strive to convey a certain image of themselves, just as we anthropologists, too, present any one of several selves in accordance with the specific social situation we happen to be in at the time. The information we retrieve is no less accurate for all this roleplaying. We must 17

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

simply take account of the social context in which we collect data and modulate our understanding of the data with respect to the circumstances under which they were gathered. One reason that the fiesta cycle has attracted me as a subject of study is that during these occasions, more than at any other time in Tzintzuntzan, I feel myself recede into the background. These events are so large and complex, they involve such an elaborate organization of personnel and such a tremendous expense and degree of preparation, that my influence over the proceedings is virtually nil. Even after many field trips to Tzintzuntzan, I still become an important focus of attention when I pay a family visit. The same occurs during life-cycle rituals, when seated at a banquet table. But during annual community-wide fiestas, the situation is radically different. The village population swells, sometimes by a factor of four. I can become virtually anonymous. Fiestas, although large and difficult to assimilate in their entirety, provide me freedom to move about from one center of activity to another, prying here and questioning there, without feeling unduly inquisitive. To be sure, my understanding of events still needs to be informed by the principles of impression management, especially when I gather interview information. For the most part, however, fiestas instruct anthropologists in the same way they do the natives themselves: through performance and demonstration. After all, these are public occasions par excellence, not merely open to scrutiny by everyone present, but actually beckoning—even commanding—scrutiny. In this quality lies the fiestas' sanctioning power.

NOTES 1. For example, compare Octavio Paz's characterization of fiestas (1961: 52) as events in which the "bounds between audience and actors, officials and servants, are erased. Everybody takes part in the fiesta, everybody is caught in its whirlwind. Whatever its mood, its character, its meaning, the fiesta is participation, and this trait distinguishes it from all other ceremonies and social phenomena. Lay or religious, orgy or saturnalia, the fiesta is a social act based on the full participation of all its celebrants." 2. This figure was no doubt a rough estimate, based on the widespread Mediterranean symbolism of the number forty as equivalent to "many, a lot" (Brandes 1985: 54—60). In Renaissance Spain, to say that a town's population was 40,000 was probably to indicate that it was very large. 3. The obvious exception to this general rule is the case of applied anthropologists, who seek to induce change. Tzintzuntzan has had experience with applied 18

Studying Fiestas and Social Control

anthropology. During the 1960s, CREFAL (Centro Regional de Educacion Fundamental para la America Latina), a United Nations agency based in Patzcuaro that employed anthropologists, tried to institute development projects in Tzintzuntzan but met mostly with failure. George Foster (1979a: 327-347) has analyzed this episode in detail.

19

TWO

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

Political—Religious Structure Any consideration of power on the local level should begin by outlining the formal administrative bodies that wield control, as well as the territories that they govern. In Tzintzuntzan, as throughout rural Mexico, formal power is in the hands of church and civil authorities. There exists no single centralized administration. Rather, the situation is similar to that which Clifford Geertz (1967:267) described for Bali, where "A village is ... a concrete example of the intersection of the various planes of social organization in a given, only broadly delimited locality." Like other rural Mexicans, the people of Tzintzuntzan are affiliated with a number of formal political and religious entities, whose respective jurisdictions coincide but do not precisely overlap. Formal lines of authority are therefore diffuse, a circumstance reflected in fiesta organization. The people of Tzintzuntzan are affected by three intersecting administrative—territorial entities: the Comunidad Indigena (literally, Indigenous Community), coterminous with the village of Tzintzuntzan itself, as introduced in Chapter One; the municipio (municipality) of Tzintzuntzan, which is made up of various towns and villages and is approximately equivalent to a county in the United States; and the parroquia (parish) of Tzintzuntzan, an ecclesiastical entity that, like the municipio, contains multiple communities. In Tzintzuntzan, parish boundaries and municipio boundaries overlap but do not coincide. Tzintzuntzan villagers are affiliated with all three entities, the secular Comunidad Indigena and municipio as well as the religious parish. The Comunidad Indigena. The village of Tzintzuntzan is represented administratively by the Comunidad Indigena, which is the only official governmental body restricted to Tzintzuntzan, the nucleated settlement in which virtually everybody knows one another. In fact, the Comunidad

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

Indigena is coterminous with the village of Tzintzuntzan itself, and all community residents automatically belong to it. Tzintzuntzerios perceive the Comunidad Indigena as being theirs and theirs alone. They think of it as the organizational manifestation of the popular will. The Comunidad Indigena is an ancient body, dating from Conquest times, hence antecedent to Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, and the formation of the country's present administrative—political hierarchy. It wields relatively little power on a daily basis and has minimal structural organization. At its head is an elected officer known as El Presidente, a title that often has to be specified El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, in contradistinction to the other Presidente, that of the municipio. El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena holds his post for as long as he wishes; therefore, elections to this office are usually convened after long intervals. Occasionally, the Comunidad Indigena sets up committees, both formal and informal, to plead the townspeople's case in the state capital of Morelia, and has even gone to Mexico City for this purpose. The body's most essential function is to regulate the use and distribution of communal landholdings and other resources, such as the clay quaries from which villagers get the raw material for their pottery. In the community of Tzintzuntzan there are few communal resources, and their regulation seems to require little intervention on the part of El Presidente. However, the Comunidad Indigena does argue Tzintzuntzan's part in land disputes with neighboring communities, particularly Ihuatzio, with which Tzintzuntzan has maintained extremely hostile relations since Independence. Van Zantwijk (1967), who authored a community study of Ihuatzio, documents the bitter feelings between the two towns. The most prominent function of the Comunidad Indigena is to help organize and finance community fiestas. El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena is, as discussed in Chapter Three, one of the chief officers responsible for selecting the organizing committees that mobilize fiesta proceedings. As a formal governmental agency, the Comunidad Indigena itself plays an important role in community celebrations by hiring musical bands, offering ceremonial meals, participating in sacred processions, and otherwise acting as a secular representative of the community in sacred fiesta activities. Significantly, the Comunidad Indigena is colloquially called El Pueblo. The term pueblo means both place and people, an equivalence that implies a conceptual link between a locale and its inhabitants. For the Comunidad Indigena to be referred to as El Pueblo indicates the special sentiments associated with that administrative body. It symbolizes both 21

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

the village as a territorial entity and the villagers themselves. Of all the formal administrative units to which the villagers are allied, the Comunidad Indigena is the only one with which most community members identify fully and unambivalently. In the eyes of most Tzintzuntzerios, the Comunidad Indigena, or Pueblo, is an extension of themselves, eternal in duration and a logical outgrowth of nucleated community residence. The Comunidad Indigena is not perceived as exerting power over the people; rather, it functions on their behalf. The municipio of Tzintzuntzan. The municipio of Tzintzuntzan is a legally defined political unit, of which the head or cabecera, as it is known officially, is the village of Tzintzuntzan proper. Municipios are administrative units that exist throughout the Mexican Republic. Because they are roughly equivalent to counties in the United States, the Mexican cabecera might be thought of as a county seat, with law court, tax office, civil registries, and other state and national representations. The municipio is an intrinsic part of the Mexican administrativepolitical hierarchy. Its chief officer is El Presidente Municipal, or municipal mayor, who, like other municipal officers, is elected for a three-year term, with immediate reelection prohibited. Unlike El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, El Presidente Municipal is often not perceived as necessarily holding the interests of the village as first priority. In fact, despite his selection through electoral procedures, he is often viewed as a political appointee of the state governor, and therefore partial to the interests of that chief executive. Because El Presidente Municipal manages state and national financial contributions to the village, he is sometimes suspected of embezzlement or, at the very least, favoritism in the allocation of privileges and resources. El Presidente Municipal presides over the entire municipio, which is composed of multiple communities. In the case of the municipio of Tzintzuntzan, there are, in addition to the community of Tzintzuntzan proper, some twenty scattered ranchos and tenencias (ranches being less populous than tenencias). Before 1930, and from the time of Mexican Independence, the community of Tzintzuntzan was itself a tenencia of Quiroga. In 1930, largely for sentimental and symbolic reasons, General Lazaro Cardenas, then governor of the state of Michoacan, and later president of Mexico, declared Tzintzuntzan to be the cabecera of the municipio over which it still holds jurisdiction. With this action, the community of Tzintzuntzan had at last recaptured its ancient role as political—administrative center, albeit on a much smaller scale than in preConquest times. As occupants of the most prosperous and politically powerful com22

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

munity in the municipio, the people of Tzintzuntzan remain rather oblivious of the majority of the ranches and tenencias with which they are affiliated. Although townspeople maintain a vague air of superiority when the ranches are mentioned, their daily life is for the most part unaffected by rancho inhabitants, and the world of the ranchos—some of them located as far as ten kilometers away—impinges indirectly, if at all, on that of the town. One major exception is the tenencia of Ihuatzio, which, as we have seen, is Tzintzuntzan's bitter enemy. This situation is no doubt aggravated by the fact that Ihuatzio, despite its dependent political status, actually has a larger population than Tzintzuntzan proper, the municipio head. In addition to Ihuatzio, there are four small ranchos that are quasi-suburbs of Tzintzuntzan and maintain intimate ties to that community. The parroquia of Tzintzuntzan. In Tzintzuntzan, as throughout Mexico, the parroquia is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the municipio. Like the municipio, the parish seat is located in the community of Tzintzuntzan, with satellite communities extending even as far away as the territory east of Quiroga (see Map 1, Chapter One). In any parroquia, the head priest is officially called El Pdrroco, although the people simply refer to him and address him as padre. El Parroco of Tzintzuntzan resides in the colonial monastery located in the church atrium. He celebrates Mass daily in La Parroquia, and additionally travels to say periodic (though not daily) Masses in churches scattered around the parish, all of which are technically known as capillas (chapels). Conceptually, El Parroco of Tzintzuntzan is to the parish, as El Presidente Municipal is to the municipio, and El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena is to the village itself. These three administrative heads hold jurisdiction over territories that overlap but do not precisely coincide. It is above all the communities that comprise Tzintzuntzan's parish that participate in the village's fiesta cycle. Especially during the fiesta in honor of the Serior del Rescate (see Chapters Six and Seven), usually called the February Fiesta for the month in which it takes place, all the communities in the parroquia take active part. There are other fiestas, however, like Corpus Christi (Chapter Four) and the Night of the Dead (Chapter Five), in which only some of the parish communities participate. Specifically, four ranchos that are situated close to the community of Tzintzuntzan (see Map 1, Chapter One) belong to both the municipio and the parroquia of Tzintzuntzan, and are intimately involved in the village's fiesta cycle. Contiguous to the east of the village, on the highway 23

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

leading to Quiroga, is El Ojo de Agua. To the west, in a five-kilometer stretch of land along the shores of Lake Patzcuaro, are Ichupio, Tarerio, and Ucasanastacua (the latter otherwise known as Espiritu); the three are collectively called La Vuelta. These four communities are very much involved in the life and thoughts of Tzintzuntzan villagers. More than physical proximity is involved. In addition to the civil and ecclesiastical ties that these settlements have with the village, they form a close-knit ecological unit. Because they are all located along the lakeshore, there has been constant intercommunication among them by water, as well as by land, for as long as anyone can remember. Hence they have always been economically interdependent. The people of La Vuelta and El Ojo de Agua, unlike those from other parish settlements, attend Mass regularly in Tzintzuntzan. They are also the only communities, other than Tzintzuntzan proper, with financial and organizational responsibilities to the village's fiesta cycle. Although the ranches of La Vuelta and El Ojo de Agua all enjoy distinctive identities, they are administratively, politically, commercially, and religiously dependent upon Tzintzuntzan. Inhabited mainly by Tarascan Indians, they are also perceived by the people of Tzintzuntzan, who are ninety percent mestizo, as ethnically inferior. The generally rustic appearance of these communities and their small size (about 250 inhabitants apiece) do nothing to counteract this overall image. The relationship between them and Tzintzuntzan therefore is understandably ambivalent, with the rancho inhabitants at once reliant on the good will of the people of Tzintzuntzan, yet at the same time resentful of their dependency on them. The Tzintzuntzan priest—himself a Tarascan, born and brought up in a nearby lake town—summed up the situation when he stated that the people of La Vuelta feel "una especie de tirania de Tzintzuntzan sobre ellos" ("a kind of tyranny of Tzintzuntzan over them"). In daily interactions, the people of Tzintzuntzan and those of the ranches delicately manage their relationship through distancemaintaining devices like the use of the titles Don and Dona, and of the formal (usted] mode of address. Speech is just one of the numerous symbolic mechanisms through which power relations are expressed. The power of Tzintzuntzan over El Ojo de Agua and La Vuelta is played out dramatically in the fiesta cycle; so, too, is the power that the state and nation exert over Tzintzuntzan itself. To expand our understanding of hierarchies of power and prestige, and their implications for the analysis of Tzintzuntzan fiestas, we turn now to Tzintzuntzan economy and society.

24

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

Village Economy Tzintzuntzan in 1980 had a population of approximately 2600 inhabitants, slightly more than double the figure of 1945, when George Foster and Gabriel Ospina took a village census. As Foster points out (1979a: 371), mortality rates have been steadily dropping, owing to the adoption of modern medical practices, while fertility rates remain high. Given these conditions, the population of Tzintzuntzan would have been even greater if not for massive emigration, especially to Mexico City and Tijuana, but also to Guadalajara, Morelia, and the United States (Kemper 1977). The consequence of this village exodus is an extensive network of social bonds among Tzintzuntzenos and their relatives elsewhere, who return periodically to their birthplace for business and pleasure. Some migrants are merchants, and purchase goods from Tzintzuntzan artisans for sale in markets as far away as Mexico City and the United States. Most people who return, however, come to visit with their families and enjoy a vacation. Naturally, during fiestas, the village swells with these outsiders (Figure 1). Since 1967, the occupational profile of the village has been steadily evolving. As I first knew them, villagers lived almost entirely from pottery production and agriculture, with some fishing and small-scale commercial enterprise as well. Moreover, no matter how they made a living, people seemed to have control over most aspects of the production process. Potters would fetch their own firewood and clay; fashion, fire, and decorate their ware; and personally carry the products of their labor to markets, whether close by or distant, for sale. Farmers would cultivate their plots, retain what they wanted for home consumption, and sell the rest in nearby market towns. In those days there was constant traffic between Tzintzuntzan and Patzcuaro, as villagers went both to sell their goods and to purchase a host of necessary items, from medication to shoes, then unavailable in town. During the past two decades there has been increasing occupational diversification and specialization. For one thing, potters, who used to manufacture a variety of decorative or utilitarian items, now make one type or the other. Increasingly, instead of going through the entire production cycle themselves, they buy clay and firewood (often sawmill slash) from primary collectors of these raw materials; or they produce undecorated pots for their more artistically inclined fellow villagers to paint and burnish. Although some people still market their own pottery themselves, this function is increasingly carried out by commercial middlemen—villagers with trucks and stores and business contacts to the outside. Tzintzuntzan, in addition to its many tienditas, now has 25

Figure 1. Fiesta commerce in the atrium. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

several larger stores with a reliable stock of varied packaged fresh foods, and prices competitive with those in Patzcuaro and Morelia. Consequently, people no longer have to make frequent marketing trips to the city. In addition to merchants, who constitute the most visible new occupational group, Tzintzuntzan now contains thirty or more school teachers, who work either in the village itself or commute daily to nearby communities in the lake region. One feature of the economy that has remained constant over the years, and that curiously coexists with specialization, is a kind of occupational fluidity. New stores will open one year and close the next. Families will invest in pigs when the market seems favorable and instantaneously abandon the enterprise when conditions change. Among the people of Tzintzuntzan there appears to exist a hypersensitivity to economic opportunities, and many people piece together a good living by taking advantage of what the immediate market situation has to offer. By way of example I can cite the case of a middle-aged unmarried woman who lives with her parents. To support herself, she has gradually learned a series of new skills over the years, all of which now contribute to her income. She gives catechism lessons to small children; administers injections by doctor's prescription; knits sweaters and other garments on a knitting machine; runs a tiny variety store; and sells cosmetics. She is now taking a computer course in Morelia and, although computers seem irrelevant to Tzintzuntzan life, this woman has no doubt that eventually the skill will serve her well. Since 1945, when Tzintzuntzan was first subjected to systematic ethnographic study, there has always existed a noticeable differentiation in living standards. In that year, Foster and Ospina (1948: 34—41) classified village houses according to the presence or absence of electricity, water tap, beds, and privies and discovered a considerable range of differences. Not surprisingly, these differences correlated, first, with literacy and, second, with property-ownership. No doubt, there was income variation from household to household at that time, too (although then, as now, accurate statistics on this matter are difficult to collect). For this reason, we cannot automatically attribute the differences in house type to economic variation. Household conveniences were, in Foster and Ospina's estimation, financially accessible to many more villagers than actually took advantage of them. Nevertheless, in 1945 people owned different amounts, earned different amounts, and enjoyed different standards of living. Despite this differentiation, villagers in that period and well into the 1970s maintained the view that their community was basically egalitarian. In 1967 I was struck by the repeated insistence of informants that 27

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

"aqui somos todos iguales" ("here we are all equal"). Even though this statement was not meant to be taken literally, that is, as an assertion of absolute economic equality, it was clearly more true then than now. George Foster's retrospective assessment of the matter (1979a: 23) is worth quoting. In one sense there have always been class differences. No one has really believed that "Here we are all equal," anymore than the American really believes that "We are all middle class." But these traditional differences were hard to spot. . . . [Feelings] of social superiority held by some people seem not to have determined great differences in most overt behavior, nor were dividing lines in any way sharp. Children from one group married spouses from the other without unusual parental opposition, and courteous and friendly behavior was manifest across these vague, scarcely defined boundaries. The bottom one-fourth [in living standards] was well camouflaged by the strictures on everyone against ostentatious display, so the fiction of equality was not hard to maintain. Moreover, the village did not possess the means to make possible frequent and important changes in relative economic position. As a result of these factors—objective limitations on economic change plus marked sanctions against the demonstration of economic differences—the people of Tzintzuntzan thought of themselves as equal. In the household where I reside, people used to contrast circumstances in Tzintzuntzan to those prevalent in nearby, larger Quiroga; there occupational differentiation and commercial development have made differences in living standards evident for as long as anyone can remember. In the Tzintzuntzan of the 1980s, class differences in the Marxist sense are still muted if present at all. Despite more day laborers than there were a generation ago, there are no well-defined groups of villagers who control the means of production and systems of distribution. Nor are there some who are beholden for a living to those better off. On the other hand, circumstances have changed to the point where the statement "here we are all equal" has been rendered absurd. Even as a fictitious denial of actual differences, the formula does not ring true and, for this reason, it is no longer heard. In the 1980s, most villagers strive to live at the highest possible level. Two-story houses are becoming increasingly evident, as are modern amenities such as refrigerators, gas stoves, hot running water, flush toilets, and television sets. The distinction between the haves and the have-nots is unmistakable. Equally evident are the variations in living 28

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

standards between people with trucks and flourishing stores—those, in other words, who live from commerce—and the majority of villagers who are still primary producers of pottery and agricultural products. Tzintzuntzan is now a town with incipient class differences, in which more than tangible goods differ from household to household. Lifestyles are being transformed by these material changes; with them, in time, will no doubt emerge marked variations in world view. There are many reasons for these developments, but they can ultimately be traced to changes within the Mexican economy as a whole. Village men who worked as braceros (temporary farm laborers) during the 1950s and 1960s could invest their earnings in trucks, stores, and education for their children, thereby converting their temporary financial advantage into something more permanently beneficial for themselves and their families. Just about the time that bracero program ended in 1964, the Mexican economy began to expand, allowing enterprising villagers to move into new jobs, situate themselves in urban centers, and take advantage of educational opportunities (including a vast expansion in the number of scholarships) that would have been inconceivable in previous epochs. Migrant remittances, together with widening pottery markets, have also operated to the villagers' advantage. But, as with all such cases of economic growth, not everybody has benefited equally. Unequal access to new opportunities, together with differences in personal initiative, have produced socioeconomic differentiation in Tzintzuntzan where very little existed before. These economic changes have had serious ramifications for the fiesta system in Tzintzuntzan. In former times, when villagers tried to suppress whatever material differences existed, community-wide fiestas were financed primarily by a system of individual sponsorship, known in the anthropological literature as the cargo or mayordomia system (the latter term deriving from the fact that a fiesta's principal sponsor is frequently known as the mayordomo). With the emergence of new economic opportunities, and the relaxation of sanctions against the demonstration of wealth, villagers have turned increasingly to cost-sharing schemes for fiesta financing, in order to reduce the burden on particular families. We explore this paradoxical development in the Chapter Three. Village Society In Tzintzuntzan, the basic social unit is the nuclear family, consisting of husband, wife, and their children, residing independently in their own house, and sharing both the burden of production and the benefits of 29

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

consumption. The nuclear family is the ideal domestic unit—that which almost everybody considers preferable—as well as statistically the most common one. Even where several nuclear families share a single residence, a situation in which virtually all husbands and wives find themselves at certain stages of life (Brandes 1979), component nuclear families more often than not maintain separate budgets and eating arrangements. From the perspective of the Tzintzuntzenos1 themselves, budget and eating arrangements, not where people sleep, determine whether families are considered living alone or living together. By these criteria, most Tzintzuntzan householders actually achieve the nuclear ideal. Still, nobody in Tzintzuntzan would deny that separation of residence, as well as of budget and eating, is the best living arrangement. The general justification for this belief is that power hierarchies within the household generate daily tensions and frustrations. When a young Tzintzuntzan man marries, his wife usually comes to live in his household, at least for a few years, until they can save enough to establish themselves independently. During this period, the newlyweds are economically reliant on the family elders, so that the husband's parents wield almost limitless control over their children's production and consumption. The new couple initially works for their elders, from whom they receive pocket money. Only after grandchildren are born do the grandparents provide serious opportunities for their son and daughter-in-law to move away. The daughter-in-law is particularly anxious for independence. Often uncomfortable among her in-laws, and yearning for her mother's company and the familiarity of her natal household, she is understandably resentful of her mother-in-law's authority. For all these reasons, virtually all married couples sooner or later establish their own households. Power hierarchies within the family are less clear-cut. Parents, of course, exert control over their children, from whom unquestioned obedience is expected and generally obtained. Obedience is based on parental strength as well as filial love and gratitude. Between husband and wife there exists a considerably greater sense of equality than has been described for households elsewhere in the Mexican world (Staton 1972: 326; Lewis 1949: 602; Padilla and Ruiz 1973: 35). Equality in decision making is no doubt promoted by shared production activities, especially pottery making in which husband and wife work together for long hours at one another's side (Brandes 1974: 45-46). Over the years, I acquired an image of Tzintzuntzan, and the Lake Patzcuaro region as a whole, as deviating from the usual social-science portrait of Mexican machismo. However, recent studies (Hawkes and Taylor 1975; Cromwell and Ruiz 30

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

1979) indicate that perhaps Tzintzuntzan is not so unusual, after all. In Mexican research, outdated models based largely on selective evidence and stereotypic generalizations are being replaced by recognition of a much more complex reality. The model that perhaps best describes power relations between husbands and wives in Tzintzuntzan is one that Susan Carol Rogers has proposed for peasant society generally. She calls it the "myth" of male dominance, where myth means "the expression of an idea which may be demonstrated to be factually untrue" (Rogers 1975: 729). Rogers demonstrates that in peasant communities representing various cultures men do not actually dominate nor do women literally believe them to be dominant. Nonetheless, men monopolize positions of authority and prestige, and command deference in public. Men and women will also claim that men are dominant, even though members of both sexes know that this statement is merely the reiteration of a commonly acknowledged falsehood. According to Rogers (1975: 29), The perpetuation of this "myth" is in the interests of both peasant women and men, because it gives the latter the appearance of power and control over all sectors of village life, while at the same time giving to the former actual power over those sectors of life in the community which may be controlled by villagers. The two sex groups, in effect, operate within partially divergent systems of perceived advantages, values, and prestige, so that the members of each group see themselves as "winners" in respect to the other. Neither men nor women believe that the "myth" is an accurate reflection of the actual situation. However, each sex group believes (or appears to believe, so avoiding confrontation) that the opposite sex perceives the myth as reality, with the result that each is actively engaged in maintaining the illusion that males are, in fact, dominant. Rogers shows that, cross-culturally, women's power derives from various sources, although none so pivotal as the fact that households in peasant societies are generally the key social, political, and economic unit. Hence, "women's power in the household may be expected to have important extensions in the community at large" (ibid.: 735). In Tzintzuntzan—where, as we have seen, the domestic unit is the social nucleus—the "myth" of male dominance prevails. Both men and women accede to the belief that men have a right to beat their wives, if the wives give them just cause, whereas nobody would ever claim that wives have a similar prerogative. Women acknowledge that men have a right to go out and enjoy themselves in public on Sundays, whereas they 31

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

and the children should confine themselves on that day to their homes or to visiting female relatives. Yet women exert considerable power. Because women manage the household, and because the household in Tzintzuntzan is the basic unit of production and consumption, the female sphere of influence is considerable. Women generally have the power of the purse. They also control their own extensive social network of kin and compadres on whom they can rely for favors and mutual assistance. According to the myth of male dominance, men in peasant societies tend to occupy the public, prestigious positions, which have minimal impact on daily life when compared with the domestic sphere, but which nonetheless convey the aura of power; these positions thereby reinforce the myth. This aspect of Rogers' theory is certainly borne out if applied to Tzintzuntzan fiestas. The religious functionaries and committee members who are in charge of mobilizing the fiestas, and who indeed display themselves in ritual performances throughout the fiestas, are almost exclusively men. Yet the cargos or committee posts they hold are officially held by their wives as well, a situation that mirrors what Holly Mathews (1985) has analyzed elsewhere in Mexico. It is really married couples who, together, take on a particular cargo, or religious duty. Women offer at least as much in terms of time and resources as do men, and thereby exert a corresponding influence over the contribution of their domestic unit to the community fiesta effort. However, women's public roles in the fiesta cycle are muted and disguised. With few exceptions, men are the main actors, and the primary collectors and distributors of resources. The fiestas, which in actuality rely on the contributions of household units, thereby convey the image of male superiority. To this extent, fiestas are one of the main vehicles through which the myth of male dominance is sustained in Tzintzuntzan. Another way in which fiestas influence images of social dominance and inferiority is through manipulation of ethnic representations. This aspect of the fiesta cycle is particularly evident in the celebration honoring the Serior del Rescate (especially as analyzed in Chapter Six), as well as in the Night of the Dead (Chapter Five) and Corpus Christi (Chapters Three and Nine) proceedings. In Tzintzuntzan social relations are ordered very importantly through ethnicity, and yet Indian identity here as throughout Mexico (Friedlander 1975; Lomnitz-Adler 1979; Borah 1954) and Mesoamerica as a whole (Brintnall 1979; Van Den Berghe 1974) defies simple definition. The Tarascan region, including Tzintzuntzan, adheres primarily to a set of cultural criteria: if you speak or understand Tarascan, and if you dress like a Tarascan, then you both consider yourself and are considered to be a Tarascan. Further, there is no denying a biological component to the definition, a component that 32

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

Brintnall (1979) has emphasized for the understanding of Mesoamerican ethnicity: if either of your parents was Tarascan, then, regardless of dress or linguistic knowledge, you may be considered to be at least partially Tarascan, too. People tend not to trace back beyond the parental generation, perhaps because, in this instance, nearly everyone could be shown to have at least some Tarascan ancestry. Such social leveling is cognitively incompatible with ethnic distinctions, which are of continued importance today and which thereby render the question of remote racial ancestry insignificant. Although most families in Tzintzuntzan realize that they ultimately descend from Tarascans, there are a few who are proud of an allegedly pure non-Indian background. In either instance, Tzintzuntzenos are generally unimpressed by their pre-Conquest heritage. Although they have daily contact with Tarascans, I have never heard a Tzintzuntzan mestizo express a sense of common identity with Indians that might result from shared biological ancestry, historical destiny, territorial claims, or whatever. There is considerable admiration of Tarascan bilingualism, for even though some Tarascans pronounce Spanish distinctively (for example, saying magre and pagre rather than madre and padre], all Tarascans in the lake region speak it fluently. Here, however, the praise stops. More often than not, Indians are disparaged. Perceived differences between Indian and mestizo ways of life, differences that outsiders might consider insignificant, receive exaggerated importance. On the whole, these differences are evoked to demonstrate that mestizos are more civilized. This attitude is reflected in ethnic terminology. Indians are frequently referred to as naturalitos or inditos, patronizing diminutives that serve to soften the harsh pejorativeness of the stark terms naturales or indios. The term indio or indito presents no translation problem; it means Indian (or little Indian) and is used in conceptual opposition to nonIndians. The word natural or naturalito is more complex. On the face of it, the term would seem to refer to "creatures of nature," to "those who follow natural instincts," or to "those untouched by civilization." Such usage would automatically emphasize the more cultural, civilized qualities of non-Indians. On the other hand, natural is the standard word in Spanish for native, a meaning that dates back at least to the fifteenth century. In this sense, calling Tarascans naturalitos emphasizes their indigenous quality, the fact that they are descendants of the original inhabitants of the area, as opposed to non-Indian immigrants. There are connotations of both these meanings when the non-Indians of Tzintzuntzan employ the term naturalito. However, the prevalent use of the diminutive form, which symbolically converts Indians into small, childlike creatures and is almost a euphemistic circumlocution, would indi33

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

cate an emphasis on the former meaning: naturalito as an incompletely civilized human being. Whether the term indito or naturalito is invoked, it is used in contradistinction to the expression gente de razon (literally, people of reason). Santamaria's Diccionario de Mejicanismos (1974) defined gente de razon as "referring to a person who speaks Spanish and who can be understood, in opposition to the rustic Indian, who only speaks his own language or who is so stupid [torpe] ] that the non-Indian [ladino2] cannot communicate with him." The term gente de razon was employed widely at the time of the Conquest. In the Tarascan context, it was first used in 1541, when, in the opening paragraph of the Relation de Michoacdn, the Spanish chroniclers speak of "establishing the faith of Christ" among these new people, and "refining them . . . in order to make them people of reason [hombres de razon} before God" (Corona Nunez 1977: 3). Today, of course, Indians and mestizos alike are Roman Catholic. The term people of reason has thereby lost its religious connotation, although it is still invoked as a means of ethnic differentation. Now, as in the past, it evokes unmistakable connotations of mestizo cultural superiority over the unrefined Indians. Tzintzuntzan itself is perceived as an Indian community by middleclass Mexicans and social scientists. This view is reflected in the elaborate exhibition hall devoted to the Tarascans on the second-floor ethnology section of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. There, where the Tarascans are identified as Purepecha (the correct and most respectful term is a matter of dispute), Tzintzuntzan is repeatedly referred to on display labels as representing the essence of Purepecha civilization. Straw ornaments, which Tzintzuntzenos only began producing in the 1970s, are identified as locally sacred objects; in reality people call them corazones (hearts) and craft them purely for sale to tourists. This type of redefinition of ethnicity by the Mexican elite and central state has affected the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. Particularly during the Night of the Dead, the people have begun to act out the Indian role that the government has scripted for them, without actually realizing the way in which this role controverts established conceptions of their own collective identity. At least since 1945, less than ten percent of Tzintzuntzan's population could be considered Tarascan, according to criteria prevalent in the region. Yet during the Night of the Dead, as discussed in Chapter Five, the village is transformed symbolically into a stronghold of Purepecha traditionalism. In other fiestas, too—particularly during the celebration honoring the sacred image of the Senor del Rescate, as analyzed in Chapter Six, and during Corpus Christi, discussed in Chap34

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

ters Three and Nine—ethnic stratification and power relations play an important part in fiesta proceedings. Ethnic identity is thus one of the critical features of social organization that receive attention during the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. One final feature of social structure remains for background discussion: personal ties that bind people together outside the family context. The most important of these ties are those produced through fictive or ritual kinship (in anthropological discourse, these terms are generally used synonymously). By the time a person reaches middle age, he or she will have probably acquired dozens of compadres and comadres, who formalize their bonds during the major sacramental occasions of baptism, confirmation, first communion, and marriage and, in recent years, during school graduations and other key secular events. Once established, the ties with fictive kin are officially as permanent as those with real kin. As with real kin, however, the day-to-day quality of the relationship varies, such that some compadres, like some brothers, may have a falling out and try to avoid one another. Then, too, there are the bonds among neighbors, the men who lend the occasional helping hand with chores, the women who borrow back and forth or assist with the preparation of saint's day banquets or other special meals. As the typical Tzintzuntzeno enacts his or her daily routine, numerous people with legitimate claim to time and purse are liable to be encountered. Of course, these same individuals impart a sense of security, a feeling that one is squarely and firmly situated within a familiar universe. This very lack of anonymity, the high degree to which people penetrate one another's lives, produces an acute sensitivity to public opinion. The all-subsuming feature of social structure in Tzintzuntzan, however, is the dyadic contract. George Foster, who first proposed the dyadic contract model in the early 1960s, states that dyadic contracts are "informal, or implicit, since they lack ritual or legal validation. They are based on no idea of law, and they are unenforceable. . . . They exist only at the pleasure of the participants. . . . These contracts are essentially dyadic: they bind pairs of contractants, rather than groups. . . . Each person is the center of his private and unique network whose overlap with other networks has little or no functional significance" (G. Foster 1979a: 214). Dyadic contracts essentially mobilize dormant relationships. Of all one's relatives, fictive kin, neighbors, and friends, there will be only certain individuals with whom one actually spends time, or exchanges favors on a major scale. It is these people with whom one establishes a dyadic contract. The dyadic contract, as discussed in Chapter Four, defines lines of in35

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

terpersonal influence. By offering a material gift or carrying out some time-consuming favor, the donor obligates the recipient to respond appropriately when the opportunity arises. This obligation constitutes a kind of power that one individual temporarily holds over another. When the person who receives the gift or favor reciprocates in kind, the balance of power shifts; the original donor now becomes beholden to the original recipient. It is this type of pendulum-like swing that over the long run produces dyadic contracts. In the end, then, the power that adheres in a gift—the power to command reciprocity—is a necessary condition for the establishment of most extra-familial bonds in Tzintzuntzan. Chapter Four demonstrates the role of fiestas in the formation of these and similar bonds. Daily Cycle and Fiesta Cycle The late Victor Turner, who inspired many contemporary anthropological studies of religious celebrations, emphasized that ritual produces extraordinary social circumstances and psychological states (Turner 1969). Rituals, for Turner, are liminal periods, or transition points between states of relative equilibrium. They are times out from daily life, in which normal hierarchical distinctions disappear and a feeling of communitas, or oneness with ritual participants and the world at large, temporarily rises to the surface. Turner believes that rituals often produce conditions of antistructure, provisional inversions of everyday social relations, which, by their very contrast with daily circumstances, reinforce what is ordinary. Turner's work was and remains in many respects insightful and stimulating. However, in his eagerness to delineate liminality, communitas, and antistructure, he was occasionally accused of overlooking the usual state of affairs—the periods of equilibrium—that religious rituals periodically interrupt. Throughout this chapter, we have analyzed basic political, economic, and social contours of village life. What remains, before proceeding with the specifics of fiesta organization and activities, is a simple reminder that the daily round for most villagers consists mainly of hard work. Almost everybody, except school-aged children, arises at daybreak. Women carry heavy pails of nixtamal (lime-prepared corn for making tortillas) to one of several village mills for grinding. Men, often with nothing more in their stomachs than a shot of aguardiente, are off to work in agricultural fields or to collect pottery clay from the quarries. Children eat tortillas and beans, usually reheated from the previous day; gathering notebooks and pencils, they rush to their primary or secondary school classes. 36

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

For the most part, villagers work throughout the day, with two or three brief breaks for meals, depending on the amount and type of labor to be accomplished and the pattern established by each household. In any event, daily meals are not generally sit-down occasions for the family. People eat when their schedules permit or when they are hungry, and little attention is paid to coordinating this activity with other household members. After dark, when people gather in the kitchen for relaxation, they are more likely to eat together than they are during daylight hours. Householders with television sets may watch a program or two. This is also the time for family conversation, and for consultation and planning between members of different households who have to collaborate for ceremonial or economic reasons, and who pay informal evening visits to arrange for the following day's activities. For most villagers, the routine varies on Sunday. Those who have not attended the popular Saturday evening Mass usually fulfill this obligation on Sunday morning at dawn. Although no count has ever been made, nor is it likely that an accurate one could ever be conducted, most villagers regularly attend weekly Mass. The rest of Sunday is devoted to relaxation. Young married women use this time to visit their natal households. Men spend the day doing minor house chores or gathering in the streets and village stores with friends. Sunday is also the day that relatives arrive from Morelia, Patzcuaro, or elsewhere in Michoacan to visit, and when families sit down together for a large afternoon meal. These gatherings are becoming increasingly common, as more and more village children prepare for teaching, receive appointments in towns and villages throughout the state, and marry and settle within a few hours' drive of Tzintzuntzan. This normal weekly routine is interrupted at irregular intervals throughout the year for the celebration of community fiestas. The Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle is overwhelmingly European in origin, as one would expect from a town that was so completely dominated and transformed by missionary activity during the first decades of the Conquest. True, Tzintzuntzan fiestas display a number of elements that are popularly associated with a specifically Mexican version of Roman Catholicism: food offerings during All Saints' and All Souls' Days (1 and 2 November); veneration of the Virgin of Guadalupe (12 December), an undisputed national symbol of Mexico (Lafaye 1974; Wolf 1958); and Christmastime posadas, enactments of the Holy Family's journey to Bethlehem. But these elements, like most others in the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle, have their Iberian counterparts. In the province of Caceres, Spain, rests a sacred image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that, albeit iconically different 37

The Social Context of Tzintzuntzan Fiestas

from the one in Mexico, far antedates her New World equivalent. The Basques and other northern Iberians have for centuries presented food to the souls of deceased relatives on All Saints' and All Souls' Days;3 and theatrical presentations of the Nativity are common throughout Catalonia, in northeastern Spain (Albert 1958; Amades 1959), as well as throughout the Americas (Fortun de Ponce 1957; Speroni 1940). The evidence points to a European origin to the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. In Tzintzuntzan all the obligatory Masses of the Roman Catholic liturgy are faithfully celebrated. They do not, however, all provide occasions for fiestas. Rather, certain dates stand out as producing a major impact on community life, by causing a significant break in daily routine and stimulating a massive mobilization of community personnel and resources. From 1977 to 1986, the decade that I watched the Tzintzuntzan cycle closely, important fiestas have been celebrated in the following annual order: February April May June November December

February Fiesta of the Senor del Rescate Carnival Holy Week Day of the Holy Cross (3 May) Corpus Christi All Saints' and All Souls' Day (1 and 2 November) Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (12 December) The Posadas

Several of these fiestas—notably the Day of the Holy Cross, All Saints' and All Souls' Days, the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the Christmastime Posadas—are celebrated on fixed dates. The rest, including the February Fiesta, Carnival, Holy Week, and Corpus Christi, fall on fechas movibles (movable dates), calculated by reference to Easter Sunday. The only long gap in the fiesta cycle stretches throughout summer into early fall. Perhaps significantly, this period coincides with the rainy season, when the weather might threaten elaborate, expensive fiesta preparations. However, it occasionally rains during the February Fiesta, Holy Week, and even All Saints' and All Souls' Days. Therefore, we should not be too quick to accept an ecological explanation ,for this gap in fiesta activity. It is more likely that specific historical and cultural factors have been preeminent in the emergence of the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. Anybody who examines the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle historically is bound to come away impressed as much by transition as by continuity. Not only the events that are selected for celebration but also the manner in which they are carried out and the personnel responsible for them have 38

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demonstrated considerable variation over the years. Hence in Tzintzuntzan when we speak about the fiesta cycle, we cannot refer to events that have always and will always occur with rigid predictability. However, we do refer to events that are perceived as having a timeless quality and, in fact, derive their symbolic power from being so construed. Fiesta change is a major theme of this book. I hope not only to explain change, but also to show why it is so often interpreted as continuity by the people themselves. The two chapters that follow, on fiesta organization and contract and exchange, draw on data from the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle as a whole. The remaining chapters focus on specific fiesta events, and analyze their symbolism in depth to demonstrate their relation to community and national issues of power and social control. I conclude by returning to Octavio Paz's portrait of Mexican fiestas, as introduced in Chapter One, and assessing it in the light of Tzintzuntzan's overall ethnographic record. NOTES 1. The word Tzintzuntzeno (a person of or from Tzintzuntzan) is, from the linguistic standpoint, a logical derivative of the place name Tzintzuntzan. However, I have never heard it used by the people of Tzintzuntzan themselves. I occasionally employ it in this volume for stylistic convenience. 2. Non-Indians in Mexico are referred to in social-scientific literature and among the Mexican elite as mestizos or ladinos, depending on the region. Santamaria employs the term ladino, which is especially characteristic of southern and southeastern Mexico (and of Guatemala). In the context of Michoacan, mestizo is the more appropriate word. Throughout Mexico, Indians generally call themselves after the name for their indigenous language. They normally call nonIndians by the word mexicanos, a usage that in itself symbolizes their feelings of alienation from the Mexican state. 3. There are numerous sources describing this custom among Iberian peoples. For the Basques, see Barandiaran 1923: 129-30; Barandiaran 1949: 35; Caro Baroja 1944: 177. Scholars who mention the custom for other parts of north Iberia include Behar 1986: 172-173; Freeman 1979: 109; Gabriel Llompart 1965; Hoyos Sainz 1944; and Violant y Simorra 1956.

39

THREE

Fiesta Organization

Fiesta Logistics Fiestas are expensive, elaborate occasions that require clearly defined leadership. The issue of who finances and organizes these complex events drives to the very core of any consideration of controlling processes. As Maurice Bloch (1974) has cogently demonstrated, ceremonial leaders are highly constrained by the formalization and repetitiveness of sacred action but at the same time derive authority from the very holiness of the activities over which they preside. Fiesta leaders are responsible for the proper deployment of ceremony to ensure the appropriate veneration of God and the saints. In their power, too, rests the well-being of community members, who rely on leaders to carry out sacred obligations according to prescribed rules. We should remember that, when dealing with the fiesta cycle, individual and community obligations are one and the same. In the faithful enactment of duties, fiesta leaders fulfill personal as well as community goals. As mentioned in Chapter One, Mesoamerican fiesta organization traditionally was, and in some areas still is, characterized by a ranked network of administrative and religious posts known in the anthropological literature as the cargo or mayordomia system. The cargo system, as I shall call it, rested on two major principles: first, individual responsibility, whereby particular community members would, for longer or shorter periods of time, sponsor fiestas and care for sacred images, churches, and chapels; and second, hierarchy, wherein the official posts, or cargos, were ranked relative to one another according to cost and prestige, and individual sponsors, over the course of years, accepted progressively higher positions. To date, the cargo system of Indian communities in southern Mexico (particularly the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas) and the highlands of Guatemala has been most thoroughly explored.1 Nonetheless, the system also has existed throughout central Mexico, including Michoacan. In this chapter, I briefly describe how the cargo system traditionally functioned in Tzintzuntzan and analyze why it has all but

Fiesta Organization

disappeared. In particular, I am interested in the collapse of the ranked hierarchy, as well as the substitution of the principle of cost-sharing for that of individual responsibility in fiesta financing. Billie DeWalt (1975), in a highly instructive review of the anthropological literature, has already identified this radical change in fiesta organization. Mexican fiestas are increasingly financed according to a principle of shared, rather than individual, responsibility. In the face of declining traditional cargo systems, fiestas have been kept alive by spreading the costs among many people rather than delegating primary responsibility to relatively few officeholders (ibid.: 99). DeWalt's judgment is that fiestas will endure, but that "the practice of having individuals bear the expense of cargos will not continue" (ibid.: 101). The data on Tzintzuntzan fiesta organization confirm these observations. In Tzintzuntzan, the sharing of fiesta responsibilities is becoming more important than personal, individual sponsorship. Social and economic conditions have dictated that the traditional system be replaced with a different type of leadership, and the people have accepted this change. Nevertheless, this transformation must be viewed as basically conservative: what villagers strive for, more than anything else, is the perpetuation of their fiesta cycle.

Individual Financing and the Cargo System In Tzintzuntzan, as in communities throughout Michoacan (Carrasco 1977: 74, 91), the annual round of fiestas has long been supported by a combination of at least two coexistent systems: one in which individual sponsors bear financial responsibility, the other in which the community as a whole is held financially responsible.2 We can speak about the community as a whole because, with the possible exception of the Feast of the Holy Cross on 3 May, there are no barrio or neighborhood fiestas in Tzintzuntzan, such as those in the state of Morelos first described by Robert Redfield (1930) and subsequently analyzed by many other anthropologists (Bock 1980; Ingham 1986: 15-18; Lomnitz 1982: 230291; Pena 1980: 225—287). Certainly the six main events in Tzintzuntzan's annual religious cycle—the February Fiesta in honor of the Senor del Rescate, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, the Day of the Dead, the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (12 December), and the Christmas Posadas— all involve the entire town. If one examines this fiesta cycle as a single unit, there is no doubt that the past several generations have witnessed a decline in the overall reliance on individual economic responsibility. To trace and explain this decline, we should first consider Tzintzun41

Fiesta Organization

tzan's traditional cargo system. At the turn of the twentieth century the system was vast and elaborate. The main religious posts revolved around the ancient Kengueria or hospital, established by Don Vasco de Quiroga, a Franciscan friar from Old Castile whose work during the early Conquest years left a deep and lasting mark on the entire Lake Patzcuaro region. Even after the Kengueria ceased to function as a haven for the sick (during the end of the colonial era), the ceremonial complex associated with this building and images of the holy saints displayed there continued unabated. Kengueria religious posts were divided into cargos chicos (little cargos) and cargos principales (major cargos). A hierarchical ladder prevailed, whereby those who held cargos chicos had less financial responsibility, and correspondingly less prestige, than those occupying cargos principales. Cargos chicos were not ranked relative to one another; however, the three cargos principales were hierarchically ordered in such a manner that an individual ideally would assume each in turn. A tradition-minded person began with one of the cargos chicos, went through some or all of the others, and then proceeded to assume the cargos principales. After reaching the last of the series, a villager graduated to the status of principal, or respected elder, with no further religious obligations to the pueblo. This complex system, long defunct, is outlined in Table 3-1. In any given year several individuals could occupy cargos with the same label. These cargueros formed a voluntary organization, with responsibilities and expenses divided among themselves during their period of service. In addition to Kengueria cargos, there were several others of relatively minor significance. This complex network of sponsorship shared basic characteristics with cargo systems elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and even as far away as Andean South America (Buechler 1980; Walter 1981). First, the system involved a considerable investment of time and money in the care of religious buildings and images, as well as the organization of necessary personnel for sacred feasts. In Tzintzuntzan, there never existed a ranked ladder of civil offices alongside the religious ones, as occurs throughout southern Mesoamerica. Tzintzuntzan cargueros were first and foremost institutionalized religious officers. Second, cargueros usually assumed their positions voluntarily. There is some evidence that in the distant past a person was occasionally forced, through public pressure, to accept a post he would otherwise have avoided (G. Foster 1979a: 207), but generally the offices were sought freely. Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, cargueros were supposed to and actually did spend their own money in the performance of duties. Although they took charge over religious activities that benefited the entire village, and cared for images and sacred structures on which the well-being of the whole com42

Fiesta Organization

TABLE 3-1 Tzintzuntzan Cargo System, ca. 1910 Cargos

Main Fiesta Responsibilities

CARGOS CHICOS DE LA KENGUERIA 'unranked) Day of the Candelaria, Corpus Christi, San Cargueros de Nuestra Senora del Rosario Andres (3 November), Day of the Im(3) maculate Conception (8 December) Mayordomo (head) Capitan (captain) Fiscal (treasurer) Carnival, Day of the Holy Cross (3 May), Cargueros Mandones (6-12; number unDay of San Francisco (4 October) certain) Carguero of San Pablo Carguero of San Bartolo Carguero of La Magdalena Possibly others Day of the Candelaria, Maundy Thursday, Cargueros de los Barrios (ca. 10) Day of the Immaculate Conception Cabeza (head) Capitanes Lent, Holy Week Cargueros de la Judea (5) Mayordomo (head) Capitan (captain) Alferez (ensign) Sargento (sargeant) Centurion (squadron leader) CARGOS PRINCIPALES DE LA KENGUERIA (ranked) Cargueros de la Cruz (3) Corpus Christi, Day of San Francisco (4 October) Capitan (captain) Alferez (ensign) Sargento (sargeant) Yearly responsibilities at frequent intervals Cargueros de la Soledad Mayordomo (head) Diputado (deputy) Escribano (scribe) Fiscal (treasurer) Day of the Immaculate Conception (8 DeCargueros de la Kengueria cember), Maundy Thursday Mayordomo (head) Prioste (steward) Escribano (scribe) Fiscal (treasurer) OTHER CARGOS (unranked) Cargueros de San Isidro (6) Cargueros de San Miguel (number undetermined) Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe (3)

Day of San Isidro (15 May) Day of San Miguel (29 September) Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (12 December) 43

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munity depended, they were expected to bear the expenses individually. In fact, individual financing assured a necessary element of personal sacrifice in the pursuit of religious merit, which was ordinarily the overt motive for volunteering as a carguero. What were the main carguero expenses? Although they varied considerably from one named post to another, there was usually considerable expenditure in perishable religious paraphernalia, like immense candles to be burned and skyrockets and fireworks to be set off during fiestas (see Chapter Six). Expensive musical groups, usually from outside the community, were hired by cargueros for particular feast days. Food and liquor expenses were almost always high, because groups of cargueros had to provide periodic banquets for one another on particular feast days throughout the year. In the case of some cargos, chapels and churches had to be cared for, which usually meant hiring a person to clean and watch over the building. During fiestas, religious structures had to be decorated, often at substantial cost. Feast days, then as now, have always signaled special Masses; for this expense cargueros were also responsible. As noted, the time and money that a carguero had to invest differed according to the post assumed. But almost always financial outlays were high relative to the circumstances of the sponsoring families. Now most villagers ridicule the system as unnecessarily burdensome; they say their parents and grandparents sometimes were forced to sell milpas (fields sown with corn, beans, and squash) to residents of La Vuelta and El Ojo de Agua, who were less deeply involved in the fiesta cycle than they. These sales gradually deprived the community of Tzintzuntzan of large tracts of the most fertile properties along the lakeside, which now attract the tourist trade (G. Foster 1979a: 209). Even as recently as the mid1970s, one man sold his house to assume a cargo, thereby forcing his family to move to the rental home where they have remained subsequently. Still, during the past generation individual fiesta financing on this scale has virtually disappeared. Three related circumstances have brought about this decline. First, parish priests have singlehandedly eliminated a number of formerly important, expensive cargos. Particularly effective in this regard was the parroco who presided over Tzintzuntzan during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Like others of his era (Carrasco 1976: 9394), this cleric was a vociferous opponent of ritual spending. By 1945, he had eliminated the three Cargueros de la Cruz and six Cargueros Mandones. The ritual complex associated with the Kengueria had been virtually dismantled and, along with it, the laddered hierarchy of religious offices. Only a handful of the traditional cargos still existed, now 44

Fiesta Organization

independent of both hierarchical ordering and the Kengueria complex. These posts included the four Cargueros de la Soledad, and five Cargueros de la Judea, as well as the relatively minor Cargueros de San Isidro, Cargueros de San Miguel, and Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe. Second, cargo responsibilities have diminished because more people began to share the financial burden of fiestas than in the past. Again, the priests bear primary responsibility. Traditionally, for example, there were only three Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe. These officials reigned for a year, during which they sponsored expensive monthly feasts, Masses, and fireworks displays, in addition to organizing and paying for large celebrations throughout December. Although neither their term of office nor their collective duties have changed much over the years, the priest in 1942 increased their number from three to twelve, thereby spreading the financial burden by reducing the amount that any individual had to spend. In the same year, and with the identical impact, the Cargueros de la Soledad doubled from four to eight.3 During the 1950s they increased further to twelve, which is their present membership. Now, instead of each official caring for La Soledad and holding special feasts during three months of the year, he and his wife bear these expenses during a single month annually. A final reason why individual fiesta financing has been proportionately reduced is that, in this town as elsewhere (Van Zantwijk 1967: 127-128), cargo duties are simply not as burdensome as they used to be. For example, the Cargueros de la Soledad were traditionally responsible for purchasing large quantities of tropical fruits that were not native to the region, and thus relatively expensive, for church display and distribution to the Tzintzuntzan populace during Carnival. When formal Carnival was eliminated before the 1940s, this carguero expense automatically disappeared with it. Similarly, the eight Cargueros de San Francisco (created by clerical fiat in 1921)4 were replaced in the 1960s by twelve new Cargueros del Sefior del Rescate. These officials, in charge of a chapel wherein resides a venerated image of Christ, must clean the chapel and light candles in honor of the Senor, just as the Cargueros de San Francisco had to honor their patron saint. Yet the most costly responsibility— the monthly banquets held for the priest, the cargueros, and their families—is not a part of the new officials' duties as it was for their predecessors. In fact, of all the cargos that have existed over the past generation, only one—that of La Judea, consisting of five cargueros who organize weekly processions during Lent and a theatrical representation of the Passion during Holy Week—has remained virtually traditional in scope and responsibilities. This uncharacteristic stability can no doubt be 45

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explained by the enduring religious significance of the Easter season— the only time of year that the Cargueros de la Judea ever have had any major duties and expenses. The overall impact of changes in the cargo system during the past forty years therefore clearly demonstrates a reduction in individual fiesta responsibilities. Three processes have been responsible for this reduction: abolition of traditional cargos requiring individuals to cover fiesta expenses; increase in the number of some religious officials to reduce the economic burden on each; and the elimination of traditional expenses associated with certain cargos. To be sure, the Tzintzuntzan fiesta system still relies on a roster of institutionalized religious officials who are expected to spend their own money to further the welfare of the community at large. But today only the Cargueros de la Judea, Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe, Cargueros de la Soledad, and Cargueros del Senor del Rescate remain. To a dramatic degree, the general reliance on this type of financing was much smaller by 1980 than in years before.

Cost-Sharing and the Encabezado System Tzintzuntzan fiestas count for their success not only on individual financing associated with the cargo system but also on cost-sharing schemes, similar to those known throughout Mexico (Diaz 1970: 120; Lewis 1951: 268; De Walt 1975) and Central America (Smith 1977: 46). Although these schemes vary from one ritual event to another, they are all based on the principle that the villagers at large should contribute to festival expenses, either by being charged a fixed sum or by donating a respectable amount voluntarily. There is some evidence that cost-sharing is a traditional community arrangement. What is especially noteworthy about the system, however, is the way it has flourished and expanded in recent years. Just as cargueros embody the principle of individual fiesta financing, encabezados (community officials) personify cost-sharing. The term encabezado is, as far as I can tell, unique to Michoacan; it derives from the standard Spanish cabeza (head) and may be approximately translated as "person placed at the top." Encabezados differ from cargueros in a number of important ways, and these differences largely explain why encabezados, as an organizational type, have thrived while cargueros have not. The most significant difference is that encabezados, unlike cargueros, are secular rather than religious officials. Their leadership, to be sure, involves the organization of religious fiestas, but their participation is 46

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imbued with no sacred meaning. Likewise, although the specific fiesta events that these officials help to organize add color and vitality to the activities as a whole, they lack the deep-seated religious associations characteristic of the functions that cargueros organize. Events organized by encabezados more than anything fall in the domain of community spectacle or entertainment rather than sacred ceremony. Even when the spectacle has religious overtones, as in the case of La Danza described in Chapter Seven, it fails in and of itself to influence the moral status of the encabezados or the townspeople in general. If an encabezado-organized activity suddenly ceased to exist, the people of Tzintzuntzan would not believe that they had failed to meet serious religious obligations. By contrast, they would experience a deep void if the events over which cargueros presently take responsibility disappeared. A second major difference is that, unlike cargos, encabezado posts are not institutionalized. Every adult villager in Tzintzuntzan could name the religious cargos currently in effect, along with the number of cargueros associated with each. Cargos are formalized offices that have to be filled on vacancy. Encabezados, by contrast, are ad hoc positions, created as the need arises and differing in number from one year to the next. Encabezados, too, have limited responsibility over a single event. When the event ends, so do their duties. Cargueros, on the other hand, have either a fixed yearly period of office, as has always been the case with the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe and Cargueros de la Judea, or an even more extended tour of duty that only terminates upon their successful search for a replacement, as is true of the Cargueros de la Soledad. Finally, and most important for our purposes, the economic responsibilities of each type of office differ. Whereas cargueros are supposed to spend their own money to cover fiesta expenses, encabezados organize to collect money from the population at large. In Tzintzuntzan, as elsewhere in Michoacan (Van Zantwijk 1967: 126, 130), cargueros can usually rely on financial assistance in meeting their obligations from relatives and ritual kin. Ultimately, however, the cargueros themselves are held to account. Encabezados, on the other hand, operate as an informal, temporary bank, collecting money into a centralized source and then redistributing it in the form of tangible gifts or entertainment. The banking function assures that fiesta expenses are shared, rather than concentrated in just a few hands. To understand the variety of cost-sharing arrangements, we have only to examine the diverse ways in which encabezados are selected and carry out their financial responsibilities. There are, first, those encabezados who act essentially as tax officers, collecting fixed sums from shopkeepers and padres de familia (household heads) in their role as agents of 47

Fiesta Organization

secular town authorities. In Tzintzuntzan, as described in Chapter Two, there exists an official governing body, the Presidencia Municipal (as well as an autonomous, autochthonous Comunidad Indigena) that regulates concerns specific to the villagers of Tzintzuntzan. Unlike the Presidencia Municipal, the Comunidad Indlgena has only tenuous links to the state and national political hierarchies. During the grand annual fiesta honoring the Serior del Rescate each February, both these secular governmental organs play an important, expensive role. The Presidencia Municipal hires a twenty-five-piece band to play music in the atrium during the four days of the fiesta. To cover the cost, the Presidencia taxes shopkeepers, who pay a fixed sum to encabezados appointed by the Presidencia for the express purpose of collecting money from town commercial enterprises. The Comunidad Indlgena hires a second band of equal size for a similar length of time, and must finance a large fireworks display (see Chapter Six) to be ignited on the last evening of the fiesta. To pay for these items, the town is more or less arbitrarily divided into four enormous cuarteles (quarters), each of which is canvassed by a pair of encabezados appointed by the Comunidad Indlgena to carry out the house-by-house monetary assessment. This mode of financing the February Fiesta extends back at least to the 1940s. Encabezados who operate as tax officers for the February Fiesta play an economically important, though structurally minor, role in the festival proceedings. It is therefore relatively easy for government authorities informally to call on friends, relatives, or compadres to volunteer for these posts. In the case of other encabezados, however, appointments are made in what amounts to a selective service system. This mode of selection characterizes fiestas like Corpus Christi and the Posadas, in which encabezado investment of time is onerous and in which financial responsibility may be risky. Consider, first, the feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated in Tzintzuntzan in much the same way as in late medieval Spain (Foster and Ospina 1948: 216-217; Foster 1960: 207). Corpus Christi celebrations are based on an occupational division of the community into gremios or comisiones (hence, the alternative term for encabezados on this occasion, comisionados], associations representing past and present modes of livelihood. These include arrieros (muleteers), tiradores (hunters), popoteros (straw craftsmen), Pescadores (fishermen), yunteros (ploughmen), and the like. The Corpus Christi fiestas that I witnessed in 1978 and 1984 were organized and conducted almost identically to the ones described for earlier decades (Foster and Ospina 1948: 216-217). A list of encabezados, varying from six to ten men for each occupational group, was drawn up by a selection committee consisting of the three most powerful 48

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authorities in town: the priest, El Presidente Municipal, and El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena. As in 1945, the candidates were simply informed of their new responsibility by an executive order issued from the mayor's office and transmitted to them in writing by town messengers. Because there exists no legal punishment in Tzintzuntzan for refusing to serve as encabezado, a candidate is theoretically free to decline. Nonetheless, barring cases of serious personal or family illnesses, such refusal is unknown, and moreover considered muy feo (very ugly). Almost invariably, then, the men selected accept the post. This outcome is virtually assured because the authorities consider family obligations, personality, prior service, financial circumstances, and similar considerations before making their choice. Generally, it is already known before selection who in the community i* willing to accept such a charge; nonetheless, I have never heard of a person actually volunteering before being formally drafted. Corpus Christi encabezados share a number of responsibilities. They hire musicians to accompany their occupational groups throughout fiesta day; they purchase and prepare food, fruit, and manufactured items for distribution to the Tzintzuntzan populace during a churchyard giftgiving display; they encourage relatives, friends, compadres, and other associates to join their groups in the public enactment of traditional labor; and, most important of all, they collect contribuciones (donations) from heads of households to cover fiesta expenses. The financial responsibilities that encabezados bear are essential, and reveal the implicit values that guide the encabezado role. Donations are collected by and for groups of encabezados, rather than individually. Hence, beginning a couple of days before the fiesta, groups of two or three encabezados representing each gremio walk from house to house asking for donations, which are carefully listed in a notebook. Tzintzuntzefios feel, as do villagers elsewhere in Michoacan (Bishop 1977: 91), that this system prevents misunderstandings about who has given and the amount of the contribution. Because the manner of collection assures the presence of witnesses, encabezados are shielded from the accusation of theft; likewise, the community at large is protected against embezzlement by fiesta organizers. As for the townspeople themselves, there is pride in the knowledge that virtually everyone provides monetary assistance to make Corpus Christi a success. The verb used to describe the act of donating is cooperar (tocooperate). "Yo coopero con todos" ("I cooperate with everyone") is one of the most frequently heard expressions during this time of year. What people mean by this phrase is that they donate money to all the gremios 49

Fiesta Organization

who request it of them. Ideally, an individual contributes a substantial amount to one group—the one to which his or her household feels the greatest affinity either for occupational or family reasons—and above that contributes smaller sums to encabezados from other gremios who solicit assistance. The donations vary from one household to another depending on willingness and financial means. However, there are always subtle pressures persuading people to contribute as much as possible, one being the rumor—false in my judgment—that misers are punished by the requirement to serve as encabezados during the following year. In any case, a generous household donation in 1978 amounted to 40 pesos (about U.S. $2), and half that amount was considered respectable. Decent contributions are well within the reach of most Tzintzuntzan families. From the perspective of the encabezado, there are minimal expenses that have to be met through donations. If the total amount collected is insufficient, the encabezados representing each gremio make up the difference equally among themselves. If, instead, the contributions exceed the necessary sum, the excess may theoretically be distributed in like sums to all the encabezados. However, expenses always surpass donations. Encabezados expect to contribute at least as much as most Tzintzuntzan families, if not a bit more. However, the sum is never burdensome. The time involved in organizing the event, plus the discomfort of being in a position of authority and having to put on a successful show, are considered the main drawbacks. Tzintzuntzan's Corpus Christi fiesta seems to have been organized and enacted almost exclusively according to the encabezado system as early as the 1940s. It is possible, then, that this event may have served as a structural model, which was applied to celebrations introduced later. The single most important example of such a new fiesta is the so-called Posadas, a Christmastime pageant that is observed throughout Mexico with differing degrees of elaboration. As discussed in Chapter Eight, this event commemorates the frustrating search of the Holy Family for lodging on the days before Christ was born (Toor 1948: 246-251); it also involves the breaking of pinatas, a custom that has by now spread far beyond Mexico's borders. Traditionally, the Posadas in Tzintzuntzan were of minor significance. In 1962, however, the parish priest decided to highlight the occasion by involving large numbers of villagers directly in its organization. Since that date, the Posadas have undergone several minor changes, although the basic underlying structure has remained the same. The principal authorities in town—including the priest, assisted by El Presidente Municipal, El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, or both—divide the village 50

Fiesta Organization

into four cuarteles. Each cuartel is assigned encabezados, who are responsible for organizing the Posadas during one night of the week. They hire musicians, construct temporary mangers, fabricate pinatas, and prepare hundreds of bags of fruit and candy for public distribution. In December 1980, when I witnessed the event, four encabezados, all married men, were delegated to each cuartel. As with the preparations for Corpus Christi, the selection of these organizers is by fiat. The priest reveals their identity, almost always to their own surprise and dismay, by an announcement at Mass in early December. The list of encabezado names is formalized shortly thereafter by being distributed on a circular titled "December Fiestas in Tzintzuntzan." Disgruntled nominees apparently have no right of appeal. Of the total sixteen encabezados in 1980, only one publicly expressed dissatisfaction. As he could not erase himself from the list, his only mode of protest was to refrain from carrying out his responsibilities, an action that resulted in feuds with the three men he was supposed to be helping and that evoked a good deal of public criticism. In their financial activities, the encabezados of the Posadas are like those of Corpus Christi. They collect money from households using the same group procedure and then spend it on fiesta events (as described in detail in Chapter Eight). Ceremonial suppers, street decorations, mangers, fruits and candies, and, of course, pinatas are the principal uses to which the money is put. Like their Corpus Christi counterparts, the encabezados of the Posadas usually have to spend a bit more than the ordinary donor, although it is generally recognized that the time spent at the job constitutes their major sacrifice. To this point we have examined two major types of encabezados: tax officers responsible for February Fiesta expenses, and drafted officials who collect money to support Corpus Christi and the Christmas Posadas. Additionally, Tzintzuntzan fiesta events may be organized by encabezados who offer their services voluntarily. Because these events are completely dependent on the initiative of individual volunteers, the events appear and disappear over the years with enigmatic irregularity. This unpredictable quality is merely the logical outcome of a system that has failed to institutionalize certain ceremonies and therefore depends for their existence on just a few interested, enterprising townspeople. The occasion that most obviously falls into this category is Carnival, which before the radical changes of the early 1940s was a four-day festival directed by six cargueros. Sometime in the early 1970s, after a hiatus of three decades without being observed, Carnival was revived by a poor, middle-aged potter. His motive seems to have been a mixture of pleasure-seeking and nostalgia. His uncle had been among the last 51

Fiesta Organization

cargueros in charge of Carnival. The uncle left him a small crucifix, used traditionally in the celebration and still under the potter's guardianship. Carnival, for this potter, has sentimental associations. To be involved in its organization represents a perpetuation of a family role. In addition, it is simply an occasion that he and his wife enjoy. As she says, "When the date for Carnival comes along, it seems that things just aren't right if the event doesn't take place. It's just something that we have to do and that we like." The potter enlisted two associates—men of his own age and status— and the three declared themselves Carnival encabezados. They hired a small group of Tarascan musicians and convinced a dozen young men to volunteer as performers in the comic roles of bull, bullfighters, and maringuillas (female impersonators). During the three days before the onset of Lent, this group made a tour of the entire town, stopping outside each house to dance and engage in a slapstick routine, and requesting money. The money was used, in part, to pay for the costumes and musicians, but mainly covered the cost of meals for the encabezados and their performers during the three days. Each day the meal was prepared and served by one of the encabezado's wives. With a hiatus of two years, caused by the demoralization of the Carnival corps after one of their number was arrested for civil disturbances during town rounds in the mid-1970s, the event has proceeded annually under this format. The Carnival encabezados differ from others mainly in that they are self-selected. In fact, Carnival is not institutionalized within Tzintzuntzan; were it not for the initiative of these men, the event would simply disappear. The encabezados secure a cedula (an official permission) from El Presidente Municipal to enact their routine, but neither this town official nor any other has a hand in directing or promoting their activities. These encabezados are similar to the others, however, in their organizing and financing role. They intend their sponsorship to be publicly rather than privately funded; time is their main contribution. There are two additional fiesta events organized by voluntary encabezados. The first is the dance of the huacaleros (young crate-carriers), which occurs in the atrium during Corpus Christi. Traditionally, and as late as 1945, this group was organized by drafted encabezados. At some indeterminate later date, huacaleros were dropped from the roster of obligatory groups, named by town authorities. Rather than see them disappear, a tradition-minded elderly Tzintzuntzeno decided to organize the dance himself. Each year he hires Tarascan musicians and encourages parents to dress their small children as crate carriers. The children take lessons to master a simple routine, performed in the churchyard during Corpus Christi afternoon. For his expenses, which consist of feeding the 52

Fiesta Organization

children for the day and paying for the musicians, he requests donations from spectators. Like all encabezados, he expects the public to subsidize his group's activities. Like volunteer encabezados, he organizes the event for enjoyment and the perpetuation of tradition. Without his initiative, the huacalero dance would vanish. A final event organized by volunteer encabezados is also a dance, much more elaborate and costly than that of the huacaleros, and enacted during the February Fiesta. This activity, popularly referred to as La Danza, spontaneously appeared in the 1970s under the direction of three villagers, two men and a woman, who claim radically different motives for assuming leadership. One man considers the job a calling, the revival of a tradition that he claims to have participated in as a child forty years earlier, but that nobody else remembers. The second man simply enjoys fiesta organization, an activity that provides him personal satisfaction as well as an outlet for his considerable artistic talent. The woman encabezado says that the post represents the fulfillment of a manda (religious vow). La Danza (see Chapter Seven) involves some seventy to eighty dancers and actors, plus five Tarascan musicians. The encabezados invite these participants to supper on the evening after their performance. They are also responsible for paying the musicians. The considerable expense is borne in part by the three encabezados. But, like other self-appointed officials, they expect the public to contribute the bulk of the needed funds and thereby solicit spectator contributions. As donors offer money, the bills are held up high for all present to observe, a necessary precaution— like the notebooks and witnesses of the house-to-house collections— against possible embezzlement. Encabezados and cost-sharing have for generations been integral to the financing of the February Fiesta in honor of the Senor del Rescate, as well as of Corpus Christi. By contrast, La Danza, Carnival, and the Posadas have been introduced or reinstated only since 1960. Although none, with the possible exception of the Posadas, represents a terribly large investment of time or money, it is significant that they have all been financed by cost-sharing schemes, and organized by encabezados. Clearly, this system has undergone recent expansion.

Organizational Change Data from Tzintzuntzan strongly confirm the trend toward cost-sharing that De Walt (1975) detected on the basis of cross-cultural research. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the number of cargos in Tzintzuntzan was 53

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severely reduced, and those that remained were restructured to distribute fiesta costs among a number of officials. Since 1945 there has been no expansion in the cargo system, which seems to have stabilized over the course of a generation and only now appears to have entered a new crisis period. With every passing year, it is increasingly difficult to fill the few cargo posts that still exist. In December 1980, for example, only eight of the required twelve cargos of La Capilla de Guadalupe could be filled for the following year's tour of duty. The remaining four posts had to be covered by identifying likely candidates, who were then visited by a committee consisting of several of the new volunteers and pressured into acceptance of the cargo. During that same month, two Cargueros de la Soledad complained bitterly to me that after several years of service they wanted to retire from office but were unable to find replacements. "Now everyone tells us that there are no more lands to sell," they said in unmistakable irony. What these men were implying is that whereas in earlier years, as previously noted, villagers would sell land in order to assume a cargo, now people use their landlessness to avoid office. Their ironic tone derives, of course, from the fact that Tzintzuntzenos live now at a much higher standard than they did a generation ago. G. Foster (1979a) and Kemper (1977: 15-50) have described these economic changes and their social consequences (see Chapter Two) in detail. In addition, Foster's recent research has demonstrated that there currently exists a syndrome of conspicuous consumption that manifests itself in part through increasingly elaborate ceremonial displays (G. Foster 1979a: 380-384). The rituals on which people now spend much money are those in which they themselves are identified as the financial backers: weddings, baptisms, and funerals—those, in other words, involved in the life cycle as opposed to the community cycle—as well as the Day of the Dead, when (see Chapter Five) families have the opportunity to display their wealth through ornate tombstone decorations. When it comes to spending their own increased assets on the community at large, and particularly when they as individuals could not necessarily be pinpointed as sole benefactors, there is an evident reluctance to donate time or money to ritual activities. Such a situation exists particularly on the occasions sponsored by cargueros; these occasions are expensive but involve inconspicuous or anonymous costs—dinners that only cargueros attend, or fireworks and candles, or payments to church caretakers—wherein the individual donor, as opposed to the carguero group as a whole, is not obvious. Increasingly, cargueros accept their responsibilities solely out of a sense of service to the saints, and with the expectation of religious 54

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rewards, rather than with the hope that their outlays might somehow be converted into prestige. No longer is there a social imperative to organize religious fiestas, where such organization requires considerable personal sacrifice. Expectations and pressures are considerably lighter in the case of encabezados. It is assumed that volunteer encabezados simply like their job because it affords an outlet for personal creativity or devotion. Because these officials simultaneously provide entertainment, it is believed that they should at least be given the opportunity to break even financially, the main motive for offering modest donations. Others assume their posts under some duress. But even though encabezado service may occasionally produce hard feelings, these officials are in no way expected to suffer high personal expenses. Rather, their work is compensated through a cost-sharing arrangement. To avoid this risk of personal loss, fiestas have increasingly involved the organizational efforts of encabezados rather than cargueros. Cost-sharing fiesta financing has arisen throughout Mexico and Central America as a response to diverse conditions. In some of the small highland communities studied by Smith (1977: 146), this system is the only alternative for communities that are motivated to maintain fiestas but that have become so impoverished that individuals are no longer able to bear sponsorship costs (Smith 1977: 146). Under such circumstances, the economic leveling function of cargos, long ago identified by Nash (1958) and Wolf (1959: 216),4 has been rendered obsolete. In more prosperous highland Guatemalan communities, in contrast, Smith discovered that individuals refuse to spend large sums on fiestas because they prefer to invest in education for their children or expand family enterprises, strategies that yield direct economic benefits. This new outlook has led to a reduction in overall fiesta expenses, combined with increased costsharing for those ceremonies that persist (Smith 1977: 148—159). Here people have substituted traditional criteria for measuring status, which as in nearby highland Chiapas depended on ritual spending (Cancian 1965), with more universal standards that the communities have adopted from the outside world. This development closely approximates what has occurred in Tzintzuntzan. The unfolding paradox in this town is that under traditional circumstances, when social and economic conditions were more or less equal, individual ritual expenses were at their height. This coincidence existed, as Foster (1979a: 208) has pointed out, because conspicuous ritual expenses in part reduced and redistributed surplus earnings, in part too because they enabled people to express their commitment to the 55

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town ideal of shared poverty. As objective socioeconomic conditions have become increasingly polarized—as shopkeepers, merchant middlemen, schoolteachers, and others have become more and more differentiated from potters and farmers—so has cost-sharing become the most important principle of fiesta sponsorship. The reasons why an egalitarian fiesta ethos should arise within an ever more hierarchical social system are not hard to divine. Whether prosperous or poor, almost everyone now seems to have a motive for avoiding expensive cargos. No longer is there an ethic of shared poverty in Tzintzuntzan. As people become more accustomed to inequality, prosperous families show themselves unwilling either to redistribute wealth in the form of fiesta expenses or to make personal sacrifices on behalf of the entire community. Now, such sacrifices are attributed to religious devotion or to mere gusto (taste or liking). Short of these motives, everyone is assumed to be acting for himself. Likewise, the poor now understandably question why they should bear an individual burden for fiestas that will only leave them further impoverished. They resent having to pay for entertainment that redounds to the benefit of more prosperous townspeople, as well as to others financially equal to themselves but placed at an economic advantage for abstaining from cargo service. For everyone, a cost-sharing system seems to make the most sense under contemporary conditions. In the literature on Mesoamerican fiestas, the cargo system has received most attention, with relatively little ethnographic attention to cost-sharing. James Greenberg, in the first chapter of Santiago's Sword (1981), presents a superb summary of the diverse theoretical and economic interpretations to which the cargo system has been subjected. In Tzintzuntzan, where a full-fledged cargo system has long disappeared and where it has occupied a progressively more muted presence, it would be erroneous to accord it any sort of major role in the regional, or even local, economy. Cargo holders who have charge over the chapels of Guadalupe and the Soledad occupy the role for a number of evident reasons. For the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe, cargos are a means to fulfill religious vows and to turn the power of the saints to their own and their family's welfare. In general, the people who occupy this post are young family men in their thirties, who live in various material circumstances, but who tend to reside in modest homes, without the refrigerator, televisions, and automobiles that the highest village stratum has come to enjoy in the 1980s. By no means are these cargueros among the most prosperous Tzintzuntzenos; they are almost all burdened with rearing large numbers of children. Busy establishing themselves as respected 56

Fiesta Organization community adults, they no doubt see acceptance of the post as one means of accomplishing this goal. The Cargueros de la Soledad generally occupy at least as modest a social position as those of Guadalupe. However, they tend to be older, with an average age in the mid-forties rather than mid-thirties. This circumstance is explained by the fact that the Cargueros de la Soledad are unable to leave their posts unless they find substitutes and, for reasons already analyzed, substitutes are not forthcoming. Relenting to the pressures of priest and parishioners, they remain on duty year after year. (In contrast, the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe assume their post for a year, at which time their service ends.) The Cargueros de la Soledad feel unhappy and resentful of the role that has been virtually forced on them. They are controlled and victimized by the system, rather than seizing it to further personal and familial goals. That nobody offers to relieve them of their duties is hardly surprising. Encabezados, as a social category, are also divided among those who are controlled by and those who feel in control of their role. Most encabezados, as we have seen, are named officials, unable to refuse service, and unlikely to refuse anyway by virtue of their accommodating character, for which they have in part been selected. Many encabezados appear repeatedly on the roster of village officialdom. But their goodnatured willingness to participate is sometimes stretched and they are moved to voice their resentment at a system that depends repeatedly on a handful of compliant souls to get the job done. Voluntary encabezados, by contrast, are the ones who feel most in control and who derive greatest personal benefit from the fiesta complex. Tradition-minded, yet filled with the urge for initiative and a need for accomplishment, these few men and women serve the community by serving themselves. Far from being victimized by the system, they actually exert control over it. Although the future is hard to predict, it appears now that the healthy survival of the fiesta system will come to rely increasingly on villagers like these.

NOTES

1. Among the vast literature on this topic, see Cancian 1965; Carrasco 1961; Chance and Taylor 1986; Greenberg 1981; Kuroda 1978; Mathews 1985; Rus and Wasserstrom 1976; Smith 1977; and Vogt 1976. 2. In Tzintzuntzan, these two systems seem to have coexisted for as long as we have accurate records. Possibly, cost-sharing may be traced as far back as the cajas de comunidad (community chests) of the colonial era (Gibson 1964: 124, 57

Fiesta Organization 126, 132, 185), although evidence for this historical antecedent is too slim at this point to make any firm claims. 3. In the early 1940s, the Cargueros de la Soledad were officially changed to the rank of encargados (those in charge). A half decade after the official name change, Foster and Ospina still referred to these officials in publication as cargueros, thereby reflecting the general usage of the villages themselves (Foster 1948: 198). It is still the term by which these officers are most commonly identified today. In fact, because their duties, number, and expense of office are all well within expectations for the prototypical Tzintzuntzan carguero, many villages are completely unaware that these officials are formally encargados, rather than cargueros. We follow here the most usual folk categorization. 4. Despite the fact that San Francisco has been the official patron saint of Tzintzuntzan since colonial times, there were no cargueros devoted to his cult until 1921. In that year, the parish priest decided to enclose the open-air chapel of San Francisco that connects the convent to La Parroquia. To care for this new building, he created the Cargueros de San Francisco. When the structure was torn down in the 1960s, again by clerical order, the religious posts associated with it simultaneously disappeared. 5. Wolf has recently changed his opinion. Instead of seeing these institutions as levelling mechanisms, he now believes that "civil—religious hierarchies . . . installed a system of elite domination within the communities" during the colonial period, "while at the same time allowing that elite to represent the community as a whole before external power holders and authorities" (Wolf 1982: 148).

58

FOUR

Contract and Exchange

Gifts and Contracts In fiesta organization, the lines of leadership are clearly delineated. The analysis in Chapter Three shows that we can determine who holds responsibility for certain tasks at any given moment, and whose initiative has resulted in one ceremonial activity or another. However, Mexican fiestas also reveal more diffuse types of authority, which draw virtually all villagers into their orbit. More than anything, the exchange of favors and the formation of implicit social contracts provide a framework through which we can observe community power relations—a theme that has long received anthropological attention. The compelling power of all types of exchange, including gifts and contracts, has been explicated by Marcel Mauss. In The Gift (1967 [1925]), Mauss discusses "total prestations"—that is, gifts that are simultaneously economic, political, moral, and religious phenomena. Gifts inherently possess a series of qualities that produce obligations on the part of the recipient and that assure some sort of reciprocity. Mauss opens his volume with a consideration of exchange systems in Scandinavia, where, in theory, "such gifts are voluntary but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation" (1967: 1). The author's discussion covers vast parts of the world—Oceania, native America, rural Europe, South Asia—to demonstrate the coercive power of gifts and giftgiving. "The obligation attached to a gift itself is not inert," he says. "Even when abandoned by the giver, it still forms a part of him. Through it he has hold over the recipient," just as its return "will give its donor authority and power over the original donor, who now becomes the latest recipient" (ibid.: 9-10). Mauss perceived gifts as symbolic of the individuals and groups with which they are associated. Hence, among the Maori, the "bond created by things is in fact a bond between persons, since the thing itself is a person or pertains to a person" (ibid.: 10). No matter what form it takes, a gift, for Mauss, "retains a magical and religious hold over the recipient. . . . It is alive and often personified, and

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strives to bring to its original clan and homeland some equivalent to take its place" (ibid.). This purportedly voluntary, but actually binding, force underlies much of the fiesta activity in Tzintzuntzan. By interpreting the town's ritual activities as a series of gift exchanges, in Mauss's sense, otherwise inexplicable behavior becomes comprehensible. In the early 1960s George Foster applied exchange theory to Tzintzuntzan. In two articles he produced a model, introduced in Chapter Two, that he called the dyadic contract. Foster (1961) first established the dyadic contract as the town's basic principle of social organization and gave special attention to so-called colleague contracts—bonds formed between social equals. Foster (1963) then applied the model to patron—client relationships, including relations between social superiors and inferiors as well as those between humans and God or the saints. The dyadic contract model can be most efficiently summarized in his own words (1961: 1174): . . . every adult organizes his societal contracts outside the nuclear family by means of a special form of contractual relationship. These contracts are informal, or implicit, since they lack ritual or legal basis. They are not based on any idea or law, and they are unenforceable through authority; they exist only at the pleasure of the contractants. The contracts are dyadic in that they occur only between two individuals; three or more people are not brought together. The contracts are noncorporate since social units such as villages, barrios, or extended families are never bound. Even nuclear families cannot truly be said to enter contractual relations with other families, although spouses often honor the obligations inherent in each other's contracts. Tzintzuntzan daily affairs, as I have observed them over the course of nearly two decades, can best be interpreted according to the dyadic contract model. It is instructive to analyze briefly the similarities and differences between Mauss's conceptualization of gift-giving, on the one hand, and Foster's portrayal of exchanges sealing the dyadic contract, on the other. The analysis must begin with a discussion of terminology. In Mauss's essay, three French terms are nearly interchangeable: don, present, and prestation. Ian Cunnison, translator to the English edition of The Gift, informs us that "Mauss used the words don and present indifferently," whereas prestation is used "to mean any thing or series of things given freely or obligatorily as a gift or in exchange" (1967: xi). The fact is that all three terms may be rendered into the English word gift, which is no 60

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doubt why this term has been selected by the translator for the English title of Mauss's Essai sur le don. Aside from this terminological matter, we must recognize that Mauss believed he had identified a crossculturally valid principle of exchange among what he calls, without explicit definition, archaic societies. Throughout his essay he alludes to differences between archaic and modern exchange systems but never systematically explores this distinction. Foster, on the other hand, does systematically contrast gift-giving in contemporary America with that which prevails in Tzintzuntzan, and concludes that "the word 'gift' is inappropriate to describe the goods and services" that are exchanged within his Mexican community (1961: 1187). In Anglo-Saxon society, says Foster, "a gift is thought of as something transferred from one person to another without measurable compensation. . . . A gift is accepted with thanks, verbally expressed, which symbolize something more than the courtesy thanks that accompany commercial transactions, since the words are recognized as striking a conceptual balance with the donor's thoughtfulness" (ibid.). In Tzintzuntzan, when someone receives goods or services far out of his or her financial reach, the appropriate response is "Dios se lo pague" ("May God pay you for it") with the implication that the recipient is unable ever to do so. Here the words are sufficient compensation for the items received. Where reciprocity is possible, as it is in most instances, the donor gets a cursory "gracias," or, with equal frequency, no response at all. Foster (1961: 1188) reasons that in these cases a person would be considered rude to express vehement thanks, "since it suggests he is anxious to call it square and terminate the relationship." What matters most to people in Tzintzuntzan is the establishment and continuance of ongoing social ties. Such ties are initiated and validated through the continual exchange of goods and services between pairs of individuals. Moreover, as Foster characterizes them, these exchanges are unbalanced in the short term, although they result in long-term equivalence. The existence of a slight imbalance produces the dynamic that keeps the exchange going; precisely calculated reciprocity leads to termination of the ties. The dyadic contract is maintained as long as a donor's goods and services produce reciprocal obligations on the part of the recipient (G. Foster 1961: 1184-1185). Despite the terminological difficulties, reciprocal exchange in Tzintzuntzan is a fine example of Mauss's gift-giving. In the dyadic contract, goods and services are exchanged with the kind of compelling force that we read about in so-called archaic societies. The gift-giver in Tzintzuntzan is as powerful as the Polynesian or ancient Roman that Mauss discusses, because the commodity that he or she presents to the recipient 61

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produces an obligation on the part of that recipient. Moreover, in Tzintzuntzan, as in the cultures Mauss discusses, "To refuse to give, or fail to invite, is—like refusing to accept—the equivalent of a declaration of war; it is a refusal of friendship and intercourse" (Mauss 1976: 11). To receive is as much of an obligation as to give, because the two roles are inseparable and continually interchangeable. The existence of one role implies the other, indeed calls the other, perforce, into existence. In this respect exchange systems in Tzintzuntzan and in Mauss's archaic societies are very much alike. The major difference is that Foster's analysis pertains specifically to contracts between pairs of individuals, whereas Mauss's discussion mainly concerns interchange among groups. When examining Tzintzuntzan's fiesta cycle, what we find are spatially and temporally delimited gift exchanges principally, although not exclusively, between groups, or among individual representatives of groups. It is almost as if the dyadic contract, which prevails in daily life, were given periodic public validation through large-scale ritual display. Before examining the implications of this statement, we must analyze the fiesta exchanges themselves. The presentation of data is organized according to the social identity of the contractors in diverse exchange relationships: first, humans and supernatural beings; second, households and performing groups; and third, formal voluntary religious associations and the community at large. Permutations of these paired participatory units are also discussed in connection with the three most structurally salient types.

Contracts Between Individuals and Supernatural Beings As indicated above, George Foster's research (1963) shows that dyadic ties between individuals and supernatural beings are a fundamental feature of Tzintzuntzan's social structure. This bond, in fact, provides a perfect example of what he calls asymmetrical dyads, or patron-client ties. The dyads are so designated because of their most basic characteristic: the vastly unequal power differential between humans and their supernatural advocates. Individuals establish implicit contracts of this type either with Jesus Christ in one of his locally salient manifestations (such as the Serior del Rescate, honored during the February Fiesta, or the Santo Entierro, venerated principally during Holy Week) or with saints (the Virgin of Guadalupe, San Martin, and the Souls in Purgatory, among numerous others). Some villagers consider themselves to have long-term, ongoing ties with a particular supernatural being, who pro62

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vides general welfare to the human contractor in return for periodic acts of devotion that include lighting candles, giving monetary donations, or simply praying. More important for our purposes is a contrasting pattern of noncontinuing or short-term contracts. This form is the most salient in Tzintzuntzan's fiesta cycle. In return for specific favors from God, Jesus, or one of the saints, the individual promises to carry out some pious act thought to be pleasing to the supernatural patron. If a person falls seriously ill, for example, the victim or a relative makes a vow, popularly known as a manda or promesa, that stipulates the performance of some sacrifice, small or large, in return for a cure. As discussed in Chapter Seven, dancers during the February Fiesta sometimes perform their role in fulfillment of a parental vow made on their behalf. Similarly, most of the men who carry the immensely heavy image of the Senor del Rescate in procession during the February Fiesta do so as the result of a manda. However, of all the occasions in the ritual cycle in which religious vows serve as a strong motive to participation, none is so dramatic as Good Friday, when penitentes (penitents) publicly enact their demanding sacrifices. Penitentes assume their difficult role to fulfill a specific vow made in honor of the Santo Entierro, a life-sized wooden image of the deceased Christ, resting prone in a glass-sided sarcophagus. Like all Tzintzuntzefios who make vows to the saints, penitentes promise to carry out some sacrificial act in return for a given favor. Only after the favor has been granted—the illness alleviated, financial solvency achieved, or whatever—does the supplicant satisfy his part of the bargain. Only men become penitentes. Penitentes are divided into two types, each carrying out a different sacrificial act: penitentes de grillo and penitentes de cruz. Penitentes de grillo are bound by heavy iron hobbles (grillos) that press against the anklebones and feet (Figure 2). They prepare for their sacrifice by dressing in a municipal building located off the atrium and normally used as a ceramics workshop. At ground level just inside the entry stands a small image of the crucified Christ, surrounded by lighted candles. Penitentes kneel and pray to this image both before leaving the dressing chamber and on their return. An attendant hands them a platter that serves for alms. When their penance is over, the penitentes de grillo deliver the money they have collected to this attendant. In recent years, the money has been used to finance a special Mass celebrated on 3 May, the Day of the Holy Cross. Penitentes de grillo are dressed in a white sheet that is bound to their waist by a rough cord in the fashion of a kilt. Another cord is knotted to the iron shackles and then passed under the kilt and through the waistband, where the penitente grips it tightly with his right hand. This 63

Contract and Exchange

Figure 2. A penitente de grillo with cirineos

arrangement allows him to prevent the shackles from rubbing relentlessly against his anklebones and yet, in doing so, the weight simply shifts from his feet to his arm. Relief is never complete. From the penitente's left wrist dangles a rosary; in his left hand he supports the platter used to collect alms. Over his head is placed a white hood covering all but the eyes. The penitente is supposed to remain anonymous. Foster and Ospina (1948: 213) reported that in 1945 the penitentes de grillo were accompanied by two cirineos, or male helpers, who adopted the symbolic role of Simon of Gyrene (the Biblical figure who at the fifth station aided Christ with his cross). Each penitente, assisted by his cirineos, would hobble along a predetermined route, leading from the atrium all the way around town and then back again. By the 1980s, this practice had been abandoned. Now penitentes de grillo (by 1981 there were no more than a dozen) tend to confine their begging to the atrium itself, where they follow the so-called penitencia corta (short penance), consisting of a round of the fourteen outdoor stations of the cross. Some penitentes de grillo simply wander among the crowds, shackled and begging for a specific time, according to the terms of their vows. They are 64

Contract and Exchange

Figure 3. A penitente de cruz with cirineos. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster

accompanied by one or two cirineos, although some penitentes de grillo do without formal assistance. The penitente de cruz (penitent of the cross) bears an eight-foot high wooden cross weighing perhaps forty pounds (Figure 3). Informants state that a generation ago the penitentes de grillo used to be more common than penitentes de cruz. Over the years the balance has tilted in the opposite direction, such that in 1981 there were 127 penitentes de cruz in comparison with only 10 de grillo. Penitentes de cruz dress identically to the others, wearing a white hood cut with eyeholes and a white sheet kilt. In the left hand they carry a rosary; in the right, a disciplina, a heavy 65

Contract and Exchange

braided cord with several thick knots at the end that are pierced with dozens of tacks. The tackpoints protrude slightly from the knots, so that the instrument when used as a whip abrades the skin of the back. The performance of the penitentes de cruz is one of the most intensely dramatic moments in the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. On Good Friday afternoon, penitentes go to La Parroquia to enroll. In the 1980s there have been about fourteen crosses, many fewer than the number of penitentes de cruz, so that it is advisable for penitentes to know how many other villagers intend to use them. Enrollment does not assure a specific time when the penitente will carry the wooden cross. During the performance, the cirineos are charged with securing a cross on behalf of the person they are assisting to assure that the penitente, already faced with the prospect of a grueling sacrifice, avoids having to wait anxiously for hours until he can take temporary possession of a cross. Still, the scarcity of crosses assures that many individuals do have to wait far into the night. At about nine on Good Friday evening, the penitentes de cruz, each accompanied by cirineos, gather to dress in the corridors and patio of the colonial convent that serves as parish sacristy. One cirineo helps the penitente to prepare, and the second stations himself outside where he competes with other cirineos to take possession of a cross. Penitentes de cruz nowadays all do what is known as the penitencia larga, so called because, in contrast to the short penance, this long penance takes the faithful on a route that leads outside the atrium and around town. When, after about forty-five minutes of trying sacrifice, they return to the convent sacristy, they encounter perhaps a dozen cirineos waiting for the opportunity to secure a cross on behalf of penitents yet to fulfill their vows. Once a cross is secured, the penitente kneels and prays before an image of the crucified Christ located just inside the convent doorway. Rising to his feet, he hops quickly in front of the image for a minute or so while whipping himself on the back with the disciplina. This routine—the praying, hopping, and whipping—is repeated at each of the outdoor altars along the penitent route. While the penitente prays and inflicts punishment on himself, the cirineos stand to one side and hold the cross. The penitente then gives a final, respectful bow of the head towards the altar, after which he rushes to place the cross over his left shoulder and, although barefoot, runs rapidly to the next station. Nearing the end of the route, the penitente enters a side doorway of La Soledad chapel. There, amidst the crowd of parishioners singing hymns of praise to the Santo Entierro, the penitente, with the cross still dragging from his shoulder, crawls on his knees to the sacred glass coffin containing the life-sized 66

Contract and Exchange

Christ. He stops to pray there and then, turning on his knees to change direction, makes the arduous crawl to the main Soledad doorway. After stopping at two more stations located within the atrium (this time on foot), and then praying in front of the parish church, the penitente and his cirineos relinquish their cross and reenter the convent. There the penitente is covered with a blanket or serape and recuperates from his ordeal by sitting still for awhile, before shedding his scant costume and getting dressed. Because being a penitente de cruz requires great sacrifice and endurance, it is considered one of the most difficult vows that can be made to a saint. It is so trying, in fact, that the parish priest each year enters the convent while the men are dressing to warn them that there is nothing shameful about turning back if one's limits have been reached. He reminds the penitentes that God will neither punish nor look disfavorably on them if they are unable to fulfill their vows. He asks that they perform their sacrifice only to the extent that their health remains unendangered and emphasizes that this is what Jesus Christ himself would want. Despite these admonitions, men do seem to push themselves to the limit with this event. For one thing, it is usual to make a vow not for a single year but rather a series of years. For example, one asks a favor of the Santo Entierro in return for performing as penitente for three years in a row. During these three years the penitente will perform his role de andada—that is, going along the same route as that of the Good Friday procession that takes place earlier that day. In addition, this penitente must carry out this sacrifice for one final year, when he enacts the desandada, or coming back, in which he visits the same stations in reverse order. The desandada is considered obligatory, so that even if a person vows to act as penitente for one year, he can only satisfy his contract through a minimum of two years' service. Occasionally people are in better health some years than others, but they still strive to fulfill the religious obligations that they incurred during the initial Holy Week vow. Another indication that penitentes sometimes push themselves to the limit is the evident competitiveness of the event. Penitentes themselves openly recognize this dimension to the occasion, yet seem unable to curb the instincts that foster it. In particular, penitentes insist that the route, whether de andada or desandada, must be run rather than walked. Indeed, the speed that these men achieve while carrying a heavy cross and running barefoot is extraordinary. Although they are supposed to go fast, penitentes are often criticized covertly for making speediness their main goal, for converting the penitente route into a racecourse. Penitentes are accused of removing their hoods along the more isolated portions of the route in order to go faster. 67

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They are also said to ignore or rush profanely through their prayers at each stop along the way so as to advance more quickly. Penitentes seem resentful when an especially fast runner overtakes them en route. At the same time, however, men can acquire a favorable reputation for notable velocity and endurance. One middle-aged man who routinely made vows to be a penitente became known by the nickname Conejo (rabbit) for his unusual speed on this annual occasion. Even the role of cirineo is recognized as one that requires fortitude and speed. After all, the cirineo at the very least has to keep up with his penitente. Some men become cirineo to two or three penitentes during the course of the evening, which prompts the popular observation that the evening is potentially more grueling for these men than for the penitentes themselves. In a number of ways, the penitente performance not only serves to fulfill vows but also seems to provide an occasion on which men test themselves as men. Their ability to endure is at issue. As with other male penitential acts throughout the Hispanic world (see Brandes 1980b: 192-204), this one combines personal sacrifice with expressions of corporal strength and well-being. Because the identity of the cirineo is undisguised (he dresses in everyday street clothes for this event), men in this role have a good opportunity to demonstrate their manly competence, both to themselves and to the public at large. Although penitentes are supposed to remain anonymous, they are known as least to one another and to the cirineos as a whole through the sharing of the convent dressing chambers. In fact, there is a locker-room atmosphere inside the convent while the penitentes are awaiting their turn. Men express camaraderie through helping one another get dressed; lending one another rosaries, disciplinas, and blankets; and joking with one another about their common hardships. But this very spirit of cooperation and sharing places an especially severe pressure on men to do well. Despite what the priest tells them each year, to have to return to the convent without being able to complete the route would be a humiliating experience, indeed. Correspondingly, the penitente who fulfills the vow successfully has proved to himself and others that he is a man. Particularly the flagellation and consequent suffering from often-infected backs demonstrates masculine endurance and courage. Yet one must not reduce the significance of the occasion to this psychosocial experience. People in Tzintzuntzan are serious when making contracts with saints and therefore tend not to overextend themselves intentionally. For this reason, most penitentes, from my observations in 1981, were young men in their twenties and early thirties—men with family obligations and sufficient cause to seek supernatural aid but still youthful and strong enough to undertake this difficult penitential act. 68

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Only a handful of men in their forties were among the participants whom I observed. Penitentes would be embarrassed not to do well but far worse would be the inability to fulfill their sacred vows. Hence, despite all the pain and pressure, a penitente rarely turns back once he has set out on his route. The one exception occurs when a penitente accidentally falls and either or both of his hands touch the ground. According to the rules, this event requires the penitente to start again at the beginning, yet another way in which a man can fulfill his religious obligations while simultaneously demonstrating manly competence. The penitente performance not only expresses ritual reciprocity between an individual and the supernatural but also reflects an incipient or ongoing dyadic contract between each penitente and his cirineos. The cirineos are indispensable for the penitentes de cruz. They are responsible for securing a cross on behalf of their penitente; guiding the cross as the penitente drags it over rocks, curbs, and other impediments; and holding it for the penitente as he prays. Most importantly, they steer the penitente, whose vision is obscured by the loose-fitting hood, around dark, poorly paved streets, enabling him to get safely from one station to another. Because the cirineos must themselves prove equal to the demands of their role, they are of intrinsic value to each penitente. To act as cirineo is to make a personal sacrifice of time and effort on behalf of a friend. Because it is a way to repay a favor or create a new obligation, it is in Mauss's sense a gift. Exchanges Between Households and Ritual Performers In the case of penitentes, an exchange is contracted between pairs of individuals—one human, the other supernatural. Other instances in the Tzintzuntzan ceremonial cycle involve short-term exchanges between groups. Perhaps the most important exchanges occur between households and ritual performers, and concern "extra-official" ritual activities. Like La Danza analyzed in Chapter Seven, these activities may hold deep sacred significance for at least some of the performers. However, they are interpreted by the public at large as diversions or forms of entertainment. Far from being necessary for salvation, they are sometimes perceived as profane. As indicated in the previous chapters, the organizers and performers engage in these activities voluntarily; unlike cargueros, comisionados, and other public officials, they are not drafted into service by the community. Nor do they incur expenses on anybody's part but their own. For all these reasons, but particularly because they lack the support of formal secular and religious bodies, they have no automatic, assured 69

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means of compensation. In these instances, performing groups may turn to the good will of village households for material reward. Among the most relevant groups are the Holy Week espias (spies) and the Carnival clowns. Both groups can be considered small-scale, temporary acting companies, engaged in amateur folk theater productions. Each has a primary, self-appointed organizer who operates under presumably traditional guidelines. The organizer is responsible for drawing volunteers into the performance and instructing them in the appropriate costuming and role. Espias have performed regularly during Holy Week for as long as even my oldest Tzintzuntzan informants can remember, and yet there is no official body in charge of overseeing their activities. The origin of the spies is uncertain. In Empire's Children, Foster and Ospina (1948: 210) write that "formerly, when work wa.s forbidden in Tzintzuntzan during all of Holy Week, the spies had a real function. It was their job to see that nobody was working and if they found someone so engaged, they took his tools and locked them up in the courtroom, forcing the owner to pay a fine to regain them." The full significance of this explanation, which in the 1980s is still repeated, is discussed in Chapter Nine. However, there is no longer evidence for this function of ritual spying, if indeed it ever applied in reality. The spies' performance occurs during Holy Wednesday (the Wednesday before Easter Sunday) and Maundy Thursday (Jueves Santo or Holy Thursday) for a period of about six hours each day, lasting throughout the morning and until mid-afternoon. Foster and Ospina (1948: 210) describe the event as they observed it in 1945: A half dozen boys of 18 or so, dressed in brilliant satin dresses of their mothers and wearing cotton stockings [,] are mounted on horseback. Their pointed red flannel caps and hooded faces give them the appearance of latter-day Ku Klux Klanners. Bareback, and without shoes, they ride down parallel streets, stopping at each intersection. The first blows a plaintive note on a whistle, and as it dies out the next spy takes up the sound, and so on down the length of the line. They all ride to the next series of intersections where the act is repeated. In 1981, when I witnessed the event, this description still basically applied. Certainly, the costume had changed little. Rather than dresses, the spies nowadays wear white shirts and calzones (traditional, loose-fitting white muslin trousers), bound at the waist by a bright red cummerbund. 70

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Other than that, they look identical to the photograph of a spy published in Empire's Children in 1948. Likewise, the performers are today drawn from essentially the same group as before, unmarried teenage boys. The number of participants has expanded greatly, however, such that in 1981 there were forty-four spies on Holy Wednesday and fifty-seven on Maundy Thursday. The actors are also younger. In 1981, most spies were fifteen or sixteen years old, with a few as young as thirteen. The broadened age range of participants partly explains why there are so many more spies than in earlier years. Because so many young men participate in this event, it must be even more impressive than it was four decades ago. In an atmosphere of generally well-guarded, hushed silence, the spies traverse the village from one end to another, slowly working their collective way back and forth in an east-west direction until they have completed the round trip three times. They play their roles in mid-day heat, heads covered with thick felt hoods and without any pause for refreshment. The spies, in fact, are like younger versions of the penitentes; they, too, must comport themselves with manly endurance. It is no doubt partly for this reason that young boys, eager to emulate their elders, are motivated to join in this activity. It is a way of demonstrating corporal competence both to their peers and to themselves. Because the spies have to endure difficult physical conditions for long hours, as well as maintain silence and self-control throughout this period, they look forward eagerly to token repayment. This largely symbolic compensation occurs at the end of their rounds on Maundy Thursday, when they "visit" the households where twelve especially venerated crucifixes are guarded. The expectation of reward from these households forms the basis of a traditional exchange. The twelve crucifixes occupy a peculiar status between private and community property. It is supposed that they originally were cared for by cargueros in charge of the ancient barrios, and that when the barrio system disappeared, more than a century ago, they simply stayed within the families of those who were last in charge. The crucifixes—known in Tzintzuntzan as cristos, or Christ figures—seem to be transmitted patrilineally. Perhaps this practice is a survival of the patrilineal organization of the ancient Tarascans, although the normal developmental cycle of the Tzintzuntzan household, in which one married son and his family often remain in the parental household to care for the aged couple (Brandes 1979), could also explain the disposition of the crucifixes. Only the son who shares a house with his parents, and then inherits it, eventually takes possession of the venerated ancient crucifix. If a couple does not have a 71

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son, the crucifix remains with a daughter or another family member who inherits the house. Hence, both genealogy and housesite determine who controls these ancient crucifixes. Because of their supposed antiquity and their symbolic and historical associations, the crucifixes confer considerable prestige on those who care for them. The images are large and imposing. Their caretakers carry them in procession throughout the town on Good Friday afternoon (Figure 4). They can never be sold or otherwise disposed of, for ultimately they are perceived as community property. When the caretakers assume any ritual role associated with these crucifixes, they do so as representatives of the community at large, as well as to fulfill their own household's obligations. Starting early in the afternoon, the spies gallop en masse to each house possessing a venerated crucifix. They are dressed entirely in red and white. They blow their little clay whistles in unison, while their horses stomp and neigh, restless from the heat and control to which they have been subjected all morning. As this group approaches the designated houses, they produce an almost fearful, other-worldly impression. When the spies arrive, household members, already apprised of their visit, rush outside with buckets of food to greet them (Figure 5). Traditionally, cooked squash sweetened with piloncillo was considered the most appropriate offering and was distributed by both the men and the women. With the proliferation of spies that has occurred during the past decade, however, this fare has been deemed too expensive and timeconsuming to prepare. Nowadays chunks of canteloupe and watermelon are usually provided by the men of the household while the women stay indoors. The restless horses, concentrated as they are in one small section of the street, are frightening to some. It requires considerable courage to emerge from one's secure house and dodge the unpredictable beasts while offering buckets of fruit to the thirsty, hungry spies on horseback. In fact, some spies, aware of the logistic difficulties that their presence poses, dismount to help with the food distribution. While the food is eaten, the normal standards under which spies operate are relaxed. They pull the hoods off their faces, speak quietly to one another and to their hosts, and generally revert to the status of young village boys. Once they have had a few pieces of fruit, however, they recover their faces and gallop off to the next house for more of the same. What exactly is the nature of the exchange that occurs on this occasion? The participants, as we have said before, consist of groups rather than individuals. Moreover, they are groups whose social identity transcends the collective personal identities of the constituent members. Because the spies enact their traditional role, thereby providing a service to 72

Figure 4. Crucifixes in Good Friday procession

Figure 5. Spies eating fruit

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the community at large, they are entitled to token refreshment; the personal identities of the actors are irrelevant. Likewise, it is the households in which the twelve ancient crucifixes are retained that bear responsibility for the food offerings. The actual identities of the household members have no determining value; all that matters is the possession of one of the ancient crucifixes. In other words, what we observe here is an exchange between ceremonial entities, each playing its expected role in the overall Holy Week drama. A community service—enacting the symbolic representation of spy—is reciprocated through material reward—refreshment at the end of the performance. This is a public demonstration of the kinds of exchanges that go on daily in Tzintzuntzan, albeit on a private, dyadic scale. We still need to clarify the precise nature of the service that the spies render. As noted, the function of ritual spying does not explain their activities. I suspect that the true community service that the spies perform lies very close to the surface: they enact a traditional dramatic role, thereby enhancing community prestige. We must remember that the people of Tzintzuntzan are interested in maintaining a certain public image, and that elaborate ritual is one way in which that image can be bolstered and propagated. Holy Week, for all its dramatic intensity, is not one of the important annual tourist attractions. However, it is a period when hundreds of relatives who left the village to study or work in Morelia, Mexico City, Tijuana, and even the United States return home. Town residents, feeling somewhat backward in comparison with these migrant relatives, are for this reason, as well as general self-esteem, anxious to display the village at its finest. Elaborate, well-attended fiestas are one way to accomplish this goal. By participating in this dramatic event, the children who participate and their families who make the costumes help the community to display itself. This is the real service that the spies perform, and the justification for their token refreshment at the end of the day. Another important fiesta event in which public exchange is enacted between households and performing groups is Carnival, best known in America as Mardi Gras, because of the famous New Orleans celebration. Carnival falls on the days before the onset of Lent, immediately before Ash Wednesday. Throughout the Roman Catholic world, particularly in southern Europe and Latin America (see Caro Baroja 1970; Da Matta 1979; Gilmore 1975), Carnival has evoked ambivalent reactions because of its profane, bawdy, and sometimes outright revolutionary overtones. An integral part of the Easter cycle, Carnival usually embodies some anticipatory rebellion against the six weeks of restrictions and controls that await parishioners during Lent. Its celebration therefore involves 75

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unconventional behavior, which hardly receives universal approval. Tzintzuntzan attitudes are no exception. In Tzintzuntzan, Carnival is celebrated sporadically. Until the early 1940s, it was an integral part of public works projects and was probably a regular feature of the fiesta cycle. Village men and their able-bodied sons would gather in the atrium on the Friday before Ash Wednesday to organize themselves for community service, such as cleaning the churchyard, repairing streets and roads, and the like. To get these jobs done, cargueros (known as Cargueros de la Doctrina, a long-defunct body) needed to be selected. Selection involved Carnival clown figures, who would mill among the men and their sons, goading people humorously into accepting the cargo. There were six Cargueros de la Doctrina, one for each week of Lent. The cargueros themselves were always chosen from among the unmarried young men. Because the cargo involved serious financial responsibility—work volunteers had to be fed on the days when they participated in communal labor—prospective cargueros would have to secure the permission of their fathers, the real bearers of the economic burden. The Carnival clowns had to get the fathers to give permission, and their assent was announced in public, on the occasion of this Friday meeting. When communal labor projects were suspended in the early 1940s, Carnival performances, devoid of a clear economic justification, seem to have fallen on hard times. In 1948, Foster and Ospina (1948: 209) dismissed the event with a single sentence: "Formerly there was an elaborate Carnival but in recent years this practice has died out." Today, as indicated in Chapter Three, a poor, middle-aged potter from Yahuaro organizes Carnival, and without his efforts, the tradition would no doubt entirely disappear. The Carnival celebration that I witnessed in February 1980 was the first one that the village had seen in three years. In 1977 one of the Carnival actors was arrested for disturbing the peace. As is typical of the Tzintzuntzan reaction to Carnival, townspeople, then as now, have expressed disagreement about whether the arrest was justified. In any event, the incident placed enough of a damper on Carnival that the actors thought it would be best to wait a few years before once again putting on their show—before, as they put it, "sacando el toro" ("taking out the bull"). To "take out the bull," by performing publicly in the town streets, the Carnival organizer must first secure permission from the Presidencia. This permission was granted in 1980, and the organizer carried the official document with him throughout the three days of Carnival performance, demonstrating his evident and justifiable concern that somebody 76

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might protest. Throughout the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the Carnival clowns performed on every village street, passing by all the households to collect as much money as possible in compensation. On the occasion that I witnessed there were eleven costumed clowns, the organizer who was dressed in everyday clothes, and a group of four Tarascan musicians, who played during the comic antics that form the basis of the program. Three types of clown figures are traditionally part of the Carnival troupe, and all were present in 1980: maringuillas (masked female impersonators); a toro (a man carrying a sixty-five pound wooden frame figure of a bull on his back); and toreros (bullfighters, dressed in ragged clothes and makeshift masks with long stocking noses). These men perform by generally reversing village norms—for example, by drawing attention to the maringuilla's pregnant belly, by having "her" parade it publicly while the toreros pat it effusively. (Pregnancy in Tzintzuntzan is normally a condition that women try to hide as long as possible from people outside the immediate family.) The Carnival group incurs expenses of two types: first, and most costly, the musicans have to be paid for three days of labor; second, and also quite burdensome, the performers must be fed throughout the same period. To satisfy these requirements, the Carnival organizer (a selfappointed encabezado, as discussed in Chapter Three) requests donations from the households along the route. The justification, from the viewpoint of the organizer and performers, is to receive compensation for entertaining household members. Most households offer a token amount of money, or occasionally some item of uncooked food, like fruit or raw vegetables. But often they do so grudgingly, and only after being teased by the actors for their tight-fistedness. I witnessed several instances in which villagers had emerged from their houses to enjoy the performance. After showing their reluctance to pay anything in return, the toreros and maringuillas would gesture excitedly at them by cupping their outstretched left elbows with their right hands, the conventional Mexican symbol of stinginess. Members of the audience would then hand over some small sop in a belated attempt to comply with their entertainers' expectations. More than almost any other ritual event, the Carnival exchanges demonstrate the coercive power of the gift. Often against their will, householders have a performance thrust on them. Yet Carnival performers manage to extract sufficient material contributions to sustain the event— even though the act may be unpleasant to the householders, even though the actors themselves all come from very poor families with somewhat unrespectable reputations, and even though "taking out the bull" has 77

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occasionally created public disturbance and resulted in legal action. Moreover, it is households that they target for help; if one individual from a household gives money, that suffices for the entire household. Contributions are received publicly by the encabezado, who records them in full view in a notebook. Once again, the exchange is a public, open demonstration of general principles of reciprocity, carried out in such a way that no accusations of cheating are possible.

Exchanges Among Religious Officials One of the most curious but telling features of the ritual cycle in Tzintzuntzan is the manner in which religious officials spend money on one another. Cargueros, encabezados, and encargados are socially bound through an elaborate system of exchange in which the rights and obligations of each individual are clearly stipulated, and everybody is expected to contribute more or less equal time and money. Like the bulk of ceremonial behavior, all of these exchanges are extraneous to what is officially required by the church in Rome. Yet people who enter the system and assume ritual responsibilities feel coerced to participate by the all-pervasive local rules of reciprocity. Although the ceremonial year is replete with such exchanges, a few examples should suffice. A prototypical case comes from the December fiestas, discussed more fully in Chapter Eight. Closely associated with these fiestas is the corps of twelve officials, the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe, who are charged with caring for the Chapel of the Virgin of Guadalupe in El Ojo de Agua (see Chapter Three). During the Mass that is celebrated in El Ojo on 12 December, the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the priest solicits volunteers who assume carguero office the following January. The mayordomo, or titular head of this corps, automatically takes responsibility for the first month of the year. The remaining eleven cargueros accept their posts with the understanding that they will be in charge of caring for the Guadalupe Chapel during one of the remaining months. Cargueros try to assure that their monthly assignment accords well with their annual work schedule. If a prospective volunteer's favored month already has been promised, he may postpone serving until some future occasion, when offered the time that suits him best. The first duty of the Cargueros de la Capilla (the term by which they are most commonly known) is to serve the religious community by caring for the Chapel. Cargueros de la Capilla are generally residents of Tzintzuntzan proper, even though they have charge over a building in El 78

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Ojo de Agua; in 1980, in fact, all twelve cargueros were Tzintzuntzenos, and this situation is normal. Apart from this duty, however, the cargueros must serve one another. On the twelfth day of every month, the carguero in charge of that month is responsible for providing breakfast and the main mid-day meal to all of the other cargueros. These feasts are not only expensive but also involve the entire family in time-consuming labor—particularly for the wives of the cargueros (cargueras), who are responsible for preparing the ritual banquets. Theoretically, all the cargueros spend about the same amount on one another. The only exception is the mayordomo who, in addition to hosting feasts on 12 January, must also provide an elaborate dinner in late spring or early summer. This dinner, known by the Tarascan term miyukwa, is devoted to a mid-year settling of accounts; the cargueros take stock of their common expenses to date, and project the outlay they will have to make during the remaining half year of service. To be a Carguero de la Capilla is generally considered economically onerous. In addition to the feast expenses, there is the cost in time and money of caring for the Guadalupe Chapel for a month. Because of unanticipated work duties or reasons of health, cargueros frequently find that they and their spouses cannot fulfill their religious responsibilities. In this case, they have to hire an employee to do the job; this arrangement can prove expensive. Then why do they assume the post? Prestige is no doubt at issue. More important, however, are religious motivations. Becoming a Carguero de la Capilla is one way of fulfilling a vow. To take on this responsibility is to express a reciprocal bond not only with one's fellow cargueros, but also with the Virgin of Guadalupe, who will have already completed her part of the contract by curing an illness or otherwise aiding the petitioner in time of deep distress. Another motivation is to assure one's well-being in the afterlife. When a carguero dies, those who have served with him are obligated to attend the novena, nine evenings of prayer for his soul that are celebrated immediately after his death. As with the care of the Chapel, if a carguero is unable to participate in the novena, a substitute must be found; should the substitute be hired, which is a relatively common situation, fulfillment of this duty entails expenditure of money rather than time. In either case, the Cargueros de la Capilla continue to sacrifice for one another, to express reciprocal exchange, long after their year of service has ended. Reciprocity among members of a given religious brotherhood extends to groups beyond the Cargueros de la Capilla. It is characteristic, in fact, of almost every ongoing religious organization in Tzintzuntzan. Hence, the twelve Cargueros de la Soledad have to give a pozole feast for the 79

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group during the first day of the month that they are responsible for taking care of the Soledad chapel. The five Cargueros de la Judea are each required to provide their sodality with a pozole dinner on one of the Fridays during Lent. Likewise, the organizers of Carnival and other fiesta performances like La Danza (see Chapter Seven) invite their performers to food and drink in return for their participation. All of these cases represent an internal system of reciprocal exchange, in which everybody donates a similar amount of time and money on behalf of the group as a whole. Outsiders, although they may be invited to share in the food if they happen to be in the vicinity, are excluded from the rights and obligations that bind the members themselves. There are also instances in which distinct religious brotherhoods reciprocate favors. By way of example we can return to the December fiestas. On 16 December the Cargueros de la Soledad organize a procession to carry the Child Jesus from La Parroquia in Tzintzuntzan to the Guadalupe Chapel in El Ojo de Agua. To accompany the group, they hire musicians. On that occasion, the Cargueros de la Capilla prepare a pozole for the Cargueros de la Soledad, which occurs in the open area outside the Chapel itself. The roles are reversed on Christmas Eve, when the image of the Child Jesus is returned to La Parroquia from El Ojo. This time it is the Cargueros de la Capilla who hire musicians, and the Cargueros de la Soledad who prepare a pozole, which is consumed at the house of one of the members. In each instance, those who receive the image provide the others with a compensatory meal. Important, too, is that everybody in town is aware of these exchanges; the reciprocity is both predictable and public.

Exchanges Between Officials and the Community at Large The exchanges between humans and supernatural beings, between households and performers, and both within and among religious brotherhoods have all entailed clearly identifiable actors. There is no ambiguity about the identity of the recipients and providers of favors. A contrasting type of fiesta exchange exists, however, in which no distinguishable actors are involved. Rather, we can only perceive a diffuse exchange in which community members as a whole provide funds voluntarily; in return, the community, again as a whole, receives favors. Corpus Christi and the Christmas Posadas provide the best examples of such exchange. As discussed in Chapter Three, Corpus Christi activities are performed 80

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by groups of comisionados, representing diverse occupations. On the several days before the feast, these representatives collect monetary contributions from townspeople. Donors are said to "cooperate." They support one or more groups to the degree that they feel some affinity with them, or with the comisionados at their head. Contributors are recorded in a notebook as usual, with several comisionados present as witnesses. The record-keeping is designed to assure that no comisionado embezzles the common fund. The contributor can hope to receive no direct compensation, except perhaps a taste of rabbit stew if he contributed substantially to the tiradores (hunters), or a tortilla with fried egg if he gave money to the arrieros (muleteers). By receiving these items, however, donors are in no way set apart from the populace at large. Throughout the day of Corpus Christi, the tiradores and arrieros cook over open fires in the middle of the atrium, amidst throngs of villagers milling around and observing. People who approach these groups will be offered a morsel, regardless of whether they contributed money. Late in the afternoon on the day of Corpus Christi, occupational groups, as well as several religious brotherhoods (the Cargueros del Senor del Rescate and the Cargueros de la Soledad), begin tirar Corpus (to throw Corpus). "Throwing Corpus" lasts for several hours. On the occasions I have witnessed the event, in 1978 and 1986, it began at about five in the afternoon and ended at seven in the evening. The participating occupational and religious groups situate themselves at high vantage points—wooden platforms, rocks, and bellfries—all around the atrium. From there, each group in turn hurls a bewildering variety of objects at the crowd below, which moves en masse from one locale to another as one group finishes throwing and the next group begins. Two foods are typical of Corpus Christi: mangos, which are abundant and relatively inexpensive at this time of year, and gorditas de trigo, which are wheat tortillas greater in diameter than a dinner plate. These two items are hurled by all the groups. In addition, the popoteros (popote reed artisans) throw hundreds of woven popote placemats. The Cargueros de la Soledad, situated in the Soledad bellfry, toss out plastic buckets, pineapples, popote firefans, and many hundreds of mangos. The yunteros hurl pottery bowls and ears of corn, in addition to the usual gorditas and mangos (Figure 6). Other groups pitch bananas, plastic containers, and pottery cups and saucers. The essence of this redistributive activity can only be grasped if we realize that the distributors remain basically anonymous. With the possible exception of the popoteros, participating groups hurl a variety of objects, which are not necessarily associated with the occupational or religious entities they represent. In addition, women, children, relatives 81

Figure 6. A yuntero and oxen, adorned with gorditas de trigo. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster

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of the religious and occupational officials in charge, even visiting anthropologists are all invited to throw objects to the eagerly awaiting crowd below. Spectators vie to catch the tossed items, which are theirs to keep. Firefans, plastic containers, gorditas de trigo, and the like are lightweight, and present no danger; women and children therefore compete equally with men to capture these goods. When bottles of beer and brandy are hurled, however, everybody but the young townsmen scurries away. Although the occasional spectator is hurt by cut glass, most of the bottled liquor is caught and consumed by the young men who brave the competitive battle to win these valued items. In my experience, spectators from all social groups are uncertain as to what group is doing the throwing. When the activity moved from one part of the atrium to another, I asked men and women around me who was doing the hurling, only to receive contradictory answers. With time I realized that the main point was not the identity of each group, much less the individuals in each group. Rather, "throwing Corpus" must be interpreted as a general redistribution of goods to the entire community, a community that, in an equally general way, provided the funds to purchase these goods. This redistributive dimension of fiestas has been recognized elsewhere in Mesoamerica (see Dow 1974; Greenberg 1981: 8-9). A similar event occurs during the Christmas Posadas. For the Posadas, Tzintzuntzan is divided into "streets," that is, quarters that do not necessarily conform to neighborhood boundaries. The activities of each street are directed by specially appointed encargados, who collect money from the households in their territory to support the fiesta expenses. These expenses include, among other things, making and filling pinatas and assembling the aguinaldo (bags of fruit, crackers, nuts, and candy). Monetary contributions are again being used to pay for material goods—in this case, sweets. As with Corpus Christi, the identities of the people involved in the exchange are ambiguous. The encargados of each street of course know the precise boundaries of the territory over which they have charge; otherwise, they would be unable to collect money from the relevant households. Yet they are perhaps the only people completely certain of the boundaries. Other villagers are only vaguely informed, and would be incapable of indicating the territories to which literally dozens of houses in the village belong. Similarly, villagers can state the names of the encargados of their own territory; organizers of other streets, however, are likely to remain a mystery. Hence, the providers of Christmas sweets, in the form of pinatas and aguinaldo, are ill defined in the minds of most villagers. 83

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Likewise, those receiving the sweets represent no one but themselves. The people of Tzintzuntzan adamantly insist that anybody is welcome at the Posada celebration of any street. Any village child is eligible to try to break the pinatas of any street, and to collect the candies and fruits that pour out when these decorated pots crack open. Adults from all over town attend different Posadas, in addition to those on the streets where they live; everybody, regardless of territorial membership, receives the aguinaldo. The village as a whole supports its fiesta. People contribute money to their own territory, just as they give to the Corpus Christi occupational groups. But their identity as providers vis-a-vis the community is basically anonymous. As receivers it matters only that they be present when the aguinaldo is passed out or the pinatas are broken. Their street affiliation is irrelevant. Yet virtually everybody gives and everybody receives during both Corpus Christi and Christmas celebrations. There occurs a generalized, diffuse reciprocity in which the exchange itself is what matters, because individual or even group identities become blurred. The exchange on these occasions neither raises anybody's prestige nor lowers anybody's overall economic station. Nor do these exchanges seem to have any deep sacred significance. They are, we might say, their own raison d'etre. Of the entire fiesta cycle, Corpus Christi and Christmas are the two celebrations that draw virtually no outsiders. They seem to attract neither tourists nor urban relatives. What the people of Tzintzuntzan do on these occasions, they do by and for themselves. When viewed in this light, the exchanges that occur at these events are particularly dramatic for the way in which they highlight the value of exchange per se. Fiesta Exchange and Daily Exchange Fiesta exchange both conforms to and departs from the tenets of daily exchange. Tzintzuntzan exchange in general must be understood, first of all, as an expression of the high value that villagers place on the maintenance and quest for equilibrium. Imbalances including the dietary excess of hot or cold foods (G. Foster 1979b), the birth of a child and all the potential advantages that the event represents (G. Foster 1965), the death of a villager and the remorse and suffering that follow (G. Foster 1979a: 164)—indeed everything from eating to greeting—may be interpreted as increasing or reducing a person's social, psychological, or economic benefits. In George Foster's view, a host of symbolic mechanisms have arisen to redress the imbalance in each of these instances, so that much of Tzin84

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tzuntzan culture can be interpreted as attempts to restore equilibrium. Certainly, as part of this behavioral model, gifts require counter-gifts; invitations to meals beget counterinvitations; and lending a hand at work obligates the recipient of the favor to reciprocate in kind at some later date. These exchanges form the substance of the dyadic contract. The quest for equilibrium in dyadic relations derives from the inherent power of gift-giving that Marcel Mauss long ago identified. Hence it is not surprising that rituals of all kind express this principle of exchange. In Tzintzuntzan, life-cycle rituals provide particularly opportune occasions for the establishment and reinforcement of dyadic ties through giftgiving, as Mary LeCron Foster's analysis of Tzintzuntzan weddings (1983) shows. In that analysis, Mary Foster (1983: 134) identifies the essential feature of secrecy that characterizes the exchange of material goods in Tzintzuntzan, be it the everyday interchange of small items or the special presentation of more valuable goods that takes place during life-cycle rituals. As she states, "The indirection required in ritual exchanges characterizes any kind of gift giving. Fear of envy . . . make[s] gift giving and receiving a delicate matter that should be carried out with some secrecy. For example, gifts given on an individual's saint's day (the calendrical day of the saint for whom he/she was named) are usually presented on a tray covered with a napkin by someone other than the giver, usually a member of the family, and, often, are received also by an intermediary." Herein lies one of the great contrasts between fiesta exchange and daily exchange. Fiesta exchanges are always carried out in the open, in full public view. The secrecy that pervades much of daily exchange, and even of life-cycle rituals, in no way characterizes fiesta exchange. When donors contribute money to Corpus Christi committees, there are witnesses; when the Cargueros de la Capilla entertain the Cargueros de la Soledad, dining tables are erected outside the Virgin of Guadalupe Chapel in full view; when caretakers of the twelve venerated barrio crosses present food to the spies, the interchange occurs in the street. Even in the most dubious instance, that of the hooded penitentes, debts to the saints are paid publicly. Aside from this quality of openness, community fiesta exchange departs further from daily exchange, as well as from most of the exchanges that occur during life-cycle rituals: many fiesta interchanges are designed to bind groups rather than individuals. Households, for example, donate as units to the communal fiesta fund. Religious brotherhoods feed one another, just as they also, as groups, feed the priest for ritual services rendered on their behalf. During Corpus Christi and the Posadas, we are confronted with the most extreme example of this pattern, as the hosts 85

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and guests are virtually one and the same. On these occasions, the village as a whole invites itself to sweets and entertainment. The fiesta proceedings nonetheless preserve a recognizable degree of reciprocity and exchange. A third difference between fiesta exchange and daily exchange lies in the distinct time commitments that each form demands. Dyadic exchanges of the everyday kind produce ongoing relationships, which are at least intended to last a lifetime. True, the bonds between particular individuals sometimes sour; compadres and comadres who professed everlasting affection and respect for one another at the moment of becoming ritual kin occasionally become permanently alienated. A similar estrangement can occur among natural relatives, especially siblings in quarrels over inheritance. But for the most part, dyadic bonds do endure for years. Life-cycle rituals provide opportunities to establish new dyadic bonds and to reinforce old ones; hence, the exchanges that occur during those occasions are simply a dramatic extension of the types of prestations that occur between pairs of individuals in ordinary daily life. In contrast, fiesta exchanges are clearly delimited in time. Whether we consider banquet invitations, monetary donations, participation in a dance or Holy Week performance, or ritual sacrifice in repayment of a vow, the bond between the parties is perceived as finite. Indeed, the committees that take charge of fiestas, whether civil or religious, are temporary bodies, selected either for a stipulated tenure of office or for the mere execution of one particular fiesta event. Once the period of service ends or the job is accomplished, the exchange relationship that brought the parties together terminates definitively. For this reason, fiesta exchanges seem to be characterized by carefully calculated, short-term reciprocity. Carnival actors perform, and then feast at the expense of the donors and event organizer; the relationship among all the parties—performers, household donors, and event organizer—ends there. The Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe invite the Cargueros de la Soledad to a banquet; several weeks later the guests reciprocate in kind, and the exchange sequence terminates. Holy Week spies spend a grueling day of silence in the sun. At the end, they receive refreshments from twelve designated households, an act of reciprocity that concludes their temporary bond. Everyday dyadic contracts, as we have seen, are very different. Because they are predicated on the persistence of ties over the long term, precisely calculated repayment is insulting; it implies a desire to end the relationship. Hence, daily exchanges are almost always characterized by short-term imbalances that keep people obligated to one another for years. The contrast between daily exchange and ritual exchange permits us 86

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to understand why—in a society like Tzintzuntzan, where individualism is so highly valued and collective effort in the economic sphere has met with uniform failure (G. Foster 1979a)—fiestas successfully and predictably reach the heights of organizational complexity. Obviously, villagers are willing to commit themselves to short-term collective action, in which rights and duties are clearly delineated and obligations of time and money finite. The multiple committees and intricate network of exchanges that are brought into play on the occasion of any fiesta demonstrate an unusually fine talent for collective action. In Tzintzuntzan, however, this talent has yet to be applied to the realm of daily economic life, in which people demonstrate less trustworthiness and willingness to take risks. One purpose that fiesta exchange serves, nonetheless, is to reinforce the reputations of individuals in the community, by showing them to be reliable or not. The people of Tzintzuntzan basically use dyadic contracts as a means of survival. Existence depends on mutual assistance, be it with one's equals or superiors. Yet the favors that are exchanged between pairs of individuals are basically private. Fiestas, by placing exchange in the public arena, enables the community to assess the quality of people's performances and to evaluate the degree to which they fulfill their duties. By performing well and acting responsibly in the public domain, a person's prestige is enhanced, and thereby his or her value as a dyadic partner is correspondingly affected. Because of their dramatic, stage-like quality, fiestas also demonstrate openly the basic principle of exchange. They have the potential, at any rate, of acting as instructive devices, providing models of behavior that inculcate in young people and reinforce in the adults the importance of reciprocity. It is impossible to calculate whether fiesta exchange is itself modeled on daily exchange or the reverse. What they have in common is a recognition that reciprocal favors are critical to survival, and that in the long or short term these favors should somehow be balanced. These messages, whether in the public fiesta domain or the private daily domain, strengthen one another. They pervade all of social life and, through frequent repetition, persuade villagers to live according to prevailing contractual norms.

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Tourism and the Day of the Dead In contemporary Mexico, as in Spain (Diaz Viana 1981; Greenwood 1977), tourism exerts one of the most potent influences on folk Catholicism. This circumstance is particularly evident in fiesta celebrations, which provide exceptional opportunities for elaborate, attentioncatching performances and other forms of diversion. Recognizing that traditional fiestas can further its financial and ideological goals, the Mexican government since the early 1970s has systematically promoted the touristic development of particular religious occasions, including most importantly the well-known Day of the Dead. Tzintzuntzan has been among the many villages affected by this national campaign. It is therefore worthwhile to examine Tzintzuntzan's Day of the Dead as an example of how local fiestas can be radically transformed through manipulative state policies. Anyone who visits Mexico during the end of October or beginning of November would be struck by the elaborate, colorful way in which Mexicans celebrate what amounts to their equivalent of Halloween. Candies, breads, paper cutouts, and plastic toys, all playing humorously on the theme of death, are evident everywhere. Miniature sweets in the form of skulls, skeletons, and caskets give evidence of an almost irreverent confrontation with mortality. During the first two days of November, Mexican cemeteries are decorated with flowers, candles, and food, all arranged artistically on the graves, for this is the annual occasion on which Mexicans honor their deceased relatives by cleaning, decorating, and maintaining vigil at burial sites. Many Mexicans would claim that the souls of the deceased watch over the activities of the living during these days. Negligent living relatives await punishment, whether on earth or in the afterlife. This folk belief is often invoked throughout Mexico to explain the substantial time and energy invested in this fiesta. Nonetheless, the Day of the Dead, like all Hispanic folk celebrations, differs from one region to another. Before the 1970s, this fiesta was un-

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important in Tzintzuntzan's annual fiesta cycle. Villagers would decorate home altars in simple motifs. Some bereaved community members would spend several hours at gravesites, especially on the first anniversary of the death of a relative. Otherwise, people paid little attention to the occasion; it certainly attracted few if any outside visitors. In 1971, governmental agencies in Morelia, the state capital, intervened to stimulate tourism. As a result, not only do many more local people participate than before, but also the variety of activities associated with this fiesta has expanded enormously. In effect, a major fiesta has been added to the Tzintzuntzan religious calendar. Tourism has virtually created Tzintzuntzan's Day of the Dead, or at least embellished the traditional observance beyond recognition. Not surprisingly, the Day of the Dead illustrates better than any other Tzintzuntzan fiesta the way in which state planning can affect everything from the details of local religious celebration to the way in which villagers define themselves in relation to outsiders. In 1970, a small proportion of Tzintzuntzenos participated in a simple event. By 1980, thousands of middle-class urbanites were attending a large fiesta. Traffic was clogged, television cameras flooded the cemetery with glaring light, and the town had become transformed into what was essentially a great stage prop for a gala dramatic performance. In this performance, native townspeople participated as actors but outsiders ran the show. This chapter chronicles this change and analyzes its implications for understanding the power of outsiders to influence ethnic and personal identity through fiestas.

The Night of the Dead in Tzintzuntzan La Noche de Muertos is the term now used throughout the state of Michoacan to refer to the evenings of 1 and 2 November. Although this terminology may be unique (I have encountered no other reference to it either in Europe or Latin America), the occasion it represents certainly is not. According to the Roman Catholic calendar, 1 November is All Saints' Day, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as El Dia de Todos Santos, and 2 November is All Souls' Day, called variously El Dia de Muertos (The Day of the Dead), El Dia de los Fieles Difuntos (Day of the Faithful Deceased), or El Dia de Animas (The Day of the Souls). By using the term La Noche de Muertos, the people of Tzintzuntzan, and Michoacan generally, implicitly emphasize the ritual importance of the evening activities in comparison with those of the daytime. Only at dusk on 1 November does the festival come alive in Tzintzuntzan. From that hour until dawn the following morning the town is transformed 89

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physically and spiritually in the way that only the most extraordinary community celebrations seem to be able to do. When discussing fiesta change, or culture change of most types for that matter, it is usual to establish an ethnographic baseline, which is taken to represent the presumed traditional circumstances. In the case of Tzintzuntzan's Night of the Dead this procedure is difficult to follow because informants themselves disagree about the absence or presence of certain fundamental features of the ritual. Unfortunately, before 1945 there are no written accounts to clarify the inconsistencies. The most prudent course is simply to set forth the probable course of events along with the possible alternatives. Our concern is with the Night of the Dead before 1971. During this "traditional" period, which itself undoubtedly demonstrated many changes from one decade to another, there prevailed certain outstanding features of the celebration that can be commented on individually. Mass. The official celebration, as dictated by Rome and developed since early modern times, requires that parish priests recite special Masses on 1 November in honor of all the saints and on 2 November in honor of all the deceased. These Masses, of course, have always been celebrated in Tzintzuntzan, with the attendance of those villagers who are moved to participate. Universally in the Catholic world, three Masses are said on 2 November. In Tzintzuntzan the first of these occurs at dawn in the open air at the village cemetery. Celebration of the special Masses on 1 and 2 November (or on 3 November, should 2 November fall on Sunday) is the only requirement established by Rome. However, in the New Catholic Encyclopedia, Cornides (1967: 319) notes that these dates have always been associated with "many different folkloric and popular customs and practices, especially various forms of food offerings. . . . Among religious traditions, the parish procession to the cemetery, visiting the graves of relatives and friends, and leaving flowers and lights on the graves have remained almost universal." These informal, or rather unofficial, ritual practices constitute the bulk of Tzintzuntzan's celebration, as summarized below. Home altars. Traditionally, most households have set up home altars in honor of their deceased relatives. Altars may be erected on 31 October, especially in cases where the deceased is an angelito (usually a child, but actually anyone who is known to have died in sexual innocence). According to local belief, 1 November is the day particularly devoted to such departed souls, which is why 31 October is occasionally referred to as La Vispera de los Angelitos (Angelitos' Eve). If the deceased relatives include no angelitos, the altars are constructed on 1 November. Dismantling of all altars takes place at about noon on 2 November. 90

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Although home altars vary widely according to the expense and effort that each family is willing to expend, they share at least two common elements: candles and marigold petals, the latter known locally as simplasuche, a local variant of the Nahuatl cempoaxochitl (Foster and Ospina 1948: 219). Most home altars additionally bear food, including bread, oranges, bananas, and squash.1 Pictures of the deceased relatives who are being honored are often situated on or above the altar, together with trinkets or other small items that the deceased is known to have liked. Villagers feel strongly about the proper components of a home altar, although, with the exception of candles and marigold petals, their opinions rarely coincide precisely. Some families place several candlesticks at the foot of their bed and sprinkle marigold petals in the form of a cross. Others have considerably more elaborate altars, erected on a complex of tables and shelves and filled with a great variety of breads, fruits, vegetables, and colorful ornaments. Candlelight vigil. La velacion (the candlelight vigil) traditionally occurred at the town cemetery in the early hours of 2 November. Foster and Ospina (1948: 220) describe the velacion of 1945 as follows: About 4 o'clock in the morning family groups begin to wend their way to the cemetery, carrying arcos [latticework structures] and other offerings of food, to take up their vigil by the graves of departed relatives. Again yellow marigold flowers are scattered over all graves, and candles are lighted. Toward dawn perhaps 40 tombs are thus arranged, and the twinkling of several hundred candles in the dark suggests will-of-the-wisps run riot. The night is cold, and the mourners crouch, wrapped in serapes, occasionally saying a few words, but for the most part guarding silence. After daylight other persons come, to talk with friends keeping vigil, to eat a little, and to see what is happening. By 11 o'clock most people have gone home and the graveyard is again deserted. The explanation that the vigil is at night rather than during the day—so that the heat of the sun will not melt the candles—appears to be rationalization of ancient custom rather than based on fact. In 1961, when Foster witnessed the event again at four in the morning, he reported the presence of about one hundred family groups at the cemetery. Had there been a dramatic increase in village attendance at the vigil? Clearly, there was somewhat of an increase, although perhaps not as much as the figures immediately suggest. In 1945, Tzintzuntzan's population was 1231; by 1960, it had climbed to 1840. Given this develop91

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ment, we might expect that, simply as a function of population growth, fifty percent more families would attend the vigil in 1961 than had attended in 1945, yielding an anticipated attendance of some sixty families. In fact, we have a recorded estimate of about one hundred. Thus, the increased attendance at the vigil can be explained only in part by an increase in population. A more likely explanation of the lower attendance in 1945 is the destruction of gravesites that occurred in the 1930s. In 1930, when Lazaro Cardenas (the future president of the Republic) was governor of the state of Michoacan, he declared Tzintzuntzan an autonomous municipio. At the same time, he ordered that Tzintzuntzan's atrium, which was the traditional graveyard, no longer be used for the purpose. It was cleared of tombstones and other identifying markers, and the new cemetery was established at its present location just southeast of town. A highway was constructed directly over the cemetery in 1939, thereby bisecting it into two small triangular patches, and many graves were simply covered with asphalt. During the 1930s, then, two cemeteries had in effect been destroyed. In 1945, there were simply not many identifiable gravesites over which the villagers could maintain vigil. Sixteen years later, with the rapid appearance of numerous new recognizable graves, people had a reason and place to go during the Night of the Dead. This development, as much as simple population increase, accounts for the rise in the number of participants at the velacion between 1945 and 1961. It is impossible to state with any accuracy what the situation might have been before 1945. Offerings. Various food offerings, known as ofrendas, have always been an important feature of the Night of the Dead in Tzintzuntzan according to our sources. Perhaps the most dramatic of the offerings, from a visual point of view, is the arco—an elaborately decorated latticework structure approximately two meters square. The arco may be shaped in the form of a large eagle, or angel, or other recognizable being, and is hung with a plethora of fruit, breads, and sugar candies, all nestled within a field of marigolds (Figure 7). Arcos (literally, arches) are built with a stick frame and cross supports that enable the structures to be mounted freestanding on the ground. So-called ofrendas nuevas (new offerings) have been traditionally celebrated with the expensive, timeconsuming construction of arcos. The first year following the death of a child (or, theoretically anybody who might be considered an angelito), the baptismal godparents are responsible for preparing an arco in memory of the deceased. On the evening of 31 October, the baptismal godparents carry the arco to the home of the deceased's parents, who provide the godparents a pozole supper in return. The following day, the parents transport the arco to the cemetery, where it may remain until the after92

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Figure 7. An arco in the form of an eagle

noon of 1 November or until mid-day on 2 November; the testimonies of informants differ. It is also unclear whether this is simply a Tarascan Indian practice, or whether it has also been a part of the mestizo tradition in Tzintzuntzan. Most offerings are less elaborate than arcos. The term ofrenda covers 93

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a wide variety of food items and candies, all displayed in honor of the deceased. The fruit, squash, candles, and other objects that adorn home altars are certainly considered ofrendas, as are the same array of goods that are placed around and on top of gravesites. Some families take account of the individual tastes of the deceased in deciding the kinds of food to use as offerings. According to one informant, "The custom here is to take to the deceased what they enjoyed a lot in life, . . . fruit and such things . . . corundas [a local variant of tamales], tortillas, beans, pork, a duck, if the deceased liked, fish, whatever, whatever the deceased liked the most." These foods remain on the home altars and gravesites until the end of the celebration on the morning of 2 November. Even in 1945, no one in Tzintzuntzan actually believed that the deceased relatives would descend to earth to partake of these offerings. Rather, the offerings have always been placed out in honor of the deceased, whose spirits may be present and thereby take note of the efforts and concern of the living on their behalf. With the termination of the Night of the Dead, implicitly marked by Mass at the cemetery in the early morning of 2 November, families gather up their offerings and take them home, where they are distributed to neighbors, friends, and compadres, and where they also may be consumed by the families themselves. El doble. There is no precise English translation for the term el doble, which refers in Tzintzuntzan to a complex of practices associated with institutionalized begging and the tolling of churchbells during the Night of the Dead. Traditionally, the young men of the village were accorded certain rights and duties on this occasion. Their main responsibility was to ring the churchbells throughout the night between 1 and 2 November in the characteristic rhythm indicating death.2 The Spanish verb doblar refers in part to this lugubrious tolling of bells on the occasion of any death, not only during the Night of the Dead, and the term doble probably derives from that usage. In return for tolling the bells, a chore clearly conceptualized as community service, the young men were given the right to beg from house to house, pidiendo el doble (asking for the doble). In this sense, the term doble denotes foodstuffs and other items, like firewood, that were family donations to the youth. They would then take these items and cook them in the atrium over an open fire. The doble might also take the form of money, which, when pooled, could be used to purchase liquor. The young men organized themselves for this activity and selected a presidente to lead the group. Some of the youth would be assigned to bellringing, others to cooking, and yet others to begging. They would periodically relieve one another of these activities by switching places at regular intervals throughout the night. The presidente was in charge of maintaining order 94

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and toward this end was entrusted with the keys to the town jail. Apparently disorderly conduct was enough of an ongoing concern that such measures had to be institutionalized. Apart from the bellringing and begging of young men, the term doble refers to a type of institutionalized charity that would occur at the cemetery. Needy members of the community would walk from grave to grave, saying a prayer in honor of the deceased at each tombsite and collecting from the family members an item or two from among the food offerings. The items, given partly as charity and partly in exchange for the prayers over the dead, were known as el doble. The same term was used to refer to the institutionalized act of begging itself on this occasion. These, then, are the major elements of the traditional celebration of the Night of the Dead in Tzintzuntzan: special Masses; home altars; candlelight vigil at the cemetery; offerings of food, flowers, and candles; and institutionalized bellringing and begging. Despite minor changes in the ritualized celebration of the event in the generation before 1971, as well as some informant disagreements about ceremonial practices, this complex of beliefs and behaviors may be taken as an ethnographic baseline against which we can measure subsequent transformations. For if anything is certain about the celebration of the Night of the Dead before 1971, it is this: tourism and state intervention did not play a significant role. It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct exactly what the meaning of the event was to the people of Tzintzuntzan at that time. Clearly, as a community celebration it was relatively insignificant, at least in comparison with other events on the town's fiesta calendar, like Holy Week and Corpus Christi. The Night of the Dead was primarily a family fiesta. Probably most village households erected home altars. By best estimates, a small minority attended Mass and participated in the velacion, although the latter event, in particular, stands out in people's memories because it represented a publicly marked break from the daily routine. What proportion of the young men participated in el doble is unknown, but presumably this affair was popular and included not only unmarried men in their teens but also recently married men who still did not have the responsibility of supporting children. What accounts for the absence of tourists during this period? For one thing, the infrastructure before 1971 was unsuitable. The Night of the Dead occurs at an inconvenient time to attract foreigners, and the Mexican political developments that led the country's middle class to adopt significant domestic tourism had not taken effect. In addition, nearby Janitzio, a small picturesque island on Lake Patzcuaro inhabited by Tar95

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ascan Indians, had become famous for essentially the same practices as those in Tzintzuntzan at the time. Foster and Ospina (1948: 220) had declared that All Souls' Day in Janitzio "has become one of the most famous spectacles of Mexican indigenous life." The outsiders who did come to the region to witness traditional celebrations therefore were attracted to Janitzio; Tzintzuntzan and other villages were of little or no importance. Indeed, there was much more reason to visit Janitzio's cemetery than Tzintzuntzan's. Probably stimulated by the influx of tourists, the people of Janitzio would spend all night at the graveyard, rather than arrive in the early hours of the morning, as was the case in Tzintzuntzan. As Foster and Ospina (1948: 221) put it, "All night long boats arrive from Patzcuaro with the curious, and from the water the island stands out sharply illuminated for many kilometers around, in contrast to the rest of the year when, with great difficulty, one can pick out a light or two from the mainland." During this period and for several decades subsequently, other towns in the lake region could not compete with Janitzio for the tourist trade.

The Impact of State Intervention Anyone who goes to Morelia, the beautiful capital of the state of Michoacan, is likely to encounter two large posters during the month of October. On one, against a dark blue field representing the night sky, are prominently stenciled white letters reading: "Noche de Muertos en Michoacan" ("Night of the Dead in Michoacan"). The bulk of the poster is taken up by a drawing of a Tarascan Indian woman, wrapped in a rebozo, and seated at the foot of typical ofrendas of tall candles, fruit, and corundas. Against her chest is blocked a "Programa de Eventos Durante la Celebracion de Noche de Muertos en Michoacan"—that is, a long list of sightseeing events throughout the state associated with the Night of the Dead. Tzintzuntzan is listed among fourteen towns and villages. We read that on 1 November in Tzintzuntzan we can see a performance of the classical Spanish drama Don Juan Tenorio, by Jose Zorilla, as well as attend a "Festival de Danzas y Pirekuas." On 1 and 2 November, according to the poster, Tzintzuntzan offers us "Tianguis Artesanal y Comida Tipica," in addition to the "Velacion" that is portrayed on the announcement itself. The second poster, in red, is devoted entirely to information about Don Juan Tenorio—the seven towns where it can be viewed, including Tzintzuntzan, with corresponding dates and times and names of the sponsoring theater company, major production technicians, and starring performers. The posters implicitly indicate that Tzin96

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tzuntzan is part of a large, coordinated drama, organized by some central authority and involving a variety of settlements throughout the state. This impression is, in fact, correct. The radical change in Tzintzuntzan's program of activities during the Night of the Dead can be traced precisely to 1971. In this year, three interrelated governmental entities coordinated their efforts to make this event a major tourist attraction well beyond the confines of Janitzio, where it had achieved national fame on its own; the goal was to draw visitors throughout the state of Michoacan. A considerable amount of money would be invested. Because funds were limited, however, only the most propitious locales would be selected for investment. Tzintzuntzan, with its ancient heritage and colonial monuments, was a perfect candidate. As the former capital of the Tarascan Empire, Tzintzuntzan already had a prominent place in the large Tarascan display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, so the governmental agencies responsible for tourist promotion were aware of Tzintzuntzan's reputation and potential. Interestingly, Janitzio was not included in the official announcements and posters; presumably this island community, with a well-established tourist industry of its own, could maintain its success without state funds or promotional schemes. The governmental agencies responsible for tourist development of the Night of the Dead were the Casa de Artesanias, the Casa de la Cultura, and the Secretaria Estatal de Turismo of the state of Michoacan. These agencies, although independent entities, are all branches of the state government and thereby coordinate their efforts into one virtually indistinguishable campaign. Their collective impact was to institute what people in Tzintzuntzan term La Feria (The Fair), which refers to a broad complex of commercial activities and recreational events that coincide in place and time with the actual religious celebration. By the time I witnessed the Night of the Dead in Tzintzuntzan in 1980 and 1984, La Feria had in many respects overtaken in importance the sacred fiesta activities. One middle-aged informant, herself not a particularly devout individual by Tzintzuntzan standards, offered her opinion of the changes that had occurred by stating, "The event has become shameful. People hardly talk about the Night of the Dead anymore. Rather, they say Feria, or Vamos a la Feria de los Muertos! (Let's go to the Fair of the Deceased!) It's practically scandalous, but that's what she said." What exactly had changed as a result of state intervention? To begin, there was the introduction of cultural performances. From the 1970s through the present, the theatrical company of the Casa de la Cultura in Michoacan has come to Tzintzuntzan to put on Don Juan Tenorio. The play is given in a spectacular outdoor setting: the seventeenth-century 97

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open-air chapel that is one of the town's most important colonial monuments. Performed at eleven o'clock on the night of 1 November, Don Juan Tenorio draws an audience of more than one thousand. Perhaps unfortunately, this group includes only a handful of villagers. Most of the people, although proud that the play is so popular with the visiting public, balk at the thought of paying the four hundred pesos entry fee— equivalent in 1980 to about one to three days' income. "We don't tend to like things like that," one informant proclaimed; "That's mostly for city people, for people who've studied a lot and understand what's going on." In my experience, the people of Tzintzuntzan willingly lay out large sums for fiesta activities that they value. Don Juan Tenorio is obviously not among these. Then, too, the Ministry of Tourism introduced a Festival Folklorico, as they term it. In 1980, on the first occasion I witnessed it, the Folklore Festival consisted of regional dances from all over Mexico, not just Michoacan. A large platform had been erected for the purpose near the Presidencia. For several hours just before the performance of Don Juan Tenorio (these activities are timed so that tourists can observe them all), dancers and musicians entertained an audience of perhaps five or six hundred of whom, again, only a handful were from the village of Tzintzuntzan itself. Television news cameras were on hand, flooding the scene with their glaring lights; middle-class visitors, many of them dressed in urban versions of peasant costume, flashed their cameras at the colorful scene. Despite the fact that there was no entry fee for this event, however, townspeople showed little or no interest. By 1984, when I visited a second time, the event had both grown and changed character. It was now being held on a raised platform in front of the yacatas, the circular ancient Tarascan pyramids, located high on a hill overlooking the town and lake. The event was now termed Festival de Danzas y Pirekuas (pirekuas are traditional Tarascan songs and music). In fact the entire 1984 Festival was devoted to so-called folk performances from the region; representatives from other parts of Mexico were eliminated. There was a new entry fee of one hundred pesos, an amount that would not have deterred villagers had they been interested. Nonetheless, among the thousands of onlookers, seated on folding chairs for the open-air performance, the only local people I could identify were small groups of boys, teenaged and younger, who had climbed up the hillside by a back route and sneaked in without paying. The audience was composed almost exclusively of middle-class Mexicans, fully urban in appearance and demeanor, many of whom had arrived for the occasion in tour buses from as far away as Mexico City. There were a number of large senior citizen's groups, made up of retirees who were chauffeured 98

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from one locale to another to see highlights from the Night of the Dead proceedings at three or four different places. One such group arrived, paid their entry fee, and stayed only a half hour or so before rushing off to nearby Ihuatzio; they were to conclude that night at the island of Janitzio, the grand finale to their tour. The Festival de Danzas y Pirekuas was performed by young dancers and musicians from outside Tzintzuntzan, people who were undoubtedly Tarascan or of Tarascan origin, but nonetheless from elsewhere in Michoacan. The female performers were dressed in a simplified, stylized version of Tarascan women's costume; the men, donning white pants and shirts, adorned by bandannas and old-fashioned straw hats, looked nothing like the contemporary local Indian population. Most of the dances and songs were Tarascan in flavor. One, however, was said to represent a "reconstruction" of a pre-Columbian Tarascan dance; it was announced that the Institute Nacional Indigenista, a national agency for promoting and protecting Indian culture, sponsored the research and preparation that went into the dance, and, as far as was evident, nobody seemed to question the authenticity of this performance. Periodically, the announcer would fall into speaking Tarascan. At several points in the show, in fact, he spoke in Tarascan for five minutes or more, despite the obvious composition of the audience, incapable of understanding a word that was being said. Nonetheless, this linguistic element, combined with the floodlit yacatas, and the folk music and costumes, added immeasurably to the impression that here, indeed, we were in the heart of Tarascan country. Although fewer than ten percent of the population of Tzintzuntzan speaks or even understands Tarascan, it was the image, not the reality, of indigenous culture that the Ministry of Tourism aimed to convey. With respect to the dramatic performances staged during La Feria, the people of Tzintzuntzan were incidental to the proceedings. At least on the two occasions that I observed, they participated directly neither as performers nor as onlookers. In only one way did they really seem to exert influence, and that is in the seemingly trivial but actually very telling matter of how the yacatas were to be lit. Traditionally on the Night of the Dead the yacatas remained as dark as they did during the rest of the year. With the suggestion and at the expense of the Ministry of Tourism, the municipal government of Tzintzuntzan situated antorchas, dieselfueled flares mounted in large tin cans, on the road leading up to the yacatas, as well as along the pyramids themselves, so as to outline the ancient structures when viewed from the town and highway below. During the celebration of 1983, a year before my second field trip, the municipal government had decided to substitute electric floodlights for the 99

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fuel lamps. Townspeople complained about the noxious smell of the diesel oil, and the fumes from the lamps blackened the surface of the yacatas, thus requiring a costly, time-consuming clean-up job afterwards. By 1984 the fuel lamps had returned. Stated one town official by way of explanation, "No les agrado" ("[The people] didn't like it"). At first, I interpreted his remarks to mean that the villagers themselves objected. But the official was referring to the tourists, who clearly preferred the oil lamps, which were presumably much more evocative of ancient times than were lights powered by electricity. As a compromise, however, and to facilitate the dance and song festival, floodlights were retained for several of the yacatas. The others were once again lined with oil lamps, as was the road leading up to the festival. With the collaboration of its own town government, Tzintzuntzan had been converted into a great, open-air theater, its ancient and colonial monuments serving as dramatic stage props. Aside from theatrical and folk performances, the state agencies introduced two additional components to La Feria, a crafts competition and open-air market. From the very initiation of La Feria in 1971, the Casa de Artesanias in Morelia established an annual crafts competition in Tzintzuntzan to coincide with the Night of the Dead. With backing from an organ of the central Mexican government known as FONART (Fondo Nacional de Artesanias), the Casa de Artesanias offered prizes for the best craftsmanship in three categories: pottery, arcos, and all other crafts. First-place winners in each category received three thousand pesos, second-place winners two thousand pesos, and third-place winners one thousand pesos, substantial sums that stimulated high-quality production efforts. Prestige clearly accrued to those who won a prize, for, during periodic visits to Tzintzuntzan at diverse times of year, friends and informants rarely failed to mention the success of one or another craftsman— potters in particular. The open-air market devolved naturally from the crafts competition. The competition drew attention to artisan specialization in the village, and tourists and townspeople alike were drawn by curiosity to the crafts displays. What is more, there was a financial incentive for crafts displays, because the Casa de Artesanias had agreed to purchase everything that remained unsold at the end of La Feria. Under these conditions, the Tzintzuntzan town government could charge substantial rents for space where artisans and food vendors set up temporary stands. For a number of years the market flourished. State subsidies assured profits for everybody, craftsmen and local government alike, and the presence of a bustling market added to Tzintzuntzan's touristic appeal. That appeal, and the tourist pesos it would bring, were obviously the ultimate aim of the Casa de Artesanias and associated agencies. 100

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This highly favorable situation changed in the early 1980s. In 1981, as a result of various circumstances, the Casa de Artesanias ceased to sponsor the annual crafts competition. The most likely reason is that high rates of inflation had by then severely limited the government's willingness to invest in relatively expensive luxuries, like paying artisans for their unsold wares. The Casa de Artesanias, and its sponsoring agency FONART, were no doubt in a worse financial state in 1981 than they had been ten years earlier. At the same time, the so-called tianguis (free market) had been established in Patzcuaro, only one-half hour away. The Patzcuaro town government permitted artisans free use of space. As a large market town, with a well-established tourist infrastructure, Patzcuaro naturally attracted a considerably larger buying public than Tzintzuntzan ever could. So, freed from expensive rental overhead and assured of a large affluent clientele, Tzintzuntzan artisans began to display their crafts in Patzcuaro during 1 and 2 November, rather than in their hometown. Added to these developments was an unfortunate political murder that occurred in Tzintzuntzan during the Night of the Dead in 1977 and that received a good deal of sensationalistic publicity throughout the state of Michoacan. Villagers themselves claim that the Casa de Artesanias lost interest in supporting Tzintzuntzan after that scandalous event. Whatever the reasons, the net result was a serious decline in the number of temporary stands erected during La Feria, although about a dozen stands were still evident in November 1984. The food stands, however, have profited and grown in number. The entire street on which the Presidencia is located is filled with dozens of temporary stalls selling everything from tacos, bunuelos, atole, corundas, and other cooked items, prepared on the spot, to bottled soft drinks and packaged candy. Several hot chocolate stands cater to tourists and villagers who crave this traditional breakfast item in the early morning hours of 2 November, following the velacion in the cemetery. There is also plenty of ponche, the typical alcoholic beverage of the occasion. Food vendors do very well during the Night of the Dead. Their proximity to the cemetery and to the base of the hill leading up to the yacatas, makes the stands readily accessible to the thousands of tourists who visit Tzintzuntzan on this occasion. This market represents the most obviously successful commercial consequence of state intervention since 1971.

The Transformation of Tradition The introduction of La Feria, with its theatrical and commercial dimensions, represents the most direct, immediate impact of state intervention 101

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on Tzintzuntzan's Night of the Dead. The indirect impact, however, has been equally notable, perhaps more so. The transformation of traditional aspects of the fiesta has manifested itself mainly in two areas, the velacion and the doble. In principle, the velacion, including the display of offerings and the gravesite vigil, is basically the same as always. The changes have mostly come in the scale of the event, as well as in the atmosphere it conveys. The velacion includes more participants and lasts much longer than ever before. The cemetery, flanking both sides of the highway leading into town, is now packed with decorated tombs and family members watching over them. Tombs may be left unattended for brief periods throughout the night, making an exact count of participating families impossible. Nonetheless, there are two to three hundred decorated gravesites, adorned with thousands of candles and offerings of food and flowers. Instead of arriving early on the morning of 2 November, which was the traditional practice, villagers presently situate themselves at the graves of their departed relatives in the late evening of 1 November; shortly after dark, people have already decorated their tombs and begun their vigil. Except for brief periods of absence—and even that among the minority of participants—people stay at the cemetery throughout most of the night, many of them remaining to celebrate sunrise Mass at the cemetery itself. The overall atmosphere at the velacion is far from what Foster and Ospina (1948: 220) witnessed in 1945, with "the twinkling of several hundred candles in the dark," suggesting "will-of-the-wisps run riot." Occasionally, with assistance from the imagination, the onlooker can perceive the kind of magical quality to the occasion that the tourist brochures and announcements promise, and that Foster and Ospina experienced. For the most part, however, what we encounter today is more evocative of a carnival atmosphere. In the center of the lower, larger half of the cemetery, television cameras are situated to record the event for later broadcast. A huge, noisy electric generator is employed to provide energy for the floodlights that brightly illuminate a great portion of the cemetery. Meanwhile, hundreds of tourists, many of them listening to portable radios, walk from grave to grave, commenting openly on the quality of the offerings and on the picturesque costume and posture of the mourners. As they jostle past one another, they jockey to position themselves in the best locales to take photographs; the flash of cameras competes with the graveside candles in lighting up the dark evening sky, although neither source is very successful when compared with the glaring beams that emanate from the television outpost. Because the cemetery is bisected by the highway, the automobile traffic 102

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automatically contributes to the atmosphere. Enough cars enter Tzintzuntzan during the Night of the Dead so that traffic jams have become a regular feature of the proceedings. Police from Patzcuaro and Morelia are on hand to direct cars to parking spots. The highway bordering on the cemetery is lined on both sides with parked cars, many of which are used almost like temporary campsites. With car doors open and stereos playing, families gather around their automobiles to eat picnic dinners and exchange impressions. The commotion naturally reaches the gravesites just a few yards away. The second major traditional feature of the Night of the Dead that has changed radically is the doble. In 1980, on the occasion that I first witnessed this fiesta, the doble ceased to be the event that Tzintzuntzan had known for generations. In that year, according to the parish priest, "Se prohibio" ("It was prohibited"). By using the vague passive tense, the priest undoubtedly was attempting to disguise his responsibility for this largely unpopular move. Indeed, responsibility cannot be imputed with certainty, although the priest clearly favored the change and contributed to its implementation. He continued: "The authorities perceived a certain disorder to the custom, that sometimes reached the point of drunkenness. It's one thing for individuals to drink, but when it's done by an organized group the drinking creates a certain disorder." Disorder there surely was, if town legends are to be believed. It is said that on one occasion, the boys entered the sacristy, clothed themselves in the priest's garments, and staged a fake Mass in the parish church. One member of the group, angered by his friends' actions, called the police, who jailed the youths for a day as punishment. On another occasion, one young man stole all the bread that his companions had collected from door-todoor begging. When the others discovered what he had done, they chased him wildly through the streets, producing a minor town scandal. Even today, when describing what the event was like, many informants casually assert that the doble was, as they somewhat indelicately put it, una borrachera (a drunken orgy). Nonetheless, the bells got tolled as they were supposed to, and in the end, the boys did fulfill their part of the bargain. Then why was the doble, such as it was known, called off? I suspect a convergence of reasons, all relating to the promotion of tourism. For one thing, to assure the tourist influx, the town officials, together with the priest, had to make sure that order and harmony were preserved throughout the Night of the Dead. With so many outsiders passing through, there was already considerable concern about the potential for chaos and disruption. The presence of Patzcuaro police, borrowed for the occasion, together with a Red Cross emergency medical unit, bore 103

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sufficient witness to the extraordinary nature of the event. It was no doubt thought that the youths in charge of the doble could only add to the difficulties. Then, too, there was apparently a loss of interest among the youths themselves. Begging from door to door, tolling the churchbells, eating and drinking around a bonfire were all forms of diversion that had been rendered more or less obsolete. Now the tourists themselves provided enough of an entertaining spectacle, not to mention the food and drink and carnival atmosphere as a whole. Besides, as several informants pointed out, the very young men who would have participated in the doble were now occupied in manning the temporary stalls; they were working for their families, taking full financial advantage of the opportunities presented by tourism. They could hardly afford to waste their time on the doble, which was, in the end, a form of leisure for them. Still, the bells had to be tolled. To substitute for the original youth group, one of the main religious brotherhoods in Tzintzuntzan, the Cargueros de la Soledad (see Chapter Three), was recruited to do the job. From 1980, these twelve men and their spouses have divided the responsibility for the bellringing among themselves. The door-to-door begging has entirely disappeared. (With the large influx of tourists, there are several thefts each year, and villagers, understandably frightened by this development, barricade their houses against the outside world. Begging, under these conditions, is hardly a feasible option.) Instead, several of the Cargueros de la Soledad walk from gravesite to gravesite, reciting prayers for the dead, and requesting el doble in return. As in the past, when the unorganized poor were recipients of donations, the mourners respond by placing an offering on the cargueros' tray—such as a banana, a chayote, or a piece of sweet bread. In 1984, when I witnessed this little ritualized exchange of prayer for offering, one carguero stopped between graves and turned to a mourner below, stating "We're ashamed to go begging like this, but the priest gave us permission." Traditionally, only undisciplined children or the desperately poor would go begging. Here were grown, competent men carrying out the same role. The sense of embarrassment could not escape them, although they, like everybody else, could recognize the structural appropriateness of what they were doing: receiving material compensation for praying and tolling the churchbells. The commodities being exchanged were traditional; the actors involved were not. As a result, the doble is now a radically different institution from what it was before 1971. Of course, certain traditional components of the Night of the Dead have remained virtually unchanged from what they were before 1971. The order and number of Masses, as dictated by Rome, is of course the 104

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same. Nor can any significant differences be detected either in home altars or in the types and abundance of ofrendas, with the exception of arcos, which seem to be less numerous than they were in 1945. Foster had noted a precipitous decline in 1961, and apparently the prizes offered by the Casa de Artesanias did nothing to stimulate production. Producing an arco is time-consuming and expensive, and the only justification would seem to be religious—to commemorate the death of an angelito. With fewer and fewer children dying, due to the availability of antibiotics and the near total acceptance of modern medical practices, the decline in arcos is understandable. Foster noted but one in 1961; there were two in 1984. The number of arcos probably would have declined even without the increase in tourism and state intervention. As for the rest—the theatrical performance, the bustling commerce, the altered velacion and the doble—the Night of the Dead bears slight resemblance to its former self. It is now an immense event of national significance, which people all over the Republic can observe on television. Of equal importance, the changes have affected the symbolic meaning of the occasion to the people of Tzintzuntzan, and perhaps even modified the way they perceive themselves.

Symbolic Transformations and Group Identity Although studies about the Day of the Dead in Mexico are numerous (see, for example, El Guindi 1977; Green 1980; Scheffler 1976), only the marvelously detailed account by Jesus Angel Ochoa Zazueta (1974) discusses tourism. In Mizquic, the village near Mexico City that Ochoa describes, tourism seems to be an older, more institutionalized presence than is the case in Tzintzuntzan. According to Ochoa (1974: 99-100), after midnight on the night of 1 November, tourists are encouraged to make the rounds of home altars. In his words, this visit is the only form . . . in which the bothersome visitors are permitted and attended to with kindness. The children, proud, run through the streets fighting for the groups of tourists and passersby in order to take them to their houses to admire the ofrenda. On each altar a small, discrete receptacle is placed for the donations that visitors wish to make towards the expense of the celebration. In proportion to the economic contribution of the visitor, the head of the house or some female representative distributes tamales, atole, a shot of tequila or pulque and occasionally even mole and 105

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tortillas, insisting—if the donation was respectable—that the visitor return to see the altar the following year. The Day of the Dead in Mizquic also includes an exposition of local archaeological artifacts, displayed in an old Augustinian convent, to which tourists are charged an entry fee. Visitors are also required to pay to see the cemetery vigil. As Ochoa (1974: 100) says, "The visitors on this date pay for everything." How have the people of Mizquic reacted to tourism on the Day of the Dead? According to Ochoa (1974: 108), the tourists "are somewhat bothersome"; in the end, however, they "benefit the village, a village which, taking everything into account, puts up with them because the dnimas [souls of the departed] are pleased by the visitors." Ochoa's informants told him that the departed souls "like fiestas," that they "don't like to see sad faces," and that "they are very happy when their living relatives have a lot of friends who remember them and who participate in the celebration." Hence, the presence of tourists in Mizquic would seem to be consonant with traditional beliefs and values; it has neither challenged nor destroyed them. In Tzintzuntzan, too, belief systems do not seem to have been disrupted by the introduction of massive tourism. People still laugh at the notion that the spirits actually descend to consume the offerings laid out on their behalf, as they laughed in 1945 (Foster and Ospina 1948: 221), but they still believe that the deceased are somehow present, watching; the animas take note of the proceedings without directly intervening. One village woman compared the event to a vacation for industrial workers from the city; on the Night of the Dead, she says, Our Lord gives the souls a much needed change from what is apparently a very dull heaven (G. Foster 1981: 129). I have not heard the people in Tzintzuntzan say that the souls actually like having tourists around, which is what Mizquic informants claim. However, Tzintzuntzenos surely enjoy the fiesta more than they did before state intervention in 1971. "It used to be so sad," lamented one old man, as if this emotion were somehow inappropriate to the Night of the Dead. Of course, a sense of animation and play have always been present in the Tzintzuntzan Night of the Dead, particularly in the doble, but also in the fanciful creation of arcos and offerings, which are frequently shaped to resemble cheerful ghosts, skeletons, and the like. The incompatibility between the traditional and the contemporary situations can be found more in the meaning than in the substance of events. The Night of the Dead was previously a fiesta that the people of Tzintzuntzan put 106

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on for themselves. For most villagers it was a family celebration, commemorated by erecting home altars and paying short visits to ancestral graves. The festival has now become a community affair, which relates the town of Tzintzuntzan as a unit to the outside world. This new dimension of the Night of the Dead, the fact that it has become practically a theatrical performance, is the source of the deepest transformations. The town of Tzintzuntzan has become a stage prop for performances, such as Don Juan Tenorio and the Festival of Danzas and Pirekuas, with food stands erected nearby to feed the audience. Even more significant is the incipient symbolic conversion of the cemetery into a stage set. The transformation of the Tzintzuntzan vigil into a "performance" is not as advanced as in Mizquic, but the evidence suggests that it soon will be. For example, while attending the vigil in 1984,1 expressed my reluctance to take photographs, as if this were an intrusion into the private, contemplative world of the mourners. "Go ahead," encouraged a village friend. "Nobody minds. We do this for the tourists." Indeed, not one villager expressed annoyance or displeasure of any kind at being photographed, listening to loud radios, or having gravesites overrun. Such behavior was expected. In fact, most townspeople expressed a great deal of pride in the attention that they and their community were receiving on this occasion. Surely in recent years more people are present in Tzintzuntzan on the Night of the Dead than ever before. The influx of visitors is flattering, as is the doting concern of state governmental agencies, who are capable of remaining aloof when it suits them. The event, of course, is financially advantageous to the villagers. As noted in Chapter Three, community fiestas in the yearly cycle are usually financed by mandatory donations but may also require additional time and money, extracted by force of public opinion. The Night of the Dead, in contrast, requires no financial outlay to some central town authority. The cost is borne by state agencies and individual households, and as a result fiesta diversions are mainly free. The Night of the Dead is already profitable for food vendors, and markets may be developing for other goods and services. Even traditional features of the fiesta are becoming commercialized, as shown by the following incident. A few days before the Night of the Dead in 1984, one of my village friends had told me about a tourist couple visiting the island of Janitzio. The couple was approached by some islanders, who asked if they wanted to see their home altar. "Yes, thank you," replied the tourists, but when they reached the altar, they were appalled at the sign attached to it, "contribucion 100 pesos." The story was recounted to signal the difference between Tzintzuntzan and Janitzio. It was a way 107

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of saying, "Yes, we have our tourists. But our celebration is authentic; we do it for ourselves and not, like the people of Janitzio, to make money." At about five on the morning of 2 November, just a few days after listening to this tale, I was in the upper cemetery, camera in hand. I had taken very few photographs, because of my own reticence, but then noticed three women guarding vigil over a beautiful arco. Awkwardly, I asked permission. The women stared at me blankly for a few moments. Then, the eyes of one lit up. She consulted her companions quietly, after which the decision was rendered: the photograph would cost me one hundred pesos! To my knowledge, this event provides the first evidence of villagers using their sacred religious practices to make profit. Afterwards, when I told a village friend about the encounter, he declared "Es abusivo" ("It's abusive"). This small incident may be a harbinger of a much more widespread transformation that will place Tzintzuntzan in the same position as Janitzio and Mizquic. For the most part, however, villagers appreciate the changes that have come to the Night of the Dead. They like the liveliness, the outside attention, the influx of money, the governmental support and exposure. Not once, and despite some discrete probes on my part, did I ever encounter a complaint about noise, impoliteness, or sacrilege as a result of tourism. There is some deserved concern about theft. Each year, at least one or two stores are robbed, which understandably evokes feelings of insecurity, but nobody has suggested that the event be suspended as a result. Most discussions about the fiesta concern changes needed to accommodate even more tourists. For example, townspeople are aware that traffic jams may prevent drivers from entering the village. To solve this problem, they have considered converting the atrium into a parking lot. For the priest, however, the Night of the Dead has gotten out of hand. "I don't wish to seem immodest," he told me, "but it was I who was the main impulse behind the Night of the Dead. The event occurred fourteen years ago [1971]. I had a certain amount of experience with folk dance concerts and thought that this sort of thing would attract tourists. . . . I wanted to promote the economy of the community, attracting people through an artisan contest." So, relying on his influence in Morelia, he successfully lobbied for government support for Tzintzuntzan's Night of the Dead. His fear, however, is that "the fiesta should lose its spirit, lose its indigenous flavor." He now worries about "the problem of [dealing with] so many people who visit us." The priest seems to have lost control over the very event that he had successfully orchestrated. Anthropologists, adopting a holistic perspective, recognize what the priest himself had overlooked—that all parts of a cultural system are 108

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intimately interrelated. Changing one item without inducing far-reaching and often unpredictable alterations in other aspects of the society and culture is impossible. By inducing state intervention in Tzintzuntzan's Night of the Dead, the priest had begun a chain of events that was to transform the way the villagers perceived themselves. They were no longer actors in a ritual drama played out, as Geertz would have it (1973: 448), by and for themselves. They were now performers, acting out ancient rites for the benefit and amusement of others. The state had already converted the material dimension of their village into a stage set, with dancers, actors, and musicians playing the role of Tzintzuntzenos. The people of Tzintzuntzan only had to adopt the theatrical role prescribed for them by the state. With or without the priest's approval, in 1984 the people did not seem reluctant to adopt this new stance and became part of the great performance that the Ministry of Tourism had produced and directed. NOTES 1. Because the offering of bread during mortuary rituals is widespread throughout Spain, this Mexican custom is undoubtedly Spanish in origin. Relevant Spanish sources include Behar 1986: 172-173; Freeman 1979: 109; Gabriel Llompart 1965: 96-102; Hoyos Sainz 1944: 30-53; and Violant y Simorra 1956: 300-359. 2. Tolling of churchbells on All Souls' Eve is common throughout Spain. For an account of this event in Old Castile see Foster 1960: 201-203. In Old Castile, too, youths gather on All Saints' Day to cook food for one another; see Brandes 1975: 135. Perhaps significantly, both of these sources describe customs observed in rural Avila, which is the province in which Don Vasco de Quiroga (see Chapter One) was born and raised.

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Pyrotechnics and Politics

Fireworks and the February Fiesta Fiestas not only illuminate the role of outside powerholders and the state in influencing events and molding local identities; they also serve as barometers of internal political affairs. A single, discrete component of fiestas can reflect formal community power relationships. Fireworks in Tzintzuntzan are important not simply because they are expensive, spectacular, and loud (although these features should be considered in any overall estimation of their significance). Rather, fireworks bear anthropological attention for their political meaning. By tracing the way fireworks are handled, the community power structure is placed in bold relief. When speaking of fireworks, we enter directly into the realm of nonofficial religion. The Church of Rome does not require the liturgical use of fireworks. In small villages and towns throughout the Hispanic world, however, most religious celebrations are inconceivable without them. Nevertheless, fireworks in the Hispanic world and elsewhere, as noted by the late Maurice Freedman (1967: 17), have evoked "little intellectual curiosity." Fireworks have been investigated historically (e.g., Fahler 1974), and their manufacture—especially for the case of firearms—has aroused interest from the eighteenth century to the present day (Frezier 1741; Partington 1960; Vergnaud 1838; Guzman Contreras 1975). However, holistic treatments of fireworks, devoted to their cultural meaning and political ramifications, are lacking. Although fireworks accompany most important religious occasions in the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle, nowhere do they display more prominence than during La Fiesta de Febrero (February Fiesta). As previously indicated, the date of the February Fiesta is gauged by reference to Easter Sunday. It honors a miraculous painting of Jesus Christ known as the Sefior del Rescate (the Lord of Redemption) (Figure 8). In Spain and Latin America, each village, town, city, region, and country has its offi-

Figure 8. Veneration of the Senor del Rescate

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cial patron saint, with which the people of that locale develop a special sacred bond. Often, however, because of historical and cultural conditions, another saint may eclipse the patron saint. Thus, in Tzintzuntzan around the turn of the century, the Senor del Rescate began to become more important in the popular mind than Tzintzuntzan's official patron, San Francisco. The cult of the Senor del Rescate began, as so often happens, with the attribution of miraculous powers. In the spring of 1899, a village sacristan prayed to a painting of the captive Christ to save the village from a raging smallpox epidemic. As people tell the story today, the sacristan asked, "Ay, Senor, porque no rescatas a tu pueblo" ("Oh Lord, why don't you rescue your people"). He promised, if his prayer was answered, to establish a cult to commemorate the event. When the illness subsided, he honored his Savior by taking the miraculous image, a painting measuring six by ten feet, in procession. With time, the procession gained adherents as word spread of the Senor's curative powers. The appellation del Rescate (of rescue or redemption) became the popular mode of referring to this supernatural potency. Over the decades, an elaborate fiesta developed around devotion to the Senor del Rescate. Even before the Revolution (1910—1920), the religious fiesta had assumed a commercial cast, and the people had begun to erect castillos (huge fireworks poles) to attract crowds to the village (G. Foster 1979a: 238-239; M. L. Foster 1985: 627-628). By 1945, the February Fiesta in honor of the Senor del Rescate had long overshadowed that of San Francisco, traditionally celebrated in October and now no longer observed. The February Fiesta was then, and remains today, the "one fiesta which is larger and more interesting than those of the remainder of the year" (Foster and Ospina 1948: 204). Probably the principal reason for the fiesta's size and complexity is its successful fusion of religious and secular elements. Like similar events elsewhere in the state of Michoacan (Carrasco 1976: 67—68), it attracts to the town center a huge public with a wide variety of motives for participation. Its reverential solemnity is counterbalanced by a carnival atmosphere; food, toy, and candy vendors fill Tzintzuntzan's churchyard and plaza, spilling onto the streets around. Games of chance, amusement park rides, and other diversions are also a prominent feature. The gaiety is no doubt promoted by the fiesta date, which sets the main celebration just before Lent, on the Tuesday of the week before Ash Wednesday. On this day, the archbishop arrives from Morelia to administer the holy sacrament of confirmation, and the most important fiesta Mass is celebrated. Doubtless for this reason the fiesta as a whole was known until recently as "La Funcion" ("The Function"), a term that throughout the 112

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region generally refers to the single most special religious service of the year. The event is rarely called by this name today. More frequent are the terms La Feria or, especially, La Fiesta de Febrero, names that deemphasize the sacred aspect of the occasion. Certainly one reason why fireworks seem to blend so successfully with the prevailing atmosphere during this fiesta is that they reflect a combined religious and secular orientation. In terms of sensory impact, fireworks may be conveniently divided into two basic types: noisemakers, such as cohetes (skyrockets) and enchorizados (long strings of firecrackers); and pyrotechnics or displays of light, represented most prominently by castillos. The most pervasive, albeit implicit, function of all fireworks during the February Fiesta is to honor the Senor del Rescate, enhance his glory, and thereby in some small measure repay him for miraculous deeds in the service of his devoted followers and the community at large. Of the two types of fireworks, noisemakers usually (perhaps exclusively) bear the more overt sacred significance. Although informants are generally at a loss to explain the use of any fireworks, at least one man suggested that "cohetes carry our message, our prayers, rapidly up to heaven." Another pointed out that cohetes remind him that an important religious ritual is in progress and beckon him to participate. Noisemakers are set off during important Masses, including those honoring the Senor, and they almost always accompany religious processions. In these respects, fireworks in Tzintzuntzan, as elsewhere in Mexico (Vogt 1976: 234-238) and the Spanish-speaking world (Brandes 1980b: 177-204; Smith 1975: 122-124), serve as salient markers of sacred time. The pyrotechnic fireworks in Tzintzuntzan are associated primarily with worldly rather than sacred activities. For one thing, pyrotechnics enhance community prestige. Village pride demands that the fiesta of the Senor del Rescate include lavish entertainment for the hundreds of outside visitors. One of the best means for achieving this impact is to invest in elaborate displays, including castillos, lluvias de luces (waterfalls of light), and other showy attractions. In Tzintzuntzan, as in southern Europe (Boissevain 1965: 58) and elsewhere in Mexico (Guzman Contreras 1975: 63), an impressive array of fireworks is essential to any important annual festival; their omission would in a sense demonstrate community ennui, weakness, or demise, whether financial, demographic, or spiritual. Further, fireworks have serious economic implications. Putting on a proper display requires money, the collection of which demands sophisticated organizational effort and financial maneuvering on the part of community leaders. This important matter has heretofore been almost entirely ignored. 113

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Local Political Hierarchies The purchase and distribution of fireworks for the February Fiesta closely involve the four Tarascan ranchos (discussed in Chapter Two). Ichupio, Tarerio, and Ucastanastacua (constituting the district of La Vuelta), stretching west of Tzintzuntzan, and El Ojo de Agua, connecting with Tzintzuntzan's eastern border (see Map 1, p. 11), are separate administrative entities. They are equipped with their own schools and chapels, possess well-defined boundaries, and enjoy autonomous territorial identities. For political purposes, however, they are dependent upon Tzintzuntzan. Each small rancho has a leading political officer known as the encargado del orden, as well as an alternate, both holding office by approval from Tzintzuntzan's chief municipal executive, the Presidente Municipal. Although Tzintzuntzan's population is about one-third of that of the municipio as a whole, only during a total of five-and-one-half years since incorporation of the municipio in 1930 has the Presidente come from outside the town proper; never in the past twenty-five years has an outsider held this office. The encargado is the Presidente's main rancho representative and is explicitly charged with keeping him informed about the ranchos. Administratively, too, rancho inhabitants are linked to Tzintzuntzan for baptism, marriage, and burial registration and for property transfers. The ranchos have to pay taxes, including the impuesto predial (land tax) and constancia (a sum that gives animal owners the right to sell), to the municipal center; even though some of these funds are eventually transmitted to the federal government, the initial destination for the money is the municipio center, or Tzintzuntzan proper. Aside from this, all rancho judicial cases are referred to the juez municipal (municipal judge) in Tzintzuntzan, and the four municipal policemen, named by the Presidente, are Tzintzuntzan residents and appointees, yet wield authority over the ranchos as well. Tzintzuntzan also exerts commercial control; Tarascan artisans and fishermen sell their wares to Tzintzuntzan shopkeepers and middlemen, and the abundance of Tzintzuntzan shops, stocking an increasingly wide variety of merchandise, service the needs of rancho families whose communities entirely lack all but the simplest tienditas. Finally, religious activities are centralized in Tzintzuntzan, the parish seat where confessions are heard, and Mass is celebrated almost daily. Hence, even though El Ojo de Agua and the three ranchos of La Vuelta enjoy a measure of autonomy, they are all administratively, politically, commercially, and religiously dependent on Tzintzuntzan. Inhabited 114

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mainly by Indians, these communities are also perceived by the people of Tzintzuntzan as ethnically inferior, and their generally rustic outward appearance when compared with the town center does nothing to counterbalance this overall image. The relationship between them and Tzintzuntzan is understandably ambivalent, with the rancho inhabitants at once reliant on the good will of Tzintzuntzenos, yet at the same time resentful of their dependency on the town center.

La Obra The relationship between the ranchos and Tzintzuntzan is important because the ranchos bear primary responsibility for providing fireworks during the February Fiesta. There are two main categories of fireworks: La Obra, which is presented by El Ojo de Agua; and the castillos, which are gifts of La Vuelta and the people of Tzintzuntzan. La Obra, in standard Spanish, has multiple meanings, among which is power. In Tzintzuntzan, the term refers to a gift package of fireworks presented each year by El Ojo de Agua to Tzintzuntzan (Figure 9). It consists of two basic kinds of fireworks: enchorizados—long strings of firecrackers, so named because of their resemblance to chorizos (strings of sausage); and cohetes—some relatively small, others of the massive type known as cohetones, and yet others known as cohetes de luces that are designed to produce a shower of nighttime stars. In 1977, La Obra consisted of a substantial quantity of items, measured locally by gruesa (a unit of twelve dozen). On that occasion, La Obra consisted of six gruesas of enchorizados and one-and-one-half gruesas of cohetes, the normal and expected quantity of fireworks in recent years according to informants. La Obra can fruitfully be examined, as we would any economic commodity, in terms of acquisition, distribution, and consumption. If we analyze the organizational efforts that go into purchase of the fireworks, and then consider which segments of the community get ultimate possession over them and the occasions on which they are used, we may hope to understand La Obra's political and social impact. At a cost (in 1977) of approximately twenty-five hundred pesos (with about twenty-two pesos to the U.S. dollar at the time), La Obra would prove very expensive for any individual or family, especially if we consider a standard daily wage of one hundred pesos per day. For this reason, the sixty households that constitute the rancho of El Ojo are each 115

Figure 9. Part of La Obra. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster

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expected to contribute an equivalent amount—forty or fifty pesos—toward its purchase. The collection of money requires an organizational effort on the part of the community as a whole. Each December, all the padres de familia of El Ojo gather to select two encargados who are responsible juntar la cuota (to collect contributions), as it is said, for La Obra expenses a year hence. Invariably, the encargados are people who have never served in the post before; they are usually newly married members of the community as well. The year following their term as encargados, these men automatically became comisionados, whose prime responsibility is jointly to give a pozole breakfast for the two bands of musicians, hired from outside the municipio boundaries (in recent years, from Ichan, and Zirahuen), on the morning that marks the official beginning of the February Fiesta. As a concrete example of the way the system works, consider the experience of Pablo Alvarez, who was born and raised in El Ojo and married a woman from Tzintzuntzan on 12 August 1967. On 1 January 1968, Alvarez began as encargado, by having been selected for this post the preceding month. Throughout December 1968 and January 1969, Alvarez and his fellow encargado collected contributions toward La Obra. In January 1969, he automatically entered office as comisionado. He and his fellow comisionados served the pozole breakfast in February 1970. From this sequence, we can see that there is no precise overlap between years of official service and the performance of actual duties. An officer formally leaves his post (sale de encargado or sale de comisionado} at the end of the calendar year, but his performance of duty really comes the following January (in the case of collecting money) or February (in the case of serving the pozole). The pozole breakfast initiates a chain of exchanges in which La Obra passes hands from one community representative to another. "El pozole," as the event is colloquially known, takes place at dawn—perhaps six o'clock at this time of year—and lasts until about eight o'clock in the morning, by which time a large crowd from both El Ojo and Tzintzuntzan have gathered at the home of the senior (usually the oldest) comision. Conspicuously present, in addition to the encargados and comisionados of El Ojo, are the officers of Tzintzuntzan's Presidencia and of Tzintzuntzan's Comunidad Indigena, the two coexistent political bodies in town (see Chapter Two). At the time of the pozole breakfast, La Obra is still in the hands of the encargados from El Ojo responsible for its purchase. When breakfast ends, the musicians, political representatives from El Ojo and Tzintzuntzan, and anybody else who happens to arrive for drinking, eating, 117

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or amusement, all disband to a playing field adjacent to the QuirogaPatzcuaro highway that serves as the rancho's community center. There the encargados publicly present La Obra to El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, who makes an acceptance address. When I witnessed this transaction in 1977, the recipient's brief speech eulogized the virtues of the people of El Ojo and stressed the spirit of unidad (unity) between Tzintzuntzan and this rancho. As if acknowledging this praise, the encargados, who were standing two or three meters from the speaker, delivered La Obra to him by placing it at his feet. El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena then simply picked up the various bundles of which La Obra was composed and redistributed them to ten men, all from El Ojo and none holding an official cargo on this occasion. The entire breakfast party then marched from El Ojo, through Yahuaro, and down the highway, with the musicians playing by way of alborada (reveille), until they reached the Presidencia building, where one-half of La Obra was publicly presented to El Presidente Municipal. After listening to the musical band hired by the Presidencia, a second band (hired by the Comunidad Indigena) along with representatives from El Ojo and the Comunidad Indigena, marched across the highway to the churchyard, where the priest was waiting to receive the remaining onehalf of La Obra. The entire series of transactions, lasting from about eight until nine in the morning, thus saw La Obra change hands in the following sequence: encargados of El Ojo -» Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena -> men of El Ojo

^ Presidente Municipal "* el padre

In other words, La Obra itself, as a conglomeration of various types of fireworks, was being constantly divided and brought together again, only to be redivided at the end among representatives of the two main, official institutions in town: the Presidencia and the Church. Unity and divisiveness, in fact, were the main themes that pervaded this series of transactions. The manner in which fireworks were treated is no less than a compact, concrete, exaggerated expression of the relationships between Tzintzuntzan and El Ojo de Agua as well as within these communities. I make this statement, first, because La Obra both promotes and symbolizes unity and cohesiveness within El Ojo. Purchase of La Obra requires the community to organize and cooperate, and in the process of 118

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doing so to establish a hierarchy of responsible officials. The encargados, clearly representing El Ojo as a whole, present La Obra to the leading representative of the people of Tzintzuntzan, and this representative, for his part, redistributes the gift among the people of El Ojo. Throughout this initial series of transactions, there is no confusion about who possesses La Obra and for whom it is destined; whether it be the people or their officials, members of El Ojo are clearly differentiated from those of Tzintzuntzan. Although the constant changing of hands symbolizes the existence of a relationship among the two communities, the fact that the personnel involved in the exchange unambiguously represent one or the other locale can only serve to demonstrate their fundamentally separate identities. La Obra thus not only signifies a unity within El Ojo but also separates it conceptually as a discrete and independent entity. At the same time, the series of exchanges ultimately expresses El Ojo's intimate relationship to Tzintzuntzan, both politically and religiously. When the men of El Ojo divide La Obra between El Presidente Municipal and the priest, they are essentially presenting gifts to the principal representatives of the entire municipio and parish, under whose orbit and influence they directly fall. We cannot speak in this instance of a relationship among distinct communities; rather, the exchange represents a tribute that one segment of the municipio offers to the political and religious unit as a whole. Taken in its entirety, the hour-long series of transactions contains elements of community independence and interdependence, of divisiveness and cohesiveness. The series therefore symbolizes the actual state of affairs between El Ojo and Tzintzuntzan. It reflects intercommunity power relations; hence the term Obra (power) is apt. How then is La Obra consumed? The six gruesas of enchorizados and one-and-one-half gruesas of cohetes given to the priest are for use during the main Mass on the day following the pozole; three gruesas of enchorizados given to the priest are for use during the Rosario (rosary recital) in the late afternoon of the same day; and one-half gruesa of cohetes de luces are to be set off the following night, after the display of castillos. The remaining gruesa of cohetes goes to the Presidente Municipal to be used for the reveille the next morning, as well as for the lluvia de luces on the night that the castillos are set off. In effect, La Obra is consumed in such a manner that it benefits people from the entire municipio. Enchorizados and cohetes are exploded within the confines of the churchyard, where the commercial, religious, and political activities surrounding the February Fiesta are situated. Anybody visiting Tzintzuntzan at this time, including inhabitants of the town and municipio as well as outsiders, can share in the enjoyment and par119

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ticipate in the grandeur of these impressive fireworks explosions. In this sense, La Obra is transformed into a gift from the people of El Ojo to Tzintzuntzan, as town and municipio. It is a medium through which people of El Ojo can measurably enhance the secular festival atmosphere and the glory of the Senor del Rescate. La Obra is thus a public expression of El Ojo's responsibility to the municipio and parish, and an implicit acknowledgment of the rancho's dependency on them. Castillos Castillos, to my knowledge unknown in Spain, are elaborate pyrotechnic constructions widely used in Mesoamerica and the Andean region. Throughout Mexico, castillo-making is an artisan specialty, requiring considerable training and skill. Tzintzuntzenos seek these specialists from towns far afield, because nobody from the immediate vicinity knows how to construct them. Artisans arrive several days before the display to erect two castillos in the atrium, where they are set off after dark. Tzintzuntzan castillos tend to be about thirty to forty feet high. Each castillo contains four or five skeletal tiers, made of large cane cubes (Figure 10). The cubes themselves are able to rotate, as is the tier as a whole. According to Robert Smith (1975: 122, 124), the cane cubes are "wires with explosives, pinwheels, flares, and skyrockets, all connected to a single serpentine fuse, which winds upward from the bottom of the castle to the top. The higher the fuse burns, the more spectacular become the effects, and the thicker grows the cloud of acrid powder-smoke, until the fuse reaches the top, and a large pinwheel [in Tzintzuntzan called the corona, or crown] is sent into the air, discharging, at the greatest height of its trajectory, a shower of sparks, colored flares, and explosions." In Tzintzuntzan, each such construction provides about one-half hour of gripping entertainment. As mentioned, two castillos are erected during the Fiesta, both in the last evening of el mero dia de la Funcion (the very day of the Function)— that is, the day following the distribution of the Obra. One castillo is contributed by La Comunidad Indfgena. Toward this end (and others, such as elections), the town is divided into cuarteles, each with two representatives chosen by El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena for the purpose of collecting money from each household and from all businesses. Business establishments pay a fixed sum, and, although the amount that each household offers is voluntary, enough pressure is ap120

Figure 10. Artisans construct a castillo. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster.

Pyrotechnics and Politics

plied so that the total for the town will at least cover the cost of the castillo, which in 1977 amounted to about five thousand pesos (U.S. $230). The cuarteles, although they correspond roughly to major segments of town, do not represent social units that have any special significance in Tzintzuntzan daily life. As with the street system used for Corpus Christi (see Chapter Three), they merely provide a convenient organizational framework for financing the fiesta. No competition exists among curateles to provide the bulk of the funding, and the castillo, in the end, is perceived to be a cooperative gift of the town in its entirety. La Vuelta provides the second castillo, which Tzintzuntzenos see as a collective gift of the three Indian ranches that constitute this territory. Few Tzintzuntzenos are aware of the internal mechanisms by which those communities collect money for the display. From the Tzintzuntzan perspective, the castillo from La Vuelta creates a simple symbolic distinction between the town, on the one hand, and the ranches as a single undifferentiated unit, on the other. In reality, Ichupio, Tarerio, and Ucasanastacua alternate responsibility, such that each rancho must provide the castillo once every three years. Just as La Obra forces El Ojo de Agua to organize, so does the castillo provide the impetus for the internal organization of each of the La Vuelta ranchos. Because it was Ucasanastacua's turn in 1977, I know the prevailing system in that rancho best. Ucasanastacua is divided into halves (with surprising resemblance both to the moieties that traditionally characterized many North American tribal groups [see Farb 1968: 68, 70— 71; Kroeber 1967: 31—34] and to the organization of some peasant communities in Old Castile [see G. Foster 1960: 34]). Within each calendar year, the first man to marry in each half of town is automatically named to the post of encargado, and the two men are jointly responsible for arrangements for the fiesta of the following year. Further, each encargado selects a helper, referred to as a comision, so that there are two comisiones at any time, one for each part of town. What are the duties of the Ucasanastacua officials? First, they march from household to household collecting the cuota to pay for the castillo. The four of them also carry the palo (a tall pine trunk, stripped of all its branches and used as the main castillo support) from La Vuelta to the Tzintzuntzan atrium in preparation for castillo construction. Finally, each year the encargados give a pozole breakfast, not for musicians, as is done in El Ojo, but rather for the artisans who construct the castillo. Two separate pozoles are given, one by each encargado, the first on the morning of 25 December preceding the Fiesta and the other on 1 January. These pozoles in effect seal the contract for castillo construction between the artisans and the contributing sectors of the rancho. 122

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Thus, purchase of the castillo fosters different levels of community integration. At the highest level, the three ranchos that make up La Vuelta must organize among themselves to rotate the annual financial responsibility. In this respect, they create a unified body as measured against other territories within the municipio. At the next level, the residents of each rancho must cooperate every three years to produce the necessary castillo funds; in so doing, the three ranchos implicitly establish themselves as distinct social and territorial units. Finally, at the local level, there exists a cooperative fundraising effort among the households within each half rancho, whose activity sets them apart from the rest of the rancho inhabitants. In every instance, the need to cooperate and organize fosters a sense of cohesion and a distinctive identity vis-a-vis corresponding units. The castillo display itself reflects the relationships between La Vuelta and Tzintzuntzan. As mentioned, the two castillos are set off at night. In 1977, the castillo of La Vuelta went first at about ten in the evening, followed by that of La Comunidad, making for a total hour-long event. Large crowds of men, women, and children from all over the municipio gathered around the periphery of the churchyard. In fact, the burning of each castillo was preceded by the running of a toro, a wooden structure in the form of a bull, laced with fireworks and carried on the back of a young man who dispersed the crowds by rushing into them and forcing them into the background. The same dispersal occurred through the crackling of buscapies, strings of flaring rockets that hover at ground level for five to ten seconds and are propelled in unpredictable directions. Both the toro and the buscapies, say informants, are meant to scatter the audience to clear the way for the castillo display; as might be imagined, an occasional spectator is injured, usually only slightly, in the process. The castillos without doubt are perceived competitively, with spectators commenting, sometimes caustically, sometimes enthusiastically, on the comparative virtues and shortcomings of each. Nonetheless, the people of Tzintzuntzan or La Vuelta do not necessarily favor the castillo to which they contributed funds. Rather, it is the community organizers—El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, on the one hand, and the encargados from La Vuelta, on the other—who receive praise if the castillos are successful or criticism if they are not. The event may thus be compared with a potlatch: rival political leaders literally burn the economic resources over which they have been delegated responsibility. Like the potlatch, the burning takes place at a public ceremony and is the basis for prestige. In the case of the castillos, however, the resources are collective, not personal. The castillos in the end are thus the means through which two major segments of the same municipio share their wealth both 123

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with one another and with people from other ranchos within the same political domain. The whole audience benefits from the castillo display; to this extent the castillos, representing financial resources collected separately from Tzintzuntzan and La Vuelta, are redistributed to the general municipio populace. The castillos, like La Obra, pull ranchos into the orbit of the municipio political center, Tzintzuntzan. Unlike La Obra, however, they do not symbolize hierarchical power relationships among different political units within the municipio. They represent instead displays of financial and organizational competence on the part of distinct but related territorial units, both of which vie for the admiration of the overall municipio constituency. In this respect, it is noteworthy that La Vuelta is, as a unit, a somewhat stronger, more independent entity than El Ojo. For one thing, the settlements that comprise La Vuelta are centuries old, whereas El Ojo grew slowly as an immigrant community over the course of the present century. La Vuelta's separate identity is thus more established and secure than El Ojo's. La Vuelta's collective population is also about two to three times that of El Ojo. It is with good reason, then, that it should be these ranchos, and not El Ojo—living as it does on the outskirts and under the shadow of the town center—that have entered into competitive ritual relations with Tzintzuntzan. The castillos are immediately followed by a waterfall effect of fireworks against the facade of the main parish church, which culminates with the illumination of a retablo of the Senor del Rescate. To end the proceedings, the lluvia de luces shoots high over the churchyard and comes raining down in burst after burst of gorgeous color. This display, like the waterfall, comes from portions of La Obra of both El Presidencia Municipal and the parish; it may thus be interpreted as symbolizing the union of these two municipio-wide powerholders over their mutual politico-religious domain. It is no coincidence that these two bodies, representing the entire municipio populace, are responsible for the culmination of the festival proceedings. For these entities, in the end, unite the disparate elements within the municipio and therefore legitimate and assure the municipio's continued existence.

The Multiple Meaning of Fireworks In the Tzintzuntzan Fiesta de Febrero, the purchase, distribution, and display of fireworks almost literally dissects the municipio structure and places that structure in relief. By examining who buys the fireworks 124

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and how they are dispersed, we are presented with a cross-section of the important political, religious, and territorial units within the municipio. Socially, the fireworks create the need for local-level cooperation and cohesion; politically, they provide the opportunity for administrative and religious officials to have their power publicly acknowledged; and, symbolically, they represent the combination of unity and divisiveness that constitutes the essence of municipio organization. Fireworks thus do not merely reflect community relationships but also directly or indirectly affect them. What are some of the more general lessons that may be learned from the concrete case of the February Fiesta? Of prime importance is the regulation of interethnic relations. In municipios like Tzintzuntzan, where mestizos and Indians have a long history of coexistence and interdependence, and where there is simultaneously a strong ambivalence marked by a degree of mutual hostility and appreciation between the two groups, socially integrative mechanisms are necessary to maintain stability. Integration may be achieved in a number of ways, including economic exchange, religious unity, and the exercise of political authority. Certainly all of these phenomena are mobilized during the February Fiesta. Significantly, fireworks during the Fiesta not only operate as a vehicle of integration between mestizo and Indian communities, but they symbolize and provide a key to much wider, critical integrative forces within the municipio. Of course, the same may be said for the manner in which fireworks highlight divisive elements. At the most general level, divisiveness is expressed through political and ethnic mechanisms that serve to maintain boundaries and through the assertion of community autonomy. In these instances, fireworks not only create the necessity for boundaries to be drawn but also symbolize more general principles of community integration and independence that operate in daily life. If we were to analyze the implications of fireworks solely for the Fiesta, we would further perceive that some of the elements of divisiveness expressed, for example, in the Castillo display also characterize the proceedings in their entirety. Competition exists at all levels in the festival; just as the two bands vie for prestige and audience interest, so too do vendors compete vigorously for customers. That fireworks, so prevalent in the February Fiesta, should serve to demarcate power relationships is not surprising. After all, the February Fiesta itself is ultimately a celebration of power—the positive power of the Senor del Rescate to heal. Fireworks celebrate the healing power of the compassionate Christ. As an integral part of the fiesta in honor of the 125

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Sefior del Rescate, they are consciously designed to enhance individual health and well-being. But, in their purchase, distribution, and consumption, they also serve to express and reinforce power relations within and among participating communities. They thereby convey a sense of order and predictability. Significantly, the rancho political officers responsible for managing the fireworks are newlyweds, suggesting that these men are being asked to prove their leadership capabilities in two domains simultaneously: the family and the community. In Tzintzuntzan, where the "myth" of male dominance prevails (see Chapter Two), men are required publicly to assume dominant, controlling roles. By proving their masculine abilities through community organizing, rancho political officers demonstrate by implication their capability to lead their newly created families as well. If the fireworks are distributed properly, the recognized authorities are in control and have done their job. To that extent, the collective wellbeing of Tzintzuntzan, as much as the appropriate governance of its nuclear families, is ultimately assured. This message is what the elaborate handling of fireworks in the February Fiesta ultimately conveys.

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SEVEN

Social Control Through Dance

Dance and La Danza Whether we examine town government, religious brotherhoods and committees, or state and national agencies, the official power structure is not the only controlling influence that makes its effect apparent through fiestas. There also exist subtle means of control, including religious beliefs and social norms, that receive reinforcement throughout any fiesta proceedings. Particularly in the case of dramatic and artistic performances—those that are indigenous to the village and not imposed as in the Night of the Dead (see Chapter Five)—the controlling messages come through indirectly. What seems like mere entertainment may actually contain highly charged symbolism, through which beliefs are learned and reinforced. This method of control has certainly proved to be the case with dance. In a recent summary of the still sparse literature regarding the symbolic dimension of dance, Anya Royce (1977: 163) states that "dance is a powerful, frequently adopted symbol of the way people feel about themselves." Like all expressive forms, dance provides a concrete, condensed, exaggerted projection of the values, world view, and lifestyle of the performers. Dance may also be seen, in Clifford Geertz's terms (1973: 448), as a story in which people unselfconsciously act out their own feelings about themselves and their society. This artistic medium constitutes, in other words, a potent social and psychological metaphor. Within a neatly demarcated frame of time and space, it encapsulates the critical elements of an entire culture. In this chapter, we consider one element in the four-day February Fiesta in honor of the miraculous image of the Senor del Rescate—a performance known simply as La Danza. In costuming and choreography, La Danza is highly elaborate. Royce (1977: 164) would doubtless classify it under her rubric "formal dance," for it is "used explicitly as a symbol of identity on occasions when more than one cultural group interacts or when there is a desire to create a feeling of group solidarity

Social Control Through Dance

even in the absence of outsiders." In Mexican Spanish, the generic term danza refers to a choreographed performance involving dancers and spectators, often directed toward a religious purpose (Kurath 1956: 294). The word danza thus contrasts with baile, which usually refers to a dance of purely social variety involving only a couple. La Danza, one of the most prominent fiesta proceedings, is performed in the Tzintzuntzan atrium, to which throngs of visitors flock for prayer, marketing, eating, and entertainment during this occasion. La Danza is a revival, reintroduced into the village in 1974 after a lapse of many years. Similar dances are performed throughout eastern Michoacan. A survey of Spanish and Mesoamerican dances (see Crumrine 1977; Kurath 1949, 1956; Kurath and Marti 1964; Royce 1968) reveals no dance that is exactly the same, but many have parallels in costuming, casting, and choreography. Like virtually every aspect of Mexican culture, La Danza appears to be an amalgam of native and Hispanic elements, molded to reflect the society and mentality of the performers and their audience. Above all, La Danza expresses the values of the people of Tzintzuntzan and the methods by which these values are maintained. These messages include among other things, moral reminders and ideas about punishment for deviance. But first we must discuss the medium, La Danza itself.

The Performers The variety of performers and their costumes, which can be shown to have some symbolic significance, supports the assertion that La Danza is elaborate. On the surface, we may identify at least four to six distinct dance roles, depending on how we arrange our categories. These roles include the numerous danzantes (dancers) who are associated with three angelitos (little angels); the diablos and diablitos (devils and little devils), some of whom are dressed in red and others in black; and la muerte (Death), who is accompanied by la muertecita (little Death). In addition, a five-piece musical group provides a simple though essential accompaniment for the dancers. The most numerous of the performers are the danzantes, who are all played by unmarried men and women in their teens. For the performances that I witnessed, approximately thirty danzantes of each sex participated at any one time. (Some danzantes take short rests during the day, and these breaks occasionally reduce the number of danzantes or create a slight, insignificant imbalance in the ratio of men to women.) Male and female danzantes wear similar costumes; the material and la128

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bor are provided by their families. They all have multipointed crowns, made of cardboard covered with tinfoil and decorated with small mirrors and strings of tiny beads. In their right hands, they carry rattles, fashioned of painted tin cans and adorned with ribbons. They also don fulllength red capes, elaborately embroidered with sequins into religious and secular motifs, including stars, doves, chalices, flowers, and the cross. The word "Tzintzuntzan" can be found on many capes. The boys' knee-length breeches and girls' long gowns are usually embroidered. Most breeches and gowns are white, although there are four principal dancers—two of each sex—whose costumes are yellow to distinguish them from the rest of the danzantes. These leaders are the tallest danzantes and are known as the reyes (kings) and reinas (queens). They lead the two parallel danzante lines and, in portions of the dance sequence, arrange themselves in separate formations that stand out visually because of the distinctive color of their costuming. Many danzantes sport new shoes, which are purchased if their parents believe that their daily shoes are unpresentable for the occasion. Even without the shoes, the danzante costume is expensive: approximately four hundred pesos (in 1977, U.S. $20) for the boys and seven hundred pesos (U.S. $35) for the girls, whose clothing requires more material. The cost of shoes and the time that goes into preparing the costume make the danzante uniform quite expensive, by Tzintzuntzan standards. Tzintzuntzerios are frequently asked to furnish their children with special uniforms for mandatory school performances, and, although they invariably complain about the expense, they also try to comply with these official requests. In the case of La Danza, however, parents voluntarily invest time and money for the costumes, for children are in no way coerced to perform. That parents are willing to expend this effort indicates the importance of La Danza to them. Among other things, families take pride in being able to clothe a son or daughter in an expensive costume, the utility of which does not extend beyond this single occasion. Closely associated with the danzantes are three angels, all played by preadolescent girls who are at least five or six years younger than most of the danzantes. They also wear long white dresses to which decorative wings are attached. Two of the angels carry swords and one a wand. Most spectators simply take them for angelitos, although one of the dance organizers told me that the little angel with a wand is supposed to represent Christ. A girl has to play the role, he claimed, because no Tzintzuntzan boy would be willing to wear a dress—the only appropriate garb, for that is what Christ himself wore. The other two angels, said the organizer, are Christ's protectors. 129

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Masked performers include the devils and Death. In February 1977,1 observed between six and eight adult-sized devils at any one time and an equal number of little devils. All of the big devils are played by middleaged married men. The little devils are boys between seven and ten years old, or about the same age as the little angels. Like the danzantes, the devils volunteer for the role in La Danza. I was told that as many men and children who wish to perform as devils may do so and that they can choose their costuming. Coincidentally, the 1977 devils, both big and little, were divided equally between those dressed in black and those in red. All but one devil, who wore a mask made of rubber, donned wooden masks complete with horns, fangs, and bulging eyes (Figure 11). The devils' costumes included striking props, like ropes knotted in the form of a noose, long serpents made of spotted plastic or painted stuffed cloth, large swords, and an infant-sized doll made of knitted wool. Death wears a rubber skull over his face, and a jump suit onto which skeleton-shaped bones are drawn. He carries a long scythe. Like the devils, Death is enacted by a married man and, like them, he has his child counterpart, la muertecita, who is clothed like the adult Death and played by a boy about the same age as the little devils. According to the requirements of La Danza, there can be only one adult Death. He may or may not have a child associate in the role of little Death. According to my informants, little Death and the little devils are unrelated by kinship to their adult counterparts in La Danza. They are simply children whose parents have encouraged them to participate. As a group, the dancers are a diverse lot—male and female, young and middle-aged, married and unmarried. What they have in common is that they are all from Tzintzuntzan and have all volunteered to participate without pay in an expensive, tiring performance that is not required of them by the town government, church, or any other official body. Why, then, do they spend their time and money in this way? The answer no doubt varies with each individual, but in most cases the motivation must emanate from a mixture of enjoyment and religious commitment. Some performers, like the men who play Death and the devils, dance primarily por gusto—because they like to. Most of these actors may be considered ritual specialists, endowed with a histrionic streak that places them in the forefront of other festival occasions, like the Judea, or passion play, of the Tzintzuntzan Holy Week. Others, like the little devils, little Death, and the angels, dance to fulfill a parental manda to the Senor del Rescate, who during the preceding year has cured them of some grave illness. The danzantes, one gets the impression, dance simply because they enjoy the performance, but, as long as they have engaged themselves in this way, they too can at least claim to be 130

Figure 11. A diablito and danzantes. Photograph courtesy of George M. Foster

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fulfilling a religious vow to the Serior. No matter how much pure enjoyment is derived from performing, all the actors sincerely believe that La Danza, by enlivening the festival, enhances the public expression of gratitude to their miraculous and powerful saint. No question of motive is raised by the five well-paid musicians who accompany the dancers on the guitar, trumpet, guitarron (giant guitar), and two violins. In the performance that I witnessed four of the musicians were brothers, Tarascan Indian who live in El Ojo de Agua. Their father, who used to play the trumpet in their family ensemble, had recently died and was replaced on this occasion by an unrelated man from the nearby pottery-producing village of Capula. I was told that the group was being compensated with a handsome two thousand pesos (about U.S. $100, or about U.S. $20 apiece for a day and a half of steady work). The dance organizers considered the sum exorbitant and predicted that in the future La Danza would have to be performed without live music. In fact, despite the rising price of hiring musicians, dance organizers in subsequent years have been able to secure the money to bring musicians from neighboring villages. The musical accompaniment to La Danza is made up of Tarascan sones, which seem to be played just as competently by mestizos as by the Indians themselves.

La Danza as Moral-Religious Drama In keeping with the Mexican definition of the term danza as both a formal dance performance and one with sacred overtones, the people of Tzintzuntzan construe La Danza as essentially religious. There is abundant evidence to demonstrate the sacredness of the performance. First, the event is obviously associated with a religious festival, carried out in honor of a miraculous image; it is not performed on any other occasion. Second, it is performed in the church atrium, in front of the sixteenthcentury Chapel of San Francisco, with the dancers' movements oriented so that they are directly facing the Chapel. The Chapel, more than coincidentally, is adjacent to La Parroquia; it faces outward toward the atrium in precisely the same direction as the altar of La Parroquia, so that the dancers are positioned just as they would be for a church service. Even the two parallel lines of danzantes are segregated in the same way as they are for Mass, men to the left as one faces the altar, and women to the right (see Map 3). The positioning is not determined by chance. I observed La Danza on two separate occasions: first on 14 February, the eve of the official fiesta celebration, when the performance lasted little more than an hour after 132

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Performance

of

Don Juan Tenorio 1-2 Nov.

£

La Soledad

Adobe

Open Air Chapel

Dance Formation on 14 Feb. 1977

La Parroquia ATRIUM

Dance Formation on 15 Feb. 1977

San Fsco. Chapel Sacristy -~ and Convent

Map 3. The atrium during La Danza

the people of Tzintzuntzan had emerged from Mass; and then on 15 February, the "very day" of the fiesta, when the dancers tirelessly performed from morning until nightfall. On this second occasion the dance is performed in front of the Chapel of San Francisco. During the previous evening the dancers were oriented in a direction perpendicular to that of the main performance the following day. Yet, even in this north—south orientation, the dancers performed directly in front of La Scledad. Again, the dancers were oriented toward the La Soledad altar just as they would be if they were in the church praying. Thus, the positioning of the dancers in the direction of a church altar, rather than the north—south or east—west orientation, seems to be an important feature of the choreography. Although La Danza is unquestionably designed in part as entertainment, the places and occasions associated with it certainly reflect its religious character. The dance movements also specifically incorporate religious themes. La Danza begins when the danzantes, standing in formation facing the Chapel, give two assertive shakes of the rattle. The dancers themselves say that their rattles simply signal the beginning of La Danza, although Arturo Gomez, one of the primary dance organizers, explains this action 133

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by stating that "Los danzantes tocan a Cristo con las sonacas" ("The danzantes ring out to Christ with their rattles"). The rattle shaking is immediately followed by the musicians playing a few bars of Schubert's Ave Maria, which, in fact, is the tune that is regularly played over the church's loudspeaker to call the townspeople to Mass. Although, La Danza is in no way similar to a religious rite like Mass, its religious associations and overtones are clear. After introducing La Danza with Ave Maria, the musicians fall into a repetitive melody played in two/quarter time, to which the danzantes and angels, who are at the head of the danzante lines, carry out a constant step-close-step-step, step-close-step-step dance, shuffling along in line throughout the rest of La Danza to form a regular sequence of distinctive patterns. According to informants, some of these patterns, like the figure eight and the movement of lines from front to back and then front again, seem symbolically neutral, or at least are not assigned any conscious symbolic value. Several patterns, however, possess overt moral and symbolic meaning. The first is the cross, created initially with the women's line positioning itself as horizontal crossbar, and then the men's line doing the same. Another symbolically charged pattern is interpreted by many informants as a culebra (snake). Snakes in this society are intimately associated with the Devil and with evil, and we must recall that in La Danza several of the devils carry mock snakes. The culebra dance segment involves the step usually referred to musicologically as serpentine: the women's line first weaves its way in and out of the men's line, followed by the men's line doing the same in and out of the women's. Men and women then form a single, long line that winds into progressively smaller concentric circles. Both the weaving and winding are considered part of the "snake" portion of La Danza. The penultimate pattern places men and women in one large open circle, with the four kings and queens in the middle, forming a cross. This formation is said to represent the "Host," the body of Christ, incorporated within the chalice-like danzante circle. La Danza ends when the chalice and cross formations break up, and the dancers recreate the two parallel lines with which they began. The whole dance sequence lasts about twenty minutes and is repeated continuously throughout the evening and day of the performance. In addition to the conscious religious symbolism in the danzante formations, La Danza also incorporates a symbolic contrast between the human and nonhuman. I was told that the danzantes, who wear costumes but no masks, represent human beings. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Brandes 1984), humans are referred to in Tzintzuntzan as 134

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cristianos, implying that non-Christians are either nonhuman or only partially human. It is thus understandable that the danzantes, symbolizing cristianos, should enact overtly Christian themes in the Danza. Cristianos, among their other attributes, are subject to certain known rules of morality. Specifically they are governed by all the constraints and prescriptions that anthropologists would subsume under the rubric "culture." To Tzintzuntzerios, in particular, human affairs are guided by a covert yet potent principle of balance, or equilibrium—a principle that predominates elsewhere in rural Mexico as well (Nader 1969). George Foster has established the importance of equilibrium in areas of life ranging from health, in which illness is perceived as an imbalance of hot and cold elements within the body, to customary law, in which a return to the balanced state of normalcy, rather than the quest for retribution, is the response to crime. Summarizing his extensive evidence, Foster (1967: 168) concludes that "a striving to maintain equilibrium thus emerges as the dominant pattern in Tzintzuntzan culture, a consistent organization of beliefs and actions reiterated in the major institutions of the community." The danzantes, in their symmetry and structural oppositions, seem to play out the principle of balance in everyday life. Symmetry is expressed in the two parallel dance lines, each composed of dancers of a single sex. The lines carry out all portions of the dance sequence twice, allowing men and women, for example, each to form both parts of the cross or to take a turn at weaving in and out of the opposing stationary line. When the danzantes in parallel formation turn and march toward the back of the lines, then meeting and returning to the front, each line becomes a mirror image of the other. Even if we interpret the winding and weaving in La Danza as representing evil, these steps may be viewed as balancing the good, which is embodied in the formations of the cross and chalice. Certainly, the winding and weaving are executed in the same moderated, constrained spirit as are all other parts of the sequence. In everything they do, the danzantes, like the ideal cristianos they are meant to represent, are predictable, measured, and controlled. Their symmetrical steps, as well as their serious countenance, incorporate the overriding principle of equilibrium, as applied to society and the individual alike. In contrast, Death and the devils in La Danza play the role of nonhumans, who are correspondingly unpredictable and uncontrolled. All my informants explained the presence of numerous devils but only one "adult" Death by noting that the devils represent evil and there are many evils (males] in the world; however, Death is solitary because it comes to 135

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an individual only once. The multiplicity of evils is represented, according to one informant, by the variety of red and black devil costumes. Death, according to most Tzintzuntzenos, is morally neutral, because, in the words of one informant, "it does not distinguish between young and old: it affects everyone in the same way." In this regard, however, it is also thoroughly unpredictable, as unpredictable as are the forces of evil. No one knows when he or she is going to die, just as no one can say when he or she will be overcome by any of the numerous evil influences in the world. In keeping with their role as unpredictable entities, devils and Death in La Danza perform in a manner that seems, at least on the surface, to be chaotic and uncontrolled. The masks worn by these characters help to transform them into nonhumans. During their short breaks throughout the day, when the men who enact these figures position their masks on top of their heads or remove them entirely, they speak and act like any normal Tzintzuntzenos. With masks over their faces, however, their behavior becomes bizarre, and they communicate orally only with a high-pitched animal-like falsetto. The transformation from human to nonhuman is instantaneous and depends entirely on the placement of the mask (Figure 12). The behavior of devils and Death is chaotic and threatening. For one thing, the devils and Death do not remain aloof from their audience, as do the danzantes. The devils with their serpents and Death with his scythe constantly poke these objects at the spectators, at the same time letting out their characteristic screeches. In one typical instance, a devil pushed a cloth serpent into the musician's trumpet, later using the serpent to rub between the legs and buttocks of a small boy spectator. Numerous times the devils menacingly held out their serpents to little girls in the audience. One girl became so scared that she could only escape the serpent by running across the dance floor, giggling loudly and nervously along the way. Adults, too, are victimized by Death and the devils. A devil at one point unexpectedly pulled a startled middle-aged woman onto the dance floor; another devil stole a hat off the head of a male spectator, danced away with it, and then finally returned it to the concerned onlooker. Whenever I attempted to photograph the devils or Death in action, they did everything possible to foil my efforts. The usual response was for the masked figure to turn his back on me, wiggle his buttocks, and dance away. On several occasions, the toy serpent was positioned between the dancer's legs and waved threateningly at me. Or the dancer wiggled at me in clear imitation of coitus. Death did the same, using his scythe as a substitute phallus. The audience as a whole found these actions amusing, but the dancers' victims became noticeably un136

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Figure 12. Death

comfortable, however good-naturedly they may have submitted to the whims of the performers. Among themselves, Death and the devils also act strangely. They treat one another aggressively, and often their aggression is expressed sexually. In this behavior, as in their treatment of the spectators, distinguishing between the actions of the different masked figures would be impossible; Death and the devils comport themselves exactly alike. The figures who carry swords frequently engage in brief dueling encounters, but just as often are likely to approach another masked dancer from behind and poke at his buttocks with the sword. Devils constantly steal serpents and the knitted doll away from one another. When one of them is on hands and knees, wiggling his buttocks or engaging in some other obscene activity, another invariably sneaks up from behind and mounts him, in imitation of sodomy. Devils with swords pretend to sever the heads of the huge serpents, which are draped over the shoulders of other devils. Considering that both the serpents and the swords are frequently positioned 137

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in undeniable imitation of the male sex organ, this behavior can only be interpreted as overt phallic rivalry and as a symbolic portrayal of castration. At times, however, the masked figures express brief moments of affection for one another, for example, dancing closely in pairs and grinding genitalia together in an effusive homosexual display. Occasionally, too, the masked figures engage in behavior that is more scatological than phallic. They remove pieces of waste paper from the dance floor, bend over, and begin to use the paper as they would if they had just defecated. The audience responds to these bizarre actions with laughter, sometimes riotous, sometimes muted. There are also interludes during La Danza when at least a few of the masked figures simply move among the danzantes and refrain from clowning. Even in these instances, however, Death and the devils are out of step with the symbolic humans. For example, when moving in a circle, the danzantes tend to go counterclockwise. On these occasions, the masked figures are as likely to go clockwise as they are counterclockwise. Similarly, when the masked dancers move between the parallel danzante lines, they seem to ignore the directions taken by the danzantes, and they always move at a different (usually faster) pace from the danzantes. They appear to be doing what they want, to be acting on whim rather than according to rules. Unlike the danzantes, they are unpredictable. The masked figures seem to be a symbolic manifestation of the id, whereas the danzantes show that they are governed by super-ego-like control. The three angelitos are ambiguous figures who occupy a position somewhere between the danzantes and the masked dancers. On the one hand, the angelitos follow the parallel lines of danzantes through a number of their more uncomplicated steps and position themselves sometimes to the front and sometimes to the back of the lines. In their uniformly calm, nonthreatening demeanor they are like the danzantes, and the absence of masks associates them with the "human" side of the performance. On the other hand, when the danzantes engage in complex movements, like figure eights, serpentines, and circle formations, the angelitos retreat from the lines and wander aimlessly around the unoccupied portion of the dance floor, where the masked figures carry out their antics. The angelitos, unlike Death and the devils, are not in the least aggressive. But, for portions of the dance sequence, they are as unpredictable as the masked figures in that their movements follow no set pattern. They also wear wings, which set them apart as nonhuman. However, because the behavior of the three angelitos is totally innocuous, they are relatively unobtrusive participants in La Danza. The main cognitive and emotional impact in the performance ema138

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nates from the startling contrast between the masked figures and the danzantes, who embody unmistakable moral and religious qualities. In the behavior of these characters, La Danza represents the opposition between good and evil, sacred and profane, human and nonhuman, culture and nature. These oppositions represent conflicting tendencies within the individual as well as within society. It is hardly surprising, then, that their visual representation through the colorful and entertaining medium of dance should receive widespread support and attention during the February Fiesta. We must realize, in addition, that La Danza not only expresses moral qualities but also operates to inculcate them. Among the audience are numerous children. In observing the behavior of the devil and Death figures, these children are confronted with a concrete manifestation of culturally inappropriate behavior. In La Danza, as in ritual performances elsewhere in Mesoamerica (see Bricker 1973; Crumrine 1977; Spicer 1980), actors who deviate from acceptable norms provide the important function of ridiculing such deviation. Child spectators at La Danza quickly learn that uncontrolled behavior is laughable, grotesque, and characteristic only of nonhumans. If they wish to be considered cristianos, then they must act as much as possible like the danzantes. We may suppose that La Danza similarly reminds adult spectators of this fact. La Danza is thus an agent of both socialization and social control. La Danza as Social Drama In considering La Danza as a social drama, we must examine the interaction between the masked and unmasked performers. In particular, we must try to explain the initially perplexing, contradictory role of Death and the devils. To understand why Death and the devils behave the way they do, we should distinguish between two different interpretations of their role, that of the spectators and that of the masked figures themselves. To the spectators, and to the people of Tzintzuntzan generally, Death and the devils do not mean in any way to be frightening or threatening. They are, in the words of one informant, simply "playing and entertaining the people." They are clowns, engaged in humorous antics designed to make people laugh. From the perspective of the audience, this comic role is the manifest, readily articulated function of Death and the devils. Their corresponding latent function, of course, is to provide the spectators a vicarious release from normal social rules and constraints. George Foster (1966: 57-58) has demonstrated convincingly, through 139

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the analysis of euphemisms, that sex, defecation, and other themes enacted by the masked figures are sensitive, taboo areas of village culture. "Tzintzuntzenos are relatively prudish about sex, and a number of euphemisms are used in discussing various aspects of the subject." Similarly, a "variety of words suggestive of or related to defecation normally are replaced by euphemisms. . . . Ano and culo, both standard Spanish for anus, are replaced by cola ('tail') or punto ('point,' or the holes in a belt). . . . Excrement may be called la hierba sin raiz ('the herb without roots') while the act of defecation is obrar ('to work') rather than defecar. . . . Children ensuciarse ('to dirty one's self) rather than defecate in their clothing. As in general in Mexico, culo is such an offensive word that standard Spanish culantro ('corriander') is called cilantro." In my own long experience in Tzintzuntzan, sex and defecation are rarely discussed openly, except when they concern animals. If two beasts begin to fornicate, the spectators gape and joke. This response is even normal among family members, like parents and children, who otherwise would be expected to avoid discussing such a libidinally charged event. It is noteworthy that the masked dancers in Tzintzuntzan are animallike and nonhuman, as much in the senseless sounds they make as in their other behavior. It is therefore well within the bounds of acceptable norms in Tzintzuntzan to observe these clowns wipe themselves, poke at one another's buttocks, imitate sexual intercourse, and engage in similar antics that, for humans, would be taboo in public. By watching Death and the devils behave in this manner, people in the audience can unconsciously identify with these figures. The main function of humor in this situation, like telling jokes in others, is "to absorb and control, even to slough off, by means of jocular presentation and laughter, the great anxiety that both teller and listener [or performer and audience] feel in connection with certain culturally determined themes" (Legman 1971: 13—14). Humor in La Danza is the mechanism by which otherwise unacceptable topics can be aired publicly, allowed to reach a feverish pitch, and then be given a legitimate outlet. Anya Royce (1977: 81) wrote that "dance is one of the most effective vehicles for psychological release because its instrument is the human body. Feedback is instantaneous and cartharsis immediate for both the dancer and the observer." This generalization is certainly borne out by La Danza. During short breaks throughout the main day of the dance performance, I had the opportunity to interview the Death and devil performers and learn the perspective of the masked dancers themselves. These men naturally admit that they act both aggressively and humorously, but they generally will not offer this interpretation spontaneously. Rather, they are 140

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likely to explain their actions in terms of leadership: guiding the danzantes to stay in line and carry out the correct dance sequence, maintaining order among the audience, and, especially, keeping the dance floor clear of spectators. To an outside observer like myself, this role is not readily apparent and certainly would not have been evident without direct informant testimony. Yet, once aware of how Death and the devils see their own part in the proceedings, it is clear that they do provide essential, effective leadership for an elaborate event that might otherwise disintegrate from the absence of coordination. Some clowning is doubtless executed for the sheer opportunity to get a laugh, express antagonism, or both. But, for the most part, when the devils wield their swords at the spectators, their ultimate objective—like that of the toro figure during the Castillo displays, as analyzed in Chapter Six—is to widen the ever narrowing circle of spectators. Onlookers are not separated from the dancers by artificial markers. The same holds true when the devils try to scare the audience with their toy serpents. The observer who looks closely can also see why Death and the devils are constantly poking at danzantes; in this fashion, the danzantes are kept in line, or reminded to begin a new part of the dance sequence. On the surface, the actions appear aggressively sexual. A devil will rub against one of the young girl danzantes with his hips, an action which would never be tolerated outside this specific context, or Death will hook one of the danzantes with his scythe. But the final objective in all these antics is that the Danza be executed properly. Superficially, the masked figures appear to be breaking all the rules, whereas in reality they are responsible for enforcing them. This seemingly contradictory role may at first appear hopelessly perplexing. Why should clowns, who act aggressively and defy social norms, be essentially in charge of the performance? This question can only be answered by viewing La Danza as a metaphor not only of moral qualities, as we have already done, but also of actual motivating forces behind the everyday conduct of Tzintzuntzan villagers. For although the masked dancers are humorous, their comic activities are basically a disguise for the outlet of hostility and the arousal of fear. Arthur Koestler (1967: 52) has correctly remarked that "the more sophisticated forms of humor evoke mixed, and sometimes contradictory, feelings; but whatever the mixture, it must contain one ingredient whose presence is indispensable: an impulse, however faint, of aggression or apprehension." This statement is even more applicable to La Danza, whose clowns sometimes evoke quite discernible anxiety in the spectators. For Tzintzuntzefios fear is among the most potent and general motivating factors underlying behavior. George Foster (1973: 108) has sum141

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marized this tendency by stating that in Tzintzuntzan "the world is viewed as a hostile place in which human, natural, and supernatural dangers constantly assail a person. Fear, specific and generic, manifest and symbolic, is shown in forms too numerous to mention. The unknown is feared, the city is feared, patrons are feared, false friends are feared, robbers and thieves and assassins are feared." According to Foster, this apprehension is delineated best in the dreams of the villagers. Not surprisingly, snakes, excrement, weapons, and other items intimately associated with the Death and devil figures in La Danza are among the most commonly expressed concerns of Tzintzuntzan dreamers. Death and devils have almost a living presence among the Tzintzuntzenos. Numerous villagers claim to have seen these beings and even to have been directly confronted by them. Silvia Vallarta claims that she saw the devil in a dream and that he was dressed in a fine city suit—garb well calculated to lure the victim unexpectedly to her downfall. Another woman, who claims to have had firsthand contact with the devil, says that he takes the form of a naked man. When Vallarta was pregnant with her first child, Death, manifesting in the form of a skeleton, actually placed one of its hands on her shoulder. Death, it is said in Tzintzuntzan, has tried to "marry" both men and women. In the cases where it has succeeded, the elected "spouses" die. The people of Tzintzuntzan certainly perceive death differently from the way middle-class people in the United States do. Tzintzuntzenos view death as inevitable and everpresent. The reality of death and dying is not hidden from children, for example, the way it often is than elsewhere in the world. Nonetheless, death, to the Tzintzuntzenos, is as unpleasant and remorseful as to any people, and to that extent it is to be feared. No one who has seen a Tzintzuntzan parent frightened by the prospect that an ill child may die could state otherwise. The capriciousness and hostility of Death as depicted in La Danza thus have their counterparts in the Tzintzuntzenos' perceptions of the actual phenomenon of death. Similarly, the devil, in La Danza as in the belief system of the people, is a fearful, unpredictable creature. Not surprisingly, then, the real devil (as opposed to the ones in La Danza), "whose work often closely resembles that of human witches, is called el chango (the monkey) or el enemigo (the enemy) (G. Foster 1966: 55). This threatening being, like other feared elements in the environment, can lose some of its dangerous aura through the use of euphemisms. Similarly, the aggression of the devil dancers is tempered by the use of humor, although this ploy does nothing to eliminate the frightening creature but simply makes him more tolerable. Drawing on the work of Anna Freud, Victor Turner (1969: 174) has argued that "one of the most effective mechanisms utilized by 142

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the ego against . . . unconscious fear is to identify with the terrifying object. In this way it is felt to be robbed of its power; and perhaps power may even be drained from it." La Danza provides an opportunity for the audience, as well as the performers, to identify with Death and the devils. By confronting these beings directly, their fearsomeness may temporarily be overcome. The people of Tzintzuntzan, then, are plagued by fear of criticism and gossip, fear of devils, fear of death—a host of fears that motivate them to act in a conservative, balanced, moderate manner. Just as people are motivated by fear in real life to keep closely within the bounds of acceptable social norms, so too the danzantes adhere to the rules because they are attacked and threatened by the unpredictable masked figures around them. In fact, in La Danza, all humans—danzantes and spectators alike—are kept in their proper places as a reaction to the hostile, aggressive actions of Death and the devils, representatives of everything that is nonhuman, and hence incomprehensible and dangerous, in the world. There remains one critical feature of La Danza: the curious age and sex distribution of its performers. An examination of the different pairs of structurally opposed performers may suggest the symbolic meaning of their respective parts in the whole drama, although here, it must be cautioned, we enter the realm of speculation. To begin, there is an obvious role reversal embodied in La Danza. The danzantes—young and unmarried boys and girls—play the role of controlled and constrained individuals. Because they wear crowns, informants state that they are "kings and queens with their attendants." That is, like humans who act in a measured, orderly way, they are accorded some position of authority. In real life, of course, these adolescents are seen as irrepressible, especially in matters of sex, and are therefore kept under the tight control of their parents. This is especially true of adolescent girls, whose activities are monitored carefully, lest they fall prey to the boys' advances. Boys, although provided greater freedom of movement, are still bound by the authority of their fathers, in whose presence they often remain respectfully silent. Whereas La Danza portrays these individuals overtly as selfcontrolled, village ideology sees them as potential troublemakers. In La Danza they are the nominal authority figures, but in reality they are suppressed by their elders. At the same time, the middle-aged men who play Death and devils act in a childlike, regressive manner. Their totally chaotic behavior is characteristic of unsocialized humans, as is their incomprehensible speech. We may assume that the role reversal by age in La Danza highlights and thereby reinforces actual authority relations within the society, as Gluck143

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man (1954) and Turner (1969: 166—203) have noted of reversals in other contexts. The reversals that occur in La Danza in no way seriously threaten the normal social order. Even in the performance the middleaged dancers covertly assert their authority over the adolescents by prodding and frightening them into the proper dance formations. The reversals are thereby sheer fantasy, no more than elements of the dance "plot." They constitute not even a passing challenge to the established state of affairs and, in fact, act only to reinforce it. The oppositions by sex that are embodied in La Danza are a direct expression of cultural ideals. It is natural that only men should play the part of the clowning masked performers, for Tzintzuntzenos consider it unthinkable that a woman would ever act publicly in such a fashion. Even if she were simply jesting, and completely hidden by costume, a female Death or devil dancer would so completely and utterly transgress the sexual norms of her society that it would be impossible for her ever to become reintegrated within it. As Bushnell (1958), Diaz (1966: 7980), Paz (1961: 84), Wolf (1969: 294-299), and others have suggested, women in Mexico, to be respected, must conform to the image of the eminently adored and venerated Virgin of Guadalupe. In Tzintzuntzan girls come to learn and accept this role very early in life. This training, I believe, is expressed and manifested by the three little girl angels in La Danza. Not even they, who at ages nine or ten are only partially socialized to the rules of their society, could be expected to enact the devil or Death role. This wilder, less inhibited part in the drama is turned over instead to little boys, who are considered less controllable and, hence, assigned the less constrained role in La Danza. To Tzintzuntzenos men are unable to harness their sexual passions, whereas women are not only capable of doing so but also must do so. These distinct images of the two sexes are given a visual reality in La Danza. La Danza is thus a potent drama, incorporating wide-ranging elements of Tzintzuntzan moral ideology and social structure. Far from being a trivial item of lighthearted entertainment, it is a highly charged performance in which villagers project their social norms while, at the same time, controverting them. Through its ridicule of deviance, La Danza also performs the important functions of socialization and social control. Its reversal and metaphoric representations both highlight and reinforce the local systems of ranking and hierarchy. In this respect, it is similar to rituals that have been described for other parts of Mesoamerica (see Hunt 1977; Rosaldo 1968). La Danza thus displays the same basic paradox that is common to virtually every item of expressive culture: "while it plays a vital role in transmitting and maintaining the institutions of a culture and in forcing the individual to conform to them, at the same 144

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time it provides socially approved outlets for the repressions which these same institutions impose upon him" (Bascom 1954: 349). La Danza evidently provides a key to understanding processes of social control in Tzintzuntzan. Through public example, this performance teaches and persuades people to act acceptably, in the fashion that those around them believe they should.

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EIGHT

A Christmas Morality Play

The Emergence of a New Fiesta From the time of Redfield's study (1930) of the fiesta cycle in Tepoztlan, readers of accounts of Spanish—American village life have tended to assume that the ritual cycle is immutable, a repetitive annual round that has persisted since Catholicism was introduced to native Americans early in the sixteenth century. To some extent, of course, this is true. The basic church observances have been essentially the same, worldwide, since Corpus Christi was added to the annual cycle early in the fourteenth century. But within this unvarying framework of Easter, Corpus Christi, the Ascension, All Souls' and All Saints' Days, and the Nativity, ample scope is provided for local creativity. Fiesta observations can be elaborated (within limits) or minimized, and some can even disappear. Consequently, the fiesta cycle in the average Spanish—American village is anything but immutable: depending on local priests, the interest of specific villagers, and national religious developments, enthusiasm may swell or wither away. Some new fiestas take hold and others fail. Tzintzuntzan's principal fiesta in February (discussed in Chapter Six) well illustrates this process: in the midst of a smallpox epidemic at the turn of the century, the village sacristan vowed to Christ, in the form of a forgotten painting hidden in the convent, that he would organize a celebration if the village were spared further deaths. Miraculously, the deaths ceased, the sacristan fulfilled his vow, modestly the first year and with increasing participation subsequently, until this new fiesta became the most important in the village, replacing the usual fiesta in honor of the patron saint. In contrast, in the early 1960s the priest hoped to introduce a new fiesta in honor of Cristo Rey, a movement then enjoying considerable favor in Mexico because of the erection of a huge statue of Christ on El Cubilete mountain in Guanajuato. This innovation failed, however, because of lack of local interest, and the procession that occurred for several years now is forgotten. Since the appearance of the fiesta in honor of Nuestro Serior del Res-

A Christmas Morality Play

cate, the most important ritual innovation has been the elaboration of the Christmas Posadas. Unlike the Rescate fiesta, the Tzintzuntzan Posadas have been observed by anthropologists since their beginnings. Thus, we do not have to reconstruct; we can describe the development from first-hand observation. Anybody who knows about Christmas in Mexico is familiar with the Posadas. The Posadas are a dramatic reenactment of the Holy Family's journey to Bethlehem to find shelter for the Virgin Mary to give birth. The proceedings usually include the breaking of pifiatas—clay pots decorated with colored paper and filled with fruit and candies. True, ritual portrayals of the days before Christ's birth have existed from the Middle Ages (Margetson 1972) to contemporary times (Career 1944; Fortun 1957; Romero 1952; Speroni 1940) in places other than Mexico. And pinata-like food distributions to children can be found elsewhere as well (Almerich 1944; G. Foster 1960: 176-177). But the Mexican people have combined these two features, elaborated on them, and institutionalized them to the point where they have become symbolic of Mexico itself. The mere existence of the specifically Mexican term Posadas to designate these special features of the Christmas season indicates their importance to Mexicans everywhere, whether within or outside the country.1 Yet it is precisely because of its widespread importance that the Tzintzuntzan case stands out so dramatically. Traditionally in Tzintzuntzan the Posadas simply did not exist. Of course, people knew about this event. But there was nothing in the village that exactly corresponded to it. Throughout most of the village's modern history, the fiesta cycle effectively terminated each year with the celebration, in El Ojo de Agua, of the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December. During the Christmas season itself, the so-called Jornadas would be enacted. This occasion involved groups of women singing in the atrium each evening during the week before Christmas.2 Two small choral groups, chosen by the priest to play the roles of the Virgin Mary and the heartless innkeepers, would enact through song the Virgin's frustrating search for lodgings. Afterwards, village children gathered to break several pinatas, which were donated each night by a different Church-affiliated organization. All the activity occurred in the churchyard. The expense in terms of time and money was insignificant, and the attendance during these cold winter evenings was low. In 1962, a new parish priest decided to make the occasion more elaborate by involving large numbers of villagers directly in its organization and moving the ritual activity from the atrium to the streets. Since that date, the Posadas have undergone several minor changes, although the basic underlying structure has remained the same. The principal religious 147

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authorities in town, always including the priest and often also including encargados and cargueros (the fiesta officials discussed in Chapter Three), divide the town into calles (streets), each of which sponsors the Posadas during one of the nine nights before Christmas. An organizing committee is named for each calle and takes responsibility for hiring musicians, constructing mangers, manufacturing pifiatas, and preparing hundreds of bags of fruit and candy—the aguinaldo—for distribution to the public. Considered as a whole, the nine days of festivities from 16 December through 24 December require a large outlay of time and money. The Tzintzuntzan Posadas, although recent in origin, now constitute an integral and key occasion in the annual fiesta cycle. The event has had more than two decades of almost continuous annual observance in Tzintzuntzan. Acceptance of the Posadas had not been complete, however. In the mid-1970s, the parish priest (a different person from the cleric who founded the elaborate Posadas more than ten years earlier) decided to revert to the original, simpler system, on the grounds that the Posadas had become too expensive and time-consuming, and were therefore draining community resources that he believed could be better invested elsewhere. A few villagers now quietly admit that they supported his decision, for economic reasons. Yet at the time the priest met with opposition from the townspeople who, as it is still claimed today, objected to the priest's attempt to deprive Tzintzuntzan of its "traditions." When the priest presented his arguments in favor of reverting to the orignial system, people responded, "Why does it matter to you how much we spend? It's our money, not yours. You have no reason to mind." Whether these words were actually uttered at the time can never be known. They emerge repeatedly, however, in popular renditions of events that occurred, and they certainly still represent the feelings of many villagers in the 1980s. According to his own testimony, the priest relinquished his position not only to appease his parishioners but also to assure that even a minimal celebration of Christmas would occur. It seems that his attempt to simplify the event had failed; as he himself admits, "Nobody showed up." We are thus confronted with a curious instance in which a relatively new ritual occasion is adopted by the people as "traditional," whereas the actual historical practice is rejected as an artifact of the priest. This circumstance is particularly interesting given the expense and time required for successful observance of the newly introduced ceremony. What can account for this turn of events, and for the integration of the Posadas in the life of Tzintzuntzan to the point that they should now be considered traditional? The Posadas have been effective because 148

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they dramatically persuade people to act in culturally appropriate ways. In the course of the Posadas, social norms and values are reinforced, and people of both sexes and all age groups have the opportunity to participate in a fashion that expresses ideal family-role relations. This was not true of the 1970s simplified version of the fiesta. The Posadas also portray a mythical past that holds deep significance for the people of Tzintzuntzan. They read into that past a sacred affirmation of contemporary patterns. No wonder, then, that once introduced, this fiesta quickly became defined as their own.

The Posadas The term posadas may best be rendered "lodgings." Narrowly defined, the Posadas in Tzintzuntzan refers to the ritual complex that occurs from 17 December through 23 December. On each of the seven nights the same image of the Virgin, mounted on a donkey, is carried in procession in a dramatic search for sleeping quarters. However, the term is generally extended to include the two days that frame this week of activities because they, too, form an integral part of the Christmas celebrations. A chronological account of the season's events is best divided into three segments—16 December, 17 to 23 December, and 24 December. On the night of 16 December, when the Christmas activities begin, the critical event is a procession in which images of the Holy Family are carried from the church of La Soledad, in the Tzintzuntzan atrium, to the Chapel of the Virgin of Guadalupe, in El Ojo de Agua. At about half past six, when it is already dark, loud skyrockets set off in the atrium penetrate the cold winter air to announce the impending departure of the procession. The organizing officials for this occasion are the twelve Cargueros de la Soledad (see Chapter Three). As they prepare the sacred image for the journey to El Ojo, a small Tarascan musical group hired by the cargueros plays joyous music, while the children and grandchildren of the cargueros are treated to pinatas. One by one, twelve pinatas are strung high between two trees just outside La Soledad. Each carguero is responsible for providing a single pifiata. There is much excited yelling and laughter as blindfolded young boys, one at a time, try to break the pots by batting at them with a long pole. The pinata is rigged to a cord that is tightened and loosened by a man from the village in such a manner to tease the boy at bat. Only when this man wishes does the boy actually strike the pot, at which point it breaks and the goodies inside come splattering to the ground below. Doz149

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ens of children, almost all of them boys, scramble for the fruits and candies, afterwards eating some and distributing others to girls and younger boys, who are generally too weak or timid to catch any of their own. Another piriata is then strung up, and the competition repeated, until all twelve have been broken. Gradually, throughout the half hour or so while the pinatas are being broken, villagers begin to gether around La Soledad. About a dozen village children are dressed as pastores (shepherds) and pastoras (shepherdesses), in white pants, shirts, and circular brimmed hats for the boys and white dresses for the girls. However, most of the villagers—adults and children alike—are uncostumed. Amid the ring of church bells and the sound of music, the procession begins. Unlike processions at any other time of year, this one and those on the days to follow are noisy affairs, with children scurrying about in disorderly fashion and adults conversing openly and even occasionally laughing loudly. The birth of Christ is a joyous occasion and demands nothing like the usual ritual solemnity. Carried in procession are two important ritual objects. First, there is the Child Jesus, El Nino, an infant-sized statue, naked and lying in a straw basket that is bedded down with silver and gold metallic tinsel. Throughout most of the procession, the Child rests in the arms of a carguero, with the twelve cargueros taking turns at holding him. The Child is surrounded by the cargueros as well as by a host of women carrying long, lighted candles. Just behind the Child Jesus go Los Peregrinos (The Pilgrims), a sacred grouping of statues about two feet high by three feet long, and including images of the Virgin Mary mounted on a donkey and St. Joseph standing behind her. The central figure in this ensemble is the Virgin, known as La Peregrina (usually pronounced Pelegrina in Tzintzuntzan). She receives much more attention and evokes deeper devotion on these Christmas evenings than does St. Joseph. La Peregrina is supported by two long poles, which rest on the shoulders of four unmarried teenage girls; any girls who arrive first and wish to carry her may do so. As the procession winds along its route from the atrium through the barrio of Yahuaro to the Chapel at El Ojo de Agua, it constantly picks up followers. When the image of the Child Jesus reaches each street intersection, the procession halts. Men and women who are unable to join the group come up to the image, genuflect, and kiss his head or feet. Occasionally a villager with a baby in her arms comes up to the Child Jesus and urges her own child to kiss the image. Loud skyrockets puncture the air during these stops as well as en route. When the procession has traversed most of Yahuaro and is perhaps a quarter of a kilometer from its destination, the Child Jesus is met by the 150

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twelve Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe (see Chapter Three). The activities of 16 December constitute the first official duties of new, incoming cargueros. As the people at the front of the procession part to make way for them—for they arrive from the direction in which the procession is heading—the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe and their wives, one by one, genuflect in front of the Child Jesus and kiss him. The Cargueros then take turns holding him throughout the rest of the route to the Chapel at El Ojo. At the Chapel, the Child Jesus is placed in a small manger at the altar, alongside an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. There the child remains until Christmas Eve, when it is carried back to La Parroquia for Midnight Mass. La Peregrina also spends the night of 16 December at the Chapel, although she is returned to La Parroquia the following day, borne there in a more or less casual, unofficial fashion by four unmarried girls. Each subsequent night—the Posadas proper—La Peregrina is removed in procession from La Parroquia to a different street; on each occasion, too, the image is returned to La Parroquia the following day by four unmarried women. The festivities of 16 December continue with musicians playing in the Chapel yard, where, in addition, a formal supper is served by the Cargueros de la Capilla to the Cargueros de la Soledad. Hence, just as the Child Jesus may be considered a guest at the Chapel in El Ojo de Agua, so are the Cargueros de la Soledad—those charged with care of the Child Jesus—transformed into guests of the Cargueros de la Capilla—those charged with care of the Chapel. As the Cargueros de la Soledad eat at long tables just outside the Chapel, the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe, along with their fictive and real kinswomen, plow through the massive crowd with large baskets, from which they scoop out cups full of fruits and candies to distribute. At the same time, enormous round and star-shaped pinatas, made and filled by the Cargueros de la Capilla, emerge one by one from the kitchen to be strung up between two trees in the Chapel yard. As a man manipulates the cord from which the pifiata is strung, shouts emerge from the crowd of onlookers to the boys batting at it: "jDale! jDale recio!" ("Strike it! Strike it hard!"). All boys, not only those from El Ojo de Agua, are given the opportunity to strike the pifiata. Similarly, during every other night of the Posadas, boys from all sections of town attend the festivities and have the right to try their hand at breaking the pifiata, no matter which street hosts the evening's events. Like any proper Tzintzuntzan ritual visitors, the Cargueros de la Soledad present their hosts, the Cargueros de la Capilla, with bottles of 151

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liquor, which are ceremonially consumed throughout the formal supper and afterwards by the two groups. By about eleven o'clock in the evening, the crowds of villagers have dispersed, and only these men, their families, and formally invited guests remain. Hangovers the following morning give some indication of a pattern that becomes increasingly evident as the Christmas season progresses. The seven evenings from 17 December through 23 December may be considered as a unit because, despite minor variations, which at times assume an exaggerated significance in the minds of the villagers, the activities throughout this period are structurally identical. As indicated earlier, the priest and the principal lay religious officials arbitrarily divide Tzintzuntzan into seven territories, or "streets." Two of these territories, Yahuaro and Pueblo Nuevo, correspond to named sections of the village that are imbued with a permanently discrete identity. The other five consist of arbitrarily drawn territorial entities that are grouped around and derive their temporary name and identity from specific major town roads. Although these streets, as social and cultural units, have no meaning other than during this fiesta, their boundaries do not change from one year's Posadas to the next. As discussed in Chapter Three, the town officials select four padres de familia from each such street to direct its activities during each of the seven evenings. Although the officials try to distribute the task among eligible men from one year to the next, and consider family and financial circumstances, the selection is authoritarian. Encabezados, the members of the territorial organizing committees, are named aloud by the priest at Mass. To reject the post is unacceptable, tantamount to a public announcement that one is unwilling to serve the community; to embrace the post, by contrast, is to demonstrate one's magnanimous spirit of cooperation. Unlike the encargados or cargueros, whose ritual expenses come from their own pockets, encabezados collect money from households in their district to cover the costs of the evening for which they are responsible. With this money, they construct and decorate street mangers, hire musicians, purchase candles and fireworks, manufacture and fill pinatas, and buy food for public distribution. Just after dark on 17 December and each evening thereafter the encabezados of the street in charge gather in the atrium along with the small band they have hired for the occasion. Church bells call perhaps thirty or forty additional villagers to the scene, among them unmarried girls who are coaxed to carry La Peregrina in procession. La Peregrina, surrounded by women parishioners holding long candles and picking up followers along route, is taken from La Parroquia to the host territory. On the way, the women sing:3 152

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Caminen, caminen, esposos Walk, walk, dear spouses; queridos; Angeles del cielo guardan sus Angels from heaven watch over caminos. your paths. El Senor de bondad os proteja, May the Lord of goodness protect you, Y de dicha os colme dichosa. And may He fill you with happiness. Si esta noche os diste [sic] po- If tonight you gave them lodging sada Anos mil de ventura os dard. A thousand years of happiness He will give to you. The musicians, playing tunes such as "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night," and "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah," alternate with the singers as the procession winds slowly toward its destination. The priest, walking just behind La Peregrina, accompanies the villagers along the entire route. When the procession arrives at the sponsoring territory, two small groups of women (married and unmarried women participate in both groups) play the roles of the Holy Family and Cruel Innkeepers, respectively. Each night, these groups sing at three different "lodgings," the first two of which are simply village houses and the third of which is a manger, either freestanding or constructed against the outside wall of a village house. Arriving at the first posa, as the stop is called, La Peregrina is placed facing the door of the house as one of the women's groups sings: En nombre del cielo Buenos moradores, Dad a unos viajeros Posada esta noche.

In heaven's name Good townspeople, Give to some travelers Lodgings tonight.

To this, the second group of women, who are now inside the front door, replies: La bora de pedirla No es muy oportuna; Marchad a otra parte, Y buena ventura.

The hour for requesting it Is not very opportune; Move on to somewhere else, And good luck.

With this, the processional group, along with a host of villagers who have gathered for the performance, walk slowly to the second posa. En route, all the women singers chant: 153

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Maria's already on her way Very discouraged Because in this house They do not give her lodgings.

Ya se va Maria Muy desconsolada Porque en esta casa No le dan posada.

Arriving at the second posa, the group representing innkeepers again steps into a doorway and there is another exchange. Those outside plead: My wife suffers I beg you for mercy That for one night You give her tranquillity.

Mi esposa padece Por la piedad os ruego Que por una noche Le dels el sosiego.

To which the innkeepers selfishly reply: This house is ours, It does not belong to everybody; I open it to whomever I want, And I do not want to open it.

Esta casa es nuestra, No es de todo el mundo; Y le abro a quien quiero, Y abrirla no gusto.

The procession continues its way, with women now singing: Jose's already on his way With his beloved wife Because in this house They will not give her lodging.

Ya se va Jose Con su esposa amada Porque en esta casa No le dan posada.

The third and final posa is a manger, usually called a casita (little house) in Tzintzuntzan rather than the standard Spanish pesebre. Mangers vary in style, but all are two to three meters high, wide, and deep, constructed of poles and tule reeds, and decorated inside with hay and religious images. Balloons, tinsel, flashing lights, and other Christmas ornaments adorn the structure. Facing the manger, the group of women accompanying the Virgin and St. Joseph sings: See, my friends, That my beloved wife Is Queen of the heavens, (God's) grace on earth.

Mirad, mis amigos, Que mi esposa amada La Reina es del cielo, De la tierra, gracia. Those playing the innkeepers reply:

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Soberbios palacios, Y ahi a todas horas Le abren sus vasallos.

Magnificent palaces, And there at any time Your vassals open up for you.4

Still facing the manger, the Virgin's group remarks finally: De Dios los vasallos Somos todos, luego Abrid, y que pase La Madre del Verbo.

Of God the vassals Are we all, Hence open up And may the Mother of the Word pass.

At this point, the women accompanying La Peregrina place her inside the manger and then join the other singers to one side of the structure, as if they too had entered. In unison, they all sing: Pase la escogida, La nina dichosa, La flor de los campos La area misteriosa.

Let the chosen one enter, The fortunate girl, The flower of the fields The mysterious Ark [of the Covenant].

Quisiera en su obsequio Hacer mil festines Y el coro entonarle De los querubines.

I would like as a gift To make [offer] a thousand feasts And to sing for her the song Of the celestial beings.

Pastorcita Virgen Gloria de Belen, De un principe Madre Y tambien de un Rey.

Little shepherdess Virgin Glory of Bethlehem, Mother of a prince And also of a king.

Eres, pastorcita, Tan linda y tan bella, Que al sol das ventaja

You are, little shepherdess, So pretty and so beautiful, That you are brighter than the sun And all the stars.

y a toda estrella.

With this, the dramatic portion of the evening terminates. The Virgin has finally found lodging, although the story ends before the birth of Christ. Throughout the march, La Peregrina traverses the entire street sponsoring the Posadas on that particular evening. The posas are usually 155

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dispersed throughout the street, although in some instances it is necessary for the processional route to make a detour to achieve this goal. Sponsoring streets are invariably decorated in a colorful, imaginative fashion. Streamers—purchased in some streets by the encabezados, in others by individual households—create an ornate canopy, and families place their Christmas trees and lights outside. Loud recordings emanating from stereo speakers placed at windows occasionally compete with the live musicians and processional singers. With the entrance of La Peregrina into the manger, the priest asks for applause from the hundreds who have gathered for the occasion as an expression of appreciation for the sponsoring street. Adults then line themselves up against the house facades and patiently wait while the aguinaldo, the bags of fruit and candy, is distributed by the wives of the encabezados and their female helpers. To avoid roughhousing, adults herd all children into the courtyard of an encabezado's house, where they too are presented an aguinaldo. After distribution of this gift, many adults return home. The evening ends with the breaking of pinatas, an event that has plenty of female onlookers, but whose direct participants are exclusively male. Because the scramble for candies can be rowdy and at times dangerous, some parents even prevent their sons from joining the activity. Occasionally, a teenager will grab at the pinata, rip it from its cord, and run away with it, his friends following after him. The sense of confusion is heightened by a plethora of sparklers and firecrackers, all wielded by boys, and hurled at one another aggressively. If the sponsoring encabezados take firm charge, order can be maintained. Most evenings, however, end in a chaotic competition among the boys. The evening concludes with a supper that the wives of the encabezados serve to the priest and female singers, who leave as early as possible, as well as to the musicians. If the musicians continue to play, encabezados and their informally invited guests may stay until early morning, drinking and dancing. This feature of the event accounts for the drunkenness that increases with every passing day of the Posadas. Hence, the Posadas are sometimes described by villagers as una pura borrachera (a drunken orgy). The formal fiesta events terminate on Christmas Eve, when families unite for a special supper. At about ten in the evening villagers gather at the Chapel of El Ojo de Agua. Dozens of teenage girls cradle in their arms baskets lined with tinsel, containing small images of the Child Jesus. The image of the Child that on 16 December had been placed in the Chapel is now removed by the Cargueros de la Capilla and carried in procession back to La Parroquia. As during the earlier procession, the cargueros take turns holding the image, which is brilliantly lit by the 156

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candles of female parishioners who surround the image. Musicians walk behind, and skyrockets are set off throughout the entire procession. By half past eleven, the image of the Child Jesus enters La Parroquia and is delivered formally to the encargados who await at the altar; the image remains here throughout the Misa de Gallo or Midnight Mass. There the image of the Child Jesus joins La Peregrina, which had been returned to La Parroquia earlier that day by girls representing the sponsoring street of the previous evening. After Mass, well into early morning, the Cargueros de la Soledad treat the Cargueros de la Capilla to a banquet, accompanied by band music. It is, by reputation, the biggest party of the season and is famous for much drinking. For this reason, even some of the formally invited guests—the Cargueros de la Capilla and their wives—try to avoid attending by sneaking home.5

The Structure of Roles and Events The Posadas are a manifest effort at dramatizing events that occurred during the days before the birth of Christ—events about which only the Gospels provide concrete information. Considering the elaborateness of the Christmas celebration in Tzintzuntzan, it is remarkable to discover that the fiesta can be traced to a single sentence from Luke (2:7): "And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." The Bible provides no further evidence about the matter. It mentions neither the number of days that the Holy Family searched for shelter nor the number of inns from which they were turned away. Certainly no spoken messages by innkeepers of the day are recorded; nor do we read of territorial divisions, organizing officials, or the breaking of pinatas. All of these features are cultural inventions, elaborations on that one simple sentence from Luke. We therefore may assume that they and the associated festivities in some way project aspects, or at least salient concerns, of the people of Tzintzuntzan. If we confine ourselves for the moment to the structure of events during the Posadas, a dramatic story unfolds. The plot begins with the temporary removal of the image of the Child Jesus from his normal resting spot in Soledad church to the Capilla de Guadalupe in El Ojo de Agua. During the subsequent days, a further disequilibrium is created by the nightly displacement of La Peregrina from La Parroquia to distinct territories around town. During this period the two images, which are kept together throughout the rest of the year in the Church of La Soledad, are 157

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separated. The tension created both by the removal of images from their ordinary repositories and by their mutual separation is probably a principal dynamic force that propels activities throughout nine days. Equilibrium is only restored when the image of the Child Jesus is returned on Christmas Eve to his usual home and reunited with La Peregrina. The nightly processions serve to relate not only religious images but also territorial units to one another in distinctive ways. The manipulation of images has a centripetal impact. If we consider La Parroquia, La Soledad, and other structures located off the atrium as the center—for these buildings are surely the religious and cultural focus of the town—we can then recognize a movement out and then back each day. Just as the removal of the Child Jesus on 16 December and his return on 24 December effectively ties outlying El Ojo de Agua to the center, so do the evening sojourns of La Peregrina and her return the following morning relate territorial sectors of town to the atrium. That the seasonal activities occur over a nine-day period is also telling. The few informants who are able to offer an explanation for this curious phenomenon state that the Virgin had to search for shelter for nine days, or that she carried Christ in her womb for nine days, neither of which interpretation receives any support from the Bible. Of course, one reasonable explanation is that Tzintzuntzan has simply adopted the same time-span for the holiday as occurs everywhere throughout Mexico; Tzintzuntzan's festival is cut from a common mold. Another, more speculative explanation is that nine days represent nine months, a day of fiesta for each month of gestation. Because the entire festival honors a birth, this explanation seems suitable enough. If we perceive the festival as analogous to a life crisis ritual, in this case honoring the birth of Christ, we may hope to understand spatial relationships among the images. There first occurs a separation of La Peregrina from the Child Jesus, then a period of transition and transformation represented by the seven days of wandering from territory to territory, and finally a reintegration or reunion of the images on Christmas Eve, symbolizing birth. The scheme precisely fits Van Gennep's model of rites de passage (1960 [1909]). As at any life crisis celebration in Tzintzuntzan, this one involves visiting and hospitality. During 16 to 24 December the image of the Child Jesus is received and watched over in El Ojo de Agua, just as every evening from 17 December through 23 December La Peregrina seeks and finds a welcome resting spot outside of her home. Although she is initially and rudely rebuffed, she eventually is awarded the generous treatment that she deserves. Similarly, the villagers who accompany her on the Posadas receive a hospitable entry into town streets that are not their 158

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own. Although they do not stay the night, as does La Peregrina, they accept a token of their hosts' generosity in the form of fruit and candy. Villagers from outside the sponsoring territory are also transformed into the role of guests because their hosts sweep, clean, and decorate the streets on their behalf. There is a noticeable parallel between the drama in which the images are made to engage, on the one hand, and the course of human activity, whether habitual or fiesta restricted, on the other. As a ritual in honor of a birth, the fiesta appropriately incorporates a certain child-centeredness, coupled with an emphasis on devoted parenthood. The image of the Child Jesus is lavishly adored in the two processions that frame the Posadas. Inside many of the mangers that are set up by the streets and barrios, too, are situated tiny statues of the Child. In no other Tzintzuntzan festival is an infant saint's image given such attention, just as at no other time are village children publicly made to feel so important. Pinatas are manufactured and filled for the pure enjoyment of children—mainly male children, thereby paralleling the attention accorded the Child Jesus at this time. Perhaps the male-centeredness of the occasion implicitly sanctions male deviation from serious, sober comportment during the Posadas. Each of the nine nights apparently is structured in a progression from the religious to the profane, from the solemn to the merely merry to the socially chaotic. Religious processions that begin each evening's activities are invariably followed by commensality in the form of banquets and the distribution of sweets. Official joyful activities, like breaking pinatas or giving the suppers for the priest and singers, end in excessive male indulgence, whether in the form of the boys' aggressive fireworks fights or the men's drunkenness. Of course, not all boys fight with fireworks or all men get drunk. However, those men who remain very long at the official site of the festivities are likely to become inebriated, which is a recognized, if generally disapproved, feature of the event. Females, by contrast, play their usual role of selfless, suffering providers. La Peregrina is, of course, the greatest provider of all, because she delivers Jesus Christ to the world. Understandably, village women, who give life to their own children, are the ones who alternately sing the role of the Virgin and chant the difficulties of her plight. Like these women, the Virgin is the proverbial Mexican madre abnegada, or long-suffering mother (Diaz 1966: 78; Nelson 1971: 69; Paz 1961: 38-39). With specific reference to the Posadas, these women act as hostesses to the village just as they do within their own homes. They spend days preparing banquets, as well as large quantities of ponteduro, a sweetened, toasted maize candy that is a specialty at this time of year. They fill the pinatas and prepare the bags of aguinaldo; they provide the food, and it is their 159

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children who consume it. The townswomen who carry the Virgin in procession each evening identify with her, just as the men—who in rural Mexico have been shown to retain somewhat the role of children throughout adulthood 6 —identify with and carry the image of the Child Jesus. Religious roles at the Posadas thus seem to be a normal extension of family roles. When in the mid-1970s the village priest tried to simplify the Posadas by eliminating the enactment of family roles, he probably ran contrary to the popular (if unconscious) need to dramatize traditional gender patterns and ideals. No doubt he failed for this reason, and the subsequent fiesta revival took such firm hold. Here is a clear case where the people oppose the clergy and demonstrate their power to determine their own fiestas. The Reinforcement of Ideals Roger D. Abrahams (1972), in discussing Christmas and Carnival on St. Vincent, suggests that Christmas celebrations both reflect and promote cultural ideals such as order, respect, reciprocity, cooperation, and a sense of community, whereas Carnival provides periodic opportunity for normally unacceptable aggressive, chaotic, and individualistic behavior. This analysis assumes that there may be a festival "division of labor," with some festivals embodying cultural ideals, and others negating them. The Posadas in Tzintzuntzan reveal a delicate alternation between both tendencies, an alternation that may foreshadow the fiesta's demise. Christmas in Tzintzuntzan, as on the island of St. Vincent, reinforces a number of powerful cultural ideals. For example, reciprocity, which provides one of the main bases for interpersonal relationships among villagers, receives expression in banquet exchanges; on 16 December the cargueros from El Ojo feed those from La Soledad, whereas on 24 December the roles are reversed. Likewise, reciprocity is involved in the aguinaldo. All villagers donate money toward the purchase and preparation of their own street's aguinaldo but can expect to receive the same in return when visiting other sections of town. The principle of reciprocity also involves the exchange of different types of goods and services, as when the priest and women singers are treated to a special supper in return for their ritual performance. As Buechler (1980) has noted, public exchanges like these generate information about social relationships. In this case, the repetitive expressions of reciprocity can only serve to reassure people that their fellow villagers are willing to make mutual sacrifices in the service of community celebration and, by exten160

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sion, that the participating actors responsible for the exchanges can be trusted to fulfill obligations. Similarly, hospitality as both a religious and social ideal is highlighted throughout the Posadas. On each of seven nights, La Peregrina is rebuffed in the search for lodgings; the resolution of her drama only occurs with the positive response of hospitable innkeepers, who recognize her divinity. Similarly, the fact that village territories sponsor the Posadas by providing music, sweets, and supper to outsiders is an open demonstration of hospitality, an affirmation of the values upheld in the story of the Holy Family. In fact, hospitality on a daily basis is perceived as a way to provide social cohesiveness, a means of reinforcing already established bonds and forging new ones. I learned the strength of this norm the hard way. On a recent trip to Tzintzuntzan, I was invited to dine at the home of a village friend, a man so poor and with such a large family that his income for one day is entirely spent on food for the next. In the middle of dinner, we were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a casual acquaintance of mine, a man from California, who brought along three European tourists he had met several days before in Guadalajara. Barely knowing only one of these visitors, and recognizing the economic hardship of my host, I arranged to meet the acquaintance later that day. For this action, I was severely criticized. In Tzintzuntzan, I was told, no visitor who may be considered even tenuously un conocido (a known individual) is ever turned away. My protectiveness was perceived as embarrassing, selfish, and antisocial. One hosts unexpected visitors not only to uphold religious ideals but also to reinforce the values that will assure similar treatment for oneself and one's family in the future. During the Posadas, there occur both explicit reiteration of this norm and repetitive demonstration of it through social action. There is, in addition, a definite emphasis in the Posadas on cooperation as a cultural ideal. Household contributions to the event are entirely voluntary, which is why informants state, "Yo coopero con las Posadas" ("I cooperate with the Posadas") or, alternatively, "Yo coopero con los encabezados" ("I cooperate with the encabezados"). Anyone who inquires about fiesta financing will be told, as if by formula, that "Here we all cooperate." The phrase is encountered dozens of times each day throughout the Christmas season, and, if only by witnessing the costly displays each night, it is evident that the term describes actual behavior. However, financial cooperation, as noted in Chapter Four, tends to characterize short-lived ephemeral events like fiestas, rather than long-term economic arrangements, in which individual household flexibility is valued over binding commitments. The best of all possible worlds, according to most 161

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Tzintzuntzenos, would incorporate long-range cooperation, but human nature does not submit to the compromises, trust, and at times selflessness that such organization implies. Consequently, for daily concerns cooperation remains an abstract ideal rather than reality. The cultural genius of the Posadas is to successfully combine the affirmation of ideals like reciprocity, hospitality, and cooperation with the living reality of competition and conspicuous consumption. Competition is expressed above all in an unmistakable rivalry between participating streets and barrios, whose residents derive a sense of pride if their group is able to put on a lavish show. The barrio of Pueblo Nuevo is known for its extravagance, despite the fact that it is one of the poorest sections of town. It is said to set off the greatest number of fireworks, string up the largest number of pinatas, and adorn its streets in a particularly expensive fashion. Pueblo Nuevo is also envied because it is the only territory that annually is able to influence the priest to accompany its Posadas with an outdoor Mass, which occurs despite the priest's open opposition to holding religious services under such informal conditions. For these reasons, it attracts an unusually large number of visitors from other parts of town. Outsiders, like myself, are constantly requested to compare the success of one street's display with that of another. Success is invariably measured by the lavishness of the event: the quality and quantity of the bands, the fireworks, the pinatas, the mangers, the ornaments, the aguinaldo, and so on. All of these features are mercilessly compared and help determine the pride that an individual feels in belonging to a particular street. They also influence the number of townspeople who attend street fiestas, which is in itself an indication of relative prestige. A somewhat lesser, although still evident, competitive drive exists among householders in the same street for the display of Christmas ornaments. Expensively decorated Christmas trees, elaborate flashing Christmas lights, original cut-paper streamers, and similar items are all singled out for comment. Households are concerned about the quality of their individual contributions to the street fiestas and recognize that the family's prestige in part depends on its ability to create a festive outdoor ensemble. Competition is neither culturally lauded in Tzintzuntzan nor highlighted in the script of Posadas ritual activities. Nonetheless, one of the increasingly important status symbols in Tzintzuntzan is conspicuous consumption in household festivals (as indicated in Chapter Three). These occasions include celebrations involved in the life cycle such as weddings, baptisms, and funerals, as well as the Day of the Dead when families have the opportunity to display their wealth through ornate 162

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tombstone decorations. The Posadas, which present an opportunity for household decoration, are in the same category. The existence of obvious differences in living standards is today symbolized in household festival displays, which become devices for acquiring prestige. Elaborate materialistic displays in the name of community religion make this kind of competitive behavior socially acceptable. Although competition in the abstract seems to conflict with ideals of reciprocity, hospitality, and cooperation, in reality these qualities all complement one another. A mild state of competition among streets, for example, assures that hospitality can be extended with an appropriate degree of lavishness. Competition also provides motivation for encabezados to cooperate and for households to donate enough money to finance a respectably elaborate evening. Only by providing a festive event can village norms of reciprocity be realized, for each street is aware of its implicit material and spiritual obligation toward the others—an obligation that derives in large measure from the contributions of these streets toward the creation of a successful Christmas Posadas. In a number of ways, then, competition is compatible with, and may even be said to enhance actualization of, the normative ideals that emerge in the Christmas performances. Competition, of course, is also an explicit theme in the breaking of the pinatas. Competition exists between the adult who manipulates the cord from which the pinata is suspended and the child who attempts to strike the pinata. An implicitly competitive situation is also found among the boys who are given a turn to break a pinata, as well as among those who scramble for the fallen objects once it is broken. Although competition is not an openly lauded goal during the Posadas, it is neither alien to the proceedings nor suppressed. We may analyze the Tzintzuntzan Posadas according to Raymond Firth's useful distinction (1963) among three levels of reality: the ideal, the expected, and the real. When ideals, expectations, and the actual state of affairs coincide, a stable cultural situation emerges. When the levels conflict, change is usually to be anticipated. Hans Buechler (1980: 100) has recently revived Firth's scheme by demonstrating its utility in explaining the course of ritual events in the Bolivian highlands, and the Posadas in Tzintzuntzan confirm the continuing value of this analytical framework. There are two separate issues here: the degree to which the prevailing ideals, expectations, and realities of everyday Tzintzuntzan coincide with the ideals, expectations, and realities manifest during the Posadas; and the degree to which there is continuity or discontinuity among the distinct levels within the Posadas themselves. I believe that reciprocity and 163

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hospitality, as cultural ideals, are the least problematic of those mentioned thus far. That is, reciprocity and hospitality receive affirmation and realization on all three levels in everyday life as well as during the Christmas celebration. By contrast, cooperation, although often stated as a cultural ideal, does not receive full realization in everyday life, nor is there much expectation for its realization. The emergence of cooperation during the Posadas as a cultural sore point is hardly surprising. Cooperation is expressed as an ideal of the ritual activities and, for the most part, is expected. However, the reality is that cooperation is frequently extended in a begrudging fashion and can be the cause of serious social conflict. Encabezados, as appointed rather than volunteer leaders, are often discontent for various reasons. Some officials complain that they are repeatedly selected for this and similar jobs, although others in the neighborhood escape every year with virtually no public service. Organization of the Posadas generally occupies the better part of a man's workweek, so that although encabezados spend no great sums, they lose time that would otherwise be devoted to occupational pursuits. In addition, they have the unpleasant task of requesting donations from their neighbors, who occasionally rebuff them or donate only reluctantly. Being scrutinized by a highly critical audience of neighbors and guests, the encabezados are also anxious about the quality of their leadership. Encabezados are expected to finance a lavish show, with funds that they inevitably believe inadequate to achieve this goal. Encabezados generally cooperate because once publicly named to the post, refusal would indicate a disgraceful rejection of cultural ideals as well as an unwillingness to serve one's community and its saints. Nobody actively seeks the position of encabezado; most philosophically resign themselves to it. Occasionally an appointed encabezado refuses to serve by refraining from carrying out his duties; he thereby initiates a feud with the others of his street selected as his fellow encabezados. No formal sanction can be applied to such an offender. His behavior is criticized as inappropriate mainly because it increases the work load of the others. Here there exists a serious discontinuity between cultural ideals, expectations, and reality. The ideal is willing cooperation; the expectation is unwilling cooperation; and the reality is less than complete cooperation. One further cultural ideal—order—receives overt expression in the Posadas, as in daily life. Successful Posadas, everybody claims, rest on the maintenance of control throughout the evenings' events and on an element of predictability that we have already demonstrated (see Chapter Seven) is highly valued by Tzintzuntzefios in general. An evening's activities are measured in large part by whether the encabezados maintain 164

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order with a firm hand. If boys become rowdy and disruptive by stealing piriatas or aggressively fighting with fireworks, the event is ruined. Likewise, if formal banquets and suppers degenerate into a drunken brawl, or leave participants the next day in an inebriate stupor, the ritual activities will be considered less than successful. Disorderly conduct at the Posadas is disturbing to the people of Tzintzuntzan because it is decidedly not part of the ritual script. It occurs against the wishes and efforts of the hosts and is the cause of much unhappiness, as when guests are forced to disband early due to rowdy behavior or when fights accompany drunkenness. The Posadas potentially threaten rather than reinforce cultural ideals. In this respect, they can provide a poor cultural model and thereby socialize children in what most villagers would consider a highly adverse fashion. Over the course of the 1980s, the Posadas have been embraced fully and unambiguously by the people of Tzintzuntzan. In part, the continued performance of the Posadas represents an expression of the power of the lay populace over the priest. To the villagers as a whole, the event clearly symbolizes a triumph of their will against his. At the same time, participation in this fiesta is not the result of sheer obstinate caprice. When the people consider the Posadas "traditional," they do so for a variety of reasons. They are Mexican, and the Posadas are an integral part of Mexican history and culture. Further, the Posadas publicly affirm social roles and moral values that are highly valued, and thereby implicitly contribute to their perpetuation. At the same time, however, the discrepancy between cultural ideals and behavior that we have observed in the Posadas is hardly limited to this event. To be successful, fiestas of all types depend on two predictable circumstances: cooperation among the leaders and order among the participants. When a fiesta is over, and both order and cooperation have prevailed, villagers know that their society is intact. Perhaps the constant threat of disorder and uncooperativeness, such as exists during the Posadas, actually keeps the whole fiesta cycle in motion, as people demand periodic affirmation of cooperation and social control. This issue is explored more fully in Chapter Nine.

NOTES 1. The Posadas are celebrated by Mexicans who reside in the United States. I have attended these celebrations in 1978 and 1979 in Richmond, California. Peter Ribera-Ortega's work (1968) offers a brief description of the Posadas in New Mexico and provides words to the ritual songs that differ from those in 165

A Christmas Morality Play Tzintzuntzan. Mary MacGregor-Villarreal has recently published "Celebrating Las Posadas in Los Angeles" (1980), which is the fullest account of the event within U.S. borders yet to appear. Sicilians in southern California carry out a celebration on St. Joseph's Day that is strikingly similar to the Posadas (Speroni 1940). 2. Miguel Leon-Portilla (1971), Socorro Sala Gonzalez (1954), and Salvador Carranza (1973) provide studies of Christmas songs. Sala's material on this topic is the most complete that I know. 3. Verses similar, but not identical, to the following are reported in Sala 1954. 4. Mysteriously, this stanza contains three lines instead of four. However inconsistent, this is the manner in which it is sung. 5. George Foster, who witnessed the Posadas in 1982, reports in a personal communication that there was less drinking on that occasion than when I made my observations in 1981. He also recorded near-deafening noise inside the church from clay whistles, handed out by the priest to young boys. When the noise became disruptive, the priest had to collect them. The whistles were not distributed the year before at the Posadas that I observed. These minor variations from one year to the next help confirm that no complex ritual can ever be identically replicated. 6. See Diaz (1966: 79-80), Nelson (1971: 66-75), Esteva Fabregat (1969: 115-118, 220), and Romanucci-Ross (1973: 56).

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Octavio Paz Revisited To conclude this volume, it seems appropriate to question Octavio Paz's characterization of Mexican fiestas (1961: 50—51): "In certain fiestas the very notion of order disappears. Chaos comes back and license rules. . . . [The] fiesta is not only an excess, a ritual squandering of the goods painfully accumulated during the rest of the year; it is a revolt, a sudden immersion in the formless, in pure being." If we consider the Tzintzuntzan data, Paz is partially correct, and for at least three reasons. First, and most obviously, fiestas are the time when deviant behavior is not merely tolerated but actually promoted. During the February Fiesta in honor of the Senor del Rescate, for example, performers in La Danza, whether in or out of the dance arena, act in ways that diametrically contradict social norms. They obsessively poke and tease one another. They push and tug at spectators, embarrass them by dragging them onto the dance floor, and grab objects from their hands. They mount one another in imitation of homosexual copulation and engage in other erotic mimicry. They pretend to pick at their noses and to defecate—acts that are considered inherently disagreeable and if done publicly, defiling. Hence, the public performance of these acts during the fiesta gives an impression of formlessness and chaos. Carnival actors evoke the same uninhibited image by fighting with one another in the street; such behavior certainly occurs in Tzintzuntzan but is ideally avoided. In Barbara Babcock's terms (1978), the world is reversed: men dress like women, humans pretend to be animals, fully grown adults act like children and occupy center stage. The actors controvert social norms by boasting and making spectacles of themselves. They demand money from reluctant bystanders, who are taunted to the point of capitulation. Aggressive and undesirable comportment are incorporated within other fiesta proceedings as well. During Corpus Christi, spectators dodge the onslaught of mangos and other hurled objects. During Holy Week, aggression is directed inward, toward the self,

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as penitentes drive and whip themselves along the difficult route around town. This behavior also exceeds the bounds of everyday expectations; the illusion of deviance and license inevitably asserts itself. Hence, if viewed as performance, Tzintzuntzan fiestas are enacted according to scripts that promote a sense of chaos. They call for actors who are willing to release their normal inhibitions. But we must recognize that these inhibitions are released only under certain specified conditions. Most importantly, the actors are symbolically transformed into nonhumans through the donning of masks and costumes. Even if spectators know the faces that are hidden behind those masks, deviant behavior is permitted and even encouraged when it is written into the script. Framing the performance in space and time is also important. Actors know that their reputations will not be tarnished if spectators recognize that they are capable of switching in and out of ritualized roles. The delimitation of the performance within a certain bounded territory and at a given hour paradoxically allows the expression of otherwise forbidden acts. Even in the case of actors who are not masked, reputations are protected by a de facto anonymity. For example, when villagers throw so-called mangazos (mango whacks) during Corpus Christi, so many participants hurl so many objects simultaneously that identifying a certain perpetrator would be nearly impossible. Even if one could be singled out, the motive for this behavior—to injure spectators or to provide them gifts—is sufficiently ambiguous to protect them from criticism. Inhibitions are also released under another important condition. Fiesta performers are members of what might be called temporary acting troupes. Everybody in the village knows that they prepare for their activities through regular rehearsals, that they are organized and instructed by leaders, and that these leaders by and large enjoy considerable prestige through past successes. Hence, actors can perform freely in the knowledge that they are just doing their job. The success or failure of their role-playing will redound more to the leader than to the actors themselves. Nor are they on stage alone. They are, without exception, accompanied by colleagues who engage in antics as foolish and deviant as their own. This condition has been found, cross-culturally, to "eliminate self-consciousness" and provide "mutual reinforcement" (Apte 1986: 174). Tzintzuntzan fiesta performances are no exception. When dealing with this first source of fiesta chaos, the chaos written into ritual scripts, we are speaking primarily about humor. All of this presumably liberated behavior in Tzintzuntzan is tinged with jocular overtones; villagers typically laugh during the performances or when telling stories about them. Mahadev Apte (1985: 155-156) offers a good 168

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summary, derived from extensive cross-cultural evidence, of the impact of humorous ritual behavior on the prevailing sense of order. The removal of social control during rituals results in both unstructured and structured humor stimuli. The unstructured nature of humor is evident in the spontaneous and often unpredictable behavior of entertainers, who may engage in whatever suits their fancy, impulsively switching from one activity to another. They chase spectators, play practical jokes on members of the audience and on each other, engage in banter and horseplay, simulate sexual behavior, drink and eat all kinds of nonedible objects, wear absurd-looking costumes or no clothes at all, jump, dance, exaggeratedly imitate others, perform numerous types of antics, and generally frolic. On the one hand, behavior as a part of ritual humor can be considered structured in the sense that it may be the exact reverse of behavior commensurate with social roles and customs. Alternatively, humor creation may be highly routinized in that the same stimuli may be used year after year, and actions and their sequences, costumes, and props may become standardized. The same skits and short dramas may be presented routinely, with the same individuals playing the same roles. In other words, despite a certain playful, innovative quality, these humorous performances are largely predictable. It is the predictability of performers and script, together with the marked delimitation in time and space of the performance, that ultimately promotes a sense of order. Although precise measurements in such matters are probably impossible, it is reasonable to assume that the periodic expression of chaos in fiestas reassures people about the stability of their social order. If deviant behavior can occur openly and publicly, without seriously harmful consequences, then society demonstrates its resilience. Ultimately, the ability of the townspeople to refrain from entering into a civil war and to maintain their ideals of moderation and balance is affirmed through such purportedly rebellious activities. Anthropologists (see, for example, Bricker 1973; Gluckman 1955) are familiar with the syndrome in which desired behavior is reinforced through ritualized enactment of its opposite. Humor is especially effective in this regard. Keith Basso (1979: 64), in his brilliant analysis of Apache joking imitations of whitemen,1 notes that By making of "the Whiteman" an improbable buffoon, Apache jokers isolate and accentuate significant contrasts between their own 169

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cultural practices and those of Anglo-Americans. And by presenting the behavior of Anglo-Americans as something laughable and "wrong," by displaying with the help of butts how and why it violates the rights of others, they denounce these standards as morally deficient and unworthy of emulation. . . . Today, as in the past, "the Whiteman" symbolizes an alien form of human guidedness. "The Whiteman" is a symbol of what "the Apache" is not. Similarly, because Carnival bulls and bullfighters, as much as the devil and death figures that appear in La Danza, represent qualities that are denigrated in Tzintzuntzan, their actions promote the opposite behavior. To reinforce this reaction, exemplars of well-behaved cristianos, or human beings, are inevitably an integral part of the performance. To the Carnival clowns are opposed their troupe leader, who is on hand to collect donations and introduce the performance in a dignified manner. Likewise, the devil and death figures are contrasted by the danzantes. In all of these performances, musicians also participate in a fully predictable, nonthreatening form. Tzintzuntzan humorous dramas in these respects support the semiotic theories of Paul Bouissac (1976: 151-176), who perceived in circus performances the inevitable opposition between the deviants or clowns and the superconformists or emcees. The striking contrast between these opposing pairs implicitly reinforces cultural ideals. Joking imitations of inappropriate behavior, in rural Mexico and elsewhere, are not limited to ritual performance. In Tzintzuntzan, animal metaphors in figures of folk speech are effective means by which similar humorous portrayals are conveyed on a daily basis (Brandes 1984). Hence, villagers ridicule the excessive presence in humans of qualities that are normal among animals; filth is symbolized by calling somebody a cochino (pig), slowness by the tortuga (turtle), and argumentativeness by the fighting toro (bull). Deviant or excessive sexuality is also ridiculed by reference to animals; a sexually promiscuous man is called a burro (donkey) or garanon (stud), whereas a promiscuous woman is said to be a perm (bitch). "Through animal metaphors, cristianos become symbolically transformed into beasts. . . . When people in Tzintzuntzan are criticized in animal terms, they implicitly remind one another what it means to be human" (ibid.: 214). Similarly, clown performances during fiestas in Tzintzuntzan demonstrate in dramatic, rather than linguistic, form what it is like to be or not be human. By ridiculing the negative aspects of behavior, they implicitly promote the positive ones. There is yet another point of comparison between animal metaphors and fiesta performances. Metaphors work (that is, are only understood 170

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and derive linguistic effectiveness) because there are similarities, as well as differences, between the animal and human domains. As Christopher Crocker points out (1977: 167), "Metaphor, by definition, involves intuitive leaps which connect aspects of two distinct semantic realms. But metaphor can only occur where these realms overlap in some fashion." In the domain of fiesta performance, there is a correspondence between ritual roles and everyday roles. Hence, the actors who perpetrate the most vile deviations from cultural norms—those who flaunt their sexuality or imitate disagreeable bodily functions in general—are always men, from whom the greatest threat of such excesses in daily life might be expected. That men, rather than women, can perform these acts under controlled conditions, without letting their dangerous instincts run rampant, implicitly conveys a sense of predictable structure to the superficially deviant performance. Likewise, women need not threaten their reputations by engaging in undesirable behavior, however it may conform to a preconceived script. The overlapping of fiesta norms with everyday norms, in these respects, constitutes a de facto celebration of orderly social life. Finally, by imitating the forces within all humanity that can potentially undermine society, but doing so in a controlled, predictable fashion, villagers may hope to overcome their inimical effects. To act aggressively within carefully defined limits, as occurs during fiestas, is to demonstrate the dangerous potential of such behavior without incurring its normal, everyday consequences. By playing an aggressive role or enacting an immodest script, one demonstrates to oneself and others the ability to conquer those emotions by willingly expressing them, rather than letting them unconsciously and unpredictably gain control. The one most salient emotion that is addressed during several Tzintzuntzan fiestas is fear: fear of illness, fear of death, fear of overstepping the culturally approved bounds in human relations. Before the Castillo displays, the toro figure rushes about, evoking titillating apprehension in the spectators and thus forcing them to stay clear of the fiery spectacle. A parallel situation occurs when devil and death figures during La Danza force onlookers to move away from the area where the danzantes are performing. In both cases, humor and aggression combine to fulfill, rather than challenge, the fiesta script. The tacit message is that fear will keep people in line and motivate villagers to behave as they should. Because of the comical element in these performances, however, fear itself is temporarily conquered. Thus, these performances suggest that unpredictable elements in the environment, although scary and undesirable, can also be withstood. The scariness of these and other fiesta performances (like the Corpus 171

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mangazos) provide part of their attraction. As Paz (1961: 52-53) has said, "it is significant that a country as sorrowful as ours should have so many and such joyous fiestas. Their frequency, their brilliance and excitement, the enthusiasm with which we take part, all suggest that without them we would explode. They free us, if only momentarily, from the thwarted impulses, the inflammable desires that we carry within us." The lure of the forbidden—the teetering on the brink of chaos and inhibition, if not the actual embracing of these qualities—must also explain the existence and evident enjoyment of the frolic and aggressive excess characteristic of Tzintzuntzan fiestas.

Corporal Control and the Social Order To explore further the implications of Octavio Paz's statements, we should draw on Mary Douglas's insight into the relationship between the physical body and the social body (1973: 93-112). According to Douglas (ibid.: 93), "the social body constrains the way in which the physical body is perceived," just as physical comportment reflects greater or lesser degrees of social control. Although the precise way that Douglas develops this idea may be disputed, there is telling truth to her observation (ibid.: 100) that "strong social control demands strong bodily control" and that "bodily control will be appropriate where formality is valued, and most appropriate where the valuing of culture above nature is most emphasized." The symbolic opposition depicted in La Danza provides such an example: the danzantes, representing humanity, exhibit the bodily control that reflects their cultural state, whereas the clowns enact a version of nature's war of all against all. Douglas (1973: 101) perceives a constant state of tension between each individual's yearning to free the body from cultural constraints and the imposition of such constraints on the body by the social order: "The physical body is a microcosm of society facing the center of power, contracting and expanding its claims in direct accordance with the increase and relaxation of social pressures." Elevated, dignified behavior, combined with a strongly felt requirement to conform, results, according to Douglas (ibid.: 100-102), in disembodied or etherealized modes of expression. Under such conditions, the physical body disappears into the background: speech is muted; eating is silent; and evidence of urination, defecation, and other corporal processes are absent. In presenting her ideas, however, Douglas overlooks instances of religious behavior in which society imposes a controlled state of anarchy. Participants in Carnival celebrations throughout the Roman Catholic world (see Caro Baroja 1970; Da Matta 1979; Gilmore 1975), snake172

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handlers (La Barre 1962), and those who speak in tongues (Goodman 1972) can hardly be said to live in societies that impose weak controls. All these instances, like those from Tzintzuntzan, exemplify how the display of bodily processes and the assumption of a presumably liberated, chaotic mode, in reality are closely associated with powerful social demands for conformity. Nor can we say that disembodiment is uniformly associated with the sacred. The corporal displays and excesses of the penitentes belie that common belief. Nonetheless, as the danzantes illustrate, segments of the Tzintzuntzan ritual cycle closely fit the pattern that Douglas has proposed. Perhaps the Holy Week spies provide the best example of a group that represents the imposition of social control. As indicated in Chapter Four, village tradition claims that the spies' purpose was to ensure that no one worked on Maundy Wednesday and Holy Thursday. In this respect, they were responsible for preserving the sacredness of the occasion. If they found someone working, that person's tools would be seized, only to be retrieved after Holy Week on payment of a fine. Clearly, the spies are perceived as having been agents of the government, which, acting on behalf of religious conformity, imposed direct controls on the villagers. The spies' alleged political function was, and still is, reflected in their comportment. They move in regular, predictable formation from one street corner to another, ideally never speaking, only sounding their whistles. As agents of society, they lose their significance as individuals; they must remain anonymous, their faces covered by monteras, which symbolize their only important feature, their social role. They are, to this extent, disembodied. The control that they exercise over their own bodies is, moreover, a direct reflection of society's control over its individual members. The proof of this proposition lies in the discrepancy between ideal behavior and actual behavior. On Holy Thursday in 1981, Filomena Corona animatedly told me what the spies meant to her. As she placidly went about molding her pots, directing her children in preparation of the noontime meal, and listening to her radio, she described how no one has "respect" any more. The spies do nothing to prevent people from working, she said. They even allow people to listen to the radio, she declared, which never would have occurred when she was a young girl. (The proportion of villagers with radios at that time, in the 1940s, was negligible; only 35 of the 248 houses had electricity, and battery radios were then unknown.) Apparently, Corona saw no need to alter her own behavior. The laxity of the spies was, to her, merely a reflection of the general breakdown in respect, a term that in Tzintzuntzan generally means conformity to desirable rules of conduct. 173

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Pedro Rodriguez, a middle-aged married villager, told me that when he was a child (in the 1950s) "there were only six or seven spies, but they commanded more respect and fear than the forty-plus spies do nowadays." It was the rigid comportment of the spies, he claims, that made them awesome. Apparently, Rodriguez considered these masked youngsters no longer worthy of respect, for I saw him drive past the spies on Holy Thursday morning in a large truck, rock music blaring from its windows. Later that day, however, he seemed upset when a group of spies rode by his house, audibly conversing. He shouted angrily, "Shut up! Don't you guys have any respect!" As a middle-aged man, with a son enacting the role of spy, Rodriguez was in a position to try to enforce the notion of "respect" that underlies this traditional religious performance. Yet, as an adult, he could flaunt his power to controvert this norm, with no evident concern for retribution. To state that rigid bodily control reflects powerful societal influences (Douglas 1973) is probably an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that in Tzintzuntzan people perceive this relationship to exist. They take their own behavior, like that of the spies, to represent an unfortunate departure from past religious ideals. To the extent that the spies play their script faithfully, both society and sacred ideals are reinforced. When they do not, a breakdown in the traditional order of things and in the adherence to cultural rules is indicated. Hence, the Tzintzuntzenos are proud of the increasing elaboration of and participation in certain aspects of their fiestas, like the spy performance, but find other aspects disquieting. Although they may romanticize the past, their diagnostic reading may be correct. If the spies, the agents of order, maintain control over neither the village nor themselves, then what hope is there for respect to endure? And without respect, how can society survive? In discussing the influence of corporal control and social control, we must also discuss drinking, which is and has been an essential feature of ritual and fiesta activity throughout Mexico (Taylor 1979: 61; Madsen and Madsen 1979; Warren 1985: 92) and Latin America (Doughty 1979: 73-74; Leacock 1979; Nash 1970: 208). In fact, the very essence of Roman Catholic ritual, the Mass, incorporates the imbibing of alcoholic beverage. When the priest drinks wine during communion, it is said to be transformed into the blood of Christ. The sacred significance of this liquid could not be more evident. As a sacred liquid, and a valued ritual commodity, alcohol in various forms is perhaps the single most common and symbolically salient gift in all Tzintzuntzan life. This generalization pertains above all to men. As George Foster (1979a: 222) has stated, 174

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Since men do not cook, they are denied the opportunity to express affection and friendship to partners by offering them food [the most common gift among women]. But they can offer drinks, which represent the same symbolic values. This is certainly a major reason why men drinking in a store feel compelled to invite any friend who enters to drink with them, and why they become so angry and belligerent on the rare occasions when the invitation is refused; symbolically, their proffered friendship is being rejected. Undoubtedly, many Tzintzuntzan men drink more than they really want to simply because they are caught in a trap in which only through offering and accepting liquor can they maintain important social relations. The exchange of liquor is not only characteristic of everyday life. It plays an enormously important ritual role as well, in both the fiesta cycle and in rites of passage such as weddings. When the groom's father formally asks for the girl's hand, he carries at least one bottle of liquor to her father on the occasion of the request. (In the frequent cases where the young couple elopes, the groom's father tries to placate her parents during the so-called paces [peacemaking], when at least two gift bottles are mandatory.) From the time the initial wedding plans are made until the civil and religious ceremonies and the subsequent family celebrations, numerous formal gifts of liquor are publicly presented among various members of the wedding party. Mary LeCron Foster (1983: 138) has determined that "in the course of any properly carried out wedding sequence, a minimum total of 54 bottles of brandy are presented and drunk"; moreover, "wedding guests are expected to drink each time they are proffered a glass. No excuse is considered adequate." As an extension of this general principle, gifts of liquor are an inherent and prominent feature of the fiesta cycle, too. For example, at the beginning of the February Fiesta, the bands hired by the Presidencia and the Comunidad Indigena accompany these political bodies to El Ojo de Agua, where the important exchange of fireworks takes place. The two Ojo de Agua comisiones who receive these large groups have to feed everyone a pozole breakfast, accompanied by liquor. When the organizers of the Carnival performance collect donations, they reciprocate by offering adult members of the donor household a shot of liquor. During Corpus Christi, the organizers of the various occupational committees virtually command that men passing by share in their drink; refusal is an insult and meets with harsh words of insistence. During the December fiestas, when the Cargueros de la Capilla and the Cargueros de la Soledad invite one another to banquets, the guests formally present bottles 175

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of liquor to the hosts. A list of occasions such as these could go on. The point is simply that liquor is a principal medium of social exchange. It seals the bond between groups, as much as among individuals. It is both ubiquitous and obligatory. Without the formal presentation and actual imbibing of liquor no fiesta is complete. Insofar as gifts of liquor demand reciprocity, they are an instrument of control and contribute to the maintenance of predictability and order. What happens, however, when the alcohol begins to take its toll physically? When people get drunk, as inevitably occurs in at least some individuals during the course of a fiesta, how are they and the social fabric affected? First, we must realize that society shapes the way the drunk behaves, and in that sense continues to exert its power over the individual, even in his or her biologically altered state (Simmons 1960). Drunken comportment, according to MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969: 85) who have conducted an extensive cross-cultural investigation of the matter, is characterized by an "impulsivity that possesses the peculiar ability to maintain a keen sense of the appropriate." In other words, at some level drunks know what they are doing; they have learned drunken behavior and the role sanctioned by society. William Taylor's innovative research on alcohol use in rural colonial Mexico (1979: 60-61) supports these ideas. He finds that: The peasant celebrations in late colonial Mexico were sometimes accompanied by extraordinary behavior such as transvestism and mock battles, but our documentation provides surprisingly few examples of notable unruliness and violence. On the whole, the community drinking feasts in eighteenth-century central and southern Mexico were convivial affairs. . . . The cases of community drinking about which enough information exists to allow for analysis suggest that when it occurred, violence during these celebrations was turned outward. . . . This selective pattern of violence—infrequent and directed mainly against outsiders—suggests that rules of social behavior in the community were not dissolved by alcohol. Behavior was certainly altered, with much dancing and singing, slurred speech, and people passing out or acting "loco," if we can believe the testimony of outsiders. The rules may have been different in these drinking situations, but rules there were. Taylor concludes by noting that fiesta drinking was characterized by "controlled disinhibition." Contemporary fiestas in Tzintzuntzan demonstrate this kind of predictability. Particular fiesta circumstances are known to lead to una pura 176

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borrachera and are therefore avoided by those who wish to remain uninvolved. Particularly late at night, when events—whether feasts sponsored by cargueros and other officials or neighborhood Posada celebrations—extend beyond the hour when official acts have been completed, drunkenness is likely to occur. In the sense that this inebriation is anticipated, and that the behavior associated with it is generally benign, it is almost like another scheduled activity. Even the behavior of people who get drunk is predictable. In this sense, the Tzintzuntzan situation echoes the one described by Schwartz and Romanucci-Ross (1979: 265), who state that "the inebriate is selected by personality and situation to act for the group as a whole. The inebriate acts on his own needs, which, though in part personally expressive, also move him to occupy this transient status. He serves the group expectation that there will be some drunkenness . . . and that some of the drinkers will manifest certain extreme behaviors that validate the entire proceedings." Drunkenness inevitably accompanies displays of fireworks. As the magnificently dramatic castillos shower down a multitude of fiery sparks to the ground below, there are always several drunk young men dancing to their own beats under the towering structure. Spectators are warned to stay far away from the castillo lest they get burned, but the dancing drunks are left to revel in their private fantasies, seemingly oblivious of the potential harm of the flames. The young man who dons the carrizo bull, laced with buscapies, is also invariably tornado (tipsy). It is believed that no one in a normal, unaltered state of mind would be foolish enough to play the role of toro and endanger himself by carrying the exploding fireworks on his back. Villagers therefore rely on the mildly inebriated volunteer to assume this dramatic role. Here it is the individual who lacks full corporal control that society calls on to fulfill ritual requirements. Occasionally there are unexpectedly violent and disruptive departures from the fiesta script. On the evening of 12 December 1980, during the fiesta honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, Antonio Toledo, a Tzintzuntzan potter, was calmly packing up his unsold wares. The market that had been mounted outside the Chapel of the Virgin at El Ojo de Agua was being slowly disbanded to prepare for the castillo display, when suddenly a drunken young man from El Ojo mounted the toro laced with buscapies. Instead of releasing the fireworks with a slow, measured pace and providing the public time to scamper away from the noisy, groundhugging sparks, the man barged into the midst of crowds, dodging from one market stand to another, until finally he ran into Toledo, who bravely seized the toro costume and broke it. The man who mounted the toro was severely criticized on this oc177

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casion for passing the bounds of acceptability—only rarely is the bearer borracho (drunk). The point of the toro, state informants, is that it should be somewhat descontrolado (out of control), but the loss of control should not be so great that spectators are endangered. There should be a kind of controlled disinhibition, characteristic of most, but not all, drunken states. Hence, with the use of alcohol, there exists a delicate relationship between bodily control and social control. Because Tzintzuntzan fiestas require the use of alcohol, an individual may not realistically choose to abstain. Fiesta scripts also incorporate roles for drunks. But sometimes the uninhibited body takes over, and undermines, or at least endangers, continuance of the performance. Drunks can and occasionally do affect public order.

The Politics of Fiesta Performance Fiesta organization and performance require the exercise of power and authority. As relatively complex, expensive events, fiestas presuppose delicate coordination among various segments of the community—individuals, households, neighborhoods, religious sodalities, and others. They also entail participation by ruling civil and clerical bodies, mainly those represented in Tzintzuntzan but those from outside as well. Territorial units—including but not limited to Tzintzuntzan and the surrounding villages—have mutual responsibilities to perform distinct but intersecting fiesta functions; these units also need to be coordinated. This organizational activity provides public demonstration of who holds power over whom and also the diverse means by which power and hierarchy are expressed. By isolating the way fireworks are used during the February Fiesta, the political structure of the community is placed in relief. To understand the dependence of Tzintzuntzan on outside governmental bodies, the Night of the Dead has proved fruitful for close scrutiny. Each fiesta seems to yield its own body of specialized information about the relationships among political and social entities. The mobilization of these entities for the purpose of religious celebration cannot help but impart a sacred quality to them. If, in the celebration of the saints, households are expected to contribute a given monetary sum to support the event, then the household itself is implicitly sanctified; it can expect to share in whatever holy benefits accrue as a result of the collective action. The same may be said of larger units, like La Vuelta. When the Tarascans from the three communities that constitute La 178

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Vuelta participate in Tzintzuntzan fiestas, a whole sequence of complex political acts within those communities is automatically triggered. They must organize among themselves to select leaders, sponsor banquets, and collect household donations. These activities are relatively insignificant to the people of Tzintzuntzan, who are mainly concerned that La Vuelta as a whole contribute its small part to the whole fiesta proceedings, be it providing a castillo in honor of the Senor del Rescate or volunteering a dance troupe during Corpus Christi. Reciprocal relations among all these territorial units during the year, whether egalitarian or hierarchical, depend on their symbolic affirmation throughout the fiesta cycle. The ability to cumplir (fulfill obligations) is at stake during fiestas. More than at any other regularly scheduled, predictable occasions, these are the times when friends and neighbors measure one another's reliability; when the effectiveness of the priest and mayor are tested; when religious sodalities justify their existence, by both paying for the proceedings and absorbing whatever prestige might redound from their sponsorship. On these occasions, too, the mutual interdependence between village and household is celebrated. Households may become custodians or repositories of the religious welfare of the community. All the aspirations, fears, and other complex emotions that lead villagers to perform religious service are focused temporarily on those households. The guardians of La Peregrina during the Posadas, for example, are at least symbolically responsible for the well-being of Tzintzuntzan. The village in effect confers holy power on the households; even if that power lasts only a day, everyone depends on how it is exercised. Similarly, when the guardians of the barrio crosses take them through the village in procession during Holy Week, they show how households can demonstrate their reliability, affect the welfare of the community through fulfilling their obligations, and derive in return a reputation of trustworthiness. Because of the benefits derived from fiesta participation, household heads occasionally exceed the bounds of prudence in fulfilling their ritual duties. Because there was a heavy downpour on Good Friday in 1981, most of the households that serve as guardians over the barrio crosses kept them indoors, rather than carrying them in an outdoor procession as is customary. Because the crosses are old and badly weathered, most could not withstand such exposure. However, a few of the crosses were brought out as usual. Pablo Morisco, guardian over one of the most famous and highly valued crosses, wanted to participate in the procession. He searched in vain for neighbors to help him support the andas (poles on which the large figure of the crucified Christ is mounted). Finally, he managed to find a villager who agreed to transport the cross on his truck to the small procession, already in progress. In the process, one of the 179

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arms of the Christ figure became jolted out of position by the vigorous motion of the truck. Morisco's custody of an important religious image, together with his own deeply religious feelings, had strongly motivated him to participate, but he was criticized for overeagerness. In the opinion of some villagers, care of the image was more appropriate on this occasion than its public display. Benevolence and cooperation are highly valued in Tzintzuntzan, perhaps because their daily occurrence is so uncertain, and these qualities receive constant reinforcement throughout the fiesta cycle. When individuals or households donate money to fiesta functions, they are asked to cooperar, and almost always they comply. Cargueros assume their relatively burdensome duties as a result of a religious vow to a saint, although fulfilling their responsibilities requires organization and mutual assistance within brotherhoods. The same organizational needs characterize groups of encabezados or the volunteers who belong to one of the numerous fiesta performing troupes. If we were to characterize all these groups with secular terms, we might call them committees. The fiesta cycle in Tzintzuntzan operates largely by virtue of many committees that coordinate activities within and among themselves to perform the fiesta scripts as well as possible. The cultural ideal for these occasions is selflessness, interpersonal flexibility, and generosity. Ideally, those few individuals or groups that merit attention are recognized not because they have sought a central, powerful role but because of their willing, unselfish participation on behalf of the community as a whole. In actuality, however, many villagers express a healthy dose of cynicism about the motives of fiesta participation. For example, each February, the Chruch distributes a large number of portable altars containing tiny photographic reproductions of the Senor del Rescate. These altars, known as coronitas (little crowns), are cared for throughout the following year by individuals who have made a vow to this miraculous image. In the month preceding the February Fiesta, guardians of the coronitas carry them from house to house, asking for alms and inviting the donors to the annual fiesta. The fiesta begins, in fact, with the entrada de las coronitas (entrance of the coronitas). All the guardians of the coronitas during the preceding year (most of whom come from communities within the municipio of Tzintzuntzan but not from the village of Tzintzuntzan itself) march in procession from the Capilla de Guadalupe in El Ojo, through Yahuaro and down the highway to La Parroquia. There both the coronitas and monetary donations are deposited in the Capilla de Nuestro Senor del Rescate. The proceeds are supposed to go to the church. There is a good deal of suspicion among villagers about exactly what 180

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proportion of the alms actually gets turned over. "El que al santo le sirve, del santo viste" ("He who serves the saint dresses [himself] at the cost of the saint"), they say. That is, villagers believe that the coronita guardians embezzle the funds that are properly destined for the saint's cult, for the care and veneration of the saint's image. This strategy amounts to a breach of the dyadic contract between worshipper and saint (see Chapter Four), and therefore threatens the very fabric of Tzintzuntzan society.2 To prevent accusations of theft, donations are usually collected publicly, with several witnesses present. In the case of the coronitas, however, no such vigilance exists. Coronita guardians come to the door, provide householders the opportunity to bless the image of the Senor del Rescate that they hold in their hands, and then ask for money in return. Householders want to be charitable, as their religion commands, and they also are influenced by the norms of reciprocity. How could they possibly bless the image without giving something in return? As a result, they usually do give alms, albeit reluctantly, accompanied by the feeling that circumstances have conspired to rob them of their free will, and probably a portion of their money as well. Tzintzuntzan fiestas therefore reveal not only the subjugation of celebrants to powerholders outside their jurisdiction, like national and state agencies that have transformed the entire character and meaning of the Night of the Dead. Celebrants also overtly and covertly use fiesta scripts (that is, the norms about how activities should be conducted) to exert control over one another. This kind of controlling influence becomes particularly evident when fiesta activities fail to materialize as planned. These mishaps indicate that individuals not only wield power through planned participation; they also do so by altering the fiesta script. For example, in February 1977 at the start of the fiesta in honor of the Senor del Rescate, just before the distribution of fireworks, the two comisionados from El Ojo de Agua responsible for hosting the pozole breakfast in honor of the Tzintzuntzan Presidencia Municipal and Comunidad Indigena (as discussed in Chapter Two) got into a severe disagreement over where the event would take place. Formally, the breakfast should be hosted by the single comisionado who is declared by general consensus to be the leader, because he is the more effective of the two. On this occasion, however, no consensus had emerged, and each comisionado sought the prestige that came from having the breakfast at his home. Hosting the breakfast was particularly attractive because it entailed no extra expense; money for the large undertaking would, in any event, come equally from the two comisionados. As an informal accommodation to this embarrassing circumstance, one comision hosted authorities from the Presidencia Municipal, plus the 181

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band it had hired, while the other comision hosted the Comunidad Indigena dignitaries and their band. Normally, the bands play alternate tunes, as the Presidencia and Comunidad parties enjoy breakfast in a single outdoor patio. On this occasion, the two bands, located in separate houses about one-quarter kilometer from one another but still within earshot, continued this format and thus adhered to custom. After breakfast, the separate gatherings merged to proceed with the distribution of fireworks. The comisiones had asserted their individual autonomy; with their obligations fulfilled, there was nothing to gain from a prolongation of the private dispute. Authority can also be asserted through the withdrawal of fiesta participation, as occurred in late May 1978 during the celebration of Corpus Christi. Among the regularly scheduled occupational groups that perform during Corpus Christi is one from El Ojo de Agua, the Pescadores (fishermen), who perform the Danza del Pescado (Fish Dance). A young boy, donning a huge fish costume, complete with movable jaws through which he sees, tries to escape from dancing fishermen, who progressively encircle him and eventually capture him with a large chinchorro net. In 1978, however, the Fish Dance failed to occur. El Ojo residents blame internal community discord—part of the community was willing to contribute money to pay for the musicians, part was not. In Tzintzuntzan, however, it was said that the people of El Ojo are hopelessly touchy. "Se enojan por cualquier cosa" ("They get angry over any [little] thing"), according to one Tzintzuntzan resident. Tzintzuntzan villagers believe that the people of El Ojo resent being subordinate to their larger, more powerful neighbor. By withholding support during Corpus Christi, this resentment could be effectively expressed. Informants from Tzintzuntzan also interpret the incident as an intentional resistance to the priest's authority. The priest had named a committee to organize the Fish Dance, and for the event not to occur was an insult. The implicit struggle between priest and pueblo is one of the more prominent themes in the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle. Everybody acknowledges the priest's power, if not his legitimate authority, in the orchestration of fiestas. Without the priest's authorization and blessing, processions are impossible. If he failed to make committee assignments—and do so publicly, to assure compliance with his wishes—the Corpus Christi and Posada proceedings would exist only in a much attenuated form. Everyone knows that it was the priest who intervened on behalf of Tzintzuntzan to assure massive governmental support for the Night of the Dead. At virtually every juncture, he is the key to fiesta success. Consequently, he incurs resentment, as much for giving support as for withholding it. Villagers complain when he selects them to partic182

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ipate as encabezado organizers. However, they also express annoyance when his participation in events, like the Posadas, is minimal, and they feel he is trying to deprive them of their religious traditions. In the long run, the priest's power may only be as effective as the people allow. When he tried to suppress La Danza that takes place during the February Fiesta, he met with tenacious resistance. A few years later he had accepted the performance as an integral part of the proceedings, and even sanctioned its brief enactment within the walls of La Parroquia. When he arrived late for one of the Posada evenings, he found the celebration already had begun. The villagers showed him that they would go ahead on their own. There exists a constant accommodation between the priest and the pueblo, an accommodation largely effected by secular town officials with whom he wisely confers on most important matters. Without the approval of formal civil and religious authorities, however, nothing can take place. This aspect of the power structure, too, is best revealed in fiestas.

Fiesta Causes and Consequences Usually situations of change permits us to assess who exerts control over whom. Throughout the twentieth century, and particularly since 1945 from which time we have a fairly complete ethnographic record, the Tzintzuntzan fiesta cycle has been in constant flux. How have these changes occurred, and what do they reveal about power and persuasion? To answer this question, the clearest evidence appears to be negative evidence. The fiesta cycle in Tzintzuntzan seems never in recent history to have been an overt political instrument of one party or another, one class over another, one community or ethnic group over another. Historians have interpreted fiestas in other times and places in this light. Perhaps the most famous instance is the celebration of Carnival in the French town of Romans in the winter of 1580, when the festivities resulted in a vast, bloody regional revolt, "with greedy notables on one side and rebellious peasants on the other" (Le Roy Ladurie 1979: xvi). In southern Spain, Carnival celebrations also have sometimes taken on a clear-cut class dimension, usually with workers using this fiesta as an opportunity to unite in opposition to large landowners (Gilmore 1975). Natalie Davis, reviewing rites of reversal throughout early modern Europe, claims that they were not mere safety valves, permitting subordinates to take symbolic power temporarily, but rather models of change. Particularly where sex roles were inverted during festivities, Davis (1975: 183

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151) claims that "the woman-on-top renewed old systems, but also helped change them into something different." The Tzintzuntzan record demonstrates less clearly a determining role for fiestas. By examining the structure of fiestas over the past half century, we perceive a marked trend in favor of fewer annual celebrations but ones that are more elaborate and expensive than in the past. At the same time, villagers tend more to share the economic and organizational burden of staging these complex events than they did formerly, when select individuals bore the brunt of the cost. As indicated in Chapter Three, the occupational base, standard of living, and prestige structure in Tzintzuntzan bear major responsibility for these overall changes. More precisely, the changes that have occurred are consonant with, and have responded to, prior changes in the economic organization of the community. There is no evidence that fiestas have altered the permanent resource base—that they have served as significant levelling or redistributive mechanisms. On the other hand, the precise ways that fiestas have changed are very much a reflection of collective and individual willpower. The priest's influence is evident. Especially during the 1940s and 1950s, clerics successfully eliminated particular annual celebrations that they deemed unduly burdensome for the Tzintzuntzan populace. More recently, the priest has initiated new proceedings, such as the Posadas, and has been responsible for radically transforming others, such as the Night of the Dead. To be sure, the priest by himself, without the support of the villagers and the existence of favorable social circumstances, would probably have failed badly in his efforts. But the fact remains that without his initiative these changes would probably never have occurred. The individual initiative of particular Tzintzuntzan citizens has made an immense impact on fiesta proceedings. Numerous activities—dance performances, Carnival antics, the Judea passion play, the burning of Judas on Easter Sunday, and many more—owe their existence to no more than a handful of individuals, who have taken it upon themselves to produce these activities. They do it partly out of a sense of religious duty and partly, no doubt, as a means to express their abundant creative talents. It is doubtful that without them these activities would still be performed. As for most of the people in Tzintzuntzan, participation must be satisfying because, in fiestas, they see their world reaffirmed. They have not absorbed any revolutionary notions by way of religious action. The discrepancy between social ideals and actual behavior that is expressed in fiestas probably at most provides them a blueprint for understanding everyday life. During the celebration of Corpus Christi in May 1978, I 184

Fiestas and the Social Order

was amazed at the immense quantity and variety of objects being hurled at village spectators. Turning to me with an air of deep gravity, my companion stated, "Todos somos una familia, una sola familia" ("We're all one family, one single family"). He believed this sentiment, for the moment at least, and felt the unity of the pueblo being expressed in that impressive moment of communal sharing. Yet he could not help but recognize, during a moment of less acute involvement, the intense competition that stimulates many villagers to perform fiesta activities to their fullest. In Corpus Christi, participating groups would be shamed by a scanty distribution of sweets, fruits, and craftwork. Likewise, an overt motivation during the Posadas is the desire of neighbor households to show the rest of the villagers how lavishly they can host the occasion. Individuals and groups cooperate during the fiesta cycle, but, as often as not, they are moved to do so by the desire to avoid embarrassment. It is potentially humiliating to put on a poor show, in comparison with those put on by equivalent participating individuals and groups. Most important, of course, is the religious motive. When engaging in the social scientific analysis of religion, it is all too easy to lose sight of the deeply sacred sentiments that move people to action. Tzintzuntzan, as any specialist of Mexico can attest, is located in the heart of one of the most deeply conservative parts of the Republic. Oriol Pi-Sunyer (1973: 24—25), who conducted research in the nearby city of Zamora, says that Michoacan "is considered one of the most religious states in Mexico. . . . Virtually everyone in Zamora identifies himself as a creyente, a believer. The rituals and usages of Catholicism are so thoroughly interwoven into the fabric of the culture that it is difficult to say where the religious ends and the profane begins." During the late 1920s, Michoacan was the seat of the anti-Revolutionary cristero movement, which aimed to undo the anticlerical measures and sentiments that had swept the country during the preceding decade (Gonzalez 1979: 175— 216; Meyer 1973—74). Religious belief and action have been and are firmly established throughout Michoacan. As heirs to this tradition, the people of Tzintzuntzan are probably motivated to participate as they do in fiestas more by sincere religious fervor than by anything else. Villagers cynically deride penitentes for converting their penitential route into a racecourse. It is no doubt true that many of these men use the occasion to test themselves against others and, in doing so, neglect some of the prayers and other time-consuming rituals that slow them down. But no one would question their basic motivation: the fulfillment of a sacred vow, in the hope of alleviating some serious human suffering. The same motivation applies to virtually every other fiesta activity. Ultimately, the fiesta cycle is designed for individual and collective 185

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veneration of God and the saints. Some activities are more essential than others, but all of them to greater or lesser degree reflect sacred sentiments and are geared toward the attainment of individual and collective welfare. Fiestas are unquestionably agents of social control. They express power relationships and persuade people, through convincing dramatic and artistic modes of expression, of the value and efficacy of traditional norms and beliefs. But fiestas do not have to exist; the ethnographic and historical record demonstrates myriad other ways for societal order to be attained. The fiesta cycle exists, ultimately, at the will of the participants. For the people of Tzintzuntzan, it provides above all a creative outlet in the service of the sacred. NOTES 1. The quotation marks in the passage indicate Basso's intention to convey Apache ideas or cultural constructs of what it means to be Apache or white, rather than what the differences between these groups might be in any scientifically objective sense. 2. I am grateful to Shirley Arora for this important insight.

186

GLOSSARY

Aguinaldo: bags of fruits, candies, and nuts distributed at Christmastime Animas: souls of the departed Arco: decorated latticework used as a cemetery offering during the Night of the Dead Arrieros: muleteers Barrio: neighborhood Buscapies: firecrackers that skip unpredictably along the ground (literally, feet-seekers) Cabecera: judiciary-administrative seat of the municipio Calle: temporary village district in fiestas (literally, street) Capilla: chapel Cargo: political or religious office (literally, burden or charge) Castillo: tall, elaborate fireworks pole (literally, castle) Cirineo: man who serves as an assistant to a Holy Week penitent, playing the role of Simon of Gyrene Cohete: skyrocket Comisionado: secular official in charge of Corpus Christi celebrations Compadre: the godparent of one's child or the parent of one's godchild (co-parent) Comunidad Indigena: citizens of the village of Tzintzuntzan, and governmental body that controls the village's common resources (literally, indigenous community) Coronitas: portable altars bearing the image of the Senor del Rescate and

used during the February Fiesta (literally, little crowns) Cristiano: Christian, or human being Danza: choreographed dance performance during the February Fiesta Danzante: dancer, specifically one who participates in the February Fiesta performance Diablo: devil, or the impersonator of the devil in the February Fiesta dance performance Doblar: to toll the churchbells in mourning Doble: institutionalized begging and bell tolling during the Night of the Dead Encabezado: secular fiesta official (literally, person placed at the head) Encargado: fiesta official (literally, one in charge or one who holds a charge) Enchorizado: long string of firecrackers Espia: boy who plays Holy Week spy (literally, spy) Puncion: the Mass held in honor of the Senor del Rescate (literally, function) Gente de razon: non-Indians (literally, people of reason) Gremio: occupational grouping, as in Corpus Christi celebrations Indio: Indian Jornadas: pre-1960s Nativity representation in the atrium Lluvia de luces: nighttime pyrotechnic display (literally, rainfall of lights) Manda: religious vow to a saint

Glossary

Maringuilla: female impersonator Matracas: wooden clapboard ringers used in place of bells during Holy Week Mayordomo: chief ritual cargo holder Mestizo: hispanicized Mexican, or non-Indian Minas: clay quarries (literally, mines) Miyukwa: mid-year settling of accounts by the Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe Muerte: death, or the impersonator of death, in the February Fiesta dance performance Municipio: a political district approximately equivalent to a county Natural: native, creature of nature, or Indian Nixtamal: lime-treated maize for making tortillas Obra: fireworks package exchanged during the February Fiesta (literally, power, work) Ofrenda: sacred offering Padre de familia: household head, or married man Pdrroco: parish priest Parroquia: parish, or principal parish church Penitente de cruz: Holy Week penitent who carries a heavy cross Penitente de grillo: Holy Week penitent bound by heavy iron hobbles Pinata: decorated, candy-filled pot used during Christmastime festivities

Pirekua: traditional Tarascan melody and song Popotero: straw-weaver, as ^enacted during Corpus Christi festivities Posadas: Christmas enactment of the Holy Family's search for lodgings (literally, lodgings) Pozole: hominy-like feast dish made of corn and pork Principal: respected elder Promesa: religious vow Pueblo: town or village, or the people of a given town or village Rancho: hamlet or small village that forms part of a municipio Tenencia: village community that forms part of a municipio and that is generally larger than a rancho, albeit dependent on the cabecera Tianguis: market, or marketplace Tierra fria: the coolest of Mexico's three principal climatic zones (literally, cold country) Tiradores: hunters, as enacted in Corpus Christi festivities Toro: decorated reed representation of a bull laced with fireworks (literally, bull) Velacion: candlelight vigil held in the cemetery during the Night of the Dead Ydcatas: circular ancient Tarascan pyramids Yunteros: farmers, as enacted during Corpus Christi festivities

188

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Index

Abrahams, Roger D., 160 Actors, 5, 130, 168. See also Performers Adolescents, 143 Age, of performers, 128, 129, 130, 136, 143 Aggression, 167-68 Aguardiente, 36. See also Alcohol Aguinaldo, 83, 148 Alborada, 118 Alcohol, 174, 176, 178. See also Aguardiente All Saints' Day, 37, 38; in Spain, 109 n2 All Souls' Eve, in Spain, 109 n2 Alms, collection of, 63-64 Altars, home, 90-91, 105 Angelito (deceased child), 90 Angelitos (performers), 128, 129, 138 Anglos, 61, 170 Animal: domains, 171; metaphors, 170 Animas, 106 Anonymity, 35, 81, 83-84, 168, 173. See also Actors; Exchange; Spies; Structure, social; Tirar Corpus Apache: humor, 169-70; identity, 186 n2 Apte, Mahadev, 168-69 Arcos, 91, 93, 105 Arrieros,4S, 81 Assistance, mutual, 180. See also Bonds, social; Brotherhoods; Cargueros; Dyadic contracts Authorities, fiestas and role of Tzintzuntzan: administrative, 20-24; civil, 178, 183; clerical, 178, 183. See also Fiestas; Officers; Officials Authority: assertion of, 182; formal, and fiesta cycle, 5; lines of, 20; of Roman Catholic priest, 182-83; relations, 14344 Ave Maria, 134

Balance, principle of, 135. See also Equilibrium Bali, 20 Barrios, 14, 41, 162-63. See also Yahuaro Basque, feasts, 38 Basso, Keith, 169-70 Behavior: aggressive, in Carnival, 160; control of, 171; in Corpus Christi, 167, 168; cultural, 170; deviant, 167-72; drunken, 176, 177; and fiestas, 87, 184; humorous ritual, 169; ideal and actual, 173; loco, 176; on Maundy Thursday, 173-74; performers', 136, 143; undesirable, 167, 170 Bells, tolling of, in Spain, 109 n2. See also El Doble Benevolence, value of, 180 Berreman, Gerald, 15, 17-18 Bible, and Las Posadas, 157 Blaffer, Sarah C, 4 Bloch, Maurice, 40 Body, physical and social, 172. See also Control Bonds: social, 25, 35; supernatural, 62— 69. See also Dyadic contract Bouissac, Paul, 170 Boundaries: social, 3; territorial, 152 Braceros, 29. See also Migrants Brand, Donald, 10 Bread offering, Spanish origin, 109 nl Bncker, Victoria Reifler, 4, 6, 139, 169 Brintnall, Douglas, 33 Brotherhoods, religious, 81, 180. See also Cargueros Buechler, Hans C., 42, 160, 163 Bunuelos, 101 Buscapies, 123 Bushnell, John, 144

Babcock, Barbara, 167 Baile, 128

Cabecera, 22 Cabeza, 46 203

Index Caceres (Spain), 38 Cajas de la comunidad, 57 n2 Calendar, Roman Catholic, 89 Calles. See Streets Calzones, 70 Career, Mariano de, 147 Cardenas, General Lazaro, 22, 92 Cargos, 4, 29, 40-46, 47, 54; chicos, 42; expense, 42-44, 45, 55, 56; principals, 42 Cargueros, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 57, 58 n3, 76, 80, 81; exchanges among, 78, 79-80, 160, 164-65, 180; and Las Posadas, 150, 152; prestige, decline in, 54, 55 Cargueros de la Capilla de Guadalupe, 45, 46, 47, 56, 175; December Fiestas, 7880; exchanges, 80, 86, 157; Las Posadas, 151, 156 Cargueros de la Soledad, 13, 45, 46, 47; complaints of, 54; El Doble, 108; exchanges, 80, 81, 151, 157, 175; Las Posadas, 149, 151; status, 57-58; Tirar Corpus, 81 Carnival: behavior, 160, 167, 170; description, 75—78, 86; elimination, temporary, 45; exchanges, 77, 78; in France, 183; liquor, 173; organization of, 51—52; performers, 70, 170; politics, 18; Roman Catholicism, 172; Spain, 183 Casa de Artesanias, 97, 100, 101 Casa de la Cultura, 97 Castile, Old, 122. See also Iberia; Spain Castillos: and politics, 120-24; for Nuestro Senor del Rescate, 179 Castration, act in La Danza, 137-38 Catalonia, 38 Celebration: cyclical, 9; family, 107. See also Fiesta Cemeteries, 92, 107 Central America, 46, 55 Centralization, of municipal affairs, 114— 15 Changes: in cargo system, 44—46; festivities as models of, 183; in Las Posadas, 157-58, 163-64; organizational, 53-58 Chapel: of San Francisco, 14, 132; of Soledad, 12-13, 56, 149, 150; of Virgin of Guadalupe, 54 Chiapas, 55

Children, 139, 159. See also Socialization Christ. See Jesus Christ Christmas, 135, 147, 160; Eve, 80, 156; songs, 166 n2 Church of Rome, 110 Cirineos, 64, 68 Class: Carnival, 183; differences, 28, 29; intermarriage, 28; social, and cargo system, 77 Clowns, 70, 77, 170 Coercion, 77, 78 Cohesiveness, social, 161, 164, 165 Cohetes, 113; de luces, 116 Cohetones, 116 Colonial era, 12 Colson, Elizabeth, 1 Comisionados, 48, 81, 117, 175, 181-82 Commerce, 25-27, 100, 101. See also Merchants Commercialization: castillos, 112; Day of the Dead, 105-6; fiesta, 112; Night of the Dead, 107-8 Community, exchange between officials and the, 80-84; sense of, 160 Compadrazgo, 32, 35 Competition: household, 162-63; intervillage, 124; Las Posadas, 156, 162-65; Penitentes de cruz, 67 Comunidad Indigena, 20—22, 48, 117, 120, 175, 181. See also El Pueblo Conservatism, 185 Constancia, 115 Consumption, 54, 162—63. See also Commerce; Economy Contract: and exchange, 59—87; and gifts, 59-62; household and performers, 6978; individual and supernatural, 62-69; officers and community, 80—81; officials, among religious, 78—80; social, and castillo, 122. See also Dyadic contract Contributions, 49, 50, 117, 122 Control: behavior, 171; corporal, 172-78; emotions, 171; parental, 30; social, 1-19, 30, 127-45, 165, 173, 176, 186 Cooperation, 49, 160, 161-62 Corazones, 34 Cormdes, A., 90 Corona Nunez, Jose, 34 Coromtas, 180-81 Corpus Christi: behavior in, 167—68; com-

204

Index isionados, 81; dance, 53; dance troupe, 179; encabezados, 48-49, 50, 153; ethnicity, 32, 34—35; exchange, diffuse, 80-84; as family fiesta, 95; financial activities, 51; liquor, 175; sharing, community, 184-85 Corundas, 94, 96 Cost: castillo, 122; La Danza costumes, 129 Cost-sharing: and Cargueros de la Capilla, 79; Corpus Christi, 53; encabezado system, 46—53, 55; origins of, 57 n2; and participation, fiesta, 180—81 Costumes, La Danza, 128-30 Crafts, sale of, 100, 101. See also Potterymaking CREFAL (Centro Regional de Education Fundamental para la America Latina), 19 n3 Cristero movement, 185 Cristianos, 135, 139, 170 Cristo Rey fiesta, 146 Crosses, Barrio, 71, 72, 179. See also Jesus Christ; Santo Entierro Cuarteles, 121-22 Culebra, 134, 136 Culture, 127, 128, 135, 172; Indian, 99 Cunnison, Ian, 60 Cyrene, Simone of, 64

Dependence: on central government, 178; oiranchos, 114-15 Desandada, 67 Deviance: male, 159; social, 134, 139, 144 Devils (La Danza performers), 128, 130, 135-36, 139-40, 142, 143 Devotion, religious, 56, 159 De Walt, Billie, 41,53 Diaz, May N., 144 Differentiation, socio-economic, 4, 29 Disorder, 2, 165. See also Control Division: ethnic, 125; of labor, 160; social, 125 Don (French concept), 60. See also Gifts Don (social title), 24 Donations, 77, 78, 81; system of, 49-50 Don Juan Tenorio, 96, 97-98 Don Vasco de Quiroga, 42, 109 n2 Douglas, Mary, 172, 173, 174 Drama: humorous, 170; moral-religious (La Danza), 132-39; social (La Danza), 139-45; stories, 6. See also La Danza Drinking, 1, 5, 80, 156, 166 n5, 174, 175, 176-78 Durston, John, 17 Dyadic: bonds, 85-86; contract, 35-36, 60, 62, 63, 69, 181. See also Bonds, social; Exchange; Fiestas; Gift-giving

Dahrendorf, Ralf, 4 Daily: affairs, 60; cycle, 36—39; exchange, 84-87 Dance: and control, social, 127-45; in Hispanic world, 128; and La Danza, 127—28; in Michoacan, 128; pattern in La Danza, 134; troupe, 179. See also Carnival; La Danza Danza del Pescado, 182. See also La Danza Danzantes, 128, 129, 130, 132, 170. See also Carnival; La Danza; Performers Davis, Natalie, 183 Day of the Dead: celebration, 54; commercialization of, 105-6; conspicuous consumption, 162; in Mizquic, 105—6; studies of, 105; and Tourism, 88-89; variations, regional, 88—89. See also La Danza; Night of the Dead Death, 84, 142; in La Danza, 128, 130, 135-36, 137, 139-40, 143

Easter: cargos, 46; cycle, 75; Sunday, 38. See also Penitentes Ecological unit, villages as, 24 Economic: change, 15, 28, 29; equality, 28; leveling function of cargos, 55 Economy, village, 25—35 Edgerton, Robert B., 176 Education, opportunities, 29 Egalitarianism, 27—28, 56 El Cubilete, Guanajuato, 146 El Doble, 94-95, 103-4. See also Cargueros de la Soledad; Night of the Dead Elite: domination, 58 n2, 58 n5; national, 34 El Nino, 150. See also Jesus Christ El Ojo de Agua (rancho): comisiones, 181; December fiestas, 78, 116, 117, 119, 150; dependence, political, 114-15; land purchase by, 44; and liquor, 175; Los Pescadores, 182; role in fiestas, 24;

205

Index Virgin of Guadalupe celebration, 147, 177. See also La Obra Elopements, 175 El Panteon de Tzintzuntzan, 14. See also Night of the Dead El Pozole, as exchange in La Obra, 117. See also La Obra; Exchange El Presidente de la Comunidad Indigena, 18,21,49,50-51, 120 El Presidente Municipal, 2, 48-49, 50-51, 52, 114-15, 118 El Pueblo, and village identity, 21-22. See also Comunidad Indigena El Senor del Rescate. See Nuestro Senor del Rescate El Templo. See San Francisco parish Embezzlement, 49 Emigration, 25 Encabezados: in carnival, 52, 77; in Corpus Christi, 49, 50, 51, 53; and costsharing, 46-53, 55; description, 46-53; and discontent, 164; exchanges, 78; fundraising, 49; and La Danza, 53, 55; in Las Posadas, 51, 156; mutual assistance within, 180; refusal to participate in, 49; as secular officials, 46-47; as social category, 57; status, 55; types of, 51. See also Carnival; Comisionados; Corpus Christi; La Danza; Las Posadas Encargado del Orden, 114 Encargados, 57-58 n3, 78, 117, 152, 157. See also Cargueros de la Soledad; La Obra; Las Posadas Enchorizados, 113 Englebrecht, Beate, 17 Entertainment, 127, 149-50 Entrada de las Coronitas, 180 Equality: family, 30; spousal, 30 Equilibrium, 57-58, 84-85, 135. See also Balance; Changes; Las Posadas Espias. See Spies Ethnicity: and fiestas, 32—55, 125; and fireworks, 125; and identity, 32, 55; and prejudice, 115 Euphemism, sexual, 139-40. See also La Danza Evil, representations of, 135. See also La Danza Exchange: ambiguous, 80; cargueros and performers, 80; and contract, 59-87;

daily, 84-87; diffuse, 80; and dyadic contract, 60, 85; entities, ceremonial, 75; fiesta, 84-87; and gift-giving, 61; group, 62; households and performers, 69-78; individual, 62, 87; in La Obra, 117-20; Las Posadas, 83-84, 151, 157; life cycle rituals, 85; and liquor, 174— 76; officials, between, 78-80; officials and the community, 80-81; public, 87, 160; reciprocal, 61, 80; social, 175-76, 181; systems and power relations, 59, 60, 61, 62, 78 Expenses: cargo system, 44, 54, 56; fiesta, 50, 56, 107; officials', 46; Las Posadas, 148; ritual, 55 Family, 29, 30-32; roles, 159, 160. See also Gender; Hierarchies; Households Farmers, 25, 56 Favors, as social contracts, 59 Fear, 141-43, 171. See also La Danza February Fiesta: behavior, deviant, 167; coronitas, 180-81; description, 23, 146; El Senor del Rescate, 53; fireworks, 110-14; La Danza, 53, 127; La Funcion, 112; and liquor, 175; and newlyweds, 122, 126; politics, 110-14, 178; and power, celebration of, 125—26; role of ranchos, 114-15; and well-being, collective, 126. See also Fireworks; La Danza; La Feria; Nuestro Senor del Rescate Fechas movibles, 38 Female role model, La Peregrina as, 159. See also Gender Festival, 7-9, 113, 160 Festival de Danzas y Pirekuas, 98-99, 107. See also Festival Folklorico; State; Tourism Festival Folklorico. See Festival de Danzas y Pirekuas Festivities: and gender roles, 183; as models of change, 183-84 Fiesta: authorities, 178; causes and consequences, 183-86; definition of, 6-9; ethnicity, 32-55; exchanges, 62-87; financing, 21, 45, 55-57 n2, 107; humor in, 168-69; kinds of, 9; leadership, 4041; order, social, 1, 2, 4, 167-84; organization, 20, 21, 40-58, 178-79; partic-

206

Index ipation, 179, 180-81; politics, 110-26, 178-83; relations, social, 2-3, 4, 11026; social context of, 20-39; social control, 1—19, 186; structure, political-religious, 20-24; and Tarascan identity, 3233. See also Sponsorship Fiesta cycle: changes in, 146; character, 183; and daily cycle, 36-39; elite, national, 34; origins, European, 37; outlet, religious, 186 Fiesta de Febrero. See February Fiesta Fighting, in Carnival, 167 Finances, fiesta, 21, 41-46, 51, 57 n2, 152. See also Gremios Fireworks: in Chapel of the Virgin, 177; consumption of, 119—20; and disinhibition, 178; El Senor del Rescate, 113; ethnicity, 125; February Fiesta, 110-14, 178; festivals, 113; hierarchies, political, 114-15; Hispanic world, 110, 113; historical study of, 110; meanings of, 110, 124-26; and prestige, 113; and ranches, 115-16; relations, power, 125-26; and Roman Catholic Church, 110. See also La Obra Firth, Raymond, 163 FONART (Fondo National de Artesamas), 100, 101 Foster, George, 16, 17, 19, 25, 28, 35, 54, 55, 57-58 n3, 60-62, 64, 70, 71, 76, 84-85, 91, 96, 135, 139-40, 141-42, 174 Foster, Mary LeCron, 16, 17, 85, 175 Foucault, Michel, 5 France, Carnival in, 183 Frazer, James, 8 Freedman, Maurice, 110 Freud, Anna, 142-43 Fundraising. See Gremios Geertz, Clifford, 6, 20, 109, 127 Gender: of performers, 171; roles, 32, 159-60,183-84 Gifts, 59-62, 77, 85, 116, 174. See also Contracts; La Obra; Reciprocity Gluckman, Max, 144 Godparents, 92-93 Goffman, Irving, 7 Good Friday, 63, 66, 72, 73, 179 Gorditas de trigo, 81, 82

207

Gorenstein, Shirley, 12 Gossen, Gary H., 4, 6 Gossip, as social control, 1 Government, central, 100, 101, 178. See also FONART; Michoacan (state); Night of the Dead; State; Tourism Greenberg, James, 56 Gremios, 48, 49 Grillos, 63 Guatemala, 40, 55 Guitarron, 132 Guzman de Contreras, Alejandro, 110, 113 Hierarchies: civil-religious, 4; household, 30; local, 40, 41, 42, 114-15, 144, 178, 181. See also Cargos; Fireworks; Power Hispanic world, 68, 110-12, 113, 128 Holy Cross, fiesta of, 41, 63 Holy Family, 37, 50, 147, 153, 157. See also Las Posadas Holy Week, 70, 71, 95, 167-68, 173-74, 179; and cargos, 45, 75, 86 Homosexuality, in La Danza, 138 Hospitality, 161, 164, 165 Host, the, 134 Households: competition, 162—67; consultation, 37; consumption, 161—63; interdependence with village, 179; living arrangements, 30; management of, 32; planning, 37; power hierarchies, 30; prestige, 162—63; role in fiestas, 72, 117, 69-78, 178, 179 Housing, 15 Huacaleros, 52—53 Humor, 6, 140, 141, 168-70 Iberia, feasts, 37-38. See also Castile; Spain Ichupio (rancho), 24, 114, 122. See also La Vuelta Ideals, cultural, 160-65, 184 Identity: group, 105-9; village, 21-22 Ideology: and expectation in Las Posadas, 163-64; moral, 144 Ihuatzio, 21 Illness, and social order, 5 Impuesto predial, 115 Independence, La Obra and community, 119

Index Indians, 4, 32-34, 115. See also Purepecha; Tarascans Individualism, value of, 87 Individuals, 9, 62-69 Inhibition, fiestas and release of, 168 Institute National Indigenista, 99 Integration: community, 123, 125; ethnic, 125; social, 125 Interdependence, La Obra and community, 119; village and household, 179 Janitzio, 95-96, 107 Jesus Christ, 50, 62, 63, 129, 134, 146, 147, 150, 151, 156, 157, 158, 159, 174. See also Las Posadas Jornadas, 147 juez municipal, 115 Kassovic, Steve and Melissa, 17 Kemper, Robert Van, 16, 54 Kengueria, 42, 44-45 Kinship: cargo system and African, 4; ritual, 35, 86. See also Compadrazgo Koestler, Arthur, 141 La Capilla de la Soledad. See Chapel, of Soledad La Danza: bodily control, 172; and control, social, 128—45; deviance, social, 144; drama, moral-religious, 132—39; drama, social, 139-45; encabezados, role, 53; equilibrium principles, 135; and fear, 142—43, 171; good, representation of, 135; performers, 128—32; and persuasion, social, 145; relations, authority, 143-44; revival of, 128; sexuality in, 136-38. See also Death; Devils; February Fiesta Ladinos, 4, 34, 39 n2. See also Mestizos La Feria, 97, 99, 100-101, 113. See also February Fiesta La Fiesta de Febrero. See February Fiesta La Funcion, 112. See also February Fiesta Lake Patzcuaro, 10-11 Land, 44, 54 La Noche de Muertos. See Night of the Dead La Obra, 115-20; cost of, 116-17; El Pozole as exchange, 117; exchange ritual,

117-20; as gift, 116; and politics, 11520; and power, 115—20, 125; relations, intercommunity power, 115—20; stability, social, 125. See also Exchange; Fireworks; Politics La Parroquia, 12, 20, 180. See also San Francisco parish La Peregrina (Virgin Mary), 150, 152, 155, 156. See also Las Posadas; Virgin Mary La Presidencia Municipal, 14, 48, 117, 175, 181 Las Posadas, 146—66; authorities, activities of, 50—51; cargueros, 152, 156; competition in, 162—63; continuity and discontinuity, 163—64; cooperation in, 161— 62; as entertainment, 149—50; exchange in, 80, 83-84, 151; and gender, 15960; ideals, reinforcement of, 160-65; organization of, 147-48; origins, local, 146-49; reciprocity, 160-61, 164-65; redistribution, 83-84; roles and events, structure of, 157-60; songs, 153-55; sponsors, 150, 151, 152; in the United States, 165-66 nl Latin America, use of castillos in, 120 La Velacion, 102—3. See also Night of the Dead La Vuelta: competition with Tzintzuntzan, 124; dependence, political, 114-15; fiestas, role in, 24, 114, 116, 122, 178-79; integration of, 123; and La Obra, 116; milpa purchases, 44 Leach, Edmund, 7 Leadership, 40, 59, 122, 126, 141 Leisure, 37 Lent, 45, 75 Leveling mechanism, 58 n4 Lewis, Oscar, 30, 46 Liquor. See Drinking Literacy, 27 Liturgy, Roman Catholic, 38 Los peregrinos, 150 Luke, 157 Mac Andrew, Craig, 176 Machismo, 30-31. See also Gender; Male dominance Madsen, William and Claudia, 174 Male: centeredness in Las Posadas, 159; deviation, 159; dominance, 31—32

208

Index Mandas, 53, 63, 130, 132. See also Dyadic contract Mangin, William, 8-9 Maori, 59, 60 Mardi Gras, 75. See also Carnival; Holy Week Maringuillas, 52, 77 Masks: of Death, 136; and performers, 130, 141 Mass, 37, 38, 90, 104-5 Matracas, 13 Maundy Thursday, 70-71. See also Holy Thursday Maundy Wednesday, 173 Mauss, Marcel, 59-60, 61, 62, 85 Mayordomo, 29, 78. See also Cargueros Meals, 36, 37, 80. See also Drinking Men, 32, 76, 94-95, 144, 155-60. See also Gender; Machismo; Male Merchants, 27, 29, 56. See also Commerce Mesoamerica, 40, 42, 56, 144 Mestizo, 4, 24, 33-35, 39 n2. See also Ethnicity; Ladinos Metaphors, 15-16, 170 Mexico, 6, 40, 55, 113, 147, 176 Michoacan (state), 47, 49, 89, 112, 128, 185; state government, 97 Middle class, national, 34 Migrants, 25, 29, 75. See also Braceros Milpas, 44 Ministry of Tourism, 98, 99 Misa de Gallo, 157 Mizquic (village), 105-6 Moore, Sally Falk, 7 Morality, 2, 135, 139, 141, 146-66. See also Culture; La Danza; Las Posadas Morelos, fiestas in, 41 Motivation, religious, 79, 130, 185 Municipio, 20, 22; Indian, 4. See also Tzintzuntzan Musicians, 132 Myerhoff, Barbara, 7 Nash, Manning, 4, 55 National Museum of Anthropology, 34 Nation-state, and fiestas, 5 Nativity, celebration of, 38 Neighbors, bonds between, 35 Networks, social, 32 Newlyweds, 30, 122, 126

209

Night of the Dead: altars, 91; before 1971, 90—96; celebration in Tzintzuntzan, 14, 23, 89-96, 106-7; commercialization of, 107, 108; El Doble, 94-95; and ethnicity, 32; as family celebration, 95, 107; FONART, 107, 181; Janitzio, 96; La Velacion, 91-92; masses, 90, 104-5; and Michoacan government, 97; national elite perspective, 34; ofrendas, 14, 9294; and state tourism, 96-101, 108, 178; and Tarascans, 96, 99; transformation of, 101-5. See also Day of the Dead Norms, fiestas and social, 4, 77, 87, 14344, 149, 171 Novena, 79 Nuestro Seiior del Rescate, 23, 32, 34-35, 48, 53, 62, 111-13, 125, 127, 146-47, 167, 179-82. See also February Fiesta Occupational: diversification, 25; fluidity, 27; profile, 25; specialization, 25 Ochoa Zazueta, Jesus Angel, 105 Officers, political, 54, 122-26 Officials, religious: encabezados as, 46—47; exchanges of, 78—84; expenses of, 46; in Las Posadas, 148, 149, 152; Ucasanastacua, 122. See also Cargueros; Comisionados; Encabezados; Encargados Ofrendas, 92-94, 105-6; nuevas, 92 Order: breakdown in, 174; and corporal control, 172-78; and drunks, 177-78; and fiestas, 1, 2, 144, 160, 167-68, 169; and humorous ritual behavior, 169; and illness, 5; and masked performers, 141; and witchcraft, 5 Organization, fiesta, 40-58, 178-79; change in, 41, 53-58; committees, 180; and Comunidad Indigena, 21; Corpus Christi, 50; and cost-sharing, 46—53; and diffused authority lines, 20; encabezado system, 46—53; financing and cargo system, 41-46; La Obra, 116-20; Las Posadas, 51; La Vuelta, 179; leadership lines, 59; logistics, 40-41; in Mesoamerica, 40; as power indicator, 178; voluntary, of Carnival, 52 Origins (European), of fiesta cycle, 37 Ospina, Gabriel, 16, 25, 57-58 n3, 70, 71, 76, 91, 96

Index Padres de familia, 47, 152 Palo, 122 Parroquia. See La Parroquia Parsons, Elsie Clews, 3 Participation, fiesta, 49, 129, 130, 179-81, 182 Pastores, 150 Patrilinealism, and cristos, 71 Patron-client ties, 62 Patron Saint (San Francisco), 110-12. See also El Senor del Rescate Patzcuaro, 25, 101 Paz, Octavio, 2-3, 18 nl, 144, 167-72 Peasant: community, 122; societies, 31—32 Penitentes, 63-69, 71, 168, 173; de cruz, 63, 65, 66-67; de grillo, 63-65 Performance: penitente, 69; ritual, 139; politics of fiesta, 178-83 Performers: age, 130, 143—44; contracts, 69-78, 80; gender of, 143, 144, 171; in La Danza, 128-32; masked, 130, 13940, 141, 142; troupes, temporary acting, 168 Persuasion, 4—6, 145 Peru, 8-9 Pescadores, 48, 182 Pesebre, 154. See also Las Posadas Pinatas, 147, 149-50 Pirekuas, 98. See also Night of the Dead Politics: and pyrotechnics, 110—26; and fiesta performance, 178—83 Pollard, Helen Perlstein, 12 Popoteros, 48, 81 Population, 12, 25, 91-92 Posadas. See Las Posadas Potlatch, comparison of castillo to, 123 Potters, 25, 56 Pottery-making, 30 Poverty, shared, 55, 56 Power: expression, 178; and February Fiesta, 125-26; La Obra, 115-20, 125; Las Posadas, 165; location of, 20; and persuasion, 4—6; society, peasant, 31— 32; sources of, in fiesta cycle, 181; of women, 31—32 Prejudice, ethnic, 115. See also Ethnicity Prestation. See Gifts Prestige, 55, 75, 87, 113, 162-63 Priest, Roman Catholic, 23; authority of, 182-83; and fiestas, 48-49, 50-51,

108-9, 147, 182-83; opposition to, 148, 182-83; and tourism, 108-9 Principal (Spanish term), 42 Processions, fiesta, 80, 149-57, 179, 180 Production process, 25 Promesa. See Mandas Property, 27. See also Land Purepecha. See Tarascans Pyrotechnics. See Fireworks Quiroga, 22 Ranchos, 22-34, 114-16, 122, 124, 126, 150. See also El Ojo de Agua; Ichupio; La Vuelta; Tarerio; Ucasanastacua (El Espiritu) Ranking. See Hierarchies Reciprocity: among cargueros, 79—80, 160, 164—65; in dyadic contract, 36; in gift-giving, 61; hospitality as, 161, 164, 165; in Las Posadas, 83-84, 160-61, 163, 164, 165; and penitente performance, 69; public character of, 80; role of in rural Mexico, 6; short term, 86 Redfield, Robert, 3, 41, 146 Redistribution, 55, 81-84, 124, 185. See also Exchange; Tirar Corpus Relacion de Michoacdn, 34 Relations: authority, 143-44; community, 125; ethnic, 125; family role, 149; hierarchical, 6; inter-community, 115—20; intervillage, 24; personal, 24; power, 2, 4, 24, 35-36, 59, 125; social, 2-3, 5, 160, 175. See also Dyadic contract; La Obra Research: site, 9—15; in Tzintzuntzan, 15— 19 Respect, 160, 173-74 Responsibilities: in cargo system, 41—46, 47, 54; encabezados, 47, 49; godparents', 92-93; individual, 40, 41, 46; sharing of, 41 Revolt, fiestas as, 2, 167 Revolution (1910-1920), 112 Rites of passage, 9, 158, 175 Ritual, 7, 36, 144; activities, 54, 69; behavior, 169; innovations, 147; life crisis, 158; life cycle, 85, 86; in Mesoamerica, 144; Spanish term, 7

210

Index Rogers, Susan Carol, 31 Roles: family, 160; gender, 159-60, 8384; in Las Posadas, 157-60; mod- is, 139, 159; performers' opposing, i70; playing, 168; religious, 160; reversal, 143 Roman Catholic: Church, 110; communities, 9-10 Roman Catholicism, 34, 172, 174 Romanucci-Ross, Lola, 77 Rosario, 119 Royce, Anya, 127-28, 140 Rumors, 50 Sacrifices, 63 Saints, 13, 62-63, 150 Sanctioning mechanisms, informal, 2, 4, 28 San Francisco parish, 12—13, 112. See also La Parroquia San Francisco, patron saint, 112 Santamana, Francisco, 39 n2 Santo Entierro, 13, 62, 63, 66, 67 Scandinavia, 59 Scatology, in La Danza, 138 Schoolteachers, 27, 56 Schwartz, Theodore, 177 Secretaria Estatal de Turismo, 97 Selection processes, 48-49, 51 Senor del Rescate. See Nuestro Senor del Rescate Sex, of performers in La Danza. See Gender Sexuality, 136-38, 139-40, 144 Sharing: communal, 184—85; costs, 29, 46-53; fiesta responsibilities, 41, 18485 Shopkeepers, 56 Smith, Robert]., 7-8, 113, 120 Smith, Waldemar R., 55 Social cohesiveness, 161, 164, 165. See also Hospitality Social control. See Control, social Socialization, 139—44. See also La Danza Sones, 132 Songs, in Las Posadas, 153—55. See also Las Posadas Souls in Purgatory, 62 South America, Andean, 42 Spain: Carnival in, 183; Corpus Christi in, 48. See also Iberia; Castile

211

Spies, 70, 71, 74, 75, 173. See also Exchange; Holy Week Sponsors: fiesta, 29; Las Posadas, 150, 151, 152. See also Cargo; Cargueros; Mayordomo; Sponsorship Sponsorship: costs, 54-55, 56; individual, 29, 41. See also Cargo; Cargueros; Mayordomo Stability, social, 2, 125, 169. See also La Obra Standards, living, 27, 28-29, 54 State, the: and Day of the Dead, 88; intervention impact, 96-101, 103-4, 107, 108; and Noche de Muertos, 96-97; and Tarascans, 34; and tourism, 88—109 Streets, sponsoring, 148, 156 Structures: political, and fireworks, 178; social, 35, 144 Supernatural being, contracts between individuals and, 62—69 Taggart, James M., 4 Tarascans, 11-12, 32-35, 96, 99, 132 Tarerio (rancho), 24, 114, 122. See also La Vuelta Taxes, paid by ranchos, 115 Taylor, William B., 176 Television, 37 Tenencias, 22 Tepoztlan, fiesta cycle in, 146 Tianguis, 101 Tienditas, 15, 25 Tierra fria, 11 Tiradores, 48, 81 Tirar Corpus, 81-84 Titles, social, 24 Toreros, 77 Toro, 77, 123, 141, 170 Tourism: absence of, 84; and Catholicism, 88; and the Day of the Dead, 88-89; effects and local responses, 98, 99-100, 106, 107, 108; effects on fiestas, 88; and El Doble, 103-4; in Mizquic, 105-6; and ofrendas, 105—6; parish priest's role in promotion of, 108; and the state, 88— 109; state-sponsors, and the Night of the Dead, 89-96, 103-4, 105-6, 108 Trade. See Commerce Turner, Victor, 36, 142-43, 144 Tylor, Edward B., 8

Index Tzintzuntzan: administrative authorities, 20—24; cargo system, 42; colonial era, 12; conception of fiestas, 7; contacts in, 16-17; economy, 25-35; effects of tourism, 99-100; fear in, 141-42; housing, 15; location, 10; major celebrations, 38; municipio of, 22; Night of the Dead in, 89—96; occupational profile, 25; ordinary activities in, 14—15; physical design, 12; political hierarchies, 114-15; population, 12, 25, 91-92; relationship with neighboring villages, 23-24; as research site, 9—18; sexuality in, 140; society, 29-36; weather, 15 Ucasanastacua (rancho), 24, 114, 122. See also La Vuelta United States, gift-giving in, 61. See also Anglos Listed (mode of address), 24 Values, fiestas and transmission of, 4 Van Gennep, Arnold, 9, 158 Van Zantwijk, R. A. M., 21 Villages, neighboring, as ecological unit, 24 Violence: and drunkenness, 176, 177; selective pattern of, 176; in Virgin of Guadalupe fiesta, 177 Virgin Mary: in Las Posadas, 147, 149,

150, 151; as madre abnegada, 159 Virgin of Guadalupe: asymmetrical dyad with, 62; fiesta, 37, 78, 147, 177; ideal for women, 144; image of, in Spain, 38 Vows, religious. See Mandas Wallace, Anthony, 7 Wealth: display of, 54; sharing of, 123-24 Weather, 15 Weddings, 85, 175. See also Newly weds Welfare, fiestas and attainment of, 186 Whiteman, the, 169-70 Witchcraft, 5 Wolf, Eric, R., 37, 55, 58 n4, 144 Women: and control of sexuality, 144; in peasant societies, 31-32; as performers, 144; power of, roles in Las Posadas, 159—60; social networks of, 32; social role of, 144, 159-60; and Virgin of Guadalupe, 144 Work, 36, 37 Ydcatas, 12, 98 Yahuaro (barrio): description of, 16; and February Fiesta procession, 180; and Las Posadas, 150, 152. See also Barrios Yunteros, 48, 81, 82 Zamora (city), 185 Zorilla, Jose (Don Juan Tenorio), 96

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