San Juan Chamula, Chiapis State, Mexico
As we walked through the door of this former Catholic church, it was like stepping into Dante’s Inferno.
Months
before, near a Caribbean coral lagoon, we had heard of this place from a Boston
couple - husband and wife taking sabbatical from their University teaching
posts. “When next you visit San Cristobal de Las Casas, be sure to go to the
village of San Juan Chamula and observe the indigenous faith healers there.”
In
due course we again visited the mountainous Chiapis State. The San Cristobal
Chamber of Commerce directed us to a lady guide by the name of Mercedes Lopez,
who was taking a group to San Juan Chamula in her van that Sunday morning.
Parking on the outskirts, she grouped us on a small hill overlooking the little
village of 500 inhabitants and its old
church, told us about her own background and laid out the ground rules for our
visit. Mercedes had been raised in the area and had been fortunate in attending
the University of Mexico City, studying anthropology and later she came back to
her Chiapis roots. It followed that she knew the local Mayan culture both in
theory and practice, and we took her instructions to heart.
For
instance, we were told that once every 20 days – once a Mayan month - a
Catholic priest is brought in to perform baptisms in the church. It’s a ritual
that the territory and townsfolk can relate to, bearing similarities to ancient
indigenous ceremonies of their own. But the church had had no priest of its own
since 1968, the last time a traditional mass was heard here. For that matter,
there is no hospital or medical clinic in the area – a Federal clinic had only
operated for a few months and then had closed down because the people would not
visit it, preferring their shamans/curanderos for all physical and spiritual
needs.
Mercedes
described in detail what we would later see, and cautioned us to conduct
ourselves in a very respectful manner during our visit, or the whole group
would be sent away, and she would be banned from leading other groups there. No
photographs (a photograph might be seen as drawing energy from its subject so cameras had to be left behind in the locked van);
no talking in the church, nor pointing, staring etc. Be there as guests. She explained to
us some of the Mayans’ spiritual beliefs. For the Mayan, particularly the
shamans and healers (curanderos), energy is everything and everything is
energy.
San
Juan Chamula is both a religious and administrative center for over 40,000 Tzotzil
Mayans living in the district, operating their sustenance level farms and
businesses in some 56 smaller centers in the territory. In late December
annually in each of these smaller villages, men are selected to perform ‘carga’
- literally a burden - in San Juan Chamula for the coming year. This is not a
voluntary ‘carga’, nor is there any financial compensation: in the middle of the night, the newly
selected office holder for the coming year is taken from his home and escorted
to San Juan – no exceptions – there a house will be provided to him and his
family for the coming year, and schooling provided for the children. During
that year time he will perform duties in the church as a mayordomo in charge of
one of the statues of the saints. Some saints have several mayordomos – e.g.
the town’s patron, Saint John, has eight.
After performing several cargas and gaining respect of the others over
time, mayordomos are elevated to the status of principales, town elders who
settle disputes and offer advice to residents of the municipality.
With
this preliminary briefing, we proceeded.
The light inside the church was murky,
and the air was thick with smoke from burning copal resin incense, commonly
used throughout southern Mexico and thought to be particularly pleasing to the
gods. Around the sanctuary stood wooden statues of saints in full costume, many
wearing mirrors to deflect away evil. There were no pews in the church, and the
floor area was completely covered in green pine boughs. Spaced apart from each
other were some 15 shaman/medicine men (curanderos) with their individual
client or family groups. During the prior week the clients would have consulted
with the shaman who would have diagnosed the medical, psychological or
‘evil-eye’ affliction and ‘prescribed’ a list of remedial supplies such as
specific candles of various colours and sizes to be bought from a special
candle stall, and specific flower petals or feathers, or in a dire situation a
live chicken – all to be brought to the healing ceremony conducted only on
Sundays.
We walked as ghosts through the smoky
sanctuary, and the curanderos and their clients took absolutely no notice of
us. The curandero would sweep aside a few pine boughs, exposing a few square
feet of bare terrazzo, and ask the client/family for the bag of pre-prescribed
supplies. Taking out the candles, the shaman lit them one by one and by heating
their bases stuck the candles in a pattern on the floor; then the flower petals
and feathers were spread, and a ceremonial ‘pok’ (fermented sugar-cane
beverage) was imbibed by the shaman. All the while a ritual dialogue was being
conducted between the curandero and his clients, as the affliction was been
addressed (and exorcized?). In a couple of situations we saw a live chicken
given to the shaman, who passed it over the client’s body while making a
healing invocation. The chicken was then given back to the client’s family – it
would be taken home and given normal care but it was hoped by all (excepting
the chicken) that it would expire within a few days, signaling that the
affliction had been successfully transferred to the chicken from the client.
At all times the healing ceremonies
were conducted at the most intense level. The clients and their families were
in obvious full, rapt attention and expectancy of cure; the shaman/curanderos
evidenced as much confidence and authority as one of our own ‘specialists’ who
would have similarly gone through many years of study, apprenticeship and
practice. Does the process work? Apparently so – else why would the
participants involve themselves? Who amongst any of us can afford futile
practices? Where there is attention, intention, expectancy and belief both in
self worth and the capability of the curandero, change oft occurs.
- - - - -
Footnote:
On a later occasion we were in the
little Guatemalan highlands market town of Chichicastenango, attending Sunday
mass at the Church of Santos Tomas. We are not Catholic, and our Spanish has
much limitation, so we did not understand the service, but took our cues from
the nearby parishioners. From time to time the Catholic priest passed the
microphone to a Mayan priestess robed in green attire, who spoke another tongue
which we took to be Quiche, the local indigenous dialect, and she would address
another part of the congregation. A conjoint service. Then we noticed little
groups of people quietly come into the church and sit around several raised
concrete mini platforms set into the wide center aisle for that purpose –
supplies of candles, etc were produced and curanderos quietly conducted their
healing rituals with clients. The needs of all three factions were being
addressed concurrently. The church location, we later discovered, was
considered ‘hallowed ground’ by all, it being the site of a Mayan temple which
had been razed by the Spanish during their 16th century Conquest,
with the present Church of St. Tomas having been constructed using material
from the former temple.
Keith and Marnie
Elliott’s “REMEDY” Site
Home
|
Our Stories
|
The Sublime
|
Our World and Times
|
Book Reviews
|
Marnie's Images
|
The Journal
|
Gleanings
|
From The Writings Of. . .
|
Allegories
|