Cultural Preservation: Morismas de Bracho

Zacatlan, Mexico

Wilmette Arts Guild, Wilmette, IL, engaged George Olney, an artist, teacher and photographer, a resident of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to photograph the Morismas, a magnificent 4-day spectacle, considered a re-enactment of the Christian Reconquest of Spain, held annually in Zacatecas, Mexico. Local brotherhoods don uniforms, form platoons and challenge one another in mock battles. Blasting blunderbusses emit sonic booms; percussion jolts the enemy and black smoke billows into clouds that obscure the Moor’s castle on a hill. This celebration of Christian victory has a 188-year old official, recorded history in Zacatecas, and I was told it could be traced back four hundred years.

I met with George; we agreed I’d write the commentary and text that would fill the white spaces between George’s photos.

George is a fearless photographer. He once roped himself to a church tower, hung over the edge and took a bird’s eye view of indigenous performers. He has a penchant for “seeing from above.” At the Morismas, this perspective was granted from atop a telephone pole while 3 policemen yelled for George to come down, and when George answered calmly, taking their pictures and parachuting his press credentials, which fluttered down to the Mexican police, he was given, “two minutes” to photograph the mock battling armies.

The results are here, fine, expressive photos, views from above, up close, in among the troops, the marchers, capturing the broad panorama and the intimate personal participation. Although the battles were mock, the injuries were real. The Red Cross was active. At least three ambulances were called out, driving into the droves of Christians and Moors on the hillside, to take the injured to hospitals, and there were many minor injuries, cuts and bruises, some from gunfire recoil, others from falls.


Background and Overview: Morismas de Bracho, Zacatecas, 1992

In 1992 I drove to the Morismas and I hadn't been back since. My impression then was akin to a reenactment of the Civil War, Blue vs. Gray, but this time I saw the entire spectacle, 11,000 participants. The principal actors are now wired with clear loud speakers delivering their speeches. It's far more than a Blue-Gray confrontation! Historic epics, 1st, 8th, 16th, 19th centuries are intertwined, rolled into one story, representative of people, historic figures, and places, and my interpretation is that there are subtexts, resistance to domination and syncretic concealment of indigenous practices.

                           
Armies marched, challenged each other, platoon after platoon, or I should say groups of Brotherhoods that are organized, taking sides. Insults flew, Christians disparaged Moors, and Moors defied Christians. Charlemagne declared the superiority of his Savior and the Christian religion. Argel Osmán, the Moor, answered, cackling, ''Ha, ha, ha, ha." Moors took over the Christian's hill, forming a crescent and star, very visible, red uniforms stood out against the green hill. Each side blasted the other with homemade firearms, the closest thing would be a blunderbuss, but the guns were not flared. And blast they did! Pointed at the sky, thank heavens, the guns roared and my ears rang. I now know how the bell felt when Quasimodo pulled the cord and why he was deaf. The percussion felt like the “Big One” had hit, that is, the expected California earthquake, and black smoke obscured the Moors' castle. 

It was a magnificent, costumed, energetic, action spectacle! There were indigenous dances, Catholic rituals, and baptisms. Moors and Christians took communion together.
There were decapitations, prisoners taken and rescued, and there were subtexts (my interpretation) of political and religious resistance to invaders. Like masks, the Morismas festival both concealed and revealed.

Comeuppance: Sunday, Christians, thousands charged, endlessly, from nowhere (other side of the hill) unseen until they arrived marching, massively, in formation, brotherhoods forming a cross, "In this sign you will conquer," retake their hill, defeat the Moors and decapitate the Grand Turk Argel Osmán.... in this case in the rain.

The Morismas is spectacle, folk theater, ritual, and performance art, on what must be the world's largest stage, two hills, parade grounds, upper and lower, the open air atrium in front of St. John the Baptist’s chapel and Zacatecas’s city streets. Drums rolled and bugles sounded, and the marching column was so long the vanguard met the rearguard looping Zacatecas’ city center.