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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.

Flower Festival - Zacatlan

About Dick Davis

About Dick Davis and Cultural Preservation

Dick Davis is retired stockbroker who has lived, taught and traveled throughout Mexico and is the author of Bus Journey Across Mexico.

As Mexico emerges as an industrialized and oil based economy, many of the old ways will disappear.  In a search for a "better" life, indigenous cultures are losing their young people to jobs in the big cities.   With a concern for art and indigenous cultures Dick was inspired to record and hopefully preserve some of the ancient cultures so that generations to come will know their heritage.

Over the last few years, Dick has sponsored reporters, photographers and artists to capture the many traditional local Mexican events such as the annual Flower Festival, Easter Procession of Silence, Morismas de Bracho, Apple Festival and Adobe Makeover Projects.  He arranges for knowledgeable local guides to point these chroniclers of history to the heart of each ceremony.  What they have come back with is in many of the pages on this site.  

He has also encouraged cultural exchanges and specific art projects which will appear in synopsis on the following pages.

 

A Bus Journey Across Mexico

A review by prominent columnist Everett Campbell

Bus Journey Across Mexico

The Book

The Bus

     Dick Davis has a new book out, Bus Journey Across Mexico, which chronicles a day by day odyssey by bus from Tijuana to Guatemala.This book differs from most travelogues in that each leg of the trip is an independent adventure, not simply a stop on the way to a final destination. Every day a new town is chosen in a somewhat arbitrary manner. It will depend on what insights someone has given him about a new place to visit and what bus schedule is convenient. There is no grand design, rather it is all about proving that you can

The Street Car

go absolutely anywhere in Mexico by bus, safely. A corollary might be that almost anywhere you go will be worth the trip.
     Dick starts in Tijuana, gets a ticket for bus to Mexicali and is on the road. He tells us all about the bus, food, people he meets and the sights along the way. There are photos galore, lots of photos which are a major source of enjoyment in reading this book. Lots of homely info such as what they mean by “refrigeration” when he asks if the hotel has air conditioning. Every chapter begins with title “Day 1”, “Day 2” etc. and ends with an accounting of expenses for hotel, meals, tours. Every town has new things to see and do and he makes

The Hotel

friends with all sorts of folks along the way. Judging by there encounters it seems that getting to know all there people is half of the pleasure in each town. There was Mary Carmen the tourist director in Zacatlan, who invited him to the Apple Fair and to write an article about it. There was Daniel Cid the archeologist in Yanga who showed him the museum and invited him to his home. There were many chance encounters that may have lasted less than an hour each but altogether make a real impression of being engaged with the local people. All of these jaunts hither and yon finally take him down to Cancun where he abandons the bus and flies back to San Francisco. Thirty eight days all told. From start to finish it is a good description of how to have a great tour of Mexico . Afterwards you may find yourself going back and dipping in at random to enjoy photos and descriptions of Zacatecas, Tlaxcala , poly-chromed missions , archeological sites, or most any other stop on the trip.
     At the end of the book are several appendices detailing bibliography of history and literature, information about holidays, music and culture and a frankly tongue in cheek way to learn Spanish: namely by knowing a few words and phrases combined with facial expressions and hand gestures.
     All in all a great read. The only thing missing in this peripatetic adventure is a trusty

The Young Ladies

sidekick. Think about other travel sagas: Don Quixote had Sancho Panza, Huck Finn had Jim, the Lone Ranger had Tonto, Jack Kerouac had Dean Moriarity--------------so where is the Dick Davis sidekick? Answer: it is you ! Yes, it's you the reader whom he takes along sharing every confidence, giving you his own unvarnished thoughts and opinions about lots of people and places you will probably never know; but you could. You could easily make the same journey yourself. That is what makes this a very individual book
     Write to him at dickwdavis@gmail.com  He'll write back. You can preview the book at Amazon.com

Simply Complex - Zapotecan Master Weaver, Zenon Hipolito

The Great Wilmette Clock

The Great Wilmette Clock

from Zacatlan, Mexico

     The Great Wilmette Clock, a gift to the Junior High School from the Wilmette Arts Guild , with a grant from Dick Davis arrived in town on June 2, 2010.
     The clock, which stands 9 feet tall, is one of the finest examples of a mechanical clock. All working parts are easily seen, and its bells chime on the quarter hour and with a great cacophony upon the hour. It has already attracted scores of onlookers both young and young at heart.

      

Cultural Preservation: Popotohuilco, MX

Rather than focusing on what this region has not, we chose to look at what is there in abundance –a good, strong life force. “Indigenous” means that men have lived in that location for thousands of years. What is their life? Miguel walks for an hour to catch a bus from Otatlan to Zacatlan. When that time is condensed into minutes in a speeding car along a good road, what will he lose? There is a community steam bath, temascal, built and used by all, cooperatively. Butchering the pig is done cooperatively by the whole village. People have to work very long hours to have enough to eat, yet they still find the time and need to paint. The women find the time and need to embroider and observe the specific patterns from their villages, which Mary Carmen explained to a fascinated audience. The hand spun wool and loomed cloth they wear is gorgeous and good protection against both heat and cold. Mary Carmen said it best, “These are not poor people. They are people without cash. They have a culture, customs, rituals, food, clothing and a language that serves their purposes.

Modern life can be helpful or destroy this independence and spirit of cooperation. Their “medicines from the garden” work, as we are just finding out, but our modern medicine is a wonderful thing for so many of life’s ills. Almost no one would wish to live without electricity, running water, indoor plumbing and a weather secure home, but It is our fervent hope that those who have the choice of blessings to receive will be wise enough to keep what is good and not take so much from our world that they lose what is uniquely their own.

Painting with Light

Cultural Preservation

Cultural Preservation: Apple Festival

The Apple Festival of Zacatlán

Welcome to Zacatlán

 

Procession of all Apple Queens

     In Zacatlán the procession of the Virgin Mary occurs on the 15th of August, Assumption Day. This is when we have the Apple Festival.  The new Queen and all the previous queens, school ambassadors communities representatives and the various Service Clubs of Zacatlán all participate in the parade. Each carries a basket of apples to offer to the Virgin. The priest blesses the apples to give thanks to God for a good harvest.

New Apple Queen and first Apple Queen

     We parade through the streets of our city with a statue of our Mother Mary who leads us to Christ. Mary accompanies us on the journey of our life, as she accompanied her son, Jesus, from the cradle to the cross.
     We pass the prison to share this event with the prisoners so they should know that the Mother of God forgives sinners who share this occassion with the Apple Queen.

Apple Festival's Night Singers

Sombrero decorated for the Apple Parade

     En Zacatlán la procesión de la Virgen María es el 15 de Agosto, Día de la Asunción, va acompañada por la Reina de la Manzana, así también por todas las Reinas y  embajadoras de las

Musicians serenade the festival goers.

Escuelas, de las comunidades  y de los diferentes Clubs de Servicios de Zacatlán, todas ellas llevan una canasta de manzanas para ofrecerlas a la virgen,  las manzanas las bendice el Sacerdote, para dar gracias a Dios por la buena cosecha.
     Caminar por las calles de nuestro pueblo junto a nuestra Madre María, que nos conduce a Cristo. María nos acompaña en el camino de nuestra vida, al igual que acompañó a su Hijo Jesucristo desde la cuna hasta la cruz.
     Al pasar por la cárcel es para compartir con los prisioneros de este evento y que la Madre de Dios perdona a los pecadores, de cual hacen partícipe a  la Reina.

Los Gue Gues

Welcome Tent at the Apple Festival