Monday, August 29, 2016

Mexico City's Original Villages-Tlalpan: San Lorenzo Huipulco - Faces of Dignity

Invitation to a Fiesta

In our exploration of Mexico City's pueblos originarios, original indigenous villages, we have been following the lead of El Señor de la Misericordia, the Lord of Compassion, on his summer tour through the pueblos of Delegación Coyoacán. In our last post, we accompanied El Señor in his procession from Pueblo San Pablo Tepetlapa to Santa Úrsula Coapa, down the Calzada de Tlalpan, the highway that follows the original Mexica causeway south from the Centro Histórico.

Along the way we had a wonderfully serendipitous encounter with la Comparsa de Chinelos de San Lorenzo Huipulco. A comparsa is a dance troupe that performs at fiestas. Chinelos are dancers "disguised" by elaborate costumes that seem to be a takeoff on Islamic Moorish dress.

La Comparsa de Chinelos de San Lorenzo Huipulco

Huipulco is a pueblo just down the Calzada from Santa Úrsula Coapa, at the entrance to the Delegación Tlalpan. It is located where the southbound highway intersects with the main road west into the center of Tlalpan—with its Spanish Colonial-era plaza and buildings—and the main road southeast to the traditionally indigenous delegación of Xochimilco. Before the Spanish Conquest and the subsequent draining of the lakes, Huipulco was at the western edge of Lake Xochimilco.

Pre-hispanic location of Huipulco, at lower left.
For present location within Mexico City, see maps at the end of this post.

The young man carrying the group's banner invited us to the annual fiesta of Huipulco's patron saint, San Lorenzo, St. Lawrence, and its culminating procession in which the Comparsa would participate, on the afternoon of August 10. So at about 1:00 p.m. on that Wednesday, we once again take a taxi from our base in Colonia Parque San Andrés, down the Calzada to Huipulco.

Finding The Way to a Pueblo

We know the historic intersection well, as it happens to be where we turn west to reach the modern Medica Sur medical center where all our doctors are located. As a major crossroads for the southern part of the city, it is a bustling hub of transit and commerce distinguished by the near-chaotic jumble of small green jitney buses that provide transit between the station of the light-train rail line and the numerous colonias, neighborhoods, of Tlalpan and Xochimilco.

Amidst all this batiburillo, jumble, sits the grand statue of one of the stolid heroes of the Mexican Revolution.


Emiliano Zapata
entered Mexico City in December 1914
from Morelos, to the south, along the Calzada 

to help overthrow the military dictator Victoriano Huerta.
Later that year, he and Pancho Villa, coming from the north,
challenged Venustiano Carranza 
for control of Mexico. 
By 1916, Carranza had won.
See Ambles' page: Carranza vs. Villa and Zapata

We have a Google Map with us that places the church of San Lorenzo on a side street a block or two from the main intersection. We stop at a Pemex gas station and showing our map, ask the way. The as-always amable, kind, considerate, Mexican worker points and tells us it's more or less around the corner and down a certain street. Arriving there, we ask the way from a merchant in a corner shop, who points down the side street. We see papel picado, cut paper banners, hanging above the street—a sure sign of a fiesta.

Not encountering any church, we ask more people on the street, which is evidently in a working-class barrio, and they point us to a cross street. We end up behind a fairly modern church, not the ancient 16th-century one we are seeking.

Nevertheless, walking around to where the front of the church would seem to be, we enter a street with many people. At one side is what appears to be a fairly large plaza full of temporary puestos, stalls, selling food and juegos mecánicos, mechanical rides common to fairs—just like at country fairs or church bazaars in the rural U.S.

As it is early afternoon, they are mostly empty. Such fairs really light up, literally and people-wise, at night. As it turns out, the other end of the plaza faces the Calzada de Tlalpan, one block north of where our search began.

Iglesia de San Lorenzo Huipulco

On the other side of the narrow street is an iron grill gate surrounded by a colorful portada that marks the entrance both to the church and the fiesta.

Banner: "San Lorenzo blesses your pueblo (people, community)"
The portada is made of plastic flowers, more economical than live ones.

Entering, we find a modest-sized atrio, covered with lonas, tarps, to protect fiesta events from the virtually daily rains of this temporada de lluvias (YU-vias), rainy season. Their flor de calabaza, squash-flower, color, gives everything and everyone below an especially warm glow.

At one side is a large stage, with a banda playing. Facing the stage are rows of folding chairs, where a few people sit, waiting for the events of the day.

La Banda San Lucas plays waltzes.

At the rear of the atrio, we encounter San Lorenzo on a small platform, awaiting his procession.

San Lorenzo, St. Lawrence,
born around 225 CE, in the Roman province of Hispania,
was a deacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II,
martyred by Emperor Valerian in 258 CE.

The tool he is holding in his hand is a grill, used for roasting meat.
He was martyred by being grilled over a fire.

San Lorenzo stands in front of the old chapel we are seeking.

Built by Dominican Friars in the 16th century,
the chapel fell into disrepair
after a new church was built in the mid-20th century.
It was restored, with much pride, 
by parishioners in 2012.

Simple chapel interior,
San Lorenzo occupied the flowered arch
before being carried outside for the procession.

At this point, we hear the church bells ringing tercera llamada ("Ya-MA-tha"), third call—three distinct tollings of the bell after a series of perhaps twenty rings—that announce the beginning of Mass. So we walk up the stairs at the side of the chapel and enter the modern church, which has amphitheater seating and a glass ceiling letting in the Mexican light.

Huge bouquets of flowers front the altar and another image of San Lorenzo.
To the right, a parishioner reads Scripture.
The priest, to the left, with his full beard, looks to us more Orthodox than Roman Catholic

Returning outside, we find La Banda San Lucas playing a tango.

Tango.....
...with style!

El Comité

We notice a group of three or four older men sitting on a low wall enclosing a flower bed. Wondering if they might be members of the committee that each parish has to organize its fiestas, we approach them, introduce ourselves and ask if that it so.

"No", they aren't committee members, but one caballero (cah-bah-YER-o), gentleman, gets up and, muy amable, leads us to the front of the atrio, where he introduces us to a señora who is on the committee. She, in turn, introduces us to la presidenta, the president of the committee. 


Fiesta committee member
Fiesta committee president

It is clear that both señoras are damas of some status, not of the working-class that seems to be typical of the neighborhood. They enthusiastically welcome us to the fiesta and to the procession that will begin shortly. We tell them that we met the Comparsa at San Pablo Tepetlapa and were invited by them to come. Expressing their delight that an outsider would take such an interest in their pueblo, of which they are obviously very proud, they introduce me to other members of el comité.



 


It is clear that las señoras are in charge in the parish of San Lorenzo Huipulco.

Feligreses, Parishioners

Meanwhile, feligreses, parishioners, and their children await the start of the procesión.


















La Comparsa de Chinelos

Soon, comparsa dancers begin to arrive, carrying their costumes, which they don.









This woman recognizes us and tells us
this is the last time she will dance,
as she has health problems,
...but she is full of alegría, joy.












The gentleman who invited us.

La Procesión

Finally, two other essential components of the procession arrive:

El cohetero
will shoot the cohetes
announcing the procession's progress
through the pueblo.

La Banda
Don't you just love their lavender checked shirts?

With everyone ready, the procession starts off.

Señoras del comité carry San Lorenzo
 on his palanquin.
Although the modest palanquin
isn't bedecked with flowers,
bouquets are carried in front of it.

Wall banner reads:
"Parish of San Lorenzo,
Festival in honor of our patron.
Program of events"
Two jovenes, young men,
wave the banners
of the chinelos' organizations.
Piñas y piñones grupo de comparsas
(Literally, Pineapples and Pine Nuts)

is an association of chinelo groups.
Facebook: @pinasypinones,

























Brincos,
jumps and spins 

Rostros, Dignity and Identity

As we follow the procession and focus on the striking masks of the chinelos, we feel something very basic to being human is being portrayed. There is a kind of classic formalness and stillness to their rostros—visages or countenances. Together with their elaboate headdresses and robes, they convey both a regal-ness and a sense of great dignity.

The image is, of course, one existing only in the imagination, yet it is also an image created from a combination of impressions of two extranjero, or foreign, cultures:
  • Spanish conquistadores and peninsulares, Spanish nobility and upper-class who arrived in the 16th century to replace indigenous nobility and rule Nueva España; and that of the
  • Moors, another ruling nobility whom the Spanish nobility had finally fully defeated just shortly before arriving in the New World; the Catholic friars presented the Moors to the newly-conquered indigenous in Nueva España as an example demonstrating the need to subject themselves to Spanish rule and the Catholic faith.
But in el disfraz, the costume|disguise of los chinelos, the face of the merged cultures of conqueror|conquered has been adapted and adopted by el imaginario, the collective imagination of the people of Mexico. In response to the devastation of their indigenous nobility and culture, the traditional costume|disguise of los chinelos is one of the ways by which el pueblo, the people claim, even reclaim, their ongoing dignity and identity as a people—that is, as a community of people of value, worthy of respect, honor and celebration.

In fact, looking into the faces of the persons behind the chinelo masks, and of the fiesta committee and parishioners of el Pueblo de San Lorenzo Huipulco, we see the same dignity.


Tradition, Identity and Dignity Are Passed On ...

Delegación Tlalpan 

Delegación Tlalpan (mustard yellow),
is at the southwest corner of Mexico City.
It is just south of Coyoacán (purple)
and west of Xochimilco (pink)
and Milpa Alta (light yellow).

Tlalpan is the largest of Mexico City's 16 boroughs. At 120 sq. miles, it is about the size of Philadelphia or Atlanta, or New York City's Borough of Queens. Eighty-three percent of its 650,000 inhabitants live on 15% of the land in the urbanized north. Much of the southern part is mountainous conifer forest, serving as water supply for the city and protected as national parks or forest preserves. Wikipedia

Huipulco (starred), is at an historically important crossroads
"wedged" into the northeast corner of Tlalpan.
It is on the Calzada (main highway) that runs north through Coyoacán
to the Centro Historico, (Tenochtitlan).
Xochimilco is just to its east, with its famous chinampas, "floating gardens",
in the Parque Ecologico Xochimilco (dark green area).

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Mexico City's Original Villages-Coyoacán: The Lord of Compassion Travels from San Pablo Tepetlapa to Santa Úrsula Coapa

Many times traveling by taxi down la Calzada de Tlalpan, through the southern part of Coyoacán, we have noticed what appears, from its simple facade, to be a very old church. We always say we'll have to visit it someday. Well, the summer visitas of el Señor de la Misericordia, the Lord of Compassion, to various pueblos and barrios of the delegación of Coyoacán, presented us with the perfect opportunity.

Being away from Mexico City for the first two weeks of July, we missed el Señor's procession from Pueblo Candelaria, where we last encountered him, to San Pablo Tepetlapa, south of Candelaria. Fortunately, we are back in the City in time for his transfer from San Pablo to Santa Úrsula Coapa. Both barrios are located along the Calzada de Tlalpan, the highway that follows the original Mexica causeway from Centro Histórico to what were pueblos originarios, original indigenous settlements, in what are now the City's southern delegaciones, boroughs, of Coyoacán, Tlalpan and Xochimilco.

San Pablo Tepetlapa

The meeting of el Señor with Santa Úrsula is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. on the fourth Sunday in July, but we want to greet him as he is leaving the church of San Pablo, St. Paul, in the original barrio of Tepetlapa, as we haven't previously visited it. We have been fascinated by the barrio from our investigations via Google Maps. Its core is a virtual circle, with cross streets intersecting near the middle, the classic pattern of an indigenous community, divided into the four quadrants of the cardinal directions, as was Tenochtitlan.

Barrio San Pablo Tepetlapa
Present-day Pueblo San Pablo Tepetlapa extends around the circular core

So we travel by taxi down División del Norte, past Pueblo Candelaria, arriving at about 9:30 a.m. at a narrow calleja, side-street, that is an entrance to this barrio.

Calle Miguel Hidalgo, just off División del Norte

There is virtually no one in the street, but we find the ubiquitous comerciante, street merchant, and ask the way to the church and la fiesta. La señora tells us that the church is actually on the other side of Division, but that the procession has already left the church and is traveling up Division del Norte—as the music of la banda and exploding cohetes announces. So we head off, following the sounds.

Iglesia de San Pablo Apostol Tepetlapa
Built in the 17th century, it faces the Calzada de Tlalpan, 

the original Aztec roadway, now a modern highway.

As we didn't make it to the church on time,
we returned a couple of weeks later, during Sunday Noon Mass, to take these photos.

Side entrance
Feligreses, parishoners at Mass

Moorish Dancers and the Spiritual Conquest


Passing through a callejón, alleyway, and down some stairs, we return to the main avenue and, ¡qué sorpresa!, what a surprise! We seem to have been transported back to some version of Moorish Andalusia. We had encountered los chinelos in the pueblo of Tepotzlán, in Morelos, just over the mountains south of Mexico City, but were not aware that they are a feature of fiestas in Mexico City.

Procession of chinelos leads el Señor de la Misericordia and his host, San Pablo, St. Paul.
Note the Virgin of Guadalupe on lead dancer (in red), 

symbol of the merger of indigenous and Spanish peoples.

Chinelo comes from the Nahuatl word zineloquie meaning “disguised.” The tradition of chinelo dancers is, ostensibly, a fairly recent one. According to a Morelos blogger, they began in Tepotzlán, a heavily indigenous Nahua community, in the late 19th century, as a way to mock criollos, pure Spanish-blooded residents, during Carnaval, just before Lent.

Exaggerated, pointed beards and blue eyes
mock Spanish nobility.
Masks are made of stiff netting, so wearer can see through it.

The chinelos' dance consists of brincos, jumps, and spinning like Sufi dervishes. Their elaborate costumes seem to be a takeoff on Islamic Moorish dress. We had encountered similar fiesta costumes in the explicitly named danzas de los moros in Purépecha pueblos in Michoacán, two hundred miles west and historically separate from the Nahua of the Valley of Mexico. 

Reggae figure, with dreadlocks.
How Jamaican reggae got to Mexico
is another mystery to be investigated

The Spanish friars brought such dances to Nueva España as a way to dramatize the Spanish defeat of the heathen Islamic "Moors," thus teaching a gentle, but not too subtle lesson to the "heathen" of the "New World."

Our interpretation is that these dances have been adopted by indigenous communities as an expression of their non-Spanish identity, while framing them within Spanish Catholic celebrations. This was clearest to us when we witnessed a Mass done in Purépecha, in Pátzcuaro, in which "Moorish" danzantes proceeded down the aisle of the Basilica de la Virgen de Salud, the Virgin of Health, and paid homage to the Virgin and the celebrating priest. The danzas de los moros and of los chinelos are another paradoxical cultural synthesis created by the Spiritual Conquest.  

Note Aztec Eagle Warrior on headdress of first dancer.
But, in full global syncretism, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse can also show up.

Visitors to the Labyrinth


The procession marches a short way up the modern Avenida del División del Norte then turns back into the ancient Pueblo San Pablo Tepetlapa

The Lord of Compassion, accompanied by St. Paul

Ever-present, essential banda

As we have experienced in other processions of el Señor, there are many stops along the route through the labyrinth of narrow callejas so the bearers of the saints' palanquin can rest. Added to that, this time there seem to be moments when the procession loses its way. After crossing an intersection, it has to double back and take a different path through the maze.

During one such moment of evident confusion, we comment on this to a man who is at the front of the chinelos, waving a large, colorful banner. 

Banner of
la Comparsa de Chinelos de San Lorenzo Huipulco

He explains that the chinelos are la Comparsa de Chinelos de San Lorenzo Huipulco. We recently learned about comparsas, dance troupes that perform at fiestas, when we encounterd la Comparsa de Charros de San Francisco Culhuacán at the fiesta in Candelaria. Huipulco is a colonia further down the Calzada de Tlalpan, at the entrance to the Delegación Tlalpan, where the southbound highway intersects with the main road to Xochimilco. The comparsa are invited guests of el Pueblo San Pablo Tepetlapa, so they don't know their way in their hosts' labyrinthian barrio.

At this point, we focus to take another photo of the colorful chinelos.

La Comparsa de Chinelos de San Lorenzo Huipulco
spontaneously pose for a formal group photo.

The young man carrying the banner then tells us that the annual fiesta of Huipulco's patron saint, San Lorenzo, St. Lawrence, is the week of August 7, with the culminating procession in which the Comparsa will participate on August 10. He invites us to come. We gratefully and excitedly accept the invitation. Another door into the pueblos originarios of the city opens. ¡Nos vemos allí! See you there!

People Behind the Masks


   






Along the way, two more traditional figures join us.

Torito, "Little Bull",
appears in many fiestas.
Bulls are symbols of both fertility and
aggression;
hence, of life and death.
Mojiganga, (mo-hee-GAN-ga)
wearing traditional indigenous huipil blouse.

Mojiganga is derived from medieval Spanish
street festivals, likely of Arabic origins.






























Neighborhood participants and onlookers



Ancient ritual in midst of the modern city


Eventually, the procession exits the maze of callejas of el barrio Tepetlapa and re-enters División del Norte, with its modern, multiple straight lanes and endless streams of cars and buses. 

Procession moves down División del Norte to where it intersects with Calzada de Tlalpan

At the intersection of División and the Calzada, itself a contemporary labyrinth of multi-lane underpasses and overpasses, the procession comes to a small open space alongside the bullicio, hubbub, of traffic. There, a traditional tapete de aserrín, sawdust carpet, has been laid out, in readiness for the meeting of saints.

Tapete de aserrín
Triangular upper figure is outline of the Lord of Compassion;
Lower scene of sun and sea, dolphins and seagulls
is poco raro, a little strange,
as Mexico City is over 200 miles from the Pacific Ocean

Soon, we hear the familiar sound of cohetes and a banda coming from the south.

Santa Úrsula Coapa


More chinelos lead the procession coming from Santa Úrsula Coapa.

Marisol and calavera,
sunflower and skull,
life and death.










Santa Úrsula arrives on her flower-bedecked palanquin,
accompanied by three pavos reales, royal turkeys, i.e., peacocks

El Señor de la Misericordia is given his place of honor behind his new host.

And we all start off toward el Pueblo Santa Úrsula Coapa.

Procession down the Calzada de Tlalpan, an eight-lane highway,
San Pablo, St. Paul, in the lead.
Men in navy blue T-shirts are the organizing committee from Santa Úrsula.

Neighbors and Friends


Duing the inevitable stops along the way first on the Calzada then in the callejas of Pueblo Santa Úrsula, we get to take notice of, and even meet, some of our fellow travelers and onlookers, a cross section of everyday chilangos, Mexico City residents.

Couple from San Pablo Tepetlapa










Old Church, Living Community


Eventually, the procession exits the narrow streets of the pueblo and returns to the Calzada. There stands the old church we had noticed so many times on trips down the highway, the parish church of Santa Úrsula Coapa.

Iglesia de Santa Úrsula Coapa,
Built in the 16th or 17th century, remodeled in the 18th and 20th centuries,
it directly faces the Calzada de Tlalpan.
In front of a modern, roofed bus stop,  sits a taxi in the new, official City colors.

In front of the church are street vendors, ubiquitiously present wherever people gather, be it at bus stops or church festivals.






Arrival of the saints, comida, dinner, and a sobering surprise


As saints approach the entrance, comida awaits to be served from the upper, rear level.

The bus stop outside and the narrow entrance
make it a challenge to get the saints and their palanquin into the equally narrow atrio.

Saints are received with applause, at least from the adultos mayores.

An unusual addition to a fiesta, an ataúd, a casket.

At this point, we become aware of an unusual addition to the procession into the church, an ataúd, a casket. We ask a person standing next to us why. She tells us that one of the members of the fiesta committee died suddenly yesterday in his home. So his funeral is being combined with the reception for the Lord of Compassion. We realize the combination could not be more fitting.

Priest....
...and altar boy await;

Cohetes are shot from the church roof...
... and the three saints are carried up the stairs,
through a narrow walkway,
into the church,...

Life, Death and Continuity


...where los feligreses, parishioners, await celebration of the Mass.

El Señor de la Misericordia is set in his place of honor.

A Statement of Faith:
"God is the force and power of the pueblo
(the people and their community)"

As we leave the church, we notice narrow doors in the high brick walls on both sides of the narrow entrance walkway. Opening them, we find the parish panteón, cemetery. 

Flower-bedecked panteón, the parish cemetery. 

Once again, we have encountered traditional rituals and contemporary, "ordinary" people full of life. And there is also death, this time in individual specificity as well as that universal reality symbolized in the suffering of el Señor. And there is ongoing faith in God and el pueblo, the continuity of communal and human identity.


San Pablo Tepetlapa is upper star.
Santa Úrsula Coapa is lower star.
Calzada de Tlalpan is main north-south highway on their eastern boundaries.
Parque San Andrés is Mexico Ambles' home base.