Mexican Festivities

Introduction
Maria Moliner defines party as “a group of extraordinary acts […]with which a familiar act is celebrated or for public delight. They are organized in a public place for some event or specific dates of the year”.

The first element is its extraordinary condition. Party days are different than all the others, they are expected and prepared.

The other important aspect of the party is the reason why it is celebrated. There are obviously family celebrations in which an important event of life is celebrated: marriages, baptisms, birthdays, births and deaths. Cities, saints with their sanctuaries and earth have their own. Memorable days have to be celebrated in a special way.

Mexican parties reflect and represent crossbreeding, natives and Spaniards did not only mix their genes, food and words but also beliefs and, of course, parties.

“Two bloods which had a brotherhood, although
conflicting in their origin, when they were literally
shed. But more blood has been born from this
crossbreeding than the one lost to achieve
assimilation”.
José N. Iturriaga

Mexico is a cheerful country. The festive calendar has more than 5000 yearly parties throughout the country. In civic parties, historic events are commemorated such as the Independence, a won battle or the birth of a distinguished citizen.

The Church which is in our case Catholic, also has its own calendar of festivities to commemorate special moments for believers.

There are also patron parties dedicated to patron saints who protect a group, a town or a neighborhood. On the other hand, Saints as well as Virgins and Christ images in sanctuaries have their own holidays.

Finally, parties of pre-Hispanic origin honor earth, our mother, who has to be treated in a special way in specific days and as well as for other forces of nature which complement her there is a calendar of agricultural cycles followed for pre-Hispanic rituals, and honors from the Catholic Church and the European culture. That is made in glorigfication parties of the solar cycle, fertility and prosperity parties and parties of darkness and penance.

Pre-Hispanic Roots of Mexican Festivities
These follow an agricultural ritual calendar. Their origin and meaning is related to corn cultivation which has a sacred value in some pre-Hispanic cultures and is part of myths about the origin of the universe and life. According to the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of Mayans, after several failures in using several materials, gods created the man with corn:

“…from yellow corn and white
corn his flesh was made; with corn
dough men’s arms and legs were made.
Only corn dough went into our parent’s
Flesh, the four men that were created”.
Popol Vuh

There are two main agricultural cycles in Mexican weather: the drought and rain seasons. Each one of them belongs to a moment in the life of country people and the importance of harvest and rain is related to the party calendar. In fact, many towns celebrate rituals which have the purpose of favoring rain or thanking mother earth for the harvest. Since the Conquest, festive cycles and catholic calendar of saints got together with the agricultural cycles which determined the dates of the sacred parties of towns in the American continent. This gave place to current celebrations as evidence of the incorporation of European elements to traditions of the conquered towns. Many pre-Hispanic parties were and still are religious, but now they are religious catholic parties. Deities which used to be worshipped were replaced by some catholic ones. Evangelizing friars knew how to give their saints the appropriate characteristics and natives accepted a change of image in the bottom of their conscience which did not determine a change in their faith because both, the ancient and the catholic, ended up being consubstancial.

The interrelation among groups and the effort of evangelizing of those who wanted to make acceptable the imposition of catholic rites, promoted a religion with elements of the indigenous tradition making liturgical acts more festive and spectacular since natives, black and Spaniards were living together.

Parties of this country somehow have pre-Hispanic elements as well as European and African. Those with evident pre-Hispanic origin can be grouped depending on their meaning in: parties of fertility and prosperity in the country, glorification parties of solar worship and parties of darkness and penance.

Parties of darkness and penance

All parties used to be cyclic among pre-Hispanic towns and were related to nature’s cycles: rain and drought take turns like light and darkness.

There are also cycles in the European perspective and parties can be celebrations but also punishments. In this sense, parties represent the cycle of life and death of Christ. The calendar starts with Candlemas day followed by the Carnival, Lent and ends with Holy Week.

Party for Tláloc, Chalchihutlicue and Quetzalcóatl /Candlemas day.

Candlemas day coincides with the celebrations made in the first day of the Aztec year in honor of Tláloc, god of rain, to his sister Chalchihutlicue, goddess of water and Quetzalcóatl, god of wind.

As most Christian ceremonies this has a pagan origin. It may be Moor although it is known that during pre-Christian times in central and northern Europe, it was one of the two most important fertility festivities and its priestesses originated the image of witches.

The name Candlemas day has its origin since the IXth century, an age in which the Candle Blessing ceremony was included and the blessed candles were used to save the dying, as protection from thunders and lightnings and to prevent the devil’s temptations. According to the catholic calendar, it commemorates the presence of Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem and celebrates the purification of Virgin Mary. According to the Bible, Mary, the mother of Jesus, should make a purification rite as all Jew women did. Hebraic laws follow the mandate Jehovah made to Moses: “When the woman conceives and gives birth to a boy, she will be filthy. The eight day she will circumcise the skin of his prepuce. And for thirty three days he will be in the blood of purge and no holy thing will touch or come in the sanctuary until the purge days have finished. And if she gave birth to a girl, she will be filthy for two weeks after she is born and will be for sixty days in the blood of purification. After the days of purification of a boy or a girl, a one-year-old lamb will be brought for sacrifice and a dove for expiation at the door of the testimony tabernacle for the priest. And it will be offered in front of Jehovah, it has to be reconciled and will clean its flow”. After the quarantine the new mother went to Jerusalem Temple with her child in her arms to carry out her religious duty.

Candlemas Day in Mexico
Festivities should start with the Carnival according to the European point of view but according to country people and natives, the tradition was inverted.

Each region and ethnic gives its their own cultural features. This party is full of special celebrations and the most important of them is the blessing of baby Jesus. In some places the godmother or godfather of the baby is that who found the figure inside the Rosca de Reyes.

On February 2, the baby must be taken out of the crib and dressed. There is a ritual for doing it and those who participate get a special relationship that lasts for three years. The first year, he is dressed in white, with no crown or throne. This costume must be similar to the one worn by the child of Doves, Madonna lilies, Roses, Holy child of Atocha or the Child of Miracles. He does not have a crown or a throne in the second year either and there is no specific color for the clothes, people usually choose the costume of a saint. He is dressed as a king on the third year, as the Emperor of the Universe with costumes like the Child of Prague, Christ Emperor of the world, etc. and he is sat on a throne. Some godfathers put him a cardinal’s hat because after the third year he I believed to make miracles.

The godfather or godmother takes the child to a mass to receive a blessing placed on a tray or basket with flowers. Decorated candles are also taken there which, after being blessed, will be used to ask for important favors to Christ or the Virgin; chia and wheat seeds are also blessed and then are used to decorate the Altar of Dolores which is set on the Lent Friday before Holy Week. The first year, the child is laid as he is too small and can not walk. The blessed child goes back to his owner’s house who sits him down and lights a candle which has to be lit until February 2 of the next year. Tamales are eaten in the afternoon with hot chocolate or atole (a hot corn drink).

The Tamale party of Candlemas Day
The fact that tamales are eaten on Candlemas Day is not a simple gastronomic whim. Tamales were also used in offerings made to gods in the Aztec cemetery and February 2 coincided with the beginning of the first day of the first month in the Mexica calendar called Atlcahualo.

In Coatetelco, Morelos, an offering is set with different meals such as pipian (a stew made with a peanut sauce) and ash tamales called tlaconextamalli. Once they have been blessed, they are shared among those present and one part of this offering is taken to a nearby hill and placed in a cave to ask for rain. The same day, the image of the Candlemas Virgin is taken n a procession to Tetecala, where she is expected with music, fireworks and dances.

Tamales are eaten in many festivities, for example: the ones made with goosefoot seeds are special for Holy Week; the ones made with anise are a part of the offerings of the Day of the Dead.

The Carnival
The background of this festivity

The Carnival in Ancient Rome
In ancient Rome, gods were believed to have created the world from an aquatic chaos. In order to be reborn, it was obviously necessary to come back to the origin, the chaos. One way of doing that was through the rites in a carnival orgy.

This festivity was called carrus navalis in Latin because the god Bacchus arrived in a kind of ship in the sea followed by the ships of other gods which came to fertilize the earth. These naval carts represent the etymological origin of the word carnival.

The floats, the costumes, the bacchantes and the music which came along with the gods are the precedents of parades, music, disguises and current carnival parties. Masks were, of course, a part of this party since those times and the ceremony of the marriage of the Queen of Spring –who represents fertility- with the Ugly King or Momo, who represents the spirits of vegetation, the Roman god of laugh, prank and luxury. These are traditions which, with some modifications, have been kept till this day and age in those places where the carnival is celebrated.

The carnival makes us think about disorder which is, for humans, the best way to imitate the originating chaos: in Ancient Rome, masters worked for the servants and sexuality was did not have rules or laws. The carnival may be understood as the ritual unification of opposites which creates the appropriate conditions for the regeneration of life.

The European Middle Ages tried to christianize everything inherited from Rome and the carnival was no exception. In fact, there is an incorrect interpretation which says that the word carnival comes from the expression carne vale which means goodbye to meat. It is believed to be true because at the end of this party, Lent begins and meat should not be eaten.

In the coast cities of Mexico the most cheerful exceptional carnivals are celebrated. Native groups of the country also celebrate them but very different to the ones from the great ports. Pre-Hispanic rites and religious features are mixed in this parties.

The five lost days (nemontemi and chaik’in)
Indigenous carnivals have a very deep religious sense because they correspond to nemontemi and chaik’in or the five “lost days” of the Mayan and Aztecan calendars. Ritual combats and dances were very important in their festivities. These traditions were mixed with some Europeans after the Conquest and the syncretism developed in dances, costumes and masks was so rich that it can still be seen in some carnivals as in Papantla and Huejotzingo.

In the rural world of Tlaxcala, Morelos and the State of Mexico, there are groups who perform some dances about some variations of the Conquest, like the Chinelos. There are also some parodies of the French Intervention with the Zacapoaxtlas and the French suavos, the sappers and the dance-drama of Agustín Lorenzo de Huejotzingo, Puebla. In Tzacuala, Hidalgo, the dance of Huastecos is performed. In Terrenate, Tlaxcala, there is the dance of knives with men dressed as women. In Santa Ana Chiautempan, also in Tlaxcala, the carnival Sunday the Dance of the Little Old Men is performed with masks. In Xaltocan, it is celebrated with the Dance of the Snake because it represents fertility. On Thurday, the Dance of Purification is performed. The Dance of Acatlaxques is celebrated during the carnival, Holy Week or Corpus Christie.

The mecos, the Huastecos, the Pharisees, the Jews, the Lacandones,etc are the characters get dressed as “wild natives” whitening their bodies and decorating them with drawings, they usually have some arrows and a mask or a plume to remind their kindness, then evangelized, and now they take part in the cycle of the Passion and Death of Christ. There is a purification rite with the arrows, which symbolize fertility.

The Carnival of Chamula, K’in Taiimoltic or Our Game is a copy of the mythic episodes of the sacred book Popol Vuh in its liturgy, its dances, the actor’s costumes, etc. The ceremony is a group of rituals with certain kind of food at the beginning and the end but most of all, they reinforce the social and personal behavior code of the group as well as of each of its members. The better-known part is the rite of purification when the Max or Monkeys and the butlers run over the burning dry hay, previously taken from the roof of some house. There are 13 groups of actors. The “Max” are the most colorful, who are some kind of monkey-men. Their costume is formed by a military frock coat –worn by the French during their intervention in Mexico-, a conical hat made of monkey skin and short pants down to the knees. Nowadays, they usually wear sunglasses making fun of tourists.

The Carnival in Veracruz
The carnival of Veracruz comes from the fancy dress balls that took place in the XVIII century, during the Colony. In that time, the civil and ecclesiastical authorities had the control of celebrations. They authorized the entrance to the city of Veracruz of those who did not live there: the black, militaries, skinners and natives could not participate in the party until, with the permission of the authorities, the doors of the wall opened up.

The Inquisition censured in 1776 the Chuchumbé, a lascivious roguish and irreverent dance of black and mulattos that were included in the party. Wearing disguises, they made fun their masters openly. The fancy dress balls were enriched by the participation of processions and masquerades. Thiery de Menoville relates what he saw in the carnival of 1777: “There are six gigantic figures at the front, representing a native man and a woman, a black man and a woman, and a Spanish couple carried by drudges and with a cheerful German dance. A great joker comes then, carrying a French figure of straw with the hips broken and its members dislocated. Other ten scamps come next wearing fish masks and hitting people with bladders full with beans they have on the tip of their canes.

The First Directive Committee of the Carnival of the Port of Veracruz appeared in 1925 and in 1926 the figure of the Ugly King of the Carnival was born, which is nowadays the King of Happiness. In 1942 the first Infantile Queen of the Carnival was elected.

Time has made this celebration acquire popular and splendid features that make it what it is today. Baca Rivero considers carnivals as authentic mechanisms of hygiene in the collective psychology for the inhabitants of the port.

The carnival of Veracruz lasts for three days during which, people wear disguises and dance on the streets. On the previous Saturday, bad humor is burned”, the queen of the carnival is elected as well as the ugly king who will head the parades. There are flower and confetti-filled shells combats.

The following day, the seafront, full with spectators, is the scenario of the parade of floats with their respective dance groups. Every year a school of samba from Rio de Janeiro participates alternating dances with the local processions. The people of Veracruz and the Sacred Pope know that: the Carnival of Veracruz is the most important party in Mexico, and even though there are carnivals in many other cities, none equals it.

The Carnival in Yanga, Veracruz
The Yang Bara Club began has organized a carnival since 1976 in the previous days to August 10, day of San Lorenzo, patron saint of San Lorenzo de los Negros or Yanga, (“the first free town of the American country), founded by the wild black headed by Yanga.

This carnival is a party of the black: the floats and the processions represent the black slaves that escaped from their masters, to take refuge in Yanga, a town whose previous names always made pejorative allusions to the black race.

Celebrations for Tótec, Tláloc and Coatlicue/Lent
During Lent meat abstinences are made during six Fridays after Ash Wednesday. It coincides with the months of Tlacaxipehualiztli, dedicated to Tótec, the skinned God of the Young Corn, and the month Tozoztontli, dedicated to Tláloc and Coatlicue. These parties consisted of wearing the skins of the sacrificed, to put them in a cave later, with the purpose of reinforcing rain petitions.

One of the characteristics of Lent in Mexico is that, in different surrounding towns, it is celebrated with a collective Christ's image, considered more miraculous during five Fridays.

Ash Wednesday
Lent begins with the Catholic rite of Ash and ends on Easter Sunday at the end of the Holy Week. On Ash Wednesday, the priest burns images or blessed palms of the previous Palm Sunday and he draws a cross of ash on the forehead of the faithful to remind them that they are dust and dust they will become.

Our ethnoses celebrate this date with several dances: that of the Chicaleros, that of the Tejorones Viejos and that of the Tamoxontli, in which an exceptional corporal make-up is used, a feather headdress and a small musical instrument.
Every Friday of Lent the abstinence must be kept, that is to say, people should abstain from eating red meat. This gives place to rich Lent dishes, characteristic of this time of the year: romeritos en mole; caldo de habas, tortas de papa, tortas de charales, nopalitos navegantes, all the stews made with seafood, flores de calabza rellenas, peneques rellenos de queso en caldillo de jitomate, caldo de lentejas, etc.

Parties to Cinteotl and Chicomecóatl/Holy Week
It coincides, in the ancient Aztec calendar, with the month of Hueytozoztli, in which Cinteotl and Chicomecóatl were honored, corn ears which are the base for the new seeds.

After the party of the Virgin of Guadalupe, this is the party celebrated more often in Mexico. We should say one more time that urban and rural celebrations are not the same due to the elements related to the spring equinox and the preparation of the sowing.

The Ceremonies begin on Palm Sunday with the sale, in front of the churches, of interwoven palm leaves that are taken to bless and kept in the family altars the whole year. These blessed leaves are believed to have special powers, for example, if a piece of the blessed field is burned, rain stops.

The most important rites during Holy Week are the processions in which religious images are carried, accompanied by women that brandish candles or censers and flowers while they all sing in falsetto. These are made on Holy Thursday and Friday, and Easter Saturday and Sunday.
During Holy Week one of the most impressive popular ritual theaters is performed. In general terms, the drama of the Passion and Christ's Death is staged, following a general script, in which the characters are Christ, live or in image, Roman centurions, Jews and pharisees, twelve apostles, represented by children or young men, Pilate, Magdalene, the Virgin Mary and others. At the end of the XVIII century these representations were prohibited for being considered heresies. However, they have such a popular deep-rooted tradition that they are still made in several colonial cities of the country like Taxco, Guerrero, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí and San Cristobal de las Casas. They are solemn celebrations, the Procession of the Silence is carried out and the penitents undergo brutal sacrifices.

Holy Thursday
Holy Thursday commemorates the establishment of the Eucharist, the Priestly Order and The Maundy. According to the New Testament, Jesus gathered his apostles and it blesses bread and wine which symbolize his body and his blood and, metaphorically, they become the spiritual food that will redeem men. This constitutes the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the priest reproduces in each mass when he blesses the wafer and the wine.

On Holy Thursday, there is no mass and the altars are covered purple fabric that symbolizes mourning. In the biggest altar they put a monument to the Sacred Eucharist and the faithful are used to visiting seven churches, that is to say they fulfill the “visit of the seven houses. This rite consists of making the visits, and pray certain prayers that are special for such a remembrance of Christ's image with the cross on his back, which will allow them to obtain forgiveness for their sins. In this day, blessed bread and bouquets of camomile flowers and rosemary are sold.

That same day in the night the rite of “the Maundy” is made. This act reclls the moment in which Jesus washed his apostles’ feet. The ceremony is also represented in the indigenous communities by children or the young people of town, big banquets are offered to them.

Holy Friday
The passion and death of Christ are commemorated. At three in the afternoon, the priest pronounces in his church the Sermon of the Seven Words. Then, accompanied by the faithful, prays the Via Crucis: walking from station to station, it recalls the 14 moments of Christ's Passion.
The first station represents the betrayal of one of his followers, Judas. Jesus Christ iss praying in the Orchard of the Olive trees, when this apostle turns him in to the Pretorian guards by giving him a kiss on the cheek. Judas receives some silver coins for the service given to the soldiers. Jesus recriminates him in such a way that the traitor ends up hung and condemned for all the Eternity. The first thing the soldiers make against the one that said he was the son of God is to ridicule him: they put a red cloak on him, they crown him with thorns, they whip him, they take him from Herod to Pilate, and at the end he is condemned. The condemnation, common in those times, consisted of crucifixion. Those sentenced, must carry the cross while they are whipped, and Jesus, hit and wounded, falls down three times. In the first one, Veronica dries his bloodstained face with a canvas in which his face is clearly drawn; then, he tells his mother, the Virgin that His Father had given him that destination since immemorial times and he asks her to cry for humanity, not for Him. When he arrives to the Golgotha hill, he is nailed to a Cross that has a sign saying: INRI , which was some kind of joke because these letters mean: Jesus of Nazareth, King of Jews. Dying, a blind man stabs him with a lance in the on the ribs and the water comes from the wound makes him see again when it sprinkles him on the eyes. Jesus requests water and they moist his lips with vinegar and bile; Dimas, a thief crucified that was at his right side, converted to Christ's faith before dying, and Christ promises to see him in the Kingdom of Heaven. He asks the Lord to forgive those who killed him saying they did not know what they were doing and, finally, he gives his spirit to God before dying.

When the Via Crucis ends, the Holy Funeral's procession begins. The faithful, in mourning, accompany Christ's image in its tomb to another church where they give their condolence to the Virgin of Soledad. This ceremony is made in Taxco, Guerrero; Guanajuato, Guanajuato; San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi; or in some areas in Mexico City like Iztapalapa or in some neighborhoods like Coyoacan and San Angel.
The altars of all the churches have few flowers, almost in the dark and the images are covered with purple cloth; a situation that will not change until the mourning ends, on Easter Sunday.

Easter Saturday
The Resurrection is now celebrated on Easter Sunday, even though it was celebrated on Easter Saturday shortly ago. The Vatican made a change to the Catholic liturgy, since, according to the Gospels, Jesus resuscitated the third day.

The Burning of Judas:
The Spaniards brought Mexico the habit of “burning Judas, the heretic par excellence. It is said that the Inquisition burned them, as a representation of those fugitives who in spite of having escaped from the physical flames, they received them through the puppet's body and through the fire that waited for them in hell to which they were condemned for the Eternity.

The Judas or Juan Carnaval is a puppet that, generally, looks like a devil. Its burning represents the purification that is obtained by the fire and prepares the beginning of a New Year, which for peasants begins with the spring, when nature is renewed and the sowing is being prepared. That is to say, when the Holy Week takes place. In some indigenous communities, like the Huicholes, instead of the burning of Judas, they jump above a fire barrier made with burning hay.

Some Judas were dolls that represented public characters people did not like. This was so popular that, the dictator Santa Ana published on March 17,1853 an ordinance that prohibited this practice: [...] those dolls, commonly named Judas, will neither be burned or sold, whenever they have some costume or distinguishing characteristic which ridicules a social class or a specific person... On Tacuba and San Francisco streets, currently called Madero, in Mexico City, a special kind of Judas is burned. Their bodies were stuffed with shoes, clothes, etc. that came out with the explosion of the doll caused by the fire. People celebrated and struggled in order to get something from it.

Judas dolls are handicrafts. They are made with reed frames that are covered with papier- maché and decorated with paint, usually bright red and black. However, the making and burning of Judas can be different from one town to another. For example, in the Costa of Windward, in the state of Veracruz, the Judas that is burned on Easter Saturday, is made of straw and dry hay.

Easter Saturday’s Bath.
Formerly, during the Holy Week, it was a sin to take a bath before Easter Saturday and that day, water was thrown to the people that were walking on the streets. Nowadays, water cannot be wasted and this practice is prohibited in some cities. That is not important since taking a bath during the Holy Week is no longer forbidden.

Easter Sunday
According to the current liturgy, Easter Sunday is the day in which Jesus Christ’s resurrection is commemorated. This day, bells ring again which, as a sign of mourning, had remained silent the three previous days. During those days, the faithful were called for the religious services with a rattle.

The Octave
The liturgy of the octave is the repetition, the eighth day, of the occupation of the party. At the beginning, they took place after Easter, Pentecost and Christmas. Since the VIIIth century, there is an octave for many parties. After the IXth century this practice was enlarged and, in the XIIIth century, under the influence of the Franciscans, it is applied to all the solemn parties of the Catholic liturgy. The Greek Catholic Church also admits, to a certain extent, the celebration of octaves in its liturgy.

Fertility and Prosperity Parties in the Fields
This cycle of parties covers the Catholic parties of Santa Cruz, San Antonio Abad, San Isidro Labrador, Corpus Christi, San Juan Bautista, San Pedro, Santiago Apostol, la Asuncion, San Miguel Arcangel and San Francisco.

Parties for Tláloc, Centeotl, Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloques/La Santa Cruz
On May 3, the party of Santa Cruz (the Holy Cross) is celebrated, a momentous party among numerous indigenous groups. The Santa Cruz replaced Tláloc, god of rain and other deities associated with the agricultural rites like Centeotl, goddess of tender corn, Tezcatlipoca and the Tlaloques.

A typical party of petition of rain is the Dances of The Tigers of the state of Guerrero, which comes from the towns of Acatlán and Zitlala.
This party is different in big cities: May 3 is bricklayers’ day. It is celebrated with abundant food and drink paid by the owners of the construction. A priest blesses the building and the adorned cross that presides it.

Blessing animals and seeds / San Antonio Abad /San Isidro Labrador
January 17 is San Antonio Abad's day, protector of animals. This party is related with pre-Hispanic rites of blessing animals and seeds. Animals are decorated with Chinese paper and taken to church, where the priest blesses them. In Mexico City, where there are hardly any farm animals, children take their pets to the local parrish.

The party to San Isidro Labrador is similar to that of San Antonio Abad and is celebrated on May 15 in other regions of the country, with the same purpose. The yokes of oxen and carts used for sowing are adorned with ribbons and paper flowers and the yokes hold mosaics made with all kinds of seeds, which sometimes also decorate the atrium of the church.

Cycle of the Tzolk'in /Corpus Christi
The party Corpus Christi or Body of Christ in the Catholic tradition commemorates the introduction of the Eucharist and in the Latin Church it is celebrated on Thursday after Sunday of the Sacred Trinity. The Roman Apostolic Catholic Church began celebrating it in 1264 and it was permanently instituted in 1325. This party shares is also included in the Greek church and it is also known in the calendars of the Syrians, Armenian, Copts, Melquites and Ruthinians from Galicia, Calabria and Sicily. In Mexico, Corpus Christi's party replaced the indigenous party of the cycle of the Tzolk'in which ends on October 27.

Papantla’s Flying men
For the Totonacos of Veracruz, it is the most important party. Since Viceroyalty times, pilgrimages have been made in order to pay the tithe to the Church and the tradition of the “mules of Corpus” arose from this: families dress children as natives.

The flying men’s performance is not only a dance, it is a quite complex and old ritual, full with rites and dances. Originally, it was not limited to the air exercise on the flyer's stick. It is known that, before the Conquest, this rite was practiced from the Huasteca to the southern part of what today is Guatemala. Nowadays, only an abbreviated version of the flight is represented, especially among Totonacos, Nahuas, Otomies and Huastecos. The function of the rite is to invoke the gods of forests, wind, thunder, rain and crops.

The flyers of Papantla have become a folk ritual that omits some parts of the original rite and that reduced version is the one that has remained and arrived to many countries, thanks to the diffusion made by its performers through a strong labor association that unionizes them.

There are other reasons that they have accelerated the change of this tradition: the traditional costume has been simplified because, the materials that were used in the XIX Century, as braids and pieces of Czech glass or very expensive French beads, have become unreachable products since the cultivation of the vanilla moved to Madagascar and the local prices and production fell. On the other hand, the flyers now use an iron pole because the trees that were good to make the flying stick are extinguished.

Formerly, a rooster was killed and its blood was spilled in the center of a square accompanying other offerings. In that place, the log of a chosen tree was nailed without branches in whose tip a small movable square platform was placed that held from each corner with rope. The flyers, disguised as eagles, quetzals or herons, tied their feet to that square. Then they ascended to the tip of the stick, they threw themselves from there with open arms and they flew around the log 13 times, while the fifth participant danced on the mast and played a flute, a chirimía and a drum. What has remained is part of the costume and the way of flying and dancing in the top of the mast. Each one of the flyers represents the four directions of the earth and their turns symbolize the 52 years of the solar cycle according to the Aztec calendar.

In pre-Hispanic times, it was mainly carried out in Mexico-Tenochtitlan. At this moment, the most famous flights are made by the Totonacos of Papantla, during Corpus Christi's festivities.

Guelaguetza
Among the towns of Oaxaca they are known as “the Parties of Hill Mondays” or Guelaguetza, a Zapotecan word that denotes the act of cooperative participation; a gratuitous gift that does only has the obligation than of reciprocity.
The Guelaguetza is expressed in the offering to the City of Oaxaca made by representative groups of the seven traditional regions: each delegation presents a sample of its cultural patrimony through dances, music and songs, wearing the elegant costumes of their respective towns. At the end, each group distributes the audience its guelaguetza , formed by characteristic objects of their respective regions.

This celebration was made during the Colony. It has relation with the Corpus party of the Church of Carmen Alto, a temple that the Carmelite built at the side of a hill which the Zapotecas called “de la Bella Vista”. It was celebrated the following Sunday, July 16 and it was repeated one week later eight days, what is called the octave . Some local indigenous were soon added to this party gladly ,particularly in those towns surrounding the city, those of Guaxaca that was the capital of the Marquisate of the Valley granted to Hernan Cortez by the king of Spain, and Xochimilco that had been founded in 1521.

Nowadays, in Oaxaca, on the Saturday previous to the first Monday, a parade is made headed by the groundhog (a great spherical figure covered with cloth), the giants” or mummeries and the “chinas oaxaqueñas (women that carry decorated baskets, full with flowers), accompanied by a music band and fireworks. There are also different groups playing the music of each region. The next day, in the Central Square, the Goddess Centéotl's representative is chosen. She will preside all the festivities. She is not only the most beautiful girl, but the one that knows her town’s traditions. That there is a dance called the Bani Stui Gulal that means repetition of the antiquity. This dance recreates the history of this celebration. The following Monday begins with a serenade. The chirimeteros of the Central Valleys plays “las mañanitas” to the hill with whistles, drums and chirimías, while people have a delicious breakfast. In the afternoon there is a theater play about the legend of princess Donají, daughter of the Zapotecan king Cosijoeza and the princess Coyolicatzin. Between the first and the eighth Monday there are different activities as gastronomic and handicrafts fairs and representations of the communities’ traditions. In the last years they the African-American-mestizo towns that inhabit the coast have been invited to participate. In the Octave , that is to say, on the last Monday of the celebration, the Bani Stui Gulal is performed again, as well as the Guelaguetza and the representation of the princess's legend.

Parties to Tláloc /San Juan Bautista and Tezcatlipoca /San Miguel Arcángel
Tláloc is the God of rain, who wears a mask of snakes and has relation with the god of hurricanes, thunders and tempests, called Tezcatlipoca, the one with a ray in the hand. Saint John the Baptist replaced Tláloc and his celebration is close to the summer solstice; Saint Michael Archangel replaced Tezcatlipoca and his day is near the autumn equinox. This cycle, between summer and autumn, is the time in which rains have made their job and the crops should be collected before the hurricane region ruins them.

Parties to Mother Earth / Virgin
The dates of the Mary the Virgin’s celebrations coincide, in agricultural terms, with the cycle of the Yaxk'in or of thanking the fruits of earth; that is to say, the end of the period of crops and the parties of gratefulness to Mother Earth. The dates of the main parties dedicated to the Virgin, coincide with this cycle: The Assumption, August 15; Mary’s Nativity, September 8; and the Immaculate Conception, December 8.
Among the Huasteco towns, the party of corn, or of The Tlamanes it is the party of gratefulness to the earth.

Parties to Xiuhtecutli / Esquipulas, Cristo Negro, San Sebastián
This half of the Yaxk'in ends with the parties in Esquipulas, the Black Christ and St Sebastian, the martyred apostle. These coincide with the parties to Xiuhtecutli, god of the fire celebrated in the Aztec month of lzcalli.

Parties to Miccailhuitontli /Todos los Santos and Fieles Difuntos
The Catholic parties of All the Saints and The Deceased Faithful, replaced Miccailhuitontli or the party of the dead. Chroniclers determined that on the ninth month of Tlaxochimaco (August) dead children would be commemorated, while the party for grown ups was the following month, Xocolohuetzin (September).

The party of the dead is, without any doubt, the most spectacular in our country. In some places there is a difference between those killed (October 28), the souls “in limbo or those children who died before being baptized (October 30), dead children (November 1) and dead adults (November 2).

With the firm conviction that the dead come back every year, an altar is put presided by the deceased's picture. Offerings include flowers, food, incense, water, candles, toys for the children, cigarettes and drinks for the adults, etc. The offering is made especially: the pottery is new, and there are exclusive dishes for this party. The most important ones are mass, tamales, calabaza en tacha, bread with heads and hand figures on, candy animals, toy tombs and skulls modeled with colored sugar with the name of the person who will eat them written on the forehead. These skulls can be authentic pieces of art. There are also some made of chocolate, cardboard or clay.

In the northwest of the State of Mexico and in Michoacan, families also include sugar objects representing those things the deceased loved: hats, boots, bulls, horses, furniture and even cars and trucks.

In the Mixe area of Oaxaca, fog is a special guest in these parties, since it gives them a special touch of magic and mystery.

The parties to Huitzilopochli / Christmas
This celebration is conceptually related to the pre-Hispanic party Panquetzaliztli, which celebrates Huitzilopochtli’s birth. Christmas parties are Catholic and they celebrate the birth of God in Christ's body. Christmas begins with the party of Advent, which takes place during four Sundays, beginning four weeks before December 24.

Posadas
The posadas last for 9 days: from December 16 to 24. This party is religious, commercial and social. These parties are made in Mexico and in some other Latin American nations.

Not all the towns celebrate them in the same way, although certain litanies are sung in all of them which talk about the problems Mary and Joseph had while trying to find a place where she could give birth. These songs are called carols.

In Mexican towns the celebration is very moving. One part of the faithful leaves the church, with candles and flowers. They take with them images of Mary and Joseph. When they come back, they find the door closed and they request to get in singing, while those who stayed inside, also singing, refuse to receive them. At the end, the door opens and the Sacred Pilgrims enter. Then the party begins. In the atrium of the church or in the yard of the house they arrive to, a piñata is hung which usually has the shape of a star, filled with fruits, peanuts and candy.

Pastorelas
The pastorelas, created after the evangelization, represent passages of Jesus' birth and the complete version of the popular religious theater was a Spanish inheritance.

Nativities
Nativities, dramatic representations with figures made with many different materials, and some with live characters, give something special to this singular party with their magnificence.