Camino Guanajuato Part 2: They've got the guns, but we've got the numbers

So in the last post I mentioned that the city of Guanajuato is a cool place, even if the expo was eye-gouge-outingly dumb. Guanajuato itself is one of my favorite Mexican cities though, and has some really interesting history. Of course, interesting history is the kind you wouldn't want to live through personally...

This picture is of the Alhóndiga de Granitas (public granary), site of a bloody siege where Mexican soldiers first turned against the Spanish Crown. The richest families of Guanajuato had barricaded themselves inside with all their extravagant loot, servants, and slaves, protected by several hundred Spanish soldiers. Outside, tens of thousands of indigenous slaves had broken out of the mines. (These workers were typically kept underground for the entirety of their short lives, naked and packed as tightly as cattle). They threw themselves at the bulwarks armed with little more than sticks and stones, dying by the hundreds every time the Spanish riflemen fired or poured mercury over the sides of the building. When actual soldiers came to the aid of the mob, they organized themselves a little better, and the tide of the battle began to turn--whenever the Spanish ducked out a window to fire they would be greeted by a hail of bullets and stones. You can still see the pockmarks all over the wall.

The Spanish launched a desperate calvary charge, and killed several hundred more before being drug off their horses and beaten to death. Then the Mexicans sent a miner nicknamed El Pípila to set fire to the heavy wooden doors, protected by a stone slab that he carried on his back. When the angry slaves finally broke in, they slaughtered every man, woman, and child inside. (Including, sadly, the helpless slaves of the Spanish nobility).

The Spanish, never to be outdone in the arts of cruelty, came up with an equally bloodthirsty scheme once they retook the city. Obviously some of the townspeople were complicit in the rebellion, but which ones? Since there was no real way to tell, they revived the ancient Roman punishment of decimation. (They held a lottery where the winners were rewarded with a trip to heaven).

Father Hidalgo, the leader of the movement, was eventually betrayed and captured--sadly a common theme among Mexico's national heroes. He was shot in a firing squad. According to one legend, no one could be found to decapitate his corpse, so they found some really drunk guy to chop off the head, who then committed suicide the next morning when he realized what he'd done. Father Hidalgo's head was then hung in an iron cage from the corner of the granary in the photo. It stayed there for the last decade of Spanish rule to teach the Mexicans a lesson about not yearning for freedom. Luckily, it didn't work.

Camino Guanajuato

We went to Guanajuato over the long weekend, which is a pretty cool city. And then for some reason we went to the "Guanajuato Expo" a few miles outside of town. Man, was it dull. The highlight was this bizarre electric scooter course, where Mexicans were lining up to wind their way around this loop at a painfully slow pace. I have no idea what the point was, but I can only imagine that since Mexico has surpassed the US as the most obese country in the world, they are trying to prepare their youth for a time when they will be too heavy to walk.

Movie review: Los herederos

The Museo de Arte de Zapopan has a weekly series of free movies, so Jenny and I have been going to practice our Spanish and take in a bit of high culture (not easy to do since Guadalajara is basically an overgrown village with some factories and urban sprawl tossed in). Last night we saw Los herederos (The Heirs), a film about child laborers in Mexico. It's a Frederick Wiseman-like documentary, with no narration at all. For the most part the camera just follows children as they make bricks, carry water, pick green beans, weave, make tortillas, and so on.

As the title ironically implies, they are the victims of generational poverty. The children depicted were all working in the countryside, but in different situations and areas of Mexico. On one hand, it was engrossing to watch kids who could do pretty intense work at an early age. How many 7 years olds do you know that can hitch up a mule? Or use jungle vines to tie fast a heavy bundle of firewood? Or use a machete? Many of the rich 18-20 year olds I teach probably couldn't even make a cup of coffee. In this sense there is something admirable about everyone from the 4 year old son to the 90 year old grandmother working together without complaint. Watching them follow a path through a cornfield to fetch water and plant seeds and feed the turkeys (a bird first domesticated by the ancient mesoamericans), you realize all of their ancestors did the same thing stretching back literally thousands of years.

The thing I enjoy about this style of documentary with no narration is that it invites you to daydream as you watch. I started to wonder if in all societies it has been normal for children to work just like everyone else at some point in history, and to imagine myself in the same situation.

Well, there is child labor and there is child labor. Other children in the film worked with their families picking produce on giant industrial farms. Both Jenny and I came to the same conclusion, that it seemed little better than slavery. The families were herded in and out of semi-trailers to do the same repetitive thing all day in the hot sun. It's outside, but its basically a factory from the 1800's. The thing that seems so horrible about children doing this kind of work is that they're not learning anything. They're being used as farm animals at a time when they should be playing, learning, growing, etc. Maybe the little girl helping her mother weave should be in school instead, but at least she's like an apprentice. Picking cucumbers all day on someone else's land there is nothing to learn, not much to be proud of, no way of improving yourself. And I'm sure they're paid so little that even with the whole family working they can't save a penny. Who owns this farm? How did they acquire it? The film doesn't tell us, but the history of Mexico is filled with examples of people forced to work for next to nothing on land they used to own before some culero took it away from them. I think if folks really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they would have to stop paying attention to America's toughest sheriff and start looking for solutions on this farm.

Here is a link to the trailer. There isn't much dialogue, so the language isn't important.

language struggles

Well, my Spanish may not be improving that much right now, but my English is certainly getting worse. I hear some incorrectly used words repeated so often by language students that they are beginning to sound normal to me. Consider:

"I'm going to put you a quiz on Friday."

"You have a lot of absences, so you'd better start working on your assistance for this class."

"I arrived to Guadalajara 3 years ago."

Santisima Muerte

Last Sunday I picked up these two framed Santa Muerte (Saint Death) posters at a flea market. Oddly enough, these are religious images, created by people who would consider themselves Christian. Here is my rough translation of the text on the right hand (battle axe wielding) one:

Prayer to Saint Death

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, immaculate being of light, I implore that you grant me the favors which I ask of you, until the last day, hour and moment that your divine majesty orders that I be brought before your presence. Beloved Death of my heart, do not remove me from your protection.

The cult of Santa Muerte is pretty fascinating, and I wish I knew more about it. It is definitely a lower class thing though, while most of the Mexicans I know are university educated professionals. I have read a few US based media reports linking the cult to drug traffickers, but I wonder if that isn't inflated to give an easy explanation for something that appears "evil" to outsiders (including the official Mexican Catholic Church). According to Devoción a la Santa Muerte Magazine, issue #6 (probably the best thing I've ever bought for under $1), "La Santisima Muerte NO castiga, ni se lleva a uno de nuestros queridos, sólo viene a ayudarle y guiarle espiritualmente." (Most Holy Death does not punish, nor does she carry away our loved ones, she only comes to help them and to guide them spiritually). The same magazine features testimony from a variety of people who are clearly not devil worshippers or narcos. A hospital worker sees visions of Santa Muerte at her work place, and patients are miraculously cured. A family writes to the magazine to thank her for saving them from death in a car crash. A housewife reports that after praying to Santa Muerte, her teenage son no longer hangs around with juvenile delinquents.

The magazine also provides some helpful tips on how to thank Santa Muerte with offerings for the miracles she bestows. Wine should be left at the altar in a glass goblet, and the bottle should be left uncorked so she can enjoy the aroma. Chocolates should be unwrapped, and can placed in any kind of dish. Cigars and cigarettes must always be offered lit. Flowers should be as beautiful and fresh as possible. Finally, do not make false promises to Santa Muerte or it is unlikely that she will help you again in the future.

Santa Muerte is often linked to the goddess Mictlancíhuatl, queen of one of four Aztec hereafters. She was not the only female Aztec deity to be depicted with a skull face though. The earth goddesses Coatlicue and Cihuacóatl both had a nurturing protective/ raging bitch duality, and could take terrifying skeletal forms. Women who died in childbirth also became goddess like skeletal beings. As childbirth was considered a form of combat, they were accorded the highest status, to accompany the sun in his daily battle to cross the sky. Who knows what elements of European folklore contribute to Santa Muerte. While odd Mexican customs are often attributed to its pre-hispanic past, the medieval outlook of the colonizers is certainly a factor too. Antiquated Spanish notions have sometimes lingered in Mexico long after having disappeared from their country of origin. The appearance of Santa Muerte has more Western iconography than Mesoamerican (scales, globes, scythes and so on).

Here is how the magazine's editor responds to those who say the cult of Santa Muerte is devil worship. "Now I do not know why they fear her and flee from her, if late or early we all will pass through that final material stage and begin the spiritual one..."