San Juan Chamula

Tuesday afternoon we took a taxi with the two sons of our absentee landlord out to San Juan Chamula.  More about Damian and Sebastian later.  Suffice it to say that they are single and in their mid-twenties.  Chamula is a small town about ten kilometers outside San Cristobal.  Essentially all the inhabitants are of Maya descent.  Maya is their first language and the old traditions of culture, religion and dress are still carried on.  We were fortunate in our timing in that yesterday was their big annual celebration coinciding with Carnival.

All the mini buses were jam packed with people going out to the festival, so the boys grabbed a taxi instead. We got there about 1:15pm and the central plaza, which is quite large was filled to capacity.  The streets, balconies and house-tops with any view of the plaza were packed, too.  There were thousands of people there, almost all of them were Chamulans wearing their traditional dress.  The women all wear a black, furry wool skirt and embroidered tops.  The men wear white or black furry wool poncho tops over their pants and shirts.  There were also bands and others with official parts to play that had various other colorful costumes on.

We worked our way through the crowd to the edge of the plaza, where men and boys in costumes were bringing in, one or two at a time, bulls that were held on a long rope.  The bulls would run in a big circle around the plaza and people in the crowd would try to run out in front of the bull to touch it.  When the bull would head toward the crowd of onlookers, everyone would surge back and push those behind them.  As we stood and watched, all of a sudden we saw Sebastian run out and the next thing we knew, he was riding the bull!

From this point on we split up from the boys.  They were planning on staying a lot longer than we were.  We stood and watched from the edge of the plaza for a while longer; then, we decided to visit the church facing the plaza.

The church is technically a Catholic church; but, no masses are held in it.  There are the usual saints around the interior, but no pews.  The floor is strewn with pine needles and there are candles in front of the images and set on the floor.  People are sitting on the floor in front of them, many praying in the Maya language.  It is a mixture of Christianity and the old religion.

After coming out of church, we found a little store above the plaza where we bought sodas and were able to sit in a couple chairs and just watch.  The bulls continued to be run.  Various bands wandered through the crowd playing.  At random intervals sky rockets and extremely loud fireworks were set off.  There were people everywhere selling things to eat and drink, and there certainly was drinking!  We saw one fellow passed out, just laying on the ground with people walking around him.  The boys had told us that by the evening, the "party" would be pretty wild.

We finally left after about two hours.  We caught a "combi", a van back to San Cristobal.  On the ride back no one in the van was speaking Spanish, only Maya.  It really was an amazing experience.  We probably only saw fewer than a dozen other gringos in the thousands of people there.  We were definitely the outsiders; yet, we did not feel unsafe or unwelcome.  We did feel in the minority.

The only regret I have is that I was not able to take any photos.  We were warned in advance that picture taking is strictly forbidden.  We did not see a single camera the whole time.  To get an idea of what Chamula is like, go to Google Images and type in San Juan Chamula Chiapas.  You can see images of the town and some the traditional dress.

In San Cristobal, the woman on the right is from Chamula, note the black furry wool skirt.

Added later.

I recently discovered a YouTube video that someone took on the very day we were in Chamula for Carnival.  I don't know how they took the video; but, it must have been at the same time we were there.  We were standing down the street from where they shot this video.

Carnival in Chamula