Bloody Pageantry April 18, 2022
“I was just molested by a taxi driver named Jesus. I wish I had his car number and photo but I don’t. He is short and stocky, obviously with some indigenous blood, late thirties with a small moustache. He said he is originally from Ocosingo, if that helps. He picked me up in Centro.”
Janet P., USA expat living in San Cristobal
Over a million Astrazenica Covid19 vaccines are about to expire, just as, suddenly, vaccine centers are opening everywhere—on the plazas, outside banks, and, soon perhaps, door-to-door. Better late than never—Mejor Tarde que Nunca. But on the morning after Easter, there seems a city-wide hangover, the streets are completely empty, and the hanging paper flags from yesterday’s parade and mock executions are in tatters. No one is in any mood to be inoculated by a masked health professional. Given the density of the crowd, I am afraid many of them inadvertently received their doses yesterday.
The Easter Sunday ritual demands that a bearded man in loin cloth carry a wooden cross up the hill from Iglesia Santo Domingo to El Cerrillo, but this selected Jesus is laboring in the hot sun. He is clearly out of shape. His “love-handles” suggest the advisability of some method acting, i.e., actual fasting for lent, but that path ended on Good Friday, and now the chubby man must climb the cross without assistance. The two criminals on either side of him appear far more prepared for the task. Gathered around them are at least a dozen Chiapanecos dressed as Roman soldiers. As Jesus climbs to his certain end, a rubber bloody-wound falls from his belly and must be reapplied.
Other sacrificial events include a bullfight in Tuxtla-Gutierrez and various blood sports with dogs and cocks, all of which makes me miss those comparatively tame Goat Races of Buccoo, Tobago, in which the only violence is provided by the reluctant jockey’s stick. Meanwhile, outside the Templo del Cerrillo, the costumed Roman centurions seem to enjoy whipping chubby Jesus a little too much, but one should never fault the actors for embracing their assigned roles.
On Friday, the ghastly image of a man being “burned alive” in San Juan Chamula set the expat facebook page on fire, particularly since the burning body was surrounded by so many disinterested bystanders. “Stealing” and being “a traitor to his boss” were his alleged crimes, leading some on-line to applaud brutal vigilantism as the authentic native way. However, authenticity is rarely what it seems. In this case, the barbecued assailant was a stuffed Judas Iscariot, who is routinely burned for betraying Jesus during Holy Week—in between dog and cock fights, that is.
I must admit, I have lost my taste for large crowded spectacles, so I did not stay long for the Churro-fueled pageantry of downtown, curmudgeonly wishing only that the children would go back to school already. Instead, they will take another week off, barely two months after a 2-year hiatus. Of course, many children here never go to school, as they have paying jobs to attend. The manifest deprivation gnaws at me, never more so as when craven visitors in bohemian chic start posing for pictures with the diminutive chewing-gum venders of all ages. This is when I want to grab that Roman’s whip and get to work.