Rat in a Bowl November 2, 2021
There is something uniquely ghoulish about November Second, and American Halloween is only part of it. Imagine a drunken crowd of white sightseers, painted even whiter with skeleton makeup, crashing a eulogy. and you have a genuine cross-cultural nightmare. The sacred day has become even more popular since James Bond’s opening scene in 2015, which featured an obscene parade of Catrinas Calaveras dancing through Mexico City. Such a thing never did exist, that is, until Hollywood created one and sold it.
Chiapas commemorates the day in its own inscrutable way. Here it is called K’in Sañtyo. There is some kind of rat reclined in a soup bowl next to a bit of potato on the Peace Plaza. The animal is barely recognizable in the murky broth but for its toothy grimace of agony, its last expression before becoming the main ingredient. The creature’s innards are mostly gone, I assume, consumed. Only the head and tail are left intact, the latter resembling a Chile poblano stem curling out of the bowl. Welcome to Day of the Dead in San Cristobal.
The man who enjoyed this dish in life stands tall in the black-and-white photograph, next to his wife, who is wrapped in colorful layers of wool. The man is dressed in white from head to toe, with a straw hat and thoroughly worn sandals. This is the wardrobe of Lacondón Maya, the jungle people to the east. Rat soup may have been the wife’s specialty, and her husband seems to have enjoyed it with wedges of squash, green oranges, and a bottled water, if the family shrine is accurate.
A giant crucifix of golden marigold flowers, Cempasúchil, covers the Plaza, lined with ceremonial candles, but there is no chance of keeping them lit in this wind. Indeed, the pine-needle bedding for each of the family altars is blowing away. This is no cause for concern, as these shrines are meant to scatter to the four corners. Impermanence is the whole point.
Urns of Copál incense smolder in the setting sun. The last light of the day flickers against drying ears of corn, cacao, and thick canes of sugar, each placed with care amid personal items of the deceased—small keepsakes, a hairbrush, an open pack of Chesterfields, a shot-glass of Pox, and other indicators of a life well lived.
This public scene of mourning is purely for the tourists. The real Dia de los Muertos is strictly a private affair, honored mostly at home. The cemetery at the edge of town was perhaps once hallowed ground, but, ever since the Coco movie, the graveyard has been infected by halloween-seekers. It is akin to Yanquis going out to look at the Christmas decorations, only to arrive at a funeral instead.
“Pinche Coco de Mierda,” says one local source with reservations.
I certainly do not remember rat soup from the movie, but otherwise I am confident that Coco is perfectly representative of the Mexican experience—at least as presented by the Californians to the Chinese. I am starting to think that the eviscerated rodent placed so delicately on the altar of the Peace Plaza is meant to symbolize something other than one man’s favorite meal. It may be meant just for me. If I find a bowl with a bit of potato and a middle-finger in it, my hypothesis will be confirmed.