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Orgullo Mixteco Por Salvador Rojas
This year, Mexico is celebrating its bicentennial of its Independence
and 100th anniversary of its bloody Revolution. These are recent mile stones.
Mexico’s history goes back thousands of years before Jesus Christ. One has to
travel Mexico to appreciate what our ancestors accomplished, from the creation
of Xocolatl (chocolate) to the Mayan Pyramids of the Yucatán.
In 2009, I
traveled two weeks through the southern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, Mexico
along with my friend Renzo Devia. He was filming a documentary series titled “Afro Latinos”.
It
was fascinating to the see the Indigenous cultures of Oaxaca from the
Afro-Mestizos, Mixtecos, and the Trique. To hear them speak their native tongues
takes you back to the time before Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Veracruz.
I discovered that Mexico has 62 Indigenous languages that are still spoken
today, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world.
While spending a day in the small town of San Andres Huaxpaltepec,
Oaxaca I came upon a mural near a Catholic church.
This panoramic
photograph consists of four of my photographs stitched together to complete the
full Oaxacan mural.
The theme of the mural is “Tradiciones / Traditions
” and was painted by a small collective of artists: Angel Carrasco, Leonides
Rendon, Mataki and Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez aka Dr. Lakra. Dr. Lakra is a well
known Mexican tattooist and is the son of one of Mexico’s most famous living
artists Francisco Toledo.
The Oaxacan mural is dedicated to the rich
traditions and customs of the local Mixteca culture. “Los Mixtecos” call the
town of San Andres Huaxpaltepec “Xini Titi” and means “Cabeza de Iguana / Head
of the Iguana”. The mural starts with an Indigenous Woman, and then the mural
features a black carnival mask (La Máscara Negra), an iguana head representing
the town, and the head of a bull. Followed by the local Iglesia Catolica where
Santo Patrón Tata Chú is worshipped. The solo dancer painted in dark hues
represents the night dance of “Dia de Todos los Santos” that happens every
November 1st, to honor all the saints of the Catholic faith. The dancer is
followed by an Indigenous Mixteca woman making yarn out of algodón by hand. The
mural continues with a group of four male dancers called “Los Tejorones”, they
perform their dance rituals during Easter Carnival. The dancers are wearing
tailored European style suits, conical feathered headdresses, and small wooden
masks painted pink with small moustaches, as a caricature of the Frenchmen who
invaded the area in the 19th Century but retreated. The mural ends with two
masks, the Jaguar mask and “La Máscara Negra.” The different masks painted on
the mural are used in various dances though out Mexico, where the “Máscara
Negra” represents the Afro-Mexican population of the Costa Chica area of Oaxaca.
El Sol Sale Igual Para Todos!
Fotografia Y Escritos Por Salvador
Rojas
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