I was back at the main street by 5:15 am, (Ewan joined me within 5 minutes, and Sara shortly after) by which time Christ and Mary had drawn fairly close. There was a much larger crowd than during the night when I had let. I saw the statues draw closer and then meet and join in procession back into the church, about 5:30. Christ was left in front of the monumento, without his cross, while San Juan Carajo and Maria Andolor were placed near the Maria altar. I didn’t know it yet, but San Nicolas had been taken to the cofradía of Santiago Apostol.
When the statues are deposited, a new ceremony develops. Huge foil-decorated candles are carried in by persons, mostly men, moving on their knees the whole length of the church and onto the mat, up to the pillow. They lay the candle on the pillow in both directions (vertical then horizontal) then put a donation in one of the plates, and carry it behind to where a priest has opened the sacred navel hole. Groups of candles are placed into the hold while the priest prays and lectures to the holders. These are mainly male heads of families and older boys who will be tending the candles for more than 24 hours before they take them to their homes or to cofradías where they will burn for weeks in some cases (all of this and most other information from generous Andrew Weeks). I did see few women, whom I would assume are widows. Some of the candles came as arrangements carried on platforms. After the candles are blessed in the navel, their holders line the sides of the church nave and light them. I see this as the reverse of the candelabra ritual the night before, which signified the death of Christ/Maize, now replaced by his rebirth after the nighttime insemination. This ceremony of bringing and blessing the candles took about 2 hours.
About 7:30 am, the preparation of the cross began, A tall cross wrapped in white cloth was removed from the wall next to the Christ retablo and laid, with its top raised on a table, on the long mat where the ritual of placing the candles on the pillow had just taken place. Over the next several hours the articulated statue of Christo Sepultado was removed, by men of the Cofradía Santa Cruz, from the glass coffin near the base of the Christ Retablo and placed on the cross. His arms and feet were bound to it. New plastic flowers were used to replace those of the horizontal arms of the cross and Christ’s crown of flowers. His lower torso was dressed in a powder blue shroud to which were sewn dozens of plastic flowers. While this decoration goes on, a procession of men and women comes on their knees beside the cross to offer their devotions to the head of Christ. Meanwhile the coffin on the urna was being readied with a new mattress, blankets, flowers, all thoroughly perfumed with deodorant sprays.
Interrupting this procedure was a Catholic group with priest and loudspeaker, first making a stand in the church plaza and then entering the church with a small statue of Christ carrying the cross. The catholic Atitecos knelt and prayed in unison, singing hymns.
Also taking place at the same time, beginning around 9am, was the laying of the coloured sawdust carpets that decorate most of the ritual route (8 long blocks). One could see the leaders with coloured drawings of the designs that had been approved by a committee, and several helpers using piles of coloured sawdust drawn from huge bags with metal basins. Some of the repeated patterns were created with cut wood stensils, and many others were drawn out by the leaders. Each block-long segment is assigned to a specific person/artist, with the final examples at the end of the circuit being particularly high in prestige. The last segment is given to an alcalde, and the second last by the famous Ateteco artist, Nicolas Chavez, to whom Andrew introduced me that morning.
By 1pm, the image of Christ on the Cross is ready to be raised. Eight long poles with cloth-wrapped forks are used to lift it into place and set it into the navel whole. Two ladders are placed against it, and two sacristans climb the ladders and bind them to the arms of the cross with cloths. It is important to note that the traditionalists and Catholics apparently see this raising of Christ on the cross in two different ways. This is Good Friday, so the Catholics see it as representing the crucifixion, when Christ dies, to be reborn on Easter Sunday. For traditionalist, Christ-as-Maize was already reborn after the night-time insemination and the dawn lighting of the candles. So when he is raised in the whole that represents the navel of the world, he is the Maize as world tree, raising the sky.
While traditionalists and Catholics may see the image of Christ on the Cross in very different ways, it should be noted that this part of the ritual, like many others, requires a symbiotic collaboration of traditionalist and Catholic. Before the Catholics can have a mass for their crucified Christ, they must rely on the traditionalists of the Cofradía Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) to ritually prepare the image of Christ and bind it to the cross which they have also decorated.
When the cross has been raised, the traditionalists leave and Catholics crowd the church for a mass. I took the time to look in on Rilaj Mam again and to walk the ritual circuit to see the progress of the “alfombras” or sawdust carpets. They had been started largely in the order that they would be crossed by the urna or coffin of Christ, so those nearest the church entrance were almost finished, while those near the end of the circuit had barely begun; they would not be reached by the urna until early the next morning. Men with water tanks on their backs came around continually to soak the carpets with water to keep the wind from blowing the sawdust away. This process blurred the edges but did help preserve the carpets.
No comments:
Post a Comment