Politics, Religion, and Coca Cola in Chiapas
Do a google search of San Juan Chamula, the small Mayan town that we visited today, and everything you´ve ever learned or experienced about the stereotyping and demonizing of native people of the Americas will be on display. But first, our experience in the town:
We organized a tour to two of the Mayan towns outside of San Cristobal de las Casas that left the city at 9:30 this morning. We decided to organize a tour instead of going it alone because our guidebook had advised that we travel with a guide familiar with the area if we wanted to steer clear of offense while a visitor in another´s community. This made complete sense to both of us. Neither of us wanted to overstep our bounds as visitors and we soon found that having a guide who knew the local people made us feel less like intruders and more like welcome visitors and consumers.
However, even our guide (who was obsessed with American music from the 60s and 70s, who kept singing Hotel California to us, and who claimed that John Lennon was his spiritual guide), seemed to have a low opinion of the people of Chamula (as San Juan Chamula is most often called). I think that his low opinion of Chamula had a lot to do with the fact that the town has long been a staunch supporter of the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party which ruled Mexico without interuption for more than 70 years until recently. Our tour guide, who declared himself a feminist (but, he was sure to mention, not a gay feminist), was a critic of the PRI and I think Chamula´s support of the political party, for him, cast a shadow over the people of the town. He often referred to folks from Chamula as macho capitalists who would do anything for a buck. He seemed to think they were very shrewd business-people with a rigid class system and often compared them to the people from the town next door who (according to him) approached their local economy in a much more socialist manner. However, the town seemed quite poor and our tour guide´s speeches about how these people loved money so much seemed (to me) to echo the American infatuation with Indian casinos and the contemporary myth regarding how North American Indians are all rolling in gambling money. But, aside from my slight discomfort with some of the language that he was using the describe the people, he was very kind to everyone that we came in contact with and referred to several old women, who seemed to love him very much, as his girlfriends and went and bought them cokes while we waited for him to return.
Coke brings us to another elephant of a topic. The Tzotzil people who live in Chamula practice a religion that blends traditional Mayan practices and Catholicism in an incredibly fascinating way. One of their central religious practices is drinking carbonated beverages to induce burping, which for them, is an important spiritual and medicinal act. For many years the primary beverage used for this purpose was pox (pronounced posh) which is an incredibly alcoholic drink that gets its carbonation through the fermentation process. Once soft drinks, which obviously have the same gassy effect, were introduced to the Tzotzil people, they began using them in their religious practices as well. So much so that when you enter the church (which is unbelievably beautiful and like nothing I´ve ever seen before), you cannot help but notice that there are Coca Colas everywhere.
Now, after a little bit of internet research (and an understanding that everything I´ve read could very well be false), I´ve been able make some connections between these two seemingly unrelated topics: the use of coke in religious practice, and the town´s support of the PRI, whose logo is displayed at the entrance to the town (the logo itself is a whole other topic of discussion as it is made of the colors of the Mexican flag, which the party´s critics have obvious problems with). Apparently in the weeks before elections, the PRI will supply store owners in Chamula with Coke and Pepsi (which, at fifty cents a can, costs the local people a day´s salary) free of charge if they will promise to support their candidate. Also, the PRI owns the companies that own the trucks that transport Coke and Pepsi into Chamula. If Chamula were to break with the PRI, they would in effect, cut off their cola supply, which would render them unable to practice important parts of their religion.
All of this political, economic, and religious complexity is displayed in the local church which is, I think I can say in all honesty, the most incredible place I may have ever been. It is unbelievably beautiful. From the outside, it doesn´t look much different from any other church I´ve seen in Mexico, but inside it is magnificent. It´s covered in candles, more candles than I´ve ever seen in one room. The walls are lined with statues of saints in glass cases and people sit on the floor in front of the statues speaking to the saints about their personal and spiritual problems. The floor is covered in pine needles, there are no pews and no priest or minister. People hire shamans to pray with them in the church, especially when someone in the family is sick or suffering. Cloths hang from the (very high) ceiling. And at the altar, in the center, is not the statue of Jesus (he is off to the left), but a statue of Saint John the Baptist. Megan pointed out to me that Saint John the Baptist was the predecessor to Jesus and this seemed quite fitting in a church that melded two religions, one that was in the area long before Jesus was ever introduced to the people there.
Anyway, I have a lot of thinking to do about the time that we spent in Chamula. For some reason all of the political, economic, and religious issues that the town brings up keep twisting themselves around in my mind. I am perfectly aware that I know very little about the Tzotzil people, the history of the town, or Mexican politics in general — so know that these musings are mostly just questions that I am asking myself.
But do take the time to google San Juan Chamula. One writer starts their discussion of the church at Chamula like this: ¨As we walked through the door of this former Catholic church, it was like stepping into Dante´s Inferno.¨ It´s this kind of bullshit that drives me crazy.
-Sarah
Tags: Chiapas, Maya, Mexico, Travel
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Wow. Now you’re traveling. Sounds amazing… even reading about your experience and observations is thought provoking. I’m imagining St. Catherine’s Church in Westford, full of burping parishioners. It’s a fun fantasy.
Vote-buying can be done on the cheap when people have next to nothing, eh? (notice the gratuitous, “eh?”)
It’s always a weird little wrinkle to have an unreliable narrator leading your tour. It reminds me of touring Pretoria in the 90’s with an Afrikaaner tour guide, who was an out-of-work computer programmer with no interest in history or politics.
He started on his tour of all the old monuments to the white settlers and finally, I had to take control of the trip. We ended up at a national arts and crafts competition and it was atually alot of fun.
Thanks for the post and the insights! Have fun.
Wow — what an amazing entry. Thanks so much. I’m amazed and astounded.
I’m even more amazed after reading the site you mention that calls San Juan Chamula “Dante’s Inferno.” Your gentle inference that your guide may have his own issues is well put.
Thanks. We all get to learn something when you travel. Nice post.
Love and Miss You,
Dad
I too enjoyed the post. It was like reading a history lesson, so I had to read and re-read. Me and history aren’t first cousins but I’m learning that I am intrigued and interested. And, I’m so glad that you are taking advantage of personal guides, not only for the cultural experience, but the safety issue as well. You 2 keep truckin’! Love to you both.
Mom
hmmmm, I’ll resist launching into my own interpretation of Dante’s Inferno…. which is probably completely different than that of the odious tour writer. Maybe I should send him (assuming it’s a him) my ideas on the topic? Putting aside his apparent full intention to slam this clearly beautiful place that is rich with the complexity of human history, comparing a place to Dante’s Inferno could, from another angle, be quite a compliment (especially given the character of Purgatorio and Paradiso…. no pine scented floors, living candle light, old lady girlfriends, or the incredible satisfaction of a great belch there!) Take the insult and queer it, I say!
Love you both, thanks for giving us all so much to see and to think about. -Lool
I’m totally intrigued with the idea of burping as a religious practice. So intrigued, in fact, that I googled “burping, religion, mayan” and YOU were one of the top five! Cool. In addition, I learned they believe drinking coke releases the evil spirits from their bodies by burping. I am so not filled with evil:)
Post on, my cheerios.
Thanks for the responses, yet again. Hopefully travelling will continue to force us to ask the kinds of questions that would never occur to us in the States.
-Sarah and Megan