To begin with, the town of San Juan Chamula is one of the towns closer to San Cristobal de las Casas and I neglected to go until yesterday. The ride in the van they call colectivo, is just 20 minutes long and very reasonable priced, just 1 USD ppx one way. The church is in the central plaza.
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| Pen&Ink and Watercolor on Pentalic Watercolor Journal 7" x 10" |
The Chamulans practice the Catholicism but in their own way. You have to pay a ticket to enter the church. It is prohibited to take photos inside. I asked the men that collect the tickets (sketched to the right of the door) if I could sketch inside and they denied the permission with an absolute no. There's no benches inside. The floor is covered with needles of pine trees, a sacred tree. Around the walls there are tables with hundreds, if not thousands of burning veladoras (candles in glass cups), this makes the place so mystical. The candles are offerings to the saints, which are in glass boxes to protect them from people who grab them and remove them or even remove parts of the statue, a practice that fulfilled the believers. The locals pray seated on the floor. They bring a bunch of slim candles or veladoras. They submerge the base of the slim candles in the melted wax of the veladora to stick them to the floor cleared of pine needles and form lines of candles. Then they turn them on and pray chanting. They also bring pubs or soda. They believe that burping release bad spirits. When they discovered the gas of sodas produces a stronger burp, which is better, they adopted this practice and replaced other drinks. I saw a man who brought two white chickens, he offered them to different saints and killed them on the spot. That was shocking to me, but of course I didn't say anything, I was a visitor, a respectful observant of their traditions. When they are done praying, someone comes and peels the wax off the floor so it is constantly cleaned. The church is opened 24 hours, there is no priest in charge of the church and the municipality is responsible for maintenance.
Once outside, I sketched the front of the church, or as a Chamulan guide corrected me, it is a ch'ulna, a sacred place. Minutes later three Chamulan girls came to watch me sketch. They asked a bunch of questions, they were very curious and incredulous of the sketches I've done and showed them. This was part of our conversation.
Girl: I can't draw.
I: Of course you can.
-No I can't.
-Yes you do. Do you know how to bike?
-Yes I do.
-How did you learn?
Silence.
-Practicing!
-Oh yes.
-Do you know how to read?
-Yes!
-How did you learn? Practicing too, right? It is the same for drawing. I didn't know how to draw but now I do, because I practiced!
This was my effort to encourage the girls to believe in themselves.
-Why aren't you at school?
-They close the school because someone died (That's true, when I came out of the church there was a procession of people walking behind a coffin in the street).
-Was it someone important?
-No, he had a 4th grader in the school.
That communal example let me speechless.
-Do you like your church?
-It's not mine, it belongs to everybody.
That answer let speechless again. Outsmarted by a kid.
Later one of the guides, Raymundo, came to me and asked me if he could watch me sketch to which I answered yes. When he was done he browsed my sketchbook, here he is wearing a typical Chamulan black sheep wool jacket. It was getting cold and windy, it was time to catch a colectivo and return to San Cristobal.
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| Raymundo. |
Click here for part 2 in Chamula, Chiapas.
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