Category: Chiapas

Juan Chawuk | Cosmic Connection | San Cristóbal de Las Casas | 2000

(Trans)modernities of India

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

The line of cars waiting to reach Apaz stretches for several kilometers along the narrow dirt road that winds through the hills. The sounds of the festival can be heard from afar, even from Navenchauc, with its polluted lagoon, once surrounded by wooded slopes and now overrun with unfinished brick houses. The hamlet is a specter of grayish desolation, like something you might see in the poor suburbs of any modern city.

More than 140 people, mostly young, accompanied by their families and communities, patiently await the bishop and the friars for the celebration of the sacrament of Confirmation. A crowd of more than 500 people, adorned for the occasion, solemnly celebrates the liturgy of anointing with holy chrism, while the monumental choir sings invocations to the Holy Spirit in Tsotsil. Don Rodrigo delegates the three friars present to perform the rite of Confirmation with him, divided into four groups of confirmands. It consists of the laying on of hands, the anointing with holy chrism, and the slap on the face to call them to live with audacity.parrhesia, (in Greek) proper to following Christ in the midst of an increasingly violent world. We reverently pronounce the words in Tsotsil following the liturgical phrase: Ich'bo li skélobil li'e + ja' matanal yu'un Ch'ul Spirit: Ta j'ch'un | Li jun o'onale teyuk ta ajotol: Xchi'uk vo'ot (Receive this symbol, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit. I believe it | Peace be with you. And with you.).

The Mass continues, and after the consecration of the bread and wine as the body and blood of Jesus, three traditional musicians sing the ancestral chant, which the congregation mostly accompanies with ritual dance. Unfortunately, some members of the community no longer include these traditional symbols in their celebrations. The parish's large choir and media team participate in the festivities with their youthful talent, dressed in traditional attire and singing in Tsotsil, but also embracing the technology that has transformed their minds and ways of life. Modernity Indiana —to paraphrase the expression of chroniclers from colonial Mexico in a new context— of a generation deeply rooted in tradition, yet simultaneously passionate about new lifestyles mediated by algorithms and artificial intelligence. Thus, today's youth explore their evolving identities.

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What has caused these changes in the Highlands of Chiapas, which I first visited almost half a century ago, a region then plagued by extreme poverty and now experiencing an economic boom reflected in concrete houses and all-terrain vehicles? That modernity of the counter-productivity -analyzed in its historical genesis by Ivan Illich and conceived by Jean Robert as a perversion of place– it forcefully entered the territory of the Tsotsil nation.

In recent decades, the Zinacanteco economy has experienced exponential growth, thanks to the hard work of the Tsotsil people in flower cultivation and the excellence of their textiles. In particular, greenhouses have transformed the landscape of the stately hills into a mosaic of metal and plastic, with greenhouses protecting the crops of the flowers of Zinacantán. Roses, gladiolas, anthuriums, birds of paradise, hibiscus, bromeliads, desert roses and wallflowers are the most popular in the local market, from where they are exported to the neighboring states of Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, also to Mexico City.

Similar effects are visible in the surrounding areas. The houses of Tsotsil families in Chamula express this economic boom through a new indigenous architecture that blends traditional colors with forms kitsch, similar to that of Freddy Mamani, The Bolivian creator of the so-called “neo-Andean architecture.” These houses reflect the new economic status of their inhabitants, generated by local commerce, remittances from fellow countrymen, and, according to studies from 2001 to the present, some criminal enterprises, among which the most prominent is… human trafficking.

Something similar regarding housing is happening in Zinacantán, with new forms of housing, foreign to vernacular architecture, that are developing in imitation of other municipalities that have recently experienced economic prosperity. This phenomenon has produced a fissure in the kuxlejal, or the integral way of life, which the Zinacanteca communities developed for centuries, but which is now collapsing due to the degraded management of the forests.

At first glance, the deforestation of the hills, which has given way to greenhouses, is readily apparent. This phenomenon is already producing devastating effects on the rainfall cycle and the impoverishment of the soil. The use of toxic fertilizers and pesticides, This phenomenon, already analyzed by scientific studies, persists despite agroecology promotion campaigns carried out by civil society organizations and the Catholic Church through its ministries. guardians of Mother Earth. The relentless logic of the market is dragging flower producers into that environmental hell already seen in other parts of the world.

These are some of the modernities Indianas which appear as mirages to the Tsotsil people of today, where the illusion of economic prosperity is hiding the devastating effects on Mother Earth.

There are other modernities to explore, following, among others, the model proposed by the political ecology of Víctor Toledo and his scientific colleagues around the world, proposing the bioculturality as a new way of understanding our relationship with our common home as a human species to avoid the Great Catastrophe. Other models emphasize the importance of returning to cultivating and inhabiting from the vernacular, without abandoning modern science and technology, but orienting them towards the sustainability of peoples' ways of life.

Perhaps in that path of alternative, other, moving modernities - and that's why trans-modernities As proposed by Enrique Dussel, the new generations of Zinacantecans will be able to find their new identity to become part of the regional economy and universal culture, preserving and promoting their own ways of life, of communality and of ancient and new spirituality.

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What are the best ways to accompany communities in their struggle for life from the heart of their spirituality? With this question in mind, we are moving forward in the mutual accompaniment between the Dominican friars and the people of the Chiapas Highlands.

“Let the people who welcomed the friars celebrate their arrival,” Elena Poniatowska told me in an interview last December at her home in Chimalistac, Mexico City. And she was right about remembering a five-hundred-year historical process, with its highs and lows, where the evangelization of these lands of Chiapas was initially marked by a profound respect for the indigenous nations on the part of friars like Bartolomé de Las Casas, renowned as a defender of the indigenous peoples, and Pedro Lorenzo de la Nada, who, defiantly confronting the closed-mindedness of his brethren, ventured into the jungle to encounter the Zendales, Pochutlas, and Lacandones peoples of the 16th century. Unfortunately, with the passage of time, that impetus for peaceful evangelization turned into greed, with the accumulation of wealth in the estates and haciendas of Dominican priories that controlled and subjugated entire communities in the following centuries.

Therefore, the commemorative narrative of these five hundred years that we are preparing in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and in Zinacantán will revolve around the mutual accompaniment between the Dominican friars and the peoples of the Highlands of Chiapas: remembering the apostolic zeal of the first missionaries, while recognizing the ancestral legacy that persists in the spiritual life of the native peoples who have inhabited these lands since ancient times.

Guided by a young Tsotsil poet and a renowned Tseltal master painter, the youth of Zinacanteco will weave this collective memory from their present perspective. Tsotsil poetry and Tseltal painting will be at the heart of the cultural celebrations commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of the Dominicans' arrival in Mexico, which we are preparing for this year in Chiapas. In this way, next June we can joyfully and gratefully celebrate this shared journey of half a millennium, with our gaze fixed on the legacy of our ancestors, both Maya and Christian, in the manner of the Dominican friars and the people of the Chiapas Highlands. We will soon share the 500 OP – Chiapas program that we are currently preparing to celebrate the life that flourishes in these lands.

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, January 31, 2026

Note: I hope we can continue the conversation with your comments.

January 31, 2026
Carlos Mendoza Alvarez | San Sebastian | Sot'sleb, Chiapas | 2026

The arrows of Saint Sebastian Lights and shadows of a Zinacantecan festival

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

One of the emblematic martyrs of the time of Roman persecution in the beginnings of Christianity, pierced by arrows in his naked and vulnerable body, has been venerated for seventeen hundred years by diverse peoples who recognize in Saint Sebastian humanity mortally wounded by empires that supplant divine glory.

In the Highlands of Chiapas, the saints are adorned with flowery cloaks, colorful ribbons, and mirrors that reflect alternate worlds where the Ch'ulel It dwells, with its avatars that protect or threaten those who approach its spheres of power. In Chamula, according to oral history, the saints can be punished for a time if they do not respond to the pleas of their faithful devotees: they are placed against a wall for a while, until their grace manifests itself. I have not found that custom in the lands of Sot'sleb, or place of bats, known as Zinacantán, a name documented by the famous anthropologist and linguist Robert Laughlin. But I have been surprised by the profusion of life in the garments with which they adorn the images of the saints: the Christ of Esquipulas, the Guadalupana, Saint Jude, Saint Lawrence and Saint Sebastian are the images that increase their clothing for their annual festival, in an overabundance of colors and textures that leave their faces and hands exposed, with their bodies imperceptible before such a profusion of life.

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What lies behind so much flowery beauty? How can I approach with devotion those images that transcend the ordinary in such an avalanche of flowers and decorations that sometimes seem to overwhelm those we reverently invoke?

I found the key in the arrows of San Sebastián during its three days of popular festival in the municipal capital of Zinacantán.

People from all the surrounding areas and neighboring towns flood the streets of the village and the plaza next to the church of the martyred saint in a lively festival that blends ancestral traditions like the jaguar tree with fleeting horse races. Asking the young catechists about the meaning of these traditions... performances Today, I heard different interpretations, more or less confused, which always concluded with the laconic phrase: “it is the custom”The jaguar climbs the trunk of a tree that was chosen a year in advance in the sacred hills The surrounding area. This tree is visited and venerated three times by those in charge of the tradition before being cut down and taken to the center of the plaza. During the festival, the trunk becomes the center of a ritual that commemorates the three days of darkness spent praying for rain and abundant harvests. From this trunk, standing upright in the ground, a man dressed as a jaguar—wearing a suit of Chinese fabrics crudely imitating the skin of the rain guardian—throws stuffed squirrels and eggs to the crowd gathered around, accompanied by young people dressed in black who play and dance as a troupe during the festival rituals. The horse race runs along the main avenue at the beginning of the day and again in the afternoon, recalling, according to some, the arrival of the Spanish—a memory that marks the time and space of the festival brought by the friars?

During those days, like stepping back in time, the popular festival blends traditional dance and music—performed with deliberate slowness before the Tsotsil green altar of the Three Crosses, where the image of Saint Sebastian is placed—with the deafening roar of the band in the bandstand, which overwhelms those present but provides the perfect soundtrack for the celebration. And at night, everyone eagerly awaits the Sinaloan band concert, when the thumping drums mingle with the firecrackers and fireworks displays prepared to light up the sky.

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Amidst that endless surge of color, sound, and movement, I pause to approach the saint who is the reason for the festivities. I look for him on the altar in the atrium and then inside the church at the main altar. In both places, I can barely make out his face. Through his vestments, an arrow pierces his arm. And there is no way to see his lacerated body.

Then I recall conversations I've had in past and recent years with young Indigenous people from diverse sexual orientations who have confided in me about their suffering from living in the shadows in their communities. It was unimaginable for them to be able to celebrate San Sebastián as their patron saint, to be part of the celebration, as so many Catholic communities around the world do. They celebrate it only in the silence of their hearts and their prayers. And I realize the arrows that continue to pierce the wounded body of the martyr. The vulnerable bodies of these young people today are adorned with floral fabrics, like everyone else in the community, but those bodies are not recognized in their difference by an ancestral culture to this day.

I wonder if those bodies that live in the shadows today will one day be able to come into the light, with the love and responsibility that calls us all, as other Indigenous cultures have done for centuries. Years ago, the same question arose in conversations with women from the Zapatista grassroots and civil society who were forging a path in their own personal and communal histories to be recognized as life partners, living together as mothers with their children, and with a clear community and political commitment to defend their peoples. Today, the Zapatista narrative speaks to us of others –as he masterfully recounts Sylvia Marcos by exploring gender fluidity in Mesoamerica - finally making visible the experience of different lives and bodies as valuable and essential voices in the human symphony and the world to come.

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With a burning heart I sow a candle in front of San Sebastián in the name of those young people so that they may soon emerge of the shadows of the shadows of the shadows and live their lives joyfully in the midst of the community.

The lights and shadows of the San Sebastián festival continue to be a revelation and a concealment that calls us to see with wide-open eyes the world around us where divine and human glory bursts forth as a promise of life for all.

Sots'leb, January 24, 2026

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January 24, 2026
Carlos Mendoza Álvarez | Black Christ | Elambó Esquipulas, Chiapas | 2026

The Black Christs of Zinacantán

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

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The patron saint festival of Elambó Esquipulas in the Highlands of Chiapas opens with the resounding music of a band whose cymbals, clarinet, trumpets, and drum enliven the community's procession. We walk from the entrance of the village to the chapel of the Black Christ, draped in a pink mantle embroidered with colorful flowers and adorned with a curly wig of jet-black hair. The darkness of his skin stands out even more against the flowery backdrop and reflects, with a few glimmers in his arms outstretched on the cross, the candles. sown on the floor, burning amidst the incense that fills the altar.

Once the initial greeting is given, the community kneels to pray the invocation of mercy in the Tsotsil language, under the guidance of Mariano, the catechist in charge, all imploring God for forgiveness for the world, in a murmur that begins like raging waves and then becomes a whisper and caress, like waves brushing against the sand of the beach, a sign of a pacified communal conscience.

The Mass continues with biblical readings in Tsotsil focusing on the cross of Galilee, followed by a brief meditation that I lead for the community in Spanish. I summarize three key thoughts for the catechist-interpreter to develop with endless eloquence. I center on the biblical meaning of Jesus' cross as a result of his commitment to the excluded of his time. Then, I briefly recount the story of the Lord of Esquipulas in Guatemala, quoting my brother. jTotik Alfonso, though adding my own commentary, points out that its black color symbolizes the sufferings of the people that Christ bears. I see the image adorned with flowers and realize that the Crucified One offers us a loving embrace in the last breath of his life. It comes spontaneously to me to say this to the community, who listen attentively, and I see them receive that embrace with grateful expressions. And I conclude by inviting us all to celebrate the Lord of Esquipulas with our own commitment of love, caring, as he did in life, for those who suffer most in the community, beginning with children whose health is threatened by the soft drink and junk food industries, young people drawn to money, drugs, and alcohol, and women who suffer violence in their own homes and communities.

The consecration of the bread and wine is experienced with profound devotion by the kneeling community. But this sacred moment of adoration of the body and blood of Jesus, the anointed of God, suddenly becomes an even deeper reverence thanks to the traditional song and dance of the Bolom Chon o jaguar song which expresses the deepest soul of the Tsotsil, Tseltal, and Tojolabal peoples, the Mayan peoples of the Chiapas Highlands. Traditional musicians play the harp, violin, and guitar with a slow, measured rhythm, like a mantra growing in a sonic spiral of infinite tenderness, lulling the incarnate God and Mother Earth, whom our feet touch with their dance. For it is worth remembering that, for the Mayan peoples, in the rites of ancestral tradition—such as those of the Tseltal people studied by the Jesuit— Eugenio Maurer In Bachajón, the dance has a religious meaning, because with the feet one caresses Mother Earth, the primordial gift of the Giver of Life.

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The Christ of Esquipulas, which originated in Guatemala, is a powerful representation of the diverse faces of faith of the ancient Mayan peoples, celebrating Tezcatlipoca under Mexica influence, according to the Dominican chronicler. Friar Diego Durán, to ask for rain:

[…] it was made of a very shiny and jet-black stone [obsidian], the stone from which they make razors and knives for cutting. In the other cities it was made of wood carved in the figure of a man, all black from the temples down, with a white forehead, nose, and mouth, the color of an Indian, dressed in some fine attire in his Indian style. First, he had gold ear ornaments and others of silver. On his lower lip, he had a lip plug of crystalline beryl in which was inserted a green feather, and sometimes a blue one, which from the outside looked like an emerald or ruby. This lip plug was about a gem long, above a ponytail of hair that he had on his head (Durán, II, 1995: 47).

Centuries later, in that image, the Christianized Mayan people venerate the Nazarene with new meanings. In every corner of Zinacantán I visited this week, I found new and astonishing alterations to the image and the meanings the community gives it. From the story of a charred black Christ who miraculously survived a fire to the icon that darkens because it absorbs the sins of the world, we encounter stories that recount the anxieties and longings of its faithful devotees, giving the Christ increasingly intense shades according to the skin color or the consciousness of the community that venerates him.

Two scenes remain in my memory from these days exploring the Zinacanteco landscapes. Both hark back to the ancestral rites of the Tsotsil people.

The first is the prayer of forgiveness when the entire community, in a collective surge, with cries, tears, and sighs, raises its prayer kneeling on the sedge –These are the pine needles laid like a green and fragrant carpet on the floor of the hermitage, chapel, or temple, supporting the feet of the community gathered amidst candles—the incense mingled with the scent of pine from the surrounding forests. A vestige of the people of the mist and the forest, as the poet from Tuxtla sings. Juan Bañuelos:

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Dawn breaks. The humidity is like sleep: motionless. Only
ascends
a people with roots in the throats of birds
whose song stirs the fragrant carpet of the rushes
The smoke from the huts rises, mimicking Mayan fretwork patterns.
while the cyclical serum of memory is filtered out

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The second scene that lingers in my heart is the ritual dance of sonic and rhythmic adoration that moves the assembled community, caressing the earth that has borne fruit to the son of Mary, perhaps a jaguar Christ, according to the memory of the Mayan peoples. Bodies transfigured by a radiance of ancestral humanity that opens itself to the loving mystery.

The Black Christs of Zinacantán continue to luminize in every place, with darker or lighter tones, depending on the land that welcomes and venerates them. Black Christ of Esquipulas during the time of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. Black Christ of Tila during the time of Chiapas' independence. Black Christ of Zinacantán during the time of the indigenous uprising. Black Christ of today's communities facing the mirage of prosperity from the flower and textile trade. Black Christs that will come in the troubled times we live in.

What laments and what praises will future generations of the Tsotsil people sing when, half a century from now, the cry of wounded humanity makes the Black Christ even darker?

What laments, praises, and dances do we experience when we realize that time is running out to seek and find solace for a humanity threatened with death by the world of the powerful?

The black Christs of Zinacantán are a great paradox: an embrace of suffering and a promise of life.

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Ts'ajal Nam, January 17, 2026

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January 17, 2026

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