Category: Indigenous peoples

JobeLab | San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas | 2026

JobeLab An initiative of critical thinking and diverse spiritualities from San Cristóbal de Las Casas

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

From the second half of the 20th century, Chiapas became a laboratory of new ways of inhabiting and thinking about the world, with the creative confluence of important social, political, cultural and spiritual processes.

Among them, dynamism stands out synodal (or shared path by all the believing people with their diversity of ministries) of six decades, implemented by the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas with jTatik Samuel Ruiz as pastor walker And hundreds of local, regional, and international communities and groups, convened for justice and peace for the Indigenous peoples and other communities of this region of Chiapas. In an astonishing confluence of paths, the Indigenous Congress of 1974 marked the beginning of the public presence of Indigenous peoples with their own voice. Indigenous, mestizo, and international social and cultural movements also emerged, with research projects on the rich Mayan heritage, both ancient and modern, developed by teams of social anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguisticists. Waves of researchers arrived from Latin America, the United States, and Europe, and, with an academic model still largely based on extractive practices, made significant discoveries in the social sciences and humanities. The translation of the Bible into Mayan languages, initially promoted by the Summer School of Bible as part of a U.S. interventionist plan, evolved into intercultural dialogue, continued to this day by various Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, the Zapatista movement, with its armed and media-driven uprising of 1994, became the watershed moment of a social, political, and cultural insurrection that continues to this day as one of the most radical critiques of the hegemonic system of the multi-headed capitalist hydra, including patriarchy and colonialism.

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The “San Cristóbal School” is a name proposed decades ago by Pablo Romo and others in academia and the arts to evoke the legacy of critical thought, resistance, and spirituality that emerged in Chiapas, as a counterpart to the Cuernavaca School, analyzed by Humberto Beck. In their connections and differences, both represent significant contributions to critical thought that arose in Mexico during the last century.

In this way, recognizing the individuals, groups, organizations, and initiatives of civil society that have been an active part of these processes, as a collective inspired by them, with JobeLab -apocope of Jobel which is the Tsotsil name of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and laboratory To designate this city as a laboratory, we seek to give continuity to such a legacy in a new context, focusing on critical thinking and the spiritualities that have sustained them, such as those of the native peoples, Catholic Christianity, and more recently Buddhism and Islam.

Through the initiative JobeLab. Ongoing dialogues and mutual support for re-existences We will continue to cultivate this heritage in the new scenario of the civilizational crisis that humanity faces in the second quarter of the 21st century, where peaceful coexistence between nations and the balance of planet Earth are at risk and call us to promote processes of resistance and re-existence.

We will nurture this initiative based on two inspiring attitudes that are, at the same time, transversal axes of the talks, meetings and festivals that we will organize in various spaces of the city: hospitality and commensality.

The hospitality It is one of the human gestures that most powerfully expresses our shared human condition, that is, our way of becoming individuals and communities as beings in relation to one another. This radical attitude of openness to otherness is a fundamental ethical and political act, where the religions and spiritualities of humanity celebrate a glimpse of divinity.

The commensality, Like the other side of the moon, it is the nourishing soil where we receive the otherness of Mother Earth, of other humans who become our neighbors, and of Divinity, through food and drink created by the unique genius of each people. We celebrate this gift as an inclusive banquet where Divine Sophia prepares a table for all nations and creatures of the cosmos.

Together with Carmen Reyes and Ricardo Hernández, Angélica Evangelista and Abraham Mena, I am enthusiastically participating in this project, drawing on the Dominican tradition of life and thought. In these exchanges, we seek to discover new expressions of the divine and human Word as a creative fire that redeems, animates, and shelters us in our present circumstances. times of hardship as a human species that puts itself and the Common Home at risk, leading us to the precipice of annihilation.

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This week two events will be the formal presentation of JobeLab, after the first event where the initiative germinated, on January 28, with a presentation on Gaza and Chiapas at the Charity temple in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

On Wednesday, March 25th at 5:30 pm, we will hold the discussion “The School of San Cristóbal,” with the participation of Pablo Romo, who was one of the key figures in the diocesan process of promoting human rights, paving the way for the creation of the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center. Martha Elena Welsh, choreographer who animates in Xitla House In Mexico City, workshops were held to support people in situations of extreme vulnerability, facing various forms of violence. And Juan Carlos La Puente, a Peruvian with extensive international experience in providing spiritual support to human rights defenders, has been developing a methodology for this purpose from his base in Oregon, USA. permanent discernment as a path of body for people and communities in re-existence.

And then, on Friday, March 27th at 5 p.m., we will explore another facet of re-existence: forgiveness as a path to reconciliation in contexts of violence. With the Muslim community of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, represented by Shaykh Yahya Rhodus and Shaykh Mudar Abudlghani, we will discuss forgiveness in Christian and Muslim traditions as a common path to peace, at a critical moment of violence in the Middle East. And we will do so accompanied by the extraordinary music and song of Nader Khan, a Canadian Sufi artist.

We invite you to be a part of JobeLab From wherever we may be, whether attending talks and meetings, or imagining and creating similar spaces where we can come together and flourish as individuals and communities in resistance and re-existence, going beyond the spiral of violence that surrounds us, towards a world another world of hospitality and commensality.

Jobel, March 23, 2026

March 23, 2026
Carlos Mendoza Álvarez | Prayer in the hills with Jilol Pedro | Sot's Leb, 2026

We are earth, we are wind The teachings of Jilol Pedro

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

The rocky base of the mountain - through which the Ts'ajalsul or river of salt water - is the center of the world during the prayer of Peter, the young man Jilol or the healer of the Tsotsil people. Dressed in his black wool poncho, with two red crosses embroidered on the shoulders like the dalmatic of Saint Lawrence the Martyr, patron saint of Sots'leb -land of bats in Tsotsil, or Zinacantán- Pedro plants the candles and places the flowers already blessed before dawn.

In a long ceremony held in the parish hall, on the eve of Ash Wednesday, the six gathered Jiloletic With dozens of catechists and some of the friars who walk with them, we were preparing to accompany them to six sacred sites in the Zinacanteco region to bring offerings to the hills that protect us from wars and evils, invoking God and the saints at every spring, rock at the bottom of the ravine, or hilltop where we would stop to pray after an exhausting sacred walk.

Three times a year, according to ancestral tradition, prayers rise to the heavens from the hills of this region in the Chiapas Highlands, inhabited by the Tsotsil people of Zinacantán, to venerate Mother Earth in her sacred places and acknowledge the God of Life, who ceaselessly shelters all creatures that live here with the forests and springs. Jiloletic They are the ones who hold sacred power in these ceremonies. They have received the mandate—in dreams and through extraordinary signs throughout their lives, sometimes since childhood—to heal the community of its many ailments, illnesses, and the violence inflicted upon their bodies and crops. Healers of ancestral tradition, their spiritual authority is revered by the communities at pivotal moments, such as prayers on the hills to ask for bountiful harvests, abundant rains, and protection from war and other evils that threaten the people and creatures who inhabit these lands.

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Pedro is a young man from Jilol who led one of the six pilgrimage routes through the hills of Zinacantán earlier this year. His gentle nature, with a deep gaze and kind smile, becomes powerful when he begins to pray in Tsotsil, his voice strong and mantra-like, chanting invocations to the hills, the saints, and the... Ch'ul Spirit, with Jesus Christ and Mary as guides of protection and divine strength. We all kneel behind him, on the rushes carefully scattered by the catechists, to "plant the candles," already blessed, before the three Zinacanteco green crosses that mark this place as a sacred space, visited by other pilgrims throughout the year. The crosses are also venerated with white and yellow flowers that were also blessed and incensed before dawn.

At some of the Stations of the Cross, Peter tells us a story about the holy place. Like that one about Lachikin, On the rocky hill beside the river, a group of soldiers are summoned who remained there after a past attempt to attack a woman bathing in the river, a criminal impulse that led them to the current where they drowned. But the hills rescued them and transformed them into guardians of these lands, protecting their inhabitants from war. That is why every year we must come to remind them of this duty, because they still dwell here. Many creatures inhabit the hills, and Jiloletic They have received the gift of seeing them and communicating with them in order to ask for protection for the communities.

After hearing that brief story, the group continues along the path, advancing single file along a steep, rocky trail to climb the hillside and reach another ravine where another prayer will take place. But before setting off, the walkers each receive a small cup of soda, passed from mouth to mouth, like a ritual act of shared strength. Alejandro, the catechist coordinator, invites us to pick up the trash left behind by other careless pilgrims, especially bottles and plastic wrappers, as a sign of caring for the sacred place we have just venerated. A small symbol of the work of caring for Mother Earth that the diocese is painstakingly promoting as part of its spirituality and ecotheology.

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For several decades now, the Parish of Zinacantán—re-entrusted to the Dominican friars in 1975 after an absence of more than a century, in harmony with the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas in its commitment to the poor and indigenous peoples, along with the hundreds of catechists and lay ministers who support the communities—has been fostering the encounter between the ancestral spirituality of the Zinacantán people and the Christian spirituality of the Gospel of Christ, embodied in the life and culture of the Zinacantán communities. The prayer on the hills, for example, which they continue to practice, is a testament to this tradition. Jiloletic While celebrated independently, it is also an integral part of the parish's activities. Each of these key moments of the year culminates in a Eucharist where both traditions converge in a shared intention to care for the life of the community and venerate Mother Earth as the primordial gift of the God of Life, who nourishes us with his body that is earth and wind, water and fire, and in the height of love becomes the body of Christ to nourish the praying community.

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“We are earth, we are wind” was the mantra that arose in my heart as I silently accompanied the prayers of Jilol Pedro in each of the sacred sites we visited one cold morning with radiant sunshine in the hills of Zinacantán.

Land that is nourished by springs, streams and rivers that flow between its rocky canyons.

Wind that sways the treetops and carries in its chariot the birds that live there. Wind that fans the fire that humanized the ancestors.

“We are earth, we are wind,” according to the wisdom of the prayer of the hills. That full awareness, embodied in breath, prayer, and shared words these days with the Jiloletic of Zinacantán, will endure in my memory like a spark of life that other traditions also receive in their own language.

Perhaps not by chance, this week we received ashes on our heads, according to the symbolism of the Hebrew and later Christian people: we are earth prepared by God like an ancient potter. This gesture is accompanied by a call to conversion. But we are also the wind of God who breathes his own spirit into us. Ruah divine to make us living beings.

Sots'leb, February 22, 2026

Note: How do we connect today with our earth and wind selves?

February 22, 2026
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

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