Threatening Faith - sorry no pics

San Juan Chamula, a beautiful small town of indigenous Mayan people, praised in travel guides for its stronghold in its indigenous culture. This was the one place that could not be conquered by Cortez during the conquest. Picture taking is strictly forbidden in the town and especially in the Church. I think this more deeply allowed me to experience it, as I relied on all my senses to take it in. Following a day of touring most of the churches in San Cristobal, this was unlike anything I had seen. The church was dark and smelt of pine and incense. It was lit by a few dust-covered windows high up on the wall. Sunlight pierced through spaces around the window frames.  There was one row of tungsten lights that perimetered the walls about 3 and a half meters up. This light was overridden by what seemed like thousands of candles burning all  along the edges of the church,  filing tables, stools, the alter and all over the floor where groups were clustered.

I could feel the energy of the place as soon as I walked in. It was much warmer inside than out, probably in account of the thousand of candles burning. There were no pews, groups gathered on the tile floor covered with pine needles to practice their faith. In front of them were rows of candles about 6 by 8, a bottle of Coke, flavored pop like Fanta and a clear bottle that was corked. I later found out that this bottle contained a moonshine like substance. A while back, realizing that this substance might be a detriment to the community, they decided to introduce Coca Cola instead. The importance of this was that the carbon of the beverage caused them to belch which brought what was bad and harmful up and expel unwanted spirits. I found this a little paradoxical and probably the result of a relentless marketing scheme, not unlikely considering the investment that former Mexican President Vicente Fox had invested in the beverage. I first walked the inside perimeter of the church. There were displays along the walls, each with a different Catholic saint. Although they are renowned for their independence and integrity to their indigenous roots it was increasingly evident that western values were strongly imposed. They clearly held onto their Mayan roots as there were Mayan symbolic imagery painted on the ceiling over the alter and the Crucifix.

After walking around church I wanted to learn a little more about their ceremonies. There were a number of small groups around the church but there was one of about 12 that were in a corner near the alter. They were chanting together and I was moved by the unity, as though they were a single sound. I think my idea of spirituality was forever changed at that moment. An elderly man ran the ceremony.  The rows of candles they converged around revealing every line of wisdom and experience on his face. Today the ceremony was being conducted on a small child, a girl that couldn’t be more than 18 months old. The elder chanted, and blow into a small clay flute, into her hands and on her head, he wiped her arms and head with a liquid. To end with, a chicken is waved over the candles, and over every part of her body and repeated a number of times when finally the chicken was sacrificed. The child was sick, it is the belief that the chicken would absorb what is unhealthy or unclean from the child releasing her from her illness.

Chanting in unison, another elderly woman was holding a baby. She looked at me, we shared a glance and something profound hit me.   I thought about a museum in Saskatchewan that displayed the Cree people in glass encapsulations showing how they once lived.  I was visiting with the Cree people at the time and it made me sad. It displayed them as though their culture had extinct. Despite many attempts towards its demise, indeed it was still very much alive. (Much like the Mayan People of Chiapas.)  I was suddenly aware of my place there. I was so immersed in the spirituality of the moment I didn’t think of the dynamic. I stood there above them, along with many other white skinned on lookers and I wondered what they thought of us. I wondered what they though we thought of them. Were they welcoming us into the this very sacred ritual because they wanted us to be included and to witness it? Did they do it for the profit? I wanted to sit and be on  their level. I was suddenly aware of the number of tourists that had come and gone while I had been standing there, as though they were walking through a zoo, never really caring for the lives of the animals just awed buy them.  I wondered how this constant flow of tourist energy was affecting their spiritual energy. There is no doubt that it was still powerful I could feel it and the combination of than and this realization jumped from the pit of my stomach to the back of my throat. 

I though of a story that I had been told in Psychology many years ago.  An elderly man was tired of the children playing outside his window every morning, to rectify the problem he called them over and told them how much he enjoyed them playing there, the sound of their laughter etc and that he would pay them a dollar a day to come. After a month he stopped paying them so they stopped coming to play. I desperately hoped that these people and these ceremonies would not follow the same fate as the children in this story. I was wondering who was filling to role of the old man and promoting the tourist industry to what was once such an authentic community  practice and why.  I tried to make eye contact with the woman so in some way I could communicate my admiration for her, in hopes that she would read me accurately. They had impacted my life so positively, I hope that my presence had not had a counter affect.

I left the church feeling more spiritually lifted than I ever had and I wondered why this power has never been an experience in any religious practice that I have been apart of in my home country. Its not what religion has ever been to me. Although the European influence is all over the spiritual practices here, it was not their choice. It was an imposition that was forced upon them. It has been readapted, to maintain their strong spiritual faith in their practice. My spiritual elevation was soon restored to equilibrium when the locals bombarded me relentlessly with goods and souvenirs to buy, children begging for pesos, a niche created for them by the tourist industry. I wondered what their fate might other wise have been. After strolling through the market we followed a path to the top of the mountain where there were 3 Mayan crosses. We picnicked on this mountain sharing our food with a local indigenous family that just happened to be there to. I don't think they spoke spanish but that didn't stop us from sharing. The view from the top overlooked the burial ground and the old church that had burned in a fire. I wondered what the ancestors, the defenders, resting there from over the centuries might think of the changes if they were  to see today.  Just on the other side of the burial ground was a newly constructed parking lot and in rolled two more tour buses.