The state of Chiapas seems to be the center of Mayan culture in Mexico. From San Cristobal de las Casas I took a one day tour to Zinacantan and San Juan Chamula.
The town of Zinacantan not particularly facinating, but it does have a few things that make it interesting. The people of the town speak Tzotzil, one of the many Mayan dialects. Also, each village in this area seems to dress in a particular color theme. In this town everyone is dressed in shades of purple. In other towns we saw people dressed in blues, reds, yellows, and browns.
The main industry here is textile weaving, still done by hand.
As part of the tour we also got a bit of a taste treat: Fresh-made tortillas with cheese, avocado, and other un-identifiable ingredients. Normally I would have been the first to dive right in, but since I was suffering from a bit of gastro-distress I felt that discretion was the better part of valor and abstained. Better to stick to Maalox on that particular day!
From Zinacantan we went to San Juan Chamula. This is one of the most traditional Mayan villages in the Chiapas, and they want to keep it that way. While tourists are allowed in the town during the day, foreigners cannot stay overnight, or even past 6 pm. They basically only allow tourism at all because they need the money.
We were there on a market day. Like most towns, the best day to be there.
For the most part, the people dress in traditional dress. Just to show that there are some commonalities throughout Latin America, the pig-tails with the ribbons in them on these women actually look exactly like a tapestry that we bought in Peru.
Our guide also introduced us to this woman. She is deaf and mute, obviously very poor, but was absolutely charming and very happy to spend some time with us. The instrument in her hands is for cleaning wool before spinning it into yarn.
The officials in this town also dress in traditional dress. The high officials are the ones in the back, with the multi-colored ribbons and staffs. The group in front of them is their escorts / guards.
We were told not to take pictures, but since I have a very long lens on my camera I was able to get this from about a half a block away with nobody noticing. Just couldn't resist !
The most interesting thing in town was the church. While it appears from the outside to be a Catholic church, on the inside it is anything but. Yes, there are some statues of saints, but the ceremonies arereally Mayan. Everywhere you look there are shamans performing healing (either physical or spiritual) ceremonies. There are candles everywhere. There are also sacrifices of live chickens. The shamans chant, brush the "patient" with herbs, and pass eggs over them to absorb the evil spirits. In many ways it reminded me of the practice of Santeria in Cuba, a blend of Catholicism and voodoo.
We also saw many Coke bottles being consumed in the church (along with some local liquors), all the better to communicate with the deities.
Unfortunately it was absolutely forbidden -- and enforced -- to take pictures inside the church. The gentlemen in tribal uniform seen here entering the church are tribal police, and they were adamant about enforcing the no-photo rule... as were most of the participants. I had put my camera underneath my shirt so that they wouldn't think I was taking pictures, and someone even questioned if my camera would work through the cloth. Wow, if I could take pictures through clothes I sure as hell wouldn't be wasting the technology by doing it in a church!
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