El Castillo

Below is a description of just one of ther many fiery "castillos" in Tenancingo.
     
     There are moments when we are buoyed by some invisible comforting hand. Sometimes we are presented with a gift,, and if we accept it humbly the world can be such a facinating place. Be ready for fascination,, for to be free for a time from the grading of eggs is a blessing. Reluctance or an impulse to disrobe social conventions can steal our enthusiasm. When we embrace a gift, our soul is loosened,,, and our heart, like a third eye, feels a "twinkle". I am not advocating that we place our mind in a chest in the attic. One can search for and scrutinize the hell in all forms of life,, buffering joy perhaps,, or you can reap some morsels of heaven. Hell seems always to have been more real,,, yet,,,,,there are those moments.
     There are many barrios in Tenancingo. San Jose, San Vicente, Salitre, and La Campana are only some of the group. Each barrio has its yearly festival. I do not know what they were like in the past,,,probably with less amplification, plastic and garbage. The closest event with which I am familiar would be the autumnal New England country fair, with its half agrarian half carnival atmosphere. Fleece the fleecers in the time of harvest when many have a fatted calf, a cellar full of squash, some cash, a smile on their face. Where there are country gatherings cotton candy will grow. Mexican barrio festivals are like the New England fairs without the animal displays. However there are fundamental differences. The New England country fair celebrates the harvest. The reasons for a barrio festival are more diverse. Some may be built around harvest but many celebrate patron saints, the coming of the rainy season, a locally made product such as a guitar in Michoacan or "obispo" ( a pork dish made in Tenancingo), or even a local hero. The food is diverse,, traditional, and sold by neighborhood vendors who open the doors of their houses, set out a tarp and a table and some cooking apparatus to sell pots of "pozole", cazuelas de salsa verde for enchiladas, sopes, tostadas ricas barbacoas, (the inner parts of all beasts "chopped", spiced, and stuffed with all kinds of chiles). Piquante still rules.. Tortillas, the bread of life here, are doubled, filled, and rolled. Tostadas de pata, papas, and cheeses, thick mexican creams, and slasas of everydescription---------this is my Mexico-------the Mexico of corn and adobe, and palates seeded with a tingling smear of smokey flavored chipotle.
     This entry is about the barrio festival in La Campana on the west end of town. 
     Mexicans love fireworks and during the days of the festival each daybreak commences with the the ziiiiiizzzzz and thundering boom of rocket bombs that can be heard in all parts of the city, not just in their appropriate barrio. ZZiiiiiiiizzzzzz whooosh, then a moment of suspense followed by booom,,,,,,booom,,,,,,booom, booooom, sounds that are then batted about by the surrounding mountains. On "la mera noche", perhaps the first or second day, "el castillo" will illuminate the night, and this is what I was there to see. All the barrio festivals have castillos of all shapes and sizes but The Campana traditionally has one of the better ones.
     The castillo is a home-made tower made of wooden slats perhaps 60 feet tall. Re-enforcing rods are bent to form the many different shapes that adorn "The Tower". Stars, circles, squares, animals, and angels are suspended out from the central structure and given the freedom to spin like the arms of a mobile. It is a kind of an phosphorescent totem pole,,,,a movable feast. Fireworks are attached along the rims and outlines of all the shapes providing the energy for movement and also the sparks that wow the crowd. I wonder do people build towers to be dominated or to dominate?
     There are many bands in Mexico. They come in various shapes and styles. A popular type for barrio fiestas are "los vientos",comprised of trumpets, clarinets, tubas, and drums. Their sound is reminiscent of beer hall "ooompah" music but with a klezmer twist. The local boys have a special "diamond in the rough" sound. Everyone is a little out of tune,,,a little out of step,,,but right on time. It's down home loud proud mexican rhythm. They play all day every day for the duration of the fiesta and when I arrived they were in full swing.    
     The music characteristically builds and falls between anticipation and elation. When it diminishes, like a receding wave the ebbing drums, which usually dominate, drain much of the life out of the music but they lightly persist like a promise. The tuba player looks like an 80's soccer player, as his hair falls in a long cascade of curls from the back of his head. His deep sound slinks a little from the song. Clarinets fade but faintly hold the songline. Then at some point eyes meet and the drummers stick falls like Hephaestus's hammer. The windy choir suddenly re-ignites the fire. Clarinets wail in pleasing discordance as trumpets scream and prod the song into new life. One feels the tuba line and drums again like a strong heartbeat,,,,and we are all revived.
     The street is jammed with people more arriving by the minute. Mexicans tolerate a closeness, something uncomfortable to northern people who prefer to preserve an aura of space. Mexicans push and jam against one another until the crowd itself is like one long narrow human cloth----a creaturely rebozo. It is so tight that one scents the hair of the one in front and touches patches of other people's skin on their sides.
     The tower at the end of this crowded street is a dark rickety 60 foot wooden tree. At the base of the tower are two lifesize figures of heavily painted maché. One is a man in sombrero atop a bull with sharp horns. Man and bull meld together so that he is not really atop but inseparably part of the animal. In front of him is a mache´woman in a traditional dress her arms raised and tied to an overhead harness. She supports the mexican "doo" when hair is pulled straight back into a pony tail. A curl of hairs are separated from he front of the "doo" and curled back onto the forehead. The sharp points of the "return" seem to pierce the skin.

                                              
                                                Tenancingo "Doo"
 
     The sound of the band swells and the mache couple are set in motion. I cannot see what moves them for the thickness of the crowd. The mache man shoots up white flares and begins to gyrate with camshaft like motion on his bull,,,,,up and down, forward and back-----the horns probe with each pumping action. The mache woman shoots flares of blue and begins to undulate before her torreador. It is purely sexual. Sex is the warp and pregnancy the waft in the fabric of life in Mexico.
     I catch a glimpse of the obscure uneven structure of the tower. It is a flimsy wooden presence that hovers over the narrow street. The images that are contained within the metal shapes that project from it cannot be seen yet because they haven't been illuminated by the fireworks. They remain cached until released by fire. When the mache´couple have exhausted their pas de deux the first level of the tower is lit. The air is laden with the band music and the smell of powder when a large circle in front of the tower base, eight feet in diameter, is ignited. It begins to spin as the little rocket motors on the perimeter flare. The spinning intensifies. In the center of the circle an outline of the Virgin Mary appears in blue flame. She is the cleansed and sterilized image of motherhood for all those heavy catholics that remain on this earth. The circle is spinning like a gyroscope suspended by two points,, as The Virgin twirls like catlolic popsicle.
     At one moment however one notices a change in the Virgin.As her fire diminishes another white image appears and subtlety and miraculously the Virgin metamorphoses into a large bell or campana, the name of the barrio. The bell then spits and spins itself into extinction. There is a silence, the loud pyrotechnical hissing leaving for a moment and just the hum of the crowd remains. The visual image is still burnt into everyone's eyes. At some point in the first ignition the band stopped playing. This was not detectable, over-ridden by the visual display and the hissing of fireworks. The silence is broken as some men on a rooftop shoot cohetes (rockets) into the air that loudly explode into colorful umbrellas. The band suddenly claims the air with a brassy vengeance. 
     It is two or three minutes before the next tier of images is enkindled. Goats and angels interchange. Pagan imagery becomes catholic. The culture is in drag. Circles and stars blaze as arms on either side of the structure spinning and spewing fire. Figures evanesce and overlap. The spinning of geometric shapes creates optical illusions for the stationary viewer when the axis is vertical. The images seem to grow thin and disappear for an instant only to re-appear as the shape comes round towards our field of vision once again. The whole structure seems fragile, trembling with the strain of the motion. Each new shape erupts higher up the tower and exerts more leverage on the quaking structure. The dancing of the patchwork geometry edges aloft as each tier is set aflame until the fire and hissing reach the near top where HE rests--------Jesus that is. With fizzling and crackling HIS outline flares into a brilliant active Crucifixion. Head bowed, he rains streams of white sparks of redemption upon the faithful waiting below. All I can see is the dark outline of their heads like a sea of black almonds. The band plays louder and Jesus suffers in a hail of sparks. Candy hisses. When HIS black powder is spent, above his head a six foot diameter halo parallel to the ground begins to spin. Golden white embers thrown out by centrifugal force cascade to the earth. The sparks create a shroud of light that envelope and obscure the entire tower. The dark faces of the crowd flash and disappear as if we were all watching a film. The raining shroud resembles the shape of a well manicured chubby scotch pine Xmas tree adorned with braceleted strings of fire. As it fades the choreography continues and above the light tree another smaller halo commences the finale. It spins with ever increasing speed changing colors, red to green to blue until its velocity causes it to hurl itself up into the night sky like a discus. It spins away away up into the dark blue distance. Its perimeter flares finally subdue its climb but it is not finished just yet. In its center appears a fiery single word, FIN. It's black powder engine used up, the halo falls to the earth haphazardly and bounces ignominiously off a red tile roof then hits the ground. Another year has passed.