Mexico, Tenancingo Degollado, : March 2019

With night the shade of trepidation is drawn,,,, given the ape in our genes. Add to that our urban dislocation from life in the forest when we as a species were more familiar and haunted with things that go bump in the night. City dwellers, on the other hand, combat fear by just finding a crowd of which there are plenty. Forest dwellers, even though more familiar with the comings and goings of nocturnal creatures, are often couched in fear during many a sleepless night.There was little comforting deep sleep, vigilance doing battlle with relaxation.
I am reminded of an incident years ago,,,,,, in the heart of the wood,,, when a sound found me in my bed and shook me. This was a time when my mind was still between the city where I was born and the forest, where I then lived, a wet behind the ears nouveau cave man, still festooned with urban bangles. In 1973, my third year in Maine, one geodesic night in the woods, asleep in my bed, a treble echoing sound eviscerated my dreams that was high pitched like a girl screaming. It seemed to change directions as it pierced the night. At one point I joked to myself that it was bigfoot. It sounded at first like sonar,,,you know the sound from one of those submarine movies, like Run Silent Run Deep where everyone is sweating the beeps,, and tensely waiting in silence for the next depth charge. After a moment the sound increased in volume to the scream of a banshee. Still half asleep I fuzzily thought for a moment that my mother had died and this was her spiritual farewell speech to me. No it couldn't be, because she would have accompanied the screams with gross put-downs,,,each repeated three times as is the rule for Italian-American mothers. You two eyed four eyed cock-eyed son of a bitch,,,,,you two eyed four eyed cock eyed son of a bitch,,,,you two.............and then she would alter the phrase but maintain the rythymn and biting theme.
No it wasn't mom, it was an animal, I thought,, but I had no idea what it could be. It frightened me. You see the awesome silences I encountered in Maine when I first arrived, devoid of buses and noisy cars unerved me,,,,,this piercing screech however was other worldly,, strange for its unfamiliarity.  Here I was in Maine, originally from New Jersey, where the only wild life was occaisional possums in the garbage can and the ants that emerged from the cracks of the cement walk that my mother liked to scald with boiling water.
The next day,, after some inquiry I was told by some locals that it was a screech owl,, a  35,000 watt tweeter,, whose sound seems to emanate from everywhere. Otus asio is small, only 10 inches high with a 20-inch wingspan. Adults are dark brown or gray with small ear-tufts. This species is a permanent resident in most of southern Maine. Could this pidgeon sized bird have been responsible?
I had no rebuttal to my neighbors after all they were residents. I amused myself with the question of why emit such a sharp sound that pierced the cloak of night like a slashing broadsword. I theorized why a screech owl screeches. It is to instill fear, to announce the "coming",,,,,but above all to create movement. The sound rustled the prey I thought. Owls can detect these slight stirrings. Since the sound seems at times to have no fixed origin it disorients even more.A rodent runs helter skelter and suddenly is trapped in the vise like talons of its eternal master.
All this took place in 1970 way before the internet. Just this year I revisited the sound in my diary and went to search for a duplicate on the web or for any one else who might have encountered such a phenomenon. Cornell University maintains a large catalogue of bird sounds. When I visited their page and listened to varied recordings of screech owls nothing came close to what I had heard. In fact a screech owl doesn't screech at all. It coos more than blares. However I did find a plethora of testamonials from those who had encountered similar sounds. The internet is garden of testamonials,,,,, then the weeding must begin. One fellow stood out because he described the sound so well. Unlike me he went out into the night several times upon hearing the noise and saw some foxes which he claimed were the source of the screech. Another testamonial was sure the sound came from a bobcat or lynx. Below are some recordings of these animals. The lynxes and the last one of a fox are very close to what I heard on those nights long ago.

https://youtu.be/-YC1Odv-FrY Bobcat

https://youtu.be/G4ewNJ77xT8 Lynx

https://youtu.be/CmLdgCczb_g Fox

https://youtu.be/aodwqjvk-ak Fox

La Leyenda Del Señor Del Rebozo

There is a former Dominican convent near the zocalo in Mexico City. All that remains of the convent is the church, named Santo Domingo. The Dominican convent was built in the middle of the 16th century. It is located located behind the former convent of Santa Catalina de Siena in La Paza 23 deMayo and just a bit north of La Plaza Santo Domingo, where all the printers of wedding invitations and baptisms can be found. The Convent de Santa Catalina was founded by the pecuniary aid of three extremely religious and wealthy women known by "The Felipas", this convent received help from rents which were set up as a kind of trust by the Felipas which supported the nuns who embraced the invocation of St. Catherine of Siena.
As one enters the temple on the right there is a wooden Christ carved by an anonymous sculptor, one of the many post conquest image makers who left religious art for the generations that followed without leaving his name. The statue is a Christ with a sad look, of mortal pallor, with great bleeding wounds and a crown of thorns whose tips seem to be stuck in the flesh. He evokes pity, this sad figure of the Lord, placed at the entrance of the temple, his wounded body, limp and barely covered with a piece of purple robe.

Perhaps this sad aspect of the Christ carrying the Cross was what motivated a nun who arrived as a novice named Severa de Gracida y Alvarez and who later adopted the name of Sister Severa of Santo Domingo. Every time she went to church at the temple of Santa Catalina, Sister Severa stopped to whisper a couple of prayers to the image loaded with such a heavy cross and every day she noticed him more overwhelmed, sadder, with more trails of blood.
As the years passed and as the nun Sister Severa of Santo Domingo spent more time before the Christ, the greater became her devotion, the greater her sorrow, and the greater the faith she professed to the son of God. Thirty-two years passed and the nun grew old, and tired, but that did not mean that her adoration for the Lord of the Cross declined. In fact her devotion increased. When she was near death she called to him from her cell where she had fallen sick with disease and old age.
One night the wind howled. It crept through the cracks, and through the wicket on her door lacking a glass or wooden cover. It penetrated the old and tired bones of the nun. The air lashed her as the rain and the night became unbearable.
"Jesus ... my Christ!" , cried the nun with an almost inaudible voice, full of pain trying to leave her sickbed. She called out again "let me cover your skinny body ... come to me my lord, and show yourself to this sinner who only knew how to love you and adore you in religious reverence". Mysteriously, a blind mendicant appeared at and knocked quietly at the door of the cell of the sick nun, and she, with much effort, got up and opened the door, to be met by the sad figure of the beggar, almost naked, who seemed to have great need of food and shelter. The nun took a crust, a piece of the loaf she had not touched, and offered him bread dipped in oil. She offered him water, and taking from her closet a woolen shawl, she covered the beggar's wretched body.
Finished doing this, the nun's returned to her bed. Soon her body shuddered, gave a deep sigh and she passed away. The next day they found her body stiff, but fragrant with holiness, and the aroma of roses, wearing a beatific smile on her face withered by years and sickness yet there in the temple of Santa Catalina de Siena, covering the lean and bleeding body of El Señor, who had been her devotion for so many years, the man with the cross on his back, was the rebozo or woolen shawl of the old nun.
Since then this was considered a miracle, an inexplicably sacred act. The religious and the faithful baptized this image with the name "The Lord of the Rebozo" and this Christ received for many years the veneration of parishioners, until the exclaustration of the nuns and when the government ceded this beautiful and legendary temple, first for a Protestant church and then for a library. He had been somewhat forgotten.
However, in 1984 Evaristo Borboa, master rebocero in Tenancingo, heard the story and went to see the statue in Mexico City. He was moved and asked a scupltor in Toluca to duplicate the statue which was placed inside a glass and wooden case made by the maestro Borboa himself within The Capilla de Jesus in Tenancingo. More than 30 years later march 22, 2019 a group in Tenancingo created a procession honoring the myth and their cultural identity, the ikat rebozo.

Fotos below:

En el siglo XVI, tres mujeres de buena posición llamadas “Las Felipas”, fundaron un convento dominico justo detrás del Templo de Santa Catalina de Siena, en la calle hoy conocida como República de Argentina, en la Ciudad de México.

Aquel templo contenía justo en la entrada una figura bastante afectada de un Cristo cargado con una cruz. Pero su apariencia iba más allá de lo común, realmente transmitía sufrimiento, dolor, pena, ese sacrificio que elevó como solución a nuestros pecados.

Severa de Gracida y Álvarez, una joven novicia que llegó al convento en busca de acercarse y servir a Dios, creó una fuerte empatía con esta figura, justo desde su llegada. Cada día, pasaba junto a esta imagen y rezaba con mucho fervor y devoción, todos le conocían por esto.

El señor del rebozoCon el paso del tiempo, ya conocida como Sor Severa de Santo Domingo, demostraba con mucha más fuerza aquella devoción a la figura, a pesar de su edad, sus enfermedades y sus dolores.Una noche de tempestad y fuertes lluvias, aquella monja recordaba la figura del Cristo y pensaba en ir a cubrirlo, evitarle un dolor adicional al que demostraba cada día más ante los ojos de aquella devota, sin embargo, su enfermo cuerpo y débiles hueso no le permitían avanzar, por lo que entre oraciones comenzó a llamarle, en busca de recibirlo y acobijarlo.

Justo en ese momento, llamó a la puerta un mendigo que yacía mojado y hambriento bajo la lluvia, con la ropa destrozada bajo aquel vendaval. Sor Severa no se lo pensó y entre dolores y un alma servicial, atendió a aquel necesitado, con comida, ropas y abrigo para una noche larga.

Al día siguiente, el cuerpo de aquella religiosa fue encontrado sin vida, pero con un olor a santidad bastante fuerte, a rosas, además de una sonrisa de paz y bondad inigualable en aquel rostro complacido. Por otra parte, su rebozo o chal, fue encontrado sobre aquella imagen.

Al ser considerado un acto divino, fue bautizado como el Señor del Rebozo, la misma imagen que por más de 30 años recibió las oraciones de Sor Severa, la misma que fue adorada hasta que el Templo se convirtió en una biblioteca.

En 1984, el maestro rebocero Evaristo Borboa en Tenancingo, escuchó la historia y fue a ver la estatua en la Ciudad de México. Fue trasladado y le pidió a un escultor en Toluca que duplicara la estatua que se colocó dentro de una caja de vidrio y madera hecha por el mismo maestro Borboa dentro de La Capilla de Jesús en Tenancingo. Más de 30 años después, el 22 de marzo de 2019, un grupo en Tenancingo creó una procesión en honor al mito y su identidad cultural, el ikat rebozo.