We arrived at about 8:30AM for the fiestas of Corpus Cristi having begun the day before. Corpus Cristi is a moveable feast.The Feast of Corpus Christi is normally celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which falls one week after Pentecost Sunday. Since the date of Pentecost Sunday depends on the date of Easter, which changes every year, Trinity Sunday (and thus Corpus Christi) falls on a different date each year as well.
The gas station near the entrance to the town was filled with happy masked men and women,, but these are no ordinary masks. Many were hand made by the wearer out of the piña of maguey and were originally plastered with cow dung and some sort of glue. Some of these masks now are carved in more detail and highly polished by master mask makers.
Hundreds of masked men and women were dancing and congregating in groups all along the main thoroughfare. They resembled animals more than people,, stiff fibers of maguey extending out from their masks, vests, and pants all fashioned from the cactus. If this had been a dry savannah I could have imagined I was in Africa. Some had walked two hours from surrounding villages to reach Temescalcingo fortified by flaggons of pulque and beer. The festivities actually started the day before in their respective towns and would continue throughout the day in Temescalcingo then they would trek back to their pueblos again as the night and moon accompanied them.
How did this come about? That became the mission. I found a group of inebriated fellows who had taken off their masks in the shade of a tree near the atrium of the church. It was necessary to insinuate myself with humility into their bristly tribe. As soon as they realised my inquiry was real we became instant friends. I'm a blanco who had become interested in them and Mexicans for the most part are friendly people. They warm up to you quickly if you show some respect. Still it took a while to penetrate the veils of alchohol and extract their interpretation of this event. They had been drinking most of the day yesterday and had just completed a walk of two and a half hours that early morning from their town to Temescalcingo. In the late afternoon they would return home on foot for more festivities. As we schmoozed they pulled a large base drum in front of their companion to hide his parts as he began to piss like a horse. I had to adjust my position in order to avoid the advancing runnel. These guys claimed that somewhere around 1912 or 1913 there was an earthquake and a plague that hit Temescalcingo,,, the eartquake centered in nearby Acambay which does have a very active fault. Perhaps the plague followed the quake, they were not sure. The church tower fell to the ground and many people lost their houses and began living in a tent community behind the church. This disruption to life caused the population to search for a reason. Many thought it was a punishment from God for sins committed. The solution was to don masks made of maguey (which by the way chafes terribly) walk,,and dance in order to do penance and please their angry creator. The outsized masks were to disguise their identities from the deity.
I left my intoxicated friends deciding to interview others while thinking that spring is host to so many of these events that require displacement, distance, sacrifice, and revelry. With the first turn of the weather there is a call like a church bell that beckons life to promenade once again. Others claimed this was a rain dance and was precolumbian in origin. That made more sense to me than an earthquake in 1912 although the earthquake and plague may have revived or co-opted for the church an already existing indigenous rite of spring. That day there seemed to be too many drunks and not enough hard information.
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