The Virgins of Mexico

    I met up with my wife who was already at one of the pre christmas moving street rosaries. Each night a large processio marches on a different route within the city reciting a rosary. Each person carries a candle, their faces bronzed and changing from the flickering tapers. Residents on the streets along which the rosary passes decorated their houses with blue and white cut paper banners.

This was the second of nine consecutive evening rosaries called a novenario. The christmas rosaries honor La Virgen de Los Dolores, the Virgin of Tenancingo. 

                                                     
        La Virgen de Los Dolores Tenancingo in a mid 1800 era , like a collage- painting with a silver dagger positioned over the silver heart of Mary who sports a real silver halo,, and above the halo a solid gold crown. A patron is painted into the lower left hand corner. In early june 2018 there was a robbery. The story goes as follows: thieves hid within the basilica San Clemente coming out after all was locked up and stole the golden crown. It was considered a national treasure.


     There are many more churches dedicated to Virgins than to Jesus. Jesus just may be God yet Mary as his mother, trancends his accomplishments and suffering. Her figure has been molded to fit each catholic culture. Her images are everywhere in the catholic world and even if all are slightly different we are capable of distilling the essence of motherhood from each and every one. I guess Mom is a more mysterious and more powerful character than her Son-Dad. First of all she is more acessible because she is not a diety. She is often seen cradling her son. If one casts aside the invented myth of a virgin birth, meant to elevate her to an incongrous and remote level of cleanliness, her figure returns to us,, emotionally closer,, and more well defined than her son. It is easy to see how the faithful appeal to this universal icon of motherhood to heal the soul and body.  
     In Mexico there are many statues honoring the Virgin Mary,, most usually old and made of wood except of course the Virgen de Guadalupe who is painted on a sheepskin robe. They can range from small, like the Virgen de Zapopan or human sized like the Virgen de Xico,, or supernatural,, like some Virgenes de Carmen. 
    In Xico, Veracruz for example the raiments for their Virgin, Santa Maria Magdalena, are changed each year, and meticuously hand made. It is an honor to be chosen to make one of her garments. In Xico,  Santa Maria Magdalena even has a museum that houses her many wadrobes going back hundreds of years. 


                               
                           The wardrobe museum of Santa Maria Magdalena Xico, Veracruz

                                             
          Let me speak briefly about The Virgen de Guadalupe. Mexicans are Guadalupanos and La Virgen de Guadalupe, who is accessible to all, is the most revered of all mexican icons. The Mother of Jesus is represented in various forms in all mexican pueblos but the Virgin Of Guadalupe is a national image that transcends all others. She is the patron saint of  all Mexico. She is MOM  times 10 to the minus ten. The most popular pilgramages in the country are to Tepayac in Mexico City to her image painted on a sheepskin robe. Jesus comes in second. Chalma near Tenancingo, which honors El Señor,  is the second most popular pilgramage site.
     Gauadalupe is tatooed on arms and chests and silkscreened on taxis waiting at intersections.  I have a picture of her in my room, her head slightly cocked in a humble gaze, dark skinned and approachable pasted onto her bed of sunbeams. Mexicans love Jesus but they worship the Virgin. Every Mexican has at least one image of her in the house. She swings from the taxi rear view morrors glued onto old CDs, she is the focal point of countless altars and candle offerings, she is enshrined in myriads of little roadside cement arks decorated with miniature flags and christmas lights and chintzy electronic music,,,,,,she is everything to Mexico. The Indian to whom she appeared, now San Juan Diego was cannonized by Pope John Paul on his last visit to Mexico before his death. Diego was given the papal imprimatur which  with the same edict super canonized Mexico's indigenous version of Mary.

      

    La Señora, La Virgen de Guadalupe

                                                 
                               A Restaurant in Guadalajara with and image of La Virgen de Guadalupe

                                                          
                               A young man holding a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Chalma


                                       
                                        The Virgin of Guadalupe on her way to be blessed in Chalma

         

Pilgrimage leaving Tenancingo for Tepeyac in February

          

San Diego

       

     First stage of the 110 kilometer long Pilgramage from Tenancingo to Tepeyac in Mexico City. Mexico is a land of pilgrammages.Thousands of people from the towns around Tenancingo walk to the Mexico City to honor their National Virgin at the Basilica in Tepayac which houses the famous robe of San Juan Diego. A young friend, Sonia, who I call Soniarisa ( a bastardization of sonrisa or smile) because she is always smiling, walked to Mexico City a few years ago with thousands of others, like atrip to Mecca. It took her 4 days. The group walks together, accepts food from households along the way, sleeps in churches, on the ground, or in private homes when offered. This counted as one of the foremost experiences in her life. It is something that appeals I think to the bit of Chaucer that remains in all of us. It seems the farther we voyage from that tight far off universe of movement coupled with simple human contact the more we pine for its return.

       The Rosary procession started at San Clemente. Two hundred people, women children, and men with candles marched. They bore icons of the Virgin. It is good, I believe, to bear a burden a distance. All the images of Mary are borne upon heavy wooden tables sprinkled with flower petals. Some children in front carried a wooden table with a framed picture of the Virgin from the church. They took turns lifting the wooden arms that ran through holes in the desks and were placed upon little shoulders. She was lit with a thin gooseneck tensor lamp that curled from the top of the framed image like an antenna. They bobbed and bumped as children will do, unkempt in their pace,, but kept well the chants and songs. Other older youth bore a larger photo of her. The men, in the rear, ferried the heaviest weight. Upon their shoulders was the recently discovered newly restored painting,,,a different version of Mary,,,set into a thick gold leafed frame. It is a type of collage surprising in its subtlety. The painting at first seems black. There are objects that startingly stand out upon the apparent black surface. A real gold crown, a small silver heart pierced by a dagger, and two strings of delicate small pearls, one about her neck and another encircling her wrist. All these float upon the blackness seeming to outline a yet invisible person. Closer inspection, however, reveals a kneeling Mary. She appears in parts if you stare intently into its blackness. A hint of the folds of her red under robe,,then her face set in the sliver halo....her wrist outlined by the pearl bracelet,,,and when as you try to sift for more she disappears. She comes and goes and cannot be apprehended as a whole being,,,, just ghostly parts.

The weight of the painting and support was great for the six men who conveyed her.The wood creaked as the procession slowly marched chanting the rosary. Other men carried heavy branches with crotches at the top to support her when the men´s shoulders need a short rest. With a word they moved in and position their sticks under the bastons. Still other men wheeled the heavy batteries that illuminated the painting on a handtruck.

From the basilica down Leon Guzman, across Benito Juarez, up Carlos Estrada, across Moctezuma, and back to the basilica. The route had been cleaned and decorated by neighbors. These same people stood outside their houses praying with us as we passed. The procession paced, candles and prayers flickered up into the cool night air. Hands were fringed in pearly strands of wax from the melting tapers. I recited the prayers in English. The prayers, etched into my brain rolled off the tongue but did not did not distract from observation. A little doe eyed baby doll of a mexican child held tight her sister's hand moving in a child's bow legged gait on too short feet.

The rosary parade finally entered the basilica to applause. After a brief talk we disbanded. My wife and I went to the front where the Virgins bourne during the march had been collected. I stared up intently at the surface of the painting by Monroy. Adults and children would advance towards Her in a respectful way. Some touched the surface and made the sign of the cross with a clutched hand as if they had swiped some precious invisible thing. Some gently grasped a few flower petals gazed up, and left as if they had taken away some invisible charm. I find myself being drawn into the warm bath of faith and touch and voodoo which perhaps is not a fair description. Maybe I have more faith than I am willing to admit,,,but I doubt that. Perhaps I tender skepticism for an arrogant science which thinks it can know everything or cool pragmatism which is constantly at odds with that chip placed in each human body that yearns for mystery and comforting fairy tales. Heaven knows I'll never eat a steady diet of this but once in a while out of respect for those who eat at this flowery altar I soften in the presence of the faithful. What a simple exercise,,,this evening was, to fill the street with people unified by a common thread. I felt I knew them and their faith even though I knew soon it would all wear off.

I live in a fervently religious country, devoutly catholic and intensely pagan that is changing rapidly. In Mexico there is an abundance of supersttion and faith,,,it is a vatican dream. Many people still heal by examining how a black hen dies over a patient, or create luck (there's an expression) by blending water and garlic and dispersing it in front of their business. They strike the body with a bundle of fragrant leaves from the Pirule tree to cleanse and "purify" the soul or by rolling an egg over the skin to attract the accumulated dark residues. The egg is broken into a jar of water where the negative energy remains. The egg acts like a spiritual shop vac sucking the accumulated dirt from a soul. Seven machos alchohol is rubbed over the body and blown into the face to "cleanse" people of their bad energy. Mal de ojo or an evil eye is most common and occurs when a weak person, or an infant or a child, is intently gazed by a jealous person. The stare is said to make the victim's spirit sick and cause headaches, high fever, irritability, and in the case of young children, crying and a refusal to eat or sleep. They put envelopes of sugar in their wallets to bring fortune and believe the saliva of a pregnant woman has healing powers. They buy soaps whose herb content and mix promote sexual prowess, wealth, health etc.

I remember an incident a year before my father died when we were sitting down to eat christmas dinner. My father sat aloof at the head of the table in the grips of a senile fog when my cousin came in with a loaf of italian bread fresh out of the oven and hastily put it on the table. My father half mumbled to her, "Turn the bread over." She looked in surprise. He continued, "Don't leave the bread upside down it brings bad luck". It must have been some superstition from his italian upbringing, who knows how old and why but it added some character to an otherwise predictable evening. These and many more customs and superstitions are employed, not just because now it is fashionable to look elsewhere for cures. Mexicans have been repeating these flights of imagination for thousands of years. The street rosary got my ass out of the house on a night when I might have just gone to bed early. It provoked me to think about the culture in which I live.

   
       Here is a list of SOME of the Virgins in Mexico. 
     La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Virgen de Xicotepec, La Virgen de La Imaculata Concepcion de Chignahuapan, Puebla, Virgen del Carmen, Virgen de La Milagrosa, Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socoro, Virgen del Buen Suceso Tianguistenco, Nuestra Virgen de La Asuncion  Cuaco, Nuestra Señora de La Soledad y Santa Cruz, Nuestra Señora de La Soledad Acapulco, Nuestra Señora de Tonatico, and Santa Maria Magdalena Xico. There is even a Virgen de La Masacre de Acteal, Chiapas.

 

Santa Maria Magdelena Xico, Veracruz

 

La Virgen de Tonatico near Tenancingo. It is said her head once faced downward but a fire darkened her skin and affected the cedar from which she is made to change he gaze skyward. 

  La Virgen de Zapopan who is moved each year from her shrine in the cathedral of Zapopan to visit some surrounding pueblos. It is estimated that a million people attend her departure and return. 

 

La Virgen de La Soledad

 

La Virgen del Carmen

 

La Virgen de Juquila, Oaxaca

 

La Virgen del Socoro Taxco

 

The Virgin de La Masacre de Acteal Chiapas

  

The Bones

    

     I used to collect money at the church called San Francisco on Sundays. These collections were organized by a local man named Beto, a political hopeful,with the aim of restoring each of the 32 churches in Tenancingo Center one at a time. 
     During and after The Mexican Revolution church property was expropriated. The churches themselves were looted and the buildings ignored. The catholic church was not held in high esteem by the new post revolutuionary political stewards of Mexico. Most viewed the church as a plague upon the people,, and a competitive force with which to be reckoned. In 1926 President Plutarco Elías Calles, a particulary rabid hater of the church, launched a decree called "Ley de Calles", where many of the church's rights were taken away. The Calles Law was meant to supress and limit Catholic worship in Mexico. Laws against religion are like laws against bowel movements.They don't work. Humans seem to have a genetic spiritual "chip" installed in their hearts. Calles's attempt to curtail religion led to The Cristero War which sought the annulment of the law. Eighty years has passed and the catholic religion is held dear by 90% of Mexicans.  
     When I arrived in Tenancingo sixteen years ago The Parroquia or San Franciso, on one side of the zocalo was in rough shape and looked like a dreadful collage on the inside,,, the synthesis of a country priest's colorful lust for God perhaps encountering a donation from a wealthy parishoner.  My muster of money on those sundays in 2004 , were  meant to help with restoring 75 years of neglect. In 2009, when Tenancingo became a dioses and received a bishop, The Parroquia was given a tasteful remake. Then came the sept 19th 2017 earthquake rattling up from the restive bowels of the earth that brought everything back to zero.
      Each sunday, 14 years ago I arrived before the 8:00 AM mass and was assigned a door where I would wait for people to exit after the service. I was given a little brown box with a slot on top. I had prepared and practiced my lines in spanish. 
     "¿Te gustaría cooperar con la reastauración? ¡Cooperemos con la restauración! ¡Ahora estamos cooperando!" 
     More often than not I was sent to the smaller market side entrance of the church. I was a "lesser soldier". During the mass I had my routine which was based on biding my time and wondering. I would march towards the huge Ahuehuete near the entrance and then back again wondering if God does exist often thinking about how lazy and uninvolved this fellow is. We do all the work building His network and maintaining it,,, and He is just somewhere way out there in the stardust. Jesus says we must "cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness". Was he talking about his father, the deadbeat dad, or is it all a neatly tied bundle of contradictions. Perhaps I am just a bundle of contradictions as well. 
     My curiosity at times waivered from religious questions and focused on the construction of the church. San Francisco is not a huge church but it took some doing to erect it. The oldest part of the church dates from 1640. I imagined a cacaphony of sounds, hammering, chiseling, and scraping. There would have been heavy wooden staging, donkeys, and men,,, most likely indigenous men. I often tried to decipher the spanish on an old sand stone baptismal font left outside like an after thought on the grass. The style of the carved letters were in a Greek font, a kind of geometric format. 
     One morning between the nine and ten o'clock mass while killing time I noticed something new. There, on the lawn space in front of my entrance was a 10 foot tall 10,000 liter blue plastic water cistern rising up from the dirt and casting a big shadow. There it stood, waiting for enterrment. I thought at first that the shadow would be good protection for my ever balding pate baking in the sun. During the week the workers had begun a cylindrical hole that was about 2.5 meters deep and in typical Mexican left open to the world, a gaping unprotected chasm inviting curious little boys and presenting an obstacle to wobbly footed older ladies. This is Mexico however and I can still ride in the back of a pickup truck so who cares if we lose a couple of little unruly brats or a few grannies in the pit. It is the price we pay for our freedom from the shackles of insurance.
     Being male and genetically prone to explore holes I walked over to take a look. I peered in. My eyes traced the path down. There was some rubble visible in the upper layer, beginning about 50 centimeters down and ending at about a meter into the hole. Below that beautiful dark fine soil lead into the darkness. My eyes wandered around the rim and the rubble. It hadn't registered yet what I was seeing. There where the rim met the corner of the wall was a pile of gray bones mixed with the dirt excavated from the hole.. What is this I thought? They seemed to be too big for animals and too small for,,,,heavens,,,humans? I was freshly curious and went to see Beto, the person coordinating the restoration, to ask about these mysterious shards. He was disoriented at first. His first reaction was ,,"those damn people who come onto church grounds at night and leave their trash". I told him that this was not the refuse from a mini bar-b-cue by delinquents but something much older.
     "Show me these, Beto said".
     We walked over, he hunched over leaning on his cane taking baby steps as he edged nearer the rim .We talked, He told me there are rumors that there is a secret tunnel under the church that was used during the bloody mexican revolution. This, I could see was going to evolve into pure guy talk about holes. He gingerly extended his cane and rolled over some of the discarded bones with the rubber tip staring down expressionless.
     "They are the bones of pigs from the market", Beto affirmed.
     I said half joking, " or goats maybe"? However I was thinking these are not pigs or goats", these are human femurs".
     I took note of how many femurs there were and their length. The diameter of the hole was perhaps a meter and a half and starting within the thickness of 50 to 1 meter there was a layer of hundreds of bones like a layer of sediment.  These were indeed very short people. Pygmies perhaps?,,the true first visitors to the continent,,, before the land bridge? Babies? No. These were fully developed. Indigenous people? A massacre,,, a plague? Questions were arriving like taxi's at the close of a musical event.
     An older gent, Raimundo, known as Mundo, who aided with the restoration entered the scene. He is a retired school teacher, nearly deaf, and a devout catholic. He hollers, as he always does,, "Oh yeah we found a skull in the soil during the dig and when we put it in the Sun it just fell apart". His loud voice only amplified the absurdity. I was beginning to feel aloof when Mundo insists as does Beto that this just has no historical value. 
     "It is just an old graveyard. This was sanctified ground."
      Beto transforms into Francisco Pissaro before my eyes and Mundo starts to resemble Hernan Cortez seeing only the glitter of gold and eliminating everything human. Their disinterest was foreign to me. Beto, who sees himself as the town historian, commented that when the Spanish arrived 500 years ago all the Indians lived in Teotla or Acatzingo,,,not here. I often feel this agitation rising within me when people are sure of something when all records have been destroyed. Teotla is only five blocks away so I don't consider that a grand distance for an Indian. Also I have seen the soil in Teotla and Acatzingo and it's all rocks. These Indians in this region were food producers, not hunter gatherers so they would have sought out better soil. Ancient people were close to the soil. They would have exploited this option. I was fishing for defense against Beto's surety however I had no answers only questions.

     Beto and Mundo added that many churches here had cemeteries about them. This was familiar enough to me but why was there no pieces of clothes, or baubles, and why were all so short? Why was there only femurs I thought. When I told my wife  later that day she theorized that these were the remains of the babies of nuns.  

    With a half angry tone I said to Beto and Mundo, "How do you know for sure, are you  paleontologists? Whomever they are,,,they are part of the history of Tenancingo, and the church,,, and their muteness should be heard." 

     Beto and Mundo maintained their disinterest and returned to the main entrance of the church. The only one to express interest was Virginia, an expat, who was also helping with the restoration. We went over with some plastic bags to collect some samples finding a jawbone and trying to separate teeth from legs and pot shards. Then we went back with Beto to try to convince him that this begs further investigation. 

     Mundo shouts,,,"Come on over tomorrow, and if we find another skull,,I'll save it for you".      There is very little of value in the streets of Mexico because the gleaners have scoured anything usable. This is not like the states where "good" garbage abounds for the free picking. You would have trouble finding a few pieces of wood to rub together to make a fire here. And Mundo is offering me a skull of unknown origin as if it were worthless. Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well. In this case no one wants to know Yorick or Citlalli or anything. This could have been  Mundo's great great great great great great x 10 to the minus ten grandparents.
     That night I couldn't sleep well. I was haunted by short people trying to sell me memories, chanting, "memorias memorias cuatro por diez, cuatro por diez". Virginia e-mailed me that morning with the information that Beto had placed the bones we had bagged in the Camerine fo safe keeping and had changed his attitude.They will be studied. I doubted all she said, thinking he just strolled over to the nearest garbage can and tossed Atahualpa into the can. 

Chalma Revisited

About Chalma, Mexico

     Twenty five kilometers west of Cuernavacaand twenty three kilometers east of Tenancingo is the pre-Columbian sacred site of Chalma. Now a Christian holy place it is the second most visited pilgrimage site in Mexico after Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. Mexicans are Guadalupanos. They worship their Maria Morena more than He who was crucified to save their souls. Mothers, I believe, hold more sway than fathers,,, not just in Mexico but everywhere. 
    Supposedly the name Chalma comes from Nahuatl: Xalmantla: Xal.- Root of the word Salí- "sand". Man.- Root of the word Mana- "pone" of the verb poner. Tla.- It is a suffix that indicates abundance of what the, or, the roots that precede it signify. The most acceptable meaning is: "Place where sand is plentifully placed". This definition seems to contradict the geology of Chalma which is ruled by rock more than sand. Its true meaning has been lost to history.
     The early history of Chalma is shrouded in myth and later in religious fabrications. Chalma as we see it today is the result of a clash of perceptions. It seems that when Augustinian friars first visited the area in the mid 1530’s they learned that local Indians, from Ocuilan, Malinalco, and Tenancingo,, and others from much greater distances were making pilgrimages to a sacred cave within the canyon of a river that passes through what is now called Chalma making offerings to a strange cave-God who may have had the power over human destiny,,, a God with healing capacity. The friars erroneously noted, seeing through their version of truth, that almost all the surrounding towns possessed a very low cultural level for they were very inclined to deify natural things, such as trees, water, and upright stones. The Chalma River and the cave, a niche in the rock, could be God's window or God's house even. Indigenous perceptions were influenced by exerting their imagination over "natural occurrences". Water, for instance has always played a heavy part in Indigenous legends, and here, where dryness rules for the better part of the year water could easily be worshipped. The catholic missionaries who first came to this region needed a tool to make their God appear,,, faith. Faith allowed one to know God albeit at first in an amorphous form that later was made fast by a plethora of italian artists with brushes, chisels, and a vibrant imagination.The indigenous people just left the teepee and there was God in the sun, moon, sky, animals and the rivers. God's access was more direct. Faith, with its lack of evidence was not necessary for them.  
     Supposedly the pilgrims would walk for days from the surrounding mountains, wearing flowers in their hair and carrying incense burners. They usually stopped at El Ahuehuete where there is a large cypress tree and from the roots of this tree flows a huge spring of crystal clear water that forms The Chalma River. Pilgrims would arrive here first to drink the sacred water and dance, hanging offerings and the umbilical cords of their infants on the cypress,,, acting with both exhuberance and hope before walking the remaining 6 kilometers along the canyon of Ocuilan to the more serious business in Chalma. It is said in the myth that they followed the river that sprouted from beneath the cypress to a cave where La Basilica now stands in order to make offerings to a statue of Ozteotl, the Dark Lord of the Cave. Perhaps but the part about Ozteotl is unclear. At any rate whatever drew them to the cave doesn't exist anymore. It was said to have been a large, man-sized, black, cylindrical stone reputed to have magical healing powers. The idea of a natural formation that appeared in an unnatural pose makes some sense. Whatever, the idea of Chalma began sometime in the distant past as a place where people searched for favors and miracles.In fact it still is.   

 

El Ahuehuete

 

El Ahuehuete

 

El Ahuehuete

 

El Ahuehuete

 

El Ahuehuete 

 

El Ahuehuete

 

El Rio Chalma next to La Basilica Chalma

 

Entering La Basilica en Chalma

 

The dome in La Basilica Chalma

 

Exvotos

 

Waiting to enter the basilca at Chalma

 

Inside La Basilica Chalma

La Basilica Chalma

 

 

On the route to La Basilica Chalma

 

Religious baubles in Chalma

 

Peregrinacion de un grupo de Lerma a Chalma

 

Riverside bar Chalma

    
The Augustinian version of events:
     After the Augustinian friars found the cave they were shocked to find evidence of animal sacrifice. In 1539, Fray Nicholás de Perea gave a sermon to Indians assembled in the canyon of Ocuilan, preaching the evils of idol worship and insatiable cruelty. Oh, great prodigy! Oh admirable portent of the divine omnipotence! A few days later the sacred ministers entered in that abominable place and were side by side there with the Philistines and behold The Almighty's hand had cleansed the loathsome niche of its heathen pestilence and there the Hand of God had destroyed  the pagan idol and in its stead was the image of our sovereign Redeemer Jesus Christ crucified, placed on the same altar where the detestable idol was before which was shattered on the ground, reduced to fragments serving as a footstool to the divine and holy image. Seeing this miracle, the Indians fell down upon their knees in "a wave of apostolic piety". 
     Thus began the conversion of the natives in this region. 


Most likely the real story:
      There was a lot of devotion and esteem for an idol of some sort in the cave situated in the canyon of Ocuilan according to numerous communities of natives of the region, for  even people from the most remote climates came to revere the idol and ask him, to fulfill their needs. As for Fray Nicholas de Perea and his famous rallying speech to the masses,, he didn't actually appear in the region until after the image of Jesus had replaced the idol. In addition the Ocuilan dialect was not common and difficult to master. How did the newly arrived Fray communicate so well with the natives? In fact Perea was not there at all but holed up in a monastery in Mexico City quite sick, near paralysed, and unable to walk. Perhaps there was a fervent speech by someone determined to extirpate them from the cave,, one somewhat skilled in the Ocuiltec dialect. I imagine the indians listening to this accolite who was butchering their language as they waxed doubtful and unpersuaded. The religious mime blurted out "And I promise you and I give you my word of that we will remove that stone of scandal we will put  in its place an image of Jesus Christ, Son of God and our Lord who suffered to save us. " The faces of the Indigenous people looked puzzled. They got up and left. The friars, unwilling to give up had a pow wow, in order to plan a strategy. They had forgotten all the blood sacrifices in the Old Testament and the bloodless sacrifice they performed each time they said a mass and affirmed that there was opportunity here. This cave was a religious Eldorado. All they had to do was make the "big switch". The friars returned to the cave where the idol was, shattering it and replacing it with a truer image of God. 
      The indigenous people did not fall to their knees in sudden christian rapture. The truth is that they had to be converted slowly with whips and repetitious speeches and made to build a cathedral on the spot,,, which served as the "new cave".. Eventually it all came full circle and people came to the Ahuehuete to dance and drink its water still considered sacred,, and they walked to Chalma as they still do today to ask a different God for favors. 
   
     Throughout the year thousands of Catholic pilgrims walk, arrive in buses decorated with flowers, or drive to the site to give thanks for prayers answered or to pray for miracles. Today’s pilgrims take the same narrow paths they have for centuries. In Tenancingo the most popular pilgrimmage to Chalma takes place during easter week. Between wednesday night and early thursday morning tens of thousands of people walk over the mountains to Malinalco then finally Chalma. The route begins on the highway then turns more rural as you leave Tenancingo proper climbing towards the "cumbre" (summit) before the grand descent into Malinalco. The line of people leaves the highway about a mile past Teneria and passes upward on a dirt road. A swishing of feet and line of flashlights dots the route like purposeful fireflies as far as one can see. The ground is soft on the old road, a surface of dried powdery soil and deeply clumped leaves is its pavement. The moon is almost full because it always full during easter week and it illuminates an avocado grove in blue silvery splendor. One climbs until the road becomes a path narrower and filled with stones. Then the tide turns, and like boats moored in a small bay, hovering a moment between the change of the tide when their bows begin to turn to face the new flow,,,,,in this case,,,, down. The descent is rockier than before and zig zags to compensate for the steep angle. The glittering light from a thousand torches and candles snakes a magic trail up and down the deep ravines. Women carry small babies; old men hope for a miraculous cure; and young folk seek an adventure. 
     After the descent one emerges in Malinalco greeted by people selling fresh juices. Wherever people gather in Mexico there are sellers of foods and drink. Rosaries are recited by comrades. One courses through Malinalco's cobbled streets, polished with the alhumbre (light) de civilizacion. After Malinalco it's the highwayagain bordered by moonlit mountains. The night becomes more silent, for you are ten miles into the caminata, more separated than the crowded descent. The pilgrims are a bit more subdued, the night silence only broken by the shuffling of feet and the whish whish of arms swinging and brushing past jackets. By now one can feel the pace in their knees. 
     Everthing is downhill from Malinalco but two miles before Chalma an unwelcome upward incline starts. It's not severe but by this point in the walk one can feel it. Ahead beckons the glow from Chalma, set in a bowl, lightly illuminated by the mountain sides. 
Finally you enter Chalma. One passes over the Chalma River and rounds a curve lined with all the tired perigrinos only to encounter the final severe climb into the pueblo. Your feet rebel and will not obey anymore.This final hill which is the road to the sanctuary actually passes "up" and through the center of the town. One looks back and the moon that is half hidden by a bulbous mountaintop. The tired faithful are installed here and there sleeping in the darkened edges of this last corridor. When you reach the top the corridor is illuminated and becomes a market place of sweets, fruits, atole, quesadillas, and sellers of crosses. Crosses are everywhere,,,black Jesus, big Jesus, hand held Jesus, rustic Jesus, polished Jesus, bloody Jesus,,,,,and in second place endless strings of scapulas, and rosaries.  Every perigrino passes this crucifix laden entry way. Some wear flowers, just as their ancestors did and some crawl on their knees for the final part of their journey. Many are carrying heavy wooden crosses to be blessed a little further on in the Basilica. 
     At last one enters the church courtyard now filled with supplicants many ambling with walking sticks. On the floor of the atrium thousands of the faithful, are bundled in their blankets sleeping. The sea of the faithful seems to disappear into the brilliantly glowing entrance of the church.  You hold on to your companions inching ahead towards the portal. All have been emptied of physical energy,, without judgement , and of course open to suggestion. They bring their faith, their desires, their souls, and their tired bodies to this place. You enter the church leaving the early dark morning behind and you are stunned by the light inside. The walls are cream colored and the fluted pillars glow in rays of gold leaf. The interior space is laden with people who move slowly towards the altar. Upon reaching the altar you may fall to your knees. Facing the white and gold altar flowered in white lillies, you feel tired yet strangely high,,,overcome, totally relaxed, ,,,,your heart completely open,,unprejudiced. Many are enveloped in trance. Others are seen exiting through a door to the left side of the altar. You meld with the flow into darker room, lined in large ominous  paintings. Two friars toss holy water onto the passing crowd and the relics they bear from all parts of Mexico. 
     One passes the gift shop and ticket windows that sell masses but that sign of commercialism may not deter from the rush of sentiment. One may, when completely "opened" by physical effort, overcome the crasser aspects of religion. They cannot burden when one is in this state of drained bliss,,, and you pass them without internal comment,,,perhapsyou are too tired to care,,,between worlds,,,they can't get inside you at that moment. You exit church into daylight, untouchable for a while , in search of a seat, an atole or some nourishment. 
     The walk from Tenancingo to Chalma is about 23 kilometers.