San Juan Chamula 10/15/2004
E 'A month after the short trip to Mexico (thirteen nights and ten days are few for a country as large six and a half times Italy ), I tried to expand the trip to see again and shooting with the camera, running on the computer monitor the six hundred digital photographs taken by adding a written under each picture in memory to fix what I learned at the feelings and photographed. Everything I enjoyed the journey: the huge pyramids of Teotihuacan, those of Palenque and Chichen Itza suffocated by the jungle and many others that I did not imagine it numerous. I knew the slums of Mexico City, having more than one time in television documentaries, but I knew nothing of Chiapas. To my ignorance, Chiapas has left in my mind a very strong track with a sense of mystery that emanates from all that was unknown, which has never been imagined and that, therefore, reveals a sudden, unprepared and astonished .
The only road through the jungle in Chiapas is cut green.
After each turn of the Sierra Madre mountains covered with lush vegetation in their forests appeared in different colors and shapes that I always tried to capture with the camera to take home and review them
, afraid that the memory with the passage of time, would have faded images and colors.
The only road through the jungle in Chiapas is cut green.
After each turn of the Sierra Madre mountains covered with lush vegetation in their forests appeared in different colors and shapes that I always tried to capture with the camera to take home and review them
, afraid that the memory with the passage of time, would have faded images and colors.
archaeological site of Palenque This, however, that shook me more of Chiapas and the indigenous village of San Juan Chamula. The inhabitants are descendants of the Maya.
Girl Maja Tzotzil dressed up, taking with us in the village of Zinacantan 
leather brown, olive, stature small, Hair blacks, smooth, shiny. The school is compulsory on paper, but most children do not go there because it is far from their shacks and have no transportation except his own legs. The guide had advised us not to take shots and not shooting. In the past the Indians did not allow visits by foreigners, because jealous of their privacy and their traditions.
Portrait of girl Maja Tzotzil
Now that foreigners can come to pay their church only because they need money to maintain it. In the village there
one lane with a few brick houses, mostly shops. Are considered wealthy few who have water and electricity in the house. The road comes to a large expanse of dirt with no houses around, the place where men and women, squatting on the ground, displaying their wares on mats poor. The children, barefoot and dirty, extend a hand and asked a burden. The guide had advised us not to give any money to children, not to accustom them to begging.
Some girls wear a little brother or little sister in a sheet of cloth that is wrapped and knotted on the chest.
Women and girls wear skirts rough hairy black wool thick and rough, despite the heat.
The church, the only building in the square is white, decorated with green and blue, surmounted by a cross and three bells. Opposite the church stands a large cross on a podium of three steps. Behind lies the jungle out of sight, hiding the huts of the natives. No sign of our civilization was visible. Time seemed to stop time before the arrival of the Spaniards.
Inside the Church of San Juan Chamula addition to burning candles could be seen lined up on the ground around each family group, so many cans of Coca-Cola and other drinks. The Coca-Cola, linked in my mind the images of the modern world, it seemed out of place in a primitive atmosphere.
The guide said that after an hour and a half monotonous litany, the prayer falls into a trance. The one who prays, the guide explained, is the shaman, calling upon the saint to whom it is addressed, a favor: for example, the healing of the sick. He is the link between earth and sky.
We stopped to watch a bunch of people absorbed in prayer followed by a shaman. Nobody, not even children, are distracted by our presence. Beside him was a woman kneeling looking pained. She had turned her attentions. After imposing the hand on his head and have it marked on the forehead, the shaman made her drink some potions, which she accepted, confident in the miracle of healing. At the end of the ritual the shaman picked up at the smoke of incense, a hen, that she had been placid placid as stunned on the floor beside him. Three times lifted up, then pulled the neck and the animal, after a tremor, he quieted forever on the floor.
asked softly driving if the chicken would be over in the pot. He answered that with that ritual, the shaman had transferred the disease from the body of the hen sick woman, who had been sacrificed for this. Therefore, the chicken was thrown away. Before the coming
the Spaniards, the Indians were human sacrifices to their gods. English invaders banned and having them imposed the Catholic religion, the natives continued the sacrifices replacing humans with animals, mostly chickens.
Turning our gaze to another group of people to pray while she was a woman nursing a baby. As the shaman, he repeated the same words, with the same monotonous rhythm. Next to her, lying down with legs tied, another hen he stood motionless, as if she had been drugged. Also met the same end. Maria Elena, who had never seen to kill a chicken, was horrified. I explained that as a child many times I had seen my mother or grandmother to kill same way as the chicken that was brought to steaming on the table and the image of death, once usual for me, now and far into the memory found in memory, not aroused in me the same horror that in her.
We turned the perimeter of the church to look at the statues of saints in niches. Unlike our statues, those of Chamula (but also all other Mexico) were dressed in clothes of cloth. The Saints, who have the same names as ours, wore wigs of real hair and real eyelashes glued on the edge of the eyelids. In my eyes no sanctity emanating from those statues, and indeed had something of the carnival. Even when we are moving in silence in the church, however, seemed to break with just our presence, with our curiosity, the inner spirituality of the people, jealous of their religion and traditions. Before leaving the church, I stopped a bit 'to look for the last time that strange place. I went out in the open air with the strange feeling of having made a jump back in the beginning of history.
I reflected that man, since he started to think, he considered himself superior to other living beings, but has always felt the limit of its capabilities, both physical and intellectual, in the face of natural phenomena can not be controlled by its forces. He was born in his mind the idea of \u200b\u200bdivinity that can do everything that he knows everything that we do not know. Living beings are born and die. But the man, who consider themselves superior, can not resign ourselves to the transience of earthly life, so he has created an afterlife where he can continue to exist, but only to him, for eternity.
I saw the Indians of Chamula pray before the statues of Catholic saints. I saw him pray before the statue of the Chinese Buddhist temples. I saw the Catholic faithful to pray in our churches. I thought this intimate contact with the divine desire of all people on earth at any latitude and longitude they are and whatever their religion, monotheistic or polytheistic.
All world religions have the same root.
Panic at Chichen Itza 10/18/2004
F oto air of the Pyramid of Kukulcan, the Temple of Venus and the Temple of the Warriors with attached group of Thousand Columns at Chichen Itza 
Photo: Chichen Itza: Pyramid of Kukulcan. The sum of the 91 steps of each staircase, which must be added above the base, giving a total of 365, equal to the days of the year.
is not the tallest pyramid, but the steepest, with a staircase of 91 steps on each of the four sides in a single ramp that ends with a terrace close as the balcony of a house, but the balcony has a railing. Above, where there was no railing, I was seized with a panic attack ever tried before. I seemed to be on the ledge of a skyscraper. I addossai a wall, I got rid of the camera giving it to Mary Helen, who did not notice my discomfort. What mattered to me shooting?
Photo-Chichen Itza: I am going to climb the Pyramid of Kukulcan, unaware of what awaits me
Photo: Lia too, smiling, preparing to climb the Pyramid of Chichen Itza
I wanted to have a free hand to be able to hold on to something. Closed eyes not to see how far I was from the earth. Entering the unit closed room and I refused to look outside. Near me there was an empty can of Coca-Cola left behind by some tourists, who had attacked a crowd of wasps. Being attacked by wasps in that moment it seemed the lesser evil. Tourists pleased with the visit of the pyramid, slowly began its descent. To see them go heightened the fear in me. Soon I was alone.
remained the second last, and not being able to stay up there, I decided to start the descent.
At the edge of the first step was anchored to a metal ring which was tied a thick rope that reached the ground floor. We can clearly see the last picture. The first step to take was to get the ring, close to the edge of the precipice. I looked to store the distance and with your eyes closed not to see the emptiness, I sat on the ground to feel more secure, and crawled up the ring and the rope. Afferratala with the right and the left key with the first step, I began the descent back, her eyes still closed. I asked a fellow traveler (the ultimate in downhill) falling after me because I drive. At one point, believing that it is almost the end, I opened my eyes, but finding them closed in the mid-scale terror. I opened them as soon as I touched down.
I did not expect a similar reaction. In the days before I had even climbed pyramids high, with no problems, since the scale was divided into several ramps, separated by wide terraces, which made me feel on the brink of a precipice. The landscape you see from up there is spectacular, one gets the impression of being closer to heaven than to earth.
But I'll never know what to say can be seen from the pyramid of Chichen Itza.
is not the tallest pyramid, but the steepest, with a staircase of 91 steps on each of the four sides in a single ramp that ends with a terrace close as the balcony of a house, but the balcony has a railing. Above, where there was no railing, I was seized with a panic attack ever tried before. I seemed to be on the ledge of a skyscraper. I addossai a wall, I got rid of the camera giving it to Mary Helen, who did not notice my discomfort. What mattered to me shooting?
Photo-Chichen Itza: I am going to climb the Pyramid of Kukulcan, unaware of what awaits me 
Photo: Lia too, smiling, preparing to climb the Pyramid of Chichen Itza 
I wanted to have a free hand to be able to hold on to something. Closed eyes not to see how far I was from the earth. Entering the unit closed room and I refused to look outside. Near me there was an empty can of Coca-Cola left behind by some tourists, who had attacked a crowd of wasps. Being attacked by wasps in that moment it seemed the lesser evil. Tourists pleased with the visit of the pyramid, slowly began its descent. To see them go heightened the fear in me. Soon I was alone.
remained the second last, and not being able to stay up there, I decided to start the descent. At the edge of the first step was anchored to a metal ring which was tied a thick rope that reached the ground floor. We can clearly see the last picture. The first step to take was to get the ring, close to the edge of the precipice. I looked to store the distance and with your eyes closed not to see the emptiness, I sat on the ground to feel more secure, and crawled up the ring and the rope. Afferratala with the right and the left key with the first step, I began the descent back, her eyes still closed. I asked a fellow traveler (the ultimate in downhill) falling after me because I drive. At one point, believing that it is almost the end, I opened my eyes, but finding them closed in the mid-scale terror. I opened them as soon as I touched down.
I did not expect a similar reaction. In the days before I had even climbed pyramids high, with no problems, since the scale was divided into several ramps, separated by wide terraces, which made me feel on the brink of a precipice. The landscape you see from up there is spectacular, one gets the impression of being closer to heaven than to earth.
But I'll never know what to say can be seen from the pyramid of Chichen Itza.
Nietta
1 Comments:
Ignatius said ...
Hello Mom,
compliments you've become very good!
April 6, 2009 23:39
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