This book, written in an accessible style and well illustrated with photographs and drawings, offers a comprehensive description of the patron saint fiestas of two communities located 400 kilometres north of Mexico City in the state of Guanajuato. Cruz del Palmar traces its origins to the colonisation of a region beyond the prehispanic urbanised core of Mesoamerica by Otomi Indians turned allies of the Spaniards. The ‘Chichimeca Jonaz’, whose language belongs to the same Oto-Pamean sub-family as Otomi, inhabit a neighbourhood named after the first Jesuit mission in Mexico, on the outskirts of the municipal capital of San Luis de la Paz. One of the semi-nomadic groups that occupied the area in pre-colonial times, they became hacienda peons and mine workers. The study describes the ritual integration of the two communities' fiestas, arguing that it expresses the symbolic continuity of a shared colonial reworking of indigenous identities originally constituted through the truce between the Spaniards, Otomis and Chichimecas in 1552, the mythical charter for founding San Luis – key to protecting silver shipments from Zacatecas and pacifying the Sierra Gorda – in the name of the canonised French crusader king, Louis IX.
The book begins with the saint cults and the functions of mayordomos and cargueros (glossed as fiesta ‘leaders’ and ‘officials’), followed by a chapter on vigils and ritual meals. The latter offers an illuminating discussion of the hymns and ballads sung in vigils, supplemented by an appendix of transcriptions and English translations of the Spanish words. Chapter 4 describes processions and ceremonies, such as the changing of the cargueros, while the fifth chapter discusses dances, ritual drama and entertainment. The study examines specific local features such as the huge adorned panels decorated with flowers erected in front of churches and calvaries, and the mock battles between Apaches and soldiers identified as French. But the book justifies its subtitle in the sense that much of what is described applies more generally, and it does end with an interpretative chapter. This asks whether what goes on in fiestas can be viewed as ‘resistance’ (of ‘popular religion’ to Catholic orthodoxy, or of the poor and indigenous to their social superiors), and concludes, reasonably, that such a perspective would have some relevance but would be one-sided. The main focus, however, is on the relationships between Indian and Spanish cultural traditions and questions of continuity and change. The authors argue that the idea of a post-conquest ‘Indo-Hispanic cultural world’ captures what the Mexican patron saint fiesta ‘represents’ better than ‘acculturation’, ‘syncretism’ or mestizaje.
The strong point of the authors' discussion is that these festive cycles represent living and evolving traditions that make it necessary to take Mexican popular religiosity seriously. Yet they highlight ‘the indigenous’ in a way that sidelines the politics of mestizaje, and this sits uncomfortably with their invocation of Guillermo Bonfil's idea of a ‘deep Mexico’, which presented the project of creating a Europeanised mestizo nation as an exercise in active denial and negation of the indigenous. The Chichimecas of San Luis, too, often seem to stand for the entire population of the municipality in an unconvincing way. A comparative study of patron saint fiestas in central and western Mexico would have to acknowledge that mestizo people who have come to see themselves as definitely ‘not Indian’, and who are racist about people who retain indigenous identities, still dress up their children as ‘inditos’ for festive occasions and may even beat ‘Aztec’ drums and wear feathers. Readers in search of more complex understandings of such ironic forms of mimesis are not going to find them here. The book also pays scant attention to the way in which neoliberal multiculturalist policies have not only turned groups like the ‘Chichimeca Jonaz’ into tourist attractions, but also made them less happy about accepting a name whose first part was a generic, though not necessarily pejorative, label for the ‘uncivilised’ ancestors of Nahuatl-speakers.
The book does offer some insights into the politics of fiesta organisation. In addition to conflicts with priests and the official Church, the authors mention controversies over how particular elements of the fiesta were staged or performed and discussions about whether a particular carguero could really afford the costs involved in sponsorship. The book also records thunderous applause when a regional huapango star declared: ‘This festival is not for tourists: it is for us, for our soul, for our saint’ (p. 123). But the authors, specialists in linguistic anthropology and comparative literature, are not aiming to provide a social anthropological account of fiestas. They provide no social profiling of the different kinds of actors whose festive roles they describe. Nor do they discuss fiesta financing or say much about the role of international migration in the reproduction and transformation of festive life. Their cultural anthropology approach highlights important issues such as the way a sense of having suffered religious persecution during the Cristero rebellion suffuses local Catholic political culture, alongside the general dynamism of a popular religiosity continually incorporating new elements. Yet different conclusions might have emerged from comparative analysis focused on a broader range of cases: too specific a reading is given to the ‘Apaches’, for example, since ‘wild’ Indians figure in other versions of this kind of ritual theatre as ‘others’ to indigenous people who identify themselves as Christians without identifying themselves with Europeans. Nevertheless, the authors are to be congratulated for producing a book that will give uninitiated readers detailed, vivid and nuanced understandings of what happens, formally and informally, in fiestas, and what makes them so important and meaningful to ordinary Mexicans. At what is a troubling time for the country, it is good to read such an affectionate account of aspects of popular culture that might genuinely claim to be ‘the essence of Mexico’, even if they now have their darker side in desperate recourse to the favours of ‘Saint Death’. I was, however, left wondering whether, in light of the important distinction the Catholic Church makes between ‘adoring’ and ‘venerating’ saints, the book's title was making a statement (and if so, what was intended?).
