A Moment of Joy

It's Sunday. This morning, as I often do on Sundays, I went down to Mérida centro to enjoy a delicious traditional Yucatecan breakfast with a friend, followed by leisurely conversation in a cafe on the Plaza Grande.

On my way home I walked through the plaza, crowded with vendors, food stalls and hordes of tourists and families on a Sunday outing. Suddenly I became aware of loud, rhythmic drumming coming from the vicinity of the cathedral, located on the east side of the square.

A more staid event in front of the Cathedral, on a different day.

Curious, I walked over to see what the ruckus was about. The area in front of La Catedral de San Ildefonso, the oldest cathedral in the Americas, was jammed with families and youths carrying colorful balloons and cheering. A large, varnished wooden cross, supported by a handful of young men, rose in front of the main door of the building. Next to it a priest, sprinkling holy water, was blessing the crowd. There was lots of laughing and cheering amidst the smoke of incense.

The atmosphere was infused with a sense of fun, happiness and joy.

Having been raised in the much more somber atmosphere of Protestant churches up north, and never having seen anything like this before, I was curious and decided to hang around to see what would happen.

The blessing over, the drum corps began to beat a fierce rhythm and the cross was lowered onto the shoulders of a group of bearers. The happy roar increased. Amidst the noise of the drumming, laughter, chanting and the bobbing of hundreds of balloons, the cross was slowly borne into the church. I joined the throng.

This is an immense stone building full of echos. It magnifies sound and resonates like a monstrous speaker. The tattoo of the drums inside was deafening. Beneath blessed statues of the Saints, whistles blew. Passing in front of sacred, serene images of The Virgin, people cheered. Everyone was smiling. The church was full of young people and families all watching as the procession slowly worked up the aisle to the altar. The priest began to speak, but instead of calm, scripted responses or "amens" on the part of the congregation, they erupted in cheers and whistles. The priest smiled broadly at the noise. This began to sound more like the crowd at a hotly-contested football game than a group of faithful at the beginning of a church service:

"Viva Cristo Rey!" [Long live Christ the King!]

"Viva Cristo Rey!"

Despite the cacophony, the atmosphere somehow remained respectful and reverent.

Now, I am not Catholic and not the most devout Christian, but I can appreciate the enthusiasm demonstrated by this group. The overall feeling was one of intense joy and happiness. It was a very Mexican obsevance of faith, and quite different from a regular mass or the serious and quiet forms of worhsip I remember from my childhood days attending churches in the north.

The event seemed to exemplify for me some key aspects of Mexican culture, like the importance of family and children, the true heart of Mexican society. And in a country where several hundred years of oppressive and authoritarian government has not always been kind to the average person, emphasis on celebrating life and enjoying the moment whenever an opportunity presents itself. It was an interlude of intense joy. A moment purely Mexican.

Anthropology: Urban Vestiges, Part 2 -- Stones

There are places in Mèrida, Yucatàn, where once an elaborate archway welcomed people, and now there is a wall. Where once an important structure stood, now there is open space. I wrote in March about some of the unheralded bits and pieces of history that can be found in this city, evidence that tells stories about how

things were, and how places and spaces have changed over time. Sometimes the parts of the structure still exist, but in new arrangements. It is an interesting puzzle that I love to contemplate.

Many of the buildings in Mèrida Centro were constructed by the Spanish. Starting in the 1500's when they occupied the Mayan city of Th'o (sometimes spelled T-hò) on the site, they began demolishing the Mayan buildings in order to use the stone for constructing their new city. A large number of these early colonial structures still exist, although after hundreds of years of use, remodeling and reconstruction, many have been dramatically altered.

The style of this balcony window on a downtown Mèrida building (above) is one popular in Mèrida from the late 1800's into the early 1900's. During this period, when the city was rolling in money from the hennequen trade, many new structures were built and many older ones, like this building, were modernized to keep up with architectural tastes. The piece of an earlier Spanish colonial arch visible to the right of the window, possibly 400 or more years old, was uncovered when the facade was restored a few years ago. It strongly resembles the doorway on an unaltered colonial-era facade a few blocks away (above right). The "disappeared" colonial second-story window of what

originally was a home may have protected the honor of señoritas of the household from the gazes of rough men on the street, and their sensitive skin from the burning rays of the hot sun, while providing light and air to the home's interior. Now looking down on a congested, noisy street, this appears to be space that is unused, or perhaps devoted to storage, above what now are small storefronts on the street level.

When the Spanish arrived here, they discovered a sizeable city with a pyramid at its center. That pyramid was situated on space that is now Mèrida's Plaza Grande, or central square, also known as the zocalo. The Spanish conquerors dismantled the pyramid, stone by stone, quarrying its materials to build many of the structures that now surround the zocalo, including the Catedral de San Ildefonso, the oldest cathedral in the Americas, which still dominates the scene.

I am told that it is possible to see original Mayan carving on some of the stones in the cathedral. Although I have walked around in and outside the cathedral in search of them, I have yet to find these stones. I'll have to ask someone who knows more about the building where to see them.

Another interesting feature of the cathedral is the presence of slits in the facade, which would allow defenders to shoot down on the approaches to the front doors. From time to time, from the conquest up until the late 1800's when The Caste War, La Guerra de las Castas, finally fizzled out, violence erupted in Yucatàn between the indigenous people, who mostly lived in the countryside, and the descendants of the conquistadores, who mainly lived in a few larger towns, the most important of which was the capital city of Mérida. In case of serious conflict, one of the defence tactics was for the population of take refuge in some of the stronger central buildings, including the cathedral. Many of these structures in the center of the city are connected by a series of tunnels. Some of these were re-discovered only in the past few years.

More Mayan stones, which quite possibly also came from the pyramid, can be seen here, partially exposed in the facade in another original 1500's building, just across from the Cathedral and the zocalo, which otherwise has been greatly changed over the centuries.

It's fascinating for me to think that most of the original pyramid of Th'o actually still exists in Mèrida. It's like an enormous jigsaw puzzle whose pieces have been scattered and mixed up for close to 500 years. The pyramid's footprint is evident in the form of the zocalo. It's a bit late and entirely impractical to think about putting the pieces back together, but it's interesting and comforting in a way to know that although we don't generally recognize it, the great pyramid of Th'o is still with us. In fact, when we walk in the vicinity Mèrida's zocalo, it practically surrounds us.