Meet the Tzotzil Maya: Mexico's most intriguing community
21.07.2023 - 08:09
/ roughguides.com
The Tzotzil Maya are one of the most distinctive communities in Mexico , with a unique religion that blends traditional beliefs with Catholicism and features animal sacrifice, shamans, fireworks and fizzy drinks. Shafik Meghji met them while researching the Rough Guide to Mexico .
As we pull into San Juan Chamula, César tells us to put our watches back an hour: “If you ask people here what time it is, they’ll reply, ‘God’s time or the new time?’ The president can’t change the time, they say, only God can.”
San Juan Chamula, Mexico
On the surface, this village in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas looks like any other in the region: modest, single-storey homes; stores selling paint and pots, soft drinks and tortillas; women in colourful woven outfits; stray dogs idling in the sunshine; shoe-shiners touting for business; the constant ring of mobile phones.
Yet the Tzotzil Maya who live in Chamula and the surrounding area are one of the most distinctive communities in Mexico.
“As well as their own time zone, the Tzotzil Maya have their own language, customs and religion”
As well as their own time zone, they have their own language, customs and a unique religion that blends traditional, pre-Hispanic beliefs with Catholicism. They put up fierce resistance to the Spanish in the 1500s, were the centre of a major rebellion in the 1800s and still doggedly hold on to their independence today.
César, a guide with Alex and Raul Tours who has family in the village, takes us first to a simple, weather-beaten church on the edge of Chamula. The graves outside have different coloured crosses depending on the age of the deceased; there is a heartbreaking number of white crosses, the colour used for babies.
Before we can get too melancholy, César takes us on to the house of a spiritual leader. “The village has over 120 spiritual leaders who are appointed for a year to look after a particular saint; those who want a particularly popular saint can be on a waiting list for 20 years or more,” he says.
Zinacantan, Mexico
“Spiritual leaders can be either men or women, but they have to be married. They rent a room for the shrine, and pay for everything associated with its worship.”
Rather prosaically, the spiritual leader is out shopping when we visit, but his wife and a cluster of children show us the ceremonial room. The centrepiece is a small shrine surrounded by an array of candles that must be lit numerous times a day and huge drapes of leaves and flowers that are changed several times a year.
A bottle of cinnamon-flavoured posh, a sugar-cane alcohol used in religious ceremonies, is passed round; it tastes something like a rough grappa.
As we drink two teenage boys launch fireworks – another key feature of religious