Mexican Religious Festivals

The general population responded well to governmentsponsored spectacle, even to the inquisitorial trials in which the public was known to shout disparaging remarks at individuals who refused to correct their ways and accept Catholic orthodoxy. Other festivals such as the entrance of Corpus Christi, briefly suspended the toils and hardships of daily life. Festivals attracted large numbers of visitors from the hinterland and usually coincided with market day. In the case of large urban areas, it appears as though out-of-town visitors acted very much like tourists, seeing the marvels of the celebration as well as the wonders of the city itself such as palaces and shops filled with luxurious imported items. Additionally, festivals also represented a boom to taverns and pulquerías as well as the popular theatrical performances. Spontaneous popular entertainments and activities such as dance parties continued into the night and well after the official events were finished, all to the chagrin of some religious leaders, who pointed out the large number of scandalous and sinful acts that were committed and the large quantities of alcohol consumed. This lively ex-officio street fun was connected to almost all major public festivals including religious activities, except for Easter. Feasting, dancing, merrymaking, and drinking were integral parts of the events for spectators and blurred the line between the sacred and profane.

These festivals also had economic ramifications. Businesses were closed but only after a boom of economic activity as city officials commissioned cloth, tapestry, clothing, fireworks, bleachers, platforms, and arches from musicians, dancers, artists, carpenters, bakers, architects, and manual laborers. Festivals amounted to a large transfer of wealth from municipal and royal government (since much of the funds actually were borrowed from Crown accounts) back to tributeand taxpayers. Eventually, the local authorities developed a system of economic patronage with a variety of artisans and artists. This was also a way for these citizens to obtain privileges in political or other matters from the authorities.

Religious Festivals and Authorities

Although municipal and royal authorities primarily concentrated their resources on civic displays, they also participated and partially funded a number of religious festivals. These included the feast of the patron saint of the village or, in the case of larger urban areas, a prominent citywide devotion such as the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The festival of Corpus Christi demonstrates how civil authorities could patronize and effectively affiliate themselves with and come to control even an ostensibly religious celebration. During the procession, participants reenacted the Second Coming of Christ. Dancers dressed as devils, giants, and big heads preceded a famous tarasca (dragon) representing sin. This was usually followed by decorated carts from which actors reenacted scenes from the lives of saints, extolling the spectators to follow their good Christian example. All confraternities and parishes, carrying their patron saints, and regular and secular clergy came next. Finally, the Sacred Host appeared accompanied by the archbishop and the viceroy; the city councilmen held the canopy over the displayed Eucharist. Corpus allowed civil authorities to show their piety and augment their prestige; after all, they walked in the most coveted location, next to the Eucharist. The fact that they funded all the outdoor aspects of the celebration such as plays and dances, which were very popular with the public, also added to their reputation as pious and powerful men. Officials in small towns also did the same in their communities, especially during times of floods, drought, or epidemics. Officials funded large portions of these events and held a prestigious place next to the statue of the saint in the procession. The ruling elite consistently associated themselves with the most important community symbols of piety, sanctity, and power.

The clear line between civic and religious ritual blurred when the government patronized religious festivals. This was also the case with the Autos de Fé, or public penitential trials of the Holy Office of the inquisition, events not immediately associated with civil authority. During this somber spectacle, inquisitors proclaimed the sins and punishment of each penitent before a large crowd. Those who had not recognized their errors and sought forgiveness were given one last opportunity to do so and, if they remained recalcitrant, were burned at the stake. Autos de Fé sought to anticipate the Last Judgment, placing the unrepentant to the left of the platform and the good Christian faithful to the right, as Christ would do according to the Bible. The viceroy, not a member of the Inquisition, had a prominent role to play before the crowd; he sat center stage and oversaw the event and symbolically took the place of the Christ. Thus, the governor, representing secular power, approved and officiated over the condemnations and the final sentences of the guilty.

Civic Festivals in Mexico

The civic festivals of greatest importance in the viceroyalty commemorated the monarch. These included public events honoring the sovereign's birthday, his marriage, the birth of an heir to the throne, or his death. The grandest Crown festival celebrated a new monarch's ascension to the throne. Known as the Jura del Rey (Oath to the King), this three-day celebration was the quintessential festival of submission and obedience and was celebrated in all main towns (cabeceras) in the colony. In this royal ritual, the three pillars of the Novohispanic ruling system—the city government, royal government, and the church—publicly swore allegiance to the new king. The citizenry also shouted vivas and acclamations and in this way swore allegiance. The Jura included an array of entertainment, feasting, and especially planned fireworks displays that lauded the Spanish Empire. In Mexico City, the event was conducted in Spanish and Nahuatl and included the participation and public oath of the Indian leadership, dressed in traditional indigenous finery, of the major indigenous sectors of the city. They were asked to pledge allegiance to the king before their subjects as well as the general inhabitants of the city. Indian commoners then presented flowers to their nobility as part of the ceremony. In addition, the major entertainment during the evening was the Fiesta de Gremios (Festival of the Guilds). The guilds presented large thematic floats honoring the king and empire and dressed in costumes. Although not initially the case, the Jura became, under eighteenth-century Bourbon officials, the largest and most celebrated civic festival. In the case of the capital and Puebla, it consumed much more revenue than the entrance of the viceroy. This change coincided with the Bourbon emphasis on the monarch and the implementation of new policies that sought to strengthen Crown control in the viceroyalty.

Various Mexican Traditions

The municipal and royal authorities instituted a number of traditions similar to the Conquest festival; the largest of them was the entrada del virrey (the inaugural entrance of a new viceroy or governor). The arrival of a new viceroy to the colony was great cause for celebration and demanded the introduction of a large number of rituals dictated by protocol. A new viceroy, appointed by the Spanish Crown, assumed office approximately every six years. In the viceregal political system, the governor was considered the monarch's representative, a powerful minister who had tremendous authority, although it was limited by the vicissitudes of bureaucratic overlays and colonial politics. As European cities celebrated the visits of kings, so it became customary for colonial capitals to honor the "vice-king" who governed in the sovereign's name. The inaugural entrance of a viceroy into a town or city was the major civic ritual of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was an elaborate and costly version of smaller investiture ceremonies for installing local officials into new office. These smaller local investiture ceremonies entailed an oath of office, authorities dressed in regalia, a parade, much pomp and circumstance, feasting, and entertainment such as music and fireworks. The same was done for the entrance of a viceroy, but only on a much larger and more costly scale. The entrance did not directly affect all towns in the viceroyality but impacted upon villages along the route as the viceroy traveled from Veracruz to Mexico City and stopped for extended stays at Tlaxcala, Huetjotzingo, and Puebla. This was the grand fête, more expensive than all other municipal government expenditures and all other official events combined, causing local hosts to scramble for funding, sinking more into debt with each entrance.

Although imported from Europe, the entrance ceremony eventually came to reflect and even celebrate colonial realities. In both Mexico City and Puebla, the two largest urban areas visited by the viceroy, the celebration became a particularly sumptuous affair that lasted for weeks and included ephemeral triumphal arches, bullfights, plays, jousts, and great pageantry. The cathedrals in both cities also erected arches and staged their own fanfare within the walls of the church. The festivals posited the ideals of good governance and the virtues of the new minister. However, encased within the festival were political commentary and even criticism of previous administrations. For example, ritual and accompanying imagery on the triumphal arches allowed Mexico City entrance sponsors to criticize past viceroys for their lack of diligence and commitment, and also allowed them to stage a massive event that included the meticulously planned participation of Africans and Native Americans. Thus, it served two purposes: 1) to laud and counsel the viceroy, and 2) to awe the heterogenous spectators while presenting a message of acculturation, integration, and submission. In Puebla, city organizers heralded their city as a uniquely Spanish New World cultural entity but went one step further and asserted their city's superiority to Spanish urban centers.

Ritual, Religious and Civic in Mexico Colonial

Ritual, religious or civic, and particularly large-scale public spectacle, dominated life in colonial Mexico. The sixteenthcentury Spaniard faced a newly conquered territory composed of ethnically and linguistically diverse peoples. The primary goal of this initial period was to maintain and consolidate European control and recreate or perfect Europe in the Americas. From a purely political perspective, the pivotal issue of control brought about such institutions as the labor draft, the local militia, slavery, the reduction of Indian villages, the caste system, and the integration of indigenous nobility into the Spanish governing system. A cultural policy in the form of elaborate ritual sought to showcase and emphasize Spanish superiority. Europeans imported their own ritual forms and imposed them upon the general population; ritual became the last act of taking possession of the New World. Festivals, certainly civic ones, became tools of hegemonic control. No small wonder that one of the first festivals celebrated in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, namely the Conquest festival or the feast of San Hipolito, commemorated the fall of the Mexica (Aztec) capital to the Spanish.

Sponsored by the municipal government of Mexico City, the Fiesta de la Conquista consisted of displays of prowess, horsemanship, jousting, mock battles, and dramatic performances honoring the feats of Fernando (Hernán) Cortés and associates. The event paid tribute to the fallen Spanish conquistadors who died during the Noche Triste (Sad Night) when the Europeans were driven from the Indian capital; the festival exalted the European skills and technology that theoretically brought victory against the Mexica empire. However, this fiesta never recognized the contribution of the many Indian allies of Cortés who actually ensured that Spanish victory. Although mock battles between men (both Indians and Spaniard) dressed as either Christians or Muslims (Moors or Turks) were staged frequently in Tenochtitlan and in smaller towns, the battle for the capital never was reenacted. Officials certainly must have thought better than of reminding Indians of their defeat on an annual basis. The festival presented the Conquest in an almost mythical manner, as though the Spaniards did not wish to overemphasize an event that could prove divisive, especially considering that Indians always outnumbered Spaniards in the viceroyalty. A reenactment also would have necessitated the cooperation of thousands of Indians who would have played both the vanquished Mexica and the victorious Tlaxcalans.

Human Sacrifices in Mexico

Feasts and the distribution of goods generally would accompany human sacrifices conducted by other groups in Mexican society as well, ranging from the tlatoani (Mexica ruler) himself to warriors, pochteca, and craftsmen. Feasting served to revive ties within the community and between the community and the gods. The menu always was ritually determined: depending on the occasion, guests would dine on the flesh of the gods in the form of human sacrifices, effigies made of amaranth seeds, or first fruits, which were believed to contain the spirit of the deity.

One of the most important rituals was the "New Fire" ceremony held at the close of the calendar cycle every 52 years. The Mexica believed that unless the ceremony was held the sun would lose its strength and fail to emerge from the world beyond. All fires were extinguished and all cooking vessels smashed. At the close of the ceremony a new fire was lit in the chest cavity of a sacrificial victim, heralding the survival of the world. The ceremony took place on the Hill of the Star east of Tenochtitlan and was attended by priests dressed in the regalia of several gods. It was hoped that the ceremony would fix the Pleiades in the heavens in order to reignite and distribute the new fire throughout the kingdom.

The tlatoani used public ritual to reinforce his power over the Mexica and subject peoples. Although such ceremonies as the dedication of new temples and religious monuments or the anointing of the tlatoani were ostensibly dedicated to one of the gods, they also celebrated the strength of a victorious people. Indeed, the anointing of a new ruler could not take place until he had demonstrated his valor in battle and sacrificed captives to Huitzilopochtli. Part of the pact between the Mexica and Huitzilopochtli established during the people's long journey from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan called for human sacrifice and the construction of temples. However, the tlatoani's responsibilities went beyond fulfilling the pact with Huitzilopochtli. He supervised the rituals that ensured that the sun would continue to shine, the maize to grow, and the Mexica people to fulfill the destiny assigned to them by the gods.

Ritual Ceremonies

Campesinos also conducted ceremonies individually in their fields, which also were governed by the calendar and complemented official ceremonies held in the temples. It appears that most varieties of maize were planted between February and March, but the main ceremonies in honor of Cincotl and Chicomecoatl, the gods of maize, were held in the month of Huey Tozoztli. Before the rainy season began and while the stalks were still small, campesinos would carry mats made of maize stalks cut in the eighth month to the temples in the city, and during the rite of Etzalcualiztli campesinos would offer food and pulque to their tools. In the month of Huey Tecuilhuitl rites were performed in honor of Xilonen, another god of maize, and in the tenth month, Ochpaniztli, when the maize had begun to ripen, the entire population fasted in the afternoons and pieced their ears, wiping the blood on their foreheads. In the most important maize ritual a young woman was consecrated as an image of the goddess Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent), who was subjected to a complicated series of rituals leading to her sacrifice. The following day a "living image" of the goddess Toci was offered by doctors and midwives but was accompanied by the priests of Chicomecoatl. Other rites associated with maize would take place later that month, coinciding with the autumnal equinox, consisting of a procession of young priestesses who bore seven maize stalks on their backs accompanied by priests dressed in the skins of sacrificial victims who threw four different colors of maize kernels toward the four cardinal points of the universe.

Although ceremonies in honor of many other gods were held in the temple of Huitzilopochtli, the patron of the Mexica, the three most important were in honor of Huitzilopochtli himself. Perhaps the most important of these was held by the pochteca (merchants) to commemorate Huitzilopochtli's birth. The ritual required a great deal of advance planning, including a series of rituals in which the pochteca had to demonstrate that they had sufficient funds to carry out the sacrifice. They were required to conduct a pilgrimage to Xicalanco, near present-day Ciudad del Carmen in the southeastern state of Campeche, and they also needed to hold four banquets in which they distributed goods to the guests.