San Juan Chamula

By Darren Fitzgerald

Pine needles, dead chickens, eggs and soda pop; the staples of worship for the locals of San Juan Chamula, a pastoral village a few miles north of the Mexican colonial town of San Cristóbal. The Chamulans revere San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist), and after a few minutes in the central cathedral you might catch yourself wondering, “What does any of this have to do with St. John the Baptist?”

A short ride in a packed VW van brings you to the Chamula valley, which is surrounded by small, forested hills, adobe huts and sheep farmers. Perched atop one of the hills is a burnt-out stone church, which sits in the middle of an old cemetery dotted with different colored crosses—black for people who died old, white for the young and blue for all of the others. The town square is filled with local farmers selling produce and flowers laid out on apple crates and decorative blankets. Women are dressed in typical indigenous attire and the men wear animal hide ponchos and cowboy hats. Facing the square is a large white cathedral with a colorfully painted arched doorway and streamers hanging from the steeple. The real magic of San Juan lies within this church.

The front door is a massive wooden slab studded with pewter rivets. Only a small section of this door is opened, and squeezing past is akin to being birthed into a strange world. You’re hit with the pungent fragrance of pine needles as you step into a cauldron of dancing candlelight, wafting incense smoke, and rays of sun illuminating stained-glass windows. The shiny, tormented faces of San Antonio de Monte, Santa Rosa de Lima, La Virgen de Rosario Menor, and El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús gaze at you from the dozens of large wooden cabinets lining the walls of the church.

Your steps on the multicolored tile floor are muted by a soft carpet of pine needles, and families build small altars to San Juan Bautista by clearing away circles on the floor and filling them with candles, eggs, gizzards, dead chickens and bottles of soda pop. They bury their faces in the pine needles, mumble incomprehensibly, smear the gizzards and eggs on the floor, and burp to excess. They believe burping expels evil spirits, so they consume copious amounts of Coca Cola. The barren sections of floor where families have paid their respects are marked by dozens of fading candles drowning in their own pools of wax. Custodians scurry about with scrapers and goat-hide bags, cleaning up the sticky offerings to make way for the next family.

As you head outside and up to that old stone church and cemetery on the hill, you’ll see indigenous women roaming over the grassy knolls with their children and flocks of sheep. You might hear some 50s rock-n-roll blaring from one of the adobe huts. It’s just one more thing to add to a truly bizarre, but enlightening day, full of diverse and authentic experiences.