A wave of holidays

A series of holidays is quickly approaching.  In a little over two weeks we'll go through seven special days.  Even though we may not be participants in some of them we will be aware of them.  As you’ll see you’ll probably even be celebrated on one or more of these days.

April 30th is Children's Day.  Dia del Niño is a festive school day honoring children.  It's a big day for school field trips, especially to parks.  I wonder if children on field trips to Xochicalco will notice that April 30th is the first day this year that the sun will shine directly into the underground observatory at Xochicalco. 

May 1st is celebrated under various names as Labor Day in most countries and called the Día del Trabajo in Mexico.  The date commemorates workers movements demanding the eight-hour workday.  It is frequently mentioned as honoring the martyrs of Chicago, the protesters killed in the Haymarket Massacre though one of the few countries that does not commemorate the day is the one in which the events occurred.  Perhaps the only place where the U.S. observes May 1st as Labor Day is in its embassies and consulates -- one of nineteen holidays observed by U.S. diplomats in Mexico.

In Mexico the Labor Day march was the largest for most of the 20th century. It was presided over by the president and the leaders of the Central Labor Confederation (CTM), long led by Fidel Velazquez.  Towards the end of the century the official march was followed by marches by independent unions.  During the last three administrations the march has been toned down considerably.

May 3rd is Holy Cross Day.  Crosses on hilltops are brought to the parish churches for repairs, painting, and blessings before returning to the hilltop.  Crosses in churches and home altars are decorated with fresh flowers -- a big day for florists.  Also considered brickmason's day in Mexico, anyone with a construction project under way is expected to host dinner for the workers at the construction site.  Months after this day you will see flower-decorated crosses at construction sites indicating that construction was going on there on May 3rd.   Of the holidays in late April and early May, this is the noisiest -- announced by fireworks the night before. 

The Battle of Puebla (1862) is commemorated on May 5th.  Interestingly, with the exception of the State of Puebla, it is no longer even a banking holiday in Mexico. Yet a U.S. Congress Concurrent Resolution in 2005 called on the President to encourage the people to celebrate the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. 

Although Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in the U.S. as a Hispanic culture day, it might more appropriately be recognized as the day that shaped U.S. history.

Many historians maintain that Napoleon III had the intention of supporting the Confederate States in the U.S. Civil War through a French-imposed Mexican emperor.  The French defeat at the Battle of Puebla set those plans back by almost exactly a year.  After regrouping and licking its wounds in Veracruz, the French army returned to Puebla in May 1863, secured the surrender of Mexico's Army of the East, and continued on to take control of Mexico City.  The Gettysburg Battle, the turning point in the U.S. Civil War, was fought July 1-3, 1863.  How would U.S. history have changed had the French entered Mexico City and imposed Maximilian as emperor in May1862?

Mothers' Day is celebrated on May 10th.  The most revered member of a Mexican family is feted as elegantly as each family can afford.  Stores of all kinds will be having Dia de las Madres sales.  

As the school year approaches completion, Teacher's Day is celebrated May 15th.  Public school teachers are federal employees in Mexico.  In fact the teachers union is the largest labor union in Latin America with over one million members.  Traditionally the president announces teachers' salary increases on May 15th.  If not considered sufficient, his announcement is frequently followed by teachers' strikes among dissident sections of the union just weeks before the end of the school year. 

Saint Isidore Labrador's Day is also celebrated on May 15.  As patron saint of farmers, he is frequently portrayed with a plow pulled by a team of oxen. This is particularly fitting for central Mexico's farmers who are plowing and getting their fields ready in anticipation of the rainy season which should be starting by late May.  

Last Tuesday on the slope of Popocatepetl between Amecameca and Tlamacas I stopped to talk with a farmer planting with a metal tipped planting stick.  Into each hole he tossed three corn seeds before covering it over with his foot.  He had previously plowed the fertile volcanic soil with a team of oxen.  He seemed oblivious to mass media coverage of Popocatepetl's increased activity and that access to Paso de Cortes between Popocatepetl and Ixtlaccihuatl had been closed. He was planting as usual.  I thanked him for the effort he puts into feeding us and he thanked me for buying the fruit of his harvest.  "We're all linked," he told me. 

So, if you are a worker, a mother, a child, a farmer, a teacher, a brickmason, or involved in a construction project, a celebration in your honor is around the corner.  ¡Felicidades!

Flowers scare the devil away

Yellow pericón flowers start blooming in mid-September in the fields around Cuernavaca.  Like clockwork, regardless of what the weather has been, they are always in bloom by September 28th.  You can go out on the highway and cut them yourself, or you can buy them on street corners or in the market.  They'll be sold everywhere in the state of Morelos today and tomorrow, but nowhere on Thursday.  The custom in Morelos, and bordering communities, is to make crosses out of pericón stalks and flowers.  On the night of the 28th, yellow crosses are placed over front doors of homes and businesses, and on automobiles, trucks, and busses. Upon putting up the new cross, the previous one, now a year old, and looking like straw, is taken down and burned or buried.  

They are called Saint Michael's crosses; Saint Michael comes down on the eve of his feast day (September 29) and blesses his crosses and the places where they are hung.  Urban lore is that the devil is loose on the 28th and St. Michael can protect the places where his crosses hang by using the cross as his make-shift sword to keep the devil at bay.  

Pericón, known as yautli in Nahuatl, and linked in people's minds to St. Michael's Day, is of the same genus -- tagetes -- as the cempoalxochitl (also zempasúchitl), or marigold, so characteristic of Days of the Dead.

St. Michael is one of two patron saints of Cuernavaca's Colonia Acapantzingo.  Its 16th century church -- right across the street from Emperor Maximilian's estate known as the Ex-casa de Maximiliano -- hosts an annual grand feria to mark the occasion.  Acapantzingo's other patron is Saint Isidore the Farmer, whose feast day is May 15.  San Isidro Labrador and San Miguel Arcángel bracket the Mesoamerican growing season.  The rainy season begins in late May and is about over by now in late September.   May 15 was when the farming implements and animals that pull the plows were blessed; September 29th is the beginning of the harvest season.  

Rural lore determines the formation of the pericón crosses to be in the shape of a Greek cross with all arms of equal length.  In addition to putting them over the doors to their homes, campesinos also place them at the four corners of their milpa.  Very probably the idea is of prehispanic origin with the cross being an emblem of the four cardinal directions.   Yet another aspect of syncretism is St. Michael took on Tlaloc's role as patron of rain.  September 29 became one of the important dates in the farming and ritual cycle associated with agricultural production and fertility -- especially rain and Mesoamerica's staple food, corn -- all under the cover of important Christian holy days.  

Although February 2nd, Dia de la Candelaria -- Candlemass Day -- was an important day in 16th century Spain, it took on much more importance in Mexico where campesinos not only take their images of the Baby Jesus to their churches to be blessed, but also know it is the day to bless the seeds they'll plant in May.  

May 3rd, Day of the Holy Cross, is set in the hottest, driest part of the year.  During the nine days before and after that important holiday crosses, which have been on top of hills, are brought down to the village churches to be repaired, painted, blessed and returned to their proper places on the hilltops.  Those are the days on which to pray for rain. Mesoamerican thought maintains that it is inside hills and mountains that water is stored.  From them come the clouds that deliver rain that nurtures corn.  June 24, St. John the Baptist's Day, is an appropriate day to offer thankful prayer for rainfall within the growing season. 

According to Johanna Broda, who has written extensively on Mesoamerican rituals and the overlapping of symbolism after the conquest, "the dead make their appearance during St. Michael's fiesta, and share, with their family members, their happiness over the first corn cobs.  In this way the dead show their intimate link with the agricultural cycle, and the welfare of the living."  

Broda, maintains that the agricultural cycle ends with the Day of the Dead, November 2nd, and points out that the profuse agricultural symbolism which permeates that festival is usually overlooked. 

I was especially pleased to be introduced to that idea by Broda since it was very late on a 28th of September that my wife's aunt Estrella Garro died.  The florist shops were closed.  It may have been very appropriate that we decorated her simple pinewood casket with bunches of pericón flowers -- the only flower available.   

If you're in or near Cuernavaca tomorrow evening, Acapantzingo will be a fun place to be.  Wherever you are in Central Mexico, be on the lookout Thursday morning to notice the yellow crosses all around you.