PART III
THE METAPHOR OF THE MASK AFTER THE CONQUEST

11 Syncretism
The Structural Effect of the Conquest

It was almost to be expected that when the pre-Columbian world of Mesoamerica was confronted by the European world, when Moctezuma came face to face with Cortés, the mask would play a symbolic role in that confrontation of two worlds, each with its own spiritual assumptions. Confronted by the cross of Cortés, Moctezuma responded with the mask: different metaphors for different views of reality, each wonderfully expressive of a way of relating human life to the mystery of the eternal. These were such fundamentally different ways that the resulting conflict between the representatives of two of the world's great religions would never be fully resolved, for none of the possible resolutions could work. The fundamental differences made a full merger impossible; the realities of the Conquest dictated that the indigenous view could not prevail. But the eons-long, rich development of that indigenous view in the mythic vision and ritual practice of the peoples of Mesoamerica had entrenched it so firmly that it could never be destroyed by foreign invaders. The conquistadores prevailed physically, but the spiritual vision of the indigenous people remained intact. The result was the peculiar blending of Christian and indigenous symbols and ritual which continues to exist today among the Indian peoples of Mesoamerica.

When, thirty or so years after that meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma, the boy who was to grow up to be Fray Diego Durán came to Mexico City, he found himself in the midst of that unresolved conflict in "an unstable and motley [society]—two religions, two political systems, two races, two languages—in sum, two conflicting societies struggling to adapt to one another in a painful cultural, social, religious, and racial accommodation."^[1] He was to spend his life in that struggle and in his darker moments came to doubt that he and his fellow priests were making much progress toward ending the conflict through the meaningful conversion of the indigenous population. In 1579, he wrote, "These wretched Indians remain confused. . . . On one hand they believe in God, and on the other they worship idols. They practice their ancient superstitions and rites and mix one with the other."^[2] As he realized, they were fitting Christian concepts into the structure of their own spiritual vision.

How ignorant we are of their ancient rites, while how well informed [the natives] are! They show off the god they are adoring right in front of us in the ancient manner. They chant the songs which the elders bequeathed to them especially for that purpose ... They sing these things when there is no one around who understands, but, as soon as a person appears who might understand, they change their tune and sing the song made up for Saint Francis with a hallelujah at the end, all to cover up their unrighteousness—interchanging religious themes with pagan gods.^[3]

He wrote that he was "extremely skeptical" that the indigenous religious calendar had been discarded in favor of the Catholic one and feared that he had "seen too much" to be optimistic about the possibility of true conversion.^[4]

Those fears proved well founded. Four hundred years later, the "idolatry" he sought to stamp out still persists among indigenous groups, especially in the rural areas of Mexico and Guatemala serviced infrequently by visiting priests. Fairly near Mexico City in rural Tlaxcala, for example, an "extensive complex of basically pagan supernaturals, beliefs, and practices" still prevails,^[5] and among the Maya of the Yucatán, the Chacs are still "the recipients of more prayers and offerings in a pagan context than any other supernatural being."^[6] For

many Maya communities, in fact, the indigenous symbols of sun, moon, rain, and corn are still prominent.^[7] An outsider visiting one of the Concheros dance troupes in central Mexico concluded that "they are carrying on the same practices that they had before the Conquest. They have not changed. . . . They are pagan, I tell you, purely pagan in their religion."^[8] While his conclusion may exaggerate the "pagan" influence on today's belief structure and ritual activity generally and on the Conchero cult in particular, it is nevertheless quite true that pre-Conquest beliefs and practices persist, often within a fundamentally indigenous structure of belief.

Four centuries later there still beats in the heart of every Mexican a little of that blood which once stirred emotions before the rising sun, incarnate in Huitzilopochtli, or danced in the gay fertility of the harvests beneath the blessed rain of a Tlaloc, who continues to produce the divine corn .^[9]

And four centuries later, masked dancers continue to dance their obeisance to the eternal forces of the world of the spirit which create and nurture life in this world. For them, the mask serves the same metaphorical function that it did for their distant forebears thousands of years before in the village cultures that began the long development of that indigenous Mesoamerican spiritual tradition. But to understand fully the culminating episode of that tradition and its relationship to the metaphor of the mask, we must first come to terms with the impact of the Conquest on native religion. We must ask, with Gibson, "What, finally, did the church accomplish?"^[10] The answer is far from simple and must necessarily be incomplete; one must ultimately be willing to accept a certain degree of ambivalence, for paradoxically, as Hunt suggests regarding Zinacantecan symbolic structures, the old beliefs "have both changed profoundly and remained much the same, depending on the perspective. The symbolic structure has not changed (the structure is still there) and paradoxically it has changed (it became buried)."^[11] And further complexity arises from the fact that what the church was able to accomplish varied from region to region. The indigenous framework of Maya religion, for example, is today more obvious, closer to the surface than that of central Mexico, a difference resulting from the fact that "the Aztec abandoned pagan rites and fused their own religious beliefs with Catholicism, whereas the Maya retained paganism as the meaningful core of their religion, which became incremented with varying degrees of Catholicism."^[12]

Thus, syncretism, which William Madsen, following H. G. Barnett,^[13] defines as "a type of acceptance characterized by the conscious adaptation of an alien form or idea in terms of some indigenous counterpart,"^[14] rather than the replacement of the indigenous religion by the Christianity of the conquerors provided the means by which the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica were converted to Christianity, but even that end—which was not, of course, the goal the missionary priests soughtwas difficult to achieve in spite of the many superficial factors that might have seemed to make it relatively easy to accomplish. Conversion was particularly difficult at first because the repressive tactics used by the conquerors produced profound resentment and bitterness; the church had destroyed their gods and so for at least ten years, "the dominant Aztec reaction to Christianity was rejection."^[15] The response given by "some surviving Náhuatl wise men in 1524 to an attack by the first twelve missionary friars on the validity of Indian religion and tradition" captures, in both its words and tone, that bitter resentment:

It was the doctrine of the elders
that there is life because of the gods;
with their sacrifice, they gave us life.
In what manner? When? Where?
When there was still darkness.

It was their doctrine
that the gods provide our subsistence,
all that we eat and drink,
that which maintains life: corn, beans,
amaranth, sage.
To them do we pray
for water, for rain
which nourish things on earth.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For a long time has it been;
it was there at Tula,
it was there at Huapalcalco,
it was there at Xuchatlapan,
it was there at Tlamohuanchan,
it was there at Yohuallichan,
it was there at Teotihuacán.

Above the world
they had founded
their kingdom.
They gave the order, the power,
glory, fame.

And now, are we
to destroy
the ancient order of life?^[16]

But punishment usually results in compliance, and because the friars meted out punishment for noncompliance and rewarded compliance, the behavior of the indigenous peoples gradually changed. But a "change of behavior does not [necessarily] involve acceptance of new values,"^[17] and many of the conversions to the new religion were superficial.

That those superficial conversions took place is due in some measure to the numerous coincidences of belief and practice between the two religious systems. Durán, in fact, saw so many parallels that

he was convinced an evangelist had been there before the Spanish. But he was hardly pleased, as he also observed that "all of this was mixed with their idolatry, bloody and abominable, and it tarnished the good."^[18] Some went even further.

Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, a Dominican friar from northern Mexico, was to create a furor such as had never before shaken the religious life of New Spain with his memorable sermon of December 12, 1794. In the Shrine of Guadalupe he revealed to his astonished listeners that the Aztecs had actually been a Christian people, though their Christianity had been deformed. They had worshipped God the Father under the name of Tezcatlipoca, the Son as Huizilopochtli, and venerated the Virgin Mary as Coatlicue.^[19]

The existence of such striking coincidences of belief and practice contributed greatly to the syncretic adaptation of Christian forms to indigenous beliefs by allowing the basically different underlying assumptions to dictate practice that seemed Christian but was motivated by essentially indigenous beliefs. Thus, one must proceed cautiously in attempting to determine what the church was finally able to accomplish.

A striking example of this coincidence is the resemblance between Ometeotl, the supreme and abstract creator god of the Aztecs of whom no idols existed and to whom no ritual was specifically dedicated, and the Christian conception of God the Father, the relatively remote creator aspect of the tripartite Christian godhead. Similarly, Quetzalcóatl, the white Tezcatlipoca who died, rose to the heavens, but would return, could be, and was, compared to Christ in addition to more commonly being likened to Saint Thomas and sometimes Saint James. Both Christ and Quetzalcóatl had been sacrificed, both were sonlike aspects of the creator god, both existed in opposition to a dark aspect of the creative force, and both were seen as particularly representative of mankind. Among today's highland Maya, the parallels are perceived differently; they often conceptualize the trinity as three symbolic beings. One of these incorporates the entire Christian pantheon of gods, including God the Father, Jesus, and the saints, angels, ghosts, and virgins; a second consists of the earthly world as a whole including mountains and volcanoes; and the third is comprised of the ancestral dead.^[20]

Such comparisons, of course, attempted to paper over the fundamental structural differences between the two cosmological views and the profound differences in the purposes of ritual within the two systems. Christianity saw an unbridgeable gulf between man in this world and god in the heavens; through death, the individual might find a union with the godhead, but god was not present in this fallen world. That separation of man and god was alien to the indigenous spiritual vision that held that one need only don the mask in the proper ritual context to allow the omnipresent world of spirit to emerge into this world. This world, then, was not only not seen as fallen but as sanctified: it was the visual manifestation of the underlying world of the spirit. While Christian ritual was primarily dedicated to the salvation of the individual's soul, that is, the movement of one's spirit after death from this fallen state to union with god, such a concept was alien to indigenous thought since union with the godhead was achievable through ritual. Indigenous ritual focused rather on man's reciprocation for the creation and sustenance of life by the world of the spirit, a conception foreign to the Christianity of the conquerors. As Marilyn Ravicz says, "The pre-Hispanic Indian had seen his relationship to the divine as one of dependence but as collaborative; . . they now had to see it as one of utter dependence upon a gracious two-edged Will of Love and Justice."^[21]

But one aspect of the conquerors' religion was more easily assimilated than the others: the Virgin Mary, the symbolic giver and nourisher of life, was more similar to Coatlicue or Tonantzin, manifestations in indigenous thought of the nourishing earth that produced life, than was Christ to Quetzalcóatl or God the Father to Ometeotl. As is generally the case with Mediterranean Catholicism, in Mexico, even today, Mary is honored far more extensively than the Father and Son. She

is believed to have appeared in person to an Aztec commoner, Juan Diego, ten years after the Conquest of Mexico by Cortes, and to have imprinted her image, that of a mestiza girl, on the rough cloak or tilma of maguey fibers which he was wearing. This miraculous painting is still the central focus of veneration for all Catholic Mexicans .^[22]

As Alan Watts points out, in that manifestation as the Virgin of Guadalupe, her "icon stands before the worshippers in its own right, representing the Virgin alone without even the Christ Child in her arms."^[23] She is the mother goddess. Thus, Madsen claims that the "most important stimulus for fusion [of the two religions] was the appearance of the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe which enabled the Aztec to Indianize the white man's religion and make it their own."^[24] And still today the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose cult began immediately after the Conquest, continues to be worshiped as Tonantzin in many areas.

The two deities share many characteristics. Mary was the virgin mother of Christ, while the Coatlicue manifestation of the earth goddess similarly gave birth to Huitzilopochtli after having been impregnated by an obsidian knife that fell from the sky. In consequence, both were mothers of gods and invoked as "our Holy mother." Not

coincidentally, Mary was associated with the temple originally dedicated to Tonantzin on the hill of Tepeyac where the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared to Juan Diego. But these similarities cannot obscure some fundamental differences as "the nature and function of the Virgin of Guadalupe are entirely different from those of the pagan earth goddess. The Christian ideals of beauty, love, and mercy associated with the Virgin of Guadalupe were never attributed to the pagan deity"^[25] whose dual nature as earth goddess made her both creator and destroyer of life in the cyclical flux of the cosmos. Thus, the similarities between them enhanced the syncretic process, while the differences assured Mary's taking on a symbolic meaning she had never had in Spanish Christianity.

The two religions also shared the use of the cross to symbolize the meeting of the world of the spirit and the natural world. As we have seen, the Mesoamerican cross is actually a quincunx (fig. 4), a cross in which the center is of the same importance as each of the arms, which, in turn, represent the four cardinal directions and the four "cardinal" points of the sun's diurnal course. For pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, the quincunx symbolized the spatial and temporal dimensions of the universe and located its symbolic center. Another cross, this one known as the foliated cross, was an important symbol to the Maya, as we have seen in our discussion of the symbolism of the lid of the sarcophagus of Pacal, ruler of Palenque, and the ceiba tree, as its equivalent, similarly marked the center point of the universe with its roots penetrating into the world of the spirit below and its branches reaching into the spiritual realm above. Significantly, Cortés "stamped the sign of the cross on the ceibas which he found along his route" in the Maya area and "suggested adorning the Christian cross with branches and flowers, therefore presenting to the Indians the precise image of the mythical foliated cross, symbol of life and center of the universe" they had always revered. In such ways "the syncretism of the Christian Holy Cross with the mythical tree of native theogony came into being." After identifying that tree as the symbol of "the support of the universe," Salmerón explains that

the Mexican of pre-Conquest times, like today's Indian, in order to find security and to bind himself to that which is sacred, constructed his home in the image and likeness of the universe as he conceived it: square in form and, at its summit, the reference to the tree which sustains it. When the evangelizer presented the Christian cross to the natives as the protector of man-In Hoc Signo Vinces—he was saying nothing strange: transposed, the cross was the same symbol that had protected these people since early times.^[26]

The cross, then, was yet another indication that the symbols of the past continued to give meaning to the present, "ordering reality simultaneously in the shape of the root metaphors of the old quincunx and the new cross."^[27]

Hunt sees that conflation of the two crosses and the idea of sacrifice for which both stood as central to an understanding of the syncretic merging of the two religions.

Why then did the Mesoamerican peoples not adopt the codes of Christianity clearly and purely or completely reject one symbol system or the other? This was not necessary. The marriage of the old and the new was an easy one to arrange. To be converted they had only to reject one single major ritual parameter, that is, to change from actual human sacrifice for the maintenance of the social-cosmic order to symbolic human sacrifice, in the most human figure of Christ on the cross. Obviously, the cross itself, so similar in design to the prehispanic quincunx, imbued both the old and the new iconographies with the same aura of received sacred truth.^{[ 28]}

Although Hunt may oversimplify the essential problem, it is surely true that the Indians considered the crucifixion and violent martyrdom of Christ, as well as that of many saints, symbolic of human sacrifice but experienced no feeling of guilt, sadness, or repentance in connection with that sacrificial death. To the Indian, it, like pre-Columbian human sacrifice, was a reciprocal necessity in the cyclical flux constituting the eternal and universal order of things. Death was necessary so that rebirth might occur. Thus, the image of sacrifice might be the same, but the meaning of that image was profoundly different as the significance of the native symbol never changed.

Precisely that syncretic mode of apprehending spiritual reality can be seen in the Maya view of sacrifice, the supremely important ritual activity through which man offers his substance in reciprocation for the sustenance of his life by the world of the spirit. Interpreting the crucifixion as another version of human sacrifice, the Maya continue to "pray to the cross as a god of rain"^[29] and thus unite the central symbol of Christianity with the central idea of indigenous Maya thought. Landa realized very early that the fusion of the idea of heart sacrifice with the Christian crucifixion was evidence of continued paganism among the Maya, but as Thompson points out, it was only through this connection that Catholicism could have had any meaning in the indigenous cultural context. What was "incipient nativism" to Landa^[30] was "meaningful acculturation to the Indians."^[31] And the rituals through which the now-symbolic sacrifice is rendered to the world of the spirit continue to be scheduled according to the indigenous calendar in many Maya communities. In the Chiapas villages of Chamula and Zinacantan, for example, the ancient solar calendar is still used both to regulate ag-

ricultural activity^[32] and to determine the dates of religious festivals.^[33] For the Maya, "the revelations of time are still tied to the destiny of man"^[34] but now in a syncretic way.

Still another similarity between the religious practices of conquered and conqueror can be seen in the pre-Columbian personification of the gods in small idols similar in function to Spanish santos. Perhaps encouraged by this practice, a number of associations were made between the old gods and the Christian saints. Tlaloc, for example, was sometimes associated with Saint John the Baptist and Toci with Saint Anne. In fact, "there are saintly counterparts for nearly all the native deities, which are either mere additions to the native religions (existing only in name) or represent the beneficial aspect of the deities with whom they are paired."^[35] Of all the coincidences we have enumerated, the association of idols and saints probably persisted longest and had the greatest impact on the syncretic process since in accepting the community of saints as "a pantheon of anthropomorphic deities,"^[36] the Indians were able to see each of them as a particular manifestation of the undifferentiated world of the spirit, a particular manifestation that served a particular ritual purpose in much the same way the multitudinous "gods" of pre-Columbian spiritual thought had functioned in ritual. Before the Conquest, each village had its own patron deity whose idol was ritually adorned with robes and jewels and presented with offerings; after the Conquest, each adopted a Catholic patron saint whose image was similarly adorned.^[37] Little changed except the image; the underlying structure remained intact. Religion continued to provide "an explanation of the ordering of the universe, a channel for dealing with the supernatural forces of nature."^[38]

Specific examples of the connection between "pagan" idols and santos abound. Durán noted that even after fifty years of contact with Christianity, the Indians were hiding their idols in church structures. And the association of idols and saints was still so strong in the seventeenth century that the worship of Catholic saints was called idolatry by Jacinto de la Serna, "who observed that some Indians thought the saints were gods."^[39] "In 1803 one entire town in the Valley of Mexico was found to be worshipping idols in secret caves."^[40] And even as late as the 1940s, the churches were kept locked in some Mixe communities so that priests could not interfere with the townspeople placing idols on the altar alongside the saints; for the Mixe, the church was simply another shrine.^[41] The santos were generally worshiped in ways very closely related to the earlier indigenous worship, and consequently the religious fiestas still held for Christian saints have many of the pre-Hispanic elements of those held earlier in honor of various "pagan" deities.^[42]

The two religions were superficially similar not only in their symbols, however; remarkable coincidences in their ritual practices also encouraged syncretism. Both, for example, had rites of baptism, confession, and communion. As Coe notes,

The Spanish Fathers were quite astounded that the Maya had a baptismal rite. . . . [During the ceremony] the children and their fathers remained inside a cord held by four old and venerable men representing the Chacs or rain gods, while the priest performed various acts of purification and blessed the candidates with incense, tobacco, and holy water.^[43]

Among the Aztecs after the Conquest, the baptized infant often received a Spanish first name in honor of a Catholic saint and an Aztec second name honoring an Aztec god, both selected according to the day on which the child was born; the Christian name was determined by consulting the Catholic calendar while the Aztec name came in traditional fashion from the tonalpohualli.^[44]

In pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, ritual confession was related both to Tezcatlipoca, whose omnipresence enabled him to see all, and to Tlazolteotl, a manifestation of the female earth goddess known as the "filth eater" since the earth received everything. Confession could take place only once in a lifetime, and therefore the moment for it was carefully chosen. The penitent confessed his sins to a priest who was bound to secrecy; the confession was solely for the deity for whom the priest acted as agent. Then the priest, according to the severity of the sin, set a penance that, once accomplished, provided immunity from further temporal punishment. Durán explains that the confession was "not [always] oral as some have claimed,"^[45] which he deduced from the fact that when he heard the Catholic confessions of Indians, they often brought pictures of their sins, evidently in the style of the codices. Although the modes of pre-Columbian confession varied somewhat from area to area—among the Zapotecs, for example, there were annual public confessions while the Maya might confess to family members in the absence of a priest^[46] —the correspondence of all these practices to those of the Christian confessional was remarkable. It is little wonder that Durán was led to conclude that "in many cases the Christian religion and the heathen ways found a common ground."^[47]

He was amazed as well by similarities in the rite of communion fundamental to both religions as each prescribed the ritual consumption of a sacrificed god. While "the Catholics drank wine and swallowed a wafer to symbolize their contact with the divine blood and body of Christ, the Mexica consumed images of the gods made of amaranth and liberally annointed with sacrificial blood."^[48] The dough that formed those images was known by the Aztecs as "the flesh of god,"^[49] a ritual substitute for the flesh of sacrificial victims who

had become gods but a substitute paralleling remarkably the Christian idea of transubstantiation. Other similarities in ritual practice existed as well: both religions accompanied ritual by the burning of incense in sacred places, and the priests who conducted that ritual in both cases "chanted, wore elaborate robes, made vows of celibacy, lived in communities ... and wore their hair in a tonsure."^[50] Pilgrimages to especially sacred places played a major part in both. In fact, pre-Conquest pilgrimage centers, such as the one at Chalma, soon became, and remain even today, Catholic pilgrimage centers. But while these similarities helped to make the superficial transition between the two religious systems relatively easy, beneath the surface they had the opposite effect. They allowed indigenous meanings to remain attached to apparently Christian ritual behavior. Coupled with the deep resentment generated by the displacement of indigenous priests and ritual practice, this retention of indigenous belief did much to counteract the superficial success of the syncretizing process.

In addition to the many coincidences that encouraged the syncretic process, the Spanish themselves helped to keep the native concepts and customs alive by consciously using those coincidences in belief and practice as a means of making the doctrine and practice of the church intelligible to the natives. We have already noted that Cortés, no doubt consciously, confounded the Christian and native crosses among the Maya by slashing crosses into sacred ceiba trees and by permitting Christian crosses to be adorned, a practice that continues today, thus contributing to their confusion in the indigenous mind with the foliated cross that symbolized the tree of life. Similarly, he allowed Aztec idols to remain in the temples side by side with the crosses he had erected. And this confusion of symbols occurred in the communication of doctrine as well. For example,

in order to make the natives understand the meaning of the Christian heaven, the catechizer made use of the description of the Tonatiuh-Ichan (House of the Sun), the place where warriors killed in battle dwelled, or those who were sacrificed to the gods. These souls accompanied the sun  . . .  [and] returned to earth in the form of precious birds with red feathers, to suck nectar from the flowers.^[51]

This same imagery can also be found in post-Conquest poems with angels taking the place of the warriors.^[52]

The Catholic ceremonial calendar similarly encouraged the syncretic fusion of the two systems of ritual. As we have shown in Part II, the charting of the orderly movement of time was of great symbolic importance to the peoples of Mesoamerica. The calendar revealed the workings of the spirit, and the ceremonial cycle regulated by it was therefore ordained by the gods. Thus, it is not surprising, as Durán observed, that the particular day on which a Christian festival fell played a large part in determining the importance attached to it by the native populace and the enthusiasm with which it was celebrated. He noted that if the date had an important relationship to one of the indigenous gods, the feast was celebrated with much more joy, "feigning that the merriment is in honor of God—though the object is the [pagan] deity."^[53] Even today, the pre-Columbian 260-day sacred calendar with named and numbered days persists in scattered places, especially among the Maya, and "time continues to be calculated and given meaning according to the ancient methods."^[54] As will be seen in the discussion of the masked ritual involving the tigre and the pascola, such coincidences between Christian and indigenous ceremonial calendars are widespread even in areas where the indigenous calendar, as such, no longer exists. The tigres dance on days consecrated to the patron saints of the villages, but these days happen to fall at the proper time for rain-propitiating ritual. The Yaqui and Mayo celebrate the resurrection of Christ after the somber period of Lent, but their ritual makes clear that they are celebrating the rebirth of life in the agricultural cycle as well. Throughout Mesoamerica, the indigenous population continues to lavish its ritual attention on those Christian festivals that coincide with the important points of the indigenous ceremonial cycle.

The syncretic fusion of religious forms can also be seen in the continued use of indigenous sacred places as pilgrimage centers and places of worship. Cortés began this process when, during the Conquest, he decided that "in the place of that great Cue [pyramid] we should build a church to our patron and guide Señor Santiago" and built the cathedral dedicated to Saint James on the site of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli.^[55] This construction at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán which equated the Aztec god of war with the saint who was the patron of the Spanish forces was to be followed by many more churches throughout Mexico which would similarly relate an indigenous god to a Christian deity or saint. According to Rafael Carrillo Azpeitia,

The conquerors used the pyramids as bases for their churches, thus taking advantage of the symbolism that represented the occupation and destruction of the temple of those people who had resisted the victors. Old places of worship were consecrated to the deities of the new religion. The cave of Oztoteotl was dedicated to the Holy Christ of Chalma; the church of Our Lady of Los Remedios was built on top of Mexico's most important ancient shrine, the pyramid of Quetzalcóatl in Cholula; in Tepeyac, at the northern edge of

Mexico City, the basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe was constructed, on the site where Tonantzin (Our Mother) had been adored.

He goes on to relate this particular impetus toward syncretism to the others we have discussed.

In the same way that the ancient temples and pyramids were used as bases for new sanctuaries, the spiritual catechists used certain customs and rites as a basis for the religious conversion and the subjection of the Indians to the power of the Crown. This syncretism is defined clearly by Solórzano y Pereyra, when he says about the Church: "Convinced that it would not be easy to deprive the heathens of their ancient customs immediately, and after having considered well, [the Church] decided to leave them their customs but call them by a better name."^{[ 56]}

From our point of view in this study, there was no more important custom "left" the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica than the tradition of masked dance.^[57] Nowhere is the Spanish practice of allowing native customs to remain while calling them by "better names" clearer, and no set of customs shows more graphically the complexity of the syncretic process. It can be said generally that the interruption by the Conquest of the steady development of Mesoamerican spiritual thought and the ritual based on it led to the existence in colonial and modern times of three types of masked dance among the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica: those dances introduced by the friars which have European forms and use European-style masks, those that substantially retain indigenous traditions and use masks derived from pre-Hispanic sources, and those that demonstrate a thorough fusion of the two traditions and a corresponding fusion of mask styles.

These, of course, are "ideal" types; in fact, every dance and folk drama contains both indigenous and European elements. In even the most clearly indigenous of masked dances, such as the Danzas del Tigre , which continue the association of the jaguar with rain and which will be discussed below, there are European elements, and even the most European of dance-dramas with the most European-appearing masks contain clearly indigenous elements. And in some masked dances, such as the Yaqui and Mayo pascolas, the indigenous and Christian elements have become so interrelated that they can no longer be separated. But it is significant that all of these dances—from the European to the indigenous—are today performed by Indian dancers in Indian villages. Where Indian and Ladino communities coexist in rural villages, it is the indigenous community that performs the masked dance-drama, which is very often regarded by the Ladinos with the scorn with which they generally regard Indian customs. The millennia-old Mesoamerican impulse to don the mask in ritual is still carried on even by those ritual performers who wear the most European of masks, masks that are generally quite realistic depictions of human features rather than the symbolic composite masks of the pre-Columbian tradition. And those masked dancers continue the ancient tradition even though they may participate in the most European of ritual forms.

The European forms are varied. Citing Ralph Beals,^[58] Gertrude Kurath points out that "influences from Spain were strongest in the sixteenth century due to colonial policies," and these influences brought the folk dramas and dances as well as the mask types then popular in Spain to the indigenous population of New Spain. Chief among these were the Moriscas, Pastorelas, and Diablos.^[59] As part of their indoctrination into the new faith, the indigenous population found themselves participating in

imaginary pastorals in which the forces of God triumphed over those of the wicked one; . . . supposedly historical representations in which the Moorish world of the unfaithful fell, beaten by the power of the champions of the faith; dances in which the Christians or the conquerors made the sign of the cross triumph over the Mohammedan Moors or the infidelity of the Indians.^[60]

Nothing in all of the syncretic adaptation of Christian forms to indigenous realities is stranger than the fact that even today masked Indians throughout Mesoamerica, and beyond to the north and south, are celebrating in dance the expulsion of the Moors from medieval Spain. The reason for this bizarre result of the syncretic process becomes clear when one remembers that the Conquest of the Americas took place shortly after the Reconquest of Spain in which the Moors were forced back to North Africa. This new conquest seemed an extension of the earlier one to the Spanish as both pitted the spiritual and material force of Christendom against infidels. Throughout Spain, and ultimately throughout Europe, a dance-drama known as Morisma reenacted the triumph of the Reconquest as costumed Spanish Christians engaged and defeated the costumed forces of the Moors.^[61] That dance-drama came to the New World as an integral part of the cultural equipment of the invaders and was soon made relevant to the Conquest of the Americas. No doubt performed in the Antilles before the Spanish even reached America, the first recorded performance by Spaniards on this continent occurred in 1529, and the dance-drama was an integral part of Spanish fiestas in New Spain from that time on. Between 1600 and 1650, the dance reached the pinnacle of its importance among the Spanish colonists, but as it waned in importance among them, as they gradually distanced themselves from the customs of the mother country, it paradoxically grew in importance among the mes-

tizo and indigenous populations, although for different reasons.^[62]

It had been introduced to the newly converted indigenous population by the missionary priests as a means of indoctrinating them with the Christian view of earthly life as a struggle between good and evil, and while the success of the priests in inculcating that view is debatable, their success in introducing the drama is still evident. By the twentieth century, it had become solely an indigenous institution and was no longer performed even by mestizo groups. In fact, according to Arturo Warman, its presence today can be considered diagnostic of the indigenous nature of the group performing it.^[63] As the subject matter does not seem directly relevant to the realities of Mesoamerican Indian life, the reasons for the popularity of the dance are not entirely clear. While "the absolute Catholicism of these dances is an article of faith among the Indians," there are a number of suggestions that the enthusiastic adoption of the Moors and Christians was in some measure a result of its ability to encompass "vestiges of aboriginal ritual."^[64] And that ability may come, in turn, from the pagan past of the Spanish dances themselves.

Although Spanish history is the apparent source of the Moriscas, it seems probable that they actually represent religious acculturation in that more ancient pagan dances associated with spring fertility rites and other events received a new lease on life when they were transformed into festivals to celebrate Christian victory over the infidels.^[65]

Thus, a level of metaphoric significance may have existed under the Christian veneer of the dance, making it easily assimilated by the tradition of Mesoamerican spiritual thought, which, after all, focused a great deal of attention on that annual moment of rebirth generated by the spiritual force that sustained life.

Whatever the reason for its successful implantation in the Americas, that success is undeniable and can perhaps best be measured by the number of variants of the original dance which presently exist,^[66] variants that can be divided into two fundamental types. In the first, the struggle enacted by the masked and costumed participants still pits the Moors, often wearing dark masks (pl. 61), against the Christians, either unmasked or wearing light-colored masks, in a combat dance-drama filled with a bizarre mixture of historical references and anachronisms that lends importance and dignity to the mythic struggle being reenacted. A contemporary version performed in Tlaxcala, for example, has Christian characters with such names as Carlomagno, Oliveros, Roldán, Ricarte, and Guy de Borgoña confronting Moors called Almirante Balán, Fierabrás, Mahoma, and Lucafer as well as the devils Apolin and Zapolin.^[67] In a variant popular in the Sierra de Puebla, the Christians are led by Santiago (Saint James), the patron of the Spanish forces during the Reconquest of their homeland and the Conquest of the New World, and the Moorish forces are often led by Rey Pilatos (King Pontius Pilate) and count among their soldiers a number of Pilatos. Essentially, the drama opposes the forces of good—Santiago and the Christiansto the forces of evil—Pontius Pilate, Mohammed, various specifically named devils, and the Moors. As we have seen, such an opposition of good and evil, symbolized here by the dark and light masks, is far more characteristically European and Christian than indigenous, so that, superficially at least, it seems clear that in theme as well as content, the dance of the Moors and Christians is a Spanish introduction.^[68]

Pl. 61.
Mask of a Moor, Dance of the Moors and Christians, Cuetzalan,
Sierra de Puebla (collection of Peter and Roberta Markman).

This makes the existence of the other fundamental variant of the dance even more difficult to explain, for in it, the Mesoamerican native population, usually identified in the dance as Aztecs, replaces the essentially evil Moors in the struggle with the Christians. Although this variant exists in a number of forms, they are generically known as Dances of the Conquest and exhibit "the core pattern" of the dance of the Moors and Christians.^[69] That the Indians could have become involved with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain

seems strange, but it is even stranger that they could have been brought to define themselves as evil and to celebrate their own defeat.^[70] The explanation of this phenomena most in accord with the ideas recorded by various ethnographers among the Indians themselves is that from their present position as Christians, they can regard the history of the "defeat" of their forebears as a victory for Christianity, which made possible their present status. Significantly, that interpretation portrays the drama as illustrative of the symbolic process of rebirth identified by Foster, although not in a fertility context.

Two variants of the Dance of the Conquest are particularly interesting from our point of view because they illustrate the vitality of the dance today as well as the differences in the processes of syncretism in the two major areas of Mesoamerica. In central Mexico, the Concheros, "a highly organized votive dance society," have as their primary activity the performance of a variant of this dance performed unmasked in fiestas from Taxco to Queretaro to which they make pilgrimages. Organized into "mesas" in military fashion, "they are like a religious army marching to fiestas to make a sacrifice, or an offering, of their dance,"^[71] which they perform to the music of the concha, a lutelike instrument fashioned from the armadillo shells from which their name is derived. While the Concheros may accurately be described as "a nativistic complex for men and women of all ages in search of Indian tradition,"^[72] it must be remembered that the native tradition, for them, is at least nominally Christian, and the Conquest provided the crucial, God-given opportunity for the conversion of the indigenous religion to Christianity. The Conquest, then, was a victory rather than a defeat.^[73]

The case is somewhat different among the Maya, for the process of conversion in the Maya area was even less successful than in central Mexico. The Dance of the Conquest of Guatemala, when contrasted with the activities and beliefs of the Concheros, demonstrates some of those differences. Rather than being performed by a dance cult that makes pilgrimages to various fiestas, the Guatemalan dance is village based, being performed in villages by masked community members (colorplate 10) at the annual festival of the patron saint. While the dance-drama performed by the Concheros focuses its attention on the conversion of the indigenous population and the beneficent results that flowed from it, the Guatemalan dance-drama is seen by the peoples of the villages on one level as a form of historical instruction that emphasizes their glorious indigenous past.^[74] On that level, the religious motivation is neither exclusive nor always even paramount but is, as Bode points out, somewhat subordinate to the role of the dancedrama in defining for the people what it is to be Maya.

The Conquista is less than sacred and more than habit. The dancers do not fulfill esoteric vows. Nor do they sustain relatively heavy financial sacrifice, practice long hours, and recite perfectly in a high plaintive voice merely for tradition's sake. They are evoking a proud past and filling otherwise monotonous lives with the excitement and fellowship afforded in preparing for the dance: in practicing, in getting their costumes, in doing their costumbres, in performing for a people eager to have recounted again and again the story of Tecum.^[75]

And the story of Tecum is the story of their past glory, now to be experienced through the spectacle of the drama.

According to Tedlock, that drama, as it is performed in Momostenango today, "is strongly biased against the conquerors." The focus is on the three main indigenous characters, each of them identified by characteristic masks: the leaders Rey Quiché, Tecum Umam, and Rey Ajitz who is the red dwarf Tzitzimit.

Rey Quiché is terrified by the Spanish forces; he gladly receives baptism and thereby survives the Conquest. The brave Tecum Umam marches into battle against the Spanish; he refuses baptism and dies. The C'oxol or Tzitzimit correctly divines the defeat; he also refuses baptism, but instead of taking arms, he runs off to the woods to live . . . [where] according to Momostecan accounts, the C'oxol gave birth to Tecum's child. . . . The moral of the drama seems clear. The political leader accepted baptism, the military leader accepted death, and the customs survived the Conquest by going into the woods, where the lightning-striking hatchet of the Tzitzimit continues to awaken the blood of novice diviners and where the child of Tecum still lives.^[76]

But there is another level of meaning here. Garrett Cook's research in Momostenango reveals a specifically religious dimension of this nativistic interpretation of the dance-drama. According to his informants, the characters of the dance are seen as Mundos , "anthropomorphic original beings" associated with the sacred earth,^[77] or in our terms, manifestations of the world of the spirit existing momentarily for a specific ritual purpose and thus identical in that sense to the gods of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. For the Quiché of Momostenango, then, the Dance of the Conquest is an integral part of an essentially indigenous ritual life required of them by their gods.

The Quiché are animists for whom the supernatural is immanent, not transcendent. They live in an inherited world which it is their job to maintain. The maintenance of the world and its complex institutions, which were created by the primeros, the founders of civilization, is the primary religious duty .^[78]

In "the woods," away from the urban centers dominated by the new society, the Maya continue to live in the old ways, according to the old spiritual vision. Paradoxically, the Dance of the Conquest, introduced to replace that vision with the Christianity of the conquerors, has come to symbolize both the inner strength and the essential meaning of those old ways. Thus, defeat has been turned to victory in a very different way from that imagined by the Concheros of central Mexico. And this "victory" is celebrated in the old way—by masked dancers in a ritual performance.

In addition to the dance-dramas based on the struggle between Moors and Christians, the conquerors also introduced folk plays, often featuring masked characters, dramatizing the significant moments of the mythic narrative underlying the new religion. Passion Plays brought Christ's crucifixion to the Indians, while the Pastorelas, outgrowths of medieval European Miracle Plays, depicted Christ's miraculous birth. As Ravicz points out, the Pastorelas, still widely performed in both mestizo and Indian Mexico, were "one of the important ways in which the first missionaries used pre-existing religious patterns" in their proselytizing since in pre-Conquest ritual, "the role of the particular god whose ritual was being celebrated was literally enacted by a chosen member of the celebrants themselves."^[79] She refers, of course, to masked impersonators of the gods, indicating the close relationship between pre- and post-Conquest masked ritual.

While the thematic centrality of the birth and crucifixion of Christ has obvious relevance to the pre-Columbian connection between sacrifice and rebirth, another motif commonly found in the Pastorelas seems more specifically Christian. That motif involves a struggle between the devils of the play who wear fantastic masks (pl. 62) derived from the European tradition but reminiscent of the composite masks of the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican past and one or more hermits who, in stark contrast, wear simple, realistic masks (colorplate 11). The struggle may be for the soul of Bartolo, a foolish shepherd,^[80] or may arise from the devil's attempt to disrupt the pilgrimage of the shepherds to Bethlehem, but whatever its specific cause, it presents, on a somewhat comic level, a struggle between good and evil. That struggle is also presented on a more serious level as the chief devil, generally Lucifer, attempts to disrupt the ceremonies surrounding the birth of the Christ child. His attempts are ultimately frustrated by the archangel Michael,^[81] so that the dramatization of the struggle between good and evil, the struggle the immanent birth of Christ will ultimately resolve, is presented on each of the levels—comic, serious, and symbolic—of the play.

Pl. 62.
Mask of a Devil, Pastorela, Michoacan
(private collection).

In a fascinating way, then, the Pastorelas couple the basic opposition of good and evil, an essentially Christian conception, with the most fundamental image of rebirth in Christian doctrine, the incarnation of Christ—the incarnation of spirit in matter, a conception with obvious and fundamental parallels in indigenous spiritual thought. It is not surprising, then, that of all the dance-dramas introduced by the Spanish, "those celebrating the Nativity are perhaps the most widely distributed."^[82] The Christian emphasis on the opposition of good and evil in the context of the opposition of spirit to matter was introduced in part through such plays where the opposition is metaphorically defined by the contrast in masks. But it was understood in terms of the indigenous conception of rebirth, and thus the Pastorelas provide an excellent example of the syncretic process at work. As will be seen in the discussion of the pascola , that particular fusion of Christian and indigenous thought is at the heart of the system of religious thought created by the Yaqui and Mayo of northwest Mexico.

When the missionary friars taught the new religion by encouraging the converted "to honor Christian supernaturals with songs, dances, and folk dramas similar to those in Aztec worship,"^[83] they not only allowed but encouraged the Indians to continue to perform, often in masks, what had been one of the most sacred forms of ritual behavior. Now, however, they were to "dance their way into Christendom."^[84] By allowing those dances, including even the most indigenous, which were only slightly transformed by Christian themes, to be performed in the church courtyards on Catholic saints' days, the friars encouraged the continuation

of native forms of worship within a Christian context, a practice that is still alive. The results of that encouragement were both predictable and, evidently, apparent even to some of the friars, since in 1555, Indians were specifically forbidden "while dancing, to use banners or ancient masks 'that cause suspicion,' or to sing songs of their ancient rites or histories, unless said songs were first examined by religious persons, or persons who understood the Indian language well."^[85]

Thus, the dances and folk dramas and their characteristic masks, along with the other factors we have enumerated (the coincidences between Spanish and indigenous symbols and ritual, the Spanish encouragement to retain some indigenous practices intact and others somewhat modified while "calling them by a better name," the mass conversions of the peasants "often with no more than a token understanding of the new divinities they were to worship,"^[86] and the fact that "the confused natives, trying to understand [the Christian concepts], made their own selection of gods, rites, and ceremonies, according to the way these fitted into their version of the world"^[87] ) are sufficient to account for Charles Wisdom's conclusion that there appeared to be a

complete fusion [of indigenous and Christian religion] to the extent that the Indians themselves are unaware that any such historical process has taken place. An important point to make is that this has resulted in a new and distinct supernatural system, neither Maya, Mexican, nor Catholic, all the aspects of which are closely integrated to one another and to the remainder of the cultures of which they are a part .^[88]

A small but amazingly instructive contemporary example of this fusion of the two traditions is provided by Martha Stone in her discussion of the Conchero dance cult. When she asked a "capitán" to explain the meaning of the twelve rays emanating from the Xuchil, the Conchero's version of the monstrance that in Catholic ritual holds the host, he replied that they symbolized "the twelve rays of the sun, or the twelve disciples of Christ, as you please." And the meaning of the mirror in the center? It represents "the all-seeing powers of Tezcat, a god of our ancestors [Tezcatlipoca was referred to as Smoking Mirror] or the all-seeing powers of the ánimas benditas, as you please."^[89] His response carries in potential all the responses of all the practitioners of the folk religion of Mesoamerica, that spiritual structure bearing within its rich symbolism and ritual both of the traditions from which it was formed. Whether in terms of the fiestas and their rituals or the churches and their idols, there are still two cultures at work, and thus one can choose the name that pleases.

Seeing all of this fusion as a "hybrid" religion, Hunt asks,

How is it possible ... that Indians so readily accepted the Christian religion but continued their old rituals, their attachment to ancient symbols, native gods, and autochthonous notions, for over five centuries? The answer is that this is a natural response for a culture with a pantheistic view of the sacredness of the universe. Because reality is one and many, the addition of new images such as the Christian saints or Jesus himself simply expands the repertoire of sacred "words" that can be fitted into the divine "sentence matrix," already defined as simultaneously complex, ultimately unknowable, ever-changing, and unitary .^[90]

Her "pantheistic view" is what we have described as the shamanistic foundation of Mesoamerican spiritual thought. The development of syncretism has shown its durability, but it has also demonstrated something more surprising: that foundation was capable of supporting a new, syncretic system of spiritual thought, which can be characterized as the interplay between the indigenous foundation and the materials of the imported religion, an interplay that makes clear that the foundation determines to some extent the shape and appearance of the edifice raised on it. In that sense, it can be said that Mesoamerican spiritual art "still expresses the shamanic state of cosmic unity."^[91] More specifically, Robert Redfield observes that the shamanic beliefs and practices that coexist with Christianity in many regions of highland Guatemala are still

essentially pagan. Practically all of these Highland villages maintain . . . shaman-priests who carry on rituals and recite prayers in which pagan deities as well as saints are addressed. These rites are sometimes performed in a Christian church and sometimes at shrines on the hilltops where the pagan gods dwell. Animal sacrifice is practiced; stone idols are still used in connection with religion and magic; not a few of the communities carry on their ritual and even their practical life according to a pagan calendar that has survived from the days before the Conquest.^[92]

Mesoamerican Indians generally "view the universe as peopled by spiritual beings; many of the features of nature around them are spiritual and personal."^[93] The underlying shamanistic structure of belief remains.

It is clear, then, that Christianity came to Mesoamerica in the form of syncretism rather than as the conversion from one faith to another, which Durán and his fellow missionary priests sought. The Christian forms of spiritual thought and ritual were adapted in terms of what the adapting culture saw as counterparts in their thought and ritual. The two religions became one only in this sense, but since that combination could not resolve the fundamental contradictions between

them, the indigenous structure of spiritual thought remained intact. Even the friars often realized that the two systems were fundamentally incompatible and used that argument as a means of bringing the Indians to accept the new faith and reject their own,^[94] but this argument succeeded no better than their other efforts. The Indians, realizing the essential incompatibility of the two, retained the structure of the faith of their forefathers.

Fundamental to that spiritual vision was the idea that the creative force of the spirit entered the world of man through a process of "unfolding" whereby a continuum was constructed which ultimately connected that force to man. Moreover, indigenous spiritual belief saw all things as part of one essentially spiritual reality in which "the microcosm and the macrocosm are but different forms in which one and only one vital order is manifested."^[95] Christianity could provide no parallel to this conception as it saw man and this world as "fallen, " as essentially separate from god and the world of the spirit. For the conquering Christians, the world of man and man's physical being were essentially material and could be dealt with by material means; man's spirit was separate from this world and from his body. For the indigenous population of Mesoamerica, no such separation was possible; everything was essentially spirit. Christianity, moreover, proposed that good might ultimately exist without evil, pleasure without pain, and light without darkness, while indigenous spiritual thought, on the contrary, was dualistic in the sense that it conceived of unity as the joining of opposed qualities and was always aware of the simultaneous existence of both halves of those pairs of opposites. For this reason, it was not just difficult but almost impossible for Mesoamerican thinkers to comprehend the idea of a single, monolithic truth.

As we have seen, the result of the intersection of these two mythic systems is extremely complex, but it is perhaps fair to say that while the Conquest destroyed the theoretical superstructure of pre-Columbian religion (i.e., the philosophical and theological speculation of the priesthood), the myths and rituals and the underlying structure to which they gave essential form remained fixed in the minds and lives of the peasants. It was there that the formal and temporal order of the ritual life of the European conquerors merged into the indigenous structure, preserving intact the foundation of pre-Hispanic spiritual thought. The old religion was forced underground, but it remained alive in "a different intellectual context" from that of its earlier splendor.^[96] As James Greenberg discovered, what survived was not merely the "bare bones" of that ancient body of belief. "It was only after extensive work that I realized that what I had perceived as 'bones' were the flesh and blood of Chatino belief and that 'Catholicism' had been completely reworked and resynthesized in terms of the pre-existing nexus of ritual and doctrine."^[97]

Even as we write, the conflict continues. Today's Los Angeles Times , delivered to our doorstep this morning contains an article headlined: "400-Year Church Ties Cut by Ancient Mexican Tribe." The article recounts "the troubles between the Catholic Church and the Chamulas. . . . Chamula leaders charged that the Catholic bishop in San Cristobal connived to end traditional Mayan forms of worship." In response, they ousted the Catholic clergy from their churches and "called in a preacher from a solitary Christian sect in the faraway state capital" who would not "interfere with the ancient ceremonies."^[98]

The vitality of indigenous religion, as exemplified by the Chamulas, corroborates Charles Gibson's answer to his question which we posed earlier: "What, finally, did the church accomplish?"

On the surface it achieved a radical transition from pagan to Christian life. Beneath the surface, in the private lives and covert attitudes and inner convictions of Indians, it touched, but did not remold native habits. Modern Indian society . . . abundantly and consistently demonstrates a pervasive supernaturalism of pagan origin, often in syncretic compromise with Christian doctrine. Although it cannot really be demonstrated, it may be assumed that the pagan components of modern Indian religions have survived in an unbroken tradition to the present day .^[99]

Today, while many scholars predict the death of pagan beliefs and customs, the Concheros continue to dance and to pray, "May our ancient religion endure, as it has from the beginning, to the end of all things."^[100] Their prayer is repeated—in a variety of words and ritual actions—by indigenous groups throughout Mesoamerica.

12
The Pre-Columbian Survivals
The Masks of the Tigre

O jaguar, most noble, slyest of all the beasts of ancient Mesoamerica, deified for thousands of years by the Olmecs and Zapotecs, by the peoples of Teotihuacán, Tula, and Mexico-Tenochtitlán: fight on wildly in the fray; die on a thousand times in our village fiestas.^[1]

The jaguar—as a symbol of the earth, rain, and fertility—did not die with the Conquest but ironically continues to die every year in the festivals in and through which the indigenous folk religion of Mesoamerica exists. This annual death is, as it always has been, representative of the death that precedes rebirth in the eternal cycle of life and death. Thus, the jaguar mask central to the widespread Danza del Tigre in its many variations (to which Fernando Horcasitas refers) provides the best example of the survival of the mask and its underlying assumptions in indigenous ritual. What Gibson says of pre-Columbian survivals generally—that while a continuity of existence from pre-Columbian times is difficult to demonstrate, "it may be assumed that the pagan components of modern Indian religions have survived in an unbroken tradition to the present day"^[2] —is specifically true of today's jaguar mask and its accompanying ritual; without exception, scholars accept Horcasitas's contention that "from all indications, la Danza del Tigre has pre-Hispanic roots."^[3]

The earliest evidence we have for the existence of the mask and the dance, while colonial, strongly suggests their pre-Columbian origin. In 1631, the Inquisition prohibited the Danza del Tigre in Tamulte, Tabasco, since "it contained hidden idolatry offensive to our Religion." Specifically, dancers "disguised as tigres " fought, captured, and simulated the sacrifice of a dancer dressed as a warrior in "a cave called Cantepec"; the simulated sacrifice was followed by an actual sacrifice of hens.^[4] On the basis of this and other evidence, Carlos Navarrete concludes that "popular 'animal dances' [often] concealed ancient pagan rites."^[5] That those rites in this case are involved with the provision of water from the world of the spirit is demonstrated by the ritual's familiar combination of thematic motifs. The union of blood sacrifice, the cave, and a human being disguised as a jaguar (tigre , in the context of indigenous ritual, means, and is generally translated as, jaguar) in this ritual configuration recalls the pre-Columbian rain gods and their ritual propitiation at the time of the coming of the rains. The central position of the jaguar mask makes the connection clear; and that colonial mask was the forerunner of the numerous jaguar masks worn today, 350 years later, masks which are visually reminiscent of their pre-Columbian predecessors.

The modern mask, in most of its variations, generally displays the features of the pre-Columbian, jaguar-derived rain god masks—prominent fangs, a pug nose, round eyes with prominent eyebrows, and often a large, though not bifid, tongue dangling from its mouth. In many cases, the wearer looks out of the mask through the open mouth,^[6] an unusual arrangement in modern masks but one reminiscent of pre-Columbian practice. Thus, both the earliest evidence of tigre mask ritual and the appearance of the masks themselves suggest a pre-Columbian origin.

Probably the most widespread and surely the best-documented ritual dance-drama is the Danza de los Tecuanes found primarily in the central Mexican states of Guerrero and Morelos.^[7] It recounts "the hunting and killing of a tecuani or jaguar" who has devastated the local village. The version detailed by Horcasitas in 1979 begins with the wealthy landowner, Salvadortzin, and his assistant recruiting hunters, among them an archer, a tracker, and Juan Tirador, the marksman who will

finally shoot the jaguar. Once they are recruited, Salvadortzin gives them their charge:

Viejo Rastrero! Old Tracker! I want you to hunt and kill the tiger because the tiger's been doing a lot of damage. The tiger's ruined seven villages, the tiger's destroyed seven hamlets, the tiger's finished off all the good cows, the tiger's eaten up all the good donkeys, the tiger's eaten up all the good bulls, it's eaten up all the good goats, it's eaten up all the good sheep. It's even devoured all the good girls who go to the well for water, man! I'll pay you well to go get the tiger, man!^[8]

In a similar speech delivered by Don Salvador to his mayordomo in the version of Texcaltitlán in the state of Mexico, the landowner says the tigre is consuming the yearling bulls, the calves, the lambs, the kids, the piglets, and the rabbits, to which the mayordomo responds, "We are going to die of hunger."^[9] Thus, the wild animal, the jaguar, is destroying the domesticated animals that support human culture by providing food in an orderly and regular manner and is serving here the same structural function it had in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica from the time of the Olmecs; it is still generally symbolic of the untamed forces of nature that must be brought into harmony with the order underlying human society.

And it is through the accoutrements of human society that that order is achieved. Salvadortzin questions Juan Tirador, who will kill the jaguar, about his looks and then about his weapons:

"Juan Tirador, they tell me that you are brave. They tell me you are a good hunter. Is it true that you have a strong heart? Is it true that you have a big mustache? Is it true that you have a bushy beard? Is it true that you are handsome and have rosy cheeks?" All this is in reference to Juan's wooden mask. To each of these questions he answers "Yes, yes. True, true." "Is it true you have good weapons?" Juan Tirador then describes his hunting equipment, which is that of a small army: traps, cords, pistols, shotguns, munitions, rifles, muskets, bullets, cartridges, machetes, knives, daggers and so forth.^[10]

The answers seem deliberately designed to point up the difference between the "natural" mask and claws of the jaguar and the "civilized" mask and weapons of the hunter and thus reiterate the opposition of nature to culture suggested by the destruction of the domesticated animals by the wild jaguar. And this theme is found in other details of the dance-drama. Much is made, for example, of the wealth of the landowner and the paying of Juan Tirador, a motif emphasizing the social structure in opposition to the natural behavior of the jaguar: the hunter kills as a profession, the jaguar as an expression of his being. The emphasis on the dogs used by the tracker suggests the theme of domestication in another way: domesticated animals can be used to subdue wild animals as well as be destroyed by them. And the final skinning of the jaguar to make various items of clothing for the hunters and the dogs demonstrates that nature is not only potentially destructive but can also be useful to human society when brought under control. It is fair to say that the drama turns on the underlying opposition between nature and culture and in the killing of the jaguar, illustrates the necessity of "domesticating" wild nature.

The final speech of the variant enacted at Tlamacazapa, Guerrero is fascinating in this regard:

"But wait, Juan Tirador," shouts the Governor. "The jaguar is so big that I will give you a piece of skin for your coat, for your vest, for your belt, for your shirt, for your pants, for your leather jacket, for your chaps, for your trousers, for your leggings, for the case for your weapons. Even for the shoes of your puppies! Even for your mask, man!"^[11]

The dead jaguar (a human being wearing a mask) thus becomes a mask for the hunter in a startling switch ending the dance and making clear both the sophistication of this tradition of mask use and the awareness within the drama of the metaphoric nature of the mask, for the shoes for the puppies and the mask, the last of the items enumerated, are the only items not part of everyday life outside the drama; what was formerly wild can be used to support culture and in that use becomes a "mask" to cover the inherent "wildness" of all life. That this theme should exist in a dance-drama whose central character wears the mask of a tigre, or jaguar, indicates clearly that the symbolic merging of man and jaguar in the were-jaguar masks of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica continues, albeit in altered form, and that the were-jaguar still stands as a metaphor for the sustenance of man by the world of the spirit through the fertility of nature.

While the dance-drama of los Tecuanes lacks most of the earth and fertility symbolism associated with that pre-Columbian were-jaguar, a closely related variant in which essentially similar masks are employed retains that symbolism, as its name, los Tlacololeros , suggests. The name is derived from tlacolotl , Nahuatl for a plot of land,^[12] and the dance "dramatizes the efforts of men to cultivate their fields and their struggle against the tiger that ambushes them and threatens to destroy their human labor."^[13] The two dance-dramas seem to have divided the two forms of domestication characteristic of agricultural life—that of animals and the land—into two separate, but clearly related, dances that coexist in the state of Guerrero; perhaps the single colonial source of these modern variants^[14] united the two forms of domestication.

While los Tecuanes is almost wholly involved with animals, los Tlacololeros deals with the agricultural cycle. As the drama begins, the jaguar

taunts the spectators while the ten or twelve tlacololeros, all similarly dressed and masked and each named after a particular plant, prepare a plot of land and plant a seed, after which they complain to the chief of the hunters of the jaguar who threatens their agricultural efforts. In response to these complaints, the chief uses a dog, la Perra Maravilla , to track the jaguar, and when he is brought to bay, often in a tree, the chief finally kills him. After the hunt, as in los Tecuanes, there is a good deal of discussion of the size of the jaguar. The tlacololeros then burn the plot of land in preparation for the next planting. While the land is burning, pairs of dancers whip each other, often violently, on their padded costumes, the sounds of the whips simulating the sound of the fire. Often a clownlike character carries a dessicated squirrel with which he torments the other characters and the audience.^[15] Thus, all the elements of the cycle of life, especially as it applies to agriculture, are here, and the theme of life coming from death with its complementary notion of the necessity of the sacrifice of life is clearly evident. Often, though not always, los Talcololeros is presented as a part of rain-petitioning ceremonies,^[16] providing yet another link to the agricultural cycle and to the were-jaguar mask of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

Pl. 63.
Mask of a Tigre, Guerrero. The wearer of the mask
may be seen through the mask's mouth.

Pl. 64.
Masked Tigre, Dance of the Tecuanes, Texcaltitlán,
State of Mexico (reproduced with the permission of FONADAN).

The tigre masks employed in the dances of Guerrero and Morelos range from carved and lacquered wood masks (pl. 63), often magnificent creations, to mask helmets made by covering a reed or wire frame with painted cloth (pl. 64).^[17] Different as the masks are, however, their common origin can be seen in their remarkably similar, though differently interpreted, features. Always, for obvious reasons, the mouth is the focus of attention. Large and generally fanged, it often has a protruding tongue and sometimes provides the opening through which the wearer sees. In such cases, the face of the wearer can be seen within the mask exactly as the opossum mask helmet from Monte Albán (pl. 34) symbolically revealed its wearer within. The nose of the tigre mask is generally a feline pug nose, and the eyes are often distinctly circular and goggle shaped, though not always. The masks generally bristle with clumps of hair, eyebrows, and mustaches of hog or boar hair and are usually painted yellow with black spots. The masks comprised of these features range from relatively realistic portrayals of the jaguar to highly stylized ones, but they all emphasize at least some of the features we have seen in the jaguar-derived pre-Columbian rain gods from the Olmec were-jaguar^[18] to the Oaxacan Cocijo, the Tlaloc of central Mexico, and the Maya Chac.

Although there is some regional variation, masks essentially similar to these represent the jaguar in ritual throughout Mesoamerica, and other elements of los Tecuanes and los Tlacololeros consistently appear along with the familiar mask.

First, the tigre seems always to be accompanied by boisterous, generally sexually based humor. At times, the jaguar interacts with the spectators, teasing and taunting them; at times, the performance includes a ritual clown, often carrying a stuffed animal, who engages in sexual foolery; and at other times, the various characters within the drama involve themselves in similar antics. Whatever form it takes, however, there is always humor. As Horcasitas puts it, "The dance is a comedy, yet it would show disrespect to omit it from the village fiesta. It is holy and funny. Religious feeling here is expressed in merriment, not in gloom."^[19] That the dances are thought of as religious is indicated by their being preceded and concluded by specifically religious ritual and by their often being presented in the courtyard of the church. But the generally sexual nature of the humor is obviously related to the fertility theme of the ritual drama and is remarkably compatible with its basic nature/culture opposition as it suggests that human sexual proclivities must be controlled for culture to exist. In this connection, it is significant that male participants are generally required to observe a period of sexual abstinence that provides the opposite extreme from the wild sexuality of the humorous elements of the drama. The message is clear: normal human life within a culture is characterized by what the culture defines as normal sexual activity—neither the abstinence of the ritualist nor the wild abandon of the tigre and other characters.

Along with the humor that functions in the context of the nature-versus-culture oppositions, the tigre performances of modern Mesoamerica almost always involve a series of up/down oppositions. In the version just described, the jaguar climbs a tree where he is finally killed. Other versions are more spectacular; in a variant performed at Texcaltitlán, Guerrero, for example, the jaguar first climbs a tree in an attempt to escape the hunters and then climbs a rope extending from that tree to the top of the nearby church tower.^[20] Conversely, the tigre is often involved with caves. These up/ down and in/out oppositions seem clearly related to pre-Columbian pyramid/mountain and temple/ cave ritual and assumptions, especially since the summits of mountains and the inner reaches of caves, as we have seen, were intimately associated in myth and ritual with the provision of rain by the gods. Significantly, the tigres are often involved with church towers, that is, contemporary, religiously defined "summits."

The tigre dances also share a fundamental involvement with violence. The central character, the jaguar, is violent in his destruction of other characters and is finally disposed of violently, and dramatic violence often occurs between the other characters. Moreover, the violence within the drama often provokes very real violence among the spectators. Because of the large amounts of alcohol consumed by festival participants and the emotions aroused by the dance-drama, real blood is often shed and, not infrequently, participants are killed. But this is expected and, in a strange way, seen as desirable. Véronique Flanet, in discussing the festivals in the Mixteca, says that a fiesta is not deemed successful if no one has been killed. She quotes typical remarks: "Last year's festival was much better; there were seven people killed," or "When no one is killed, there is nothing worth mentioning about a fiesta."^[21] This emphasis on, and expectation of, bloodshed and violent death—both within the ritual performances and without—may seem barbaric to us and to the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of modern Mexico, but as an integral part of the ritual fertility festivities, it reflects the fundamental connection in the Mesoamerican mind between sacrifice and fertility. Seen in this way, it is in perfect accord with other modern practices and assumptions with the same pre-Columbian roots. One thinks, for example, of the penitentes throughout Mesoamerica and the bloody depictions of Christ in indigenous art.

While a number of other ritual dances involve tigre-masked characters, none demonstrates the characteristics connected to the pre-Columbian past more clearly than the combat of tigres enacted on May 2, el dia de la Santa Cruz , at Zitlala, Guerrero. To call this a ritual combat between members of opposing barrios should not suggest that it is in any sense a mock combat; the fighters "trade blows until they are gravely wounded."^[22] The practical function of the leather mask helmet (colorplate 12) is to protect the wearer's head from the blows delivered by his opponent's rope-covered cudgel, but the nature of the mask and cudgel indicates their pre-Hispanic origin and the pre-Columbian roots of the ritual. Formed of a single piece of heavy leather folded at the top with the sides laced together,^[23] the mask helmet completely covers the wearer's head down to the nape of his neck. Protruding from the top, at the ends of the fold, are prominent ears, and a nose formed of a rolled piece of leather divides the front of the mask from the top to just above the mouth. On either side of the nose are the eyes made of mirrors or tin and outlined with remarkably gogglelike circles of leather. The lower part of the mask is dominated by the oval mouth that the wearer sees through which is also formed of leather and contains leather teeth and a prominently protruding tongue. The front of the mask bristles with clumps of inserted hog or boar hair, and the whole construction is painted either yellow or green and spotted with small black circles.^[24] While its overall appearance is quite different from the masks used in los Tecuanes and los Tlacololeros, its individual features are remarkably similar, a fact suggesting a common source from which the varied masks evolved. The cudgel wielded by this masked combatant is a length of

stiffened rope wound at the end with more rope to form what has proved at times to be a lethal weapon, a weapon reminiscent of the pre-Columbian macuahuitl used by Aztec warriors.^[25]

The description of the mask suggests its close relationship to the jaguar-derived, pre-Columbian rain gods, especially Tlaloc. Most reminiscent of the Aztec god, of course, are the goggle eyes, but the nose, too, is very close in appearance to the nose formed of twined serpents often seen on Aztec images of the god. The mouth looks like the Tlaloc mouth with the upper and lower lips meeting to form an oval, and the protruding tongue, while not bifid, suggests those commonly found on masks of the rain god. It is perhaps significant to an understanding of both the pre-Columbian masks and this one that the serpent-related characteristics of the rain god mask, possibly excepting the nose, added by the inheritors of the Olmec were-jaguar have disappeared.

And the substance of the ritual as well as the appearance of its participants has pre-Columbian roots. As both Cruz Suárez Jácome and Roberto Williams Garcia point out, the combat is an integral part of the ritual activities of the second of May, activities whose primary purpose "is to entreat the aires to send beneficent rains and abundant harvests." These aires are, like the pre-Columbian rain gods, quadripartite in nature with directional, color, and bird symbolism. The ritual "should be interpreted as propitiating the aires in general, and in particular entreating the aires of the East to deliver the beneficent rains and discouraging the aires of the North from sending hail, frost, and destructive rain." Significantly, the ritual is performed at roughly the same time as the Aztec festival of Huey Tozoztli dedicated to Tlaloc and serving a similar purpose.^[26]

An understanding of these similarities between the modern festival and its pre-Columbian forerunner allows the full import of the comments of participants in and viewers of the combat to emerge. José Colasillo, an elder of the village of Zitlala, said that the combatants must fight as "a sacrifice for rain." Another member of the community made the idea even more explicit: "If we do not do this, God will not see the necessity to send the sacred waters." And another said, "Without our tiger fights, the sun might not rise, and the rains might not come. We must sacrifice with all our hearts."^[27] These words suggest the human reality of Suárez Jácome's contention that the combat, as a necessary sacrifice, gives the rain-petitioning ceremonies greater force.^[28] Thus, the pre-Columbian formulation equating blood with rain as the basis of a reciprocal relationship requiring man's sacrifice in return for the "sacrifice" of the gods may still be found in Zitlala. Now, of course, the Zitlaleño would say "God" rather than "the gods," but the underlying spiritual assumptions remain. As Juan Sánchez Andraka puts it, "the Aztec 'flowery war' persists"^[29] and continues to provide the blood that nourishes the gods.

It is thus doubly fascinating that a portion of the rain-petitioning ritual of the second of May takes place in a cave on the Cerro Cruzco,^[30] a mountain that rises above Zitlala. While that fact alone has pre-Columbian implications, this particular cave is the cave of Oxtotitlán containing the Olmec murals discussed above which has functioned as a fertility shrine at least since the time of the Olmecs a thousand years before the birth of the Christ, who gave his name to the religion now "accepted" by the people of the village. As the jaguar mask worn by the combatants makes abundantly clear, their Christianity rests on a pre-Columbian spiritual base.

But the situation is complex as these clearly pre-Columbian elements are embedded in a ritual with numerous Christian elements. In fact, May 2 is the Day of the Holy Cross, an entity that is even more important to the ritual than the tigres. "For the people of Zitlala, the cross is more than a symbol; it is a living entity, a feminine deity," and while the tigres figure importantly in the ritual, "their once-principal role has been subordinated to the cult of the cross."^[31] The activities that culminate in the ritual on the Day of the Holy Cross begin in earnest on April 30 when three crosses, one for each of the barrios of Zitlala, are brought down to the river from the cave on the Cerro Cruzco. On the following day, they are "dressed" with special capes, in a manner reminiscent of pre-Conquest practice, prayed over, and decorated with offerings of candles, chickens, corn, copal, and garlands of flowers and bread. In this state, they are borne on special frames by unmarried young women on a circuitous route up from the river, through the village to the church. Along the way, the head of each household the crosses pass adds to the offerings. That night the crosses "rest" in the church while masked dances are performed outside. On the following day, the second of May, after the celebration of masses in the morning, the crosses are borne back to the river and carefully restored to their former place, now, however, without the offerings. At this point, the celebrants separate. Some carry the cross up a steep and rocky path on the Cerro Cruzco to the adoratorio while others participate in the combat of the tigres in the riverbed at the base of the mountain. Those who follow the cross engage in a complex set of activities, including the ritual sacrifice of chickens, on the mountain which results in a variety of foods to be given as offerings to the now newly "dressed" crosses.^[32] Meanwhile, the tigres are rendering offerings of another sort.

The Christian elements of the festival are now more prominent than the indigenous elements, but the similarities between the two are far more fas-

cinating than their differences. Both are subordinated to the overall theme of sacrifice as an offering to the world of the spirit from whence comes life, and both involve the metaphor of the mask, a metaphor fundamental to the combat of the tigres. The combatants don the mask of the god, animate it with the force of their life, and then shed the symbol of that life-force, their blood, in voluntary combat. Thus, their blood becomes the "blood" of the gods, the rain, which enables man to live. But what is the "dressed" cross but precisely the same metaphor? By covering the cross with the things of this world, as the santos are often dressed in indigenous ritual imitative of the pre-Columbian dressing of the nude or nearly nude stone or ceramic figures we now see in museums, the cross itself becomes the inner life-force animating the clothing and giving vital force to the flowers and bread. It requires sustenance and provides sustenance. The treatment of the cross and its offerings reveals exactly the same reciprocal relationship between man and the world of the spirit as that revealed by the combat of the masked tigres.

These elements are evident in the events of the Day of the Holy Cross, but when that day is linked to its counterpart of September 10 when Zitlala celebrates the day of Saint Nicholas, they can be even better understood. Although that festival nominally celebrates the patron saint, it is actually a harvest festival.^[33] The Indians of the region pay homage to the image of San Nicolás "according to the blessings received from him. When harvests have been plentiful, the shrine is visited by hundreds of the faithful."^[34] Thus, the ritual of the Day of the Holy Cross in May seeks rain, fertility, and an abundant harvest, and the ritual of the Day of San Nicolás Tolentino in September gives thanks for their provision, if they have been provided. The activities surrounding that day of thanksgiving, while quite different from those of the earlier festival, are equally syncretic. And while the tigres play an important role, they do not engage in ritual combat, and the Aztec-derived cudgel with which they fight on the second of May is replaced by the teponaxtli, a cylindrically shaped pre-Columbian percussion instrument, which at least some of the villagers believe is "the voice of God, of the Celestial Jaguar, of the thunder and lightning."^[35]

Sánchez Andraka describes an observer's experience of the eve of the festival vividly, if somewhat dramatically.

Fireworks shook the earth, all the bells were ringing, and the people filled the plaza and the atrium. The dance troupes began to arrive one by one. Los Moros. Los Moros Chinos. Los Diablos. Los Zopilotes. Los Vaqueros. Colacillo, the great healer of Zitlala, whose fame goes beyond the borders of the state, played the violin frenetically for Los Vaqueros. Colored lights shot into the sky and thousands of candles adorned the church. In the midst of all this, a strange sound could suddenly be heard, a sound of wood striking wood that silenced everyone and transported us to another epoch. The bells and the firecrackers ceased. Tap, tap, tap, tap. It was an imperious wooden voice that carried us beyond fear and the night. Tap, tap, tap, tap. It seemed to be the voice of a deity speaking to the people or invoking the heavenly bodies, the moon and the stars, which shone intensely this night. And then a long laugh and a yell. Everyone's eyes lifted to the church tower. Four shadows could be seen on the ledge of the first cornice. The tap tap of the teponaxtli and the laugh and the yell had come from there. Héctor shined his flashlight on them and others followed suit. The one who carried the teponaxtli over his shoulder was dressed in red with a red mask and very long hair. Another, dressed similarly but with a black mask, reverently beat the teponaxtli and continued yelling and laughing, but it was a mysterious laugh. At their sides were the impressively masked tigres—one bright yellow, the other dark yellow. They leaped from the first cornice and climbed to the second. The tap, tap, tap grew in intensity and changed in tone. Below was a profound silence. When the masked figures reached the third cornice, they were 30 meters above the ground on a ledge a scant 20 centimeters wide. From this ledge they climbed to the small cupola topped with the cross, one of them carrying the teponaxtli, the other beating it, and the tigres giving three cat-like leaps. Now the yell and the laugh were very strong. They decorated the cross with garlands of zempazúchil and then began to descend, incessantly tap, tap, tapping.^[36]

At the base of the tower, the crowd awaited them, headed by a group of festively dressed young women holding garlands of flowers and bread to adorn the teponaxtli, which "moments before had been announcing the voice of the Celestial Jaguar from the cupola,"^[37] when it appeared borne on the back of one of the tigres. When the other masked figures had descended, the four of them, bearing the now-decorated teponaxtli, led the crowd in a solemn procession toward the main altar of the church on which rested the gold monstrance containing the sacred host. On reaching the altar, the masked figures moved the monstrance to one side, depositing the flower- and bread-laden teponaxtli in the place of honor. Catholic hymns were sung and Catholic prayers said while the tigres executed silent, feline movements in honor of the enshrined teponaxtli. Following these acts of devotion, the tigres picked up the teponaxtli and led the crowd of worshipers, now a lengthy procession, through the streets of the village to the houses of the mayordomos and padrinos.^[38] Such a description al-

lows us to feel as well as understand the syncretic unity of the experience woven, like the ritual on the Day of the Holy Cross, from strands of indigenous and Christian ritual. The indigenous symbols of mask and teponaxtli have merged with the Catholic symbols of cross and host to create a single, syncretic ritual experience for the participant.

There are obvious similarities between this activity on the eve of the harvest festival and the activities propitiating the aires at the beginning of the growing season. Both involve the masked tigres, a cross decorated with flowers and bread, and a procession through the town. In both cases, there is what clearly seems to be a conscious replacement of Christian symbols with pagan ones: in the harvest festival, the teponaxtli replaces the host in the central position on the altar as it has "replaced" the cross atop the tower; in the earlier ritual, the tigre combat "replaces," for some of the participants at least, the attendance on the cross as the culmination of the ritual activities. Thus, in both cases, a powerful indigenous symbol related to the jaguar is equated with Christian symbols, and in both, the ritual is fundamentally involved with bringing a religious symbol deemed to be a living thing down from a height to the temple, a practice with obvious overtones of pre-Columbian, pyramid-related ritual. These similarities show the depth and importance of the syncretic merging of the two traditions as the ritual redefines the most fundamental of symbols—the Christian cross and the indigenous mask—within the ritual context to accomplish that fusion.

But there are basic differences between the two ritual observances as well, the most important of which is the fact that the harvest festival does not involve the sacrifices that are the focal point of the earlier fertility ceremonies. In the latter, the tigres not only do not shed their blood in ritual combat, but as Sánchez Andraka states explicitly, the Zitlaleños believe that in the dangerous climb up the church tower, "no one has ever fallen."^[39] And no chickens are sacrificed in connection with the offerings to the cross atop the cupola or to the teponaxtli. The reason for this difference seems obvious: this ritual activity is not done in reciprocation for the gods' sending of rain and thus does not require sacrifice. The difference points directly to the fundamental fertility symbolism of the two ritual situations and demonstrates that in the case of these two observances, at least, the merging of the two traditions leaves the fundamental purpose of the indigenous system intact since neither a Festival of the Holy Cross nor a Festival of the Patron Saint would normally be fertility related.

The two indigenous symbols central to the spiritual life of the people of Zitlala, the tigre mask and the teponaxtli, are both related to the jaguar: the mask images forth the jaguar's features, and the teponaxtli allows its voice to be heard. These indigenous symbolic forms manifest the sacred as they have always done for the peoples of Mesoamerica. They are animated by the force of the divine and are therefore seen as symbolically equivalent to the living cross, the other important spiritual symbol in Zitlala. Thus, the jaguar, through his mask, continues to provide a metaphor for the reciprocal relationship between man and the world of the spirit, a relationship through which the sustenance of man's life is provided by the force of the spirit. That this is true is indicated, in an interesting way, by Suárez Jácome. Enumerating the factors in the life of Zitlala which are changing these centuries-old customs and beliefs, she lists education, along with the influence of the priest, the civil authorities, and the economic system, as a factor. Now, she says, "it is believed by students that rain is a phenomenon of nature which is involved in a cycle independent of ritual, and the teachers (90% of whom are strangers to the community and to the culture) condemn the rites as barbaric."^[40] These teachers, on behalf of "modern life," are attacking a set of assumptions wholly alien to their own culture and in so doing indicate clearly the nature of those assumptions. The jaguar's days are numbered, it would seem, at least in Zitlala.

The symbolic importance of the jaguar mask at Zitlala echoes what we have seen in the dance-dramas of los Tecuanes and los Tlacololeros. Superficially different from the activities of the tigres of Zitlala, beneath the surface they are the samerevealing metaphorically the reciprocal, sacrificial relationship with the world of the spirit through which man's life is sustained. While this jaguar symbolism is strongest in Guerrero and the closely related areas of Morelos and the state of Mexico where los Tecuanes, los Tlacololeros, and their variants flourish,^[41] it can be found elsewhere as well, especially along the Pacific slope and in the neighboring highlands from central Mexico through Oaxaca and Chiapas to Guatemala. In the Mixteca along the Pacific coast of the state of Oaxaca, the area called the Costa Chica, carnival dances and antics are performed by a group of masked figures, los Tejorones , and among those dances is a tigre dance. Called in Mixtec El Yaa kwiñe , in its plot it is reminiscent of los Tecuanes,^[42] although, due no doubt to the nature of carnival, the performers improvise a great deal.^[43] Those improvisations, according to Flanet, usually have highly sexual, generally tabooed, implications that often provoke violence, leading, at times, to fights, serious injury, and even death. The tigre epitomizes the antisocial tendencies within the performance, representing the prohibited forces of violence and sexuality.^[44]

Although the tigre plays only a part in the carnival activities of the masked Tejorones, its role defines the parameters of Mesoamerican carnival in

a significant way. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, in his penetrating analysis of the carnivalesque,

carnival is the festival of all-destroying and all-renewing time ... This is not an abstract meaning, but rather a living attitude toward the world, expressed in the experienced and play-acted concretely sensuous form of the ritual performance. . . . All carnivalistic symbols are of this nature: they always include within themselves the perspective of negation (death), or its opposite. Birth is fraught with death, and death with new birth.^[45]

Such a formulation suggests the basis for an inclusion of the tigre and its sacrificial fertility symbolism within the pre-Lenten carnival festivities that are not generally thought of as agricultural festivals. Both agricultural fertility and the death and resurrection of Christ are potent examples of the principle of rebirth, of the eternal return of life after the death that necessarily precedes rebirth. We have seen the relationship of ritual violence to this symbolism in the paradigmatic case of the Zitlala tigres, which explains the violence, injury, and death, sometimes symbolic and sometimes very real, always associated with the masked tigres as the sacrifice of life to life so that life may continue in its eternal cyclical alternation with death. Blood must be shed in that process of renewal.

But the Mixtec carnival tigre seems not quite so directly related to fertility as his Nahuatl counterparts. The plot of the Costa Chica dance-drama is similar to los Tecuanes, the least obviously fertility-related tigre dance, and the actions of the Mixtec tigre in their extreme sexuality and violence seem more consistent with the inversion of values of carnival than with the dance-dramas associated with agricultural festivals. When he is not fighting his would-be killers or assaulting the cow or one of the other animal characters, he is preoccupied with sexual concerns, using "his principal attribute—his long tail—constantly: he masturbates with it, uses it sexually to violate the cow or one of the tejorones while the others assault him sexually, handling him now as a woman, now as a man and, with his complicity, imitating either homosexual or heterosexual coitus."^[46] Such activities have obvious fertility implications, suggesting that in the Mixteca the tigre's role in essentially agricultural ritual has been modified to fit the carnival context. The tigre mask is surrounded by those of the tejorones and acts accordingly. J. C. Crocker points out the underlying general truth.

Clearly the complex meanings shown forth in any one mask are amplified, negated, and generally culturally debated through other masks, both those appearing simultaneously with it and those in other ceremonials. Furthermore, the mask's symbolisms are obviously enhanced by those meanings conveyed through other material objects used in the ceremony—the songs, lyrics, dance movements, special foods and drinks and drugs consumed only or mainly on such celebratory occasions.^[47]

And as Flanet points out, the dominant activities of the Tejorones parody the social order in a deliberate inversion of accepted values and modes of behavior. Forming what she calls a "counter-society," they mask themselves and dress in rags, insult and ridicule spectators, both male and female, and assault them with sexual gestures; they also attempt to provoke the indigenous authorities who are watching by parodying their actions and behavior and do the same with the mestizo authorities and important citizens.^[48] In all these activities, but especially in their attitude toward the authorities, they exemplify the classic themes of European carnival. According to Bakhtin, "the primary carnival performance is the mock crowning and subsequent discrowning of the king of carnival" in a parody of normal life. And that "parody is the creation of a double which discrowns its counterpart." Essentially, this "is the very core of the carnivalistic attitude to the world—the pathos of vicissitude and change." But it "is an ambivalent ritual expressing the inevitability, and simultaneously the creativity of change and renewal."^[49] Although the details of the performance of the Mixtec Tejorones differ from those of the much earlier European carnival that Bakhtin describes, their parody of authority has much the same purpose. But in the Mixtec case, both the sexual byplay and the violence allow us to see clearly that their social level of interpretation is complemented by another level—that of agricultural fertility where sexual union and sacrificial bloodshed produce rebirth in a different sense. In both cases, order is restored after the individual cycle ends. Thus, at the very basis of the symbolism of carnival is "the cognizance of a cyclical time which is recurrent [and] capable of regeneration."^[50] On each of its metaphoric levels, carnival opposes the wildness inherent in nature to the order necessary for the existence of human society and shows that that order must constantly be reborn from the reinvigorating wildness within nature and within man. It seems fitting that "the tigre is central to the Tejorones. "^[51]

The masked carnival dances of Juxtlahuaca in the Mixteca Baja provide a similar example of the tigre in a carnival context. In contrast to the highly structured and rather formal Festival of Santiago held on July 25, which is the only other festival involving masked dancers, "carnival performances . . . appear, seemingly spontaneously, on street corners, in the open plazas, and wandering from house to house." The tigre forms part of this festive spontaneity. As part of the Chilolos del Ardillo, there are two clowns. One, Mahoma del Ardillo (Mohammed of the Squirrel), "wears a hairy black-faced mask and carries a stuffed squirrel, . . . a gun and a hunting bag." The other, Tigre or Tecuani, "wears

a spotted jaguar suit and a dramatic feline mask." The two of them "enact a spoof of hunting with the Tigre as the ultimate victim." The strong sexual overtones associated with the Costa Chica tigre are present in the Juxtlahuaca carnival although associated not with these clowns but with the performance of the Macho who, in "courting" Beauty violates every sexual taboo by "yelling obscenities, speaking of sex quite explicitly, and . . . enacting numerous deeds." The implications of the sexual activity are complex since it is not lost on the spectators that the ostensibly female Beauty is actually a man wearing the mask of a woman.^[52] Carnival at Juxtlahuaca thus contains the same elements found on the Costa Chica, although they appear in somewhat different form.

The carnivalesque actions of the Mixtec tigre barely mask his very real fertility connections. His sexual activity can be seen as metaphoric of the fertility his symbolic death will achieve, a view supported by the fact that similarly sexual activities, though not so extreme, are associated with the tigre dance-dramas of Guerrero and Morelos in which the tigre and other characters often tease the onlookers with comments relating to their sexual lives and capabilities. And according to Marion Oettinger, the festivities on the Day of the Holy Cross at Zitlala include a masked clown, not directly connected to the tigres, who teasingly menaces onlookers with "a large ceramic vessel in the shape of a penis. With this phallus, the clown moves about the crowd simulating sexual acts with men and women."^[53] And the violence associated with the tigre, as we have seen in the case of Zitlala, must be seen as the blood sacrifice necessary for the propitiation of the forces that will ultimately send the rains and assure fertility. These motifs, so clearly related to fertility, are an integral part of the symbolic nature of the jaguar, accompanying that symbolic beast even in ritual, like that of carnival, not overtly related to agricultural concerns.

The tigre masks and tigre dances of the village festivals of Oaxaca are neither as numerous nor as significant as those of Guerrero and Morelos, and the farther one travels along the Pacific slope, as Horcasitas has noted,^[54] the fewer tigre dances and masks one finds. The masks and characters that do exist among the Maya are usually involved in other dances, often revolving around the serpent or the hunting of a deer. That they have a long history is clear from the fact that the colonial dance with which we began our discussion was performed, and prohibited, in Tabasco. Mercedes Olivera B., after suggesting that such dances in Chiapas similarly have features of clearly pre-Hispanic origin related to "the earth, water, and fertility" and that they are related to los Tecuanes, notes that "other elements such as the deer and the serpent (calalá )" are involved in the dances.^[55] She records descriptions of three versions of E1 Calalá , each of which involves one or more tigres and are clearly fertility related since "the dance is dedicated to Tlaloc, god of rain. "^[56]

Similar uses of the tigre are to be found among the Guatemalan Maya. Horcasitas mentions various hunting dance-dramas involving the tigre,^[57] and the description of one of them, a Deer Dance, by Thompson in 1927 reveals obvious similarities to los Tecuanes of central Mexico. Its pre-Columbian roots were suggested to him both by the appearance of the masks and by its being performed at roughly the same time of the year as similar pre-Hispanic dances.^[58] David Vela categorizes such dances as "primitive forms of pre-Columbian dances" in contrast to the few dances such as the Rabinal Achi and the Baile del Tun which have survived virtually intact from pre-Columbian times,^[59] and Lise Paret-Limardo de Vela also suggests a pre-Columbian source for the dance-drama on the basis of its dedication by the dancers to indigenous gods and its inclusion of a shaman who appeals to those gods for help for the hunters of the tigre.^[60] But Gordon Frost, noting ParetLimardo's assertions, illustrates a jaguar mask from San Marcos with two crosses painted in black, like the mask's spots, between the eyes and on the forehead.^[61] Thus, the Guatemalan tigre seems also to continue his pre-Hispanic existence within a syncretic framework.

While all of these masked jaguar impersonators among the Maya play important roles in fertility-related ritual, the year-ending rituals of the Festival of San Sebastián enacted by the Tzotzil Maya of Zinacantan, Chiapas, provide an example of jaguar characters with clear fertility implications playing a role in a much larger drama. Vogt, who describes the events of the festival in great detail, suggests that their complexity, resulting from the multi-vocal nature of the festival, makes understanding their symbolism difficult.^[62] While its ritual may not be primarily related to fertility, there is within it a fascinating constellation of symbols suggesting that on one of its many levels it not only has fertility implications but is probably still today a fertility ritual. This level, of course, can coexist with the others because it is "saying" essentially the same thing but applying the common theme to this particular area of human concern. We will focus our attention here on that level, pulling out of the complex ritual those elements that relate to fertility, elements strikingly similar both to those found in the festivals of Guerrero which we have discussed and, in their subordination to other themes, to the Mixtec carnival of Oaxaca.

The focus of the ritual is the annual "changing of the guard" of the town's cargoholders, a focus clearly indicated by the attire of those officials. While the newly installed cargoholders wear the regalia of their offices, the outgoing officials im-

personate what Vogt calls "mythological figures." Among them are jaguars "dressed in one-piece, jaguarlike costumes of orange-brown material painted with black circles and dots. Their hats are jaguar fur. They carry stuffed animals in addition to whips and sharply pointed sticks [and] . . . make a 'huh, huh, huh' sound."^[63] Except for their lack of a mask, the similarity between these figures and the masked tigres of Guerrero is striking, and the stuffed animal is a common feature of the tigre dances we have discussed. Interestingly, these figures' identifying hats display masks as they were often displayed in the headdresses worn in pre-Columbian ritual, and the other characters display other variations typical of pre-Columbian mask use: the Plumed Serpents of the festival wear hats that are masks; the White Heads wear forehead decorations that are often described as masks; and the Blackmen wear cloth masks over their faces.^[64]

Not only the appearance of the jaguars and their relationship to the metaphor of the mask but the extensive sexual humor of the festival, humor in which the jaguars are directly involved, recalls the central Mexican tigres generally and the Mixtec carnival specifically. In the most graphic of terms, for example, the jaguars accuse officials of neglecting their duties to engage in sexual activity and use their stuffed animals to represent the negligent officials' wives in similarly graphic parodic actions.

Stuffed female squirrels [are] painted red on their undersides to emphasize their genitals and adorned with necklaces and ribbons around their necks. The men carry red-painted sticks carved in the form of bull penises, which, to the accompaniment of lewd joking, are inserted into the genitals of the squirrels. The squirrels symbolize the wives of those religious officials who failed to appear for this fiesta and complete their year of ceremonial duty.^{[ 65]}

Sexuality is also emphasized in the jaguars' climbing and descending from the Jaguar Tree as their "genital areas are playfully poked with the heads of the stuffed animals."^[66]

That ascent and descent of what is in this case an artificial tree, a branched pole set up for the festival, is another familiar element of tigre ritual, and in the festival of San Sebastián, it is clearly fertility related. After circling the tree three times and leaving their stuffed squirrels on the ground, "the two jaguars, followed [hunted?] by the Blackmen, climb to the tree's uppermost branches. Laughing and shouting, they spit and throw pieces of food at the crowd, supposedly 'feeding' the stuffed animals."^[67] The fertility implications seem obvious as food and saliva "rain" down on the spectators from the jaguars. It would, in fact, be hard to imagine a more literal rendering of the "gods" sending rain and sustenance. That this takes place from the Jaguar Tree, in which the tigre is killed in Guerrero, and that the jaguars are pursued up it by the Blackmen suggests sacrifice here, just as it does in Guerrero.

The significance of this episode is enhanced by its being one of two similarly structured episodes in the festival. The other takes place at Jaguar Rock, a large boulder.

At the base of the boulder is a wooden cross, where the Lacandon, flanked by two jaguars, places four white candles and lights them. The others join the Lacandon and Jaguars to kneel, pray, and finally dance in front of the candles and cross. Then the Jaguars and Blackmen climb on top of the boulder and the Jaguars light three candles in front of a cross there. The Jaguars and Blackmen subsequently set fire to a heap of corn fodder and grass on top of the rock and shout for help as they toss the stuffed squirrels down to their fellows on the ground, who in turn toss them up again. . . . The grass fire on the boulder signifies the burning of the Jaguar's house and the death of the Jaguars; the two Jaguar characters descend from the rock with the Blackmen and crawl into a cave-like indentation at the base of the rock to lie still, pretending to be dead. As the Jaguars lie there, the Lacandon pokes or "shoots" at them with his bow and arrow and then turns to seize two Chamula boys from the onlooking crowd. He brings them near the prone Jaguars and "shoots" the boys with his bow and arrow. Symbolically, the Jaguars are revived by the transference of the souls of the Chamula boys to their animal bodies and they leap up, "alive" again, to drink rum, [and] dance awhile.^[68]

All of the elements of fertility ritual are present, but in a configuration now emphasizing rebirth rather than the provision of sustenance; the key to the ritual's emphasis is the revival of the Jaguars, which is also, paradoxically, a rebirth of the boys who have been "shot," or sacrificed, so that the Jaguar, or "god," might live. Their souls do not die but live on in altered form. Since all this is clearly related to the burning of the grass and corn fodder, in a land of slash-and-burn farming, it is obvious that such burning, or "death," must precede the rebirth of the corn. And that burning is said to cause the destruction of the Jaguar and of his house, a ritual demonstration of the essential fact that while particular living things may die, the life-force does not; it can be counted on to revivify nature. That these Jaguars do not wear conventional masks but are involved with all the variations of mask use is fascinating since the ritual depends on the central metaphor, which has, at least since the time of the Olmecs, been symbolized by the mask. Here again we see the natural world as the equivalent of a mask, lifeless until it is animated by the

force of the spirit and projecting in its symbolic features the "face" of the world of the spirit.

It can also be seen that the events at Jaguar Tree and Jaguar Rock are related to essentially pre-Columbian metaphors in their employment of up/ down oppositions. In both cases, the ritual emphasizes the tops of Tree and Rock. It is from the Treetop that sustenance flows, and it is atop the Rock that the death—or sacrifice—of the Jaguars takes place. Such activities correspond to pre-Columbian myth, in the connection of mountaintops with rain, and ritual practice, in the location of sacrifices in the temples atop pyramids. Furthermore, the episode at Jaguar Rock opposes the top of the Rock to the "cave": sacrifice takes place above and revivification below. These metaphorical uses of heights and caves did not end with the Conquest, nor are they presently to be found only in Zinacantan. In varied forms, they are central to the ritual associated with the mask of the tigre from Guerrero to Guatemala.

These similarities between the festival of San Sebastián and the tigre dances of central Mexico are rather general, but there is another similarity that is so specific as to be both amazing and quite difficult to explain. Central to both Zinacantan's Festival of San Sebastián and Zitlala's Festival of San Nicolas is a sacred teponaxtli. Zinacantan's is called the t'ent'en, and it normally "rests" in a small chapel. For the festival each year,

the drum is ritually washed in water containing leaves of sacred plants, . . . reglued, and decorated with bright new ribbons. The similarity between its treatment and that of saint images is striking. Like a saint it is referred to as "Our Holy Father T'ENT'EN"; . . . before its major ceremonial appearance, it is washed and "clothed. " The drum is involved in only two rituals each year: the fiesta of San Sebastián and the rain-making ritual, for which shamans must make a long pilgrimage to the top of Junior Great Mountain south of Teopisca. Its appearance at any other fiesta is forbidden.^[69]

While it is not suggested in the discussions of either Vogt or Victoria Bricker that the t'ent'en provides a voice for the gods as does the teponaxtli of Zitlala, Vogt does say it is believed "that the t'ent'en has a strong and powerful innate soul" and that it is "continuously played and carefully tended throughout the fiesta period."^[70] This essential similarity suggests another. The employment of the t'ent'en indicates that, on one level at least, the Festival of San Sebastián is to be "paired with" Zinacantan's rain-making ritual in much the same way that Zitlala's harvest festival provides a complement to its rain-petitioning ritual, for the San Sebastian festival also completes the annual cycle and inaugurates the beginning of a new year.

That final similarity suggests that the Chiapas and Guerrero festivals have similar fundamental purposes. Vogt speculates as to the general meanings of this festival.

Why does the richest ritual segment of the annual ceremonial calendar occur in December and January? The period corresponds to the end of the maize cycle. . . . [In addition] the period of Christmas to San Sebastián—from the point of view of either the Catholic saints' calendar or the movements of the sun—is the time of transition from the old to the new year. . . . It is my thesis that the Zinacantecos are first unwiring, or unstructuring, the system of order and then rewiring, or restructuring, it, as the cargoholders who have spent a year in "sacred time" in office are definitively removed from their cargos and returned to normal time and everyday life.^[71]

Thanks to Vogt's careful and lengthy observation of Zinacanteco customs and to his painstaking analysis of their ritual, we can begin to understand its almost incredible complexity and by extension, that of its counterparts throughout Mesoamerica. That complexity here, as in all the cases we have examined, makes sense within its cultural context only because it is organized around a fundamental theme relevant to many levels of experience. In this case, the theme of death and rebirth provides the organizing principle. We have the "deaths" of the calendar year, the cargoholders' year in office, the Catholic saints' calendar, and the agricultural cycle. But in each case, there is a rebirth. Thus, "fertility," the force that "causes" birth, is the driving force the festival celebrates; and the omnipresent sexual humor, some of it directly involving birth, refers quite directly to that force, while the up-down oppositions and the symbolic use of the cave are related to it in an equally clear, if somewhat more symbolic, fashion. As we would expect, the jaguars are right in the middle of these activities symbolizing fertility, and, more unexpectedly, the teponaxtli also plays a central part.

There are, then, a significant number of fundamental similarities between the ritual of the Festival of San Sebastián and the rain-related fertility ritual involving the tigre-masked dancers of central Mexico. Both Bricker and Vogt see this ritual as rain-related, but neither sees the Jaguars as important in that regard. On the basis of their understanding of pre-Columbian thought, both see the costumed figures identified as k'uk'ul conetik (literally, plumed serpents),^[72] as central to the rituals' rain symbolism. Vogt associates them with Quetzalcóatl whom he sees as a "deity of new vegetation,"^[73] and Bricker relates them to the Ehécatl aspect of Quetzalcóatl since Ehécatl symbolized for the pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico the winds of the rain storm which sweep the roads clear for the coming of the rains. She identifies another group of characters in the festival, the White Heads, with Tlaloc on the basis of a tri-lobed

device worn on their foreheads which she sees as similar to tri-lobed designs associated with Tlaloc in the art of Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlán.^[74] To us, of course, these seem roundabout ways of demonstrating the clearly pre-Hispanic roots of the fertility aspect of this ritual. The key is not really the plumed serpent but the jaguar, the source of attributes for the mask of the rain gods of Mesoamerica from time immemorial. That this is the real connection between this ritual and rain is demonstrated conclusively by the numerous similarities, some amazingly precise, between this ritual activity and the fertility ritual of central Mexico which revolves around the tigre-masked impersonator of the jaguar; the plumed serpent plays no role there.

The striking similarities between the jaguarrelated fertility ritual of such widely distant villages is obviously the result of evolution from a common source rather than direct contact, but the clear differences indicate that that source lies relatively far in the past. How far is indicated by what is known of the history of Zinacantan and by the fact that the activities of the Jaguars here and the features of the Guerrero tigres whose activities are so similar point to a central Mexican source. Vogt believes that whatever central Mexican influence there was in pre-Conquest Maya Zinacantan came during the time of the Toltecs,^[75] the time of the dispersion of central Mexican religious forms generally, and of Tlaloc-related symbols particularly, throughout Mesoamerica. Positing a Toltec-period beginning for the jaguar symbolism of the fertility ritual would certainly fit Bricker's identification of the Plumed Serpents here with Ehécatl as that aspect of Quetzalcóatl was often associated with Tlaloc in the context of the rain storm by the Aztecs, an association we can safely assume was part of their Toltec heritage. Only such a historical development, it would seem, could explain the numerous and remarkably precise similarities between Zinacanteco ritual and that of Zitlala and other distant communities.

One can only conclude from all of this evidence that the contemporary jaguar-masked or costumed impersonator has a long history, going back at least three thousand years to the Olmecs. In addition to tracing the development of the features of mask and costume, we can also ascertain that the symbolic meanings associated with that metaphoric disguise have remained constant. These contemporary "jaguars" are still involved with maintaining, through ritual sacrifice, the order that guarantees the coming of the rains at the proper times and in the proper amounts; they are still involved, at least in Zinacantan, with the symbolization of the divine basis of rulership; and they are still fundamentally involved with symbolizing the opposition between nature and culture and the necessity for man to resolve that opposition so as to create and maintain a culture within which fully human life can exist. Such realizations not only help us to understand the vital role the metaphor of the mask has played and continues to play in indigenous Mesoamerican thought but also enable us to see both the continuity of that thought and, equally important, its continuing complexity and sophistication.

While the mask of the jaguar provides the fullest, the most compelling, and the most fascinating evidence for the continuity of metaphorical mask use from pre-Columbian times to the present, it is far from being the only example. Two other types stand out although there are numerous specific masks with clear pre-Columbian roots. The masks and dance of los Viejitos as they exist throughout Tarascan Michoacán are widely recognized as having pre-Conquest roots in their symbolization of the relationship between age, or the end of the cycle of life, and the rebirth of youth.^[76] And Tarascan ritual also involves los Negritos , black-masked figures whose history, while clearly pre-Hispanic in part, is more difficult to trace. Compounding the difficulty of understanding the Negrito mask is the fact that it is not one mask: there are black-masked figures throughout modern Mesoamerica, and the masks they wear are quite unlike each other. There are two Tarascan masks that differ in both appearance and function; the Tejorones of the Mixtec carnival wear small black masks with Negroid features displaying contrasting white areas of striking design, but there are also quite different Negrito masks in Oaxaca. Among the Totonacs in Veracruz there is still another variant, this one involved in an agricultural drama portraying the conflict between the black-masked Negro and his boss who wears an identical mask that is white. And there are a number of other variants as well as unmasked Negritos who wear elaborate costumes.^[77] While some of them surely have pre-Columbian roots, others may not; their common color is not clearly illustrative of a common heritage.

What is abundantly clear is that the tradition of masked ritual, as well as particular masks, survived the Conquest and that the particular survivals carried within their symbolic features the same meanings they had embodied in pre-Columbian society. More important, the continuing tradition of mask use allowed the mask to retain its centrality as a metaphor for the most fundamental relationship between humanity and the world of the spirit that created and sustains human life.

13
The Syncretic Compromise
The Yaqui and Mayo Pascola

I was once told by an elderly pascola that the patron of all pascolas was Jesus Christ, and that for this reason pascolas wore loincloths and went barechested just as He did at the crucifixion. . . . Another dancer stated that all pascolas were goats, and mentioned that the flaps on the back of the loincloths were the hair on the animals' flanks. In addition, some Yaquis believe that the original pascola came from the devil and was persuaded to remain in the service of God.^[1]

This statement indicates a significant difference between the pascola masks and dancers of the Yaqui and Mayo of northwest Mexico and the southwestern United States and the tigre masks and dancers of central and southern Mesoamerica in their relationship to pre—Hispanic forms and symbols. The roots of the tigre are clearly pre-Columbian, even though that mask and character may at times be found involved in syncretic ritual, but the pascola's heritage is not so easily determined, in part because of the problems involved in ascertaining the exact relationship between the cultures that lived on the fringes of Mesoamerican civilization and those of Mesoamerica proper. It is generally felt by Mesoamericanists, though it cannot be conclusively demonstrated, that the masked dance found in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico, along with other ceremonial forms and paraphernalia, diffused from Mesoamerica proper accompanying trade, probably during or immediately after the period of Toltec hegemony.^[2] But the precise source of the pascola's indigenous traits has been difficult to determine.

A greater source of difficulty arises from the degree to which both mask and ritual exhibit the effects of the syncretic fusion of Christian and indigenous traits. The distinctive mask bears both Christian and indigenous symbols, and the ritual in which the masked dancer is involved gives him a bewildering array of roles. He is, perhaps primarily, a ceremonial host whose function is to involve the audience and guide its experience of the sacred during the course of a particular type of indigenous ritual, but he is also a clown, deeply involved in the carnivalesque inversion of values which may very well have medieval Christian roots and all of the fertility implications we have seen in the Oaxacan tejorones. Third, he is an actor, taking part in "skits" with fertility-related themes which often involve the deer dancer, as well as playing a role in the monumental Christian drama of Lent. Finally, he is a dancer whose dances are a fundamental part of the indigenous ritual he hosts.

Perhaps these difficulties arising from the pascola's cloudy origins and numerous roles might be mitigated by understanding how the Yaqui and Mayo have been able to create a viable religion from the fundamentally opposed Christian and pre-Columbian traditions of spiritual thought and practice which constitute their heritage. As we shall see, that "new" syncretic religion has a number of fundamental features directly traceable to pre-Columbian antecedents, chief among them the use of the mask as a central metaphor for the relationship between spirit and matter, between man and the gods—or God. That pre-Columbian metaphor and the view of reality it communicates has survived intact in a new context that is nominally Christian, but a Christianity reworked to fit indigenous patterns of thought. Edward Spicer suggests the syncretic nature of that reworked Christianity in the conclusion to his argument that it is a "new religion." He says, "We may sum the matter up without going into the meaning deeply by pointing out merely that a Pascola dance is required at each of the important devotions on the Christian Calendar."^[3]

It is clear to Spicer, and equally clear to us, that the masked pascola dancer of the Yaqui and Mayo^[4] unites in his dedication, in his movements, and in his mask and costume the two traditions that have shaped the world view and ceremonial life of all of the indigenous peoples of modern Mesoamerica. Indeed, the pascola is the clearest example of the particular way in which the Yaquis and Mayos have fused the Christian and indigenous traditions in their ceremonial lives, an important fact because it is through those ceremonial lives that the Yaquis identify themselves as Yaquis and the Mayos as Mayos.^[5] That sense of identity is often related specifically to the symbolic pascola. According to N. Ross Crumrine, for example, the Mayo believe that "the paskolam are the best of all Mayos because they are the most characteristically Mayo in their behavior and speech, always praying and giving hinakabam [ritual speech] in Mayo and participating in church processions."^[6] Similarly, Spicer indicates that in the Arizona Yaqui village of Pascua in the 1930s the pascolas were seen by some as "the most distinctive of Yaqui institutions"; he quotes a maestro as saying, "Wherever you have pascolas, there you have Yaquis."^[7] Their symbolic importance to the cultures in which they are found and the clear sense within those cultures that they demonstrate a syncretic fusion of Christian and native spiritual traditions makes them an excellent example for us of the way the tradition of Mesoamerican spiritual thought has fused with European Christianity in masked ritual—and a particularly fascinating one since they exemplify the continuing importance of the mask as a powerful central metaphor for the spiritual foundation of material life.

The pascola's syncretic nature can be seen in the way a Mayo or Yaqui becomes one who "dances pascola " (pl. 65) and wears the characteristic mask (pls. 66, 67). While "any adult male Yaqui [or Mayo] can become a pascola,"^[8] often as the result of a youthful fascination leading to apprenticeship to a practicing pascola, such a prosaic description obscures another set of beliefs widely held by Yaquis and Mayos. Among the Mayo, although it is

denied by individual practicing paskolam, the recruitment of paskolam is said to take place as a result of a supernatural experience in which a paskola visits a cave in the mountains and talks to an old man with a white beard. The paskola is sometimes said to sell his soul to the old man in exchange for the power to dance well. . . . Paskolam, when they die, are almost universally believed to go and live in the mountains or forest with this old man. The paskola, closely acquainted with the animals of the forest, may see the otherwise invisible huya ania (sacred forest) and such sacred animals as deer, pigs, and goats. The commander of the huya ania may take the form of one of these animals who are his children.^{[ 9]}

Pl. 65.
Mayo Pascola dancer, La Playa, Sinaloa (photograph taken
with permission by James S. Griffith, reproduced with his permission).

The Yaqui have a similar belief:

There is  . . .  a strong connection between the pascola arts and a mystic region called the yo ania, or the enchanted land. The yo ania is a region that lies within the hills and can be entered through caves. It is a dangerous place, and although pascola skills may be learned through contact with it, one does so at the risk of one's soul. Closely associated with the yo ania are several animals including a large goat and a snake. Both of these appear in the power dreams through which a boy can learn that he is to become a pascola.^[10]

Thus, both Yaqui and Mayo believe, metaphorically at least, that the pascola dances as the result of a "calling" originating in a world of the spirit,

Pl. 66.
Yaqui Pascola mask, Pimientos, Sonora
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman).

which, while quite different from that generally imagined by Christians, has a number of Christian overtones. Composed of several aspects, the spiritual realm of the Yaqui and Mayo has proved difficult for scholars to understand fully as it exists in an essentially oral tradition that has been in a state of flux for hundreds of years as a result of its gradual syncretic "accommodation" of, or to, Christian views.

The precise relationship between the concepts of the yo ania and the huya ania, for example, is not clear although we can discover a basic distinction. For both Yaqui and Mayo, the term huya ania refers to what we would call the natural environment surrounding areas of human habitation, but while we think of nature as material, "the spiritual conceptions of Yaquis regarding the yo ania and wisdom derivable by learning about it are not consistent with the purely material view of nature, rooted in medieval Christianity, taught in schools and underlying the Western conception." From the indigenous perspective, "incorporeality" rather than materiality is "the very essence of the huya ania ." And that incorporeal essence, in Spicer's view, is the yo ania, a "power suffused through the huya ania ." ^[11] Looked at in another way, the yo ania is the "rich poetic and spiritual and human dimension of the area surrounding the Yaqui villages."^[12] Within this realm lies the source of the pascola's power to manifest the sacred, and as the quotations from Crumrine and Griffith and Molina cited above both suggest, there is an ambivalence within Yaqui and Mayo thought as to whether the nature of that source and the spiritual power it can grant is good or evil.

Pl. 67.
Yaqui Pascola mask, Pimientos, Sonora, detail.

That ambivalence probably results from the fusion of indigenous and Christian beliefs as it is likely that the initial impetus to link the spiritual power of the pascola to the devil came from the Jesuit priests who ministered to the Yaquis for 150 years after the Conquest. The Christian overtones are striking: the yo ania is imagined underground, presided over by a lord to whom one can sell his soul for earthly power,^[13] and inhabited by animal spirits such as snakes and goats traditionally associated with the Christian devil. But these animal spirits are not necessarily evil; side by side with this Christian view that leagues the pascola with the devil, the Yaqui and Mayo have also retained what must surely be the pre-Hispanic idea of the yo ania.^[14] Beals, in his early research among them, found that "the pascola dancer, in no sense and at no time appears to have any association with evil, even when masked, despite his connection with the woods."^[15] The terms of that "connection" are clear: the power of the pascola "derives directly from the beings of the huya ania ."^[16] These beings appear in animal form to men in dreams or "in something more properly describable as a vision. . . . There was, for example, a conception of a mountain sheep who gave dance power to a human Pascola ." But this was not a natural animal; "perhaps it was the essence of all mountain sheep."^[17]

The denizens of the huya ania who confer power on the pascola are thus connected either with the devil or the essence, or life-force, of living things in the world of nature. While these two views—Christian and indigenous—are contradictory in moral terms, they are congruent in other, more important, ways. Both view the huya ania as the repository of essential power, and both see the

masked pascola as the agent through whom that power enters the human world. Fundamentally, this is the classic pre-Columbian view of spiritual reality described in Part II, despite its incorporation of Christian elements. Essential reality is still seen as spiritual and as "hidden" or "inner," and the unique mask of the pascola still functions, as masks always have in Mesoamerica, as a metaphor for the way in which that spirit can be brought into this world.

That the Yaqui and Mayo, as cultures and at times individually, can see this spiritual power that animates the pascola as both good and evil, that is, from both Christian and indigenous standpoints simultaneously, is not a measure of their ingenuity but an indication of the reformulation of the Christian hell and devil in indigenous terms. While Christianity defines the devil as the principle of evil, an abstract conception associated always with the separation of man and nature from God, the tendency among the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica has been to associate the devil with powerful natural forces—sexuality and violence, primarily—that can disrupt the order on which human culture rests. The problem, then, is not to "overcome" the "evil" power of the devil but to harness it. The "devilish" forces must be harmonized with the demands of human culture through ritual; their destruction, if even conceivable, would be unthinkable as they are the very forces that, when controlled, sustain human life. The pascola, and other masked ritualists, are engaged in that dangerous but vital task of ritual control.

In this sense, these rituals and the masked ritualists who participate in them are really forces for "good," and it is fascinating that among the Yaqui of Arizona, for example, Spicer has identified a process, which he calls "sanctification," that is gradually reformulating the vital power of the huya ania in Christian terms—but as good rather than evil.^[18] This process can be seen particularly clearly in the case of the pascola^[19] due to "the irrelevance of the [pascola's fundamental] animal associations to the present ceremonial system."^[20] By the 1930s, Spicer found "some association" between the pascola and Jesus,^[21] an association referred to in the quotation with which we began this chapter. As he points out, a Yaqui "does not become a pascola as a result of a manda, or promise, to any deity, [and] thus there is no patron of the pascolas " such as exists for the other masked dancers, such as the matachini or fariseos , who participate in Yaqui and Mayo ritual. Nonetheless, individual Pascuans frequently said "that Jesus is the patron of the pascolas. "^[22] And this linkage of the pascolas to Jesus can also be found among the Mayo who, according to Crumrine, believe that pascolas were present at the birth of Christ,^[23] a thinly veiled historical reference, perhaps, to the existence of the indigenous religion before the Conquest.

A further step in this process of sanctification may be seen in an aspect of the huya ania referred to in the songs that accompany the deer dancer, an aspect called the sea ania , or "flower world," which has come to be seen by some Yaquis as opposed to the yo ania. For them, "the sea ania has become aligned with Christ and Heaven, the yo ania has become associated with the Devil and Hell."^[24] But this seems to be a recent development; earlier, Spicer found a different conception. In the deer songs, "one frequently mentioned, now mysterious, place . . . is called seya wailo, which is not translatable by 20th-century Yaquis, but which they generally agree probably has some reference to a place of flowers." In this connection, he notes that seataka, a term used to denote the huya aniaderived power of the deer and pascola dancers also refers to flowers. And, he continues,

there is a further and curious meaning of flowers among Yaquis which appears, perhaps through recent reworking, to link all the important realms of meaning into a single one. Twentieth-century Yaquis sometimes give as the primary meaning of sewa, "grace of God." They hold that flowers are symbolic of grace, because when blood fell from Christ's wound to the ground, flowers grew on the spot.^[25]

Thus, the pre-Columbian symbol par excellence of the life-force-blood-has come, among the Yaqui and Mayo, to be seen as equivalent to the symbol for the comparable Christian conception. God's grace, symbolized here by flowers, the mysterious force that enables human life to continue, is metaphorically nourished by the sacrificial blood of Christ, and the flower is the symbol of the sustaining quality of that sacrificial blood and provides the root metaphor for the domain of the world of the spirit to which the pascolas and other ritual dancers are being assimilated. Their dance is conceived as the necessary ritual action that enables "God's grace" to move from the world of the spirit to man's world; the fundamental pre-Hispanic relationship between man and the world of the spirit on which it depends has not changed but is now being given a Christian rationale.

Changes in Yaqui society have made this reformulation of the mythic relationship between the pascola and the now widely accepted Christian view of the world of the spirit necessary. As long as the indigenous conception of the huya ania retained a standing equal to the Christian conception of the world of the spirit, Yaqui and Mayo spiritual thought could accommodate an association of the pascolas with the devil as their simultaneous connection with the huya ania provided a sufficient basis for their profoundly sacred nature. As late as the 1950s there was still "unquestionably a certain

sacredness for some of the older men" attached to the deer and pascola ritual due to "their relation to the persistent, aboriginal non-Christian stream of tradition in Yaqui culture, ^[26] a source of sacredness particularly clear in the still earlier ideas of a resident of Pascua:

The pascolas and the deer-dancer have the power of all kinds of animals; they get this power, according to myth, from streams of water in the mountains or out in the country somewhere. Each pascola does not get it there now, but that is where it came from originally. . . . This is different from the matachini and fariseos. They are connected not with animals but with the Virgin and Jesus.  . . .  But, nevertheless , [the pascolas]. . . are part of "our religion," too.^{[ 27]}

Nothing could demonstrate the vital importance of the masked pascola to contemporary Yaqui and Mayo spiritual thought and ritual practice, that is, "our religion," more clearly than the fact that rather than being discarded as outmoded, the pascola ritual action is being given a new, "sanctified" mythic foundation and that still today pascola dancers "always play a significant role in processions and are felt to be an integral part of almost every religious ceremony in the Mayo valley. ^[28] But an understanding of the full significance of the pascola's ritual importance and his ability to link the indigenous and Christian strands from which Yaqui and Mayo religion are woven requires a recognition of two very different, and in some senses opposed, types of Yaqui and Mayo ritual, one rooted in the Christianity brought by the Conquest, the other growing from the indigenous past. The ritual most clearly Christian is centered on the church, which "in Yaqui [and Mayo] thought is the residence of Jesus and of Mary and of the saints" and the focal point of community-wide ritual. It is linked "through ceremonial labor" to "every household in the community," and these households replicate, in their physical plan and, more important, in their ritual functions, the structure and function of the church. That ceremonial life of the household takes place in the context of the pahko and contains a number of clearly indigenous elements.

While pahko is generally translated as "fiesta," Spicer feels it is more precisely defined as a "joint religious ceremony" uniting church and household,^[29] a unity apparent in the physical structure housing the household ritual and in the ritual itself. To give a pahko, a household must construct a ramada, called the pahko rama, which is divided into two sections, one of which has a table that will serve temporarily as an altar to hold the santos brought from the church for the occasion while the other is prepared for the pascolas and the deer dancer, if there is to be one. Thus, half the pahko rama will be devoted to church-based ritual brought to the household and the other half to the huya ania-related ritual of the pascolas. The pahko rama unites the indigenous with the Christian under a single roof but carefully distinguishes one from the other.

Similar care is taken in the ritual activity that begins with the formal procession of the "church group," perhaps including matachin dancers, from the church to the pahko rama. There they are ritually welcomed and directed to the "altar" on which they place the santos and which they arrange for their devotions during the night. These devotions will be performed simultaneously with the pascola activities taking place in the other section of the pahko rama. It is no doubt significant that the two types of ritual activities are not synchronized but proceed as if each were the only activity taking place. Again, the two strands of ritual are brought together but kept separate. In fact, "formal structuring is maintained during rests as well as when the ceremonial labor is being performed"; there is no mingling even then of church-related with huya ania-related ritualists. When the nightlong ritual activity has been completed, the church group formally takes its leave and marches "in formal procession back to the church" carrying the santos.^[30]

The pahko's uniting of church and household while keeping the indigenous distinct from the Christian is significant to an understanding of the pascola because his primary ritual activity occurs in the indigenous ritual of the pahko, and it is on that base that his other ritual activities are built. The depth of the relationship between pascola and pahko becomes clear when one realizes that the term pascola is derived from pahko'ola , which literally means "old man of the pahko" and refers directly to what must be the aboriginal role of the pascola as the ceremonial host during the pahko who must ensure the meaningful involvement in the ritual activities of those attending. The crucial importance of this role is apparent in the almost mystic value attached in Yaqui thought to the participation of all community members, collectively known as the pweplum , "out to the last one," in all political, social, economic, and ceremonial matters. Similarly, the Mayo "argue that one must repeatedly see what is done in a given ceremony 'with his or her own eyes.'"^[31]

In its aboriginal formulation, the function of the masked pascola must have been to bring his intensely personal experience of the world of the spirit to his community through ritual activity, which, though it might be seen as the individual activity of the ritualist by outside observers, was defined by the Yaqui and Mayo themselves as essentially communal. Even today it is felt that "the sacred chants and dances would have no significance if they were not attended to and witnessed to by the townsmen in general."^[32] The pascola's ritual activity thus takes place at the conceptual

interface between man, as represented by the community of communicants, the pweplum, and the world of the spirit, which his visionary experience enables him to bring to the pahko. In the classic fashion of the shamanistic spiritual tradition of which he is a part, the pascola journeys to the world of the spirit in the service of his people, and as we have seen in our consideration of Mesoamerican ritual practice, that journey across the interface of matter and spirit is metaphorically represented by the mask, which allows inner spiritual reality to be made "outer" and thus available to the community; were that spiritual reality not so manifested, it would have no reason to exist. This shamanistic conception of the relationship between man and the world of the spirit is, perhaps, the reason that "the fundamental orientation of Catholic Christianity, namely, salvation of the individual soul and the objective of heaven had not been incorporated into the ceremonial system."^[33] The masked pascola's concern is communal rather than individual, and in his role as ceremonial host and clown, he serves the most basic spiritual needs of the Yaqui and Mayo people, as they define them. Steven Lutes, an anthropologist who himself "danced pascola," explains the goal of this service.

The final personal goal at a fiesta is to emerge with a stronger heart and soul, something that happens during a special state of being, induced by all the forces of the fiesta taken together. Both the people and the community as a whole should go from the fiesta with renewed and bolstered power to lead their lives as their lives should be led.^[34]

But the pascola not only serves as host and clown; he also dances. Through an examination of his function in that role, we can begin to understand the structure of pahko ritual and see how that structure is fundamentally involved in bringing the community into communion with the world of the spirit. The pascola's dances are a fundamental part of the complex structure through which the pahko achieves this essentially spiritual goal. Part of that structuring grows from the interplay between the deer dancer, when he is present, and the pascolas. While the ritual clowning of the pascolas with the audience provides one emotional level of the fiesta experience, the intensity and seriousness of the deer dancer, who does not even speak much less interact with the audience, "suggests the mysteries of a difficult and compelling discipline, as it somehow lifts viewers with dancer to a sense of repose through its very intensity of movement," a "sense of repose" that "transports" the audience "from the human world into the yo ania."^[35]

Larry Evers and Felipe Molina describe the complex interplay between pascola and deer dancer, between clowning and seriousness, between lighthearted banter and silent, sacred intensity as creating a "pace" for the pahko which is "oceanic, ebbing and cresting throughout the long night,"^[36] but, as they realize, the pascola's ebb is no less necessary, and no less sacred in the totality of the pahko, than the deer dancer's crest. Thus, pascola and deer, while they may seem to be working at cross-purposes on different emotional levels, are integral parts of the pahko as a whole, united in the psychologically complex nightlong sequence of events that serves to manipulate the audience's experience of the sacred in order to renew in them their essentially spiritual power "to lead their lives as their lives should be led."

Even more fundamental to the achievement of that goal than the structuring provided by the contrast between deer and pascola is the sequential ordering of the stages of the pahko experience which suggests both the pahko's meaning and its purpose. It is divided "into three distinct phases: one from the opening until 'when the world turns' at midnight, one from midnight till dawn, and one from dawn until the close of the fiesta,"^[37] and it is "the order of dancing and the kind of dancing .. prescribed" for the pascolas^[38] which most clearly marks that tripartite division, a division as clear to the audience's ears as its eyes since "the tonal classifications of Yaqui music fall into three separate melody types. Each is reserved for the appropriate period of the all-night ceremonies—evening, midnight, and dawn—and each accompanies particular dance patterns."^[39]

In the beginning stage of the traditional pahko, prayers are offered by the pascolas first to the santos brought from the church and then to animals, and the pascolas' first movements are awkward as they move metaphorically from the enchanted world of the huya ania to the "strange" world of man. These actions mark the beginning of the penetration of the sacred world represented by the pascola into the everyday world of man and the Christian world of the church. By the time "the world turns" at midnight, the pahko rama has become that enchanted world. Then follows

a traditional sequence of Pascola pieces which must be danced to after midnight. These are for the most part about or dedicated to various kinds of animals, and from them sometimes the Pascolas take their cues for variations in their dances. It is into a world not of the church-town, but of the huya ania that the Pascolas induct the townspeople who watch them.^{[ 40]}

Thus, the ritual experience, like the deer singers' songs, is

an expression of the equation upon which the aboriginal part of Yaqui religion is based. That equation links the gritty world of the pahko rama with the ethereal flower world [the sea

ania], a world seen with one unseen, a world that is very much here with one that is always over there.^[41]

Again, we have the mask as a central symbolic device in ritual activity designed to "lift the mask" of the material world to allow an experience of the "hidden" world of the spirit. Under that mask, the individual Yaqui or Mayo sees what the peoples of Mesoamerica always saw—the essentially spiritual force that is constantly at work creating and sustaining life. In Mayo terms:

We have made a commitment or an obligation with the earth. We move above the land, we make earthen pots and plant the land. To Our Father (Itom Achai) we ask the favor, that we be able to easily till (break up) the land. Thus we eat from the body of the land. In exchange for this favor at the time of our death the earth will eat us. We have a commitment with the earth. We have an obligation to Itom Achai. We are baptized Christians and not animals. Thus we have this commitment to Itom Achai. When humans die the earth will eat us up, but God will restore us.^[42]

Or as the Yaqui deer singer, Don Jesus, put it, "That is the way we people are; we are made to die."^[43] But while individuals die, life is eternal. Contained metaphorically within the huya ania, that eternal life-force shows itself through the ritual events in the pahko rama. The ritual experience of that force enables those who participate to "secure their existence, enjoy themselves, and . . . see and feel the truth of their beliefs."^[44]

That fundamental theme of rebirth can be seen in the pivoting of the pahko on the moment "when the world turns," the moment of midnight marking the death of one day (or "sun"), and the birth of the next as the sun passes the nadir in its nightly journey. Significantly, in the phase of the pahko beginning at midnight, various "skits" in which the pascolas dance as animals—denizens of the huya ania—take place. The most popular of these^[45] involves the killing of the deer by the pascolas who impersonate either animals or hunters and dogs. In this skit, "the pahkolam's burlesques and the deer singers' song sets come together to provide an expression of the very core of the ritual of the deer dance that is as powerful as any we know."^[46] This power comes directly from the theme of rebirth, a theme connected here with the sea ania aspect of the huya ania.

The deer continues to speak [through the songs of the deer singers] as he is carried back to the kolensia, his favored haunt, and laid out there on a bier of branches gathered from each plant in the wilderness world [huya ania]. The transmogrification of the deer that occurs there as his physical body is divided is imaged in the final five songs of the set. A tree asks for the deer's tail:

Put a flower on me
from flower-covered person's flower body
As his flesh is roasted, his hide tanned,  and his innards thrown to glisten in the patio, no doubt awaiting the vultures who gathered to talk about him earlier, the deer speaks:
I become enchanted
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I become flower.
This graphic sequence of images of death and rebirth indicates, in the words of Don Jesus [the deer singer], that "the deer's spirit stays in the wilderness."

The last song of the set describes the now-dead deer in contrast to a stick that is actually one of the pascolas, a creature of this world in the drama:

Over there, I, in the center
     of the flower-covered wilderness,
          there in the wilderness,
               one, good and beautiful, is standing.
But one stick,
     not good and beautiful,
          is standing.^[47]

The death of the deer thus frees his essence, a metaphor for the life-force, to return to its source "over there" in the huya ania. More important, this ending separates spirit—the deer essence "over there" in the sea ania—from matter—the nonliving stick that is "here" in this world. The commentary of the song is direct and to the point: spirit is "good and beautiful" while matter unsupported by spirit is "not good and beautiful." Goodness and beauty are complementary inner qualities that, when present, can be expressed externally or can be worn as a mask to reveal the features of the spirit in the way that the deer dancer wears the deer head atop his own and the pascola wears the mask over his face. The return of the deer, through death, to the huya ania completes the cycle of the pahko when this skit is performed as the obligatory first deer song describes "saila maso, little brother deer, as a young deer, a fawn. During the night of the pahko he will grow up. In this song we talk about him coming out to walk around and to play in an enchanted opening in the flower world":

Over there, in the flower-covered
     enchanted opening
          as he is walking
               he went out.
Flower-covered fawn went out,
     enchanted, from each enchanted flower
          wilderness world,
               he went out.^[48]

The striking similarities in language and imagery between the first and last songs are not coincidental. The singers and the audience know their import: the essence of the deer, for it is that which lives in the flower world, cannot die. It will return

to the "gritty world" of the pahko rama each time the performers and audience gather. And like the deer, life, sustained by spirit, can be counted on not to end.

That this image of rebirth is meant to conclude the pahko is clearly suggested by another skit performed in the latter stages of a pahko which enacts the coming of the rain. Like "the killing of the deer," this skit is often performed at a lutupahko, a pahko performed a year after the death of a family member to release "the family from mourning even as it releases the spirit of the departed from this world."^[49] Significantly, "the coming of the rain" is performed only when "the killing of the deer" is not; clearly, they are seen as serving the same function and having the same theme since "water in any form is rare in the Sonoran desert, and it is rain that prompts the miracle of rebirth in this wilderness world."^[50] Carleton Wilder suggests that "the direct causal relationship between rain and flowers is explicit in these songs. Flowers are a manifestation of rain."^[51] But for the Yaqui, as we have seen, flowers are symbolically a manifestation also of Christ's blood spilled on Calvary. And underlying these two symbolic meanings, flowers symbolize the essence of the huya ania—what we have been calling the life-force. Thus, we have the basic Mesoamerican formulation again, this time in a rather different form. The sacrifice of blood is reciprocated by the coming of the rains. Man, or in this case a life form conceptualized as being in man's world for the moment (Christ or the deer), must be sacrificed so that life may continue. This is the "lesson" of the pahko experience. In the enchanted world beneath the mask of "natural" reality, a world that exists within the "gritty" world of nature, within the community as a whole, and within the microcosmic individual, the essence of spirit is always at work creating and sustaining life.

But the pweplum cannot remain in the enchanted realm of the pahko, and just as the pascola brings them into that communion with the realm of the spirit and guides their experience of it, so the pascola must return them to the everyday world. The second turning point, the one that occurs at dawn, begins this phase of the pahko with the ceremony finally coming to a close as

the senior Pascola stands before the crowd and gives a sermon, an apology devoted largely to asking the pardon of God for any offenses that the Pascolas and their associates may have committed during the night. He says that they may have been irreverent in their jokes, obscene in their antics, careless of propriety in their reference to saints, even sacreligious regarding their own animal sources of power. . . . In this way the Pascolas express their courtesy and humility before God, but only after an active night of taking the crowd into their world of the huya ania and its ways so different from those of the town.^[52]

Thus, the ritual of the pahko, by its very structure, allows the Yaqui and Mayo, "out to the last one," a very personal experience of the sacred, an experience through which the masked pascola, as host, enables each individual to lift the mask of the mundane world and see the enchanted, sacred world beneath "with his or her own eyes." Only one may wear the mask, but through the ritual experience all participate in its metaphoric implications.

Such a formulation of pahko ritual carries numerous Christian connotations, especially as it equates the deer killed by the pascolas with Christ, but it is important to qualify that equation. While "contemporary Yaquis often interpret the deer dancer as gathering the wilderness world into a symbol of earthly sacrifice and of spiritual life after death," it must be realized that "contemporary Yaqui culture brings the figure of the deer dancer together with the figure of Christ only implicitly and very tentatively."^[53] Interestingly though, while the pascolas play only a relatively small role in church-related ritual and the deer dancer an even smaller one, the roles they do play in the most significant of those rituals are involved with the rebirth symbolized by the moment of Christ's death and resurrection and thus seem to grow directly out of the assumptions underlying pahko ritual. While the connection between their actions and the symbolism of Christ will no doubt remain implicit as the Christian and indigenous conceptions of rebirth are quite different, Yaqui and Mayo ritual does make that connection.

Significantly, the particular church-related ritual to which we refer is by far the most important of the year and is, in fact, "the most inclusive cooperative enterprise in which Yaquis engage as Yaquis.^[54] It consumes Yaqui society for the forty days of Lent, reaching its climax in the dramatization of Christ's Passion. Although the lengthy ritual cycle is far too complex even to summarize here as it may contain over forty ceremonial events, each involving the interaction of a number of symbolic forces, it has been treated at length in both its Yaqui and Mayo incarnations by other scholars as has the remarkably similar Lenten drama enacted by the neighboring Coras.^[55] In all of its variants, its focus is on the rebirth of life after death—the death of Christ, the "death" of his masked persecutors, and the "death" of the agricultural year—which is generated by the cyclical opposition of two forces. One must die for the other to be born. This festival, more than any other, demonstrates the truth of Spicer's contention that Yaqui religion has "a world view which includes a conception of interdependence between the natural world and the world of Christian belief."^[56]

That such an interdependence is fundamental can be seen in the fact that while Yaqui church-related ritual seems to follow the normal Roman Catholic religious calendar and to include the usual ceremonial occasions, it is divided into two distinct segments in a seasonal way not associated with Catholicism. Winter and spring constitute one season, characteristically solemn in its ceremonial tone, while summer and fall comprise the other season, this one marked by a tone of gaiety and well-being.^[57] These seasons, of course, are the divisions of the agricultural year: first the period of the planting, growth, and harvest of the crops, followed by the "dead," postharvest fallow time, leading to the sowing and germination of the new crop in June which ushers in the summer/fall season once again. The Easter ceremonial cycle falls roughly at the end of the fallow period and thus can be seen as heralding the beginning of the season of "birth," growth and eventual harvest, a view that fits nicely the drama of Christ's death and resurrection.

But the situation is somewhat more complex than that formulation would suggest. According to Spicer, the actual drama of the Lenten ceremonial is not centered on Christ's Passion but on "the obverse of the Passion, that is, the rise to power and ultimate destruction of the persecutors of Christ,"^[58] a group known as the Infantry which includes the unmasked Soldiers of Rome and the masked chapayekas whom they command. As a group, they are opposed to the protectors of Christ, the Horsemen, who are aided in their holy cause by a number of other ceremonialists, chief among them the matachini, dancers who wear a symbolic flower headdress, and the Little Angels, a group of children. At a crucial point in the struggle, the forces of good are joined by pascolas and deer dancers.

The Soldiers of Rome and the chapayekas "are pursuing the most evil of purposes, [but] they are building their own doom, as everyone knows. In the unfolding of the story the steps which appear to lead to their complete triumph also lead to their destruction ... and the restoration of the order and goodness which they have so fearfully threatened."^[59] Thus, the Yaqui, and the neighboring Mayo and Cora whose versions are essentially the same, have transformed the linear progression of the traditional Christian story into a cyclical drama. Evil is neither destroyed by good nor does good transcend evil; rather, it is transformed into good by the cyclical movement of time. This transformation can be seen clearly in the case of the chapayekas, the masked persecutors of Christ. These ritual clowns, far more sinister and dangerous than the pascolas,^[60] delight in the graphic inversion of accepted values. Their coalition with the Soldiers of Rome "will result in some stupendously evil deed." But under the mask of each of the chapayekas, there is "the father of a family, a respected townsman. Moreover he is in some ways the most worthy of all men in the town because he has undertaken a very arduous task which works for the good of all."^[61] Like Christ, he suffers for humanity, in this case the pweplum. Thus, in an exceedingly strange twist of meaning, these persecutors are themselves understood as undergoing a death and resurrection parallel to that of Christ, whom they kill. "Through [their] suffering and confession (death) comes purity and the resurrection, the return to life, of Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday."^[62] The forty-day ceremonial period ends with the ritual rebaptism of the chapayekas and the burning of their masks. Evil has been converted into good by the transforming forces of water and fire. Since both persecutor and persecuted are involved in the same cyclical process, it is made clear that while all "evil" will become "good," that "good" must in turn become "evil" since everyone knows that the drama will be repeated the following year when the good townsmen must once again don the evil mask that will later be "converted into the intangible again by burning immediately after use."^[63]

It is fascinating that these masks, like the masks of the pascola and the deer dancer, are clearly understood as having their source in the transcendent world of the spirit and are specifically returned to that world after their use in the time-honored Mesoamerican way of "spiritualizing" matter, in the case of the Yaqui and Mayo, by burning and in the case of the Cora, by floating down the river as the dancers wash away their emblematic body paint in what is both an actual and a ritual cleansing. The cyclical nature of the drama is clear, as is its relationship to the seasonal cycle. The Infantry epitomizes the sombreness of the winter/spring season as it symbolically kills the spirit of life, a spirit that is reborn in the risen Christ, the newly baptized chapayekas, and the soon-to-be-planted corn.

The pascola's role in this pivotal drama is small but significant. The climax of the forty-day ceremonial cycle comes not, as one would expect, with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ but with the battle between the forces of evil and good for control of the church and town. In this symbolic battle, the Infantry—Soldiers of Rome and chapayekas—charges forward and is repulsed three times by the defenders, a significantly diverse group made up of the Little Angels, the children, coached by their godparents, who form the Angel Guard; the Horsemen who are the good soldiers; the Matachin Dancers "with their streaming red headdresses, called 'flowers'; and the Pascola and Deer Dancers beside whom is a high pile of flowers and new green leaves." When the attackers rush forward, the Little Angels emerge with their switches, the Horsemen with their weapons, "the Matachin Dancers dance, and the Pascola and Deer Dancers

reach deep into the piles beside them and throw handful after handful of flowers directly at the running attackers."

In the third rush all is lost. The chapayekas have been weakened by the power of the pelting flowers and the Matachin "flower" headdresses; by the good soldiers, who remain firm in their formation; and above all by the earnest spirit of the Little Angels. The chapayekas cast off their masks, in which their evil power resides, and throw them at the feet of the pyre, where the effigy of Judas is set afire.^[64]

"Evil" has been defeated and its symbolic essence returned to the world of the spirit. Its defeat has come through the agency of the angelic innocence of the children, surely symbolic of the Christian world of the spirit, and the flowery weapons of the Matachin, pascola, and deer dancers, just as surely symbolic of the huya ania. Thus, the rebirth of Christ, of his persecutors, of the people of the town, of the seasonal cycle, and of the Yaqui spirit has simultaneously been assured. Significantly, the only part played by the pascola in the entire Lenten ceremonial cycle is directly related to that moment of rebirth.

The role of the pascola in the Lenten drama is thus consistent with, and no doubt grows from, his much larger role in the indigenous pahko ritual. In both, he is directly involved in a dramatic realization of the conception of rebirth. In both, he is connected directly with the moment of transition between the "death" of one phase of a cycle and the "birth" of the next; in the case of the Lenten ritual, the cycle is annual, while in the ritual of the pahko, the daily cycle of the sun provides the metaphorical structure. In both, he is intimately associated with the flowers that symbolize the underlying life-force—whether of the huya ania or God's grace—that provides the motive power for the cyclical movement. The masked pascola dancer therefore unites the two strands of Yaqui religion at their most important point of contact, their symbolization of the movement of the underlying life-force into the world of man and nature. Nowhere is this syncretic role of the pascola made more graphically clear than in a picture that Spicer presents of two pascola dancers kneeling and praying before a pahko rama altar containing a crucifix and santos. In the picture, the crucifix appears directly between the two pascolas' masks, which are worn at this moment on the sides of their heads. Spicer writes, "Before the fiesta begins for which they are preparing, the pascolas will also offer prayers to the Horned Toad and other animals."^[65]

The juxtaposition of mask to crucifix in the picture results from a curious part of pascola ritual practice, a part that demonstrates again the tendency to bring Christian and indigenous practices together but to keep them distinct. In the ritual of the pahko rama, itself uniting Christian and indigenous ritual while keeping their separate identities clear, the pascola's dances are of two kinds: one is "an intricate stepdance accenting and embellishing the rhythm" of the music played by a violinist and a harpist, while the other consists of "pawing foot motions, peering gestures with the masked face, and complex rattle play" to the music played by a musician called a tampaleo who simultaneously plays a flute and a drum. When dancing to the music of the harp and violin, the pascola wears his mask on the side or back of his head, but when he is accompanied by the tampaleo, he wears the mask over his face.^[66] Although neither Yaquis nor Mayos can explain the reason for this differing use of the mask, scholars generally have seen it as the result of a distinction between the music and dance of European origin and that derived from the indigenous background. True to this distinction, the pascolas in Spicer's picture wear their masks on the sides of their heads while engaging in Christian devotions. When the spirit of the huya ania moves through them into the sacred space of the pahko rama, that spirit "speaks" through the mask, which the pascola then wears over his face. For the mask is the inner reality, the reality of the enchanted huya ania, which ritual allows to emerge into the mundane world of man's daily life.

That pascola mask, although found in varied forms,^[67] is always recognizable. It is generally small, dark, and decorated with symbolic designs, either incised, inlaid, or painted on.^[68] Its features may be those of a goat (pl. 68) or a human being (pl. 66), but it will always have flowing strands of goat hair or horsehair forming a beard and eyebrows. The hair is sometimes so full that it partially obscures the mask's features, but

the hair and its motion are an important aspect of pascola mask aesthetics  . . .  [for] when a Mayo pascola shows his mask, he carefully unwraps the sashes that he uses to protect it, and smooths the hair out with his hands. Then, instead of sweeping the hair out of the way so that the visitor can appreciate the carved and painted wood, he holds the mask with the face slightly down, so that the hair falls freely. He then wags the mask back and forth, causing the long eyebrows to swing across the face. The value of a mask is seriously impaired when the hair is missing .^[69]

As Lutes points out, all of the features of the mask are "symbolic elements,"^[70] expressing in the small compass of the mask itself the meanings we have already seen in the ritual activities of those who wear the mask. Those symbolic features include references to animals, the clearest of which is to the goat as a number of pascola masks are made in the image of that animal, and it is even "said that all pascola masks represent goats."^[71] Some believe that a pascola who wears such a goat

mask acquired his ability to dance directly from the huya ania,^[72] perhaps through a dream in which a goat appeared as a representative of that enchanted world.^[73] The importance of the goat symbolism to the pascola mask can be seen in the fact that although the chapayeka often wear masks with animal features, they never bear the features of a goat,^[74] no doubt because of the goat's association with the pascola. The significance of the goat symbolism can also be seen in the fact that the goat-featured masks do not generally bear other symbolic designs that might compete for importance.

Such designs are found only on the masks that have human features, and they are images of other symbolic denizens of the huya ania. Mayo masks, for example, often have a zigzag design forming a border, a design that, according to Crumrine, represents a snake,^[75] the serpent from the huya ania which may "appear in the power dreams through which a boy can learn that he is to become a pascola ."^[76] Lizards, considered "one of 'the little animals of the pascola,'^[77] are also frequently found decorating the masks (pl. 67), and it is no doubt through their association with the huya ania that they have come to represent "order and fecundity in nature"^[78] and so to be an important symbolic feature of the mask of the pascola who is fundamentally involved with the ritual symbolism of rebirth. Along with snakes and lizards, the masks often contain stylized representations of flowers, which are, as we have seen, the most fundamental symbol within Yaqui and Mayo thought of the huya ania and of the life-force that metaphorically resides in that enchanted world.

These huya ania-related symbolic features sometimes appear, but sometimes they do not. The only symbolic design that must appear on a pascola mask, interestingly enough, is a cross (pl. 67). It is said by both Yaqui and Mayo to be necessary, along with whatever other decorations are found on the forehead of the mask, "to keep danger away from the pascola while he is dancing." For that reason, masks carved to be sold to outsiders often lack the forehead cross. That necessary symbolic feature of the mask illustrates clearly its fundamentally syncretic nature. While it is seen by both Yaqui and Mayo as a Christian cross, it is, at the same time, felt "to represent the four directions and also the sun."^[79] In this connection, it is significant that the cross that appears on the masks is often a Greek Cross, or quincunx, which, as we have seen, has been the quintessential representation of the "shapes" of space and time in indigenous thought from the earliest times. This visual similarity is particularly important as there is a great deal in pascola ritual which is linked to these concepts of the quincunx.

Pl. 68.
Mayo Pascola mask, San Miguel, Sinaloa
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman).

The ritual of the pahko pivots on midnight, the nadir in the sun's journey and one of the four points of the sun's daily path which are represented by the ends of the arms of the quincunx. Significantly, that is the least likely of the four "cardinal" points marking the sun's diurnal course to occur to the nonindigenous mind, thereby suggesting the indigenous nature of this conception of the "shape" of time. Midnight and its opposite, high noon, represent the vertical axis of the quadripartite quincunx symbolizing that "shape," and as we have seen, it is that vertical axis that links the enveloping world of the spirit to man's world. The shamanistic "breakthrough" from the earthly plane to the upper or lower world of the spirit can come only on this vertical axis. Here it occurs at midnight.

And the directional implications of the quincunx are associated with the pascola ritual as well. These implications, and their syncretic formula-

tion, can be seen clearly in Molina's description of a part of the traditional opening ritual of the pahko among the Arizona Yaqui.

When they had finished dancing to the tampaleo they started to bless the ground. They stood toward the East, home of the Texans, and they asked for help from santo mocho'okoli (holy horned toad). Each pahkola marked a cross on the ground with the bamboo reed with which the moro had led him into the ramada. Then they stood toward the North and said: "Bless the people to the North, the Navajos, and help me, my santo bobok (holy frog), because they are people like us, " and they marked another cross on the ground. Still they stood towards the West and said: "Bless the Hua Yoemem (Papagos) and help me my santo wikui (holy lizard)" and they marked another cross on the ground. Finally they stood towards the South and said: "To the South, land of the Mexicans, bless them and help me my santo behori (holy tree lizard)" and they marked the last cross on the ground.^{[ 80]}

The pre-Columbian assumptions implicit in this ritual action are striking. Most obvious is the association of the cardinal points with a particular "god," as we might call the denizens of the huya ania, and a particular people. That identification locates the Yaqui in general and this ritual action in particular in the center of the quincunx which is, of course, the symbolic center of the universe, the point metaphorically described in pre-Columbian spiritual thought as the navel of the universe. Like its timing, the metaphoric location of the ritual enables the participants and the community to accomplish the "breakthrough in plane" from man's middle world to the enveloping world of the spirit that has always been the focus of Mesoamerican ritual.

The syncretic nature of the cross, the ritual, and Yaqui and Mayo spiritual thought is emphasized by the fact that these crosses are inscribed on the ground just after the pascolas pray before a crucifix on the altar in the pahko rama. The cross, in both its incarnations, refers to the meeting point of spirit and matter just as it had in Mesoamerica from time immemorial. And the ritual activity, as always, is calculated to bring those two realms together. Thus, it is significant that the masked dancer is seen as protected by the cross from the harm that might befall him in his liminal movement from the plane of matter to that of spirit and even more significant that the cross he wears around his neck is not sufficient; he must have the cross inscribed on the mask itself. Implicit in this necessity is a recognition of the crucial role the mask plays in this meeting of matter and spirit. And also implicit is the metaphorical statement made by the mask of the pascola. It is the same statement made by every mask in the Mesoamerican tradition: essential reality is spiritual and inner, but through ritual, it can be made outer. The mask displays that reality and thus allows the enveloping world of the spirit to enter the world of man. And conversely, by wearing the mask, man enters the world of the spirit, in this case the enchanted world of the huya ania.

Lutes recounts and comments on the words of an elder pascola: "If you continue this road of the paskola, where our hearts speak directly with each other, you will understand more of the clown and find its secrets. My mask has its own demonio and I would not part with it for any other." And that demonio is "a spirit or efficacious power within the physical form."^[81] Thus, it is apparent that the mask continues, even in syncretic ritual and thought, to function as a metaphor for the most basic of Mesoamerican culture's spiritual conceptions and that the members of that culture are profoundly aware of its metaphoric meaning.

This metaphoric meaning is the same for the Yaqui and Mayo as it was for their distant forebears at the beginnings of Mesoamerican civilization. As we have seen, the masked impersonators whose features were carved into and painted on rock by the Olmecs were allowing the sacred world of the spirit to move through them into man's world in the same way as the Yaqui and Mayo pascola. Contemporaneously with those Olmec ritualists, the masked dancers of the village cultures of Mesoamerica were engaged in their own simpler, but equally profound, ritual. It is certainly coincidental that the pottery replicas of those masked dancers of Tlatilco could be mistaken for Yaqui or Mayo pascolas—they were the same small masks (pl. 44) and the same cocoon rattles wrapped around their legs—since the separation in time and space between the culture of Tlatilco and the cultures of the Yaqui and Mayo would rule out any direct connection. But it is an intriguing coincidence because it is not only the outward form that coincides. As we have seen, those dancers, separated by almost three thousand years, are dancing to the same set of spiritual assumptions. Their masks cover and reveal the same enchanted world of the spirit.

14
Today's Masks

Our discussion of the syncretic nature of the Yaqui pascola mask properly brings to a close our consideration of the mask as metaphor in indigenous Mesoamerican spiritual thought and practice. It suggested metaphorically the nature of spiritual reality as an animating and sustaining force since the lifeless mask must be animated by the wearer in order to "live" in ritual, thus demonstrating the integral relationship of spirit and matter. Although the mask and the wearer might be discussed separately, they existed as one; just as the idea of a mask by its very nature compels one to think of the person under the mask, the existence of vivified material reality testified to the existence of spirit—the vivifying force. Without a face under it, a mask would be a meaningless conception, and without spirit, from the Mesoamerican point of view, the material world would be inconceivable. As we have seen, this fundamental metaphoric conception underlying mask use existed as early as the village cultures that preceded the growth of the high civilizations of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and is still fundamental to modern indigenous groups, the distant heirs of those civilizations.

But what is to come? Eric Wolf, for one, sees a bleak future for the cultures of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica.

Until 900 B.C. . . . the community [i.e., what we have earlier called the village culture] was the autonomous unit of social life; and the growth of ties beyond its limits was still to come. And when we look at this unit in long-term perspective, we find that in Middle America it was never obliterated. The simple inventory of farm tools and kitchen equipment, the tasks of farming, the religious concepts geared to the cycle of planting and harvesting, the style of life centered upon the community of one's birth—these have remained basic and stable until today. Empires and conquests sweep over the land, cities arise, new gods announce salvation, but in the dusty streets of the little villages a humble kind of life persists, and rises to the surface again when the fury of the conquest is stilled, when the cities crumble into ashes, and when the new gods are cast into oblivion. In the rhythm of Middle American development we recognize phases of great metabolic construction, followed by catabolic processes which gnaw at the foundations of temples and citadels until they collapse of their own weight or vanish in a fury of burning and destruction. Yet until today the community of cultivators has retained its capacity to turn in upon itself and to maintain its integrity in the face of doubt and disaster—until today, and perhaps not much longer, because the modern world is engaged in severing once and for all the ties which bind people into local unity, in committing them to complete participation in the Great Society. This is a one-way street along which there is no return. The Middle American world has survived many destructions; our present cycle of time is now approaching its nadir.^[1]

As with much else in the development of the spiritual core of Mesoamerican civilization, this fundamental change, which Wolf describes in terms of the "shape" of cyclical time basic to Mesoamerican thought, can be seen in the changing use of masks in the festivals in which the ritual defining that spiritual core is enacted, festivals for which Donald Thompson suggests an equally bleak future. "Perverted ceremonies, costumes, and dances will probably remain as an attraction for tourists to the economic advantage of the natives. It is a sad thought that a unique religion of four centuries'

growth may end as a tourist attraction."^[2] As we have seen, that religion actually has far more than four centuries' growth, which makes such an ignominious end especially sad and an even greater loss to humanity.

Wolf and Thompson wrote these words thirty years ago, and the developments over those thirty years have borne out their truth. In most areas of Mesoamerica, the process of disintegration is well advanced. In an essay explaining the dangers to the indigenous way of life inherent in opening to further tourism the Sierra Norte de Puebla, an area whose relative inaccessibility has protected its indigenous way of life, Eduardo Merlo Juárez describes the situation in 1978 at the largest festival in the area, that of Cuetzalan which draws indigenous people from throughout the region. Traditionally, its focal point, indicative of its fundamentally religious but syncretic nature, is provided by dances; in fact, the festival begins with

all the different dance groups dancing in front of or behind the priest with the Eucharist and others with the images of the patron saints [to whom the festival is dedicated]. . . . The priest is accompanied to the church, where the first mass is celebrated. . . . In front of the church the different dances are performed, but first the groups enter the church to dance inside for the saint.^[3]

According to Merlo Juárez, this emphasis on the religious nature of the dances in particular and the festival in general is changing. In 1978, the high point of the festival came with the arrival of the regional officials, as those in charge were bent on impressing these secular authorities. The dancers, whose efforts were "merely" meant to please "the divine authorities," were interrupted so that the focus of attention might be on the more spectacular Voladores. Cameramen crowded around, obscuring the view of the seemingly unimportant local people in their festival garb, and "the crowning touch was supplied when a tiny, charming dancer barely five years old was brought to the place of honor." All the other activity ceased so that

certain women, I believe they were "Miss Tourism" or "Miss Who-Knows-What," could pose for the press photographers at the side of this child, pretending to give him a kiss, but only placing their lips near the terrified face of the child who had no comprehension of what was going on. He understood even less the action of one of the retinue who offered him, in the view of all, a banknote of high denomination.^[4]

This tawdry example makes strikingly clear that the indigenous people of Cuetzalan are well on their way to "complete participation in the Great Society," and that the commercialization of the masks and dances, and ultimately of the whole proud tradition of indigenous Mesoamerican spirituality, is among the means by which that sad conversion is being accomplished. Material reality—in the form of cute children, sexually attractive young women, money, publicity, and political power—has become an end in itself and is to be celebrated through its own peculiar ritual. Earlier, in 1952, Redfield characterized this development precisely when he wrote that while it once was an

intensely sacred act made by the village as a collectivity composed of familially defined component groups, with close relationship to the system of religious and moral understandings of the people, the festival has become, in the more urbanized communities, chiefly an opportunity for recreation for some and of financial profit for others, with little reference to moral and religious conceptions.^[5]

Despite the changing nature of the Mesoamerican festival, masks continue to be produced. Some of them, like those of the tigres and the pascolas, continue to play their traditional roles in the festival enactment of ritual, a significant portion of which still serves the ancient ends of linking matter to spirit so that human life may be sustained. These masks testify to the continuing vitality of that spiritual tradition in its ability to incorporate elements of the "Great Society" without losing the focus of its own spiritual vision. As James Griffith and Felipe Molina point out, pascola masks "do not appear to have changed appreciably in the past hundred years,"^[6] indicating that the strength and vitality of the tradition they represent enables them to encompass the new realities. Griffith, describing a pink pascola mask made especially for him, says that "in response to a question concerning the somewhat unusual color, the carver stated that it represented an 'americano pascola.'"^[7] While designed for an "outsider," the mask shows both the careful craftsmanship of the masks meant for the pascola dancers themselves and an imaginative grasp of the essentials of the tradition represented by the mask in its ability to integrate an alien tradition into its features. In this and similar cases, the masks themselves indicate that the battle between the old and new traditions is at times still being won by the representatives of the ancient ways.

But not all masks produced for outsiders—and tremendous numbers of them are being made by the cottage industry turning out tourist goods in Mexico—are so profound, and not all of them record a victory for the old traditions. Throughout Mexico, wherever tourists might go, a different sort of mask is to be found. Some of them are modeled on masks that play a part in the festival dances we have described, while others result from the maker's ideas of what his potential buyers—urban Mexicans and U.S. tourists—might want.^[8] Regarded in the light of indigenous ritual mask use, these are

often absurdities, brightly painted, leering, horned faces adorned with crawling insects, reptiles, or animals. In their garishness, they reveal far more about the taste and minds of the buyers of such monstrosities than about the sensibilities of their makers. To one familiar with the spiritual depth of the tradition of Mesoamerican mask use and with the unique beauty of many of the masks produced by that tradition, a walk through Mexico City's Sunday market at Lagunilla, for example, with its piles and piles of those masks meant for tourists, can be a truly depressing experience. These masks symbolize a victory for the new tradition.

The Yaqui "americano pascola" and Lagunilla's tasteless tourist masks provide examples of the two extremes of the impact of the traditions of the "Great Society" on the making of masks, but there are still other types of contemporary masks besides those that are still a vital part of a living tradition and those that pervert the beauties of that tradition in the service of a new, materialistic vision of reality. One of them demonstrates the difficulties one might encounter in attempting to classify contemporary masks as either traditional or commercial.^[9] A recent discussion we had with Lino Mora, a young mask maker in the small town of Naolinco, Veracruz, illustrates the source of that difficulty. He talked about his masks and the variant of the Dance of the Moors and Christians in Naolinco in which they were worn and showed us a "report," prepared by students of the local primary school and illustrated with locally taken photographs, detailing the background and meaning of the dance. Unfortunately, the information had been taken from readily available sources and did not pertain to the local dance, but the photographs were particularly interesting as they showed townspeople dressed as dance characters wearing masks carved by Mora, masks that would generally have been identified by "experts" as designed for the tourist trade. This encounter made two things clear. First, the dance not only continues to exist in Naolinco but its continued existence is a source of pride and satisfaction to the community. Second, masks continue to play an important part in the dance, and the mask maker is seen as making a significant contribution to the community's ceremonial life.

But the masks themselves suggested that the tradition was in the process of fundamental change. Señor Mora had two finished masks for sale. One of them, a skull mask, had been used, while the other was a new mask, identical to those worn by the local dancers, which had been carved for a shopkeeper in Xalapa. After some discussion, it was agreed that we could buy both and that Señor Mora would carve another to be sold, presumably to a tourist, in the shop in Xalapa. We returned home with the mask, but along with it we brought a question. How can one distinguish between a mask meant for ritual use and one meant for sale to tourists? In the case of the work of Lino Mora, at least, they may well be the same mask. And that double market he serves suggests a crucial possibility in the development of the tradition: the features designed to please the tourist and collector might find their way into the dances. There is an interesting piece of evidence in this case that that has happened. When we arrived home with the mask that had been destined for the Xalapa shopkeeper, we discovered that it was remarkably similar thematically to a mask, also from Naolinco, that Covarrubias had acquired sometime before 1929 when it was published in Mexican Folkways.^[10]

The similarity, however, served to emphasize some striking differences. Both our new mask (pl. 69) and Covarrubias's old one (pl. 70) have realistic human faces with prominent eyebrows, noses, and teeth, and in each case, the face is encircled by a snake, but all of the symbolic features of the new mask are more dramatic. Furthermore, unlike the features of the old mask, they are clearly designed to suggest a modern, Hollywood-style Satan. This identity, of course, coincides with the serpent whose head, in marked contrast to the one on the earlier mask, is carved and painted to suggest its similarity to the human face of the mask. Señor Mora identified the mask as that of a Moor, but those opponents of the Christians have clearly coalesced in his mind with Satan, the archenemy. And the source of his mental image of Satan could be guessed from the fact that immediately to the right of the masks displayed for sale sat a television set, and next to the masks on the wall were tacked a number of pictures clipped from popular magazines. Like the rest of us, Señor Mora is bombarded by the images generated by what Wolf calls the Great Society, and those images, as we would expect, emerge in his art, an art worn on the streets of Naolinco in the syncretic celebration of the festival of the town's patron saint.

What happens under these circumstances to the symbolic meanings communicated by the masks? It seems likely that these new images will ultimately convey a new symbolism in the same way that the masks used on All Hallows Eve in the United States and some areas of urban Mexico are a part of festivities that today have a vastly different meaning from the original religious celebrations. Halloween is now a recreational event for children, an event that uses masks but strips them of their meaning—and their power. The Naolinco Moor's mask resembles a Halloween Satan, a Satan whose menacing countenance is all in fun. Naolinco has not yet reached the stage of development of the cities of the United States or the large cities of Mexico, but one suspects that it is on its way, propelled by the potent symbolic images of the television screen and the magazine's glossy

Pl. 69.
Mask for a Moor carved by Lino Mora, Naolinco, Veracruz
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman).

Pl 70.
Mask from Naolinco, Veracruz,
in the collection of Miguel Covarrubias.

pages, which are designed to sell not only the products but ultimately the value system of "the Great Society."

Those concerned with contemporary Mesoamerican masks and the tradition in which they function take various attitudes toward these changes. Some, such as Donald Thompson, see such changes as marking the end of the tradition, while others believe they are natural developments, that all traditions change and that such change is healthy. Maria Teresa Pomar, for example, suggests that all artists work within the ambit of their cultures and that "each object produced corresponds to an epoch" and necessarily and properly reflects the culture of that epoch despite the tendency of some, which she sees as regrettable, to see objects produced in the past as better than those of today.^[11]

That tendency can be seen nowhere more clearly than in the attitudes of many collectors of and dealers in Mesoamerican masks. Among such people, the desirability of a particular mask is determined to a great extent by its age and whether or not it has been "danced." Ironically, and somewhat humorously, the collectors' passion for patina has spawned a whole new genre of masks. Primarily fabricated in the state of Guerrero, these masks are a late development of the commercialization of mask making. According to Maria Teresa Sepúlveda Herrera they are often consciously imitative of old masks and are generally very well carved and given an artificial patina to mislead collectors. There are several styles, some realistic, others fantastic, that have been developed by particular carvers and that have been imitated throughout the region.^[12] One type, perhaps developed from the fantastic masks that Donald Cordry attributed to José Rodriguez,^[13] a shadowy figure who may or may not have existed,^[14] features bizarre combinations of animals, reptiles, and human faces in beautifully carved and painted masks.^[15] Masks of another type are quite large and designed to cover the head of the wearer in the manner of a helmet (pl. 71). Often painstakingly carved, they represent characters from the Dance of the Moors and Christians, and although they have been made to appear old, ^[16] there is no record of any such masks ever having been used. Other large masks exist as well, all of them designed for the collectors' market: some are gigantic insects, reptiles, or animals incorporating a human face and supposedly used in harvest celebrations, ^[17] others are large human faces with flowing beards supposedly representing dwarves in rain-petitioning ceremonies,^[18] and still others are stylized crocodiles and mermaids that are often accompanied by large representations of those creatures designed to be worn around the waist.^[19] In still

Pl 71.
Mask of Fierabraz, Iguala, Guerrero
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman).

another category of such falsos , as these masks designed for collectors are called by now-knowledgable collectors and dealers in Mexico, is what Cordry referred to as the Barbones masks,^[20] which are beautifully carved of hard wood with particular attention paid to the carving of the luxuriant beards.^[21] The carving of these masks represents a high point in the development of the carver's art, but none of them was ever intended for use. Like the others, these were meant for collectors in Mexico and the United States, and those same collectors comprise as well the only market ever intended for the copper and silver masks also made in Guerrero.^[22]

There is no evidence that the collectors' market has had any appreciable effect on the tradition of mask use within Mesoamerica, but it has had a substantial impact on the scholarly and curatorial approach to Mesoamerican masks within the United States. Unfortunately, Cordry's Mexican Masks , the only major treatment of the subject in English, represents either an attempt to legitimize such frauds as those described above or a complete lack of awareness of their spurious nature since, as Janet Esser points out, the book treats these masks as genuine while failing to document the existence of the dances to which these masks are attributed, a documentation that would, of course, be impossible because the masks were not designed for dancers but for collectors.^[23] Even worse, as Esser also explains, this book, lavishly illustrated, published by a prestigious university press, and introduced by a well-known scholar, ultimately "addresses Mexican masks [both genuine and 'false'] as 'collectables.'"^[24] A sad end, indeed, for a central metaphorical form of one of the world's great religious traditions. Just as the festival in which the mask has been used symbolically to reveal spiritual reality is succumbing to commercialization—the worship of the material as an end in itself—so the mask itself has become in such cases as these merely a "thing" to be "consumed" by the voracious new tradition.

But if we see this situation in Mesoamerican terms, in terms, that is, of the cyclical "shape" of time, as Wolf does, this nadir must presage rebirth just as midnight foretells dawn. But what will the dawn bring? The bleakness of Wolf's vision of the future for the "sons of the shaking earth" might well suggest William Butler Yeats's similar vision for a different people:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.^[25]

As Wolf puts it, "Our present cycle of time is now approaching its nadir." The "severing once and for all the ties which bind people into local unity, in committing them to complete participation in the Great Society," a society that defines reality as essentially material, has brought the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, along with the rest of humanity, to the point of seeing beneath a mask never before lifted. The breakdown of the "local" spiritual traditions, such as we find in Mesoamerica, requires either the birth of a new global tradition of some sort or the living of human life in the absence of any such tradition. In either case, we might feel with Yeats that "surely some revelation is at hand."

But what is that revelation? Joseph Campbell has addressed this question in more general terms than our concern with Mesoamerica, and his answer is instructive: "One cannot predict the next mythology any more than one can predict tonight's dream; for a mythology is not an ideology. It is not something projected from the brain, but something experienced from the heart, from recognitions of identities behind or within the appearances of nature," and it is the artist, he points out, "who brings the images of a mythology to manifestation." This insight is of crucial importance as "without images (whether mental or visual) there

is no mythology."^[26] That function of the artist is precisely the transformative function attributed to the Mesoamerican artist. Thus, if Campbell and the Mesoamerican spiritual tradition are correct, while we cannot know the nature of the new dispensation, if there is to be one, we can know the source of the images through which it will be expressed: they must come from the creativity of the artist, who can transmute the essence of man's relationship to the wellsprings of his being into images painted on canvas, carved in stone or wood, cast in clay or metal, or described in words. Knowing what we know of Mesoamerican spiritual thought, we might well predict that the mask would figure prominently among the images embodying that new dispensation.

Interestingly, it is possible to see just such a development in the modern Mexican art through which its creators attempted to define a uniquely Mexican view of reality. If time and space in this study permitted us to outline the development of that modern art and to show its tendency to focus on the indigenous past in its attempt to create a truly Mexican art that could render the modern Mexican consciousness, we could trace that development from the nineteenth-century landscapes of José Maria Velasco which captured both the uniqueness and the spiritual quality of the Mexican setting to the landscapes of Dr. Atl in which that spirit appeared in images tempered by his fascination with both modern European art and Mexican popular art. We could then examine Diego Rivera's uses of indigenous images in the highly sophisticated art he developed, after returning to Mexico from four years spent as a cubist in Paris,^[27] to place Mexico's heritage at the base of the Mexican revolution. In his art, especially the murals, as in the art of many of his contemporaries, the mask was a common feature, both because as an image it could convey the texture of indigenous life and because it fit Rivera's conception of a nation whose powerful native strength was contained under the "mask" of a decadent, Europeanized upper class. These political uses of the mask also appear in the powerful art of Rivera's contemporary, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and, to a somewhat lesser extent in the third of los Tres Grandes, José Clemente Orozco, as well as in the host of artists who followed in their footsteps.^[28]

Such a discussion of the importance of the mask as an image in the art of the revolutionary period would lead to a consideration of the reaction against this nationalization and politicization of art by such sophisticated younger artists as José Luis Cuevas who also used masks and masklike images but used them to convey a conception of reality diametrically opposed to that of Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco. For Cuevas, the mask provided the perfect image for the peculiarly modern sense of the alienation of the individual in a world that forced that person constantly to "prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet," to mask the inner, spiritual self in order to live in a world that defined reality as material. Such an examination of the use of the mask by Cuevas, on the one hand, and by los Tres Grandes and their followers, on the other, would show the stark contrast between their bitterly opposed views of the proper aims and the proper means of art. Significantly, however, both used the mask in the service of rendering these two very different, widely held, but ultimately European (in the sense that we have used the term in this study) views of reality. In that sense, both use the image fundamental to indigenous art in an essentially nonindigenous way. Native Mesoamerican spiritual art, of course, has no monopoly on the use of the mask as a metaphor.

But more to the point of the concern of our study, there are two internationally acclaimed Mexican artists, one a contemporary of los Tres Grandes and the other a contemporary of Cuevas, who in themselves and in their art unite the indigenous with the European; Indian Mexico with modern Mexico. They are Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo. Coincidentally, both were born of Zapotec parents in the state of Oaxaca and grew up surrounded by images generated by the indigenous culture. But both lived for a time in New York and Paris, and their temporary immersion there in the world of international art made it possible for each of them—in vastly different ways, as we shall seeto transmute their indigenous heritage into universal images capable of relating that heritage to the concerns of modern human beings, wherever they may have been born. For both, the mask is often central, but it is rarely an actual mask.

To understand the profoundly indigenous nature of their art in general and their metaphoric use of the mask in particular, however, it is necessary to understand their relationship to modernism in art. Paz puts it best in his discussion of Tamayo.

The modern aesthetic opened his eyes and made him see the modernity of pre-Hispanic sculpture. Then with the violence and simplicity of every creator, he took possession of these forms and transformed them. Using them as a starting point he painted new and original forms. Popular art had already fertilized his imagination and had prepared him to accept and assimilate the art of ancient Mexico. However, without the modern aesthetic, that initial impulse would have been dissipated or would have degenerated into mere folklore and decoration.^[29]

That aesthetic allows Tamayo, and Toledo, to do what every great modern artist who would use his art to communicate his conception of the human condition must do—to "make it new," to express the oldest and most profound of human truths in the newest of forms so that the rest of us may see

them as our own. The past must be transformed through the artist's images.

Juan Garcia Ponce suggests this in his consideration of Tamayo's relationship to that past.

When most Mexican artists were attempting a return to the past, imitating its forms in a sterile attempt to revive them without really believing in the things that made these art forms possible, Tamayo definitely made a break with the past. Instead of cultivating it, he let it act upon him, not as a living presence, but rather as a memory. Thus, instead of representing those myths as dead matter of which only the external image remains without any true communication with reality, Tamayo tried to reinvent them, to give them new life, to re-create them. . . . In using daily life as his theme, he searches for what is sacred within this life, . . . making our immediate reality become a mythical reality and causing it to leave its own time.^[30]

Although Toledo's art is vastly different in appearance from Tamayo's, the two painters' works share this impulse to reinvent the formal and mythic truths of their common past. Joanne Kuebler points out that it is in precisely this way that the older artist has influenced the younger: "Tamayo's influence on Toledo is strong; both artists address the existential dilemma of modern man through a reinterpretation of pre-Columbian mythology."^[31] And it must have been in this sense that Tamayo meant his comment regarding the "two or three" young Mexican artists he regards highly: "The future of painting in my country is in their hands. . . . The best of them is Francisco Toledo."^[32]

Tamayo's definitive connection to his pre-Hispanic past was formed early. Brought up in Oaxaca until the death of his parents when he was twelve, he was surrounded by the popular art of Indian Mexico. At twelve, he went to live with an aunt in Mexico City who made her living selling fruit, gradually became involved with art training, and finally as a young man was employed by the government to copy works of popular and pre-Columbian art in the National Museum of Anthropology to make them more readily available to artists involved in the government-sponsored mural painting program. According to Emily Genauer, Tamayo absorbed the pre-Columbian influence "emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, technically, simultaneously, and almost, he says, subconsciously."^[33] A strange background for the man who was to become "Mexico's first artist unequivocally dedicated to the tenets of Modernism,"^[34] but it was only part of that background.

Chafing at the limitations of Mexican art schools and Mexican life, Tamayo and his young wife fled to New York. Olga Tamayo recalled in 1965, "Thirty-two years ago... we went to New York moneyless, on the bus. The trip took seven days. When we arrived, Rufino took me right from the bus station to Fifty-seventh Street, which has the best galleries, the best art." And Tamayo himself recalled the impulse that brought him there: "I wanted to be in New York, a modern city in a modern age, a modern concept."^[35] There he absorbed the art of that "modern concept," the art of Cezanne, Rouault, Matisse, Brancusi, Braque, but most of all Picasso. And from that art, he wrenched the means of expressing his vision. He no more imitated those artists, however, than he copied the forms of his native pre-Columbian or popular art. Rather, he combined these impulses in the formulation of what Paz has called his own "personal and spontaneous answer to the reality of our era." Through them he has "rediscovered the old formula of consecration"^[36] and through that formula seeks to consecrate the forces at work in "a modern city in a modern age."

That old formula continues to prescribe the use of the mask. It often plays a vital metaphoric role in the large body of work Tamayo has created, a corpus that is itself an essentially metaphoric expression of the pre-Columbian, indigenous theme in modern images. "All of Tamayo's work seems to be a vast metaphor. Still-lives, birds, dogs, men and women, space itself are only allusions, transfigurations or incarnations of the dual cosmic principle which the sun and moon symbolize."^[37] Or to put it another way, "that web of pictorial sensations which is a Tamayo painting is at the same time a metaphor. What does the metaphor say? The world exists, life is life, death is death: all is. . . . The world exists through the imagination that reveals it to us as it transfigures it."^[38] Tamayo's is thus the unique vision of the artist, a vision resulting from his dual heritage that enables him to see beneath the mask with which our culture covers reality and to reformulate the essential stuff of that reality into a new vision, a new mask, expressive of the ancient truths in modern terms. In the service of that expression, he uses both images of actual masks and "composed" faces, often in the mode of Picasso, whose features form "masks."

Even in his early work, the faces are often masklike, and in some of the paintings of this period, masks are used in the service of symbolizing a larger vision. Two of these paintings, one from 1936 (pl. 72) and one from 1941 (colorplate 13), are illustrative. Both are entitled Carnaval , and in both, carnival masks like those that form a part of Tamayo's personal collection of popular art help to communicate their themes, themes that are, however, diametrically opposed. This is particularly significant as the fundamental opposition enunciated here was to provide one of the strongest currents of meaning, often defined through the images of masks, running through all the work of Tamayo's long career. The earlier of these two

Pl. 72.
Rufino Tamayo, Carnaval, gouache on paper, 1936
(Harry A. Franklin Gallery; reproduced with the permission of Rufino Tamayo
and the Harry A. Franklin Gallery, Beverly Hills, California).

paintings presents a collage of images with a mask-faced barker on the left and a series of mask-faces receding into the background in the lower portion of the painting. The barker's mask, in a motif derived from indigenous masks, has a dark circle on one cheek and a light one on the other, representing in this case sun and moon, a reference repeated in the crescent moon's opposition to one of the ferris wheel circles, which suggest in turn the endless whirling of time. But the moon also finds a visual reference in the face on the right of the painting, while the ferris wheel echoes visually the barker's face on the left. A U.S. flag surmounts the carnival, and Valentine's Day hearts dangle in front of it, but beneath the glittery facade we see the darkness into which the mask-faces recede. Thus, the painting has reference after reference to "the dual cosmic principle which the sun and the moon symbolize," a principle manifesting itself in sun and moon, light and dark, male and female, human and mechanical, and ultimately, cultural and natural oppositions existing within the images of the painting. The surface of life, with all its frenzied activity, masks the eternal rhythms of the universe, and in this painting the Picassoesque representational techniques are used to reveal that ancient truth. In the revelation, however, we might sense a disturbing suggestion that all is not well under the frenzied mask of modern civilization with its nationalism and ersatz hearts. The riotous life of Carnival, as we know, precedes the "death" of Lent in the annual cycle.

The Carnaval of 1941 represents that same fundamental opposition in the service of a diametrically opposed theme, and it too revolves around the mask. This painting depicts a man and a woman apparently readying themselves to attend the festivities. The nude woman is tying the string that secures a mask over her face while her dressed and masked companion waits behind her. The striations on one side of her mask suggest a reference to Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a reference echoing those in other paintings of the period such as Mujer con Piña, also of 1941. But the painting in general looks very little like the work of Picasso because the forms of the figures are derived not from European models but from the west Mexican, pre-Hispanic ceramic figures found in the shaft tombs of Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco (the male figure's hat is reminiscent of the single horn-like appendage often found on these figures) and from the figures of popular art, a dual source of the images that dominate Tamayo's numerous paintings of couples in this period. Though not overtly

sexual in any way, the painting in its emphasis on the nude female body, earthy in color, clearly suggests the fertility that springs from both the female and the earth. Further, its portrayal of a couple suggests as well all of the fertility implications of the union of male and female opposites. That fertility creates the flowers, symbolic of life, that twine above the couple's heads, and it is, of course, a fertility that exists eternally beneath the mask of our daily existence. Although the essence of woman depicted here may put on the mask of this or that particular identity, this or that individual woman living in the world, that essence is itself representative of the source of life which generates the cyclical flux of the universe. This theme, expressed so clearly here, is one to which Tamayo would return again and again. Carnival, as the earlier painting suggests, may precede the death symbolized in Lent and the Crucifixion, but both precede the cyclical rebirth of life. In this painting, then, we can see specifically what Paz says generally about Tamayo's work: "The relationship between Tamayo and popular art must . .. be sought on the deepest level; not only in the forms but in the beliefs that animate them."^[39]

From this base, Tamayo's work evolved in the late 1940s and 1950s into paintings communicating a genuine "sense of terror"^[40] at the loss of life's essential meaning in the frenzy of modern civilization, which he saw as haunted by "the specter of technology."^[41] The frenzy suggested in the 1936 Carnaval became an obsession, and he "sought metaphors for the great anxieties of the age and, above all, for the dehumanization of man by technology."^[42] The paintings of this period contain human figures very different from those of the earlier period. More stylized, more geometric, the paintings' figures seem less concerned with communicating the texture of life than the earlier ones and more devoted to revealing the tortured inner reality of alienated modern man. The titles, given here in their English translations, are instructive: The Cry (with its dual reference to Mexican history in its title El Grito and to Munch's painting, The Scream), The Tormented, Cosmic Terror, Man Pouring Out His Heart (referring both to the need for modern man to express his feelings and to pre-Columbian heart sacrifice), The Burning Man (suggesting Orozco's work). Such examples as these make clear Tamayo's preoccupation with the "cosmic terror" that grows from man's alienation from sustaining values and traditions. In these paintings, the mask often served as a vehicle for the expression of Tamayo's feelings. As Shifra Goldman points out, a number of these paintings "may have their sources in the grotesque masks of Mexican popular art or in the ubiquitous calavera,"^[43] but these faces also owe a good deal to analytical cubism in their taking apart of normal human features in order to display them differently and more thematically as a "mask" revealing the essential truth.

Once that tormented feeling had been fully expressed, Tamayo seemed to become more open to the expression of the counterpart he had already explored in such paintings as the 1941 Carnaval. In the 1960s, his art

ceased to give us the "frisson, " the "scream in nature. " . . . Instead his art has become purified, more serene, more positive. If his figures are afraid, they have also found a philosophy with which to combat their fears and this is a gain in depth, in profundity. Again, his early influences—popular arts, ancient arts, Cezanne, Picasso, even Dubuffet—have mellowed, entering deeply into him to re-emerge completely his own.^[44]

That profundity expresses itself in two distinct ways, both frequently using the mask. On the one hand, there are the paintings portraying mechanical figures with geometric mask-faces reminiscent of gas masks or the constructed faces one might imagine on robots. A painting from 1970 entitled Dos Hombres en el Espacio provides an apt example. These two "men" in space are machines; their "faces" contain features that represent eyes and noses, but they are not human faces. Their "bodies" are reminiscent of airplanes, and their interaction suggests an encounter between warplanes although the beautiful arrangement of the lush colors on the picture-plane belies the violence such an encounter would suggest. What we have is the serenity of a mechanical universe—clean and beautiful but not human. Here technology has triumphed, has absorbed or devoured and so replaced human beings. Such a painting as this surely grows from his stated concern with the disturbing realities of modern life.

"We are in a dangerous situation, and the danger is that man may be absorbed and destroyed by what he has created." The technology which has guided man to the moon, he says, could also be pushing him over the edge of our value system into a situation where reason, sensibility, and feeling all are sacrificed, and man becomes a kind of apparatus directed by electronics.^[45]

The frenzy of Carnival has given way to the serenity of death. The "faces" here lack mouths, perhaps because they have no inner reality to express.

These figures, probably male, are diametrically and dramatically opposed to other archetypal figures in the paintings of this later period. The best example and perhaps the ultimate source of these images can be seen in a painting of 1964 which portrays Tamayo's wife. Entitled simply Retrato de Olga (pl. 73), it depicts her body encased in a shawl whose folds suggest pre-Columbian sculpture. Rising above the shawl her head is elegantly coiffed,

Pl. 73.
Rufino Tamayo, Retrato de Olga, oil on canvas, 1964 (Tamayo Museum, México;
photograph by Jesus Sanchez Uribe, reproduced with the permission
of Rufino Tamayo and the Tamayo Museum).

with the suggestion of flowers in her hair, and her face is at once both realistic and elegantly Mayan with its long, regal nose terminating at the top in raised eyebrows. The red of her mouth provides a focal point for the red of the flowers in her hair, of her dress under the shawl, and of the rear plane of color, a red that seems in deliberate contrast to the pink of the slice of watermelon resting on a table behind her. The only other visible physical feature of the woman is her hands; these are not the dainty, patrician hands of the Mayan ruler, however, but the strong, capable hands of a peasant woman, hands whose strength may well come from Picasso but whose power reflects the strength of the archetypical Mexican woman.

While it would be absurd to say that the most important feature of the painting is the watermelon, one who would understand Tamayo's art and its relationship to the long tradition of Mesoamerican spirituality should pay attention to that slice of fruit. The painting itself indicates its significance in at least two ways. First, the watermelon inevitably calls attention to itself by being the only identifiable object in the painting, an object that seems distinctly out of place in such a portrait. Second, Tamayo's composition places the watermelon directly next to Olga's face, suggesting an equivalence of the two. When one realizes that Tamayo painted watermelons, sometimes alone and sometimes as parts of larger scenes, from the beginning of his career, one begins to suspect that they represent something more than a pleasing shape and color. They, like the other fruit he painted, are a symbolic reminder of the indigenous world of his youth, of the markets of Oaxaca, central to the life of the Indian, as well as a reminder of his aunt, his surrogate mother, who sold fruit so that they might live.^[46] And here we have the watermelon, symbol of the earth's fertility that sustains human life, equated with the woman, symbol of the fecundity of human life. Significantly, this woman is a very real human being in contrast to the starkly impersonal forms of the men in space.

The symbolic equation of the watermelon and human fertility is most precisely and symbolically displayed in two lithographs of the 1970s, and in both, the mask is a central feature. In the first of them, entitled Masque Rouge (colorplate 14), the watermelon has become a mask, and the female figure is depicted in the act of placing that mask over her face. Although far less realistic than the Carnaval of 1941 (colorplate 13), the image here is almost exactly equivalent to the female image in that painting. In both, the woman is shown covering her face with a red mask. In both, her nude body is earthy in texture and color. In both, her breasts are visually emphasized by being outlined in the red of the mask. In both, the fullness of her hips is emphasized by being contrasted to the straight lines of the doorway in which she stands. Both masks are smiling. This image, no less than the earlier one, is a visual representation of fertility, the force that creates and sustains life. Not directly sexual, it nonetheless evokes the duality of life which finds its unity in the sexual act that recreates life. The exuberance of the growth of the watermelon, symbolic of summer and the period of growth, is matched by the exuberance of the female body. And both exist in the greatest possible opposition to the machinelike men in space who may be able to destroy life but who can never create it. This essential woman wears the mask of nature as an emblem since her fecundity is the vital force that animates it.

Another lithograph of this same period, Tête (pl. 74), suggests, however, that this vital force need not be associated only with the female. This round, masklike head, reminiscent in its shape and texture, but not its color, of pre-Columbian sculpture, has cheeks and chin indicated by semicircular zones of color. That these should be "read" as references to the watermelon is suggested by that shape as well as their color and the black, seedlike marks

Pl. 74.
Rufino Tamayo, Tête, lithograph, 1975
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman,
reproduced with the permission of Rufino Tamayo).

within them. The mouth and nose are the same color, but the eyes are not. Gray-blue, they suggest the sky and reveal the possibility that we may be looking at a mask. If so, the mask betrays no sexual identity and would seem to be representative of humanity in general rather than the female, thus suggesting, through its watermelon associations, that human beings are the expression of the vital force of the universe and that through their fertility that force can enter the world. Read in that way, the symbolic simplicity of this lithographic image contains all we have said in this study concerning the metaphor of the mask in Mesoamerican spiritual thought and indicates the profound truth of Ponce's characterization of Tamayo's art.

Almost from the first Tamayo's art seems to be dedicated to the revelation of the other side of reality, the side which does not remain on the surface of appearances, but that rather penetrates them, conceiving the world as a living and open mystery which the artist has to capture and communicate to us through the effectiveness of his own peculiar language. . . . His painting destroys yet continues art and the mythical magic thought of Mexico in an ambivalent and vital manner. His purpose of reaching the transcendental, the origin and external source from which the essence of reality emanates, gives his art a religious character.^[47]

It is vitally important to note that that religious character is intensely modern. Although it is built on ancient beliefs and finds expression in forms derived in part from ancient models, Tamayo has crafted an art for today's humanity. Its fears—of violence, of technology, of isolation and loneliness—are the fears of today's human beings, and as Tamayo's international acceptance testifies, its faith in the persistence of the life-force speaks to a common recognition of that force. Though built from Mexican materials, his is an art for all of humanity; he communicates the Mesoamerican spiritual vision to today's world and with it a "sense of release, almost of joy"^[48] in the contemplation of the spiritual potential within humanity.

The success of the much younger Francisco Toledo in communicating the essence of that spiritual vision further testifies to its universality and vitality, especially since his art is vastly different in appearance and subject from that of the older artist. While Tamayo celebrates fertility and the vitality of life in paintings never referring directly to sexuality, variations on the theme of the sexual act involving all sorts of creatures as participants are a constant preoccupation of Toledo's art. But

it would be too simple to explain Toledo's painting as only the depiction of sexual acts linking humans to animals and vice versa. The sacralization of coitus in the inscription of an immense and definitive sexual act within the work implies a motive beyond the sexual act itself and places it within the category of ritual.^{[ 49]}

Thus, the images through which Toledo celebrates fertility differ radically from those employed by Tamayo in that same celebration, but they have similar sources. Like Tamayo, Toledo was born of Zapotec parents in Oaxaca, but unlike the older artist, he grew up in Juchitan, close to rural Oaxaca, rather than in Mexico City. His sexual images reflect that background, redolent as they are of the images and folktales of rural life. His is not the often cold beauty of the archaeological museum but the teeming vitality of everyday indigenous life.

Through that vitality, however, he reached the same wellspring of indigenous belief that Tamayo found in the museum, and for that reason his is also an art of transformation. In fact, as Evodio Escalante observes, his art is transformation. "Toledo is not a painter, a sketcher, a ceramicist or a sculptor, he probably isn't even an artist—in the usual sense of the word. He is a universe of shapes and traditions that are incessantly being transformed, and that also transform everything within their reach."^[50] Thus, Toledo's work embodies the idea most fundamental to pre-Columbian spiritual thought, the idea for which the mask has always served that body of thought as a central metaphor. It is the conception that the vital force manifests itself in the world of nature through transformation. To enter this world, that force must don the "mask" of a living being, and, conversely, only in the life of that being can the essential force be seen

by man. Toledo's often masklike images are created to make the life-force visible; they manifest the spirit in the world of nature.

Many of them combine masked or composite faces with the sexual activity always symbolic of creation. The 1974 etching Botellas (pl. 75), for example, depicts a strangely masked figure entering the picture plane headfirst from above. On the figures's back is a toad, a significant fact as the masked figure is observing a series of similar toads mounted on each other and/or emerging from the mouths of larger toads. But the picture is entitled Bottles , thus calling attention both to the central image depicting the smallest of the toads inserting the neck of a bottle into the mouth of a funnel which is itself inserted into the mouth of another bottle and to the background of the etching which is formed of rows of similar bottles. What Toledo has given us is a complex visual metaphor for the cyclical nature of life as small toads emerge from larger toads and one bottle fills another. That human beings participate in this cycle as well is symbolically suggested by the toadskin mask worn by the central figure, a female figure clearly suggesting fertility. The toads mount each other, the phallic bottle is inserted into the vaginal funnel, and the strange, tubular devices on the toadskin mask may well be phallic. Although not obviously sexual, the images here express as clearly as Whitman's poetry the sexual underpinnings of the cycle of life:

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
Out of the dimness opposite equals advance,
     always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction,
     always a breed of life.^[51]

Toledo's graphic images seem dedicated to depicting this "knit of identity" revealing the "procreant urge" that unites all life and from which life springs.

Another etching, also from 1974, contains the image of a mask in a different context. Part of a suite of etchings inspired by the Aztec folk beliefs recorded by Sahagún shortly after the Conquest, this etching represents "Witches and Sorcerers" (pl. 76) and relates to the belief in the nagual, or animal companion, which is discussed in Part II of this study. Toledo presents a text to accompany the image:

OF SORCERERS AND SWINDLERS
Witches and Sorcerers

The naualli is properly called a witch who frightens men at night and sucks the breath from children. He who has studied this craft well understands everything related to sorcery
and is smart and shrewd in using it without
causing harm.

He who is wicked or mischievous in this craft harms people's bodies with these spells, drives them mad, and smothers them. He is an imposter or enchanter.^[52]

Pl. 75.
Francisco Toledo, Botellas, etching, ca. 1975
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman; reproduced
with the permission of Francisco Toledo).

As is the case with all of the images in this suite, the relationship of Toledo's illustration of this text to the text itself is far from clear. What he gives us is a mask-face composed of geometric, shell, or bonelike parts. Although the specific organic source of those parts is not obvious, they suggest the segmented face formed by an insect's exoskeleton or the "segments" of a tortoise shell. Skeletal forms surround the mask-face, and tubular elements similar to those on the mask in Botellas form a beard or bib beneath it. The face is an artificial combination of natural forms and in that sense perhaps symbolic of human identity, of the power each individual derives from the commonly held life-force but necessarily expresses in his or her own way, for good or ill. Since Sahagún's sorcerer makes use of his animal companion as the source of his good or evil power, his human form can thus be seen as a mask covering the vital force symbolized by the animal companion. Or conversely,

Pl. 76.
Francisco Toledo, Brujos y Hechiceros, etching, 1974
(collection of Peter and Roberta Markman;
reproduced with the permission of Francisco Toledo).

Pl. 77.
Francisco Toledo, incised turtle shell
(private collection; reproduced with
the permission of the owner and Francisco Toledo).

the human being, in order to use that power, "becomes" the nagual, that is, puts the inner reality over his normal outer reality in the manner of a mask. The etching, however, depicts neither the human face of the sorcerer nor the animal identity. What Toledo presents instead is an almost abstract mask, perhaps to suggest the metaphorical essence of the nagual as the mask always did in Mesoamerican spiritual thought and to focus the viewer's attention on the transformation that lies at the heart of the idea of nagualism.

In its appearance and theme, this etching is reminiscent of two other kinds of masklike works Toledo created during the same period. Well known for working in all the possible media available to the artist, Toledo at times stretches those boundaries as he did in the construction of a series of masklike sculptures fashioned from whole turtle shells (pl. 77). Fixing a shell in a vertical position, he incised, painted, carved, and affixed things to its surface to render it masklike in its frontal appearance although it could never function as a mask since it was always the complete shell, both top and bottom. This suggests at least part of its symbolic significance as the turtle in indigenous folklore as well as in Toledo's paintings, drawings, and graphic works is a sexual symbol, due most obviously to the similarity in shape and movement in and out of the shell of the turtle's head to the male penis. Thus, the mask is again related to sexuality, on the one hand, and identity, on the other, for there is no more obvious symbol in nature of the opposition of inner to outer than the turtle, whose life is more clearly "inner" than that of any other creature. In this sense, too, the transformation of the turtle shell into a mask makes symbolic sense. The "mask" Toledo has fashioned on the turtle's shell makes visible the inner reality of a human being, a reality as "inner" and as vital as the turtle's. And that inner reality is just as fertile because, as we have seen again and again in our examination of Mesoamerican spiritual thought, it is essentially the life-force.

The etched mask of the sorcerer, however, is related not only to the turtle/mask but also to another, more fundamental, series of works that approach the theme in a somewhat different way. These are portraits, and Toledo has produced them in great numbers. Two portraits of a Mexico City art dealer, Armando Colina, are typical and indicate clearly Toledo's approach to portraiture. One of them provides a case in point (pl. 78); in it, the human facial features are exaggerated beyond recognition to reveal an animallike inner reality clearly related to the concept of the nagual—the animal companion symbolic of one's inner reality—which fascinates Toledo. He has given the world an inner portrait of Armando Colina, two of them, in fact, since there is another, quite different portrait, suggesting the complex, multifaceted nature of man's reality. While these physical features link the man to other forms of life, the composition of the painting also relates the subject to the world in which it exists. "The flattened, masklike face exists in a complex relationship to the surrounding areas. Striations define the forehead and mouth and extend to the adjacent areas, unifying figure and background space."^[53] Thus, the figure exists in and is part of a context, and the nagual-

Pl. 78.
Francisco Toledo, Retrato de Armando Colina, oil on canvas,
1966 (Galeria Arvil, México; photograph courtesy of Galeria Arvil;
reproduced with the permission of Francisco Toledo).

mask suggests that that context is spiritual as well as material. To understand Armando Colina, Toledo's insight shows us, one must understand those contexts.

The great majority of Toledo's portraits, however, are not of others but of Francisco Toledo himself. He did a substantial number of these self-portraits in the mid-1960s and another series late in the 1970s. They are revealing works, as any self-portrait must be, but what they reveal is not what one might expect. In them, Toledo's face generally becomes a mask composed of seemingly organic elements often visually similar to those that comprise the sorcerer's mask. And in the construction of those masklike composed faces, he uses, as did his pre-Hispanic forebears, the metaphor of the nagual to conceptualize the natural, inner reality that is his identity. As a modem man, however, he knows that this identity is not unitary but multiple: he cannot paint a single portrait of Armando Colina, and since his knowledge of himself is much more extensive, there must be a multitude of self-portraits.

A fascinating drawing, or series of drawings, from 1965 makes clear Toledo's vision. Eight separate drawings originally designed and displayed mounted edge-to-edge and called collectively Self Portrait-Masks (colorplate 15), this composition is uniquely important to understanding Toledo's conception of the portrait, a conception that is both embodied in these drawings and stated in a text intended to be displayed with the visual images. The text is written in Zapotec, however, and mounted vertically rather than horizontally, perhaps to assure that the conception is not too easily grasped. Translated, it reads:

These are my portraits. I have the face of a dog, face of a cat, face of a pig, face of a coyote, face of an owl, face of an insect, face of a turtle, face of a monkey. An old man. They are all like masks. Although they do not look like it, they are my portraits.

Toledo, himself the old man (though he was in his twenties at the time), knows that looks deceive, that his true reality is inner and that if he is to be understood, he must project that inner reality. This, of course, is the logic of the mask, and true to that logic, Toledo constructs a mask that is his portrait.

Or, at any rate, one of his portraits. The unification of the eight drawings into one makes graphically clear his awareness that the complexity of the inner reality of human beings can never be captured in a single image, and the animal masks presented here suggest why. The vital force within Francisco Toledo—or any human being—contains the macrocosm. All life metaphorically exists within the single human being, and thus an understanding of life, both the life of the man and life itself, must be sought within. When Toledo draws the essence of himself, he simultaneously creates the essential cat, pig, coyote, and so forth. He expresses himself in their forms, and they live within his form. We have again, in a very different form, the "knit of identity" expressed in his sexual works, but here it is expressed through the metaphor of the mask. To understand the workings of the life-force, Toledo seems to be saying in the two sorts of works, one may look within or without, at the inner life of man or the teeming life of the natural world; both views present the same reality.

Thus, as did Tamayo, Toledo provides a fresh image to embody the age-old conception, and like Tamayo's, his is derived from indigenous sources but tempered by the fruits of his contact with European art. The individual portrait-masks that make up this work often suggest the drawings of Paul Klee—in their whimsicality, their line, their use of animal images, and their symbolism—rather than Picasso, but as with Tamayo, the lessons of European art have been completely internalized. One would never mistake these drawings for the work of Klee. And the fact that they are masks and that there are faces within the faces that compose the masks as well as the organic vitality of the forms within those faces demonstrate their derivation

from Toledo's indigenous roots rather than his European experiences.

These portrait-masks, typical of his work in the 1960s, give way in the 1970s to a different sort of portrait-mask. Often more painted than drawn, more controlled, cleaner and more elegant, these later self-portraits both continue and modify the basic theme. One of them, Autoretrato of 1975 (colorplate 16), a watercolor incorporating gold leaf, illustrates this new tendency clearly. Its composition is complex although seemingly simple. The background against which the human figure appears is composed of rectangular forms of varying dimensions and colors, in one of which a bird almost startlingly appears. On this ground, the human figure is placed in such a way that the torso divides the picture plane diagonally, itself filling the lower right-hand portion while the head occupies the upper left-hand segment. The result of all of this compositional sleight of hand is to focus the viewer's attention on the figure's head, which seems almost to project from the picture plane. And that head is striking. Its face, like a normal human face, is symmetrical with a clearly recognizable chin, lips, nose, eyes, and ears. But the face is not really human. It has more in common with the mask of the sorcerer we have examined than with the actual face Francisco Toledo daily presents to the world. Like that sorcerer's face, it is segmented, a segmentation made obvious by the gold leaf, but even more clearly than in the case of the earlier etching, this face is a mask. A careful examination reveals that there may well be a greenish-brown face beneath the beautiful blue, rose, and gold mask, a face that is hinted at under the deeply cleft chin of the mask, in the ears protruding beyond the sides of the mask, and in the forehead appearing above the eyebrows and beneath the organic forms surmounting the face of the mask.

There is a somber quality, a serenity, in this mask-face which is quite different from Toledo's earlier mask-faces, but the vitality of those earlier animal-related masks is here as well. It can be seen most obviously in the bird, strikingly depicted on an almost white ground in contrast to the rest of the painting. The bird's face confronts the viewer from the same angle, in relation to its body, as does the man's face, suggesting, as does the composition of the painting itself, that the bird is to be seen as the nagual, the alter ego of the man. Significantly, the bird suggests the perky, feisty birds of the barnyard rather than the somber composed man of the painting. And the mask worn by that man also has clearly animalistic overtones in the strange forms that compose the hair or hat or headdress. Unlike the bird, their precise identity is not clear. Toad-like in one way, in another they resemble slugs and can even be seen as phallic, but whatever their identity, they surely suggest the organic life in which the identity of the man here portrayed is rooted. However sophisticated his identity may become, that identity, like Toledo's art, has its origin in the vital force that for him is most clearly apparent in the rural Oaxaca of his youth. It is his great strength as an artist that all of his images, kaleidoscopic and forever changing and developing as they are, grow from that perception of the vital force. As Teresa del Conde puts it, his art reveals "an interminable chain of iconographic associations that refer to rural culture."^[54] But as this painting makes clear, his art is rooted in that source because he is rooted there. This masked face is, after all, a self-portrait, and it demonstrates more clearly than words could the fact that for Toledo, his artistic development cannot be separated from his self development. He is his art, and his art reveals him in the most essential way. True to his heritage in these images, he uses the mask as a central means of his continuing exploration of the essentially spiritual vital force as it manifests itself, in and through him, in the world of nature.

Thus, the mask reveals the inner man, or if one takes into account the whole series of self portraits, the inner men—the series of inner realities that make up the individual known to the world as Francisco Toledo. Emblemlike, these masks make the inner reality outer and thus fulfill precisely the same symbolic function that the mask has always served in Mesoamerica. It is a testament to its essential nature that it can serve to define the inner realities of twentieth-century human beings as effectively as it did the inner reality of the human beings living in the village cultures of Mesoamerica 3,000 years ago. Much has changed, but the mask remains and serves, as it always has, not to conceal but to reveal the inner vision of that variant of human culture which developed in Mesoamerica.