The music, the colors, the joy accompany the ritual elements that are still very present in each of the moments of the Huasteco carnival. More than a folkloric event, the Huasteco carnival reveals a skilful combination between religious symbols inherited from ancient times, the ubiquitous agricultural calendar throughout the Huasteco year, and festive elements and community gatherings in which slogans from time immemorial are transmitted from remote times.
If the carnival is one of the most important festive moment in the Huastecas, the idea of "being another" is evidently present at the time of the Huasteco carnival.
Thanks to Huitzitzilingo Nahuas People and to San Felipe Orizatlán mestizo People.
Thanks to their schools, teachers and students.
Hidalgo, Mexico, February 2023.
The Huasteco carnival, as a festive moment within the agricultural calendar, combines and synthesizes indigenous and mestizo Catholic cultures.
Here the delegate, official political instance in the indigenous communities, is carried in a chair throughout the walk on the main street of the town. Note that her head is decorated with flowers, signs of her authority in the community.
During carnival time, the gates of the underworld – the sub terrestrial world – are open. The ancestors will be visiting. What we call "evil" coexists with what we call "good"; the “bad” with the “good”. What matters these days is balancing the various forces present.
This idea is typical of the Mesoamerican background.
The Huasteco carnival is precisely that: a game in which the whole town participates, occupies a function or represents a character.
Women and, where appropriate, male healers or female healers incense those present with copal to ward off "bad airs."
Huasteco Carnivals are a party high in colors, beauties, childhood, youth, eroticism and joy.
Always with the look of the adult world that will try to avoid the excesses typical of carnivals...
All under the gaze of the elderly representatives, guarantors of wisdom and continuation of the ancestral tradition, a sign of the respect that indigenous people accustom to the elderly.
The zacahuil will never be missing at a Huasteca party, a giant tamale weighing no less than 60 kilos. A portion will be distributed among the participants and all those who want to receive theirs.
MECOS
Los mecos are undoubtedly the main actors of the huasteco carnival. Their arrival is always eagerly awaited. With their arrival, they announce to the sound of a shell (symbol of water) or a bull's horn (symbol of fertility and strength).
The etymology of the word "meco" is not exactly known. It could be a contraction of "chichimeca", an original people despised by the Aztecs who saw in them nomadic and savage barbarians.
Their descendants, some 2,200 people, are currently one of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.
The meco, according to tradition, paints his body with vegetables, with ground earth and with ashes prepared in oil.
El meco wears a headdress decorated with colorful feathers or not, sometimes with razor blades, plays various loud instruments to make as much noise as possible.
The meco styles a type of warrior on the battle path of the pre-Cortesian world, probably a chichimeco. Its appearance serves to intimidate its enemies, today probably harmful forces that it drives away to the sound of its music, shouts and chaotic wanderings.
Is it allowed to consider the Meco as a sort of reminiscence of the Flowery Wars practiced by the Mexicas?
The snake, whose capture is in charge of the mecos, is always present in the Huasteco carnival celebrated in the indigenous communities. Not as a symbol of evil but as a joint symbol of water and earth, of their powers of reproduction and fertility. In fact, these powers are related to water.
Let us remember that the earth is eminently present since the Mecos adorn their bodies with mixtures made of earth that women traditionally collect and process...
Here you will see me with the snake...
Finally the opposing forces, here symbolized in a dance interpreted by the little mecos, are ousted, evacuated, but not destroyed...
Mexico is a fabulous and incredible reservoir of thoughts and ancestral practices that have been able to adapt at all times to all circumstances.
LONG LIVE MEXICO!
¡VIVA MÉXICO!
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