Party, pueblo-style

Today, I awake in Oaxaca, ready to set off for the Mixteca. Unlike most trips to the region, I do not pack my recording gear--not even my computer. This is not a trip for work, no. This is a trip to party, pueblo-style.



View from my place in Tlaxiaco

Around 10:30 I hoist the duffel on my back and make my way in a taxi to the suburban terminal downtown. The taxi driver cannot change my 100-peso bill. This city is truly in crisis--no one has change. I mean yes, yes--let's fix poverty and education--but first, could we get some change into the hands of store owners, please? You try to drop your big bills at restaurants or pharmacies. But sometimes you're still left holding a hundred bucks (which is only $10 USD, mind you) with nowhere to spend it. I have to race inside the suburban terminal, pay for my ticket with the hundred, then rush back out to the street to pay the taxista.

I score the front seat in the van; I can already tell this is going to be a good trip. We wind and snake our way back and forth up North and then West off the main highway. The hillside turns from green to yellow grain to red earth, back to green again. I forgo my book and iPod to simply sit and stare out the window. Since the rain has begun the vista is strikingly different. Where once there were neat, long dirt rows--seeds waiting to sprout--there now climb corn stalks green and slender, stretching to skyline.

I land in Tlaxiaco. It's mid-week, so the streets are fairly quiet; the bustle that builds towards Tianguis throughout the week hasn't found its momentum yet. I drop a few things at my little rental place, and then head out for yet another road trip. The collectivo to Mixtepec isn't yet full. I steal a couple of minutes to dash to the Plaza for a quick ice cream cone before we depart. Gotta get all the food groups in for Party Week. We pile 7 into a 4-door pick-up and head out the back gravel road towards Mixtepec. I strike up a conversation with the young guy next to me. He turns out to be a filmmaker. He's just produced a documentary about San Juan Mixtepec, in fact. So I get a kind invite to the next showing in Oaxaca City.

As we descend into town there's a notable difference in the landscape. Green fields and rolling hills are dotted by bright yellow tents (lonas). These are Mayordomías--spots where families host on-going breakfast, lunch and dinner for their neighborhoods. Town bands cycle between the tented sites playing traditional chilenas for diners, as well as escorting local dancers and neighborhood "princessas" to activities in town.

Okay, the rest of this story will be in a kind of stream-of-consciousness format because I spend the remainder of the day oscillating between taking in the event and searching for my radio colleague, Eva. We thought it would be easy to find each other in town. But a mixture of her very late arrival, and a giant throng of people, made it surprisingly difficult.


Normally lazy dirt roads are crowded with stalls and people today. Hundreds of small women, wrapped in blue shawls bob through the activity. Not only have ciudadanos from neighboring ranchos flocked to Mixtepec for the party, but many who live and work in the States have made the long journey home to celebrate. And of course, every kind of vendor imaginable has followed the crowd to these dusty roads. The people must be fed! My ears fills with the consonant sound of Mixteco, or the softer nasal whistle of Spanish. I swivel my head around every time I hear English--which is pretty frequent.

The main road to the Municipio is jammed full with small amusement park rides. A tiny dragon roller coaster screeches and roars, towering over a band of traditional dancers shuffling to a chilena. Soda and hot dogs vendors sit next to old men with clay jarras offering tepache. Old and new juxtaposed. The main Plaza is blocked off by tall blue fences. Tomorrow my friend Anderson is sponsoring a Lucha Libre fight; they've cordoned off the area, I suppose, for that reason.

I bump into my Fulbright adviser who is escorting a group visiting through San Diego State University, in Oaxaca to take an intensive Mixteco language course. Juan Julian is happily buzzed on mezcal, hugging a small palm chotchkey to his chest, recently purchased. As I meet the rest of the group, we bob our way around town, following the crowd towards the river. The riverbank is peopled densely; two long lines form of dancers facing one another; men on one side, women on the other. Each is dressed in some version of traditional garb: women with long braids, twined with ribbons, dark skirts stretching to the dirt, shawls wrapping their shoulders; the men vary, some in button down white shirts, and jeans, others bedecked in ponchos and neck scarves--but all crowned with cowboy hats. Each dancer (and they range from teenaged to ancient) carries a chicken in his/her arms. The neck and feet are trussed in colorful ribbons. They are surprisingly calm, sitting there, jutting up and down as the dancers rotate around each other for an hour, an hour! It occurs to me that Mexican people are infinitely more patient than Americans. I can't think of a single American custom in which a crowd of people will sit calmly, or even excitedly, and watch something repeat over and over again for an hour. And yet, that's exactly what we're doing on this riverbank. I'm a bit dazed.

Men meander through the crowd offering little cups of home bred mezcal, tepache and tequila. Perhaps that's what anesthetizes the crowd. I spot a few guys clutching their beers, taking a fall into the mud; they started early! Almost every other person is holding a camera. There'll be no shortage of footage for those who could not make it to the party. Every second is being documented.

Eventually it's time. The main event is here. We're all dancing, and watching--the throng growing by the minute. People climbing up on the bridge nearby to pop a squat with a good vantage point. It's time for the despescuazada. I have no idea, truthfully, if that's how you spell it. I just barely learned to pronounce it before the week was out. This is the oldest, and perhaps most distinct, tradition of Mixtepec's town party--the mass public beheading of almost 80 chickens.


Pobre Gallo

Ok, I want to be clear and fair here. I want to describe what I saw. But I also don't want to tinge too much of this account with horrified foreigner judgment. I feel like this is the kind of tradition that may be difficult for any outsider to hear about--and appreciate, or comprehend. And perhaps this is what some, some who have never visited Mexico, imagine when they think of a far-off place. I don't know. I have definitely seen chickens killed before here--either for sustenance, or for religious purposes. But humanely, to be sure. This is a different story. This event traces its roots, according to many I spoke with, back to the time when Spaniards colonized the countryside. It is their tradition, actually. It's meaning is the reenactment, or representation of the beheading of John the Baptist. This is, after all, SAN JUAN Mixtepec...San Juan, Saint John...you get it. And June 24th is John the Baptist's birthday.


How that reenactment manifests itself here is that people from all over town donate their chickens, and some turkeys and ducks, to the festivity--dancing them into quiet tranquility. The two lines of dancers part, and three or four of the birds are strung up over the crowd by their feet. Enter the men on horseback. There are about 6--all volunteers. They ride down the riverbank and jockey to get underneath the dangling birds, reaching up from their saddles and grabbing ahold of colorful ribbons and feathers, possibly getting a grip on their necks, and then, and then pulling with all their might. It's a difficult task to wrench the head off of a chicken in this manner. It's not the quick snap you would imagine. It's long and arduous. There's squawking, screaming even, the flap of panicked wings. The men elbow each other, nudging their horses for a better spot. They stretch and pull and yank. I can't help but scrunch my face into a pained expression as I watch a neck stretched to a foot in length. This is when I accept my first little glass of mezcal. I need it.

But as I scan the crowd, I don't see anyone with the wrinkled horror that sits on my face. They're all there, lining the muddy banks, many with cameras. No one is really cheering, either. There's no bloodthirsty cry from the throng. They're just sort of calmly craning their necks, watching the event, and event that has transpired like this for decades in their town. They just want to be there, to be a part of the tradition, I think.

It goes on like this for some time. There's about 40 birds to be sacrificed today. Each one takes a while. In between batches the men on horseback ride downriver, the winners tossing the chicken heads behind them into the air. Some are spotted in blood, others covered from head to waist with it, tufts of feathers wreathing their heads. It is considered an honor the more stained you become. And he who pulls the most heads from bodies is awarded a prize. No one I talk to can agree on what the prize is; some say money, others say a big bowl of chicken soup (no kidding).

When I can take no more, I make my way uphill to track down Eva. Along the way I bump into Señora Bautista, a woman I've met in town before on my many trips to record stories.

The river bank post-despescuazada

She won't let me past without first accompanying her for a beer. I say no, no. She says, yes, yes. We waltz around like this until I relent. So there I find myself hunched on a tiny stool in a bodega, drinking a beer with this old woman. And can I tell you--this woman can chug a beer. She says "otra!" But I waggle my finger "no" insistently. We part so I can hunt for Eva.

Where I was supposed to stay the night.
Notice the windows are all boarded up. Uh oh.

I'm going to confess my least favorite thing about being here--and it's not the mass slaughter, you may be surprised. I stick out...a LOT. When I was walking around with the group from San Diego it wasn't a big deal--we were a pack of whities. But by this point they have departed back to Oaxaca and I am wandering around alone. Night has fallen--the crowd has multiplied. And it seems to me that it's like 65% men. I feel a bit on guard from the imbalance. I can't ignore the whispered "Güera, güera!" in my direction. I don't think I'm unsafe; I mean, there's TONS of people about. But I can't track down the aunt of a friend who is supposed to give me a place to stay tonight. And the last collectivos back to Tlaxiaco have departed. So without Eva, I'm a bit stranded. People are kind. Many come up to me and inquire who I am, where I'm from, why I'm here. They invite me for a soda or a taco--asking me to set my backpack down to enjoy some conversation. I even bump into a few guys that I met from earlier trips. They're hunched over plastic tables, clutching a cerveza, set for the night. A few try out their English on me. A guy in a mask (lots of people dress up in costume) calls out to me in English, "Hey! Where are you going, güera! I want to get to KNOW you!" I answer in Spanish, "Sorry, I don't speak English." Thus, he repeats the same in Mixteco, which makes me laugh.

Eventually, and thankfully, I find Eva on the main road, accompanying her mom and cousins. Whew! We laugh that she couldn't track down the one white person in all this crowd. Her cousin, a 12 year-old visiting for his first time from New Jersey, prods us to take our turn on this pirate ride. It's one of those boats that swings back and forth like a pendulum, each time a bit higher. I like rides. I'm game. But as we lock ourselves into the seat--and the ride operator does not at all check the latch-I think, "I'm not totally sure this is safe." I mean, Mexico isn't the litigious world that America is. So there's not that real or false sense of security one gets from knowing that if the ride were faulty the company would be penalized severely. So as the pirate ship climbs higher and higher, as I slide and bump around inside the metal seat, I let a slew of expletives and giggles slip from my teeth.

The party continues all night long. Bands take the stage. Dancing ensues. I hear most of it, the bass thump thump and the treble trill from the hillside where Eva lives. We're both kind of exhausted. I find myself nestling under blankets on a beat-up mattress in the storeroom of Eva's family home. The night air is chill now. I think of the lonely pig I passed on a back road earlier who was lassoed to a tree, sitting knee deep in mud. During the sun's high point of the day, it seemed an ideal place to be. But now that I can see my breath, I worry for that surely cold, forlorn fellow. Ni modos, it's time to sleep.

I leave the lights and action behind me. Time for bed!