IV. Fiestas
Hacienda cattle brand
Haciendas were the home of the fiesta. The first fiestas were held shortly after the Conquest. As the influence of Catholicism spread, fiestas increased in number—honoring a saint, commemorating a religious event, a holiday, a wedding. Generally, fiestas were initiated by the peasants and represented a communal expression. At an hacienda village someone had to collect funds, arrange for costumes, supervise church or chapel decorations, commission the fireworks, hire or borrow musicians, and arrange for food and drinks. If the hacendado hosted a fiesta, he might leave the details to his wife or the mayordomo. The priest and his assistant also managed fiestas.
People came on foot, by ox cart, palanquin, burro, mule, horse, wagon, and carriage—from distant haciendas and towns. For some four hundred years fiestas livened these feudal outposts that existed across the nation. Guests were often royalty or politically important: a viceroy, a duke, a governor, or church dignitary. Since travel was usually tedious and fatiguing, everything was done to make the festival memorable.
Sixteenth-century fiestas were announced by drums and the chirimía—a shrill flute from Aztec-Toltec-Mayan days. Dancers performed in front of the big house or danced in a patio or on the tiles of the church plaza. They wore harlequin-like costumes, feathered headdresses, conquest clothes, white trousers sashed with red, giant sombreros, masks; they flaunted wands, shields, spears, bows, and arrows. Ankle rattles hissed. Gourds thumped and rustled. Only male dancers participated.
In the far south, at estates in Chiapas, Yucatán, Quintana Roo, and Campeche, the marimba replaced the flute and drum. Sometimes six or eight musicians pounded out music simultaneously on four or five instruments.
In the north, on Sonoran and Chihuahuan haciendas, the violin was the chief instrument. Fashioned with no other tools than pieces of glass and a knife, it supplied basic rhythms, one or several instruments wailing for Yaqui and Tarahumaran dances.
Flowers decked every fiesta. Gardenias were tossed into the fountains, carnations were woven into bell ropes, and rambler roses were spun around ox cart wheels and wagon wheels. Blossoms filled churches and chapels with fragrance, they crisscrossed patios on wires, they brightened roadside shrines.
Food and drink were plentiful: tortillas, beans, beans cooked with beef or chicken, pots and pots of beans, iron caldrons of soup, meat barbecued on spits, ox and goat, barrels of punch, buckets of pulque, barrels of beer, bottles of tequila, and, of course, cognac—for the gente de razón (gentry).
In the big house, dinners were elaborate—the hacendado presiding. The menu offered Cochinita pibil (pork barbecued in banana leaves), squash blossom soup, quesadillas (tortilla turnovers stuffed with cheese and mushrooms), uchepos (corn mush steamed in husks), muk-bil pollo (chicken and pork tamale pie), tamales Veracruzanos (pork-filled tamales), and ate de guayaba (guava candy paste). For special guests, the chefs served more elaborate dishes: pheasant, quail, javelina, venison, dove, rabbit. There were no government restrictions on wild game. Fishermen contributed gallo (rooster fish), pardo trucha (trout), huachinango (red snapper), turtle, turtle eggs, lobster, and crab.
The guests gathered for cockfights. If it was summertime, a canopy shaded the pit. In the highlands a mozo swept aside pine needles and built a green fire to fight the mosquitoes. In the south, white awnings and striped parasols furnished shade. The cocks, which were uncaged at a pit, were named: Biba Manza, Panadero, Porfirio, Tigre, Mi General, and El Rayo. At a signal the birds flew at each other, their razor blades flashing. Bets were wagered ... a hundred ... a thousand ... five.
Every fiesta had popular dances: Cora Paixil, Moro, Tapatío, Jarana. The gente (people) danced in the sala or on a cool veranda or outside by kerosene lamps, by torches, by candlelight, under chandeliers in the big house, by gasoline lamps—the illumination changing with the epoch. Orchestras—brought by train from the cities—played polkas, waltzes, rustic Bach, "La Bamba," "Torres de Pueblo," "There is Someone," and other current favorites. Mariachis, in their sequined black suits and sprawling black hats, played and sang. They were always the favorites at every fiesta.
Dating from Aztec days, Los Voladores (pole dancers), were the sensation. Customarily, five men participated, first dancing on the ground, then climbing a lofty pole where they hurled themselves into space, roped by the feet. Spinning round and round the pole, they gradually descended, unwinding.
Fiestas lasted a single day or several days; sometimes they became a feria, a market where vendors would set up booths and display fabric, produce, herbs, pottery, machetes, knives. Poultry and livestock were sold or bartered. Early in the sixteenth century, Spanish bullfighters arrived and performed at haciendas near the capital.
The elegantly-dressed cowboy, the charro, spent $1,000 on his outfit; his trousers were skintight and had single or double rows of silver buttons trimming the outside seams. His shirt was homespun cotton or handsomely embroidered linen. His jacket was embroidered and sequined. His boots were made of inlaid leather, expertly fitted. His sombrero was ornamented with silver and silver banded. His stirrups and spurs were chased silver or gold, and his saddle was inlaid with silver or gold.
It is not known when the first castillo (bamboo tower) spat fire. When there was ample gunpowder, someone fashioned a windmill for pinwheels, rockets, Roman candles, blazing globes of flame, and strings of tangled lights. It was a windmill of bamboo, a shivering, shaking tower of color, 20 to 30 feet high.
Throughout the fiesta, workers dipped into the pulque casks. They tried to dance off their intoxication; they did their best to forget their hardships; sometimes they found themselves in the hacienda jail.
Notables played billiards, pool and cards and tossed dice; until far into the night they might gamble at the Monte (card game) tables; when the fiesta came to an end they laid down their cards reluctantly—it might be a long way home.
July, August, September—the summer calendar rolled on and new fiesta dates became important: Candlemas, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, Día de Los Reyes. On the Day of Divine Proficience, candles burned for twenty-four hours. On carts and on men's shoulders, biblical floats appeared: It was time for a reappraisal of faith, time to honor the local Virgin.
