To one who enjoys mixing with the common people and learning their customs, habits and ways of thinking, in other words, endeavouring to get into their real, inner life, it is a perpetual delight to visit the cities and villages on the fiesta occasions and mingle with the people in their celebration. This association with a free-hearted, pleasure-loving people on their gala days unconsciously broadens the views of a traveller in a new country, and develops a sympathy which can be awakened in no other way. The crowds jostle each other good naturedly and will treat the stranger with respect. Too many visitors to this country try to judge everything from the American standard and find little to commend. They should remember that Mexico is Oriental rather than Anglo-Saxon, and that the Spanish-Moorish civilization is here blended with the Aztec. Such a civilization cannot be without merit and it must have some inherent good qualities. If one wants to understand a country rightly, he must first try to enter into the lives of the people and then look at life from their point of view.
It would be impossible within the limits prescribed to describe all the celebrations in honour of the hundreds of saints and the numerous secular holidays. A description of a few of these occasions, most generally observed, will give the reader a good idea of the nature of all.
Christmas celebrations in Mexico are very much different from those in the United States. There is no merry jingle of the sleigh bells in this land of Christmas sunshine and skies as blue as those of Naples; and there are no plans dependent upon whether the day may chance to be white or green. The few lofty volcanic peaks, on which alone snow is ever seen, would not tempt the most enthusiastic tobogganist. As there are no chimneys, the children need not sit up at night until sleep overtakes them, to see Santa Claus descend with his heavy pack filled with the things that boys and girls like. Even the time honoured custom of hanging up stockings is unknown to Mexican children. Perhaps they enjoy themselves quite as much after their own fashion as we do after ours. They have good things to eat, and the beautiful flowers are so cheap that no matter how humble the Mexican home may be, it affords a few sprays of the scarlet Noche Bueno, the beautiful Christmas plant. Their celebrations are long continued for they begin nine days before Christmas and last until the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January; and this entire time is one long delightful jubilee.
These celebrations, which begin on the sixteenth of December and continue until the twenty-fifth, are called posadas. The word in Spanish means an “inn,” or abiding place, and while the celebration, in its origin, was distinctly religious, it is now only semi-religious, and has become an extremely gay and sociable occasion. The posadas are limited to the cities but, in those places, the poorest as well as the richest families hold them and they are a celebration peculiar to this country.
The origin of the posada is in the gospel narrative of the Nativity. Because Cæsar had issued the decree that all the world should be taxed, Mary and Joseph came to Bethlehem to be enrolled. Mary made the journey mounted upon an ass which Joseph led. As the shadows of the night descended, they were obliged to ask for shelter, and it is no wonder that the request was not always granted readily and willingly, but was many times refused during the trip that is supposed to have taken nine days.
On the last day, having arrived at Bethlehem, and because the city was so full of people, they wandered about for a long time without finding admittance to either private house or inn. At last, being tired and weary, and because no room could be secured, they took refuge in a stable where Christ was born. Therefore, it is, that in order to celebrate this journey fully, the posadas begin with the journey at Nazareth. Each year a house is chosen in a family circle, or among a group of friends, and at that house for nine consecutive nights the festival is held. Or, sometimes, the celebration will be held at different houses during that period.
The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and the difficulties encountered on the way, are represented by the first part of the celebration. At the appointed hour the guests assemble at the house which has been chosen for the celebration on that particular night. Each person present, members of the family, guests and servants, is furnished with a lighted candle, and two and two, they march around the halls and through the corridors several times chanting the solemn “Litany of Loretto.” As each invocation is ended the audience chant “ora pro nobis” (“pray for us”). At the head of the procession the figures of Joseph and Mary made of clay or wax, dressed in gay, incongruously-coloured satins are borne either in the hands or lying in a basket. Sometimes these figures are dressed in brilliant costumes of lace with tinselled borderings. At each door the procession pauses and knocks and begs admittance, but no answer or invitation to enter is given. When the litany is finished some of the party enter a room while the rest with the figures of Joseph and Mary remain outside and sing a chant something like the following:—
“In Heaven’s Name,
I beg for shelter;