Saint Cecilia. Part II

It is April of 1998, and we are gazing at the high altar of San Pablo de Ayutla. A translucent curtain obscures the arch behind the altar. The sun is positioned so that it creates an immense glowing orb that appears as if it were embedded in the curtain. The effect is dramatic.

“‘Yo soy buen pastor,’ dice el senor,” proclaims a sign to the right of the apse(3).

I go in search of my favorite statue of Guadalupe. She has a black ribbon tied around her waist. All Guadelupes have a black ribbon around their waist, but some ribbons are more defined than others. The meaning of the black ribbon is controversial. Perhaps, some suggest, Guadalupe is a hang-over from a distant past, a former Aztec goddess of fertility who still wears a black ribbon to signify that she is pregnant(4).

“Perhaps not,” Octavio says when I ask his opinion. “I prefer to respect her as Our Lady, not to philosophize about whether she represents a fertility goddess.”

This Guadalupe has no hands. She lost them many years ago, but she is very dark, and golden rays surround her. They shimmer and pulsate with power.

And there is our mysterious friend whom Octavio is about to introduce to me. “Here is St. Cecelia,” he says without fanfare, as if he always had known her name but wanted to wait until the right time to tell me(5). “Yes,” he adds, “that’s her.”

We have a St. Cecilia Society in Boston,” I respond, trying to match his nonchalance. But, of course! She is St. Cecilia, the Patroness of Music.

“And here is anima sola.”(6) His arms and hands are uplifted to beseech Heaven for mercy; his expression mirrors his gesture. He knits his eyebrows as the red flames of Purgatory envelop his hips. Fake red roses are at one side of his glass prison, white calla lilies at the other. Octavio and I pray before him, as we pray before all anima solas. It is Octavio’s devotion. And I have made it mine.

And then we were on the road to Tamazulapan. The absence of traffic allowed us to admire the pairs of stately women walking at the side of the road. They wore white blouses with three-quarter length sleeves. A narrow red woven band edged the sleeve openings, and an identical band went from the hem of the blouse up and over each shoulder. Their ankle-length, navy blue skirts had a wide band of darker blue around the bottom. Their waists were encircled several times by a narrow red woven belt.

In Tamazulapan a loud speaker vied with the babble of children playing in the plaza. The voice over the loud speaker repeatedly called someone’s name; a villager was being summoned to the communal telephone. We visited Santa Maria de la Natividad in order to admire its gilded seven-paneled retablo, and then we drove on over the road that men and machines had widened and black-topped last year(7). At last we turned left onto a bumpy dirt road, wide enough for one car.

The road went straight up the mountain to a town, perched like an aerie above the houses that spilled down the mountain side. More houses rose above the town. We passed the Mayor’s Office, a few comedors, and suddenly the road thrust us into Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec.

The plaza was filled with activity. A girl was singing a song. Other children were competing in races. The starter pursed his lips and blew on his whistle to launch them on their way. A man announced the contests and contestants in Mixe over a megaphone, his eager, amplified voice adding to the chatter and cries of the excited children.

A short path led to the church. A line of saints in the nave and a row of Madonnas in a side chapel watched us as we entered through the open door and walked down the central aisle. The statues were blessed with offerings: bright flowers, ears of corn, handfuls of corn kernels and black beans, treasures of the Highland Mixe(8).

From the church, we went to the municipal offices. On the second level of the arcade, rows of children were absorbed in playing board games. Little boys, watched over by a teacher, were arranging dominoes so that a finger could flick one and set in motion the collapse of the others.


We climbed to the third level. Facing us at the top of the stairs was a mural depicting the Mixe creation myth. A woman, with her head bent backwards, stared upwards. Each arm stretched out to the side, and each hand grasped an ear of corn, a scepter from Mother Earth. The braids of her long black hair fell forward onto her breast where they looped through two white calla lilies. The lilies' undulating leaves and stems followed the horizontal line of her arms.

Above her rose three tiers of jagged mountains topped by blue sky. Above the sky were three narrow bands of mountain peaks. An egg was suspended in the sky between the top of the woman’s head and the uppermost tier of mountains. Inside the egg was the Condoy, the legendary King of the Mixe; he who lives atop the sacred mountain Zempoaltepetl; he, the protector of the health and welfare of the Mixe and their lands. A snake with a turquoise blue eye wound itself around the Condoy. Outside the shell, two turkeys with their tails fanned, formed an oval on either side of the shell’s base.

The Condoy, wrapped in a cloak, thrust his right fist directly at the viewer in a gesture of power. His right fist grasped a long, thick rod with a yellow and red ribbon, his badge of authority; his left hand clasped a shorter rod with ribbons of the same color; he cradled four dark brown rods in the crook of his left arm.

Nearby, a team of men was remodeling a smaller arcaded building. They had donated and pooled their labor for the good of the community. We glimpsed murals along the upper arcade but were unable to get close to them. They would have to wait for another trip.

Zempoaltepetl, the sacred mountain of the Mixe, the mountain of 20 peaks and the highest mountain in Oaxaca at 11,037 feet, loomed across from the town.8 “It takes six hours to climb to the top,” a Spanish-speaking teacher informed us. He didn’t tell us that the people make yearly pilgrimages to the top to ritually offer poultry, corn, beans and eggs. Neither did he tell us that each family has its own special place on the mountain. That information was confided by a woman who slipped out the door of an adjacent building and answered my questions in hesitant Spanish as if afraid to share Mixe customs with outsiders.

As we moved from one end of town to the other, laughing children darted up and dashed away or hid behind the skirts of older girls. Women and girls wore white embroidered blouses and white skirts embroidered with a simple vine-flower pattern. An artisans’ shop sold narrow, red woven belts, bolsas (woven bags on a long cord) embroidered in red or in white foliate patterns and pottery made from local red clay. Across the street, a clothing store stocked the typical skirts and blouses worn by the girls and women, as well as rebozos with white embroidery in a vine-flower design.

I handed the shopkeeper a rebozo and pantomimed that I would like her to show me how to style it. She held my hands and guided my fingers while we folded the material into a narrow length, formed the length into a circle and then wove the long ends in and out on opposite sides. She placed it on top of my head. “There, you are wearing an elegant crown,” Octavio said.

She demonstrated how to wrap a more casual style. We put the rebozo over my head with the ends in front and tied them tightly at the top of my forehead. The next step was to spread the fabric over the crown of my head and to allow the ends to fall down my back. Perfect for avoiding sunstroke.

We didn't want to depart Santa Maria without visiting its famous music school. One of the teachers pointed us in the general direction, but we let the faint sounds of music guide us. The school was near the cemetery.

We parked beside a water tank. A sign hung on the front of the tank. It translated water into Spanish and English, as well as Mixe, Zapateco, Mixteco and Chinaneco, the indigenous languages spoken at the school.

We went down a slope to the school and stepped into a pavilion where a group of boys, their backs turned to Zempoaltepetl, were playing instruments. The school supported two bands. While one was traveling and giving concerts, the second remained in residence, practicing and preparing to go on the road.

A woman was seated on a nearby bench. She was talking to several boys who were gathered around her. At our approach, she introduced herself to us as the manager, dismissed the boys and invited us to join her.

She was curious as to how we had learned about the school. A television program had been Octavio’s source of information. She turned to me. “Rarely are tourists interested in traveling so far to the school.”

We plied her with questions, which she patiently answered.

“The school only accepts indigenous students regardless of the language they speak. Government subsidies provide free lessons from grade school through high school; however, more aid is needed.

“Enrollment is at its height at the beginning of the year and decreases as the year progresses. Many students drop out in order to return home to help their families. None are made to feel ashamed. The school always welcomes them back; no questions are asked. The school knows that what they have learned will be put to good use in their communities, because no town or village is without a band to play at fiestas or funerals.”

We asked about the sign on the water tank. She called our attention to a sign outside a bathroom with translations of bathroom into the same languages as on the water tank. “Music is the common language among the students,” she said, “but we also teach linguistics. We emphasize cleanliness and good hygiene by selecting the words water and bathroom. The Spanish and English equivalents allow the students to recognize essential vocabulary when they are away from the school. It gives them confidence in unfamiliar surroundings.”

It was getting late. The manager stood up. She told us that we were free to walk around the grounds but not to enter the buildings. Our presence might disturb the students

The official who manned the Mayor's Office at the edge of town was vigilant when we exited. He hurried to the window when we drove by. The symbol of local authority, a rod with a thong threaded through it, was painted beside the window.

A delivery truck blocked the road. We waited while the driver unloaded crates of soda and carried them into a rustic shop and loaded crates of empties. After, it was straight down to the bottom until the road curved to the left. At the bend of the road was a white-washed chapel dedicated to St. Cecilia. If the car’s brakes had failed, we would have driven through its door.










“Virgen de Santa Cecelia,” announced black letters over the Gothic arch of the chapel’s entrance. Inside, St. Cecilia had the limelight. She sat in profile on a piano bench with her hands poised on the piano keys. Two angels leaned out of the clouds above her head. The blue-toned print was framed in wood. Garlands of gold tinsel and ropes of blue tissue laced with blue, red, white and silver flowers and bows were draped over the corners of the frame and strung across the back wall. A blue G clef was attached to the wall.

“You see how popular St. Cecelia is,” said Octavio. “The people here are devoted to her. There are many musicians in this area, and they love music. It is their daily life.”

We picnicked on box lunches at an open-sided chapel on a turnoff from the road beyond Ayutla. Octavio slouched in the car and listened to Mexican music on the radio. I dragged one of the roughhewn benches to where I had an unobstructed view of the mountains. Before we left, we made sure that the area was clean of food and sandwich wrappings.

As we neared the City, thick smoke from forest fires billowed down the mountains and crept into the valley. A solitary figure, swathed in blue spirals, tended smoldering garbage and trash. The scene had the appearance of a wasteland besieged by forces beyond man's control.

I made a third trip to Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec four years later in 2002. We left the sleeping City behind. Dawn began to break as we drove through the valley. By the time we were in the mountains, the fiery sun shot up like a red hot cannon ball between two peaks. As its blazing rays pierced my heart, I felt myself dissolving and uniting with its powerful presence. I grounded myself and knew deep within why man has worshiped the sun since ancient times.

Arriving at the base of the road to Santa Maria, we looked up to see a steady stream of children and adults pouring from the top of the mountain, through the town and down to the valley to the new primary and secondary schools that the government had built. Children were playing basketball on the court between the schools.

There were significant changes in Santa Maria. The women and girls had adopted a new style of clothing. They had replaced their traditional dress with long white skirts trimmed around the bottom with rickrack in primary colors. The trim rose in sharp peaks and descended in steep troughs like the surrounding mountains or to symbolize Zempoaltepetl.

Adults and children now spoke Spanish. Children had lost their shyness in the presence of strangers. There were shops selling automobile parts and more comedors. An ambulance was parked at the edge of the plaza, and a small clinic was tucked between buildings. We only found clay pots and huraches in the artisans’ shop, but a new store sold modern jewelry, skirts for the women and girls and selected pieces of traditionally embroidered clothing and linens.

The music school was deserted; students were enrolled only on weekends, not during the week. The school’s sign on the water tank and bathroom had deteriorated. The Mayor's Office was gone. There were no offerings for the saints in the church. St. Cecilia's chapel was unkempt and needed a coat of white-wash.

But three things remained the same. Like most municipalities outside the City, Santa Maria refused to set its clocks ahead to daylight saving time. The murals still existed, and families continued to ascend Zempoaltepetl to perform their rituals in order to invoke the Condoy’s protection.

On that trip, we were able to examine the murals that had been hidden from view four years before. Along the upper arcade, the daily life of the Mixe unfolded before me.


A mother cradled a child in her rebozo, a man played instruments, the Condoy glared at me like a monster from a comic book,
and a petitioner on the sacred mountain held aloft a rooster prior to its sacrifice.




Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec wasn’t the only place that had changed. Ayutla had a medical clinic, automobile shops, gas for sale and a shop that repaired musical instruments. All had opened since our previous trip. There was even a convenience store. On the outskirts of Ayutla, a rough wooden structure had “Open 24 hours” painted in Spanish in tall white letters on the wall facing the road.

En route to Santa Maria that day, the early morning light had concealed the erosion of the mountains. On our return, we were able to see the scarred land. The indiscriminate cutting of trees had denuded the soil and exposed it to the rains, the sun and the wind. The trees had been felled to make way for new houses or to sell for timber. The land was damaged. I mourned the loss of the trees as the stripped terrain spread out around me. It was a painful end to the day.

I asked myself endless questions. “What is progress, who initiates it, who defines it and how do people adapt it to their needs and aspirations?” Back in the City, I entered the posada, climbed the steps to my room and closed the door without answers.

(1) The 16 indigenous groups in Oaxaca are: Zapotecs, Mixtecs, Mazatecos, Chinantecos, Mixes, Chatinos, Amuzgos, Chontales, Triques, Cuicatecos, Huaves, Tacuates, Zoques, Chochos, Ixcatecos and Populucas. www.oaxaca-travel.com (see Indigeneous Villages).

(2) I later learned that a malanga is a starchy tuber used in South American and African cooking. The tubers can be sliced, diced or mashed. The one I sampled tasted like a nut-flavored potato.

(3) I am the good Shepherd…” from John 10:11. The Bible. King James Version.

(4) http://www.daily-word-of-life.com/ol-guadalupe.htm (see Our Lady of Guadalupe’s womb).

(5) Cecelia is the Spanish spelling.

(6) Anima sola or the lonely soul traditionally is a red-haired woman bound with chains in the midst of the flames of Purgatory. For a photograph of the two traditional anima solas see Flickr: Photos from Sandunga, page 6 at http://flickr.com/photos/lunamorena.

(7) Retablo: a gilded and/or painted altar screen, usually carved and embellished with paintings and statues of saints and members of the Holy Family.

(8) Trilling, Susanna.Seasons of My Heart. Ballentine Publishing Co., NY. 1999, pp. 136-137.