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Currently, Chilocuil is the
only village to benefit from the work of Mexico Creativo
but it is planned to extend the project to other
locations in the future.
Location
Chilocuil is a remote indigenous community located
in the State of San Luis Potosí, Mexico in
a cultural region known as La Huasteca. It is situated
around eight hours drive to the North East of Mexico.
The nearest significant town is Tamazunchale. Chilocuil
is reached via a dirt track which leads up from Tamán,
a village by the main road around half an hours walk
away.
The community
The community is predominantly Nahua (an indigenous
group) and is bilingual in Spanish and Nahuatl. The
religion is Catholic overlaid with traditions and
rituals that date back to the pre-conquest times.
Unfortunately, the Nahuas in this area are rapidly
losing touch with their traditions and sense of community
under the pressures of extreme poverty, marginalisation
and globalisation and the threats that these make
to their land and their way of life. Emigration is
high to Mexico City and the United States in search
of work. Self-esteem and pride in their identity
is low. The combination of poverty and the exodus
of men from the communities in the region in search
of employment means that many traditional festivals
that serve to bring the community together are dying
out through a lack of resources for the celebrations.
Cultural development in the region is centred on
the town of Tamazunchale and assistance and resources
rarely reach into the surrounding countryside. Rural
communities such as Chilocuil find themselves cut
off from government developments. For this reason,
it is crucial that culture in remote areas is encouraged.
Life of inhabitants
A day amongst ‘a' Hernandez family
During her visit in Chilocuil, Susie
Alegre had the opportunity to experience a day of
local life with some members of a Hernandez family.
He does not speak Nahuatl (the traditional
language) with his children …England, is that in
the United States? …The teacher would not open the
school …She
is thirteen will have to move Mexico City to work … I
don't have any paper …
Economic
Context
In order to give an idea of
the economic realities in San Luis Potosí,
the following is a list of the costs of basic living
essentials and the costs of maintaining instruments
listed in Mexican pesos ($).
1 kilo of meat - $ 60
1 kilo of rice
or beans - $ 7
1 chicken - $ 35
1 kilo of eggs - $ 12
Electricity per month for one
family house - $ 200
Bus ticket from Taman to Tamazunchale
- $ 5
Exercise book - $ 12
Biro - $ 4
Set of chords for Huapangueara guitar (basic
quality) - $ 140
Set of violin chords (basic quality)
- $ 150
Average exchange rates:
$1 = £XX
$1 = €XX
Music in La
Huasteca and Tradition
Music is a key part of community life, both in ritual
and in lay performances.
There are a number of important festival dates throughout
the year where music is performed. Many of these
are intricately linked with agricultural activity
and the daily lives of the community. In particular,
the culture of corn is at the heart of community
life, both as the basis of diet and as a spiritual
presence. The main activities of corn cultivation
are celebrated with music and ritual bringing the
community together in a celebration of life itself.
Celebration of important festivals, e.g. Pedimiento
del Agua (request for the rains), Permisos de la
Milpa (asking permission of the earth to sow), Siembra
(sowing the corn), Tlamanes (harvest festival) or
Dia de Muertos (day of the dead), is increasingly
dying away as people do not have the resources to
pay musicians and the musicians themselves have to
work in the fields and in construction elsewhere
in order to feed their families. The disappearance
of these festivals adds to the disintegration of
the community, the loss of sense of pride in cultural
identity and ultimately to the disappearance of the
communal nature of corn cultivation itself leading
to increased isolation.
As these customs fall into disuse, so too the musical
richness built up over centuries of tradition fall
from the cultural memory and are lost. In order for
the musical traditions of La Huasteca to survive
and develop, it is crucial that the music continues
to be played within the communities and that the
gift of music be handed down through the generations.
While there are valuable studies being carried out
on the music of La Huasteca and Chilocuil in particular
helping to record the music and its context, the
heart and the future of the music lies with the musicians
themselves.
Maize Culture and Maize Music in
México: Costumbre and Tlamanes Music in La
Huasteca
Mexico has a huge amount of traditional music, but
unfortunately this kind of music has not been properly
studied until now.
It is focused on music that
is mainly played during maize rituals (the sowing
of the corn-seed and the harvest of maize), rituals
which are known by the Spanish word Costumbre ("custom, habit").
During 1999 and 2000 the Seminar
on Musical Semiology has been studying the celebration
of Costumbre in a small farmer's town: Chilocuil,
placed on the low mountains of the Eastern Sierra
Madre, in the state of San Luis Potosí. This region is part of
what is largely known as "La Huasteca",
a social and geopolitical concept, which contains
a large part of seven states of Mexico, with very
similar natural, human and cultural features. The
group which we have extensively recorded (on audio
and video) belongs to Mexico's major Indian culture:
the Nahuas.
(Susie Alegre)
Accounts
of Festivals celebrated in Chilocuil
The main festivals celebrated throughout the year
are:
Corn Festival (general)
Corn is central to Nahua community.
It forms the basis of all nutrition and is viewed
as a deity. The festival surrounding the corn harvest
is known as “Tlamanes” and takes place in September / October
time. The festival of “Tlamanes” is key in the cultural
calendar of Chilocuil and offers an opportunity for
the community to come together through music, dance
and feasting, but it is a celebration that is threatened
by poverty and a creeping sense that there is little
value in anything that reflects indigenous culture.
Costumbre
and Festival of Tlamanes,
The Harvest Festival
The Costumbre is celebrated two times a year. The
first one is done to invoke a good rainy season which
will make the corn grow properly. It is usually celebrated
at the beginning of the rainy season. It occurs most
of the time at the beginning of May.
The second celebration, Tlamanes, is the most important
one and lasts about thirty hours. It is almost always
celebrated on corn-fields (the milpas), and its purpose
is to invoke the deities of the earth, to ask them
for their permission to harvest the maize. Tlamanes
takes place at the end of the rainy season (the end
of October or the beginning of November).
Day of the Child
In Mexico there is a day for everything, the day
of the Teacher, the day of Child or the day of the
Death. On the Day of the Child this year I was in
Chilocuil, a small rural community in the La Huasteca
region in the North East of the Country, not far
from the town of Tamazunchale.
Other Festivals:
- Pedimiento del Agua (request for
the rains)
- Permisos de la Milpa (asking permission
of the earth to sow)
- Siembra (sowing the corn)
- Dia de Muertos (day of the
dead)
- San Felipe de Jesus (Patron Saint of the Community,
5th February)
Mexican Artists helping us
Rosa Maria Nunez
Rosa Maria is an artist living in Mexico City. She
organises printing workshops with children and embroidery
classes with the women in the community of Chilocuil.
More information can be found in the 2003 of the projects
page.
CV – under constructiion
Daria Hernandez
(Embroidery)
Under construction
Victoria
Rubio (Embroidery)
Under construction
Trio Los Seguidores
de La Huasteca
The Trio los Seguidores de la Huasteca is made up
of the director, Maurilio
Hernández Nicanor (violin), Alejandro
(Juan) Peña Hernández (huapanguera
guitar) and Joaquín
Morales Hernández (jarana).
They have recently started to give classes voluntarily
within the community with a set of instruments donated
by Mexico Creativo to enable them to pursue their
wish to pass on their musical knowledge to the rest
of the community.
Their work includes community performances at key
rituals and festivals throughout the year, teaching
within the community in order to ensure the survival
of musical traditions across the generations, the
development of new music within those traditions
and research and revival of music which is falling
from the cultural memory.
The financial assistance requested is in the sum
of £3000 sterling for one year. This would
amount to £1000 per person per year for general
subsistence and essential materials for their work
such as maintenance of instruments, paper etc. |
