Coming from a family with a proud Mexican lineage. My father and his side of the family have always been proud of having Indigenous/ethnic blood in us. While I can’t really guarantee the amount of percentage that makes us Indigenous, I do see that several of my family members follow strong shamanist indigenous spiritual rituals. A lot of these rituals are very specific to the area of where my dad’s family is from. Even people from other Mexican cities are often surprised and/or confused as to some of the rituals that my Dad’s side of the family performs. Even my mom finds some of these spiritual cleansing and dietary traditions weird and unusual. Most of my Dad’s friends wouldn’t actually believe him that these were real traditions until they would visit his city of around 50’000 people about 4 hours south east of Oaxaca. Most people in my family’s city would perform the same traditions in a more communal manner than what we personally did back in Mexico City. I never understood why the movement of the stars and moon would dictate so much of our dietary restrictions in what seemed like a very subjective manner. After Tamara commented on my previous post on how it sounded very similar to the mayan traditions I wanted to do more research. Apparently where my dad’s city is located, it was previously a large epi-center for what used to be the Mayan empire a very long time ago. While I do not see similar dietary restrictions based on Mayan cosmology, I do see some very interesting similarities in how cosmology was used in the Mayan culture and how it is used in my dad’s culture. Mayan cosmology was often used to show how seniors of the community were wiser and could better read the stars and moon. My dad’s city was the same, the seniors of the community would often go around house to house and church to church reminding people that today might have been a bad day to eat fish or drink hot water based on the day and position of the moon. While the traditions and beliefs are very different from the Mayan culture, it is possible to see the possible inspiration that it may have had on my community through centauries later and in a post-colonized world. Just to be clear, I do not follow these traditions anymore since I’ve moved to Canada and these is very far from the norm that most Mexicans follow and adhere to.
Corn just like in the Mayan civilization is very important in my dad’s community. Till this day my grandma and several of her friends from the community (Comadres) use corn mixtures as substitute for items that aren’t just food related. I’ve seen them use it for basket weaving, as glue to repair dishes and furniture, and substitute for threads when pants or shirts would break. As a poor community, it was impossible to always fulfill your needs with consumerism and it has created a strong sense of self-reliance and imaginative problem solving in the community. Till this day my grandma and dad carry these attributes very close to their personality. As the land lacked strong infrastructure it was almost impossible to rely on raising animals and most food was gotten by growing common staples such as corn and beans. With many farmers and industrialists trying to move in the community, they slowly built a lot of resentment towards neo-liberal and capitalist’s projects that attempted to divide land to individuals instead of having communal fields for anyone to grow crops and provide for their families. Most of the community had a sense of interdependence and would rather have the whole city be poor than only a few people with ownership of land decided by foreign developers. Till this day my dad has very strong anti neo-liberal/capitalist sentiment due to his negative experience in his community. The community that my dad’s family is from actually supported the Zapatista movement very strongly. My very own grandma has had very strong leaders of the movement eat and have meetings at her house.
Hello! I have watched the optional video on Kanopy about the Zapatista movement! I thought it was very interesting how the community was looking for justice and peace in fact these are the most basic human rights that everyone needs to be provided with! I was so frustrated to see the contrasting images of the celebrations of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Indigenous community in Chiapas who were facing a tragedy of losing and claiming their own lands. I agree with you in the sense that even though capitalism is supposed to invoke a sense of economical development only a very small fraction of the people actually benefit from it. I also agree with you that a lack of consumerism in fact emerges our creativity! Capitalism has homogenized our needs and desires and we want what is available in the market and we do not tend to go beyond that. If possible and fine I would like to get in contact with you or maybe even your parents to ask you about aspects of cosmology and the history of your Indigenous group! (I also come to Mexico very often!) Thank you for this post!
Hello Miguel! I really like your post especially how personal it is because all that we have discussed in this unit is related to your family. It helped me to understand our topics of this week better. What were the major effects of the land division on the people in family’s region? Has there been any changes to make the land communal again or do you think this whole capitalistic approach is irreversible? Firmly, I think with capitalism in charge so many cultures and people become part of this economic system very easily either because it seem so much more profitable from the “modern” civilization point of view or because they had no other choice. I am very sorry for the losses of your family and for all the hardship that they had to go through. Thank you very much for sharing means a lot to me.
It was very interetsing to read about you and your family. This class has opened my eyes greatly to the ways in which people grew up around the world in relation to where I grew up in the United States. In particular, your line discussing your grandma and her friends using corn mixtures as glue to repair household items really grabbed my attention! Thank you so much for sharing.
Hi Miguel!
Thanks so much for telling us a bit about your family’s history and traditions in Mexico. It is interesting to hear how your family still upholds many traditions and values the importance of corn within the community. Especially for me growing up in Canada and not realizing the importance of corn in Latin American countries up until this year, it is so neat to see how corn is used in so many daily practices, including the repair of household items. I am curious to know more about your grandma’s experience with Zapatista leaders in the community. I am currently watching the documentary series, 1994, on Netflix that Tamara recommended and I am just now getting into the parts that discusses the Zapatista movement in depth–I can’t wait to learn more about that. Thank you again for sharing this story with us!:)
Hi Miguel!
Always a pleasure to hear about your personal experiences. It is very interesting how seniors are taking care of their people with their advices on what to eat in accordance with the position of the moon. Hearing about how one crop is important to the whole community makes me appreciate food more. As we here in the west, most of us waste so much food on a daily basis and I believe the mass availability of food and supermarkets are contributing to our lack of food appreciation.
Wow, it’s so incredible to learn these amazing things about your family and ancestors. Thank you for sharing, I would be interested in learning more about your experiences and traditions practiced back home! Your comment on how corn is used for everything around the house reminded me of these “5-minute hack” style videos that always show up on my Facebook feed, except this is cooler. Although I agree it can be hard following traditions as a student in Canada, I hope you can keep these traditions in your family going!
Hi Miguel,
I thought this was a great post and appreciate you sharing your story of your family. I think the shift in what you are mentioning about land ownership is sad to see and has happened all over the world and leads to more selfishness, greed and individuality. It is the unfortunate reality that modern society, especially in western countries has lost that communal aspect, which would help a young family raise their children and to take care of elderly. Having dealt with a sick elderly person in my family recently, it was very sad to see how selfish us younger generations have become, and how separated our lives are from our elders with everyone living in different cities (I am talking about myself and my siblings here). I have read a study that talked about how this lack of community parallels increasing in suicide as well. Hopefully your family will be able to hold out against the division of their land!