Fiestas Patronales, Diriamba, Jan 19th and 20th 2007
All the time that I have been living in Nicaragua, I was always struck by how devoid the country seemed of a cultural history, in comparison to Mexico and Guatemala. I always assumed that this was mostly due to the fact that indigenous peoples on the Pacific slope of Nicaragua, were mostly wiped out or assimilated, and there are no present day indigenous communities of the Nahuatl speaking people (there are, of course, the indigenous Ramas and Miskito peoples on the Atlantic coast). Now, the Nahuatl speaking peoples of Central America were located from Mexico to Nicaragua and include such tribes as the Aztecs. Here in Nicaragua, the most prominent groups were the Nicarao and the Chontales. After attending the fiesta in Diriamba, I realize that there is a strong and vibrant connection with indigenous roots here in Nicaragua, it is just more hidden, and widely variable from region to region. Here in the north, the cowboy culture is much more common, with celebrations including mariachi bands, hipicos (horse parades), rodeos, etc. However, all the children do learn dances in schools and all Nicaraguans know the words to the most common national folk music.
But the celebration in Diriamba was the first time I had seen the grand mestizo celebrations that mix indigenous and Spanish culture. The highlight of this festival is the performance of El Gueguense, a play written by an unknown author in both Nahuatl and Spanish. The main story is of El Gueguense (in Nahuatl in means something like grumpy old man) and how he is detained with his two sons by the Spanish governor as he crosses land without permits. Through clever wordplay and deception, he gets off the hook and manages to marry off one of the governor’s daughters to his son. The most important part of the play is not the story, but rather the undertones of mockery the indigenous have for the Spanish lords, and of how El Gueguense uses the Spaniard’s stupidity about the Nahuatl culture and language to trick him. Now the whole play is 2 hours long, and only once during the festival do they perform the whole thing.
Santiagos day in Jan 20th, but festivities have been going on for the whole week before that day. On the eve of the 19th, San Sebastian meets up with hi buddies San Santiago of jinotepe and San Marcos of San Marcos at the road into town. They are all marched into Diriamba together, where they spend the night in the church, no doubt catching up and sharing a little gossip and a few tall tales. On this ngiht, everyone was crowded into the plaza to see the saints arrive and for the performance of Carlos Mejia Godoy y Los de Palacaguina and the fireworks display. This included a man who moved about the crowd, holding a Picasso version of a bulls head, all angles and stretched canvas, with rockets affixed to the points. He would stop at a place in the crowd, a signal rocket would go up, and the bulls head would explode in color and light, as the man danced around, terrifying and electrifying people in the crowd. Now and then crowd members would jump away in panic, pushing back into people in the crowd, in a panicked domino effect so that I feared a little of being trampled on. But it never got out of hand. Everyone was well behaved, and compared to Esteli, quite sober and polite. During the saints day (20th), everyone seemed to be on good behavior, until the day after, when the hipico would begin. Nothing like horses to bring out the borrachos!
As the Dia de San Sebastian begins on the 20th, everyone is gathered in the plaza in front of the cathedral. Little by little the groups of performers arrive, and as they do, they each set up their own small space within the crowd, so that within the mix of people, are holes where musicians and dancers perform. One group performs El Toro Huaco, where lines of costumed players from old to young snake back and forth, to the tune of drums and hand held shakers, in a slow rhythmic pattern, while another player holding a representation of a bull moves in counter movement to the dancers. All the players where tall peacock feather hats, painted wooden masks of European faces with blond hair and blue eyes, velvet capes, rainbow scarves hanging from their forearms and multi colored sequined panels on their trousers. This is apparently an intact traditional Nauhuatl dance, with costumes modified by contact with the Spaniards. Another group performs El Gueguense. There are many characters in this group. One part of the players wear peaked hats of many colors and mirrors, with the same European face masks. El Gueguense is a large man with a different mask, with black hair and a beard. There are two maidens, a princess, a prince, and a small boy dressed up as some type of official, all without masks. The other players have horse masks, painted black, with the most beautiful headdresses made of 20 or more long colored braids, topped with a short cropped mane-mohawk and roses or many colors. The braids and mohawks are made from dyed straw that comes from a palm and it is called PITA. The colors are red, yellow, blue, purple, bright pink, orange, and turquoise. The horses wear vests with colored beads across, like old fashioned watch chains. They dance in between parts of the play, to the tunes of a fife, drum, and again, the shakers. Then there is el Viejo y La Vieja, an old man with a cane, a wooden mask of a pale old face and a large cigar, who dances around wobbly and lecherous with the women in the crowd. His wife, La Vieja, is played by a man, fat, with hairy arms, an ugly face, and the largest bum you have ever laid eyes on. To the tune of the marimba group, she shakes it and dances with the old man until you think her bum is going to fly off into the crowd! Now in addition, there are at least 5 separate groups of dancers, each with their own costumes and musical groups, each performing different traditional dancers of the region. All these groups, playing at the same time, with the crowdmembers weaving in and out and about, in some kind or organized chaos, keep going for about 2 hours, until the main members file into the church for the special mass. Then amid deafening bell ringing and rocket firing, San Sebastian is brought out of the church, festooned in ribbons and all tarted up for his day out on the town. But what saint would want to take a day off without a few buddies to enjoy it with? So San Sebastian is joined by San Santiago and San Marcos, the patron saints of neighboring towns, and they are marched around the town, preceded by all of the groups mentioned before. In every barrio, the procession stops for a bit to perform their dances and acts, and there is much music playing and revelry. The whole thing takes about four hours. Now just to be fair I should mention that San Chago and San Marc are good friends, and invite San Chago to their shin-digs as well. The three musketeers of Nicaragua. Now the night ended with the most AMAZING performance by Balet Folklorico Nicaragua. Now, I have seen the Balet Folklorico of Mexico, and this was just as good if not better. Hopefully they will tour the states some more and you can see them. AMAZING! More than 12 different performances from all the different regions of Nicaragua, beautiful costumes. I really, REALLY finally got a taste of how diverse and interesting Nicaragua culture is, from the cowboy themed dances, to beautiful full white dresses and marimba music huarachos, to indigenous dances of the Miskito, to the sexually charged may pole dance of the slave descended Garifunas. It’s only a shame they don’t do more to promote it. And I don’t mean for tourism, but within their own communities. Instead of such fascination with reggeaton, if only every weekend there was a performance by local dance groups of something similar in the plazas. What they need is more money for the Ministry of Culture.
There were also a ton of food vendors, a carnival that made me think of a Stephen King novel (I’m sorry, the Ferris wheel did NOT look safe), and lots of rabble rousing and carousing and good fun. There were very few fights, and the whole thing was just lovely and fun. I could only stay for Friday and Saturday and left on Sunday, missing the big hipico and more cultural events and music groups that would perform Sunday night. I think they must celebrate for the entire month of January, since they were announcing all of the things that were scheduled. I give a lot of credit to the city council because the whole thing was really well organized and pleasant. HIGHLY recommended if you ever travel to Nicaragua. So much so that I am planning on going to see pretty much the same thing all over again (I guess some performances are different) in Jinotepe at the end of July. Its San Santiago’s day and he’ll team up with his buddies to tour that town. Maybe this time it will be less windy. Seriously, I always think of the south as hot, but since Diriamba and Jinotepe are up in the mountains a bit, there is a lot of wind, and in January, that means cold! Like 50 degrees cold, but when you only have capris and a little sweater, it feels freezing!
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# posted by m-mark @ 8:25 PM
