{"id":91805,"date":"2015-11-10T15:45:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T20:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=91805"},"modified":"2015-11-11T18:20:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T23:20:21","slug":"letter-from-mitla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/10\/letter-from-mitla\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Mitla"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visiting the altars for<\/em>\u00a0Dia de los Muertos.<\/p>\n

\"Muertos7\"<\/a>

All photographs by Shona Sanzgiri.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thirty miles from the city of Oaxaca is San Pablo Villa de Mitla, where, according to Mesoamerican lore, the dead go to rest. It\u2019s a small town surrounded by mountains and distinguished by an arid climate, which has preserved relics up to ten thousand years old and attracted archaeologists from all over the world. During the days around Dia de los Muertos<\/em>, Mitla transforms into a gateway for the deceased lured by the town\u2019s many altars, built by their loved ones, still living here in this world.<\/p>\n

The ornate displays are abundant with ofrendas<\/em>, offerings of food and drink. Pyramids of fruit, bursting marigolds, packs of Marlboros\u2014or Camels or Chesterfields, depending on one\u2019s preference\u2014ripe plantains, candles of all sizes, meticulously decorated loaves of pan de muertos<\/em>, and clay gourds of mescal and water (even the dead suffer from hangovers) comprise most offerings. Pictures of the deceased, typically unsmiling, feature in the center of the room, encircled by votives and depictions of different Catholic saints and apostates. The room often smells of woodsy black and white copal, an incense made from tree resin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of what I saw and tasted in Oaxaca was characterized by smoke: ascending black plumes from roadside fires, the taste of roasted chapulines<\/em> or barbacoa taquitos<\/em>, the charred ash rising from countless grills at the mercado<\/em> and, of course, the mescal. Aficionados teach you to \u201ckiss\u201d the mescal, allowing a miniscule amount to grace your lips before taking in a bit more. The drink makes its way from your tongue to your chest to your stomach, all the while leaving a pleasant, fortifying burn, as if you\u2019ve just sipped liquid fire. If you drink it with care and respect\u2014or just slowly\u2014there\u2019s no hangover.<\/p>\n

Surveying the altares<\/em> with mescal on your breath, you feel, if not the presence of the dead, the generosity of their spirits. I came to Mitla from Oaxaca with Fernando Lopez, Jr., one of the co-owner\u2019s of LA\u2019s Oaxacan restaurant Guelaguetza. He returns throughout the year to visit his parents, who\u2019ve moved back to Oaxaca from LA, and to guide one of many assorted gringos through his birthplace. After a delicious meal of home-cooked mole rojo<\/em>, he took me to visit some nearby homes, to see the altars and partake in the hospitality of the town\u2014a hospitality so unconditional it apparently extends into the afterlife.<\/p>\n

\"Muertos2\"<\/p>\n

\"Muertos4\"<\/p>\n

Our first visit was to the Queros family, who live in a modest rancho with panoramic views of the Tlacolula Valley. Livestock wandered around. A wall of artisan\u2019s tools, sawtooth blades, and crocheting supplies was mounted to the wall. We sat inside the house\u2019s \u201cspiritual room,\u201d a concrete block housing a massive altar, one lone window and a few wooden chairs. Off to the side, an empty bench begged for attention\u2014\u201cin case we have company,\u201d said Gildardo Hernandez Quero, a textile artisan and the local historian.<\/p>\n

The family had built this particular altar for Gildardo\u2019s mother, and the cheery, talkative Queros were sure to note\u2014a little ominously, in my opinion\u2014that I was welcome in their home both in life and death. They stared a while into my eyes and smiled, which I chose to interpret as a gesture of acceptance. What surprised me was their pragmatism concerning the cosmic significance of the altars. They said something I heard often in my altar visits: it\u2019s tradition, not superstition, that motivates them. I asked if they ever felt the presence of the dead.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Well, maybe. But I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s psychological,\u201d Samuel Quero said. He clarified: \u201cI\u2019m not sure if I have the courage to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mother, while she was still alive, had promised to make herself known in death. He recalled a night where, after drinking all day, he dreamed that his mother and an unknown woman came to the altar. With her back to him, his mother\u2019s fingers gently traced the mounds of fruit. He awoke the next day to find that a lime had been removed and placed in the center of the room. A considerable bit of mescal was gone, and one jicara, a small wooden drinking cup, was wet to the touch.<\/p>\n

Having grown up in California, I\u2019m no stranger to Mexican hospitality. But this was different: this was Oaxue\u00f1o<\/em>. The night before, we\u2019d wandered the market at Miahuatl\u00e1n, where hundreds of vendors offer all the accoutrements for a proper altar, and where we met up with Marco Ochoa, the co-owner of Oaxaca\u2019s Mezcaloteca, a conservatory\/bar devoted to mescal. Marco invited us to his uncle\u2019s house, where we sat and talked and ate for hours, dipping moist pan de yema <\/em>into the best coffee I\u2019ve ever tasted, sampling enfrijoladas<\/em>\u2014tamales slathered in rich mol\u00e9<\/em> and steamed in banana leaves\u2014and chewing on crunchy, garlick-y chapulines<\/em> by the handful. Later Marco brought us to his own ranch, in a dusty field mere miles from a maximum-security prison. We listened to the boom of fireworks through the night. They say the noise helps the dead find their way home.<\/p>\n

\"Muertos11\"<\/p>\n

\"Muertos8\"<\/p>\n

After visiting two more altars, we arrived at the home of Epifanio Luis Perez, a sixty-one-year-old artisan with a three-story collection of artifacts. In the courtyard, his cousin and wife prepared a beheaded turkey for dinner, dipping the carcass into a cauldron of steaming water and spices.<\/p>\n

Epifano led us to his living room, where he poured everyone two shots of mescal, one made from jamaica flowers and the other infused with the leaves of a cedar tree. The green room, with its pell-mell arrangements of Mexican kitsch, began to expand and contract like a gently flickering flame.<\/p>\n

A small, dark man with chiseled features and shiny, parted black hair, Epifano has been building this altar for his mother for the past thirty years. Like the Queros, he regards altares<\/em> as a matter of tradition; he couldn\u2019t live with a clean conscience knowing that he may have disrespected or hurt his mother by neglecting her offerings, which include chichillo mol\u00e9<\/em>, her favorite.<\/p>\n

As the mescal kicked in, I pressed Epifanio\u2014surely he must feel, with his emporium of curiosities, something beyond simple sentimentality or tradici\u00f3n<\/em> for his mother. Does he perceive something else, something in this casamayor<\/em> once inhabited by his parents, in the town where his ancestors have lived for at least six generations, something that goes beyond logic?<\/p>\n

\"Muertos10\"<\/p>\n

He looked at me sternly. \u201cThere are vibrations. Mitla is a magical place, of course,\u201d he said. \u201cMostly things fall,\u201d he continued. He lifted a glass shadow box with a patron saint inside. \u201cLike this. I had placed it before a row of dolls, on the second level of this cupboard. The next morning I found that it had somehow leaped over the other dolls and moved itself to the floor. Or had been moved, I mean.\u201d He pointed to another doll: \u201cThis one is for my deceased wife. I gave it to her on one of our first dates. It fell, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before we left, Epifano walked us through his \u201cshowrooms\u201d\u2014a few carefully curated rooms of artwork and furniture from nineteenth and early twentieth-century Mexico. Ex-votos, tableau-style paintings depicting acts of salvation, are spread over the walls like fridge magnets. Since I first spotted a few ex-votos in the home of a friend\u2019s very Catholic grandmother, I\u2019ve become obsessed with them; they\u2019re tragic, spiritual, and often humorous. One painting showed a man in the middle of two high-heeled women, all standing at a bar, a bartender pouring shots between them. The inscription thanked San Juditas for this good fortune. Another showed a farmer nearly drowning in a river, thanking Santa Ni\u00f1o de Atocha for helping him grasp onto a rock and pull himself to shore.<\/p>\n

Epifano noticed my interest and gingerly named a price; I bristled at his turn toward commerce. But when I decided I\u2019d accept his offer, I was too late\u2014he\u2019d changed his mind. \u201cSomeday, when you need an offering, these will be there for you,\u201d he told me in his crackling, dulcet Spanish. \u201cBut always be willing to offer something of yourself, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Muertos9\"<\/p>\n

\"Muertos15\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Muertos14\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Muertos13\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Muertos12\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Muertos6\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Muertos5\"<\/a>
<\/a> \"Muertos3\"<\/a><\/p>\n


<\/a> \"Muertos1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shona Sanzgiri<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/em>is a writer and photographer based in California. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>ADULT,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>GQ,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Vice, and<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Interview Magazine. His photography can be seen at<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Proof of Experience<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visiting the altars for\u00a0Dia de los Muertos. Thirty miles from the city of Oaxaca is San Pablo Villa de Mitla, where, according to Mesoamerican lore, the dead go to rest. It\u2019s a small town surrounded by mountains and distinguished by an arid climate, which has preserved relics up to ten thousand years old and attracted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2384],"tags":[20160,1286,20159,2186,20158,20164,11315,9680,115,5398,14082,20161,20156,20155,20162,20157,9605,20163,20165],"class_list":["post-91805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look","tag-altars","tag-celebration","tag-day-of-the-dead","tag-death","tag-dia-de-los-muertos","tag-ex-votos","tag-fireworks","tag-folklore","tag-food","tag-holidays","tag-memorials","tag-mezcal","tag-mitla","tag-oaxaca","tag-offerings","tag-san-pablo-villa-de-mitla","tag-superstition","tag-tlacolula-valley","tag-votive-paintings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Altars in Mitla: Visiting Mexico on Dia 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