¡La Feria!

The Feast of St. Luke (La Feria de San Lucas) happens every year in the Catholic calendar, falling on October 18th. The town of San Lucas Tolimán, however, celebrates its patron saint for an entire week!

Last week, the town population must have doubled or tripled, with vendors and make-shift shops crowding the streets and alleys, three Ferris wheels, and countless other rides and novelties. There was an extravagant parade mid-week, that kicked off the festivities, with baton-twirling, marching bands, and school children showing off the traditional San Lucas Tolimán dress.

Most of the festivities, however, take place inside the building of the cofradía (religious brotherhood) of a Mayan demigod or saint called Maximón (pronounced Ma-shee-mohn). On Wednesday night, the eve of the Feria of San Lucas, there is a procession of a San Lucas statue (shown below) followed by a mass of townspeople that travels from the Maximón cofradía to the church in preparation for the feast day.

Though I've learned a bit about cofradías and Maximón by talking with Mayan friends, most of the history surrounding this social and religious phenomenon has continued to confuse me. So, I've used this blog post as an opportunity to do some more research on the matter and sort things out for myself, and for you. The following is the best explanation I can offer, a patchwork of Google searches and my own village conversations...

Cofradías are lay leadership councils that were originally brought to Guatemala by the early Franciscan missionaries from Spain, where cofradías had existed since the Middle Ages. The purpose of the cofradía system was to promote the Christian faith and act as decision making bodies for remote towns and villages. Each cofradía was (and still is) responsible for the care of an image of the patron saint and the celebration of his feast day. Cofradías became very popular in Spain during sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as instruments of the counter reformation. Transferred to the New World, they became tools for the propagation of the new faith to the "Indians."

By organizing the newly converted Mayans into cofradías, each with its set of officials responsible for the group's activities, the Spanish missionaries simplified the task of carrying out the liturgical and para-liturgical celebrations of the saints' days regularly occurring in the cycle of the Church year. Cofrades, as cofradía members are called, probably also served as the choir, participating with the friars in the chanting of the Divine Office and the Mass. They were responsible for the regular care of the Church and its numerous statues, the cleaning and replacement of candles, and similar services.

But this period of intense post-conquest missionary activity was followed by two and a half centuries of relative abandonment by the clergy, during which time the interpretation of Catholic ritual and symbolism in terms of Mayan beliefs and cosmology was accomplished in the cofradías.

This process was facilitated by the congruence of some Catholic and Mayan traditions, such as the solar orientation of both calendars and the great number of holy personages venerated in both religions. The statues of the Saints in the church and in the cofradías were easily identified with the lords and Guardian-spirits of the Mayan pantheon, so that today it is debatable how much remains of the Catholic identity of the Saints except for their names and the calendar date of their feast days or ferias. Maximón, for example, is a Mayan deity who is sometimes identified as Saint Simon, and during Holy Week is identified in a town ritual as Judas Iscariot.

The cofradías, which had functioned as part of the Church, are now of equal or greater importance in Mayan religion than Catholicism. The primary rituals originally transferred from the Church to the cofradías are now performed not by Catholic priests but by Mayan shamans.

The Maximón cofradía in San Lucas Tolimán has a council of official members or brothers (cofrades) who volunteer their service for two years at a time. There is also a leader or guardian who accepts the responsibility of taking care of Maximón for a one year period. Traditionally, the guardian would accept the statue of Maximón and the other cofradía furniture into his house for a year. His house served as a chapel for Maximón, and was the focus of calendric festivities of music and dancing, a place of prayer open to shamans and others who wished to honor the saints and ancestors or perform rituals at any time of day or night, and a meeting place for the cofrades. According to our friend Kate's host-dad, Angel, Maximón would move to a new house each year, and he remembers Maximón living with his family for a year when he was a child. "But then Padre Gregorio came," he said, "and he built Maximón his own house." So now, when people speak of "going to the cofradía" they are referring to the permanent building that houses Maximón and is the site for all related festivities and rituals. Below you can see a photo of a Mayan girl offering a candle to Maximón inside the cofradía.

The day and night leading up to Feria are enjoyed inside the cofradía, drinking and dancing to a marimba band, keeping vigil until 4:00a.m. when fireworks are lit in front of the church in preparation for the 5:00a.m. mass. In fact, fireworks were a theme throughout the week, and would go off at all hours of the day or night. Below, you can see an old San Lucan man using his matchbox to join in the festivities.

After staying up all night, everyone goes home for breakfast and a nap, and then wakes up in time for a big family lunch of "Pulik," the traditional San Lucas Tolimán chicken made specially for feria. The afternoon is then spent drinking and dancing with family and friends, interspersed with continued fireworks and processions that linger on into the evening.

¡Feliz Feria!