Semana Santa, Central Mexico
by Charles Angell
Tarahumara men throng the square with their Santa Semana dance.
I
leaned out on the platform between train cars with
my video camera, excited to finally be on the
Ferrocarril, Mexico's legendary Copper Canyon
rail line.
The locomotive exhaust was overpowering, permeat-
ing my clothing and hair with soot, and the cars' rhyth-
mic rock and sway kept me off balance. I was filming the
approach to one of the many tunnel entrances carved
through an endless chain of mountains and I recoiled
back when I realized that the space between train car
and rock was less than 18 inches! Being beheaded in
Mexico, although not unheard of, is not what I would
like to add to my resume of reckless injuries.
I was riding with a group comprised largely of Tri-
county locals on the Mexican Consulate's annual
Semana Santa trip into the land of the Tarahumara
Indians, Barranca del Cobre. Semana Santa, or Holy
Week, is the largest celebration of the year for the
Tarahumara, who are also known as Raramuri.
Our journey involved bus, train, walking and lots of
waiting, but with the sights, sounds and people-watch-
20
ing, it became one of the more interesting experiences
of my life. Every stop we made became the next
course in my sampling of roadside and train station
food vendors. Nothing disappointing and always hot,
fresh and spicy – I'm certain I ate every beast that
crawls over the Mexican earth that can be scorched on
a grill. The deeper one journeys into the region the
greater the canyon depths, the taller the mountains
and the further the clock dials back to a simpler, more
relaxed way of life.
By day three we reached our destination, Norogachi,
a simple village surrounded by mountains with dirt
roads, a central town plaza and dominating Catholic
church. Semana Santa is a multi-day celebration by the
Tarahumara, a combination of their indigenous faith
melded with Catholicism. Many of the men wear feath-
ered headdresses, paint their shirtless torsos with varying
patterns and hoist scarecrow-type effigies of Jesus, Mary
and Judas high upon poles as they dance. Hundreds
gather in the plaza for this event and form into separate
groups with an effigy leading their team. Drums of vary-
Cenizo
First Quarter 2013
Photograph by Jessica Lutz
ing sizes are pounded all day and night until it becomes
a steady drone similar to swarming bees; floating over
this buzzing are the sounds from hand-crafted violins
and flutes. As we disembarked from the bus the nuns at
the orphanage where we were to stay made it clear that
we had to find other sleeping arrangements; a few hours
later accommodations were found at a comfortable
guesthouse.
We were given the option of spending the night at this
guesthouse or retiring a short distance away in a quieter
locale. I initially leaned towards a peaceful sleep, but it
wasn't long before the rhythmic sounds and cerveza con-
vinced me to do the all-nighter. The groups of
Tarahumara, 30-plus each, took turns performing a
twirling dance, orchestrated by a leader with a flag, then
ran through town after circling several blocks, eventual-
ly reorganizing back in the main plaza. Five-gallon
buckets of tesguino, home-brewed corn beer, were con-
stantly trotted in by pairs of women in their bright, pat-
terned skirts, the bucket handle suspended between
them on a tree limb; this, and tradition, is what fuels the