“The problem is when the roads got in our way.. Then came the Coca Cola truck and the industrial kitchen.. That happened ago 25 the 30 years. We did not consume soft drinks, but we tried them and we liked them. The same thing happened with the sausage”, explains Sabino, a mazahua of 60 years and one of the leaders of his community.
“It was like this. Industrialized products arrived and we began to consume. Before, our women would walk four hours to the city and exchange tortillas and fruit.. Barter was previously practiced. Now we need money for everything.”, he remembers. “I went down with my father to carry twelve chairs for which they gave us one peso.. They were taken on Wednesday and collected on Sunday. “So we walked barefoot and wore blanket clothes.”, insists Sabino. And what changed besides money? “Political parties also came to change things. Here we were not governed by the uses and customs and the rules dictated by the Council of Elders, But politics is slowly changing that.”, ensures.
After drinking a little pulque that he offers us in his humble home, Sabino tells us about the monarch butterflies, which is the reason we are there: “What have we done that our loved ones do not arrive?”? Where have we failed??”. Who has not arrived? , asked. “The butterflies, our dead, he answers.
What have we done that our loved ones do not arrive?
The Mazahuas are an indigenous Mexican people, settled between Michoacán and the State of Mexico, that lives in the same mountains that millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter in every year.. They come from making one of the longest migrations on the planet, after crossing Canada through three different routes, United States and arrive at these Mexican mountains where they spend the winter. On the round trip they do a little more than 8000 kilometers and reach stretches of 120 kilometers per day.
The tradition is fulfilled like clockwork and the mazahuas begin to ring their bells when the day arrives. 1 and 2 November. “We ring the bells on those two days to announce the arrival of our loved ones.”. Butterflies mean for us the arrival of our ancestors. This year they have not arrived, "We have done something wrong.", he repeats. The sky is gray, no trace of the lepidoptera.
The monarch butterfly also marks the beginning of the corn harvest and planting: “When they arrive we know that we must collect and when they leave, back in february, We have to sow. It is a cycle. The 2 February we carry the corn to bless the church. When we bless we know that butterflies leave ", Explican Sabino and Ilaria, his wife, While preparing corn tortillas in their humble house. They live from the sale of some chucheías and renting their grin of corn grain to some neighbors. She sells us a thread bag that makes by hand but does not allow us to pay for the tortilla. "Those are not paid, It is something we offer with pleasure sir ", tell me.
«Those are not paid, It is something we offer with pleasure sir "
A few kilometers from there, Olivia vasequez, the 49 years, An Otomí (indigenous people dispersed throughout the center of the country) that rests on the porch of her house next to a natural vergel that she calls her garden, explains: "I lived with my maternal grandmother. She this season told us about the butterflies and when she saw them she told us "the dead are already. The little ones, White, He indicated that they were little angels ".
Nor Olivia or the Otomís have been able to meet on the important day of the dead with their ancestors. Nothing, There were no butterflies, The spirits of those who have already left even though she, who has algodoncillo at home, The plant that feds the butterflies, He already has larvae in his stems that will soon fly among his flowers.
The Otomís also live imprisoned in this world of mountains and advances that corner their beliefs and even their language. “My grandmother spoke the Otomi and my mother too, although without accent, but my father didn't want to show it to me because he suffered discrimination for using it. Since I grew up, it was no longer talked about.”, remember Olivia. “We also lost the traditional clothing that no one wears anymore.”, she says.
My father didn't want to show it to me because he suffered discrimination for using it.
In exchange, a school has recently been created nearby that aims to ensure that the Otomi language and traditions are not lost., but not without controversy. “They are young teachers who do not know the traditions well”, She assures that she talks about what marriage proposals are like carrying the parande (gifts to in-laws) and how, nevertheless, traditions were also forgotten there: “Now the brides wear the white dress and not the old traditional dress”, says.
As, the butterfly cycle continues although increasingly decimated. The use of pesticides in the US and the illegal felling of trees in Mexico is reducing their number. It is estimated that the lepidopteran population has decreased in 170 million. The conservation plans of the most radical environmental groups collide with the need of a poorly structured and poor population. Just one of the 122 municipalities in which the monarch hibernates is not considered poor or extreme poverty. The Monarch is reduced and, somehow, The world of the people who have been living with them for centuries is also reduced..
In any case, The butterflies will soon arrive at their sanctuaries in Michoacán and the State of Mexico. Next year Sabino and the Mazahuas will continue to launch rockets to heaven to indicate to their dead the road and the Otomís of Queretaro will continue to roast the belly of dead butterflies when hunger tightens. No loss, They will return and Olivia explains a secret: "It is known that they arrive because the wind also changes, The wind of the dead season arrives. They are arriving again ", Vaticin.
