The Indigenous Tradition in San Miguel de Allende

Beatriz Cervantes Jáuregui*

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Located in what had been the land ofthe Chichimecs, the city of San Miguelde Allende was founded and populated

in the second half of the sixteenth century. Friar Juan de San Miguel had arrived in

1542 accompanied by a group of indigenouspeople who stayed to continue their missionwork. A short time later, the discovery of silverin Zacatecas and Guanajuato initiated growingmigration and a road had to be built to movecarts full of merchandise, mules, horses andcattle.When the Chichimecs, ancient hunting and

gathering peoples who inhabited the region,began to suffer the consequences of the de -s truction by the Spanish and their cattle on theirresources, they banded together and began whatis known as the War of the Chichimecs.The conflict affected the fledgling town,

which was attacked by the Chichimecs andabandoned by its surviving inhabitants. Yearslater, so the legend goes, Friar Juan de San Mi -guel and his indigenous followers from differ-ent ethnic groups moved the town to a moreappropriate place. Their dogs located a gener-ous spring at the foot of which the town of SanMiguel el Grande developed. Its Nahuatl name,Izcuinapan, means “river of dogs.”Founded to offer better pro tection to wayfar-

ers, the town was on an ideal site for settlementbecause of its pleasant climate, abundant waterand the possibility of using the land for both cul-tivation and cattle grazing.In the eighteenth century, San Miguel el

Gran de was already so prosperous that it hada great many orchards and gardens, rich agri -cul ture and many cattle. An important work-shop-based textile industry had developed andcommerce was growing. The main work forcewas made up of indigenous people who livedin the town’s neighborhoods and surroundinghamlets.The criollo population gained economic sta -

ture and social and political standing, evidenced

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* Researcher at the INAH Center in Guanajuato.

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in the city’s architecture. Particular cir cums tan -ces led this group to identify with the insurgentsfighting for independence, whose military headswere illustrious natives like Ign aci o Allende, inwhose memory the town’s name was changed toSan Miguel de Allende in 1862.By contrast, the indigenous population, by

the eighteenth century mainly Otomí, sufferedfrom poverty, mistreatment and overwork. Giventheir precarious circumstances, this sector of thepopulation has left vestiges of its existence main-ly in its most traditional cultural expressions.In today’s San Miguel, indigenous traditions

are clearly seen in some of the fiestas that aremost important to the community, such as thatof Our Lord of the Conquest, the Holy Crossand, of course, the September 29 fiesta of Ar ch -angel San Miguel, the city’s patron saint.

THE FIESTA OF SAN MIGUEL

In 1927, Carlos Diez de Sollano wrote, “TheFriday before the fiesta the Indian dances arrive:these dances, a very regional attraction, are doneby Otomí men and women. They have their ge n -erals, captains and lieutenants of both sexes,distinguished by the leadership scepters theycarry with them. They dance every year and theleadership passes down from generation to ge n -eration; others, the majority, dance because of avow they have taken.”1 Diez then describedtheir clothing: “The men wear a special suit withshort skirts made of brightly colored cloth, reds,blues or yellows, embroidered with sequins andgold; a shirt of a different color, embroideredor decorated; and a feather headdress with co l -ored beads, replete with abundant pictures ofsaints. On the front, of course, there are imagesof San Miguel and Our Lady of Guadalupe,and a multitude of long ribbons hang down theback. Many of them also wear fake hair thathangs down their backs and a short cape.”They also wore sandals, brightly colored stock -

ings and strings of paper beads as necklaces.The women wore long, wide petticoats made

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of beautiful percale with blouses to match. “Theywore their hair loose, heavily greased” and feath-er headdresses like those of the men.Diez Sollano states that the dances were

accompanied by musicians who played instru-ments made of armadillo shells, sometimesstrung like mandolins, sometimes like guitars.He also writes that “the tunes or sones for thedances are very rhythmic and monotonous,the dances themselves very interesting withmore than 20 different steps; each step has adifferent son, and they switch from one toanother at the shout of the captain general.”For the San Miguel festival, the communities

that followed indigenous traditions have gone tothe municipality to hold their fiesta from timeimmemorial. They also organize and finance it.Though the fiesta of San Miguel is held on

September 29, in the past, festivities began inmid-August with the ritual hunting of the bullthat would later be slaughtered at the fiesta.On the following four Sundays, the group wentto different places of special significance. Theycalled this “requesting permission to hold thefiesta.” They would take flowers and candlesas offerings and sing and pray accompanied bymusic made with shells.Indigenous communities from almost the

entire state and even from Querétaro came tothe San Miguel fiesta, meeting along the road.They spent the night before at a predeterminedspot where they would pray together. At thisevening ceremony, amid songs and music, theywould make the súchil, a 2.5-to-10-meter-highstructure made out of reeds, decorated with thebone-colored petals from the heart of the cu -charilla, marigolds and other seasonal flowersand with corn stalks and tortillas painted dif-ferent colors.The next day, they set out with the súchil

and traditional images toward San Mi guel tobring together the souls, the súchiles and thedances in the place where tradition has it thatone of the four conquistador strongmen of SanMiguel was killed for having ac cepted Chris -tianity. The processions always arrived at this

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place after noon from the four dif ferent direc-tions and the group from San Mi guel would goout to meet them. The ritual would then be -come solemn for at that moment everyone pre-sent would declare that they were leaving behindtheir resentments and problems and were com -ing to an agreement, the prerequisite for con-tinuing toward the center of the city. Accordingto the elders, this ceremony com memorated thecity’s moving to its new location in the sixteenthcentury.First the captain generals entered with their

lieutenants, who carried the flags and standards;after them went the family crosses of the oldcaciques or strongmen. Then a dance was per-formed and a súchilwent in, and so on. They arriv eddancing through the streets until they reachedthe main garden, which they circled three times,dancing all the while. On their first turn aroundthe garden, the stewards used to go to the jail-house to feed the prisoners in a show of sol -idarity. On the last turn, they would come out ofthe jail and, as the dances continued, put the

súchiles in the atrium of the parish church. Thedances continued until evening fell, when thetowers of fireworks were lit. The next day, theyentered the parish church on their knees carry -ing offerings of flowers, fruit, candles and food.Later the priest would celebrate responsoriesfor the souls of their ancestors. The celebrantsleft the church crawling backwards on theirknees.Today, many parts of the old fiesta of the Ar ch -

angel San Miguel have changed; some havedisappeared or been transformed, as surely hasalways been the case. But the fiesta survives be -cause there are still communities that organizeit despite their economic limitations and be -cause there is a society that accepts it, needs it,appreciates it and encourages it.

NOTES

1 All quotes are from Carlos Diez de Sollano, “Las fiestasde San Miguel,” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Históricos 1(Mexico City: Editorial Cultura, 1927), pp. 213-227.

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Many parts of the fiesta have changed but it survives thanks to community interest.

Cou

rtesy of A

urora Jáuregui

Cou

rtesy of A

urora Jáuregui