I get out of a cab in what seems to be the antithesis of the place I just left. I’m in the Chiapas highlands, southern Mexico, and I spent a lovely morning eating hand made tortillas, drinking pox, a very strong cane liquor, and talking to the local women about their beautifully crafted and multicolored textiles in Zinacantán.
A few minutes later, a cloudy and cold San Juan Chamula welcomes me with a pack of kids dashing towards the car demanding me to buy them notebooks, “or at least this piece of art I just made specially for you” one girl says while showing me a random piece of wood. Not a crafty town, I can see. One of them tells me in a barely understandable Spanish that he will answer every question I have about the church, but he is not allowed to go in with me.
As my eyes get used to the gloomy insides, I notice no pews but pine boughs, candles and kneeled people instead. The catholic statues surrounding the church wear local clothes and carry a mirror. The prayers of men, women and families that come and leave without noticing each other echo in Tzotzil, not one of them in Spanish.
Suddenly, a man entering catches my eye, his son carries something in a bag and it is moving. The old man prays spitting pox to the candles on the floor and walks in a circle addressing to each saint. The son takes out and solemnly gives him what the bag is containing, and then… it happens.
The shaman puts the nervous hen in front of him and continues his prayers. He slowly grabs the neck still praying eyes closed. I can feel what is coming and I close mine too. Crack.
Rubbing the dead bird the man finishes his ritual, puts it back into the bag, cleans the wax left on the floor and leaves. “Have a good afternoon, sir”, he stops and says to me smiling on his way out. Goosebumps, he knew I’ve been watching.
For the first time I feel naked in my own country. And now, of course, "watch a man kill a hen inside a catholic church praying in Tzotzil” is crossed off my bucket list.
