(upbeat music) - [David] In southern Mexico, a single highway connects the two southernmost states, both of them rich in traditions.

That highway takes us from spicy food and mezcal, to marimbas, (upbeat music) sinkholes, (chattering) and Parachicos.

The road from Oaxaca to Chiapas.

(mellow music) - [Announcer] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman, was provided by Agnese Haury.

(mellow music) Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guildford Fund.

(mellow music) (mellow music) (chattering) (festive music) (chattering) (waterfall rippling) (festive music) - Oaxaca in Southern Mexico is internationally famous for its incomparable food, its brilliant textiles, and its mezcal.

And this is one of the principal mescal-producing areas.

(festive music) Here, we have the entire post-Hispanic distillation process.

The original liquid that's already been fermented goes into this distillation tank.

The distillation tank is heated, evaporation begins, and reaches in here, and the pressure causes a condensation to occur in this pipe.

It then comes over here to the cooling snake, as they call it, the culebra serpentino, and that is immersed in cold water.

So this goes down and the distillation then occurs.

And by the time it comes out the spout, it's liquid, it's actually mescal.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] This is the product that we age.

We allow it to sit for some time.

We then have the quality of aged mezcal.

In this case, we add cream to it, and it is processed, fermented, and distilled with some fruit added.

(festive music) - East from Oaxaca, we leave the mescal behind, and all the central valleys, and the cool climate.

The eastern part, where the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is, is hot and it's a completely different culture.

It's a different world from the rest of Oaxaca.

(chattering) The great civilizations of Oaxaca developed in the central valleys.

At the eastern end of those valleys, the land drops off abruptly into canyon country, like this.

It separates the Isthmus from the rest of the state.

And it was a place the Aztecs found very difficult to conquer because of the rough terrain, 500 years ago.

(festive violin music) The highway from Oaxaca to Chiapas passes through one of the great desert landscapes of the world.

In this area right here, there are three different columnar cacti found nowhere else.

What's amazing to me is that in about 1490, 30,000 Aztec soldiers were able to pass through here en route to conquering Tehuantepec.

Through this thorny, grabby, spiny, nasty landscape with no domestic animals, they somehow managed to get an army through here.

I don't know how they did it.

At the entrance to most cities in Mexico, you'll find a statue of some general, a hero, a macho figure.

It's very different in the Isthmus, especially in Juchitan; a tehuana with iguanas on her head.

(upbeat music) One thing that stands out in Juchitan, and all the Isthmus is the flowers that you see the women have embroidered on their blouses and are painted on the buildings.

It's a symbol.

In this place, the women are in charge.

It's a matriarchal culture.

And that makes all the difference.

(festive music) The Isthmus of Tehuantepec roughly connects the state of Oaxaca with the state of Chiapas.

(festive music) It's Mexico's waist, it's the narrowest point.

As a matter of fact, there's long been discussion of building a canal connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.

Because it's a narrow waist, it has a very different kind of geography and a different culture.

It's sort of where Oaxacan culture ends and Chiapan culture begins.

(festive tapping music) These springs, which originate in the limestone mountains way behind us, are called Tlacotepec, it's an Aztec name.

But the Zapotecs had been here for about 500 years.

About the year 1000, they began to develop a civilization here.

And they always found this place much to their liking.

In about 1480, King Cocijoeza decided that this was the place where he wanted to be when he took a vacation.

He had to fight off the Aztecs, and it took him a long time, but eventually, they came to a truce, and this place became sacred for the Zapotecs even into the area after the conquest by Spaniards.

And it's very popular today for people from the Isthmus.

(upbeat music) This is the park of the Marimba, in the capital city of Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutierrez.

It's a big city of almost 600,000 people and it's not very traditional, it's a new city.

But what it does, more than any other place, is to celebrate on a daily basis the importance of the marimba.

This is the marimba capital of the Americas.

(upbeat music) So this orchestra here is only 15 or 20 years old.

Before that, there was no music in the evenings.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] When the first marimba arrived here, it found its home.

About 20 years ago, in this in this park, we began to promote the marimba so that local people could stop by and enjoy themselves.

Now, we perform 365 days of the year.

- What a great vibration.

El bajo?

(speaking in foreign language) (vibrant music) So, base, harmony or guitar.

- Melodia.

- And here's where the melody is.

(vibrant music) - Melodia.

(speaks in foreign language) - Triple.

- This is the Triple.

(vibrant music) You have to hit this really hard to get notes out of them.

(upbeat music) - [Translator] A long time ago, Africans were brought to Mexico as slaves.

One of them was a musician named Black Marimbo.

He brought with him a little marimba of only one or two octaves, it was small, and it had nothing besides the naturals, no half-notes.

He played it over a hole in the ground.

He would put the marimba over the hole and just like that, the hole gave it resonance.

- Below, they have these projections, which are resonators.

They call them pumpas, they're like organ pipes.

But this little hole here is actually made with a very fine thread made from pig's intestine (chuckles).

It apparently gives, adds some dimension to the resonance.

So why a pig intestine and not a cow intestine?

The answer is, it has exactly the right thickness to give the vibration that they want and produce the resonance.

If they used cow intestine, it would just deaden the entire sound, too thick.

(upbeat music) The marimba has European origins, but not far from Tuxtla Gutierrez is a small city whose origins lie in Mesoamerica.

We arrive at Chiapa de Corzo late at night and find artisans working round the clock, getting ready for their upcoming festival.

Well, I'm lucky enough to be able to get inside the workshop of one of Mexico's most famous mask makers, Antonio Lopez Hernandez.

And he is known everywhere for the extraordinary masks he made primarily for the processions and the celebrations in Chiapa de Corzo.

He only makes eight to 10 masks, new masks, every year.

The bulk of his work is in restoring old masks, most of which he made.

So, he's repairing his own work and there are some here, for instance, from back in 1970 that people have had.

They bring them back to him to get made, refreshed, so they'll look sparkling new and sleek for the festivals.

These masks are not representative of the Spaniard, they're representative of the Europeans, perhaps from the early 18th century.

They're not an ancient theme.

This will take a certain amount of getting used to because the eyes, the eye slits are quite small.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] It was made to entertain, to distract a lad who had taken sick.

He was the son of Dona Maria de Anguno, a Spaniard.

She came here looking for someone who could heal her son.

Here was a potential benefactor, and they had nothing to offer, but that was when they arrived wearing the mask, and made her dance wearing the mask, to distract the child from his illness.

- It was at that point that the town dedicated itself to Saint Sebastian and the mask then became associated with the festival of Saint Sebastian.

It's sort of a symbolic convergence of events.

The town now is ferociously dedicated to Saint Sebastian, and so in the middle of January of every year, when his day comes up, they have this enormous and lively and energetic celebration, and it all goes back to the masks that were created to distract an ill little boy.

So this town of Chiapa de Corzo is a fiesta town.

I don't want to say a party town, but it almost sounds like it.

There are only three months of the year when there isn't one festival or another going on.

So that's part of their essence, their soul, and Don Antonio wants to make sure that that tradition continues.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] Right now, we are seeing how participants are getting ready to dance through the streets or to re-create once more the tradition that is of the Chunta here in our town.

Along with them, they will be carrying the important symbols of our town.

For example, they will carry a basket filled with little flags that together signify the reunion of all the neighborhoods of our town.

- This parade of a few hundred person is a bizarre event.

It's confined to people who are dressed to represent the servants of a woman 300 years ago, who was extremely important in the history of Chiapa de Corzo.

She liked to have her men servants dressed as women.

So this is a recreation of that tradition.

So they have marched maybe a quarter of a mile from where they gathered and are waiting outside the church.

But they are not, by tradition, allowed in the church because they're the servant class.

Tomorrow, when the Parachicos, who represent the original people here, the Chapañecas, who are an indigenous people, they will be allowed in the church because they are the authentic representatives of the entire region of Chiapa de Corzo.

(upbeat music) This is just one of numerous parades, desfiles, they call them, that will be part of a week or so of rather wild partying.

Every one of them seems random, but they each have a role to play in the fiesta as a whole, celebrating the very deep background of this town which has an indigenous history of people that nobody knows anything about, and they are now expressing that.

And they're extremely proud of that tradition.

Many of the people who live in this town have Indian roots.

They don't know exactly what they were, but it's clear that this was an Indian town.

(upbeat music) After dawn, the revelers in the fiesta need to rest and recuperate.

We take advantage of the lull in the action and the morning light to visit one of the geological and archaeological wonders not far away.

So this huge hole in the ground, this massive karst, actually has cave formations still beginning here.

We can see the stalactites coming down on the other side as the water still filters through.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] They call this the Top.

200 million years ago, this was a cavern.

The entire ceiling was intact, really.

Then a time came when the ceiling grew fragile due to the cracks caused by seeping water, which opened the cracks, like these.

And then the whole ceiling collapsed.

It just sank, the top remains, this great hole, the sort of collapse geologists call "karsts."

Then the parrots discovered the place and thought it ideal for nesting.

They began to feed the chicks here.

As they fed their babies, seeds would fall to the bottom, and gradually, the bottom had become reforested.

- So I'm dangling here just four, 500 feet above the bottom of the hueco, as they call it, the hole, la cima.

So you can see the painted hands.

Somehow, the old timers got themselves lowered down here.

How they did it, unless things were very different.

It's on an indentation and you can see (chuckles), they had more courage than I would ever.

(speaking in foreign language) Ah, then on the edge of the outcrop there, you can see a snake of some kind.

The archaeologists have pronounced them to be at least 10,000 years old, and maybe 10,000 years ago, the bottom was not as far away as it is now.

(speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] From the top, the deepest point, over there, it is 140 meters deep.

The diameter from here to there on the other side is about 160 meters.

Its circumference is 500 meters.

- Well, it's suspenseful.

It's a good view of the bat hawks, that I've never been able to see before.

(birds chirping) And you can see the hands.

One of them is a pair of hands, right and left.

And they would hold the hands up against the ceiling, like this, and get a mouthful, or maybe they would have a straw full of the powered cochineal, that red dye from the prickly pear, hold their hand up, and poof, blow through that, and it would leave the outline of their hands.

And that red will last forever.

If it's not getting eroded away, it will dye the rock.

I gotta get another photograph, oh boy.

(upbeat music) The images of the manos are striking symbols from previous millennia.

We return to Chiapa de Corzo just in time to see symbolism that is perhaps ancient as well, but now reflected in the pageantry of the city, the Parachicos.

(rhythmic drum beating) The Parachicos who are assembling here range from about eight months in age to well over 60.

There are hundreds and hundreds of them that are going to participate.

The hat is made of maguey fiber called ixtle.

So the inside, from the agave fibers, the ixtle, it is actually tied together, a very painstaking process.

This is a fairly new two-year old color, but as it gets older, it darkens.

Some of the helmets that we see are dark-colored.

That means it's aged and after a certain point, it's time to get a new one.

The ribbons represent the region of Chiapa de Corzo.

I can't conceive of the talent that goes into producing these.

All the native fiber from the Americas, the Agave.

(rhythmic drums music) The dresses that the women and girls wear here are called chapanecas, which is the people who were here for centuries.

They are elaborate affairs, very, very expensive to make, time-consuming, and they are heirlooms.

So they are handed down from mother to daughter, to granddaughter to great granddaughter.

Even the ones for the little girls are kept for generation to generation.

They're a real family heirloom, a treasure.

And if you see them up-close, you wonder how anybody could possibly make them.

And you see why they're so valuable.

This dress that she has, she herself has put together and had other people make.

So if we look very carefully at the embroidery, and that's all done by hand, there are various local symbols.

We got an example of the capilla here, the great fountain of Chiapa de Corzo, a marimba player, and if you go around, you'll find these are very carefully collective memory of the city.

(upbeat music) This is an initial ceremony to say we're getting ready, we're getting energized and ready to go.

The local saying is that you can't become a parachico, you are born a parachico.

And this is a good proof of that concept, that it's something in the blood of the Chiapanecas, the people from Chiapa de Corzo.

This is part of their expression of being from this place.

So the Parachicos identify them, not only for their hometown, but with their culture.

This is a very distinct expression of a cultural value that is very deep and goes back hundreds of years.

(upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) - [Translator] The patron is the spiritual guide.

He is the person who directs the group.

He has to figure out how to get all of the neighborhoods of the town to work together and make a united fiesta.

We can say, for the stage, that this is the space that belongs to the whole town, the people, the actors, the participants, they all fill the streets with cheers of Chiapa de Corzo and when we start to dance, and run through the streets, people open their doors to join in and dance and enjoy the event.

(upbeat music) - You almost need to understand chaos theory to figure out how these groups get sorted out.

But it's more a matter of individual choice than anything else.

Or friends, they begin with a group they want to be in, and it will be a relatively small group of say 100 or so.

Then they all meet for lunch, as one big mass.

And after that, the group goes out, en masse, to make a parade and people keep coming and more Parachicos keep entering.

It's organized chaos.

(speaks in foreign language) - [Translator] We are talking about more than six or 7,000 people dancing.

Aside from the families that participate, we're talking about the boys that dress up like Parachicos or the girls like Chiapanecas.

I mean, the spirit of the fiesta takes over the town.

The town gets behind everything that has to do with the Parachicos.

- Along the way, they make various stops that are indicated by the traditional director of the procession.

And they go in, stop, make an offering at that house, and then move on, all in the direction of the church.

That's the final destination.

(upbeat music) One of the stops that the Parachicos will make, and they are coming now, is this room that is especially theirs.

It's the room of the enramadas.

Enramadas are long strings tied together of basic fruits and food.

Most of the things we see up there are post-Hispanic.

We see bananas, and pineapples, and watermelons.

There are also numerous offerings of objects that people are adding to their enramadas as a gift to the saint, particularly, in this case, Saint Anthony.

(upbeat music) Traveling from Oaxaca to Chiapas, one encounters the greatest diversity of cultures, languages, geology, natural history, fauna and flora that you can find anywhere in the world.

(upbeat music) Join us next time In the Americas, with me, David Yetman.

A majority of the southwest United States is desert.

Water is scarce and found mostly in a few rivers and streams.

But they are becoming exhausted.

A few people here and there are working on ways to confront this slow disappearance of our water.

Their work is vital to every southwesterner.

(upbeat music) (mellow music) - [Announcer] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

(mellow music) Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was also provided by the Guilford Fund.

(mellow music) Copies of this and other episodes of In the Americas with David Yetman are available from The Southwest Center.

To order, call 1-800-937-8632.

Please mention the episode number and the program title.

Please be sure to visit us at intheamericas.com or intheamericas.org.

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