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JAMES CAREY, THE DEVIL AND HIS MASKS, JOURNALISM AND THESHEPHERD'S PLAY IN MICHOACAN, MEXICOPavel Shlossberg

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Pavel Shlossberg

JAMES CAREY, THE DEVIL AND HIS

MASKS, JOURNALISM AND THE

SHEPHERD’S PLAY IN MICHOACAN,

MEXICO

I.1

In Tocuaro the old mask-maker invited me inside, and he gladly showed methe masks that he had carved and mounted on the wall. Fifteen sinister,wooden, hand-painted snouts gazed back at me. All of them depicted Lucifer.

It was a devout Catholic home, and so the plain wooden crucifix and theicon of the Virgin de Guadalupe were also affixed to that wall, next to thedemonic faces.

Of course, in rural Mexico and elsewhere images of the Devil are rarelydisplayed in devout Catholic households. But in Tocuaro, and in other ruralpueblos in Michoacan and throughout Mexico the image of Lucifer, and five,or fifteen, or fifty such diabolic icons hang in some very observant Catholichomes.

The mask-maker, Enemorio, pointed at the fiendish snouts that glared atme, and he told me that each year dancers wear these devil masks that hecarves. These masked dancers are the diablos who tempt and torment and tryto trick the shepherds � the local children � who also star in the pastorela �the shepherds’ play � which is performed again and again and again during theannual fiesta in Tocuaro.

Pueblos all over Michoacan and throughout rural Mexico have their ownparticular fiesta days, and during these special, holy days, many members ofthe village community will celebrate communion together, and feast together,and also attend the pastorela plays, or perhaps some other morality/mysteryplays, which are performed during the fiesta each year.

Accordingly, in Tocuaro and in many other pueblos throughout Mexicoskilled artisans such as Enemorio carve some diabolic masks and some saintlymasks each year, and these artisans gift, and lend, and rent, and sell thesemasks to local dancers and to others as well. The artisans and the dancers andtheir families hang some of these diabolic (and beatific) masks on their walls.And from the standpoint of local knowledge it is not sinister or sinful to displaythe demonic masks because all of the masks � the fiendish and the saintly ones

Cultural Studies Vol. 23, No. 2 March 2009, pp. 262�282

ISSN 0950-2386 print/ISSN 1466-4348 online – 2009 Taylor & Francis

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� are all very respectable, because they all star in very honorable and moralplays. The diablos and the santos belong to the same customary dramas, and sothey also, literally, hang together on the same walls.

No, at that moment, when I encountered Enemorio and his masks for thefirst time, I saw the juxtaposition, the potential contradiction, the potentialconflict in something else: the devils, and the Virgin, and the cross shared thewall space with some newspaper articles. And the Spanish-language articleswere from Mexican newspapers, and the articles in English were fromAmerican newspapers. All of these articles described the diablos, and thesantos, and the pastorelas in secular terms: as art, folk art, folk culture, andfolklore.

At first Enemorio discussed sin and redemption as he talked about the devilmasks, and the Virgin, and the cross. Then Enemorio pointed to thenewspaper articles, and he began to talk about the diablos, and the Virgin, andthe cross as art, as folk art, and he also said that the articles verified andexplained all that. Afterwards, Enemorio � who is really not that old � alsooffered to sell some diablos, and Virgenes, and crosses, and some hand-carvedminiature devil-mask key-chains to me as well.

James Carey had intellectually weaned me, and at that moment some ofthat training kicked in. And I thought: these masks and these customs and theseartisans live on the verge, in the verge, at the cross-roads between twodifferent kinds of knowledge and communication. The masks belong to a localoral tradition. The actors wearing the masks become santos and diablos whoenact old Christian morality tales, and when these players enact these oldmorality tales, they depict and reinforce the community’s sacred religiousbeliefs. Then I also thought: and the local oral customs have now been ingestedinto print, and in print, in the secular newspapers secular meanings have beenattached to these objects. In the US, and in Mexico, and in Tocuaro too thesemasks and these customs have been re-inscribed, re-introduced as art, as folkart, as secular art and secular culture.

I.2

One-in-five Michoacanos now live in the US, and in the summer of 2001 I hadtraveled through Michaocan, in search of places where I might fruitfully studythe links between the Mexicanization of the US and the Americanization ofMichoacan.

That was the big dissertation idea, but the idea was still too big and toohazy. To help ground it all, my late mentor, James Carey, advised me, in somany words, to look for the homunculus, or at least for a homunculus, for myhomunculus � for a concrete social artifact, symbol, sight, technology that also‘imaginatively [located], constituted, expressed, and compressed into itself the

J A M E S C A R E Y A N D T H E S H E P H E R D ’ S P L AY I N M I C H OA C A N 2 6 3


dominant features of the surrounding world’ (Carey 1997b, p. 319), that is,the social developments that I intended to examine and describe.

And in Michoacan, I had looked, and squinted, and scratched my head, andI had taken many photos. The days had passed and as the days passed I becamedisheartened because by now the trip was almost over but I had not found myhomunculus.

To sustain flagging spirits, a day or two before departing I decided to takea break. My Lonely Planet Mexico guidebook mentioned that in the region therewas a lakeside village � Tocuaro � where ‘some of the Mexico’s finest mask-makers carve[d] traditional Mexican masks.’ And that sounded different, andstrange, and interesting and so I decided to take my short break by visiting this‘sleepy, one bus-stop town’ (Noble et al. 2000, p. 600).

I.3

I met Enemorio in Tocuaro, and he introduced me to his demonic and hissaintly masks, and to the Virgin and his cross, and to his newspapers, whichwere all mounted together on the wall. And Enemorio talked about faith and sinand redemption, and in the same breath he talked about folk art andmerchandise as well.

At that moment, in that encounter I also remembered my teacher’s words:

There are critical junctures at which the social capsule breaks open andthe fundamental coordinates of individual identity and group life arebroken up . . . At these moments new forms of social drama are created,new social antagonisms defined and sharpened, new social types created,and new cultural forms of address, interaction, and relationshipsdeveloped.

(Carey 1997a, p. 28)

And I looked at all the objects that were hanging together on that wall, and Ithought: yes, the social capsule is broken, and this mask, this oldcommunication technology that belongs to the old indigenous Mexican oralculture, the old spirit world, has been incorporated, ingested into thenationalized, Americanized, secular world of print, of mass media, and righthere in this village, in this workshop, in these masks, it is all present.

In this juncture, in this verge, how are ‘the fundamental coordinates ofindividual identity and group life breaking up?’ And what is taking their place?In these masks, in this workshop, in this village, how can we understand, howcan we describe, how can we classify the ‘new forms of social drama’ the ‘newsocial antagonisms,’ the ‘new social types’ and ‘the new forms of culturaladdress, interaction, and relationships’ that are emerging from this coupling

2 6 4 C U LT U R A L S T U D I E S


between the cross and the newspapers and these devils, which are also theiroffspring?

Because I could express these thoughts, these problems in relation to thesaintly and diabolic masks from Tocuaro, they became my homunculi, andconsequently, the subjects of my dissertation research. Accordingly, between2003 and 2005, I lived with demons and saints and shepherds and mask-makersin rural Michoacan.

II

At the outskirts of Bethlehem, the shepherds had jumped behind a large rock,to shelter themselves from the cosmic battle that was taking place right outsidethe manger.

Angels and devils tumbled through the air, locked in furious embraces, andon the ground below them, seraphs and fiends clawed at each other’s throats.

But cherubs and demons were not the only incredible, larger-than-lifecharacters that had joined this melee.

Batman was there too, and he was pummeling an incubus. This fury hadtorn off the caped crusader’s mask, and the shepherds could see that Batmanwas really that champion of Mexican democracy, that scourge of the PartidoRevolucionario Institucional (PRI), el Senor Presidente Vicente Fox.

Nearby, a devil had just skewered a true hero, a medic from the RedCross, who had given first aid to both the blessed and the damned on thatbattlefield.

But the great Mexican soccer player Pavel Pardo had evened the scorequickly. Goal! The deflated soccer ball that he had kicked had tracked true, hadfound its mark, and had cleaved the offending demon’s head right from itsshoulders.

Meanwhile, the shepherds sat huddled behind the rock, and they prayedthat the Redeemer might protect them and save them.

But, instead of huddling and praying with the rest, one good Shepard,Bartolo, had been too curious, and he had crept forward, just a bit, to see theamazing skirmish.

Unfortunately, Bartolo had also exposed himself, and Pecado (Sin), amighty fiend in Lucifer’s horde, had spotted Bartolo, and had descended to theboulder to claim the easy prey.

Pecado’s appearance was glorious and hideous at the same time. On hishead, Pecado wore a crimson crown. A skull encrusted with precious gemswas set into this crown, and the crown itself was wedged between two largehorns that protruded from the anthropomorphic, yet reptilian face, whichshimmered, like the scales of an iguana, in bright, chromatic colors. Giant



white fangs adorned the mouth, and the bright red tongue forked into aminiature devil that blabbered foul maledictions.

The beast opened its enormous cape and the cape’s shadow fell upon thepilgrims, extinguishing the Sun’s light. Rapidly, the fiend moved forward tocollect the pilgrims’ souls, and to incarcerate them in Hell for eternity.

God, Lord, Redeemer, save us! Trembling, now huddled together, theshepherds stuttered their final prayers. The fiend was almost on top of themnow. This was the end.

Swoosh! Whack! Someone, something had knocked Pecado back, and nowhe stumbled backward, and fell to the ground dazed.

Some savior had interceded, and with his back turned to the shepherds,their defender now stood between the shepherds and the demon.

Who had answered the penitients’ pleas? Was it Michael, or was it perhapssome other archangel, who had descended from the heavens, and who hadsmitten the fiend?

The guardian was bedecked in a bright red cape, and he wore bluetights. . . . The hero half-turned and glanced back. It was . . . it was Super-man . . . Superman had saved the day!

There, in all his glory stood the man of steel himself.In truth, though, it wasn’t such a glorious sight.In the movies and in the comic books, Superman has a lean muscular

physique and rakish good looks. But the movies and the comic books alwayslionize their heroes, and make them grander and greater then they really are.

The real Superman is quite flabby, and he has a droopy butt. His biceps areso huge, not because they are muscular, but because his arms are fat.

In any case, this corpulent Superman had thrashed the demon � trueheroism, strength, and virtue speaks for itself, after all, and does not needadornments!

In gratitude, the shepherds fell to their knees before their new idol.But the man of steel rebuked them immediately.Get up, get up, he said. I cannot save you from Pecado or the other devils,

because they are much stronger than the man of steel. God and his Son are farmightier than me, and only they can defeat the demons and save us all. But youmust have faith to complete the journey, to enter the manger, and to receivethe Redeemer’s blessing.

Go now, said Superman, as I can not hold back this fiend for too long.And the shepherds did not hesitate, and they entered the manger and

adored and embraced the True Savior and his Church. So, through theiradoration and their faith, the shepherds saved themselves, the superheroes, andeveryone else on Earth.

With his Son, God banished Lucbell and his minions to Hell.This is how the shepherds’ incredible journey ends.



III.1

The village of Tocuaro is situated by, but does not quite abut the southwestbank of Lake Patzcuaro, which is located in the north-central highland regionof Michoacan, about half-way between the state capital, Morelia, 50 kilometersto the east, and the state’s second largest city, Uruapan, 50 kilometers to thewest. The large town of Patzcuaro is just 12 kilometers away, and it is easilyreached along the paved lakeside road that spurs off of the main Uruapan-Morelia highway at the outskirts of Patzcuaro.

On a typical day, only the occasional car slows down on the main road, atthe turn off into the village, but during the fiesta days, many vehicles slowdown and drive into the village.

Residents who are temporarily living elsewhere, and others who havepermanently left, will return from Patzcuaro, from Mexico City, fromTijuana, and even from greater Los Angeles, to participate in the occasion.

If these travelers arrive during the daylight hours, it is likely that they willencounter the re-enactment of the pastorela, because the pastorela is one ofthe most common and constant fixtures of the fiesta: it is staged and re-stagedover and over again, all around the village, during the morning and in theafternoon, at twilight, and occasionally at night as well, on the fourconsecutive days of the fiesta.

Four pairs of local boys and girls, none of them as young as six or olderthan thirteen, are the eight shepherds who are on the road to Belen to adorethe baby Jesus.

The shepherds are dressed in lily-white outfits. The boy shepherds wearwhite, collared shirts, white pants, and white, thigh-length skirt-aprons aroundtheir waists. Gray or black ties adorn the costumes as well, and these darkvertical stripes, like the dark horizontal belts at the waistline, and the blackshoes that the shepherds wear on their feet, seem to dissolve into thepredominant whiteness of their outfits. The boys also wear light-blue kneelength capes.

The shepherdesses are dressed in elegant white dresses, which they mighthave worn, or which they will wear one day, to celebrate their firstcommunion. Some of the dresses have sleeves, and some are sleeveless. Thedresses are not quite ankle length and the girls also wear white stockings andwhite shoes. Transparent white veils are fastened into the girls’ hair, and thesedrape down the back and the sides of their heads, past their shoulders, but donot cover their faces.

In Tocuaro, the shepherds’ play is characteristically performed as a dance,and every aspect of the drama has its meanings. In one act the devils andlampooned heroes and villains from pop culture (who are colloquially knownas ‘negritos’), encircle and cavort around the shepherds as they proceed ontheir symbolic journey to Belen.



In this pass, ‘la caminata’ (‘the walk’), the shepherds perform a set ofpatterned line dances to the tune of polka music, which the accompanyingbrass and percussion band plays. For a few moments the shepherds are thesole, unimpeded performers in the act. However, very quickly the diablos andthe negritos enter the stage. As the pastores perform their orderly passes, thediablos and the negritos begin to dance, like sharks surrounding their prey, in acircle around the shepherds.

The diablos and the negritos dance in an energetic and chaotic way. Theycareen into each other, and the actors who take these parts mimic and parodythe attributes and the personalities of the characters that they play. The diablosand the negritos also fraternize irreverently with the public that comes towatch the drama, but they do not ever actually impede the progress of thepastores, who always continue their orderly dances, despite the bawdy chaosthat the negritos and the diablos create all around them.

III.2

What does it all mean?This is the question that I always asked dancers, carvers, and others in the

pueblo.One 19 year old man, Benjamin Reyes, who danced as a negrito in 2004,

and who was also a student of law at the state university in Morelia, noted that:

The Pastorela is like a story, a history. [The Archangel] Michael expels thethree devils Astucio, Pecado, and Lucbell. The devils want revenge . . .and the shepherds carry offerings for the Nino Dios (baby Jesus). Theywant his blessing. But the devils want to kill Nino Dios. The devilsconfront Michael and lose the encounter.

Oskar Horta Tera, a forty-something year-old carpenter and primary schoolteacher who has danced numerous times, explained that:

First of all it’s a tradition . . . The pastorela teaches us about the birth ofNino Dios. The [shepherds and the angels’] encounter with the devilsrepresents the confrontation between good and evil. The negritos are thesinners of this world.

The archangel Michael appears to the shepherds and instructs them to hasten toBethlehem, to adore the baby Jesus. The Devil knows, however, that once theshepherds arrive at the manger, he will no longer be able to corrupt them,because the shepherds will obtain their salvation there.



To forestall this from happening, to prevent the shepherds from arriving inBelen, the Devil attempts to addle, to seduce, and to waylay these pilgrims.Each particular rendition of the pastorela presents its own distinct version ofthe stratagems that the archfiend employs to mislead the pilgrims. Theshepherds are distracted, and waylaid, and even (almost) corrupted, but in theend, they persevere, and they arrive in Bethlehem.

Of course, the archfiend is furious and despondent about this turn ofevents. In his wrath, Lucifer assembles his diabolic minions, and the fiends sallyforth from Hell to snare the shepherds and to kill Baby Jesus in his crib. But theheavenly host, led by the archangel Michael, intercedes, and a pitched battletakes place between the Devil’s hordes and the heavenly host. Hells’ monarchduels personally with Michael, and the archangel defeats the Devil, and Hell’sforces are routed by the divine army as well. The shepherds reach the manger,and through their adoration and their faith, these pilgrims find their salvation inChrist, as Lucifer and his hordes are repelled and banished to Hell.

The shepherds represent the true church. And the shepherds’ tale issimultaneously the allegory of Everyman: the journey that it depicts is thejourney through faith that the Christian undertakes on the road to salvation.The shepherds’ tale suggests that this journey in faith is difficult to complete.Man is a fallen creature, who is constantly tempted to sin, and misled by falseidols and ideals, which inspire and sanction profane and unholy activities. Andyet, the shepherds’ play is also a very hopeful tale; it insists that faithempowers men, and that it allows men to overcome distractions andtemptations that might impede their salvation, and cause their damnation.The hosts of heaven can and will overcome the minions of Hell in every man’ssoul, but each individual must also undertake and complete their own spiritualjourney to the manger in Bethlehem!

III.3

The negritos are the sinners of this world.Superman. The medic from the Red Cross. The Caped Crusader-cum-

Vicente Fox. Chucky. These characters dance with the devils and attempt tomenace, and to distract the shepherds. Simultaneously, by encircling theshepherds, the negritos and the devils also interpose themselves between thespectators and the shepherds who continue to perform the dances, whichsymbolize their spiritual pilgrimage.

When the devils and the negritos enter the stage � the line dance � and itsallegorical significance � seems to fade into the background of the mise-en-scene.The devils and the colorful negritos engage and titillate the audiences withtheir antics, while the shepherds perform their repetitive routines withoutinteracting with the public at all.



Superman pretends to soar into the air by leaning forward with his armsoutstretched, as he kicks back one leg and balances on his other leg. A devil isright in front of him, and presumably that is the villain with whom he willpresently battle. But Chucky careens into Superman, and the superhero, whois already wobbly, now trips over his cape and falls into the dirt. Supermanrolls around in the earth and then he staggers back to his feet. Undeterred byhis own clumsiness, and the shellacking that he has just received, Supermanwalks over to a woman, throws back his shoulders and his cape, salutes her,and proceeds to flex.

Superman’s enormous biceps are bulging, but not because they are somuscular, but because towels are stuffed under the blue sleeves of his shirt,and these make his arms look incredibly fat. But these bulging arms do notlook too impressive, because Superman has a gigantic, bulging stomach as well,which the actor has developed by stuffing towels into his shirt. To prove thathe has other super qualities besides his super-girth, Superman flexes and show-boats before his new-found Lois Lane. Meanwhile, a demon screeches by himand begins to pester the lady. However, Superman is too busy and too self-absorbed to intervene, because he is too busy posing as a superhero.

The antics in which the negritos participate serve didactic purposes.Superman is a fictional hero, but others, like the Caped Crusader-cum-

Presidente Fox are hybrid characters that combine into one compositecaricature, real and fictional larger-than-life personalities. And this is verysensible, because the negritos personify � and cut down � the real and theimaginary idols that men create and put on a pedestal.

In the character of the negrito, the alleged virtues of popular heroes are re-imagined as their grotesque weaknesses. Superman’s monumental strength isre-imagined as his monumental corpulence, Superman’s dexterity becomesSuperman’s clumsiness, and Superman’s legendary altruism becomes Super-man’s legendary vanity.

As Benjamin Reyes explained, ‘The negritos try to take care of, to guardNino Dios, but they are not able to do it because they are drunkards, becausethey are compromised. They have human limitations. People don’t behave likethey ought to.’

In the customary rendition of the shepherds’ play, false prophets and falseidols attempt to distract, to deceive, and to corrupt the shepherds. The negritos� along with the devils � are examples of such false prophets and false idols whoattempt to mislead and to seduce the shepherds and the spectators as well.

III.4

In the pastorela in Tocuaro in 2004, Superman was not quite himself, not onlybecause he was super-fat and not super-strong, but also because he was in fact



Chuparman and not Superman. In Spanish the words ‘super’ and ‘chupar’sound quite similar; but they also mean very different things. ‘Super’ signifies agreat abundance, and/or a very large size, quantity, or heft. ‘Chupar’ literallymeans ‘to suck,’ ‘to consume,’ and ‘to exhaust.’ Idiomatically, ‘chupar’describes the act of drinking large quantities of alcohol � and it also signifiesfellatio.

Chuparman is clumsy because he is also the ‘super-drinking-man,’ and hisabilities are so compromised because he is intoxicated. The drunkard’sjudgment is compromised, and his social inhibitions also break down.Accordingly the boozer might feel like a super man, who can say anythingand do anything that he pleases, wherever he pleases. But of course,Chuparman’s antics are inane and ineffective. The great drunkard, Chuparman,might believe that he is potent, but in fact he is quite impotent. Chuparmanattracts a lot of attention, not because he is a role-model, but because peoplelaugh at him.

Two active Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) chapters exist in Tocuaro, andthere are also many alcoholics in this community who do not participate ineither AA chapter. In Tocuaro, and in many of the surrounding communities,alcoholism is a common disease. Especially during the fiesta-period � whensocial drinking is the social norm � some alcoholics � and some others � willalways drink too much. Chuparman, therefore, represents the alcoholic whorelapses, and/or any person who binges during the fiesta.

Furthermore, during the fiesta, men often encounter from their maleassociates peer pressure to drink. In many cases, it is considered rude to turndown such invitations, and at the same time, the act of drinking together withother men is often understood as an expression of male potency andheterosexual masculinity.

Chuparman, however, literally means ‘the great fellator,’ or, even morecrudely, ‘the great cock-sucker.’ On the one hand, this title is just another lowdig that pokes fun at, and seeks to cut down the excessive drinking thathappens during the fiesta. But, on the other hand, this jab is even sharper andmore pointed: casting heavy male drinkers as ‘super-fellators,’ Chuparmanundercuts the idea that heavy drinking is an expression of heterosexualmachismo, and instead implies that this type of male carousing is in fact a formof gay or homoerotic behavior.

‘Chupar’ has other relevant and non-sexual connotations as well � it alsomeans ‘to suck dry,’ ‘to exhaust.’ Chuparman-the drunkard exhausts hishealth, wealth, abilities, and reputation, through his dedication to the bottle.And he depletes the family’s savings and his family relationships, because ofthis affection for spirits as well.

Alcohol is one popular but false god in which men believe, and beforewhich men bow. But the escape, the salvation that the bottle offers is onlyfleeting and illusory, and the companionship of drunkards is not a true



brotherhood, or a genuine communion. Excessive drinking corrupts the bodyand the soul, even though the drunkard might believe that it empowers him.Drunkards stagger around, but they are too inebriated, too impaired to findtrue solace, true faith, true salvation, which only religion can provide. This isone of the allegorical meanings that was readily available to the spectators, as‘super-drinking men’ careened, tormented and chased by devils, through themise-en-scene, while the good shepherds continued their journey, unimpeded, toBelen.

During the fiesta one can easily do nothing but carouse, and perhaps thepresence of Chuparman at the pastorela reminds and admonishes actors andaudiences that they will also be ‘chupar-men,’ if they only dedicate themselvesto carousing during the pastorela. The fiesta, after all, is given each year tovenerate and to honor the Virgin, who is a patron saint of the community. Thenegritos and the diablos try to entice the shepherds to dance with them, butthe shepherds never accept these propositions, they never interrupt their linedance, and their journey to Belen, to dance with the devils and the negritos.The shepherds’ discipline and resolve gently reminds the spectators not toindulge in the revelries to such an extent that it might distract them fromparticipating in the more pious and solemn aspects of the fiesta, such as themasses in honor of the Virgin.

III.5

The pastorela is a very old tale, which the Spanish evangelists brought to NewSpain in the sixteenth century. On the Iberian Peninsula, the devils had alreadypestered shepherds and Everyman during the high Middle Ages. And thepastorela is also a contemporary drama because heroes and villains from comicbooks, from politics, and from the silver screen � cavort alongside venerabledevils and shepherds as well.

The pastorela is a promiscuous tale and a moral tale, and it continues to bea compelling morality tale precisely because it is also a promiscuous tale. It isChuparman’s antics that make the shepherds’ pilgrimage so meaningful andengaging, and at the same time, it is the shepherds’ journey that makesChuparman’s antics so meaningful. If it lacked this interplay between thenegritos, and the devils, and the shepherds, the drama would begin to unravel,the shepherds’ journey would become much more prosaic and much lessheroic, and frankly, the pastorela would also be much less interesting andengaging to watch in that case.

The pastorela gains its moral-didactic significance through its entertain-ment value, and it is entertaining because it harnesses symbols and charactersfrom pop culture, with whom the audiences and performers are intimatelyfamiliar and engaged.



‘The negritos try to care for Nino Dios but aren’t able to because . . . theyhave human limitations . . . people don’t behave like they ought to.’ And inthe same conversation, really in the same breath, Benjamin Reyes also noted:

Famous characters on TV. These will be enjoyable and divert people. Theintention is to entertain the people. This is the point of the negritos . . .The negritos are defenders of Nino Dios, but more than anything elsethey entertain people . . . The negritos dance and people dance withthem.

During another conversation, Daniel Ramos, another young man whocommonly participates as a negrito in the pastorela, mentioned that:

Every year we try to see who comes out in the funniest, most entertainingway. I like changing characters to make it more difficult for audiences todiscover who I am. At first, people don’t know who is who . . .Chuparman joined with us and said things to make people laugh. . . . Thisyear I was a womanizer . . . I told women, ‘come here my love, and giveme kisses,’ or, ‘See how you have left me,’ or, ‘Grandma, these are mywomen. Give them a kiss.’

Which characters will sally forth this year? Will I be able to guess who isbehind the mask? Who will be the most interesting and entertaining negrito?Will the same performers that dazzled last year, also shine and dazzle this year?

Because they cut down heroic, idolized figures from popular entertain-ment and mass culture, the negritos literally bring the cosmic pastorela dramadown to earth. The spectators can identify with these larger-than-lifecharacters precisely because their mystiques are undercut in the context oftheir incorporation into the pastorela. And this humorous iconoclasm makesthe pastorela so accessible, so inviting to watch, and so meaningful andrelevant to the spectators. Superman is Chuparman is a local alcoholic is thespectator’s own father. Through such loose symbolic juxtapositions andallusions, the pastorela gains its moral and didactic significance. The negritosand the pastorela in general is an intimately familiar representation of the localcommunity and its mores, a running moral commentary about individuals wholive in it, and their pedestrian engagements with alcohol, their neighbors, faith,and many other things.

In loftier, allegorical terms, the presence of the negritos in the pastorela,and their exaggerated, burlesque actions, suggest that Everyman’s own journeyin faith to salvation is impeded when he adores man made, secular idols andideals too much. In that case, the drama suggests, man puts himself on apedestal. And this leads to perdition.



III.6

Dancers who participate in the pastorela as negritos can enter and exit thestage as they please. These actors become whoever they like, whenever theylike, and they dance for as long as they want to dance. In the morning,Benjamin Reyes might participate in the pastorela for five minutes asChuparman, and in the afternoon, he might participate in the pastorela forfive hours as Vicente Fox. One day later, Benjamin Reyes might cavort asVicente Fox again, but this time, Vicente Fox might be the caped crusader aswell.

Groups of teenage boys will often dress up and enter and exit the stagetogether; accordingly, a collectivity of friends might apply social pressure onsomeone within their social circle to join in the romp. However, acommunity-wide social obligation does not exist, which would prescribewho the negrito should be, how long they should perform, or what types ofantics they should perpetrate. To actors and spectators, the negritos’ role is soentertaining and so interesting precisely because it is so free-form.

The shepherds’ roles, however, are tightly scripted, and the shepherdscannot enter and exit the drama whenever they please. The same four boys andthe same four girls, play the shepherds again and again during the four days ofthe fiesta.

And the pastorela is performed dozens of times each day. It is danced onevery street corner and in every alleyway. The players will knock on each andevery door, and in many cases members of a household will come out to watchthe pastorela, and/or they will invite the shepherds, the other players, and theband inside, into their courtyard, so that the pastorela might be performed inthere as well.

Over and over again, the shepherds will continue to dance in front ofcrowds. In the streets and in the courtyards wave after wave of fresh, well-rested � and often much older and bigger � diablos and negritos will comeout, and will amble about, and will attempt to engage, and harass, and distractthe shepherds.

The capes might get in the way and might become uncomfortable, and thehairclips that hold the veils might pinch the scalp. But the shepherds must andwill continue to perform the same sets of passes again and again, for manyhours. By the second afternoon, the shepherds’ young feet will be very tired.But the shepherds can not stop, they must and they will continue to dance.

Piece-by-piece it all adds up. The shepherds’ role demands a lot fromthe eight children and from their families. By the third and fourth days, theshepherds’ shoulders droop, their feet begin to drag, and sometimes theshepherds seem to sway on their feet. But I have never seen a child quit.Nobody ever throws in the towel.



For eight or ten hours each day, as long as the music continues to play, theshepherds will continue to dance.

The shepherds’ journey, the journey in faith to salvation is long, difficult,and demanding. The shepherds arrived in Belen, at the manger, on the firstday, during the first enactment of the pastorela. But the journey to Belen � thisjourney in faith and to faith � is perpetual. In this life the journey does nothave an end point, it is never truly completed. Therefore, after arriving inBelen, the shepherds will depart again for Belen, over and over again, duringthe second, and the third, and the fourth day of the fiesta. And the shepherds’journey during the latter days of the fiesta is more arduous than their journeyduring the first day. Even when one has embraced faith and obtained salvation,the pilgrim cannot become complacent, and must work hard on the secondday, and every day after that to overcome distractions, temptations, anddoubts, in order to sustain the faith that is necessary for traveling on the roadto Belen.

The commitment and discipline that the shepherds demonstrate duringfour days of arduous dancing stands out against, and appears to be so muchmore exacting, and virtuous, and heroic because it takes place alongside thenegritos’ self-indulgent antics. The negritos can come and go as they please,while the shepherds must stay and dance, and therefore this contrast betweenthe respective roles underscores the virtue that is inherent in the shepherds’journey.

Furthermore, the shepherds are not and can not be remote, unengagingallegorical figures, because they are the spectators’ own daughters, and thesons of neighbors. For this reason, as they revel in the pastorela’s spectacle,many of the spectators also empathize with the children-cum-shepherds, andcare about their discomfort, and the pain that the young shepherds feel, as theyundertake this journey in honor of the Virgin, for the sake of the wholecommunity.

III.7

The pastorela is a dynamic, flexible, and complex drama. In the pastorela,mass culture is harnessed to trumpet and promote Christian faith and piety,and at the same time it is depicted as a source of idolatry, which might displaceand undercut that piety and faith. But finally, however, the contrasts betweennegritos and shepherds � and the qualities that they respectively stand for � arenot so hard, rigid, or unyielding.

The negritos symbolize larger-than-life characters, and at the same timethey represent the sinners of this world in the figure of Everyman, who is alsoevery resident in the pueblo.



Hector Ramos, a young carpenter who lives in Tocuaro, and who makesmany of the negrito masks every year, explained that:

This year I made caricatures of folks from the community. One fellowrepresented a taxi-driver, and the taxi-driver is from here . . . There isalso a fellow here, Pablito, who is a heavy drinker. So I made a mask ofhim. He doesn’t live here any more, so he didn’t see the caricature. Thiscaricature generated commentary, a lot of gossip. I poked fun at Pablitobecause he isn’t here.

The shepherds, of course, also symbolize Everyman � every resident in thepueblo. But unlike the shepherds, the negritos represent the communitymembers who have departed from, or who have never traveled on the road toBelen. But these sinners, who perhaps drink too much, or who, perhaps placetoo much faith in movie-stars and athletes, and not enough faith in JesusChrist, are not necessarily doomed or damned.

Everyman is the sinner who embarks on the road to redemption, andEveryman is also the sinner who wanders off of the path to Belen. The negritois the fallen shepherd, and the shepherd is the negrito who is beginning toredeem himself.

The negritos join with the devils to pester the shepherds, but they are notjust the devil’s minions, who will simply do the devil’s bidding. The negritos,like the residents of the pueblo, do have their own free will, and can and domake their own choices as well. The negritos will cavort besides theshepherds, but they will never actually careen into them or fight with them.But the negritos can and will stumble into and fight with the demons that havealso sallied forth to waylay and harass the shepherds.

Consequently, the negritos are in effect more potent and more effective asopponents, rather then as minions of Lucbell. Like Michael, and like Nino Dioshimself, the negritos also protect the shepherds from the moral and mortalthreats that the devils personify, and therefore they are, or at least canpotentially become, redemptive figures that might assist the shepherds inreaching their savior and their salvation in Belen.

As Daniel Ramos, Hector’s younger brother, who often participates as anegrito in the pastorela, noted: ‘The negritos are good . . . they bother thedevils and impede them.’

The negrito is an ambiguous figure. The negrito is a sinner, but he is asinner who has redemptive qualities, and who can be saved. The devils mightpummel the negritos, but the negritos fight back and pummel the devils aswell. The hope, the possibility always exists that the negritos will cast down,will banish the devils. The negrito after all is Everyman, too, and Everyman isthe immanent shepherd as well. The pastorela in the end is a hopeful drama,which tells the story of men’s salvation.



Because the negrito is an ambiguous, redeemable figure, everything andeveryone that the negrito stands for is potentially, inherently redeemable aswell. Superman. Chuparman. Batman-cum-Vicente Fox. Chucky. None ofthese characters are necessarily doomed or inherently evil. In other words,popular entertainment, the icons from pop culture, and politics, and sports,and acts of devotion to them, are not necessarily bad or sinful things.

The negrito is Everyman, and the negrito is the pop star. In other words,Everyman is the pop star as well. The pop star and mass entertainment cancavort with the devils, and might lead the shepherds astray. But massentertainment and pop culture might pummel and harass and banish Lucifer aswell.

Pop culture and mass entertainment can be important tools for faithcultivation, and important stepping stones on the path to redemption.Chuparman is a symbol of moral dissolution, and at the same time he is aredemptive figure, because he plays an important instructive role in themorality tale.

Mass culture can promote mass idolatry, but it does not necessarily dothis. The outcomes are not imposed by mass culture, nor are they dictated byNino Dios, or Lucifer. It is the spectator, Everyman, the Christian who decideshow to relate to, what to do with pop culture, mass entertainment, and secularidols. The pastorela itself shows how pop culture and low entertainment canbe harnessed, can be redeemed in the service of moral instruction. It is thenegrito and the shepherd, the performer and the spectator, who must grasp,develop, and cultivate the moral meanings that exist in pop culture. Thepastorela and the fiesta do not prescribe a dour or puritanical religiosity, nordo they proscribe revelry or joy. Entertainment and laughter, low humor, thekitschy, the crass and the fallen are not necessarily impediments to faith andsalvation, and can in fact be impressed in the service of faith, and becomestepping stones on the path to salvation. Indeed, the one choice that Everymandoes not have, is to step out of the profane, secular, and materialistic world,because that world, that reality penetrates and defines in so many ways thecontext, the mise-en-scene where the shepherds’ journey unfolds. On thatdramatic social stage the negrito, and the shepherd, and the Devil, and evenNino Dios act and interact, inform and form the world. The pastorela depictsand even embraces this world, because it is a hopeful and a faithful taleafter all.

IV.1

So many of my initial assumptions had been wrong, and consequently, when Ibegan my research I did not frame many of my questions correctly, and



therefore in the beginning there were many good, important questions that Idid not ask at all.

I was the simple child, and because I did not know how to ask thequestions well, I also mangled and misapplied so many of my teacher’s ideas.

I had assumed that the coupling between the newspaper and the cross andthe devil masks � that this intersection between space-binding and time-binding media1 � was something new; but in fact by 2001 it had already beengoing on for a long time.

Santa Ana is only four kilometers from Tocuaro, and the railroad and thetelegraph arrived in Santa Ana by the 1890s. Today, and 100 years ago, youcould hear the train whistles from Tocuaro, and today, and 100 years ago, youcould also see the tracks and the trains and the telegraph posts from thepromontory that is next to Tocuaro. During the 1920s and the 1930s manycinema halls existed nearby, but now they are all closed. The radio enteredTocuaro in the 1940s, and television arrived in the pueblo by the 1960s as well.

Enemorio’s grandparents, and even his grizzled old great-grandparents �or at least a few of their peers � had already presented masks to their clients.In the 1930s, they had told these clients all about sin and redemption, and allabout art and commerce, because the secular literature, and the secularnational and international markets for Mexican masks, and for indigenousMexican folk art already existed by the 1920s.

IV.2

My teacher had admonished us and he had shown us and again and again ‘thatthere are losses [as well as gains],’ ‘that there is [also] always something bitterat the bottom of the cup when things go away,’ when the new technology, thenew regime, the new ideology marches into town and takes over.

But the old and new space-binding technologies have not reallydemolished, have not really battered down the old spirit-world, the old oraltraditions, and the old time-binding technologies and customs in this case. Inthis case at least, the oral customs, the old folkways have mostly been fortifiedand renewed by ideas, and images, and attitudes that the mass media hasalready offered to the community for a very long time.

And, incorrectly, I had assumed that the newer media had battered down,were battering down, were about to batter down the old oral customs inTocuaro. I had incorrectly imagined that I would be telling this story in mydissertation, and so I had begun my fieldwork by asking too many wrongquestions and not too many right questions.

Consequently, even as I sat with my homunculus in my lap and on myface, I was still so lost, lost, lost right there in rural Michoacan, thousands ofmiles from home.



And when I was so lost, and because I was so lost, I returned to the well ofmy teacher’s work again and again. And because that work is complex,resilient, and dynamic, that work continued to yield, and to instruct me, andto give up suggestions, and instructions, and some very good questions that areso pertinent as well.

Why had not mass culture, the technological society, battered down andflattened the oral culture, the old spirit that still flourishes in Tocuaro today?Why are not old customs, old techniques always displaced by new technologiesand practices? And because there is always something bitter at the bottom ofthe (new) cup too, how can the old virtues and values be preserved in thebrave new world, which also offers so much?

Once, during the Virreinato � during the colonial period � the Church hadsponsored and organized the pastorelas in Tocuaro. But the Church stoppeddoing that hundreds of years ago.

Now, media heroes and villains, and their styles, attitudes, and ideals areincorporated into the pastorela, because � like the mass media � the pastorelais also embedded in daily lived culture. But in itself and by itself the massmedia has not and could not have sustained or fostered the colloquial Catholiccustoms and practices that continue to flourish in the pueblo, and whichalready flourished in Tocuaro long before the mass media had arrived.

No, in this case cinema, and radio, and television, and its characters, andits styles are harnessed, and have always been harnessed for the pastorela. Andthat happens, and that has happened and that will continue to happen becausethe community of practice exists in Tocuaro, that gets together, and that talks,and that acts, and that organizes, and that continues to perform some very oldcustoms day after day and year after year � which nobody else, and not eventhe Church is willing to organize or sustain any longer.

This is the spirit embedded in practice that I mentioned earlier. This spiritis one of active engagement, and the practices include arguing,organizing, assembling, demonstrating . . . all this takes place as if agenuine process were forming a common mind through exchange.

(Carey 1997b, pp. 332�333)

James Carey said these things about the practice of journalism, and he couldhave said these things about the pastorelas in Tocuaro as well. And I began tounderstand and to appreciate these things and their importance because I hadlived in Tocuaro, in that community of practice, and I also began to understandand to appreciate these things so much better, because I had talked aboutpublic life, and journalism, and democracy with my teacher, and because I hadlistened to the wise things that my teacher had told me about these things.

I do not do it justice, but in my mind, I can hear James Carey’s voice soclearly right now: democracy exists in public conversation, as public



conversation, and journalism is the public practice, is the public’s practice ofrecording that conversation, the community’s conversation with itself andabout itself, in which the public, the democratic community imagines itselfand organizes itself . . . Automation and specialization and professionalizationand conglomeration have been offered as treatments � and even as cure-alls �for the imaginary and the real ailments that plague journalism and democracy.But the experts and their corporations and their machines might not, will not,have not, can not be expected to sustain the public conversation, the public’sconversation, that is, journalism . . . The community and its journalists canonly, will only sustain that conversation in practice, through practice, inthemselves, through themselves, by relying on themselves. And so thejournalists have to do it themselves, they have to pass along that olddemocratic craft to their progeny, to their mentees, by example, throughpractice � because nobody else can be or should be entrusted to do thesethings. And if and when the journalists exist as faithful practitioners of their oldcraft, they can and they do and they will play their role � and it is an importantone � in organizing and developing the public’s democratic conversation andits democratic interests.

IV.3

At first, I imagined that there was a clash, a conflict, on the one hand, betweenjournalism and newspapers, and on the other hand, between diablos and santosand the pastorelas. And my teacher and his work had a road-map, a set ofterms and concepts that enabled me to think about these things in useful,productive ways.

But in fact there is no conflict, there is no contradiction betweenjournalism and pastorelas; they are very different things of course, but they arealso very similar things as well: both journalism and pastorelas are very oldcustoms, very old conversations, very old ways of imagining the world and thecommunity’s place within it. Each of these conversations, this old communaldemocratic conversation, and that old communal Catholic conversationcontinue to persist because they are embedded in old, enduring collectivepractices, which can only exist as collective-communal practices, because themachines, and the media corporations, and the experts, and even the Church,can not and do not and do not care to keep up these practices too much today.

I began my journey in Michoacan with the wrong map and at the wrongstarting point, and of course, by doing that I got myself very lost in the thicket.But my teacher’s maps were complex, and resilient, and dynamic, and theycontinued to yield, and to instruct me, and to give up suggestions and somevery good questions, even when I misused and abused them so much.



James Carey’s work is applicable, and meaningful, and it explains thingswhen one set of social facts exists, and it continues to be applicable, andmeaningful, and to explain things when a very different, and even the oppositeset of social facts pertain. James Carey’s ideas enable us to understand, toappreciate, and to talk about the work that newspapers and journalists do inWashington, DC, and they also enable us to understand, to appreciate, and totalk about the work that mascareros and diablos and pastorelas do in ruralMichoacan as well.

The qualities that James Carey admired in John Dewey’s and HaroldInnis’s work are bountifully present in his own scholarship. ‘There is a depthto his work, a natural excess common to seminal minds, that offers permanentcomplexities, and paradoxes over which to puzzle’ (Carey 1989, p. 13).Accordingly, Carey’s ‘arguments [and insights] will continue to furnishproductive and significant scholarship . . .’ (Carey 1968, p. 294). Theutilization of ‘the perspective of [Carey] opens up, I think, a number ofimportant and researchable questions’ (p. 296) in many fields.

There are losses, things go away � and sometimes they go away too soon.There is always something bitter at the bottom of the cup, and my teacher isno longer with us, but the conversations that he began, and some otherconversations to which he contributed so much, and some other conversationsin which he did not participate, but to which he has contributed and to whichhe will contribute and which he will begin in the future, will continue, andthey will persist for a very long time.

James Carey will always be with us � and he will continue to speak to us,and to listen to us, and to debate us, and we will continue to speak to, and tolisten to, and to debate James Carey. And these are good things forscholarship, and for journalism, and for democracy, and for the mascareros,and the danzantes, and the santos, and the diablos in Michoacan as well.

Note

1 In ‘Harold Innis and Marshall Mcluhan’ James Carey writes, ‘Innis arguesthat . . . Media that are durable and difficult to transport � parchment, clay,and stone � are time-binding, or time-biased. Media that are light and lessdurable are space-binding, or spatially biased. For example, paper andpapyrus are space-binding, they are light, easily transportable, can be movedacross space with reasonable speed and great accuracy, and thus favoradministration over vast distance . . . Space-binding media encourage thegrowth of the state, the military, and decentralized and expansionistinstitutions. Time-binding media foster concern with history and tradition,have little capacity for expansion of secular authority, and thus favor thegrowth of religion, of hierarchical organization, and of contractionistinstitutions’ (Carey 1968, pp. 274�275).



References

Carey, J. (1968) ‘Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan’, in McLuhan: Pro & Con, ed.Raymond Rosenthal, Funk & Wagnalls, New York.

Carey, J. (1992) ‘A cultural approach to communication’, in Communication asCulture, New York, Routledge, pp. 13�36.

Carey, J. (1997a) ‘The Chicago School’, in James Carey: A Critical Reader, eds EveStryker Munson & Catherine Warren, Minneapolis, MN, University ofMinnesota Press, pp. 14�33.

Carey, J. (1997b) ‘Afterword: the culture in question’, in James Carey: A CriticalReader, eds Eve Stryker Munson & Catherine Warren, Minneapolis, MN,University of Minnesota Press, pp. 308�339.

Noble, J., Matter, M., Keller, N. & Schechter, D. C. (2000) Lonely Planet Mexico,7th edition, London, Lonely Planet.



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