Praying to Progressive Gods: The Liberating Role of Violence L U I S R OD R Í G U E Z
Every May, the denizens of La Esperanza make their way along the dusty road that winds around arid hills to the recently planted field that serves as the border between their town and the rival town of Rancho las Lomas. On a cool afternoon, men and women of all ages take turns to fight a member of the opposing side until blood is drawn; each drop being offered to Tlaloc in exchange for a drop of rain, a corporeal sacrifice by two towns that would ensure a wealthy harvest in the coming year. This bloody ceremony to the Aztec rain god seems something the Spanish conquistadors would have found in Mexico hundreds of years prior, not a festival that takes place within a modern context. The anachronism is heightened as the celebration occurs in one of the most crime-ridden and violent states of the country. However, the festival’s yearly occurrence in various towns along east Guerrero and the seemingly euphoric attitude of the participants seem to counter the violent nature of the entire event. The violence is ritualistic in its purpose while allowing for an element of catharsis to be enjoyed on both sides, erasing the differentiation of “some others from other others” (Ahmed 47) that allows a circulation of hate in a society, all the while achieving a sense of independence and equality. This bloody ceremony not only serves as a way for the native farmers to “renew contact with their people’s oldest, inner essence, the farthest removed from colonial times” (Fanon 148), but also as a way to elevate women from just a “signifier for the male other” (Mulvey 7) towards an equality with their male counterparts on the battleground. Through the cathartic violence carried out in the festival, the participants achieve a liberation from themselves, from a weighing colonial past, and from typical gender norms. No purer liberation from the traditional has existed than in the form of the carnival studied by Mikhail Bakhtin. An element of carnivalesque underlies the whole Aztec rain festival and comes close to Bakhtin’s conception of the ideal
THE LIBERATING ROLE OF VIOLENCE
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