

MEXICAN DANCES AND MUSIC — GENIN. 673 



Every day the festival and the ball are begun by a march toward 

 the consecrated altars, one to the Holy Cross, the other to St. Jo- 

 seph. 15 It must be noticed that among the dancers five or six per- 

 sonages are specially distinguished; the king; the queen, who is 

 generally a little girl and the only person of her sex allowed to take 

 part in the ball; the grand master of ceremonies, called simply the 

 master, who seems to fill the role of an outsider to the company, a 

 kind of master charged with calling to order and punishing, for very 

 often he is furnished with a whip of several thongs, which he uses 

 sometimes to mark the step, sometimes to beat time, and at other 

 times to lash the dancers' legs. Besides him there frisked about the 

 fool, who, dressed in a fool's cap, carried an empty bottle surmounted 

 by a potato rudely carved to represent a human head, or perhaps 

 more often a carved coconut provided with a handle or a little doll. 

 The clown is for the purpose of amusing the public with his buf- 

 foonery, his jokes, his grimaces, his ridiculous antics, but he never 

 makes his companions laugh. Sometimes the devil is also portrayed. 



All these figures were well represented at Dinamita, but one was 

 lacking which I have seen at other places — death ! At Dinamita 

 death was replaced by the old man, who after all symbolized the same 

 thing, since old age is the beginning of the end, the preparation for 

 the grave. The person who represents death or the old man often 

 gives his hand to the fool, but pays no attention to his grimaces. 



It is certain that all this constitutes an ensemble which formerly 

 pointed a moral, as in all of the ancient mysteries. All men, rich 

 or poor, kings or plebeians, are subjects of the empire of the senses; 

 they make us all more or less foolish, more or less ridiculous; but 

 always death lies in wait for us, and always we have a master : 



Over the humble are the powerful; over the powerful, the king; 



Over the king, the emperor ; over the emperor, the fear 



Of a plot born among his escort ; 



And over all the infinite, the future, God, death ; 



Death, which for each, be he weak or strong, 



Suddenly opens the same door * * * 



In the morning the dancers, led by the queen, move to the altar, 

 dancing in two ranks, flanked by the fool, the devil, and the 

 master, who to some extent play the part of clown. These are, 

 I may repeat, the only persons whom one sees laughing at times. 

 The others display only religious activity and ritualistic or hieratic 

 poses and signs. After a series of dances and prayers before the 

 rustic altar, other ensemble figures are danced outside, but always at 

 determined intervals they return toward the altar. 



15 Elsewhere than at Dinamita. the altar is consecrated most often to Notre Dame do 

 Guadeloupe, the patron saint of Mexico, or to the saint, patron of the village in which the 

 festival takes place. 



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