Santos in Oaxaca's Ancient Churches

We had the opportunity to observe the interdependence of the public and religious institutions in the towns of the Central Valley, and in those of the Mixteca Alta. We began our study of the polychrome art of 16th century Oaxaca with a visit to the restored Santo Domingo, in the state capital. There we had the great fortune of encountering Padre Paco, the Dominican Superior, and at that time in charge of the parish. It is in great part thanks to Padre Paco that our research went as smoothly as it did.

Padre Paco introduced us to Licenciado Ruben Vasconselos-Beltrán, Director de Educación, Cultura, y Bienestar Social del Gobierno del Estado de Oaxaca, a scholar of the art of Colonial Oaxaca, and a gifted photographer. Licenciado Vasconselos-Beltrán spent more than an hour explaining the administrative structure in the towns of Oaxaca and the town officials' growing distrust of strangers. He told us of thefts in almost every church in the state, of promises not kept by visiting scholars, and he gave us names and addresses of people who would be able to smooth our path. His most valuable work as a teacher was to list for us churches where we would find some outstanding examples of the art of polychrome, which were to become our guide in making deductions about the construction of individual work. Since our visit, Licenciado Vasconselos-Beltran has written a book which most thoroughly outlines the lives of the saints whose statues we here catalog.

Another person who was of invaluable assistance is Sra. María de los Angeles Romero Frizzi, Director of the Oaxaca office of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Sra. de los Angeles kindly enlarged on the overview that Sr. Vasconselos Beltrán had presented and she familiarized us with the titles of the people on whom we would be dependent as we traveled through the state. She provided us with an official letter of introduction, without which our work could not have continued.

We went to Oaxaca with the expectation of being able to visit at least 39 of the major sites listed in Dominican Architecture in Oaxaca, by James R. Mullen. This would have made possiblea careful study of churches in all parts of the state and have involved many overnight stays in the far mountains of the east and in Tehuantepec. Most towns not directly on Route 190, the Pan-American highway, proved to have limited public access and at that time had no facilities for overnight guests, though today many of these centers have built tourist yu'us or simple inns. As a result, we established a base in Oaxaca City and left early each morning to visit outlying sites. In this way, we were able to study carefully all of the churches in the Central Valley that had been mentioned by Mullen or suggested by Señor Vasconcelos-Bertrán, as well as all but one of the Dominican conventos in the Mixteca Alta.

Our greatest disappointment is that we were not able to study the written records of the parishes. It took time to gain the confidence of the Presidente in each town, and we were not invariably successful. Then, though we might photograph the santos, he was wary of letting us see the records.

History of the Churches

>From the 14th century on, the history of the modern state of Oaxaca is, like that of Mexico itself, a story of confrontation, assimilation, labor, and creativity. In the narrow lands that lie between the Sierra Madre del Sur and the Sierra Oaxaqueña, and in the highlands of the Mixteca, the civilizations of the Mixtec, the Zapotec, the Aztec, and the Spanish clashed and compromised, bartered and built. The modern residents of Oaxaca are a people confident of their place in history, and of the value of the traditions they honor.

The faces of tradition have changed through revolution and the advent of the 20th century, but the structures of municipal governance are much the same. The 16th century Dominicans were aware of the Zapotec and Mixtec demand for regularized participation in the social order of the Marquisate. The indigenous peoples had survived the attacks of the Olmec and the rule of the Aztec. They had created perhaps the longest enduring society in Mesoamerica. When the new conquerors arrived, the nobles and priests of Zaachila and Mitla demanded participation in the development of the colonial society. In order to ensure their cooperation in the creation of the new civilization, a system of cargos parallel to the ancient positions filled by priests, scribes, curanderos, and others was gradually granted to the men. Imported from Spain, where they were aimed at cementing relationship through service to the Church, full-blown Mayordomías or cofradías were in place in the Oaxacan communities by the second half of the 17th century. These Spanish brotherhoods replaced or re-formed pre-Conquest indigenous patterns of social obligation.

Today, the mayordomías are likely to be known as asociaciones and their leaders most often are not mayordomo but Presidente. The change has occurred because of the constitutional need for the separation of church and state and because of the national distrust of the pervasive influence of the Catholic church throughout most of Mexican history. It is clear that today the distrust is on an official rather than village level. In the Valley of Oaxaca, the Presidente of the municipality is likely to be a member of the church's asociacion, perhaps even its presidente. This close relationship is a natural result of the fact that churches and their dependencies are the property of the state, and the church buildings and their contents have been the trust of the local governments.

The best preserved of the churches are kept, not surprisingly, by the asociaciones whose structure most closely resemble mayordomías as established by the Friars. We found these in the small towns of the Central Valley, west of the City of Oaxaca. In each of these towns, the church shares the zocalo, or central square, with the municipal building, and the secular authorities have responsibility for the safety and upkeep of the church. In order to enter the churches, if there were no service being celebrated, we had to seek out the Presidente or the Encargado, the keeper of the church keys. Often, our research had to be approved by both of these individuals, and, on more than one occasion, we had to make appointments to meet with the responsible parties and so return on another day.

In all cases in this area, the persons responsible were men, elected by members of the all-male asociaciones for terms of two or three years. During that time, they saw to the repair of the church, either by getting government support for restoration or by organizing volunteer teams. In San Juan Teitipac, the asociación was digging a new well in the posada, or enclosed church yard. In Santa Ana del Valle, the men were teaching religion classes, planting an avenue of bougainvillea, and repairing the buses that the municipal government and the asociaciones had bought some months before.

In every church that we visited, the principal responsibility of the asociación was the organization of the town's celebration of feast days. The feast days are determined by the Church calendar and are celebrated at set times each year. They represent the commemoration and celebration of important events in the history of the Catholic Church, most usually, in the lives of Christ and of the saints. In Oaxaca, the services usually involve the use of portable altars, or andas, on which the statue of the saint (called a santo) being revered is processed through the church, the churchyard, or, on great feast days, through the town. Therefore, each asociación is dedicated to a particular saint or saints and to the care of the appropriate santo. Such care had of course begun with the procurement of a suitable effigy of the saint. We noted again and again that in the ancient churches of Oaxaca, a santo might have been obtained at any time in the last 450 years, and might have undergone major changes since it had first been purchased or made for the mayordomía.

Once the Presidente had agreed to permit our research, we found all members of the organizations very helpful and eager to facilitate the study. They are very proud of the beauty and history of the churches and of the role that they continue to play in preserving the treasures of their communities. The encargados were particularly knowledgeable about the contemporary uses of the contents of the buildings, but almost no one in any of the towns was thoroughly cognizant of the history of the churches. We were always most cordially and most carefully guided through the church, both because of the need for security and because the encargado was eager to be sure that we got the story right.

We found six distinct styles of santos in the Central Valley and in the Mixteca Alta.

1. Statues representing Christ from Palm Sunday through the Resurrection.
2. Polychrome statues of angels and of Biblical and historical saints. These sometimes are fitted out with new robes of fabric, a wig and new symbols, so that over the centuries, the mayordomía could make the figure represent a more popular saint.
3. Framework Santos. Carefully carved, gessoed and painted heads and hands are attached to a rough cone of hoops and barrel staves. The figure is then provided a wig, symbols and a robe that hides all but the carved features. These figures usually represent Biblical figures, especially those associated with the Passion, but might sometimes represent friars and nuns. They are light in weight so as to be easily processed through the town.
4. Carved statues of wood, gesso, and paint whose extremities are carefully finished and whose joints are movable. These figures are usually bewigged and are dressed in fabric clothing. The statues might represent anyone in the Christian panoply. They are often kept in glass and wood cases, sometimes bearing the names and dates of the men who bought the case. On feast days, these are carried on andas to altars around the church and to little chapels, sometimes in other parts of the town.
5. Plaster statues of saints.
6. Simply carved wood statues, usually painted. These were likely to be of Christ or of a saint especially popular among the farmers, San Isidro Labrador. This santo is represented in the clothing of an 18th century peasant, with gourd and knapsack, and with at least one team of oxen. In each church, the saint's oxen and clothing are given by the asociacion or by the mayordomo individually, and an old statue may have six or seven sets, plus a carved angel to plough the carved field. A San Isidro could usually be found with still other carved or plastic animals, cobs of seed corn, and wreaths of wheat.
7. Polychromed busts of Mary and plaques representing the great scenes of Christ's life are still extant in some very few churches in Oaxaca. These are not included in our study of the santos.

Through the celebration of the feast days, the asociaciones continue the tradition of repartition of wealth as practiced by the mayordomías. With the proceeds of offerings to the saints and by collecting a hefty sum monthly from each member of the group, they buy offerings of candles and flowers so that anyone who comes to the church may light a votive candle, carry it to the santo, pray, then take the candle to be lit at their home altar. Banks of gladiola are in every active church. The people break off the stems and rub the blossoms on the santos while praying, then carry the rest of the stalk home. In some churches, usually in the bigger centers where the Indigenous worshipers feel freer, there might be offerings of tamales, embroidered cloth, marigolds or tortillas, but these are brought by individuals, and are meant to remain on the altars. Pinned to the clothing of the santos, we saw hundreds of silver/tin amulets, photos of lost relatives, and some $2.00 U.S. bills. These also are offerings to the saint and become the property of the mayordomía or asociación.

Churches in this study:

1. San Miguel Achiutla
2. Tlacolula
3. San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya
4. San Juan Teitipac
5. Santo Domingo Ocotlan
6. Teotitlán del Valle (Virgen de la Navidad)
7. Ejutla
8. Santa Maria Zaachila
9. Cuilapan
10. Santa Elena de la Cruz, Xoxocotlan
11. Santo Domingo Yanhuitlan
    • Main church
    • Convento museum
    • Ayuxi chapel
12. Huitzo
13. San Pedro y Pablo, Etla
14. El Tule
15. Santo Domingo Diaz Ordaz
16. Santa Ana del Valle
17. San Pablo Mitla
18. San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca
19. Santiago Tejuapam
20. Tlaxiaco, Church of the Assumption
21. Santa Maria de la Asunción Nochixtlan
22. San Felipe Ixtapa
23. San Pedro y Pablo Teposcolula
24. Tilantongo
25. San Lorenzo Zimatlan
26. San Juan Guelavia
27. Santa Maria de la Navidad Tamazulapan
28. Santa Magdalena Jaltepec
29. Santa Cruz Mixtepec
30. Puerto Escondido

For further information, readers may wish to consult our article, "Popular Catholicism," in the Encyclopedia of Mexico (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997).

This study was undertaken in the summer of 1991 with the generous assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation. We also wish to thank the many kind church members who helped us to understand their santos and how they function in the life of their church.

We also wish to thank those who traveled with us and helped us collect data: our friend Bruce Hirst, our sons Christian and Thomas, our nieces Meg and Sarah Hirst, and our nephew Michael Hirst.

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