If you’re considering (or even just dreaming) about going to Mata Ortiz this spring, consider being there on May 15^th – the day of San Isidro.

Religious processions march to the church in the Porvenir neighborhood.  Musicians strike up folk songs.  Odd percussion instruments resembling bows, in concert with gourd rattles electrify the air.  Indian costumed matachines dance to honor San Isidro, the patron saint of farmers and laborers. 

San Isidro the laborer (also called Isidore and Ysidro) was a farm worker born near Madrid in about 1070 and died on May 15, 1130.  He was canonized in 1622.  Stories have been handed down about how he attended mass every day before work.  When his employer checked on him after receiving complaints from fellow workers, the employer found an angel taking Isidro’s place, while Isidro was at prayer.  Other stories tell of angels working at each side of Isidro while he was plowing (that’s ploughing for our European readers). Because of these celestial helpers, Isidro was able to plow three times more in a day.

Matachines are traditional dancers popular especially in Northern Mexico, New Mexico and parts of Texas and Arizona.  Their dancing mimes represent the struggle of good and evil, with good prevailing.  The story used for presenting the struggle is that of Montezuma (good), and Hernan Cortez (evil), with the influence of the Indian mistress of Cortez, La Malinche (good). 

The costumes consist of red dresses adorned with sequins, beads, mirrors, and feathers for the girls.  The boys, also in red, wear aprons with rows of short rattling bamboo sticks.  They are topped with headdress consisting of bundled turkey and peacock feathers rising 20 or 30 inches from the head.  Their faces are covered with red bandanas.

Sacred, but mischievous clowns are dressed in odd clothes and masks.  For this celebration they carry teddy bears for the maypole dance (danza de Cintas or dance of the ribbons).  The clowns climb up the pole and attach their bears, which become offerings entwined in the ribbons attached to the top of the pole, as the dancers each hold to the free end of a ribbon, and encircle the pole to make an interlacing pattern from top to bottom.

The dancing, though festive, is serious business.  The dances are considered prayers, and are used to honor the occasion.  For a great picture of the matachines, see page 172 of Susan Lowell’s The Many Faces of Mata Ortiz.