CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/5/2019

We're celebrating Cinco de Mayo with Phyllis Galembo's 'Mexico Masks Rituals'

Forthcoming from Radius Books and D.A.P., Phyllis Galembo's Mexico Masks Rituals is one vibrant book. Featured photograph, Family in Maguey Masks (2016), is reproduced from the section on the festival of Corpus Cristi (body of Christ), which takes place during late April or early May, "a time that coincides with the onset of the summer rains," according to essayist George Otis. "In agricultural communities that depend on rainfall, this is one of the most critical times of the year. In ancient Mesoamerica, the peoples' ancestors were deified, and became the objects of rituals and prayers for rain, fertility, health and good fortune. Even 500 years after the Spanish conquest and the Christianization of the population, Mesoamerican beliefs and practices continue to underlie much of popular Catholicism in Mexico. In the Corpus Cristi festival in Temascalcingo in the state of Mexico, the townsfolk make huge masks, don outlandish costumes and transform themselves into characters known as the xita or huehues (the old ones). They represent the ancestors who send the rains, and the theatrical ceremony is a kind of offering to them. The body of Christ is referred to as corpu viejo (the body of the old one), and this is probably not a coincidence: in many indigenous traditions the deceased Christ is considered to be the embodiment of all the ancestors."