Forget what you`ve heard about how roosters crow at dawn. It may be true that well-behaved barnyard roosters in Kansas and Iowa burst forth with a traditional cock-a-doodle-doo just at the break of day, but Mexican roosters crow when they darn well please-and for no observable reason.
For example, the roosters that live in Atotonilco, Mexico, are as likely to crow at, say, 2:35 a.m. as they are at any other time. And mind you, I`m not talking about a single bird here, either. I mean, picture scores of red-combed roosters strutting arrogantly around town all night shrieking and calling to one another at the top of their surprisingly ample lungs.
And, of course, when the roosters crow the village dogs get understandably irritated and set up their own ear-splitting racket in retaliation. As do the pigs. And the turkeys.
So much for ”the cock crows at dawn” theory. As a matter of fact, things are apt to be fairly quiet in Atotonilco at dawn. Unless, that is, the village worriers have concluded that it`s a good day to set off the cannons and concussion grenades and 500-pound bombs or whatever it is they set off in order to scare away the evil spirits they perceive to be lurking nearby. On those mornings the relative calm of a rousing chorus of cock-a-doodle-doos would be mighty welcome.
Evil spirit repellent
I confess to being somewhat relieved when I learned that this early morning commotion is meant merely as an evil spirit repellent and not, as I`d imagined in that first moment of startled waking, that my neighbors had tired of the plummeting value of the peso and so taken up arms in revolution.
Atotonilco is, after all, important in the history of revolution in Mexico. It was here that Father Hidalgo, marching from his home in the town of Dolores to San Miguel in 1810, seized the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe that hung in the church and affixed it to a staff and proclaimed it the banner of the Mexican Forces in the War of Independence from Spain.
My wife and I happened to be living in this place because during a visit to San Miguel de Allende we had come across a note scribbled on the back of a business card and thumb-tacked to a bulletin board at one of that town`s language schools: HOUSE FOR RENT 5 MILES ON ROAD TO DOLORES.
There were no clear directions and no telephone number. But because we felt adventurous, we eventually found the place.
For the next three months we paid less than $50 a week for a fully furnished, two-story house with two fireplaces and two full baths.
Perched high on a steep hill overlooking the village, it was a handsome white stucco, red tile-roofed house with beautiful terraced gardens of blooming geraniums and massive, hedge-like jades and flowering plants we didn`t know the names of.
In the colonial heartland
Atotonilco is a small, rural community in the colonial heartland of Mexico-the Bajio-in the state of Guanajuato some six miles north of San Miguel de Allende.
The village is set in a green and pastoral valley through which meanders a quiet, tree-lined river in an area where hot mineral springs bubble from the earth and spas and balnearios (bathing places) are popular.
There would be little to recommend Atotonilco to the traveler from the north were it not for the unexpectedly large, culturally and historically significant church that looms over the dusty little village plaza.
The Santuario of Atotonilco was founded in 1754 by Padre (later Saint)
Felipe Neri. The massive walls and high domed ceilings of the church`s six chapels are covered with exuberant frescoes and poems-wonderful examples of a naive and amateurish popular Mexican art.
Overhanging these are highly sophisticated oil canvases in lavish gold frames. Scenes of great color and fantasy surround fine sculptures and painted statues of a bleeding and suffering Christ and the Saints-the latter patrons of whatever cause the faithful of this part of Mexico might require. Here truly is an important artistic treasure of Mexico.
Tending the goats
Each day, on the grassy hill beside our house a young girl tends a half-dozen goats. She calls them each by name and scolds and throws stones whenever she considers their behavior to be less than perfectly goat-like.
One morning I stood, unobserved, and listened for 10 minutes as the girl recited, with great drama and emotional fervor, a revolutionary speech or poem that I supposed she`d learned in school. Though when she might have found time to leave her goats for academic pursuits I can`t say.
From the railed balcony off the upstairs bedroom we looked down toward the outskirts of the town. The dirt road that runs between the crude adobe houses winds its way past the big white high-walled hacienda-once the home of a famous matador-across a stone bridge and on to the plaza and the Santuario a half-mile away.
The road carries an occasional car or truck, but it`s mostly foot traffic-human and otherwise. Dark-skinned women in brightly colored shawls hurried past, some carrying infants.
All carried baskets and bundles of pottery and sacks of grain and what must be incredibly heavy large square cans or buckets of water. Children too old to be carried ran to keep up with their mothers.
And there are burros on the road. Men rode, perched comically as far to the rear of the beasts as possible, their feet nearly dragging in the dust because the the animals were so small.
The riders perched far to the rear because that portion of the burro`s back most usually thought of as the place to ride was instead piled high with goods-neat bundles of wood or awkward-looking, wobbling stacks of the rough-hewn, three-legged stools crafted and sold hereabouts in the markets.
An old man drove a pig, shooing it along with a willow switch, a flimsy hemp twine leash attached to one of its legs.
A barefoot woman-the old man`s wife?-followed, carrying a clucking brown hen wrapped like a child in her rebozo.
Sound of singing
From far across the river, across the wide valley came the faint sound of singing. Some minutes passed and the sound became more distinct and we could see, against a dark backdrop of the mountains of Guanajuato in the distance, what looked to be a long line of people coming down out of the green hills.
It was a procession of religious pilgrims in straw hats and bright shawls-some carrying banners, some flowers, some the woven plastic bolsas
(shopping bags) one sees everywhere in this country.
We were surprised to find that the plaza had filled-apparently overnight- with stalls and stands where vendors offered food and handmade and handpainted pottery and designer tennis shoes and Batman T-shirts and all manner of religious objects: framed pictures of saints, crucifixes, the small silver charms called milagros (miracles).
The plaza that was empty yesterday now looked as though a fiesta was in progress. And then the procession arrived. Literally hundreds of women walking single-file entered the courtyard of the Santuario, singing and chanting, some carrying banners, some wearing wreaths of flowers, some crowns of thorns.
Most of the women were carrying disciplinas (small braided whips) of the penitents.
It`s said that the large convent behind the high walls of the church will house 3,000 pilgrims; each pays money to the nuns to spread her blanket on the cold stone floor and spend a week in ”spiritual exercise.”
This day the pilgrims were women. Another day the men will come. –
