The “Diablos’ Carnival”

In the village of San Martín Tilcajete, state of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, the indigenous Zapotec hold three days of Carnival every year. For this ritual they paint their bodies with colored oils to mask their identity and transform themselves into hordes of diablos –devils -- who run through the village screaming, scaring children and painting those who are in their way. To appease them, the people of the town give the devils beer and mezcal, because no one want them as enemies. The devils wear belts lined with cowbells; they are the purveyors of noise and madness. The “Diablos’ Carnival” is a vehicle for myths and metamorphoses. The humans become other creatures, and the thresholds between human and non-human disappear. It is the performance of a world populated by animals, ancestors, nahuales and diablos, all of them starving for vital force. On Ash Wednesday when the colored oils fade, the carnival is over and the diablos return to their territory on the other side of the border within the mythical world.