Iglesia de San Lorenzo, Zinacantán. & Templo De San Sebastian, San Juan Chamula. November 22.

Iglesia de San Lorenzo

Greeted at the gates by a bunch of local brats, hands out begging, was no problem, just ignore them is the best policy we were told otherwise it teaches them the wrong lessons.

Maybe it looks plain and boring as it was only constructed in 1975; when the original, alas, burnt down.

Named after the town's patron saint. San Lorenzo, (St. Lawerence).

It is situated in a town called Zinacantan, which is populated by the indigenous Tzotzil people.(more about them in a later upload)

They follow their own religion, which is a wacky mix of ancient Mayan beliefs mixed up with Spanish colonial catholicism. I left my compatriots and wandered inside.

I guess it was at this point that I missed the bit about "not taking photographs". I am glad I missed that bit as inside the decorations were stunning.

The religion, they worship pretty much everything, a chronicler of times gone by wrote... "an infinite number of gods; they worshiped the sun and offered sacrifices to it, and to the full rivers, to the springs, to the trees of heavy foliage, and to the high hills they gave incense and gifts .. . their ancestors discovered a stone bat and considered it God and worshiped it"

Since the Spanish conquest, and the enforced conversion to Catholicism, the Tzotzil have come to associate the Sun with God and the Moon with the Virgin Mary.

They also worship animal figurines from their ancient culture as well as images and pictures of Catholic saints, dressed in a mixture of Zinacanteco style outfits

Banners proclaiming thanks to St Matthew, from the flower producers and merchants of the San Juan market

"Oi! you! what you doing? stop taking fucking photographs, get out. go on move it"

Well who am I to argue with jc.

The brats were back

Templo De San Sebastian

The church, dedicated to St. Sebastian was originally constructed by the Dominicans in the 1600's.

It has a strange tale to tell......

It is believed that the Church was destroyed either during the Revolution or during the Cristero War, well thats pretty exact... a 20 year time frame! others guess at an accidental fire.

Whichever way it was destroyed the locals demonstrated how pissed off they were with the Saints of the Church for allowing it to be destroyed that they left it in ruins!

All the the statues of the saints were removed and moved elsewhere!

The graveyard however is still in use to this day, simple graves in the main, just mounds of earth and crosses.

And a complete riot of colour with so many flowers adorning the graves, maybe due to the recent day of the dead festivites.

Tradition in the culture is that a black cross is for people who died in old age, white crosses for babies and infants , green for older children, and blue for all other graves.

How quaint.