hanal pixán
Not to be confused with the more commonly known Día de Muertos, Hanal Pixán ('ha-nawl peesh-awn') is specific to the Yucatan Peninsula. Meaning 'food for the souls' in the Mayan language, Hanal Pixán is a nearly week-long celebration that bridges the end of October through the 1st week of November. The time is marked with particular food, outfits, and customs. Yes, it does considerably overlap with Halloween and Día de Muertos, so many of the motifs (skulls & flowers) and practices (creating ofrendas/altars) layer on one another to make a visually inspiring and intense week filled with reminders of what, indeed, is one of the few guarantees in life - that we are all temporary. There is an important debate on how and if celebrations like Hanal Pixán and Día de los Muertos are open to the participation or the appropriation of foreigners or those who do not share any cultural heritage with their origins. I get it. Seeing corporations like Zara and Anthropologie, for example, make a profit off of deeply rooted, indigenous values that have survived despite centuries of colonialism should be called out. I also think that a cover-all norm of non-engagement of anyone who doesn't have Mexican heritage is not the intention of the celebration in the first place.
At first, I was hesitant to share our photos from our participation in Hanal Pixán, not because of any unflattering angles, but instead out of fear. I was afraid of the judgment of others. With reflection, though, I wouldn't be true to the holiday and ourselves if I pretended they didn't exist. Context is everything; we are not trying to be or mocking anything we are not. So, based on the overwhelmingly welcoming and personal invitations we received to take part in sharing traditional dishes, contributing gifts to altars, and even painting our faces as skulls, we felt humbled and grateful to have learned a new, sweeter perspective of the afterlife from the view of this one and have some snapshots to remember it all.
where it all happened
Last week, because of some days off of school, we also had the delight of traveling with one of Ryan's colleagues to some of what are called 'Pueblos Mágicos' (magic villages), one of which is called Maní. Known as the "town where it all happened," Maní has a painful history filled with Spanish invasion, enslavement, disease, violence, and the mass burning of Mayan texts and discoveries by Friar Diego de Landa. Despite its grim past, it is a colorful, breeze-filled town with a restaurant famous for its Poc Chuc. We had the pleasure of exploring, walking around, and soaking up the slower pace of life.
cenotes and town-hopping
It is funny how things converge. A few posts ago, we shared that our first visit to a cenote was a bit of a buzzkill (lots of mosquitos!). In another post, I mentioned how we met some fellow Iowans at the library. Well, this past weekend, we visited some pretty cool, beautifully aqua-colored cenotes with those like-minded (and also look-alike) midwesterners. We piled in a shared rental van, splashed around in the Santa Barbara Cenotes, climbed a Mayan ruin in Izamal (another Pueblo Mágico), and overall had a blast.
*After the fun weekend, we moved, as planned, to a different Airbnb. The new place, is, well, not new, and amongst other reasons, we have spent the week scrambling for a new place. Stay tuned for the not-so-glamourous update next week!
Like-minded and look alike. 😂 so true. Our weekend away filled up my soul.