By Carmen Rioja
Chiapas, in southern Mexico, is currently one of the most fascinating and dangerous destinations in the country and undoubtedly the most recommended to visit. Maybe the most relevant is the ancient wisdom reflected in the vestiges and buildings dating back to pre-Hispanic times, from 10,000 B.C., from the Soconusco region and the geographic center of the Mokaya culture—the oldest in Mesoamerica dated at 1500 B.C. and mother of the Mayan splendor that followed during the pre-Columbian Classic Period from A.D. 250 to 900.
Its colonial monastic and civil architecture goes through the 16th to 18th centuries and includes the amazing temple and former convent of Santo Domingo. Also noteworthy are the rich contemporary expressions of artesan textiles, ceramics, gastronomic treats, and crafts, as well as pagan and religious cultural manifestations miraculously coexisting with each other.
However, it seems that today they barely survive because they are under the shadow of drug trafficking, organized crime, mafias, and pornography networks associated with the phenomenon of migration and extreme poverty present in its crudest form throughout the region. A dysfunctional chaos plagued by suffering, with a fragile health care system, where education and basic food services are not guaranteed. And it seems to become more dangerous the closer one gets to the border with Guatemala where the humanitarian crisis has caused a migratory crisis. Thus, Chiapas is a destination as fascinating as it is dangerous, where until very recently people could be trusted and tourists explored the region with ease.
In many border and contact zones, there is cultural and merchandise exchange. Here in Chiapas, it includes trade, tourism, food production and fine handicrafts, the exquisiteness of certain supplies, ceramic pieces, works of art, textiles, cacao, jewelry and precious stones, as well as gastronomic rarities and ancient recipes of the traditional cuisine. They all attract not only the faithful willing to invest their resources in the region but also opportunists, ambitious businesspeople, petty criminals, and international organized crime.
In summary, in our four-day travel chronicle we learned about the greatness of the Mayan world through its vestiges and through its living culture. Historical claims that the Maya are extinct are false. Their descendants—Mayan obviously—are present at all levels. They are the displaced: the garrafon deliveryperson, the motorcyclist on the corner, the cook in the fonda, the child who runs barefoot in the street stream, the weaver on the backstrap loom, the seller of woven belts on the sidewalk. There are also Chamulas, Lacandones, Zoques, Tzotziles, Totonacas, and Chiapanecas. Many still speak their language and remember the lineage of their ancestors.
Also in those few days, we had some dark hours, such as a shooting in the market in broad daylight in the market of San Cristobal de las Casas, so we had to wait a couple of days to get to know it. This led us to visit San Juan Chamula, where in addition to the sacred smoke that purifies hearts, we passed by where a woman was recently assaulted—in a crowd; a barbarism generated during the carnival, prior to the religious celebrations. As if that were not enough, returning by cab to San Cristobal, we had to turn around at the traffic light at a crossroads at the entrance of the city, at a recently riddled corpse and the operation with police and press—she was the presumed victim of a settling of scores between criminal networks. “Each zone has its own cartel,” they explained to us. There are also the big cartels, which are not only dedicated to drugs but also to the trafficking of migrants and the production of pornography and sexual exploitation of indigenous women.
San Cristóbal de las Casas is located in the highlands of the sierra, next to the Soconusco region, the oldest region inhabited in Mesoamerica by Mayan peoples, and is one of the few cities that still harbors an original culture with a diversity of linguistic groups. It is strange that it has not been declared a Cultural Patrimony of Humanity zone in all possible areas. Undoubtedly this fact responds more to the lack of resources for the integration of a file and the lack of political will than to the very deserved and undeniable exceptionalism and authenticity of all its archaeological and historical legacy found in so many of the arts and artistic expressions of its communities, which are simply the exceptional result of the syncretism that the social processes in these noble lands forged.
Chiapas has been a crossroads and cultural melting pot for centuries. The four corners of the universe seem to cross in the main square of the Cathedral of San Cristobal de Las Casas.
