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| Volume 11, No. 43 |
July 28-3, 2010 |
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| | Aztec New Year: Centro Mayapan celebrates forgotten culture | | By Natalie Eckberg | |  Dispelling myths and reconnecting to roots are two goals of the Aztec New Year celebration at Café Mayapan this Sunday – a day of reflection, meditation and cultural expression dubbed “Celebracion del Año Nuevo Azteca: Un Paso a la Nueva Era 2012.”
Area organizations Kalpulli Tlateca (the People of the Earth Community) and Tonal Teokalli, or the Sun Church, have teamed with Café Mayapan to celebrate the Aztec New Year and introduce El Paso residents to ancient cultural traditions, which include a period of daytime fasting for five days leading up to the New Year, known as Nemotemi.
“For me and for many others, we find that a lot of people who have indigenous roots in Mexico and Southern Texas don’t celebrate them because we are taught not to,” said event organizer Cemelli de Aztlan and member of the People of the Earth community. “We have been taught to be ashamed of our indigenous past, taught myths like that the calendar has doomsday predictions. … But we need to share with others the many treasures of our past, our history.”
Events include panel discussions, performance art and ancient dance presentations by El Paso Aztecan dance groups Omekoatl and Tlaneztica. L.A.-based performance artist Michael Heralda will be featured at the event. Heralda, who has presented his work at the National Museum of the American Indian and Universidad Nahuatl in Ocotepec, Morelos, will perform on indigenous musical instruments that he made.
“His music is a mix of oral history and music,” de Aztlan said. “As a young adult, he had an Aztecan awakening moment when he fully realized and embraced his heritage. Through studying the collective art of his people, he began to experience many emotions. And one of those emotions was the pain of his ancestors. He began to release that pain through the music, which spans different generations. It is a voice and sound from a time long ignored.”
The Empire of the Mexicas (or Aztecs, as the Spanish called them) fell to Cortés and his Conquistadores in 1521. Within a few short years the heathen temples were obliterated and valuable records, such as friar Bernardino de Sahagún’s codices – a 12-volume encyclopedia of Aztec life and culture – were forgotten and left to gather dust.
The Aztecan people, or Mexicas, have different calendars for different purposes, said Yolanda Leyva, UTEP associate professor of history. Calendars could be secular or sacred or based on the sun or the moon cycles. Often, they were used together. The New Year occurs in the Spring – the time for change, when the earth is undergoing a rebirth.
“Regardless of what the individual calendar’s purpose was, they all had a common goal: to help humans understand their place and their relationship to everything around them – other people, animals, plants, the stars, the cosmos,” Leyva said.
The Mexican solar calendar has a cycle of 52 years. Each year is named with a number from 1 to13 consecutively, succeeded by one of the four signs: Tochtli in Náhuatl, or rabbit; Tecpatl, or flint; Calli, or house; Acatl, or reed. This New Year will be 11-Tochtli, or the 11th year of the rabbit. Tochtli’s symbolism is one of unpredictability, creativity, humor and vision.
“There is a challenge with every New Year,” said Leyva, who is a Tonalpohuaki, or daykeeper of the Aztec calendar. “Every year, we ask ourselves: What are the things that we want to do this year? This challenge, with the Year of the Rabbit upon us, we have to know its energy. It is a creative force, so there will be much creativity and birth of new ideas and inspirations. However, rabbits are unpredictable – so the challenge for this year may be to figure out how to stay in focus.”
Leyva will serve on the education panel, which will discuss the 2012 myth and the link between the Mexica and border culture. Also serving on the panel will be NMSU education professor Herman Garcia and Carlos Aceves, author and founder of The Xinachtli Project. The Xinachtli Project is an alternative teaching approach using indigenous methods.
“We are hoping to educate people about the connections to our ancestors,” Leyva said. “They are connections to be proud of. And more than that – the information and knowledge created by them is very much still in use today. It’s not something to be looked at as solely ‘in the past’ but as very relevant in our modern world as well.”
In addition to the dispelling of the 2012 myth, the panel will discuss the proud roots of the Mexica people, as well as the Chicano movement toward reclamation born out of the 1960s and ’70s.
“As a people – no matter what race we are – it is important to recognize the treasures in our community,” de Aztlan said. “The inability to do so plays into our psyche and hinders our self-esteem. So being able to pay tribute to our culture and history is part of that long road to empowerment.”
Aztec New Year
Celebracion del Año Nuevo Azteca
Centro Mayapan, 2101 Myrtle
Sunday, March 14, 1-4 p.m.
Free, For info call (915) 532-6200
Comments or questions about this story? E-mail Secret@whatsuppub.com
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