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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 6:24:16 GMT
Eeeuuww ~~ I saw those fake babies for adults on the news once. Maybe not as creepy as vinyl companions such as Lars's real girl, but disturbing nonetheless. And speaking of babies, we'll kick off the finale of the Candelaria presentation with this little visual double-take. I suppose you have to be a certain age for the phrase "the rabbit died" to mean anything, but ........ On either side of this archway ~ Were signs reading thus: That was encountered as I wended my way northward in downtown Oaxaca, alert for Niño Dios sightings. Here's my first. Everyone whom I asked for permission to photograph was unfailingly accommodating and pleasant. I asked this lady if I could snap the little outfit. She laughed & said, "You realize it has no baby in it?" as she held it up. Love the name of this place -- The Miracle. It sets a high standard for what kind of restoration work they do on the little statues.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 6:29:11 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 6:36:30 GMT
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Post by tod2 on Feb 3, 2012 6:40:19 GMT
Looking through the photos again I got a distant bell ringing in my head....now why? Oh! got it! The dolls reminded me of the time I was walking around a shopping mall somewhere in the States and encountered a duplex shop of Barbie Dolls. Until then I had no idea that children/adults collected Barbie to such an extent
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 6:52:50 GMT
Where I am going is up to the basilica of La Soledad. Those of you who accompanied me to the feast of La Soledad (in the Navidad 2011 thread), might remember the rubble we had to clamber over. Look -- it's all fixed! But before proceeding, let's show someone from in front of the Independencia store, along with someone I met in the plaza at the top of the stairs. Will I be forgiven for captioning these pictures Guys & Dolls? The second young man was sitting just down from these two ladies. When I snapped the picture above, the other woman whipped her Niño Dios out of the bag ~
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 6:57:45 GMT
Now into the church, so I can include some of my trademark dark, grainy pictures. More people kept coming in with their Niños, including one woman who had about five of them. I didn't feel right asking to take pictures in church, so missed some good stuff. I did get this lovely young woman right outside, though ~
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 7:10:17 GMT
Wending my way back to the center of town, I pass this doll-themed product: I suppose that's for a girl, not a woman, but who knows. Are these for boys or for men? And, for those who're only looking at this thread because they're into dolls ~~ Passing through the Alameda, this lady graciously showed off her Niño ~ I really wanted to include the woman and her little boy carrying these Niños past the market. However, they helpfully placed the statues on a table for me to snap them. That's the Niño de Abundancia on the left, and the Boy of Dreams on the right. Here are the last babies. They were on the floor of a street stand selling cds, with a hefty older woman rocking out to the music. She kindly let me take a close up of the basket. And so to home. Mass was going on in the neighborhood chapel when I got there. I peered in, but couldn't see any Niños, although quite a few pet dogs were hanging around the back of the church. It's all better than groundhogs, isn't it?
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Post by tod2 on Feb 3, 2012 7:42:26 GMT
I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread on the Ninos It's wonderful to learn other things about a nationality other than it's cuisine and politics! And Yes, it's Waaaaay better than Groundhog Day!!
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Post by Don Cuevas on Feb 3, 2012 12:59:50 GMT
We were in a taxi, on the last leg of our return home from Zihuatanejo, and we noticed a couple of small fiestas taking place near the turnoff from the main highway. At a cluster of houses at a curve in the road, there were families with the Papás holding clusters of fat cohetes. (Skyrockets, a necessary adjunct to every fiesta here.). Until I reread this thread, I was unaware of the Candelaria connection.
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Post by lola on Feb 3, 2012 16:02:21 GMT
This is wonderful, bixa. Great reportage. (bonus: nutritional value of rabbit.)
I especially like the dramatic first photo in the church. Beautiful.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2012 18:18:39 GMT
Hey Tod ~~ I missed seeing your remark about the Barbie Duplex when I was posting last night, so it's funny that I included The Barbie ™ glasses, all unaware. When I lived in the States I liked to go to yard sales. Woe betide you if you casually picked up a Barbie object out of curiosity or nostalgia. The Barbie-collecting sharks were liable to take your arm off at the shoulder. I was one of the little girls who had one of the very first Barbies. Because I had younger sisters, my Barbie got played with over the years & never became a collectible as far as I know. Well, she's probably still out there somewhere. Stuff was well made back in 1959! Thanks for your other kind comments as well. You certainly do your part to show us things we'd never know about your part of the world! Dontcha love it, DonCuevas ~~ there's always something new to find out about our adopted country. Were you still in Guerrero when you saw the cohetes, or back in Michoacán? Thanks so much, Lola. Your feedback always makes thread-making a pleasure. When I started posting last night & saw your comment at #30, it gave me a tiny thrill to know I had some men-with-Niños pictures to show. Admittedly, except for the very little boy not shown at the end of the thread, none of the males seemed to be participating with great enthusiasm. The sweet guy with the winged Niño was actually holding it for his mother, who was eating some fruit. The guy with the scarf around his neck might have been waiting for someone, as he had sort of a trapped, oh-crap look when I asked to photograph his baby.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2012 19:44:00 GMT
This is all delightfully creepy and gives me all sorts of ideas for a screenplay for a horror movie.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 3, 2012 20:09:55 GMT
Whatever floats their boat I say. Do people make their own costumes for the dolls too?
Over here there are people who spend a lot of time embroidering ecclesiastical clothing and altar cloths, making hassocks and tapestries etc for their local church or cathedral. I've never seen this 'dressing baby Jesus dollies' tradition before tho. Fascinating...and they seem to enjoy it all.
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Post by lola on Feb 3, 2012 20:15:23 GMT
Yes, love "guys and dolls."
I used to play Barbies with a neighbor kid who subsequently became a federal judge and father of three.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 5, 2012 2:51:23 GMT
Cheery, I don't know if people make their own Niño outfits at home or not. The only ones I saw that deviated from the fluffy store-bought norm were the slightly grubby ones of unbleached muslin at the cd stand. I'm thinking you could become a local heroine by introducing this custom to the ecclesiastical stitchery crowd. None of the little statues seem to be articulated, so they couldn't be dressed as easily as one would a baby doll. Maybe that's why there's such a big industry in Niño Dios dressing -- because the outfits have to be fitted & sewn on each little statue -- ? That is now #11,432 of the "why don't they ...." questions that arise about Mexico: why don't they just make the Niño Dios figures articulated? On a very good local blog that I follow, someone commented that the baby is dressed to indicate what it is that is sought in the way of divine intervention. I don't know if that is true in Oaxaca or not. This Wikpedia article covers a number of different customs and beliefs. Thanks, Lola! No idea what happened to my Barbie partner, who was a girl. Perhaps you, not Barbie, were the spark that sent your play pal on to greater heights.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 5, 2012 6:32:27 GMT
You all have to see this! It was part of the festivities for Candelaria in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz. Earlier today I watched part of the another light show in Ghent, & I have to say that Mexico does this very, very well. Anyway, this is fantastic. Below the video is a link to a half-minute ad for the festival, if you want to see how the light show tied in cultural elements of Veracruz.
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Post by tod2 on Feb 5, 2012 7:16:43 GMT
That was absolutely incredible! I loved the way they zoomed in on earth and pinpointed Veracruz. What a lovely way to end with La Babmba & the fireworks! Thanks for that, I really enjoyed it
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Post by lola on Feb 5, 2012 14:09:43 GMT
Oh, MY. Spectacular is right. I love the beginning, when the cathedral is built.
The creativity that goes into that! Wouldn't it be fun to design one of those. The designers must borrow from each other just a little.
Thank you, bixa.
Part of the mysterious beauty of the Nino Dios is that they're all formed alike. Articulating would not be an improvement.
PS: Our neighbor family, 6 boys, was lucky if anything to overcome their early exposure to us. I apologized to my doll playmate a few years ago for playfully squishing gum into his beautiful red hair, not thinking that his mother would have to cut it out with scissors.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 5, 2012 14:46:22 GMT
I like these mysterious traditions that arise all over the world. My lack of religious faith doesn't prevent me appreciating them....can't beat the one where the priest jumps over the babies tho. ;D
I wonder how a people following the same faith will interpret things differently, cultural influences?. Are the people predominantly catholic in Mexico? and do these traditions vary from region to region there? Do the Mediterranean countries where Catholicism predominates have similar customs? I'm not aware of any in the UK.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 8, 2012 16:54:47 GMT
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to your nice comments. Tod & Lola, I think I could become like a Deadhead, following those light shows around from city to city! That video firmed up my resolve to start exploring the state of Veracruz, too. Lola, you have a point about articulating the limbs. In New Orleans, it's common to dig up (usually broken) ceramic king cake babies. Even though they were probably dangerous to have in a cake, I bemoan the move to soft safe rubbery babies. Whatever you all did to those poor little boys, it did not kill them, but made them stronger. ;D I wonder how a people following the same faith will interpret things differently, cultural influences?. Are the people predominantly catholic in Mexico? and [c] do these traditions vary from region to region there? [d] Do the Mediterranean countries where Catholicism predominates have similar customs? That's a bunch of good questions, Cheery! To answer in order: (a) My family is Catholic, but when went to Spain in the mid-1950s, we were amazed, even appalled by the differences in the way the religion as we knew it was practiced and the way it was in Spain then. For one thing, statues of Christ's suffering were so zealously graphic. For another, religion seemed much more pervasive. It was common to see women wearing a purple dress with a yellow sash, or a man in a purple shirt & yellow sash, denoting that they were doing penance for something. It was also very disconcerting for little American children to see neighborhood moms parading barefoot for some relgious observation. Look at Casimira's picture of herself in her First Communion regalia -- #34 in your Beautiful Baby thread. That was the norm I knew in the US. In fact, even though I'm @5 years older than Casimira, we didn't even have little veils, just hats. Not in Spain. The little girls were dressed in elaborate bride-type dresses & the boys in gleaming white admirals' uniforms. Actually, they may still dress that way in Mexico, as I've seen those fancy outfits in store windows. In the mid-60s, the priest in our parish in Oklahoma urged parents not to go all out for 1st Communion clothes, saying regular clothes would be just fine. This was because of his concern for the impoverished migrant workers in the parish. Nevertheless, all of their kids were arrayed like Solomon in all his glory for their 1st Communion day. (b) I may have talked about this somewhere else, but ....... yes, the majority of Mexicans will identify themselves as Catholic. As someone who was raised Catholic, I often raise my eyebrows at this claim, due to what seems a prevalent lack of knowledge about the very religion they claim to practice. Of course there are people who know and adhere to the real teachings, but my feeling and that of other foreigners who grew up Catholic, is that often it's more of a sentimental attachment rather than any solid belief. There have been big inroads in the last few decades of Evangelical Protestantism and of Mormonism. Mormons are referred to as such, but Evangelicals are called "Christians", which sort of cracks me up. (c) Apparently so, as Don Cuevas reported from Michoacán that he'd not seen evidence of the Niños Dios there, although it is certainly a big deal in Mexico City, here, & probably other areas. This is a mountainous country with many indigenous groups still maintaining their identities, so there is a great deal of variation in general. (d) I know (not first-hand) that Italy, Portugal, and Spain still have traditional religious processions and observances -- not sure about southern France. Some of the traditions here very obviously were brought by the Spanish, such as the Procession of Silence on Good Friday, complete with those ominous pointed hooded figures and enactments of the whole sequence leading up to the crucifixion.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2013 7:28:03 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 3, 2013 7:44:46 GMT
Look ~~ San Charbel. Those of you who avidly memorized politely enjoyed my recent Puebla thread will remember San Charbel. You're probably the same people who can tell olives from cherries. That's it. Hope it holds you until next year!
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Post by bjd on Feb 3, 2013 8:14:20 GMT
I wonder how many people would be interested in all these churchy things if they didn't have the opportunities for festivals, dressing up dolls, fireworks, etc.
How many Calvinists are there in Mexico? ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 4, 2013 3:54:01 GMT
Good question, Bjd. I try to be open-minded, but have to admit that ritual kinda makes me cringe. However, as you know from my threads, that doesn't stop me from enjoying fireworks and pageantry.
Funny that you remark on Calvinists ~~ on the day I was taking this year's Niño Dios pictures I was with a friend who is married to someone from a "Cristiano" family. Since all Protestants seem to be lumped under the Cristiano label, I never know if that refers to fundamentalist Christians or the more bread&butter forms of Protestantism.
At any rate, I'd asked her about her in-laws' view of her as a non-Cristiana. In the course of explaining how she occasionally goes to their church to make them happy, she mentioned the "singing and dancing" there. Eh? I guess there are make-a-joyful-noise-before-the-Lord sects here, which doesn't sound very Calvinist.
I do know that many of the fundamentalists eschew Christmas and -- tragically! -- days of the dead celebrations. I think I mentioned this before, but I have a fundamentalist friend who confided to me that she really misses the drinking and dancing and fiestas allowed to her when she was a plain old Catholic.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2013 6:55:25 GMT
I don't know any religious families in France, so the one and only thing that I have ever heard about La Chandeleur is that eating crêpes is obligatory, particularly if there are children around.
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Post by Don Cuevas on Feb 4, 2013 14:39:24 GMT
Hey ladies -- both of you perfectly captured the confused amazement this custom provokes in me. ;D Mich, I don't get the doctor thing, but it's extremely common. All of the markets here have a shrine somewhere in them with the saint or manifestation of Christ or the Virgin who watches over the market. My favorite ever is one with a little glass case with a Niño Dios dressed as a doctor. What makes it so special is that they put a cotton ball in his little hand that's upraised in blessing. <SNIP> "My Son, The Doctor"?
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Post by Don Cuevas on Feb 4, 2013 14:58:56 GMT
Good question, Bjd. I try to be open-minded, but have to admit that ritual kinda makes me cringe. However, as you know from my threads, that doesn't stop me from enjoying fireworks and pageantry. Funny that you remark on Calvinists ~~ on the day I was taking this year's Niño Dios pictures I was with a friend who is married to someone from a "Cristiano" family. Since all Protestants seem to be lumped under the Cristiano label, I never know if that refers to fundamentalist Christians or the more bread&butter forms of Protestantism. At any rate, I'd asked her about her in-laws' view of her as a non-Cristiana. In the course of explaining how she occasionally goes to their church to make them happy, she mentioned the "singing and dancing" there. Eh? I guess there are make-a-joyful-noise-before-the-Lord sects here, which doesn't sound very Calvinist. I do know that many of the fundamentalists eschew Christmas and -- tragically! -- days of the dead celebrations. I think I mentioned this before, but I have a fundamentalist friend who confided to me that she really misses the drinking and dancing and fiestas allowed to her when she was a plain old Catholic. The Señora and her daughter who clean our house are Evangelicals. They told me that there is much music, tambourines and alabanza (praise, hallelujah) at their church. They (speaking of them as individuals) are among the most positive, cheerful, upbeat people we know. The fact that they have left the Mother Church doesn't stop them from participating in festive gatherings, such as the one at our house on Saturday, a cena in honor of Candelaría. Most of their relatives are still practicing Catholics.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 10, 2013 15:52:14 GMT
;D Sorry for the late reply here, DonC, but thanks for that input on Mexican Evangelicals. I missed an opportunity to attend an Evangelical wedding & fiesta. The aforementioned friend -- the one who admitted she somewhat missed rowdier festivities -- invited me so "you can see how we celebrate". I think your characterization of the your two friends could also describe many Mexican Evangelicals, who seem sincerely immersed in the loving message of their belief. And thanks for the new word, too!
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Post by htmb on Feb 10, 2013 21:32:12 GMT
Bixa, do USA Catholics celebrate this feast in the same way. I don't recall seeing baby Jesus in clothing except for statues of the Infant of Prague.
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 14, 2013 5:05:04 GMT
Not as far as I know, Htmb. I don't think church statues in the US ever have changes of outfits. Even the Infant of Prague is stuck wearing the same fancy baby clothes all the time.
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