The k'in tajimoltik, the monkey, the kaxlan, and the tiger: a look at relational complexity in San Juan Chamula

Abstract

In San Juan Chamula, a municipality located in the region of Los Altos in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the carnival is conceived as a big party, because in addition to being held simultaneously in various scenarios, it brings together a large number of people: both spectators and required charges. Carnival time, known in the Tsotsil language as February Loko, is characterized by humor and fun; however, a less visible property or, to a certain extent, hidden, at least to the eyes of visitors, refers to primordial times, to the ordering of the cosmos and the creation of humanity. Hence it is also known locally as k'in tajimoltik, in allusion to the celebration of "our elders".
The central objective of this celebration is to maintain the legitimacy of the bats'i viniketik, the last humanity: the one that knows how to relate socially with its ancestors, its creators, its kajvaltik (owners).
According to oral tradition, when the Sun-God lived on Earth he was persecuted by evil beings - demons, Jews, among others - and it was the jaguar, who appears as his "animal companion", who defended him when these beings tried to kill him. In this way, every time a person joins the chilon dance, with the jaguar skin on his back, he establishes a social bond with the jaguar of God and, at the same time, with God, among humans and with other (non-human) beings.
The free monkeys or kolemal maxetik are the most numerous charges, they are associated with music and dance and, by their behavior, are related to past humanities. They condense a multiplicity of alterities with which the Chamula have historically and mythologically related. Without a precise direction, without the guidance of their kajvaltik, the kolemal walk through the municipal capital and make tourists participate in the chilon dance. Without knowing it, the visitor, ladino, foreigner, kaxlan, grinko or German, becomes one of the main actors of this cosmic re-creation: they figure as past humanities.