This article is inaccurate on many levels. The Matachines do not wear masks. Some pueblos drum for the dance rather than use the violin and guitar. There are several writings on the subject (The Matachines Dance by Sylvia Rodriguez is a good start).
From a Pueblo perspective there is nothing mysterious about this dance nor should this be viewed as a spectacle. It is a symbolic dance of connectedness and celebration.
I have lived in New Mexico since 1965 and taught Special Education. In Bernalillo,NM one of my students was initiated into the Matachines. He told me that he was stripped naked and hot sand was put on his genitals. The young man was from the nearby village of Pena Blanca and the leader of the Matachines was a sadistic pervert. I had the young boy taken to the hospital for his burns and I told his parents to file charges. Not all of the Matachines are like that, some are good men with pious and godly lives. I just happened to come across the wrong group.
We have matachines and penitentes right in my own town of Torreon. A few years ago during easter week, the penitentes of Truchas,NM CRUCIFIED their first woman. She was the daughter of the Hermano Major or mayordomo,and considered it the highest honor to hang on a cross with the men. The Matachines are NOT of Aztec origin! They are from Spain and the Moors and a throwback to the days of the ..Spanish Inquisition. The pueblos are like the Chinese and Japanese, they COPY everything for the tourists dollars. Please read your book and check your facts before copying the sycopantic misinformation that is fed to the media.
The Matachines and Penitentes are a Medieval sect, left over here in the very remote State of New Mexico. There were very few priests here after 1821 when the missionaries were expelled. In 1846 the French Archbishop Lamy and his 4 following French Archbishops outlawed the brotherhoods of Penitentes and Matachines and even excommunicated the most extreme cases. These groups survive mostly to procure tourists’ dollars and promote tourism in our financially depressed State. The Penitentes who survive today, hide in backwater canyons and whip themselves into a frenzy each and every Holy Week behind the closed doors of their chapels (called moradas), where they crucify themselves to atone for their sins. The Matachines are a truly sick and perverted group who dress up a little 9 year old girl in her white First Communion dress and have her prance about with a group of middle aged men, and pin dollar bills to her bosom. I don’t think this has anything to do with Christmas!
I am from a small village in the Manzano Mountains of NM. There are several ex-priests who are living in a canyon near my home. One of them molested a young girl back in the 1970s and later had to marry her. The penitentes and matachines are a bunch of perverted old men. I myself was chosen to dance as La Malinche when I was only 8 years old. Later I suffered sexual abuse and had a child from one of the dancers. In this “macho” hispanic culture, the men rule and the women are used as objects. That is why Archbishop Robert Sanchez was able to molest some 20 0r so young girls. The dances are where the young girls and boys are “groomed”for later sexual advances by the so called “religious” men they trust.
This article is inaccurate on many levels. The Matachines do not wear masks. Some pueblos drum for the dance rather than use the violin and guitar. There are several writings on the subject (The Matachines Dance by Sylvia Rodriguez is a good start).
From a Pueblo perspective there is nothing mysterious about this dance nor should this be viewed as a spectacle. It is a symbolic dance of connectedness and celebration.
Thanks. The New Mexico magazine is a font of misinformation. I have ordered the book about the Matachines.
Do you know what thase masked dancers are?
I have lived in New Mexico since 1965 and taught Special Education. In Bernalillo,NM one of my students was initiated into the Matachines. He told me that he was stripped naked and hot sand was put on his genitals. The young man was from the nearby village of Pena Blanca and the leader of the Matachines was a sadistic pervert. I had the young boy taken to the hospital for his burns and I told his parents to file charges. Not all of the Matachines are like that, some are good men with pious and godly lives. I just happened to come across the wrong group.
We have matachines and penitentes right in my own town of Torreon. A few years ago during easter week, the penitentes of Truchas,NM CRUCIFIED their first woman. She was the daughter of the Hermano Major or mayordomo,and considered it the highest honor to hang on a cross with the men. The Matachines are NOT of Aztec origin! They are from Spain and the Moors and a throwback to the days of the ..Spanish Inquisition. The pueblos are like the Chinese and Japanese, they COPY everything for the tourists dollars. Please read your book and check your facts before copying the sycopantic misinformation that is fed to the media.
The Matachines and Penitentes are a Medieval sect, left over here in the very remote State of New Mexico. There were very few priests here after 1821 when the missionaries were expelled. In 1846 the French Archbishop Lamy and his 4 following French Archbishops outlawed the brotherhoods of Penitentes and Matachines and even excommunicated the most extreme cases. These groups survive mostly to procure tourists’ dollars and promote tourism in our financially depressed State. The Penitentes who survive today, hide in backwater canyons and whip themselves into a frenzy each and every Holy Week behind the closed doors of their chapels (called moradas), where they crucify themselves to atone for their sins. The Matachines are a truly sick and perverted group who dress up a little 9 year old girl in her white First Communion dress and have her prance about with a group of middle aged men, and pin dollar bills to her bosom. I don’t think this has anything to do with Christmas!
I am from a small village in the Manzano Mountains of NM. There are several ex-priests who are living in a canyon near my home. One of them molested a young girl back in the 1970s and later had to marry her. The penitentes and matachines are a bunch of perverted old men. I myself was chosen to dance as La Malinche when I was only 8 years old. Later I suffered sexual abuse and had a child from one of the dancers. In this “macho” hispanic culture, the men rule and the women are used as objects. That is why Archbishop Robert Sanchez was able to molest some 20 0r so young girls. The dances are where the young girls and boys are “groomed”for later sexual advances by the so called “religious” men they trust.