Ceremonial representations of Yucatan

Óscar Urrutia Lazo

DVD

CITRU integrates and diffuses in its Digital Library two videos created by the filmmaker, documentary maker and photographer, Óscar Urrutia, about two manifestations of the theaters originating in Yucatan: Looking for the Holy Man (2005), a documentary about an investigation by Ignacio Tuz into a Mayan ceremony whose finality is to dispel the bad omens and ask for the protection of God and the helping Virgin to care for the health of the men, the cornfields, plants and animals, which is undertaken every four years in the communities of San Luis, Chiquindzonot, Tekom and Mahas; in the Mayan language and with subtitles in Spanish, the documentary registers the distinct moments of the ceremony in which the shaman and herbalist, the H’men, conducts the males of the community in a ritual sacrifice in which they integrate Christian and traditional indigenous elements. And The Protector of the Light (2003), based on an investigation by Fernando Muñoz, documents a religious performance that has been performed in the Dzitnup community in Yucatan since ancestral times; based on the auto-sacramental Abraham’s Sacrifice, adopted and adapted by the community and with the direction of the Godfather of baby Jesus, depositary of the tradition, the celebration is prepared in the gate of the church, to give way to a ritual that incarnates, with simplicity and fervor, stories about the Nativity, 24th of December, and the Journey of the Magic Kings, 5th of January; and inside the church – with song, masks, jingles and dances – the community follows the steps of Abraham and Isaac, represented by two actors, in their oration to request help to defeat the darkness and to give birth to the light; all of this is commented on by researchers that explain and inform about the ceremony.