Hanal Pixan in Yucatan
Images from Day of the Dead in Merida
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Yucatán 2014: On The Road and Off The Grid
Cook It Raw
is an annual gathering that brings internationally recognized and emerging
chefs together with dedicated producers, community leaders, academics and
cultural producers to discuss and explore the politics of food through four guiding
principles – environment, tradition, creativity and collaboration. Our
programming showcases ideas, issues, people and ingredients that are
fundamental to the iconic, site-specific cuisines in our areas of focus. Through immersive strategies, Cook It
Raw participants are able to examine local food systems, understand the
narrative of the area, apply these ideas to their own work and become advocates
for change.
This year, our program content is built
entirely around experiential methodologies. The people, products, raw
materials, ingredients and stories that we encounter in our Yucatán field trips
will shape the direction of our investigation. Mayan culture today has strong
ties to its ancient roots, and our exposure to as many of these elements as
possible will inform our understanding of the deeply important place culinary
tradition has within Mayan culture. For our
final session in Yucatán, we bring our group of international chefs to Mérida to experience and explore the how culinary traditions are kept
alive through the ritual aspects of contemporary Mayan culture.
Ritual, Tradition & Day of the Dead
Oct 28th – Nov 2nd, 2014
For our third and final session, we will focus
on cuisine as it relates to ritual and festival – specifically, the culinary
traditions of Hanal Pixan the Mayan celebration of Day of the Dead. In our previous gatherings, we have travelled
around the region to explored the social, nutritional and cultural ties between
mankind and nature that Mayan communities continue to respect and reinforce
through their agricultural, culinary and community practices and preservation
of ancient food system approaches. For this gathering we will stay in the
historic, colonial city of Mérida, and close the circle of our investigation into
the essence of Yucatecan food and the Mayan traditions that have continued to
thrive throughout ancient, colonial and contemporary contexts.
While our chefs investigate, experience and
experiment, our artists will create interpretative tableaux while our
photographers and camera crew document the process. Our final gathering in Yucatán will truly be a 360° sensory experience.
HANAL PIXAN: COLONIAL INFLUENCES
In contemporary Mexican culture, the roots of the
Day of the Dead ritual celebration can be traced to ancient reverence and
connection to death and the deceased. When the Spanish imposed their colonial
systems and culture upon the Mayans in the 17th century, they
brought their own cultural recognition of lost ancestors. In time, these
traditions started to blend with Mayan rituals and customs, giving us the
colourful celebration we will experience during this final session in Yucatán.
sh colonial buildings that are
plentiful in downtown Mérida, and are visible today in the walls of the main
cathedral in the Centro Histórico district.
Celebrating
Day of the Dead is a tradition that dates back to ancient MesoAmerica – with
archeological evidence showing the Maya venerating their ancestors in their
homes for over 3,000 years. Hanal Pixan is
the Mayan Day of the Dead and is celebrated in the state of Yucatan and larger
villages in the peninsula.
Meaning
literally "food for the soul" in Maya Yucateco, Hanal Pixan is the
name of the celebration to receive the souls of the dead every year. While Day of the Dead is celebrated throughout the Latin
American world, the Maya can trace the origins of Hanal Pixan to pre-Conquest
ceremonies. These ancient Mayan traditions were combined with Spanish
Catholicism and transformed into this celebration that has been practiced by
the Maya for countless generations. Unlike Day of the Dead, the Mayan celebration is
longer, spanning nine days, from October 31st until November 8th,
where families hold seven separate feasts
over eight days with offerings made to the souls of children and adults. Hanal Pixan rituals incorporate
Catholic festivities of All Saint’s Day and the Liturgy of Souls, based on the
idea that the dead live on in a separate realm from which they come to visit us
every year. It is a joyous and sacred time where families show their love and
respect
Yucatán is the homeland of the Maya, an indigenous group of
people that have lived in this area for thousands of years and whose
descendants continue to reside in this region. The city of Mérida, where Cook It Raw will be
based, has the highest indigenous population of any large city in Mexico, with
60% of inhabitants being of Mayan ethnicity.
Founded
by Spanish Conquistadors in 1542, Mérida was built on the site of
the Mayan city of T’hó and is
considered to be the oldest,
continuously-occupied city in the Americas. Ancient
carved stones from T'ho were widely used to build the Spanish colonial buildings that are
plentiful in downtown Mérida, and are visible today in the walls of the main
cathedral in the Centro Histórico district.
Celebrating
Day of the Dead is a tradition that dates back to ancient MesoAmerica – with
archeological evidence showing the Maya venerating their ancestors in their
homes for over 3,000 years. Hanal Pixan is
the Mayan Day of the Dead and is celebrated in the state of Yucatan and larger
villages in the peninsula.
Meaning
literally "food for the soul" in Maya Yucateco, Hanal Pixan is the
name of the celebration to receive the souls of the dead every year. While Day of the Dead is celebrated throughout the Latin
American world, the Maya can trace the origins of to pre-Conquest
ceremonies. These ancient Mayan traditions were combined with Spanish
Catholicism and transformed into this celebration that has been practiced by
the Maya for countless generations. Unlike Day of the Dead, the Mayan celebration is
longer, spanning nine days, from October 31st until November 8th,
where families hold seven separate feasts
over eight days with offerings made to the souls of children and adults. Hanal Pixan rituals incorporate
Catholic festivities of All Saint’s Day and the Liturgy of Souls, based on the
idea that the dead live on in a separate realm from which they come to visit us
every year. It is a joyous and sacred time where families show their love and
respect for ancestors, while celebrating the cycle of life, family
relationships and community solidarity.
HANAL PIXAN:FEASTING & RITUAL FOOD
The Mayan codices depict images of gods
and supernatural beings involved in activities that frequently are related to
food, with maize and cacao having the most significance. The Popol Vuh, literally
meaning ‘Book of the People’ is the sacred text of the Mayan k'iches (language) from Guatemala, and is
considered to be the Mayan Bible. Mayan creation and death cult myths are very
much tied to food, and were revered and recorded in iconography in their
codices, star maps, buildings and sculptures.
Historically, we know that in Mayan communities,
events in the lives of people at all levels of society - births, baptisms,
ear-piercing, marriage, pregnancy, death, and other life-stages - required special
dishes for feasts to mark these occasions. Food in ancient Mayan culture was
very much connected to the cycle of life and death - and remains at the centre
of Mayan life today.
Many
of the dishes prepared during Hanal Pixan are described in the Popol Vuh, including mucbilpollo and chilmole, dishes made with poultry. The pre-Columbian versions would
have been made with pavo (turkey),
but now they are generally prepared with chicken, which was introduced by the
Spaniards in the 16th century. Special red tamales chachak wah (masa mixed
with achiote paste) are wrapped and buried
(much like a deceased would be) and baked the pib. In reference to
glyphs from the Mayan codex, the “red tamal”
or “great tamal,” are significant in the Maya ritual ancestor worship. It is traditional
to include three round tamales on household altars to represent women and/or
four rectangular tamales if the deceased is a man. The original numbers are
based pre- Columbian numerology associated with the specific labor of each
gender: the three-stoned hearth for women and four-cornered milpa for men.
For
the ancient and modern Mayan, the dead are never truly gone and remain
connected to us throughout our lifetimes. Offerings of food and drink year
after year are symbolic of the idea that the place of ancestral burial was in
the home, and that the dead continue living with relatives, long after they are
gone from this world.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
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