The broth festival in San Andrés Zautla: the processes of symbolization in the recreation of a tradition

Abstract

This text aims to reflect on the importance of festivals within the religious practices of Indigenous communities, as contexts for social interaction and ritual processes where diverse symbolic processes are articulated, nourishing and conveying the transmission of traditions. This leads us to consider religious festivals as both a hegemonic arena of dispute, given their regulated organization, and a vehicle for counter-hegemonic confrontation, stemming from the experience of the sacred. We offer a brief conceptual review for addressing what has been termed “popular religion” or, from Mesoamerican studies, “Mesoamerican religious tradition” (L. Austin). We outline the analytical categories that complement a hermeneutic model for studying festivals and rituals, drawing on the studies of the imaginary (G. Durand; B. Solares) and the symbolic anthropology of Lluís Duch. We applied our model to the case study of the Fiesta del Caldo en Honor al Dulce Nombre de Jesús, in San Andrés Zautla, Oaxaca, focusing on two problems: the way the festival is organized through a brotherhood and the forms of participation in the festival influenced by gender.