FERIA ANUAL EN HONOR A LA PRECIOSA SANGRE DE CRISTO.
It is the name of the festival in Teotitlan del Valle.
There are three main rituals.
This is the first.
The sacred procession where all the single girls of the town dress in the traditional hand woven wool "ENREDO" (Wrapper) dyed in red using the famous natural dye called Cochineal. They use the blood of this bug to dye the wool.
Single girls, with elegance and beauty they carry hand made baskets decorated with religious motifs both Zapotec and Catholic. With flowers and hundreds of colors they walk on the sacred route around the town accompanied by the Brass Band in the front and the end!
Is funny to see boys with their cameras taking pictures and videos of the girls they like, often they watch the procession at one corner once they have seen everything, they run (or bike) as fast as they can to the other good spot to see all the girls again. I wonder how many couples have been formed after this procession ¿?
I suspect that the procession has its roots in ancient Zapotec ritual where they took the Goods outside of the temples. The zapotec religion is very close to the People and Nature, God is here and there, everywhere, not just up there in the Sky. Everyone in Teotitlan del Valle has a sacred room in his house, it is called “LEENIU SHAAN” and is where they keep an altar of their Gods and Saints with fresh flowers all year round.
In many indigenous and traditional communities people only take their Gods outside of the temple when they needed really special favors, like in the case of a sever drought. It is very well known that many of this indigenous communities often placed their Pre-Columbian goods hidden under the catholic Saint, Virgin or Jesus during these processions.
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