Empowering Indigenous Youth in Mexican Communities

Empowering Indigenous Youth in Mexican Communities: The Network of Community Museums of Oaxaca

Report: May – August 2023.

This project aims to strengthen meaningful bonds between local youth and their indigenous community culture, carrying out workshops to increase awareness and foster creative expression regarding fundamental community practices. During this period, the UMCO team carried out an intensive state-wide workshop for indigenous youth, combining online and in-person sessions, and provided tools for children of Magdalena Jaltepec to conclude the installation of an exhibition on the traditional medicine of their community.

The state-wide workshop began with two on-line sessions held on June 2 and 9, which introduced discussions of community memory and reviewed the concept of comunalidad (a concept encompassing four pillars of community organization: communal government, communal territory, communal service and the fiesta). For the third session, which lasted from June 16^th to 18^th, the participants of Santa Ana del Valle, San Martín Huamelulpam and San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca traveled to the Pacific Coast, to the host community of Villa de Tututepec.

The town of Tututepec was an excellent site for this workshop, which focused on the communal practices surrounding the tradition of the mayordomía. The mayordomía entails a system of community collaboration to celebrate the patron saint, coordinated by a sponsor or mayordomo. In Tututepec, the mayordomos are usually reluctant to share information about their local customs, but they agreed to dialogue with the workshop participants because they were young people seeking to understand their own traditions.

The young people from the visiting communities and Tututepec divided into two groups to carry out a respectful dialogue with two mayordomos, and listened to testimonies about the pre-hispanic beliefs that underly the ceremonies for the saints. The mayordomos spoke of their “gods of stone”, gods of the sun, the moon and the stars, now embodied in the saints. They shared the importance of rituals to maintain community well-being, including cleansing ceremonies and offerings to the earth.

Through these dialogues, the participants gained a deeper understanding of how prehispanic beliefs are woven into many rituals that are practiced today. They shared similar ceremonies of offerings practiced in their own communities, and after reflecting on what they learned, organized into teams to create drawings and theatrical presentations about the mayordomía.

An outstanding aspect of this workshop was the team-work of the young people of Tututepec. A group of 22 secondary and highschool students of the host community supported the organization of room and board for all participants, and helped coordinate activities such as a bonfire and a visit to the beach. In general, the 36 young people and 14 adults who participated in the workshop all contributed to making the event a well-organized and rewarding experience.

Additionally, on July 19, the Community Museum Añuti (Seis Mono) of Magdalena Jaltepec was reopened after a period of 16 years. All five exhibitions (on local archaeology, community fiestas, traditional ball game, traditional medicine, and community authorities) were recreated, through the process of community research, design, and installation. The exhibition on traditional medicine was developed by a group of children, parents and teachers from the village of Lindavista, a small community within Jaltepec. The 15 children of the small local school participated with 10 adults in dialogues with healers, collection of medicinal plants, as well as documentation of temazcales (traditional steam baths) and endodos (sacred sites inhabited by spirits which grant healing). They also designed and installed scale models of the temazcal and site of an endodo in the museum.

In this way 15 children from Magdalena Jaltepec gained greater awareness and appreciation of the rich and complex knowledge embedded in their traditional healing practices, and 36 young people from Villa de Tututepec, Santa Ana del Valle, San Juan Bautista Coixtlahuaca and San Martín Huamelulpam learned from experienced elders how ancient beliefs are present in the ceremonies and world view of their communities. These 51 children and young people also expressed their own interpretation of their community practices in creative ways, through exhibitions, paintings, and theater. The 24 adults who participated in support of this process also appreciated the opportunity to share and learn through their community museums.