Fiestas and why Mexicans love to party

Fiestas  are probably the best-known  symbol of Mexican religion and cultural life in this country. Virtually all fiestas are the observation of saints’ days, some nationally important and some dedicated to a local heavenly patron. It is customary for prominent people in the community to promise to pay for the celebration. This is a great honor, a badge of status among fellow-citizens, and a good practical move since the fiestas attract business. But still at heart all the money and work that the local mayordomias (civic associations) put into the fiestas are the human part of bargains with higher powers. When you help to bankroll a church holiday important to your community, you are building up a savings account of heavenly goodwill.

Fiesta has another aspect that may be hard to appreciate in non-Mexican societies. It is a kind of release from the forms and conventions so important in everyday Mexican life. Already the Spaniards noted that the Aztecs were a scrupulously polite and punctilious people with elaborate standards of conduct. Not only did the correct observance of religious rituals assure them of the year’s food supply, but behaving correctly in all situations belonged to a godly person’s general duties. Though the Spanish brutally imposed their own ways, they too honored traditions of courtly behavior. When the native peoples had been crushed and the present mingling of cultures had taken shape, one legacy was a society of polite self-disguise. Even everyday language in Mexico is filled with ceremonious formulas to cushion the impact of all dealings with others, from buying a newspaper to declining an invitation. People know how to act, what each situation calls for so that their true selves will remain somewhat hidden.

Escape from the rules and roles takes different forms. Our fondness for dirty language, even among very dignified people, is one such release. So is the Mexican tradition of private hospitality, welcoming family and friends into a circle where we feel understood, accepted, and free to enjoy ourselves. Fiesta, however, is different. It is an extravagant public release that is built into the Christian-pagan calendar and planned for by the whole community.  Barriers go down and we express ourselves — in pageantry, dazzling costumes, reckless displays, drinking and eating, games of chance, and always the fireworks called castillos, revolving dizzily on high turrets. The Aztec celebrations were part survival strategy, and maybe they were right.

No one knows how to celebrate better than Mexicans, who still are really  pagan fatalists most of the time. Fatalism makes sense in a country still so close to the soil and the unpredictable elements. But that makes celebration all the more important. As Octavio Paz has written of Mexican fiestas, “Their frequency, their brilliance and excitement, the enthusiasm with which we take part, all suggest that without them we would explode.”