New Orleans and the Art of the Corpse

I have some posts regarding architecture, the city and the senses. We usually relate senses with the sound of cars, people talking, water in fountains, textures, materials, smell of food and in the old times the smell of horses and their excrements.

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2009/11/quotes-on-architecture-city-and-senses.html

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2009/10/essay-on-haptic-perception.html

But there are some special situations where our senses are enhanced. And such is the case of the ancient plagues, but in modern life, we have the earthquakes and floods. In the aftermath of urban disasters the smell could be terrible.

I found a very good article by Andrei Codrescu “New Orleans: the Art of the Corpse”, the editor and creator of Exquisite Corpse. A journal of letters and life. And he well explains the haptic sensations after Katrina’s flood, in New Orleans, USA. Mostly, the unbearable smell. And, curiously, the folk urban art as a kind of consequence. Here we go:

When New Orleanians returned to their homes after the Storm they were struck by a smell that has no equivalent in recent American history: a stupefying blend of decaying animal flesh as layered as the city’s history. The sweet rankness of animal and human death floated around the city like it might have in the aftermath of a Yellow Fever epidemic of the 18th century, but added to it was the putrid efflorescence of 20th century grocery store meat blossoming inside thousands of refrigerators. For a week or so after the Storm, when the city wallowed in its filth and misery without help from the United States of America, which they had mistakenly believed they were part of, people helped each other drag the taped-up fridges unto the street. Rows and rows of white metal boxes cradling inside generations of maggots began to fill the narrow streets of America’s oldest city. Waves of putrefaction rolled over the streets. New Orleans sank into the funk like a corpse into the embrace of the earth. The rows of fridges lining the streets looked by moonlight like primed canvasses ready for painting. The city’s artists, who have been enthralled since John James Audubon by New Orleans’ embrace of decay and death (Audubon purchased all his American birds dead from the French Market) were not long in reacting. New Orleans music and art had always been inspired by funk: rotting vegetation, blooming night jasmine, the faint smell of the dead wafting from the city’s above-ground cemeteries, rotting crustaceans, transpiration, and sex. Now here was all this funk, magnified a thousand times. And here were all these metal tombs stretching as far as the eye could see, more numerous than the graves they resembled. The art appeared instantly and it was, appropriately, political. “Chem Trails Are Real: Weather Control is Here,” was scrawled below a jet leaving behind what looked like a trail of poison. Another fridge warned severely: “Do Not Open: Cheney Inside.” Inside others one could find Bush, Rice, Nagin, and Michael Brown doing obscene things within with the maggots and with each other. In a short time, there were thousands of art works in the city, an exhibition that stretched for miles, that had no official opening, that was constantly in progress. Today, most of the show is closed. National Guardsmen, volunteers, and city workers have incinerated the art after hauling it to vast refrigerator graveyards. New Orleans always renewed its armies of ghosts after every disaster of its 500-year history, but this last addition came with its own unique, absolutely new style.

Reference

http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=38

All pictures were downloaded from Andrei Codrescu’s article.

What is Mythogeography?

Batik/photo montage of textures from a drift in Newton Abbot.
Created by Batman Berlin, Robin Paris and Joker London.
With thanks for the photo to Terry Bannon. Image from www.mythogeography.com/2009/11/b1.html

In the words of Phil Smith:

¨Psychogeography is the study of how places affect the psychological states of those who pass through them. With a reciprocal meaning: that the places might be changed in order to alter the experiences and mental states of their residents and visitors. This was part of a theory of radical activism for the transformation of cities through the creation of exemplary ways of living (“situations”). In the United Kingdom the concept of Psychogeography has become somewhat detached from its original activist and unitary-urbanist meanings and reconfigured as a literary practice in the work of writers like Iain Sinclair. It has also gathered some occult trappings during this time from Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, the graphic novelist Alan Moore and others.

Mythogeography describes a way of thinking about, passing through and using those places where multiple meanings have been squeezed into a single or restricted meaning (for example, heritage, tourist or leisure sites that are often presented in a singular and privileged way, when they may also be (or have been) homes, jam factories, battlegrounds, lovers' lanes, farms, cemeteries or madhouses). Mythogeography emphasizes the multiple nature of such places and suggests multiple ways of celebrating, expressing and weaving those places and their many meanings.

Mythogeography is influenced by, and draws on, Psychogeography – seeking to reconnect with some of its original political edge as well as with its more recent occult and literary additions. While engaging seriously with academic discourses in areas like Geography, tourism studies and spatial theory, Mythogeography also draws upon what Charles Fort might have described as ‘the procession of damned data’ and unrespectable discourses that it may use for metaphorical or literal explanation. So, occulted and anomalous narratives are among those available to Mythogeography, rarely as ends in themselves, mostly as means and metaphors to explain, engage and disrupt.

The term “Mythogeography” arose from the work of Wrights & Sites (a group of site-specific performance makers based in Exeter, UK).¨

To learn much more about Mythogeography, read my interview to Phil Smith in this link:

http://theclubofcompulsivereaders.blogspot.com/2010/03/concepts-on-mythogeography-interview.html

Report from the Besieged City. Poem by Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998).

The devastated city of Danzig. From http://www.danzigfreestate.org/pix/483.jpg

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others - 

they graciously gave me the inferior role of chronicler 

I record - I don't know for whom - the history of the siege 

I am supposed to be exact but I don't know when the invasion began 

two hundred years ago in December in September perhaps yesterday at dawn 

everyone here suffers from a loss of the sense of time 

all we have left is the place the attachment to the place 

we still rule over the ruins of temples spectres of gardens and houses 

if we lose the ruins nothing will be left 

I write as I can in the rhythm of interminable weeks 

monday: empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency 

tuesday: the mayor murdered by unknown assailants 

wednesday: negotiations for a cease-fire the enemy has imprisoned our messengers 

we don't know where they are held that is the place of torture 

thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of voices rejected 

the motion of the spice merchants for unconditional surrender 

friday: the beginning of the plague saturday: our invincible defender 

N.N. committed suicide sunday: no more water we drove back 

an attack at the eastern gate called the Gate of the Alliance 

all of this is monotonous I know it can't move anyone 

I avoid any commentary I keep a tight hold on my emotions I write about the facts 

only they it seems are appreciated in foreign markets 

yet with a certain pride I would like to inform the world 

that thanks to the war we have raised a new species of children 

our children don’t like fairy tales they play at killing 

awake and asleep they dream of soup of bread and bones 

just like dogs and cats 

in the evening I like to wander near the outposts of the city 

along the frontier of our uncertain freedom. 

I look at the swarms of soldiers below their lights 

I listen to the noise of drums barbarian shrieks 

truly it is inconceivable the City is still defending itself 

the siege has lasted a long time the enemies must take turns 

nothing unites them except the desire for our extermination 

Goths the Tartars Swedes troops of the Emperor regiments of the Transfiguration 

who can count them 

the colours of their banners change like the forest on the horizon 

from delicate bird's yellow in spring through green through red to winter's black 

and so in the evening released from facts I can think 

about distant ancient matters for example our 

friends beyond the sea I know they sincerely sympathize 

they send us flour lard sacks of comfort and good advice 

they don’t even know their fathers betrayed us 

our former allies at the time of the second Apocalypse 

their sons are blameless they deserve our gratitude therefore we are grateful 

they have not experienced a siege as long as eternity 

those struck by misfortune are always alone 

the defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds the Afghan mountaineers 

now as I write these words the advocates of conciliation 

have won the upper hand over the party of inflexibles 

a normal hesitation of moods fate still hangs in the balance 

cemeteries grow larger the number of defenders is smaller 

yet the defence continues it will continue to the end 

and if the City falls but a single man escapes 

he will carry the City within himself on the roads of exile 

he will be the City 

we look in the face of hunger the face of fire face of death 

worst of all - the face of betrayal 

and only our dreams have not been humiliated

From: http://www.poemhunter.com

Gardens of Remembrance (Poppies for young men)

Poppies field. From http://witchdoctor.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/poppiesfied2.jpg

The flowers that better represent the battles and dead soldiers are  forget-me-not, roses and poppies.

The Flanders poppy is known to be the emblem of two world wars, and long before this, the field of the battle of Neerwinden or Landen (1693) was covered the following year by a scarlet stream of poppies: the soil  had been fertilized with the 20,000 soldiers’ corps.

“ In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields” .

(Author Colonel John McCrae 1872-1918)

Poppies field. From http://witchdoctor.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/poppiesfied2.jpg

In the Autumn of 1919, Newman Flower went out to the battlefields to gather seeds from the wild flowers that were already growing on the stricken fields. He collected poppy seeds from Fricourt and of blue chicory among others, labeled them and brought them home. He sowed his war seeds in his garden, in the spring of 1920. Eventually, an article in a national newspaper appeared telling the story of the garden of remembrance, and since then, he received letters from relatives of men who had died in the war, and to these he sent small packets of seeds, so that Gardens of Remembrance might be started in many parts of the world.

Croisade des enfantes. http://pages.usherbrooke.ca/croisades/big_images/c_croisade_des_enfants1.jpg

Children’s crusade. https://trcs.wikispaces.com/file/view/CHILDRENS_CRUSADA.jpg/30277249/CHILDRENS_CRUSADA.jpg

In 1985 Sting wrote a beautiful song, dedicated to the two groups of children –one from France, the other from Germany- who set off on a crusade to the Holy Land. The event took place after the fourth crusade, in 1212.

In an interview disc from 1985, Sting said: "'Children's Crusade' is a fairly bitter song. The original children's crusade took place in the 11th century and two monks had the great idea of recruiting children from the streets of Europe and telling them that they were going to be an army to fight for Christ in Palestine, and to fight the Saracens. The intention all along was to sell them as slaves in Africa. And that's what they did; they recruited thousands of children and sold them as slaves. It seemed a very wonderful symbol of cynicism and the perversion of youthful idealism. Having thought about this for awhile, I realized this wasn't the only children's crusade in history - there have been many. So I look for examples. And the examples in the song I used are the first World War, where millions of young men, Germans, French, English, were killed for reasons that even today we don't understand. A whole generation was wiped out in a very foolish and cynical manner. And then I looked around today for an example of a children's crusade and I think the heroin industry is a good example, where businessmen are making vast fortunes by selling drugs to people who can't deal with them. …..This too is a children's crusade, and the same people who sold slaves in the 11th century, and the same people who sent young men to their deaths in the first World War are the same people selling these drugs. The song is really wishing them to hell." (from http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8203)

The Flower of England is a metaphor for England's youth, and it is represented with the poppies, which also are the source of Opium.

"Children's Crusade" by Sting
Young men, soldiers, Nineteen Fourteen
Marching through countries they'd never seen
Virgins with rifles, a game of charades
All for a Children's Crusade

Pawns in the game are not victims of chance
Strewn on the fields of Belgium and France
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed

The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation

Corpulent generals safe behind lines
History's lessons drowned in red wine
Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a Children's Crusade

The children of England would never be slaves
They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
The flower of England face down in the mud
And stained in the blood of a whole generation

Midnight in Soho, Nineteen Eighty-four
Fixing in doorways, opium slaves
Poppies for young men, such bitter trade
All of those young lives betrayed
All for a Children's Crusade 

Enjoy the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pQ8qKg-Ag&feature=related

Reference.

Lesley Gordon. Green Magic. Flowers Plants and Herbs in Lore and Legend.

Blacks Massive Migration as Shown in the New York Times, june 1879

Jacob Lawrence, The Migration of the Negro

Massive migrations produce changes in the city. Most ghost towns are the result of people leaving, due to different issues, as nuclear plants damages, lack of jobs, civil wars, etc. In years, the urban morphology is highly affected.

A few days ago, my post showed some similarities between migrations of black people from Haiti with a fiction story by Ray Bradbury.

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2010/01/black-massive-migration-in-words-of-ray.html

Lynchings graph. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lynchings-graph.png

Cotton picking in Mississippi. http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/haley/encyc253.jpg

The Great Migration was the movement of 4.1 million African Americans  out of the Southern United States to the North, Midwest,and West from 1910 to 1930. Precise estimates of the number of migrants depend on the time frame. African Americans migrated to escape racism and seek employment  opportunities in industrial cities. Some historians differentiate between the First Great Migration (1910–40), numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and the Second Great Migration, from 1940–70. In the Second Migration, 5 million or more people relocated, with the migrants moving to more new destinations. Many moved from Texas and Lousiana to California  where there were jobs in the defense industry.(From Wikipedia.org).

What I´ve found today is an astonishing description of the current events in Southern USA at the end of SXIX. It is a real publication dated June 9, 1879 in the New York Times, a transcription from the Philadelphia Record May 31, 1879; 31 years before the Great Migration.

The link is below for them who want to read it all, be prepared, it is full of racists hard words. Ray Bradbury wrote his story in 1950. It seems that this is a never ending story. Words are changed in 2010, but they have the same essence.

It seems this particular migration was related to politicians, apparently Republicans were encouraging Black workers against the Democratic representations. The loss of workers was considered worst than having a plague of yellow fever. The paradox, if rebels were killed, they would be heroes.

These are some excerpts from the New York Times publication. The article is ¨Loss of labor to the South. Enumerating some of the serious results to be feared in the southern states. White Planters in danger of ruin.

¨A Philadelphian who has vast interests in Louisiana, and who will therefore be affected by the loss of labor should the negro exodus continue, returned yesterday from an extended trip through the Mississippi Valley. He started from St. Louis and proceeded as far down the Mississippi as NewOrleans, stopping off at many places where there were camps of the colored people.

We in the south, he says, are at a loss to fix exactly where and how this idea of emigrating first came into the colored folks´heads.¨

¨I tell you candidly they could not have struck a more powerful blow at the prosperity of the South¨………If it keeps on it will impoverish the white men.

¨These poor ignorant Negroes have been played upon in the most shameful manner by the men who devised this scheme. They have filled their heads with four things, which the colored people regard as the truth and will not think otherwise: first that they are to be transported free to Kansas or wherever they are to settle; second that the government will give each colored man 160 acres of land; third that the government will give each man two mules; fourth that the government will give them provisions enough to last for one year, or until their crops are harvested next year¨…..¨Even the colored clergymen are imbued with the idea…..the unfortunate people imagine that God has at last named their day of deliverance¨………………

¨Suddenly a planter finds that 30 or 40 of his people ………..have dropped their work and have joined the crowd who expect to go to Kansas¨.

¨If a steamer comes there offering free transportation to the Negroes, she will be fired upon as sure as there is powder and ball in Louisiana and Mississippi ¨.

That´s scary and sad enough to keep on copying………

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E05EEDB1431E53ABC4153DFB0668382669FDE

Caption: The burning of Will Brown's body, Omaha, Nebraska, Sept. 18, 1919

Source: NSHS, RG2281-69 This material is taken from a series of pages on the history of racial tensions in Omaha at the following address-

http:/www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset.html.

From  blackandbluespeople.blogspot.com/

Black Massive Migration in the Words of Ray Bradbury

Black River falls. From http://image.iarchives.nysed.gov/images/images/101207.jpg

This post is the continuation of my previous one “About Haitians Relocation: the two sides of the same coin”.

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2010/01/about-haitians-relocation-two-sides-of.html

January 9, 2009. Evelyn, a Haitian immigrant, wears a permanent tracking device while she awaits a decision from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on whether she will be deported back to Haiti or allowed to stay with her 5-year-old daughter, who was born in the U.S. (SANDRA C. ROA/NYT INSTITUTE) From Marguerite Laurent.com

In the aftermath of Haiti earthquake, South Florida leaders and academics are wondering about the possibility of a huge wave of migration from Haiti, which would be reminiscent of the Mariel boatlift, when more than 100,000 Cubans fled to the U.S. Professor Jaime Suchlicki, who is an expert on the Caribbean and Latin America at the University of Miami says he is sure about the massive migration, but it is difficult to say if it’ll be of 10,000 or 100,000 people.

Samuel Bartholomew of the Haitian Center of New York said it was to early to predict migration. “Haiti is getting help now. The world must help rebuild Port-au-Prince and build new towns around it to stop the flow of people to the city,” he said. As long as that happens, he said, it was likely that Haitians would stay put.

Joel R. Charny, president of Refugees International, agrees that any refugee flow will depend on how effective the relief effort turns out to be, but he adds he doesn’t expect the numbers to be massive, at least in the beginning.

“People are in shock now. Survival is the priority. When that changes to asking whether life in Haiti is viable, that is when we are likely to see refugees”

Immigration in boats. From www.haupinc.org

It is not easy to leave the country. It takes months for the boats preparation, and to seek the help from fishermen in uncertain waters. In the last influx, most of the boats were small, crowded with over 100 people, and once the migration began, it was overwhelming.

Samuel Bartholomew of the Haitian Center of New York said it was too early to predict migration.

In the meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security extended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals who arrived in the United States prior to January 12. In the wake of the disaster, U.S. officials warned now-homeless Haitians against building makeshift boats and heading for Florida’s coastline. But, before a January 25 Haiti rebuilding conference in Montreal, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that the Obama administration is “looking at” legal immigration as a means to ease the crisis.

During a January 25 press conference, Secretary Clinton responded to a question about whether Washington would consider easing immigration rules for Haitians. Her answer, for now, was indefinite.

Haitians wade through a flooded town in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, September 2008 http://paramecw.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/haiti-hanna_800953c2.jpg

Ray Bradbury, in his Martian Chronicles of 1950 envisioned a massive black migration in the “future” june 2003 (“Way in the Middle of the Air”) which he described with his beautiful words. Though, this is a different case, Blacks were leaving the Earth carrying their stuff and memories to begin a new life in Mars, the story is really moving, containing racial issues. I don’t think we can call it strict science fiction, just find the similarities with real life by yourself….:

“Them leaving, pulling out, going away; did you hear?”
“What you mean pulling out? How can they do that?”
“They can, they will, they are.”
“Just a couple?”
“Every single one here in the South!”
“No.”
“Yes!”
“I got to see that. I don’t believe it. Where they going- Africa?”
………….
“They can’t leave, they can’t do that.”
“They’re doing it anyways.”
“Where did you hear this?”
“It’s everywhere, on the radio a minute ago, just come through”.
………..

Far up the street the levee seemed to have broken. The black warm waters descended and engulfed the town. Between the blazing white banks of the town stores, among the tree silences, a black tide flowed. Like a kind of summer molasses, it poured turgidly forth upon the cinnamon-dusty road. It surged slow, slow, and it was men and women and horses and barking dogs, and it was little boys and girls. And from the mouths of the people partaking of this tide came the sound of a river. A summer-day river going somewhere, murmuring and irrevocable. And in that slow, steady channel of darkness that cut across the white glare of day where touches of alert white, the eyes, the ivory eyes staring ahead, glancing aside, as the river, the long and endless river, took itself from old channels into a new one. From various and uncountable tributaries, in creeks and brooks of color and motion, the parts of this river had joined, become one mother current, and flowed on. And brimming the swell were things carried by the river: grandfather clocks chiming, kitchen clocks ticking, caged hens screaming, babies wailing; and swimming among the thickened eddies were mules and cats, and sudden excursions of burst mattress springs floating by, insane hair stuffing sticking out, and boxes and crates and pictures of dark grandfathers in oak frames –the river flowing It on while the men sat like nervous hounds on the hardware porch, too late to mend the levee, their hands empty.”

REFERENCES

U.S. Suspends Haitian Deportations as Florida Prepares for Migration From Quake Zone. January 15

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583156,00.html

Experts: Haitian quake could result in massive migration. South Florida Business Journal. By Bill Frogrameni. January 15, 2010.

http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2010/01/11/daily56.html?ed=2010-01-15

The Haitian Migration Debate. By Carin Zissis January 27, 2010 http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=2130

Ray Bradbury. The Martian Chronicles. New York, 1972

John Gerard's Herball (Vanishing old London.....)

The seventeenth-and eighteenth-century courts and alleys of London had mostly vanished before these drawings were made. The Kingsway and Charing Cross Road “improvement” schemes were conspicuous stages in a process of attrition which is perpetually at work. Shepherd's Market, behind Piccadilly, may serve as a surviving type of those quiet dim-lit areas which covered half Central London in Dickens's day; and there are corners in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn and Fetter Lane where their atmosphere is still to be recovered. From “A London Revery. Chapter Vanishing London.” A Project Gutenberg Canada, on line.

The best known and loved herbalist is John Gerard, born in Cheshire, England (1545-1612). His “Herball” or “General Historie of Plants” first published in 1597 contains other herbalist’s flowers to be considered the greatest book on the subject, but it has remained popular for over 400 years for its collection of medical “virtues” of plants. Gerard writes of many friends whose gifts to him were rare plants and seeds from all over the world.

The Herball. From http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/heritage/plants/History/GerardHerball_tp.jpg

John Gerard. From http://www.hsl.virginia.edu/historical/rare_books/herbalism/assets/gerard.jpg

He was apprenticed for a career of a surgeon in 1562, but his reputation, however, rests on horticulture. As early as 1577, Gerard superintended several gardens and plant collections of William Cecil (Lord Burghley, the first minister of Queen Elizabeth).

Gerard wrote as a modest man, leaving credits for researchers as “physitions of London Colledge”. From Herball’s preface, I quote these beautiful words "Although my paines have not been spent (Curteous Reader) in the gracious discoverie of golden mines, nor in the tracing after silver veines, whereby my native country might be enriched with such merchandise as it hath most in request and admiration; yet hath my labour (I trust) been otherwise profitably employed, in descrying of such a harmlesse treasure of herbes, trees, and plants, as the earth frankely without violence offereth unto our most necessarie uses."

Herbs from Gerard’s Herball. http://www.philographikon.com/images%20botregbivortgerard/gerardbuglosse.gif

Pinetree from Gerard’s Herball. http://www.philographikon.com/imagesbotanicals/gerardmtpinetree.gif

Gerard’s Herball is more than a mere compilation. Although he stresses medicinal qualities of plants, attention is drawn to ornamental and food values, and includes extensive comments on culture and history. According to J.W. Lever (1952) there is circumstantial evidence that Gerard’s Herball may have been a source for William Shakespeare in Love’s Labour’s Lost.

His own garden was situated in what is now Fetter Lane. It must have been a beautiful garden with thousand of herbs, many of them rarities at that time. In 1596 he published a 24 page catalogue of his plants, and it was the first complete catalogue of plants in a garden.

Fetter lane, view from Holborn. http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/DisappearingLondon/FetterLaneHolborn.jpg

Two hundred years later, Henry Phillips described the change that had come to the neighborhood since Gerard had cultivated his garden there.

“ What would be the astonishment of this excellent old herbalist, could he be recalled, to see each avenue of his garden formed into streets; houses erected on his parsley beds, and chimneys sprung up as thick as his asparagus; churches occupying the site of his arbours, and his tool-house, perhaps, converted into the British Museum, where is safely housed the lasting memorial of his labours. In vain would he now seek wild plants in Mary-le-bone, where each blade of grass is transformed into granite, and every hawthorn hedge changed for piles of bricks: carriages rattling where sanils were formerly crawling. His ear would be assailed by the shrill cry of “Milk below”, and the deep tone of “ Old clothes”, where he had formerly retired to listen to the melody of the early lark, or the plaintive tones of the nightingale”.

REFERENCES

This post was composed with:
Jules Janick. 1987 Proc. Second National Herb Growing and Marketing Conference, Purdue Research foundation. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/history/lecture23/r_23-2.html
Lesley Gordon. Green Magic. Chapter X. Some Herbals and Herbalists, page 66. New York.

Expresiones Religiosas de Chicanos en Los Angeles: del cuerpo a las calles

This paper has been selected for the Symposium of Arquitectura Religiosa in Ourense, España, November 12,13 and 14. It´s in the original Spanish language.

http://www.arquitecturareligiosa.es/informacion.html

LA EXPRESIÓN ARTÍSTICA: PRÉSTAMOS Y DIVERGENCIAS ENTRE RELIGIONES COHABITANTES.

ABSTRACT

Fig. 1.Interior de vivienda. Imágenes aztecas y el crucifijo conviven en una pared. Archivo personal.Picture by Myriam Mahiques

Fig.2. La Virgen y Santos son expuestos sobre el fireplace, que se cubre con un espejo. Véase debajo las flores y velas ofrecidas. Archivo personal. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

The third space or "Nepantla" applies to the culture of the Mexican immigrants in USA and their descendants popularly called Chicanos. When the native being recovers, Nepantla becomes a psychological, spiritual and political space, where the Chicanos find a meaning to its culture by means of the recovery of ancestral habits.

This way, the religious space goes from the corporal artistic manifestations, to the materialization of traditional altars inside houses and it extends to the urban scale, in the cult to the dead and the Catholic rites in the streets, imbued of Catholic and pagan imaginary that harmoniously cohabit and are reasons of massive congregations.

Here we propose to analyze the religious expressions of the Chicanos as indispensable part of their social reality in the city of Los Angeles, exposed in all possible scales that for their own restrictive colonial origins, do not require a building, but rather they are sustained in pure faith.

Fig.3.Altar doméstico. Archivo personal. Picture by Myriam B. Mahiques

Fig.4. Altar del Día de los Muertos en un restaurante en Olvera St. La Virgen se exhibe dos veces. Archivo personal. Picture by Myriam Mahiques

INTRODUCCIÓN

Dentro de los espacios representacionales, de complejos simbolismos y generalmente relacionados con el lado clandestino de la vida, hemos de proponer una sub-clasificación: el tercer espacio o “Nepantla”, que aplica a la cultura de los inmigrantes mexicanos en EEUU y sus descendientes llamados popularmente chicanos.

Ellos generan este nuevo espacio desde el sentimiento de ¨estar en medio de”, como unión cultural entre los anglos, mexicanos e indígenas.

¨Nepantla¨ es considerado como una fase transicional que comienza sencillamente con el idioma. Una de las estrategias de afianzamiento cultural es justamente el proceso de transculturación y transferencia de valores, resumiéndose en una cultura diferente que refleja la ambigüedad del mestizaje. Una vez que las tensiones de Nepantla son entendidas y confrontadas, el Ser/Yo nativo se recupera, y Nepantla se vuelve así un espacio psicológico, espiritual y político, donde los chicanos encuentran un significado a su cultura mediante la recuperación de lo ancestral.

Es así como el espacio religioso va desde las manifestaciones artísticas corporales, hasta la materialización de tradicionales altarcitos en las viviendas y se extiende hasta la escala urbana, en el culto a los muertos y los ritos católicos en las calles, imbuidos de imaginarios católico y pagano que conviven armónicamente y son motivo de congregaciones masivas.

Hemos de analizar entonces, las expresiones religiosas de los chicanos como parte imprescindible de su realidad social en la ciudad de Los Angeles, expuestas en todas las escalas posibles, que por sus propios orígenes coloniales restrictivos no requieren de un edificio contenedor, sino que se sustentan en la pura fe.

ORIGEN DEL IMAGINARIO CHICANO

La imagen está atada al espacio; sin embargo, las imágenes Aztecas han sido desde un principio erróneamente contextualizadas en el medioambiente medieval latino de creencias populares y terror, lo que ha devenido en falsas categorizaciones. Fernández de Oviedo, en sus Crónicas Indias, expresaba su consternación ante la proliferación de ¨imágenes infernales¨:

¨En Terra Firma no solo ellos (los indios) toman placer en poner estas diabólicas y perversas imágenes de sus ídolos de oro, piedra, madera y tierra, sino que las reproducían en tatuajes, en la joyería, sobre los muebles, en sus casas, en todos los lugares que los nativos pudieran.¨(traducción personal. Images at War, S. Gruzinski, p.20)

Este escenario idoloclástico no podía ser separado del proyecto Cortesiano, fundado en la piedad Ibérica. La fijación de estos ¨viejos cristianos¨ con las imágenes se reforzó con la Reconquista. Los conquistadores desembarcaron con coloridas imágenes celestiales esculpidas, entre volúmenes arquitectónicos de ¨nuevas¨ organizaciones espaciales y, sin haber podido confirmar la no existencia de la divinidad autóctona por medio de la substitución y la destrucción absoluta, la persistencia de la ambigüedad del imaginario fue permitida, llevándose a cabo destrucciones parciales, intercambios, sustituciones y asociaciones entre divinidades de ambos universos, hasta conformar un nuevo imaginario como expresión no hablada de los principios organizativos del universo, reproducidos por doquier.

Las instituciones nativas fueron condenadas, mientras que las que los sacerdotes imponían eran aún extrañas e incomprensibles. En consecuencia, los nativos se encontraron en un estado Medio, (Nepantla). Los ritos paganos eran incluídos en festivales cristianos, especialmente el de la Ascensión y el del Espíritu Santo, que coincidían en fechas con otras fiestas indígenas.

Fig.5. Virgen y ángel al frente de una vivienda. Archivo personal. Picture by Myriam B. Mahiques

Comienza la procesión de la Virgen de Guadalupe en Los Angeles Downtown. http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/12/19/magazine/24catholics.1.html

RELIGIOSIDAD EN LA DOMESTICIDAD

Si bien, el escenario idoloclástico se fundó en las calles y edificios públicos, también ha tenido cabida en las viviendas chicanas, desde tiempos históricos.

La mayor parte de los mexicanos que arribaron a USA en los 1910, aún consideraban a los sacerdotes locales de sus villas de procedencia como la máxima autoridad. Estos inmigrantes pobres no tenían mucha noción de su nacionalidad o de su país, pero al vivir en USA, aprendieron inmediatamente lo que la Madre Patria significaba. De allí que dieron un lugar de honor para sus héroes mexicanos, construyendo altares con sus fotos en sus casas, incluyendo la bandera mexicana y dando así al patriotismo una nueva cualidad religiosa.

La adoración indígena no estaba limitada a la figura antropomórfica. La represión y la sabiduría popular, los condujo a cohabitar entre objetos de apariencia inconspicua, pero a los que se les atribuía presencia divina. Estos objetos, son muy familiares para nosotros el día de hoy, y aún se los encuentra dentro de las casas chicanas en California: flores (originalmente ofrecidas a Camaxtle (dios de la fecundidad); piedras con forma de corazón (el corazón arrancado a las víctimas en los sacrificios); espejos (con la propiedad de ¨hablar¨), entre otros.

Es debatible si estos objetos eran ¨en memoria de¨ o un ¨objeto de la memoria¨ el cual era adorado.

Hasta el momento, la acumulación de objetos-imágenes y su significativa disposición en una casa chicana persiste, y pueden ser considerados excesivos y confusos si los aspectos históricos que originaron este modelo espacial no son considerados. Tomar a los objetos en sí mismos, separados de sus contextos, sería un serio error.

La saturación actual del espacio doméstico en viviendas chicanas está íntimamente asociada a la producción pictorial Barroca de fines del SXVI y el arribo de los pintores europeos a México.

En interiores domésticos, las imágenes aztecas, aún coexisten con las de la Virgen de Guadalupe, entre cruces y Jesucristos –en una clara manifestación de Nepantla- y no faltarán las flores, recuerdos, sillones con tapizados florales, fotos, estatuillas, etc. Entendemos que la comunidad, aún dividida en grupos cristianos y católicos pero de gran fe, ha perdido el entendimiento del significado original del objeto, sin embargo, los objetos siguen expuestos como en los primeros tiempos, conteniendo un valor emocional que la memoria colectiva les ha asignado. Si el objeto es religioso, se cree que es capaz de emanar poder y garantizar respuestas a las plegarias. (Fig 1-2) Así, el objeto se ha transformado en un símbolo, un código de ideas que difícilmente pueda ser transmitida en palabras. Cabe aclarar que este fenómeno se da en clases sociales altas y bajas por igual, y la diferencia reside en el costo de los objetos.

La indumentaria y tejidos también son una reflexión de la identidad y religiosidad. Las ropas típicas de las fiestas se cubren de bordados, indistintamente sean femeninas o masculinas; las mesas se cubren de telas bordadas, las camas, los sillones y cortinas con grandes estampados, donde el tópico favorito son las flores y la divinidad. Luego, la iconografía es estampada en las telas, y luego pasa de las telas al cuerpo humano cubierto a su vez de joyería y tatuajes, donde el tema principal es recurrente, la Virgen, Jesús y/o figuras aztecas.

LA EVOLUCIÓN DEL ALTAR DOMÉSTICO

En el siglo XIX dos facciones se levantaron en la iglesia católica en México y Texas: sacerdotes que despreciaron a los Chicanos por sus tradiciones religiosas y, aquellos que por el contrario, trabajaron en la comunidad ofreciendo su ayuda. Esta situación indefinida, causó que los chicanos interpretaran al catolicismo en sus propios términos. La tradición no sancionada fue redefinida dentro de las casas, con la realización de altares. Con la combinación de crucifijos, estatuas de la Virgen María, Jesucristo y los santos protectores, entre los cuadros de los miembros extintos de la familia, más los objetos asociados a ellos o de su pertenencia, el altar en el hogar chicano rinde honor a la familia y conecta a los vivos y los muertos.

El altar del día de los muertos es una variante del altar doméstico. El día de los muertos es una celebración en todo México y California, el 2 de Noviembre. Es un culto de honor a la memoria de los miembros de la familia que han partido. La ceremonia es relacionada con el calendario agrícola prehispánico. Las familias construyen altares en sus hogares, cementerios y plazas, exponiendo las fotos de sus muertos, junto con los íconos religiosos y otras alegorías, como comida cocida y simbólicas calaveritas de azúcar. Uno de los elementos claves en la composición es el uso del papel picado, que deriva de la práctica azteca del uso de carteles de papel en conexión con importantes ritos religiosos. (Fig. 3-4)

CONCLUSIONES

El espacio interior se continúa en el porch, el patio cover, la galería, hasta fundirse en el jardín. Desde allí, el imaginario culmina en las calles, en las paredes de los negocios, los altares en las esquinas, los pasacalles y estatuas procesionales....(Fig. 5-6).

La Virgen sigue siendo la imagen de predilección, seguida por los ángeles frente a las viviendas o en ¨hornacillas¨ entre la flora típica de México.

Las celebraciones y prácticas religiosas descriptas, si bien dentro de un espíritu católico, son en realidad una mezcla de creencias pre-colombinas que se basan en el concepto que sólo la carne decae, pero no el alma. La vida y la muerte son vistas en una unidad, en un ciclo infinito; la ofrenda es una manifestación filosófica de la aceptación de la muerte como parte integral del ciclo de la vida que distingue a la cultura mexicana.

En este contexto, el mexicano residente en Los Angeles y sus descendientes, no necesitan realmente de un edificio religioso donde expresar sus devociones, el nuevo medio, ¨Nepantla¨ surge como una rehabilitación desde la ocupación colonial para su supervivencia psico-religiosa.

La devoción se despliega incluso en los medios de comunicación, que ensalzan el culto Guadalupano. Esta producción masiva que se inició a mediados del S. XVI tenía un límite, desde que las imágenes no eran permitidas en lugares sucios o profanos. Un límite que fue olvidado al paso del tiempo y se abrió al comercio de baratijas; la proliferación de objetos-imágenes se ha convertido en el encanto de la comercialización masiva y la estética del día de hoy; se constituyó en una expresión del grupo étnico y se ha vuelto inseparable de la espacialidad arquitectónica, exponiéndose, como Oviedo decía en sus Crónicas, en todos los lugares posibles. Soslayando las diferencias, pues ahora no luchan con viejos demonios....

BIBLIOGRAFÍA

Deverell, William. Whitewashed Adobe. The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of its Mexican Past. University of California Press. USA. 2004
Espinoza, Gaston. History and Theory in the Study of Mexican American Religions. Chapter 3. On line
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/phil-rlst/PDF/MexicanAmericanHistoriography.pdf
Gagnier Mendoza, Mary Jane. Día de los Muertos: The dead come to life in Mexican folk art. En México Connect. On line.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/mjmendoza/mjmdiadelasmuertos.html
Gruzinski, Serge. Images at War. Mexico from Columbus to Blade Runner. EEUU. Duke University Press. 2001
Schildkrout, Enid. Body Art as Visual Language. Artículo 8, en Annual Editions, Anthropology. 2006/2007. Pág. 56-59. Edición 28º Mc Graw Hill Contemporary Learning Series, EEUU.