Between the Cross of Jesus and Tlaloc’s:
Santa Cruz festivity and its Indian roots
By Arturo Morales Tirado April 25, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Lecture
The Festivity of Santa Cruz
Tue, Apr 29, 3pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Reloj 50-A
50 pesos

The Day of the Santa Cruz (the Holy Cross), May 3, is related to the celebration of the construction workers.

The Catholic tradition points to Santa Elena, mother of Constantine, the first Catholic Roman emperor, as the beginner of this ritual when she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land (around year 326) to recover the original cross where Jesus died. As time passed, the symbol of Trinity was also associated with the cross.

In Mesoamerica, at the end of April and beginning of May, people commemorated the arrival of rain. This relates the festivity of Santa Cruz with the rain, the fertility of land, with life and reproduction, and with the identity of the community itself.

This association is more notorious in Indian communities or those with Mesoamerican roots, such as the ones in the municipality of San Miguel de Allende, on the edge of the Laja River.

In Mesoamerica and in the Chupícuaro area, to which San Miguel belonged, the cross represented the five corners of the universe, associated with the four cardinal points. At the same time, the cross marked the crop calendar and the cycles of Nature on the Earth, cycles of life and death, of fertility and drought, of femininity and masculinity.

The festivity of the Santa Cruz is one of the main popular festivities in the area of San Miguel de Allende, and it continues being the reflection of this relationship between the Cross of Jesus and the Cross of Tlaloc, This is the subject that will be discussed in a lecture with images, this Tuesday, April 29.