October 4 San Cristobal

Our guide and driver took us in our Mercedes mini-bus to an indigenous village called San Juan Chamula. The local people run their own community, and decide on their own laws. Women wear heavy woven woollen black skirts, brushed so they appear like mohair. We saw two men locked behind a galvanised iron gate where all the public could see. This is sufficient indignity and humiliation to act as an appropriate punishment.
Here we entered the local church which was originally built by the Catholics, and has statues around the walls in glass cases. There the signs of the Western religion ends.
The floor was covered with pine needles, and there were about 100 people inside in groups of about 5 or 6. Each group had lit up to 200 - 300 candles on the floor, and were kneeling on the floor chanting with a "healer". The healer had a live chicken (read "chook"), which was waved over the patient and then over the candles, taking the evil spirits away from the sick person. On completion of this ritual, the healer then stretched the neck of the chook until it died peacefully. The patient then looked somewhat relieved, although only time will tell if the "treatment" was successful. A group of people were slowly walking around inside, bearing burning incense in a torch and chanting, so the whole building was full of smoke. We have never felt an atmosphere so intense, and we were very surprised that we were able to enter and move freely amongst the groups. We will remember this very special experience for a very long time.
Then drove to Zinacantan and visited a family of 5 women who run a commercial operation to produce and sell local costumes and other textiles. One of the women gave us a demonstration of making non-fried tortillas, which we then were able to fill with the delicious dishes they had prepared for us (chillies, different types of home-made sausages, black beans and bacon, cheese, powdered pumpkin seeds, sour cream, avocado, etc). The local village clothing for women was blue woven woollen skirts, and elaborately hand-decorated blouses which were outstanding in their colours and very beautiful.