Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico City

In December 1998, I was one of a reported 6 million pilgrims and other visitors who made their way to the Basilica of Guadalupe in the northern suburbs of Mexico City to celebrate the annual feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe (December 12). Over a three-day period, the huge atrium in front of the basilica was packed with dance groups from all over central Mexico. As many as thirty groups performed at a time, often competing with one another for physical space and musical audibility. By far the most popular, in numbers of both participants and watching crowds, were the Mexica dances. Men (and, to a lesser extent, women), in costumes loosely based on pictures of Mexica warriors and dancers from the old codices, performed to the loud and insistent rhythm of huehuetl and teponaztli drums. Similar in underlying form, but clearly different in conception, were the danzas de los concheros, whose quieter music was played on conchas, stringed instruments made from armadillo shells or, in some cases, from gourds. The Concheros have been around much longer in central Mexico, but on that feast day outside the basilica they were fewer in number and tended to draw smaller crowds than the noisier and more flamboyant Mexica dancers.