The word ex-voto comes from the Latin "ex voto", which means "from a vow"; that is, something that is promised to be done when a favor is fulfilled or received. Not only do ex-votos have a religious significance attributed to them by the faithful, but they are also works that give an account of the history, organization, and beliefs of a society....
Dressed in red, a unique prehispanic activity arrives at our days: the cultivation of the cochineal grana and the extraction of carmine and carmine acid from the dry bodies of a Mexican insect: the cochineal grana or cochinilla fina, known to science as Dactylopius coccus Costa.
The Day of the Dead flower, cempasúchil, or cempoalxóchitl in the Nahuatl language, which means flower with twenty petals (from Cempohualli = twenty and Xochitl = flower), is a species native to Mexico and Central America.
Christmas Eve or cuetlaxóchitl (a flower that withers, or leather flower, in Nahuatl) and Euhphorbia pulchérrima for botanical science, stands out among the flowers domesticated by Mexico's native peoples.
Words matter, not only because they help to understand and explain problems, social relationships, facts, and contexts, but also because they are able to create them and channel the way we understand them. The words we use to talk about a historical fact or to explain a social phenomenon can serve to reveal specific situations or to hide them.
Reality surpasses fiction in Mexico. Known for the way in which the Day of the Dead is celebrated where the deceased return to visit their relatives, this country is full of traditions and ancestral rites that revere death.
The well-known story of "La Llorona" has its origin in the pre-Hispanic world. It is associated to the famous adverse omens that supposedly happened before the Spanish Conquest and predicted the end of the Mexica Empire of Tenochtitlan.
The Mexican Senate approved the General Law for the Safeguarding of the Elements of Culture and Identity of Indigenous Peoples and Communities, with the goal of preventing large companies from profiting at the expense of their designs and expressions. The law recognizes the communities' right to ownership of the elements that are part of their...
Perhaps the most striking cultural indication of the extreme importance that rainwater had and still has for the Yucatecan Maya is the millennial manifestation of the cult of Cháak, the water god; a manifestation that, in terms of resistance or intercultural survival, has survived since the colonization of the peninsula until today. The cult to the...
Susan Vazquez and two other colleagues enter the room that a client prepared with a smile. They are part of a Mexican company that has moved table dance into homes to perform the sensual movements at a safe distance during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Day of the Dead is a traditional Mexican celebration that aims to honor the dead. On this day, many families spend the night in cemeteries to receive the deceased, who according to tradition, return for a few hours to the world of the living.