CHRISTMAS TRADITION
‘Los Pastores’ are ancient, and sometimes a little subversive
Many of us who have heard of “Los Pastores” may think of it as a lovely, reverent, traditional New Mexican play that tells a religious story of the shepherds making their way to the manger in Bethlehem to worship the newborn Jesus. It’s that — and so much more. As a matter of fact, it’s downright subversive, according to Enrique Lamadrid, a retired Spanish professor at the University of New Mexico who has studied it and related stories.
Presentations of the plays even have been banned in Mexico on occasion because the people playing the devils have used the opportunity to veer into political satire with their lines, he said in a telephone interview.
“The devil Lucifer — it means bearer of light — is quite a guy. It’s a very important character in Las Pastorelas,” Lamadrid said, using the plural for the various shepherds’ plays. “He’s got some really great soliloquies ... . He gets to ad-lib more than the other
characters.”
And those ad-libs can be pretty pointed to local personalities and problems.
One year, a devil in the holiday play presented by a Taos-area group opened his coat to show all sorts of drug-related items, such as marijuana joints and syringes, he said. The devil told the viewers, “I see what you really do. You’re a bunch of sinners. You’re coming with me,” Lamadrid said.
There’s another aspect of that story with roots in medieval times that can be subversive, he said. It’s the common person, the shepherd, who first knew about Jesus and acknowledged his divinity on Christmas Eve, while the Three Kings don’t show up until Jan. 6, he noted.
“They (the shepherds) ‘get it’ way before the nobles and royals.”
The liturgical plays came to the Americas with the Franciscans, who used them to teach the indigenous residents about the Catholic religion, Lamadrid said. “It was a very effective teaching tool,” he said.
The Native people particularly were interested when animals were used in the scenes, but the animals may have held symbolic meanings in their culture that the Franciscans didn’t intend to be part of their message, Lamadrid added.
These liturgical plays have died out in Spain — you won’t see “Los Pastores” performed there today. But you will find a rich variety of presentations throughout Mexico, he said, as well as some in New Mexico.
La Gran Pastorela de Belen performs “Los Pastores” in several locations before Christmas, as does Sangre de Cristo Liturgies in El Prado (near Taos). A few years ago, the New Mexico History Museum found evidence of some of the history of that drama in the state.
A large trunk, acquired in 1964 by the International Museum of Folk Art from the estate of Felipe Perea, was transferred to the History Museum in 2012. When workers set to cataloguing its contents, they found costumes from characters in the play, such as a devil and angel, along with a large rosary and silver sheriff’s star, a bell and swords — and a bayonet from a 1903 Springfield rifle.
“The devil’s cap has actual horns,” said René Harris, the museum’s collections and education programs manager.
The devil’s costume also is bedecked with campaign buttons for William Howard Taft, who was president 1909-1913, she said. We can only speculate if that was supposed to imply actual support or derision for Taft — after all, if the devil supports him ... .
While Taft was elected in 1908, he lost re-election in 1912, she said.
The pièce de résistance found in the trunk, though, was a 1915 photograph showing actors performing the play, apparently wearing some of the costumes in the trunk. It shows Lucifer locking swords with an angel, with the hermit looking on and a shepherd reclining.
There is no evidence, though, to show where the photo might have been taken or where that play was performed, Harris said.
Other items in the trunk suggest it might have been used by a theatrical troupe with other plays in its repertoire, she added.
“The (shepherds’) plays have been around a long time,” Lamadrid said, adding that they have been preserved mostly unchanged from their original appearance in the land now called New Mexico. “There’s a lot of really terrific music with them. In the villages, the people know the songs and sing along.”
There’s one about a little shepherd girl, one about King Herod and the more widely known “Adeste Fideles” (Oh Come, All Ye Faithful), among others, he said.
“It’s a way to involve the community,” he said. “Especially the children. There are tons of children’s characters.”