TOLUCA, Mexico, January 11 .- As every January 11, some dressed in traditional blanket costumes and others disguised as monsters or characters from video games, television or action movies, hundreds of Indians and mestizos from the community of San Andrés Cuexcontitlán sang, danced and celebrated in their own way their patron saint, San Andrés Apóstol, through the main streets of the city of Toluca.
The stage was the main roads of the first square of the city, to finally reach the municipal delegation of San Andrés Cuexcontitlán, a community located north of the municipality of Toluca, where children, adolescents, young people, gentlemen and seniors showed to own and strangers its ability to call and organize to preserve one of the most deeply rooted religious traditions of the Toluca Valley, which dates back to the beginning of the 19th century.
Ricardo Martinez Martinez Steward of the community, explained that each year Saint Andrew Patron Saint is celebrated, which is a tradition that begins with a mass in the Cathedral of Toluca, then a popular festival in the Plaza de los Mártires, to then give place to the parade with which the main roads of Toluca are crossed, in the middle of dances, wind band music, with traditional costumes and very striking costumes.
The party lasts four days, since it starts on Friday and ends until Monday, to give place on Saturday and Sunday to dozens of religious, cultural and artistic expressions, which include a great dance in which groups are presented every year. most famous in the world of entertainment.
He stressed that once the religious celebration was over, the attendees flooded the civic square, as well as the surrounding streets, to start the walk-dance that runs more than 10 kilometers to reach the church of San Andrés Cuexcontitlán. He said that the celebration of this community, composed mostly of people of Otomí origin, began with the mass offered with the first rays ofthesunon January 11, in the Cathedral of Toluca, where it was asked for the welfare and prosperity of the neighbors.
The great caravan is integrated by 14 mayordomias, each of which builds an allegorical float on fashion themes, and around them travels a procession of people who sing, dance and throw candies to those from the sidewalks watching the passage of this allegorical parade. Each mayordomía will also offer a meal, with red rice, turkey or chicken with red mole, and beans, all accompanied with pulque, beer or water from Jamaica. Music is an indispensable factor, because, according to the mayordomos, San Andrés Apóstol is a happy, festive saint, who is celebrated and asked to start a good year for the planting, so that the harvest be enough, so that the whole community has enough to eat well and to send some corn to the market of the region.
The great caravan is integrated by 14 mayordomias, each of which builds an allegorical float on fashion themes, and around them travels a procession of people who sing, dance and throw candies to those from the sidewalks watching the passage of this allegorical parade. Each mayordomía will also offer a meal, with red rice, turkey or chicken with red mole, and beans, all accompanied with pulque, beer or water from Jamaica. Music is an indispensable factor, because, according to the mayordomos, San Andrés Apóstol is a happy, festive saint, who is celebrated and asked to start a good year for the planting, so that the harvest be enough, so that the whole community has enough to eat well and to send some corn to the market of the region.
