Chikawa Aztec Dancers...

We saw the Chikawa Aztec Dancers of Conroe Tx and this past weekend's Dia de Los Muertos festival in Nacogdoches. Chikawa means strong in the Nahuatl language. Natuatl dates from the 7th century Aztecs and is one of the National Ingenious Languages of Mexico. Various dialects are still spoken in rural central Mexico. 

Originally these Day of the Dead celebrations of the Azetcs lasted two months and were meant to remember those gone on and remind us still here that there is no reason to fear death. It's not sad finality but part of an ongoing cycle of the universe with elements of acknowledgement, remembrance, and communication.  This lined up very well for the Catholic Church, my faith by the way, which has a way of working in the local angles and renamed this celebration All Souls and All Saints. It made sense to shorten things to two days only because you don't want everybody running around in face paint and feathers during Advent. 

So here are the photos. Good drums, good dancing and a lot of scary jaguar sounds.

Drums! 

Dancers! 

Some kind of fife. I think I could cobble together from my wretchedly ethnic percussion collection adequate instrumentation to pull off a semblance of this music. 

This guy played conch, ocarinas and this log drum which has a very similar sound to the wooden drums I call tongue drums. I have a small tongue drum and I am on the look out for a conch to blow. It will be for those times you get tired of hearing the tuba.   

This group was very gracious with the crowd sticking around for photos. Here are the Zamoras with the dancers. 

Keep an eye on that guy. 

Everyone enjoyed meeting the group, well almost everyone.