Matachines

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Matachines (Spanish matachin, clown, or masked dancer) are bands of mummers or itinerant players in Mexico and New Mexico, especially popular in Northern New Mexico and around the Rio Grande, who wander from village to village during Lent, playing in rough-and-ready style a set drama based on the history of Montezuma.

Dressed in fantastic Indian costumes and carrying rattles as their orchestra, the chief characters are El Monarca the monarch (Montezuma); Malinche, or Malintzin, the Indian mistress of Hernán Cortés; El Toro, the bull, the malevolent comic man of the play, dressed in buffalo skin with the animals horns on his head; Abuelo, the grandfather, and Abuela, grandmother. With the help of a chorus of dancers they portray the desertion of his people by Montezuma, the luring of him back by the wiles and smiles of Malinche, the final reunion of king and people and the killing of El Toro, who is supposed to have made all the mischief.

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Los Matachines [1]

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.