THE ST. VALENTINE'S FIESTA in Chila is one of the best on the coast. It offers all the traditional staples of the Oaxacan fiesta, but just a little bit more so.
According to municipal records, the image of St. Isidore was delivered to the town in January of 1953, when the mayor proclaimed that the fiesta for their new patron saint would take place on February 15 that year and henceforth.
May 15 is the actual saint's day for St. Isidore, San Isidro Labrador, the pious Spanish peasant who is patron saint of numerous agricultural towns. But May is not a time of great prosperity in the area, the rains are starting and the fields must be prepared.
Chila or Bajos de Chila, as it is officially known (bajos means lowlands; much of the town is actually below sea level), is surrounded by rich agricultural lands and boasts abundant sources of fresh water.
It gets its name from a famous curandera, or native healer, named Lucila, who once lived in the town. When People were sick they'd say Vamos a Chila - Let's go see Chila, a nickname for Lucila.
The fiesta begins with the selection of the fiesta queens and a slew of sports events.
You can spend an afternoon at the jaripeo, the bull-riding rodeo, stroll the carnival midway, sample local delicacies or browse through the numerous stalls set up by itinerant merchants.
There are dances and cultural events, and on Monday, 14, Valentine's Day, the castillo, an amazing fireworks display, preceded by the mayhem of the running of the toritos.
Of special interest at the Chila Fair are the cock fights and the Pelota Mixteca (Mixtec Ball) tournament. Cock fighting is one of the popular spectacles of fiesta days and, although it's not for everybody, if you'd like to experience this aspect of local culture, the Chila Fair is an excellent opportunity. Not only is the Chila tournament the area s most prestigious, attracting famed chicken raisers from well beyond the region and state, but the Chila Palenque, (arena, cock pit?) offers a family atmosphere rare in this normally macho domain.
Brought over from the Old World, the sport quickly took root and is popular in big cities and in the countryside. It has become highly sophisticated with specialized breeding techniques, feed formulas and a small industry to supply the paraphernalia of the game, from cages to the satin-lined cases for the lethal one-inch blades that are attached to the birds.
Some aficionados admit that they spend more to feed their roosters than they do their family. But there is an awful lot of money to be made from big purse tournaments, selling a successful breed and, most of all, gambling. The tournaments are divided into three kinds of meets: derbies, corridas or treguas.
The derby is a round-robin contest where as many as 30 teams (called partidos) all fight against each other at least one time. There are two points awarded for a winning match and one for a draw. The winning team takes the prize money. The tie breaker is the accumulated time taken to win all the bouts. The lowest time wins.
The treguas and corridas are contests between two partidos. The corridas are like the major leagues, with the most successful and best known ranches participating. The treguas are for the rookies; their partido may feature several owners from a particular town.
There's no anti-doping in cock fights. The players are allowed to give any substance or handle their birds any way they choose. But the fight officiating is strict. Judges are brought in from outside the region to ensure impartiality. The arena judge officiates the actual fight and declares a winner, if one chicken hasn't finished off the other within the time limit (from 15 minutes for some derbies, up to 30 for the treguas). Another judge checks weigh in, equipment and keeps an eye on the wagering.
The Chila Tournament begins at 6 p.m. on Wed. the 7th, with a special derby offering a prize of a $110,000.ºº. There are fights every day starting at 9 p.m. through Mon 15. Restaurant and bar service available and lots of parking.
Pelota Mixteca traces its roots back to the ceremonial ball playing that existed among all the pre-Colombian cultures. The game is played with a large 2-lb natural-rubber ball. Teams of five to seven players pound the ball back and forth using elaborately decorated gloves that weigh between 7 and 12 lbs. The ball can only bounce once. The winners team must take five sets of three games, each game consisting of four points. The grueling matches can last for as long as four hours.
Whenever there is a holiday or fiesta on the coast, there's sure to be a jaripeo, a bull-riding rodeo. Even the smallest town has a makeshift corral where the young studs can demonstrate their courage and cowboy skills.
In the tournaments, judges score the riders on how good a show they put on to animate the audience. A good ride would be when a bull shoots out the gate and makes lots of bucking rounds in the center of the ring; all the jinete must do is stay on.
Most jaripeos have live bands playing chilenas and cowboy ranchero music to further animate the crowd and often there are raffles and other games.
It is believed that it was the Indians who initiated the jaripeo, shortly after the Conquest. The fierce, strange beasts the Spaniards brought with them came to represent the evil and subjugation of the newly enslaved Indians.
They were forbidden on pain of death to ride horses because the colonizers believed it was this animal that helped them defeat the Indian armies. Bullriding was permitted by the colonial authorities who saw it as harmless entertainment, but for the indigenous population it was a clandestine expression of defiance and bravery.
Chila provides good security for its visitors and lots of buses and
taxis to ferry fiesta-goers the 10-minutes to and from Puerto.