el crispito

The facts behind it are this.

In 1810, the same year that King George III was found to be insane and Frédéric Chopin was born, a priest named Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla Mandarte Villaseñor y Lomelí (but called Don Miguel Hidalgo for short) lived in the town of Dolores, near Guanajuato. Shortly before dawn on the morning of 16 September, he rang the bell of the church, calling both indigenous and mestizos to mass. When they arrived, he made a passionate argument for a revolt against the Spanish who had been exploiting Mexicans for more than 200 years. This call to arrest or force from Mexico all Spaniards became known as the Grito de Dolores ("Shout from Dolores"), which ended with "Mexicanos, ¡viva México!"

Hidalgo raised an army that was very successful at first in ousting the Spanish, and they even got to the edge of Mexico City within a year. However, he retreated for reasons that still today are unknown, and was eventually captured by the Spanish and executed. For several years, his severed head hung in a cage from the granary in Guanajuato, put there by the Spanish as a warning to others who might get uppity.

For those that are interested in history, it should be noted that the situation was much more complex than stated above, involving criollos, gachupines, Ferdinand VII and Napoleon. If you want to read about such nuances, see this article at MEXonline.com.

In practice, the celebration is one of the major celebrations in Mexico where people party down for the whole week before the actual holiday. This past Saturday, one week before the 16th, fireworks (and I mean serious fireworks, not just bottle rockets and firecrackers) were going off all over town, all night long. People have started selling homemade flags on the streets from little carts; Shawn bartered a vendor down from $300 MXN to $200 MXN to buy me one that's probably about 5' x 3' and on a nifty stick that has been whittled to have a point on the end that you can stick into something so it will stand up. I was delighted with it. It's tied to the stick with three cloth strips, one red, one white and one green.

Shawn also scored us an invitation to the party being given by our downstairs neighbors next Friday night thought being the charming social butterfly that he is. I don't know what is typical at such events, but I'm going to be researching to find out if we should bring something in particular, if there are any customary rituals or if you're supposed to wear anything specific. It will be the first party that we've been to in our apartment building, so I want to be sure that we make a good impression.