Festival of Frey Miguel

All day and into the night these Aztek ritual dancers dance and pray. The drums beat long and loud, all around the Jardin, for 4 days and nights, but you can hear the drums everywhere in the city. The dancers pray as they perform, in colourful costumes with rattles on their ankles, dancing around a central altar on the cobbled streets, of flowers, ritual objects, and a model of Jesus on the cross. The drums are very powerful, especially when you are right in the Jardin. The dancers train from when they are children. This is one of the many festivals that lead up to Semana Santa, Holy Week. It celebrates Brother Miguel, the Franciscan monk who established the first Christian settlement among the Indian people here.