

- DIA DE LOS MUERTOS DECORATIONS PAPER CUT OUTS FULL
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“They’re such a social barometer now,” says Nunn. The museum at NHCC mounted an exhibit of more than 150 piñatas in 2017, including rainbow-striped burros, fringed stars, and likenesses of President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. “Piñatas continue to be about sharing, whether that’s a family event or a child’s birthday party.” “They started out as something religious, broken to divide the bounty inside,” says Tey Marianna Nunn, the director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Historians believe the points represented the seven deadly sins breaking the thing symbolized charity and salvation. Among the first piñatas, still popular at Christmas: outsized, seven-pointed stars festooned with fringed tissue paper. The Spanish brought piñatas to Mexico in the 16th century, where they probably merged with indigenous pot-bashing games. Spainards thought the decorated pots resembled piñas (pineapples), and piñatas got their name. The practice of breaking clay pots filled with offerings migrated to Italy and Spain in the 14th century. On his extended visit to China in the late 13th century, Italian explorer Marco Polo saw locals smashing paper-covered clay vessels shaped like cows and water buffalo, which spilled seeds for the poor to gather. They just fit in here,” says Arroyo, who rents out 20 bride and groom couples. “San Miguel is creative, quirky, and well-known for its arts community. The puppets are popular hired guests at San Miguel de Allende weddings. Puppeteers operate them by stepping into wooden shoulder harnesses and then twirl and whirl in parades and protests around the country. (Related: Why San Miguel de Allende buzzes for coffee lovers.)Įach mojiganga has a vibrantly painted papier-mâché head and torso attached to a fabric costume and arms. Similar giant figures of saints and Jesus starred in religious services and festivals in Spain and colonial Mexico modern artisans like Arroyo shape 16- to 20-foot tall busty brides and rakish grooms, crazy-eyed devils, and Día de los Muertos skeletons. “Cartonería most likely came to Mexico during the colonial era,” says Hermés Arroyo, a mojigangas (oversized puppet) artisan in San Miguel de Allende. Papier-mâché spread to Europe during the 16th through 18th centuries, where it was molded into boxes, trays, toys, and even furniture. lacquer, flour-and-water paste) it becomes stiff and durable. Although paper-also a Chinese innovation-can be thin and soft, when layered or fortified with a bonding agent (e.g. 202 B.C.-220 A.D.) and include soldiers’ helmets and pot lids. Neither did the French, who gave it its name, which translates as “chewed paper.” The earliest known pieces crafted from wood pulp and glue come from the Han Dynasty in China (c.

The filmmakers created the content presented, and the opinions expressed are their own, not those of National Geographic Partners. The Short Film Showcase spotlights exceptional short videos created by filmmakers from around the web and selected by National Geographic editors.
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS DECORATIONS PAPER CUT OUTS FULL
In The Piñata King, filmmakers Paul Storrie, Chris Lee, and Charlie Kwai of Tripod City profile a colorful town full of piñata makers-and the papier-mâché master who started it all. “It’s about creation, not lasting art.”įor more than 50 years, Francisco and his family have been making and selling piñatas. “Cartonería is like street art: You spray paint the wall but don’t expect it to be there in five years,” says Leigh Ann Thelmadatter, the Mexico City-based author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste, and Fiesta. Travelers to Mexico City, Oaxaca, and Guanajuato state spot it as inexpensive dolls called lupitas, skull masks for a single posada (procession), or Judas Iscariot effigies packed with fireworks and blown up during Lent.

Unlike gleaming talavera tiles in Puebla or embroidered blouses from Chiapas, most cartonería is ephemeral.
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Here’s how the colorful practice started, plus where to see and buy papier-mâché in all its temporal glory. But Mexico’s paper works burst with every-day-is-a-fiesta whimsy (lifesize skeletons with sly grins) and dark, timely humor (whack these COVID-19 piñatas). Like many Latin American customs, cartonería has roots in European colonialism and Catholicism.
