Xiksamb najaw tyety ñix, myth and rituality: the relocation of sacred images ikojts in San Dionisio del Mar, Oaxaca

Abstract

During the pandemic year of 2020, the community of San Dionisio del Mar made to the National Institute o Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH) a request to transfer 16 religious images to a new chapel, due to the restoration work that will be carried out in their Old Temple affected by the earquake that took place on 2017. Faced to this situation a team from the DAIC of the CNCPC-INAH, traveled to this town to work together with the Temple Comitee (Comité delTemplo) for the adecuate manipulation of the religious images. The interdisciplinary work between conservation-restoration and ethnography, contemplates the social bonding of communities with their material and immaterial cultural heritages. This allows us to understand the social and practical dynamics around images, as well as their importance. Especially in this case, the importance that the community gives towards their “Santo Patrón”. The rituality, the myth, the oral tradition, the symbolism and the forms of uses and typical manners of this Oaxacan community, are elements that get inside the game during and after the movement and manipulation of their saints, and have an impact on their ancestral tradition and continue configuration about their own history and community daily life.