The Coke Machine - Michael Blanding [73]
I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony,
I’d like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it company,
That’s the Real Thing . . .
-COKE COMMERCIAL, 1971
SIX
“¡Toma lo Bueno!”
Salamandering along the ridges of the Chiapas Highlands in southwestern Mexico, you might miss the small sign announcing the village of San Juan de Chamula. But you’d never miss the painted Coke advertisements that surround it on all sides. As visitors come down the hill into the town of 60,000, it takes on the appearance of an army camp, with bright red tents bearing the red Coke logo pitched all over town. Like most Mexican towns, Chamula centers around a huge central plaza where vendors sell bright Mayan textiles, piles of fruits and vegetables, knockoff clothes, and, of course, soft drinks. But the visibility of Coke only hints at the complete cultural integration the fizzy beverage has achieved in Chamula. Facing the plaza is the Church of St. John the Baptist, a white colonial-style cathedral built in 1522, where Coke has literally been turned into a means of religious veneration.
Nearly every day, gringo tourists line up outside the church, clutching tickets to observe the bizarre rituals within. Once through the entrance, they are enveloped in the warm, woodsy smell of pine incense, supplemented by fresh pine needles strewn on the floor. A soft light filters in from windows set below the ceiling some eighty feet above, while thousands of candles burn on tables before glass cases containing gaudily dressed statues of saints. As musicians near the altar play a repetitive dirge, small groups of women and children are burning clumps of small, tapered candles stuck into the flagstones. Some are so close together, their combined flames look like a small campfire.
As bewildered tourists wander among them today, a young girl opens up a cardboard box to lift out a clucking brown chicken. Her mother takes it, holding it by its neck and feet, as she rubs it over each of her children. Then laying it on the ground in front of her, she talks to it and soothes it before calmly breaking its neck. The ceremony is a healing art; the chicken is intended to take away the problems of those upon whom it is rubbed. When it dies, the problems go away.
By far the most prominent rituals in the church, however, are those involving soft drinks—which are used by the indigenous people here as a means of directly communing with God. Half-empty bottles of Pepsi and local drinks Big Cola and Gugar are scattered all over the ground amid the pine needles. The most common drinks, though, are half-liter bottles of Coke. By the altar, one man opens up a canvas bag full of them, along with clear bottles of a homemade sugarcane rum called pox (pronounced “posh”). He passes two small glasses to each member of the group, one full of pox, the other of Coke. Then the eldest man, who stands in the middle dressed in a black sheepskin vest and is missing most of his teeth, chants for five minutes. When he’s done, he takes a gingerly sip of the cane liquor—then tosses back the whole glass of Coke in one long guzzle, holding his hand out for a refill as the other members follow suit.
All around the church, in fact, the groups of people are performing the same ritual, explains Carlos Gallegos, an English-speaking tour guide leading a quiet group of Germans. “People drink the pox first, then they drink the Coca-Cola,” he says. “Then they make a little burp, and that is your spirit floating up into the air. It makes a confession to God and it comes back to your body.” The burps are virtually undetectable, done discreetly as a personal communication with God. The different colored candles, continues Gallegos, represent different supplications—yellow for health, green for the harvest, and so on, which are carried upward along with the little belches. “People drink different ones now, but Coca-Cola is still the official one, the best one,” says Gallegos. So significant has Coke become to the ritual life of the village that neighbors give it to celebrate births,