Piñatas in Mexico

Growing up in the upper Midwest, the celebrations I know about  revolve around wooden shoe dancing at the Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan, traditional Christmas trees and Santa Claus at Christmas or funny little Bunnies delivering eggs at Easter.  Frankly I could never figure out that one.  

I haven’t had much experience with piñatas.  So, when I visited Oaxaca, Mexico, last winter and noticed  piñatas with multiple points  in the colorful market places, I got curious.  

I always thought of a piñata as a funny animal or figure filled with candy for children’s birthday parties.  Hmmmmm.  What were the pointy ones all about? 

My research revealed a long and interesting history of this typically paper mâché container. 

There’s some controversy about it, but some say that the origins of the piñata go back to Marco Polo in Asia.  He found the Chinese fashioning figures of cows, oxen or buffalos and filling with seeds. They were knocked hard until the seeds fell out during New Year’s Celebrations. 

This practice moved to Italy and then Spain, becoming part of a religious tradition around Lent and then eventually to South and Central America. 

Mexico is probably most known for enjoying piñatas.  

What interested me when I saw them in the markets, is that traditional piñatas were often round with seven conical points.

I learned that the points represent the seven sins: envy, sloth, gluttony, greed, lust, anger and pride.  

The idea is one strikes the piñata with a stick (representing love) while blind folded (representing faith) to destroy these sins.  

It is a long way from the children’s party version practiced today.   All good.  

Others see them as temporary or disposable art while some see banging on a paper maché figure  as a stress reducing activity. Evidently Donald Trump piñatas have been very popular. I’ll bet he  doesn’t like his image recreated on a piñata.

Whatever you think, they are fun and colorful and part of the Mexican tradition.  

I’m going to end this blog post with some images from an exhibit at the Oaxaca Museum of Art that was exhibited when I was there.  Somehow these colorful felt balls made me think of piñatas. I have no idea  if the artist was inspired by this part of the culture, but that’s what I thought of when I enjoyed looking at them from the different angles of Museum’s courtyard.   

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