Deer dancer

Description

This full-body male figure fully represents the clothing of the Venado dancer. It is a dance of pre-Hispanic origin, where the dancer is characterized by representation related to man-nature to the beat of the rhythm of the musicians. He wears a deer head adorned with red ribbons on his antlers, these represent the flower known as Masa sai (San Miguelito vine), typical of the streams of the Yaqui nation.

The deer's head sits on a white cloak, which the man wears and covers him until he almost hides his eyes, to "see" only through the eyes of the animal. He adorns his chest with a mother-of-pearl and/or abalone shell necklace, representing the universe of the bawe ania (universe of the sea) and when he dances he does so to the rhythm of a pair of rattles known as áyam (bule).

The songs of the musicians known as Maaso bwikkleo (deer singer) are to nature, and they always do so in the purest form of the Yaqui language, while using two scrapers known as jirukiam and a large ba'a bweja (jícara). placed on a tray with water, at the same time a man known as a tampaleo plays the flute and the drum.

The Venado or Maso Yiiwame dance and the Pascola dance are the most representative of the Yaquis. By means of free mimicry and wonderful plasticity, the maso represents all the moments of the life cycle of this sacred animal, its attitudes of alertness, glimpse, breathlessness, fright, flight, defense and solace before the surrounding nature, with whose creatures it related in one way or another (Moctezuma, 2007).