In the north of Mexico, one of the most symbolic and pre-Hispanic-rooted festivities still survives: the celebration of Lent and Holy Week by the Yoreme indigenous community. For more than 400 years, this ritual has been a living testimony of the syncretism between Spanish Catholicism and ancestral indigenous traditions, fusing beliefs and expressions that continue to be part of the identity of its people.

     I am in the central plaza of the community of Mochicahui, a town located in the north of the state of Sinaloa, home to the ceremonial center of the Yoreme culture. It is almost midday and in the distance you can hear the drums made of deer hide, announcing the arrival of the matachines to the plaza. As they approach, the drums and flutes are joined by the tinkling of the tenábaris (butterfly cocoons tied to the calves), the dry sound of the coyoles (reed belts) and the echo of the rattles that the matachines carry with them. And so, in an instant, the plaza is transformed into a surreal sound and visual spectacle, with matachines wearing colorful masks, evoking a mosaic of disparate figures ranging from pink panthers, cherokees, animals, wrestlers and smurfs. All of them immersed in the crowd gathered in the town's church to celebrate this festivity with music and dance.

     For Catholics, this celebration is a representation of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus introduced by the Spaniards during the evangelization of the indigenous peoples. However, for the pre-Hispanic populations, the festivity was a representation of the triumph of good in this eternal struggle between good and evil.

     In our days, I consider that the celebration actually represents a living example of the syncretism of two cultures, because behind each mask, there is that gaze that represents each one of us as a result of that history of resistance, adaptation and fusion of two worlds.