Tecuanes, tlacololeros, lobitos y tlaminques. La danza parodia del jaguar en México

**Abstract**
**"Tecuanes, tlacololeros, lobitos y tlaminques: La danza-parodia del jaguar en México. Libretos náhuatl-español"**
*Óscar Cortés Palma. Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI) / Quadrivium Editores, México, 2018. 160 pp.*

This book represents the first systematic comparative study of the jaguar dance-parody tradition across south-central Mexico, published with the support of the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI). Drawing on years of fieldwork, oral interviews, photographic documentation, colonial codices, and archival sources, the author maps and analyzes a family of related comic performance traditions — known regionally as *tecuanes*, *tlacololeros*, *lobitos*, *tlaminques*, *tejorones*, and *chilolos* — practiced by Nahua, Mixtec (*ñuu savi*), and Amuzgo communities across the states of Morelos, Guerrero, Puebla, Oaxaca, Estado de México, and Michoacán, as well as among Mexican migrant communities in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Maryland.

The central thesis of the work is that these traditions, despite superficial resemblances to pre-Hispanic jaguar rituals, are products of the post-Independence period, emerging roughly between 1850 and 1870 alongside other distinctly Mexican popular expressions such as the *mariachi*, the *china poblana* costume, the *brinco de chinelos*, and brass band music. The author argues that the jaguar dance-parodies arose in direct response to the expansion of hacienda latifundism, which dispossessed indigenous communities of their lands. Through comic theater performed at patron saint festivals, communities satirized the social hierarchy of the hacienda — ranch owners, foremen, trackers, and hunters — staging the symbolic triumph of the poor over the powerful, all without the landowners realizing they were being mocked.

A key contribution of the book is its detailed comparative iconographic analysis of jaguar masks used across different regional variants, tracing their visual links to pre-Columbian stone carvings — including the *Piedra del Sol*, the *Piedra de Tlaltecutli*, and a Cotzumalhuapa-culture felino stone from El Salvador — while arguing that the comic theater forms themselves are post-colonial innovations. The author also examines the linguistic dimension of the tradition, documenting the use of *nahuañol* — a hybrid of Nahuatl and Spanish — in the scripts (*libretos*), which serves as evidence of the transitional sociolinguistic moment in which the tradition crystallized. Full bilingual transcriptions of *libretos* from multiple communities are included, making this book an invaluable archival resource.

The geographic scope of the study is broad: the book provides a detailed inventory of the festivals at which the tradition is performed in Morelos alone (including Axochiapan, Coatetelco, Tetelpa, Xoxocotla, Tepalcingo, and others), and extends its analysis to regional variants in neighboring states and even to analogous jaguar-combat traditions in El Salvador and Chiapas. The UNESCO recognition of Florentino Sorela Severiano — the *pitero* (flutist) of the Tetelpa *tecuanes* — as a Living Human Treasure in 2011, featured prominently in the book, underscores the international cultural significance of the tradition.

Written for both academic researchers and general readers, *Tecuanes, tlacololeros, lobitos y tlaminques* is an essential reference for scholars of Mexican indigenous heritage, performance studies, ethnomusicology, and the cultural history of rural Mexico. It is also the foundational predecessor to the author's expanded 2022 study *Tecuán: Danza comedia teatro del siglo XIX*.

**Keywords:** Tecuán, tlacololero, lobito, tlaminque, jaguar dance, indigenous performance, *sainete*, *nahuañol*, intangible cultural heritage, Nahua, Mixtec, Amuzgo, Morelos, Guerrero, Mexico, hacienda, post-Independence culture.

Lobitos del Estado de México, tecuanes, tlacololeros, tlaminques, tigres, chilolos del Carnaval de Juxtlahuaca y tejorones de la Costa Chica de Oaxaca son variantes de una misma danza-parodia ampliamente difundida en el centro y sur de México. Más de 160 pueblos mestizos, nahuas, mixtecos y amuzgos representan a viejos caricaturescos que cazan al tigre, casi siempre bajo el patrocinio simbólico de un ranchero.

Estas escenificaciones se desarrollan en la región suriana: Morelos, Guerrero, Puebla, Estado de México, Oaxaca y parte de Michoacán, con excepción de cuatro pueblos nahuas que, además de esta representación, conservan otro ritual distinto relacionado con jaguares de lluvia.

En Tecuanes, tlacololeros, lobitos y tlaminques, Óscar Cortés Palma condensa varios años de investigación iniciados con el estudio La Danza de los Tecuanes (2015) y otras publicaciones como la monografía Ayoxochiapan–Axochiapan (2010), ofreciendo una visión comparativa, histórica y antropológica de estas expresiones rituales.

Este libro explora las danzas tradicionales de los Tecuanes y Tlacololeros, manifestaciones culturales de los pueblos originarios de México. A través de un enfoque etnográfico y narrativo, se analizan sus elementos teatrales, cómicos y rituales, mostrando su importancia en la identidad comunitaria y en la preservación de las tradiciones mexicanas.

Lobitos from the State of Mexico, tecuanes, tlacololeros, tlaminques, tigres, chilolos from the Carnival of Juxtlahuaca, and tejorones from the Costa Chica of Oaxaca are variants of the same dance-parody tradition widely spread across central and southern Mexico. More than 160 mestizo, Nahua, Mixtec, and Amuzgo communities stage performances in which caricatured old men hunt the tiger, almost always under the symbolic sponsorship of a rancher.

These performances take place throughout the so-called Suriana region: Morelos, Guerrero, Puebla, the State of Mexico, Oaxaca, and parts of Michoacán. Four Nahua communities constitute an exception, as they preserve an additional and distinct ritual involving rain jaguars.

In Tecuanes, Tlacololeros, Lobitos y Tlaminques, Óscar Cortés Palma synthesizes several years of research initiated with La Danza de los Tecuanes (2015) and other publications such as the monograph Ayoxochiapan–Axochiapan (2010), offering a comparative, historical, and anthropological perspective on these ritual expressions.