Mexico's blacks struggle to recall their past

Adan Banos grew up knowing that he and his neighbours in the town of El Ciruelo, Oaxaca, looked different from other Mexicans, but he never really thought much about it. So when I suggest to him that his curly hair, tall stature and black skin might owe to African descent, he looks speechless for a moment. "Africa, huh? That's the first time I heard that."

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And then he adds, "Well cool!"

No one knows how many Afro-Mexicans there are. Estimates range from 50 to 500,000 thousands, scattered mostly in dirt poor communities in the south of Mexico. Here in Oaxaca, they are concentrated in a handful of ramshackle fishing villages, where visitors from the outside are rare and government services scarce. In El Ciruelo there's no drainage. A green trail of scum runs down the main road where residents throw out their waste water.

And more alarmingly - for some - there's almost no sense of history, either. According to academics, blacks here descend from slaves brought to work a cattle ranch in the region, but few locals know that. Some explain their ancestry through implausible, dimly remembered tales of a shipwreck. Most, like Banos, seem to take little interest.

Although slavery in Mexico was abolished in 1829, much earlier than in the US, African-Mexicans have fared much worse than their counterparts north of the border. Blacks have traditionally avoided mainstream Mexican society, and even today, many Mexicans are still unaware of their existence. Some statistics suggest they are even worse off than their indigenous neighbours.

"The Indian is closer to his past than the African is. Both faced destruction," says local priest Glyn Jemmot. "The difference is, even though at some time the empire put a building, a Catholic church on top of their pyramids and destroyed their temples and their monuments, they still have a stone to go back to, and point to. Blacks do not.

Jemmot, a Trinidadian by birth, left a cushy posting in Mexico City twenty years ago to serve in the spartan surroundings of El Ciruelo. In that time, he's worked to promote black pride amongst his parishioners, and win recognition for blacks on par with indigenous groups from the government.

On the day I meet him, he's hosting a black cultural festival with student dancers from all along the coastline.

To the hypnotic droning of a harmonica and a cow's jaw rasped with a stick, two dozen dancers in furs and ghoulish masks stamp around a rec center. Audience members are dragged into the convulsing fray and whipped across the legs. It looks painful, even if it's done with good humour.

Jemmot says this dance descends from African tribal rituals. In fact, it also resembles many indigenous dances, and it is probable that through the centuries, the custom has mingled with that of it's neighbours. But whatever it's origin, it is enjoying a revival that may serve as touchstone for new interest in local culture.

One of the spectators, Tirso Salinas laughs as he watches. A generation ago, he says, people here were ashamed of their color.

"I'm proud to be black," he says. "I'm not going to do what Michael Jackson did. Paint myself with milk to get rid of my color!"