Miskito Christmas

By Thomas Keogh

Santa hasn’t made it to Miskito territory yet but Jesus has. His story was first told there years ago by Moravian missionaries. A Savior-king born in a rough place surrounded by animals was uniquely compelling to Miskitos. But things change; Santa’s on his way.  So how do they celebrate Christmas in a Miskito village?

Before the Roman calendar reached the Miskto shore, the beginning of the dry season in January marked the completion of the yearly cycle; thus the word Mani means both year and dry season in Miskito. Forefathers celebrated this event with a feast called Sihkru, for which the entire village, usually comprised of one extended family, would pitch in. Men would bring back all kinds of fish and game from the forest while women would pull up starchy roots like cassava, taro, and sweet potatoes. The villagers would also make a canoe-sized batch of misla, a fermented drink. The feast would typically last until the food and drink ran out. Some of the highlights of Sihkru included the consecration of new sukya nani (shamans), the Pura Yapti in which loved ones who had died during the year were escorted to their eternal rest, competitive games, and the forgiving of unsettled resentments. 

After contact with Europeans, natives interbred with escaped slaves, and the African flavored Tambaku- inventive call  and response songs accompanied by lively dancing under the full moon -became a Miskito counterpart to the white people’s seasonal festivities.

The Moravian missionaries arrived, learned the language and customs, and succeeded in converting a majority of Miskito people. They suppressed the pagan elements of Sihkru such as the sukya initiations, drinking of misla, and Pura Yapti, while encouraging its convivial aspects. Tambaku remained controversial because singers could make up suggestive lyrics, young men could get drunk and couples sneak off into the bushes. Today, the Catholics and old line Moravians generally accept Tambaku while charismatic churches prohibit it.

When I arrived on the scene in 1979, Christmas had been the most important holiday in Brus Laguna for at least 30 years. December was already known as ‘Krismis Kati’ (Christmas Moon), and the integration of the traditional family feast into Christian culture was complete. Christmas Eve is big in Spanish America, and the observance of “el veinticuatro” has been transformed by evangelical Miskitos into a very peculiar evening service attended by all. The only real Christmas present that someone might expect to receive is the “Krismis praka” given in the afternoon: a dress (hopefully with shoes) for females and pants/shirt combo for males, to be worn to the event. The service itself is notable for the dramatizations of the Christmas story, in which people put on costumes and act out the biblical narratives with full-on Miskito flavor, being at once (if you can imagine it) both reverent and slapstick. Everyone finds the exuberant acting performed by normally ultra-reserved married folks to be gut-busting hilarious and perfectly acceptable. They’re not laughing at Biblical characters, they’re laughing at their aunts, uncles, friends, and grandparents. “Poignant” would definitely not go over in a Miskito village, but if an outsider could step back and observe the joyful pandemonium through the eyes of a wise God, the whole panorama would become immensely poignant!

 Christmas Day is also exuberantly celebrated by Miskitos because of British and American influence. Morning is set aside for visiting from house to house; most Miskito towns are now made up of many interconnected extended families, and so provision needs to be made for more distant relatives to get together and serve each other from their bounty. Games that the missionaries taught are played in the church yard during the afternoon hours. Many of these allow for men to test their strength and agility one-on-one as they did in the pre-Christian Sihkru. As in many native American cultures, fighting is a non hostile activity by which male friendships are traditionally formed, and the Moravians sponsored contests which facilitated a safer version, where men hopping on one leg try to knock each other out of a circle drawn in the dirt.

Organized sports have gradually worked their way into the Christmas picture through the public schools. Nowadays in Honduras guys play soccer and volleyball, while village girls attempt a form of basketball on rough ground, in which traveling is perfectly acceptable and half court shots regularly resound off wooden backboards. Only a few married guys and virtually no married women participate in these sports, however.

Other Western influences, including commercial ones, are being introduced through contact with the ladino community. Small Caribbean pines are cut down and carried home for Christmas trees. The national forestry service prohibits this practice, donating instead trees culled from managed stands, but these are only available in Puerto Lempira, where the ladino population lives, so many villagers opt for covert ops, making them ignorant delinquents in the eyes of authorities, and inferior citizens in their own subconscious.

I don’t know if it is by design or due simply to the fact that rough seas around the Christmas season cause a spike in the number of missed drops, but it seems that every year now large quantities of cocaine get washed ashore at this time of year. The unfortunate result is that many dream of a “white Christmas” just like the one in 2004, my last Christmas in Honduras, when 7,000 kilos of pure cocaine came up on the beach at the village of Uhsibila. With an instant infusion of large amounts of cash, cars, houses, and gaudy bling now count among the extravagant gifts being given or simply lavished on oneself. Of course, because it’s Christmas, large but discreet offerings are also made at church, with varying degrees of acceptance by the pastorate.

I understand that healthy cultures are by nature dynamic and have no desire to freeze frame any people in a restrictive cage of tradition. But in a place where things are changing so rapidly, a paternalistic religious culture in which restraints have always been external has not been capable of providing an anchor for the devastation of global intrusion. Today more than ever there is a pressing need for God’s word, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, to take root in the interior of a people, like a star Eastward in the heart, pointing the way to true worship of the Savior.