Part 2: Pescador de Hombres, San Andres Xecul

On the way back down the hill from the chapel, we caught San Simon. San Simon is not a saint in the Catholic sense . . . but people are very enthused. I believe his more famous shrine is in a nearby town called Zunil, and another version named Maximon at Lago Atitlan.

Best I can understand from what people have told me, San Simon was an English doctor a few hundred years ago who helped a lot of people out. So for this, he is now venerated as something of a Catholic saint/Mayan deity. I forget the specific Mayan deity, and again, he's not an actual Catholic saint, but in San Andres the Virgin of Guadalupe appears to be quite comfortable up on the wall next to him. People bring candles . . . different colors for different things. I was told that red is love, black is for some variety of ill wishes, and purple is for prostitutes who want more work. Green and yellow were the most popular candles but no one said what they were for.

There were actually two San Simons in the same room at the spot in San Andres. This might sound weird until you consider how many crucifixes you'll see in any given Catholic church, or how many Steely Dan records I own. (All of them, thanks.)

Here he is:


Here's the more traditional and more important figure of San Simon. People bring him cigarettes and aguardiente and whisky. He has a permanent cigarette holder on a chain around his neck, so you can give him a lit cigarette if you like, and you can actually pour the whisky right down his throat as well.





Anyway, it feels dirty to take pictures of and make jokes about something that people really believe in, so I hope none of this lightheartedness comes of as disrespect. It's just that it seemed sort of surreal to me. When we got there, there was a family there. Dad/granddad was bringing each kid up to San Simon one at a time and twirling a cane around the kid's head several times. I really wanted to know what the significance of it all was, and I thought about asking. But then I thought maybe it would've been disrespectful to force someone to respond to my robotic "how's my subjunctive coming along" childspeak at that moment.

San Simon moves to a new house every year. At first I thought this made a lot of sense from a social welfare standpoint: at 5Q per visitor for 365 days, San Simon rakes it in for whichever family hosts him. If everyone in town got San Simon once in a lifetime, it could be a big help and sort of an economic bedrock of the local community. But ours is not that kind of world, and it turns out San Simon is basically owned by a group of rich people, and if you pay them enough money they will let you keep him around for a year.

There's nothing much to say about the actual church except that it's great. It's a pretty run-of-the-mill Catholic church for the most part, except that about 50 years ago someone decided it would be a good idea to coat it in primary colors. It's repainted every three years.


Again with the mix of religious tradtions: the jaguar is a Mayan deity (someone told me the sun deity), and there are jaguars hanging out near the cross at the top.


Inside they have really gone all out with neon, including Christmas lights on the various saints' halos. The neon banner above Jesus reminds me of the one at St. Sabina's in Chicago.



More Leonard Cohen: Check out this old PBS video of him and Judy Collins singing "Suzanne". There's also a good version of them doing "That's No Way to Say Goodbye," but I like "Suzanne" better because Judy Collins mispronounces the word "drowning" at the 1:50 mark. Supposedly there's a performance of "Famous Blue Raincoat" as well, but I can't find it. Incidentally, this non-sequitir YouTube link is actually relevant to the post, thanks, because Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water.


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