Ándale Juana, no te dilates
Con la canasta de los cacahuates.
Anda María, sal del rincón
Con la canasta de la colación.
 

Mexican children swing at the traditional Sputniks-shaped piñata

Piñatas may have originated in China. Marco Polo discovered the Chinese fashioning figures of cows, oxen or buffaloes, covered with colored paper. When the mandarins knocked the figure hard with sticks of various colors, seeds spilled forth. After burning the remains, people gathered the ashes for good luck throughout the year.
 
When the custom spread to Spain, the first Sunday in Lent became a fiesta called the ‘Dance of the Piñata’. The Spanish used a clay container called la olla, the Spanish word for pot. At first, la olla was not decorated. Later, ribbons, tinsel and fringed paper were added and wrapped around the pot.
 
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish missionaries to North America used the piñata to attract converts to their ceremonies. However indigenous peoples already had a similar tradition. To celebrate the birthday of the Aztec god of war, Huitzilopochtli, priests placed a clay pot on a pole in the temple at year's end.  When broken with a stick or club, tiny treasures fell to the feet of the god's image as an offering. The Mayans covered a person’s eyes and had him hit a clay pot suspended by string. The missionaries transformed these games for religious instruction.
 
The most traditional style piñata looks a bit like Sputnik, with seven points, each with streamers. These cones represent the seven deadly sins, greed, gluttony, sloth, pride, envy, wrath and lust. Candies and fruits inside represented the temptations of wealth and earthly pleasures.
 
Today, the piñata has lost its religious symbolism and most participate in the game solely for fun. Piñatas are especially popular during Las Posadas, traditional processions ringing in the Christmas season. Mexicans traditionally sing songs while breaking the piñatas.
 
“Dale, dale, dale, no perdas el tino,
porque si lo perdes, pierdes el camino."

Virgen de Guadalupe: symbol of Mexican spiritualism

Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, who visited Puerto Rico often, once said. “You cannot consider yourself a Mexican if you do not believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Mexico’s most beloved religious symbol is the manifestation of Christianity in the Americas, and especially because she was reputed to have appeared to a poor boy.

The Virgin of Guadalupe, whose feast day is celebrated on Dec. 12, is a favorite in Ponce, and among members of her church in Puerta Tierra San Juan. Every year, before dawn, devotees commemorate her appearance to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City from Dec. 9, 1531 through December 12, 1531.

Where did the name come from?

Why should the Virgin Mary who spoke in Nahuatl to an Indian in recently conquered Mexico call herself Guadalupe?" Did she want to be called Guadalupe because of the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Estremadura, Spain? Because of Lupita who lived in Nuevo Laredo? In all apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary she identified herself as the Virgin Mary and phrases like Mother of God or another of her titles, and was later usually known by the name of the place or region where she appeared (Lourdes, Fatima). Was she talking about the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that Pope Gregory the Great gave to the Bishop of Seville, which was lost for 600 years and was found in 1326 by a cowherd guided by an apparition of Our Lady? One theory is that the Virgin used the word coatlaxopeuh (pronounced quatlasupe) which sounds a lot like Guadalupe. The word means one who crushes the serpent, a metaphor used by the Virgin (the serpent being Quetzalcoatl. This was prophetic, because a few years later millions of the natives were converted to Christianity. And the human sacrifices ended. It is interesting to note that Genesis 3:15 (in the Old Testament) refers to a woman who would step on the serpent's head