The Xinacates: Tradition, Enigma, and Skin Covered in Memory
By Víctor Gahbler
Every year, during the carnival leading up to Lent, a powerful tradition resurfaces in San Nicolás de los Ranchos and San Pedro Yancuitlalpan, Puebla: the Xinacates. Men covered in burnt motor oil, plant-based paint, or grease flood the streets, their faces hidden beneath improvised masks or cloth, shouting, dancing, and startling onlookers. Their presence is both fierce and festive—almost ghostly. They are the heirs of a centuries-old custom, a fusion of Indigenous resistance and Catholic adaptation that remains alive despite the historical silence surrounding it.
The word “Xinacate” comes from the Nahuatl xinácatl, meaning “naked.” While today many wear old clothes to shield themselves from the cold and the oil, the ritual spirit of nakedness endures: shedding the ordinary, the ego, the civil identity, to become a collective figure, a chaos with meaning. It is said they chase away evil spirits, purify the community, mock authorities, religion—even death itself.
My approach to this tradition has been guided by intuition and visual ritual. I chose to photograph them using a Polaroid Now+ camera in black and white, drawn to the imperfect, to what reveals itself and fades at the same time. The texture of grease on skin, sweat mingling with pigment, eyes slipping behind cloth—these come alive in the instant film, developing with the warmth of my own body, as if the image itself were sweating.
