町長の結婚相手は…ワニ！　メキシコの伝統行事

【サンペドロウアメルラＡＦＰ＝時事】メキシコ南部の町サンペドロウアメルラで、町長とワニの聖なる「結婚式」が行われた。地元住民に幸運をもたらす伝統行事だという。（写真はメキシコ・オアハカ州の町サンペドロウアメルラで、「結婚式」を前に花嫁衣裳を着せられたメガネカイマンにキスをする町長）
　サンペドロウアメルラは、テワンテペク地峡の近くにある、先住民チョンタルの人々が暮らす町。ビクトル・ウーゴ・ソーサ町長は、花嫁衣装姿のワニと一緒に古くからの伝統行事に臨んだ。
　ワニは、中南米地域の湿地に生息するメガネカイマン。町長は「プリンセスガール」と呼ばれるこのワニへの忠誠を誓った。
　「われわれは愛し合っている。大切なのは愛。愛がなければ結婚はできない。王女との結婚に応じる」
　人間の男と雌のワニの結婚の儀式は、二つの先住民グループが和平に至った日を祝い、過去２３０年にわたり行われてきた。
　言い伝えによると、当時のチョンタル王が先住民のウアベの王女と結婚したことで、対立していた両グループの不和が解消されたという。儀式では、サンペドロウアメルラの町長がチョンタル王、雌のワニがウアベの王女となる。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/07/03-17:08）

As onlookers clapped and danced, a mayor of a small southern Mexico town entered into holy matrimony with a female reptile in a traditional rite to bring good fortune to his people.
Victor Hugo Sosa, mayor of San Pedro Huamelula, a town of Indigenous Chontal people in the Tehuantepec isthmus of Mexico, took as his betrothed a reptile named Alicia Adriana, re-enacting an ancestral ritual.
The reptile is a caiman, an alligator-like marsh dweller endemic to Mexico and Central America.
Sosa swore to be true to what local lore calls the princess girl.
I accept responsibility because we love each other. That is what is important. You can't have a marriage without love... I yield to marriage with the princess girl, Sosa said during the ritual.
Marriage between a man and a female caiman has happened here for 230 years to commemorate the day when two Indigenous groups came to peace -- with a marriage.
Tradition has it that frictions were overcome when a Chontal king, embodied these days by the mayor, wedded a princess girl of the Huave Indigenous group, represented by the female alligator.
The Huave live along coastal Oaxaca state, not far from this inland town.
The wedding allows the sides to link with what is the emblem of Mother Earth, asking the all-powerful for rain, the germination of the seed, all those things that are peace and harmony for the Chontal man, explains Jaime Zarate, chronicler of San Pedro Huamelula.
Before the wedding ceremony, the reptile is taken house to house so that inhabitants can take her in their arms and dance. The alligator wears a green skirt, a colorful hand-embroidered tunic and a headdress of ribbons and sequins.
The creature's snout is bound shut to avoid any pre-marital mishaps.
Later, she is put in a white bride's costume and taken to town hall for the blessed event.
As part of the ritual, Joel Vasquez, a local fisherman, tosses his net and intones the town's hopes that the marriage may bring good fishing, so that there is prosperity, equilibrium and ways to live in peace.
After the wedding, the mayor dances with his bride to the sounds of traditional music.
We are happy because we celebrate the union of two cultures. People are content, Sosa told AFP.
As the dance winds down, the king plants a kiss on the snout of the princess girl.