How Mexicans Voluntarily Injure Themselves Every Year in Honor of Their Love for the Poor (13 photos + 1 video)

This is the only place on the planet where people pay for the right to hit themselves in the face with a sledgehammer and call it culture.





If you're looking for a festival that will impress both your mother-in-law and your traumatologist, consider yourself at the right place.



Every February, residents of the tiny town of San Juan de la Vega, Mexico, reenact a 400-year-old battle between local peasants and wealthy landowners.





According to legend, a local miner and cattle rancher sided with the farmers, as did the man who gave the town its name, Juan Aquino de la Vega, a sort of Mexican Robin Hood who robbed the rich and gave to the poor.



Unlike typical historical reenactments, where costumed characters mock-fight each other, the main attraction of this celebration is detonating homemade firecrackers with ordinary sledgehammers.



Explosive packets made from a mixture of sulfur and chemicals are attached to the working end of a sledgehammer and detonated by slamming them hard into rocks or iron plates. Firecrackers explode in a cloud of smoke and dust, showering the spectators with razor-sharp shrapnel.



Participants try to protect themselves from injury: they wear sunglasses, long-sleeved shirts, hats, and scarves over their faces. But all this is about as effective against the shock wave as a poultice on a dead person.



People are easily knocked off their feet, sledgehammers are snatched from their hands, and thrown aside. Sometimes a stone hits them right in the face, or the noise ruptures their eardrums.



Injured enthusiasts, after receiving first aid, return and continue participating, because the next opportunity to test their mettle will only come in a year.



The festival remains popular and blows the minds of locals and visitors alike every February. The authorities tolerate it, tourists love it, and traumatologists are simply delighted.



The ancient event has only one future: as long as there's a mixture of sulfur and chlorate and men who don't mind their fingers, the sledgehammers will continue to swing.



Perhaps in a couple of years, he'll be limited by licenses and other documents. But the spirit of the Mexican Robin Hood—dirty, gunpowdery, and very loud—cannot be suppressed by any bureaucracy.