PRAYERS CHOLOANI

After our peoples enslavement and colonization, at the hands of the Castilian empire in the mid 1500’s, and after the imposition of the scalplock bans and laws in which would disband the warrior societies, make illegal the genethliac warrior braid, forbid the practice of our language, our customs, tradtional dances, traditional songs, and any form of our original and traditional expression of spirituality and way of life under the threat of imprisonment and death. There was a small diaspora of our people, members of the disbanded warrior societies and their families whom were not willing to bend the knee to the viceroyalty of new spain and to the european monarchy, whom refused to accept the christian god of their captors, whom refused to be assimilated into european colonial culture. Refused to live as slaves and citizens of this foreign military occupation, and colonial empire, this diaspora of our people were persecuted and labeled hostiles, and filled the gallows and the cells of the colonial prisons and jails of new spain for centuries. Becoming in this new world, renegades, outlaws, insurgents, now labeled criminals for refusing to submit to colonial rule and practice western culture, now forced to live on the run. And thus the christizianized and colonizaed members of our population began to call us choloahneeh, a derogative term meaning those whom live on the run, those who will not conform. And thus was born the chohloh’ahneeh or cholo culture, forged and cultivated in the fires of rebellion, the descendants of the disbanded warrior societyes unwilling to submit to a life of servitude and indentured servitude, living as outlaws, rebels, hostiles challanging the rule and authority of european monarchy and rejecting the whole of european western culture. And as the christianized and colonized members of our population adopted european western style clothing in the way in which they wore them, and adopted western culture and religion, stopped speaking the language, whose skin did not wear the tohkahyeeh’tlahkweehlohleeh the earned warrior tattoos, who no longer sung the old songs, no longer wore the peeyohchtleeh or genethliac warrior braid at the back crown of the head, who forgot their history and lineage, who accepted this new colonized way of life as workers, as farmers, as toilers as plebeians of their european enslavers, it was only the choloahn’meh, who would become known as the chohloh whom continued to fight, to resist, and continued to sanctify themselves from western culture in the esoteric expressions of our oroginal culture and warrior society’s customs that would later define choloh culture, the long shorts symbolizing the kahlstahtl symbolizing the woven agave fiber or cotton long shorts, the tubos the long socks symbolizing the kohtseywahtl the war leggings, the large cotton shirt symbolizing the weehpeehlee blouse, the long canvas belt symbolizing the tlahkoh’eehlpeehlohneeh the traditional sash, the pano or bandana headband symbolizing the chichimeca eehshkwah’eeh’kweytlahshtleeh or traditional buckskin headband, the brucha or large mustache symbolizing the teyneeh’weehyoh or mustache of villa of zapata. This diasporas descendants of hostiles and renegades, of cholohahneeh or choloh, raised and tempered in the colonial penal systems of new spain which would later become the penal systems of mexico and which would become the prison and jail systems of the united states in 1848, is what created and cultivated the cholohahneeh or chohloh culture still present in prisons systems of califas and the southwest, still present in the oldest remaining still hostile varrios and neighborhoods throughout califas and the Southwest where still lives on the very last remnants, lingeages, traditions and customs of our peoples ancient warrior societys and warrior culture. This is what it means to be a cholo. PRAYERS MERCH: