✨️LET'S LEARN LOTERÍA✨️4 - EL CATRÍN✨️

4: EL CATRÍN (THE DANDY/GENTLEMAN)

Alright friends, I’m about to take you all on a journey – we are going to learn about a game first created in Mexico during the 1700s by the Don Clemente company, a game called lotería, or “lottery.” And while the direct translation of lotería is indeed “lottery,” the game is more closely related to Bingo.

There are fifty-four different cards in a lotería deck, each with a rather colorful and easily recognizable object, animal, or person. Each player receives a plaque with several rows of corresponding objects, animals, or people. When a card is drawn from the deck such as “La Maceta,” or The Flowerpot, the card-drawer will say the name of the picture, then its “grito” or saying (the grito for La Maceta is “El que nace pa'maceta no sale del corredor” or “He who is born to a flower pot won't leave the corridor” in English), and everyone that has the same picture of la maceta on their plaque would put down a bean or corn kernel or coin to mark that same picture. The game is won in either of two ways: in the first, the first person to get an entire row or column filled wins; in the second, the first person to get the entire plaque filled wins.

I give this information because lotería is first and foremost a party game. At least, that is what it was designed to accomplish. But for many Latinos like myself, we wanted a system of divination that felt particularly our own. There’s a certain shared history with tarot, and oracle is obviously open to all.

But lotería feels like home; it reminds of us of our childhoods, of carne asadas for every celebration big or small, of huge birthday parties where we’d end up sleeping rather peacefully on a chair next to our cousins in the living room by eleven while the adults partied outside until three in the morning. It’s a testament to how Latinos have taught one another to “not take life too seriously.” Lotería is a game. But it is also a reminder.

The fourth card in the fifty-four-card deck is El Catrín, or the Dandy/Gentleman. The grito for El Catrín is “Don Ferruco en la Alameda, su baston queria tirar” or “Sir Ferruco in the walk, wanted to toss his cane.” There is a note here, that there are two main translations for El Catrín (a Dandy vs a Gentleman), both representing something similar but different in Mexican culture. El Catrín is also a title that is a bit of a play on words: during Día de Muertos, the two main figures responsible for caretaking and guiding souls are La Catrina and El Catrín – both figures which are spiritual, skeletal, and associated with the dead.

Then why is the image for El Catrín not a skeleton or a Grim Reaper figure instead? Let’s get into it!

Before lotería was even a thing, Catrines (who often dressed in suits with pin-striped jackets, waistcoats, and bowler hats) were known as sophisticated, good-looking, and well-dressed men. This is where some of the duality comes from between Dandy and Gentleman – the initial reception of Catrines in Mexico was somewhat mixed. Men who dressed in high western fashion were often made fun or talked down to for abandoning their own culture or basically being stuck up. It wasn’t until the popularization of lotería in the 1700s that the translation of “Dandy” – which was heavier handed and insulting – transitioned to “Gentlemen” instead, as the culture began to accept more western influence and the effects of different kinds of currency, trade, and opportunities. What does remain the same when we examine El Catrín’s translations are that whether the Catrín was accepted or not, they were always unabashedly themselves and loved looking good under most circumstances.

Here’s where some of the history of El Catrín as a spiritual figure begins to take hold. While El Catrín is now mostly seen as a “Gentleman” figure, El Catrín is also an entity who seems to straddle both the mortal realm and the afterlife. There are many stories from Mexican natives across different states which depict El Catrín as a shadow figure, or figure all in black with a bowler hat who appears under streetlights or just when the sun is going down. He seems normal, but something about his sophisticated yet out-of-place attire screams OTHER. He often asks for directions, and while there are few to no stories about El Catrín causing any real harm, he often leaves witnesses dazed, confused, and with a sense of dread. Some even say he appears when someone is going to die.

To add to this mystery, when we talk about Día de Muertos, one of if not the most important traditions in Mexican culture, we can’t avoid discussing or seeing images of La Catrina and El Catrín – this is, for all intents and purposes, a DIFFERENT El Catrín…

Or is it??

La Catrina is probably the most famous image when it comes to Día de Muertos. She is a skeletal figure with a calavera (skull) for a face, a large, elegant European hat with feathers, usually seen in a red dress or other traditional Mexican attire. She is NOT La Muerte, who is death herself, but rather an entity connected directly to La Muerte.

To better explain the origins and meanings of El Catrín, it is important to also understand the history of La Catrina. Originally, La Catrina was called LA CALAVERA GARBANZERA which roughly translates to “The Garbanzo Skull” or “The Garbanzo Skull Lady.” This was because José Guadalupe Posada, the artist who created her in the early 1900s, was trying to make fun of how much poorer native Mexicans sold and used garbanzo beans or chickpeas yet tried to pass as upper class. His intention was essentially to call out Mexicanos who were acting well above their station.

But in 1947, famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera* redesigned La Calavera Garbanzera, who he then called La Catrina instead. He even added indigenous symbols into his famous painting/depiction of her, bringing her closer to a folk saint than a mockery of indigenous peoples.

*I’m not absolving Diego Rivera of anything; he did some rather problematic things over the course of his career and to his wife Frida Kahlo, who I also have some issues with, which are easily researched. But his influence on this card’s history, and Día de Muertos, is important to note.

So, where does El Catrín fit into the history of La Catrina?

In very simplistic terms, La Catrina needed a counterpart. There is a heavy gendered influence in Mexican culture, which is most apparent by the way that most Spanish nouns have either a female or male ending (-a for feminine, -o for masculine). While there are many younger Mexicanos who are making strides to invite more gender inclusivity into the culture, the influence of female/male counterparts will probably never stop completely without changing the entire language. Therefore, La Catrina needed a husband, and El Catrín was available. Today, while La Catrina is the most famous symbol of Día de Muertos, El Catrín often rides next to her on floats and in artistic depictions.

Now for the fun part: how does all this rich history influence El Catrín as a lotería card?
Like many of the cards in a lotería deck, El Catrín can often point to a sort of duality, not only in how we present ourselves visually and physically, but also in our ability to stand in both the mortal realm and spiritual realm. He is sophistication, good looks, power and wealth, but he is also a consort to La Catrina, an entity surrounded by mysticism and even death. El Catrín is a gentleman; he would never harm another living creature. But he also signals the end of things, or even new beginnings.

In the upright position, I often read El Catrín as someone who wants better things for themselves. El Catrín knows how to dress for the occasion, and that helps him position himself among politics, wealth, and culture. He may be seen as stuck up to some, especially those who would keep him down, but he always finds a way to outshine the competition. He loves new opportunities and is always looking to make a good first impression. El Catrín’s upright position, to me, is fairly simplistic.

However, his reversed position feels a lot more complex. In the reversed position, El Catrín is cunning, is stealth, is mystery. He is not death himself, may not even work for La Muerte, but he certainly is connected to the other realm. El Catrín in the reversed position tells me that someone needs to do more soul-searching, needs more confidence, needs to present themselves in a much more positive light. El Catrín can even tell me that a first impression went horribly, and that a situation needs to be righted or corrected for there to be forward movement. In a more spiritual sense, the reversed El Catrín can also be a harbinger of death, or the death of a situation or relationship. He can be a warning of negative things to come, and while he does not cause this harm himself, he can be a catalyst for it. El Catrín reversed reminds us that sometimes, we keep ourselves, our spirit, our personality, our gifts, to ourselves, and while this can be a part of survival, it dulls our influence on the world around us, including our own.

Depictions of the card can be found below. In the first, we have Xelena González’s design (pic 1). Here, El Catrín is a sharply-dressed man with a rose, someone suave and sophisticated who is looking off to the side for the opportunities ahead of him. In the Don Clemente Company deck design (pic 2), El Catrín is also a sharply dressed man in a tux with a cigar, signaling wealth and being upper class. Lastly, in my design, we have a sharply dressed man in a suit, someone who is also looking away from the reader into the unknown. All three cards remain incredibly similar, but I personally like the addition of the looking away for two reasons: one, because El Catrín is not always a straightforward card and two, because El Catrín is also a skeleton like La Catrina – in this way, we can pretend the face he isn’t showing is skeletal.

With that, I bring our weekly lesson to a close (as this lesson has gotten INCREDIBLY lengthy lol) As a reminder: lotería as a game is open to everyone! I highly encourage people to play it, and especially to buy game decks and game cards from Mexican sellers directly. This is a good way to support the people whose culture is being depicted here. As for a divination tool, there is nothing wrong with owning a deck and divining for yourself; however, if you’re not Latine or Mexicano or descended, using this tool as a means to make money or position oneself on a culture that isn’t yours is absolutely cultural appropriation.

But I’ll get off my soapbox for now! Thank you so much for joining me on another weekly lesson on lotería! I’ll be back next Tuesday with the next card <3

And as always, if anyone has any questions, please do feel free to ask in the comments below!! Thanks again everyone <3