✨️LET'S LEARN LOTERÍA✨️5 - EL PARAGUAS✨️

 

5: EL PARAGUAS (THE UMBRELLA)

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 fifth card in the fifty-four-card deck is El Paraguas, or the Umbrella. The grito for El Paraguas is “Para el sol y para el agua” or “For the sun and for the rain.” This is probably one of the simpler cards, as there is no long history of the umbrella in Mexican society to really take note of here. This will probably be one of the shorter lessons in this lotería series, as there isn’t a lot of background for this card other than what an umbrella represents in very general terms.

There is something to be said about the straightforwardness of the card – while many lotería cards have dual/double meanings or even hidden meanings embedded in the context around the card, El Paraguas is just that… an umbrella. So, when we think about what an umbrella represents, there’s really only a few things that come to mind: protection from the rain or other inclement weather, shade from the sun, protection from peering eyes, staying dry, staying cool, etc. However, we CAN expand El Paraguas a little farther – to rainbows, clouds, the wind, even a connection to all four elements. There is, when we think a bit harder, a sort of liminality to the umbrella. An umbrella can exist in both the dry place and wet place at the same time, can have one foot in one plane of reality, and the other foot in another plane. In this way, we can make El Paraguas a bit more complex, which is probably the more appropriate way to read the card and lotería at large – with complexity.

In the upright position, I read El Paraguas in the more straightforward sense: protection from the elements, from negative energies, from the things that would harm us or bring us down. I see the umbrella as a shield of sorts, keeping those under it safe from whatever is coming their way. I also see the umbrella as delicate, an object that is meant to protect from the rain but can be broken or swept away by the wind if not held tightly enough. In this way, the upright El Paraguas CAN have a double meaning: one for protection, another as a warning from being swept away. In a sense, El Paraguas tells us to prepare for the worst, even if we’re given a better hand – the weather is unpredictable, and so we must be ready for anything to happen.

In the reversed position, I see the umbrella as rather useless. Maybe the sun is too harsh, the wind too cold, the rain too wet to be of much use. I see someone putting their all into a situation, only for their energy to backfire because it wasn’t the best place to put that energy into. In the reversed position, El Paraguas asks us to examine our coping mechanisms, how we keep ourselves safe from the elements. It can also ask us to ground, to remember that there is more than just one element, and we must respect them all, especially when we’re outside and exposed to the power of nature and the universe. El Paraguas reminds us to look inward at what is needed, rather than the performance we put on for others, and can even be a reminder that selfishness, while useful, can lead to harming those around us without us even realizing it. El Paraguas reversed may mean shadow work, but it can also mean creating a longer table versus building a taller fence.

Most depictions of an umbrella are pretty similar – black fabric, a long, curved handle, and rain. Below are the three depictions of the card I’ll be referring to. In the first (picture 1), we have Xelena González’s design. We see the classic black umbrella, the long, curved handle, as well as the rain falling from the sky. This is similar to the original Don Clemente design (picture 2), which also depicts a plain, black umbrella with a long handle in the rain as well. This is where the similarities start to differ, and where my design (picture 3) also comes in. In Xelena González’s design, we also see a rainbow, sunlight shining out behind the rainbow to remind the reader that rain does not fall forever. We see preparation for a storm, but with a positive outcome on the other side. My design incorporates the rainbow into the umbrella itself, as I tried to represent more of that liminal space in which umbrellas exist. I also opted for NO rain, as I thought that was almost too obvious. Instead, we have a dry umbrella, one that might be used for shade from the sun more than protection from the water – but either way, the umbrella remains a shield, as well as a means to an end.

Thanks for reading this week’s lesson if you did! As a reminder, buying lotería decks and games from those in the culture is the best way to show your support! Playing the game is completely open to all, and there’s nothing wrong with owning a divination deck and reading for oneself. However, profiting off lotería as a system of divination without being Mexican or even of Latine descent is absolutely cultural appropriation, and should be avoided at all times.

In any case, I hope you all liked this shorter lesson! I’ll be back next Tuesday with the next card and the history behind it <3

As always, if there are any questions about the history, meaning, or use of the card(s), please do feel free to ask in the comments below!! Thanks again everyone <3