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¡Lotería! or, The Ritual of Chance
- University of New Mexico Press
- Chapter
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57 LO O O O H -T E H -R E E -A H . . . The sounds still resonate in my ears. Pepe and Lalo Gutiérrez, a charismatic set of siblings who lived next door to my childhood house in Colonia Copilco, in the southern parts of Ciudad de México, often organized impromptu tournaments of la lotería, a board game somewhat similar to bingo. These took place on weekday afternoons. Pepe, the younger of them, enjoyed stretching the syllables, especially the first one. His pronunciation foreshadowed an afternoon of clamor and competition in their dining room. A small purple box would be taken from a kitchen cabinet, where it was religiously stored after each session. Soon every neighbor—there are approximately eight players per session—would have a tabla (i.e., a carton board) in front of them and a pile of blue and yellow chips the size of a nickel to its side, ready to be placed in the right spot. The group guide, appointed by majority (usually Lalo was the chosen one), would pick up a card, immediately hiding it from everyone else. Then he would chant a brief riddle: for example, “¡Pórtate bien, cuatito, si no te lleva el coloradito!,” loosely translated into English as “Behave properly, my friend. Otherwise the Little Red One will sweep you away!” The first one to guess the answer would immediately shriek, “¡El diablo!” (The devil!). Or another riddle: “Para el sol y para el agua” (For the sun and for the water). The answer: “El paraguas” (The umbrella). Anyone with the correct image on their tabla would place a chip on it, regardless of who answered the riddle. An hour or so later, each neighbor would be called home to finish homework and have dinner. The winner—the one with the most images covered —would be awarded a sack full of five cent coins. The order of the afternoon had been about envy, frustration, genuflection, perhaps even¡LOTERÍA! OR, THE RITUAL OF CHANCE 58 ¡LOTERÍA! OR, THE RITUAL OF CHANCE anger. In how many games was I a loser? Too many to count. It was the goddess of Fortune (with capital F) who had been courted, but the courtship , in my own case, was hardly ever fruitful. Noticing my dismay, Pepe and Lalo’s uncle, who lived with them, would always say: “¡El que de suerte vive, de suerte muere!” (He who rises by luck, falls by luck, too!). The term lotería has the Teutonic root hleut, which was adopted into the Romance languages: in French it evolved into loterie, in Italian lotto, and in English (which is Romance influenced) it is the source of lot, a method used in ancient times to solve disputes by appealing to chance. The lots, according to the Diccionario de la lengua española de la Real Academia, were placed in a receptacle—in Homeric Greece, a helmet—with an element (a sign, a letter) that tied each of them to a participant. The receptacle was then shaken, and the victorious lot was the one that fell out first. Every country, from Scandinavia to Africa, has one or more varieties of games of chance, and Mexico is no exception. Or is it? Aswithmostthingspopular,thegamehasacomplex,mostlyunexplored history.AccordingtothechroniclerBernalDíazdelCastillo,HernánCortés was an assiduous cardplayer. In La Nueva España, as Mexico was known during the viceroy period, there were public stands where the dwellers of Ciudad de México could play cards and a handful of fixed board games. As a collective pastime, La Lotería Nacional was established in 1769 by King Charles III of Spain. It quickly traveled across the Atlantic and since then hasflourishedlikevirtuallynootherMexicaninstitution:almostfreeof corruption (with a brief exception in 1838), with philanthropic tentacles that support schools and hospices. To this day the variegated tickets are like currency , with the peculiarity that they become worthless as soon as the contest is over. The designs remain beautiful, though. The anonymous designers in charge of producing them are an inspired cast. The pictures represented on the tickets include the Mexican flag, an emblem of the nation’s sovereignty ; a group of Aztec hieroglyphics; and the angel symbolizing Mexico’s independence from Spain. They have a standard size that doesn’t change: four inches by eight inches. What distinguishes not only one edition from another, but also a single ticket from the rest, are the numbers, randomly organized:4135428201,2566494,040761 . . . Whybuyaparticularticketand not another? The response...