Meet Mariceu Erthal García, a Mexican artist who uses documentary photography as a bridge to reflect and question the humanitarian problems that plague Latin America. Her line of work mixes image and narrative writing to reflect on political, social and autobiographical issues in a process that arises from feeling the stories she captures with her lens.

For Mezcal Verde, Erthal reflects on its label how it sees the indigenous worldview and perceives its teaching of observing the environment and taking advantage of each part of its resources, said use has been transformed into different forms of expression, such as in clothing, music, and drink.

It tells the story of the community of Doctor, Cadereyta, Querétaro, which every Holy Week receives the “devils”, characters with masks of amorphous faces and animal spirits, who symbolize the burning of Judas, and in general personify the struggle of evil over good. These cloth masks, on a clay mold, also contain a head of hair made of ixtle, a fiber extracted mainly from the agave. Ixtle was obtained mainly by the natives belonging to the regions of Aridoamerica, the great majority of the indigenous people used ixtle to weave clothes, fishing nets and ayates, etc.

The festival of the devils has one main purpose: to burn the devil's ixtle. The masked characters try to light the hair of their companions and go unnoticed in order to end the spiritual conflict by killing the devil.

“Little by little, a large number of devils and Judases begin to emerge from the darkness and shadows. Once in the square, people anxiously wait to be able to burn their enormous ixtle hair to put an end to sin, death and betrayal. And the cry of “You burn, devil, you burn!” emerges.