ABSTRACT
Historically, hell has been a political space. In colonial México, hell was a promised land for the mestizos (the mixed-race Mexicans) who dreamed of a different scene than the one fashioned by the Spaniards. For the Spaniards, hell signified the end of times, and in Mexico, the end of their colonial regime. This chapter analyzes a folksong called Jarabe gatuno, the last folksong to be prohibited by the Inquisition and the viceroyalty in Mexico in 1802. In this song, hell as a leitmotif spills over the inquisitorial censorship, the edict, and the monarchic bando or prohibition installing an infernal atmosphere. The process of appropriation, mimesis, and echoing that takes place between mestizos and censors around the motif of hell unveils what I call the poetics of censorship, a poetics that is characterized for being both excitable and excited. Overall the chapter analyzes the historic avatars of this Jarabe, with a special emphasis on its colonial production and reception, in order to consider it a Mexican lieu de mémoire.
