Last week we witnessed the first-ever Escaramuza event in Sayulita. We have seen a number of rodeos here, and Charreria competitions featuring male riders, but this is the first time the local women have had a chance to strut their stuff in competition in Sayulita’s own arena. After a parade through town, the Escaramuza teams gathered at the rodeo grounds for the competition.
And it seems that Sayulita’s horsewomen are, like Sayulita’s surfers, at the top of their game. The local women won first prize in the competition, which featured riding teams from Bucerias, San Jose, La Penita, Compostela, and Tepic—all larger towns than Sayulita.
Traditionally, the Charreria included nine events, all of them involving competition among male riders. The recent addition of the Escaramuza, with 8 to 10 women per team, reflects, perhaps, a little nudge from the feminist world; or maybe the boys just decided they liked the way the Escaramuzas look, with their elegant and beautiful traditional dresses and hats, reminiscent of 19th costumes. All the women on each team are required to wear matching costumes.
They do look striking, all decked out, and they perform some difficult maneuvers, as is evident is some of the photos. The antecedents of the present-day Escaramuzas were women known as “Adelitas,” or “women of the revolution.” According to the tradition, women on horseback were used as decoys during the Mexican Revolution. They would ride off, raising a cloud of dust, and the Federal soldiers would ride after them, sure that an attack was coming from that direction. Then the revolutionary army would strike from another direction.
The precision steps–amounting, in part, to a horseback dance to music–performed by these women seem especially difficult when you realize that they are riding sidesaddle, or “albarda,” in a special charro saddle that has been customized: cut and fitted with a leather seat and leg braces. Pulling off a move called the “Rayado,” which involves bringing the horse to a sliding stop from a full gallop, and having the horse’s hooves leave a perfect line in the dust, can’t be easy even when you’re sitting in a regular saddle. It’s got to be even more difficult sitting sidesaddle.
Let’s hope our local Sayulita women, the “Perlas de Sayulita,” instructed by Janet Quijano Bernal, continue their winning ways in the state finals scheduled for June up in Tepic.
