Pinata-Making Art Lives on in Mexican Culture Dmitry - Design You Trust
go to original February 3, 2015

Melesio Vicente Flores, 59, attaches a head to a structured piñata that when assembled and painted will resemble a Disney princess, in his family’s workshop in the Iztapalapa neighborhood of Mexico City. Flores and his wife Cecilia Albarran Gonzalez have crafted the papier-mache figures for 25 years in their four-story house. While competition drives down prices, the cost of primary materials, such as newspapers, wheat flour and lard, has been rising. “It once supported us more or less. Today not any more”, he said. “There is no left over”. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

A piñata is a container often made of papier-mâché, pottery, or cloth; it is decorated, and filled with small toys or candy, or both, and then broken as part of a ceremony or celebration. Piñatas are commonly associated with Mexico.

The idea of breaking a container filled with treats came to Europe in the 14th century, where the name, from the Italian pignatta, was introduced. The Spanish brought the European tradition to Mexico, although there were similar traditions in Mesoamerica. The Aztecs had a similar tradition to honor the birthday of the god Huitzilopochtli in mid December.

According to local records, the Mexican piñata tradition began in the town of Acolman, just north of Mexico City, where piñatas were introduced for catechism purposes as well as to co-opt the Huitzilopochtli ceremony. Today, the piñata is still part of Mexican culture, the cultures of other countries in Latin America, as well as the United States, but it has mostly lost its religious character.

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