Yucatan Dance and Typical Dress
If you’re visiting the Yucatan Peninsula for the first time, you may wonder about the people who live there. The peninsula includes Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatan, where Mayan and Spanish cultures shaped the regional dances and costumes still used today.
Although few people, especially in cities, wear regional dress, many small towns still preserve this tradition along with the use of the Mayan language.
Women wear the “terno,” the iconic regional costume, at “vaquerías,” where they perform the traditional Jarana dance.
The terno, a true work of art, takes about six months for skilled mestizo hands to create. In daily life, mestizo women wear simpler white dresses with colorful flower embroidery on the neckline and skirt.
The jarana is a musical rhythm that was born from the mixture of Mayan rhythms and the jota of Aragon from Spain. People dance it during religious festivities and annual celebrations honoring the town’s patron saint, known as vaquerias. Mestizos wear dress in their finest attire to perform the Jarana dance.
Sources: Gobierno del Estado de Yucatan – Videos: Elias Hau – Yucatan Ancestral
