SAN FRANCISCO CAJONOS, Mexico (Reuters) - Three hundred years ago, a mob of angry Mexican Indians hacked to death two lay leaders in this mountain village for informing church authorities the Zapotec community was worshiping pagan idols.
The victims, Juan Bautista and Jacinto de los Angeles -- seen by some as meddlesome traitors and others as Christian martyrs -- will be beatified by Pope John Paul II next week when he visits Mexico for the fifth time.
In this nation of some 100 million people, the Roman Catholic Church hopes the beatification will serve as an inspiration to Mexico's 10 million Indians, many of whom have been won over by hard-selling Evangelical missionaries in recent years.
"The beatification is a recognition of the dignity of the indigenous peoples...and of the exemplariness of the martyrs in their role as lay people, husbands and fathers," said Hector Gonzalez, Archbishop of the Antequera archdiocese, which includes this village in the southern state of Oaxaca.
With over one million Indians, Oaxaca has the highest concentration of indigenous people of all Mexico's states, according to the National Indigenous Institute.
In a further sign of the Catholic church's commitment to Latin America's Indians, the pope, 82, will also canonize Mexican Indian Juan Diego, to whom the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared as the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe in 1531, although doubts about his existence abound.
Juan Diego, whom some claim was a church invention, is widely seen as instrumental in the conversion of millions of Mexican Indians to the faith of their Spanish conquerors.
Today some 90 percent of Mexicans are Catholic, although many indigenous people still pay homage to rain and earth spirits, combining pagan rites with their Christian worship.
As it struggles to retain believers in the face of a steady shift to evangelism, the Catholic church has become more accepting of the fusion of Christian and Indian beliefs.
"The cosmic vision the indigenous peoples have has always centered on the idea of God. Since its arrival on these lands, the church has always been at their side," said Gonzalez.
Beatification is the last step before sainthood. To become a saint, Vatican theologians need to prove candidates have performed at least two miracles.
TRAITORS OR HEROES?
In San Francisco Cajonos, a three-hour drive from Oaxaca City on a perilous dirt road high in the sierra, feelings about the so-called martyrs are decidedly mixed.
A century-old band of around 30 men from the village and neighboring hamlets, has been chosen to play at the mass to beatify the "martyrs," but many of its members have equivocal views on the men about to be beatified.
"The martyrs let themselves be manipulated by the Spanish," said Esteban Zuniga, 22, one of the band's three directors, during a break from playing at a lively outdoor party.
"The other people here were respecting the earth and the stars and the supposed saints said they were diabolical heathens, which they were not," added the pony-tailed musician, who noted that many villagers had been executed for lynching the pair.
Yet Eutimio Cruz, 74, who plays the clarinet and has been with the band for over 50 years, believes the "martyrs" offer an important lesson. "They were killed for their faith," he said as heavy rain fell on a tarpaulin over the courtyard.
Zuniga sees the band's music, which mixes pre-Hispanic melodies from the sierra with modern tunes, as a unifying force in the community, independent of religion or politics.
"We are supporting our community and the sierra with this effort in the basilica," said Zuniga, who was born and raised in California and came to the village two years ago.
San Francisco Cajonos residents, who depend on farming corn, beans and peas, hope the beatification puts their Zapotec village on the map and brings in more government funds.
"The beatification will make our (Zapotec) language more known," said Eugenia Palacio, 32, as heaped plates of pork, rice and nopal cactus were handed out to around 80 guests.
The church is arranging the transport of two busloads of village residents to Mexico City to attend the beatification mass on Thursday at the Virgin of Guadalupe Basilica.
"You can't describe the emotion of being there with the pope," said Palacio, who will attend the mass with eight family members.
The band struck up again.
Women, some with braided hair and shawls, applauded as the men belted out lively tunes on a medley of instruments including trombones, trumpets, a large drum and a tuba. Faces became rosy from a fiery regional liquor known as mescal .
INTERPRETATION KEY
The church is keen that the story of the "martyrs," who were murdered in September 1700, should be correctly interpreted by clergy members for indigenous communities.
"These things can't be understood by just anyone at a glance. You need pastoral work to do the interpreting, to extract the full extent of the image, the history and the ideology that this has," said Archbishop Gonzalez.
He rejected out of hand any suggestion the two men could be considered church spies or traitors to their people.
"The whole village was already baptized and believing," he said. "Within the Catholic life, there is a right and a duty to watch for the rectitude of the doctrine and customs," he added, noting that the men were named lay leaders by a civil council. "One can't talk about informers."
What are believed to be the bones of the "martyrs" are kept in two glass cases fringed with gold tasseling on the altar of a small chapel in Oaxaca's colonial Carmen Alto Convent.
One of the yellowing skulls bears a slit from a sharp weapon. The church says the bones have been forensically proven to belong to the men.
Beside the altar stands a life-size painting of the "martyrs," who look identical in the traditional Zapotec costume of white trousers, felt black hats, capes and sandals.
The archbishop will bring the bones to the beatification ceremony. He said he never travels to any parish without them "to show this example of Christian heroism in loyalty to the gospel."
The "martyrs" have already been incorporated into the church's memorabilia industry. A stall at the entrance to the convent sells paraphernalia such as T-shirts, baseball caps and key rings bearing the men's image on one side and that of the nation's cherished Virgin of Guadalupe on the other.
The pope's two-day visit to Mexico starts on Tuesday, the last leg of an 11-day tour taking in Canada and Guatemala and his 97th foreign trip.