The Head of Pancho Villa
A sociological vision into the mind of an icon outlaw and hero of all times.
By Eduardo Barraza
| “...Villa's epitaph was a universal sigh of regret and relief.” Anita Brenner / Idols Behind Altars |
In the revolutionary ideals for the democratic project that was being outlined for Mexico at the beginning
of the XX Century, Pancho Villa found an ample artery to express his intense social inconformity. The
theory of the revolution, enunciated by Francisco I. Madero, became the cause of his revolt, and the
platform for his violent expression, which he perceived as a just and legitimate attitude of protest
against the same social injustices that had chastised him as an outlaw. Academically, Villa was an
uneducated man, but he had an incredible intuition of social causes, which in its more brutal state,
turned him into a career criminal, and into an antisocial element of an unequal and oppressive system.
Villa, the thief, perceived that the emerging revolution was the language with which he could express
himself, and thus he incorporated to fight with all the strength of his indomitable character. He
transformed himself into a revolutionary agent, accredited by his own marginalized condition.
Villa stood out for his cleverness, his sagacity and for his surprising aggressiveness, but this implacable
Mexican guerrilla excelled more, substantially, because he himself was a born product of the
discrimination, the abuse and the poverty of his social context. Villa evolved from being the victim to the
avenger of his own segregated identity, a reason that explains why the poor and exploited people
identified with him. The caudillo was the people itself on a horse, a voice and collective expression of the
pauper, of those who yearned for a social emancipation. Through Villa, already as an element of the
cathartic revolution, the outcry for justice found a spokesman to promote social change. Villa was a
frightful and emotional discharge for the repressed cry of the less privileged, of the citizen bent down by
the excessive stick of abuse.
As a social phenomenon, Pancho Villa was the sickle that gathered the harvest of seeds of injustice,
planted by the elite of rich people. As a sociological and anthropological manifestation, Villa was a social
monster, conceived in the womb of an outraged society. Out of that monstrous nature, of that frightful
being that Villa was, that same minority of rich people scandalized, as a progenitor who becomes
disturbed with the outcome of his own incest, and who has to live with the nightmare that he
engendered it. In the irrationality of his rebellion, Pancho Villa was the vomit of a nation satiated in the
gluttony of despotism, abuse and dictatorship. In his revolutionary reasoning, in contrast, this being –
half man and half horse, half reality and half legend– was a cry of labor to give birth to a more just
Mexico.
The duality of the rebellious and revolutionary nature of the so called Centaur of the North, empowered
him and disabled him as well. When he rode on the avenue of the sociopolitical cause, and under the
democratic inspiration of Madero, Villa’s agenda was one of social reform, and his attitude, one of an
egalitarian leader. But when the ups and downs of the revolution stripped him of that avenging
expression, Villa returned to travel through his well-known shortcuts of banditry, and to regroup in the
mountains that witnessed his hardening as a bloodthirsty bandit. Villa returned to communicate in the
dialect of revenge and violent hatred. Because of this ambiguity that characterized his life and his death,
it is not possible to classify Villa as a brigand or a revolutionary only, a hero or a villain. His character
crossed over not only the social structures, but also the dimensions of his own guerrilla and military
thought, which mythicized him and turned him into a legendary character. Villa was both: a villain and a
hero throughout his life.
Villa was a strong man of great drive, but he also proved to be vulnerable to feelings of marginality,
defeat and treason. Both in his youth and in his adult years, Villa reacted with an instinct that
transformed him into a social beast of destructive wrath, rooted in his own segregated condition. In the
years following Madero’s death, the resignation of Victoriano Huerta, and after Venustiano Carranza was
officially recognized by the United States government as President of Mexico, Villa was kept at the margin
of the Mexican government, and was left without the weaponry support that he had initially received
from the United States. In his attempt to overthrow Carranza, Villa suffered humiliating defeats by the
military genius of Alvaro Obregón, who later would become president. His once powerful Division of the
North ended up decimated and dispersed, and his prestige as general, vanished. His expression no
longer would return to be one of social justice, but one of resentment and revenge, attitudes that evoke
Doroteo Arango, the boy it is said took revenge for her sister’s rape.
In spite of his eminence as a guerrilla fighter, Villa’s revolutionary vision never became fully developed.
His indomitable and combative nature at the service of the revolutionary cause elevated him as a natural
born soldier suitable for war, but his interest for a social reform was sporadic, and his movement lacked a
clear political ideology. Villa did not have the capacity to establish a legal apparatus to implement a
program of social progress of great scale, because his was a conscience of armed warfare, not of political
discernment. His violent protest was a redemptive symbol, but at the same time, a stigma of punishment.
Nevertheless, in Mexican culture, Villa constitutes not only the institutionalized hero of the revolution, but
a popular icon who personifies the marginalized causes. A cohesive myth that allows Mexican citizens the
opportunity for a symbolic retaliation against the United States, due of the resentment they have toward
the military incursions in Mexican soil, and for perceiving the U.S. as an empire until these days. In
Mexican folklore, Villa is a leader who took revenge against the U.S. with impunity, a fact that has
perpetuated his popularity and fame. This also gave place to a revengeful ideology with which Mexicans
see restituted and vindicated themselves. Villa’s cleverness, sagacity, and capacity to elude the powerful
enemy, works as a socio-cultural valve as well, a valve that canalizes the fluid of resentment and rancor
of a dispossessed and subjugated people.
Villa’s life epilogue –the farmer turned brigand, the brigand who transformed into a revolutionary, and
the revolutionary who became a hero– was as violent and bloody as his own guerrilla’s vocation. His
death closed the cycle of revenge that began when Doroteo Arango –epitome of the oppressed farmer–
realized his unfavorable social condition. Pancho Villa was born out of that inconformity, out of a feeling
of rejection, and out of the impossibility to obtain justice by legal means. He was the child of a tyrant and
dictatorial government, an anomalous being conceived by the suffering and the pain of an oppressed
society. At the end of his agitated existence, the monster would be annihilated by the same elite that
gave birth to him. In his tombstone, devoid of all peace, Villa’s corpse would be beheaded by somebody
who wanted, perhaps, to make sure the monster would not rebel again.
Bibliography:
Anita Brenner. Idols Behind Altars, The Story of the Mexican Spirit. 1970 (1929)
Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr. The Great Pursuit, Pershing’s Expedition to Destroy Pancho Villa. 1995.
Jim Tuck. Pancho Villa and John Reed, Two Faces of Romantic Revolution. First Edition, 1984.
Judith Adler Hellman. Mexico in Crisis. Second Edition 1988.
Steven O’Brien. Pancho Villa. Primera Edición, 1995.
of the XX Century, Pancho Villa found an ample artery to express his intense social inconformity. The
theory of the revolution, enunciated by Francisco I. Madero, became the cause of his revolt, and the
platform for his violent expression, which he perceived as a just and legitimate attitude of protest
against the same social injustices that had chastised him as an outlaw. Academically, Villa was an
uneducated man, but he had an incredible intuition of social causes, which in its more brutal state,
turned him into a career criminal, and into an antisocial element of an unequal and oppressive system.
Villa, the thief, perceived that the emerging revolution was the language with which he could express
himself, and thus he incorporated to fight with all the strength of his indomitable character. He
transformed himself into a revolutionary agent, accredited by his own marginalized condition.
Villa stood out for his cleverness, his sagacity and for his surprising aggressiveness, but this implacable
Mexican guerrilla excelled more, substantially, because he himself was a born product of the
discrimination, the abuse and the poverty of his social context. Villa evolved from being the victim to the
avenger of his own segregated identity, a reason that explains why the poor and exploited people
identified with him. The caudillo was the people itself on a horse, a voice and collective expression of the
pauper, of those who yearned for a social emancipation. Through Villa, already as an element of the
cathartic revolution, the outcry for justice found a spokesman to promote social change. Villa was a
frightful and emotional discharge for the repressed cry of the less privileged, of the citizen bent down by
the excessive stick of abuse.
As a social phenomenon, Pancho Villa was the sickle that gathered the harvest of seeds of injustice,
planted by the elite of rich people. As a sociological and anthropological manifestation, Villa was a social
monster, conceived in the womb of an outraged society. Out of that monstrous nature, of that frightful
being that Villa was, that same minority of rich people scandalized, as a progenitor who becomes
disturbed with the outcome of his own incest, and who has to live with the nightmare that he
engendered it. In the irrationality of his rebellion, Pancho Villa was the vomit of a nation satiated in the
gluttony of despotism, abuse and dictatorship. In his revolutionary reasoning, in contrast, this being –
half man and half horse, half reality and half legend– was a cry of labor to give birth to a more just
Mexico.
The duality of the rebellious and revolutionary nature of the so called Centaur of the North, empowered
him and disabled him as well. When he rode on the avenue of the sociopolitical cause, and under the
democratic inspiration of Madero, Villa’s agenda was one of social reform, and his attitude, one of an
egalitarian leader. But when the ups and downs of the revolution stripped him of that avenging
expression, Villa returned to travel through his well-known shortcuts of banditry, and to regroup in the
mountains that witnessed his hardening as a bloodthirsty bandit. Villa returned to communicate in the
dialect of revenge and violent hatred. Because of this ambiguity that characterized his life and his death,
it is not possible to classify Villa as a brigand or a revolutionary only, a hero or a villain. His character
crossed over not only the social structures, but also the dimensions of his own guerrilla and military
thought, which mythicized him and turned him into a legendary character. Villa was both: a villain and a
hero throughout his life.
Villa was a strong man of great drive, but he also proved to be vulnerable to feelings of marginality,
defeat and treason. Both in his youth and in his adult years, Villa reacted with an instinct that
transformed him into a social beast of destructive wrath, rooted in his own segregated condition. In the
years following Madero’s death, the resignation of Victoriano Huerta, and after Venustiano Carranza was
officially recognized by the United States government as President of Mexico, Villa was kept at the margin
of the Mexican government, and was left without the weaponry support that he had initially received
from the United States. In his attempt to overthrow Carranza, Villa suffered humiliating defeats by the
military genius of Alvaro Obregón, who later would become president. His once powerful Division of the
North ended up decimated and dispersed, and his prestige as general, vanished. His expression no
longer would return to be one of social justice, but one of resentment and revenge, attitudes that evoke
Doroteo Arango, the boy it is said took revenge for her sister’s rape.
In spite of his eminence as a guerrilla fighter, Villa’s revolutionary vision never became fully developed.
His indomitable and combative nature at the service of the revolutionary cause elevated him as a natural
born soldier suitable for war, but his interest for a social reform was sporadic, and his movement lacked a
clear political ideology. Villa did not have the capacity to establish a legal apparatus to implement a
program of social progress of great scale, because his was a conscience of armed warfare, not of political
discernment. His violent protest was a redemptive symbol, but at the same time, a stigma of punishment.
Nevertheless, in Mexican culture, Villa constitutes not only the institutionalized hero of the revolution, but
a popular icon who personifies the marginalized causes. A cohesive myth that allows Mexican citizens the
opportunity for a symbolic retaliation against the United States, due of the resentment they have toward
the military incursions in Mexican soil, and for perceiving the U.S. as an empire until these days. In
Mexican folklore, Villa is a leader who took revenge against the U.S. with impunity, a fact that has
perpetuated his popularity and fame. This also gave place to a revengeful ideology with which Mexicans
see restituted and vindicated themselves. Villa’s cleverness, sagacity, and capacity to elude the powerful
enemy, works as a socio-cultural valve as well, a valve that canalizes the fluid of resentment and rancor
of a dispossessed and subjugated people.
Villa’s life epilogue –the farmer turned brigand, the brigand who transformed into a revolutionary, and
the revolutionary who became a hero– was as violent and bloody as his own guerrilla’s vocation. His
death closed the cycle of revenge that began when Doroteo Arango –epitome of the oppressed farmer–
realized his unfavorable social condition. Pancho Villa was born out of that inconformity, out of a feeling
of rejection, and out of the impossibility to obtain justice by legal means. He was the child of a tyrant and
dictatorial government, an anomalous being conceived by the suffering and the pain of an oppressed
society. At the end of his agitated existence, the monster would be annihilated by the same elite that
gave birth to him. In his tombstone, devoid of all peace, Villa’s corpse would be beheaded by somebody
who wanted, perhaps, to make sure the monster would not rebel again.
Bibliography:
Anita Brenner. Idols Behind Altars, The Story of the Mexican Spirit. 1970 (1929)
Herbert Molloy Mason, Jr. The Great Pursuit, Pershing’s Expedition to Destroy Pancho Villa. 1995.
Jim Tuck. Pancho Villa and John Reed, Two Faces of Romantic Revolution. First Edition, 1984.
Judith Adler Hellman. Mexico in Crisis. Second Edition 1988.
Steven O’Brien. Pancho Villa. Primera Edición, 1995.
Eduardo Barraza is a journalist and writer,
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
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Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues in Phoenix, Arizona
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CENTAUR OF THE NORTH This
being –half man and half horse, half
reality and half legend– was a cry of
labor to give birth to a more just
Mexico.
being –half man and half horse, half
reality and half legend– was a cry of
labor to give birth to a more just
Mexico.
| Celebrating the Mexican Revolution Centennial 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. HISI and Social Eye Media are offering a limited opportunity to celebrate the centennial of the revolution. Purchase a commemorative and colorful poster of some of the heroes of the revolution, and support HISI’ s mission to serve and educate. Description Size: 11.25 x 17.30 Printed on premium poster cardstock Price: $14.95 Shipping and handling: $4.49 Total: $19.44 U.S. Residents ONLY International customers please e-mail us to get shipping rates: info@socialeyemedia.com |
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