A sweet lesson

link Joshua Lucero: Staff photo

Hispanic Affairs office assistant Edgar Munoz, center right, lifts and lowers a piñata as students attempt to burst it open Monday afternoon at the Campus Union Building.

Staff writer

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What started as a ritual meant to bring a prosperous harvest has progressed into a game reserved for special occasions.

Monday afternoon, Eastern New Mexico University students were treated to the history of the piñata by Hispanic Affairs Director Doreen Chavez.

Chavez, who presented a slide show on the piñata’s history, said the piñata of today began as a ritual in China before it was brought to Europe by Marco Polo.

“Marco Polo saw colorful papers decorated on figures of cows and oxen that the Chinese used to fill with seeds,” Chavez said.

The Chinese then broke open the animal figures filled with seeds with a stick as a good omen for the coming year.

Over the years the early piñatas were used as a religious symbol by the Catholic church in Spain, Chavez said. The church used the paper piñatas to symbolize evil and filled them with candies and fruits that represented the temptations of earthly pleasures. Each piñata had seven points, which were said to symbolize the seven deadly sins.

Blindfolds were used to represent a reliance on blind faith and hitting the piñata with a stick while blindfolded was intended to relieve participants of their sins, according to Chavez.

The piñata then evolved into a game played during festivities like birthdays and Christmas celebrations in Mexico and eventually caught on in parts of the United States.

“Today, the piñata is used almost exclusively for fun as a game,” Chavez said.

The shape of the traditional animal or orb shaped piñata has changed through the years. Cartoon characters are popular today. A giant piñata was made in the shape of an M&M for the M&M chocolate pretzel candy’s first birthday in 2011. That piñata claimed the world record for the largest piñata at 47 feet tall.

Chavez and the ENMU students and faculty present on Monday participated in a piñata game after learning its history.

The students were blindfolded and directed by the audience where to swing their sticks to hit the moving piñata target.

When the piñata was broken open, candy fell to the ground and students scrambled to pick up the contents, signaling a sugary omen for the rest of their day.