Page - 100 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

100 | Héctor M. Varela Rios www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 87–106 colonial history. For instance, Luis Rivera Pagán parses out some of that complexity in terms of language. To be Puerto Rican is to be born of at least two worlds, one Spanish and one U.S.-English: islanders are habituated to be bilingual.35 I would also add the indigenous Taíno and African for a total of four entangled worlds and worldviews. The larger implication is that Puerto Ricans are in essence both of one culture and multi-cultural, that is, par- tially belonging to several cultures in discrete areas, such as traditions and political leanings, but not belonging completely to any one of them. Being Puerto Rican is both fixed and dynamic. This specifically Puerto Rican kind of Taíno-African-Spanish-U.S. “in-betweenness” is part of a paradoxical pop- ular hermeneutics that tinges Puerto Rican autochthonousness both in the island and in the diaspora. With this autochthonous hermeneutics in mind, El Velorio “looks” differ- ent. I do see the painting not as “astonishing criticism”, to quote Oller again, but as a visual record of this paradox. Indeed, its ultimate concern shifts from critique to praise if viewed thusly. Beholding El Velorio plurally empha- sizes its display of Puerto Rico’s “in-between” relationality, in this case the collapse of racial, class, and generational barriers in celebration and in cri- sis. El Velorio certainly is not a romantic fictional account of jíbare existence; bakinés were a real thing and Oller’s representation is fairly accurate. How- ever, as developed above, what I see is moving hospitality and solidarity, not chaos. I also do not see idolatry in the pig or in the priest. I see an interact- ing trio formed by dead child, old man, and pig, the divine and the human re- lating materially. The Christ icon bursts into this domestic sacred space and completes a Trinity, with God and the Spirit-Consoler already there. The pig signifies commensality in the human realm and communion with the divine realm, collapsing their boundary and recording their relationality for the revelers in the painting and the beholders of the painting. Indeed, the moth- er is serving a drink to the beholder, not to the priest. In addition, El Velorio freezes in time an “in-between” autochthonous-ness wished for by those that celebrate a plural and harmonious Puerto Rican-ness. Oller’s intention was to impactfully portray the bakiné as “backward”. Indeed, the opposite has happened. El Velorio has transcended its eight by thirteen frame in the Puerto Rican mind because of its plural creative energy. Bakiné is not only about suffering but also about hope: what I see in the priest’s eyes when he looks at the pig is “eager” expectation not gluttony. The jíbare life is sparse 35 Rivera Pagán 2019, 52–53.