Mexican community revives customs with ancient fire ritual

Incense fills the air and burning sticks light up the night in an Indigenous community in Mexico where an ancient fire ritual has been brought back to life. For three days each year, participants wearing traditional dress carry the precious flames nearly 100 kilometers (62 miles) from village to village through the mountains of violence-ridden western Mexico. Members of Mexico's Purepecha community light wooden sticks during an ancient fire ceremony. An ancient Mexican fire ritual had been forgotten for centuries but was revived in the 1980s with the help of historians and anthropologists. Photo: AFPThese days the community faces a struggle to protect its forests from logging, the 66-year-old agricultural worker said.