Mexico's ritual of chance: in colorful cards and riddles that reveal this nation's psyche, two contemporary artists re-create the popular culture of loteria.

• Author: Stavans, Ilan

!Looooh-teh-ree-ah! ... The sound still resonates in my ears. Pepe and Lalo Gutierrez, a charismatic set of siblings who lived next door to my childhood house in Colonia Copilco, in the southern part of Mexico City, often organized impromptu tournaments of Loteria, a board game somewhat similar to bingo. These took place oil weekday afternoons. Pepe, the younger of the two, enjoyed drawing out the syllables, especially the first one. His pronunciation foreshadowed an afternoon of clamor and competition in their dining room. A small purple box would be taken out of a kitchen cabinet, where it. was religiously stored after each session. Soon every neighbor--there are approximately eight players per session--would have a tabla (i.e., playing board) in front and a pile of blue and yellow chips the size of a nickel at the side, ready to be placed in the right spot. The group guide, appointed by majority (usually, Lalo was the chosen one), would pick up a card, immediately covering it from everyone else's view. Then he would chant a brief riddle: "!Portate bien cuatito, si no te lleva El Coloradito!"--loosely translated into English as "Behave properly, my friend. Otherwise the Little Red One will sweep you away!" The first one to guess the answer would immediately shriek: "!El Diablo!" (The Devil). Or else: "Para el sol y para el agua" (For the sun and for the water). The answer: "El Paraguas" (The Umbrella). At these points, anyone with the images on their table would place a chip on them.

The winner would be awarded a sack full of five-cent coins. An hour or so later, each neighbor would be called home to finish homework and have dinner. The order to the afternoon had been about envy, frustration, genuflection, perhaps even anger. In how many games was I a loser? Too many to count. It was the goddess of Fortune (with a capital "F") that had been courted, but the courtship, in my own case, was hardly ever fruitful. Noticing my dismay, Pepe and Lalo's uncle, who lived with them, would always say: "El que de suerte vive, de suerte muere!" (He who rises by luck, falls by luck too!)

The term loteria has the Teutonic root hleut, which was adopted into the Romance languages: in French it evolved into loterie, in Italian into lotto, and in English it is the source of lot, a method used in ancient times to solve disputes by appealing to chance. The lots, according to the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola de la Lengua, were placed in a receptacle--in Homeric Greece, a helmet--with an element (a sign, a letter) that tied them to each of the participants. The receptacle was then shaken, and the victorious lot was the first one drawn. Every country, from Scandinavia to Africa, has one or more varieties of games of chance, and Mexico is no exception. Or is it?

As with most things popular, the game has a complex, still-unexplored history. According to the chronicler Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Hernan Cortes was an assiduous card player. In La Nueva Espana, as...