Eagle Warriors belonged to one of the two most important warrior cults. The Mexica, popularly known as Aztecs, were the most militaristic of the ancient pre-hispanic civilizations. This posting begins my series on Mexico City, and I thought it appropriate to begin with the people who actually founded this great metropolis in the early 14th Century AD. I confess that I have held back on this series for a couple of reasons. One was logistical. We have visited Mexico City twice, in 2010 and again in 2012. During those two visits, I accumulated more than 2000 photos of its wonders. Even sorting through that number of shots is a monumental task, much less sizing, cropping, and adjusting the light and color on each one that is useable. Then, there is the often agonizing process of choosing from among them the 200 or so I will actually display. Finally, there is all the post-adventure research to ensure that my comments will be both insightful and accurate. My second reason for hesitation has to do with the Aztecs themselves. As my regular readers must know by now, I am attracted to what is ancient. However, the Aztecs were relative latecomers on the Mesoamerican scene. I was also a bit put off by their blood-lust. Most of these ancient civilizations practiced some form of human sacrifice, but the Aztecs, as we shall see, practiced it on an industrial scale. However, there was also much that was beautiful and remarkable about their civilization. Even the dark parts were not just mindless cruelty, but related to their beliefs about the nature of the cosmos. All that having been said, here goes! (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Mexica migration legends


The Mexica arrive at their "promised land." The nomadic people who wandered out of the northern wastes never called themselves "Aztec." That was an early 19th Century invention of German explorer Alexander Humboldt. He based the name on Aztlan, the legendary homeland of the Mexica. In the cases of some of the more ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, like Teotihuacan or the Toltecs, we don't know that they called themselves. We only know the names given to them by people who arrived centuries after their great cities were already in ruins. With the Mexica, we have the Spanish historical record telling us that this was the name used by their contemporaries, both friends and enemies, and by the Mexica people themselves. The people shown in the sculpture above have just reached the island in Lake Texcoco where they would found their capital. At this point they were simple, nomadic, hunter-gatherers. They had no experience in urban living, and their only possessions were those that they could easily carry as they migrated from place to place. The obvious wonder and joy they express is the result of a prophesy fulfilled.


Near the Mexica nomads stands a statue of an eagle eating a snake while sitting on a cactus. Over thousands of years, pre-hispanic Mexico experienced recurrent waves of nomadic migrants from the northern deserts. When great empires like Teotihuacan (100 AD-650 AD) arose, they kept the nomads in check. When they weakened, the nomads pushed in and sometimes took over. The first Nahuatl speakers (the language of the Mexica) arrived about the time of Teotihuacan's fall. Its successor, the Toltec State (700 AD-1100 AD), may have been founded by a mixture of those early nomads and Teotihuacan refugees. The Mexica themselves didn't leave their northern homeland of Aztlanuntil around 1100 AD, and they wandered through central Mexico for more than a hundred years seeking a place to settle. Along the way, one of their chiefs named Tenoch prophesied that when they found an island with an eagle sitting on a cactus eating a snake, they would know they had reached their destination. The lush shores of Central Mexico's Lake Texcoco looked enticing to these desert nomads. However, there were already large populations of sophisticated, urbanized people living in powerful city-states on the Lake's shores. These people treated the Mexica with contempt, as uncivilized interlopers. Eventually, the nomads sought refuge on an island not far off shore. It was on this island that, to their boundless joy, they spotted the eagle eating the snake. Home at last! In honor of their prophet, the Mexica named their new city Tenochtitlan.


The Toltec Connection

This Mexica "atlantean" figure is almost identical to those found in the Toltec capital at Tollan. At Tollan, much larger atlanteans still stand atop the Temple of the Warriors where they once supported its roof. These figures represent the ideal of the noble warrior. Like the Romans, the Mexica were not so much innovators as imitators and assimilators. They adopted much of their culture almost wholesale from their Toltec predecessors. They then carried out the Toltec ideas to their logical, but often rather grim, conclusions. Of course, the Toltecs themselves incorporated much from their predecessors, the Teotihuacans. The Mexica were aware of Teotihuacan, and called its ancient ruins "The Place Where The Gods Were Born." However, that great empire had fallen 500 years before and was already lost in the mists of time. The Toltecs provided a more recent example to follow, although the temples and palaces at Tollan had already been in ruins for 200 years by the time the Mexica wandered through. The unsophisticated nomads were enormously impressed by Toltec statuary, wall carvings, monuments and other imagery. The nomads felt that if they could emulate these people, they would certainly improve their status in the world. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and the Mexica imitated the Toltecs with a vengeance. (Photo from Templo Mayor Museum)


This chacmool is another Toltec symbol appropriated by the Mexica. Chacmools are statues related to war, rain, and human sacrifice.This chacmool was found at the Templo Mayor, the chief pyramid of the Mexica at Tenochtitlán, their capital. The Templo Mayor had twin temples on top, one for the rain god Tlaloc, and the other for Huitzilopochitli, the god of the sun and of war. Chacmools may have originated with the Toltecs and many have been found at Tollan. They could also have originated with the Maya, since many have also been found at Chichen Itza, a Maya city with a mysterious and as-yet unexplained relationship to the Toltecs. Chacmools are instantly recognizable. They always appear as a male figure reclining on his back, knees raised and head turned questioningly. The figures always hold a bowl or disk on their stomachs which may have been where human hearts and blood were deposited after a sacrifice. The posture of the chacmool is submissive, very similar to how war captives are often portrayed, and the usual fate of such captives was sacrifice. The figures are most often found in the vestibule of a temple or the palace of a ruler, placed in front of a dias or throne. They are closely related to Tlaloc, the god of rain that the Toltecs adopted from Teotihuacan, and that the Mexicas in turn got from the Toltecs. Regular, dependable cycles of rain were essential to these civilizations, based as they were upon agriculture. Tlaloc, an extremely irascible sort of god, would not be impressed by just any old sacrifice. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


An eagle and a jaguar trade war stories on this Mexica relief sculpture. Carved on the side of a stone seat, both the animals stand in human-like postures. The curved symbols emerging from their mouths represent speech. Another important aspect of the Toltec culture was the warrior cult. The elite among these were the Eagle and Jaguar cults, whose emblems appear at the Temple of the Warriors at Tollan, as well as at similar structures in Chichen Itza. The newly-settled Mexica were treated contemptuously and pushed from hither to yon by their urbanized neighbors. They decided to adopt Toltec-style militarism as the way to improve their status. In doing so, they closely copied the Toltec model of organization, among other things creating their own eagle and jaguar warrior cults. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Carved stone skulls line the sides of the Mexica tzompantli at the Templo Mayor. A tzompantli was a large wooden rack on which hundreds of human skulls were displayed after sacrifice. The racks would have been placed on top of stone pedestals, the sides of which were decorated like the one above. Similar tzompantlis stand adjacent to the Ball Courts at both Tollan and Chichen Itza. Ball games were often associated with human sacrifice, although it is a matter of some dispute whether it was the losing or the winning team that was afforded the honor of decapitation. In the case of the Mexica tzompantli, the skull rack was near the base of the great staircase of the Templo Mayor. Over time, many thousands trudged reluctantly up those stairs to their doom. While the Toltecs may have sacrificed many people in their time--and they were no slouches in this process--the Mexica took human sacrifice to a level never before seen in Mesoamerica. According to the Spanish, Mexica leaders proudly told them that when the Templo Mayor was inaugerated in 1487 AD by the great Emperor Ahuizotl, 1000 people were ritually killed each day over a 20-day period. The Mexica reported that a river of blood flowed down the great staircases of the Templo Mayor and into the plaza. The Nazis of the 20th Century would have been impressed. (Photo from Templo Mayor Museum)


The Role of Human Sacrifice


This great stone disk was the scene of sacrifice by ritual combat. The stone is all one piece and is huge, almost 1.22 m (4 ft) high and 3.05 m (10 ft) in diameter. On top is a great star-shaped carving with a circular pit in the middle, possibly a repository for hearts and blood. All around the sides are panels showing warriors in fierce combat. There were various forms of human sacrifice, and one of them was a gladiatorial contest, apparently conducted on top of the stone disk. On the shelf in the background stand a row of statues of Michtlantecuhtli, the god of death and lord of the underworld. Human sacrifice was conducted for both political and religious purposes. Its most obvious political value was to intimidate both external enemies and current allies, as well as to awe the underlying Mexica population. There may also have been a public entertainment value. Huge crowds once gathered to watch Roman crucifixions and gladiatorial contests. In other eras they came to watch people burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition, and hung from the gallows in the US up until the last half of the 20th Century. Demonstrations of power through the spectacle of public executions can a very effective political technique. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Two warriors fight it out in a ritual sacrifice. The one on the left seems to have the upper hand, quite literally, as he grasps the forelock of his opponent on the right. In Mesoamerican art, those victorious in battle are often shown dragging defeated warriors by their long hair. This is one of the side panels on the giant stone disk. The details of such carvings are always interesting to me. The warrior on the left carries a round shield, similar to one I will show later in this posting. He wears an elaborate head dress with what appears to be an bird on the front, possibly indicating the eagle warrior cult. He also wears a bracelet, a necklace and large ear rings, which in life would all have been jade. Across his chest is a butterfly-shaped breastplate, very similar to that seen on the Mexica atlantean in a previous photo. Such breast plates can also be seen on all the Toltec atlanteans at Tollan's Temple of the Warriors. His opponent carries a large club in his left hand and clutches a bundle of arrows with his right, but doesn't brandish either weapon. He looks toward the ground, in a posture of submission. I think we can guess whose heart will end up in the center bowl of the gladiatorial platform stone. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Another sacrifice disk shows an unusual feature. This one has a similar star-burst carved in the top, along with the circular pit in the center. However, extending out from the pit is a groove, apparently to drain off the blood for further use. All this fixation with blood relates directly to Mexica beliefs about  how the cosmos functions. Blood was considered the very essence of life. Huitzilopochitli, the god of both the sun and war, needed to be fed regularly with human blood because he was in a constant struggle to keep the sun moving across the sky and to defeat the forces of darkness. From the Mexica point of view, they were performing a public service with their massive killings. After all, who wouldn't want to ensure that the sun comes up every morning. It was a small price to pay, always assuming you didn't have to pay it yourself. I should note here that what I describe in a few paragraphs of this section is an extremely abbreviated version of a very complex cosmology. Although they certainly had their political agendas in their use of human sacrifice, the Mexica also seem to have genuinely believed in their view of the cosmos. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


An jaguar statue carries a small container for human blood on his back. A container like this may have been used to collect the blood flowing down the drainage slot on the stone disk seen in the last photo. Alternatively, since this piece is rather small to handle the copious amounts of blood from a killing, it may have been used for another sort of blood sacrifice. Sometimes people drew blood from themselves as an atonement or while making a special request of the gods. The person would use the sharp spine from a maguey leaf, or sometimes one from a manta ray, to pierce the tongue or genitals. This would not only produce sacrificial blood, but also excruciating pain. This, in turn, could induce a trance-like state in which the person could make contact with the world of the spirits. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


The skulls of two victims rest among other, less ghastly offerings. The large oval blade in the upper right is typical of the instruments used in the sacrifice process. Obsidian blades can be brought to a sharpness greater than modern surgical scalpels. The individual to be sacrificed would have been grasped by the arms and legs and held down while facing the sky. The priest would slice through the chest with the blade, reach in to pull out the still beating heart, and turn to display it to the waiting crowd before placing it in the bowl of a chacmool or that of a gladiatorial platform stone. The body would then be thrown down the long staircase of the Templo Mayor. Sometimes the skin of the victim was flayed (peeled off) and worn by the priests, symbolizing life emerging from death and corruption. At other times the body might be fed to the animals in the emperor's zoo, or even used in cannibalistic rituals. Resting against the oval blade is a spine used for self-piercing blood sacrifices. Also present are shell beads, jade ear rings, coral, and many smaller, non-lethal offerings. The Spanish, encountering all of this, professed themselves to be horrified, particularly when they witnessed from afar some of their comrades being sacrificed during the battle to conquer the Mexica. Of course, they conveniently forgot the horrific fate of all those tortured and burnt at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition, and all the others regularly massacred at the conclusion of the many battles and sieges of Renaissance Europe. (Photo from Templo Mayor Museum)


The Warror Cults and Mexica warfare

A full size statue of an Eagle Warrior was found in the ruins of the Templo Mayor in 1978. Eagle Warriors (in Nahuatl: cuãuhtli) wore elaborate costumes over cotton armor. Their open-beaked headdress/helmets were made of painted wood and the entire outfit was decorated with feathers. Along with the Jaguar Warriors, the Eagles were the elite of the Mexica army. They were the best trained, fiercest, and most respected fighters of the empire. Another indication of the Eagle Warriors' special status is that, in the Mexica mythology, eagles were symbols for the god of the sun and war, Huitzilopochitli. Most of the Eagle Warriors came from the nobility, but a commoner could gain membership through battle prowess and especially by capturing prisoners. In fact, a warrior gained much more status from a live prisoner than a dead enemy. Huitzilopochitli was always hungry for blood, famished as he was from the effort of keeping the universe from running off the rails. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


A Jaguar Warrior wore the skin and head of a jaguar as his uniform. Called ocelõtl in Nahuatl, Jaguar Warriors were named after the largest, fiercest, and most cunning animal predator of the Mesoamerican world. Jaguars hunt at night, a fact giving them a special status among the ancients who believed the big cats were connected with the underworld and with Tezcatlipoca, the god of the night sky. The Jaguar Warrior above carries a round shield in his left hand and brandishes the basic Mexica hand weapon in his right, the deadly Macuahuitl. Both the Jaguars and Eagles were intensively trained in its use, much as medieval knights trained with the sword. The basic Macuahuitl was a flat, rectangular paddle about 1 m (3 ft) long with a handle on one end. There were also some longer versions, intended to be wielded with both hands. The edges of the paddle were fitted with razor-sharp obsidian blades. Spanish soldiers who faced warriors wielding a Macuahuitl claimed that they could decapitate a horse with one blow. Like the Eagles, the Jaguar Warriors gained their status by capturing enemies. To become a Jaguar, a soldier had to capture at least 12 opponents in two consecutive battles. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Mexica soldiers were equipped with an extensive armory. While the elite units wore costumes representing their animal totems, the basic soldier wore little clothing other than a loin cloth and sandals.  Some of his weapons are shown above. On the left is a spear, generally about 2.13 m (7 ft) long and tipped with a flat wooden point edged with obsidian, much like a Macuahuitl. These could be thrown or used for stabbing. Next is the bow, about 1.5 m (5 ft) long and capable of firing an arrow as much as 137 m (450 ft). The Mexica also used two other long-range weapons: the sling (not shown) and the atlatl, seen in use by the soldier above. The sling had a range of 198 m (650 ft), even greater than a bow, and was a powerful weapon. It should be remembered that the Hebrew David was supposed to have slain the giant Goliath with just such a sling. The atlatl is a truly ancient weapon, invented long before the bow and arrow. Used properly, it can propel a short spear or dart with much greater force and range than if the weapon was thrown by hand. A Macuahuitl can be seen just under the elbow of the soldier. A soldier might also carry smaller weapons for close fighting such as the hand ax, seen above, or a dagger. For defense, the basic soldiers used relatively small, round shields. As previously noted, the elites protected themselves with cotton armor as well as shields. Notice, in particular, the shield with the yellow and black design next to the Macuahuitl.


Mexica shields were made of perishable materials, so only a few survive. Shields were made of wicker and wood, covered with leather or animal hide as shown above. They were then painted in various designs. Variations of the design shown above appear again and again in the the literature. Apparently these kinds of abstract designs were popular in the Mexica army. Shields were sometimes further decorated with feathers attached to the rims. Wicker shields and cotton armor were adequate defenses against pre-hispanic weapons, and Mexica Macuahuitli and other arms could be used with devastating effect against the empire's opponents. Unfortunately for the Mexica, they could not generally prevail against Spanish armor or weapons made of steel. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


This unidentified obsidian weapon may have functioned like a European halberd. The weapon appears to be a combination of a spear and and a curved ax. That would suggest a similarity to the halberd, a weapon mounted on a long pole and used by European foot soldiers against mounted troops in the 15th and 16th Centuries. I was somewhat puzzled by this weapon, which was unaccompanied by any explanatory sign, because the pre-hispanic world contained no horses or other riding animals, and thus no cavalry or mounted troops to defend against. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Trade and Commerce within the Empire

Mexica and Totonac leaders meet to talk politics and trade. The Mexica diplomat/trader called a Pochteca stands on the left, identified by his typical Mexica shield. The Totonac leader bears gifts and wears a type of head dress which is still worn by indigenous dancers called Quetzalines whom I have seen perform in Puebla State. Some 60,000 Totonac-speaking people still live in Mexico's Gulf Coast area, and as far inland as Puebla. Their civilization once extended all the way down the Coast to the Maya areas bordering the Yucatan Peninsula. However, by the time of the Spanish arrival, the Mexica had extended their control over much of this area and many Totonac city-states paid regular tribute to the empire. The Mexica did not usually lay waste to cities they conquered, nor even station troops there when they moved on. They allowed the local people to administer and police themselves, but required regular delivery of tribute consisting of the community's best products, including people for sacrifice. This, of course, was not popular within the conquered areas and resulted in periodic revolts. However, the establishment of the empire did promote trade and commercial activity. (Photo from the Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace)


The Pochteca transported high-value goods throughout the empire. Pochteca were Mexica traders and merchants who traveled throughout the empire and beyond. Given the lack of draft animals in Mesoamerica, everything had to be carried by the trader or by his servants. Goods therefore needed to be relatively light and compact. These might include conch shells which could be made into trumpets, jade jewelry, and copper axes as seen above. Other suitable items might include cacao beans, (sometimes used as currency as well as to make chocolate), obsidian blades, and beautifully woven cloth. The Pochteca were commoners, but achieved a higher status than any other non-nobles. They organized themselves into guilds and lived in their own neighborhoods. They even had their own god, Yacatecuhtli, who was the patron of trade. Because they traveled throughout the empire, and to other places not under Mexica control, they were also used as an intelligence network. The Pochteca were also trained as warriors, and needed to be, because they were sometimes attacked by people who viewed them--and rightly so--as an arm of the Mexica oppressors. These traders were important enough to the Mexica State that their traveling parties were sometimes protected by military escorts, if the threat was great enough. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


The great tianguis of Tenochtitlán was a market of amazing diversity.Tianguis is the Nahuatl word for street market, and many are still held all over Mexico, 500 years after Cortés first saw this one when he entered the Mexica capital. The Spanish were astounded by the variety, quantity, and quality of goods flowing into the seat of the empire from all points of the compass. The Mexica viewed Tenohtitlán as the center of their world, and the Pochteca saw the tianguis as the center of Tenochtitlán. The original tianguis was located in an area southwest of the Templo Mayor called Tlatelolco. In the background above, you can see Tenochtitlán spreading out into the distance, dotted with pyramids and temples. The tianguis above looks like many I have visited, except for the clothing of the participants. (Photo from the Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace)


Toy wooden boats indicate the importance of this form of transportation to the Mexica. Living on an island as they did, water transportation was essential. Some goods could come by road and over the several causeways that led into the city. However, water transportation enabled a Pochteca to transport goods more quickly and economically among the various communities lining the shores of Lake Texcoco. As they approached the city for the first time, the Spanish reported seeing great fleets of such boats plying the areas around Tenochtitlán. (Photo from National Anthropological Museum)


Two Mexica barter over maiz, using cacao beans as money. This painting provides a good sense of the clothing and adornment of Mexica merchants and their customers, as well as the interactions between them. Although modern, urbanized people now think of maiz (corn) as uniformly yellow, it was not originally that way. Maiz came (and in a few places still comes) in a wide variety of colors and possessed different qualities, depending on where it was grown and how it was cultivated. Most of this variety has been lost to the standardization techniques of modern agribusiness. Cacao beans had intrinsic value as the source of the luxury drink we know as chocolate. However, because of their small and relatively uniform size, they could function as a medium of exchange. Other kinds of currency included small copper bells, jade beads, and feathers. (Detail from the Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace)

A giant stone snake writhes along the base of the Templo Mayor. When the Spanish arrived in 1519, the Mexica (Aztecs) were at the peak of their power and wealth. Their capital, Tenochtitlán, was larger in size and population, as well as more splendid and clean, than most of the cities of Europe at the time. The conquistadors were stunned by what they saw. In this and the following posting, we'll take a look at how this now-vanished world appeared to them, and also at some of its long-buried but recently unearthed fragments. Unlike many other ruined cities of Mesoamerica, we have the advantage of first-hand reports from Conquistador Hernán Cortésand his goggle-eyed soldiers. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Tenochtitlán as the Spanish found it

As the Spanish descended through the surrounding mountains, this view greeted them. Spreading out below was the vast Lago de Texcoco. Close to the southwest shore was a great island city, connected to the mainland by four large causeways and two aqueducts. The center of the city was dominated by a Sacred Precinct full of temples and palaces. In his book "The Discovery and Conquest of New Spain," written after the fall of Tenochtitlán, one of Cortés' young officers named Bernal Diaz del Castillo remembered it this way:

"When we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments (...) on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream? (...) I do not know how to describe it, seeing things as we did that had never been heard of or seen before, not even dreamed about."

(Photo of painting in the National Anthropological Museum)


As the Spanish approached along a causeway, the city sparkled from the water of many canals. The canals enabled the easy transport of goods and people throughout the city. The structure that dominated all others was a great twin-temple, called by the Spanish "el Templo Mayor"(the Main Temple). It was devoted to the rain god Tlaloc and the god of the sun and war, Huitzilopochitli. The Mexica founded their city in 1325 AD, and in less than 200 years had transformed a deserted island into one of the great urban centers of the world. In a letter to the King of Spain, Hernán Cortés described what he saw:

"This great city of Tenochtitlán is built on the salt lake, and no matter by what road you travel there are two leagues from the main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very wide, there are bridges..."

 (Photo from Diego Rivera mural at the Palacio National)


The Templo Mayor was literally and figuratively the center of the Mexica world. Above, in the top center of the model, you see the great twin-temple surrounded by many other beautiful buildings. It went through at least seven enlargements over 200 years, one on top of the other. The Templo Mayor reached a final height of 45 m (148 ft). The Mexica emperors seem to have been afflicted with the same infirmity suffered by modern politicians known as an "edifice complex." There were 78 major structures in the Zona Sagrado (Sacred Precinct). Bracketing the bases of the Templo Mayor's two great staircases were huge stone snake heads like the one in the first photo. Directly in front of the Templo Mayor was the Templo Quetzalcoatl, with its unusual curved base and conical top. In the bottom center is the huge wooden rack upon which hundreds of skulls were mounted, products of the human sacrifices conducted regularly at the top of the Templo Mayor. Cortés' letter to the King continues:.

"There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or houses for their idols. They are all very beautiful buildings.... Amongst these temples there is one, the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe, for it is so large that within the precincts, which are surrounded by very high wall, a town of some five hundred inhabitants could easily be built. All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors where their priests live. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville...".

(Photo from in the National Anthropological Museum)

El Templo Mayor as it is today


The ruins of the Templo Mayor lie adjacent to Mexico City's Catedral and Zócalo. In 1521 AD, Mexica Emperor Moctezuma II cautiously greeted Cortés and his Conquistadores. Initially, the emperor thought they might be the fulfillment of the ancient Toltec prophesy about the return of the god/hero Quezalcoatl. Cortés, after a short time, launched a coup d'etat and put Moctezuma under house arrest. This situation continued uneasily until, in Cortés' absence, Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado massacred a large number of Mexica nobles, claiming they were plotting a counter-coup. The Mexica, already disturbed by Spanish control over their emperor, were enfuriated and rose up in revolt. The Spanish were driven out of the city in the famous Noche Triste (Night of Sorrow). They suffered heavy losses and were forced to retreat to Tlaxcala, the land of their indigenous allies. During this conflict--depending upon whose account you believe--Moctezuma was killed either by the Mexica or the Spanish. Cortés returned with more Spanish soldiers and thousands of indigenous warriors who were eager to overthrow their former masters. In the ensuing house-to-house battle for Tenochtitlán, the city was reduced to rubble. What the Mexica built in 200 years, the Spanish took only weeks to utterly destroy. Descriptions of the aftermath sound like Berlin in 1945. Using the rubble, the Spanish started building the capital of Nueva España (New Spain), which ultimately became Mexico City. Although they gloried in their triumph, some of the Spanish regretted the destruction of this enchanting, dream-like city. Perhaps the best epitaph was that of Bernal Diaz del Castillo:

 "I stood looking at {the Mexica capital} and thought that never in the world would there be discovered lands such as these...Of all the wonders that I then beheld, today all that I then saw is overthrown and lost... nothing is left standing..."

(Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Stone warriors lean against the Templo Mayor's great double staircase. The Sacred Precinct was guarded by numerous figures like these. Many of the stone warriors have hands that once gripped poles from which banners waved. The building you see in the upper left is from the colonial period. The Spanish were eager to assert their authority and to show all of Mesoamerica that the Mexica were no longer in power. They quickly dismantled what was left of the many public buildings and temples and used their materials to build churches, palaces, and other official structures in their own style. Stone from the Templo Mayor itself was used to build the Metropolitan Cathedral. Tenochtitlán completely disappeared from view and even the location of its old structures was forgotten. Over the centuries, periodic renovations occasionally revealed an artifact such as the "Aztec Calendar", discovered in 1790. During the regime of Porfirio Diazin the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, much work was done to "spiff up" the Centro area of Mexico City. This process resulted in many more archaeological discoveries. By then, however, wealthy neighborhoods covered many of the suspected ruins and the inhabitants were not eager to have major excavations disrupt their beautiful neighborhoods. In addition, they gloried in their Spanish heritage and disparaged indigenous history. Why should they, literally, "dig up the past"? Then came the Revolution and a revived interest in Mexico's ancient history.  (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)



The twin temples on top of the Templo Mayor, as they may have looked in Cortés day. The temple of Tlaloc is on the left. He was a very ancient god, going back at least to Teotihuacan, 500 years before the founding of Tenochtitlán. To the right is the temple of Huitzilopochitli, a god who did not become a major player until the Mexica arrived on the scene. He was the god of the sun of the 5th Age, the one in which the Mexica lived. In a mystical game of "musical chairs", other gods, including Tlaloc, had dominated the suns of the four previous ages. The Mexica believed that it was only because of Huitzilopochli's strenuous efforts that the sun made its way across the sky, then through the dark underworld, to fnally rise again each morning. As you might imagine, such a task required a great deal of energy, and the energy came from offerings of human blood. Since not many people could be expected to volunteer for such a dubious honor, most of the blood came from war captives, or people delivered as tribute by cities the Mexica had conquered. Therein lies the connection to Huitzilpochitli's other major area of responsibility, war. One of the incarnations of this war god was the eagle, probably because this great bird is a fierce predator who flies across the sky. This fit very nicely with the Mexica's military ambitions, and desire to emulate the militarized Toltec State. One of the two great Toltec military cults was that of the Eagle Warriors. Before moving to the next photos, take a look at the roof decorations on both temples above, and also the pillars framing the doorway of Tlaloc's temple. (Photo from the Museo del Templo Mayor)


Large stone flowers decorated the tops of the twin temples. It at first seemed odd to me, given the blood-thirsty natures of both Tlaloc and Huitzilopochitli, that these decorations should be flowers. Perhaps it is not so odd, after all, when you consider that the Mexica conducted special wars, called Xōchiyāōyōtl ("Flowery Wars") to collect captives for sacrifice. They went so far as to allow independent, hostile states such as Tlaxcala to exist within the overall boundaries of their empire. The maintenance of these human "game preserves" was not unlike a rich man who keeps a pond full of trout on his property so he can catch fresh fish and feed them to his guests. Needless to say, the Tlaxcalans were not enamored of their part in this arrangement. They became extremely xenophobic, and were at first fiercely antagonistic to the Spanish. However, once Cortés convinced them that the Mexica were an enemy they had in common, the Tlaxcalans became loyal and valuable allies. Clearly, the few hundred Spanish troops with Cortés could not possibly have conquered an empire of millions on their own. With out the help of the Tlaxcalans, and many other former Mexica subjects, Cortés and his men would have left their bones to bleach white under the bright sun of Mexico, probably after they paid their final visit to the top of the Templo Mayor.  (Photo from the Museo del Templo Mayor)


This pillar once stood on the right side of the doorway to Tlaloc's temple. Above the horizontal blue and red stripes on the pillar are a row of circular symbols about the size of a dinner plate. These features are called chalchihuites and represent jewels. They are an architectural feature that can also be found at the ruins of Teotihuacan, as well as at Cacaxtla, a city north of Puebla that thrived in the centuries following the collapse of Teotihuacan. Like many Mexica deities, Tlaloc had a dual nature. He could be beneficial, by providing rain to grow the all-important maiz (corn). He could also be destructive, bringing violent storms with their thunder, lightning, and high winds. Tenochtitlán was subject to periodic floods as Lago de Texcoco rose, which may also have been seen as one of Tlaloc's bad moods. An image of the rain god once stood on a bench inside the temple, and other images can be found in many other places and artifacts that I will show in future postings. To ensure adequate rain, and to avoid violent storms, it was believed necessary to provide Tlaloc with regular sacrifices, apart from those that were provided to his blood-hungry neighbor.  (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


This stone, known as a Techcatl, was a place where human sacrifices occurred. The black stone is made of tezontle, a volcanic material common for buildings in Mexico City. The Techcatl was set in the floor in front of the Huitzilopochitli shrine. Many a human heart beat its last before being summarily cut out of its living owner while he or she was stretched across this stone. Inside the shrine on a small altar stood an image of the sun/war god. According to historical reports, the image was made of seeds. On either side of the temple entrances were huge braziers in which fires blazed which were kept constantly burning to symbolize eternity. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)



A chacmool reclines in Tlaloc's doorway. The slant of the floor is due to the subsidence into the mud of the former lakebed. This was a problem that plagued the Mexica, and continued to plague the Spanish and Mexican authorities after them. In addition to gradual subsidence, the mud underlying the city tends to liquify during earthquakes, causing much more damage than if the city had been built on solid ground. The great Metropolitan Cathedral across the street from the Templo Mayor needs almost continuous work to keep it stabilized. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Tlaloc'schacmool still wears much of his original 500-year-old paint. Both Tlaloc and chacmools were elements of Totlec culture adopted by the Mexica, although they may have also noted Tlaloc's presence in the ruins of Teotihuacan. It is believed that, following a sacrifice, the heart and blood were placed in the bowl the chacmool holds on its stomach. I was not able to determine the purpose of the pit just beyond the chacmool, or whether it was ancient or of modern origin. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


The Plaza around Templo Mayor

In front of the Templo Mayor is a plaza where excavations have yielded numerous treasures.  Visible is another of the several great snake heads that adorn the front of the Templo. Early in the 20th Century, the location of Templo Mayor was rediscovered, but again little was done archaeologically. In 1979, at the base of the great staircase of the Templo Mayor, construction workers discovered a huge carved disk 3.25 m (10.5 ft) in diameter. On it was carved the dismembered body of the goddess Coyolxauhqui. After this, scientific excavation began in earnest. According to Mexica cosmology, Coyolxauhqui ("Face Painted With Bells") was the daughter of Coatlicue, "The Mother of Gods", or "Mother Goddess of Earth". Coatlicue was an important deity with a truly monstrous appearance. Her head was a double-headed serpent, and she wore a necklace of human heads and hearts. Her skirt was a mass of snakes and she wore a human skull for a belt buckle. In spite of this appearance, she had apparently had suitors enough to give birth to at least 400 god and goddess children, including the treacherous Coyolxauhqui. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


The great stone disk of Coyolxauhqui, showing her dismembered body. It seems that Coatlicue became pregnant from contact with a ball of hummingbird feathers. She subsequently gave birth to Quezalcoatl ("The Plumed Serpent") and Xolotl ("God of Lightning and Death"). Coatlicue's daughter Coyolxauhqui incited her hundreds of brothers and sisters into jealousy, and they and attacked the Mother of Gods, decapitating her on the mountain called Coatepec (in some versions, she survived). The Mexica pantheon appears to have been a violent and very overpopulated place, probably not unlike the Mexica emperor's court. Instantly upon Coatlicue's death, Huitzilopochitli sprang from her womb fully armed and armored and killed many of his new brothers and sisters. He dismembered Coyolxauhqui, leader of the disloyal pack, and threw her head into the sky to become the moon. This was a gesture to his decapitated mother so she wouldn't pine for her treacherous daughter. The rest of Coyolxauhqui he threw to the base of the mountain which his mother was killed. Archaeologists believe this is why her disk was found near the bottom of the great staircase of the Templo Mayor. This may also have originated the tradition of tossing the bodies of sacrificial victims down the stairs. According to the legend, every month since this dramatic event, the sun defeats the moon and cuts it into pieces (phases), replicating Coyolxauhqui's dismemberment by Huitzilopochitli. The discovery of the great disk of Coyolxauhqui set off a series of excavations at the Templo Mayor that continues to this day. The museum at the site, opened in 1987, beautifully displays thousands of the artifacts recovered, and is a must-visit for any Mexico City tourist interested in its ancient history.  The photo above had to be taken from a gallery one floor up because the disk is too large to capture shooting from its own level. (Photo from the Museo del Templo Mayor)


Excavations in the plaza show how layer after layer was added over the centuries. Because of repeated flooding and soil subsidence, various emperors ordered additional levels added, in order to keep the Sacred Precinct above the water level. The plaza filled an area of 4000 m (2.48 mi) square, and contained more than six dozen temples, pyramids, palaces, and other buildings. The whole area was surrounded by a stone wall called a coatepantli which was decorated with snakes in carved relief. A very similar wall once surrounded the Toltec Temple of the Warriors at their capital of Tollan. In my next posting, I will show some of the other buildings that once occupied this area. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Like many other Mesoamerican civilizations, the Mexica built over previous structures. Above you can see some of the various layers of buildings constructed over 200 years. The ancient people, rather than tear down an old, unwanted, or deteriorating building, simply built a bigger version on top. There were good reasons for this practice. In addition to the difficulty of building an entirely new pyramid from the ground up, it must be remembered that Tenochtitlán was an island, with limited space. The object covered by the roof in the corner was some sort of mythical animal that was part of an altar. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Tenochtitlán had a sophisticated water system for its time. Above is a water channel discovered under several layers of the plaza. Two large terracotta aqueducts fed the city fresh water from springs at the on-shore hill of Chapultepec.  Each aqueduct possessed a double channel and each was more than 4 km (2.5 mi) long. Lago de Texcoco itself was brackish (salty), although fed by fresh underwater springs. In 1453, during the reign of MoctezumaI, a dike was completed that separated the frresh, underwater springs from the broader, brackish areas of the lake. This was a considerable engineering accomplishment, given the lack of draft animals, wheeled vehicles, or metal tools. The levee of Nezahualcoyctl, when completed, was between 12 and 16 km (7.5 to 9.9 mi) in length. The new areas of fresh water adjacent to the island were used to create the famous chinampas, or floating gardens, some of which still exist. These were artificial islands created by driving stakes into the lakebed and then fencing them with wattle. Layered with mud and decaying vegetation, the fenced portion eventually reached above the waterline where it could be planted. The stakes themselves sometimes took root and became trees. The Mexica thus created their own arable land. The chinampas were easily accessible from the city and--just as important--easily defended by the moat created by the lake. Tenochtitlán had no sewers, but it did have an extensive system of public and private toilets where waste was collected in canoes to be used as fertilizer on the chinampas. The Mexica waste system, along with the frequent baths enabled by the fresh water from the aqueducts, created a remarkably healthy environment for a large city. It was certainly far superior to anything existing in Europe at the time. Unfortunately none of this afforded any defense against the diseases the Spanish brought.  (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


The tilted plaza and snake head are another example of Mexico city's sinking base. After their city began to grow in power, the Mexica decided to reorganize it physically and administratively. They divided Tenochtitlán into five quadrants. The Sacred Precinct was surrounded by the other four. These four quadrants may have originated with four large communal structures that the original nomads built after their arrival on the then-deserted island. In the re-organization, each of the four non-sacred precincts was formed around its own central plaza containing a market and homes for the nobles. The common people lived on the outskirts of these plazas. All this was laid down in a strict grid pattern, based on the four cardinal directions. The Mexica apparently modeled this pattern after the nearby ruins of Teotihuacan. The canals that criss-crossed the city followed this same grid pattern, as did the streets and major causeways. Viewing all this superb organization, the Spanish were dumbfounded. They came from crowded, dirty cities with narrow, crooked streets that followed ancient Medieval lines. The resulting filth and disease made for short lives, but did create a certain immunity to the diseases they brought with them. Though they wanted to see these New World people as savage, uncivilized barbarians, it was difficult to make the charge stick, except for the issue of mass human sacrifice. The Spanish seized on this as a justification for much of what they did, though the depredations of the Inquisition were as bad or worse. Where you stand depends on where you sit. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)



A huge snake slithers along one of the Templo Mayor's lower steps. Snakes were one of the three most sacred animals of the Mexica world, along with jaguars and eagles. Many other animals, including frogs, turtles, and rabbits, appear in the mythology, but they seem to have lesser roles. Quetzalcoatl (The Feathered Serpent) was one of the most important gods, going all the way back to Olmec times, almost 3000 years before the Mexica appeared on the scene. Part of a snake's power (at the least the deadly kinds) was its ability to strike suddenly from ambush, inflicting a mortal wound. In addition, snakes regularly shed their skins, so they also became symbols of rebirth, a powerful concept in Mesoamerica. Since the body of the snake above connects to the head of the same snake that first appears in this posting, perhaps this is the right place to close this segment. (Photo from the Templo Mayor archaeological site)

This completes Part 2 of my Mexico City series. Next week we'll take a look at some of other interesting structures that have been unearthed in the area of the Templo Mayor. I hope you found this posting of interest. If you'd like to comment or offer any corrections, I encourage you to do so by using the Comments section below or emailing me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

This magnificent stone eagle can be found in the Templo Mayor museum. Unearthed in 1985, the sculpture is large, about 1.22 m (4 ft) long and 1 m (3 ft) high at the beak. The piece is called a cuauhxicalli, a Nahuatl word meaning "eagle's drinking gourd." A large bowl set in the eagle's back once received sacrificial human hearts and blood. The fine feathers radiating from around the eagle's eye represent sunbeams and indicate a connection with the sun and therefore with the most important Mexica (Aztec) deity, Huitzilopochitli. Probably carved around 1502 AD, the cuauhxicalli is one of numerous sculptures that glorify eagles. Many of these have been found in or around ruins that archaeologists call the House of Eagles, located in an area known as the North Patio next to the massive Templo Mayor. For a look at the TemploMayor and the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlán, see the previous posting.  (Photo taken at Templo Mayor museum)


The House of Eagles

The House of Eagles is protected from the elements by a large metal awning. In the foreground you can see the various levels of the North Patio that were built up over the centuries as Lake Texcoco periodically flooded the ancient island city. Also known as the Palace of Eagle Warriors, the House of Eagles was destroyed during the Spanish assault on Tenochtitlán, which may also have caused the damage you can see on the eagle in the previous photo. The Eagle House was one of the most important structures in the Sacred Precinct of the city. This was where the Mexica elite, which included the Eagle Warriors, conducted ceremonies, meditated, prayed, and rendered offerings. It was a large complex, spread out over a broad platform with columns, meeting rooms, and patios. The initial House of Eagles was built in 1430 AD and then was enlarged in 1470 by the Emperor Axayócatl. The third and final structure was finished in 1500. After the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlán in 1521, they built the Church of Santiago Apóstol on top of the ruins of the Eagle House. Since this had been one of the key centers of power in the Mexica Empire, the Spanish wanted to obliterate any memory it. They were successful until the 1980s when it was rediscovered during the excavation of the Templo Mayor area. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Wearing an eagle-beak helmet, a stern-faced warrior scowls fiercely across the centuries. If the Mexica were the Nazis of their era, given their industrial-scale human sacrifice program, the Eagle Warriors were their SS troopers. They were the elite of the elite, totally dedicated to warfare and enamored of the symbols of death. Male children of noble families were given high levels of education, including extensive military training. Many of these young men aspired to become Eagle Warriors, a status they could only gain by capturing a large number of enemy warriors in two successive military engagements. Capturing enemies was considered much more glorious than killing them, because they could then be used to feed gods that were ever-hungry for human blood. (Photo taken at the National Museum of Anthropology)


Eagle heads bracket the broad staircase leading up to the main platform. The L-shaped platform was discovered in 1981. Inside the platform is an older substructure built in 1469 AD. Only part of the House of Eagles has been fully excavated because the rest lies under an adjacent street. Tunnels have been built into that section, revealing rooms with wall murals and long benches with carved friezes of warriors. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)



Life-sized statues of Mictlantecuhtli, the God of Death, once flanked interior doorways. This clay and stucco figure, created approximately 1480 AD, represents the God of Death who was the Lord of the Underworld called Mictlan. It was a cold, damp place somewhere in the north that was the lowest part of the universe. Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of Mictlan, was the most important of the several gods and goddesses of death the Mexica worshipped. This statue and a similar one were found when the ruins of the House of Eagles were excavated. I have seen a number of different sculptures of Mictlantecuhtli at various museums, and he is nearly always shown in a similar posture, with a skull-like face and hands raised like claws. This statue shows the God of Death with half of his flesh stripped away, as if from a rotting corpse or one that has been flayed, leaving his skull and ribcage exposed.  Below his ribcage, his liver hangs down. The liver was thought by the Mexica to be the home of the spirit, a belief shared by prehispanic people back to very ancient times. While modern people might view such a sculpture with horror or revulsion, the Mexica saw such skeletal figures as symbols of fertility, health, and abundance. They believed that death and rebirth were closely associated with the cycles of the seasons. (Photo taken at Templo Mayor museum)



Inside the Eagle House is a series of rooms where the walls are lined with long benches. Only the Eagle Warriors and similar elites were allowed in this special place. They sat on the benches as they observed, participated in, or led various rituals. The benches show a strong Toltec influence. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


An interesting example of the God of Death dressed as an Eagle Warrior. The skull-like face wears a toothy grin and has a bone through its nose. Human hands dangle as earrings from his ears and he wears others as a necklace. His face peers from a huge eagle beak helmet and his right hand holds a weapon raised to strike. In his left hand, he carries a typical round Mexica shield decorated with geometric designs and edged along the bottom with feathers. Extending from his right knee is a set of eagle claws, a typical part of an Eagle Warrior's costume. (Photo taken at the National Museum of Anthropology)


Four pillars once stood at the corners of this small sunken patio. At the top center of the photo is the base of another pillar with a carved flower decoration. Extending along the wall to the right is one of the many benches typical of these rooms. It is likely that ceremonies were conducted within the sunken area while spectators observed from the benches. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Carved stone flowers decorate some of the pillars. The four petals of the flower represent the four cardinal directions of the world, each related to its own god. To the East was Tlaloc, the god of rain, life, and fertility. To the West was Chaichihuitl, related to fertility and to jade. To the North was Mictlantecuhtli, the god of death, with whom we have already made acquaintance. To the south was Xochipilli, the god of dance, music, art, beauty, and flowers. In the center was Tonatiuh, the god of the sun whose face appears in the center of the famous Aztec Calendar. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)



A corner of one of the benches reveals a colorful bas relief carving. At Tollan, the Toltec capitol, the Palacio Quemado (Burned Palace) has similar rooms with very similar benches to these lining its walls. For political reasons, the Mexica wanted desperately to connect their present with the past greatness of the Toltecs whose empire had fallen hundreds of years before the Mexica arrived on the scene. They scoured the ruins of Tollan for architectural and sculptural artifacts to emulate. It has often been said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


The benches show processions of warriors in full, feathered regalia. Traces of the ancient paint can still be seen. On the lip of the bench above the warriors are what appear to be a series of serpents pursuing each other. This is also a common Toltec theme. The warriors are converging on a zacatapayolli, which was a ball of dried moss or grass used to hold the bloody spines that the elite class utilized in self-sacrifice ceremonies. (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


A tripod bowl contains spines similar to those used in self-sacrifice rituals. In the ritual, the person would use the spines to pierce his own tongue or genitals. This produced blood for offerings as well as exquisite pain leading to a trance state allowing communication with the gods. In addition to needles like these, the Mexica used spines from the maguay plant, manta ray spines, and obsidian knives. (Photo taken at the National Museum of Anthropology)


The Tzompantli

A tzompantli altar stands adjacent to the House of Eagles in the North Patio. The tzompantli is the structure in the lower right section of the photo with rows of skulls carved into the stone. In the background, the huge Metropolitan Cathedral occupies one whole side of the the Zócalo, as the central plaza of Mexico City is known. All the current buildings surrounding the Zocalo were built over the ruins of the Mexica's Sacred Precinct temples, pyramids, and palaces.  (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)


Detail of the tzompantli, showing the skull rows. The altar was carved with 240 skulls set in rows around the sides. One one side is a stairway flanked by balustrades. A tzompantli very similar to this one stands next to the great Maya Ball Court of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula. There is a great archaeological controversy about the exact relationship between the Maya of Chichen Itza and the Toltec Empire, located in faraway Central Mexico. Mysteriously, many archaeological aspects of Chichen Itza closely resemble those found at Tollan. There is no doubt, however, that the Mexica copied the Toltecs in many aspects of their culture.The site shown above is clearly related to human sacrifice, it is not where the actual skulls of sacrifice victims were displayed, however.  (Photo taken at the Templo Mayor archaeological site)

A selection of the offerings left in the interior of the North Patio tzompantli altar. The interior area of the altar contained offerings including the skeletons of a puma and a wolf, as well as human skulls, musical instruments, jewelry, and other objects.  (Photo taken at Templo Mayor museum)

The Red Temple

The Red Temple is so-named because of the red paint used throughout. The Red Temple is adjacent to the House of Eagles and was used by the Eagle Warriors. This temple is interesting for the very strong influence of Teotihuacan. which the Mexica named "The Place Where The Gods Were Born." Like the Toltec ruins at Tollan, the Mexica ransacked the ruins of Teotihuacan. In fact, they mistakenly thought that Teotihuacan, located about 56 km (35 mi) northeast of Mexico City, was a Toltec ruin itself. The Red Temple uses the signature Teotihuacantalud-tablero architectural forms. These involve a rectangular framed space set above a sloping wall. Above, the cylindrical structure in the middle of the temple was the altar.


Another Teotihuacan feature is this row of red-painted rings. Such circular features are called chalchihuetes, and can be seen at the Temple of the Jaguar along the Avenue of the Dead at Teotihuacan.


Other features near the Templo Mayor

An exquisitely carved stone replica of a conch shell was recently discovered in the area. This may have been one of those reported to have been used as decorations on the temple to Tlaloc atop the Templo Mayor. Conch shells were often turned into trumpets in ancient Mesoamerica. This may be yet another connection between Teotihuacan and the Mexica. At the Quetzalpapalotl Palace at Teotihuacan there is a wall mural of a jaguar blowing a conch shell under the image of Tlaloc. Conch shell trumpets were often used ceremonially to summon Tlaloc so that he would bring needed rain.


Snake heads stud the walls in many parts of the Templo Mayor. Worship of Quetzalcoatl, the Plumed Serpent, goes back at least to the Pre-Classic era, and gained prominence at Teotihuacan (100 AD-650 AD) where there is a massive palace dedicated to the snake god. The Mexica believed that Quetzalcoatl ruled the sun during the second of the five successive worlds. He was a relatively benevolent god of creation who gave humans the gift of maiz (corn). They also believed a legend passed down from the Toltecs that he had ruled over Tollan for a time, before being betrayed and driven out. He was said to have departed toward the east from the Gulf Coast on a raft of snakes, pledging to return one day. The Mexica Emperor Moctezuma may have initially treated Hernán Cortés with kid gloves, believing the Spaniard might be the fulfillment of the legend, arriving as he did by sea from the west. However, some historians now dispute this story as a creation of Franciscan friars who arrived after the Conquest.


We encountered this small altar on the edge of the North Patio.  There was no sign or other indication of which god was worshiped at this altar. Visible just above the platform is the weathered head of an animal.


A frowning beast with a curly mane peers out from the wall of the small unidentified alter. There appears to be a hole extending into the wall below him, and another on the top of the stone head. My best guess is that copal incense was burned in the lower hole, with the upper acting as a chimney.

This completes Part 3 of my Mexico City series. Next week I will explore some other aspects of Mexica life along with photos of some of the remarkable and beautiful objects the artisans of this lost world crafted. I always encourage feedback and corrections. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so in the Comments section or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Skulls inlaid with tuquoise mosaic were among the more macabre forms of Mexica art. The Mexica (Aztec) Empire was far-flung and could demand tribute from many different parts of Mesoamerica. The Mixtecs of Oaxaca were especially skilled at this type of art, and the tribute lists of Mexica Emperor Moctezuma II included demands that the Mixtecs deliver 10 turquoise mosaic skull masks each year. The presence of turquoise in Oaxaca testifies to the extensive trade networks operating at the time, since it could only be obtained from the people of the Pueblo Culture in what is now the Southwestern United States. Hundreds of turquoise mosaic masks have also been found in Teotihuacan, a trading empire that fell 600 years before the Mexica arrived on the scene. Its ruins are located not far from the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlán (modern Mexico City). Wanting to obscure their humble Chichimeca ancestry, the Mexica often adopted the styles and practices of the great Toltec Empire that had preceded them. They may have developed a taste for turquoise inlaid skulls when they looted the ruins of Teotihuacan, which they mistakenly thought was a Toltec site. The existence of turquiose mosaic masks at Teotihuacan indicates that Mesoamerian trade networks were not only broad geographically, but were also very ancient. In this posting, we will take a look at various examples of artisanship during the Mexica Empire (1325 AD-1521 AD) that dominated the Late Post-Classic Era. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


Mexica ideals of male and female beauty

This Mexica face exudes strength and confidence. The sculptor carved the head from volcanic rock, while he fashioned the eyes and teeth from bone and shell. At the time the Spanish arrived, the Mexica were at the height of their power and influence. The face above illustrates their ideal of male strength. The Mexica revived the concept of sculpture-in-the-round, which had not been widely practiced by Mesoamerican artisans since the Olmec period (1500 BC-400 BC), eighteen hundred years before the Mexica founded Tenochtitlán. The various civilizations that existed between them in time practiced relief sculpture almost exclusively. The Mexica did not even know the long-vanished Olmec had onced existed. It is unlikely that any Olmec artifacts, long-buried in the swamps of the Gulf Coast, would have been available to use as models. The use of sculpture-in-the-round resulted from the Mexica re-discovery of a very ancient artistic concept. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


The Mexica sense of female beauty is expressed in this lovely bust. The lower part of the face is painted black, which was often done on real-life ceremonial occasions. The face above is more graceful and sensual than the male bust in the previous photo. Her eyes are partially closed with her lips forming a faint Mona Lisa smile. Completing the pose, she tilts her head slightly back. I thought the whole effect created was a classic "come hither" look. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


Personal decoration

Beautiful jade necklaces like this were worn by the nobility almost exclusively. Various ancient murals, wall reliefs, and sculptures show the upper classes well-adorned with just this sort of finery. In all the ancient Mesoamerican cultures, jade was considered one of the most valuable of all substances, even more valuable than gold or silver. Wars were sometimes fought for control over deposits of this extremely hard green rock. Jade was used to create objects for personal decoration, as well as for sacred purposes, since Olmec times. Tenochtitlán was home to many jade carvers, as well as a vast population of other artists and craftsmen. People who engaged in these various crafts were grouped in their own neighborhoods, with their own customs and rituals. They even had their own goddess, Xochiquetzal ("Quetzal Bird Flower") who was the patroness of artisans who produced luxury items. Many of these craftsmen were native Mexica, but many others migrated to Tenochtitlán from all corners of the empire in order to be close to their wealthy customers. (Photograph taken at the Templo Mayor Museum)



Copper was sometimes used in making jewelry. The copper was imported to the Mexica empire from Western Mexico, where there are extensive deposits of copper ore. Archaeologists now believe that there was an ancient maritime trade connection between Ecuador and Western Mexico which brought metal working technology to the area that now comprises Jalisco, Colima, and Nayarit States. Trade with Ecuador also resulted in the production of certain styles of pottery and the use of shaft tombs for burials. The flat copper pieces above were probably produced by the technique of cold hammering and annealing. Once the metal was extracted from the ore and flattened, it could be cut into various shapes. Sometimes tin was melted into the copper through the annealing process. Mesoamericans never used this process to produce bronze on a large scale, which would have transformed Mesoamerican society, much as it did the ancient civilizations of the Old World. Instead, the tin was used to enhance the color of the copper. In addition to copper, gold and silver were used for jewelry. A small number of copper tools such as tweezers, fish hooks, and small axes have been found, but metal tools never really supplanted the stone, bone, and wood tools that had been used since Paleolithic times. Metals such as copper, gold, and silver were not more widely used as tools because, although they were easier to work than stone, they were also much softer. In addition, obsidian blades could be easily produced with a far greater sharpness than is possible even with surgical steel. Finished metal objects were imported by the Mexica until the later period of their empire when artisans began to flock to Tenochtitlán and produce finished goods there. (Photograph taken at the Templo Mayor Museum)





Conch shells were particularly prized in the ancient world. Often they were turned into trumpets, but in the examples shows above, conch shells were used to produce rings, skull pendants and the finely crafted piece on the top, known as a scapular (a large pendant worn on the chest), with a delicately carved scene. (Photograph taken at the National Museum of Anthropology)


Ornament inlaid with turquoise and other polished stones. This piece is about the size of a coffee table coaster. Its use is unclear, but it may have been part of a scapular. The people of the Pueblo Culture of Southwestern US mined turquoise for their own use and for trade since very ancient times. Turquoise has been produced from the Cerrillos mine in New Mexico for at least 2000 years and some of it has been recovered from the ruins of Tenochtitlán, 1400 miles to the south. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)

Textiles


Fragmentary remains of a cotton tilmantli, a toga-like cloak. Because of the climate of Central Mexico, few textiles have survived into the modern era. The ones that did have usually been found in dry caves. Even so, we have the pictures in the Mexica codicies, sculptural depictions of clothing, and the descriptions of the Spanish from shortly after the Conquest.The tilmantli fragment above shows some of the typical styles used by the Mexica, including a fringed edge and a spiral conch design indicating the garment may have originated in a coastal area. During the humble, early years of the Mexica era, the styles and materials of clothing were simple and fairly uniform. This is what might be expected of an egalitarian, hunter-gatherer culture in the process of a migration in which simplicity of lifestyle reflected necessity. After they finally settled in Tenochtitlán and began to acquire wealth and power, a class separation between commoners (farmers, and artisans) and the nobility (warriors, priests, administrators) began to emerge. Clothing styles came to reflect these changes. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)



Workers produce dye for coloring cloth. The great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera painted large panels on the walls of Mexico City's Palacio National to illustrate the long history of what ultimately became the Mexican Republic. A detail of one of these is shown above. Dyes for cloth came from a number of sources. For example, coastal mollusks were used to produce a purple color. Crushing the tiny cochineal insect found on the nopal cactus produced a very popular crimson. As seen above, male commoners generally wore only a loin cloth called a maxtlatli, with a tilmantli for cooler weather. The tilmantli was basically a rectangular piece of cloth worn with the two corners of a short end knotted over one shoulder. The maxtlatli and tilmantli that commoners wore were both made of coarse maguey fibre. They generally went barefoot, since sandals were reserved for the "better classes." However, even the nobility had to remove their sandals when entering temples. With the development of trade routes to the Gulf Coast, raw cotton and cotton cloth made its way to Tenochitlán. Cotton could only be grown in the hot country and therefore was an expensive import, available only to the nobility. Some commoners were traveling merchants, called pochtecas. They became quite wealthy and acquired beautifully woven cotton clothing for their own use. However, they only wore it in private so as not to attract the hostile attention of the nobility. As time went on, laws of increasing severity began to regulate the sort of clothing allowed for the many gradations within each of the classes. (Photo taken at the Palacio National)



Fashionable Mexica ladies show off their finery. The usual female attire consisted of a sleeveless, or short-sleeved, blouse called a huipil, and an ankle length skirt. The higher the social status, the better the material, and the more it was decorated by dyeing, and by embroidering it with colored thread, feathers, shells, or other materials. Beautifully woven cloth and complete sets of clothing were staples on the Emperor's tribute lists. Various localities throughout the empire provided their own designs, such as the spiral conch shell design seen in the tilmantli fragment. Spinning thread and weaving it into cloth were crafts designated for women, and generally done in the home. The cloth produced was used to create clothing for family use and sometimes for trade or tribute purposes. The two women above wear elaborate hairstyles decorated with feathers and cloth. Their huipils and skirts show the geometric patterns popular among the Mexica. The one on the right also wears a multi-strand necklace, probably of jade, with a large round scapular on her chest. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


Musical instruments themselves were often works of art

Carved wooden drums like this teponaztli were used to accompany Mexica singing and dancing. The reclining figure on the drum is a warrior of Tlaxcala, a traditional enemy of the Mexica. It  probably ended up in Mexica possession through capture in war or as a tribute item. A teponaztli was a hollow hardwood log with two parallel slits cut lengthwise and one across in the shape of an "H", as seen above. The instrument was played by one or more drummers equipped with mallets made of rubber balls attached to deer antler handles. The musicians played either in a kneeling position with the instrument laid on pegs just above the ground, or standing as it rested on a trestle about waist high. Smaller versions, called teponaztontli, were carried by the musicians by means of a strap and played as they marched in processions. Another popular percussion instrument was the huehuetl, an upright wooden drum made from a hollow tree trunk. The bottom was open and supported by three legs, while the top opening was covered by tightly stretched leather. There were usually beautiful carvings on the sides. Smaller drums were created using multiple turtle shells, with different sizes for different tones. The musicians also used rattles (yoyotl) made from dried seed pods attached to the ankles of dancers. Other rattles were hand-held and were made of ceramics, gourds, or bone. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


A variety of wind instruments were played. Flutes like this tlapitzalli were ceramic and were made with four finger holes. Other flutes were made of stone such as jadeite and green marble, bone, or reeds. Some instruments used multiple pipes, similar to pan pipes. Still other wind instruments included conch shells, used as trumpets, and various whistles, often shaped like turtles or other small animals. Music made with instruments and song, and the dancing that accompanied them, were considered to be religious acts. They were sacrificial gifts to the gods. Interestingly, there was no word in Nahuatl (the Mexica language) for music, which is referred to as the "art of song", while playing instruments was called "singing with the instrument" and dancing was "singing with the feet". (Photograph taken at the Templo Mayor Museum)


Copper bells were attached to the wrists and ankles and to clothing. The beautiful set above includes the bracelet (or anklet) in the center to which bells were attached. Bells such as these were called oyoalli. The music and singing of the priests during religious ceremonies was considered to be the actual voices of the gods and the priests were simply the media through which the gods communicated to the people. Another important occasion for the use of music and musical instruments was during war. The Eagle and Jaguar warrior societies used drums, whistles, conch trumpets and other instruments to communicate with their troops during battle and to frighten the enemy. (Photograph taken at the Templo Mayor Museum)


The Production of Paper was essential to the empire.

Mexica women manufacture paper from amate bark. Another Diego Rivera mural detail from the Palacio National shows how bark from the amate tree was pounded into shape with a grooved stone held in a flexible twig handle. The amate tree grows in many areas of Mexico, including the part where I live. This wide range was fortunate for the Mexica because a steady supply of bark was needed for the huge amount of paper required by the empire. There were laws and regulations, religious documents, land ownership papers, contracts, histories, messages and many other purposes for which the paper was used. Some of these documents survive in the various Codicies scattered in museums in North America and Europe. Much of our sense of day to day Mexica life comes from the pictures in these documents. Notice the woman in the center foreground who is peering over the shoulder of the woman pounding the bark. The face of the watching woman is that of Diego Rivera himself. The artist often put his own face on figures in his work, as well as the face of his wife Frida Kahlo and those of many of his friends or acquaintances. (Photo taken at the Palacio National)


Sellos were used in an early form of printing. The Spanish word sello means seal or stamp. Devices like those above were used to imprint images on amate paper, textiles, and even on the human body. Ink was spread on the carved surfaces and then the sello was pressed on the surface being imprinted. Sellos used both abstract designs, like the sello on the upper left, and designs of animals or plants, like the rattlesnake in the foreground. They were generally ceramic and some sellos were fashioned in the form of cylindrical rollers. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


Under close supervision, two workers prepare a document. One man stands above them, comparing their work to a design he holds. Another man directs the work of the two men doing the actual inscription. Notice the turquoise scapular worn by the man holding the design paper. It appears similar to the turquoise piece in the last photo of the Personal Decoration section above. Diego Rivera included many such details in his murals that demonstrate a deep knowledge of pre-hispanic archaeology. (Photo taken at the Palacio National)


Detail from the Codex Azcatitlán showing part of the Mexica migratory journey. The Codex was inscribed on amate paper sometime in the late 16th Century. It relates the history of the Mexica beginning with their departure from Aztlan, through their migratory wanderings, to the rise of Tenochtitlán and the Mexica Empire, and ends with the beginning of the Spanish Conquest. In the scene above, two warriors grasp prisoners by locks of their hair (a common way of illustrating subjugation) as they lead them to the tlatoani (chief) who is seated on the throne surmounted by an eagle, a symbol of great power. The curved symbol in front of the tlatoani's face indicates speech and is probably a welcome. Both warriors carry the typical round Mexica shield, and the one in front also carries the fearsome macuahuitli, an obsidian-edged broadsword. Neither of the warriors wears the costume of an eagle or a jaguar, so these figures may reflect a period before those soldier societies were created. However, they seem to be high status individuals, because they wear the sandals which were forbidden to the commoners. The prisoners, a man and a woman by their dress, appear dejected. The man is shown with a speech symbol, probably saying something to the effect of "oh, crap!" The interesting symbols above the heads of the prisoners may represent towns that the Mexica conquered at this stage of their journey. The fate of the prisoners was very likely sacrifice to Huitzilpochitli, the Mexica god of war and the sun who led them on their journey. The footprints that move from left to right at the bottom show the progression of the story as they lead the reader from panel to panel and scene to scene. (Photograph taken in the National Museum of Anthropology)


The making of alcoholic beverages

Diego Rivera mural detail showing the making of neutle, the Nahuatl word for pulque. In the center of the painting are a couple of large, broad-leaved maguey plants, one of the most useful of all the plants in the Mexica world. They used the spines on the leaf tips as sewing needles and for piercing tongues and genitals to produce blood for self-sacrifice rituals. From the leaves, called pencas, comes ixtle a fibre from which clothing, rope, sandals and any number of other useful goods could be made. Edible worms live inside the plant that are still considered a delicacy to this day. The heart of the maguey, called the piña, or pineapple, is edible, but the Mexica also used it to produce pulque, an alcoholic beverage with a history many thousands of years old but still enjoyed in today's Mexico. When the Spanish arrived, they introduced the distilling process and used the maguey to produce mezcal, a hard liquor. Blue agave is a relative of maguey, and is used to produce the internationally popular tequila. (Photo taken at the Palacio National)

This fellow is not a deity whom I would want to bump into in dark alley. The god represented above is the only one in this posting for whom I have no identification. I decided to include him because he is so outrageously ferocious-looking, even for an Mexica (Aztec) god. It is impossible to understand Mexica society unless you have some grasp of their view of the cosmos and the pantheon of gods who occupied it. All state religions are heavily influenced by the need to justify the social, economic, and political arrangements of the regime in power. In this, the Mexica were no different than any of the Christian European governments of their day. This doesn't mean that the Mexica ruling class were just cynical manipulators of their own commoners and others whom they conquered. To the contrary, it appears that virtually everyone in the society, from the peasant in his field to the Emperor on his throne, firmly believed in the efficacy of their gods and the rites they practiced to assuage them, including mass human sacrifice. After all, hadn't Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica god of the sun and war, led them from their hunter-gatherer beginnings to achieving pre-eminent power in their world within a few short centuries? In this posting, I will outline the four dimensional structure of the Mexica cosmos, and provide a look at some of the more important gods and goddesses populating that world. And, by the way, if anyone can help identify the god shown above, I would greatly appreciate it.


The Mexica Cosmos and pantheon of gods

Coatlicue was known as the "Mother of the Gods." Her name means "Skirt of Snakes." This enormous statue is 3.05 m (10 ft) tall and carved from a single block of stone weighing several tons. Coatlicue's feet have huge claws and her skirt is made up of writhing snakes, held up by a belt with a human skull for a buckle. She wears a necklace of severed human hands and hearts. Her head is made up of two fanged snakes facing each other. At one point in her story, Coatlicue was decapitated (but apparently not killed) and two great jets of blood spurted up which became snake heads. She was the mother of 400 gods and goddesses and so achieved the name "Mother of the Gods." In addition, she was the "Earth Goddess who gives birth to all celestial things", "Goddess of Fire and Fertility", "Goddess of Life, Death, and Rebirth", and "Mother of the Southern Stars". She was also the patron of women who died in childbirth, a form of death that, in terms of honor, was equivalent to a warrior dying in battle. Interestingly, Coatlicue was not the supreme deity of the universe. That honor goes to Ometeotl, the original, uncreated god, known as the God of Duality who represented the unification of opposites. The dual male and female forms of Ometeotl were Ometecuhtli and Omecíhuatl, respectively. It was through these two that Ometeotl created the universe and all within it. Duality as a concept (male/female, life/death, beneficial/malignant, day/night, etc) was an central theme in Mexica religious thought and art. Ometeotl was so remote and unknowable that no statues or other representations were ever created of the Dual God. Although King Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco did build the only temple ever created for Ometeotl, it had no statue or other image within it. At the highest levels of Mexica religious thought, all other gods were simply facets of Ometeotl. Coatlicue, therefore, was a manifestation of Omecihuatl, the female part of the Dual God. However, ordinary people could not relate to such an intangible deity as Ometeotl, so they chose to regard his various facets as individual and separate gods with their own histories, personalities, and particular areas of influence. In the Mexica view, Coatlicue's most important feature was that she gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, their patron god.


Huitzilopochtli dances in full regalia. Notice the eagle attached to his back and the eagle helmet he wears. Eagles were the physical manifestations of this god of the sun and war, and it is no coincidence that the House of the Eagle Warriors was located right next to the Templo Mayor, on top of which stood a temple to Huitzilopochtli. The eagle soars across the sky, like the sun, and is also a fierce predator, hence its relation to war. Also, check out the copper bells on the edges and face of his shield and on the top of the weapon he carries in his left hand. More bells extend from the back of his feathered head dress. They appear very similar to the bells shown in Part 4 of this series. Huitzilopochtli was not only a colorful god, but apparently quite noisy. The painting is from the 16th Century Codex Telleriano-Remensis, an early Spanish reproduction of a Mexica story-painting. Huitzilopochtli was a little-known patron god of a minor tribe of hunter-gatherers until they gained power. According to their migratory legend, the Mexica found a statue of Huitzilopochtli in a cave at Coatepec ("The Hill of Snakes") which was his birthplace. His mother, Coatlicue had already given birth to 400 other gods, including at least one sister named Coyolxáuhqui. One day the Mother of the Gods was sweeping the temple on top of Coatepec and noticed a ball of hummingbird feathers. Not thinking much of it, she picked up the ball and tucked it into her bosum. When she finished sweeping, she looked for the ball but couldn't find it because it had become the fetus of Huitzilopochtli in her womb. In the Nahuatl language of the Mexica, Huitzilopochtli means "Left-handed Hummingbird". Coatlicue's daughter Coyolxáuhqui suspected an illegitimate pregnancy, became enraged, and plotted hermother's demise.


The huge stone head of Coyolxáuhqui is similar in size to the great Olmec heads.  Her name means "the one with bells painted on her face". The bells can be seen carved on either side of her nose. Her eyes are closed in death because the sculpture represents her decapitated head. Coyolxáuhqui roused her 400 brothers against her mother's supposed indiscretion. Together, they decapitated Coatlicue, resulting in the two spurts of blood that became the snake heads sculpted on her statue in the second photo of this posting. However, Huitzilopochtli emerged from his mother's womb fully formed and armed with a fire weapon. He destroyed his treacherous siblings, thereupon becoming the God of War. He was especially angry at his sister and completely dismembered her, throwing her pieces to the bottom of Coatepec hill. The Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlán is a pyramidal reproduction of Coatepec. The act of throwing the bodies of sacrificial victims down the broad stairway reenacts Huitzilopchtli's treatment of his sister. (See the sculpture of this in Part 2 of this series) His mother somehow survived the loss of her head and grieved for her slain children in spite of their attempt to kill her. In order to continue to see them, she turned the male children into stars and Coyolxáuhqui became the moon. Every morning, the triumph of Huitzilopochtli over his sister is reenacted as the sun triumphs over the previous night's moon. As the lunar month passes, pieces of moon-goddess Coyolxáuhqui disappear day by day, recalling her dismemberment by her sun-god brother. The Mexica carried the statue of Huitzilopochtli they found at Coatepec as a war emblem for the rest of their migration. Their first act after founding their capital of Tenochtitlán was to build a temple for him. The temple was rebuilt numerous times, taking its final form as the famous Templo Mayor only a few years before the Spanish arrived.


The massive sculpture of Tonatiuh, God of the 5th Sun, is shown at the Templo Mayor museum.
This piece was so large that I could only photograph it by climbing to the second-story balcony of the Templo Mayor museum. Found at the base of the great pyramid, the carved stone relief was created during the last years before the Spanish Conquest, a time in which Mexica artistry and power were at their height. Tonatiuh is a good example of how confusing the Mexica cosmology can be. He shares the title "God of the Sun" with Huitzilopochtli, along with other attributes such as a physical manifestation as an eagle and a thirst for human blood. He was already important among the various Chichimeca tribes before the Mexica arrived. The Mexica shared a language and various cultural aspects with their now urbanized predecessors. The new arrivals were, in a sense, cultural sponges, and absorbed into their cosmology much that they encountered during their migration. Apparently they thought it important to associate their patron god with the widely recognized God of the 5th Sun. It is significant, however, that the great sculpture of Tonatiuh lay at the bottom of the Templo Mayor, while Huitzilopochtli resided at the temple's top. Ironically, a number of sculptural images of Tonatiuh survived the Conquest, including this one and the one center of the so-called Aztec Calendar, while no images exist of Huitzilopochtli other than various paintings in post-Conquest codicies. Tonatiuh's face is easily recognizable in his various sculptures. Always there are the half-moon eyes, the grinning mouth, and the long serrated tongue extending down toward his chest. The tongue represents a sacrificial knife.  Tonatiuh, like Huitzilopochtli, is the God of the Fifth Sun, which shines over the current era of history. The previous four suns had their own gods, but were destroyed, each in turn, along with the worlds over which they shined and all the people living in them. Other gods sacrificed themselves in order to create Tonatiuh, and to get him moving across the sky, an act greatly beneficial to human beings of the 5th World.  Humans, therefore, were expected to reciprocate and sacrifice themselves to nourish Tonatiuh and enable his cyclical daily journey. Failure to produce human blood in sufficient quantity would stop the sun and result in the destruction of the entire world. The Mexica, therefore, viewed themselves as performing a noble public service through their industrial-scale efforts at human sacrifice.


Tlaloc, the Rain God, was another deity adopted by the Mexica during their migration. Above, Tlaloc is shown on the side of a large pot found at his temple atop the Templo Mayor. Like Tonatiuh, he is easily recognizable and his image can be found throughout Mesoamerica. According to some interpretations of his myth, he was one of the original gods created by Ometeotl. He is always shown wearing round "goggles" over his eyes, with fangs descending from his mouth, and a forked tongue hanging down. As might be expected in agricultural societies dependent upon sufficient quantities of rain, Tlaloc was extremely important. He was also very ancient. His painted image can be found in Teotihuacan on the wall of a palace near the Pyramid of the Moon, a structure already in ruins at least 500 years before the Mexica arrived. In fact, Tlaloc was probably worshipped by Mesoamerican agricultural societies for many centuries before Teotihuacan was even founded. At Tenochtitlán, Tlaloc shared "top-billing" with Huitzilopochtli, with his own temple sharing space with the god of sun and war at the crest of the Templo Mayor. In line with the concept of duality, he was seen as both beneficial and dangerous. While he provided rain for crops, he also sent great storms, lightning, hail, and floods. Not surprisingly, Tlaloc was believed to appreciate regular donations from the Mexica blood drives. A chacmool reclines just outside his temple atop the Templo Mayor with a bowl ready to receive human hearts. Tlaloc's first wife, Xochiquetzal ("Goddess of Flowers") was stolen by another god, so he married Chalchiuhtlicue ("She who wears a jade skirt"). She was the goddess of rivers, lakes, streams, and other freshwater bodies. She was also associated with the first use of maiz (corn) and with snakes. Tlaloc's big sister was Huixocihuatl ("Salt Lady"), the goddess of salt water, and patroness of those who produced salt. Oddly enough, she was also patroness of dissolute women, so perhaps she should have been called the Salty Lady.


Like Santa, Tlaloc needed little helpers. It seems making rain for the entire world was a big and complex job, because Tlaloc had four small helpers, including the one shown above, who were called theTlaloque (plural of Tlaloc). Notice the signature "goggles" on the figure. Mexica high priests probably saw them as simple facets of the rain god, but common folks, like farmers, thought they were specific gods with their own attributes. The Tlaloque stayed busy brewing up rain in mountaintop jars. These they broke to send out rain and in the process created lightning and thunder. They also lurked about caves where water emerged from the underworld. Each of the Tlaloque was assigned to one of the four cardinal directions, and they acted as pillars to hold up the sky. Each also had his own color: red, yellow, white, and blue.  In some descriptions, the four Tlaloque carried jars about with them, respectively containing rain, frost, drought, and disease. Even as the Mexica cosmos had four directions on a horizontal plane, it also had a vertical plane. There were 13 levels of the upper world and 9 levels of the underworld. The point where they met was everyday reality. The top level was the home of the intangible God of Duality, Ometeotl. The ninth (bottom) level was called Mictlán, and was ruled by Mictlancihuatl, the God of Death and his goddess wife Mictlantecuhtli.Tlaloc himself ruled over the 4th level of the Upper World, called Tlalocan ("Place of Tlaloc"). It was filled with green plants and sunshine and was the final destination of those who died in water-related accidents,such as drowning or lightning strikes.


Quetzalcoatl was the famous Plumed Serpent. Like Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatlhad been worshiped throughout Mesoamerica since very ancient times. The first known image of a feathered serpent is a sculpture found at the the Olmec site of La Venta on the Gulf Coast. It was carved approximately 900 BC. Quetzalcoatl became a major figure in Mesoamerica with the rise of Teotihuacan about 100 AD. They dedicated a huge palace to him, heavily decorated with feathered snakes. Even after Teotihuacan fell in 650 AD, worship of the snake god continued to spread. In the Maya country, he went under the name of Kulkulkan. The great pyramid in Yucatan's Chichen Itza is called the Temple of Kulkulkan. In the great religious center of Cholula, near modern Puebla, Mexico's largest pyramid (second biggest in the world) was dedicated to Quetzalcoatl. Another key center for plumed serpent worship at that time was the important trading city of Cacaxtla. Next, the Toltecs began their rise and they adopted Quetzalcoatl as one of their major gods. An important Toltec legend was that he adopted human form as Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, the first ruler at their capital of Tollan. The Mexica accepted the plumed serpent as a major figure in their pantheon in good part because the Toltec connection helped legitimize them. In the Sacred Precinct at Tenochtitlán, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl once stood directly facing the great staircase leading up to the top of the Templo Mayor. The Mexica believed Quetzalcoatl was one of the original four children of Ometeotl, along with Huitzilopochtli, Xipe Totec, and Tezcatlipoco. These four gods then created all the other gods. In the Mexica cosmic sequence of five successive worlds, Quetzalcoatl was the sun god of the Second World, which ended with a great hurricane.


The bust of a priest of Quetzalcoatl wears a rather jovial expression. The importance of the plumed serpent is shown by the fact the the two most important priests at the Templo Mayor both possessed titles which included Quetzalcoatl's name. A god so ancient naturally picked up a number of attributes and responsibilities along the way. The four sons of Ometeotl were each connected to one of the four cardinal directions and Quetzalcoatl presided over the West. He was connected to Venus (the Morning Star). The plumed serpent was the god of light, mercy and, at least in the Toltec legend, he had opposed the practice of human sacrifice. Many of his facets related to important aspects of civilization. For example, he gave maiz (corn) to mankind, a key factor to moving from the hunter-gatherer stage to a settled life. He also invented books and the calendar and was known as the patron of priests, urban centers, and culture.


Ehécatl, God of the Wind, dances as he plays with a snake. I especially liked this jolly, pot-bellied fellow. There are a number of statues of Ehécatl ("wind" in Nahautl) in the National Museum of Anthropology, and most show him toying with a snake. He is often shown as a playful monkey with a strange beak-like object protruding from his mouth. This may represent a musical instrument through which he would blow to create the wind. He was sometimes called Ehécatl-Quetzacoatl by the Mexica, who viewed him as an aspect of Quetzalcoatl. This probably explains the snake. However, Ehécatl was a very ancient god in his own right. Last year, Carole and I visited a unique spiral pyramid where the Wind God was worshiped. It was located at the Pre-Classic era (800 BC-300 BC) ruin of Xochitecatl, north of Puebla. Its construction pre-dated the Mexica by at least 1500 years. Among these early cultures, Ehécatl was a considered to be a creator god and also a culture hero (a human being with special powers, like Hercules of the Greek myths). As Quetzalcoatl became more important, the two gods apparently merged. Temples to Ehécatl are usually cylindrical to imitate the circular motion of the whirlwind. Because the wind can blow from anywhere, the Wind God is associated with all four of the cardinal directions. The statue above was discovered in a cylindrical Wind God temple unearthed in Tenochtitlán's Sacred Precinct during the building of a subway. The temple still stands in the subway station in its original site. According to the Mexica creation myth, when the 5th (current) World was created, the sun and the moon did not move. Finally the Wind God blew on them and the sun began to travel across the sky, which eventually also set the moon in motion. One of Ehécatl's most important jobs was to assist Tlaloc by blowing on the rain clouds to make them move in at the start of the wet season, He thus became associated with fertility and agriculture.


Tezcatlipoca's physical manifestation was jaguar. The stone carving of a jaguar shown above is called a cuauhxicalli. Human hearts were placed in the bowl sunk in its back. Tezcatlipocawas one of the four original sons of Ometeotl, the God of Duality. Although they were collectively referred to as the "Four Tezcatlipoca," the other three (Huitzilopochlti, Xipe Totec, and Quetzalcoatl) also had their own names. In the cosmic duality of the Mexica world, Tezcatlipoca was viewed as Quetzalcoatl's dark side. Quetzalcoatl was the god of light, mercy, culture, and civilization and his color was white. Tezcatlipoca was the god of the night sky, enmity, discord and war, and his color was black. Huitzilopochtli's eagle hunted during the day, while Tezcatlipoca's jaguar hunted at night. The Jaguar God's name in Nahuatl means "Smoking Mirror", referring to the obsidian used to create mirrors. He is often depicted with his right foot replaced by an obsidian mirror. This was the result of his theft of Xochiquetzal, the beautiful first wife of Tlaloc. When Tlaloc came for revenge, Tezcatlipoca lost his foot. He also came into conflict with Quetzalcoatl, who grew jealous of the Jaguar God's position as Sun God of the 1st World. The Snake God clobbered Tezcatlipoca over the head with a stone club. In his rage the God of the Night Sky summoned his jaguars to devour all humans and that effectively extinguished the 1st World. Quetzalcoatl became Sun God of the 2nd World, but Tezcatlipoca sought revenge through sorcery and Quetzalcoatl was forced to step down as Sun God.  In the Toltec legend, Quetzalcoatl was the first ruler of their capital Tollan and opposed human sacrifice. Tezcatlipoca represented the war-like impulses of the Toltecs and advocated such sacrifices, along with military conquests. He got Quetzalcoatl drunk so that he disgraced himself and used the occasion to pull off a coup d'etat. Quetzalcoatl was forced to flee, departing with his followers on a raft of snakes into the Gulf of Mexico, but vowing to return. In the legend, Tezcatlipoca's militaristic spirit led to the creation of the Toltec Empire, with its tzompantli (skull racks), eagle and jaguar warrior cults, and obsession with death. All these features were later slavishly copied by the Mexica. At a ceremony each year, the Mexica priests of Tezcatlipoca would choose a handsome young man to impersonate the god. For the following year, the man lived lavishly, dressing in jewels and enjoying four beautiful young wives. At the ceremony following the end of his year as Tezcatlipoca, the young man would voluntarily climb the steps of the god's temple where he was sacrificed, and another young man would be chosen. The body of the sacrificed man was ritually consumed as part of the festivities.


Mictecacihuatl was Goddess of Death, and wife of the Death God Mictlantecuhtil. They lived together in a windowless house in Mictlan, the lowest of nine levels of the Underworld. (See Part 3 of this series for a photo and description of her husband) Her main functions included guarding the bones of the deceased and presiding over the annual festivals of the dead.  Mictecacihuatl, sometimes called Cihuateotl, is often depicted in a seated position, with her clawed hands raised to rake the flesh off the bones of the newly dead, and with her fleshless jaws open to devour the stars when daylight arrived. When a Mexica died, the family began a 40-day ritual that included the sacrifice of a dog called a xoloizcuintli. The person's body was wrapped in simple matting or precious clothes, depending upon social status, and a jade bead was placed in the mouth. The body was then cremated. This began a long journey through the nine levels of the underworld involving many dangers, and during which the body lost much of its flesh. The jade bead (or blue pebble for the poor) represented the heart and was used to divert monsters encountered along the way who would devour the bead instead of the deceased. Finally, the dead person reached a river called Chignahuapan. Here he encountered the xoloizcuintli sacrificed at the funeral. The dog acted as a guide to cross the stream to finally reach Mictlan, "the dark and cold place of no return." It is believed that the Mexican fiesta called the Day of the Dead may have arisen from Mictecacihuatl's festivals, after the ancient Mexica rituals became mixed with Spanish Catholic customs.


Xolotl, the dog-faced god. He was associated with both lightning and death. The xoloicuintli dog of the death ritual is a representative of Xolotl. Mexica cosmic duality again comes into play with a connection between Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl. Xolotl was connected with Venus as the Evening Star.  Quetzalcoatl also had a connection to Venus, but as the Morning Star. Therefore Xolotl was his twin. On one occasion, Xolotl acted as Quetzalcoatl's guide when he returned from a mission to Mictlan. The Plumed Serpent had gone there to recover the bones of the dead to use as the materials to repopulate the world. Xolotl's regular duties included guiding the sun as it made its way through the Underworld at night and acting as the god of fire and bad luck.

Next week I will continue my exploration of Mexica Cosmology with more fascinating gods and some examples of offerings and sacrifice rituals. I hope you have enjoyed this posting. If you would like to leave a comment or correction, please do so either in the Comments section below or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim









http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Hairless_Dog

Centeotl, the God of Maiz, brandishes a couple of corn cobs. He wears an elaborate head dress, large ear spools, and suspended from his neck is an elegant pectoral, characteristic of this god. Centeotl means "god of the dried maiz still on the cob." Maiz was the single most important crop in all of Mesoamerica, and is still very important to modern Mexico. According to the Florentine Codex, Centeotl was the son Tlazolteotl, the goddess of sin, vice, sexual misdeeds, and adulterers. In another example of Aztec (Mexica) cosmic duality, she was also the goddess who could forgive you for these sins through purification and steam baths.  Centeotl's father was Piltzintecuhtli, the god of the planet Mercury, a celestial deity who was considered to be an aspect of Tonatiuh, the God of the 5th Sun.

In Part 5 of this series, we looked at some of the "creator gods", like Tonatiuh. In this sequel, we'll be looking at some other gods who were also very important because of their influence over crucial matters of day-to-day Mexica life. Certainly the God of Maiz fits this bill. Centeotl is usually portrayed as the young man seen above, and he was often painted the yellow color of maiz. Previous to the arrival of the male-dominated Mexica warrior culture, the goddess Chicomecoatl was considered the patroness of maiz. When the Mexica rose to power, so did Centeotl, (or Cinteotl, as he is sometimes called). He became the senior partner of this pair of maiz deities, although Chicomecoatl still figured prominently in the rites related to maiz at the level of local farmers.


Chicometeotl, the traditional Goddess of Maiz. Her name means "Seven Serpent." The maiz goddess wears an elaborate head dress which in real life would have been made from a frame of sticks covered with amacalli paper, from the bark of the amate tree. She was the goddess not only of maiz, but of agriculture and fertility in general. However, neither Centeotl nor Chicomecoatl created maiz. That was done by Quetzalcoatl, one of the four sons of Ometeotl, the original God of Duality through whom everything else was created, including all the lower level gods. According to one story, Quetzalcoatl didn't actually create maiz, but stole a kernel from some ants, and delivered it as a gift to humans. Chicomecoatl was the deity who ensured that the kernels turned into thriving plants. She was known as "Princess of the Unripe Maiz," in contrast with Centeotl, who represented the harvested maiz. The two were therefore considered to be the two parts of the duality of corn.

Chicomecoatl was thought to be a beautiful young goddess, just as the young maiz plants were considered beautiful. When the plants began to sprout, the Mexica held special celebrations where young women let down their hair and danced bare-breasted through the fields. They each picked five ears of corn, wrapped them up as if they were infants, and danced them back from the fields in a great procession full of music. As part of the festivities, people would douse each other with flower pollen or scented maiz flour. Here in Ajijic, where I live, there is an annual Spring parade where people shower each other with handfuls of flour, just as the Mexica did 500 years ago. There was a darker side to the maiz celebrations, however. After each September harvest, a young girl dressed as Chicomecoatl was sacrificed by decapitation and her blood was collected so that it could be poured over a statue of the goddess. The priests then flayed her corpse and wore the skin. Since Centeotl represented the harvested corn, this bloody ritual of sacrificing "Chicomecoatl" may have been introduced by the Mexica when they usurped the position of the maiz goddess with their own male god.


Xipe Totec, the Flayed God, wore the skin of those sacrificed. The god Xipe Totec was known as "Our Lord the Flayed One." The head above shows a skin stretched tightly over the head of another person. Inside the mouth of the flayed head you can see the lips of the person wearing it. The Flayed God, and the flaying ritual itself, represented the cycle of life, death, and rebirth that was essential to the agricultural process. Like the concept of duality, the concept of a cyclical world was a central element to Mexica cosmology. The living person (life) was sacrificed (death). The flayed skin was then worn for 20 days by a priest who emerged from the rotting flesh (rebirth) just as new growth emerges from rotting vegetation. While all this seems rather horrifying and repugnant to modern sensibilities, it was very important to the Mexica's cyclical view of the world.

In Mexica mythology, Xipe Totec flayed himself in order to provide food to humans. This was related to the process by which maiz seeds shed their outer layer in preparation for germination. Xipe Totec was one of the four original sons of Ometeotl called the Four Tezcatlipoca. His symbolic color was red and he was associated with the East. In line with Mexica duality, Xipe Totec not only brought rebirth, and therefore new crops and the renewal of everything, but his malevolent side afflicted humans with rashes, abscessess, and other diseases of the skin and eyes. The sacrificed victims' skins were sometimes mounted on statues of Our Lord the Flayed One and it was believed they could cure these diseases. Mothers sometimes brought sick children so they could touch the skins and be healed.


Xiuhtecuhtli was the Lord of Fire and Volcanoes. Like water and maiz, fire was essential to life. It gave heat, lighted up the darkness, and enabled cooking and the transformation of various materials into useful objects. That was the beneficial side of the duality. Its opposite was the destruction caused by uncontrolled fire. Active volcanoes, with which Mexico is well supplied, represented the ultimate and terrifying power of fire for everyone in Mesoamerica. Xiutecuhtli, who is often identified with Huehueteotl ("The Old, Old God"), is always shown in a seated position, as seen above. He usually wears headgear that projects like wings from either side of his head. His name means God of Turquoise (xiuhuitl) and he was believed to live in a turquoise room at the earth's center. The green-painted decorations on the lower legs of the figure above probably represent turquoise jewelry. Xiutecuhtli was the patron of Mexica emperors and of the pochteca (wealthy traveling merchants). As Huehueteotl, he is generally shown as an old man, also sitting, but wearing a dish-shaped brazier on top of his head which was used to burn incense and for ritual fires. The Old, Old God was called that for a very good reason. The earliest humans considered the control of fire to be crucially important so it should not surprising that they attached god-like qualities to it.

Because of Xiutecuhtli-Huehueteotl's great antiquity, and his capacity to bring light out of darkness, he is sometimes related to Ometeotl, the original "uncreated" god who emerged from the void. Worship of the Lord of Fire and Volcanoes goes back at least to the Pre-Classic city of Cuicuilco (700 BC-150 AD) where statues of him have been found. Interestingly, Cuicuilco was destroyed by a nearby volcano. At Teotihuacan (100 AD-650 AD) Huehueteotl was one of the most widely represented deities. He was also worshiped by the Toltecs and that, of course, made him especially popular with the Mexica. However, it is probable that they already venerated some version of the Fire God when they encountered the ruins of the Toltecs during their great migration. Two important Mexica festivals were devoted to Xiutecuhtli.  Xocoti Huetzi was a ritual connected to harvest and the dying of plants. An image of the god was placed in a tree and young men competed in climbing to the top to retrieve it and get a prize. This is actually quite similar to the greased pole climbs held at Ajijic fiestas, except that the Mexica finale of sacrificing humans in a great bonfire has been deleted. The festival of Izcalli celebrated the beginning of the new year, regrowth, and regeneration. All fires were extinguished except for one in front of the image of Xiutecuhtli. A turquoise mask was placed there and people brought offerings such as birds, lizards, and snakes that they cooked and ate. At four-year intervals, the Mexica would include the sacrifice of four slaves or captives, each dressed as the Fire God, and each wearing a color representing one of the four cardinal directions. All the people would bring torches to light in the sacrficial bonfire so they could go home and relight their hearth fires


Xochipilli was the god of good times. His name means "Flower Prince" and his nahual (animal spirit) is the monkey. The god of art, games, beauty, dance, and flowers, Xochipilliwas also the patron of writing and painting, as well as of homosexuals and male prostitutes. These last two attributes apparently originated with the Toltecs, and thus were adopted by the Mexica. Fertility and agricultural produce also fell within his purview, connecting him with the rain god Tlaloc, and the maiz god Centeotl. His twin sister was Xochiquetzal, the goddess of flowers, fertility, beauty, female sexual power and prostitution. She was also the patron of feather workers and other makers of luxury goods. In the statue above, Xochipilli gazes up to the heavens with his hands raised, but wears an oddly sour expression. His throne and body are covered with designs of flowers, butterflies, and hallucinogenic mushrooms. If there had been Mexica hippies, this would have been their perfect patron god.


Huehuecoyotl, the Old Coyote, was another good time guy.  Huehuecoyotl's areas of interest were music, dance, song, and mischief. He is often depicted dancing while accompanied by a human companion playing a drum. Not suprisingly, the Old Coyote god is associated with choral singing, since coyotes often gather together to howl in the wilderness. Coyotes were associated with astuteness, world-wisdom, pragmatism, male beauty, and youthfulness. Attaching hue hue (very old) to the name had positive implications to the Mexica, because they associated age with philosophical insights and a godly connection. Throughout Mesoamerica, and even among North American indigenous people, coyotes were viewed as shape-shifters. To the Mexica, this connected Huehuecoyotl to Tezcaltlipoca, one of the four creator gods who had this capacity. The Old Coyote had both female and male lovers and Xochipilli was one of the male ones. Due to his canine nature, he was friends with Xolotl, the dog-faced god who guided souls through the underworld. In fact, he appears to have been poor Xolotl'sonly friend. Huehuecoyotl liked fun and games but, in line with the typical Mexia duality, he had another side, that of trickster. However, his tricks appear to have been relatively benign, and often backfired on him, getting him into all sorts of unintended difficulties. Perhaps he is related to Wile E. Coyote of "Roadrunner" fame. The statue above is one of the finest examples of Mexica animal art.


Offerings and sacrifices to the gods

Xiutecuhtliappears on the side of a device for ritual burning. Above, the face of Xiutecuhtli decorates the side of a container called a tlexictli. Small pieces of some ancient burnt offering still cling to the inside lip of the container. Devices for ritual burning generally came in two types. One was larger, stationary, and usually shaped like an hour glass as seen above. The narrow part of the container represented the center of the universe, i.e. the turquoise room where Xiutecuhtli lived. Extending out on either side of the tlexictli is a knotted bow. Such bows are often shown in Mexica art tied around people, animals or gods, but their meaning is not yet understood. Tlexictli were used primarily to dispose of small ritual objects or materials used in a ceremony. This allowed the objects to leave the physical world and enter the spiritual one.

The other kind of burning device, called a popochcomitl, was shaped like a ladle on the end of a long handle. These were carried by priests in processions and also used to purify people by waving the device around them so they would be enveloped by the smoke. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a young Spanish officer who accompanied Hernán Cortés on the Conquest, described how Cortés and other Spaniards were often "fumigated" by priests at the entrance of cities they visited.


A god's statue made of copal incense is decorated with shells.Copal is a tree resin that is used to produce smoke with a quite pleasing smell. The ancient people of Mesoamerica used it widely for ritual purposes and it is still widely used today in sweat lodge ceremonies. The name comes from the Nahuatl word copalli, which means "with the help of this path" or "thanks to this path". Figures made of copal were associated with fertility and water. The shells attached to the figure may well apply to water. In Mexica rituals, the self-sacrificed blood of a priest might be added to the copal in hopes of producing a religious vision.


A varied collection of offerings to the Rain God includes statues of the Fire God. Above, you can see the wide variety of items that were found at the Templo Mayor where the temple to Tlaloc was located. There are two tlexictli quite similar to the one previously seen. Between them is a statue of Xiutecuhtli in his typical seated posture. There are many water-related offerings, including coral, shells, and several conches, as well as the sword-bill of the large ocean-going sawfish seen at the far right. Conch shells were often used as trumpets for musical, military, or ritual purposes. To bring rain, a conch shell would be blown to the four cardinal directions in order to summon Tlaloc. The presence in Tlaloc's temple of the tlexictli and the seated statue of Xiutecuhtli, testifies to the interesting connection between the gods of fire and water. They were two of the most ancient of all Mesoamerican gods, representing two of the four fundamental facets of nature (the other two being earth and air). Fire and water were yet another duality, with fire being masculine, hot, diaphanous, and celestial, while water was feminine, cold, dark, and terrestrial. As part of the ritual after ceremonial objects were burned in a tlexictli, the remaining ashes were often buried next to a stream or other body of water.


The skulls of sacrificed children are displayed with sacrificial blades and other objects. These offerings were found in Tlatelolco, formerly a separate Mexica city adjacent to Tenochtitlán but now part of the Mexico City metropolis. Tlatelolco was a huge market town with as many as 25,000 customers per day, according to Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Among the items offered were child slaves, sometimes purchased for the purpose of sacrifice. Between 1454-57 AD, a great drought brought about a mass sacrifice of 37 children and 6 adults at Tlatelolco. The skulls above may have been part of that group. The deformations in their skulls indicate they are from the Gulf Coast where children's skulls were deliberately deformed as a beauty feature. The city of Tlatelolco was established by a group of Mexica who, in the very early days, broke away from those who founded Tenochtitlán. The Tlatelolcans became great merchants and eventually the Mexica of Tenochtitlán cast covetous eyes on the trade and conquered their neighbors.


Human thigh bones were used for various ritual purposes. Notice the delicate incisions on the upper part of the bone. The images carved there include skulls, animals, and flowers. Sometimes a bone like this would be notched from one end to the other to make a rasping musical instrument. Other bones were used by priests of Xipe Totec to ritually touch ceremony participants as a fertility blessing. Capturing an enemy soldier was one of the highest acts a warrior could perform, superior even to killing the enemy. Having captured an enemy who was then sacrificed, the successful warrior could claim a thigh bone from the corpse. He would hang the bone on the wall outside the door of his house to show his accomplishment.


An inhabitant of Mictlan, the ninth and lowest level of the underworld. The Mexica saw the inhabitants of Mictlan as skeletons with bulging eyes and sacrificial knives protruding from their mouths and nose cavities. The skull rests on the nose projection of a sawfish.

This completes Part 6 of my Mexico City series. On the happy note above, I will take a break from the Mexicas and next week turn to the more cheerful subject of an indigenous fair and dance in Ajijic put on by a group of Puréchepa people who recently visited our community. I hope you have enjoyed my series on the Mexica. In the future, I will resume the Mexico City series, covering its wonderful architecture, museums, and street scenes. If you would like to comment, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

A Purépecha woman dances gaily in the Ajijic Plaza. For several days before Christmas, a group of crafts people from the State of Michoacan set up booths in the Ajijic Plaza. They not only displayed their beautiful hand-crafted wares, but they put on free performances of dances traditional to their Purépecha ethnic group. The woman above wears a hand-embroidered huipil (blouse) and her hair is decorated with brightly-colored ribbons woven into her braids. In this posting, we'll first look at the dances and costumes of the participants, and then examine some of the wide variety of traditional crafts they created. All of these have a history that goes back centuries.

Contrary to popular perception, the Aztec (Mexica) Empire was not the only major political entity in Central Mexico at the time the Spanish arrived. Northwest of the Mexica's territory lay the lands occupied by their chief rivals, a powerful society who called themselvesPurépecha but whom the Spanish dubbed the Tarascans. Although they attempted it numerous times, the Mexica were never able to conquer them. The heartland of the Purépecha is the State of Michoacan, but their empire reached into some of the valleys of Jalisco and Guanajuato, and even the eastern part of Lake Chapala, near where I live. A few decades before the Conquest, the Purépecha Emperor Tangaxuan II attempted to seize the salt flats around the dry lakes in the long valley leading south from present-day Guadalajara toward Colima. Salt was an extremely important commodity for preserving food and the Purépecha had few deposits in their area. The Salitre (Salt) War began in 1480 AD and eventually ended in 1510 AD with the defeat of the Purépecha by King Coliman (from whom Colima got its name). Tangaxuan II's forces finally withdrew back across the mountains toward their Michoacan heartland. Evidence of the extent of their empire's reach can be found in Purépecha place names across Central Western Mexico.


Beauties and Beasts

A ceramics vendor danced with  mask-maker clothed in some of his own creations. Along with her huipil, the woman wears an ankle-length skirt and, over it, an embroidered apron. The designs of the huipil and apron embroidery identify the village where she lives. In the rural areas of Michoacan, nearly all the women wear traditional clothing, while the men have largely adopted blue jeans and cowboy boots and broad-brimmed hats. Most Purépecha music and dances are specific to a place and conducted at specific occasions or celebrations. The Festival of the Purépecha Race, held annually in Zacán, Michoacan, showcases the various music dance traditions. These traditions are so unique that they have been designated an Intangible World Heritage by UNESCO.


A Gringo gets into the act. The dancers were not content to keep the fun among themselves, but drew various of the onlookers into the performance. The foreigners could not dance as beautifully as the Purépecha, but they gave it their best. The man above tips his hat in a courtly fashion as he joins his partner. His head is covered with the confetti that typically accompanies fiestas. One of the most famous Purépecha dances, which unfortunately was not performed that day, is the Danza de los Viejitos (Dance of the Little Old Men). In it, young men wear masks portraying them as white Spaniards, and clothing that make them appear to be elderly. They totter around through their dance steps supporting themselves with canes. Although they imitate elderly people, the dance is really quite athletic and charming. The origins of the dance are disputed, but one account holds that it was intended to mock the Purépecha's Spanish overlords after the Conquest. The Spanish did no physical work, but only sat on their horses watching their indigenous laborers. Due to lack of exercise, the Spaniards' bodies deteriorated and they aged quickly. The Danza de los Viejitos is said to mock the weak foreigners and their many infirmities, one of the few ways a subjugated people could get back at their oppressors.


Beauty and the Beast. Although he looked pretty scary in his outfit, this "monster" had a pretty humorous act. He not only cavorted with the female dancers, but he moved out into the mostly foreign crowd, twirling and gyrating and hilariously confronting various of the observers. He even persuaded a couple of the foreign women to dance with him.


A Gringa matches steps with her Purépecha partner. The actual dances consisted of a set of shuffling steps as the dancers swayed their bodies back and forth and occasionally twirling while displaying the rebozo, akin to a bird spreading its wings. As the Purépecha did it, the dance was graceful and charming. As for the Gringos, well, they looked like they were having a lot of fun.


Mask-making

A mask-maker shows how one of his wares looks in action. Piercing red eyes, long drooping horns, and "blood"-stained fangs adorn this creation, worn by one of the mask-makers in the dances. Masks created for ritual purposes have a history that goes far back into pre-hispanic history. Three thousand years ago, the Olmecs made jaguar masks to use in their ceremonies. The Purépecha of Michoacan developed their own style long before the Spanish arrived, and continue to this day to make wonderfully bizarre masks like the one above. Interestingly, two of the most famous Purépecha dances use masks modeled not on on their own faces but on those of Caucasians and Africans. In addition to the Danza de los Viejitos mentioned above, the indigenous people of Michoacan perform the Danza de los Negritos (Dance of the Little Blacks). The origins of this dance and its black masks appears to be the appearance of large numbers of Africans in Nueva España. By the end of the 17th Century, as much as 90% of the indigenous population had died off in some areas due to disease and harsh working conditions. Because of its remoteness, Michoacan lost only about 30%, but that was devastating enough. The labor shortage caused the Spanish to import as many as 250,000 black slaves to Nueva España, some of whom ended up in Michoacan and became the models for the Danza de los Negritos.



The artisans displayed a wide variety of masks in various stages of completion. Note that the Caucasian masks are not white, as Caucasians like to think of themselves, but pink which is closer to their actual coloring. The origins of the Purépecha people are murky, although it is thought that they arrived in the Lake Patzcuaro area of Michoacan in the 12th Century AD. They speak a language unlike that of any other in Mesoamerican. Linguists have found some relation to the languages spoken by the Quecha of Peru and the Zuni of the Southwest U.S. It is therefore possible that the Purépecha arrived either from South America (probably by boat) or from the desert wastes to Mesoamerica's north in one of the many waves of Chichameca invaders. They may also be a cultural mix of these two groups. They do seem to have had a strong connection with the South America. This is shown not only by their language roots, but by their extensive use of copper to make tools and weapons, a technology that archaeologists believe they obtained through trade with the West Coast of South America. The Mexica, their closest rivals, used copper primarily for personal decoration, but preferred obsidian for \weapons. The Purépecha's use of copper weapons may have been one of the reasons why the Mexica failed to conquer them, despite efforts that were intense and sustained.



A devil, under construction. The Purépecha, like many Mexican mask-makers, like to incorporate multiple animals in one mask. In addition to animal horns and fangs the devil face above has a pair of snakes writhing from under the eyes, along the face, and meeting near the end of the extended tongue. Only brightly colored paint will be required to create a fearsome-looking end product. The famous Danza de los Toritos (Dance of the Little Bulls) uses masks adorned with the horns of bulls. The dance was originally performed in 1538 AD at the request of Bishop Vasco Quiroga as a way to entice the indigenous people back down from the mountains. They had fled there to escape the atrocities of Conquistador Nuño de Guzman, 16th Century Spain's version of Heinrich Himmler. Quiroga's Danza de los Toritos was a success, and has been performed in local villages ever since.


A devil in full regalia. This colorful mask not only bears the typical horns and fangs, but also has a small cat's head growing out of the forehead, complete with its own set of fangs.. You can see one of the eye holes for the wearer just below the painted eye on the left. The detailed craftsmanship and vivid colors of masks like this have led Carole and I to gradually assemble a small collection of wildly imaginative masks from Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and elsewhere.


Ceramic Plates and dishes from Tzintzuntzan


A skeletal mermaid decorates large platter. Each of the tables displayed its beautiful crafts accompanied by a sign showing the name of the village where the objects were created. Skeletal figures like the mermaid above are called Catrinas, and originated with Jose Guadalupe Posada, a 19th Century political cartoonist. Posada liked to mock the pretensions of the Mexican upper classes by portraying them as skeletons dressed in fine clothes.The mermaid platter came from the Michoacan town of Tzintzuntzan ("Place of the Hummingbirds"). It was the capital of the Purépecha Empire when the Spanish arrived in 1519 AD.  Tzintzuntzan was the most important of three cities along the shores of Lake Patzcuaro. The Lake, at 1,920 m (6300 ft) is Mexico's highest. In 1400 AD, the Purépecha Emperor Tariácuri divided his realm into three parts, each headed by of one of his sons. Tanganxoán received Tzintzuntzan, Patzcuaro went to Irepan, and his third son Hiquingare got Ihuatzio. Eventually Tanganxoán managed to reunify the Empire and restore Tzintzuntzan as the chief city. He accomplished this just in time, because the Mexica were on the rise. Between 1450 and 1521, the Purépecha fought an intermittent war with them, ending only when the Mexica Empire was destroyed by the Spanish.


A coyote cavorts in the center of another large plate. For thousands of years, coyotes (in Nahautl: coyotl) have been viewed as special creatures by the indigenous peoples of Mexico and the western US.  Seen as a trickster, shape-shifter, and a bit of a clown, he is thought to have a direct link to the Spirit World. The coyote is intelligent, adaptable, and very cunning, with capabilities superior to his cousin, the wolf. In fact, wolves have become an endangered species, while coyotes have actually increased in population in the face of advancing civilization and have even been found roaming the streets of major US cities.


The beautifully illustrated fish on this platter highlight the Purépecha talent for fishing. Since they settled around a large lake, in a high mountain area with numerous smaller lakes, the Purépecha naturally became fisherman. In fact, they were known for this as much or more than as farmers. Even today, local fishermen use dugout canoes and huge nets that look like butterfly wings to catch carp, trout, charal, and whitefish. They also catch a local species of salamander for both human consumption and medicinal purposes.


Catrinas & Critters

Classic Catrinas show off their 19th Century finery. While this style of Catrina is still very popular, craftspeople throughout Mexico have expanded on the original concept. You can find skeleton figures--both human and animal--engaged in an incredible variety of day-to-day activities, from making tortillas in the kitchen, to playing golf, to riding bicycles, and so on. The fertile volcanic soil in the mountain valleys, and the fish-abundant lakes provided a stable economic base. With the leisure time that resulted, the pre-hispanic Purépecha could expand their skills as craftspeople. In ancient times they were known as skilled weavers who incorporated brilliant hummingbird feathers into their designs. They developed their skills as potters and basket makers since there were plenty of clay and rushes available along the lake shores. Forests thickly covered the mountainsides, so woodworking was another specialty. Their copper products were traded throughout Mesoamerica. The Purépecha have maintained their craftsmanship into the 21st Century, in spite of the ferocious 16th Century depredations they experienced under Nuño de Guzman.


Whimsical devils adorn another table at the Fair. In the foreground, a fat-bellied devil figure invites you to place something in his pot "belly." Behind him, another devil revs up his motorcycle. After Nuño de Guzman was finally sent back to Spain in manacled disgrace, Bishop Quiroga finally succeeded in enticing the Purépecha down from their mountain hideouts. In 1516 AD, Englishman Sir Thomas More had published his thoughts on the ideal society in a book called Utopia. Quiroga had read Moore's work and was a big fan. He decided to put More's ideas into practice in Michoacan. His strategy was to build upon the Purépecha's existing high levels of craftsmanship by teaching them European methods. Quiroga introduced the potter's wheel, Spanish-style looms and metallurgical techniques, and leather working, among other things. To ensure that every community could support itself, he persuaded each village to specialize in a different craft. After 500 years, this pattern of specialization still exists in the various towns around Lake Patzcuaro.


Another strange and whimsical creature seems to creep across the table top. It is not clear whether this is a spider or an octopus. There is so much going on with this creature, it is difficult to know where to examining him. For one thing, he appears to have numerous passengers, perhaps providing a reason for his rather grumpy expression. Perched on the ends of each of his legs (tentacles?) is a pretty mermaid. Each of them holds a different object in her arms, some of which appear to be musical instruments which they are playing. Above the heads of the mermaids, crocodile figures cling, with their mouths gaping open. On top of the creature's head sits a small mer-family, including a male and female and their mer-child. There is more, but you get the idea. Somebody had fun making this critter.


Textile Weaving 

Bishop Quiroga would have immediately recognized this free-standing, foot-powered loom. The vendor told me that she had made all of her ware on this machine, and I persuaded her to show me how it worked. She pumps a treadle with her left foot, providing the power for the device. There are almost no metal parts to the loom, making it quite similar to those introduced in to Nueva España in the 16th Century. The "free-standing" loom gets its name from the fact that its support comes from the frame of the device itself, as opposed to a back-strap or other kind of loom which is supported by being attached to a wall or tree or other solid support. While the Purépecha had a long history of weaving, it was with vegetable fibres and they never had access to wool until the Spanish arrived. The first sheep came to the Americas with Columbus, as a walking food supply. They bred well in the West Indies, and the descendants of Colombus' sheep accompanied Cortés to the mainland of Mexico in 1519 AD.


The mechanism's major parts are all wood, connected by twine. When asked how long it took to create one of her long and intricately woven rebozos, she responded "una hora" (one hour). I was amazed at the efficiency of this machine, particularly since it requres no external source of power other than the human that operates it, and given that its design is more than 500 years old. It takes more carpentry skill to construct a free-standing loom than the older traditional designs like the back-strap, but it can be made of rough lumber, as this one is, or even stripped logs. A single free-standing frame can serve several families. Assuming each family has a set of the moveable parts, they can use the frame in alternation.


The weaver could move the shuttle device with a flick of her wrist. The shuttle moves back and forth in the wooden trough seen above. By flicking her wrist back and forth, she moves the shuttle in the trough. This weaves the weft (short cross thread of the woven cloth) through the woof (long blue and white threads wound around the spindle). The twine attached to the cross pieces paralleling the trough are called the harnesses. The simplicity of the loom, and the ease with which she operated it was impressive.


Pots & Basketry

Maiz cobs decorate a display of large pots and other ceramics from the village of Cocucho.  This village is famous for its large pots colored with a stain made from maiz (corn). The technique used by the villagers of Cocucho comes from Africa and was taught to their ancestors by the artisans brought in by Bishop Quiroga. The pots are formed by hand and the potters use local river rocks to burnish them. Charcoal is used to fire the pots and then the corn meal is splashed onto the surface. No potter's wheel or other mechanical device is used to create these fine wares. The potters are all women who were taught by their mothers and grandmothers. The men play no role in making the pottery.


Basketry of all sizes and shapes is created in the village of La Granada. They even make small animals like the crocodile and reindeer you can see on the lower left. The baskets and other objects are made from local natural materials collected and woven by the villagers. Some of the typical materials used by Michoacan basket makers are tule, reeds, and bullrushes gathered from the lakesides. Willow twigs were another widely available natural material. Wheat straw wasn't used until the Spanish introduced that grain.


Reindeer, wreaths, and tree ornaments were offered in this booth. It was just before Christmas when I visited this Fair, so some of the woven fibre objects were specifically devoted to that celebration. Purépecha artisans and craftspeople are rightly viewed as some of the most talented and creative in Mexico. In a country filled with talented, creative, artistic people, that is saying something.

This completes my posting on the Purépecha Fair. I hope you have enjoyed it. I always encourage comments and corrections. If you would like to leave a comment, either use the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

A Broadbilled Hummingbird examines the world from its perch in Flossie's yard. In a village filled with interesting characters, Flossie the Hummingbird Lady stands in a class by herself. Her formal name is Florence Ocea Merrifield, but most people know her simply as Flossie. For many years, she has provided a seasonal home for hundreds of migrating hummingbirds, as well as a permanent one for those that are native to the area. Sometime back, I wrote a profile of her and her avian friends for Judy King's website, Mexico Insights, Living at Lake Chapala. I recently decided to up-date the piece for our blog, after checking to see that Flossie is still "alive and kickin'" and living in the area. She answered my email immediately to confirm that she is still here, in both senses, and helped me by updating some of my information. The Broadbilled hummer above is one of the medium-sized species. It can be found anywhere from the Southwestern US (Louisiana through Southern California) to Southwestern Mexico. Inside the long beak is an even longer extendable tongue used to extract nectar from flowers or catch insects on the wing.


Flossie's Place

Flossie prepares to refill one of the many feeders that attract hummingbirds like magnets. The Hummingbird Lady calls her feeding area "Flossie's Fast-Food Fly-through." For many years, she has rented a property that includes a small cottage in one corner of a huge, jungly lot at #2 Independencia, in Ajijic. Her home is just west of Calle Morelos, the street that leads down to Ajijic's pier. It's quite a job keeping up with the ravenous little birds and Flossie reports that last week she added 25 kilograms (over 50 lbs!) of sugar to the water in the various containers. She welcomes visitors Monday through Saturday (not Sunday, though) as long as they come before 2 PM. People dropping by should also remember that she has a very big lot and sometimes can't hear the bell if she is at the far end of the property. To get her attention, it is necessary to jerk vigorously on the piece of clothesline attached to the old fashioned bell inside the tall, blue gate. Flossie foots the bill for most of the sugar she uses but, since her income is limited, she is always grateful when visitors think to bring a bag or leave a cash donation to help pay for it.


Ladee, Flossie's former companion, is now munching treats in doggy heaven. When I visited and took this shot three years ago, she was still around but getting a bit grey at the muzzle,  Given that Flossie's home is only 1 block from the Lake's shore, and the lot is huge, I wondered if her bird-sactuary might be at risk from developers. Fortunately, her Mexican landlord apparently has no intention of selling. At least for now, she is secure in her small adobe cottage, surrounded by her ever-whirring, beautifully feathered guests. Although she celebrated her 80th birthday last year, Flossie is still alert and talkative, if a bit creaky at times. A while back, she had a knee operation and sometimes she requires help with heavy objects. However, she is still very independent. Her children have pleaded for her to return "home," but Flossie is adamant that she is home. As for getting older, her eyes twinkle when she declares "I earned every wrinkle!"


Broadbilled Hummingbirds

Another Broadbill displays its gorgeously iridescent green feathers.Hummingbirds are among the smallest of the avian species, with some weighing less than a US penny. By rapidly flapping their wings, they can hover in mid-air, and they are the only bird that can actually fly backwards. They get their name from the humming sound made by their whirring wings. They are also quite speedy, as anyone who has watched them can attest. They have been clocked in excess of 15 meters/second (34 mph).

As a child Flossie lived in Iowa where "it gets down to 37 below zero, you know. My mother was a slave and my father was no good. He came and went. She canned fruit to keep us alive." At age 15 Flossie married, but the relationship failed after 18 years. At loose ends, she decided to visit her father who was then living in Washington State. Flossie liked the Northwest US and decided to stay, eventually meeting and marrying her second husband, George. He was a logger and jack-of-all-trades. With a grin, she told how "George could handle anything but electricity. One time he hooked up the electric doorbell, but it made the toilet flush!"


A Broadbill comes in for a landing at one of the 17 feeders strung up around Flossie's patio. During what she calls "the high season" (May, June, and July) the migratory birds flock to her yard and she puts up even more feeders. During this season, Flossie will fill the feeders with as much as 50 kg of sugar per month. This can cost her more than $60 (USD) per month, an amount she used to handle herself until her friends in the Audubon Society persuaded her to start asking for donations. The feeders come in all sizes and shapes, including a red one in the shape of the State of Texas. The one above was made from an old plastic Pepsi bottle. The red disk at the bottom has a perching rim and holes where the ever-hungry birds can poke their beaks to get a drink of sugar water.

One of the highlights of her marriage with George was the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. "We were just outside the Red Zone when she blew." During her married life Flossie had 5 children, including 2 daughters and 3 sons, all of whom still live in the US. In addition to all of those kids, she raised her half-sister for 11 years. George died after a 17 year marriage, leaving Flossie in tight financial circumstances. George's Veterans Benefits and Social Security were just not enough to live on in high-cost Washington State.


Violet Crowned Hummingbirds

A Violet Crowned hummingbird stares intently at a small insect. Time for lunch? This bird likes to catch insects on the wing in addition to enjoying Flossie's sugar-water. The Violet Crowned bird has a similar range to the Broadbill: Southwestern US to Southwest Mexico and is typically a mountain dweller. The female will lay two white eggs in a nest she builds in a tree or shrub. The male is more brightly feathered than the female.

Looking for warmer weather (and lower heating bills), Flossie left Iowa for Arizona with her few possessions stuffed into an old car. After arriving, she lived in the car for a while but eventually acquired a pickup with a camper. Living in her house-on-wheels, she took up residence in the desert outside Yuma. At the time, there was quite a motley crew of "desert rats" scattered throughout the bleak landscape. To stay busy, she worked as a volunteer on a CB network, helping keep track of her more isolated friends.  A thrift store provided another volunteer opportunity. "I was always good at sales. I could sell ice cubes to Eskimos."


A Violet Crowned hummingbird digs into dinner while two more cruise in for a landing. The little creatures appetites keep Flossie busy, requiring her to fill up the feeders as much as 3 times a day. It's sometimes a struggle to keep up, especially in the high season. In 2012 she spotted 7 different species of hummingbirds in her yard, but in 2011, 11 species showed up. One year she even had a rare Sparkling Tail Woodstar drop in from Chiapas for a snack.

Arizona's winters were still a bit too chilly for Flossie, and money--as always--was tight. She kept up her search for someplace warmer and cheaper. Finally, she stumbled across a book about low-cost living in Mexico. It sounded interesting and, not long after, she met a man who told her about Ajijic and its nearly perfect climate. About 20 years ago, she packed up again and headed south. Things were still pretty tight, at first, even in Mexico. To make ends meet, she took care of elderly people, house-sat for absentee owners, and did whatever she could to keep body and soul together.

Hikers approach one of the large falls within Barranca Yerba Buena. Every fall, for the past four years, a group of hikers from Lake Chapala's foreign community travels to a remote canyon south of the Lake for a hike up to a stunningly beautiful waterfall. Then they return for a fiesta hosted by a local Mexican farmer and his wife. My hiking buddy Larry and I "discovered" this canyon back in 2009 and have been leading groups of hikers to see its many waterfalls ever since. I put quotes around the word "discovered" because local Mexicans have been aware of the canyon for hundreds of years, and pre-hispanic indigenous people for thousands of years before that. However, to the best of our knowledge, we were the very first members of the foreign hiking community to find and explore it. In the process we also discovered Raul and his wife Germina. They are treasures every bit as wonderful as the waterfall canyon.


Raul, as we first encountered him in 2009. We were on our fourth excursion to the canyon when we met Raul. At the time, we were approaching from a new direction and were uncertain as to the location of the trailhead. We were crossing the corn field above when we ran into Raul, who was working with his newly sprouted plants. He seemed a bit surprised at the sudden appearance of our motley crew of foreign hikers. With my north-of-the-border mindset, I expected him to be hostile about our uninvited crossing of his land. Raul's reaction was quite the opposite. He speaks only Spanish but one of our hiking group was Mexican and she explained our quest. Immediately, Raul dropped his equipment on the ground and said "Let's go, I'll show you the way." With that, he led us on a four-hour hike into the mountains. Although we were all wearing expensive, lug-soled hiking boots, this tough Mexican farmer in his beat-up cowboy boots left some of us gasping as we attempted to keep up. At the end of our hike, Raul invited us to come back in the fall for a fiesta to celebrate his harvest. A couple of months later, we participated in our "1st Annual Corn Harvest Fiesta at Raul's Farm." In September of 2012, Raul and his wife Germina hosted the 4th Annual Fiesta. I neglected to bring my camera to this last one, so the photos shown later in this posting are of the 3rd Fiesta, held in late September 2011. Each of the fiestas started a hike to the waterfalls followed by a pot-luck feast either at Raul's lean-to shelter next to his field, or his home in the nearby small town of Citala.


A British hiker threads her way through towering sunflower stalks. The hiker above is walking through an area that was originally a rough bulldozer road leading down a steep slope into the mouth of the inner gorge. Since it was originally cut, the road has become deeply eroded and thickly covered with vegetation, including this large stand of wild sunflowers. Forcing your way through this jungle is no easy task, as you can see.


Karen, a Filipina-American, clowns her way across another canyon obstacle. Over the years, a number of hikers new to this trail have reached this spot, looked at the bridge, and refused to go further. However, Karen was pretty daring for a first-timer and crossed it without hesitation. Although the stream below her is fairly shallow, about 3 m (10 ft) downstream is a sizable waterfall. I certainly wouldn't want to be swept over it. Fortunately, the log is quite stable and whoever built the bridge also put up a steel cable. Hanging onto the cable while you edge across makes the passage reasonably safe.


Moving up the canyon requires repeated stream crossings and much boulder-hopping. Most of my fellow hikers carry sticks for just such occasions. Some of these are expensive, telescoping, high-tech models like the one above. I just use the handle I removed from an old mop and put a rubber tip on the end. It seems to work just as well and only cost me 3 pesos (25 cents USD) for the rubber tip. Each to his own. This kind of boulder hopping can be fun, but we generally restrain ourselves. A misstep could easily result in a sprain, a nasty gash, or even a broken ankle due to the slickness of the sharp-edged, water-splashed rocks.


As you move up Barranca Yerba Buena, the waterfalls get progressively larger. The one above is about 8 m (25 ft) high, and drops into a large pool. The people gathered at the top of the waterfall provide a sense of scale to the photo. The water is brown due to agricultural runoff from the plateau above the canyon. The steep canyon walls around the pool contain numerous seep springs. Rubber hoses run down from these to a cement collection tank. From there, the clean spring water runs through a metal pipe all the way down the length of the canyon to Citala, several kilometers away.


Someone placed this sun-bleached cow skull as a trail marker. Because there are few roads into the mountains surrounding Lake Chapala, cattle that wander through and die are left where they fall. They are soon picked clean by scavengers. It's not unusual for hikers to find piles of bones scattered here and there along a trail. When I am leading a party of hikers new to Mexico, I sometimes like to stop and casually nudge a large bone with the toe of my boot, casually remarking, "isn't this is about the spot where that guy Joe fell behind last year? I don't believe we ever saw him again. I wonder...?" This almost always draws a round of nervous laughter, as people glance at my dead-pan face to see if I'm kidding.

As we near the head of the canyon, the walls close in and the jungle fills the gorge. The trail at this stage is barely a faint track. However, the canyon is so narrow that it's impossible to get lost. Piles of loose scree require close attention to one's footing, however.





Roots from an amate tree cling to the sheer cliff face. I am always impressed by the capacity of these trees to mould themselves to whatever rock surfaces are available as they send roots down looking for water. Amate ("ah-mah-tay") bark was used by the Aztecs to make paper.



Nearing the head of a box canyon, we first hear and then see the high falls. This cascade is actually the first of two high falls at the end of the canyon. While we have seen the falls beyond this one from their top, we have never been able to find a route leading to their base.


The falls drop almost vertically into a large pool in a box canyon. The stone walls of the canyon rise at a nearly 90 degree angle. The waterfall is probably about 30 m (100 ft) high, and the rock walls rise even higher than that. The mist in the canyon's base supports a variety of ferns, mosses and other damp-climate plants on the surrounding walls.


Up close, the roar of the water almost drowns any effort at conversation. Those of us who hike regularly in the mountains overlooking the North Shore of Lake Chapala are not used to finding year-round cascades such as these. The streams in the North Shore canyons usually flow only during July through September, after the summer rains have filled the mountain aquifers. The rest of the year those canyons are bone-dry. The South Shore stream shown above runs year-round because it flows out of a reservoir in a valley higher in the mountains. On a hot day, after sweating our way over boulders and other obstacles, it feels wonderful to stand in the cool drifting mist below a roaring cascade like this.


Karen strikes a pose at the box canyon pool. She and her sister and several of the wives of businessmen visiting Guadalajara decided to join the hike when they heard about it through one of our regulars. Karen drove them to the trailhead in a low-slung van. Her daring on the hike was matched by her daring on the rocky farm road leading to the trailhead. Unfortunately, her van was not built for such a road and she tore open the oil pan underneath. She made it back down to the paved highway, but the car had to be towed from there. As they say, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.


A couple of hikers negotiate another tricky spot. There is another natural set of steps here, but climbers must stay as close to the wall on the left as possible. To the right, the canyon drops off steeply to the stream bed below.


The hardest part of the hike is negotiating the steep climb back up the bulldozer road. When you come out the mouth of the inner gorge, you are usually already a bit tired. Now you must trudge up a path leading to the plateau overlooking the outer canyon. There are no tricky parts to this, but it always seems like an endless upward trudge. The icing on the cake is that you usually reach this section in the afternoon when the high, hot sun leaves little shade. Fortunately, this steep section is not as long as it sometimes seems. Step by step on the way up, I always remind myself of the cold drinks that await us, once we reach the cars on top of the plateau.


Citala nestles close to the base of a mountain overlooking a broad valley full of small farms. The stream in the bottom of our canyon flows right through the middle of this small, rustic village. Citala lies in a heavily wooded area, and you could easily miss it from the highway if you didn't know it was there. When I took the photo above, I was standing at the edge of the plateau looking out over an unharvested section of Raul's field. I sometimes kid him that he has a "million dollar view" from his fields, but it's true. At the edge of his property, Raul built shelter with rock walls on three sides and open on the forth. The overhead beams made of large, rough-trimmed tree branches are roofed with red clay tiles. Surrounding the shelter is a low, dry-stone wall. The effect is very picturesque and it made a great spot for our Fiesta.


Hungry hikers relax by the stone wall surrounding Raul's rustic shelter. Raul and Germina supplied huge pots full of freshly-picked corn on the cob, some boiled and some roasted. Germina also made a delicious dish made of candied calabasa (squash). We, in turn, brought roasted chickens, salads, desserts, and many other goodies. As a special treat for Raul, the hikers chipped in for a bottle of  Centenario, his favorite tequila.  Germina was presented with a lovely bouquet of flowers.


Our host and hostess pose with a special t-shirt. Someone thought to bring a new, white t-shirt and a marking pen. We all lined up to sign our names and leave appreciative comments. Mexico has wonderful landscapes, great pyramids, and stunning colonial art and architecture. However, the very best part of this country are people like these simple, generous, fun-loving farmers who seem as delighted to have us as friends as we are with them.

This completes my posting on the Corn Harvest Fiesta. I hope you enjoyed it and, if so, will feel free to leave a comment in the Comments section below or to email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

One of Ihuatzio's twin pryamids broods silently as rugged mountains rise to the east. The two pyramids at Ihuatzio are among the major features of the site, which is located near the city of Patzcuaro in the mountains of Michoacan. Carole and I recently visited the site on our way to the Pacific Coast beach town of Zihuatanejo. Since we were driving and the journey is a good eight hours, we decided to break it up with a stop just outside Patzcuaro. Several years ago, we visited Tzintzuntzan, the site of the ancient capital of what the Spanish called the Tarascan Empire. It is located along the shore of Lake Patzcuaro to the north of Patzcuaro. At that time, we had noted the existence of other ruins near the village of Ihuatzio, located about 1/2 way between Patzcuaro and Tzintzuntzan. However, we did not then have time to visit the site. On our recent Zihuatanejo trip, we were planning to reach Patzcuaro by mid-afternoon, so we built in a stop at Ihuatzio. Photographically, the timing was perfect. The golden glow of the winter afternoon sunshine reflected beautifully off the ancient stones, while the cool air made it very comfortable to clamber about the ruins.  For a Google map showing the locations of Patzcuaro, Tzintzuntzan, and Ihuatzio, click here.


Approaching the ancient city

The afternoon sun slanted across recently harvested fields of maiz (corn). The drive from our motel to the archaeological site was lovely. Michoacan is one of Mexico's most beautiful states, with ranges of heavily forested mountains separated by lush valleys and dotted with sparkling lakes. Ihuatzio is easy to find. While traveling along Highway 14, the "libre" (non-toll) road between Morelia and Uruapan, you turn north on Federal Highway 120, called the Carretera Patzcuaro-Quiroga. After about 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) you'll see a road leading off to the left toward Ihuatzio. The town is about 3 kilometers (1.8 mi) toward the lakeshore. Shortly after entering the town, you'll find a cobblestone road on the right leading up a hill and ending at the ruins. Drive with care, since you will likely encounter loose livestock on the road. For a map of the town and the route to the ruins, click here.

Ihuatzio means "place of the coyote" in Purépecha, the language of the ancient people and of their descendants today. Humans have inhabited the mountains and valleys of Michoacan for at least 10,000 years. During the millennia before the Spanish arrived, there were repeated waves of Chichimec migration from the far north into the area. "Chichimec" is a Mexica (Aztec) word that generally describes nomadic, non-urban people who might possess a variety of customs and languages. Among the early groups who settled in the area were the Nahua, Otomi, Matlatzincas, and Tecos. 


One of the local residents seemed to take a rather dim view of our arrival. This fellow looked us over dourly as we parked our car by the archaeological site entrance. Fortunately the large bull was on the other side of a stone wall. Unfortunately, he was pushing at the loose stones with his snout, apparently trying to create a gap through which he could pass. By the time we had completed our visit and were ready to depart, however, he had not made much progress. Who knows, he may still be working on it.

Ancient village sites have been found in the area dating back as far as the Pre-Classic era (1500 BC-200 BC) which makes those people contemporaries of the Olmecs. The best known culture from this era was the Chupicuaro, the people who inhabited islands in Lake Patzcuaro. Urban life developed during the Classic Era (200 BC-800 AD). Ball courts and other artifacts show that the area was influenced by the great trading empire of Teotihuacan (100 AD-650 AD) during the Classic period, and by the Toltec Empire (700 AD-1000 AD). Whether these influences came by peaceful trade or military activity is not clear.





Near the entrance of the site is a troje, similar to a traditional Purépecha house. Because of the thick forests in Michoacan's mountains, the indigenous people traditionally built their troje homes and other structures from wood. Unfortunately, ugly cinder block buildings have begun to replace these in many communities. The structure above is the small office of the archaeological site. The man sitting on the porch is the caretaker. The overall site covers 50 hectares (123 acres), but only part of it is open to visitors. The public site is a long rectangle oriented roughly east to west. It is part of a huge platform cleared and leveled in ancient times. This no doubt took immense effort given the lack of metal tools, draft animals, or wheeled transport at the time. Bordering the sides on the north and south are long walls, called Huatziri, which are unique in Mesoamerica.  For a satellite photo showing the layout of the ruins site, click here.


The great walls known as the Huatziris


The Huatziris served to restrict the ritual area, and could also act as defensive structures. The stepped walls are 80 m (240 ft) long and 5 m (15 ft) high. The top level is about 2 m (6 ft) wide. The Huatziris are built in the same manner as a typical stepped pyramid which, along with their length, makes them so unusual among Mesoamerican walls. It occurred to me that since the broad plaza they bound on the north and south was used for large public events, the steps would make ideal "bleacher seats" for an audience of thousands.

The Ihuatzio site's first period of occupation began about 900 AD when a group of Nahua-speaking people settled here. They found the food sources, particularly the fish in the lake, to be abundant and they developed a fairly dense population. About 1200 AD, the Purépecha-speaking Chichimecs arrived. While they were less culturally advanced than the Nahua-speakers already in residence, the Purépecha were decidedly more war-like and fairly soon extended their domination not only over the Lake Patzcuaro area but throughout Michoacan. 


The tops of the Huatziris are smooth and straight. Yet another function of the wall was to allow the cazonci (king) to move majestically along above the crowd from one end of the plaza to the other.

In the 16th Century, Spaniard Jerónimo de Alcalá described the founding of Ihuatzio in the "Relación de Michoacan," a document compiled by interviewing the surviving indigenous nobility. According to them, in the early period of the Purépecha conquest of Michoacan, a great king named Tariácuri decided to will his kingdom to his three nephews. He took them to the top of the hill called Thiapu and made three piles of dirt, set in a line. On each pile he placed a stone and an arrow. He called his nephew Hirapan over and pointed to the pile in the center and told him that this represented the town of the coyotes (Ihuatzio) and would belong to Hirapan. To Tangaxoán he gave Tzintzuntzan, and Patzcuaro went to Huiquingaje, his third nephew. 


Paralleling the southern Huatziri wall on the outside was a long walled road. Roads like this were part of Ihuatzio's ancient communications system and could also be used as defensive positions to impede an enemy attempting to assault the main Huatziri defenses. However, on the day we visited, the road was being used by a small, and very peaceable, herd of cattle that were meandering toward the pasture where they would spend the night.

King Tariácuri was one of the great Purépecha leaders during their conquest of Michoacan. While he was planning the capture of Ihuatzio, he sent his nephew Hiripan to the top of a hill north of the town to spy on the people living below. While Hiripan lay concealed, the god Curicaueri appeared to him and prophesied that he would become king. He then led his forces down upon the unsuspecting lake dwellers and captured a good many who were then given over to sacrifice. In honor of his victory, he decided to construct a temple dedicated to the worship Curicaueri and to store in Ihuatzio the treasures collected during the various military campaigns.


Plaza de Armas


The Plaza de Armas is one of the biggest Mesoamerican plazas I have ever seen. The platform on which it is based measures 300 m (900 ft) by 180 m (590 ft). The photo above, taken from the top of the south Huatziri, looks east down the length of the plaza. The corner of one of the two pyramids located on the west end of the plaza can be seen in the upper left.

Over time, Ihuatzio became the most powerful and important of the trio of cities that dominated the Tarascan realm. In good part, this was because Hiripan was the most aggressive and militarily accomplished of the three nephews. He took the lead in wars to expand and consolidate the territory controlled by the Purépecha. Over its three centuries of existence, the Empire extended throughout Michoacan and into parts of the modern states of Guerrero, Jalisco, Guanajauto, Querétaro and Colima. 



View of the plaza, and the south Huatziri, looking toward one of Michoacan's mountain ranges. The structure on the right is the northeast corner of the platform on which the two pyramids sit. The plaza could accommodate a vast crowd. Such an assemblage, dressed in full barbaric splendor with waving plumes of feathers, must have been spectacular.

Eventually, Hiripan died, and was buried at Ihuatzio. He left his realm to his son Ticatame who apparently did not possess the aggressive personality of his father, because it was during the son's reign that Tzintzuntzan became the key city of the Empire. Its ruler was Zizispandaquare, the son of Tangaxoan. He made his city the center of power, and took with him the god Curicaueri and the accumulated treasure that had been stored at Ihuatzio. It is not clear whether Ticatame objected to this arrangement.


Heaps of ancient building blocks dot the plaza here and there. These were structures of unknown purpose that have not been reconstructed. As stated before, most of the ruins of Ihuatzio are still just heaps of rubble and are not open to the public. Outside the Huatziri boundary, I saw another huge platform adjacent to the Plaza de Armas and perpendicular to it. This platform contains three yácatas which are structures again unique to the Purépecha Empire, and are similar to those found at Tzintzuntzan. Ihuatzio's yácatas are reported to contain tombs of important people from prehispanic times. In addition, there is a cylindrical astronomical observatory called the Mirador (lookout). Hopefully, at some future time, these will be opened to the public.

In spite of its loss of status, Ihuatzio and its rulers remained important players in the Empire. It was their job to rouse up the war-like spirit in the Purépecha soldiers prior to a battle. Ihuatzio's rulers also participated in the elite group who selected the next cazonci. Ihuatzio's ruler Paquingata, grandson of Ticatame, refused the position of cazonci when it was offered to him at one point.


The pyramids


Carole views the two stepped-pyramids that occupy the western end of the Plaza de Armas. The pyramids rest on a large platform and are separated from each other by a narrow corridor. At one time, there were temples on the top, but these have not survived because they were made of perishable materials. The cores of the pyramids are rock and earth, but the walls are of horizontally set slabs. The twin pyramids were dedicated to two Tarascan gods. One of these was Curicaueri, the patron of the Tarascan kings. He was a warrior god and the sun's messenger as well as god of the sky and the hunt.  The other temple was devoted to Curicaueri's wife Xaratanga, who was the goddess of childbirth and fertility and was variously depicted as a snake, a vulture, or a half-moon coyote. She was the daughter of Cuerauaperi, the earth goddess who was mother of all gods and controlled birth and death.

The Purépecha are notable for a variety of reasons. For one thing, their language is unlike any other indigenous group in Mexico. The only other related languages linguists have found are that of the Zuni people of the Pueblo Culture of the Southwest US, and the Quecha people of coastal Peru. This has led to an archaeological argument (they love to argue). Some hold that the Zuni language similarity indicates a Purépecha origin in the far north. Others point to the Quecha words in the language and suggest  a seaborne arrival from South America. The dispute remains unsettled, although the connection to South America has other interesting angles


A rear view of the twin pyramids.Curicaueri, according to some sources, was also the god of fire and had five brothers known as the Tiripemencha who ruled the five houses of the earth plane. These houses included the four sacred directions (north, south, east, and west) as well as the place where they intersected, the center of the universe. Curicaueri was represented by various animals, including the eagle flying above the earth, the coyote moving on the surface, and the snake traveling through the underworld. War captives were sacrificed to Curicaueri in solemn ceremonies after being intoxicated with fermented cornmeal prepared by priests.  They were then bound hand and foot, taken to the top of the temple to a special stone, and their hearts were removed with a sharp obsidian blade. The heads of those sacrificed were placed on a special rack similar to the tzompantli used by the Mexica (Aztecs).

Another of the important Tarascan distinctions has to do with their skill at metal-working. They not only crafted beautiful gold and silver jewelry, but they were the only group in Mesoamerica that used copper extensively to make weapons and tools. While the Mexica and other groups used copper for bells and ornaments, they seldom used it for axes and blades, preferring the traditional obsidian. Further, there was no copper ore in the Mexica areas, so the copper they did obtain through trade and tribute was previously mined and smelted and ready to work, if not obtained in already finished form. There is a strong possibility that the Tarascans obtained their knowledge of copper working through seaborne trade relations with the Quecha people of Peru. It is possible that the Purépecha could have originated in the far north, and picked up the Quecha words from traders from South America.




Detail of the twin pyramid on the north side of the platform. Including the two steps of the platform itself, there are a total of eleven steps leading to the top of the structure. Notice the rather roughly hewn horizontal blocks that make up the walls. On the left side is the corridor that separates the two pyramids. When this corridor was excavated, archaeologists found several skeletons and a one-ton Chac Mool, indicating a connection with the Toltecs. Chac Mools are always depicted as a man reclining on his back while leaning on his elbows with his knees bent. A bowl or tray always appears on the figure's stomach, ready to receive a fresh human heart.

The Tarascan Empire was also the first truly territorial state in Mesoamerica, another unusual aspect. All the others, including the Olmecs, Teotihuacan, the Toltecs, and even the Aztecs were either trading empires or based on tribute relationships with other states. Further, the use of metal weapons gave them a military edge over their great rival the Mexica, who launched several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the Purépecha. They were the only people to successfully repel such a determined effort by the Mexica. When the Spanish were besieging Tenochtitlán, the Mexica sent emissaries to the Tarascans asking for help. Because of their previous enmity, the Tarascans not only refused, but they sacrificed the emissaries, and looked forward to welcoming the conquerors of their great enemy.  It was a mistake they would come to regret.


Closeup of the pyramid's front (eastern) wall. Shown above are the facing blocks made from slabs of volcanic rock called xanamu. These blocks once covered the entire structure. There were once staircases ascending this wall, but little is left of them. Consequently, the pyramids cannot be easily climbed and such activity is discouraged by the caretakers for safety reasons.

The Purépecha maintained and extended their control up until the Spanish conquistador Nuño de Guzman arrived in 1530 AD. He destroyed their empire and scattered their people into the remote mountains. The Spanish misunderstood the Purépecha language and mistakenly called the people Tarascans, the name by which they are now commonly known. Nuño de Guzman burned their last king alive in an attempt to force him to reveal the source of the gold ornaments he and his nobles wore. It was a quick and drastic end to a great empire.


Ihuatzio, the "modern" town

View of the modern village of Ihuatzio, with Lake Patzcuaro in the background. The ancient ruins of Ihuatzio lie high up on the slopes of a mountain called Cerro Tariaqueri. As we descended, I stopped to capture this view of the village, the lake, and the city of Patzcuaro on the forested hills beyond. The town lies at an elevation of 2040 m (6692 ft) and has a population of over 3500 people, about 1/3 of them children. A lot of the people are poor, with 78 out of the 663 households lacking a floor, and 49 having one room only. Still, the overwhelming majority are connected to the public water supply, electricity, and even have a television. As with many rural populations, the education level is fairly low, with the average number years of school completed being seven. However, there are computers in 35 of the households.


A young horse out for a casual sidewalk stroll on a sunny afternoon. I always enjoy little oddities like this that are so commonly found in rural Mexico. Of course, to the local people, it wouldn't even be worth a second glance.


The Parroquia San Francisco de Asis was built in the 18th Century. No doubt the church replaced earlier versions dating back to the mid-16th Century.



Christmas decorations still adorned the interior in mid-January. This is not unusual, since the Christmas season in Mexico lasts at least until Dia de los Tres Reyes (Three Kings day) which falls on January 6. Traditionally, that is the day when gifts are exchanged, in keeping with the gifts brought by the biblical Three Kings to the new-born Jesus. Many of the decorations seen above are crafts for which Michoacan State is famous.


A wood-pillared walkway overlooks the Ihuatzio Plaza.Woodworking is another craft for which the people in this area are famous. In addition to the pillars above, much of the house behind the walkway is decorated with beautifully carved wood.


Detail of a plaza pillar. This kind of work is not reserved for public buildings or the homes of the wealthy. While traveling the back roads of Michoacan, I have seen this sort of carved pillar adorning some very humble dwellings.

This completes my posting on Ihuatzio. I hope you have enjoyed it and learned something new about Mexico. I always encourage feedback and if you have any comments, questions, or corrections, please leave them in the Comments section, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

View of Zihuatanejo looking northeast. After our stop at Patzcuaro to see the ancient Tarascan ruins at Ihuatzio (see previous posting), we continued on through Michoacan to the Pacific Coast near Ciudad Lazaro Cardenas and then south into the small, mountainous, State of Guerrero. A one hour drive along the coast road (Highway 200) brought us to the beach town of Zihuatanejo (Zee-hwa-tan-ay-ho). In the photo above, the most heavily populated part of Zihuatanejo  can be seen in the upper left. The curved beach stretching from the center to the lower right is Playa la Ropa. It is the largest of the four main beaches that lie around the perimeter of the small bay in front of Zihuatanejo. Each of the beaches is shaped like a half-moon with steep hills rising in back of it. There are rocky points at the tips of each crescent beach, separating it from the next one. The beaches vary in size from about 200 m to 1600 m (200 yds - 1 mi). The northern two, Playa Municipal and Playa Madera, are both about the same length and are the most heavily used. Playa Ropa is somewhat more quiet, and Playa Las Gatas, at the extreme south end of the bay, is the smallest and most isolated. In addition, there are a number of other small coves but the four I mention are the main beaches. For a Google map of the Zihuatanejo area, click here.


The Big Picture

Telephoto shot of Playa Municipal, the most northern of the four beaches. At the right is the beach where the fishermen pull up their launches so that they can sell their catch to the restaurants among the trees just behind the beach. In the center is the long pier where you can catch tour boats that will take you to various scenic spots around the bay. To the left is the channel leading to the marina. Behind all this is the relatively flat Centro area about 6 blocks deep. It contains shops, small hotels, and restaurants that cater to the tourist trade. Back behind the Centro area, the land rises sharply and is crowded with homes and apartments.


The point of land called Puerto Mio is on the northern arm of Zihuatanejo Bay. The point is dotted with sumptuous homes perched on rock cliffs around its shore. North of this point, about 8 km (5 mi) by land, is Xtapa, the Mexican Pacific Coast's answer to Cancun. Xtapa was conceived in the 1970s, and built from the ground up out of a coconut plantation. It is full of modern, all-inclusive hotels and is, like Cancun, a "tourist bubble", somewhat sealed off from the real Mexico that we were seeking. By contrast, Zihuatanejo is small-scale, colorful, quirky, filled with ordinary Mexican people who actually live there, has a history going back to pre-hispanic times, and is close to my definition of what a Mexican beach resort should be.


Playa las Gatas is sheltered by a cove on the point forming the southern tip of Zihuatanejo Bay.Playa las Gatas is the beach you can see in the center left of the photo. The point of land at the top of the photo is the northern tip of the land surrounding the bay and, along with the southern point, forms its entrance. Playa las Gatas reputedly has an offshore reef built by one of the ancient Tarascan kings. The beach is named for the whiskered sharks that once--but apparently no longer--gathered there. There are regular boats to the beach departing 8 AM - 5 PM from the pier at Playa Municipal shown earlier. Playa las Gatas is reputed to be the best snorkling location in the bay because of its clear water. Snorkling gear can be rented from the beachside restaurants. However, swimmers must beware of sea urchins which can deliver a painful sting. Carole and I never actually put our feet on the sand of this beach because we got lost in the maze of roads winding around the peninsula above it. We never found time to visit by boat, but perhaps next time.


Playa la Ropa

A quiet morning stroll on Playa la Ropa.  During our entire stay at Zihuatanejo, few of the beaches we saw got much more crowded than in the scene above, and this was in January, the top of the season! Perhaps, after all, Xtapa has been a boon to people like us. It has diverted intensive development--and the resulting tourist mobs--away from this idyllic, dreamy, beach community and concentrated it out of sight, a bit up the coast. Playa la Ropa ("Clothes Beach) got its name when a colonial-era merchant ship sank just off shore and its cargo of fine Bombay silks drifted in to the beach, no doubt delighting the local women. The gentle waves of this beach make it one of the best for swimming. Carole is not a fan of cold water, so she kept her distance at first. Testing it myself, I found it to be just a mite cooler than lukewarm and persuaded her to get her feet wet as we strolled the beach. She loved it!


Dotted throughout the coves of the bay, sailboats like this rocked gently at anchor. Every day, from dawn to dusk, there was a constant slow movement around the bay by boats of various sizes. Some were expensive sailboats like this, some were tour craft, and others were the launches of the local fishermen. It was mesmerizing to sit and watch this majestic movement, crowned by the slowly swirling flocks of brown pelicans overhead,


Small catamarans were available to rent along the various beaches, including Playa la Ropa. These simple craft are constructed from two narrow hulls with a nylon and metal platform connecting them. Someone once described a sailboat as "a hole in the water into which you pour money." Something like this would certainly create a smaller hole to fill than the sailboat in the previous photo. A catamaran this size can sail into remarkably shallow water and is light enough to easily pull up on the beach by hand.


And for those with really tight budgets... I watched in curiosity as this woman walked toward the water carrying her paddle and surf board. She waded out a few yards, mounted the  board and started stroking her way down the beach while I marveled at her sense of balance.


Hotel Irma

Hotel Irma sits on the side of a cliff overlooking Playa Madera. In writing this blog, I occasionally mention the hotels where we stay on our travels around Mexico. Usually, this is to give anyone following our footsteps a starting point in their search for accommodations. Generally, they are more or less comfortable places to sleep, in between the adventures we find while we're out-and-about. Hotel Irma is different, in a class by itself, and our experience there came close to making it the star of the whole show. The pool deck, seen above, is the level where you can see the horizontal blue line in the upper center. The water of the pool is level with the top of that line, allowing swimmers to gather in the water along the edge to enjoy the view.


The hotel is on the beach, yet set apart from it at the same time. The view here is from Playa Madera, looking south. Hotel Irma is the rust-colored, multi-level building on the side of the hill. The different levels provided wonderful, 180 degree vistas encompassing most of the bay. There is a steep, narrow, stone stairway leading down to the beach, but this is locked fairly early in the evening. Most of the time, we walked out the main entrance (in back of the top level you see above) and down the street to where there is an access alley to the beach coming out just to the right of the red umbrellas on the lower left of the photo.


A view from the pool deck, looking north toward the Centro area. I took this shot on one of the levels overlooking the pool deck. You can see the pool and its blue wall at the lower left corner. We spent hours on this deck, watching the birds and boats, and the people frolicking on the beach. This shot was taken about 8 AM, as the sun was peeping over the hills behind me, leaving Playa Madera and the pool deck still in shadow. The view was so enthralling that we had to tear ourselves away to go check out the town.


Playa Madera, seen from the pool deck of the hotel. As you move north along the beach and approach the Centro, there are more and more small hotels, condos, and homes lining the beach. They are all "human scale" and don't project the imposing, even overpowering, sense of other resort beaches we have visited. At the busiest times of day, Playa Madera had perhaps twice this many people on it. The large dark object on the beach approximately in the center of the photo is a sea-sculpted rock. For those with limited budgets, or just wanting a change from more formal restaurants, the beach umbrellas at the center shaded very informal beach eateries.


This lush garden offered one of the many intimate spaces within Hotel Irma. Although the hotel offers 67 rooms, it provides a feeling of intimacy through its variety of levels, each decks of varying sizes, or quiet interior cubbyholes like this. It took me a bit of time to understand the layout, but the overall effect was to provide many options for privacy outside the confines of one's own room.


The pool's blue wall was a very popular gathering place, particularly in the late afternoon. Below the grassy area on the right, the cliff drops off sharply. While mornings are cool and breezy, and evenings after sunset are balmy, the afternoons at Zihuatanejo can get quite warm and sultry, even in January. A sultry afternoon is the perfect time to soak in the pool, while hanging your arms over the edge and quaffing an icy marguerita.


One of the interesting sights from the pool deck were the very fancy catamarans. There were two of these anchored offshore below the hotel, and they appeared to be identical. I never found out for sure, but I think these might be connected to the sunset cruises we read about. At about $60 USD per person, these were a little too rich for our blood, but some might find them fun.


Happy hour was a popular time on the pool deck. The hotel offered 2 for 1 margueritas for $40 pesos total (about $1.60 USD each). I haven't drunk alcohol for many years, but Carole persuaded me to drink one of the pair the waiter brought her. I can testify here that the bartenders certainly don't scrimp on the tequila! A hotel acquaintance scoffed that they weren't strong at all but, after drinking her pair, she at first couldn't find her keys, then lost her sunglasses. Through it all, she sat there with a glazed but happy grin. As you can see, the sunsets are spectacular, and they last for a long time.


The finale is sublime. The effect is stunning and on our high perchs on the pool deck, margueritas in hand, we had no complaints. The show just goes on and on as the colors deepen and finally settle into dark.


Even after dark, the show goes on. The lights around the bay would come on and sparkle across the water toward us. The telephoto shot above shows the malecon (waterfront area) along Playa Municipal. There is considerable nightlife in the Centro area, but we were cautioned to stay off the cement walkway that parallels the beach between our hotel and Centro after dark because of robberies that have occurred along that isolated path. In my next posting, we'll take a daytime stroll along the malecon. Every twist and turn reveals a sculpture, or people working or playing in interesting ways, or the abundant animal life.

This completes Part 1 of my Zihuatanejo series. I know many of my friends up north are currently enjoying frosty weather and snowdrifts (or rain squalls in Oregon). I hope they will be happy to see that somewhere out there is a world of sunshine, warmth, and long, slow walks along quiet beaches. I always encourage feedback, so if you would like to make a comment or correction, or yell at me for enjoying myself too much, please do so in the Comments section below or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Bronze sculpture of a beautiful girl basking on a rock along Playa Madera. This is one of seven statues of indigenous women along Playa Madera and Playa Municipal. The bronze statues, each slightly larger than life, represent indigenous women of the seven regions of Guerrero. They were created by sculptor Crecencio Oregon as part of a Zihuatanejo beautification program. The statue above represents Acapulco, the famous colonial port that became a popular playground for the rich and famous in the 1950s and 60s. In this posting, I'll take you for a walk along Playa Madera to give you a sense of it at various times of the day.

The coast of Guerrero has long been known for its tropical woods, including cedar, oak, and walnut. Playa Madera ("Wood Beach") gained its name because it was the place where such fine wood was loaded onto ships heading to ports around the world. The origin of Zihuatanego's name is somewhat more obscure. One translation, from the Purépecha language of the Tarascan Empire, means "water of the yellow mountain." However, in the language Nahuatl of the Aztecs, Cihuatlán, means "place of the women." This may refer to the paradise of the  female goddesses whose duty was to lead the sinking sun toward the west and ultimately into the darkness of Mictlán, the place of the dead. I like the second explanation better, because it ties in nicely with the lovely bronze statues lining the shore, as well as their human counterparts playing on the beach.


Condos on the point known as "Chain of Rocks" glow softly in the late afternoon sun. The surf along Playa Madera is very gentle and makes the beach ideal for swimming. Several people on the lower left are enjoying a cool dip during the afternoon heat. The point above forms the southern tip of Playa Madera's the crescent beach. On the other side of the point is the northern end of Playa La Ropa, seen in the last posting. Notice the precipitous way that the coastal hills drop directly down to the water in some places. There is no way to walk along the water around this point to Playa La Ropa. To do that, you have to walk on a street up over the hill.

Zihuatanejo's recreational potential was recognized very early. Approximately 1400 AD, Tarascan Emperor Tanganxoan II discovered beach vacations. He liked to bring his many wives down to the shores of this lovely bay, particularly favoring Playa las Gatas (see previous posting). In order to create an area of safe, quiet water for bathing in that little cove, the Emperor built a stone underwater reef that still exists. The Mexica (Aztecs) under the Emperor Ahuitzotl conquered the area in 1497, dispossessing the beach-loving Tarascans. During their rule, the Mexica established a temple for the goddess Cihuatéotl, whom they revered as the mother of the human race and the goddess of warriors fallen in battle. 


A small hotel overlooking Playa Madera blends with the vegetation and contour of the land. One of the charming aspects of Zihua, as it is known by the locals, is how often structures like this have been designed to blend in, rather than ostentatiously stand out. Notice the extensive use of palm leaves to thatch the roofs. They are light, cool and, when woven thickly together, are almost impervious to rain. However, high winds can sometimes blow them apart.

In 1522, only months after conquering the Mexica, the Spanish under Gonzalo de Umbria arrived in the Zihua area. Gonzalo was sent by Hernán Cortez to look for gold and generally reconnoiter the area. When the Spanish appeared, most of the indigenous population literally "headed  for the hills," escaping into the mountains, never to return. This gave the haciendas in the area a completely different character than those found in the rest of Mexcio. Lacking indigenous slave labor, the Spaniards were for once forced to do the work themselves. There wasn't much gold in the area, so their haciendas produced cotton, chocolate, vanilla, and corn, as well as fine wood cut in the forests of the coastal mountains. 


Early morning shadows cover the beach as gentle waves lap at a rocky point. The walkway shown above winds along the shore from the south end of Playa Madera to the marina channel at the northern end of Playa Municipal, except for a short stretch of open sand at one place.

Zihuatanejo also figured in some of the early Spanish maritime expoits. In addition to searching for gold, silver, and other treasures in Nueva España (New Spain, i.e. Mexico), the Spanish were vitally interested in establishing a trade route to the East Indies. This was, after all, what Colombus' voyages were originally about. Zihua first appears in historical records in a report by Cortés to King Charles V of Spain. The Spanish had identified the Philippines as the key to the East Indies trade when Magellan stopped there in 1521. Now they needed a launching point for an expedition that would create a direct link to the East Indies from Nueva España. 


Local students have waged a fairly successful clean-up campaign. This hand-painted sign reminds passersby that "Throwing trash at the world is like throwing the world into the trash." Signs with varying versions of this message hang from trees at regular intervals. Underneath, the students have placed small wooden fruit crates to collect the trash. While this hasn't eliminated the problem, it appears to have helped a great deal. I am  guessing that "Prepa5" means that the students are in the 5th grade.

Cortés wrote to King Charles that Zihua's protected bay was a good possibility for a West Coast port. The ships that first sailed from Nueva España to the Philippines were built at Zihua, using the abundant lumber. They were christened the Florida, the Espiritu Santo, and the Santiago. The little fleet sailed from Zihuatanejo Bay for the East Indies on Oct. 31, 1527 under the command Captain Alvaro Saavedra Cerón. This was only six years after 1521, the year the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlán fell, and also the year of Magellan's visit to the Philippines. In the context of the times, it was a lightning-fast move and it set Spain up as the dominant power in the world for the next couple of centuries.


Dotted here and there along the Playa are small outdoor restaurants. This is the one short stretch of beach where there is a break in the cement walkway. Fortunately, the sand is firm and can be walked easily. Waiters for these restaurants hang out on the beach and try to persuade potential diners to stop at their establishment.

Of Captain Saavedra Cerón's Zihua-built ships, only the Florida made it to the Philippines. Although it never returned to Nueva España, the link was established. The Spanish could now challenge Portugal's East Indies trade dominance. Unlike Spain, Portugal had managed to reach the East from the opposite direction by sailing around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. It took a couple of more attempts to establish a strong Spanish base in the Philippines, and it was not until 1565 that they finally managed it. 


Youngsters wrestle in the water near the surf line. I learned later that salt water crocodiles have been spotted in this area, probably hoping for tasty morsels like these. A friend of mine told me that he was swimming offshore during a visit to Zihua and saw people on the beach frantically waving at him. He finally realized that what he thought was a floating log not far away was a croc. He removed himself from the water with all due speed.

In 1565, Nueva España's Viceroy Luis de Velasco sent Captain Miguel López de Legazpi on the first voyage to the Philippines that ended with a return to Nueva España. The problem was with the prevailing winds. The Spanish knew how to use them to travel west, but at that latitude they were blowing the wrong way to come back. Legazpi took along a navigator-priest named Fray Andrés de Urdaneta. When Urdaneta attempted the return to Nueva España, he sailed north instead of east, taking a chance on finding easterly prevailing winds at a higher latitude. Reaching the southern tip of Japan, he found winds that might take him from west to east.  His gamble succeeded and he made the first documented return voyage across the Pacific, making landfall on the coast of California. Urdaneta then made the long trip down the coast to Acapulco, with stops here and there that may have included Zihuatanejo Bay. Whether he paused there or not, later galleons that followed his route certainly did. 


The cement walkway winds around some rocky points along the way. In the background is the northern part of Playa Madera. Behind the Playa, homes and hotels rise up the sides of Cerro de la Madera ("Wood Ridge"). The fruit crate under the lamp post on the right is one of the trash collectors left by the students.

The China trade, not the Philippines, was the ultimate prize.  China's porcelain, silks, and other wonderfully crafted luxury goods were much more important than anything the Philippines produced. They could be easily purchased with the fantastically abundant silver produced by the Spanish mines in Nueva España and Peru. The importance of the Philippines to Spain was its great harbor at Manila, which became the collection point for goods procured all along China's coast, as well as from other areas in the East Indies. There were any number of possible ports to receive these goods along the coast of Nueva España, including Zihuatanejo. However, the Spanish King, who was by now Phillip II, wanted to maintain strict control over this great torrent of wealth. It was essential to his power and ambitions in Europe. Under Spanish law, the king could demand his quinta (1/5) of all profits produced in the trade with Nueva España and the East Indies. Using multiple ports made control of the trade more difficult. In 1561 the King had the foresight to choose Acapulco as the sole port of entry on Nueva España's West Coast. In 1565, when the link was made to the East, the great ships began carrying silver to Manila and Chinese wares on the return trip. The Acapulco-Manila Galleons of legend were thus established. 



A fisherman tries his luck on the rocky point at the northern end of the beach. His equipment is simple: a hook and a weight on the end of a fishing line wound around a plastic bottle. I was curious about his likelihood of success, so I dallied for a bit to watch.

Acapulco was chosen over Zihuatanejo because the distance between Acapulco and Mexico City was only 300 km (190 mi) and there was an existing road and some port facilities. By contrast, Zihuatanejo lay 374 km (233 mi) away  and there was no viable road through the tangled mountains of Michoacan and Guerrero. In addition, it had little in the way of an established port. However, Zihua continued to play a role in its own way. Because the galleons from Manila reached the Western Hemisphere at California, they had a long sail down the coast to reach Acapulco. Zihua's bay served as a safe harbor during storms and a place to take on water and make repairs. In the last part of the 16th Century, when the Spanish shipyards at Zacatula burned, new shipyards were built at Zihuatanejo to handle galleon repairs.


To my surprise, the young man almost immediately hooked a small fish. He was pleased to show it off for my camera. You can see the white fish at the end of the line below his right hand. There appears to be a large population of various kinds of fish both in the bay and in the ocean just outside. Fishermen use a variety of techniques, including simple hand lines like this, to rods and reels, to hand nets, to large nets pulled by powerboats. This area has been known for its excellent fishing for thousands of years.

Unfortunately for the Spanish, Zihuatanejo Bay also played a role in the long history of piracy against their galleons. Over the centuries, pirate ships would lurk in the bay, waiting for a galleon to come by. Ships captured elsewhere would sometimes be brought to Zihua for repairs. Because the Pacific was considered a "Spanish lake" during the early years of the China trade, galleons often went unarmed to save weight and cargo space. This made them easy prey, at least for a time. Some of the visiting pirate notables included the Englishmen Sir Francis Drake and William Dampier. Drake was a 17th Century figure, working covertly for Elizabeth II. His savage attacks on Spanish possessions in the New World helped bring on war with Spain and Phillip II's famous (and disastrous) Armada invasion. William Dampier was a pirate who became the first man to circumnavigate the planet three times. In the Archaeology Museum previously mentioned, a rusted cannon is on display that was recovered by divers from the bay. It came from a Spanish galleon captured by Dampier. He brought his prize to Zihua to make repairs and to recruit crew to help sail it back to England. Unable to find any suitable recruits, he burned and sank the galleon. Admiral George Anson was not a pirate, but major figure in the 18th Century British Navy. During his operations against Spanish shipping in the 1740s, he sank the ship Caramela in Zihuatanejo Bay. 


People get around the bay in many ways, this being one of the more exciting. In addition to jet boats like the ones above, the bay swarms with fishing craft, sailboats, kayaks, Naval patrol boats and launches full of tourists. Watching all of this water traffic can be quite entertaining.

Aside from the excitement of occasional pirate raids, things drowsed along at Zihua through the 18th and into the 19th Centuries. The lack of a road to the interior meant that contact with the outside world was seaborne and sporadic. Zihua largely escaped involvement in the 1810-1821 War of Independence, except for its use by insurgent leader José María Morelos y Pavón as a logistic port during 1811. Nearly 100 years went by before Zihua again played a role in national events.

Kayaks are available to rent at various locations along the beach. In this shot, you are looking directly across the bay toward Playa Las Gatas, where the wives of TanganxoanII once frolicked. The sailboat in the center is one of the large catamarans that are used to take tourists on sunset cruises. I took the panoramic shots seen in the previous posting from the hills in the background.

When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, four well-known brothers from the Zihua area, Alfredo, Leonel, Hector, and Homero Lopez signed up with the revolutionaries. The feeling in the area was generally pro-rebel, and the Lopez brothers were soon joined by many others. Conflict arrived soon at sleepy Zihua as rebel groups fought with federal troops, and with each other. During this period, Zihua was pillaged and vandalized at various times. While the main fighting during the Revolution lasted from 1910-1917, various uprisings and conflcts continued until the late 1920s in different parts of the country. In 1926, a rebel group called the "Vidalistas" brought 1000 men to attack government installations in Zihua in an attempt to free some of their leaders who had been imprisoned. Government officials made a secret agreement to release them in return for a rebel withdrawal.


Young love on the beach. Set into the rocky points along the way are various benches that make convenient spots for couples to snuggle. This young musician and his girl friend seemed amused by my desire to capture their moment.

In early colonial times, a Spaniard named Anton Sanchez received an encomienda (a precursor to the hacienda system) that included the Xtapa area. Spanish galleons on the Manila-to-Acapulco leg brought coconut palms from the Philippines and they gradually became a large-scale export crop at the Xtapa hacienda and elsewhere along the Costa Grande. In 1952, coconut workers at Xtapa and many other haciendas staged a major strike all along the coast from Zihuatanejo to Acapulco. During the strike, roads into Zihua were blocked.


Palm fronds dry in the afternoon sun. I noticed a young family laying these out on the beach and stopped to observe. They confirmed that these would be used to roof one of the many palapas (open-sided, palm-thatched huts) found along the beach.

Until the 20th Century, Zihuatanejo never became much more than a tiny, sleepy, fishing village of less than 5,000 people. The only practical way to visit was by boat. In 1920, the Prince of Wales visited Acapulco down the coast, announced his enjoyment, and spurred interest in the area. Wealthy yachtsmen began to cruise the coast, as pirates had in previous centuries. Some of them dropped anchor in Zihuatanejo's pristine Bay and word began to get around. Lacking other facilities, these outsiders stayed in private homes or on their yachts anchored offshore.


Still another way to get across the bay. Parasailing is very popular and one of these colorful parachutes can often be seen crossing the sky in the distance. I tried this once on a visit to Cancun years ago. It was quite scenic, but I couldn't help noticing that the only things connecting me to the chute were two small metal clips. My north-of-the-border sensibility immediately kicked in and I began to think about proper maintenance and regular inspections as I peered down at the water hundreds of feel below. Fortunately, I landed without incident.

In the 1950s, the construction of a small airport brought in a modest increase of visitors. This finally forced the laid-back locals to put up a few small hotels. Still, there were no roads connecting the village to the outside world until the 1960s when one was built up the Costa Grande from Acapulco. Then, in the early 1970s, everything began to change. The government decided to create major destination resorts at Cancun, on the coast of Yucatan, and near Zihuatanejo on the Costa Grande.


Playa Madera ends at the right side this pedestrian bridge. Playa Municipal begins on the left side. The bridge stretches over a long arroyo (creek bed) that cuts down from the hills behind Zihua, through the town, and finally empties into the bay. The cement-lined channel was mostly dry when we visited, but I imagine it handles quite a torrent during the rainy season. Near the left end of the bridge is the Archaeological Museum of the Costa Grande. It is a small, but very nice, museum displaying artifacts from the earliest habitation of the area through the arrival of the Spanish. I will show some of these artifacts in future postings.

The Mexican government's original idea was to develop their mega resort in Zihua, but the local community protested the destruction of the character of their little beach town. In the end, Fonatur (Mexico's Federal Bureau for Tourist Development) took over the Xtapa coconut plantation. The old hacienda lies about 5 km (3.1 mi) to the north, out of sight behind the point of land that forms the northern arm of Zihua's bay. 


A hand net fisherman tries his luck at dusk near the north end of Playa Madera. As I headed back to Hotel Irma from my beach stroll, I came across this fellow. He was standing chest deep in the calm water, gathering up his net for another throw. It must be hard work to repeatedly haul in the water-soaked net, hopefully full of wriggling fish, in preparation for another toss.

To construct and maintain the Xtapa resort, large numbers of workers were required and Zihua became their bedroom community. The population today is about 62,000. While many residents of Zihua work in Xtapa, very few live there. Xtapa remains as it was created, a tourist bubble for well-to-do outsiders, while Zihua has remained a blend of overgrown fishing village and quirky, laid-back, beach community.


Another spectacular sunset, looking toward the northern arm of Zihuatanejo's bay. Carole was waiting for me back at Hotel Irma, but I didn't think she'd mind if I stopped for one last shot. Next week, we'll take a look at Playa Municipal, the busiest of all the beaches along Zihua's shore.

This concludes Part 2 of my Zihuatanejo series. As always, I appreciate feedback or corrections. If you want to leave a comment, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

El Pescador is one of many statues along the malecon of Playa Municipal.El Pescador ("The Fisherman") acknowledges Zihuatanejo's hard-working fishing community. Fishing has been an important activity along the Costa Grande (the "Great Coast") for thousands of years. Carved stone weights used on prehispanic fishing nets are among the artifacts displayed in the Archaeological Museum near the southern end of the malecon. Playa Municipal is also known by the names Playa Principal and Playa Almeja, but to avoid confusion, I'll just use Playa Municipal. The Playa forms the western, or water side of El Centro, the downtown part of Zihua. Its southern end is at the pedestrian bridge over a deep arroyo that empties into Zihuatanteo Bay. The Playa's northern boundary is another pedestrian bridge over the boat channel into the marina. In between are the fishermen's beach and a long pier used by tourist boats and the patrol boats of the Mexican Navy. For a Google satellite view of this area, click here.


The fishermen's beach is crowded with boats full of the daily catch. Just behind the beach you can see a grove of coconut palms that provide welcome shade. Behind the palms is the malecon, a long concrete walkway lined with restaurants. These range from simple tables set up on the beach sand to more formal affairs with waiters dressed in white. Can you guess the main course on most menus? The fish, caught that same day, are as fresh as you can get. Although the ambiance is generally good, the prices are oriented to the tourist trade, even topping those of the restaurant at Hotel Irma, where we stayed. We discovered that prices for similar meals are much more reasonable as you move back into El Centro, away from the beach. Still, dinner on the beach is nice and we tried it a couple of times.


Fortunately, we didn't run into any of these fellows wandering Playa Municipal. This bronze statue of a full-sized crocodile is one of several lurking in this beautiful little garden along the malecon. The American Crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) can be found along the shores of Zihuatanejo Bay, as well as many other places along the coast to the north and south. Viewing the statue, I recalled reading about a norteamericano family who visited Mexico's Pacific coast not long ago. The back yard of their vacation cottage ran down to one of the lagoons typically found behind the long beaches. After they unpacked they threw open their back door. Their labrador retriever, joyful at his freedom after the long car trip, bounded down the yard and jumped into the lagoon. He was immediately seized by one of the lagoon's resident crocs, no doubt joyful in his own way for the sudden appearance of this large meal. The family stood by in horror but could do nothing as their pet disappeared under the water. They could only be glad it was not one of their small children. It's always good to use discretion around unfamiliar bodies of water.


A pescador shakes small fish out of his "cast" net. They are probably anchovies for his own use or to sell for bait. We often saw men (never women) fishing with cast nets like this. The pescadores wade out almost chest deep, then cast the net in front of them before gradually pulling it in. That takes a lot of strength in the arms and shoulders and this guy looks pretty fit. None of the pescadores using a cast net ever seemed concerned about the crocs which are occasionally spotted in the area. I don't know whether this indicates some special knowledge, or simple fatalism.


This catch was achieved farther off shore. I haven't been able to determine what the silvery fish are, but the greenish-golden one is a dorado, also known as mahi-mahi. These four were laid out under the palms for the examination of possible purchasers. They are quite sizable, ranging from about .6 m (2 ft) for the small one in the foreground, to about 1.2 m (4 ft) for the dorado.


Statue of a woman near the plaza represents the Region Tierra Caliente. She is one of seven female statues located near the malecon. Each represents a different region of Guerrero. Her elaborately braided hair and traditional clothing identify her as an indigenous woman from the region of Guerrero known as Tierra Caliente (the "Hot Lands"). This area is inland from the Costa Grande and is known for its fruit orchards. The other regions of Guerrero are Norte, Centro, Montaña, Costa Chica, and Acapulco.


With the fishing boats in, Brown Pelicans crowd around looking for a treat. These large birds are graceful in flight and while cruising the water's surface, but are rather comical on land. The Brown Pelicans bear a faint resemblance to Charlie Chaplin's famous Little Tramp character as they waddle about in their brown tuxedos. The pelicans are remarkably tolerant of people and almost need to be pushed out of the way to get through their massed ranks. This flock was intently focused on a pescador cutting up his catch.


The pescador uses his sharp knife to fillet his catch. Every few minutes he amused himself. and the growing crowd of human spectators, by tossing a chunk of fish to the flock of hungry birds. This immediately set off a flapping, squawking brawl, much as might result if you tossed a handful of hundred dollar bills down on a crowded city sidewalk.


Pelicans fight over a fish in a three-way stand-off. One hilarious episode in this little drama is shown above. The pescador tossed a particularly large and succulent chunk in the air and three pelicans caught it--and each other--in a complicated standoff. The left-hand pelican has caught not only part of the fish, but the middle one's beak, while the right-hand pelican clings on to one end. They swayed back and forth, with nobody willing to give up. Finally, one of them gave a jerk and got away while the others vainly pursued. When he gained a little distance, he tossed back his head and swallowed the chunk of fish whole.


Although the pescador gave the pelicans quite a feast, he had plenty left for himself. The pescadores and the pelicans seem to have a genuinely symbiotic relationship, with each providing something to the other and each gaining something. I could see what the pelicans got but I didn't understand the quid pro quo. Then early one morning I watched from the Hotel Irma balcony as a huge flock of pelicans created a ruckus in the bay just off shore. Soon, the pescadores' boats began closing in from all directions. A waiter at the hotel restaurant explained that the pelicans had cornered a large school of anchovies in the shallows. The pescadores swooped in with their nets to gather the anchovies for bait, and the relationship became clear.


Statue of a young girl with a large pan of fresh fish. She represents the Costa Grande, a region that runs from the northwestern coast of Guerrero down almost to Acapulco. Inland from the beaches are woodlands, orchards, and fertile lands. In prehispanic times, the Costa Grande area was much coveted by both the Tarascan Empire and the Mexica (Aztecs). Behind the statue are some of the small hotels, restaurants, and shops that line the street paralleling the malecon.


Tourists carrying the inevitable bags of knicknacks stroll the malecon. You can buy straw hats, t-shirts with Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo embroidered on the front (I got two), and various other small souvenirs at the little shops along the malecon. There are even more shops in the 3-block by 6 block area that makes up El Centro, just back of the beach. Most of the wares are the usual trashy trinkets one finds at any beach community, but almost anybody can find something they like. The fun is in the looking and the bargaining.


La Sirena Gorda restaurant attracted me with its sign and its reputation.La Sirena Gorda (The Fat Mermaid) sits right on the malecon, so it is a good spot not only to eat but to people-watch. When we were looking for a malecon restaurant to try one day, Carole consulted her Lonely Planet guide and discovered that La Sirena Gorda came highly recommended. We remembered the sign we had seen on a previous stroll this way, so we stopped for lunch. The food and service were good and the prices moderate. We sat just behind the screen of cactus to the left and were able to people-watch to our hearts' desire.


The Navy Headquarters was right across the walkway from La Sirena Gorda. Although there were many handsome young Naval officers and sailors of both sexes bustling about, unfortunately none were there when I was ready to shoot this photo. The Navy has responsibility not only for anti-smuggling campaigns, but the Mexican Marines have played a strong role in the fight against the narcotraficantes. I was impressed by how many uniformed women, both officers and sailors, were in evidence For all its reputation as a macho country, Mexican women have penetrated most of the traditionally male occupations, including the military and the police forces.


A Naval patrol boat swings gently at anchor in the middle of the bay. Shallow draft boats like this are ideal for coastal patrol work. My guess is that this craft could speed right along if necessary. We never saw anything larger than this during our stay. However, the Mexican Navy doesn't have far-flung responsibilities. They have their hands full just patrolling Mexico's lengthy coasts.


The statue representing El Norte stands near the Plaza del Artista. El Norte is part of a Free Trade Zone and is full of plants that assemble parts brought in from elsewhere. It is the manufacturing center of Guerrero. Notice the elaborate embroidery on the girl's dress, as well as the mask she holds in her hands.


At the north end of Playa Municipal is a long pier jutting out into the bay. At the end of the pier on the far left you can see one of the Navy patrol boats tied up. The channel into the marina is just behind the pier seen above. The pier is the point where tourists can take various kinds of boat tours. These include sunset cruises around the bay, ferries across to Playa Las Gatas (see Part 1 of this series), or cruises up to Ixtapa or other locations. Behind the marina channel, the mountains rise sharply up.


The northern arm of the Zihuatanejo Bay contains a scattering of homes built into the cliffs. The twin catamarans shown in previous postings rock at anchor in the shelter of this wooded arm of land. the northern and southern arms of the bay give it a great deal of protection from the force of the open Pacific beyond. I took this shot in the early morning as the golden rays of the sun bathed the boats and homes in the distance.


Cliffside homes perch above the rocks lining the shore. This is the tip of the northern arm, an area called Puerto Mio ("My Port"). Even in Mexico, it must have cost a great deal to build these homes in such precarious spots. I imagine that the view must be pretty dramatic in stormy weather, with great waves crashing onto the rocky points just below the open decks of these houses.


A couple of pescadores try their luck as the sun drops below the horizon. We could always depend upon a dramatic, flaming sunset at Zihua. Playa Municipal is in shadow on the right of the photo. Next week, we'll take a look at Ixtapa to the north of Zihua, and also at the long, empty, palm-fringed beaches of Barra de Potosí to the south.

This completes Part 3 of my Zihuatanejo series. I always appreciate and encourage feedback. If you have a comment or question, please either use the Comments section below or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

The seemingly endless beach at Barra de Potosi was almost empty when we visited. Barra de Potosi is a tiny fishing village at the south end of a long, gently curving bay. The northern tip of the bay is the point of land forming the southern arm of Zihuatanejo Bay. The pristine beach is about 16 km (10 mi) long, and is lined with groves of palms rustling in the sea breeze. The tranquility is almost hypnotic. Walking for miles along the shore, you are unlikely to encounter more than a handful of other people. In this posting, we'll stroll a bit of the beach, then travel north past Zihuatanejo for a quick stop at the hyper-modern beach resort of Ixtapa. Finally, we'll check out Playa Linda, just north of Ixtapa. These three areas are all relatively close to Zihuatanejo and can easily be visited by car, taxi, or local bus on day excursions. For a map showing Barra de Potosi and its bay, click here.


Walking north, we saw a lot more wildlife than people along the shore. Great White Egrets, vultures, and other sea birds stand near the surf line, hoping for a quick meal. At the upper left, a Brown Pelican angles low over the surf. Set back in the trees, the second story of a small hotel peeps over the palms. Other small hotels and private homes dot the palm groves here and there. In the far distance, the coastal mountains loom. The area inland of Barra de Potosi is fairly flat for a few miles but the mountains to the north plunge almost directly down to the ocean.


Looking south, the beach curves out to a point that is the southern extremity of the bay. The village of Barra de Potosi (pop. 396) is located where the beach turns to follow the point. The day we visited, the surf was very gentle and the water was calm and warm, making the conditions ideal for swimming. Anyone looking for a quiet vacation spot, far from the madding tourist crowds, might find this an ideal location. The Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo International Airport lies half way between Zihua and Barra de Potosi, but most people go north to Zihua or Ixtapa. However, with the airport so close getting to a hotel on this beach would quick and easy. For a list of accommodations, click here.


Just beyond the surf line, human and avian fishermen eye each other. A young boy was casting his hand line when he noticed these two Brown Pelicans quietly paddling nearby. The pelicans have learned that they can often cadge a meal from sympathetic fishermen. The boy wears a plastic bag over his shoulder to contain his catch.


A kayaker silently paddles over the water parallel to the beach. In the distance, the dark horizontal line is the palm groves. Immediately behind them, the mountains rise up precipitously. The white blotch on the upper right is a hotel, somewhat indistinct because of mist rising from the water.


A snorkeler emerged from the bay as we strolled by. Notice the blue rubber gloves she wears. They appear to have webs between the fingers, probably to create a more powerful swimming stroke. The water looked fairly clear for snorkeling. Manta rays, sea horses, Whalesharks, Humpback whales, dolphins and the occasional orca inhabit the waters along the coast in this area.


Another fisherman tries his luck with a surfcasting rod while his labrador retriever looks on. Actually, as I watched this little tableau, I realized that the dog was not so much watching his master as he was the wave. The labrador, an intelligent and fun-loving dog, had figured out a way to entertain himself while he waited for his dog-dad.


The "Little Surfer Dog" rode the waves like a California beach boy. The lab would watch the on-coming wave for just the right moment, then turn and body-surf into the shore. He was actually quite good at it and I watched in admiration as he rode wave after wave. He reminded me of a labrador I once owned that taught himself to play fetch-the-ball by flinging it with his mouth up a sloping driveway and then pursuing it as it bounced back down. Labs are very smart animals.


Vultures strut along the beach, looking like black-suited couples attending a funeral, . These four were part of a large flock of vultures we encountered on our stroll. As I walked up, I looked for any sort of carrion, but could see none. Perhaps it was just a vulture social event.


Get your beer from "Super Jesus Christ." The town had a little market that was indistinguishable from hundreds we have seen throughout Mexico, except for its eye-catching sign. "Super" is not a Spanish word, but is an English language import.


Ixtapa, the Pacific Coast's answer to Cancun

Ixtapa is one of Mexico's major beach resorts. Most Mexican resorts such as Mazatlán, Manzanillo, and Puerto Vallarta were originally small ports or at least substantial fishing towns before they became tourist areas. However, Cancun and Ixtapa were created in the 1970s, literally from the ground up, as carefully planned tourist extravaganzas. While Cancun was built on an empty sand bar along the northeast coast of Yucatan, Ixtapa was constructed on the site of a hacienda devoted to coconut palms. The resort lies about 8 km (5.5 mi) north of Zihuatanejo, on the other side of a large point of land. It is packed with all-inclusive, high-rise hotels and luxury condominiums. The tightly secured area is filled with golf courses, north-of-the-border chain restaurants and boutiques, and manicured lawns. In other words, a classic "tourist bubble." For a Google map of Ixtapa, click here.


The Marina Bay View Grand is typical of Ixtapa's many high-rise tourist hotels. The units, which are for rent or sale, overlook Ixtapa's marina. This video shows the hotel's luxurious interior. I could almost imagine that I was in Southern California or Florida, rather than Mexico. To me, Ixtapa's hotels have a kind of a corporate "everywhere and nowhere" feel to them. In contrast, Zihua feels unique and its beachfront structures blend well with the surrounding landscape rather than overpowering it.


El Niño del Caracol was a charming little statue beside the marina. The Child of the Shell is a bronze and he holds what appears to be a real shell. The little statue felt somehow out of place among the opulent cruisers and sloops anchored in the marina.


The Marina hosts a variety of expensive boats. Luxury condos top the hills in the background. I wondered how many of the boats in this Marina sit idle most of the time, waiting for their owners to show up for the occasional short cruise, or just for a party on deck. I was struck by the contrast with the hard-working fishing boats plying Zihua's harbor.


The Marina's control tower overlooked the whole area. From here, harbor officials can oversee the busy traffic in and out of the Marina channel, much like the tower at an airport controls takeoffs and landings.


This small fountain sits a bit back from the boats near some restaurants. The fountain was dry when we saw it but, when operating, the seahorses spout water into the tiled basin. I'm sure there are those who visit Ixtapa and love it. Having done so, do they tell their friends back home that they enjoyed their visit to Mexico? I can only wonder: how could they tell they were in Mexico?


Playa Linda

Playa Linda begins a bit north of Ixapa's Marina. Hopefully, some of Ixtapa's visitors tear themselves away from their sterile paradise to visit. Rather than uptight and manicured, Playa Linda has a laid-back and thoroughly Mexican feel to it. As you can see, it is quite long. The beach is more heavily used than Barra de Potosi, but compared to some Southern California beaches I have frequented, it still seemed almost empty. For a Google map of Playa Linda and Isla Ixtapa, click here.


A seagull checks out a passing parasailer. This seemed to be a very popular activity at both Zihua's beaches and Playa Linda. While parasailing several hundred feet up, the views are spectacular. It would probably not be suitable for those with a fear of heights, however.


Prepping for another run, a parasail operator inflates his chute. There is usually a breeze along the shore, so the inflation is fairly easy. I wondered what would happen if there was a sudden stiff gust. Would the operator find himself boosted out over the water and subject to a drenching? The land in the background is Isla Ixtapa which can be reached by a water taxi costing 40 pesos ($3.13 USD). In addition to viewing the wildlife, you can snorkel and scuba dive on the reef located on the ocean side of the island.


A local fisherman was pleased to show off his magnificent catch. However small or large the fish, I have never found a fisherman who would decline a opportunity to display the results of his efforts. He is standing in front of one of the open-air shops just behind the south end of beach. They sell everything from flip flops to clothing to knick nacks of every conceivable kind. Carole bought herself a couple of nice beach dresses for about $140 pesos each ($11.00 USD).


Banana boaters ride by a trio of skeptical pelicans. These inflatable sleds have handles for the passengers to grip as they straddle the "banana" while being towed by a motorboat. The pelicans seemed a bit scornful of landlubbers who would have need of such a craft to move over the water.


A Mexican family enjoys a three-piece band of strolling musicians. We have encountered such musicians wherever we have traveled in Mexico. Down here, life has a musical soundtrack. The restaurant was a casual affair, just some cloth covered tables set on the sand under canopies. Service was a bit slow, but then who's in a hurry?


And the last word (squawk?) goes to the Brown Pelicans. These large birds like to perch on old wooden piers, or rocks protruding from the water, or anyplace else that is just off shore but out of the water. They sun themselves, dry their feathers, and gossip about matters of importance to pelicans.

This completes Part 4 of my Zihuatanejo series. The next two parts will explore the pre-hispanic history of this area, with visits to an active archaeological dig and to museums with fascinating artifacts from ancient times. I hope you have been enjoying this series (particularly all of you up in the snowy north). I always appreciate feedback and if you would like to leave a comment, please do so below in the Comments section below.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Bust of a woman in the Teotihuacan style, found at the ruins of Xihuacán. The ancient sculptor who crafted this bust perfectly captured a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression of astonishment. As I will show in a later posting, Xihuacán, and the Costa Grande area in general, were cultural crossroads. Artifacts from the Olmecs, Teotihuacan, Toltecs, Zapotecs,Tarascans, and Mexica (Aztecs) have been unearthed in many places.The female bust is one of many artifacts displayed in the new museum at the ruins of Xihuacán's ceremonial center. The ruins are located near the tiny hamlet of La Soledad de Maciel, about 40 minutes south of Zihuatanejo.  After driving through the small town of Progreso (also called San Jeronimito) on Highway 200, you cross a bridge and arrive at an intersection near the Kilometer 214 sign.  A well-graded dirt road leads off to the right for about 8 km (4.97 mi) to the museum, which is sponsored by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia (INAH). After another kilometer (.62 mi) you reach La Soledad de Maciel.  To see the area I have described, click on this Google map.

Overview of the site

The center of Xihuacán contains pyramids, plazas, and a large ball court. Over a period of 3000 years, the Xihuacán site was occupied by three different cultures, the Tomiles, the Cuitlatecos, and the Tepoztecas. The model above, located in the museum, shows two large pyramids in the upper left quadrant. The remains of three more pyramids complete a circle around a sunken central courtyard. Just below the pyramid that is furthest left is the long, rectangular ball court, the most fully excavated area of the site. Of the pyramids, only the one at the top has been extensively excavated. Immediately below this pyramid's central staircase is small altar. The altar represents the point at which lines drawn from three ancient hilltop observatories intersected. The left-hand pyramid above the ball court is still just a heavily vegetated hump, easily mistaken for a random hill. The small square site at the lower left sits on a hill behind the museum and was a sacrificial area. The area shown above holds the greatest concentration of ceremonial structures and was purchased by INAH from the local farmers However, this only represents 30% of the 29 hectares (71.66 acres) originally occupied by the city. Further, when satellite communities are included, the settled area may have covered as much as 10 square kilometers (6.21 sq mi). At its peak between 650 AD and 959 AD, 15,000 people lived in the ancient city.


The name "Xihuacán" is seen here as a glyph, or carved stone symbol. Often, I have visited pre-hispanic ruins whose original names have been lost in the mists of time. Sometimes the only name is one given by the Spanish. In the case of these ruins, archaeologists found the Xihuacán glyph buried in the ball court area and determined that it symbolized the ancient name. The meaning of Xihuacán has been deciphered as "place of the people of the turquoise." This is a metaphor for "place of the people who control time." Tracking time through astronomy was a major preoccupation of pre-hispanic elites. Their ability to predict astronomical phenomena gave them the ability to "control" time, and therefore provided the justification for their position and privileges.


Archaeologists work to uncover a human skeleton. Notice the thin brush the woman is using to remove dirt from one of the bones. Delicate handling is extremely important and this is not only because the artifacts are often fragile. In archaeology, the term "context" refers to exact position of an artifact in relation to other objects around it, as well as its location in the various strata of earth covering it. In understanding the original use, meaning and cultural role of any artifact, the context can be even more important than the artifact itself, however beautiful it might be. This is why looting is such a tragedy. The "pot-hunters" literally destroy the past as they hack away at a ruin to retrieve a salable item. However, the real fault belongs more to the buyers of these items than to the often uneducated and desperately poor diggers. Typically the buyers are wealthy foreigners or even respectable museums. They know better, but close their eyes to the consequences of their greed. The residents of La Soledad de Maciel are very poor, but some among them thought it important to contact the archaeological authorities after they became aware of the possible significance of the artifacts they were finding. INAH involved local people in the archaeological project, teaching them to be proud of their ancient heritage. As the site has developed, they have gained income from guiding tourists, and providing them with services. INAH officials believe that when local people understand how protecting a site provides more value than looting it, an ancient ruin will be more secure for the long term. (Photo above was part of a display at the INAH museum)


An ancient burial revealed. A total of eight burials have been found during various digs, all in the ball court area. All eight of the skulls showed deliberate deformation similar to that practiced in Teotihuacan as a mark of beauty and status.The crossed white lines in the photo are strings that help divide the site into segments so that the exact location of each find can be documented. Local farmers had been turning up relics for centuries but had little understanding of their meaning. Some began to collect what their plows unearthed and to show them to outsiders. It was not until 1941 that photographs of some of these items reached Ignacio Marquina, then Director of INAH. Marquina suspected the presence of a major site in an area where it was long believed that no such ruins existed. In 1943, 1948, 1961, and the late 1980s there were small digs by various archaeologists. Finally, in 2007, INAH began a major project. Surveys of the area revealed the most important large ceremonial center along the Costa Grande. The area was originally settled as early as 2500 BC by the Cuitlateca people. The site was more or less continuously occupied by various cultures from then until around 1300 AD. There was a relatively brief period of abandonment around 450 AD because of the great tsunami. Some scientists believe that, because of its amazing continuity, Xihuacán may prove to be as important as the far-better-known Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza. (Photo above was part of a display at the INAH museum)


The Ball Court 

Variations of this game were played all over ancient Mesoamerica. Nearly every major pre-hispanic site contains a ball court. The rules of the game seem to have varied somewhat from place to place. However, the general idea was to move a ball down the court in a way that was vaguely similar to a cross between football (called soccer in the US) and basketball. The ball, about the size of a grapefruit, was made of hard rubber and might be as heavy as 4 kg (9 lbs). The rules in many places prohibited contact between the ball and the players' hands or feet. Contact with the head, chest, shoulders, forearms, hips, and thighs was usually allowed. For protection, players often wore heavy leather and/or cotton padding around their waists, hips, and forearms, and leather helmets on their heads. In spite of this protective armor, players were sometimes injured or even killed when struck by the fast moving ball. (Photo of a display in the Museum of Archaeology in Zihuatanejo)


Xihuacán's ball court is one of the largest in all of Mesoamerica. The court, originally known only as Mound A, measures 160 m (525 ft) long and 29 m (95 ft) wide. I took this photo from a position about 2/3 of the way down the court. At the upper left of the photo, Carole and our guide Eric provide a sense of scale. The ball court at Xihuacán is the part of the overall site that has been the most fully excavated. It was built with blocks of granite using clay as mortar. Like other courts in Mesoamerica, this one is long and narrow, with the walls sloping up to a flat top where the spectators stood or sat. Like many other ball courts in Mesoamerica, the one at Xihuacán had stone rings set at the mid-point of each side of the court. One way to score was to pass the ball through the hole in the ring, a space not much larger than the ball itself. Needless to say, this must have taken a good deal of skill. The Mesoamerican ball game may have originated with the Olmecs (1500 BC - 400 BC). A version of it, called Ullama, is still played by indigenous people in Sinaloa State in northwest Mexico.


A partially excavated set of steps allowed players entry to the court. The bench-like structure at the base of the sloping wall was also part of the playing area. The meaning of these games to the various societies in Mesoamerica was complex. On one level, it was pure spectacle, enjoyed by all members of the society, and it may have involved heavy betting. On another, the game sometimes provided a substitute for war, with disputes between city-states settled on the ball court rather than the battlefield. There were also deep religious meanings involved. The concept of duality was widespread in Mesoamerica and the game represented, in part, the on-going struggle between the god of the sun and the lords of dark underworld.


One of the ball court rings is on display at the INAH museum. As you can see, the hole through which a ball must pass to score is not large, only about the size of a man's head. The long shaft below the ring was apparently sunk into the ground in an upright postion, probably up to the line where the lighter and darker surfaces meet. The upright position is similar to the style used at Teotihuacan, another indication of the far-reaching influence of that great Central Mexico empire. By contrast, the Maya at Chichen Itza and the Aztecs at Tenochtitlán used rings set high into the walls on the sides of the court. Carved around the stone ring are two intertwined snakes. They represent the elements of fire and water which, when mystically fused, become human blood. Blood was viewed as the food of the gods, necessary for the continued movement of the sun, stars, and other celestial bodies. This would indicate that the ball games involved human sacrifices, possibly of players at the end of the game. There is considerable dispute among archaeologists about whether it was the winning or the losing team that was sacrificed. Since sacrifices were sometimes considered to be a great honor, it may well have been the winning team, or at least its captain, who went under the knife.


A player cries out to his teammates as he fields the ball. This display was copied from an ancient document depicting the game. The long curving symbol emerging from the player's mouth is similar to the "speech balloon" in a modern cartoon. Notice the helmet and leather loin protector worn by the player. As the ancients saw it, the movement of the ball represented the movement of the celestial bodies across the sky. In modern terms, the game was a way of "keeping things rolling."


The Pyramids

The pyramids at Xihuacán are unique in the way they were constructed. The ancient architects used river stone and adobe, unlike elsewhere in Mesoamerica where carved limestone and lime-based mortar predominated. This pyramid is the one shown at the top of the photo of the site model (photo #2 of this posting). It is the most fully excavated pyramid, but even so it is still partly covered. In the center, you can see the great staircase the priests would have mounted on their way to a long vanished temple on top. This is one of seven pyramids found so far at Xihuacán. Five of them, including this one, are on top of a great platform covering an area of 1 hectare (2.47 acres). The platform surrounds a sunken patio containing an altar located directly in front of the great staircase seen above. The altar was the focal point of astronomical observatories located on three surrounding hills.


The nine levels of this stepped pyramid represent a sacred number. Numbers were very important to the ancient elites of Mesoamerica. There were nine levels to the underworld, known as Mictlan. At the underworld's ninth (bottom) level lived the god of death, Mictlantecuhtli. I was eager to get closer, but a barbed wire fence blocked my way. Our guide, concerned about the site, as well as my safety, cautioned me to go no further. I had to content myself with telephoto shots of the pyramid. Hopefully, at a later date, the area immediately around the pyramid will be opened to the public.


The largest pyramid is still covered with brush and earth, awaiting future excavation. It sits directly across the road from the ball court, where I was standing when I took this photo. The nature of the surrounding terrain, as well as site restrictions, prevented me from getting more of a picture than you see above. However, the position of my car at the base of the pyramid provides a sense of the scale. The five pyramids sited on the great platform are collectively called Mound B. The highest point on Mound B (15 m or 49 ft) is no doubt the top of this pyramid.


La Soledad de San Maciel

Soledad de Maciel is sometimes called La Chole, after the stela shown above. It stands in front of the tiny church in the center of the pueblo. Our guide, whose full name is Eric Abarca Jaimes, was born and raised in this tiny town of 400 people who live in 80 houses. His parents and other relatives still live here. The locals subsist much as their ancestors have done for thousands of years, living on corn, beans, and vegetables, along with fish from the sea. During the colonial era, the Spanish introduced coconuts, adding another facet to the local diet. People here also grow tobacco, from which they produce handcrafted cigars, an additional source of income as well as personal pleasure. INAH's development of the Xihuacán ruins has created new economic opportunities, through jobs at the dig itself, as well as in the construction and maintenance of the museum, and guiding tourists like Carole and myself. Eric wears an official identification badge from INAH and has been trained as a guide by the archaeological agency. He and the other guides buzz around the area on small motorbikes, looking for customers. All are volunteers, rather than employees, and work for the tips they receive. We tipped him generously, and I encourage others to do the same. These fellows are worth it.


Eric explains La Chole. The stela is a carved stone approximately 1.5 m (5 ft) tall. It was originally located in the ceremonial area of Xihuacán but was later moved to the front of the church. The monolith is very old, possibly dating to the Olmec era (1500 BC-400 BC), and may represent a corn god, or possibly a local ruler. It has become not only the nickname for Soledad de Maciel, but the symbol for the whole Xihuacán site. The stela shows a male figure, wearing a feathered head dress and a breast plate on his chest. His arms hang down to the belted loin cloth around his waist.


The three faces of La Chole. The most interesting part of the stela is the face, or rather faces. There are three, including a front view in the center, bracketed by left and right profiles on the sides. The meaning of this is obscure, but it may be part of the pervasive Mesoamerican cult of duality. In this interpretation, the face in the middle represents the unification of the dual opposing profiles. Mesoamerican people saw dualities in every aspect of life: light and dark, day and night, sun and moon, good and evil, life and death, male and female, and so forth in an almost endless series of pairs. The pairs were not seen as separate entities, but were complementary aspects of a unity, something like the Chinese yin and yang.


Inside the tiny church, a crucifix and the Virgin of Guadalupe stand side by side.  The ancients would have seen this as another aspect of duality, with representations of male and female deities. The church was very simple and rustic, and all the more beautiful for it. Religious feeling runs deep in rural Mexico, although pre-hispanic religious practices often lie just below the surface in formally Catholic settings. Just another kind of duality, I guess.


Our guide and his family

Eric's parents' home was rustic but comfortable. His sister (left) and mother (right) posed on the porch while leaning against one of two hammocks available for a snooze on a hot afternoon. The weather on the coast of Guerrero is warm year-round, so little in the way of heating is necessary. There were a lot of trees in the yard, so their shade provides some natural cooling. An outdoor privy was located nearby, but it was clean and odorless.


In the open-air kitchen, Eric's mother prepares a meal the old fashioned way. This style of cook stove is popular all over the Costa Grande. It is usually made either from concrete, or plastered adobe. The upright walls of the fire pits have openings at the top narrow enough to set a pot. The slot in front provides an air flow as well as a handy way to feed wood to the fire. Except for metal pots--first introduced in colonial times--this method of cooking hasn't changed since the era of the Olmecs.


Eric's nephew cavorts on some feed bags in the front yard. He wasn't the least bit self-conscious, probably because he was so used to his uncle bringing visitors to the house. Kids are great photographic subjects. They are natural performers and many, like this little guy, love to be the focus of attention. He looked happy, healthy, well-nourished, and loved.


This stone tool, once used to create amate paper, was found by Eric's father in his corn field. The bark from theamate tree was first soaked overnight to loosen and separate the fine inner fibers from the coarser outer ones. The tool would be held in the palm of the hand as the crosshatched side was pounded on the fine fibers while they lay on a flat surface. The pounding smashed the bark fibers and spread them out thinly. Once a flat sheet of proper thinness was ready, it was left to dry overnight. Amate paper was used by royal scribes for official documents and to keep accounts, as well as by priests for religious writing. Sometimes it was given as a gift to neighboring rulers or favored nobles. Because of this close association with power and religion, the paper was not treated as a commodity. Certain villages were assigned to make the paper, which was then collected as tribute.


The extensive collection also included this stone phallus. Such objects were used in religious rituals and were closely associated with power and rulership. The family collection of ancient objects was extensive, with piles of stone objects lining one side of the house. There were manos and metates (used for grinding corn), stone axes, pieces of broken clay pottery and much more. Eric's father had been collecting the material for many decades.


An ancient stone face peers out from between two handmade brooms. Given that the area has been almost continuously settled for more than 3000 years, it is not surprising that so many artifacts have been found and more keep turning up. When, about 450 AD, a giant Pacific tsunami came flooding in from the nearby coast, everything was buried under huge piles of sand. This preserved a great deal that might otherwise have been lost. The temporary salinization of the soil prevented reoccupation for a time, but eventually Xihuacán was rebuilt and continued as an important religious and political center for another 700 years.


A grinning devil leans against two clay reproductions of La Chole. Eric's father makes clay sculptures to sell to tourists, and we were invited to inspect the inventory. The family was obviously so poor, and had been so generous in allowing us to wander around through their home, that we felt we should pick something out. I finally settled on a small clay crocodile, rendered with deft realism. My choice resulted in pleased smiles all around. My prize now sprawls comfortably on my computer table, smiling toothily as only a croc can.


Our next visit was to Eric's own home in San Jeronimito. Above, Eric cuddles his daughter who is  regarding me with an expression of grave disapproval. I think she didn't like these strange-looking people taking the attention of her papa away from where it naturally belonged, on her. She warmed up a bit when I made it a point to show her the photo I had just taken. Eric, like most Mexicans I have met, is very industrious and has several gigs going at once. There was a tiny restaurant in the front part of his yard, and he told us about some cabins he was renting in the back of his property. We found him to be a charming fellow, and an excellent guide. Anyone wishing to line up his services in advance of a visit should call his cell number: 758-100-3341


The trees in Eric's back yard were swarming with large green iguanas. They blended so well with their surroundings that at first I couldn't find a good shot. Finally this fellow obliged me by pausing long enough for me to locate him and get focused. We enjoyed our entire visit to this area, from seeing the wonderful ruins and museum of Xihuacán, to the unexpected pleasure of meeting and getting a peek into the lives of some of the local people. Anyone visiting Zihuatanejo should definitely consider a stop in this area.

This completes Part 5 of my Zihuatanejo series. My next posting will focus on the religious and artistic life of of Xihuacán, with photos of many of the wonderful artifacts contained in the INAH museum as well as some from the Museum of Archaeology in Zihuatanejo. I hope you have enjoyed this posing. I encourage feedback and if you would like to comment or ask a question, please do so by return email or use the Comments section below.

If you do leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

Statue of Huehueteotl, the "Old, Old Fire God," was found at Xihuacán. Huehueteotlis shown in his typical posture: seated, with the hunched shoulders and face of an old man, and carrying a brazier (fire tray) on his head. Xihuacán is an important ancient site currently under archaeological excavation. It is located about 40 minutes south of Zihuatanejo (see Part 5 of this series). In the whole Costa Grande section of the modern State of Guerrero, Xihuacán was the most important ceremonial center. Archaeologists have unearthed evidence that the pre-hispanic people living in this area worshiped many of the gods revered in the rest of Mesoamerica. This is probably due to Xihuacán's role as a trade and cultural crossroads. Huehueteotl was well-named because he is one of the most ancient of Mesoamerica's well-populated pantheon, dating back at least to the Olmec period (1500 BC-400 BC). Control over fire was, of course, one of the earliest and most important of man's great technological developments, long pre-dating the arrival of humans to the Western Hemisphere. Fire provided warmth for the body, heat for cooking and preserving food, a way to illuminate the night, protection against predators, a way to signal others over long distances, and it could be used to manufacture tools and other products. Those were just the practical uses. Fire also came to play a central role in the many rituals and religious ceremonies of ancient times. It should be no surprise that ancient man would sanctify this critical force of nature at a very early date. In fact, along with water, earth, and wind, pre-hispanics considered fire to be one of the four primary and sacred elements of the universe. In February 2013, archeologists at Teotihuacan near Mexico City announced that they had unearthed a statue of Huehueteotl among the remains of a temple at the top of the famous Pyramid of the Sun, indicating that the great pyramid may have once been dedicated to his worship.


Religion, astronomy, mathematics, the study of time, agriculture, and political power were all closely related.Xihuacán priest-astronomers set up observatories atop three hills overlooking the ceremonial center of the city. As seen above, lines drawn from the top of each hill intersect at an altar immediately in front of the main pyramid. When the sun rises exactly over the top of the left-hand hill--Cerro La Agua (Water Mountain)--it marks the Spring Equinox. When it appears over Cerro del Tigre (Tiger Mountain) on the far right, the Winter Solstice has arrived. When it comes up over Cerro La Mira (Lookout Mountain), it has reached the axis between the other two. Armed with this knowledge, the priestly elite could predict when crops should be planted or harvested, as well as predicting other astronomical phenomena. Such knowledge resulted in great political power and enabled them to command the obedience of the populace. It was only through such obedience that Xihuacán's elites could mobilize the workforce to build the pyramids, temples and palaces that surround the plaza where the altar stands. Given that pre-hispanic people had no draft animals, no wheeled vehicles, and lacked metal tools until fairly late in the Post-Classic period, it was only through such mass mobilizations that these structures could be completed.



A clay sculpture of Tlaloc, the god of rain, shows he could use a good orthodontist. The sculpture, along with the body shown in the next photo, was found within the site of Xihuacán. Tlaloc was another of the most ancient Mesoamerican gods, and his worship paralleled the development of agricultural societies. These began during the Archaic Period (8,000 BC-2000 BC). As farmers began to understand the importance of rain and the disastrous consequences of its lack, they created a deity to whom they could appeal. In the typical duality of Mesoamerican religion, Tlaloc represented beneficial forces such as dependable and abundant rain, but also fearsome forces such as lightning and destructive hailstorms that could damage crops. He was thus a god that must be handled with great respect and care.



Tlaloc's body, from which the head had broken off. Notice the necklace with dangling jewels, which, in real life, might have been jade or shells. The figure wears an ankle-length garment on which are incised various designs. Tlalocwas one of the four sons of Ometeotl, the original god whose dual nature included both male and female aspects. The rain god was at first married to Xochiquetzal (flower bird), the goddess of youth, beauty, and sexuality. However, she was stolen away by one of his brothers, the devious Tezcatlipoca. Subsequently, Tlaloc married Chalchiuhtlicue who was the patroness of rivers and springs, a good match for his command over rain. Since providing regular seasonal rain was a big job, Tlaloc had four helpers called the Tlaloque. These were seen both as aspects of Tlaloc and as separate deities in their own right (if this sounds confusing, remember the Christian Trinity). The Tlaloque made rain by brewing it up in great clay vats in the mountains. Thunder and lightning occurred when they cracked the vats to release the rain. 



Our guide Eric explains the great stone disk discovered in the center of the ceremonial plaza. The disk played a role in the worship of Tlaltecuhtli, the earth goddess. Thus, representations of three of the four gods relating to the four sacred elements have been found at Xihuacán. The only one lacking is Ehecatl, the god of wind. However, major excavations were only begun in 2007, so he may yet turn up. The heavy stone is carved on its flat surface and also around its circumference. Its location in the center of the ceremonial area next to great ceremonial fire pits, and the carvings linking it to the priesthood, show that this was a very important artifact in ancient rituals. Tlaltecuhtli was believed to have originally been a great monster, and her name means "the one who gives and devours life." According to the Aztec version of her story, the gods Quetzalcoatl (the Plumed Serpent) and Tezcatlipoca (stealer of Tlaloc's wife) were attempting to create the very first of five versions of the world. The great monster Tlaltechuhtli repeatedly destroyed their work until they turned themselves into giant snakes, wrapped themselves around her legs, and broke her in two. The goddess' body became the earth, her hair the trees and flowers, and her eyes the caves and wells. She thus became the earth goddess with the power of creating whatever humans need. However, she also devoured the sun every evening and gave birth to it every morning, a cycle so important that human sacrifice was thought necessary to keep it going. 



This diagram of the Tlaltecuhtli disk expresses multiple religious concepts. The head of Tlaltecuhtli can be seen at the top, with goggle eyes and a long tongue draping from her mouth, giving her an appearance similar to Tlaloc. Surrounding her head are five points representing the star Venus, also closely related to Tlaloc. This similarity at first seemed to contradict the sign identifying the deity on the disk as Tlaltecuhtli. However, Eric insisted the sign was right and my further investigations proved him correct. The earth goddess has her arms raised and she sits in a squatting position that imitates the way many indigenous women give birth. Below the Venus symbol, in the center of the disk, are a series of concentric circles representing the sun. The placement of Venus above the sun represents an astronomical alignment that occurs every 8 years, no doubt triggering a major ceremony involving the stone disk. Venus was widely considered the symbol of death and rebirth, because of the cyclical nature in which the star appears. It was also believed that one of Venus' roles was to show the sun the proper way to move through its own cycle, much as the priest-astronomers showed the people the proper cycle of planting. Consequently, Venus was the special symbol of the priesthood and the stone disk reinforces the rulership of the priestly elites. Also, notice the snakes at the bottom of the disk near her feet, representing Quezalcoatl and Tezcalipoca, preparing to tear the great monster in two.




Small figures of Xihuacán priests provide a sense of how they appeared. Priestly elites emerged as the pre-hispanic societies became more specialized and stratified. Originally, they were simple farmers who, through close observation of the stars and natural physical cycles, developed an ability to predict important phenomena. Other members of the community turned to them for advice on when to plant crops, when the rains could be expected and other vital concerns. In the earliest times, these people were respected as shamans but possessed few advantages in economic or political status over the rest of the community. However, over the millennia, the people playing these roles accumulated vast and specialized knowledge from direct observation, from information passed down by their predecessors, and through trade relations and other contacts with outside cultures. Since knowledge was power, it was closely held and often cloaked in mysterious rituals. One of these rituals at Xihuacán involved the Ojos de dios (Eyes of God). These were shallow holes carved in the tops of boulders found on the summits of hills surrounding the growing settlement. Water was poured into the holes in order to refresh the gods and so encourage them to produce rain. Not coincidentally, the water-filled holes acted as mirrors in which astronomical phenomena could be isolated and observed. Information culled from these observations could be presented to the community as messages from the now-refreshed gods as to the likely timing of the rains.



This lidded stone jar was used in the rain ceremonies. The jar was found on a hill called the Cerro los Brujos (Hill of Witches). It was filled with small objects called chalchihuites, representing rain drops. It would be difficult to overstate the importance of these rituals, and of rain gods like Tlaloc. Failure of the rains to arrive at the proper time meant the failure of the crops. A long-term drought could lead to starvation and social collapse. The entire social structure was based on the belief that the intercession of the priestly elites was necessary to persuade the gods to do the right thing by their human worshipers. There are good arguments that the collapse of the great Teotihuacan Empire of Central Mexico in approximately 600 AD, and that of the Classic Era Maya city-states between 800-900 AD, were due to prolonged droughts. The lack of rain may have led to massive social unrest and the overthrow of the elites who had proved unable to assuage the anger of Tlaloc (or Chaac in the case of the Maya).



The green stone from which this priest figure was carved was associated with rain. The priest wears a necklace and earrings of circular disks which, in real life, would probably have been made from jade--another green stone. The priest wears a headdress decorated with a bird on the front, probably an eagle. In Mesoamerican societies, eagles were associated with power, war, and the sun. Over time, status and wealth flowed to shamans who possessed specialized knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, calendrical cycles, and how all these could be used to regulate the agricultural base of the economy. Shamans developed into priests, and priests into rulers. The pantheon of gods expanded, each having his or her own complex attributes and areas of influence. The rituals aimed at pleasing the various deities became elaborate ceremonies involving sacrifices, often of the human kind. The ability to compel such sacrifices arose parallel with the ability to compel the labor necessary to build pyramids, temples, and other great edifices where the ceremonies and sacrifices could be conducted.



Ceremonial sacrifice blades found at Xihuacán's ceremonial area. The one on the right appears to be made of obsidian, a volcanic glass that was very valuable to ancient people because of its capacity to produce an edge with a sharpness exceeding that of modern surgical instruments. Teotihuacan's early rise to power was due, in part, to its control over great deposits of obsidian. This was equivalent to a modern nation's possession of large oil deposits. Teotihuacan's skilled artisans created many valuable objects from the obsidian, which were then traded widely in Mesoamerica, and some of them no doubt ended up in Xihuacán. The other blades are probably chert or flint, two popular materials for creating sharp-edged tools and weapons. Since human sacrifice was one of the primary methods of propitiating Tlaloc, Huehueteotl, Tlaltecuhtli and many of the other gods, these blades no doubt saw much hard service, particularly in dry times.



Anatomically correct phallae were used in rituals associated with power and fertility.Phallic cults developed in some Mesoamerican areas during times of turmoil and social disruption. They appear to have been a way for the priestly elites to reaffirm their authority. Their symbolic importance was also related to rain and agricultural fertility. Semen and blood were bodily fluids considered very important to the gods. Sometimes the rituals brought all this together. One common practice was self-sacrifice through the piercing of sensitive body parts, including the penis. This was done with various sharp instruments, including manta ray spines, which would have been readily available in the Costa Grande area. The resulting excruciating pain was thought helpful in bringing about a trance-like state in which the spirit world could be contacted in the form of visions. To my male readers: it is not recommended that you try this at home.



Archaeologists at Xihuacán have found many objects related to both female fertility and water. The objects in the lower left and upper right represent pregnant female figures, reclining on their backs. In ancient Mesoamerica, there was a very close symbolic association between females and water. Figures like these have often been found in caves (the source of springs) and wells. You will remember that these water sources were supposedly created from the earth goddess Tlaltechuhtli's eyes after she was torn apart by Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca when they formed the earth with parts of her body. Tlaltechuhtli was herself the ultimate female fertility symbol, since planting seeds in the earth produced the crops. Caves were also closely associated with the female vagina and with both death and rebirth. Additionally, Tlaloc's second wife Chalchiuhtlicue was the patroness of springs and land-based water sources. Another of the interesting objects shown above is what appears to be a small clay temple adorned with circular chalchihuites. These may represent rain drops similar to those found in the stone jar seen previously. 



A chubby little Xoloitzcuintli looks like he's about to wag is tail. The Xoloitzcuintli (show-low-is-queen-tlee) is a small hairless dog native to the New World. They were raised in many pre-hispanic communities as hunters, guardians, draft animals, companions and as a food source. Statues of the little dogs, in a wide variety of postures, have often been found in the burials of Western Mexico's Shaft Tomb Culture. This one must have arrived in Xihuacán through the trade networks. The Shaft Tomb culture was active between about 250 BC-400 AD, and is known primarily through the contents of its unusual tombs, which were built at the bottom of deep vertical shafts. Xoloitzcuintli have often been found in tombs of the Colima area, and have become commonly known as Colima Dogs. The statues represent Xolotl, a dog-like deity who was Quetzalcoatl's twin. Xolotl was closely associated with Venus and thus the cycle of death and rebirth. His main job was to guide the soul past the many terrors and obstacles of the underworld until it reached Mictlán, the ninth and lowest level. The families of the deceased made sure that the tomb contained and least one, and sometimes many Xoloitzcuintli to ensure there were no slip-ups in the journey.

This completes Part 6 of my series on Zihuatanejo. I hope you have enjoyed meeting a few of the most important deities of ancient Xihuacán and learning about this great Costa Grande ceremonial center. I always encourage feedback and questions, so if you would like to leave a comment, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly.

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

This beautiful bracelet of copper bells was crafted by the ancient people of the Costa Grande. Copper bells and other items of personal ornamentation were among the earliest uses of this metal. Evidence of the use of copper first appears around 600 AD along the southwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. The Costa Grande (Great Coast) is one of seven regions of the State of Guerrero. It extends along the Pacific Coast roughly from the border of Michoacan on the northwest (not far from Zihuatanejo) to Acapulo on the southeast. This area doesn't just include the coastline, but extends a considerable distance inland. It thus includes the sealife resources of the beaches and coves, the fertile agricultural plains separating the beaches from the mountains, and the mountains themselves which contained wildlife, forest products, and gold, silver and copper ore for metallurgy. Given the warm climate and regular rainfall, this was a congenial place for ancient people to settle. Gradually they developed communities which were eventually consolidated into theocratic states like Xihuacán (see Parts 5 & 6 of this series). The wide variety of products the land could produce also led to trade with distant areas of ancient Mesoamerica and, ultimately, to conquest by powerful and covetous civilizations such as the Tarascans and the Mexica (Aztecs). (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Zihuatanejo)


Life of the common people

Early village life was simple and communal and revolved around maiz cultivation and fishing. The earliest people arrived about 10,000 years ago and were hunter/gatherer nomads who camped in caves along the seashore. When maiz (corn) cultivation reached the Costa Grande around 1500 BC, people began to settle in one place and to build simple homes as seen above. Between 800 BC and 100 BC, villages flourished throughout the area. The huts were constructed using the wattle and daub technique and had thatched roofs. They were set upon low platforms which, in turn, rested upon a broad platform made of stone and earth. The platforms ensured that the village and its homes were above any swampy ground. There was very little social class division and work was communal. However, there was some division of labor between men and women and perhaps between families. The men cultivated and harvested the maiz in fields adjacent to the village. The women prepared the harvested grain in a multi-step process that included grinding it into a flour on stone metates. Small, flat, round cakes now known as tortillas were cooked from the flour and formed a staple of the family diet. Since the village above is set close to the seashore, another ready source of food would have been mollusks from tide pools, seabirds and their eggs, and fish caught with nets made of local fibers and weighted with small stones. After the discovery that cotton fiber was useful for making cloth, animal skin clothing was largely abandoned, except for ceremonial purposes. Clothing was simple, composed mostly of skirts and loin cloths, since more elaborate clothing would have been unnecessary in this climate.  (Photo of mural taken at the Museum of Archaeology in Zihuatanejo)


Tools for subsistence 


Tools like this were used for grinding food or medicinal herbs or making pigments for paints. The circular stone bowl is called a metateand the cylindrical stone in the bowl is a mano. This metate is unusual because they are usually shaped as rectangular trays. Although this form of grinding is extremely ancient, manos and metates can still be found for sale in modern Mexican hardware stores. They are not tourist nicknacks, but practical tools for the kitchen. The fertile soil that produced the maiz once ground in this metate was watered by rivers and canals in fields that were capable of producing two harvests per year. In addition to maiz, local farmers grew beans, squash, and chile. Nutritionists have established that these four foods form an almost perfectly balanced diet. With the addition of protein from seafood, birds, and other wildlife, the local population must have been well nourished. (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)



Stone weights of various sizes were used to stabilize nets and cause them to sink evenly. The nets themselves would have been made from fibers stripped from local plants such as the maguey. The fibers were woven into strings and then knotted into nets. The stones were grooved around their circumferences so that they wouldn't slip off the net. The nets used by modern Mexican fishermen along the Costa Grande shore (see Parts 2 & 3 of this series) are still designed and used in much the same fashion as their ancient ancestors, although the weights are now made of lead and the nets woven from nylon.(Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)


Obsidian arrow points intended for various sizes of game from small birds to mountain lions.
While not as easy to obtain as steel arrow points purchased at a sporting goods store, obsidian points such as these are surprisingly easy to make, if one has the materials at hand. Basically, you need a chunk of obsidian, a stone tool to chip off an arrowhead "blank"from the larger chunk, a small patch of deer hide to protect your fingers while you do the fine work on the blank, and the pointed end of a deer antler to do the shaping and finishing. All of these materials, except for obsidian, could be locally obtained. The obsidian had to be imported through the trade networks from the area of modern Michoacan and Hidalgo states. Since the great commercial and trading empire of Teotihuacan controlled huge deposits of obsidian in those areas, and there is much evidence of Teotihuacan influence on the Costa Grande people, it may be that material these arrowheads were made from originated there. The basic technique for making arrowheads would have been common knowledge among ancient people as far back as the 8,000 BC or even earlier. Small children would have learned by observation as they watched their fathers or older brothers working around the fire in the evening, preparing for the next day's hunt. In later times, after the development of a stratified, specialized society in Xihuacán, obsidian workshops produced many of these kinds of items. For a Living History Youtube video showing the traditional method of makeing obsidian arrowheads, click here.  (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)

Tools for making other important products

This stone hammer was used to make paper from amate bark.Use of amate bark for paper may have begun as early as 300 AD in Mesoamerica, probably originating with the Maya before migrating north. The bark was stripped from the tree and left overnight to soak in water. Then, the fine inner fibers were removed and pounded into flat sheets using a mallet like the one above. The cross-hatched grooves in the mallet were important for mashing the fibers. To make any significant amount of the paper was a laborious process. However it was also relatively light and therefore easy to transport. Both of these factors made amate paper very valuable. The Mexica (Aztecs) made the most extensive use of amate paper and assigned its manufacture as a tribute requirement to 40 villages in their empire. The villagers were required to produce 480,000 sheets annually. The paper was not considered a commodity, but was used by royal scribes to keep records, by priests for ritual purposes, and as royal gifts to nobles and successful warriors. Because indigenous priests used amate paper for their rituals, and the Spanish suspected that the writings involved devil worship, colonial authorities banned the production and use of the paper. They also burned the great libraries containing amate paper codicies. These contained centuries of the religious thought and political history of the conquered civilizations. This conflagration was one of history's most infamous acts of cultural genocide. Indigenous people in a handful of areas secretly preserved the paper-making technology, however. Today, a few villages of Otomi and Nahua people of Puebla and Vera Cruz still make amate paper in the ancient way.  (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)



Tools used in lapidary work. Lapidary items are those made of stone that is considered precious. In Mesoamerica, such stones included green jade, serpentine, obsidian, and turquoise. Many of these precious stones would have traveled long distances along the ancient trade routes to the Costa Grande. Turquoise, for example, originated in the what is today Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwestern US. The distance from there to the Costa Grande is approximately 4000 km (2500 mi). It should be remembered that there were no pack animals in Mesoamerica prior to the arrival of the Spanish, so everything had to be carried on a human back.   (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)



Ancient zoomorphic paint pots. I was rather charmed by these little paint pots. I enjoy how the ancient people often decorated even workaday tools like this with animal figures and faces. The two pot sets at the top obviously were intended to separate various colors. The artist may well have once used them to paint ritual images on amate paper. The pigments used were made from the natural materials they found in their immediate environment. For example, the color white, called tízatl, was obtained by slaking lime with water and sand. Black (Tlilli) came from resin-filled pine sticks burned at the tips. This created charcoal sticks for drawing, but the charcoal could also be ground up for black paint. Graphite was also used to create black. Red could be obtained by using red ocher, or cinnabar. One of the most mysterious colors used was the famous Maya Blue. Its use spread from the Maya areas through the trade networks to many of the other Mesoamerican civilizations. The durability and longevity of Maya Blue is astonishing. According to World Archaeology, it is "resistant to acid, solvent, heat and many forms of organic corrosion. Samples found on pottery and murals show little evidence of colour deterioration after centuries of exposure..." Until 2008, the mystery of its ingredients went unsolved. Then an archaeologists remembered a paint pot that had been recovered from the Cenote Sagrado (water-filled, limestone sinkhole) at Chichen Itzá. The pot still contained some Maya Blue that, when given an electron analysis, revealed "a mix of copal (tree resin burned as incense), a clay mineral called palygorskite, and small amounts of indigo leaves." Thus was solved a 150-year-old mystery. (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)



Malacates were used in the process for spinning thread for textiles.  The point of a long wooden rod fitted through the hole in the center of the clay spindle whorl known as a malacate, with the flat side up. The point of the rod rested on a piece of wood or in a bowl while the other end was held in the fingers of the spinner. One end of the thread was attached to the middle of the rod, while the other end merged with the mass of cotton or ixtle fiber held in the lap of the person doing the spinning. The function of the malacate was to stabilize the rod in a vertical position and maintain inertia while it was twirled.As you can see above, the ancients decorated their humble little malacates, like they did the paint pots seen previously.  (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)



The use of molds shows that the ancient people understood some aspects of mass production. As the Costa Grande societies grew more complex, so did their technologies. Instead of crafting unique objects by hand, molds were sometimes used to make many identical objects. The craftsmanship thus declined, with quantity winning out over quality. The development of this technology was related to the development of a multi-level, hierarchical society. Complex religions demanded offerings by large numbers of people in the rapidly growing society. The clay objects manufactured with these molds could be produced on a mass scale. In addition, mass production could reduce trade costs and thus increase the wealth of those who controlled commerce. The priestly elites began to assign specialized tasks to individual family groups. These tasks might involve the manufacture of ritual objects, luxury items, or items for trade. Economics, politics, and religion functioned together to maintain elite control of the society, just as they do in modern societies. (Photo taken at the Archaeological Museum in Soledad de Maciel)

My hiking friends Peter (rt) and Alfredo (lt), on the way to the peak of Cerro Chupinaya. The mountains surrounding Lake Chapala are a hiker’s delight. This is particularly true of those that rise abruptly behind the pueblo of Ajijic on the Lake’s North Shore. The peak of Cerro (Mt.) Chupinaya can be reached by several different trails, all of them challenging but some more difficult than others. However, before tackling the Chupinaya peak, there are a few things you need to know about hiking in this area.


A topographical map shows the rugged mountains overlooking Ajijic. Chupinaya peak is in the upper center of the map on the ridge called Sierra El Tecuan. At almost 8,000 feet, Cerro Chupinaya is the highest of several peaks jutting up along the 32.2 km (20 mi) long east-west ridge. The ridge parallels the North Shore of Lake Chapala. Since the altitude at the Lake is 5,000 feet, anyone intending to climb to Chupinaya’s peak is facing a 3,000 foot elevation gain over a horizontal distance of only about 3.2 km (2 mi). In other words, these mountains are steep! 


Cerro Chupinaya and the surrounding ridges are cloaked in green jungle much of the year. The photo above was taken in the early fall, toward the end of the rainy season, when the vegetation is a lovely emerald green but often almost impenetrable. Chupinaya's peak can be seen in the center of the top of the photo. Extending perpendicularly down from the Sierra El Tecuan toward the lake are a series of ridges, kind of like the fingers extending down from the top knuckles on your hand. Between the finger ridges are deep canyons with rock ledges that form waterfalls during the rainy season, but are dry during the rest of the year. One of the most popular hiking routes in the area is the Tepalo Canyon. Its trailhead starts one of the many routes to Cerro Chupinaya.


From atop a narrow finger ridge, you can see the steep cliffs lining the face of Sierra El Tecuan.
For those from the US, Canada, or Europe who are used to well-groomed trail systems dotted with directional signs, it is important to remember that hiking in Mexico is different. In the mountains I have visited, the term “system” doesn't really apply. There is no plan or organization to the trails. Many split and then rejoin, or start out boldly and then peter out in the brush. Some were created by free-grazing livestock. Other trails were blazed by local Mexicans camote diggers, searching for a wild root similar to a yam. The diggers go where they find the roots, which may or may not be where you are intending to end up. Many times, I have followed a long trail only to find that it ends in a series of bathtub-sized camote holes. I am then faced with the prospect of "bushwhacking" my way forward through dense jungle or retracing my steps.

Our Cerro Chupinaya hiking party included a young Mexican guide. From left to right are Peter, Japo, Patricia, Alfredo, Antonia, and Chuck. Japo, our guide for the day, is the son of Antonia's gardener. He was shod only in tennis shoes on the rugged, stony trail, but out-hiked us all. Antonia was hiking to celebrate her 70th birthday. Her health and vigor is similar to that of many of my expat hiking friends, making them delightful, adventurous companions. Although there are a number of well-used hiking trails, almost all lack directional signs. Newcomers, even when they are experienced hikers, should go out with those who already know the way. In the bewildering maze of trails, even hikers with local knowledge can miss a turn. A lone person who gets hurt on a cattle track or camote digger’s trail might have to wait for days to be found. This is the main risk of hiking in these mountains, since there is little or no danger from people or animals. 


The author, catching his breath after a steep stretch of trail. It is important to dress properly and bring the necessary equipment when setting out on a hike. This is particularly so for a long trek like the one to Cerro Chupinaya. The single most important item is footwear, since that is how you get from point A to point B. The rocky stretches of trail are interspersed with slippery, gravel-covered slopes. Hiking boots with ankle support and lug soles are best. A broad-brimmed hat is also a must, since the sun at this altitude and latitude is intense, even on a cool day. A third essential is a hiking stick. Some people carry a pair of expensive, telescoping, trekking poles, but I prefer the handle from an old mop or broom, with rubber footings on each end. In my daypack, I usually carry at least 1 liter (roughly 1 qt) of water, but often 2 or more liters for a long hike like this one. I also carry a poncho, first aid kit, a Swiss army knife, paraffin and matches for an emergency fire,  and a sandwich or other snack. Some hikers prefer long-sleeved shirts and pants, but I usually wear a t-shirt and shorts to avoid overheating. Tank tops or shorts above the knees can be a problem because of sharp stickers and the occasional encounters with bees. Newcomers will certainly want to bring a camera.


As we ascended the mountain, clouds swept in around us. At this point we had reached about 2134 meters (7000 ft), a gain of 610 meters (2000 ft) in vertical distance above the lake. The cool moistness of the clouds was a welcome relief from the sun. As I rested for a moment, I recalled the annual mid-summer footrace up Chupinaya, which draws participants from around the world. Keep in mind that we completed our roundtrip hike in about 6.5 hours. The winner of the 2011 footrace completed the roundtrip run between the Ajijic Plaza to the peak in 1 hour and 16 minutes. The runners coped with the very same steep, rough trails. It would be easy for a slow moving hiker like me to twist or even break an ankle on the loose rocks and tricky footing. Think of a runner going flat out! It boggles the minds of those of us who regularly hike in these mountains.


 A brilliant purple Morning Glory had just opened its flower when we passed. Morning Glories (Ipomoea tricolor) abound throughout the mountains of Jalisco State. In pre-hispanic times, the Aztecs called the plant tlitliltzin and used the seeds in religious rituals because of their psychotropic properties.  In modern medicine, these Ergoline derivitives have been used to enhance the action of oxytocin, a drug for limiting post partum bleeding. Ergolines can also induce a state of drowsiness and well-being, which is helpful for treating anxiety disorder. However, Morning Glory seeds have sometimes been used as a poison, so caution is advised for those who might be tempted to sample the psychotropic effects.


A fork in the trail was marked by this horse skull, mounted on a tree. While hiking, we often find the scattered bones, or even full skeletons, of large animals like horses and cattle. The indigenous Mexicans allow their animals to graze freely in the mountains and, occasionally, they die. Since there are no roads up here, the animals are left to decompose where they fall, sometimes right across a hiking trail. As you might imagine, this requires a bit of a detour until the corpse decomposes sufficiently. After one hike, I brought a cow skull home, intending to mount it in my computer room. Carole suggested rather firmly that I should "get that filthy thing out of my house!" It now rests among the pots on our patio, periodically gnawed by salt-hungry squirrels.


A striped yellow caterpillar blended in well with its surroundings. If you are just focused on getting from one place to another, you can easily miss fascinating little details like this small, colorful, and almost luminescent caterpillar.  The little creature was about 5 centimeters (2 in) long and, nestled as it was among the leaves, could be easily missed by the unobservant. Some of my hiking friends go in for intense, fast-moving treks, the kind that tend to narrow your focus on the boots of the hiker in front of you. I like a more leisurely pace, with frequent stops to take in the view and to examine the area around me for interesting plants or animals.


The Three Crosses is an important junction on the trail to Chupinaya's peak. At this point we have completed our long path up the back of the north-south finger ridge. The trail here joins the one following along the main ridge of the Sierra El Tecucan, which runs parallel to Lake Chapala. Once we catch our breath, we will turn west along a path atop the ridge where we can see the Lake far below to the south, and a lush valley off to the north. Crosses such as these are found in many places atop the Sierra El Tecuan where trails from below join the main ridge trail. They are shrines to which Mexicans from the local communities hike on special occasions such as the annual fiesta for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Half-burnt candles and religious images--evidence of their rituals--can be found among the rocks at the bases of the crosses. Also present in this photo is Mattie, Chuck's dog. She is a delightful companion, and is always ecstatic to be included on one of these adventures.  (Photo by Alfredo Molina)


An unknown growth on a tree-branch attracted my attention. The air was moist and all sorts of odd things were growing at this cloud-swept altitude. If anyone can put a name to this, I would appreciate hearing from you. We continued on along the ridge, its sides dropping steeply off on either side of us. At this altitude oak trees grow in abundance, giving the area a park-like feeling.


Peter and Antonia push through the damp brush as clouds silently swirl about them. The clouds, ghost-like, moved eerily around us. They were not only a silent presence, but also seemed to muffle the sounds we made. We found ourselves speaking in low tones, almost whispers.


Vivid orange and green lichens adorned a rock face along the trail.Lichens are an odd form of life. They are actually a composite organism, part fungus and part photosythentic algae. Lichens can live almost anywhere, including arctic tundra, scorching deserts, rocky coasts and even toxic slag heaps. In addition to those extreme environments, they can also be found in rain forests and temperate woodlands like those along the Sierra El Tecuan. In addition to rock faces, they grow on the surface of exposed soils and sometimes on roofs. Scientists at the Mars Simulation Laboratory found that lichens survive, grow and adapt even in that extreme environment. This has led some to speculate that if we find life on Mars, it will be in lichen form.


Moving further along the ridge, I found several bright patches of Rubiacaea.  The Rubiacaeafamily of plants includes coffee, quinine, and West Indian jasmine, among others. The family is the fourth largest of flowering plants, and contains 611 genera and 13,000 species.


A Black Headed Vulture sits on a dead tree limb while surveying its realm. The large bird was a considerable distance away, so I had to use the extreme setting on my telephoto. However, the vulture accommodated me by remaining absolutely still until I completed my shot. Black Headed vultures, (Coragyps atratus) are also known as Black Vultures, Carrion Crows, and Jim Crow. They almost exclusively eat carrion and are therefore a member of nature's cleanup squad. Vultures, hawks, and other raptors glide and swoop in the thermals that rise along the cliffs fringing the Sierra El Tecuan. With their keen eyes and exquisite sense of smell, they can locate dead animals at a great distance.

In a small hidden cove, we found a shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe.Trails from both sides of the mountain converge here, and the area was well-kept, almost immaculate. The shrine consisted of a huge rock outcropping with a small cave in its face. On top of the rock, out of sight in the photo, was a small cross with a Mexican flag on top. The decorations you can see on the face of the rock to the left of the cave opening are in the red, white and green colors of the flag. Alfredo knelt for a short prayer while Japo stood by, clutching several small nopal cactus paddles we would later share during lunch.


Inside the cave, behind a protective metal gate, stands an image of the Virgin. The image was surrounded by candles and other small offerings. The shrine and the entire appearance of the site was imbued with the deep sense of reverence with which Mexicans hold the Virgen de Guadalupe. She is a religious figure dating back to 1531, only 10 years after the Conquest. Although the Catholic Church at first resisted recognizing her as a genuine apparition, the dark-skinned Virgin became the patron of the poor and the indigenous people. She became a a powerful political symbol when her image was used on the flag of the first insurgents against colonial Spain at the very moment the revolt exploded in 1810. Her presence at the head of Miguel Hidalgo's insurgent army ensured widespread support among poor people rising up against hundreds of years of Spanish oppression. The image of the Virgen de Guadalupe also appeared at the head of later armies, including during the Revolution of 1910. Virtually every time I have seen her image displayed, it is accompanied by a Mexican flag, or is draped with its colors.


Just in front of the shrine was neatly-kept campsite. We usually find remote sites like this to be strewn with plastic bags, empty soda pop bottles and other detritus. This one was neat and clean, almost as if it had been swept. A log seat was propped up between two trees and behind it swung a hammock. These sleeping devices are a New World invention. Anthropologists think the Maya of Central America originally invented the hammock 1000 years ago. They were first noticed by Columbus and his men while visiting the Taino people of the Bahamas. Hammocks were adopted and adapted by the Spanish and English navies in the 16th Century, and were still used by the US Navy as late as the Vietnam War.

San Cristóbal's 18th Century Catedral occupies one side of the city's Zocalo. The Zocalo, also known as Plaza Mayor or Plaza 31 de Marzo, is filled with activity from the early morning to late in the evening. At night, flood lights bathe the Catedral and other buildings around the Zocalo with a lovely glow. Above, Maya vendors have spread out their wares in the broad flagstone expanse in front of the church, anticipating the evening crowd of tourists. Carole and I had long ago put the State of Chiapas, and its former capital San Cristóbal de las Casas, on our list of proposed adventures. However, given the length of that list, we didn't get around to this visit until August of 2012. Given my backlog of un-posted adventures, I didn't start work on this Chiapas series until the spring of 2013. Since the Chiapas trip was one of Carole's all-time favorites, she kept after me until I finally got around to it. Chiapas is the southern-most state in Mexico, and shares a long border with Guatemala. Around most of its perimeter, Chiapas is surrounded by hot, humid lowlands. However, the center of the state is very mountainous, with high, lush valleys. San Cristóbal, at 2200 m (7200 ft), lies in one of these valleys, near the very center of the state. The altitude gives the town a mild to cool climate, ranging from an average high of 22.4 C (73.6 F) in June to a low of  4.2 C (39.6 F) in January. Keeping a sweater or jacket handy is a good idea for most of the year. For a Google map of Chiapas, click here. For a map of San Cristobal de las Casas and its Zocalo, click here.


Overview of the Centro Historico

View of San Cristobal from the hilltop Templo del Cerrito. Across the bowl-shaped city you can see the dome of another hilltop church, Templo de Guadalupe. In the background, heavily wooded mountains rise, as they do on all sides of the city. There are almost no tall buildings in San Cristobal. Other than churches and public buildings, most of the colonial structures have only one or two stories, roofed with red tiles. This gives the town a feel that is very human-scale. When the Spanish under Diego de Mazariegos arrived in 1528, they built a fort and founded a town they called Villa Real de Chiapa. The valley that the town occupies was named Hueyzacatlán, which means "pasture" in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs. The Spanish could never have conquered Mexico without the thousands of Aztec, Tarascan, Otomi, and other native troops who formed the overwhelming majority of their armies. Consequently, Nahuatl names sometimes appear in predominantly Maya areas like Chiapas. The colonial city had several additional name changes, Villa Viciosa in 1529, Villa de San Cristóbal de los Llanos in 1531, Ciudad Real in 1536, and finally Ciudad de San Cristóbal in 1829. The final change came when "de las Casas" was added in 1848 to honor 16th Century Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas who defended Chiapas' indigenous people against abuses by the Spanish. In the Maya's Tzotzil language, the name of the town is Jovel ("the place of the clouds"). San Cristóbal de las Casas and its differently-named earlier incarnations formed the capital of Chiapas off and on until 1892, when the seat of government was removed to Tuxtla de Gutierrez, an hour by automobile to the west.


A torrent of rain pelts the zocalo in one of the periodic downpours during our visit. San Cristóbal gets an amazing 1085 mm (43 in) of rain each year. May through October is the wet season, but even in the dry season there is a respectable level of precipitation. Anyone visiting San Cristóbal should remember to pack some rain gear, even during the so-called "dry" season. Still, during our August visit we had plenty of clear, brilliantly-sunny days, along with the occasional downpour. Actually, we didn't mind the rain, because it left everything beautifully green and moist, and the air fresh. When I took the photo above, Carole and I were caught out in the middle of a torrent that went on and on for more than an hour. The rain was so outrageously abundant that people were left trapped in whatever handy shelters they could find. Carole ended up in a doorway and the humor of it led her to share a laugh with a Maya woman similarly trapped across the street. Neither spoke the other's language, but in some cases comical situations can be universally appreciated.


A family of Maya vendors crowded under the arched portales to escape the rain. The east side of the Zocalo is made up of a long covered walkway lined with shops and coffee houses and restaurants. The arches that separate the pillars are called portales. The European tourists shown above were enjoying some of the excellent local coffee while they waited out the storm. The Maya family sitting on the floor next to them had similarly fled the downpour. They decided to attempt a sale to their captive audience of tourists. In our experience, the Maya are some of the most enterprising people in Mexico. During our visit, we were puzzled by the absence of tourists from the US, or even Canada. Except for us, all the other tourists we encountered seemed to be either Europeans or Mexicans from other areas. The majority of Europeans we saw were young people who appeared to be in their late teens to early twenties. Toting backpacks, they looked vibrantly healthy and towered over the Maya, who tend to be quite small. At 5'10", I am used to being taller than many Mexicans, but even I felt dwarfed by these blonde European giants. Good food and universal health care are having their effect, I guess.


The Zocalo's kiosco and garden area

Sant Cristóbal's kiosco is one of the more unusual that I have found in Mexico. Virtually every Mexican town has a plaza and almost every plaza contains a kiosco (bandstand), usually located in the center. Originally the Zocalo was an open area, used by merchants and those who came to collect water from its fountain. In the early 20th Century, this kiosco was added. Walkways radiate out from the kiosco like the spokes on a wheel. Gardens with shade trees and flowerbeds separate the spokes. All of this is very typical of a Mexican zocalo or plaza. What makes this kiosco unusual is that it contains a bar and restaurant on the first level, and a marimba band regularly entertains the restaurant patrons and pedestrians in the general area by performing on the second level.


A Maya woman in traditional dress carries her goods in both arms, looking for a buyer. She wears her long black hair in a braid that extends well below her waist. Her blouse is a satiny material much favored by Maya women. Her skirt is typical of her village, Chamula. It is made from shaggy black sheep's wool and extends to mid-calf. It is held up by a broad belt that is almost a sash. On her feet she wears sandals, even in cold, wet weather. On her left arm, she has draped an assortment of hand-woven belts. From her right forearm dangle several embroidered purses. She no doubt spent hours working at home to create these wares. Behind her passes another Maya, with a nearly identical skirt and similar satiny blouse, but of a different color. The Maya women tend to cluster together in groups, like flocks of colorful birds.


One of the "spokes" extending from the kiosco leads to the plaza's east side portales. The gardens are protected by wrought iron fences like the one on the right. On the left is a single-seat shoe shine stand, with a blue canopy. The shoe shiner is on a break. On the right is a small stand with a red conical roof where you can buy newspapers and magazines. Both of these are very typical of Mexican plazas. Nothing in a typical US city compares with a Mexican plaza. It is a source of relaxation, socialization, free entertainment, and an endlessly changing mixture of people. It is literally the heart of the community. The typical American shopping mall is plastic and sterile and, in my opinion, can't hold a candle to a zocalo like this one.


A family of Maya vendors takes a break on one of the many benches in the zocalo. The two on the left wear rough linen skirts, while the partially obscured woman on the right is dress in the more typical black sheep's wool version. One of the hardest things to find in a Mexican plaza is an unoccupied bench in a shady spot, but if you wait a bit, one will eventually open up.