Traditional dance by pineapple-carrying performers on a stage at San Cristóbal's Zocalo. This performance was one of many delightful (and free) activities we encountered in the area around the Zocalo during our visit. In this posting, we'll take a look at some of the many interesting performances and other encounters we had. If you visit Chiapas' former capital, San Cristóbal de las Casas, you can count on similar entertainment. According to botanists, the pineapple originated in the area of what is now the border between Brazil and Paraguay. Its cultivation spread during pre-hispanic times and eventually reached Mexico, where it was cultivated by the Aztecs and the Maya. Christopher Columbus encountered pineapples in 1493 during one of his island visits in the Caribbean. He took it back to Europe where it was an immediate hit. During the 1500s, the Spanish colonial authorities introduced the pineapple to the Philippines from which it eventually made its way to Hawaii and other locations.


Music and dancing

The dancers wore lovely, hand-made costumes. The dance was performed slowly and with great dignity, as you can see above. While folk dances existed in Mexico long before the Spanish arrived, they were considered low-class by the colonial elites and those that took power after Mexico won its independence in the early 19th Century. Enamored of everything European, the elites generally disdained or ignored the activities of the mestizos (mixed race) and indigenous people. However, following the Revolution, Mexican authorities encouraged various aspects of local culture, particularly folkloric dancing.


Another of the Zocalo's entertainment staples is marimba music. The group above is called the Marimba Orchestra of San Cristóbal de las Casas. The musicians are very talented and put on quite a show. In the evenings, they play on the top floor of the kiosco you can see in the back ground. The instrument you see above is a chromatic marimba, developed in Chiapas as a modification of the Central American diatonic marimba. The diatonic instrument itself evolved from the balafon brought over by African slaves to the Caribbean.


A marimba to beat all marimbas. Most marimbas I have seen were played by two musicians, or  occasionally three. This one had six, and the two-level instrument was so long that it had to be assembled in the shape of an "L". When these guys get going, their mellow sound floats over the entire Zocalo area. It's great to have a live sound track for one's life.


Maya dancer and his son perform in front of a pile of burning copal incense. He is dressed as a Jaguar Warrior and wears rattles on his lower legs. The rattles are made from the shells of Ayoyote seeds (also called Cabalonga seeds), and produce a sound when the dancer's feet are stamped on the ground. Seed rattles were used widely in pre-hispanic times. Along with drums, they were among the primary percussion instruments. We saw these performers at various times in different places, as you will see later in this posting.


A trio of Maya flutists filled the air with their haunting tones. Using a technology unavailable to their ancient ancestors, these fellows overcame the hubbub around them with electronic amplification. Two of them play single-tube instruments, while the middle one plays a multi-tube "pan" flute. Their ancestors used both types. While these flutes all appear to be made of wood, the pre-hispanic Maya also used reeds, bone, and ceramic materials.


The pan flutist uses an instrument that is considerably more complex than those of ancient times. His instrument is actually two connected pan flutes. While the smaller one gives higher notes, the larger provides the deeper tones. Note the Ayoyote maraca (rattle) he holds in his right hand. Pan style flutes were very widespread in the ancient worlds of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as in North, Central and South America. Pan instruments dating to 4200 BC have been found in Peru. Their use spread along ancient trade routes to the Maya and other Mesoamerican cultures. Ultimately they reached as far north as the Hopewell culture of the Ohio Valley


Maya handicrafts

Watching Maya women peddle their wares was an interesting way to pass the time. This pair, loaded with goods, have spotted a likely customer. In truth, anyone with a body temperature of 98.6 F seemed to be fair game. These women come from one of the many small villages surrounding San Cristóbal. They make their textiles and other items at home and bring them by public bus to the Zocalo. There, they carry them about or sometimes spread them on the flagstones. We were always astonished by how much these tiny women can tote around, and they do it all day.


Comparing notes, or perhaps coming up with a new sales strategy? Although they can be persistent if a customer displays the slightest interest, a firm but polite "no, gracias" will cause them to move on to their next prospect. Young girls learn the trade early, as you can see from the one standing on the left. All the adult women wear the trade-mark shaggy black wool skirts of their home village. In spite of the damp, chilly morning, all their legs are bare and they wear the skimpiest of sandals.


A pair of Maya dicker with a European woman who towers over them. Her friend, carrying a baby, stands patiently as the process unfolds. In truth, although I am just under 2 m (6 ft) tall, many of the young European men and women made me feel a bit dwarf-like. Nutritious food and national heath care seem to be working for them. As I noted in my previous posting, we encountered no tourists from the US or Canada, only from Europe or other Mexican regions. I am reminded of those old explorers' maps, with the unknown areas filled in by drawings of dragons. Apparently, a lot of folks from north-of-the-border believe in dragons.


As dusk gathers, the Catedral Plaza fills up with merchants and customers. Similar scenes have been occurring in plazas like this since at least the time of the Olmecs in 1500 BC. In the 1930s, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera painted a stunning mural in the Palacio Nacional showing the tianguis (open market place) in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. He based it on the reports of the Conquistadors who observed it in 1520 AD. The scene above bears a striking similarity to the Rivera mural.


The Night Scene

The Zocalo at night comes alive even more so than during the day. Customers are served in the bar/restaurant on the first level of the kiosco, while the Marimba Orchestra, seen in previous photos, plays on the level above them. The whole scene is softly lit by floodlights and tall, antique lamps.


A Maya performer cavorts on the steps of the Catedral. Actually, it was darker when I took this shot that it appears here. I used my iPhoto computer magic to lighten it up so you could appreciate the performer's costume. In addition to the skull on his feathered headdress, he holds another skull in his right hand. Pre-hispanic people held very different views on death than those of modern Western societies. For example, they believed that people who committed suicide or were sacrificed, and women who died in child birth or men who died in battle, were all first in line to go immediately to heaven. For that matter, many of today's Mexicans maintain pre-modern views, as seen in their Day of the Dead fiestas. I believe the performer above may be part of the troupe that put on a spectacular performance of ancient Maya legends at a theatre down the street. Carole and I were both dazzled by it.


When darkness fell, floodlights bathed the public buildings surrounding the Zocalo Plaza. Above, the Palacio Gobierno (City Hall), glows softly in the misty evening. A light rain began to fall, and many of the vendors covered their goods with sheets of plastic, as you can see in the lower right. People hurried to the shelter of the portales lining the front of the Palacio.


Under the portales, it was business as usual. Still-dripping vendors, musicians, and other performers  continued what they had been doing in the plaza. Weather didn't seem to cause anyone to miss a beat. During the day, the left side of the arcade above opens into city government offices, and the police station. The tourist office, which has some English speakers, is located at the far end.


The Jaguar Warrior and his son pose for a photo with a couple of Mexican children. This is the same pair of Maya performers seen dancing earlier in the Catedral Plaza. No doubt they earned a nice tip from the parents. Since the last time we saw him, the Jaguar Warrior has donned fierce-looking face paint.


And for the kids...

Future driver at the Indianapolis 500 or LeMans? Parents seeking entertainment for their children could rent a small electric car. If you look closely, there is a lot going on in this photo. As the father strolls along beside his son, the young girl sitting on the pedestal looks on enviously. Meanwhile, above her, two men watch the action with obvious amusement. In the upper left of the photo, the Maya Jaguar Warrior appears yet again, this time with other members of his troupe as they prepare for another performance.


Getting the jump on life. When I saw workmen assembling this contraption, I was baffled as to its purpose. All became clear when I returned a bit later. Four kids at a time can play on this trampoline-like device. A parent or other adult can control their bouncing by pulling down on the straps attached to each child's harness. When I first moved to Mexico from the US, I was astonished at how Mexican parents often allow their children to engage in what appear, at least to me, to be dangerous activities. Tiny tots ride around on full-grown horses, unaccompanied by any adult. Whole groups of kids pile on 4-wheelers and careen about at high speed down the narrow streets of Ajijic, my home pueblo. Children often play by the highway as large trucks thunder past, only a short distance away. The device shown above contains far more safety features than I am used to seeing.


Wheee!! I'm flying! The young boy was delighted with the game and kept pleading for it to go on and on. His father was happy to oblige. Mexico is a very family-oriented society. Despite their seeming casualness about safety, Mexicans obviously love their children and show it in many ways.


The ever-entertaining practice of people watching

A Maya mother and her daughter watch the folk dancers from a Zocalo bench. They wear beautifully embroidered huipils (tunics). Made by hand, huipils display designs specific to their home pueblo. With a bit of practice, it would be possible to quickly sort out who is from where just by looking at huipil and skirt designs. The blue cross and caduceus on the van above the girl's head identify it as an emergency vehicle. The style of wrought-iron bench on which they sit can be found all over Mexico. Finding an empty one under the shade of a tree is part of the never-ending game of musical chairs practiced in Mexican plazas.


Enjoying a snack on the steps of the kiosco. When I first photographed this boy, I thought perhaps he was a young student on break from classes. Upon closer examination, it appears he may be a vendor, given the goods he holds in his lap. It often happens, when I photograph a scene, that details emerge that I didn't notice at first. Sometimes a small detail that was not the subject of the shot proves to be so interesting that I crop out the part I was shooting and keep the detail. It's a bit like throwing a net into the water and seeing what comes up.


The Zocalo Plaza bustles in the morning. Here, a hard-working young woman balances a large pan of cut fruit on her shoulder, heading to replenish her vendor stall. The child behind her, perhaps her daughter, has spilled something from her bucket onto her jeans. Behind them, a trio of teenage girls strolls along, keeping a sharp eye out for boys. Life on the hoof.


Shoe shiners take a lunch break. They appear to be about twelve years old or so. Each has a small wooden box containing his supplies. The top of the box serves as a footrest for the customer. Completing their equipment are three tiny stools on which they perch while buffing their customer's shoes. In Mexican plazas, shoe shiners are almost as ubiquitous as kioscos. The price is modest, usually around 25 pesos ($2.00 USD) but is often less in areas with few tourists. They usually do a good job.

La Catedral de San Cristóbal de las Casas occupies one whole side of the Zócalo. Oddly, it was built to face its own Plaza Catedral rather than facing the main plaza. Other cathedrals I have seen were built with unpainted volcanic rock or limestone. By contrast, the one in San Cristóbal is brightly painted. Not long ago, the Cathedral was restored to its original colors of yellow, white, and red.  The red and yellow colors of the original church imitated the colors of the clay streets then existing in San Cristóbal and the nearby Maya village of Chamula.

The original church, built in 1528, was dedicated to the Virgin of the Assumption. That church was small, simple, and constructed of adobe and thatch, as many were in those early days. In 1536, the church was re-dedicated to San Cristóbal (St. Christopher), although it retained a connection to the Virgin of the Assumption. In the 17th Century, the old Conquest-era church was torn down and construction on a bigger, more imposing structure was begun. The architect/builder was Fray Juan de Ordoñez. The facade of the new church was finished in 1721. A few more details were added in the early 20th Century, but the structure you see above is essentially the one completed in the early 18th Century.


The facade

The facade's styles include Baroque and Moorish with Oaxacan and Guatemalan influences. The facade was constructed to resemble an altarpiece, or retablo, with three vertical and three horizontal levels separated by Solomonic columns. There are niches for various saints, including St. Peter and St. Paul. Their niches were placed on either side of the main entrance on the ground level. Those two saints represent the dual nature of the town, with the Spanish colonials in the center surrounded by the indigenous neighborhoods. The positions of the other saints are oriented toward the various neighborhood churches with which those particular saints are affiliated. The yellow surface above the entrance is decorated with alfeñique, a white stucco laid down in intricate floral designs. The alfeñique shows the influence of Oaxaca and Guatemala. The main entrance of the Cathedral is topped by the arched window seen above. It is bracketed by two double-headed eagles also of white alfeñique. The eagles are the symbols of the House of Hapsburg. That was the family of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who ruled Spain and its colonial possessions during the middle of the 16th Century. Above the window is a niche containing a relief carving of Santiago Matamoros.

A friendly jaguar greets passersby along Andador 20 de Noviembre. The doorway is part of a converted colonial mansion now serves as an artisan's shop. Andador 20 de Noviembre heads north from the northwest corner of the Zócalo. The walking part of it stretches for 3 long blocks. Andador refers to the pedestrian-only aspect of the street. The 20th of November is Dia de la Revolution, the day Francisco Madero launched the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Carole and I loved the walking streets of San Cristóbal de las Casas. They extend out from the Zócalo to the north, south, and east. The absence of motor vehicles means less noise and exhaust fumes and an overall slower pace. As to jaguars, they are the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere and the third largest in the world, after African lions and Asian tigers. The ancient people revered the jaguar, not only because of its size and hunting abilities but because it is a creature of the night. The pre-hispanic people believed that jaguar spirits connected the world of ordinary reality with that of the underworld of darkness and death.



You run into all types of people along Andador 20 de Noviembre. They range from tall Europeans toting backpacks, to tiny Maya dressed in traditional clothing, to Ladinos (non-Maya Mexicans) wearing ordinary street clothes. The shops, cafés, and restaurants lining either side of the street are colonial-era structures that rarely exceed two stories.


Burger King stands on one of the corners of the Andador. My guess is that you have never seen one that looked quite like this. We really appreciate how Mexican cities like San Cristóbal have required businesses to closely follow the original appearance of the structure. Inside, of course, it looks like any other Burger King.


The Magic Oven French Bakery announced its presence with this small sign. A Maya dressed in pre-hispanic garb prepares to thrust a croissant into a traditional beehive-shaped oven. The shape of the wood-fired oven provides an even heat. Although current bakers don't dress this way (at least none I have met), bread products have been baked using this ancient style of oven ever since the Spanish brought wheat over from Europe. I occasionally buy bread in from a neighborhood baker in my pueblo of Ajijic. He uses just such an oven. Previous to the introduction of the bee-hive oven, the indigenous people used a circular, flat griddle called a comal. On the comal they cooked the thin flat cakes called tortillas. Like the beehive oven, the ancient comal is still widely used in Mexico.


A fierce Maya warrior stands at the entrance of a theatre along the Andador. This guy was one of the actors in a spectacular performance we attended a few days later. When we encountered him here, he was functioning as kind of a human billboard for the event. The play, called Palenque Rojo was about the ancient conflict between two Maya kingdoms named Toniná and Palenque which--according to legend--resulted in the conquest of Palenque and the death and rebirth of its king. The costumes, as you can see, were extraordinary. Although all the dialogue was in Maya, it was easy to follow the action because the theatre provided a brochure in English. During the performance, some of the actors were costumed as monkeys, large birds, crocodiles, and horrific insects. They had the animals' body movements down perfectly. Palenque Rojo was gripping and enchanting, a must-see if you visit San Cristóbal.


View along the Andador, looking back toward the Zócalo. As the day wore on, the streets filled with people. When we visited San Cristóbal in August, the weather was nice, but very changeable. One moment it might be bright and sunny, like the scene above and, in the next, dark clouds might sweep in to produce a short downpour. Accordingly, we had to prepare for all eventualities. I wore the kind of hiking trousers with zippers at knee level enabling their conversion into shorts if the weather warmed up. In my daypack, I carried rain gear in case of a sudden storm, but also sunblock if the sun came out.


A group a Maya men, some wearing elements of traditional clothing, waits at a health center. Many Maya, men and women, carry the traditional embroidered shoulder bag. Two of the men above also wear the traditional white tunic, extending to knee length, with bare legs. The chest areas of the tunics are also decorated with embroidery. Interestingly, the two in tunics wore t-shirts under them, and also imported running shoes. That's progress, I guess.


Day or night, there is a lot of activity on the various andadores. Here you are looking north along Andador 20 de Noviembre at its intersection with Calle 5 de Febrero. There is a vibrant night scene in San Cristóbal, and the cafés, restaurants, and bars fill up with a mix of Mexicans and European tourists.


Templo de Caridad

The origins of Templo de la Caridad (the Temple of Charity) go back to the 16th Century. Notice the thick walls, wood ceiling, and great retablo behind the altar. The whole place exudes antiquity.The church sits on the east side of Andador 20 de Noviembre, near where the pedestrian-only part ends. Just north of the Templo is the much more famous Templo y Ex-Convento de Santo Domingo church which we will visit in a future posting. La Caridad was originally the chapel for a hospital run by the religious Order of San Juan de Dios, and is the only part of the original hospital and convent that still stands. The first hospital in San Cristóbal was established between 1577 and 1594 in the southern part of the city by two churches, Templos de San Diego y Santa Lucia. However, that hospital project did not prosper and, by the early 1600s, the facility in the south of the city was in ruins. In 1635, members of the Order of San Juan de Dios, led by Juan de San Martin, began planning for a new hospital. The chapel for their hospital complex would become Templo de La Caridad, In Mexico, however, few things happen quickly.


La Caridad is undergoing restoration work as you can see on this pillar. The bottom of the pillar has been restored, while the area above the capital (the top of the column) needs considerable work. Maintaining a centuries-old structure like this is a constant work-in-progress. The 17th Century planning and fundraising process appears to have been glacial, because it was not until 1653 that the Order of San Juan de Dios finally took possession of the land around the Templos San Domingo y Santa Lucia where the ruins of the unsuccessful hospital stood. For reasons that are unclear to me, the Order decided not to build there, and the project slumbered for a few more decades.


The graceful old dome shows the wear of the ages. The four round windows in the dome allow enough light to dispel what would otherwise be a gloomy atmosphere. With the turn of the 18th Century, the pace finally picked up. In 1710, Bishop Juan Bautista Álvarez de Toledo arrived from Spain. In order to obtain funds for construction of the hospital, the Bishop demanded  money and labor from the local Tzeltzal Maya. The Tzeltzal revolt that erupted in 1712 had been brewing for a while but the Bishop's demands helped trigger it. After the suppression of the revolt the Maya were forced to provide the funds used to procure the land where La Caridad now stands. It was purchased from Sergeant Major D. Pedro De Zaveleta and his wife. The Sergeant Major may well have had a part in defeating the Maya and, if so, he profited nicely from his military exertions. His property included a hermitage, a sacristy and a cemetery.


A massive, three-tiered Baroque-style retablo stands behind the altar. The Retablo del Altar Mayor (Main Altar Retablo) contains four religious paintings, and three niches--one on each level--for statues of the Virgin and two saints. The incredibly ornate decoration of the retablo is an expression of the Baroque sensibilities of the late 17th and early 18th Centuries. After the suppression of the Tzeltzal uprising in 1712, Bishop Álvarez de Toledo put the Order of San Juan de Dios in charge of the development the new hospital complex. It would be the first hospital in San Cristóbal dedicated to treating the indigenous population. I suspect that this was at least in part a response to the revolt. At the urging of the bishop, some additional land, construction materials, and 1800 pesos were donated by the Dominicans whose Santo Domingo church and convent stood next door. La Caridad was built on the site of the old hermitage. The style of the church was influenced by the styles prevalent in 18th Century Peru and Guatemala. The Order of San Juan de Dios continued to operate the hospital complex until the War of Independence (1810-1821) when a group of San Cristóbal's prominent civilians took it over. Following the Independence War, the complex passed into the hands of the federal government.


Nuestra Señora de la Caridad is the main focus of the rebablo. It seems appropriate that Our Lady of Charity (also known as the Virgin of Charity) was the patroness of a charity hospital operated for Maya, the poorest members of the community. However, she was believed to have helped in the defeat of the 1712 Maya revolt, so she was given the title Patroness of the Army and of the Province of Chiapas and Special Protector of the City and the Diocese. I found this a bit ironic. The first sighting of Nuestra Señora de la Caridad was in Cuba in 1604 by three fishermen.  They were threatened by high waves during a storm at sea and prayed to the Virgin for their salvation. After the storm cleared, they found a statue of the Virgin floating on the water with a board attached saying "I am the Virgin of Charity." The clothing of the statue was miraculously dry. Adoration of the statue spread in Cuba, and from there to the mainland and finally to Chiapas. I find it interesting how the widely separated Spanish New World colonial possessions interacted with one another and influenced each other's cultural development.


The second level of the retablo is centered on an unidentified saint. He may be San Juan de Dios (Saint John of God) or perhaps San Jose, father of Jesus. Either way, he carries the Baby Jesus with his left arm. He is bracketed by the richly decorated Solomonic columns typical of Baroque retablos. San Juan de Dios was born João Duarte Cidade in 1495. He was either kidnapped or ran away from his home in Portugal at an early age, ending up in Spain. After living a hand-to-mouth existence as a street child, Cidade took a job as a shepherd for a number of years. His farmer-boss tried to persuade him to marry his daughter, but instead he ran away again at age 22 to become a soldier. He managed to survive in that profession for about 20 years, fighting all over Europe, including in Hungary against the Turks. After the Turkish campaign, he left the military behind and again wandered, ending up in Africa. There, he befriended an impoverished knight and his family and nursed them through an extended illness. This apparently was his introduction to a lifelong mission of tending to the ill. Returning to Spain, he worked for a while disseminating books printed by the newly invented Gutenberg printing press.


The third, or top, level of the retablo brings the Baroque decorations to a climax. The figure of a saint holding the infant Jesus to his chest is again bracketed by Solomonic columns. Above and below the statue are the the heads of other figures with symbolic meanings that I could not decipher. It is easy to get sucked into the complexities of Baroque architecture. The fascinating little details are almost endless. In 1537, Cidade experienced a religious awakening in which he behaved so oddly that he was locked up as a lunatic. His spiritual advisor John of Avila got him released and Cidade began to devote himself to helping the poor and the sick. His obvious piety and dedication to the poor attracted a group of followers whom he organized into the Order of Hospitaliers. Cidade died in 1550, but his group continued and became the Brothers Hospitaliers, a religous order that was approved by the Pope in 1572 with a mission to care for the sick in countries around the world. Cidade was canonized as San Juan de Dios by Pope Alexander VIII in 1590.  This was the origin of the group that organized and ran the hospital that included Templo de la Caridad. Although no longer connected to the Templo, the Brothers Hospitaliers of St. John of God currently run 300 hospitals in 53 countries around the globe.

Templo y Arco del Carmen looking south. The Arco is a San Cristobal de las Casas landmark and symbol of the city. This tower arch marks the southern end of Andador Miguel Hidalgo (also known as Andador Eclesiastico), the pedestrian-only street extending south from the Zócalo. South of the arch, auto traffic is allowed on the street.  Andador Miguel Hidalgo forms the southern extension of Andador 20 de Noviembre, which I showed in Part 5 of this series. The point where they meet is the Zócalo (main plaza). In this posting, we'll take a look at the many cafes and restaurants along the street, as well as the Templo y Arco del Carmen and the Law School of the University of Chiapas. The Law School has an interior courtyard that is lined on one side with large, vivid murals. For a Google map showing this area, click here.


Looking south down Andador Miguel Hidalgo toward the Arco, with the University on the right.San Cristobal's walking streets are not completely free of auto traffic, since cars are allowed to cross at the end of each block. A taxi like the one above is relatively inexpensive, but you can reach most of the interesting places within the Centro Historico on foot if you are so inclined. We like to "hoof it" when possible because it makes the experience so much richer. In the design of almost every colonial city, the Spanish laid down a strict north-south and east-west grid of streets, centered on the main plaza (Zócalo). Using this grid pattern, we usually divide an area into quadrants, exploring each in turn. This allows us to see a lot more without overtiring ourselves.


University of Chiapas

Looking north, the School of Law fills a whole city block. Carole, dressed in red at the lower left, is approaching the main entrance. The school was originally founded by the Jesuits in 1681 as the Colegio de San Francisco Javier. Its purpose was the education of the sons of the Spanish colonial elite. The style of architecture is Neo-classical. In 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from all Spanish terriorties, so the school was taken over by others. In 1975, the Autonomous University of Chiapas (UNACH) was founded, and the old Jesuit school became its Facultad de Derecho (School of Law).

Facultad de Derecho (center), looking east from atop Templo del Cerrito's hill. The Law School occupies the whole block bounded by Andador Miguel Hidalgo on the east, Crescensio Rosas on the west, Ninos Heroes on the south, and Cuautemoc on the north. The building surrounds a large open courtyard bounded by the long row of white arches you can see in the center of the photo above. On the right side of the photo, the whole south side of the block is filled by the beige-colored, ex-Templo San Agustin, now the Law School's auditorium.


A pair of young students sits in the westside entrance of ex-Templo San Agustin. Engaged in animated discussion, they didn't notice me across the small courtyard with my camera set on telephoto. Notice the ancient carved wooden door behind them.


Large murals line a hallway, separated from the Law School courtyard by portales. Carole, dressed in red, stands about half way down the hall. The white, arched portales are the same seen in the long distance shot, two photos previous to this one. The murals were painted by internationally-famed artist and photographer Carlos Jurado, who donated them to the University. Jurado was born in Chiapas in 1927 and died at the age of 83. He was not only a great painter, but in 1973 he took up photography, considering it to have magical qualities. I couldn't agree more. Jurado used "pin-hole" photography, a very early form of the craft. He invented new ways in which to use the pin-hole technique, achieving remarkable effects and gaining a world-wide reputation.


A priest raises his cross, attempting to defend the Maya from rapacious conquistadors. With some exceptions, officials of the Catholic Church have generally supported the secular authorities when they oppressed indigenous populations of Nueva España (and later, when it became Mexico). Some of the most notable of these exceptions occurred in Chiapas. In the 16th Century, Bartolomé de las Casas was horrified by the rape, murder, torture, and enslavement he personally witnessed in the Caribbean, Guatemala, and Chiapas. He fought the encomienda system (forced labor in exchange for the "benefits" of Christianity), and was officially appointed "Protector of the Indians." In 1544, Bartolomé de las Casas became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas. However, he didn't last long because the encomenderos (Spaniards granted the right to demand forced labor) bitterly complained about his interference and even attempted an assassination. De las Casas returned to Spain and, over the following years, personally lobbied a series of Spanish kings on behalf of indigenous rights. In modern times, Chiapas Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia was a strong  supporter of Liberation Theology, and backed indigenous people in their efforts to organize and defend their rights. He served as Bishop of Chiapas from 1959-1999. As with Bartolomé de las Casas, the Ladino (non-Maya) elite of Chiapas adamantly opposed Bishop Ruiz and demanded his ouster. They were outraged that anyone, particularly a Catholic Bishop, would tamper with their lucrative economic arrangements. Again, there was an assassination attempt. At one point, Pope John Paul II, a strong opponent of Liberation Theology, attempted to remove Ruiz but backed off when other Mexican bishops came to his defense. Many Maya revered Bishop Ruiz, calling him Tatic (father). Bishop Ruiz stepped down in 1999 at the mandatory Church retirement age of 75, to the great regret of the Maya and the relief of Pope John Paul and Chiapas' large landowners.


The first great heros of the War of Independence were both Catholic priests. In the center, wielding a torch and pointing accusingly at ill-gotten Spanish loot, stands Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, for whom Andador Miguel Hidalgo was named. This first flame of revolt was suppressed in less than a year and Hidalgo was captured, executed, and his head displayed publicly to dissuade imitators. Father José María Morelos y Pavon, wearing his trademark head scarf, picked up the torch from Hidalgo. He is portrayed with a sword in one hand and a written constitution--Mexico's first--in the other. Morelos lasted longer than Hidalgo, but he was eventually captured and executed in 1815. The war continued until Mexico won its independence in 1821.


Another panel shows some of the heros of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Signing a document in the upper left is Benito Juarez, leader of the Liberal Party during the Reform War, and President of Mexico during and after the French invasion in 1862. After five years of uphill struggle he defeated and expelled the invaders, who were reputed to have the strongest army in the world at the time. Utterly incorruptible, he was a full-blooded Zapotec who raised himself from illiterate poverty in a remote Oaxacan village to become Chief Justice of the Mexican Supreme Court, and then President. Juarez died in office in 1876. In the center is Emiliano Zapata, one the greatest military leaders of the Mexican Revolution who was also its foremost social revolutionary. His famous slogan was Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty). Although Zapata was assassinated in 1917, he is still revered in Mexico. The Zapatista Liberation Front (EZLN) is very active in Chiapas today and is widely supported among the Maya. In the lower right is Lázaro Cárdenas, a contemporary of Franklin Roosevelt. As Mexican President in 1938, he nationalized the Mexican oil industry against the bitter opposition of the American and British corporations who had dominated it until then. He also redistributed land to the poor and indigenous people, and revolutionized Mexico's education system, dramatically increasing literacy.


Jurado's other murals are more esoteric and whimsical. Here a nude female takes a break from strumming her guitar while she listens to an angel playing a horn and a devil the flute. To me, these two little figures represent the dualism that threads through Mexican philosophy and art going back thousands of years back deep into pre-hispanic times. In this view, everything has its opposite: day and night, light and dark, good and bad, etc. One cannot exist without the other and they define each other. In this mural, they are in balance, but the question is: to whom does the woman listen most?


 In another mural, a female angel pursues a wide-eyed male devil. I wasn't quite sure whether this represented the devil's defeat, or perhaps he is playing hard-to-get against an aggressive, lustful female. This was not a major mural unto itself, but simply one of many whimsical little details on a larger piece.


Here, the opposites seem to have reconciled. This suggests the unity inherent in the ancient pre-hispanic dualism. I found the recurring appearances of the angel and devil figures to be the most intriguing parts of the mural set.


Templo y Arco del Carmen

Restaurants and sidewalk cafes line the street between the University and the Arco del Carmen. Carole and I sampled the fare of several of these and found them very good and usually inexpensive. We were delighted with this aspect of San Cristóbal. You can spend a lot at a fancy restaurant here, but it is not necessary. There are many places to get a tasty meal, in a location with a great ambiance, for a low price.


Templo y Arco del Carmen, seen from a hill to the west. The buildings with the red-tiled roofs surrounding the rust-colored Arco are the Templo del Carmen and the former convent, including the nuns' cells and the cloister. In the late 16th Century, the residents of the area petitioned the Spanish King to allow the establishment of a convent for 236 noble maidens, some of whom were daughters of the original conquistadores. The convent would allow them to live out their lives in seclusion, preserve their virtue, and learn various feminine arts. When it was authorized by King Phillip II in 1595, the convent was the only facility for nuns in Ciudad Real (the name of San Cristóbal at the time). The Convento de la Encarnación was built in 1597, although the famous Arco was not erected until almost a century later.

Arco del Carmen, from the east side. What makes the Arco unique is its Moorish style, called Mudejar, which dates back to 13th Century Spain. It has become one of San Cristóbal's best-known symbols, often described as "the most striking colonial building in the city." Early in 1677, Convent administrator José Antonio de Torres asked for city permission to build a bell tower for the convent. Three years later, permission was granted and the tower was constructed in 1680. The Arco has several interesting features. For one, the arched passageway on the ground level was once the principal entrance to the city. Second, the Arco has a special passageway on the second level which once connected the Templo to the Convent buildings.The Convent administrator ordered the building of this passageway so that the nuns could pass back and forth without encountering the citizens of the city, thus preserving their vow of seclusion. Other interesting features can be found on the ceiling above the ground-level archway.


A corner of the archway ceiling shows some signs of renovation. There appears to be some recent work on the right-hand side. The ornate, flowery decorations on the original sections show some Moorish influence. I often wonder about the craftsmen who sweated over the tiny details of an obscure corner like this. They were almost certainly Maya, since the Spanish didn't tend to dirty their own hands in that era. So the Maya, many of whom still secretly worshiped their ancient gods, were directed by the Christian Spanish to decorate a church bell tower in the style of the Muslim Moors. An interesting combination, so say the least.


An eight-pointed Moorish star is found on the ceiling dome over the interior of the archway. The star is made of wood and plaster. The Mudejarstyle was adopted by Christian Spaniards of Andalusia during the Reconquista of Spain from the Moors. The 700-year struggle to oust the Muslim Moors led to a love-hate relationship with the Moorish culture.  Especially influencial was the graceful Moorish architecture. The word Mudejar is a corruption of the Arabic word mudajjan, which means "domesticated." It refers to the Moors in areas captured by the Spanish Christians who surrendered to the Christians but refused to convert. Mudejar architecture continued to be popular in Spain until the mid-18th Century, although the Arco is one of the few--as well as the most outstanding--examples of it in Mexico.


The nuns cloister is now filled with small shops where local handicrafts are made and sold. The nuns of the Convento de la Encarnación were sworn not only to seclusion but also, at least theoretically, to poverty. This limited the convent's budget for fancy religious buildings, leading to the rather spartan outward appearance of their  accommodations. This is in contrast to some other orders, the Dominicans for instance, who had a fondness for sumptuous decoration. The small plaza that separates the convent buildings from the Arco is often used for cultural events.


The headquarters of the old convent are now a cultural center. When we visited, there was an art display and the curators wouldn't allow photography inside the building. In colonial Mexico, and in post-colonial society up to the Revolution, there were few careers open to unmarried women. Entering a convent was one of the socially acceptable paths for the daughters and widows of elite families. Although there were often vows of poverty associated with convent life, the women's personal lifestyles were generally not as spartan as the outward accommodations make it appear. The nuns at this convent were known as Concepcionistas which, according to one source "was not an order with a reputation in Mexico for austerity." Often the wealthy families of prospective nuns would ensure that funds were available for hiring personal servants, and for purchasing comfortable furniture, books and good food. From time to time, various convents underwent internal "rebellions". These occurred when Church authorities or factions among the nuns themselves attempted to enforce the poverty vows. These efforts often encountered fierce resistance from women accustomed to a life of privilege, regardless of what the formal rules might say. Usually Church authorities managed to conceal such rebellions from public view, but some colonial records of these outbreaks have survived. They provide a fascinating window into the secretive world of colonial nuns.


Some young graffiti artists were hard at work in the plaza outside the cultural center. They were pleased when I asked photograph their work. Like many other parts of Mexico, San Cristóbal de las Casas has its problems with graffiti. Creating opportunities for graffiti artists to do legitimate work helps keep the streets clear of the illegitimate kind that blights so many areas elsewhere.


Templo del Carmen

A flagstone path leads diagonally across the Templo gardens toward the main entrance. The original church was built in the 16th Century, prior to the convent. It was originally dedicated to San Sebastian Martir in 1578. He may have been the only saint to have been martyred twice (the first time didn't take). The building is constructed in an unusual "L" shape, with the main entrance at the bend of the L, and the two arms forming two sides to the plaza gardens. Between 1753 and 1766, the Convent de la Encarnación and the Templo were both renovated by order of Bishop Moctezuma. Over the doorway to the right of the main entrance is the date 1764, the year the work on the Templo was completed. It was also at this time that the Arco and Templo were rededicated to Nuestra Señora del Carmen.


The Templo has only one nave.  In 1993, an electrical fire swept through the church library and into the nave itself, causing much damage. The nave was rebuilt in Neo-classical style using Chiapas' beautiful and abundant wood in the altar area.


The main altar and its retablo. The retablo behind the altar is set with six wood niches, each with a different saint, Other saints are displayed on the side walls of the nave, including San Juan de Dios and San Antonio de Padua.


Nuestra Señora del Carmen is the central figure of the main altar. Her formal name, in English, is the Virgin (or Our Lady) of Mt. Carmel. She gained that name because her first devotees were hermits living on Mt. Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early 13th Centuries. According to a Church legend (since disputed) the Virgin of Mt. Carmel appeared to St. Simon of Stock in 1251 and gave him a brown piece of cloth, called a scapular. The wearing of a scapular became a symbol of devotion related to this version of the Virgin. Carmelite is the name given to those who belong to a monastic order devoted to Nuestra Señora del Carmen. They are particularly devoted to prayer and contemplation, and their headquarters is still on Mt. Carmel at the Stella Maris Monastery.

This completes Part 6 of my Chiapas series. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, I encourage you to leave any comments, questions, or corrections in the Comments section below. Another alternative is 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

Frans Blom, a real-life "Indiana Jones," shown as a young man. The original photograph is dated 1922 and is located in the museum at Na Bolom (House of the Jaguar), his former home and expedition headquarters. Na Bolom is one of the must-see locations in San Cristóbal de las Casas. My Danish friend Erik had previously urged me to visit the museum and to feature Blom and his wife Trudi in one of my postings. Carole and I took his advice and stopped by Na Bolom while exploring the area northeast of San Cristóbal's Zócalo (main plaza). To locate Na Bolom on a Google map, click here.


Frans and Trudi Blom's amazing story

In 1924, while still a very young man, Blom was inducted into the famous Explorer's Club. The late 19th and early 20th Centuries were an Age of Exploration. Intrepid men launched expeditions into the snowy wastes of the Arctic and Antarctic, the deserts of Mongolia and southern Libya, and into the jungles of the Congo and the trackless forests of the Maya heartland. This was the era portrayed in the popular "Indiana Jones" film series, and the much earlier movie "King Kong". Frans Blom's work in the jungles of Yucatan, Chiapas, and northern Guatemala gained him international recognition and membership in the Explorers Club, an illustrious society founded in 1904. Its early members included Roald Amundsen (first to the South Pole), Robert Peary (first to the North Pole), and Roy Chapman Andrews (Gobi Desert explorer). Later members have included Edmund Hillary (conqueror of Mt. Everest), and Neil Armstrong (first man to step on the Moon). The Explorers Club is not just a back-slapping group of adventurers, however. It supports the scientific and educational aspects of exploration, and Frans Blom himself was an internationally recognized archaeologist and anthropologist as well as an explorer.

Blom, in middle age, leads his horse through Chiapas' Lacondon jungle. With his square jaw and piercing eyes, he looks every bit the intrepid explorer. I suspect he was trying for that effect in this photo. Frans Blom was born in 1893 into a family of middle-class antique merchants in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was a restless young man and traveled to Mexico in 1919 to work for the oil industry. During his work as a paymaster, he had occasion to visit many remote posts in the Yucatan and Chiapas. Becoming intrigued with the ancient Maya ruins he encountered, Blom made drawings of them and documented his findings. His work so impressed the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology that they financed further explorations, thus launching his career. Through this work, he met the famous archaeologist Sylvanus G. Morley who persuaded him to attend Harvard University. There, Blom achieved a Masters Degree in Archaeology, apparently his first formal education in the field. After accepting a job with Tulane University in New Orleans, he continued his expeditions into the Maya country all through the 1920s and into the '30s.


An exhibit of Frans Blom's personal effects includes his hat and saddles. Through the 1920s, Blom's career was meteoric. During his expedition to Palenque in 1923, he documented a number of features missed by previous archaeologists. Trekking into the vast and roadless Petén jungle of northern Guatemala in 1924, Blom performed the first detailed investigation and mapping of the ancient city of Uaxactun. The area where southern Yucatan and northern Guatemala meet is so trackless and wild that as late at 2013--almost 90 years after Blom's expedition--archaeologists have only just discovered Chactun, a large and previously unknown Maya city. But Frans Blom didn't confine his work to the Maya areas. He also explored the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where he uncovered various Olmec sites.  When Tulane University created a new Department of Middle American Research in 1926, Blom was appointed to head it. This was only seven years after first setting foot in Mexico as an oil industry employee.


A much older Frans Blom camps in the jungle with his wife Trudi Duby. Blom had an earlier marriage, from 1932 to 1938, to the American Mary Thomas. Their divorce may have been due, in part, to his developing problem with alcohol. Alcoholism eventually brought about Blom's retirement from Tulane University. However, he continued to work with the Mexican National Museum of Anthropology, which financed more expeditions into Southern Mexico. While on a trek to visit the ruins at Bonampak, he met Gertrude "Trudi" Duby. She was a Swiss-German photographer who was documenting the Lacandon Maya, a very isolated group who had never been conquered by the Spanish. Trudi Duby was an extraordinary character in her own right. As a young woman, she engaged in dangerous anti-Nazi work in Germany and Paris until she was deported by the Nazis in 1939. She joined the mass exodus of Europe's leftists, pacifists, labor leaders, and Jews to Mexico at the invitation of President Lázaro Cárdenas. Duby took a job with the government documenting the conditions of Mexico's indigenous people and joined several expeditions to research the Lacandon Maya. During the second of these trips, she met Blom and teamed up with him for several more expeditions. This cooperation resulted in the two-volume study called La Selva Lacandon (The Lacandon Forest). In 1951, they married and moved from Mexico City to San Cristóbal de las Casa in order to set up a headquarters for future expeditions. Their new home and headquarters became Na Bolom.


No trim laptops for Frans and Trudi! Viewing the huge old typewriter, I pitied the poor horse or burro that had to lug this monster through the jungle mud. In addition to co-authoring La Selva Lacandon, both Blom and Duby wrote numerous books and articles on their own. Blom's include In the Jungle: Letters from Mexico; Tribes and Temples; and Conquest of Mexico. Duby wrote (among many other books) Bearing Witness; Heirs of the ancient Maya: a portrait of the Lacandon Indians; The Lacandons, their past and present; Indigenous Chiapas; and Lacandon Images. Trudi's writing productivity was substantially greater than Frans because she was essentially a photo-journalist, while Frans focused on his explorations and archaeology. Of, course, it helped that she outlived him by twenty years.


Trudi and Frans in their later years. Though the two seem mellow enough here, they must have had a tempestuous relationship. They both had very powerful personalities, and between Blom's alcoholism and Duby's reportedly fierce temper, life must have been interesting at Na Bolom. All through the 1950s and early 1960s, the pair continued searching for Maya ruins and working with the Lacandon Maya. Na Bolom was not only a home and a base for their expeditions, but they also used it as a cultural and scientific center. Over the years, they collected materials for a huge library and made it available to outside researchers. Always looking for ways to fund their activities, they accepted paying guests at Na Bolom. These included not only visiting archaeologists, but notables such as Diego Rivera, Francois Mitterand, Helen Hayes, and Henry Kissinger. Trudi sometimes acted as a paid guide for various expeditions looking for Maya ruins. In 1963, at the age of 70, Frans Blom died. During the twenty years after his death, she was extremely active. Trudi became one of the first modern environmentalists as she led the fight against deforestation of the Lacandon jungle. She worked incessantly to support the Lacandon culture, giving lectures in Mexico, the United States, and Europe. During this period she wrote hundreds of widely-published articles, appeared on numerous television programs, and distributed thousands of free trees for replanting the forest. A film on her life, called Reina de la Selva (Queen of the Jungle) was made in 1989. Trudi Duby Blom died in 1993, at the age of 92, and was buried in the tiny village of Naha, Chiapas. She rests next to her husband and their best friend, Chan K'in Viejo, a Lacandon Maya.


Na Bolom is a museum, hotel, and research center

Na Bolom occupies most of a block in northeast San Cristóbal. The entrance to Na Bolom is on Calle Vicente Guerrero, just north of Calle Comitan. The museum hours are 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM and there is a small entrance fee of approximately $44 pesos ($3.50 USD). For a bit more you can take the tours scheduled at 11:30 AM and 4:30 PM.  The facility is located in the Cuxtitali Quarter, an old indigenous neighborhood established in 1528. The building was originally a mill for grinding corn, but in the 1891 it was rebuilt as a Seminary College. When Frans and Trudi bought it in 1950, the old Seminary was in ruins, possibly as a result of the government repression against Catholics during Cristero War of the late 1920s.


Like many old Mexican buildings, Na Bolom was built around a series of open courtyards. Entrances to the various rooms are located under the covered walkways behind the arched portales. Above, one the indigenous staff walks toward the building entrance. Local Maya often make and sell their crafts in this cobblestone courtyard. I took the shot while sitting at a table of the small café facing onto the patio. The café serves excellent Chiapas coffee as well as pastries and light lunches. There are 22 rooms in the facility, including the museum, the library, and some rooms rented to guests. Other rooms are kept available for the free use of visiting Lacandon Maya. In 1986, the Mexican government designated Na Bolom as an historical monument.


A beautiful old marimba graces one of the hallways. Marimbas are very popular in Chiapas and San Cristóbal boasts a Marimba Orchestra that plays regularly in the Zócalo (see Part 3 of this series). The marimba originated with African slaves who brought their traditional instruments to the Spanish Caribbean colonies. Its use migrated to Central America and from there to neighboring Chiapas.


Another of Na Bolom's sunny courtyards, complete with a colorful mural. Frans and Trudi officially named their home/headquarters The Institute for Ethnological and Ecological Advocacy, but visiting Lacondon Maya dubbed it Na Bolom (House of the Jaguar) because of the similarity to Blom's name. Bolom, or jaguar, is a common name among Maya. The jaguar, because of its great size, speed, strength, cunning, and reputed connection with the Underworld, is viewed with great respect by the Maya. The name they gave conveys their respect for their lifelong champions and benefactors.


Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Library has 10,000 volumes in its collection. The library contains many important works on Maya history and culture and on the Lacandon people. It fell to Trudi to manage Na Bolom, even before Frans' death. It was a big job that consumed much of her time for 40 years. By the time she was in her 80s, the effort beyond her and supporters in the community persuaded her to form a non-profit organization to take of the day-to-day responsibility of running Na Bolom.


I found this colorful, hand-painted iguana lurking on a niche. The Maya have been talented craftspeople for thousands of years. Today, many of them support themselves by making and selling artifacts like this. Na Bolom continues to operate as a museum, a hotel, a restaurant. and a center for research. Volunteers run the operation, and money raised through fees, room rentals, etc. go towards various projects to help the Lacandon Maya.


The Museum's ancient Maya artifacts

The museum contains many ancient artifacts, including this bust of a proud Maya noble. Many of the artifacts come from a Classic Era site near San Cristóbal called Moxviquil, an area also famous for its orchids. The Maya were among the best sculptors of Mesoamerica, and were particularly noted for their "sculpture-in-the-round".


Two female heads, with wild hairstyles. These were undoubtedly noblewomen, since the commoners generally didn't engage in such elaborate hairdos. The smaller bust seems a bit more finely made and the face is very lifelike.


Male and female heads. The male, on the left, has an elaborate tattoo on his cheek. Neither of these shows the long sloping forehead caused by deliberate deformation of the skull in infancy. This was practiced by the noble class in many Maya areas, but not all. The female has her head cocked, as if she were listening.


Pot adorned with the rather fierce face of a nearly toothless old man. This piece closely resembles sculptures of Huehueteotl, the "Old, Old God". He was one of the most ancient of all the gods worshiped throughout Mesoamerica. Fire, of course, was one of the most fundamental and important aspects of the ancient world and it is not surprising that worship of a god associated with it would have started in very early times. Another interesting aspect is the unmistakeable goatee beard. It is firmly believed by some that since indigenous Americans have very little facial hair, they don't grow beards. The ancient sculptor who crafted this piece would seem to disagree.


A bird's face adorns this nicely crafted, three-legged pot. Pottery was often crafted with animal as well as human themes.


Human jaws and incised pottery from burial sites located by Frans Blom. He discovered many caves throughout Chiapas that will filled with bones and skulls, and others that contained large jars full of human ashes. In a monograph he wrote about these finds, he couldn't resist complaining that although his discoveries were being cited by other archaeologists at Tulane University, his name was never associated with the finds in their papers. Apparently, many years after he departed from Tulane in an alcoholic haze, he was still considered persona non grata.


Ball game marker in the shape of an elongated human head. This carved stone head, shown in profile, was used as a marker in a ball court. The head was inserted into the wall of the court using the flange at the back side. The head shows the deliberate skull elongation seen among many noble Maya families. Parents tied special boards against the heads of their infant children to deform the skulls in a manner that was considered a mark of beauty and status. While this might seem barbaric today, think about the plastic surgery practices flourishing in our time.


Copper axes, rings, and ear spools from the Post-Classic period. Items like these didn't appear in the Maya area until fairly late. They may have been imported through trade networks from the Tarascan Empire in Michoacan and  Guererro where metallurgy flourished.


The Hach Winik, or Lacandon People


Statue of a Lacandon Maya stands in a traffic circle in San Cristóbal de las Casas. The figure wears a hach huun, the typical white tunic worn by traditional Lacandon. The Lacandon are great hunters in their thickly forested world. Although many now use guns, some still hunt with bows and arrows. The Lacandon Maya call themselves Hach Winik, meaning "True Men" or "Real People". They avoided conquest and conversion by the Spanish by simply retreating into their nearly impenetrable wilderness. According to an undated, hand-written sign at Na Bolom, there are two groups of Lacandon, the northern and the southern. At the time the sign was written, the northern group of about 200 people was the most traditional and had preserved the ancient Maya culture and religion. The southern group of about 80 people had recently been Christianized and had given up much of the old culture. The sign is apparently out of date, because a more recent report states that most of the northern group has now also been seduced away from the ancient religion, although they do preserve some aspects of the old culture. Today there are about 650 Lacandon speakers still living in the forest.


The traditional hach hunn was made of tree bark beaten into a fibre. It somewhat resembles a Mexican serape, with a split in the middle to fit over the head and the sides sewn up, leaving armholes. The hach hunn extends down to mid-calf. In modern times, cotton has replaced the beaten tree fibre. This would usually be the only garment worn by a man. A Lacandon woman would wear a skirt in addition to the hach hunn, as well as jewelry made from seeds gathered in the jungle. Both men and women traditionally wore their hair long, with the women sometimes braiding theirs.


A traditional Maya na (house) sits in the Jaguar Garden across the street from the main museum. This house is typical of the highland Maya, but there are some similarities with the Lacandon. Both use thatched roofs and poles cut from jungle trees. The Lacandonna generally do not have walls since the climate in their lowland area is very hot and humid. Many Maya still live in houses like the one pictured above.


Tools of life among the Lacandon. The grooved wooden object in the lower left is baxak. The woman in the display photo is using it to beat tree bark into shape for use in a hach huun. The bowl with the long-handled spoons was used to prepare paints and dyes for decorating the hach huun. A typical Lacandonna, with its thatched roof, can be seen in the background of the display photo.



Balché pot used for preparing the fermented and mildly alcoholic drink.Balché is consumed ceremonially as part of the ritual for worshiping Kanankash, the main deity who protects the forest. Numerous, lesser gods are honored as well. The drink is made from a mixture of bark from the balché tree and sugar cane. Large quantities are prepared before the ceremony and left to ferment in a canoe. Each family that still follows the traditional beliefs builds a "god house" next to the main house. The god houses are used to burn pom (copal) incense and other small sacrifices and also for meetings.

This completes Part 7 of my Chiapas series. I hope you found the story of Frans and Trudi Blom as intriguing as I did. I encourage feedback, questions, and corrections and if you would like to make one, please 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

Museo de Trajes Regionales is packed with exquisite Maya textiles and clothing. On our visit to San Cristóbal de las Casas we had a "must-see" list. Near the top was Museo de Trajes Regionales (Museum of Regional Clothiing). Carole does most of our research prior to visiting a new location and this was one of the places that consistently got high marks. In fact, Tripadvisor.com, one of her key sources, ranks the museum as #3 among the top 24 sites to visit in San Cristóbal. However, this excellent private museum is also surprisingly difficult to access.



Finding the place was our initial hurdle. As you can see, there are no signs or other indications of the wonders within. The museum looked like hundreds of other colonial-era houses within a few blocks of the plaza. We made several attempts to find it, asked neighbors, and finally located someone who could physically point it out. Another problem is that Mexican street numbers often follow a non-sequential, rather free-form order. The address is Calle Guadalupe Victoria #38 and it is approximately 3 1/2 blocks west of the Catedral. Here is a Google map showing its exact location. Sergio Castro, the multi-lingual private owner of the collection, provides tours by appointment. The tours are usually held around 6:00 PM. The best approach is to set it up through your hotel concierge or B&B owner. There is no fee, but donations are gratefully accepted. The money goes to provide medical care and other assistance to low-income Maya. Suggested donation is something in the range of $100 pesos ($7.78 USD) or more would be appropriate.

Maya textiles

Traditional hand-looms are used to create the textile works of art. Although the back-strap is absent, it would normally be attached to the ends of the wooden brace at the bottom. The strap runs behind the back of the weaver, who generally sits on the floor or the ground. The other (top) end of the loom would be attached by the hook to a tree or pole. Looms of this sort are very ancient. The earliest woven fabrics found in Mexico were discovered in dry caves in the north and date from between 1800-1400 BC. Ixchel was the ancient Maya goddess of weaving, and she is sometimes portrayed weaving the universe with a back-strap loom. The Spanish introduced the foot-treadle loom in the 16th Century, and the French brought in mechanized weaving in the late 19th Century. However, back-strap looms have continued in use among indigenous people right up to the present.


Tasseled belts with brilliant designs hang from the museum wall. Sergio Castro assembled his collection of textiles, clothing and artifacts from items left with him when he provided medical care to the Maya coming in from the villages surrounding San Cristobal. They were too poor to pay with cash, but too proud to accept charity. Over time, his collection grew to occupy most of his house. He began to offer tours so that more people would appreciate the extraordinary cultural contributions of the highland Maya. His work as a curandero (healer) is financed, in part, by the donations of visiting tourists. Curanderos use traditional healing rituals and techniques, as well as more modern methods. Interestingly, the Maya weaving deity Ixchel was also the goddess of medicine and midwives.


Maya embroidery is often exuberantly colorful. Styles vary from pueblo (village) to pueblo. They range from abstract and geometrical to depictions of animals, plants, people, and daily activities. The only limits are the imaginations of the weaver, which tend to be vivid. In addition to his work as a curandero and curator of Maya costumes and crafts, Sergio Castro served as a state senator (2000-2003) from Chiapas, and is an agricultural engineer and veterinarian. Don Sergio speaks French, Italian, the Mayan dialects of Tzotsil and Tseltal, as well as Spanish and English. In spite of his professional and political background and accomplishments, he is a very unassuming man. Even on formal occasions, he tends to dress in the same way as the poor people who flock to him for help. Most photos of Don Sergio--even at a posh awards ceremony--show him wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a plaid shirt with a kerchief wrapped around his head pirate-style.


Animals and plants, including some from distant lands, adorn this tapestry. Lilies, egrets and sunflowers would all be within the direct experience of the weaver, but a giraffe? Globalization has shrunk the world to a size where a craftsperson in a remote mountain village in southern Mexico can depict a creature from East Africa on a textile that may end up on the wall of a tourist from Belgium.


Elegantly woven tapestries use intricate geometric shapes. The yellow, red and blue diamond design indicates it may have come from the pueblo of Las Margaritas, southeast of San Cristóbal de las Casas.


This huipil is from San Andres Larrainzar. The pueblo where this originated is far to the northeast of San Cristóbal, deep in the mountains. The heavy material is probably necessary because of low temperatures in that area. A huipil is a female garment, somewhat like a poncho. Made as a rectanglar piece of cloth, it has a hole in the middle for the head, and is sometimes worn as a blouse or tunic, and sometimes as an outer garment. The sides of the huipil are often sewn up, leaving holes for the arms Generally, huipils are worn with a skirt that extends down to the mid-calf.

Clothing styles differ from pueblo to pueblo

Modern clothing styles are creeping in, but many still wear traditional clothing. Above, you can see the typical traditional garb worn in a particular village. The male outfit is on the left, and the female on the right. Unfortunately, the clothing displays lacked signs, so for some of the photos that follow, I can't always tell you the village of origin. However, the clothing above comes from San Juan Chamula, a short distance outside San Cristobal. I can identify it because of the black wool garment among the man's clothes. Typically, the particular style of embroidery and weaving identify not only the village, but the marital status, social standing, and other details about the person wearing the outfit.



Maya textiles have almost 3000 years of cultural history behind them. The Maya of Chiapas have been influenced by contact with other parts of the Maya world, including Guatemala and Yucatan, as well as by the various ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, such as the Aztecs, Mixtecs and Zapotecs. When the Spanish arrived, they introduced new weaving technologies such as the foot-pedal loom. They also brought new materials such as sheep's wool from Spain and silk from the trade with the Orient. The Maya combined all of this with their traditional techniques, designs and materials to create spectacular outfits like those above and the others that follow. The style of the male hat and tunic indicate that the outfit above may have come from the pueblo of Zinacantan, not far from San Cristobál.


The weaver incorporated feathers into the design of the huipil on the left. The symbols used by the creators of these clothing works-of-art range from representations of the natural world to more abstract symbols. The diamond patterns that one often sees represent a mystical connection with the universe. Some of the designs reflect historical incidents particular to the village in which the weaver lives.


Here, the male outfit is equipped with a gourd and a fibre shoulder bag. The gourd would be used to transport liquids and the fibre sack for dry items. The rebozo draped over the shoulder of the female costume is an all-purpose garment seen throughout Mexico. It serves as a shawl, a baby carrier, and a container for any number of small items. The lightness of the fabrics indicates that the outfits may have been made for the lower, more tropical areas of Chiapas.


For Maya, textiles are the main form of visual art. There are some painters and sculptors, of course, but there are over 1 million Maya women who weave or embroider. The women compete for who can create the most elaborate and beautiful clothing, and their sheer numbers make weaving a very dynamic medium. As the Maya communities have moved from economic dependence on subsistence agriculture to participation in the culture of money and commerce, fashion has also appeared.


The arts of weaving and embroidery are thriving in the Maya highlands. Some experts used to think the craft was a dying art. However, a market has grown within Mexico, and among foreign tourists as well as among the Maya themselves. Ironically, better communications and transportation, which often doom native cultures, have resulted in a Maya textile renaissance. Some experts see Maya textiles as more sophisticated, complex, and technically proficient than they were only a few decades ago.


Specific articles of clothing

Wide-brimmed hats, adorned with multi-colored ribbons, are part of many male outfits. While women do most of the weaving and embroidery, men make the pishalal (wide-brimmed male hat). The men treat hat-making like some women do knitting. It is an activity that is very portable and can be done anywhere, even while chatting among friends. They will often make two new hats each year, to be worn in important pueblo festivals. Ribbons have replaced the feathers of earlier times.


White cotton pants reach to just below the knee. The pants of traditional male outfits are seldom longer than this, which must mean goose-bumped legs on a cold day. The fringed and embroidered tunic reaches to mid-thigh and suggests clothing for a cooler climate. In ancient times, men wore breech cloths rather than pants. The Spanish priests thought this immodest and insisted they adopt Spanish-style pants. However, an ancient vestige of the breech clothes has survived in the beautifully embroidered belts often seen in traditional male outfits.


Doing sandals in the old-fashioned way. I have seen ancient paintings of men wearing sandals very similar in style to this. The Maya seem to follow the old dictum, "if it works, don't fix it." Traditional Maya women peddling their wares on the streets of San Cristóbal often wear sandals even in cold, wet weather.


Embroidered cotton cloth forms a background for a tumpline. This handy device is an ancient invention for carrying heavy loads on the back. The wide section of the tumpline is placed around the forehead or just above it. The two long straps extend back over the shoulders and are attached to the load. Use of a tumpline allows a man to carry a load of 56.6 kilos (125 lbs) with relative ease for long distances. As late as the 1920s, a man in Mexico City used one of these to deliver pianos on his back. In my travels around Mexico's back country, I still see men and women carrying large bundles of firewood and other loads using similar tumplines.  The Maya call the tumpline a mecapal. Given that the ancient Maya had no other beast of burden than a human being, and that many in Mexico today are too poor to afford a horse or burro, a macapal is a simple and very logical tool.


These two outfits are from San Juan Chamula. The black and white tunics are the tip-off. They are made with furry wool and are called capixay. This warm outer garment is usually worn over an embroidered shirt. Note the typically short length of the white cotton pants. The leather shoulder bags are a handy accessory since the pants and capixay don't appear to be equipped with pockets.


Other items of use

Children's clothes fill a couple of walls at Don Sergio's museum. Maya children are dressed as miniature adults, with the same elaborate embroidery that appears on their elder's clothes.


The museum collection includes various hand-made children's toys. A beautiful miniature collie sits in front of a horse with a doll on its back. To the left is a figure carrying an automatic weapon and wearing high yellow cowboy boots and what looks like a green football helmet.


A carved wooden jaguar mask snarls from the wall. Such masks would be worn in Maya religious festivals and rituals. Jaguars were, and are, revered among indigenous people of Mexico and Central America. The biggest cat in the Western Hemisphere, the jaguar is immensely strong, fast, cunning. His  tendency to hunt at night gives him a connection with the Underworld.

This completes my posting on Sergio Castro's Museo de Trajes Regional. I hope you have enjoyed it. If so, and you would like to comment or leave a question, 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

Green Maya crosses symbolize the ancient religion as well as Catholicism.The crosses above embody what Mexicans call sincretismo, which means the mixing of cultures. After our visit, Carole and I agreed we had never visited anyplace quite like San Juan Chamula. The town's Maya name, Chamula, means "Thick Water" in the Tzotzil language. At first glance, the green crosses appear simply as the familiar Christian emblem, but there is much more going on here. If you look closely at the crosses, you will see smaller crosses at the tips and along the cross pieces. Some of them are the simple 4-point cross, as found on either arm of the left-hand cross above, but others have 8 points. The symbolism of both the 4 and the 8-pointed crosses goes far back into pre-hispanic history. The 4-point crosses relate to the Ceiba tree, which the Maya call "Tree of Life." Its roots are in the underworld, its trunk forms everyday reality, and its leafy canopy--represented by the cross piece--forms the heavens. However, most of the crosses have 8-points made up of one 4-pointed cross superimposed on another. The Maya were the greatest astronomers of ancient Mesoamerica. The 8-pointed crosses relate to their observations about the layout and movements of the various celestial bodies. The Maya connected those movements to recurrent cycles of time and thus to their famous and extraordinarily accurate calendar. Now, hold on to your seats, you are about to enter another world.


The ruins of the Templo de San Sebastian brood over Chamula's cemetery. The church was originally constructed by the Dominicans. It appears to have been built in the baroque style of the 17th Century, but some elements of it may go back to as early as 1562. The Templo de San Sebastian was destroyed almost a century ago, by causes I have not yet ascertained. Given the timing, the destruction may have have been a deliberate act during the Revolution of 1910-21, or possibly during the Cristero War of 1926-29. It could also have been the result of a simple accidental fire. In any case, the parishioners were upset that the saints of the church did not prevent its destruction. They decided to punish those saints by leaving the old church in ruins and taking the statues of the saints, which had somehow survived the fire, to the main plaza's Iglesia de San Juan Chamula. There they joined the San Juan church's saints, but the San Sebastian saints were placed facing the wall, much as one might punish a child who has failed to do his chores. In addition the images' hands were chopped off and they were deprived of the rich robes saints' statues often wear. In recent years, they have been allowed to face forward again, but they are still not accorded the reverence normally given to other saints. The large town cemetery surrounds Templo San Sebastian and, as we approached, we realized that local leaders were conducting a funeral.


Attired in traditional dress, Chamula mourners gather around a gravesite. The men wear cowboy hats but also the traditional, thigh-length tunic made of furry black wool. The one officiating wears a similar tunic, but made of white wool. All the traditional clothes are handmade from materials locally gathered. The wool comes from sheep that are revered and protected as a part of the family. Upon its death, a sheep is mourned as if it had been a person. As the official in the white tunic bows forward with his arms outstretched, he appears to be conducting a funeral rite. So as not to intrude upon their gathering, I stood a considerable distance away and used my maximum telephoto setting for this shot.


The street leading from Templo San Sebastian to the main plaza is lined with crafts stalls. Most of the goods we saw were handwoven textiles and clothing, but many other items were for sale too. Tourists flock to the pueblo of San Juan Chamula and the locals have a decidedly ambivalent attitude toward them. On the one hand, a good deal of the community's income results from selling crafts to visitors. On the other, the Maya residents are very shy about being photographed themselves, and they are especially adamant against photographs of the inside of their famous church. As to the crafts, I have generally found that the closer to the source, the better the price. Many of the craftspeople who make the goods sold to tourists on the streets of nearby San Cristóbal de las Casas come from San Juan Chamula. For a Google map showing Chamula's location in relation to San Cristóbal de las Casas, click here.


An example of the exquisite embroidery created by local Maya. Other nearby towns have taken advantage of Chamula's popularity with tourists and sell their goods here too. The flowery style of this  shawl and skirt outfit indicates that it may have been made in Zinacantan, a few miles away. I will do a later posting on Zinacantan and its textiles.


Outside City Hall, a statue of a Chamula leader stands in full regalia with his staff of office. The plaque entitles it "Monumento A Mi Raza" (Monument To My Race). The figure wears a broad-brimmed, be-ribboned hat similar to those seen in Part 8 of this series. He is attired in the same furry tunic as the men at the funeral. The statue's pedestal mimics the hat brim draped with ceremonial ribbons. Despite the modern appearance of the buildings that surround the plaza, the people here are very traditional, and also very independent. In 1994, the Zapatista Movement rose up and seized San Cristóbal to protest the implementation of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). San Juan Chamula and the surrounding towns are still a major center of Zapatista support in Chiapas. The people of Chamula have been resistant to outsiders since the earliest days of the Conquest. In 1524, after the Spanish defeated an indigenous army, Bernal Diaz del Castillo was granted an encomiendo for Chamula. This gave him the right to demand free labor in return for the dubious benefits of Christian instruction. Diaz del Castillo was the young officer serving under Hernán Cortéz who wrote the famous first-person history called "The Discovery and Conquest of New Spain." Outsiders have been trying to oppress Chamula's Maya ever since, but they have resisted, most recently through support of the Zapatistas.


The PRI is a big political player in Chamula. At the time we visited, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) had just won the governorship of Chiapas and a number of other state and local posts, as well as the national presidency. The PRI maintains a large office right on the Chamula plaza. The party held national power in Mexico for 70 years between 1930 and 2000 and in the process gained a reputation for blatant electoral manipulation and corruption that finally resulted in their ouster by the PAN (National Action Party), a conservative, business-oriented group. The PAN lasted for two 6-year presidential terms before being defeated in 2012 by a rejuvenated PRI. Between 2006-2012, PAN discredited itself with its feckless, US-sponsored, War on Drugs which has left 60,000, and possibly as many as 100,000 Mexicans dead. Many Mexicans feel that PAN has been too compliant with US infringements on its sovereignty and that the real problem originates north of the border. That's the huge market to which the drugs flow and therefore is the source of the money that funds the drug cartels. It is also where the majority of  the guns originate that have been used to kill thousands of Mexicans. However, many in Mexico also feel that the "new" PRI is simply old wine in a new bottle. Only time will tell whether the PRI will be successful in bringing the drug war to a close and a better life to Mexicans.


Carole (left) and our tour group listen to the instructions of our guide (center in green blouse). There were several Italians as well as Mexicans in the group. We were the only English-speakers and the guide asked us if we could understand Spanish, because presenting the information twice would slow things down considerably. We agreed to try, if she would agree to speak slowly and distinctly. It actually worked pretty well and we were pleased at how much our Spanish comprehension has improved. The guide's instructions were very important at this stage because we were about to enter Iglesia San Juan Chamula where photography is absolutely forbidden and it is perilous to disrespect local customs. Taking unauthorized photos can, at a minimum, get you ejected from the town with the probable confiscation of your film or even your camera, and possibly even a trip to the local jail. Some time ago, when feelings were running particularly high against foreigners, a European tourist was reported to have been beaten to death for refusing to abide by the no-photos rule. Consequently, the most mind-blowing part of our tour had to go unrecorded by my camera and my written description will have to suffice.


The church occupies one side of a broad, cobblestone plaza. On the right side of the photo, a kiosco (bandstand) occupies the center of the plaza. As you can see by referring back to the photo of the San Sebastian church in the cemetery, the design of that facade is very similar to this one. The San Juan church is named after St. John the Baptist and was founded, as San Sebastian was, by the Dominicans. They took over responsibility for the area's religious affairs in 1549, but had little initial success in converting the Maya. After much preaching, only a single old man came forward to be baptized. At this point the Dominicans adopted the practice of many evangelical orders of those days. They tried to coopt local customs, practices and beliefs to serve the interests of Catholicism. The Maya, in turn, recognized that the oppressor was not going away and that the Dominicans were simply the ideological arm of the Conquistadors, or the velvet glove that covered the mailed fist. They decided to adapt themselves to the formalities of Christianity, but to build in--or sneak in--as much of the old religion as possible. Thus, sincretismo.


The old church steeple has three bells, rung by hand ropes. The dates just below the middle bell, 1522-1524, correspond to the period of the initial struggle to conquer Chiapas. It is unclear exactly when the San Juan church was built. However, it may have been around the same time as the San Sebastian church. Like Templo San Sebastian, the style is late 16th or early 17th Century Baroque. According to "Architecture and Urbanization in Colonial Chiapas Mexico" the San Juan Church is a somewhat larger replica of the Templo San Sebastian.  It has a single nave, with a peaked roof covered with barrel tile made of terra cotta. While the corners of the building are of cut blocks of stone, the walls are rough stone held together with lime mortar. On the facade above the main entry, and below the bell tower, is an unusual window (see previous photo). Apparently the window was used as an open-air pulpit from which crowds in the plaza could be addressed. This may have been because the church itself was much too small to contain the large number of reluctant Maya who would have been involuntarily assembled so that the Dominican priest could harangue them from the window. The object just behind the cross is duplicated by two more of the same on either side of the top of the bell tower and another two on the top of the two front corners of the church (see previous photo). These objects, called merlons, appear to have stoppers in their necks and strongly resemble the demi-john jugs in which aguardiente (brandy) was stored in colonial days.


The main entry is colorfully decorated and closely guarded. The only entry was through the small opening in the main door you see above. The great door is opened each June 24, the feast  day of San Juan Bautista. Several men stood or sat in the immediate area, eyeing visitors closely. The door is recessed in three arched steps, each decorated by alternating 4 and 8-pointed crosses. Once we passed the portal, we entered a world where Catholicism largely disappeared and ancient Maya traditions took over. The interior was one long room with little furniture except for an altar at one end and tables along the walls. The tables were lined with San Juan's saints as well as the displaced and disgraced saints of Templo San Sebastian. Family groups sat cross-legged on the pine-needle covered floor, in no particular order. Each family had lined up several rows of lit candles on the floor in front of them. The various sizes, shapes, and colors of the candles relate to the sort of plea being made, or the thanks being given. The only light in the room came from many hundreds of these twinkling candles. In addition, cups of liquid sat among the candles, obviously part of an offering ritual. Copal incense swirled about and quiet Tzotzil chanting filled the air. As Dorothy of Wizard of Oz fame said to her dog at one point, "Toto, I've a feeling that we're not in Kansas anymore."


Detail of the entrance door and its 4 and 8-pointed crosses. Among the Maya, religious mysticism, mathematics, astronomy, and ancient traditions are woven seamlessly together. The atmosphere of the interior was magical and totally unlike anything in my background. Close beside me, Carole was murmuring similar thoughts. We moved among the family groups and saw that some were focused on curanderos (healers), and the rituals they were performing. The curanderos used feathers, copal smoke,  Tzotzil chants, and other devices to summon mystical forces to battle against the ailments of their clients. Some families had brought live chickens that they were preparing for sacrifice on the church floor. After the ceremony, the chicken would be taken away and cooked by the family for a sacred meal. Although it is considered sacrilege to wear a hat into the church, someone arriving with an open can of beer will be welcomed. Alcoholic beverages are part of the ceremonies. One of these is pox (pronounced "posh"). It is made from cane and is 38% alcohol. Senselessness through drink is considered a way to connect with the Otherworld. Another interesting tradition relates to the mirrors worn by the saints lining the church walls. The Maya believe that during the worship of a saint (who may in fact represent an ancient deity), the soul leaves the body. The mirror helps reflect it back to its owner. Mirrors have been used as a portal between worlds since ancient times. Some were found buried inside the Temple of Kulkulkan (also called El Castillo) at Chichen Itza, as well as in other ancient Maya locations.


As we walked back along the craft booth street, I noticed this line of snarling jaguars. The colorful little statues stand in front of a row of beautifully woven Maya belts. Jaguars appear in the Maya world again and again. They are one of the most powerful and important creatures in the natural world and in Maya mythology. Our visit to San Juan Chamula had been enlightening, not to say mind-blowing, and totally unique. The Catholicism of the town seems to be about an inch thick, overlaying 3000 years of Maya religion, culture, and practice.

This concludes Part 9 of my Chiapas series. I hope you have found it as interesting and eye-opening as we did. I always encourage feedback, questions, and corrections. If you would like to do so, please leave your thoughts 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

Detail of a retablo on the side wall of Templo y ex-Convento de Santo Domingo. A small figure wearing a straw hat and carrying a basket of flowers peers out from the middle of a fantastically ornate retablo made of carved, gilded wood. The floor-to-ceiling retablo was just one of eight that line walls of the main nave and a side chapel of this 17th Century Dominican church. Templo Santo Domingo is located on Avenida 20 de Noviembre, about five blocks north of the Zocalo (main plaza).  Because it has become such a landmark in San Cristóbal de las Casas, I decided to devote a whole posting to this one church. By the end, I think you'll see why. For a Google map to locate Templo y ex-Convento de Santo Domingo, click here.


External features of the Templo

The stone facade glows as it is bathed in the warm sunlight. The facade was carved to imitate a retablo, with the statues of eight saints set into niches framed by Solomonic columns and esoteric designs. In my experience, the Dominican Order has produced the most elaborate and ornate churches in Mexico. The cliche "over-the-top" isn't sufficient to capture the overwhelming intricacy of Dominican church decoration. I have mixed feelings about this because most of the resources to produce it came, directly or indirectly, from indigenous people who occupied the economic bottom of the colonial society. Above, in the center, Carole mounts the stairs to the broad platform on which the Templo stands. On either side of her, Maya vendors have set up semi-permanent craft stalls which nearly surround the building and occupy much of the flat space on the platform. The presence of the stalls makes photography of the church exterior difficult, but the wares and people are interesting. Perhaps this is just the Maya way of getting back a little of their own.


Detail of one of the two saints whose niches bracket the main entrance. The figure shown above is San Pedro Martir (St. Peter the Martyr), a Dominican friar who was active in suppressing heresy in the 13th Century. Both this statue, and that of San Jacinto on the right side of the door, are missing their heads. This vandalism may have occurred in the anti-Catholic repression of the mid-19th Century Reform War or during the 1926-1929 Cristero War following the Revolution. Ironically, the actual St. Peter was assassinated when the top of his head was cut off with an ax by Cathar heretics in 1252. The Solomonic  columns on either side of the statue are typified by their spiral shape and lush floral decoration. The columns get their name from the columns that Emperor Constantine the Great brought to Rome in the 4th Century AD as a gift for St. Peter's Cathedral. Legend has it he got his columns from the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, hence the name. However, it is much more likely he salvaged them from a pre-Christian building in Greece. Solomonic columns did not become widely popular until the Baroque period of the 17th and 18th Centuries, when they became one of the signature elements of an architectural offshoot known as Spanish Churrigueresque.


A bald, jug-eared, and bearded man wears a mustache which becomes luxuriant foliage. Baroque architecture in general, and particularly Spanish Churrigueresque, tends to decorate every surface with countless little details like this. The effect can be overwhelming, but also mesmerizing as the viewer's eye is drawn from one fascinating little detail to another. The Churrigueresque style is named after Spanish Basque architect and sculptor José Benito Churriguerra (1665-1725). Early influences on the Churrigueresque style were the Moorish Mudéjar architecture of Southern Spain, as well as 15th Century Italianate. Churriguerresque is basically Baroque on steroids.


Double-headed Hapsburg eagles frame a statue of Santo Domingo de Guzman. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was member of the House of Hapsburg. Charles became King of Spain in 1516 and three years later became Holy Roman Emperor. This occurred just shortly before Hernán Cortéz conquered the Aztec Empire in 1521. Cortéz' exploits radically increased the power and wealth of Spain. In turn, Charles exerted a powerful influence over Nueva España for the crucial first 35 years after the Conquest. The Hapsburg double-headed eagles can also be found on the facade of San Cristóbal'sCatedral, and their appearance in both places demonstrates the intimate relationship between Church and State in Nueva España. As to Santo Domingo (St. Dominic), he founded the Dominican Order in 1217 as an order of preachers. Dominic was an ascetic and wore old robes and walked with bare feet on stony ground. When he died, he asked his followers "to guard their humility and to make a treasure out of poverty." I can't help but wonder if he would have approved of the lavish decorations typical of Dominican churches.


A pair of cherubs tends to a sacred flame or sunburst. I confess that, as a non-Catholic, some of the imagery is pretty obscure to me. In fact, much of the imagery of Mexican Catholicism is heavily influenced by pre-hispanic indigenous beliefs, as well as styles adopted from the Muslim Moors of Spain. The wire netting you see above covers nearly all the facade to protect it from pigeons and their inevitable droppings. Carole, who has a distaste for pigeons, calls them "rats with wings."


Santo Tomás de Aquinas is framed by four more Solomonic columns. This statue is located on the right side of the second level of the facade. Its height apparently helped it escape the vandalism suffered by the statues on the first level. Notice that the spirals of the pairs of columns on each side move in opposite directions from each other, and that only the middle part of each column uses floral decorations. St. Thomas of Aquinas (1225-1274) was another illustrious Dominican friar. He is considered the greatest theologian of Catholicism and one of the greatest Medieval philosophers.  He wrote and taught on matters of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political theory. Much of modern philosophy is based on his ideas, or was developed to refute them.


Only the tops of the steeples are decorated.  In many churches, steeples are the most prominent features, often soaring high above the rest of the building and visible for many miles. At Templo Santo Domingo, the bell towers on the corners of either side of the facade are almost an afterthought. The facade itself is the dominant feature of the exterior of the church. The Dominican friars who built the first version of the church reached San Cristóbal in 1545. A year later, they persuaded Spanish authorities to provide them with six lots for their church/convent complex. More importantly, they were assigned the labor of 16,000 local Maya to build their religious establishment. Bishop Francisco Marroquin of Guatemala laid the cornerstone of Templo Santo Domingo in 1547. Chiapas was then part of the Spanish colony of Guatemala, and much of the architecture of colonial Chiapas was heavily influenced by Guatemalan styles, as well as those of neighboring Oaxaca.


Detail of the floral designs on one of the pilasters separating the retablos. The Maya inhabitants of Chiapas have been skilled carvers of wood and stone for thousands of years. Their richly decorated pre-hispanic cities are witness to this. Apparentl, a good many of the thousands of Maya who were drafted to build the Dominican edifice were gifted craftsmen.


The third retablo on the left wall, nearest the main altar. This one has paintings not only surrounding the central niche and its statue, but on the pilasters on either side. As you may have noticed, the retablos get more and more elaborate as the main altar is approached.


Capilla del Rosario


The Capilla del Rosario is small but gorgeous. Saving the best for last, the Capilla del Rosario (Chapel of the Rosary) has the most elaborately decorated retablos in the whole church. Dominican churches we have visited in various cities also have side chapels devoted to the Rosary. The Capilladel Rosariodel Templo Santo Domingo in Puebla is a particularly good example. The Capilla above has two retablos, one at the end of the transept and one on the left wall.


The Capilla's main retablo has ten pairs of Solomonic columns framing its niches. There are five paintings and two statues in seven niches. The central statue is the Virgin of the Rosary. The Dominican Order has a long association with the Rosary and legend has it that St. Dominic himself was given the Rosary by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the church of the Dominican monastery at Prouille, France.


The Virgin of the Rosary occupies the central niche. The identity of the statue above her is not clear but it is possible that it represents St. Dominic. The Catholic Rosary refers both to a set of prayers and to a string of beads that are used to count them off. The use of beads for similar prayer purposes is very ancient and probably has its origins in India. Some scholars think that such beads were used by Christians as early as the 3rd or 4th Centuries AD. Use of the Rosary did not really catch on until the 15th Century. Legend has it that Alanus de Rupe, a Dominican priest and theologian, received a vision from Jesus directing him to revive the use of the Rosary, which had apparently fallen out of general use since St. Dominic's time. In fact, the first documented mention of St. Dominic's involvement with the Rosary and his encounter with the Virgin are found in Alanus de Rupe's writings. The form of the Rosary used today is essentially the same as the one popularized by Alanus de Rupe in the 15th Century.


A worshiper prays in front of the side-wall retablo. The retablo above is even bigger and more elaborate than the main Capilla's retablo. Pope Pius V officially declared the Church's support for the Rosary in 1589. Not coincidentally, Pius V was a Dominican himself. The Rosary began to appear in Catholic art in the 17th Century, about the time when the Capilla del Rosario was built.

This completes Part 11 of my series on Chiapas. I hope you have been as impressed as I was by the spectacular art decorating both the interior and exterior of this amazing church. If you have any comments, questions, or corrections, please leave them 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

Colorfully woven baskets were on display at the craft market near Templo Santo Domingo. It is impossible to approach the Templo without passing the booths of the large mercado (market) that almost completely surrounds the church on its broad stone platform. When we visited San Cristóbal de las Casas, the market was open every day. As far as I know, it operates year-round, seven days per week. The Maya have been master craftspeople for centuries, and their goods are not only well-made and lovely, but relatively inexpensive. In this posting, we will visit both the Templo's mercado and the nearby Mercado Municipal.

The mercado at Templo Santo Domingo

A Maya woman and her two daughters shop at the mercado. They are dressed in gorgeously woven and embroidered huipils (blouses) and skirts. The woman is wearing a tzute (shawl) around her shoulders. The design of their clothing indicates that they may be from the nearby village of Zinacantan. You can get a sense of their small stature by comparing it with the European tourist approaching from the opposite direction.


Typical booths at the mercado are filled to overflowing with brilliantly colored goods. Here, you could purchase adult and children's clothing as well as candy, wax candles, and other items. The proprietor was absent when I happened by. He or she was probably grabbing a bite at one of the neighboring food boths or visiting with another vendor. Had I hung about and looked interested, someone would have quickly appeared to attempt a sale.


Intricately woven macrame belts create cascades of color. As complex as the designs on these belts are, the craftspeople can weave them with surprising rapidity.


A mask-maker's booth caught my eye. I was attracted by the imaginative woodwork and paint designs on these small masks. The owner of the booth was also the craftsman. Use of masks for festivals and religious activities goes far back into pre-hispanic history and indigenous communities all over Mexico continue these traditions. Carole and I collect masks and I made note of the booth's location the first time I visited the mercado. Shortly before our stay in San Cristóbal ended, I returned  and selected a mask in the form of a deer's head with delicately carved antlers. It is now displayed on our living room wall in Ajijic.


Finely embroidered sashes display Maya artistry. These are worn with the Maya women's ankle-length skirts. The vivid colors contrast nicely with the skirts, which are usually black.


A selection of baskets, gourd bowls, and maracas was arranged along a stone wall. The mercado extended out along the streets beside the Templo. Calabash gourds have made ideal containers for indigenous people all over Mexico for centuries. Some of the smaller gourds seen above have been made into small maracas (rattles) with wood handles. The maracas are filled with seeds to create their sound.


After visiting the mercado, a Maya woman strolls along Avenida 20 de Noviembre. This photo shows the beauty of Maya clothing as it is worn, not just as seen on a rack. These are not "dress up" outfits, kept only for special occasions, but are day-to-day clothing.


Mercado Municipal

We noticed fancy red trucks like this all around the Mercado Municipal. They belong to people who bring produce, flowers, and other goods from the surrounding villages. The individual owners spruce them up with fancy paint jobs, loads of chrome, lights, and painted designs. Visiting the Mercado Municipal is a delightful experience. It offers fruits, vegetables, flowers, medicinal herbs, crafts, and many day-to-day necessities. The Mercado is located only one block north of the Templo Santo Domingo on Avenida 20 de Noviembre. For a Google map of the area, click here.  On the map, the Mercado Municipal is shown as Mercado Viejo.


The Mercado was packed, in spite of threatened rain. The people milling about included Maya in traditional dress, Ladinos (non-Maya Mexicans), and foreign tourists like ourselves. August is the rainy season, but a little precipitation didn't seem to slow anyone down. Goods were displayed in the open on the flagstone plaza, and also in booths set under umbrellas and canopies. I find traditional markets fascinating and very entertaining. Their history goes back very far, well before the construction of the great urban centers of pre-hispanic Mexico. With the advent of cities, the ancient rulers of places like Chichen Itza in Yucatan and Tenochtitlán in Central Mexico set aside special areas for public markets. Early European visitors described scenes in those ancient markets that were very similar to what you see above.


I was dazzled by the riot of color at this flower stall. The cool, moist climate of Chiapas' mountains is ideal for growing a wide variety of flowers. The Maya growers bring their flowers from their villages to local markets like this, but also use their red trucks to haul them to far-away Yucatan and other distant locations.


Fresh chicken, anyone? These birds are pretty fresh and it is likely that they were pecking in the dirt only a few hours previously. When you buy a "whole" chicken in a market like this, you literally get the whole chicken: head, beak claws and all. The only thing lacking is feathers and you could probably get those too, if you wanted them.


Some basic elements of the Mexican diet. Above you see many of the fruits and vegetables commonly found in Mexican kitchens. The tomatoes, peppers, chiles, and tuna (fruit of the nopal cactus) are native to Mexico and have been consumed since the earliest times. The garlic in the center basket is the only item shown that Hernán Cortez and his Conquistadores would not have seen when they toured the great market of Tenochtitlán. He described the mercado this way:

"This town has many squares on which there are always markets, and in which they buy and sell. But there is another, twice the size of the town of Salamanca, completely surrounded by arcades where every day there are more than sixty thousand souls who buy and sell, and where there are all kinds of merchandize from all the provinces, whether it is in provisions or jewels of gold and silver."


Hairy balls of lychee fruit filled a stand in a side aisle.Lychee is the fruit of an evergreen tree native to China and Southeast Asia. It has become very popular in Mexico and can be found in markets throughout the country. Although it looks spiky, the hairs are soft and the red covering is easily peeled, revealing a soft, sweet, white fruit inside. The presence of lychee fruit in the remote mountains of Chiapas attests to the long reach of globalization.


In addition to the mercado's open plaza, there are several rows of long, narrow aisles. The aisles extend at lest two city blocks each, and are usually packed with people. When Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo visited one of these markets in 1520, he was dumbfounded:

"When we reached the great square called Tateluco, as we had never seen anything like it, we stood amazed at the infinity of people and goods, and by the method and regularity of everything."


Fresh, whole shrimp lay in a great mound on a broad table.Camarones (shrimp) are very popular in Mexico and are offered in a wide variety of dishes on the menus of many restaurants. Twenty-five percent of the world's farmed shrimp come from Latin America and Mexico is one of the major producers.


Bowls made from calabash gourds were piled high in another section of the mercado. The calabash fruit grows on a tree known in Mexico as the higuera but its botanical name is Crescentia cujete. Pre-hispanic people found many uses for the calabash and modern Mexicans still use them in much the same ways. In addition to bowls and cups, the calabash shell is used for musical instruments, and the pulp is sometimes sometimes made into a medicinal drink for flu and colds.


Yellow and green peppers were offered at this booth. I was impressed by the artistic flair of the vendor who created this arrangement. The peppers are carefully placed so their colors contrast in a wicker basket lined with deep green banana leaves. I found the same sort of artistry in many of the other booths in the produce area.


Masses of children's shoes hung from the support poles in another booth. These are probably cheap imports from China, another indication of globalization. China is becoming one of Mexico's most important trading partners.


Maya herbs in these sacks provide remedies for a variety of ills. The infirmities addressed on the signs above include gastritis, ulcers, and rheumatism. While there are mystical and supernatural aspects to traditional Maya medicine, the use of natural herbs is based on thousands of years of close observation of the effects of various plants on the body. While at San Cristóbal, Carole and I visited the Maya Medicine Museum, which will be the subject of a future posting.


The ultimate in fresh poultry! This one comes complete with feathers and its gobble. I almost tripped over this guy, who was hobbling around on his bound feet while a vendor's little son kept an eye on him. Live animals are another interesting aspect of the Mercado Municipal. Turkeys were first domesticated by the Maya of northern Guatemala during the late pre-classic era (300 BC - 100 AD). They were one of the few domesticated animals of the pre-hispanic New World.

This completes Part 11 of my Chiapas series. I hope you have enjoyed your visit to the local mercados. I always appreciate feedback, corrections and questions. If you would like to do so, please leave your message in the Comments section below or email me directly.

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

Hasta luego, Jim

"Chiapaneca," by Francisco Jiménez Gómez of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas. This wood carving is on display at the Museo de las Culturas Populares de Chiapas. This is one of the finest examples of wood sculpture I have seen in Mexico. In this posting we will check out the area of San Cristóbal to the west of the Zócalo (main plaza) which contains several places well worth visiting. All of these are within easy walking distance of the Zócalo. I have already covered one, the Museo de Trajes Regionales,  in Part 8 of this series. The two we will visit in this posting are Templo del Cerrito de San Cristóbal and Museo de las Culturas Populares. For a Google map of the area, click here.


Templo del Cerrito de San Cristóbal

The Templo del Cerrito stands at the top of a formidable staircase. Each of the wood railings marks another flight of stairs leading to the tiny church at the top. Mexicans seem to love placing shrines and small chapels at the very top of steep hills. Carole and I put off climbing this set of stairs until the end of our visit to San Cristóbal. However, the base of the stairs is only a couple of short blocks from the entrance of our hotel, so we had a daily reminder of our commitment to check out the view from the top.


The view from the half-way point. As you can see above, the builders of the stairway thoughtfully included cement benches on each level so weary climbers could take a breather. At the upper center of the photo you can almost, but not quite, see Templo de Guadalupe, the subject of Part 4 of this series. The Guadalupe church also has a steep set of stairs leading up from the bottom of a tall hill.


Near the top, looking southeast toward Iglesia Santa Lucia. The blue and white church in the left center of the photo is known as Iglesia Santa Lucia. It was built in the Neo-classical style in 1884. San Cristóbal sits in a natural bowl, with steep hills and mountains rising all around it. Lacking sufficient flat terrain, some parts of the city climb up the steep hills in a series of terraces.


Templo del Cerrito, viewed from just below the summit. The church sits at the edge of a small, flat plateau. The sides of the hill are thickly covered with pine forest, but there are enough breaks in the foliage to provide nice views of the city and the country surrounding it. The small church was built in the late 18th Century by Fray Juan de Ordoñez. It was dedicated to San Cristóbal (St. Christopher) and is sometimes known as Cerro San Cristóbal Martyr.


Nestled in the corner of the church yard is this tiny chapel. About the size of your average closet, it is only about 1.5 m (5 ft) high inside. The chapel was built by a company called Autotransportes de Carga Lacandonia S.A. de C.V. to celebrate St. Christopher's Day in 1957.  The company operates tour buses in the area.


The floor and alter of the little chapel were bare except for dozens of lit candles. Exactly what this is all about remains a mystery to me. Were the candles left by employees of the company, or parishioners of the church, or both? The crude pictures scratched in the black painted walls indicate a continuing connection with the company, or at least to transport vehicles. As a tourist town, San Cristóbal abounds with buses and vans to transport them, so perhaps the drivers left the candles.


The interior of the Templo is simple but elegant and very well-kept. Notice especially the parquet wood ceiling. Near the altar, a small Maya family sits on the floor of the aisle. Embedded in the floor of the Templo near the door is a sign that is dated April 2012 and dedicated to the Junta Procuradora (Lawyers Group) and the Junta de Choferes (Drivers Group). Apparently these two groups were responsible for refurbishing the floor of the church. Another sign set in the outside wall says "Reconstructed 1940-1942".  Apparently various groups in the community have provided the resources to keep the church in good shape. This, no doubt, has something to do with the fact that San Cristóbal is the patron saint of the town.


Strings of colorful overhead banners decorated the church yard in back. They are similar to the banners that decorated the steps coming up. It is the practice in Mexico to put up banners like this to celebrate fiestas, both religious and political. One of the signs reads "Viva San Cristóbal Martyr." This indicates that the banners are from the St. Christopher's Day fiesta only a few weeks before our visit.


Exercise equipment lines the corridor under a trellis behind the church. The area immediately behind the church has a small plaza with a kiosco and this trellis. I was surprised to find about a dozen different exercise machines under the trellis. Younger, middle class Mexicans seem very interested in exercise and I have seen machines like this in various parks around the country. However, I would have thought just getting up here would be exercise enough.


Museo de las Culturas Populares

Museo de las Culturas Populares is attractive but unobtrusive and easy to miss. The modest colonial building is protected by a wall and fence and shaded by a grove of trees. The only identifying signs are on the walls inside the compound. It is operated by the Directorate General of Popular and Indigenous Cultures, known as CONACULTA. Like many countries, Mexico has a government that is enamored with acronyms. The agency is devoted to the preservation and encouragement of indigenous popular arts and displays some of Chiapas' best work in this museum. What follows are only a few of the pieces on display when we visited.


Detail of the "Chiapaneca" woodcarving seen in the first photo. The sculptor, Francisco Jiménez Gómez comes from a family of sculptors in Chiapa de Corza, a town just east of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas. As you can see, his work is exquisite. His father is Francisco Jiménez Hernandez the patriarch of a famous family of woodcarvers. The younger Francisco focuses on indigenous themes and wildlife, as well as abstract designs. He works with various kinds of wood, including mahogany, cedar, and popistle, as well as amber, bone and stone.


A family of jaguars stands on a floor design made of black beans and corn kernals. The clay animals were sculpted by Anastasia Días Gómez from Amatenango del Valle, Chiapas.


Bronze statue of a Maya woman sculpting a bird. I found no sign indicating who created this beautiful piece. She is dressed in traditional clothing, including a cloth head dress.


Cup in the form of an acrobatic jaguar. This piece was created by María Isabel López Gómez, also from Amantenango del Valle. The sculpture is entitled Jaguar Cirquero (Jaguar Circus Performer).


Arbol de Vida (Tree of Life), made of sheet metal. I failed to photograph the small card on the lower left, as I usually do, so I don't have the sculptor's name or other information about this piece. However, Trees of Life are a recurrent theme in Mexican sculpture. This one is literally crawling with life. There are birds, snakes, rodents, and insects all over it.


Tiny detail from the Arbol de Vida. I could have spent an hour just photographing all the little vignettes intricately sculpted on the tree and its branches. I selected this one as a good example. A bird that may be an owl has captured a small rodent and is carrying it back to the nest.


Clay sculptures of two female figures with ears of corn. I wasn't clear, but the smaller figure may represent the daughter. The pieces are entitled Mujers Desgranando Maiz (Women shelling corn). The sculptor is María Isabel López Gómez, who also did the Jaguar Cirquero.


Wandering west of the Zócalo

One of the narrow, winding streets of San Cristóbal. After visiting the Museo de las Culturas Populares, we wandered about the streets enjoying the cool sunny morning. The area was clean and well-kept, with a sort of Medieval charm.


The Judicial Archives building of the Chiapas State Court is part of a former colonial mansion. It is located on the corner of Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Febrero streets. Some of the records contained within the Archive are from the period of 1700-1921. Land tenure, commercial documents, and those for family property, criminal and probate matters can provide historians interested in the period with crucial information.

On one street, we encountered these two young Mexicans tourists. Mexicans are very proud of their country and love to tour it. In fact, the majority of tourists in San Cristóbal appeared to be Mexicans just as entranced by the town as we were.

This completes Part 12 of my Chiapas series. I always encourage feed back and questions, and if you'd 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

A mother and her two young sons pause for a photograph in Zinacantan. Carole and I visited Zinacantan on the same tour that took us to the pueblo of Chamula (see Part 9 of this series).  It is ordinarily difficult to get the Maya in Chiapas to pose for a photo, but for a small fee, this woman agreed. I am glad she did because she provides a wonderful example of the day-to-day clothing of local Maya and how they wear it. Her beautifully embroidered shawl is called a tzute. Her son, standing in front, wears a jorongo (poncho) similar to those worn by the men of the community. In addition to the embroidered flowers, it has fringe along the bottom and long tassels on either side.

The Pueblo of Zinacantan

Low clouds drift over the pine-covered hills surrounding the small agricultural community. Zinacantan means "land of the bats," although we never saw any durng our visit. The town's elevation is 2558 m (8392 ft), so it gets plenty of precipitation and everything is lush and green. The area reminded us of Oregon, where Carole and I lived for 20 years. While there are almost 30,000 people in the municipalidad (county), the town itself has only about 8,500. The remainder are scattered in the hills in tiny hamlets and individual farms. Of Zinacantan's population, 98% are Tzotzil-speaking Maya, and they jealously guard their culture and traditions.  For a Google map showing Zinacantan and its relationship to Chamula and San Cristóbal de las Casas, click here.


Greenhouses line the slopes of the Zinacantan's small valley. The area's climate makes it ideal for the growing of flowers, making it one of the three pillars of the local economy. The other two are textiles and maiz (corn). As the town has grown, and more land has been devoted to flowers, there has been less land available for maiz cultivation. Local men often have to walk as much as a day's journey to their milpas (small fields) in Chiapas' lowlands. There, they live and work for weeks at a time. Why not just grow flowers and import the maiz from other areas? The answer lies in the deep connection between maiz and culture. The Maya have been growing maizsince at least 2500 BC. Their famous calendars were originally developed to pinpoint the correct times for planting and harvesting. The god of maiz, Hun Nal Yeh, also known as Yum Kaax, was one of the most important deities in the Maya pantheon. The cultivation, harvesting, preparation and consumption of maiz are woven into every aspect of the traditional Maya life and worldview.


Inside a greenhouse, hundreds of pink cosmos bloom. The tour guide was sympathetic to my photographic instincts and she stopped our van so I could peek inside one of the greenhouses. Once harvested, some of these flowers may be loaded into chrome-encrusted, red pickup trucks and transported to the Mercado Municipal in San Cristóbal. Others may be driven hundreds of miles to Mérida in Yucatan or other distant locations. As you will soon see, the presence of beautiful flowers in Zinacantan has led to their incorporation in the designs of the textiles produced here.


An eclectic religious tradition


At the edge of town, we encountered a small cement altar set with three crosses. These were very similar to the crosses we saw at the plaza in Chamula. In both places the crosses had a similar appearance, with green paint and circular tips. In both places, the crosses were decorated with pine wreathes. One difference was that the Chamula crosses had small circles containing 8-pointed crosses carved on the cross pieces and tips. The crosses above lack this decoration. During ceremonies, a statue or picture of a saint is sometimes placed in the niche below the crosses. In the ancient Maya religion, a cross represented the Ceiba, or World Tree. The Ceiba can be found in Chiapas' lowland areas and grows as tall as 70 m (230 ft). The huge buttress roots can be taller than a grown man, and the canopy spreads over the jungle. The Maya's World Tree has its roots in the underworld, its trunk in terrestrial life, and its canopy (represented by the cross-piece) in the heavens. A carving of the World Tree can be seen at Palenque in the ruins of the Temple of the Foliated Cross. As at Chamula, the Maya of Zinacantan seem to have retained much of their ancient beliefs, but incorporated elements of Catholicism in order to keep themselves on the right side of their Spanish overlords.



A family altar. Flowers, pictures of holy figures, statues of various animals, and numerous candles were incorporated into this elaborate altar. We found it in the entrance hall of a shop selling textiles. Many traditional Maya homes contain similar altars.


A row of clay animals stands in front of the altar. Included are dogs, a horse, and a giraffe. Each has a lit candle on its back. The animals are totems meant to protect the house.


A visit to a textile shop


A back-strap loom, ready to use. The loom's leather back-strap is clearly visible, as are the shuttles used to weave the thread. The far end (out of sight) is usually attached to a post, tree, or other upright support. Backstrap looms can be used to create brocade designs as well as plain weaves, unlike treadle (foot-powered) looms. Ixchel, the Maya moon goddess, was the patron of weaving. She was the consort of Iztamna, the father of the gods. In ancient times, Ixchel was often depicted using a backstrap loom to weave the universe. Various kinds of products can be woven on these looms, but one of the most common is the huipil (blouse) worn by Maya and other indigenous women.


Male poncho, called a jorongo. Men, as well as women, wear colorful, flowered garments with fringe and tassels. The jorongo worn by the little boy in the first photo of this posting is a small version of this one. The garment is worn over other clothing, sometimes including blue jeans and other non-traditional items. Women, on the other hand, seem to dress traditionally from head to toe.


Woman's wedding huipil. The wedding huipilis called a k'uk'umal chil il. White chicken feathers are woven into the embroidery. This wedding huipil is longer than the ones used for daily wear. It is worn with a dark, embroidered skirt.


The feathers of the k'uk'umal chil il symbolize the attributes of a good marriage. Chickens are part of the daily life of the community. They do not fly, even though they have feathers, and they stay close to the home.


A red jorongo hangs beside a blue and white tzute. The little shop was packed with beautiful clothing like this, as well as wall hangings. tablecloths, and other woven, brocaded and embroidered textiles.


The textiles came in all sizes, designs, and prices. The members of our tour group poked about and eventually picked out a few items for purchase. I didn't have much use for a jorongo, but I bought a few small items as family gifts. Many of the items seen above are available for purchase at the plaza in front of San Cristóbal's Catedral, as well as at the mercado surrounding the Templo Santo Domingo, and the crafts booths in Chamula. However, they are likely to be more expensive at those locations.


Eagles, egrets, monkeys, dogs and lions filled a box in the shop. While some adults might swoon over a tzute or jorongo, kids of all ages would enjoy these. These little critters show creativity and humor of the Tzotzil.


Templo San Lorenzo Martyr

Three green crosses, adorned with wreathes, face the Templo across a wide plaza. Prior to the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in 1524, the town was an important commercial hub and was the center of the Tzotzil culture. A Mexica (Aztec) general called Tiltototl conquered the town in 1486. The Tzotzil were required to produce tribute items including salt, cacao, and tobacco.

A sharp, but heavily forested, volcanic knob overlooks the Templo's plaza. Strung across the plaza are banners put up to celebrate the August 8-10 Feast of San Lorenzo Martyr, patron saint of Zinacantan. San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence) was one of seven deacons in the early Church in Rome. He was born in Spain in 225 AD and martyred in Rome during the persecutions of Emperor Valerian in 258 AD. As a deacon, one of his jobs was to protect the treasures of the Church. Another was assisting the poor and the sick. When a Roman official demanded that Lorenzo turn over the treasures, he concealed them, including (according to legend) the Holy Grail, the chalice Christ used at the Last Supper. The deacon then gathered all the poor and sick and presented them, saying "this is our treasure!" The official ordered Lorenzo to be slowly roasted alive on a grille. The legend say he felt little pain because he was already on fire with his faith. After he had roasted for a while on one side, he famously said "I'm well done. Turn me over!" As a result, he is the patron of cooks and chefs, among others.


Templo San Lorenzo was built on the site of the first Dominican church.Dominican friars constructed the first church in Zinacantan church in 1546.  That early structure was made of adobe with a thatched roof. The bishop of Chiapas at the time was Bartolome de las Casas, the great defender of the indigenous people of  Nueva España. He donated a library, jewels, and two great clocks. The church has been rebuilt several times since then. The most recent reconstruction occurred during the 19th Century when the interior was decorated in its present Neo-classical style. Note the colorful banners, similar to those strung in the plaza for the August fiesta.


The entrance was lavishly decorated for the Feast Day. The words on the arch over the doorway say "Long live San Lorenzo Martyr. Welcome to Zinacantan." I have read there is a sign near the door prohibiting the sacrifice of chickens on the floor of the church during prayers. However, I didn't notice it when I visited. In nearby San Juan Chamula, chicken sacrifices at the church are normal practice.


The whole place was lush with bouquets of flowers. Apparently, like the church at Chamula, photography is forbidden here. However, our guide did not mention this, I had seen no signs, and nobody approached us about it. I happily clicked away, as I had done in so many other Mexican churches. Later, after reading the accounts of others who visited before me, I realized my faux pas. Fortunately, no one seemed upset about it and I escaped censure.


Jesus, draped with ribbons containing messages, stands at the center of the side chapel's altar. It is often the practice in Mexican churches to leave a request or message of thanks on a ribbon draped over one of the sacred figures. I had previously identified this figure as San Charbel Malouf, but one of my blog viewers corrected me.

This concludes Part 13 of my Chiapas series. I hope you have enjoyed it and learned something about the wonderfully creative Maya of Zinacantan. I always welcome feedback, questions, and corrections. If you would like to do so, please leave your thoughts in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you use the Comments section and yours don't immediately appear, it is because I moderate all comments to eliminate spam and there is therefore a short delay.

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

Hasta luego, Jim

Massive cliffs frame Cañon del Sumidero, one of Chiapas' two most-visited tourist areas. The canyon's breathtaking walls rise as high as 1000 m (3281 ft) along its 13 km (8.08 mi) length. The park itself extends out on both sides and covers 21,789 hectares (53,841 acres) in four different municipalidades (counties). Carole and I came to the canyon on a tour from San Cristóbal de las Casas, about a 45 minute drive away. However, boat trip tickets can be purchased right at the docks of Chaipa de Corzo, the town that lies along Rio Grijalva at the south end of the canyon. The outward leg of the boat trip ends at the Chicoasén Dam and the round-trip takes about 3 hours.  For a Google map of the area, click here.


Launching the adventure

At any one time, there are several boats like this cruising the river. The craft appear sturdy, are driven by powerful outboard motors, and everyone wears life jackets. The captain sits on an elevated platform in the rear to keep an eye out for obstacles such as rocks, floating logs, or other boats. In 2009 and 2010 a series of accidents occurred involving decrepit boats and underaged or unqualified captains. The accidents resulted in six deaths and sixty-two injuries. The authorities cracked down because the incidents caused serious harm to the local tourist industry and apparently no problems have occurred since then. Our tour boat seemed safe and its captain was very competent and efficient and I had no qualms about the trip.


Shortly after leaving the docks, we passed under the Pan-American Highway bridge. This is the only vehicle bridge that crosses Cañon del Sumidero. The rather flimsy-looking wire suspension bridge in the foreground was originally for vehicles but now carries only a pipeline. The Pan-American Highway stretches from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Usuhala at the southern tip of Chile. The only break is a short stretch of 100 km (62 mi) in Panama called the Darien Gap. About six months after our Sumidero adventure, we passed under the Pan-American Highway again when we took a boat tour through the Panama Canal.


Bright sunshine bathes the western canyon wall while the other wall is deeply shadowed. The canyon is only about 1 km (0.62 mi) wide at its narrowest point. Our tiny boat seemed like a speck in the midst of this towering grandeur.  This view of the canyon is represented on the official Seal of the State of Chiapas.


Into the deep canyon

The canyon narrowed at this point as we headed into its depths. The Rio Grijalva bends as much as 90 degrees in places as it twists through the canyon. The walls seemed to grow ever higher as we chugged along in our little craft. Most of the tourists of the boat with us were Mexican, although a group of young German back-packers joined our tour in San Cristóbal. I am 5'10" and used to being one of the taller people in any group, but these slim, athletic Europeans towered over us. Even the women among them seemed like giants. Even so, we were all dwarfed by the canyon.


Life will find a way, even on sheer walls such as this. The sloping lower parts of the walls were covered by thick forest, but most of the heights above were 90 degree vertical drops with sparse vegetation clinging to the cliffs. The canyon began to form 35 million years ago when tectonic movements cracked the earth's surface. Over the millennia, the process of erosion and the force of the Rio Grijalva cut through the soft limestone, leaving this stupendous gorge.


A limestone cliff on the west side of the river is pitted with caves. In the center of the photograph is a formation that caught my eye as we cruised past. It is a shallow cave with a stalactite suspended from the overhang. Limestone is very porous and water seepage can cut through it but also can make new rock formations. Stalactites are formed when water drips down from the roof of a cave. Stalagmites are similar formations, but they build up when the water hits the floor.


Cueva del Caballito de Mar (Seahorse Cave). This closeup version of the previous photo required the extreme telephoto setting of my camera. The cave gets its name from the stalactite in the center, which does indeed look like a seahorse. A number of other stalactites are also visible under the cave's ceiling. Fossils of sea creatures can be found all along Sumidero's walls. These were deposited when the area was under an ancient sea. Billions of tiny creatures died over the millennia and their calcified remains drifted to the sea bottom. Over time these became the thousand-foot limestone cliffs.

A small flock of black vultures suns themselves on a bit of beach. I was relieved to see that these fellows didn't seem to be feeding on the remains of any stranded tourist boat occupants. Black Vultures have a huge range, from the southeastern US to central Chile. This vulture has a 1.5 m (5 ft) wingspan and its plumage is black with a grayish-black head. It primarily feeds on carrion but includes eggs and newborn animals in its diet. The Black Vulture uses its excellent eyesight or keen sense of smell to find food. Vulture images have been found in the ancient Maya codices.


In some places, the canyon walls drop vertically into the water. This tended to magnify the effect created by the soaring walls above us. Previous to the construction of the Chicoasén Dam, the canyon was even deeper. In the area in front of the dam, the bottom is approximately 260 m (860 ft) below the water's surface.


At other places, erosion has created sloping walls that can sustain forest life. The Cañon del Sumidero cuts through a high plateau with the gorge running roughly south to north. It has created a natural boundary between the western side of the plateau (called Meseta de las Animas) and the eastern side (called Meseta de Ixtapa). You can see the rim of the Meseta de Ixtapa in the photo above. The canyon also forms the historical boundary between the territories of the Zoque people and the Maya.

Immense canyon walls rise closely on both banks of the Rio Grijalva. In my last posting, I focused on the geology, flora, and fauna of the canyon. This week, we continue through Chiapas' second-most-visited tourist area (Palenqueis #1)), but the focus will be the historical and cultural background of this great gorge. Until the second half of the 20th Century, the Sumidero was a mystery to everyone but the indigenous people of the area. Before the Chicoasén dam was built, a wild river full of cascading rapids ran through the base of the canyon. This was far beneath the water surface you see above. In 1895 a party of three Frenchmen drowned while attempting to run the river. Almost 40 years later, in 1932, an American made another attempt, but also drowned. Finally, in 1960, Sumidero Canyon was conquered by a Mexican Army unit called the "Red Handkerchiefs." The soldiers managed to complete a 20 km (12.5 mi) voyage through the heart of the gorge.


La Cueva de Colores

The canyon walls get steeper and rockier the higher they rise. The many twists and turns of the gorge restrict the view ahead and behind, leaving the blue ribbon of sky above as the only opening. The gorge forms the dividing line between the Zoque people on the western plateau called Meseta de las Animas and the Maya on the eastern plateau, known as the Meseta de Ixtapa. The Zoque are one of twelve government-recognized ethnicities in Chiapas. They occupy about 3000 square kilometers of the State. The earliest Zoque archaeological sites date back to 3500 BC, establishing them as a very ancient people. Some archaeologists believe that the Zoque are descendants of the Olmecs. After a period of peaceful trade relations with the Mexica (Aztecs), they were conquered in 1494 by the army of Mexica Emperor Ahuizotl. The Zoque language is related to the Mixe spoken in Oaxaca and Vera Cruz.


The sheer limestone walls are riddled with water-carved formations. When the Spanish arrived in 1523, the dominant group in the area were the Chiapa people. Their main settlement was at present-day Chiapa de Corzo, the town from which we began our canyon tour. The origin of the Chiapa is unknown, but they may have migrated here from Nicaragua. They were fierce warriors and resisted the Conquest for eleven years until they were finally defeated by Diego de Mazariegos in 1535. Rather than accept Spanish domination, the remaining Chiapa men, women and children threw themselves off one of the highest points on the cliffs in a mass suicide.


We paused with several other boats at La Cueva de Colores. The Cave of Colors gets its name from colored striations in the rock. Unfortunately, at this time of day the bright sun made it very difficult to photograph the colors. However, La Cueva also contains a small shrine embedded high in the wall above us. The only way of reaching it is by the ladder you can see at the upper right. Just getting to the bottom rung of the ladder would be a daunting task.


A shrine to the Virgen de Guadalupe is tucked into a niche high above the water. The Virgin of Guadalupe is revered throughout Mexico as the special patron of the indigenous people and the poor. The sign next to the ladder says (in Spanish) "To the memory of the last of the living explorers, Dr. Miguel Alvarez del Toro. Tireless defender of nature. Creator of the Sumidero Canyon National Park." There are many shrines and holy places in and around the canyon, some of them extremely ancient but still in use. The Zoques believe that the spirits for water and fertility dwell in caves.


This interesting formation seemed to have been made by the same process as stalactites. The limestone face is covered with vertical grooves and tubes formed by dripping water containing dissolved minerals. These are deposited during their journey down the wall, creating the formations. In the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Spanish authorities attempted to stamp out the old religions and to punish those who continued the ancestral practices. At least five Inquisitions were conducted in this area during that period. The open practice of the old religions was abandoned, but people continued to conduct their ancient rites secretly in remote areas like Cañon del Sumidero. Some ancient sites have been discovered by cliff climbers hundreds of feet up sheer cliffs. These caves are only accessible to modern people using ropes and other technical equipment, so it is astonishing that indigenous people used them regularly for their religious rites.


As the canyon began to widen, a knife-edge ridge along the shore appeared. This narrow ridge stands separately from the high wall behind it. It was created by lengthy geological processes on which I could only speculate. Just before the Chicoasén dam was built, archaeologists scoured the canyon for sites which might be threatened by rising waters. They found 53 caves, about half of them containing ceramics and other ancient material. Eighteen of the caves contained rock paintings. One of the largest of these was La Ceiba rock shelter. That cave is 10 m (32 ft) high, has 4 balconies, and contains more than 100 rock paintings. Also discovered at La Ceiba were eerie imprints of ancient human hands.


Crocodiles of the Rio Grijalva 


Some of the muddy beaches along the way are home to huge crocodiles. The cocodrilos like to partially bury themselves in the mud. At first glance, they appear to be logs washed up along the shore.  Someone idly strolling this beach might not have the opportunity to make this mistake twice.  Our boatman kept his craft at a respectful distance and I got this and the following shots with my telephoto. I wondered about boating accidents at a place like this in which people might be pitched suddenly into the murky water. Their frantic thrashing about would soon attract the attention of creatures like this guy.


This big fellow seemed to follow our movements with particular interest. According to my research, the crocs in Sumidero Canyon are the American Crocodile species (Crocodylus acutus). On the upside for tourists, this species is not nearly as aggressive as the Australian saltwater croc or the African Nile croc. Still, the American croc can be dangerous. A few fatal attacks by this species have been reported, mostly in Florida, but also in Mexico near Puerto Vallarta and in Costa Rica. However, it appears that the real danger is more to the crocodiles from humans rather than the other way around. The river crocodiles are presently under government protection from hunting or capture. Unfortunately, in Mexico these kinds of laws are sometimes weakly enforced.


Crocodiles are social animals and we sometimes saw them in groups. These two, lying in opposite directions, appear to be enjoying a snooze in the warm sunshine.  The larger one looks to be about 4-5 m (12-15 ft). They can reach 7 m (21 ft) and weight more than 907 kg (2000 lbs). Of the four croc species in the Americas, the American Crocodile is the most widespread.  They can be found from Florida to Peru, and on both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. Some live along rivers like Rio Grijalva, but they also like salty coastal lagoons and mangrove swamps.


A crocodile cools off by lying with its mouth agape. As a cold-blooded reptile, the croc has various strategies for maintaining its body temperature in a livable range. The open-mouthed posture cools off its brain. The American Crocodile feeds mainly on fish. small mammals, and other reptiles. However, they have been known to attack animals as big as a full grown cow. Although their jaws are extremely powerful and their teeth are razor sharp, they are unable to chew. When feeding on large prey, they must tear it to pieces that are small enough to swallow. In order to do this, the croc will grip the prey with its jaws and roll over and over in the water. This is called the "death roll."


Just makes you want to scratch him on the back and tweak his snout, doesn't it? Lying half buried in the cool mud is another way to moderate body temperature. Although they may look slow while snoozing, on land an American Crocodile can achieve speeds of up to 16 km/hr (10 mi/hr). His powerful tail can drive him through the water at speeds up to 32km/hr (20 mi/hr). Keep that in mind if you do decide to tweak his snout. Crocodiles are a very successful species and have existed on earth for at least 100 million years. Humans, by contrast, have only been around for about 2.5 million, and at the rate that we are destroying our environment, we may not make it through another million.


La Presa Chicoasén and the Eco-Park.

Emerging from the narrow gorge, we moved into a wide reservoir. The indigenous people use all available arable land, even steep hillsides like the ones above. They must do this because Chiapas is so mountainous and much of the best land has been owned by wealthy Ladinos since the time of the Conquest. The Maya, in particular, are very good at intensively farming the land they do possess.


Amikúu Ecological Park is accessible only by boat from Chiapa de Corzo. The park is devoted to eco-tourism and extreme sports. We didn't stop here, and the only part we could see from our boat was the landing dock with a large palm-thatched palalpa, which shelters a restaurant and a gift shop. There are three areas in the Eco-Park. In one, tourists can take part in a program called Discover the Canyon which includes a video. The Colors of Chiapas section includes a museum demonstrating the traditional dress and musical instruments of Chiapas' indigenous people. The Area of Adventure has a tour through the rainforest and animal enclosures where jaguars and crocodiles can be viewed. Some of the extreme sports available in the Area of Adventure include mountain biking, kayaking, rappelling, spelunking in the local caves, and a 300 foot zip-line.


La Presa de Chicoasén stores water and produces a large quantity of electricity. The rugged mountains of the Chiapas Sierras rise over it in the distance. The presa (dam) was built between 1974 and 1980 and is one of several along the Rio Grijalva. It marks the northern boundary of the Parque Naciónal de Cañon del Sumidero. The water in front of the dam has a depth of 243 m (800 ft). This is the deepest part of the whole Rio Grijalva. The reservoir created by the dam covers 2193 hectares (5419 acres), and the dam complex employs 600 workers. The hydroelectric operation here contains 30 generators which can produce 3928 megawatts, amounting to 30% of the electricity produced in Mexico.


Our tour boat's two powerful motors raise a large wake as we make our return journey. These Yamaha V6 outboards moved a large boatload of tourists at such speed that I had to hang on to my hat lest it blow away. Our tour of the canyon was a spectacular experience and one I would recommend to anyone visiting Chiapas.

This completes our tour of Cañon del Sumidero and Part 14b of my Chiapas series. I always welcome feedback, questions, and corrections. If you would like to do so, please 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

Temple of the Smoking Mirror stands on the seventh or topmost level of Toniná's Acropolis. One of the goals during our visit to Chiapas was to see and photograph Toniná, one of the most militarily aggressive of the Classic-era Maya city-states. In fact, it was this warrior kingdom that finally conquered much-better-known Palenque, located about 64 km (40 mi) to the northeast. Palenque fell in 730 AD, after a bitter 26-year war. Toniná is also famous for its stone sculptures of war captives, carved "in-the-round." In addition, the city contains a monument carved with the last known date from the Maya Long Count Calendar. Archaeologists consider that date, 909 AD, to mark the end of the Classic Era Maya world. After that, the jungles of Chiapas and Guatemala gradually swallowed up the monuments of Toniná and all the other once-glittering Maya cities. Most of those Classic Era centers were not unearthed for almost a thousand years.

The Overview

Toniná sits on a hill with a panoramic view of the surrounding valley and mountains. A lone vaquero (cowboy) rides across an emerald pasture that is typical of the country surrounding the ancient ruins. The grey limestone with which the city was constructed causes it to almost disappear in the haze. In ancient times, the city was vividly painted and would have been clearly visible from a great distance. The Toniná ruins are open Tuesday through Sunday, 9AM - 4PM, and there is a fee of $46 pesos ($3.53 USD) to enter.


The late afternoon sun lights up the limestone in this telephoto shot, looking from east to west. The city rises in a series of stepped  platforms. At the extreme left is the Great Plaza. There are temples in the middle, on the first several levels moving toward the right. The main pyramids and palaces are at the highest levels on the far right. The top of the Temple of the Smoking Mirror, the highest pyramid on the Acropolis, reaches 80 m (262) above the Plaza level. By contrast, the huge Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan is 75 m (246 ft) tall. However, the Acropolis encompasses many temples and pyramids, while Teotihuacan's pyramid is a single massive structure.


A scale model from the Toniná museum gives a clear picture of the layout of the city. Carving out the broad Plaza area from the hill was a colossal job. Then, it had to be leveled into an immense platform. A small river snakes along the right (eastern) side of the platform's base. It would have provided much of the city's water. Seven more levels were added to create the Acropolis on the north end of the Plaza, each level with its own temples, palaces, and pyramids. On the lower right of the model is Ball Court 1, built in 699 AD. Ball Court 1 is a sunken area in the shape of a capital I. To the left of the Ball Court, in the lower center of the photo, is the two-level Temple of the Cosmic War. At the northern end of the Plaza, just in front of the first level of the Acropolis, are two low parallel structures. These are the sides of Ball Court 2. On the right-hand side of the Plaza, the wall of the first level platform makes a sharp right angle turn. Above the angle is a small temple with three doors. These doors are the entrances to the Temple of the Underworld, a labyrinth of passages and stairways leading up to the second and third levels of the Acropolis. On the right-hand (eastern) side of the third and fourth levels are the lavish palaces of the nobility, priesthood, and military leaders. The structures on the left (western) side of the third and fourth levels are the more austere quarters of ordinary warriors and middle-level functionaries. On the very top are the Temple of the Smoking Mirror, and to its west, the Temple of War.


View of stepped platforms at the rear of the Acropolis.  From the very bottom level of the museum's model, up to the base of the pyramids on the top, I counted thirteen platforms. Each of the seven levels (eight, counting the Plaza) is comprised of several of these stepped platforms. There are also thirteen temples on the Acropolis and, significantly, thirteen levels of heaven in Maya cosmology. All this construction happened by stages over several centuries, of course. What we see today is only the last stage of construction, built between 650-900 AD. The structures erected during the Early Classic period (400-650 AD) are buried underneath it. In ancient Mesoamerica, most of the great edifices conceal numerous earlier, smaller structures. Rather than build from the ground up, the ancient people used the previous buildings as a base, thus saving themselves a lot of work.


The Approach

The ruins lie several miles away from a small town across the gently rolling Ocosingo Valley. Smoke from the town of Ocosingo can be seen in the top center of the photo. The town is approximately 14 km (8.7 mi) away on a road suitable for street vehicles. Today, the valley around the ruins is used today primarily for pasturing horses and cattle, but in ancient Mesoamerica there were no large domesticated animals. The fields you see above would probably have been filled with maiz (corn) and dotted with the homes and villages of commoners. A large agricultural surplus would have been necessary to feed the elites who lived in the Acropolis area. Recent excavations indicate that Toniná may have been much larger than archaeologists previously thought, with roads extending out to other large structures on nearby hills.



As we walked along a path to the ruin, a trio of horses grazed contentedly on lush grass. This is definitely the country for them. In fact, local vaqueros hang around the parking area with saddled horses, hoping to rent them to tourists. The horses were beautiful, especially in this setting, and I couldn't resist a quick photo. We didn't rent any rides however. The walk from the car-park to the ruin is only a few hundred yards and, besides, Carole is not a great fan of horseback riding, particularly after our arduous 7-hour horseback trek to Paracutin Volcano.


The Ocosingo Valley is in the heart of Zapatista country. This sign stands just outside the ruins. Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) is known in English as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or Zapatistas for short. It is named after the great Emiliano Zapata, who was the foremost social revolutionary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Allied with Pancho Villa's forces in the north, Zapata fought for a social transformation of Mexico, where the poor and dispossessed could achieve Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty). In the end, both Zapata and Villa were assassinated by former Revolutionary allies who didn't want to transform Mexico as much as they wanted to enjoy for themselves the fruits of the Revolution's victory. Many Mexicans, particularly the poor, have revered Zapata ever since. The EZLN burst upon the scene on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect. For a short period they seized and occupied San Cristóbal de las Casas before withdrawing to a number of what they describe as "autonomous communities." The Zapatista movement is deeply connected to Maya culture and social history and seeks to win autonomy and control over traditional lands and resources in Chiapas. They see themselves as part of the struggle against global corporate domination and the destruction of indigenous cultures. Opposing them are large landowners and their allies in the Mexican government. Some of these landowners are foreign corporations and some are Ladinos (wealthy non-Maya Mexicans). There have been sporadic outbursts of violence since 1994, mostly against the Zapatista communities. However, for a considerable time now, an uneasy truce has been maintained. During our visit, both Carole and I felt an underlying tension that we have not experienced anywhere else in Mexico. On the poster above, Emiliano Zapata is shown on the left, Cuban Revolutionary Che Guevara is in the center, and Subcomandante Marcos (leader of the Zapatistas) is on the right.



A small stream snakes along the east side of the platform of the Great Plaza. Just after the EZLN sign, we crossed a small wooden bridge and entered the forest surrounding the ruins. In ancient times, water from this stream would have been carried up to the Acropolis in clay pots carried on the heads of an endless line of servants or slaves. It would have been a never-ending task, because--to the best of my knowledge--there are no other water sources on the hill above. By contrast, Toniná's rival city-state, Palenque, took advantage of a stream running through the middle of their temple/palace complex. They dug it out and lined it with flat stones, creating a paved channel for a considerable distance. In that way, the flow of water regulated, and flooding from the stream was reduced. By constricting the flow of the stream so that it shot up in a 2 m (6 ft) gush, the Palenque builders actually produced the only known Maya fountain. Toniná produced no similar civil engineering achievement, but it did have plenty of slaves captured in its incessant wars. The rulers would get their water, one way or another.


A long set of stone steps leads up to the Great Plaza. A Maya woman carefully sweeps the stairs to prepare them for the day's tourists. This view gives you an idea of the height of the platform on which the Plaza sits above the surrounding lands. Part of the height was achieved by the natural rise of the land, but a good deal of it was built up. Although Toniná is an impressive site, it is much less well-known than Palenque and consequently gets far fewer visitors. Many tourists on the way from San Cristóbal to Palenque pass through Ocosingo (about 1/2 way between) with little sense of what they are missing if they fail to take the short detour to Toniná.


The Great Plaza


The various levels of the Acropolis are reached by central staircases. As I approached, I felt some of the awe which must have been experienced by ancient visitors as they faced the magnificent complex from the broad open spaces of the Great Plaza. This is exactly what the builders and their royal masters intended. In those earlier times, the structures would have been brilliantly painted and thronged with people in elaborate costumes and spectacular feathered head dresses. Archaeologists have so far found 93 structures on the Acropolis, including temples, altars, palaces, administrative quarters, tombs, and pyramids. Buried underneath are structures from the Early Classic period. This has created difficulties in understanding the earlier time. The Early Classic ruins are difficult to access without disturbing the later constructions. Consequently, Toniná's history prior to the middle of the 7th Century AD is fragmentary.



View of the Great Plaza from the top of the Acropolis, looking southeast. The platform on which the Great Plaza sits, and which includes the area under the Acropolis, covers 6 hectares (650,000 sq ft), an immense area. In the upper left quadrant of the photo is the sunken Ball Court 1, with the small Altar of Sacrifices slightly to its right. I was standing not far from this Altar when I took the previous photo of the Acropolis. In the upper right quadrant is a grass-covered mound with a row of altars in front of it. This is the ruin of the Temple of the Cosmic War. Hidden under the trees in the lower left quadrant is the Palace of the Underworld. At the extreme lower right are the parallel sides of Ball Court 2.


Ball Court 2 is sited just in front of the Acropolis' first level platform. The court was open at each end, as is often the case for Maya ball courts. The upper, or southern, parallel side of the court contains a row of five altars. There may have once been a sixth on the far right. Although smaller than Ball Court 1, its placement is such that thousands of spectators could view the game while using the staircases and platforms of the Acropolis like stadium bleachers. Archaeologists believe Ball Court 2 was constructed in 517 AD, placing it in the middle of the Early Classic period. It is much smaller and less elaborate than Ball Court 1, built 182 years later.


Altar of Sacrifices and the Temple of the Cosmic War. These two structures are located toward the south end of the Great Plaza platform. The Altar of Sacrifices, in the foreground, is only about 10 m (30 ft) from the edge of the sunken Ball Court 1. Its location indicates that it was almost certainly associated with the activities there. The Altar was used for human sacrifices, probably by decapitation. War captives would have been the usual victims. In a future posting of this series, I will show some of Toniná's many sculptures of kneeling captives, their arms bound and their heads lowered in postures of submission. Some of the statues are headless, indicating they have been decapitated. The Temple of the Cosmic War stands in the background of the photo. This temple was built in two stages. The grassy mound is the ruin of the oldest part, probably from the Early Classic period. The stone temple just barely visible on top of the mound was built in 692 AD (the Late Classic Era). The row of five altars across the front (north) side was probably built at the same time. Each of the altars had a disk in front of it identifying it with a particular god. To date, I have been unable to locate information about which gods were worshiped at the Cosmic War Temple or how it got its name. If anyone can provide such information, please leave a comment below.


Ball Court 2

Ball Court 1 was built in a style used throughout Mesoamerica for millennia. The court is shaped like a capital I, with the main playing area in between two walls that slope down to long, low rectangular platforms, also part of the area of play. At each end of the court, there are rectangular spaces shaped like the cross pieces at the top and bottom of a capital I. They would also have been part of the playing area. However, these "cross piece" areas are unusually large, in my experience, and may have been intended for ceremonial purposes before or after the game. The entire floor of the playing area is cobbled with stone.


Another view of court, showing the large, cobblestoned, "cross piece" area. The walls of this sunken area, and its counterpart on the south end, are stepped down, making plenty of space for spectator seating. Ball Court 1 sits right at the eastern edge of the Great Plaza's platform. Behind the trees in the upper left corner of the photo, the land drops down sharply to the stream seen in photo #9 above.  Toniná's Ball Court 1 is important for several reasons. It was closely associated with the long war against Palenque. Built in 699 AD by K'inich B'aaknal Chaak, Toniná's greatest ruler, the dedication of the court celebrated three victories over Palenque's ruler K'inich Kan Balam II. Sculptures of captives representing real people were placed on the sloping walls in the center of the playing court. One of the captives has been identified as Yax Ahk (Green Turtle) who was a nobleman from the city of Annay Te', an ally of Palenque located on the Usumacinta River. It is very likely that Yax Ahk was decapitated on the nearby Altar of Sacrifices.


A sculpture of a bound captive and two snake monsters decorate each side of the court. They were apparently used as playing field markers, or scoring counters. The ones seen above are recreations of originals now kept in the Toniná museum. Another reason this ball court is important, even unique, involves the Popul Vuh. It was the sacred book of the ancient Maya. The Popul Vuh describes the history, cosmology, and creation myths of the ancient Maya world. Recent discoveries of six snake head ball game markers buried in the nearby Temple of the Underworld have led Mexico's archaeologists to conclude that the ball court famously described in the Popul Vuh is in fact the one at Toniná.


A bound captive stares glumly down from the Ball Court wall. This is a replica of a sculpture kept in the Toniná museum. The man is naked except for a loin-cloth and earrings. His arms are bound behind him and there is also a rope across his thighs, He kneels on a large rectangular shield on which is inscribed his name, Chan-Maas, and the date of his capture. Another sculpture is of Sak B'alam, a noble of Palenque who was captured sometime between 688 and 699 AD. Almost certainly, both of these men were sacrificed. As recently as 2011, more sculptures of captives have been found just to the south of Ball Court 1. Two of those are especially well crafted, although who they actually represent is in dispute. Mexican archaeologists believe that the two were warriors from far-away Copan, in Honduras. In the Classic Era, a great superpower rivalry existed between the states of Tikal in modern-day Guatemala and Calakmul in modern Mexico's Yucatan. Each of these ancient superpowers had allies and client states, much like the United States and the old Soviet Union. In this complex struggle, Toniná was allied with Calakmul while Palenque was allied with Tikal.Tikal's ally Copan sent warriors all the way to Palenque to support that city-state in its struggle with Toniná. The fortunes of war and superpower politics led to the capture of these two Copan warriors. They were probably decapitated on the Altar of Sacrifices as a prelude to another of the games played in Ball Court 1.


Closeup of Ball Court 1 snake monster. The snake heads represent astronomical movements such as solstices and equinoces. To the Maya, astronomy, mathematics, and religion were intricately related, and the ball game was played as a part of a variety of rituals which kept the world on track. According to archaeologist Juan Yadeun, "serpents refer to the scepter of the rulers, considered lords of the maiz (corn), those who held the knowledge of the agricultural cycle, farming and harvest times, which only could be calculated by reading the sky."


South end of Ball Court 1. Here, you can clearly see the "stadium seating" design of the sunken court's walls. In addition to keeping the world from careening off the tracks, the ball game had other functions. It was often associated with the celebration of major events such as military victories or the accession of a new ruler. There are also some reports of its use as a device for settling disputes. Finally, there is the basic human enjoyment of exciting spectacles and the desire by rulers to display their magnificence. Since nearly every ancient Maya city had at least one ball court, and some had several, the game was clearly a central cultural feature across the entire society.


The base of a pillar is set into the middle of the south end of the court. Several sources have identified this disk-like object, with a groove around its edge, as the base of a pillar. The location of a pillar at this point puzzled me, because it would have significantly interfered with the free movement of players at the south end of the court. I have seen Maya and other Mesoamerican ball courts all over Mexico and Guatemala, but never one with this feature. The Mesoamerican game has very ancient roots. The earliest court yet discovered dates to 1400 BC. That was 2100 years before Ball Court 1 was dedicated. The game may have been invented by the Olmecs, sometimes called the "Mother of Cultures". The Olmec society, which existed between 1400 BC and 400 BC, developed many of the religious, cultural, and architectural features that were characteristic of Mesoamerican societies for 3000 years. These included not only the ball game, but stepped pyramids, ritual human sacrifice, and the worship of the plumed serpent god, called Kulkulkan by the Maya.


The Sport of Kings. This beautifully carved stone panel found on one of the upper levels of the Acropolis. It depicts two players in a titanic struggle, with an oversized ball between them. The player shown above is Toniná's most famous ruler, K'inich B'aaknal Chaak. I will examine this panel extensively in a future posting, but I include it here as an example of the equipment and protective gear used by players. Some of the items shown are of exaggerated size or were only used ceremonially. The ball shown on the right is much larger than the ones actually used. They ranged in size from a softball to a soccer ball and were made of a stone covered by hard rubber. Some of these  balls have been found to weigh as much as 9 kg (20 lbs). The royal player above wears a protective yoke around his waist. These were ordinarily made of padded leather, but yokes used in ceremonies were often made of stone. The yoke was necessary because a player could be injured or even killed if struck in the abdomen by the heavy ball. The king's knees are protected by fringed pads strapped around his calves, and he wears high-backed sandals on his feet. The fluid energy and power of this wonderful carving shows it to be one of the Maya masterpieces.

This completes Part 15 of my Chiapas series. Next week, I will continue with at look at the various altars, temples, and palaces that make up the Acropolis. I always appreciate feedback and corrections, so if you would like to make 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

The Acropolis of Toniná is filled with palaces, temples, and altars. Level by level, the Acropolis rises high above the Great Plaza seen in the previous posting. Each of the seven successive levels can be reached by way of broad staircases stretching from east to west across the face of the Acropolis. At the very top is the Temple of the Smoking Mirror, also known as the Temple of Agriculture. The total number of steps leading up to it is 260, equal to the number of days in the Tzolkin, the sacred calendar of the Maya. In Toniná, political/social status dictated the level on which a person lived. Not surprisingly, the ruler occupied the top, giving him great vistas of the surrounding forests, mountains and, far below, the maiz (corn) fields of the Valle de Ocosingo. The common people cultivated those lush fields, and their work supported the whole society. On the several levels between the ruler and the commoners lived the elite warriors, priests, astronomers, architects, and administrators. Today, much of the Acropolis is covered by earth and vegetation. This gives the ruins an organic appearance, making it seem to grow right out of the ground. However, in its days of glory, Toniná would have been clear of the detritus of time, its limestone surfaces plastered, stuccoed, and vividly painted. In this posting and the next, we will look at the Acropolis and some of the structures found on it.


Scale model of Toniná, from the site's Museum. This gives a feel for what the Acropolis may have looked like at the beginning of the 10th Century AD. Note that each of the seven levels is made up of multiple platforms, a total of 13 in all, just as there are 13 levels of heaven in the Maya Cosmos, and 13 months of 20 days each in the Tzolkin. There are also 13 temples on the several levels, each devoted to a different Maya god. While there are various pyramidal structures on different levels, the entire Acropolis is itself one vast, stepped pyramid. As such, it is comparable in grandeur with such famous structures as the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan near Mexico City. At level seven, the very top, stand two pyramids. On the right, the Temple of the Smoking Mirror is the tallest part of the overall structure, reaching 80 meters (262 ft) above the Plaza level. The Pyramid of the Sun, by contrast, rises 75 meters (246 ft). To the left of the Smoking Mirror Temple is the Temple of War. These two temples represent the two most important responsibilities of Toniná's ruling elite: control over the agricultural economy, and the conduct of war. Politics, religion, war, and the all-important cultivation of maiz (corn) were seamlessly interwoven in ancient Maya societies. In the lower right quadrant of the photo, you can see palaces and administrative buildings, with their latticed roof combs. These were the residences and offices of the elite.


El Palacio del Inframundo

Three doorways provide entry to El Inframundo, an underground labyrinth. The Palace of the Underworld is located on the eastern side of the Acropolis. This complex labyrinth is pitch dark inside, except for a few small windows in the thick walls. This structure, on the bottom level of the Acropolis, represents the place of darkness into which the dead descend. In the Maya Cosmos, Xibalba ("Place of Fear") actually has 9 levels. However, the builders of the Acropolis were not prepared to go so far as to build a 9 story substructure under the Acropolis. They apparently felt that one level would be sufficient to get the point across.


A Mexican tourist peeps out of a side passage within the labyrinth. In the photo above, the passage appears well-lit. While there is a tiny square window at the bottom of the end of the corridor, nearly all the light in this photo was provided by my flash. Otherwise, the space would have been darker than the inside of a black cat at midnight. The ceiling of the long corridor uses a corbel, or "false" arch, made by stepping the sides of the wall in until they meet at the top. Master architects that they were, the Maya never achieved the true arch. The rituals of the priestly elite must have been illuminated by smokey torches, adding to the mystery and terror of Xibalba.


A window through the thick walls is shaped like a cross. The appearance of crosses like this thoroughly confused the Spanish friars who arrived shortly after the Conquest. Could the people who built these great edifices have been a lost group of early Christians who somehow wandered into the New World, scattering such crosses behind them? In truth, the meaning of the Maya cross is very different from that of the Christian version. The Maya cross represents the World Tree, with roots in Xibalba, a trunk that represents daily reality, and a broad canopy of branches (the cross piece) which represents the heavens. The ancient Maya believed that the Ceiba tree, found widely in their world, was the earthly manifestation of the World Tree. Even today, Maya loggers are reluctant to cut down a Ceiba.


Carole sits among some of the ruins of the Palace of the Underworld. I took this shot from Level 2, just above the three doors entering El Unframundo. The structure behind Carole has a row of columns across its front and is part of the  Palacio del Inframundo's complex. The labyrinth under the grass at my feet winds and twists below Level 2. The passages ultimately lead to stairways that bring you up, at last, into the sunlight. The ancients who trembled as they crept through the inky blackness must have been as relieved as I was to finally emerge.


Back down on Level 1, a stela adorns a small altar in front of a row of broad staircases. Other than the Palacio del Unframundo, Level one has only a few other features. The length and width of the Level 1 platform is such that it could have accommodated quite a crowd. The steps of the staircase would have formed seating areas where hundreds of people could watch the ceremonies at the altar.


Closeup of the small altar and stela.Stelae were important features of many Maya cities between about 400 AD to 900 AD. Some were carved, while others were decorated with stucco designs. The one above was probably  covered with stucco which has worn or fallen away over the centuries. Stelae were closely associated with the concept of divine kingship, and were used to detail dynastic histories, to commemorate important evens such as military victories or the accession of a new ruler, and to display the images of great kings or other persons of importance.


Wall of the Grecas


Another grand staircase leads from Level 2 to Level 3. This set of stairs has a small altar at its base, partially visible at the lower left. Above the staircase, you can see a long colonnaded structure. This may have been a temple, or perhaps a barracks for the warriors and lower level officials who lived on the west side of the Acropolis. Still higher, at the base of the tree in the upper right, is the base platform for one of the temples of Level 4.


The Wall of the Grecas is one of the Acropolis' most unusual features. The abstract symbol is a huge stone relief mural set on a sloping wall. Its dimensions are 7 meters (23 ft) high and 21 meters (69 ft) wide. Greca is a Spanish word referring to a repeating architectural design. Some archaeologists claim the grecas' "X"-shaped design represents Kulkulkan, the feathered serpent, known in non-Maya areas as Quetzalcoatl. Other archaeologists suggest that the "X" design represents Witz, the Sacred Mountain, and the three levels of Maya spiritual thought. The design reminded me of others I have seen at the Mixtec ruin of Mitla near Oaxaca, a state which borders Chiapas, and from which such designs could have migrated through trade. Above the wall, you can see several columns that were part of a structure known as the Palace of the Grecas and of War, or the Palace of the Stepped Frets. All these different names and interpretations show how much we have yet to learn after more than 150 years of archaeological studies of this site.


A side view of the Wall of the Grecas shows clever engineering. The zig-zag designs of the arms of the "X" are revealed to be steps leading up the wall to the palace above. After ascending the seven steps of an arm leaning toward the center, a climber must turn 180 degrees on the landing and ascend seven more steps on the outward leaning arm. Because the angle of the wall, the ascent is not as precarious as it might at first appear. It is useful to remember that the people who designed and built the Acropolis had no metal tools, no wheeled vehicles to transport the stones, and no draft animals to pull such vehicles. What they did possess was a sophisticated system of mathematics and engineering, and a wonderful eye for design. And, of course, they also had a huge supply of very low-cost labor at the command of the rulers.


The Venus Throne

Local Maya workers perform maintenance on the Venus Throne. The workers are employed by INAH, the Mexican federal government agency that protects and preserves Mexico's ancient heritage. This small but impressive structure is located immediately to the right of the Wall of the Grecas on the eastern end of Level 3. The constant flow of tourists clambering about the ruins means that the workers have plenty to keep them busy. At the base of the stairs leading up to the throne you can see a small wooden sign with the yellow imprint of a foot. This indicates the proper route a visitor should take to remain safe and avoid damage to the structure. Unfortunately, such footprint signs were about the only kind I found throughout the Toniná ruins, with the exception of a large sign at the entrance containing general information. Nearly all of the specific information I present here about the Acropolis' fascinating structures has been gleaned from other sources, including the internet. Some sources contradict others, and I have tried to use the sources that seem most authoritative.


A closer view of the Venus Throne. The feet of the throne resemble jaguar paws and the stucco design at its back represents Venus (hence the name) and contains designs carved to resemble precious stones. It is unclear whether the throne area was originally covered by an awning made of perishable materials as it is today. It seems logical that anyone important enough to sit on a throne like this would have been shielded from the sun and rain. Contemporary sculptures of Maya figures on thrones like this show them sitting, not with legs draped over the sides, but kneeling or cross-legged on the platform.


Another view of the Throne. Notice the stucco sculpture behind the throne, shaped like the letter "W". This is one of the symbols that represents Venus, a celestial body that appears twice a day as the Morning and Evening Stars. This dual aspect of Venus connected it to the Hero Twins who, by defeating the Lords of Xibalba, made the present world possible.  Venus was also closely associated with both Kulkulcan and Chaac, the god of rain. Kulkulcan (called Quetzalcoatl elsewhere), was believed to have given the gift of maiz to mankind. The rain brought by Chaac was essential to its cultivation. Only a person of great power and authority would have sat on the Venus Throne.


View from the Venus Throne over the Ocosingo Valley to the southwest. This area, now used as pasture for horses and cattle, would have been covered with fields of maiz in ancient times. A portion of the Wall of Grecas can be seen in the lower right corner. Also visible are various grassy mounds on Levels 2 and 3 that were once the bases of temples and altars. In the center of the left side of the photo, between the two palm trees, you can see the parallel walls of Ball Court 2 on the Great Plaza. The view from the Venus Throne seems truly fit for a king.


The Water Shrine

Sheltered by a palm frond palapa, the Water Shrine is a large sculpture of stucco and rock. Notice the small carved opening in the top from which the water would have flowed. It would have cascaded down, possibly to fall into the rough stone bowl seen at the bottom. Since there are apparently no springs near this spot, someone would have had to pour water into an unseen opening higher than the one you see above. How this was done, what sort of ritual was involved, and to what god it was dedicated remain a mystery to me. Generally speaking, ready access to water was extremely important to all the ancient Mesoamerican societies. The economic foundation of all those societies was the large scale production of maiz. Archaeologists believe that a key factor in the collapse of the Classic Era Maya civilizations in Chiapas, Guatemala, and southern Yucatan may have been a prolonged drought. This may have been caused by centuries of deforestation. Huge amounts of wood were needed to burn limestone to create plaster and stucco for great cities like Toniná.


Side view closeup of the Water Shrine. Here, you can clearly see the trough from which the water flowed. Also visible is one of the stucco carvings to the right of the trough. The design has the appearance of a spiral, or perhaps a conch shell. Conches were used as  trumpets to draw the attention of Chaac, the rain god.


Temple of the Earth Monster


This shrine stands in front of the Temple of the Earth Monster. This stone and stucco sculpture represents Witz, the Sacred First Mountain. The hole in the base represents a cave. The Maya believed caves were openings into the Underworld. The round stone has been interpreted as either the earth, or the sun, being swallowed by the Witz. That it would be the sun makes sense to me, since the sun is swallowed by the mountains surrounding the Ococsingo Valley on a daily basis. On either side of the mouth of the cave are writhing snakes, often associated with caves in Maya mythology.


On top of the shrine, above the cave, are the remains of what appear to be a stucco head. This may be the bust of an important ruler, who wanted to associate himself with Witz and the primal forces of creation. By making themselves the intermediaries between the people and the gods, the rulers and the priestly elite who served them were able to solidify their power, and command respect and obedience. Significantly, this shrine was built about the time when the stelae associated with divine kingship began to appear in Toniná.


Stucco design on the right side of the Witz' mouth. In the Maya creation myth, the Hero Twins, Hunapu (One Blowgunner) and Xbalanque (Jaguar Sun) had to enter the Sacred First Mountain's cave and match wits with the Lords of the Underworld. After undergoing numerous trials and tests, they tricked the two most important of the Lords into allowing themselves to be sacrificed. The rest of the Lords fled in terror and thereafter only had authority over the Underworld.

This completes Part 16 of my Chiapas series. Next week, I will continue our survey of the Acropolis at Toniná, focusing on the temples, pyramids, palaces, and stucco sculptures of the upper levels. I hope you enjoyed this posting. I always appreciate feedback, and if you would like you may either leave a comment in the 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

The Temple of the Earth Monster is adorned with a distinctive roof comb. Under the palm-frond palapa just to the right of center is the Shrine of the Earth Monster, seen in my last posting. The Temple  is located on the eastern side of the sixth level of Toniná's Acropolis and is entered by the doorway at the center of the photo. Roof combs were decorative elements found atop temples and pyramids throughout the Maya world. They were often used to hang large relief carvings of kings or gods which could be seen from a long distance.  In this posting, we'll look at the palaces used as elite residences and administrative centers and at some of the thirteen temples located on the various levels. For a site map of the Acropolis, click here.


The palaces of the elite

Palace of the Grecas and of War.  The palace is located just above the Wall of the Grecas. The Venus throne is located under the palapa at the upper right. Both of those impressive structures can be seen in my previous posting. This building was one of Toniná's chief administrative centers. Within these walls, busy officials attended to the city state's business, accounted for tribute, and performed other administrative functions for the ruler. The structure's name also indicates a connection with war. The elite warriors may have met here to plot strategy in their long campaign against Palenque, the traditional enemy, as well as against other cities in Chiapas and the surrounding lowlands.


Seen from above, the residential compounds of the palace complex resemble a maze. Our guide (above), was a very nice young fellow from San Cristóbal de las Casas. He was quite nimble in moving up, down, and around the Acropolis. Unfortunately, he spoke no English and my Spanish is insufficient for anything as sophisticated as archeological questions. He did show me the various structures and sculptures, for which I was grateful because I could have easily missed some on my own. Keep in mind that what you see above is just one small section. The door at the top center leads to yet another maze, and so on.


Looking back through the door to the section seen previously. The structure of the doorway shows how a corbel, or "false," arch is built. Stone slabs are placed closer and closer together as the door rises until a long lintel can complete the top. The Maya architects never achieved the true arch. This meant that their walls had to be especially thick and the rooms long and narrow. I could only pass through this door by stooping slightly. The ancient Maya, like their modern counterparts, were of fairly short stature. The lower part of the wall at the left is still covered by a layer of plaster. Brightly painted plaster or stucco would have covered most of the rough stonework we see today.


One of the palaces had a long porch supported by large pillars. While I have seen round pillars in Maya sites such as Uxmal and elsewhere, the only ones I saw at Toniná were square in shape. Long pillared porches are still a staple in Mexican architecture. These provide protection from rain and sun and allow a great deal of outdoor living.


Small, square windows line the exterior wall of a palace. The windows are fairly high up and only about .3 m square (1 ft. sq) each. The interior of most palace rooms must have been dark and gloomy since the doors are generally small and a lot of rooms have no windows at all. However, the use of these spaces would likely have been for storage or sleeping or protection from rainstorms. During the day, outdoor living would have been the rule since the climate is generally mild in this part of the world. The various terraces and porches of the Acropolis would have provided ample space to conduct life's daily routines. On days when the heat might become oppressive, people could retreat to the cool dim rooms, protected by the insulation of their thick stone walls. Conversely, on cool rainy days, the rooms could be easily warmed with a small fires.


Many of the residential rooms were equipped with platforms like this one. These appear to have been sleeping platforms, with ample space underneath for storage. Some rooms have two or more such platforms. By modern standards, nearly all the rooms in the elite residential area are small. However, they were built of stone and are sturdy enough to have withstood the ravages of more than 1000 years. How many modern homes will still be standing after that length of time? The common person's home was called a nah and was made of sticks and mud. The only part of those perishable homes to have survived are the stone platforms on which they were built.


The owner of this apartment decorated a wall with painted stucco grecas. The lattice of Xs are a common Maya feature. Above the crosses are some repeated features called grecas that may be abstract, or may be animal faces turned sideways. Notice the red and blue paint, faded but still visible on the surface of the stucco.


This was an ancient toilet, according to our guide. The drain is now plugged with earth. If our guide is right, this is one of the few examples I have seen of "indoor plumbing" in a pre-hispanic site. The conquistadors under Hernán Cortéz reported that the Mexica (Aztecs) had a highly organized system of public restrooms from which the human waste was regularly collected for use as fertilizer on their chinampas (floating orchards and vegetable gardens). However, all that was destroyed in the Conquest.


A water cistern occupies the floor of another room in the residential complex. Storing water in easily breakable clay pots would have been problemactic. Using slaves from their various conquests, the elite could keep the cistern full with water carried up from the stream that flows along the base of the eastern boundary of Toniná (see Part 15 of this series).


A mysterious disk lies at one end of a long hallway. What its purpose might be remains a puzzle to me. However, a similar but smaller disk can be found at one end of Ball Court #1 on the Great Plaza (see Part 15). That disk has been identified as the base of a column. It is possible that this one might be for a similar purpose. Still, its location would be an odd place for a column. Once again, to my frustration, there was no informational sign in the area.


Temples of the upper Acropolis

A series of twisting stairways leads up from the palace levels to the temples above. Two open doorways with no lintels stand at the entrances of two temples on successive levels. Behind the upper doorway, you can make out the roof comb of the Temple of the Earth Monster on the next level above. Notice the small yellow footprint at the bottom of the stairway. These indicated safe routes up the Acropolis. Unfortunately, they are the only signs I found on the Acropolis.


Side view of the Earth Monster Temple, looking south. Here, you can see the roof comb more clearly. Notice the small windows in the side of the temple, typical of those found throughout the Acropolis complex. To the left of the Temple, on a lower level, you can see part of the palace complex we visited earlier in this posting. The people living and working on the upper levels of the Acropolis would have had magnificent views of the Valle de Ocosingo and the mountains of Chiapas' central highlands. Aside from the aesthetic aspect, enemies could be seen approaching from a considerable distance.


Roof comb of another structure to the west of the Earth Monster Temple. These roof combs reminded me of the board-and-cinderblock bookshelves I created as a young college student. In front, and to the right, are two more roofless  temples. The 13 temples on the Acropolis were each dedicated to a different god in the Maya pantheon. The number 13 was especially potent in the Maya cosmos: 13 principle gods, thirteen levels of heaven, and 13 months of 20 days each in the sacred 260-day calendar. It doesn't end there, but you get the idea.


A tree grows out of the top of this small, unnamed pyramid on the sixth level. The people of Toniná abandoned their city sometime after 909 AD. That was the last Long Count date inscribed on a Toniná monument, and the last such date found anywhere in the Maya World.  The fast-growing jungle immediately began to take over. For a thousand years, Toniná lay forgotten, empty, and overwhelmed by the forest. Foreigners finally began to poke around, beginning with early Spanish explorers, . However, it was not until the 19th Century that people began organized archaeological investigations. Explorers like John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood stopped by in the 1840s on their way to better known sites such as Palenque. Serious excavation didn't begin until the first part of the 20th Century. Significant discoveries are still being made, including some in 2013.


The Temple of War is one of two pyramids on the top level of the Acropolis. I took this shot from the top of the somewhat-taller Temple of the Smoking Mirror which sits a few feet to the east of the Temple of War. The Smoking Mirror Temple is associated with agriculture, among other things. Thus, the two temples represent the two most important functions of the ruler and the priests and warriors who surrounded him. Their top responsibilities were to ensure the proper functioning of the agricultural economy, and the successful conduct of warfare.  The bottom three levels of the War Temple are  relatively intact, but the upper levels have been largely destroyed. According to the model in the museum, there were three additional levels topped by a large roof comb. The two flights of stairs you see directly in front of you, on the east side of the Temple of War, each contain 9 steps, echoing the 9 levels of the underworld. On the north side, there are several other sets. The bottom of these contains 13 steps, a familiar number.


A workman carefully climbs the stairs on the north side of the Temple of War. Each riser is fairly high and the steps themselves are narrow. Missed footing could result in a nasty tumble resulting in serious injury or worse. Because of this, INAH has restricted access to many pre-hispanic pyramids and temples. Fortunately for my photography, this was not the case at Toniná.

This completes Part 17 of my Chiapas series. Next time we'll take a close look at the Temple of the Smoking Mirror and at some of the many stone and stucco sculptures found on the various levels.  I always appreciate feedback. If you'd like to leave a comment or have a question answered, please either use the Comments section below or email me directly.

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

Hasta luego, Jim

A Revolutionary Mona Lisa gazes enigmatically into the camera. Wearing the Mexican national colors, this young woman was chatting with friends along the route of Ajijic's Revolution Day parade. My photographer's eye was caught by her colorful head gear and I managed a quick shot just at the moment she saw me. A fraction of a second later, she burst into gales of laughter. At the time I regretted not catching her laughing, but later when I processed the photo on my computer, I realized this was my best shot of the day.

Every November 20, Mexico celebrates the beginning of its 1910 Revolution. It was a titanic struggle that changed the nation forever, greatly improving the rights and living standards of ordinary people. It was also extremely destructive. Mexico lost 1 out of every 7 of its people and a large part of its infrastructure. In this posting, I'll give you both a look at Ajijic's colorful 2013 Revolution Day parade and a brief history of the Revolution itself. It was a very complex period and I know that this explanation certainly doesn't do it complete justice. I urge those who are interested to delve further into this fascinating time.


A girl's drum corps leads off from the bull ring, heading toward the main Plaza. Most of the people who march in the parade are children from local schools, ranging from kindergarteners to the high school girls you see above. The kids practice their drumming for weeks in advance. Part of my enjoyment of each fall's Fiesta Season is listening to their thunderous drills as they march up and down the streets near my home.

The Revolution had its roots in the unfinished business of the War for Independence from Spain (1810-1821) and the Reform War (1857-1861). The first abolished slavery and ended the dominance of Spain over Mexico. The second reduced the political and economic power of the Catholic Church and established--at least on paper--a liberal republican constitution. Although much was promised to the indigenous people and mestizos (people of mixed race) to gain their support, neither struggle was revolutionary in its result and the same elite class of hacendados (hacienda owners), mine owners, and businessmen remained in control throughout the 19th Century. In the words of a famous rock song, "Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss..."


Young acrobats balance and teeter as they form a human pyramid. There were several groups of high school age kids who erected such pyramids during brief stops during the parade. This year, many school groups performed one sort of an act or another, rather than just march with banners as they have in previous years.

The Conservatives, who lost the Reform War in 1861, then invited the French to invade Mexico in 1862 and install Ferdinand Maximilian as emperor. Maximilian's "empire" met bitter resistance and lasted only five years. Benito Juarez led the Liberal forces that finally expelled the invaders and re-established a republican form of government. The Catholic Church had backed the losing side in both the Reform War and the French Occupation and Juarez demanded that its political and economic power be broken. He and his Liberal supporters objected to the Church's control over a huge percentage of the nation's arable land and its domination of education in Mexico. 


Pretty pom pom girls strut their stuff before an appreciative audience. The crowd was thickening on each side of the cobblestone street. I had to duck and weave to get into position for good shots. A lot of others, expats and locals alike, were doing the same.  We tried--not always successfully--to keep out of each other's viewfinders.

Benito Juarez was a man of unshakeable integrity. Using lands seized from the Church, he hoped to create a large class of independent farmers on which to base a democratic society. Unfortunately, the ordinary people had little capital with which to buy the land, and the government desperately needed revenue from land sales to pay off the debt created by decades of war. Despite Juarez' good intentions, most of the Church land ended up in the hands of the hacendados and foreign investors. In addition, the indigenous people lost what little protection the Church had provided against hacendados who continued their arbitrary seizures of ancestral lands. Once again, the hopes of the common people for land reform and social change were dashed. Once again, the new boss bore a striking resemblance to the old one.


Hula hoop teams were a returning act from previous years. The kids don't twirl them around their waists like they did in my time. Rather, they move them in synchronized routines such as the one being performed above. My guess is that they don't call it a hula hoop either.

Juarez died in office in 1872, and was replaced by his Foreign Minister Lerdo de Tejeda. In the meantime, former General Porfirio Diaz had been maneuvering for power. Diaz had been a hero during the Reform War and the resistance against the French. He won many battles and created quite a name for himself. He was also very ambitious politically and, after the victory over the French, he led several unsuccessful revolts against Juarez. After Juarez died, Diaz continued to maneuver and eventually was elected President of Mexico in 1877. He remained in power for the next 35 years, either directly as president or by alternating with hand-picked successors. Diaz' years in power were known as the Porfiriato. During this time, he modernized many aspects of the economy. However, most of the benefits went to a handful of his political supporters and most of the costs of this wrenching change were borne by Mexico's industrial workers and peones (agricultural workers on haciendas).


This top hat drill was a new one. The serious faces and narrowed eyes are a result of the brilliant morning sun slanting directly into the marchers' eyes. The bright light created stark contrasts that are one of the banes of my photography. Fortunately, a lot of it can be corrected using the iPhoto program on my Mac computer.

During the Porfiriato, new railroads and telegraph lines criss-crossed the nation--but were largely owned by British and American companies. Wealthy Mexicans and foreigners invested heavily in mines and factories. This resulted in high levels of production, but the workers suffered from low wages and brutal working conditions. Agriculture improved in efficiency and cash crops like sugar, sisal, and agave flourished. However, Mexico's land was dominated by a hacienda system controlled by a small number of aristocratic families who made millions while their peones lived in poverty and illiteracy.


These little baton twirlers took their roles very seriously. They tried to follow the directions of their teacher but some, like the girl on the right, were distracted by the crowd. Proud parents lined the streets or followed along on the sidewalks to encourage their kids.

Diaz' strong rule provided the stability that enabled all this modernization and economic development. He threw open the doors to foreign investment and created laws to protect business. He aided the mine and factory owners by crushing strikes and suppressing labor organizing. Hacendados benefited when Diaz drastically expanded the Rurales (rural police). Their job was to stamp out banditry and to catch and return peones trying to escape debt slavery on the haciendas. Ironically, many of the bandits were former peones with few options other than banditry or a return to degradation on a hacienda. Famous Revolutionary General Pancho Villa was a former peon who had escaped into the mountains of Chihuahua to lead the life of a bandit after killing a local hacendado who had raped his sister.


Always, there were more drummers, creating an intense racket. These girls were a bit younger, but still wielded their drum sticks with vigor and authority.

Meanwhile, in between the clique around Diaz and the toiling masses below, a small professional class began to emerge. It was made up of doctors, lawyers, hacienda administrators, and middle managers needed by the wealthy classes to make things run. The professionals, along with some of the more forward-thinking elements among the hacendado and business classes, began to chafe under the Porfiriato. Most of them had no desire to change the basic structure of Mexican society, much less to initiate a broad social revolution. They simply hated the glass ceiling that separated them from the vast wealth and power accumulated by the Diaz clique. They thought the solution to their problem would be what people in the US now call "term limits." The theory was that if no one could be elected more than once, a strong man would not be able to maintain himself in power as Diaz had, through a series of rigged elections. The reformers called themselves Anti-reeleccionistas.


Revolutionaries too young to march rode the floats. Proud mothers created their childrens' costumes, often sewing them by hand. Mexican parents love their children deeply and it shines through, not only on these occasions, but in everyday life.

Diaz's strategy for keeping control over the restless middle class was called "plata o plomo" (silver or lead). If special favors (the silver) from the regime didn't bring you into line, an assassin's lead bullet might well be your fate. The Porfiriato was a police state operating behind a mask of "democratic elections" the results of which were never in doubt. Decade after decade, the Porfiriato rolled along, seemingly secure in its power. US and European investors prided themselves on their safe and lucrative holdings in stable, business-friendly Mexico. Unnoticed by them, or by most wealthy Mexicans, a vast upheaval was approaching. The more Diaz clamped the lid down on the boiling pot, the more the pressure built, and the longer it built, the more violent the social explosion was going to be.


Porfirio Diaz and his top-hatted cronies escort their fine ladies in the parade. Diaz liked to appear in photographs and portraits wearing uniforms encrusted with gold braid and medals. Others among the top levels of Mexican society aped the high fashions of Europe. During the Porfiriato, a newspaper cartoonist named Jose Guadalupe Posada began to satirize the pretensions of the newly rich by portraying them as skeletons wearing European finery. The figures in Posada's drawings came to be known as Catrinas. Versions of them are still wildly popular in Mexico, particularly during the annual fiesta known as Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Among those who objected to Diaz' seemingly endless rule was Francisco Madero, a member of a wealthy family of hacendados from northern Mexico. He took up the Anti-reeleccionista cause as his platform when he ran against Diaz in the 1910 election. Although a member of the upper class, Madero gained support among ordinary Mexicans when he spoke out against the repression of labor unions and the enslavement of the indigenous Yaqui people who had been sent in chains to work on sisal haciendas in Yucatan. Diaz promptly imprisoned Madero, but the reformer escaped to the United States where he issued his Plan of San Luis Potosi. The Plan called for armed revolution and, among other things, for the restoration of lands stolen from indigenous people by hacendados. Madero set November 20, 1910 as the date for the uprising.