Original Villages | Fiestas in Pueblo Iztacalco, Part I: Commemorating the Past, Enjoying the Present

Challenge of Finding Fiestas in Pueblo Iztacalco

Delegación/Alcaldía (mayoralty, borough) Iztacalco, the smallest delegación/alcaldía in the city, is no more than fifteen minutes north from our home base in Delegacion/Alcaldía Coyoacán. Immediately southeast of Delegación Cuauhtémoc (Centro Histórico's location), it has major highways and avenues surrounding and crossing it, so it is easy to access. San Matías church, from the 16th century, is the central church of the original pueblo, while each of its seven barrios, Santa Cruz, La Asunción, San Miguel, Los Reyes, San Sebastián Zapotla, San Francisco Xicaltongo and Santiago Atoyac, has its own chapel, so there should be plenty of fiestas.

Yet, we have found it difficult to find fiestas that its barrios are celebrating individually or together as a pueblo in the plaza in front of San Matías. A couple of barrio fiestas we have attended have been so small in attendance and limited in their activities that we haven't been able to find a narrative to present them. We did present the Barrio Santiago Atoyac's Honoring of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It, too, was a small affair, but full of ánimo (spirit, liveliness) and color, providing the elements of a good post. Perhaps, we thought, we just hadn't yet found the major fiesta.

Finally, recently, our luck changed. There were two fiestas in Iztacalco held close together. First, in mid-April was el Viernes de Dolores (Friday of Pain or Sorrows) the Friday before Palm Sunday, which venerates the Virgin Mary for all the sorrows and pain she experienced in the life of her son, Jesus the Christ, ending in His Passion, his torture and crucifixion during Semana Santa (Holy Week).

The second fiesta was in mid-May, the patron saint fiesta for San Matías. We will present that in part II of this series.

From Recalling with Sorrow the Sufferings of the Virgin to Recalling with Pride La Viga Canal

Arriving at the Viernes de Dolores, we do not find the expected focus on the Virgin Mary and her suffering. Normally, it is accompanied by an elaborate and specific set of symbols for her suffering, such as a heart pierced with seven daggers, representing the seven times in her life when she was made aware that her son would die as a sacrifice, or hanging glass globes filled with liquid, representing her tears. Instead, we encounter a celebration of the history of the Royal or (after Independence from Spain) the National Canal, popularly called La Viga (the Beam). The change of focus and the reversal of sentiments is, to say the least, striking, but we realize from past research about the history of Mexico City that there is an underlying connection.

Iztacalco's Transformation from an Island, to a Stop on a Canal

Iztacalco was originally an island or set of islands, among many in the midst of a bay in the southwest corner of Lake Texcoco, south of the great city of the Mexica/Azteca, Tenochtitlan. Its residents made their living by extracting salt from the waters of the lake and selling it in the famous market of Tlatelolco, just north of Tenochtitlan. (The lakes, being totally surrounded by mountains, had no outlet to the sea. Lake Texcoco was the lowest in altitude and therefore received the waters from the four other lakes in the system, thus becoming salty.) Iztacalco means House of Salt in Nahuatl.

The island of Iztacalco
lay near the southeast end 
of the west bay of Lake Texcoco,
about halfway between the Peninsula of Iztapalapa
(lower right corner) 
and the island city of Tenochtitlan.

Sculpture of the Nahuatl glyph for House of Salt
in the Plaza of Iztacalco

In the 17th century, the Spanish decided to drain Lake Texcoco to protect Mexico City (built atop the destroyed Tenochtitlan), from frequent flooding during the summer rainy season. As the lake dropped away, they built the Royal Canal to provide a water route for the transportation of agricultural products from the chinampas (man-made islands) in Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco, in the southern part of the Valley, to the City.

Iztacalco — now no longer an island, but part of the mainland, and no longer with a salt business —  became a major stop along the canal, with a pier for loading products for the city. (See our post: La Viga Canal: Pathway from a Land of Lakes to One of Roadways)

La Viga (former Royal, then National) Canal in 1850.
It is superimposed on a map of Mexico City from 1970.

Iztacalco lies somewhat more than halfway up the canal.

Heavy red line up the center is modern outer-ring expressway.
Thin red line up left side is Calzada de Tlalpan,
the former Mexica cuepotli, causeway,
between Tenochtitlan and the southern end of Lake Texcoco.

From the blog: Historia: Geografía y Rarezas

Paseo (trip) of Viceroy (1702-1710) Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque, 
and his wife, Doña Juana de la Cerda, up the Royal Canal in the early 18th century. 
Their barge is in the foreground.

The church of San Matías Ixtacalco is in the left background. 
(The pueblo's name was spelled with an 'x' until the 20th century.)
Painted by Pedro Villegas in 1706,
it is the oldest representation of the Canal de la Viga and chinampas (man-made island gardens, on the right).
Wikipedia en español

Church of San Matías today,
little changed in over four hundred years.

How El Viernes de Dolores Became Connected with La Viga Canal: El Paseo de la Viga

In 1785, Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez ordered a promenade built alongside the Royal Canal. When de Galvez died unexpectedly, it was completed under the mandate of the new viceroy, the Second Count of Revillagigedo, who undertook a major renewal of the entire cityscape.

Called el Paseo de la Viga, it ran from south of the Church of San Pablo Nuevo, in what was then the southeast corner of the city, to the Garita (tollhouse) de la Viga (see map above), near Pueblo Santa Anita Zacatlamanco, north of Iztacalco (see island map above). It was approximately one kilometer, a little over half a mile in length, and thirty meters, or nearly a hundred feet, wide. On Sundays, families would take a paseo, stroll, along the western side of the Canal. They could also ride horses or in carriages or travel on the Canal on trajineras (flat-bottomed canoes), just as Mexicans and tourists do today on the canals of Xochimilco.

El Paseo y Garita de la Viga
Lithograph by Casimiro Castro

In the foreground is the embarcadero where people boarded flat-bottomed trajineras.

To the right is the Paseo, filled with pedestrians
and horse-drawn carriages.

From: El Paseo y la Garita de la Viga
By: Manuel Aguirre Botello
MexicoMaxico

It became the tradition to hold a large tianguis (outdoor market) and festival during Semana Santa (Holy Week) at the end of the Paseo in Santa Anita Zacatlamanco. Such Semana Santa holiday markets are still held in various cities in Mexico. There are big ones in Pátzcuaro and Uruapan in Michoacán, where we used to live. We are grateful to Diego Rivera for a wonderful mural of this market/fiesta along the canal, still held in the 1920s.

Viernes de Dolores en el Canal de Santa Ana
Friday of Sorrows on the Santa Ana Canal
Diego Rivera, in the Secretariat of Public Education

Fiesta del Viernes de Dolores
Canal de la Viga
Pueblo Santa Anita.
From Facebook page
Iztacalco Barrio Mágico, Pueblo Bendecido por Dios
@barriomagico.iztacalco

During the 1920s, trucks replaced the need for trajineras to bring produce into the center city, and paved roads eliminated the need for the canal. It fell into disuse but remained in existence until the 1950s. Then, as part of a government urban development plan to create many major avenues for automobiles in the city, the canal was filled in and paved over, becoming the avenue Calzada de la Viga. In place of the canal, it now runs through the center of the original Pueblo Iztacalco, directly in front of the Plaza and the Church of San Matías.

Street sign near the central plaza.

Plaza de Iztacalco, seen from la Calzada de la Viga.
The Church of San Matías sits to the rear, hidden by the 19th-century kiosk
and vendors' tarps.

What we witness today, on el Viernes de Dolores, is a remnant of that former holiday market, moved south from neighboring Santa Anita, and a commemoration of the important place la Viga Canal played in the history of Iztacalco after it was transformed from an island producing salt to a stopping point on that primary commercial pathway of the City. 

Images of La Viga

As we enter the plaza, we see along one side a display of photographs. They are turn
-of-the-19th to 20th-century images of la Viga:

La Viga
The arches structure is a garita, a toll booth

Because the exhibit is outside, the photos are covered with plastic wrap. Hence the wrinkles.

"La Flor Más Bella" de la Viga.
The Most Beautiful Flower" of la Viga.

Here is a link to a wonderful, three-minute slide show of more old photos and paintings of life on and around La Viga from the late 19th century into the early years of the 20th. It includes photos of the fair of Viernes de Dolores and "La Flor Más Bella", presented below in this post. Video thanks to the Facebook page Iztacalco Barrio Mágico.

"La Flor Más Bella", "The Most Beautiful Flower"

The last photo portrays "La Flor Más Bella", "The Most Beautiful Flower" of the canal system. It is a beauty contest sponsored by the flower growers in the chinampas and users of the canal and held each year at Easter time. The contest is still held every Eastertide on the canals of Xochimilco. It celebrates the chinampa-canal system which makes possible the year-round growing of flowers and produce, making it the major source for the flower and vegetable markets all over the Valley, from the major Jamaica indoor market to smaller local formal markets to informal street vendors. (See our post on the Markets of Mexico City)

Now, here in Pueblo Iztacalco, we are presented with its Flor Más Bella. A gentleman in traditional charro cowboy suit with a huge sombrero speaks to the small crowd about the history of la Viga and its importance in the heritage of Iztacalco. 

Then a pretty young woman and two other females, dressed in indigenous-style dress come forward. 

"La Flor Más Bella" is in the middle. 

La Flor Más Bella and the other two women wear variations of parts of female dress popular among urban women in central and southern Mexico, including Mexico City, Puebla and Cuernavaca, during the 19th and early 20th century known as China poblana (Puebla woman). It mixes elements of various indigenous dress components, such as the huipil, the square-cut blouse with embroidered flowers from Chiapas and Oaxaca, two highly indigenous states. Frida Kahlo, at the encouragement of her husband, Diego Rivera, is the most famous representative of China poblana attire, a modern, urban woman displaying a rural indigenous heritage. It is worn here for a ceremonial occasion. It is hardly ever seen on the streets of Mexico City. Upscale women in Cuernavaca dress in huipil blouses and blue jeans.  

A China poblano dress of Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo House Museum.

La Flor Más Bella

Danzón: Dance that is Elegant, Formal and Sexual

After the commemoration of La Viga, the party really begins. Danzón music is played from loudspeakers and several couples of la tercera edad, the third age, i.e., senior citizens, get up from the plaza benches and begin its slow, stylized and sensuous movements. They are definitely "dressed-up" for the occasion, the women in cocktail-style dresses, the men mostly in suits or sports jackets and slacks. Danzón arose in the tropical heat of Cuba, a mixture of Spanish 2/4 contradance rhythm and African syncopation. Many danzón groups exist in towns and cities across Mexico.

Let´s dance!

Wouldn't we love to be able to wear
 an indigo suit?

Or a black fedora with an orange band and a white suit with an orange handkerchief?

We´ll dance until we can no more.

Love all around

Delegación Iztacalco
is the small, dark green area
in the northeast of the City,
just southeast of Delegación Cuauhtémoc,
site of Centro/Tenochtitlan.

Delegación/Alcaldía Iztacalco
with its barrios and colonias.
The center of the barrios forming the original Pueblo Iztacalco 
are marked by green/yellow star.

Blue line passing through the star was the Viga Canal,
now the avenue Calzada de la Viga.

Original Pueblo de Iztacalco
composed of seven original barrios, marked by black boundary line.
(Barrio Santiago has been divided into north [green] and south [yellow] sections.Pueblo Santa Anita (green area at top) was a separate pueblo.
 Site of plaza and main Church of San Matías, in Barrio Asunción, 
is marked by green/blue star.

South to North line up the middle marks the original Canal de la Viga,
now the avenue Calzada de la Viga.

Original Villages | Iztacalco's Barrio Santiago Atoyac Honors the Virgin of Guadalupe

One of our goals in our Ambles through the orginal indigenous villages now immersed in Mexico City is to get to every one of its sixteen delegaciónes (boroughs). In the nearly two years we have been on this peregrinación (pilgrimage), we have made it to pueblos or barrios in ten of the sixteen.

Delegación Iztacalco

One of the remaining six is Delegación Iztacalco, which happens to be the smallest of all (and easily confused by fuereños (outsiders, Mexican or otherwise) with its large southern neighbor, Iztapalapa). Unlike the rural delegaciones in the south, such as Tláhuac (which we reached in recent months) and Milpa Alta (which we haven't), and those in the western mountains, like Magdalena Contreras and Cuajimalpa (which we also haven't yet managed to reach), Iztacalco isn't difficult to get to. Immediately southeast of Delegación Cuauhtémoc (Centro Histórico's borough), it has major highways and avenues surrounding and crossing it. And it is no more than fifteen minutes from our apartment in Coyoacán. The challenge has been finding out when its barrios, neighborhoods, are holding fiestas.

Recently, our desire to find and attend a fiesta in one of Iztacalco's barrios was finally satisfied via our now indispensible source, the Facebook page Fiestas Mágicas de los Pueblos y Barrios Originarios del Valle de México, Magical Fiestas of the Original Villages and Neighborhoods of the Valley of Mexico. So it was time to begin to get to know Iztacalco.

Delegaciones of Mexico City
Iztacalco is the small, olive green delegación in the northeast.

Delegación Iztacalco
Its Pueblos, Barrios and Colonias

Island in an Urban Lake

When the Spanish arrived in the Valley in 1519, Iztacalco was an island or group of islands in the middle of Lake Texcoco. They were settled by Nahuatl speakers some time before the Mexica/Aztecas arrived in the Valley of Anahuac in 1225. A hundred years later, the Mexica, after working as mercenary soldiers for the powers in the Valley—first for Culhuacán, then for Azcapotzalco—began their search for a permanent place to found their own village. As a possible location, they tried to settle on Iztacalco, but were forced by the island's residents to move on. Iztacalcans made their living from the brackish waters of the lake (which has no outlet), drying salt that they traded with other settlements. Their activity gave rise to their name Iztacalco, House of Salt, in the Nahuatl language. 

Iztacalco
(blue star)
was one of a group of islands in Lake Texcoco
just southeast of Tenochtitlan

The Spanish conquered the Mexica City of Tenochtitlan and took control of the Valley in 1521. In the next century, in an attempt to protect the City from flooding, they began to drain Lake Texcoco, leaving Iztacalco and other island villages both high and dry, and without their traditional sources of income. 

However, to provide a route for transport of food and other goods from Lake Xochimilco, in the south, to the Centro Histórico, the Spanish constructed the Royal Canal (after Independence it was renamed the National Canal, known popularly as La Viga, The Beam). It passed through Iztacalco, which became a major stopover for canoes coming and going from the City Center. The canal was used for nearly three hundred years, until the 1920s, when motor vehicles and roadways took its place. The route of the old Canal through Iztacalco is now the main avenue, Calzada de la Viga. 

The Viga (former Royal) Canal in 1850.
It is superimposed on a map of Mexico City of 1970.

Iztacalco lies about midway on the route.
Heavy red line up the center is modern outer-ring expressway.
Thin red line up the left side is Calzada de Tlalpan,
the former Mexica cuepotli, causeway across Lake Texcoco.
From the blog: Historia: Geografía y Rarezas

Paseo (trip) de Viceroy Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva, duke of Albuquerque, 
and his wife, Doña Juana de la Cerda, up the Royal Canal. 

Their barge is in the foreground.

The church of San Matías Ixtacalco is in the left background. 
(The pueblo's name was spelled with an 'x' until the 20th century.)

Painted by Pedro Villegas in 1706, 
it is the oldest representation of the Canal de la Viga and chinampas (man-made island gardens, on the right). 
Wikipedia en español

The original village still retains its seven barrios: Santa Cruz, La Asunción, San Miguel, Los Reyes, San Sebastián Zapotla, San Francisco Xicaltongo and Santiago Atoyac, along with the adjacent Pueblo Santa Anita Zacatlalmanco Huéhuetl. These barrios lie near the western boundary of the modern delegación, mostly along the Calzada de la Viga.

Original barrios of Iztacalco
and Pueblo Santa Anita Zacatlalmanco Huéhuetl
(Santa Anita is the large, light green area on north side.)

Barrio Santiago Atoyac, the focus of this post, is marked by green/yellow star.
For some reason, it has been divided into North (dark green) and South (tan) sections.

The Church of Santiago (St. James) Atoyac sits on Avenida Santiago,
which is the boundary between the barrio's two sections.
The church is near the eastern end of the avenue, at about the star's right point.
The north-south road marking the barrio's eastern boundary is Calzada de la Viga.

Barrio Santiago Atoyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe

Recently, the Facebook page, Fiestas Mágicas de los Pueblos y Barrios Originarios del Valle de México, Magical Fiestas of the Original Villages and Neighborhoods of the Valley of Mexico, posted an announcement of a fiesta in the Barrio Santiago (St. James) Atoyac, to be held the weekend of January 12. Curiously, it is to be a celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, whose feast day was exactly a month prior, on December 12. We wonder why this fiesta is being held a month after the biggest saint's fiesta in Mexico, but we jump at the chance to visit a barrio in Iztacalco.

The posted schedule says a procession through the barrio will begin at noon on Saturday, the 13th. So half an hour before, we take a taxi north on the Calazada de Tlalpan, the main highway into Centro, which passes near Iztacalco. Our driver then takes us east to Calzada de la Viga, turns north and soon turns west into Avenida Santiago. Immediately, we see that the street is closed by juegos mechanicos, mechanical carnival rides, so we know we have found the fiesta and get out of the taxi. 

As we walk past the rides, empty and awaiting their evening customers, the steeple of the church comes into view. At the same time, we hear a banda playing, directly ahead of us in the street. 

Church of Santiago Apóstol Atoyac
Church of St. James the Apostle, Atoyac.

As we get to the church, we see the banda and a small group of people moving away from us along the avenue. It is ten minutes before noon, but obviously, the procession has started early. We hurry to catch up. Fortunately, the procession turns at the first corner it reaches and then stops, so we are easily able to join it.

La Procesión

An image of the Virgin of Guadalupe
being carried through the streets of Barrio Santiago Atoyac;
a banda and some barrio residents follow behind

La banda Principes de Oaxaca
Princes of Oaxaca Band
(The phone numbers are for Mexico City; it is likely that
band members live in one of the City's Oaxaca neighborhoods.)

Papel picado, cut paper, announces the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The neighborhood appears to be a mixture of newer apartment buildings
and older, one- and two-story, single family homes.

"Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe"
"Long Live the Virgin of Guadalupe"
(At this point we still don't know why the Virgin is being honored
 a month after Her Feast Day)

Turning into a narrow callejon, alleyway, the procession enters the patio
of a modest cinderblock home, typical in working-class neighborhoods.

Waiting is a comparsa de caporales,
a group of cowboy and cowgirl-style dancers who accompany processions.
The procession will be much more colorful and lively with them. 

Passing the tradition from mother to daughter.

¡Belleza mexicana!
Mexican beauty!

Authentic (ones) of Ixtacalco
(The old spelling of the pueblo's name is used. )

Charro
preparing to join the procession.
Charros are fancy, Spanish-style
cowboys traditional to the western
state of Jalisco.
They have become a symbol of
traditional (rural, pre-20th century)
Mexico.

The residents of the house provide drinks of agua de jamaica (hah-MAE-kah),
Jamaica water,
a kind of cold tea made from red hibiscus flowers.
Delicious and full of vitamin C!

El patron y la patrona de la casa.
The owners of the house. 

The Virgin of the Day and Wax Virgins

We approach a family—the homeowners—standing in the patio. Introducing ourselves, we ask about today's celebration of the Virgin. They kindly explain that the barrio does participate in one of the many peregrinaciónes, pilgrimages, carried out by pueblos and barrios of Mexico City (as well as others coming from surrounding states) to the Basilica of the Virgin during the weeks leading up to December 12.

It is, however, the barrio's tradition that they carry with them Virgenes de cera, wax Virgins. The image displayed today always remains in the Church of Santiago Atoyac and is specially honored on this day as the barrio's Virgin.

El Señor 

We are puzzled by what a Virgin of wax is. We have never heard of such before. A young man accompanying the homeowners, apparently their grandson, is also a serious photographer and will be following the procession to photograph it. He has a portfolio of his photos with him and shows us a photo of a Virgen de cera. He explains that this is what is carried to the Basilica.

Vigen de cera,
Virgin of wax. Created by an aunt of the family.

The Procession Moves On

With everyone refreshed and las caporales and el charro ready to go, the procession once again gets underway.

Caporal
(Literally, foreman of cattle herders,
i.e. another name for cowboys),
dressed in blue jeans and cowboy boots,
leads the procession to direct its route
through the streets.

As the procession moves back into the streets,
more charros are waiting at a corner
to join it.

The procession, now with several charro and caporal dancers,
moves through the barrio.

Charro del muerte,
Charro of death.
(Our term. We have yet to uncover
an explanation for these.)

Charro

Spanish-style charro mask

         

This joven (young man)
has all the moves!

       

           

                

As does this one!

Beautiful mother!

Beautiful daughter!

This girl spreads petals of mums
in the path of the Virgin.

People of the barrio
watch as the procession goes by.

(The woman, upper right, had a teenage granddaughter with her who was shy
and didn't want to be photographed.
But la abuela was most happy to greet us and our camera.

Church of Santiago

Eventually, the procession returns to Avenida Santiago and arrives back at the Church. While we expect it to enter the atrio and end there, it moves on. We do not. Tired, the shaded atrio, with benches, beckons us as a most welcome and tranquil place to rest. We find we are not the only ones attracted to the oasis of peace in the midst of urban bullicio (boo-YEE-ceeoh, hubbub).

Fiesta portada (archway) portrays and honors
the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Legend says, "You are the light that illumines my way."

Carved doors portray the church's and barrio's patron saint,
Santiago Matamoros,
St. James, the Moorslayer.

Santiago Matamoros,
St. James the Moorslayer

The Apostle St. James is believed to have come to
the Roman province of Hispania after the Ascension of Christ,
to preach the Gospel
(Good News of Christ' victory over sin and death),
and convert the residents,
thus founding the Catholic Church in Spain
(separate from Sts. Peter and Paul, and Rome).
He then returned to Judea and was martyred.

According to Spanish Christian legend, in the mid 800s,
St. James reappeared at the Battle of Clavijo. Riding a white
horse, he helped the outnumbered Christian forces defeat the Moors,
(Muslims from North Africa),
in the early stages of the Reconquista of the land.
He was then called Santiago Matamoros
and became the patron saint of Spain.

The Reconquest was not completed until 1492.
The victorious King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella,
first rulers of a united Spain, celebrated by
commissioning Christopher Columbus to sail west to reach Asia.
He happened upon the "New World".

Nearly thirty years later, Hernán Cortés undertook the Conquest of Mexico
(the Aztec Empire).
The Spanish conquistadores prayed to Santiago
to help them defeat the Mexicas and their allies.

So Santiago Matamoros, 
representing this new Christian Conquest of a "pagan" people,
is the patron saint of many Mexican churches and their barrios.

While the church and parish of Santiago Atoyac date back to the 16th century,
the building was restored in 1953. The doors are quite new;
carved at the bottom right is the name,
Maximo Díaz, and the date, July 1986.

Atrio muy arboleado y sombreado
(Well-treed and shady atrium.)

Amigos descansando
Friends resting 

Barrio Holding onto Tradition

Iztacalco, as we have said, is the smallest delegación in Mexico City, and not far from the Centro Histórico. Ixtacalco, once upon a time a village on an island in Lake Texcoco, is now surrounded by urban neighborhoods that have developed in the last century as the City expanded into the former lakebed. As our walk through Barrio Santiago revealed, even this original barrio has been invaded by modern apartment buildings. Generally inhabited by outsiders lacking roots in the neighborhood, the support for maintaining traditional fiestas is hence weakened. 

The fiesta for the Virgin of Guadalupe was a modest one, with the procession attended by fewer than two dozen people. It was not, of course, the barrio's primary fiesta. Held in July, the fiesta for the barrio's patron saint Santiago, St. James, would likely better represent the barrio's support for tradition. 

Nevertheless, we did get to witness and experience the animo (spirit, vitality) and beauty of the comparsa Autenticos de Ixtacalco. We got to meet a traditional family, learn about Virgenes de cera and walk some of the callejas (narrow side streets) of Barrio Santiago. And we have finally taken our first steps in the original barrios of Iztacalco.