In Mexico City, the Coronavirus Is Bringing Back Thousand-Year-Old Indigenous ‘Floating Gardens’

Atlas Obscura, June 25, 2020 | By Amanda Gokee*

Business is booming for farmers who plant on man-made islands

A man uses a "trajinera" — a traditional flat-bottomed river boat — as transport in the Xochimilco natural reserve in Mexico City. Credit: Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images

In the south of Mexico City, about 100 miles of murky canals wind their way through the Xochimilco alcaldía (borough).

Here, the urban sprawl of one of the world’s densest cities yields to a lake region where indigenous farmers have been cultivating a unique system of floating gardens for over one thousand years. Called chinampas, these floating gardens were built by the Xochimilcas to feed a growing population. 

MCA Note: Around 900 CE, the Xochimilca people, considered one of earliest of the seven Nahuatl-speaking tribes to migrate into the Valley of Mexico, settled on the south shore of the lake that would come to bear their name. It was the southernmost lake, along with Lake Chalco, of the five lakes nearly filling the valley. Their first chief was Acatonallo, who is credited with inventing the chinampa system, which greatly increased crop productivity. These chinampas eventually became the main producer of crops of corn, beans, tomatoes, chili peppers and squash in the Valley of Anáhuac.

The altepetl, city state, of Xochimilco was founded in 919 CE. Over time, the city came to dominate other areas on the south side of the lake and across the mountains to the south, in what is now the State of Morelos. In 1352, the tlatoani, "speaker", Caxtoltzin moved the city from the mainland to the island of Tlilan.

In 1376, the Mexica (aka "Aztecs") who had established their city of Tenochtitlán in 1325 on a group of islands in Lake Texcoco, attacked Xochimilco, forcing the city to appeal for help from Azcapotzalco, the Tepaneca power on the west side of Lake Texcoco. The attack was unsuccessful, but Xochimilco then became a tributary of Azcapotzalco.

The Mexica finally conquered Azcapotzalco in 1428 and conquered Xochimilco in 1430. Shortly thereafter, the Mexica huey tlatoani, "chief speaker", Itzcoatl built a causeway south across the lake to Coyoacán on the southwest bank and Culhuacán on the Iztapalapa Peninsula which separated Lake Texcoco from Lake Xochimilco. This also create a land route from the island of Tenochtitlán to Xochimilco via Coyoacán. At that time, Xochimilco became a major supplier of produce to Tenochtitlán. 

When Hernán Cortés led his Spanish soldiers and indigenous allies into the Valley in 1521, after being driven out in June 1520, the Mexica rulers of Xochimilco resisted. So, Cortés decided to attack the city before his final assault on Tenochtitlan. Using indigenous allies, he attacked on April 16, 1521. Although Cuautémoc, the last Mexica tlatoani, sent ten thousand warriors by land and two thousand by canoe to defend the city, the Mexicas and Xochimilcoans were defeated.

Subsequently, Mexico City was built on top of the ruins of Tenochtitlán. The Spanish then undertook a massive project of draining Lake Texcoco to prevent flooding of their island city, but to keep a route for continued water transport of produce from Xochimilco to Mexico City, they created a canal, called the Royal Canal. After Mexican independence in 1521, it became the National Canal. It remained in use until trucks replaced canoes in the 1920s. Wikipedia

Xochimilco became one of the city’s main sources of food, but rapid urbanization in the 1900s meant less land available for farming.

In 1985, when an earthquake struck Mexico City, many chinampas were abandoned as people who had lost their homes built shanty towns on them. Today, only an estimated 20 percent of the approximately 5,000 acres of chinampas are in use, and only 3 percent are used for farming.

But since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Mexico, interrupting the industrial food supply in important ways, small farmers have increased production and rehabilitated abandoned chinampas to fill the demand for fresh, local food.

Raúl Mondragón (left) and Pedro Capultitla (right) covering a chinampa in dried grass for mulch. Courtesy of Colectivo Ahuejote (Ahuejote is the tree Salix bonplandiana (Bonpland willow) native to southern and southwest Mexico and planted around the edge of chinampas to hold their soil in place.)

Raúl Mondragón says on a Zoom call from his home in Mexico City:

“We’re talking about something that’s 1,000 years old. We have to preserve this.” 

Mondragón has been recuperating chinampas since 2016, when he founded Colectivo Ahuejote. Now the virus is revealing the strength of this model in the midst of a crisis.

The revival of chinampa farming is due, in part, to pandemic-related problems at Mexico City’s main market, La Central de Abastos, the largest of its kind in Latin America.

Some warehouses have closed, truck traffic has been limited, and people have been getting sick with the virus. The supply chain of producers from around the country has also had to contend with road closures that limited deliveries to the capital and raised prices.

Mondragón and Capultitla taking in a harvest of kale (left) and a chinampero farmer holding a colorful array of carrots (right).. Courtesy of Colectivo Ahuejote

While the market is an enclosed and often crowded environment, small farmers can deliver their crops to the consumer directly, using a model similar to Community Supported Agriculture [CSA].

At a time when people are worried about the risk of shopping at a crowded market or grocery store, buying directly from a chinampero, parked with his truck at an outdoor pickup point in their neighborhood, is one way of limiting exposure.

Quarantine has also given many Mexicans more time to cook, Mondragón points out, and they are taking a greater interest in where their food comes from.

He cites a friend who now not only knows what a leek is but also how to cook it. His “very capitalistic” sister has started compulsively composting.

At a Colectivo Ahuejote workshop, farmers use a kassine tool to till the soil. Courtesy of Colectivo Ahuejoten

Mondragón grew up in Xochimilco, eating produce from the chinampas that his family bought at a local market.

Now he works on the 16,000-square-foot chinampa that Colectivo Ahuejote uses for growing crops, teaching, and experimenting with new techniques. 

The collective operates as an NGO to develop cooperation among farmers, and they’ve also started a for-profit business to sell produce. 

Their goal is to rehabilitate abandoned chinampas to promote sustainable agriculture and the country’s agricultural heritage.

The pandemic halted the collective’s workshops and training activities, but the commercial side of the business has been flourishing.

Between February and May, small farmers who are part of the collective have increased sales by 100 to 120 percent, according to Mondragón. Networks that have been years in the making are now becoming a bigger part of the city’s food supply.

Fennel, broccoli, and quelites (native greens to Mexico that often grow wild) growing in a chinampa

. Courtesy of Colectivo Ahuejote

This is a welcome change for farmers who have other jobs to support themselves.

Chinampero Pedro Capultitla used to have two or three extra jobs, but he was able to quit one recently to spend more time farming.

The word chinampa comes from the Nahuatl chinámitl, meaning a hedge or fence made out of reeds.

Mud from the bottom of the canal as well as lake vegetation are piled into this fencing until they reach the surface, creating a fertile and well-irrigated place for crops to grow. These favorable conditions make the chinampas one of the most productive types of agriculture in the world, enabling as many as seven harvests per year.  

A variety of produce flourishes here:

greens, herbs, flowers, fruits, and milpa — a combination of corn, beans, and squash also grown by Native American farmers in the United States, who call this collection the three sisters.

Chinampero Pedro Méndez Rosas has been farming his whole life, and in that time, he’s seen generations of farmers leave to find work in the city.

“They go in search of more money, or a more elegant life,” he says on a phone call after a day spent mostly harvesting squash. 

“But I’ve always preferred to be in the field.”

Pedro Capultitla’s son, Axel, navigates a trajinera on a canal in Xochimilco. Axel is a 6th-generation chinampero

. Courtesy of Colectivo Ahuejote

Méndez Rosas farms the same chinampas as his father and grandfather, and he eats the food he grows there, only buying products like grains and meat.

He started helping out when he was 5 or 6, and “really working” when he was 13. This October, he’ll turn 50.

Since COVID-19, Méndez Rosas has seen the demand for leafy greens go up.

As the orders he normally fills from restaurants and chefs have been put on hold, he is now primarily selling products to individuals and families. The quick changes to business can be challenging, but Méndez Rosas has never been in it for the money.

“Being a chinampero is a vocation,” Méndez Rosas says. 

“For me, it’s a way of life. It’s a way of hanging onto our traditions and our culture.”

These floating gardens have been feeding the city for a millennium, in times of sickness and in times of health, and this pandemic has made it clear that they are poised to keep sustaining the city in the future.

Traditions continue quietly; a seed buried in fertile ground, small certainties against the future. For his part, Pedro Méndez Rosas prepares, again, to plant.

+   +   +

*Amanda Gokee is a Jewish/Ojibwe writer interested in food systems, food sovereignty, and the connection between plants, people, and places.

Original Villages | Tláhuac: Crossroads Between Two Lakes and Two Cultures

The Outer Boroughs

Since the spring of 2016, we have been ambling through several of Mexico City's sixteen delegaciones, or boroughs, seeking out the indigenous pueblos that existed around the lakes and on their islands in the Valley of Anahuac (now the Valley of Mexico) before the Spanish arrived and subjugated them. In doing so, we have discovered that there is a definite geographic difference in their distribution among the delegaciones and in the degree of their continuing vitality and conscious identity as original villages.

Delegaciónes (boroughs) of Mexico City
Cuauhtémoc, in north center, now Centro Histórico,
is the site of Mexico-Tenochtitlan

In the north of the City, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, site of  the Zócalo, the "Heart of the City" and the original Mexica city of Tenochtitlan, and adjacent delegaciones such as Benito Juárez and Miguel Hidalgo, are some such pueblos, or at least vestiges of them in the form of Catholic churches built by the Franciscans and other religious orders in the 16th century.

In Cuauhtémoc, around the Centro Histórico, which the Spanish took over for themselves, there were four indigenous barrios carried over by Cortés from Tenochtitlan, as the Republic de San Juan Tenochtitlan, whose original churches (or later replacements), plazas and mercados, markets, remain. Tacubaya and Tacuba in Miguel Hidalgo, are two examples of pueblos in adjacent delegaciones where churches, plazas and a few other vestiges of the transition from the indigenous to the Spanish Catholic world remain.

In the western, rural, mountainous delegaciones of Cuaujimalpa and Magdelena Contreras, vital original pueblos exist, but getting there is a challenge we still seek to overcome. However, the largest concentrations of original pueblos lie in the southern delegaciones. Our own Coyoacán contains at least a dozen. In neighboring Iztapalapa, Xochimilco and Tlalpan are many more. The far southeastern delegations of Tláhuac and Milpa Alta are, or have been until recently, rural areas consisting totally of traditional pueblos.

Traveling around Coyoacán is easy for us; however, traveling into the "outer boroughs" of Iztapalapa, Xochimilco, Tlalpan, Tláhuac and Milpa Alta is more of a challenge. They require longer rides on the Metro, if a line even exists, or extensive taxi trips. Tlalpan and Milpa Alta have no Metro; Tláhuac has only recently become reachable with Line 12. 

Probably more a factor is that most of their pueblos, barrios and newer post-WW II colonias (except for Tlalpan) are barrios populares, working-class neighborhoods with reputations for being unsafe. Many chilangos (Mexico City residents) from the central delegaciones consider them "dangerous"  and won't go there. Nevertheless, with the help of our friend and guide, Alejandro, who lived in Iztapalapa, we made initial forays into some of these outer boroughs. However, Alejandro recently moved to Guadalajara, far to the west, so we have been left on our own. 

As we have commented in other posts on these boroughs, we have found that it is perfectly safe to visit them when there is a fiesta being celebrated that brings el pueblo, the people as a community, into the streets, along with the community leaders who have organized the celebrations through their centuries-old system of mayordomos and their supporting committees. These committee members are almost always identifiable by their colorful shirts with the fiesta name written on them or by wearing ID tags.

Our consistent experience has been that members of el pueblo always warmly welcome us and our interest in their customs. Our visit to the old center of Iztapalapa for its Passion Play is, perhaps, the most outstanding example. But every Amble to these fiestas in the "outer boroughs" has been a wonderful experience of the ánimo, spirit, of el pueblo, expressing and celebrating its primary identity, and of its amabilidad, kindness to fuereños, outsiders who show respect for their traditions and treat them comfortably as prójimos, fellow human beings.

On to Tláhuac

We have made progress in fulfilling our goal of becoming acquainted with some pueblos in Iztapalapa and Xochimilco, but except for an initial, exploratory visit with Alejandro some months ago, we had not gotten to Tláhuac (the reddish-brown area on the lower east side of the City map above). A couple of weeks ago we learned, via our new "guide", the Facebook page of the Fiestas Mágicas de los Pueblos y Barrios Originarios del Valle de México (Magical Festivals of the Original Pueblos and Barrios of the Valley of Mexico) that the patron saint day of San Pedro, St. Peter, was going to be celebrated in Tláhuac for the entire last week of June. What appeared to be the high point of the fiesta, a procession, was scheduled for late afternoon on Wednesday.

So on that Wednesday afternoon, we head off east, first via taxi across eastern Coyoacán to Culhuacán in Iztapalapa, then southeast via the Metro's new Line 12 to its final stop, Tlálhuac, or more precisely, San Pedro Tlálhuac. Traveling above ground, we get a good,closeup view of la Sierra Santa Catarina, a row of ancient, extinct cinder cone volcanos that forms the border between Iztapalapa and Tláhuac.

Tecuauhtzin and Guadalupe,
the two easternmost volcanoes in the Santa Catarina chain
marking the boundary between Iztapalapa and Tláhuac.
Cerro de las Estrellas, Hill of the Star in Iztapalapa, is the most western volcano.

Ancient Roots in Lake Waters

Cuitláhuac (circled in blue), shortened by the Spanish to Tláhuac,
was situated on an island between Lake Xochimilco (to the west)
and Lake Chalco (to the east).

The area of what is now the Delegación of Tláhuac, in southeast Mexico City, shows signs of human occupation at least from the Preclassic period of Mesoamerica (1800 BCE–200 CE). The island of Cuitláhuac and the Tlaltenco riverbank (on the Iztapalapa peninsula, north of Lake Xochimilco) were occupied by agricultural villages at a time contemporaneous with the development of Cuicuilco (c. 700 BCE – 150 CE, west of Lake Xochimilco and buried when Xitle volcano erupted).

In the environs of Tlaltenco remains of ceramics have been found that date to the year 1500 BCE and correspond to a village located on land what is known as Terremote Tlaltenco. Equally old vestiges of human occupation have been found in San Juan Ixtayopan, located in the southeast of Tláhuac on the slope of the volcano Teuhtli. Both the Tlaltenco and Ixtayopan sites were abandoned by the end of the Late Preclassic period, when Teotihuacan became the main political and urban center of the Mexican basin.

In 1222 CE, a Nahua group founded Cuitláhuac—the present San Pedro Tláhuac—on a small island between lakes Xochimilco and Chalco. It is thought they came from nearby Xochimilco, founded three hundred years earlier. Around the island, they created chinampas—man-made islands like those first invented in Xochimilco for growing produce.

Models of chinampas at the San Pedro fiesta,
Created by a community group seeking to preserve this ancient form of horticulture
that is quite modern in its use of "all natural" techniques.

Cuitláhuac did not remain an independent altepetl, city-state, for long. In 1230, the altepetl of Chalco-Atenco (to the east, today in the State of Mexico) conquered Cuitláhuac, Míxquic and other lakeside pueblos that are now part of the borough. In 1393, Azcapotzalco (on the west shore of Lake Texcoco) subjugated the Cuitlahuacas, as it had most of the Valley.

In 1428, the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tlalcopan (now the Colonia Tacuba) and Texcoco (on the east side of Lake Texcoco) defeated the armies of Azcapotzalco. The Mexicas of Tenochtitlan, as the dominant power, took control of Cuitláhuac. As they did in Lake Texcoco, they built a causeway to connect Cuitláhuac to the north and south shores of the lake.

Goal from indigenous ball court
at the site of Church of St. Peter
on the former island of Cuitláhuac

Hernán Cortés and his soldiers passed through Cuitláhuac to reach the Iztapalapa peninsula and its causeway leading to Tenochtitlan. After the defeat of the Mexicas in 1521, as part of what has come to be called the Spiritual Conquest, the Franciscans built the church of St. Peter the Apostle on the site of an indigenous temple on the island of Cuitláhuac. At the end of 16th century, St. Peter's was transferred to Dominican control.

Tlálhuac, with St. Peters Church, on Cuitláhuac Island,
with causeways constructed by the Mexicas.
From:
 Atlas eclesiástico de el Arzobispado de México, 1767
Templos y Capillas del México Viejo, Delegación Tláhuac.

From the colonial period through the 19th century, Tláhuac alternated being under the governance of either Xochimilco or Chalco. In 1928, it became a delegación (borough) of the Federal District, now Mexico City.

Until the 1980s, Tláhuac was a rural borough of original indigenous villages, surrounded by chinampas in the former Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco. Together with neighboring Xochimilco, it was part of the area declared Patrimony of Humanity by UNESCO in 1987. During the last thirty years, as with Xochimilco, Iztapalapa, Tlalpan and other peripheral boroughs, the demographic pressure from Mexico City has resulted in the borough's rapid urbanization, such that the urban areas now cover approximately a third of it (see delegacion map below). Wikipedia

Seven Pueblos

In Tláhuac are seven native pueblos from pre-Conquest times, each having a dual Spanish saint and indigenous name:

• Santiago (St. James) Zapotitlán, 
• San Francisco (St. Francis of Assisi) Tlaltenco, 
• Santa Catarina (St. Catherine) Yecahuitzotl, 
• San Pedro (St. Peter) Tláhuac; 
• San Juan (St. John the Baptist) Ixtayopan;
• San Nicolás (St. Nicholas) Tetelco; and 
• San Andrés (St. Andrew) Mixquic.

Seven Original Pueblos of Delegación Tláhuac

(Each pueblo is divided into various barrios)

Green/yellow star in the center marks site of Delegación offices
and Church of St. Peter in the original Pueblo of Cuitláhuac,
now San Pedro Tláhuac.

(Just to the east of San Pedro is a remnant of Lake Chalco. 

Gray-green areas marked by rectangles are chinampa fields.
Other gray green areas to the north and south are volcanic mountains)

Northwest of San Pedro Tláhuac (on the former north shore of Lake Xochimilco) are:

 Pueblos Santiago Zapotitlán (red/orange star) and 

San Francisco Tlaltenco (red/yellow star)

Northeast is Pueblo Santa Catarina Yecahuitzotl (purple/orange star)

(on the former north shore of Lake Chalco), 

Southeast (on the former south shore of Lake Chalco) are:

San Juan Ixtayopan (orange/red star),
San Nicolás Tetelco (mustard/yellow star), and
San Andrés Mixquic (navy blue/red star)

Pueblo San Pedro Tláhuac

The Tláhuac Metro station is a half-mile or so from the center of Pueblo San Pedro Tláhuac, so, upon leaving the station, when we see no taxis, we take one of the ominpresent gray and green jitney buses for the short ride south. 

On the left side of the two-lane road are the simple, concrete block buildings typical of a Mexican village. In contrast, on the right are fields, some growing corn or other crops; cows and horses graze in others. Narrow canals crisscross the fields, irrigating them. These are the chinampas, the man-made islands built up centuries ago in what were once Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco, surrounding what was once the island of Cuitláhuac, now the Pueblo of San Pedro Tláhuac.

In a few minutes we come to a plaza with a bright orange mercado, indoor market, on the far side, and what looks like an old ayuntamiento, "town hall" on our right, which we recognize from our earlier visit with Alejandro, so we know this is where to get off the bus.

Traditional ayuntamiento, "town hall", with its Spanish-style portico.

Plaza,
filled with many puestos, for the fiesta or fair,
as signs tell us it is called here.

Across the street, to one side of the plaza and behind the ever-present street puestos, commercial stalls, and some juegos mechanicos, fair rides, we can see the entrance to the atrio, atrium, of the Church of San Pedro. Certainly, we have here all the physical ingredients of a pueblo: a plaza surrounded by a market, a government office and a church, the trinity of Commerce, the State and God.

Fiesta Preparations

The doorway to the atrio is decorated with a portada,
unusual in that it is made of reeds that grow in the canals,
instead of the usual flowers.

St. Peter's Atrio
It is also unusual in that it is filled with several huge royal palm trees,
which, strangely, aren't that common in Mexico City.

"Long live St. Peter, the Apostle"
Papel picada, cut paper (now plastic),
announces the celebration of the patron saint's day.

Church of St. Peter the Apostle,
built by Franciscans sometime after 1529,
handed over to Dominicans in 1554.

The design on the facade is mudéjar, Moorish, i.e. Muslim.

Typical of patron saint fiestas, the sanctuary is filled with fresh flowers,
likely grown in Tláhuac's own chinampas.
St. Peter sits at the center of the Baroque retablo, reredos,
probably added in the 18th century.

Going through a side door and down a few steps
we enter the cloister of the convent or monastery,
built by the Dominicans in 1586.

The Celebration Gets Underway

Outside, a band is playing 1950s show tunes
and songs from the U.S.
The band is that of
the Mexico City Police Department.

This, too, is a first in our fiesta visits.

Soon, St. Peter is brought out of the church.
As Christ´s chosen leader
and first Pope of the Catholic Church,
he holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.

The banda, an essential component of a procession, arrives and begins to play.

Acolytes appear

A Queen and two Princesses of the Fiesta arrive.
They pose for us, as beauty queens are supposed to do.
The addition of a beauty pageant to a saint's day is
also something new in our experience.

The priest appears.

With the emergence of the priest from the church, all the components of a traditional saint's procession are present. However, while a number of people look on, more are listening to the police band or eating food purchased from a number of vendors lining the atrio walkway. This does not seem be one of those processions we have witnessed where more or less significant numbers of parroquianos, members of the parish, participate. Perhaps more will join along the way, which is often the case.

The procession starts off.

At this point, another representation of St. Peter is brought from the church.
Above him is the name Cuitláhuac, the original name of the pueblo.

The saint is accompanied by two more females, attired in traje traditional, 
traditional dress, who also readily strike beauty queen poses for our camera.

As with the "Queen" and two "Princesses",
we get the feeling this is as much a beauty pageant
as a saint's procession.

Procession into the Darkness

The procession starts off, but it is starting to get dark. Black clouds are gathering. It is the rainy season, so we decide not to follow, as we usually would.

We learn the next day, from the Magical Festivals Facebook page, that the procession takes an unusual path. 

A waterfall of light

St. Peter, in both his representations, is carried to an embarcadero, a pier on the canals, placed in trajineras, flat-bottomed boats, and poled out onto the waters. As darkness falls, they are honored with a pyrotechnic display, a waterfall of light. Quite special, clearly a meeting of the Catholic saint, the First Pope, with the ancient world of his indigenous pueblo. Another unique manifestation of the Spiritual Conquest, or better, of the reconciliation of two disparate worlds.

We are both moved by this hidden climax and saddened that we could not witness it. Quizá, otra vez. 

!Ójala! Perhaps, another time, God willing!

Mexico City's Original Villages-Iztapalapa, Part I: Hill of the Star and the Origins of Culhuacán and Iztapalapa

Hill of the Star, Sacred and Strategic Center of History

From our balcony in Colonia Parque San Andrés, in Delegación Coyoacán, we can see a wooded hill, a little less than four miles straight east. It is an extinct volcano called Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star. It sits in what is now the Delegación of Iztapalapa.

If you look carefully, with the help of binoculars or a telephoto lens, at the north (left) end of the fairly flat summit you can see a large white cross and a flat structure behind it. Both have stories to tell.

Cerro de la estrella, Hill of the Star

Huizachtecatl (Nahuatl)

Telephoto view from our rooftop.

The cross obviously has to do with a Christian narrative. We will get to that at a later time (See: Iztapalapa's Holy Week Passion Play). The flat structure is a Mexica temple.

Temple on the summit of Cerro de la Estrella

Toltecs of Culhuacán and Their Predecessors

The temple, in its final form, was constructed by the Mexicas (Aztecs) of Tenochtitlán, after they took over the surrounding area in 1400 C.E. However, temples had existed there from the end of the first millenium of the Common Era. They were built by the Toltec residents of the pueblo of Culhuacán (also spelled Colhuacán, “place of the culhuas”—“the ancient or venerable ones”). They settled on the south side of the hill around 600 C.E., coming from the Toltec city of Tula, north of the Valley.

The Toltecs had become the dominant power in Central Mexico after the decline of Teotihuacan (east of Lake Xaltocan) around 500 C.E. The Toltec temple on Cerro de la Estrella was dedicated to Mictlantecuhtli, God of Death and the Underworld. From their base in Culhuacán, the Toltecs dominated the east side of the lake region for some eight hundred years, until the rise of the Mexicas.

The Toltecs were not the first inhabitants of the area. Human remains dating to 9,000 years ago have been found. The first settlements date from 500 B.C.E. Some time around 150 C.E., there was an influx of people fleeing volcanic eruptions on the southwest side of Lake Texcoco that buried Cuicuilco, the earliest known urban center in the Valley (founded about 700 B.C.E). By 400 C.E., Teotihuacan made its power known on the peninsula, as evidenced by remains of builings in its style.

Location, Location, Location

Why was this hill and the area around it so important, when all the land around the lakes was fertile and the lakes, themselves, the source of plentiful fish and wildfowl? The answer, as always, was location.

The southern end of Lake Texcoco was formed by a peninsula, separating the northern lake from Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco to the south. The peninsula was, thus, strategically located, enabling the monitoring and control of water traffic between the lakes. Cerro de la Estrella, or Huizachtecatl as the Mexica called it, sat in the middle of the peninsula. From there, one could see the all the lakes and virtually the entire valley.

Cu(o)lhuacán was on the south side of the peninsula,
on the north shore of Lake Xochimilco.
The settlement of Iztapalapa(n) was on the north side of the peninsula,
at the south end of Lake Texcoco.
It stood at the end of a dike built in 1449 
to separate fresh water flowing from Lakes Xocimilco and Chalco 
from salt water in Lake Texcoco.
(The lakes have no outlet)

Mexicaltzingo was another settlement at the west end of the peninsula,
where the causeway, built in the 1430s, connected the peninsula
with Coyoacán and Tenochtitlan.

Topographic map of Delegación of Iztapalapa

Large, light yellow area is current-day Delegación of Iztapalapa.
Series of brown and mustard-colored rings to left (west)
is Cerro de la Estrella.
Medium yellow area running east is original peninsula.
Brown and mustard-yellow area to southeast is
the Sierra de Santa Catarina, a chain of extinct volcanos.
The rest of the delegación (light yellow) was originally lake bed.

Sierra de Santa Catarina
viewed looking southeast from Cerro de la Estrella.
Mt. Guadalupe, to the left, is the tallest of five cinder cone volcanoes

Center of Mexico City, viewed looking northwest from Cerro de la Estrella.
Skyscrapers linePaseo de la Reforma.
(Yes, on a smoggy day)

Iztapalapa

Iztapalapa(n), on the north side of Cerro de la Estrella, fronting on Lake Texcoco, was the second major settlement on the peninsula. Earliest remains found date to the Teotihuacan era of the mid-first millenium C.E. It came under Toltec control after their arrival. When the Mexica took control in 1400 C.E., they built up Iztapalapa.

Goal ring from Mexica ball court,
now the site of the Church of San Lucas, Iztapalapa

First, they constructed a causeway south from Tenochtitlan. At the narrow channel to Lake Xochimilco, the causeway split: one branch going to Coyoacán, the other to Mexicaltzingo on the end of the peninsula. Then they also built a dike across the west end of Lake Texcoco, ending at Iztapalapa, to keep fresh water flowing from Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco separate from the salty water that built up in Lake Texcoco, as the lakes had no outlet.

Chac-mool, sacrificial altar
now in garden of the rectory of San Lucas, Iztapalapa

Present-day Iztapalapa, that is, the barrios of the original pueblo, are the patrons of the cross atop Cerro de la Estrella, where every Good Friday thousands of residents re-enact the Passion of Christ, ending in his Crucifixion. The location is not coincidental; it has its indigenous precedent.

Nuevo Fuego, New Fire Ceremony

When the Mexicas of Tenochtitlan took over the peninsula, they repurposed Cerro de la Estrella. They rebuilt the temple on its summit and made it the site of one of their most important rituals, xiuhmolpilli (sheeoo-mol-PEEL-yee)—the Binding of the Years. In Spanish it is called el Nuevo Fuego, the New Fire. To grasp its significance, we need to understand how Mesoamerican people recorded time.

Two Ways of Counting Days

All Mesoamerican peoples used two calendars to organize the sequence of days in their world.

Solar Calendar

One calendar, called xiuhpohualli (sheeoo-po-WAHL-yee) by Nauhua speakers, was solar, marking the sun's 365-day cycle of movement from south to north and south again. It consisted of eighteen months of twenty days each and five additional days at the end, called nemontemi, which were viewed as highly unstable and, therefore, dangerous and unlucky. Various groups used different days to mark the beginning of each annual cyle. For the Mexicas, the new year began on February 23, just after the mid-point of winter.

Divinatory Calendar

The second calendar, actually possibly the older of the two, was called tonalpohualli (to-nahl-po-WHAL-yee). It consisted of 260 days and served divinatory purposes—rather like astrology—to determine the good- or ill-fortune of an individual or an action taken, including by those who governed. The 260-day cycle was likely based on the human gestation period—as on the day on which a person was born in this cycle, he/she was considered to have already completed one cycle of life [in the womb] and was given the name of that day. The quality of good- or ill-fortune associated with the day determined the person's fate in life.

The cycle was formed by a rotating combination of the numbers one to thirteen with a sequence of twenty day-names (Caiman, Wind, House, Lizard, Snake, etc.). When the thirteenth day—combined with the thirteenth name in the twenty-day sequence of names—was reached, a new cycle started, but beginning with the combination of the number one with the fourteenth name in the day-name sequence. Thus, each combination of name and number occurred only once in 260 days. 

Fifty-two Year Cycle

The first days in the two cycles of time—solar and divinatory—were only aligned once every fifty-two years. This juncture was seen as an especially vulnerable moment, when it was possible that the Sun would not rise from the Underworld and hence the current world—that of the Fifth Sun—would come to an end, as had four past "Suns" and their worlds. 

Binding of the Years

The Mexicas believed that the Fifth Sun—the Sun of their world—had only risen because of the self-immolation, the sacrifice of a god. The energy of the sacrificed god gave the Sun the momentum to rise from the Underworld and travel across the sky, spreading its light and heat, thus enabling life to go on. To keep the Sun rising each day—rather than remaining submerged in the Underworld—further sacrifice was required, the blood sacrifice of a human being.

Mexica/Aztec Sun Stone

In center is Tonatiuh, God of the Fifth Sun, the Human/Mexica Era.
His tongue is a blade for human sacrifice.

The four rectangles around him are the four previous Suns or Eras:
From upper right, Jaguar (Underworld), Wind, Fire and Water.

The symbols of the Five Suns, together with signs for the four cardinal directions--
triangle at top, the two toothed creatures, and small circle at bottom--
form the symbol of ollin (o-yeen), primal, creative energy.



The circle around the ollin 
contains the signs for the twenty day-names of the divinitory calendar.

National Museum of History and Anthropology
Photo: Ann Kingman Gomes
Read more on the Sun Stone

Thus, when a fifty-two year cycle was coming to an end, special sacrifice was necessary. When the Mexica took control of the peninsula between Lakes Texcoco and Xochimilco, they made the temple on top of Cerro de la Estrella, visible to almost the entire Valley, the site for their Binding of the Years, the tying together or conjunction of the two calendars and their reinitiation. All fires throughout the kingdom were put out. Cooking pottery was destroyed. 

A priest from the campan, quarter, of Cuepopan in the northwest quarter of Tenochtitlan, led a procession down the causeway, which then ascended Huizachtecatl. On the temple platform, a captive warrior from some subjugated city was sacrificed, his heart extracted, and a fire lit in his chest cavity. From this first fire, a bonfire was lit that could be seen throughout the valley. The people then knew that their world would not come to an end for at least another fifty-two years. Torches from the fire were then carried by priests to each pueblo in the Valley, and new fires lit in the temples and every family hearth. 

Image from a Mexica codex, depicting the sacrifice and 
lighting of the New Fire.
Displayed in the Museum of the New Fire,
on Cerro de la Estrella

End of the Fifth Sun

The Binding of the Years, what has come to be called Nuevo Fuego, New Fire, was celebrated on the top of Cerro de la Estrella four times, in 1351, 1403, 1455 and 1507. The cycles of cosmic time and personal fate would again come to their crucial juncture in 1559.

In 1519, Cortés, his troops and indigenous allies entered the Valley. They came via what is now the el Paso de Cortés, between the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. When Mochtezuma finally ceded permission for them to approach Tenochtitlan, they passed through Iztapalapa, at the foot of Cerro de la Estrella, to enter the southern causeway to the city that began at Mexicaltzingo.

A year after the Noche Triste, the Night of Sorrows (November 8, 1519), in which the Spanish fled from Tenochtitlan, Cortés had regrouped his troops and prepared for the attack on Tenochtitlan. In order to regain access to the city, he needed to take the entrances to each of the causeways. So one of the major prelimiary battles occurred at Iztapalapa.

The Spanish and their indigenous allies won. The way was clear to Tenochtitlan. The Fifth Sun came to an end, not on February 23 of 1559, but on August 13, 1521.

Monument in Iztapalapa central plaza
depicting the battle between Mexica eagle warriors and their allies,
and the Spanish and their indigenous allies.
Here, the Mexicas appear to be routing the Spanish.
That, of course, is not what actually happened.

Delegación of Iztapalapa
medium green to right, east of Coyoacán (dark purple in center)

Delegación of Iztapalapa: Colonias and Pueblos

Original pueblos of Culhuacan, Iztapalapa and Mexicaltzingo are now immersed in the urban sprawl that has replaced the milpas, fields, and chinampas, the "floating" man-made island gardens of the now-disappeared lakes.

Culhuacán is lower, mustard/yellow star
Barrios of original Iztapalapa are upper right, dark green/yellow star
Cerro de la Estrella is between them.
Mexicaltzingo is upper left, light green/yellow star.

See also:

• Mexico City's Original Villages: Landmarks of the Spiritual Conquest
• The Franciscans - Where It All Began
• Tepeyac and the Virgin of Guadalupe
• Centro's Four Indigenous Quarters
• Coyoacán's Many Pueblos
• Iztapalapa, Part II: Contemporary Culhuacán, Gods of Darkness and Light