Welcome to Mexico City Ambles: Navigating the Blog

Welcome to Mexico City Ambles! Here we seek to present "el imaginario", a vision of the city as embodied in its cityscape, public art and neighborhoods (pueblos and colonias). Over time, as we sought to discover the physical and historical breadth and depth of the City, our search led us to focus on the life of its lesser-known, working-class neighborhoods, many of which were indigenous pueblos existing long before the Spanish arrived and took over 500 years ago. We visit these original pueblos when they are celebrating their traditional fiestas, which are lively, colorful celebrations of their centuries-long communal continuity and unique identity.

¡Bienvenido a Paseos por la Ciudad de México! Aquí buscamos presentar el imaginario, una visión de la ciudad como encarnada en su paisaje urbano, arte público, pueblos y colonias. Si bien buscamos cubrir la amplitud y profundidad física e histórica de la ciudad, nos ha llevado a centrarnos en en la vida de sus pueblos y barrios menos conocidos, muchos de los cuales eran pueblos indígenas que existían mucho antes de que los españoles llegaron y se hicieron cargo desde 500 años. Visitamos estos pueblos originales cuando celebran sus fiestas tradicionales, que son celebraciones coloridas y animadas de su continuidad comunal por siglos y su identidad única.

Escribimos en inglés porque somos norteamericanos y para dar a conocer a otros norteamericanos y hablantes de inglés la ciudad más allá de los lugares turisticos típicos. Sin embargo, es fácil traducir una página en español: vaya a la columna a la derecha. En la parte más alta hay una ventana etiquetada "Translate". Desplace la flecha abajo hasta encuentra "Spanish". Click en ese y inmediatamente todo el texto estará traducido en español por Google. Con certeza, habrá varios errores, pero creemos qué el sentido se quede bastante claro.  

Organization of the Blog

• Each post appears in the blog chronologically by publication date. 
• Scrolling down from this introduction takes you to the most recently published post. 
• Most posts, however, have thematic or geographic connections to other posts. 
• So, as a navigation aid, we have created individual PAGES (listed in the left-hand column) which organize posts according to major aspects of the city or themes in its history. 
• These pages provide short descriptions of posts, grouped according to a theme or by geography, with links to all relevant, individual posts.

Setting the Stage | Introductory Pages:

I. Making Sense of Mexico City: The first four pages acquaint you with Mexico City's organization (it does have one, despite its apparent chaotic appearance).

1. First, we introduce you to its sixteen alcaldías (literally "mayoralties", each governed by an elected alcalde, mayor, and a council) into which the city is divided spatially and politically. 

The name, alcaldía, was assigned recently, in 2016, when the self-governing legal entity of la Ciudad de México, Mexico City, was established. Initially created in 1928, they were called delegaciones (we use that term in our early posts). They were the components of el Distrito Federal, the Federal District, governed by the federal administration until 2000. The closest English equivalent for these divisions is "boroughs". Each one is distinctive in its physical characteristics, population, and history.

2. We then address why Mexico City architecture appears to the visitor to be such a hodgepodge of historical epochs and we present a way to view it as a horizontal archeological site, one of multiple eras sitting right next to one another. 

3. Then we present the history of how the city grew from a small, Spanish Colonial city on an island in the midst of a huge lake to its present huge size (at 573 sq. miles, slightly smaller than Houston [599] but bigger than Los Angeles [469]!). 

4. Finally, we describe el Metro, the "subway", which is the fastest and cheapest pathway (US25 cents) to get to most of the places we explore. If you avoid morning and late afternoon rush hours, it's fine. Taxis, both pink and white "libres" cruising the streets and white "taxis de sitio" (i.e. waiting at a taxi stand), are licensed, plentiful and safe. Now Uber and other phone-ap car services are here. 

• Mexico City's Sixteen Alcaldías: Mexico City is shaped rather like a lumpy pear: skinny at the top—it even has a "stem"—then rounds out to a very fat bottom. Originally called the Federal District, in 1928, it was divided into sixteen delegaciones, or boroughs, of greatly varying sizes, shapes, population densities and histories. On January 1, 2016, via federal law, el Distrito Federal, the Federal District, officially became Mexico City and the delegaciones were renamed alcaldías, mayoralties.

• Making Sense of Mexico City: Architectural Hodge-podge or Horizontal Archeological Site?: Your first experience of Mexico City is likely one of an architectural hodge-podge, an incoherent batiburrillo, a jumble of buildings from various eras. This is especially true, if, as a tourist, you visit el Centro Historico, where Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortez, began to build la Ciudad de México on top of the destroyed city of the indigenous Mexica (aka Aztecs), Tenochtitlan. Structures from the colonial period, adapted to contemporary uses, are enmeshed with newer neighbors from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. So what to make of this hodgepodge of eras, these fragments of disconnected history, this batiburrillo? 

• How Mexico City Grew From an Island to a Metropolis: How did Mexico City, which started on an island in Lake Texcoco— replacing the Mexica (aka Azteca) altepetel (city-state) of Tenochtitlán—grow into the metropolis it is today, incorporating both ancient and new neighborhoods, side by side, all parts of the contemporary batiburrillo (hodgepodge)? Here is the story.

• Mexico City Metro: The Mexico City Metro (officially, the Collective Transportation System) is a network of subway and surface electric train lines enabling chilangos (city residents' name for themselves) and visitors to get around the city quickly, cheaply (US25 cents) and safely. The system has 12 lines, each distinguished by a specific color on its signage, making changes from one line to another easy. There are also multitudes of taxis, both libre (cruising and painted pink and white) and de sitio (waiting at assigned locations and painted white) and yes, they are both safe. Now, of course, there are also Uber and other phone ap systems for calling a private chauffeur.

II. Mexico City's Natural Environment: The next set of pages acquaint you with the city's special natural environment: 

• its year-round temperate, sunny climate, 
• its history as a valley filled with large lakes, 
• its spectacular geological setting in the midst of a circle of large, mostly dormant volcanoes, and 
• its smaller, but historically important volcanoes within the city.
• Mexico City Climate: Seasons, Sun, Sky, Clouds and Rain: If you are looking for a place to live year-round, permanently, as we do, or just to "winter" in Mexico, our advice is to head for the hills. The "hills" are comprised of the high plateau of Central Mexico known as el Bajío and the cross-country mountain chain just to its south, called the Eje Volcánico, the Volcanic Axis or Trans-Mexico Volcanic Belt. This area has year-round moderate temperatures because it is located more or less around 7,000 ft. above sea level, which keeps the climate quite stably moderate and usually sunny.

• Mexico City sits at 7,000 ft. altitude. Here is our account of the City's mild climate: its seasons (there is no real winter), the sunshine (which occurs most days), the sky (which can be unbelievably blue), the clouds (which can be dramatic towering cumulus), and the rainy season, more or less from May to October. Don't worry, it doesn't rain every day and usually, it's in the late afternoon or after dark and consists of brief, at times intense, thunderstorms. They serve as natural airconditioning and air purifiers, keeping the summer air dry, the temperatures moderate during the day and cool at night and, usually, with clearer air.

• City of Lost Lakes, Islands, and Villages: The Valley of Mexico, now filled by urban sprawl, was originally nearly filled by a chain of five lakes (covering about 580 sq. miles). Lake Texcoco was the largest, most central, and lowest of them, thus receiving water from the other four. Because of the surrounding mountains, they had no outlet to the sea, and Texcoco was salty. The original Mexico City and its predecessor, Mexico Tenochtitlán, were on an island in a large bay in the southwest corner of Lake Texcoco. In addition, there were hundreds of villages that occupied the land around the lakes, as well as many on islands in the lakes.

Over the centuries, the lakes have been almost totally erased since the Spanish began draining them in the 17th century to prevent the annual flooding of Mexico City during the summer rainy season, so the islands eventually became part of the mainland. We have been searching out these "lost" islands, which are still-existing pueblo neighborhoods within the city. Here we introduce the ones we have visited and the history of the changes they have undergone from islands to urban neighborhoods.

Five original lakes of the Valley
with some of the major cities and villages
around them and on their islands.
Note Tenochtitlan's location 
at the entrance to a bay 
in the southwest of Lake Texcoco.



• Encountering Mexico City's Many Volcanoes, Part I: Giants on All Sides: Mexico City, as most everyone knows, sits in and takes up most of the Valley of Mexico. It is, in fact, a spectacular valley because it is surrounded by tall mountains, all of them volcanoes. 
• Only one, Popocatepetl, (The Smoking Mountain), the tallest at nearly 18,000 ft (more than 10,000 feet above the Valley floor) is active, regularly emitting a plume of steam and sometimes erupting with huge columns of ash and lava. 
• Popo, as he is familiarly called, is joined by his beloved frozen princess, Iztaccihuatl (The White or Sleeping Woman), at 17,000 ft. 
• However, they are only the tallest and most dramatic members of the ring of volcanoes that surround the Valley. Here is an introduction to the many giants that envelop the city and make its geographic setting unique.

To the left is Iztaccihuatl

To the right is Popocatepetl

(as seen from Alcaldía Coyocán; they are forty to fifty miles southeast)

• Encountering Mexico City's Many Volcanoes, Part II: Little Volcanoes With Big Histories: While the huge volcanoes of Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl, Ajusco and the others in the Cordillera de Chichinautzin, the Sierra de las Cruces and the Sierra del Río Frío, which create and dominate the Valley of Mexico and grab the interest of residents and visitors when they are in clear view, there are other volcanoes right within the city´s limits. They are small ash cone volcanoes, but despite their diminutive size, at least four of them have played prominent roles in the development of human settlements in the Valley and thus in the history of Mexico City. Here is our introduction to the four.

Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star
Called Huizachtecatl (in Náhuatl) by the Mexicas.

• Mexico City Architecture: This group of pages focuses on the architectural qualities which predominate, particularly in the Cento Historico of the city, the original Ciudad de México which Hernán Cortés began to build on top of the indigenous altepetl, México-Tenochtitlan of the Mexica.

• Grandeza Mexicana: Grandeur of Mexico City: Walking the streets of Mexico City, from its Centro Histórico to various of its late 19th to early 20th century colonias, (planned neighborhoods) and modern boulevards, acquainting ourselves with their architecture and public art, we have noted the recurrence of what becomes a visual theme: an architectural grandness that relays a message of wealth and power. This city has been, and is, a seat of major political and economic power, expressed through physical grandeza, grandeur. Here we explore the particularly Mexican roots of this impulse to grandeur.

Zócalo
Main Plaza
second largest plaza in the world, 
after Red Square in Moscow.

• México Barroco | Baroque Art: Representing Divine Ecstasy, Evoking Awe: In Mexico, the art of the Baroque epoch (mid 17th to mid 18th centuries) is all around you in Centro and in many of the old churches throughout the city. It is the art of the height of the Spanish Empire, and it realized its most elaborate form in Nueva España. An excellent Wikipedia article on the Baroque helped us see its character as centered on grandeur, lavishness, and drama. We also came to realize the goal of its religious forms was to express holy ecstasy (stepping outside the ordinary world) and evoke awe. With that perspective, we explore the central and quintessential expression of Baroque religious architecture in Mexico City, the Metropolitan Cathedral. There are innumerable other examples in churches around the city.

El Sagrario
The Tabernacle portion of
the Metropolitan Cathedral,
in high Baroque style

IV. Thematically or geographically related pages: 

• Mexico's History As Embodied In Mexico City: Lists and links to all posts addressing the many stages in Mexico City's history as they are manifested in the cityscape, from the indigenous reign of the Mexica/Azteca through the Spanish colonial period (1521-1821), and the 19th and 20th centuries, up to the Mexican Revolution (1910-17) and its aftermath. 

Chapultepec Castle,
scene of several significant events
of the 19th century.

• Mexico City's Original Indigenous Villages and Their Spíritual Conquest: Contemporary Mexico City is an amalgam. It's core is the Spanish Colonial Centro. It did not significantly expand beyond that until the late 19th century. Then, in the second half of the 20th century, it exploded with rapid urbanization of previous lakebed and rural land. In that relatively recent explosion, it swallowed up ancient indigenous pueblos. These are villages, that, beginning some three thousand five hundred years ago, were established on the shores and islands of the five lakes at the center of the Valley of Anahuac. So Cortés and the Spanish not only had to transform Tenochtitlan, they also had to transform a geographically extensive civilization and culture via the "evangelización de los indios," or "los natuturales", what has been called the Spiritual Conquest. This series of posts explores the churches, neighborhoods and fiestas that continue to embody that encounter and the synthesis of the two civilizations. (This is our current work-in-progress).

Original, 16th century chapel of San Francisco,
in Quadrante (Quarter) of San Francisco,
originally the indigenous village of 
Hueytetitlan, now in Delegación Coyoácan.

• Centro: El Centro, the Center of Mexico City, actually consists of five colonias, or neighborhoods: Centro Histórico, and East, West, North and South Centro. Spanish colonial palaces and smaller residential and commercial buildings from that period are numerous, but mixed in among them are buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Within them, and flowing among them in the streets, is the everyday, timeless activity of selling and buying.

Portable shoeshine stand
in Plaza de Santo Domingo

• Chapúltepec Woods and Paseo de la Reforma: Five kilometers, three miles, southwest of Centro, on what used to be the western shore of Lake Texcoco, sits the ancient, sacred site of el Bosque de Chapúltepec, Chapultepec Woods. It was the first place that the Mexica/Azteca tried to settle down near the end of the 13th century, and later their royal retreat and source of fresh spring water for Tenochtitlan. The Spanish turned it into a park for themselves and continued to depend on its freshwater springs. 

Subsequently, a "castle", actually a palace, was built by a viceroy (ruling representative of the king of Spain) at the top of its landmark hill, an ancient ash cone volcano. After Independence was won from Spain in 1821, it served as the Mexican Military Academy and, in 1847, it was the scene of the last battle in the U.S. invasion of Mexico (aka Mexican-American War). In 1864, Emperor Maximilian I, put in place by Napoleon III of France at the request of Mexican conservative forces, decided to make it his palace. To connect it with the City Center, he had a boulevard built and named after his wife the Belgian Princess Carlotta. After his overthrow by liberal reform forces led by Benito Juárez in 1867. it became Paseo de la Reforma.

Paseo de la Reforma,
seen from Chapultepec Castle

• Reign of Porfiro Díaz and Neighborhoods of the Early 20th Century: As the 19th century approached its end, Mexico City's well-to-do, who had increased in numbers under the economic policies of Porfirio Díaz (multiple times reelected president and dictator from 1876 to 1911), sought new residences outside the old Spanish Colonial Centro Histórico. They began to develop colonias, planned neighborhoods, to the west, along Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, and to its north and south. Díaz and the well-to-do had a great admiration for French culture. Hence, these colonias have a French flavor. Posts on six of these neighborhoods, with introductions, are listed.

French Second Empire-style homes,
with characteristic mansard roofs.

• Mexican Revolution: Overview of Its Actors and Chapters: The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) was a watershed between traditional and modern Mexico. Actually, a series of four civil wars fought between a diverse cast of characters with widely disparate histories and motivations, the war and its turbulent aftermath can be divided into five stages or chapters, each consisting of a number of critical episodes. This Page offers an overview of the war and links to Pages with fuller accounts of the personalities and each chapter of the war and its volatile aftermath.

Monument to the Revolution

• Mexican Muralists: During the Mexican Revolution, a revolution in Mexican Art was triggered. After the Revolution, it unfolded in a group of buildings in Centro and expanded across the city throughout the 20th century. This page provides links to posts on the sites and their murals—works by the "Big Three": Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and their successors, who continue to produce works up to the present.

Mural of Cortés and Malinche,
representing the mixing (mestizaje)
of Spanish and indigenous peoples.
by José Clemente Orozco,
in the museum San Ildefonso.

Origins of the Azteca-Mexica | From Their Migration to the Valley of Anahuac/Mexico to Their Founding of Tenochtitlan

Prologue 

Mexico City Ambles focuses on the remaining originally indigenous villages that still survive in that part of the Valley of Mexico which is now incompassed by Mexico City. Our goal is to seek out what remains, architecturally and culturally, of their transition from indigenous communitites, with their established cultures and customs, into the Hispanic Roman Catholic parishes and pueblos they are today.

This post provides some of the legendary and historical background to those original communities. Specifically, it recounts the arrival of the Nahuatl-speaking Azteca, also known as Mexica, to the valley called Anahuac, now the Valley of Mexico, around 1220 CE. It was already a highly populated valley, politically organized by various other Nahua tribes into hightly competitive altepetls (city-states). It took the Azteca/Mexica several attempts over one hundred years until they were finally able to settle permanently on some uninhabited swampy islands in Lake Texcoco and found their city of Tenochtitlan in 1325.

One hundred years later, in 1428, with the help of two other altepetls, they were able to take control of the entire valley and establish what has become known as the Aztec Empire. It lasted a little less than one hundred years, until 1521, when the Spanish arrived and defeated it. 

Sources of Azteca-Mexica History before the Spanish Conquest

As we have recounted in other posts, when Franciscan monks arrived in Nueva España a couple of years after Hernán Cortés, his Spanish troops and indigenous allies had defeated the Mexica in 1521, they undertook learning the indigenous languages, so as to commuicate with the people and seek to convert them to Spanish Catholic Christianity, the so-called Spiritual Conquest. In the Valley of Mexico, the predominant language was Nahuatl.

The friars soon learned that the Nahua had a pictographic means of representing their history in books combining drawings and symbolic glyphs. So they requested that various craftsmen in this method work with them to compose books, now known as codices, to record indigenous history and customs. The friars also created an alphabetic means of writing Nahuatl, so fuller explanations of indigenous events and customs could be recorded and translated into Spanish.

A Plethora of Versions

These codices range widely in length, complexity and whether or not they contain Nahuatl script and Spanish translations. Some were compiled within a few years after the Conquest, such as the Codex Boturini (from the name of one of its subsequent owners) or more descriptively, La Tira de la Peregrinación (The Pictorial Illustration of the Pilgrimage). The Codex Aubin, which repeats the Boturini by and large, has alphabetic Nahuatl text accompanying the drawings and glyphs. The Anales de Tlatelolco was written in alphabetic Nahuatl within twenty years after the Conquest.

Las ocho relaciones y el memorial de Colhuacan, The Eight Accounts and the Memory of Culhuacan were compiled in the 17th century by Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin, or simply Chimalpain, He was a descendant of the royal indigenous family of Chalco (a major altepetl or city-state on the eastern end of Lake Chalco, the most southeastern of the five lakes in the Valley), educated in a Spanish monastery and asked by the monks to record the history of the people of the Valley of Mexico. One of his Relaciones gives his version of the history of the Mexica from their beginnings in a distant and mythical past.

The most extensive and elaborate of the codices is actually a huge series of volumes intentionally compiled between 1558 and 1575 by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, entitled Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España (General History of the Things of New Spain), written both in Nahuatl and Spanish. It consists of twelve books, totaling 2,400 pages.

The events recorded in the codices begin in legendary times and their recollection was transmitted orally for centuries, so there are many variations regarding the events recorded in the narratives, making it difficult, if not virtually impossible, to reconcile them into a "definitive history." Many scholars have tried. One of the most recent attempts is that by history professor Federico Navarrete Linares, entitled Los Orígines de Los Pueblos Indígenas del Valle de México (The Origins of the Indigenous Peoples of the Valley of Mexico, 2010, National Autonomous University of Mexico, available online in PDF)

Recording History: How the Azteca-Mexica Kept Track of Years

An additional challenge for non-indigenous writers and later readers of these histories has been correlating the events related in them to the European-based Gregorian calendar (which was not created in Europe until near the end of the 16th century as a revision of the Julian calendar used since the Roman Empire).

Archaeologists working to uncover and understand the Maya civilization, much farther south from Tenochtitlan/Mexico City, have learned that the Maya had developed what is called the Long Count calendar, using a system of bars and dots, which has an absolute starting date equivalent to August 11, 3114 BCE. All subsequent years were numbered using this system, and stela portraying specific events, such as a lord's coronation, bear the specific year in which it occurred. Hence, these year dates have been correlated with Gregorian calendar dates.

However, the Nahua had only a circular means of identifying years. Called the nexiuhilpiliztli, (meaning the completion of a perfect cycle of years), it consisted of the rotation of four names in combination with thirteen numbers, producing fifty-two possible combinations. The four names, each related to one of the four cardinal directions, were:

• Ácatl (Spanish: Cañas = Canes or Reeds), related to the East, where the sun rises;
• Técpatl (Spanish: Pedernales = Flints), related to the North
• Calli (Spanish: Casas = Houses, i.e. Clans), related to the West
• Tōchtli (Spanish: Conejos = Rabbits), related to the South

The combination of this sequence of four names with the numerical sequence of numbers one to thirteen resulted in a fifty-two-year-long cycle. The first year in the cycle was 1 Ácatl (Reed), followed by 2 Técpatl (Flint), then 3 Calli (House) and 4 Tōchtli (Rabbit). The next four-year sequence in the cycle began with 5 Ácatl (Reed), then 6 Técpatl, and so on. The cycle of combinations continued until all 52 possible combinations of names and numbers had occurred.

Depiction of the fifty-two-year cycle of the nexiuhilpiliztli.

The circular sequence of year name-number combinations depicted here
begins next to the center (sun), 
in the bottom ("oriente", i.e. east axis, where the sun rises)
and moves counter clockwise. 

1 Acatl (Caña, Reed),
2 Técpatl (Pedernal, Flint), (in the norte, north axis);
3 Calli (Casa, House or Clan) (in the "occidente", i.e. west axis);
4 Tōchtli (Conejo, Rabbit) (in the sur, i.e. south axis).

The next four-year sequence begins with 5 Acatl (Caña, Reed)
and ends with 8 Tōchtli (Conejo, Rabbit)
The entire 52-year cycle ends on 13 Tōchtli (Conejo, Rabbit)
From: Museo del Nuevo Fuego, Cerro de la Estrella, 
Museum of the New Fire,  Hill of the Star,
Delegacíon/Alcaldía Iztapalapa.

This fifty-two year-long sequence of years was central in the Nahua and virtually all Mesoamerican cultures because they had two distinct calendars: a 365-day solar calendar and a 260-day divinatory calendar, used to determine the good or bad outcome of events, including the fortunes of the lives of people born on any particular day of the cycle.

The first day of both calendars coincided only once every fifty-two years, and that conjunction was believed to carry the danger that the sun might not rise and the world would come to an end. Hence, this day was of great cosmic and religious importance.

The day on which the two calendars coincided was called xiuhmolpilli (sheeoo-mol-PEEL-yee) the Tying of the Years. The Spanish named it the el Nuevo Fuego, The New Fire, as all fires were extinguished and a new one was started by priests on the top of a small ancient volcanic cone they called Huizachtecatl, what is now called Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star (near the center of the Valley and once at the western end of the peninsula separating Lakes Texcoco and Xochimilco, now in the Delegación/Alcaldía Iztapalapa).

From there torches were carried to all temples in each pueblo and from there, to every home, to relight new fires. For some reason we haven't yet discovered, the Tying of the Years always occurred on the first day of the year 2 Actl, (2 Reed). (For more on the ceremony of the Tying of the Years and the two calendars for counting the days of the solar year and for naming and counting days in the 260-day-long divinatory calendar, see our post, Hill of the Star and the Origins of Culhuacán and Iztapalapa.)

As the events recorded in the Mexica codices begin in legendary times and their recollection was initially transmitted orally, there are many variations regarding the events recorded in the narratives, as well as in the dates related to them. Thus, while modern scholars have been able to correlate with the Gregorian calendar the Nahua dates in specific codices, the correlations between different codex dates vary because of differences in narratives and in determining in which fifty-two-year cycle they occurred.

Challenges to Sorting Out a Single History

Many historians have tried to sort out these confusing records. Some think their discrepancies reflect that the Mexica may have divided up into various groups, arrived at the Valley of Anahuac at differing times and gone into different parts of the Valley, such that events reported as if they occurred with a single group and in a temporal sequence are actually the interwoven experiences of dispersed Mexica at various times. In addition, some of the chronicles, such as those of Chimalpin, were written by members of other tribes already established in the Valley; therefore, they reflect their recollections and version of their interactions with this new tribe "in town".

The Mexica histories themselves were most likely altered over time to give emphasis to their ultimate successes while diminishing or even overlooking their defeats. Historians do know that in the 15th century, some one hundred years after the Mexica had founded their own altepetl of Tenochtitlan, a member of the ruling royal family, named Tlacaelel, deliberately had the story of the Mexicas rewritten. Tlacaelel was a nephew of the huey tlatoani (senior speaker, i.e. chief) Itzcoatl, and a younger brother of the later huey tlatoani, Moctezuma I.

When, in 1428, the Mexica or Tenoch of Tenochtitlan, led by Itzcoatl, rebelled against their overlords, the Tepaneca of Azcapotzalco, on the western shore of Lake Texcoco, Tlacaelel was given the office of tlacochcalcatl (top general of the army) in the war. After leading the Mexica warriors to victory, he was then named to a new position called cihuacoatl, first adviser to the ruler. He held that office during the reigns of four consecutive tlatoani, until his death in 1487. He was, one might say, the mind behind the throne.

Tlacaelel took charge of a rewriting of the Mexica story, casting them as the chosen people of Huitzilopochtli. It is likely that, up until the rise of the Mexica to dominance in the Valley in the 1430s, Huitzilopochtli had only been their tribal god. Now he was elevated to the top of the pantheon of all the gods of all the altepetls incorporated into what has come to be called the Aztec Empire. Huitzilopochtli became the representation of (and justification for) the now-dominant Mexica's military success and its achieved identity as masters of what is now central Mexico. His choosing the Azteca of Aztlán as His people, renaming them Mexica and leading them on a long pilgrimage to their true destination and destiny was sacred history.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the challenges presented by these codices, it is thanks to them that we know as much as we do about Nahua culture and history prior to the Conquest, especially that of the Mexica.

Legendary Origins of the Azteca/Mexica

The simplest depiction of the Azteca/Mexica origins and their migration to the valley of Anahuac is presented in the Codex Boturini, The Pictorial Illustration of the Pilgrimage). It was created shortly after the Spanish Conquest. In simple imagery, it portrays key events along the way, accompanied by glyphs, symbols that identify place names, and the number-name combinations the Nahua used to designate the year or years during which the Mexica spent time in a place.

The Codex Aubin, bearing a Gregorian date in the 1550s, repeats and expands the pictographic history of the Codex Boturini, but also adds a narrative written in Nahuatl script. To the great fortune of English speakers, a project at Fordham University (New York City) has translated much of the Nahuatl into English, making its narrative available to such persons as us.

According to these two early codices, in the latter half of the 12th century CE, the Azteca migrated from a homeland they called Aztlán (the origin of the name Aztec(a), an island in a lake, or surrounded on three sides by a river, some unknown distance to the northwest of the present Mexico City.

Other codici give much earlier dates for the exodus, a hundred years earlier. The Anales de Tlatelolco give the day and year of the exit from Aztlán as "4 Cuauhtli" (month of Four Eagle) of the year "1 Tecpatl" (Flint), which correlates to January 4, 1065. Chimalpain, in his Eight Accounts and the Memory of Culhuacán, also dates the Azteca migration a hundred years earlier, in 1064 CE. Such is the nature of legends that merge into what we know as recorded history.

When the exodus occurred — and whether or not Aztlán was an actual, specific location — is debated by scholars. Most probably, it relates to some area that is now in the southwestern U.S. or northwestern Mexico. This is evident because Nahuatl is a member of what is known as the Uto-Aztecan language family, a number of members of which existed — and still exist — in that area. They include Ute, Comanche, Shoshoni and Hopi, as well as the languages of some native tribes in what is now California.

The initial scene in the Codex Boturini
shows the Azteca leaving the island Aztlán.
Around the temple on the island are six capulli, houses,
i.e. clans composing the tribe.
The year glyph in the center is 1 Flint, 1164 CE.

Crossing the lake, the Azteca arrive at a place called Colhuacán, "the place of the ancient ones" (a significant name, as we shall see later). There they encounter eight other Nahua tribes who ask to accompany them on their migration. They include the Chalca, Xochimilca, Cuitlahuaca and Tepaneca, all of whom actually arrived in the Valley of Anahuac (now the Valley of Mexico) before the Azteca.

In Colhuacán they also encounter the god Huitzilopochtli, Humming Bird of the South (portrayed in the drawing as a head hanging inside a cave). He tells them he has adopted them as his people and will lead them to a new home.

Shortly afterward, the Azteca and the other eight tribes arrive at a place called Tlatzallan Texcaltepetzallan. There, at the order of Huitzilopochtli, the Azteca announce to the other tribes that they are leaving them behind and going ahead on their own. This is represented by a drawing of a tree that suddenly, miraculously splits. Subsequently, they reach a place called Cuextecatl, where Huitzilopochtli announces to them, "Your name is longer 'Azteca'. You are now the 'Mexica.'

Reaching Tollan, the Threshold Between Legend and History

According to the Boturini and Aubin codices, the Mexica then spent nearly thirty years wandering southeastwards, arriving at the city of Tollan in 1196 (Aubin Codex) or 1201 (Boturni Codex), where for the first time, they settle for a number of years (19 according to the Boturini, 20 according to the Aubin). Tollan had been the center of the Tolteca Empire, dominating the area that is now south-central Mexico after the decline of Teotihuacan (around 600 CE), from 900 to about 1150 CE. So, by the time the Mexica arrived about fifty years later, it was virtually abandoned. Its dramatic ruins are now a major archeological site, known as Tula, in the southwestern corner of the State of Hidalgo, about 45 miles northwest of Mexico City.

The Mexica arrive in Tollan
(represented by the glyph of reeds sprouting from water, holding a fish)
in year 4 Calli (House or Clan) 1201 CE,
and stay until 9 Acatl (Cane or Reed), 1219 CE.
The sequence of nineteen years of name-number glyphs begins at lower left.
It is read from bottom (4 House) (1201 CE) to the top (8 House),
then down the second column from 9 Rabbit to 13 Rabbit,
then up the third column from 1 Reed to 5 Reed,
then from the top of the fourth column, 6 Flint, to 9 Reed (1219 CE).
Boturni Codex 

Despite Tollan's state of ruin, the Mexica surmised or learned from people in the area of its importance and saw it as a model of the altepetl they hoped someday to found. Subsequently, when they did arrive in the Valley of Anahuac, they were to seek alliances with the residents of Culhuacán (also spelled Colhuacán), Tolteca who had settled in the Valley at the same time Tollan was beginning to rise to power in the 7th century. Establishing alliances with the Culhuas, the Tolteca of Culhuacán, via marriage and military support was a major way to establish a hereditary connection with that great culture and, hence, political legitimacy and status among the other peoples of the Valley.

Tollan was an abandoned place of the past when the Mexica arrived, but it was certainly an historical location and culture that had already had much influence on the history of the neighboring Valley of Anahuac, and, via its Culhua relatives, it would come to play a major role in the development of the history of the Mexica once they crossed the threshold from the Tula Valley into the Valley of Anahuac.

Entering the Valley of Anahuac and Joining the Tangled Threads of History

The Mexica left Tollan and spent a few years moving southward. According to the Boturini and Aubin codices, sometime between 1220 and 1240, they entered the north end of the Valley of Anahuac. It is important to realize that this entrance was not just a physical transition. It was also the beginning of a transition from a lifestyle of hunter-gatherer nomads into a world that was primarily agricultural, based on corn, and politically organized into hierarchically structured altepetls, city-states, with certain cities controlling various amounts of territory and their subsidiary villages around them. It was civilized.

Map of the Valley of Anahuac
at the time of the Azteca/Mexica arrival in the 13th century.
It shows major altepetls and other settlements in the Valley.
Many are mentioned in the account that follows.
The large island shown in the bay in the southwest of Lake Texcoco,
where the Mexica were to establish Tenochtitlan, was not one large island.
It was a group of islands they cobbled together using pilings and earth-fill,
and crisscrossed by multiple canals, remains of the lake that had divided the islands.

The Azteca apparently very quickly caught onto the political system and sought the earliest opportunity to establish a place for themselves within it rather than remain on the periphery as chichimecas ("barbarians") from the point of view of Valley residents and, thus, vulnerable to the powers that controlled the Valley. Their leader, Tozcuecuextli, soon established an alliance with the tlatoani, speaker, i.e. chief, of the altepetl of Tzampancgo (of Zampango as it is now known) via marriage to a princess named Tlaquilxochitzina. Tzampancgo was at the head of the northernmost of the five lakes in the Valley. Tzampancgo was actually subsidiary to the altepetl of Xaltocan, on the next lake to the south, which bore that name. 

First Attempts to Establish a Recognized Settlement

In 1240, Tozcuecuextli, now having an alliance with Tzampancgo and, implicitly, with its overseer, Xaltocan, took the next step toward establishing the Mexica as settled residents of the Valley. He founded a village and named it Huixachtitlan. It was the first of several attempts by the Mexica to found their own independent altepetl in the Valley, almost a century before Tenochtitlan would be founded. 

The chronicles then add that the Mexica no longer lived primarily by hunting and gathering, but became stone cutters in the mountains around the Valley and construction workers in many of the other villages and altepetls in the valley. They also hired out as mercenary warriors for the frequent battles that took place between altepetls trying to expand their dominions. This established a military skill which was to come to be of central importance in their later development.

This second vocation, as mercenary warriors, proved immediately beneficial when, in 1245, a war broke out between an altepetl named Tenayocan (on the north shore of a bay on the southwest side of Lake Texcoco, the largest of the five) and the altepetl of Colhuacan (or Culhuacán, on the western end of the peninsula separating Lake Texcoco from Lake Xochimilco to its south). In or around 1250, the Mexica formed an alliance with Culhuacán, again, via marriage. This time a daughter of Tozcuecuextli, and Tlaquilxochitzina, named Azcaxotzin was married to a prince of Culhuacán named Acxocuauhtli. The chronicle goes on to say that a son named Coxcox (or Coxcoxtli) was born of this union and he would later become the tlatoani of Culhuacán. We will meet him later in that role, which proved to be a climatic one for the Mexica.

In 1272, Tozcuecuextli died and was succeeded by his son, Huitzilihuitl, who, in 1274, decided to found another village called Cuauhmixtitlan, on an island in Lake Texcoco. At this point, the Mexica allied themselves with the altepetl of Azcapotzalco on the nearby west shore of the Lake. Azcapotzalco was the primary altepetl of the Tepaneca people who controlled many other villages on the west side of the lake. Some scholars think Cuauhmixtitlan was founded on the same island that would become Tenochtitlan some fifty years later. In any case, it seems to have soon been abandoned or become a minor settlement, because the Mexica found a better place to live than a swampy island — and it was one the lords of Azcapotzalco did not control.

In 1281, the Mexica captured Chapultepec from a group of Tolteca, relatives of the Culhua of Culhuacán, far across the Lake. (So much for blood alliances!) Chapultepec was an area of shoreline centered around a small, extinct ash volcano with freshwater springs, on the west side of Lake Texcoco. Here, using the hilltop as a fortress, the Mexica settled. Huitzilihuitl was named tlatoani, "speaker" the official title of a ruler of a recognized altepetl. With this act, the Mexica were declaring their independence as a city-state, subject to none other in the Valley.

The Plot Thickens

The independence of the Mexica as an altepetl at Chapultepec lasted only about twenty years, until 1299, when a group of other altepetls, Xaltocan, Colhuacan and Chalco (at the east end of the most southern of the lakes), apparently not liking the growing size and power of the Mexica at Chapultepec, attacked in one or two waves. The Mexica were overwhelmed. Huitzilihuitl and two daughters (he had no sons) were taken captive, first north to Xaltocan and then south to Culhuacán. There, they were sacrificed.

The remaining Mexica fled into the marshes around the lake but then, with no other option before them, went to Culhuacan to surrender and offer themselves as slaves in order to survive. The tlatoani of Culhuacán was none other than Coxcox, son of a Mexica mother and a nephew of Huitzilihuitl! Coxcox gave them an area of land called Tizaapan on the north shore of the peninsula to settle themselves.

Huitzilihuitl and his daughter Chimalaxoch
are brought before Coxcoxtli of Culhuacan, to be sacrificed.
Codex Boturini
The year glyphs to the right, from top to bottom, read from 3 Técpatl (Flint) to 6 Ácatl (Reed).
equating with the years 1300 to 1303.

The Mexica and the Culhuas of Culhuacán

In 1303, the Colhuas went to war with the Xochimilca (a powerful altepetl that controlled the Valley on the south side of Lake Xochimilco).

MCA Note: What follows is excerpted from translations of Nahuatl of the Codex Aubin; the translation is a combination of one done by Fordham University in New York City and by us from a Spanish translation done by Patrick Johansson K. “La fundación de México-Tenochtitlan: El mito y la historia”, The Foundation of Mexico-Tenochtitlan: The Myth and the History,

The Colhuas began to lose, so Coxcoxtli said, "Have the Mexica left? Bring them here." So they called the Mexica and they came before the ruler of the Colhuas, who said to them, "Go to the Xochimilca, who are defeating us so far. You are to capture eight thousand Xochimilca, who will be your prisoners (hence, slaves)."

Then the Mexica said, "We will, O ruler. Please grant us at least a meager shield and a meager club."

The king answered, "I won't. You agree to go as you are."

The Mexica then began to consult with each other. "What will we take with us?" they said. We will cut off the noses of our enemies. Because if we cut their ears, people could say, "Maybe you cut them off from both sides. Let's not have that. Instead, let's cut off their noses and fill up sacks with them to count how many there will be."

Then the Mexica arrived at the edge of the settlement of the Xochimilca. The Mexica came back and their captives were counted before the ruler Coxcoxtli. The Mexica said, "O ruler, here are all our captives. We caught 32 thousand of them."

Then Coxcoxtli called for his advisors. He said to them, "The Mexica are not human. How did they do this to the Xochimilca? ... The deaths they're responsible for are a bad omen." 

Only four of the Mexicas' captives remained alive, but they didn't let the ruler Coxcoxtli see that. (To celebrate) They set up an earthen altar there in Tizaapan, "Now O Ruler, give our earth altar a little something to adorn it."

Then the ruler said, "I will. You have done me a favor. I will have the priests go adorn it."

Here other accounts of this event differ widely as to what Cocox offered for the ritual. They say the Mexica asked for one of his daughters, whom he provided, thinking she would be an honored guest. Instead, the Mexica dressed her as one of their goddesses and sacrificed her, which was part of their customs. When Coxcox arrived and discovered this, he was, of course, enraged and drove the Mexica from Tizaapan. 

The Codex Aubin gives a much less violent and more symbolic offense for the split between the Culhuas and the Mexica and places the blame on the Culhuas. It says that as gifts for the Mexica altar, in the night the priests brought piles of animal dung. The next morning, when the Mexica discovered this insult, conflict broke out between the two tribes and the Mexica were forced to flee.

,

The Mexica Seek an Island of Their Own

Fleeing the Culhua, in 1303, the Mexica tried to settle first in Mexicaltzingo, not far north of Culhuacán, at the western end of the peninsula, possibly an island just offshore. The residents there forced them to move on. As most of the shores around all the lakes were already occupied and controlled by various Nahua tribes, the only remaining alternatives were a series of small islands in Lake Texcoco, to the north of the peninsula.

The Mexicas moved to a nearby island (later called Nextipac), and, according to the codices, remained there for four years. But the Culhuas attacked and burned the entire settlement, leaving no trace of it. The Mexica then moved on to Iztacalco, farther north in the lake, but were again forced by existing residents to keep moving.

Finally, in the year 1325 CE, they came to an island or set of uninhabited islands near the western shore that were under the control of the tlatoani, lord of Azcapotzalco. He granted them the right to establish their village there, which they named Tenochtitlan. In exchange, they became subjects of the lords of Azcapotzalco and mercenary warriors in its battles against other altepetls in the Valley. These included Culhuacan and Texcoco, the altepetl of the Alcolhuas who occupied the northeast side of Lake Texcoco. Defeating Culhuacan and Texcoco brought all of the area around Lake Texcoco under Tepaneca control.

In 1428, when there was an intrafamilial struggle for who would be the next tlatoani of Azcapotzalco, the Mexicas joined with the Alcolhuas of Texcoco and Tlalcopan, a Tepaneca village south of Azcapotzalco, forming the Triple Alliance against their rulers. They defeated them and quickly took control of the entire Valley. As the most powerful member of the Triple Alliance, the Mexica of Tenochtitlan became the dominant force, receiving the most tribute from subjugated altepetls in the Valley of Anahuac and then beyond. As such, they were the leaders of what historians have called the Aztec Empire.

The Valley of Anahuac
at the time of its domination by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan.

The End of an Empire

The "empire" would last less than one hundred years. In November 1519, Hernán Cortés, his Spanish troops and indigenous allies who opposed Azteca domination, crossed the mountain pass now named after Cortés and entered the Valley of Anahuac. Two years later, in August 1521, the Azteca Empire was overwhelmed by that of the Spanish. Tenochtitlan was replaced by la Ciudad de México, the City of Mexico and the Valley became the Valley of Mexico. The Aztec Empire, as well as lands far to its north and south, became Nueva España, New Spain. 

Original Villages: Discovering the Pueblos of Eastern Iztapalapa

Our Slow Discovery of the former Iztapalapa Peninsula

Delegación Alcaldía/Iztapalapa is just east of where we live in Delegación/Alcaldía Coyoacán. We can see the historically important Cerro de la Estrella (Hill of the Star) from our balcony. We can also see the fireworks from the many fiestas held in Pueblo Culhuacán (about 2.5 miles away) and its eight barrios. In prehispanic days, Culhuacán was a powerful altepetl (city-state) controlling the Iztapalapa peninsula between Lake Xochimilco to the south and Lake Texcoco to the north, and nearby areas.

Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star,
with its Aztec temple platform and large, white Christian cross at top left,
was the western point of the Iztapalapa Peninsula,
dividing Lake Xochimilco, to the south (right),
from Lake Texcoco to the north (left)
Pueblo Culhuacán lies at its base.
It was likely an island during the high waters of the summer rainy season.

Lakes and Towns of the Valley of Mexico
as the time of the Spanish arrival in November 1519.

The Iztapalapa Peninsula divides Lake Texcoco, to the north,
from Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco to the south..

The altepetls of Culhuacán (here spelled Colhuacan)
and Iztapalapa (here spelled Ixtapalapa) are on the west end of the peninsula.

The town on the mid-north shore labeled Itztahuacan is now called Aztahuacan

Culhuacán is at the southwest foot of Cerro de la Estrella. Its location made it a natural for us to undertake some of our earliest expeditions to originally indigenous pueblos outside Coyoacán to Pueblo Culhuacán. We also visited the historic center of the altepetl of Iztapalapa, which is just north of Cerro de la Estrella, to see its famous Passion Play during Semana Santa (Holy Week before Easter). So we got to know pretty well these two significant pueblos at the western end of the large delegación and of what had been the Peninsula of Iztapalapa before Lakes Texcoco and Xochimilco-Chalco were drained and the peninsula merged with what originally was separate mainland. 

Given our focus on the western part of Delegación/Alcaldía Iztapalapa, in the spring of 2018 we were surprised to discover several other original pueblos in other parts of the delegación. One is a group that were originally islands in Lake Texcoco, north of the former peninsula, but which are now located in the northwest corner of the modern delegación, near Coyoacán. Hence, they are close and easy to get to, and we are in the process of visiting each of them.

Pueblos in the East of Iztapalapa

We also discovered yet another group, but they are far to the eastern end of the delegación, near the City's border with the State of Mexico, some eight miles away from our base in Coyoacán. The newly discovered pueblos are at about what was originally the center of the north shore of the peninsula, whose original base now lies within the neighboring state of Mexico.

Pueblos of Iztapalapa

In the west are 

Culhuacán (red/orange star)

Iztapalapa, historic altepetl (yellow/red star).

To the  east are:

Santa Cruz Meyehualco (green/yellow star);
Santa María Aztahuacan (purple/orange star);
San Sebastián Tecoloxtitla (aka Tecolotitlan, blue/blue star);
Santa Martha Acatitla (aka Acatitlan, blue/green star) and 
Santiago Acahualtepec (green/blue star)

They lie north of the volcanic Sierra de Santa Catarina (See our post: Little Volcanoes With Big Histories).

La Sierra de Santa Catarina,
a string of ancient ash cone volcanoes now dividing Delegacion/Alcaldía of Iztapalapa (foreground) from
Delegación/Alcaldía Tláhuac (invisible on the far side).
This southern part of Iztapalapa and the northern part of Tláhuac
were once part of the Peninsula of Iztapalpa.
Photo taken from Cerro de la Estrella.   

Map showing the indigenous pueblos on the original Iztapalapa Peninsula
at the time of the Spanish arrival.

The five pueblos we are considering here 
are near the middle of the north shore of the peninsula. 
Four of them,

Aztahuacan, Tecoloxtitla (here Tecolotitlan), Acatitla (here Acatitlan) and Acahualtepec,
lay around the edge of a small peninsula projecting into Lake Texcoco,
labeled here as Lago de México.

Visiting the Eastern Pueblos

At first, we were nervous about traveling that far, across a delegacion often described as "unsafe" by Mexicans we know. However, the pueblos' Facebook announcements that they were holding Carnavales (carnivals) in the spring, leading up to Easter, attracted us. Carnavales, we had heard were rare, if non-existent in Mexico City. So we decided to attend one, in Santa Martha Acatitla. 

It turned out not to be so hard to travel the eight miles across the crowded delegación (population of nearly two million), as the broad boulevard, Calzada Ermita-Iztapalapa goes virtually straight across the whole way, and our cab driver on the day of the Carnaval was one of our regular drivers, Sr. Sanchez, who wasn't at all hesitant to take us there. The Carnaval was huge and we had a marvelous time, staying to the very end, as darkness fell.

That amble opened a whole new part of the city to us and offered several more opportunities to witness Carnavales. However, other aspects of our personal life got in the way, and we weren't able to attend any others in 2018. We had to wait for the other pueblos to hold their patron saint fiestas or for the Carnavales a year later to have the opportunity to become acquainted with the other pueblos and learn something of their prehispanic histories. This past January, we subsequently made it to San Sebastián Tecoloxtitlan's patron saint fiesta.

History of the Eastern Pueblos

With our curiosity now piqued about these pueblos, we wanted to learn about their histories. While much is known of the histories of the original altepetls of Culhuacán and Iztapalapa, which we have described in other posts, we could find nothing on the internet, either in Spanish or English, about these eastern pueblos.

When nothing turned up about the individual pueblos, we decided to do a search on the history of the Iztapalapa Peninsula, beginning in Spanish, thinking Spanish sources would be the most likely to be published. To our surprise, our search turned up a doctoral dissertation in English, Prehispanic Settlement Patterns of the Iztapalapa Peninsula Region of Mexico, written in 1970 by Dr. Richard Blanton for the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. We found it had been published as a book, but is available only in university libraries. Dr. Blanton, we discovered, is now professor emeritus of anthropology at Purdue University and, on its website, we found his email address.

We wrote to Dr. Blanton about our interest in the history of the pueblos on the peninsula and he immediately and generously sent us a PDF file of his entire dissertation! It recorded his research, in the summer of 1969, in the area of the former peninsula, with maps of the settlements he had located from the Early Formative or Preclassic Period (2000 to 1000 BCE) to the time of the Late Post-Classic, Aztec/Mexica period (1300-1521CE), a span of 3,500 years!

He also recommended a book, The Aztecs Under the Spanish, by Dr. Charles Gibson, formerly of the University of Iowa, published in 1964 by Stanford University Press. He said it was a detailed history of the transition of indigenous culture into Hispanicized culture during the colonial period in the Valley of Mexico. One of our underlying motives in undertaking Mexico City Ambles is precisely seeking out the enduring physical and cultural artifacts of that transition to be found in the remaining indigenous pueblos of the large part of the Valley that is now Mexico City.

We were able to find a used copy on Amazon.com. The work turned out to be a virtual encyclopedic story of all the dimensions of change the indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico and their land had undergone over the three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule. We had hit two gold mines with one simple email, a miracle of the IT age! The Simpson book will serve as an underlying source in every future post that touches on the historical transformation of the pueblos into the virtually indistinguishable urban neighborhoods they are today.

Literally Putting Together the Pieces of Ancient Villages

For his dissertation, Dr. Blanton and three students spent the summer of 1969 literally on the ground, systematically surveying the entire area that had been the Iztapalapa Peninsula, square meter by square meter, collecting potsherds that were just lying on the open ground, as well as identifying ruins of indigenous era buildings. At the time, the area that had been the peninsula was still largely rural. That, in itself, was incredible to us, since, by 1980, the entire area and delegación were urbanized. Such a survey would thus have been impossible as the urbanization process destroyed all historic artifacts except those collected by Dr. Blanton and his team. 

Delegación of Iztapalapa in 1950
Volcanoes of Iztaccihuatl and Popocatepetl
can be seen at the southeastern side of the Valley of Mexico
From Facebook page: Contacto 98.9 Fm

Dr. Blanton then identified the potsherds by using existing classifications of their styles according to the periods which produced them and, by their quantity at each site, estimated the size of the settlement. Thereby, he identified the age and size of virtually every settlement on the peninsula from what is called the Early Formative (or Early Preclassic) Period beginning around 2000 BC, through the Classic Period (100 CE through about 700 CE), and the Postclassic, up through the time of the Azteca (1300 to 1521 CE), when the Spanish arrived. It was an enormous and truly mind-boggling anthropological tour de force.
Dr. Blanton found that the earliest agrarian settlements were at the eastern end of the peninsula, where it extended from the mainland. We felt rather foolish, as we had viewed and visited the peninsula from what used to be its western end. Obviously, the first settlers came from the eastern part of the Valley. Our "mystery" pueblos were part of the western movement of these settlers.

The fact that they are now on the eastern periphery of Mexico City is a modern historical artifact, resulting from the arbitrary drawing of the boundaries of the Federal District (now Mexico City) in the mid-19th century. These pueblos are, in reality, centuries-old and contemporary neighbors of a number of settlements that now lie in the State of Mexico. The two oldest settlements on what was the peninsula are Iztapaluca and Tlapocaya, which was originally on an island in Lake Chalco. They date from the Early Formative through the Middle Formative Eras, around 1800 BCE to 400 BCE.

The earliest evidence of human agrarian settlement found by Dr. Blanton in the area of the five pueblos we wanted to get to know comes from the Early Formative Era (2000-1000 BCE), found in the area of Aztahuacan.

From: Prehispanic Settlement Patterns of the Iztapalapa Peninsula Region of Mexico, by Dr. Richard Blanton 
Obviously, the original settlements did not have their current names.
They are Nahuatl names, likely adopted during what Dr. Blanton calls the Toltec Period,
or the subsequent Aztec Period (see maps below of those periods).

Between 600 and 400 BCE, the first settlement appeared in the Culhuacán area. By the Terminal Formative Period, 400 BCE to 100 CE. a settlement was established where present-day San Sebastián Tecoloxtitla is located.

From: Richard Blanton, ibid.

During the Early Classic Period from 100 CE to 300 CE (the time when the great city of Teotihuacan was rising to dominance in the north of the Valley), a settlement was established where Santa Martha Acatitla now sits.

From: Richard Blanton, ibid.

Then during the Late Classic Period, 300-600 CE, a drastic change occurred. During this period Teotihuacan went into decline. While, remarkably, the settlement in what is now Aztahuacan continued, those at Tecoloxtitla and Acatitla were abandoned, as were virtually every other settlement on the peninsula, including large ones in the Culhuacán-Iztapalapa area. Dr. Blanton and other scholars think that the population moved into Teotihuacan, possibly for safety during an era of political and social upheaval.

The fall of Teotihuacan in 600 CE was followed by a period of disorder and lack of new settlement, but by 800 CE the Tolteca city of Tula, to the northwest of the Valley, had become the dominant power, and old settlements on the peninsula, including a large one in the Culhuacán-Iztapalapa area, were reestablished and new ones created. The settlement at Aztahuacan continued as it had through all the previous epochs. Those at San Sebastian and Acatitlan did not get re-established until after 900 CE.

From: Richard Blanton, ibid.

When Tula fell around 1100 CE, all these settlements, including the one at Aztahuacan which had existed continuously for over 2,000 years, were again abandoned. The exception was Culhuacán, which was extended from the base of Cerro de la Estrella literally into the lake, built on chinampas, man-made islands. This extension is now Pueblo San Francisco Culhuacán in Delegación/Alcaldía Coyoacán. It is separated from its sister Pueblo Culhuacán, in Delegación Iztapalapa by the National Canal, popularly known as La Viga, The Beam, originally the Royal Canal built by the Spanish after they drained Lake Texcoco. The canal provided a water route for agricultural goods from the chinampas of Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco to the center of Mexico City, which, during the colonial period, was limited to the former area of Tenochtitlan (now Centro).

After the Tepanecas of Atzcapotzalco took control of Culhuacán and the peninsula in the late 1300s and then the Mexica/Azteca took control from them in 1428, many old settlements were reestablished on the peninsula, including those at Aztahuacan, Tecoloxtitla and Acatitla, and new ones were built. It was a time of significant population growth on the peninsula.

From: Richard Blanton, ibid.
It is curious that Dr. Blanton did not apparently find any evidence
 at the site of the indigenous pueblo of Santa Cruz Meyehualco, between Aztahuacan and Iztapalapa.

This is the heavily occupied peninsula that Cortés and the Spanish found when, at the beginning of November 1519, exactly five hundred years ago this year, they crossed Lake Chalco-Xochimilco on the causeway the Mexica had built via the island altepetl of Cuitláhuac (now the center of Delegación/Alcaldía Tláhuac). They were headed for Iztapalapa (ruled by Moctezuma´s brother, Cuitlachac) in order to make their fateful entrance onto the causeway across Lake Texcoco to Tenochtitlan. 

Moctezuma II (the Younger) meets Hernán Cortés
on the causeway from Iztapalapa
on November 8, 1519.
Tile mural on the wall of Jesús Nasareño Church on Pino Suárez Avenue, Centro Histórico,
believed to be the site of the meeting.
reproduced from 17th or 18th-century oil painting.

After Cortes defeated the Mexica of Tenochtitlan in August 1521, all the pueblos on the peninsula, like all those in the entire Valley and all over Nueva España, were given "paternal surnames" of Christian saints, such as Santa María, San Sebastián, Santa Martha, added to their indigenous "maternal surnames". Hence, their double Spanish-indigenous heritage of today. (In Spanish custom, each person's surname consists of the combination of, first, their father's father's surname, and second, their mother's father's surname.)

Delegación/Alcaldía Iztapalapa

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