Mexico City Ambles

Saturday, October 8, 2016

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.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Mexico City's Original Villages-Coyoacán: San Diego Churubusco, Thrice Strategic Over 400 Years

As we recounted in our previous post on the Barrio San Mateo Churubusco, five years ago, when we moved into our apartment in modern, up-scale Colonia Parque San Andrés, in Delegación Coyoacán, we quickly became aware of some surprises that existed in the adjoining lower-middle-class neighborhood of Churubusco.

These surprises weren't just the ordinary ones you encounter moving into a new area, like discovering Mercado Churubusco, the traditional Mexican market. Nor did they have to do with the socio-economic difference between the two neighborhoods. Instead, they were significant events in Mexican history.

From Huitzilopochco to Churubusco

In our post on San Mateo, we told how Churubusco was a pueblo originario, original indigenous village existing long before the arrival of the Spanish, located on an island close to the southwestern shore of Lake Texcoco.

Huitzilopochco lay at the strategic point where Lake Xochimilco
emptied into Lake Texcoco.

When the Mexica/Aztecs of Tenochtitlan took control of the atepetls (city-states) and pueblos around the entire lake in the early 15th century, they built a causeway south from their island city to the village in order to connect with Coyoacán and other important villages in the southwest part of the Valley of Anahuac.

One codex relating the history of the Mexica migration through the Valley of Anahuac narrates that the settlement later called Huitzilopochco was a town originally called Ciavichilat, whose tutelary god was named Opochtli, a god of water. When the Mexica encountered the village, since their god, Huitzilopochtli ("Wee-tzeel-lo-POCH-tli", from the náhuatl huitzitzilin, "hummingbird"; and opochtli, "left or southern direction [orienting via the sun's path, south is to the left]"—hence, "hummingbird from the south") shared the same last part of his name with the god of Ciavictilat, the two peoples agreed they must be related. Opochtli also meant that they were both warrior gods. So the people of the village agreed to change its name, first to Uichilat, and later to Huitzilopochco.

Altepetls and other villages
around the southwest bay of Lake Texcoco
and on its many islands.
At the height of the Mexica/Azteca rule
in the late 15th century.

Huitzilopochco appears (at bottom, center) as a peninsula,
but evidently was originally an island,
then connected to the mainland via landfill.

The Mexica then built a temple to Huitzilopochtli there. Standing at the southern end of the causeway, Huitzilopochco occupied a strategic crossroads between the southwest of the Valley and the island capital.

After the Spanish Conquest, in 1535, the Franciscans—as part of the Spiritual Conquest—arrived in Huitzilopochco, tore down the temple to Huitzilopochtli and built a convent and church dedicated to la Asunción de Nuestra Señora, The Assumption of Our Lady(into Heaven upon her earthly death). In 1569, they abandoned the site because of lack of sufficient friars. In 1591, the Order of San Diego, a branch of the Third Order of the Franciscans, whose first friars had arrived in Nueva España in 1576, took over the abandoned property. The "Diegans", as they were called for short, built a large church and convent dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, Our Lady of the Angels, that is, the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven after her Assumption. There they trained friars to go to the Philippines, which the Spanish, setting out from Nueva España, had conquered in 1565.

Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles still stand at the center of el Barrio San Diego Churubusco. The name Churubusco is said to be a Spanish "corruption" of the name Huitzilopochco. We personally hypothesize that this curious "corruption" was the result of a Spanish desire to obliterate any reference to Huitzilopochtli, since he was the main god of the Mexica.

Church and Convent of Our Lady of the Angels

Church of Our Lady of the Angels
Note mudejar, Islamic "Moorish" style azulejos, blue tiles,
on dome and wall of the baptistry
on the right.

"Ex-convento Churubusco" Our Lady of the Angels

Front patio

Interior patio
Classic Moorish, Islamic style adapted from Persia.

Former kitchen garden

Irish Martyrs and Heroes of '47

So our first surprise was learning that our next-door neighborhood was an original indigenous pueblo and a major site of the Spiritual Conquest in Mexico City.

The second surprise was, while walking around the neighborhood, we noted the names of the two main streets bounding San Mateo Churubusco on the south and north: Mártires Irlandeses, Irish Martyrs, and Heroes del 47, Heroes of '47. What did Irish martyrs have to do with Mexico, and who were the heroes of '47?

The mystery deepened even more when, walking north on Calle Convento, Convent Street, leading to the Franciscan Convent, we encountered a street named 20 de Agosto, 20th of August—then, circling the walls of the large convent and enclosing a shaded park-like space, was Calzada General Anaya (Calzada indicates an original footpath).

Fortress-like walls surround the Convent

What did these street names refer to? Irish martyrs in Mexico? 1847 is the year of the Mexican-American War, which Mexicans call the Intervention, but what is the significance of August 20th?

As we approached the Convent, this carved stone on the corner of Convento, caught our eye:

Captain John O'Reilly,
Commander of Saint Patrick Battalion, 1847

An Irish Battalion in Mexico in 1847? Obviously related to the Irish Martyrs. But who were they, and why were they in Mexico?

The mystery deepens, but not for long. The Convent now houses the Museum of the Interventions, which memorializes the various times Mexico has been subjected to foreign invasions: first, by the Spanish in 1519-21, then the U.S. in 1846-47, the French in 1861-67, and the United States again during the Mexican Revolution, in 1914 and again in 1915 (supporting Venustiano Carranza against Pancho Villa).

The Pieces Fall in Place

In a small plaza in front of the entrance, we come upon a monument that reads, in part, "To the memory of the illustrious and brave Mexicans who fought in defense of their country and made the sacrifice of their lives in this very place, August 20, 1847." The Convent was the site of the Battle of Churubusco, one of the last of the Mexican-American War.

We have already seen the strategic importance of Huitzilopochco. Its location on the southern causeway enabled the Mexica to control access to their capital from the south. Cortés also recognized its critical location. A year after the Noche Triste, the Night of Sorrows (June 30, 1520), 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. One of four stood at Huitzilopochco. As it happened, the residents of Coyoacán were Tepaneca, another Nahua people whom the Mexica had defeated in 1428 and taken over their towns on the west side of the lake. So they were happy to give Cortés open access to the causeway.

After the Spanish victory over the Mexicas, the construction the Convento de Churubusco insured continued control of this southern access to the City.

Third Time Strategic

Churubusco's strategic location proved to be important again some three hundred years after the Spanish Invasion and the construction of the Convent.

As part of U.S. President James Polk's plan to take parts of Mexico in order to gain control of California and, thereby, access to the Pacific Ocean, the United States invaded Veracruz, Mexico, in March 1847. By August, U.S. forces were approaching Mexico City. On August 19, Mexican troops were defeated at Contreras, south of the city. They retreated to the Convent in Churubusco to defend the main road—along the ancient causeway—that led straight to Mexico City.

U.S. Battle Map for Churubusco

Mexico City is at top.
Bottom, center, is Churubusco.
They are connected by the Calzada (tan line)
that follows the ancient Aztec causeway.

Blue line running south to north
is the Royal or National Canal.

Blue line running west to east,
just above Churubusco,
is Churubusco River.
Map is in the Musuem of the Interventions

The U.S. troops followed the Mexicans in hot pursuit and attacked them the next day at the Convent of Churubusco. The Mexicans ran out of ammunition and had to surrender.

Battle of Churubusco, August 20, 1847

Poster for 164th commemoration, August 2011,
two weeks after we moved into neighboring
Colonia Parque San Andrés

In the plaza just outside the convent,
a statuevhonors General Pedro Maria Anaya
for his valiant defense of Mexico
during Battle of Churubusco

On September 12, 1847, the U.S. attacked and took the Castle of Chapultepec, the Mexican military citadel, located on what were then the western outskirts of Mexico City. A few days later, General Winfield Scott entered Mexico City and took control of the government of Mexico.

On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed between the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico had to surrender 55% of its territory: all of the present-day states of California, Nevada and Utah, plus parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The U.S. paid $25 million for it

U.S. General Winfield Scott
(on white horse, of course)
enters the Zócalo,
Mexico City's major plaza,
with U.S. flag flying over Mexico's National Palace

Irish Martyrs and The Heroes of '47

Captain John O'Reilly
commanded St. Patrick's Battalion,
composed of Irish and other Catholic deserters
from U.S. Army
opposed to the U.S. invasion of Mexico
Poster for commemoration of
Battle of Churubusco

St. Patrick's Battalion, under the command of John O'Reilly, was a group of primarily Irish and German Catholic immigrants to the United States who had joined the Army as a way to make a living. Brought to Mexico for the invasion, they had deserted, believing, along with many U.S. citizens, that the invasion was unjust.

After their defeat and capture at Churubusco, survivors of the Battalion were hung on the walls of Chapultepec Castle as traitors. Today they are honored in Mexico as Los Mártires Irlandeses along with their fellow Mexican Heroes del '47. (History adapted from Jenny's Journal of Mexican Culture).

Contemporary San Diego Churubusco

A Sunday stroll around the outside of the Convent

Today, the Convent, beautifully restored and repurposed as the Museum of the Interventions, serves as the tranquil heart of contemporary Barrio San Diego Churubusco. The arbolado, tree-filled, space encircling its high, massive walls serves as a park for quiet strolls and modern-day exercising.

Facing this park are a combination of colonial-style homes and modern townhouses, as well as a major institution of Mexican anthropology and history. The State of Coahuila also maintains a large, colonial-style Center as its official representation in the capital city.

California Colonial home from 1920s.
The gated driveway of a similar home hosted both Mercedes and BMW coupes!

Townhouses were recently built behind a restored, 19th or early 20th century facade
(the arches in the red wall are turn-of-the-century Moorish revival).
During the excavation, artifacts were found from the original
Huitzilopochco.
In Mexico, history is always right beneath your feet.

National School of Conservation, Restoration and Museography,
The school is of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, INAH,
training students in the skills to maintain, restore and display
the treasures of Mexican history,
such as the Convent across the street.

It stands at the corner of Calzada General Anaya,
which was originally the footpath between
the causeway from Tenochtitlan and Coyoacán.

We repeat, in Mexico, history is always right beneath your feet.

Away from the Convent and park, San Diego is a tranquilo neighborhood of middle to upper middle- class homes.

Home on Calle Convento

Gated callejon, alley of private homes.

Vestiges of an Original Pueblo

On a wall along Calle Convento,
a plaque recalls the barrio's origins
as "The Place of the Hummingbirds of the South"
Placed by the Government of the Federal District (now Mexico City)

The 16th-century Franciscan Convent of Our Lady of the Angels, which replaced the 15th century temple to Huitzilopochtli, has been transformed into a contemporary museum dedicated to the 19th century Battle of Churubusco and other similar bellicose events in the history of the Mexican Republic. The streets around this historic site have been transformed into a neighborhood of mostly upscale contemporary homes and public institutions.

So we wonder whether anything remains, besides a plaque on a wall, of el pueblo originario, the original indigenous village of Huitzilopochco as it was transformed by the Spanish government and Franciscan friars into el Barrio San Diego Churubusco. To answer that question we need do nothing more than return to the church that still stands next to the Convent—the Church of Our Lady of the Angels.

Sunday Mass in Our Lady of the Angels.
Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, stands on the Baroque retablo, behind the altar.

Our Lady of the Angels is very much a functioning Catholic Church, evidently well-attended, and well-tended to. A Mexican friend of ours, a lawyer whose offices are in our building, and his equally professional wife, attend the church, even though they live "across the river", i.e., north of Río Churubusco, which is now "entubed" below the expressway of the same name. We attended the baptism of their first child there and are awaiting an invitation to attend the baptism of their recently born second son.

Our Lady of the Angels has its traditional fiesta patronal. As their saint is the Virgin, the fiesta is celebrated on the day of Her Assumption into Heaven, August 15. While we missed the fiesta this year because we were visiting friends in our old home of Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, we did, by chance, capture a few photos of the procession last year, as we were entering el estación del Metro General Anaya, to travel up the Calzada de Tlalpan for one of our ambles in Centro Histórico. This was before we had come to realize the significance of pueblos originarios in Mexico City, although they were right in front of our eyes, and, with their cohetes and bandas, in our ears, and "underfoot" in Coyoacán.

As we were about to enter the station from the noisy Calzada, we were stopped by the sound of a banda playing in the side street, 20 de Agosto, which leads from the highway to the Convent. Turning the corner, we were delighted to come upon chinelos, those Moorish-style dancers who frequently accompany processions of the saints.

Cruz Azul, Blue Cross,
is a Mexico City soccer team,
Mexicans' "other religion".

Again, tradition is literally "handed on".

Right behind the chinelos was Our Lady of the Angels, herself,
on a flower-bedecked anda, or palanquin.
born by members of the parish cofradía, brotherhood.

We are reminded, yet again, that it was the Virgin,
in her appearance as the Virgin of Guadalupe,
who united the indigenous peoples of Mexico with Spanish Catholic culture.

While the procession was small, with few people watching, it nonetheless conveyed the vitality of community commitment by which the traditions of the pueblos originarios, the outcomes of the Spiritual Conquest, are continued, as we have witnessed this summer in the other barrios and pueblos of Coyoacán. Even here—in up-scale, "museum-filled", historic and strategic San Diego Churubusco—that identity persists.

The former Convent of Our Lady of the Angels,
now the National Museum of the Interventions,
sits at the center of Barrio de San Diego Churubusco.

To its south are the streets Heroes del 47 and Martíres Irlandeses;
20 de Agosto runs east to the Metro Station General Anaya
on the Calzada de Tlalpan, the former causeway
and the barrio's eastern boundary.

Calzada General Anaya, running from the northeast, around the Convent,
and continuing southwest towards Villa Coyoacán,
was the original indigenous footpath.

The northern boundary, Río Churubusco, an expressway, covers the original river.
Avenida Division del Norte is the western boundary.

Delegaciones of Mexico City
Coyoacán is the purple delegación in the center.

Delegación Coyocan with its Colonias, pueblos and barrios

Barrio San Diego Churubusco (starred)
is at north-central boundary of Delegación Coyoacán.

Colonia Parque San Andrés is Mexico City Ambles' home base.

Altepetls and other villages
around the southwest bay of Lake Texcoco
and on its many islands.
At the height of the Mexica/Azteca rule
in the late 15th century.

All those from Azacaptzalco, Atepehuacan,
Tepeyácac and Atzacualco south
are now within the northern part of Mexico City.

Sunday, September 25, 2016

Mexico City's Original Villages-Coyoacán: San Mateo Churubusco - Identity Via Church and Market

From Market to Church

At five o´clock one morning in late September, about a month after we had moved into our apartment in Colonia Parque San Andrés, in Delegación Coyoacán, in August 2011, we were startled awake by the loud explosion of cohetes, rocket-style firecrackers. Collecting our rattled wits, we realized, from our three years of living in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, surrounded by traditional pueblos, that such cohetes going off in la madrugada, pre-dawn hours, were announcing mañanitas, morning prayers, the opening event of a parish fiesta.

From their volume, the explosions were evidently from a church very nearby but of which we were unaware. The cohetes continued to go off every few hours from dawn to dusk and into the early darkness for an entire week. Some fiesta!

We knew that two short blocks north of us was another colonia, neighborhood, with a typical Mexican indoor mercado, market, Mercado Churubusco. The real estate agent who showed us the apartment and arranged our rental had pointed it out to us as a convenient source of fresh foods. We had investigated it shortly after moving in, and it has been our neighborhood market ever since.

Mercado Churubusco, built in the mid-20th century
when the city constructed many indoor markets to bring vendors inside
from the traditional tianguis, outdoor street markets.

"Luncheonette" counter at the mercado entrance
Mixteca is an indigenous people from Oaxaca—
hence the style of food served.

"Mickey", Miguel,
with the best fresh fruits.
Note the mangos!
Blackberries year-round!

Arturo, his brother,
with the freshest vegetables.
Their father and mother
sold fruits and vegetables in the
neighborhood's tianguis, street market.

Besides fresh fruits and vegetables, there are also individually owned puestos, stalls, where we buy fresh chicken and dried beans of several kinds. There are deli counters for ranchero cheese (good on tortas, rolls), luncheon meats, yogurt and the like. In the "household goods" section to the rear, we can buy cleaning utensils, light bulbs, flower pots and paper goods. There is also a plumber, an electrician, a key-maker and an optometrist! At the rear is a sizeable restaurant serving basic Mexican comidas (main afternoon meal). Unfortunately, there is no bakery or fish counter such as existed in the much larger Pátzcuaro mercado.

Crossing a frontier in time

The mercado, with all its traditional Mexican flavors, literal and cultural, is in El Barrio San Mateo Churubusco. While San Mateo, St. Matthew, has some quite upscale private homes, similar to those in San Andrés, it is mostly a lower-middle class, working-class neighborhood. It is very small, even tiny—essentially one block wide from north to south and two or three shorts blocks long east to west, between the Calzada de Tlalpan highway and Avenida Division del Norte. If one didn't live in it, or next to it as we do, you would likely not notice it or know it exists as a distinct community.

The double name, San Mateo Churubusco—combining a saint's name with an apparently indigenous one—gives a clue that it is a pueblo originario, an original indigenous village. So when we walk to the mercado, when we cross Mártires Irlandeses—Irish Martyrs? in Mexico? We'll get to that in our next post—we are crossing not just a street between neighborhoods of differing socio-economic levels, we are also crossing a frontier between modern Mexico City and the vestiges of an ancient world.

From Huitzilopochco to Churubusco

Huitzilopochco ("Wee-tzeel-lo-POCH-ko", from the náhuatl huitzitzilin, "hummingbird"; and yopochtli, "left or southern direction (based on the path of the sun)"—hence, "hummingbird from the south"), was an indigenous settlement on an island close to the southwestern shore of Lake Texcoco. It was a fishing village before the Mexicas/Aztecs of Tenochtitlan took control of the atepetls (city-states) and pueblos around the entire lake in 1430.

One codex relating the history of the Mexica migration through the Valley of Anahuac narrates that the settlement they called Huitzilopochco was a town originally called Ciavichilat, whose tutelary god was named Opochtli (evidently a Nahuatl name), a god of water and fishing. When the Mexica encountered the village, since their god, Huitzilopochtli, and Opochtli, "left or southern direction "—hence, "hummingbird from the south") shared the same last part of his name with the god of Ciavictilat, the two peoples agreed they must be related. The people were obviously Nahuatl-speaking and likely under the rule of Cuhuacán, across the narrow strait. Even when the Mexica took control, they continued to have Huitzilopochco administered by the former altepetl of Culhuacán.

Like Huitzilopochtli, Opochtli was also a warrior god. So, according to the legend, the people of the village agreed to change its name, first to Uichilat, and later to Huitzilopochco. Our hunch is that the change of name was not so cooperatively achieved as the codex relates but was likely imposed by the Mexica after they took control of the Valley and initiated building the causeway south across the bay in Lake Texcoco to the strategically located village. They would have wanted their god to be the overseer of this important southern access to their capital.

Huitzilopochco lay at the strategic point where Lake Xochimilco
emptied into Lake Texcoco.

When the Mexica took control of the valley, they built a causeway south from their island city to the village in order to connect with Coyoacán and other important villages in the southwest part of the Valley of Anahuac. They built a temple to Huitzilopochtli there. Footpaths from there led west to Coyoacán and south to Huipulco, Tlalpan and Xochimilco. As it was located at the crossroads between these important settlements in the southwestern part of the Valley of Anahuac and Tenochtitlan, Huitzilopochco had a major tianguis, or open-air market, where goods were exchanged. So our neighborhood Mercado Churubusco has ancient roots.

After the Spanish Conquest, in 1535, the Franciscans—as part of the Spiritual Conquest—came from nearby Coyoacán to Huitzilopochco. They tore down the temple to Huitzilopochtli that stood near the entrance to the causeway. There they built a convent and church dedicated to la Asunción de Nuestra Señora, The Assumption of Our Lady(into Heaven upon her earthly death). In 1569, they abandoned the site because of lack of sufficient friars. Nevertheless, the Franciscans remained active in the area of Coyoacán, founding chapels in Hueytetitlan (now Quadrante de San Francisco, (Tres Reyes) Quiáhuac, (Niño Jesus) Tehuitzco and (San Pablo) Tetlapan, (Holy Cross) Atoyac, to the north and (San Sebastián) Axoyla, to the west.

Meanwhile, in the 1550s, the Bishop of Mexico ordered the building of a chapel in Churubusco dedicated to la Santa Cruz, the Holy Cross. It was to be a parochial church, under the bishop's direction, served by what are called secular clergy, i.e. appointed by and reporting to the bishop, rather than by the Franciscans or another religious order independent of the bishop's control.

As we have written elsewhere, this power struggle between bishops and the independent religious orders over the control of the churches in Mexico went on for some years until in the mid-18th century when the Pope gave the Bishop of Mexico control of all the churches formerly founded and run by the religious orders, turning them into parochial churches.

In 1591, the Order of San Diego, a branch of the Third Order of the Franciscans, whose first friars had arrived in Nueva España in 1576, took over the abandoned church of la Asunción de Nuestra Señora. The "Diegans", as they were called for short, built a larger church and convent dedicated to Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, Our Lady of the Angels, that is, the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven after her Assumption. The church Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles and its former convent still stand a few blocks north of San Mateo Churubusco, in its sister Barrio of San Diego Churubusco, which we will visit in our next post.

The name Churubusco is thought to be a Spanish corruption of the name Huitzilopochco. How they got from one to the other is anyone's guess. Our personal hypothesis, unsupported by any evidence, is that since Huitzilopochtli was the main god of the Mexica, the Spanish wanted to obliterate any reference to him, just as they obliterated his temples and idols.

Celebrating San Mateo

At some point, the church of Santa Cruz became dedicated to San Mateo, the apostle St. Matthew. Excavations around the church have found indigenous artifacts that possibly indicate the site was another Mexica temple.

Chapel of San Mateo, St. Matthew
Archeologist think that a Mexica temple to Huitzilopochtli
may have stood there previously.

The Chapel of San Mateo has been renovated various times but retains its original exterior simplicity. The interior is equally simple, except for a Baroque retablo added in the 18th century.

The chapel is dressed up for the annual fiesta patronal,
Fiesta de San Mateo, the week of Sept. 21.

The enclosed, paved atrio (atrium) in front of the church also extends along the north side, where it becomes a tree-shaded space that serves as a kind of plaza for the neighborhood.

The feast day for San Mateo, the gospel writer St. Matthew, is September 21. As we learned our first September in Coyoacán, the tiny barrio celebrates for an entire week. So late morning on September 21 (we aren't up for mañanitas en la madrugada, morning prayers in the pre-dawn hours), we walk the four blocks from our apartment to the chapel of San Mateo.

Tapete de aserrín, sawdust carpet
Depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe
surrounded by roses and colibrís, hummingbirds.

Arriving at the calleja, narrow street, in front of the chapel, we are greeted by a traditional tapete de aserrín, a carpet of colored sawdust. It displays an equally traditional Virgen de Guadalupe, the mestizo (mixed-race) Holy Mother of Mexico, who united the indigenous people and the Spanish faith. She is surrounded by roses, a symbol of the Virgin, and colibrís, hummingbirds. They are a subtle but explicit symbolic reference to the original indigenous name of the community, "Hummingbird of the South".

San Mateo as a Mexica/Azteca Eagle Warrior

Farther along the street is another tapete. This one is even more explicit and surprising in its reference to the community's indigenous orgins—portraying the Christian St. Matthew as a Mexica/Azteca Eagle Warrior. Eagle Warriors, along with Jaguar Warriors, were one of the two elite corps in the Mexica army. Talk about the fusion of traditions!

"St. Matthew, bless us."
Portada, of artificial flowers,
decorates the entrance to the atrio.

Passing beneath the portada decorating the entrance to the atrio, we find that preparations for the fiesta have not quite been completed.

Shaking sawdust
to create another tapete,
this one portraying the chapel.

Two castillos, "castles"
for evening fireworks.
A third castillo is being assembled,
as there will be fireworks for three nights.

Nevertheless, the fiesta is already in full swing. We have just missed a dance performance.

Aztec danzante tunes his lute,
another gift of the Moors to Spain,
and the "Western" world.

Mixture of indigenous
and "Western" instruments.
Plumed Serpent on the rear drum
is the god, Quetzalcóatl.

An Aztec danzante group has just finished. Such groups frequently appear at fiestas in Mexico City and sometimes perform in public plazas. We once saw dozens of them performing in the plaza at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, after which they entered the Basilica for a Mass said on their behalf. Each group represented a specific pueblo or barrio around the City, so each pueblo was being honored and blessed as much as each group of danzantes. (See our post: Traditional Indigenous Dancers: Concheros and Danzantes Aztecas

But we are not disappointed for long.

Chinelos, dancers in Moorish-style "disguises".
These dancers come from a pueblo on Mt. Ajusco,
several miles south, at the southern boundary of the City.

Next, there are chinelos, dancers "disguised" in Moorish-style costumes, whom we have encountered various times in our recent following of el Señor de la Misericordia, the Lord of Compassion, through the original pueblos of Coyoacán.

Caporales, cowgirls, twirl

The chinelos are followed, in turn, by a group of caporales, cowgirls and cowboys, in their Spanish-Mexican dress. So we have already experienced four cultures: Indigenous, Moorish, Spanish and their Mexican synthesis!

Tradition lives on!

And, of course, accompanied by la banda!

Enjoying the fiesta,
with chinelo puppet.

"Super papa,"
Granddad and grandson

The performances then segue into the next event:

La banda leads off into the procession.
Note the presence of yet another culture!

All-important coheteros

go several yards in front....

...announcing the approach

of the procession

"Long live San Mateo"
and his pueblo, (people/village)

Our Lady of the Angels,
from neighboring San Diego Churubusco,
joins the procession.

From Church Back to Market

The procession moves down the narrow calleja at the side of the chapel, passing the market.

The Churubusco Mercado,
has been freshly painted by the recently elected government of Delegación Coyoacán,

The sign, upper left, reads, "Coyoacán: Tradition and Vanguard"
The City government has pledged financial support for the traditional mercados
in the face of competition from Walmart and other "supermercados".

Sacred and Secular,
Church and Mercado, the core combination of Mexican pueblo identity.

Circling that other center of community life, el mercado, the procession moves along Calle Mártirés Irlandeses, bringing us back to where we began, the corner of Calle California that is the entrance to Colonia Parque San Andrés. So here we part ways with traditional Mexico and our neighboring pueblo originario, San Mateo Churubusco, and head home to modern Mexico City.

Pues, well, fronteras (frontiers, borders) are rather porous in Mexico.
Around the corner from el mercado,
on California Street in upscale Parque San Andrés,
a family sets up business selling rolls and fresh quesadillas,
Here, they are traditional blue corn tortillas,
baked on a comal (grill, originally of stone, now sheet metal,
heated by a portable tank of gas),
and filled with various veggies and cheese.
Note the Mexican ingenuity of using tires to hold up
the umbrellas of their portable enterprise.
The tianguis (ancient open-air market) lives!

Delegaciones of Mexico City
Coyoacán is the purple delegación in the center.

San Mateo Churubusco is small, green area just to the right (east) of the star.
Parque San Andrés is Mexico City Ambles' home base.