Zempoala

Continuing my wander through Veracruz, I stopped at these Totonaco ruins. They´re especially notable for being the first city the Spanish encountered in the Americas and a stepping stone in the conquest of Mexico. When Spanish scouts reported a city built of pure silver in the distance, Cortes and his men set out immediately, but it turned out only to be the polished white stucco gleaming in the sun. Still, Zempoala was a pretty advanced city with temples, defensive walls, systems of drainage and irrigation. King Chicomacotl (who was not exactly chico, he was too heavy to walk) recieved Cortes with lavish gifts, and the two formed an alliance against the Aztecs. One informational plaque noted that Chicomacotl personally offered Cortes 7 ladies, including his own neice. But I´m sure that being such a devout Christian gentleman, Cortes must have responded by lecturing him about sex outside of marriage, ha ha.

In the photo above, I was standing in the middle of a ceremonial gladiator ring. The crenallations atop the low stone wall would have been hidden under elaborate leaf-shaped stucco ornamentation. Warriors captured in the flower wars were brought here to fight to the death. The "home team" so to speak, got to use macuahuitles (wooden swords mounted with razor sharp obsidian blades). The captured warrior weilded a similar instrument, only instead of razor sharp blades, his weopan was studded with feathers. If he somehow managed to defeat his enemy anyway, he had to immediately fight a second warrior. If he won again, he was set free and given all kinds of gifts. This almost never happened though.

In the background is the most important building of the city, the Templo Mayor. It was the site of various shennanigans by Cortes. Here he ordered the idols smashed and a Christian mass to be given to the puzzled Totonacos. Later it was the location of a battle between Cortes and Panfilo de Narvaez, who the governor of Cuba had sent to stop him pillaging and raping strange lands against orders. When Panfilo´s eye was put out, he was obliged to surrender, and suddenly Cortes had even more men under his control.

Despite its historical importance, this was a very laid back place to visit, practically deserted. There were only four other visitors, two of which were teenagers from the town making out behind the temple of the wind god. Only a chain link fence divides the most important buildings from the town. There is another pyramid in a vacant lot beside some store, and even more out in the sugar cane fields. I asked one of the guards about them, and he said that if you give them notice they will take you on a tour, but going alone "no es recomendable." Apparantely the farmers get freaked out by unaccompanied tourists, and its best not to upset a man with a machete in hand.

Mexico's saddest Olmec head

O how the mighty have fallen! Once commoners were forbidden to meet his eyes. Once his name was whispered with awe. How many comely wives kept his mug filled with pulque? How many slaves attended him?

Was he a mighty prince? A high priestof the jaguar cult? The greatest athlete of his generation, who triumphed in the ballcourt to the adulation of thousands?

Now he holds court in the Xalapa bus station, wedged between lost luggage and a kiosk selling useless knick knaks. Continually tormented by the odor of the pay toilets on the 2nd floor, he bides his time eternally gazing out at the taxis whizzing past outside.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 4: Yay, you're dead!

These inanely smiling ceramic heads are thought to somehow be associated with death, as they're frequently found in graves.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 3: a reconstructed pyramid

They dug up a pyramid "Las Higueras" with original frescoes depicting mythological scenes, ceremonies and ball games. In ancient Mesoamerica it was thought that there was a chance the world might end once every 52 years. So whenever it did not, they would add a new level onto their pyramids to make them more grandiose. The result is that the layers of murals show 3 centuries of changing beliefs and artistic styles.

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 2: were jaguars

Wonderful things from the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology part 1: Colossal Olmec Heads

Note that it is likely not that distorted, they were really into head shaping.

On the road

I´ve left Guadalajara and I´m travelling a bit with my extra time. Yesterday I took a bus to Mexico City, and then made a random decision to go to Papantla, Veracruz (being the next bus leaving that looked interesting). The big thing to see there are the ruins of El Tajin. I hadn´t yet visited any ruins of the Gulf Coast cultures. On a whim I hired a guide, which I almost never do. You always have to take what they say with a bit of salt, but he was pretty good. He was a Totonaco, a civilization native to Veracruz that way back in the day was suffering under Aztec opression when Cortez came along with a deal to make everything better...He grew up sort of around the ruins, only when he was a kid it was just hilly farmland--the pyramids were still buried underneath.

Because El Tajin had been abandoned so long, they escaped both the Spanish military/religious zeal, as well as the clumsiness of early archeaologists who have tended to reconstruct Mexico´s ancient cities haphazardly. There are some pretty well preserved reliefs along the ballcourts and even sections of original paint on some pyramids. The one pictured was bright red and blue at one time. A lot of the pyramids have shallow niches built into them, which is apparantely unique to this site, and no one is 100% sure what they were for. This Pyramid has (well, had) 365 niches, giving it some kind of calendar function. Also, a lot of the buildings also have ¨greco¨ zig zag patterns that are typical of the Zapotecs, showing an interchange of ideas with Oaxaca. You can see them in this picture on either side of the central staircase.

It´s interesting--for a national INAH site--that Totonacos live kind of in and around unexcavated sections of the ruins. I could see people´s plots of corn in the surrounding hills (well, probably pyramids underneath). Also a short commute if your job is selling knick knacks to tourists. There is a statue of Tajin (aka the rain god Tlaloc) on one of the pyramids, which according to the guide is still focal point of ritual activity. I realize that this completely sounds like the kind of thing that is made up for gullible tourists, but from the strange offhand way he was talking about it I actually think it might be true.