The president presented the program at his morning press conference.
President López Obrador has presented the government’s ambitious program to plant trees on one million hectares of land over the next three years, declaring that it will give a “boost” to rural Mexico.
Speaking at his morning press conference, López Obrador said that 24 million pesos (US $1.2 million) will be invested this year in the plan known as “Sembrando Vida” (Sowing Life).
In an initial stage, timber-yielding and fruit trees will be planted on 570,000 hectares of land in eight states in Mexico’s south and southeast as well as 14 municipalities in Durango. López Obrador said the aim is to create 200,000 jobs this year.
“The countryside is the most important factory of Mexico, it’s just that it was abandoned, shut down. Now we’re going to give it a boost,” he said.
The president added that one of the main objectives of the program is to provide people with opportunities to make a living close to home and thus curtail migration.
“There are around 100 million hectares of social property that were abandoned during the neoliberal period, that’s why migration grew so much. The countryside, which has a great economic potential for the country, was abandoned . . .” López Obrador said.
Farmers, ejidatarios, or communal landowners, and others who participate in the tree-planting program will receive a monthly salary of 5,000 pesos (US $260) for working six days a week.
Labor Secretary María Luisa Alcalde explained that 4,500 pesos will be paid in cash and 500 pesos will go into a savings fund.
In 2020, an additional 10 states will be incorporated into the program to take the total number to 19. An additional 200,000 jobs are expected to be created.
The army will be responsible for supplying the saplings, which will be grown in 11 nurseries, of which eight are already operational. A new military-run nursery will be built in Cárdenas, Tabasco, this year.
Mahogany, cedar, cacao, rubber, cinnamon and soursop will be among the trees planted.
This year's Material Art Fair will bring work from 73 galleries in 22 countries.
Mexico City’s Material Art Fair has built itself over the past six years to become one of the world’s preeminent independent contemporary art fairs, this year featuring 73 galleries from 22 countries and 37 cities – the most geographically diverse to date.
In addition to the international showing, the fair features 18 Mexican galleries, with Mexico City favorites, LABOR, joségarcia and Lulu among them. Material has made a name for itself partly for its fellowship with the community it espouses, welcoming art fans of all levels with open arms.
This will mark Material’s second year at Frontón México, a breathtaking Art Deco-era jai alai stadium at the foot of the Monument to the Revolution in Colonia Tabacalera. Inside the stadium, gallery booths are situated throughout a two-story structural feat of scaffolding designed by the Mexico City-based architectural studio, APRDELESP, to display a full horizontal and vertical panorama of the offerings.
“Material is a home for wild ideas and, each year, we question everything. Our last edition was a huge step forward for us in terms of making the fair we had always imagined Material could be. Now we get to build on that foundation, which is incredibly exciting,” says Material partner and creative director Brett W. Schultz.
Expect to see some of contemporary art’s most intriguing international works – a wide array of new voices and established talents – often available at prices even budding collectors can manage. Thanks to Material’s growing reputation, this year’s gallery selection process became even more fiercely competitive.
Rodrigo Feliz, partner and exhibitor liaison, says, “We’ve never seen this level of competition in the fair’s application process. The selection committee had a very difficult task set out for them this year, but we couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s a very strong statement and it reflects Mexico City’s continued ascendance within the international contemporary art world.”
Offering a cross-section of the current state of the art world, Material’s exhibitors are broken into the fair’s principal section, showcasing both emerging and acclaimed commercial galleries, and the projects sections, featuring fresh perspectives from artist-run and non-profit spaces, as well as the future generation of commercial galleries.
Silke Lindner-Sutti, director of Jack Hanley Gallery of New York City, says of the fair, “I think that Material reflects and represents its city and contemporary art scene more than most fairs do. The fair’s program outside of its actual venue seems to be very engaged and involved in the city, its galleries, museums, restaurants, bars and events that initially were the breeding ground the fair emerged from.”
A first-time exhibitor, Jack Hanley Gallery will be showing Massachusetts-based painter Emma Kohlmann’s stylized hieroglyphic works on paper, representations of a sort of modern artifact. Lindner-Sutti explains, “The imagery of Emma’s works is heavily influenced by ancient figurines, statues and mythological narratives which relate perfectly to a city like Mexico City with such a rich history and culture. In a more practical sense, her works on paper are still very affordable which makes them accessible to a broad, young audience and collector base.”
Also incorporated in the experience is the fair’s immersive performance program, IMMATERIAL, known to pop up unexpectedly throughout the fair. IMMATERIAL Volume 3, called “an experiment in camouflage and relational practices,” brings performers to intermingle directly with fairgoers to create insurgent, surrealistic situations. Material is known for its low-key atmosphere, more of an effervescent party than an uptight transaction.
The fair will certainly continue to grow within the establishment as the years progress, but its fresh outlook is a welcome comfort. Future Gallery, showing an international roster this year of Romanian artist Botond Keresztesi, Lithuanian duo Pakui Hardware and Mexican artist Julieta Gil, has been an exhibitor since the fair’s inception.
Mercedes Gómez, director of Future Mexico City, explains, “Mexico hasn’t fully defined itself in the international art community and neither has Material. It’s as if they’re both finding their identities together.”
Material opens to the public at 3:00pm on Thursday, February 7 and runs through Sunday. Admission is 180 pesos for a one-day admission, 90 pesos for teachers, students and seniors.
During a period of 10 weeks at the New York trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a total of 56 witnesses gave testimony against the former drug lord, portraying him not only as a drug trafficker but a ruthless killer and an insatiable womanizer.
But his wife sees him rather differently.
Sitting in a reserved seat in the public gallery of the Brooklyn federal court almost every day of the trial, 29-year-old Emma Coronel Aispuro heard just about every word spoken against her husband of more than a decade.
And despite the evidence that continued to mount against the father of her twin seven-year-old daughters, Coronel continues to stand by her man.
“Everything that has been said in court about Joaquín, the good and the bad, has done nothing to change how I think about him after years of knowing him,” she said in a post on Instagram yesterday.
“I don’t know my husband as the person they are trying to show him as,” Coronel told the New York Times in an interview. “But rather I admire him as the human being that I met, and the one I married.”
Although he has either been in prison or on the run during the entirety of their nearly 12-year marriage, Coronel said that Guzmán is an “excellent father, friend, brother, son and partner.”
If convicted – the jury will start deliberating on Monday – the 61-year-old former head of the Sinaloa Cartel will face a likely sentence of life imprisonment, meaning that until the day he dies, he will have to conduct those personal relationships from behind bars.
Such was the overwhelming evidence against Guzmán, that his legal team presented a defense Tuesday that lasted for just 30 minutes. The prosecution rested its lengthy case Monday.
During the trial, Guzmán has been held at an undisclosed location, where the only approved visitors are his daughters, Emali and María Joaquina, who attend school in Mexico.
Coronel has not been allowed to visit or speak to him, and before his trial started the presiding judge ruled that she couldn’t give him a brief hug.
Even so, Coronel, who was born in California but grew up in Durango, told the Times that she didn’t consider herself a single mother.
“More so, a mother who in this moment doesn’t have the support of her husband, but trusts that the family will be well,” she said while conceding, “obviously our life has changed.”
Coronel said that Guzmán “was a father very present to the attention of our daughters,” adding that the girls are “the adoration of their father and he is the adoration of them.”
Coronel, who wed Guzmán in a “very simple ceremony” when she was just 18, didn’t take the witness stand herself as married couples cannot be compelled to testify against each other but she was nevertheless implicated in the trial.
One witness, Dámaso López Núñez, named her as a co-conspirator in Guzmán’s infamous 2015 prison break via a tunnel, and a recording of a telephone call between the couple was played to the jury.
During the conversation, Coronel passed the telephone to her father, also a former cartel member, and Guzmán told him about a drug shipment into the United States.
Prosecutors also shared text messages that the couple exchanged in 2012, which revealed that Coronel was preparing for a potential raid by authorities.
“Any weapons there, love? Do you have a gun?” Guzmán asked in one message. “I have one of yours. That you gave me,” she responded.
The evidence presented has led many to wonder how Coronel has managed to avoid criminal charges herself. Prosecutors declined to answer questions about why she is not in danger of being charged.
“My name was often mentioned and called into question,” Coronel admitted.
“I can only say that I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am not perfect, but I consider myself a good human being who never intentionally hurt anyone.”
Delgado and Polevnsky speak with reporters yesterday.
President López Obrador’s confidence in his Pollyanna approach to personal security is shared by key members of his party, despite a recent threat from a cartel boss.
Morena party president Yeidckol Polevnsky said in an interview yesterday that the narco-banner placed outside the Pemex refinery in Salamanca, Guanajuato, would not deter the administration in its fight against fuel theft and corruption and the president trusts the people to look after him.
The banner’s message, presumably signed by José Antonio “El Marro” Yepez, presumed leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel warned López Obrador to withdraw troops from the state or innocent people would die.
“We will not retreat because of a narcomanta or anything so that they can continue with their crimes, corruption, and fuel theft,” Polevnsky said. “That’s unacceptable.”
She also denied that explosive devices had been found in a pickup outside the refinery, hours before the government suddenly changed its story and said there were explosives in the truck.
“There weren’t any explosive devices [outside the refinery] as was reported. The president trusts the people to look after him, and I believe they will, and although personally I would like much more security, I believe he has done well in marking the difference between the previous government and what the government is now.”
Mario Delgado, Morena’s leader in the Chamber of Deputies, also affirmed his belief in President López Obrador’s safety. He added that he believed the threats to be a sign that the president’s anti-fuel theft strategy was working and represented a threat to corruption and criminal interests.
Presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez, who also told reporters initially that reports of explosives near the Salamanca refinery had been a false alarm, confirmed that police had in fact found explosives in a parked pickup and told the newspaper Milenio that the devices had been destroyed.
He told reporters that the president was unconcerned by the gang leader’s threat, repeating the party’s mantra that “the people will look after the president.”
If your favorite cantina has a washroom that looks like this, you probably won't find Bodie Kellogg anywhere nearby.
Those who have followed my column over the past years will have come to know I am a sucker for funky Mexican cantinas. Not bars, not trendy Mexico City eateries that call themselves a cantina, but the real thing. I am referring to the cantinas which are patronized by working-class Mexican men.
There is nothing sexist in my exclusion of women in this statement. The original laws which governed cantinas from the 1870s to 1984 prohibited women from entering a cantina. Even today, the only woman found in a cantina would be a barmaid, who may or may not have some business on the side.
I feel confident about my up-to-date information on this. Last year I was in a cantina where the barmaid said she was Norwegian. She told me she was a Fjord Escort.
Even with the repeal of the law barring women, it is still standard that no respectable Mexican woman would voluntarily enter a true cantina. As an adventurous expat, you may wish to share the cantina experience with your significant other, but I would not recommend it.
However, my loyal column readers are hardy explorers, people of substance who crave provocation. Indeed, I think of you all as fellow travelers in the greatest adventure of my (not lacking in earlier adventures) lifetime so far. So come with me on this also. I thought that some of the more intrepid among you might wish to explore the cantinas of your local area in Mexico and I could assist with some basic information to assimilate prior to your undertaking — call it Cantina Etiquette.
Knowing the proper code of behavior will greatly enhance your cantina experience as well as keep you relatively safe. Let’s start with entering the cantina and how to display suitable body language.
Since a true cantina has no visual link with the outside world, the access is typically through a small vestibule, some with ancient batwing doors, to your right or left of the vision barrier. So, unless you have been to the place before, you have no idea what awaits on the inside; this is all part of the escapade.
Rule 1. Never enter a cantina while showing any type of trepidation or hesitation. One needs to exude an unperturbed confidence, self-assurance without arrogance. Quickly, but not surreptitiously, scan the scene and locate a table to accommodate your group. A quick word of warning here: always attempt to find a table the farthest from the jukebox unless, of course you are either deaf or desire to become so.
Your pace to the table should be unhurried but direct while smiling and making friendly, not furtive, eye contact. Oh yeah, another word of warning here: there are different types of eye contact which need to be noted.
Rule 1.1. 99% of the time you will simply encounter patrons who are friendly and candidly curious; gringos are rather rare in these types of establishments. However, one needs to discern the difference between the look that embodies a casual inquisitiveness and the look which smolders with psychopathic rage.
Personally, I have never encountered any hostility while cantina hopping in Mexico, but my senior Canadian research assistant ran into a bit of trouble last spring. He had, however, disregarded Basic Rule 101 — Never, Ever Be In a Cantina After Nine On A Saturday Night. Being fleet of foot he managed to escape any bodily harm and is now following a strict regimen of safe cantina practices.
Rule 2. OK, now that you have successfully made it to the table, it is time to choose the type of beverage to be consumed. Obviously, beer is generally the liquid of choice and can come in several ways. The locals usually opt for the 32-ounce or 40-ounce bottle and plastic cups which is the most economical avenue to inebriation. Do not laugh out loud if the large bottle is called “family” size. Individual bottles are also available in either a six-ounce cuartito or the familiar 12-ounce variety.
Rule 2.1. When the barmaid comes to take your order, make sure no one in your party attempts to order a scotch, a bourbon, a sidecar, a manhattan or anything which would require ingredients other than tequila, or possibly vodka or water.
Rule 2.2. Do Not Expect A Bill Presented At The End In The Usual Way. When your drink order arrives, the waitress will transcribe the cost on a thin piece of stiff paper that will nest in the napkin holder. The cost of all the subsequent orders will be similarly noted, so that not even the drunkest of patrons can successfully argue about the final tally.
Rule 3. Be Prepared For a Vile Bathroom. After the consumption of a few beers, someone in your party may need to use the restroom; this can lead to some serious culture shock. In some of the early cantinas, there was a grated trough in the floor below the elbow space at the bar. This allowed the patrons to answer nature’s call while continuously swilling cerveza. The modern day cantinas have restrooms, or cubicles roughly resembling restrooms.
Rule 3.1. Take T.P. & A Few Paper Towels In Your Pocket. The men‘s room in a typical cantina consists of a single toilet without a seat, and a low trough long enough to accommodate eight to 10 people. Some of these urinals are constructed with full-sized bricks laid flat. This type of construction means there is about six inches of brick between you and the trough that transports the waste to god knows where.
Consequently, to achieve proper trajectory you need to press your legs against the face of the bricks and lean forward. However, many of the patrons before you have failed to make the distance, so full contact with the brick front is not advisable. And, of course, you can forget about finding any toilet paper or paper towels. If these facilities are ever cleaned it is done poorly and infrequently. Which reminds me of another word of wisdom: never select a table close to the restrooms; it might be a bit odoriferous.
Rule 4. Exercise Best “Firm Yet Fair” Cantina Diplomacy. You may be approached by customers who could be somewhat intoxicated; don’t worry. Most times these barflies are harmless. They are usually looking to bum a cigarette or possibly to strike up a friendship with someone likely to buy them a drink. At best, this type of encounter is an opportunity to practice your street Spanish, at worst you just have a happy drunk hovering about your table for a while. Either way, it is best practice to be kind but firm, employing your best cantina diplomacy.
Financial Overhead of the Adventure. The cost of any cantina adventure is quite reasonable with individual bottles of beer costing 17 pesos or less. Shots of tequila range from 45 pesos for the “good” stuff to 15 pesos for the firewater, which requires a substantial amount of salt and lime. Overall you can induce a moderate dose of alcohol poisoning for less than 150 pesos each; truly an economical outing.
So my advice, intrepid adventurers, is that you sally forth lion-hearted and unflinching, into the gritty side of life in Mexico and savor the cantina experience with a few friends, though never after, let’s say, 4:00pm on any day.
Quietly take some photos to show your North of the Border friends who already believe you take your life into your hands every day just by being here. They’ll be speechless at the photos of the restroom.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half wild dog. He can be reached at buscardero@yahoo.com.
Although it’s not a prominent role, Academy Award nominee Yalitza Aparicio appears in a short musical clip shot as a promotional video for a community band in her hometown of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca.
The indigenous actress who made her acting debut in Alfonso Cuarón’s film Roma was approached last summer by José Manuel Cruz Velasco, director of the musical group Raíces de Tlaxiaco.
Cruz said he had known Aparicio and her sister Edith since they were young girls and that they always joined the workshops organized by the local House of Culture. “For that reason I wanted to invite her, and she supported us by appearing in the videoclip.”
[wpgmza id=”143″]
At the time, Aparicio had just finished shooting Roma. Cruz recalled that Aparicio spoke about about her experience but “back then we had no idea of the impact she would have.”
Cruz’s project was to film a musical clip for his group’s Pulque Bendito song, which shifts between the band members — all children and teenagers — and scenes of a ceremony in honor of the maguey in which citizens of Tlaxiaco enjoy pulque, an ancestral beverage obtained through the fermentation of the plant’s sap.
Raíces De Tlaxiaco - Pulque Bendito ( Video Oficial )
Aparicio herself only appears near the beginning of the video as part of the maguey ceremony. Cruz explained that she had to leave soon after to travel to Mexico City where she received the news that Roma would premiere on August 30 at the Venice International Film Festival.
The Pulque Bendito video was posted to Raíces de Tlaxiaco’s YouTube channel on October 15, where it has earned close to 10,000 views.
Tlaxiaco is a city and municipality in the Mixteca region of the state, about 100 kilometers northwest of Oaxaca city.
A train rolls in Michoacán but teachers maintain a vigil at the side of the tracks.
Trains could soon be running again in Michoacán after teachers yesterday began lifting an 18-day rail blockade that cost the economy at least 18.5 billion pesos, although one railway company representative described the partial clearing of the tracks as “useless.”
Teachers affiliated with the CNTE union started moving off the tracks yesterday morning and last night, a Kansa City Southern train left Lázaro Cárdenas with a load of at least 235 containers.
But the railway company said that it would only travel to its station in the port city, explaining that it couldn’t resume operations because there was still a risk that the ongoing dispute between teachers and the state government could once again strand its trains.
Teachers who have been protesting against the non-payment of salaries, benefits and bonuses in Lázaro Cárdenas, Nueva Italia, Maravatío and La Piedad dismantled their camps during the course of the day yesterday but those in Pátzcuaro, Caltzontzin and Yurécuaro continued to block tracks this morning.
Isidoro Castañeda, a regional leader for the CNTE, said that although railway tracks had been cleared at some points, teachers had not returned home.
“We’re not leaving the tracks, we’re going to allow the departure of the trains and depending on the conclusions that authorities reach with our representatives we’ll decide if we once again block [the tracks] or completely withdraw,” he said.
The union said yesterday that other protests, including barricades at government offices, and a work stoppage will continue until all of its demands have been met and all outstanding payments have been made.
Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles said on Twitter today that progress has been made towards an agreement with the teachers.
He said there was “complete commitment to find a solution to the legitimate demands of teachers” at a meeting yesterday in Mexico City between union representative and state and federal authorities.
But for rail companies and the wider private sector, for whom economic losses continue to mount, “progress” and “commitment” to a solution to the dispute is cold comfort.
Lourdes Aranda, a spokeswoman for Ferromex, said in a radio interview today that the partial clearing of the tracks was not enough to allow the company’s trains to resume service.
“For the purpose [of resuming operations] it’s useless. We have four points cleared and three blocked, the fact that they [teachers] are deployed at the side of the tracks doesn’t offer much security,” she said.
Separate estimates from the Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin) and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) relating to different periods of the 18-day rail blockade, once conflated, indicate that accumulated private sector losses have reached at least 18.5 billion pesos (US $967 million).
Lydia Nava, president of the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) in Michoacán, said that even if trains resume operations today, it will take days before they are able to shift the backlog of cargo.
The private sector reported that there are 8,200 stranded shipping containers carrying 1.2 million tonnes of freight.
A bus commandeered by teachers blocks a Oaxaca city street.
Oaxaca Governor Alejandro Murat reached an agreement with striking teachers yesterday, ending four days of protests that affected major thoroughfares in the state capital.
Among demands by teachers affiliated with Section 22 of the CNTE union were the reinstatement of physical education teachers left without employment by the 2013 education reforms and the payment of bonuses and benefits they say they are owed.
The governor told the newspaper Milenio that since several of the CNTE’s grievances could only be addressed by the federal government, he had called upon President López Obrador for help.
“We have agreed to accompany leaders and representatives from Section 22 of the CNTE to Mexico City to formally present their demands. For example, physical education programs disappeared with the implementation of the previous federal government’s education reforms, but the current federal government has the authority to renew them and give these teachers formal positions once more.”
The latest outbreak of CNTE strikes, generally an annual occurrence in Oaxaca, saw protests in different locations around the state, while in the capital teachers erected barricades along main streets and highways.
They also closed the main bus terminal for 12 hours, forcing the ADO bus line to set up a temporary station in the middle of the street. Several departures to central and southern parts of the state were cancelled.
Murat denounced the protesters’ tactics in a video before sitting down for negotiations.
“As Oaxacans, we denounce the violence and the blockades, but we are in favor of building the conditions for a quality education for our children.”
National Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval describes Tijuana's new security strategy this morning.
A large force of federal and state police and the military will be part of a new security strategy in Tijuana, Baja California, next week in response to a spike in the number of homicides.
A record 2,518 people were murdered in the border city last year, almost seven times the total in 2012.
President López Obrador this morning presented the rough draft of a security plan that will be implemented beginning Monday with the deployment of 1,800 military and police personnel. It was well received by local authorities.
Municipal Public Security Secretary Marco Sotomayor Amezcua said the city had repeatedly requested the intervention of federal forces for two years.
“If it is as announced and we get a real presence of a large number of [federal agents] . . . I believe it will work in reducing the number of homicides.”
The president of a public security citizens’ council, Juan Manuel Hernández Niebla, took the president’s announcement as a clear sign that Tijuana is a priority.
“We must applaud and congratulate ourselves for the fact that the president of the republic is turning around and looking at Tijuana in terms of security,” he said.
Local and state officials say the spike in homicides is not the result of drug cartels fighting over trafficking routes into the United States as it has been in the past, but local drug dealers fighting each other.
They estimate that 90% of homicides are now related to local drug sales.
View of the restored pyramids from “bleachers” atop a nearby hillside.
Two thousand years ago, a unique society thrived in western Mexico. It appears they were the only people in history to base their public monuments on the geometry of concentric circles, and to this day their hundreds of circular pyramids still mark the territory of an empire bigger than Guatemala.
The capital of this ancient nation was Teuchitlán, “The Place of the First God,” located within the shadow of the Tequila Volcano, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city.
Inhabitants of the modern-day Teuchitlán knew there was something special about a group of large mounds just over a kilometer north of town, but had no idea how important they once were. They called these mounds Los Guachimontones.
I paid my first visit to this site in 1985 before any sort of development had taken place. Upon reaching the edge of the little town of Teuchitlán, I stared in disbelief at the “road” leading to the Guachimontones. I was driving a Jeep, but that so-called road was such a mass of ruts and churned up rocks that I simply parked and went on foot.
All I could see were tall weeds and cornfields but, by good luck, I found a farmer out there who pointed to a hill covered with heavy brush. “That is a Guachimontón,” he said.
A mural by Jorge Monroy shows the Bird Man in flight.
Just getting through the corn to the base of the Guachimontón was difficult enough, but now I had to push my way through thorn bushes, cacti and irritating nettles to finally reach the very top of the hill — which did appear to be man-made. “This is an unusually tall heap of rocks,” I thought, “but that’s all it is, just a heap of rocks.”
Without realizing it, I had drawn a conclusion similar to what many archaeologists of the time thought about the nature of ancient west Mexico and — like them — I couldn’t have been more mistaken.
Unknown to me, two local researchers, archaeologist Phil Weigand and his wife Acelia, an art historian, had looked beneath the surface at Teuchitlán and had discovered that the textbooks were wrong. An amazing civilization — unique in many ways — had once flourished in those weed-covered hills.
Twenty some years before my visit to the Guachimontones, Acelia Weigand happened to be visiting a natural spring located just east of Teuchitlán. “It was in 1962,” she says. “The kids were diving near a huge fig tree in a small, natural pool when I saw these shiny pieces of glass under the water. I told them to be careful because there were broken bottles down there and they could get cut.
“So the kids started pulling these shiny things out and they said, ‘No auntie, they’re not bottles, they’re knives!’ Well, all of them were long, sharp, prismatic blades of obsidian and I brought 13 of them back to our house in Etzatlán. But I couldn’t get Felipe to pay any attention to them for seven years. Seven years it took for me to lead him up to the obsidian workshop from which those blades had washed down to the swimming hole!”
This ancient obsidian workshop led the Weigands to the ruins of the pyramids now known as the Guachimontones. Phil Weigand later recalled: “I stood on the largest pyramid, looked around and thought, this is unexpected.”
Phil Weigand directs excavation of the ball court.
It turned out to be an understatement. The Weigands set aside a summer to explore the pyramids they had found and ended up spending the next 29 years documenting a complex, highly organized society which had begun in western Mexico in 1000 BC and had reached its apogee around 200 AD.
I had no clue what the Guachimontones represented until one day in 1997, when I heard rumors about an American archaeologist living in the town of Etzatlán, 26 kilometers northwest of Teuchitlán. Tracking down a foreigner in a small Mexican town is easy and this is how I first met the Weigands.
One of the many endearing characteristics of Phil Weigand was his total lack of pretentiousness and his willingness to share his discoveries — at length, I might add — with anyone who would listen, and I do mean anyone, even the humblest rancher or laborer.
“Look at these clay models of people gathered around the Guachimontones,” he said. “I’ve just had them made. Each one is a faithful copy of a 2,000-year-old original found right here in this part of Jalisco. Aren’t they amazing?”
“Amazing” doesn’t do justice to those clay models. They are full of life. We see dozens of people socializing, chatting and jostling one another or perhaps linked arm in arm, performing the cadena (chain dance), while listening to groups of musicians. Around this walkway, on evenly spaced, terraced platforms, the local VIPs gazed out the doorways of buildings that to western eyes might look typically Chinese.
These structures had tall, pointy, gabled roofs which, along with their wattle-and-daub walls, were carefully plastered and beautifully painted in bright colors. The VIPs chatted with the people in the milling crowd, perhaps discussing the latest score of the ball game taking place in the court located alongside the largest pyramid. Directly to the north, a huge crowd of onlookers may have watched the events from a steep, terraced hillside.
[wpgmza id=”142″]
Everyone, of course, was anxiously waiting for the main event of the day to begin. A sturdy pole had been set in the exact center of each steep pyramid. No one today knows exactly what its function was. The clay models show a “flier” balanced on top of the pole, probably representing Ehécatl, the Bird Man and, as the clay models show us, a crowd of people pushing on the pole caused him to “fly.”
It is also possible that ropes were wound around the pole, as is still done today in Veracruz, and that fliers tied to the ropes and bedecked with feathers swooped through the air in ever-widening circles, soaring up and down like graceful birds, finally to land on the circular walkway around the pyramid.
This, however, is pure speculation on my part, as no archaeological proof has yet been found to back up the idea that the ritual of voladores originated here.
The size and proportions of the rings around the mound followed a deliberately chosen geometrical formula, and the diameter of the pyramid was always 2.5 times the width of the walkway. These proportions form the basis for Teuchitlán’s formal circular architecture which is unique not only in Mesoamerica, but in the entire world. Nearly 200 complexes employing this architectural style have been found in western Mexico, making it easy for archaeologists to trace the limits of Teuchitlán’s influence.
No one knows what these people called themselves. What we do know is that they revered Ehecatl, “the First God, who was known as the Night Wind and portrayed as the Bird Man, covered with feathers.” Ehecatl apparently didn’t need human sacrifice to satisfy his ego. Perhaps because of this, the people of the Teuchitlán tradition seem to have been peaceful souls in comparison with the Aztecs, who came much later.
The bright blaze of the Teuchitlán civilization began to dim around the year 450 AD for reasons so far unknown. Archaeologists tell us that a day came when every building around the circular pyramids was burned to the ground. At the same time, new organizational and political systems had sprung into existence and the ritual of the Bird Man simply disappeared. These changes were expressed architecturally in the form of rectangular buildings. Gone were the circular pyramids — forever.
[soliloquy id="70805"]
For a while it was thought that the Teuchitlán people had simply vanished around 450 AD, but when the foundations were dug for a museum, now called the Phil Weigand Interpretive Center, numerous proofs were uncovered showing that Teuchitlán had been inhabited continuously for 2,000 years, from the pre-classical period right through to the post-classical. The enigma of this curious and industrious civilization is today inspiring a new generation of archaeologists to carry on the studies begun by the Weigands and to dig even deeper into the fascinating mystery of the ancient people of Teuchitlán.
More than 150,000 people from all over the world visit the Guachimontones ruins and museum every year. The site is open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9 to 5 and there is no admission charge on Tuesdays. An English-Spanish guide to the Guachimontones is available at the museum and can be ordered online.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
