The belief that a supernatural being is lurking nearby has led some residents of a Morelos town to paint white crosses on their homes for protection.
Some Cocoyoc residents say they began hearing strange noises in the early hours of the morning two weeks ago. As they couldn’t attribute the noises to an animal or any other source, they concluded they were made by a nagual (or nahual), which in Mesoamerican folk religion is a human being who has the power to transform, or shape-shift, into an animal.
“First it was a few residents who started … [talking about the noises] and then, as days passed, more people asserted they had heard the same thing,” Luis Salgado, a Cocoyoc local, told the newspaper El Sol de Cuautla.
At some point, one person suggested that the noises were made by a nagual and other residents agreed. They concluded that they needed to do something to ward off the supernatural being so they decided to paint white crosses on their homes.
The crosses mainly appeared on homes on Buenos Aires Street, where Salgado says violent incidents have occurred. However, in recent days, fear of the nagual has extended to other parts of Cocoyoc, a town about 30 kilometers east of Cuernavaca in the municipality of Yautepec. Residents are so afraid that they are staying inside after 10 p.m., El Sol said.
News of the Cocoyoc resident’s belief and photographs of the white crosses on people’s doors and windows went viral on social media, triggering a range of responses, including mockery, and even leading to the creation of nagual memes. Salgado spoke out in defense of the belief, noting that the town – part of a region of Morelos where indigenous Nahua people live – is governed by the indigenous governing code known as usos y costumbres.
Gustavo Garibay, a historian, also observed that traditional beliefs remain strong in Cocoyoc.
“Sometimes we forget that … Cocoyoc is a town with a Nahua tradition. This cultural influence prevails in ideas and healing ritual beliefs. Let’s not forget that Cocoyoc is a cultural stronghold where until relatively recently there were still practices of magic and [traditional] healers,” he said.
A nahual, whose name comes from a Náhuatl word used to describe the purported ability of individuals to transform into animals or natural phenomena, is believed to use its power for either good or evil depending on its personality.
“Whether they use their powers for the benefit or detriment of others wholly depends on whether the individual’s personality … is benevolent or malevolent,” according to an article by Mexican digital publisher Cultura Colectiva.
The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky by Linda L. Lock is set in Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo.
Not too long ago, if you were thinking of moving to Mexico, you were at retirement age with kids long since grown. Today, because of the rise of the digital nomad, younger people are making the move and even bringing children with them.
The trend has not gone unnoticed in publications in both Mexico and the United States. It was noted almost offhandedly for at least several years and lately has become something of a hot topic in U.S. newspapers.
In addition to economics, parents make the move at least in part because of Mexico’s family-oriented culture and to allow their children to experience another language and culture. Those who have recently arrived or are in the preparation stages might be interested in books to give their kids a head start on the move.
I would like to note here that the “Mexican” books featured here are about Mexico and its culture, published in English or bilingually. Mexican-American culture and experiences, along with northbound immigration experiences, are distinct to life south of the Rio Grande for various sociopolitical reasons.
Little Frida by Anthony Brown tells the story of a young Frida Kahlo’s imaginary friend coming to life.
Mexico, of course, produces and sells children’s books, but they see little push to publish in English (yet?).
There are almost no children’s book authors that specialize exclusively in such “Mexican” books. The closest is Cynthia Weill, who has been publishing a series of books for very young children using images of Mexican folk art.
Although she lives and works in New York City, Weill has a longstanding relationship with Mexico since her doctoral thesis days in Oaxaca. Her books focus on basic concepts such as numbers, letters, work activities and the like, with striking photographs of Oaxacan-style alebrijes — wildly-colored animals painted in bright colors and detailed designs — but she has one book that focuses on the meticulously woven palm frond figures of Chigmecatitlán, Puebla.
Weill may be unique in her consistent focus on Mexico, but there are a number of general children’s book authors who have found inspiration in Mexico.
Liza Monroy’s Mexican High is a young adult novel about a teen girl’s experiences when she transfers to a high school in Mexico.
Duncan Tonatiuh’s books stand out for their beautiful illustrations based on pre-Hispanic art. He published his first book, Dear Primo: A Letter to my Cousin, in 2010. The book demonstrates the differences between life in Mexico and in the U.S. Other Mexico-related topics covered by this San Miguel de Allende-raised author include Diego Rivera, Day of the Dead and reworked folk stories.
Many of Yuyi Morales’ highly-acclaimed works understand the power of reading for cultural adaptation: she credits the children’s section of a U.S. public library with helping her learn English even though she was an adult when she arrived in the country.
Some of her titles are based on stories from her childhood in Xalapa, Veracruz, such as her first success, Just a Minute, where Grandma Beetle repeatedly tricks a skeleton named Señor Calavera (Mr. Skeleton). Other titles include ¡Viva Frida¡, illustrated with puppets she made, and two related to the Mexican wrestling sport of lucha libre: Nino Wrestles the World and Rudas: Niños Horrendous Hermanitas.
Canadian Lynda L. Lock is best known for her mystery novels set in Isla Mujeres, but her first foray into publishing was with the children’s book The Adventures of Thomas the Cat/Las Aventuras de Tómas el Gato written with Diego Medina and set in Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo. Using the same setting, she has since published other books based on her rescue dog, Sparky. One of her reasons for writing children’s books, she says, is to show what a lovely place Mexico is.
Cynthia Weill writes books for very young children using images of Mexican folk art.
Carmen Tafolla has written several books. For the preschool set, there is Fiesta Babies, which includes festival words in Spanish, along with a glossary for linguistically-challenged parents. And although it’s about a Mexican-American girl, Tafolla’s What Can You Do with a Rebozo? teaches young readers about the very iconic Mexican garment the rebozo — a long, rectangular shawl that is all but indispensable to Mexican women and girls, at least for Independence Day and on any other opportunities to show Mexican pride.
Tafolla also wrote Baby Coyote and The Old Woman.
Prolific children’s book writer Tony Johnson has written one book that fits this category: My Mexico/México Mío.
There seems to be a dearth of titles for young adult readers, but there are some. One is Mexican High by Liza Monroy. The “high” refers to high school, by the way, since protagonist Mila’s diplomat mother gets assigned to Mexico City and Mila must spend her senior year in an international high school with children of the Mexican elite while trying to solve a very personal mystery.
There’s also Angela Cervantes, author of Frida and the Secret of the Peacock Ring, a mystery that draws inspiration from the life of Frida Kahlo. Cervantes also wrote the children’s novelization of the hit Disney film Coco.
Needless to say, children, especially the younger ones, pick up a foreign language much faster than us old folks. Once your child has a certain level in the language, you have a world of Spanish-language children’s literature here to choose from. Check out recommendations from IBBY México. The site is in Spanish only as it is geared to Mexican parents, but don’t worry: your kid will help you navigate it.
If you move to Mexico City or La Paz, Baja California Sur, you can find more help at Libros Libros Libros and Allende Books respectively. Libros Libros Libros has been providing English-language books to local bilingual schools for years. Allende Books added a children’s section when the influx of English-speaking families became noticeable in La Paz.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
The sea lion enjoys the company of divers after climbing aboard their boat.
A sea lion surprised some divers in Baja California Sur earlier this year by clambering over the side of their small vessel and stopping for a rest.
Posted by tour guide Alexander Schmidt Márquez, a diving and ocean safari guide in Cabo San Lucas, a video shows the diving party calling over the edge of the boat to the sea lion, which then — to their surprise — jumps into the boat and allows itself to be petted and handled by the people on board.
At one point it appeared to fall asleep with its head in the palm of Schmidt’s hand.
Baja California Sur is well known for its up-close displays of wildlife, including sea lions on the Isla Espíritu Santo where visitors can watch this aquatic creature from September to May. Still, the friendly sea lion’s visit was clearly beyond regular viewing. Schmidt reported that where they were diving nearby there is a rock where groups of sea lions rest in the sun so he was unsure why the creature felt the need to take a break on their boat. However, he said it did appear exhausted.
There have been other instances where sea lions have boarded boats, including one in 2021 in which a sea lion in Canada hopped on board a woman’s boat to escape threats from nearby orca whales.
While the animals can also be aggressive in certain circumstances, it seems these sea lions needed their human companions and so took advantage of the relationship when in trouble.
The several dozen protestors, some who rode through Morelia's streets on horseback, marched against a proposed bullfighting ban introduced to the state Congress in June.
Several hundred people took to the streets of Michoacán’s capital this week to protest a prohibition on bullfighting in the state.
Led by members of the United Federation of Traditions in Mexico (Fetumex), the protesters said that outlawing bullfighting and cockfighting or other forms of entertainment involving animals — such as rodeos and horse racing — will cost millions their jobs and incomes.
“There are always attempts to end the traditions that we are out here defending now … there are millions of people that will be affected throughout the country,” said Fetumex president Efraín Rábago Echegoyen.
The group, which included locals as well as bullfighting aficionados from Baja California, Sinaloa, Coahuila, México state, Guanajuato and Puebla, marched or rode on horseback from the Plaza de Toros bullfighting ring through the city, ending up at Michoacán’s congressional building to meet with legislators and their aides, hoping to encourage public support and increase publicity for their cause.
Protesters targeted Michoacán state Deputy Mayela del Carmen Salas Saenz, who proposed the ban, which makes the case that bullfighting is animal cruelty.
They also directed their message specifically at state Deputy Mayela Salas Sáenz, who in June proposed a ban on the practice to Michoacan’s Congress.
The protesters included locals as well as bullfighting aficionados from Baja California, Sinaloa, Coahuila, México state, Guanajuato, and Puebla — the latter a state which has a bullfighting arena in the capital and where, despite protests, the sport has been added to Zacatlán’s annual apple festival this month.
Many of the protesters in Morelia on Tuesday also protested in the nation’s capital last November as the Mexico City legislature was in the process of outlawing bullfighting on the grounds that the tradition involves cruelty to animals.
Majority support in the Mexico City Congress for such a law ultimately proved elusive, but bullfighting was effectively banned in the city in June, when the famous Plaza México, the world’s largest bullfighting ring, was forced to close its doors to bullfighting after a federal judge validated a lawsuit that argued that the ‘degrading and stigmatizing’ treatment of bulls in the sport is unconstitutional.
Mexico is one of the few places in the world that still carries on the bullfighting tradition, brought to the Americas by the Spanish. However, it has already been prohibited in five states: Sonora, Guerrero, Sinaloa, Coahuila and Quintana Roo.
In contrast, the states of Aguascalientes, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Querétaro, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Nayarit and Guanajuato consider bullfighting intangible cultural heritage, although in June, the Supreme Court invalidated a Nayarit decree giving that status to bullfights and cockfights.
Over the past decade, opinions in Mexico have shifted about the tradition, with 59% of the public now saying they favor outlawing the practice and 73% saying they believe it to be cruel to animals.
CORRECTION: This story was updated after publication to edit the estimated number of people participating in the protest.
A roaring dinosaur statue welcomes visitors to the new museum. Photos: government of yucatán
Sixty-six million years ago, a meteorite hit the earth where today the northwest edge of the Yucatán peninsula sits. Now a new museum has opened to pay homage to this and other meteorite events throughout history.
El Museo del Meteorito, or The Meteorite Museum, opened Tuesday in the port town of Progreso, Yucatán.
The museum, a project coordinated between the local and federal government, saw more than 1,000 local, national and foreign visitors streaming through its doors on Tuesday.
Adults and children followed interactive displays throughout the facility that tell the story of Yucatán’s Chicxulub meteorite — whose effects scientists believe wiped out 75% of all plants and animals on Earth, including the dinosaurs. The museum also explains the history of the planet as scientists understand it.
The museum’s opening attracted crowds.
Replicas of some of the world’s greatest dinosaurs are on display throughout the building and its outdoor garden areas, as are real pieces of meteorites that guests can handle.
There are also video-mapping displays, tablets for visitors who want to design their own dinosaur and other interactive technologies to teach the public about Earth’s four major extinctions, life during the Cretaceous period, and the impact of the Chicxulub meteor on the Yucatán and elsewhere.
The museum is an attempt to foment more cultural tourism in a city that is better well-known for its port access for cruise ships, its beaches, and the Chichén Itzá ruins.
Joining the meteor party is the Chicxulub Crater Museum (Museo del Cráter de Chicxulub), an exhibit housed on two floors of Progreso’s Biblioteca del Parque Científico y Tecnológico de Yucatán, or The Library of the Science and Technology Park of Yucatán.
The Chicxulub Crater Museum exhibit is coordinated by the National Autonomous University (UNAM), which spent various years putting together an extensive display on this important extinction event with rooms dedicated to teaching about the history of life, biodiversity, evolution, massive extinctions and more.
Passenger numbers were up a whopping 40% in Puerto Vallarta last month. shutterstock
Passenger numbers at airports in three of Mexico’s most popular beach destinations exceeded 2019 levels in July, providing more evidence that the tourism sector has recovered from the pandemic-induced downturn.
Data from airport operators shows that passengers numbers in Cancún, Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta were significantly higher last month than in July 2019.
Over 2.87 million passengers passed through Cancún airport, a 20% increase compared to three years ago, while the number of people who used Los Cabos airport rose 25% to over 667,000. Passenger traffic at Puerto Vallarta rose by an even higher 40% to almost 559,000.
The news website Expansión reported that Cancún airport – which also receives tourists headed for other Quintana Roo destinations such as Playa del Carmen and Tulum – had its best July ever for domestic passengers, with numbers exceeding 1 million for the first time.
The publication of the data comes a week after the federal Tourism Ministry reported that over 10.2 million international tourists flew into Mexico in the first six months of the year, an 83% increase compared to the first half of last year and a 1.5% uptick compared to the same period of 2019.
The airports in Guadalajara, Tijuana, Mérida and Oaxaca city also had more passengers last month than in July 2019, according to data published by Expansión. However, passenger numbers at the Monterrey and Acapulco airports declined.
An analyst for the Monex financial group predicted that airports operated by the Southeast Airport Group – among which are those in Cancún, Cozumel, Huatulco, Mérida, Oaxaca city and Veracruz – will continue to see high numbers of passengers in the remainder of 2022.
“We believe that a favorable growth trend will be maintained, the result of a greater appetite for pleasure trips as well as a greater offering of airline routes,” Brian Rodríguez said.
16 beaches were identified as having excessive amounts of sargassum Tuesday morning.
Another beach destination where tourists have flocked this summer is Mazatlán, which is expected to welcome well over half a million visitors in July and August.
In Cancún, thousands of tourists are thronging Caribbean coast beaches on a daily basis, despite the presence of sargassum. “We’re reaching between 5,000 and 6,000 people on all our beaches,” said Francisco Díaz Lara, the federal maritime land zones (Zofemat) director in Benito Juárez, the municipality where Cancún is located.
“They’re figures that we were expecting for this season, obviously … [there is] favorable weather, that’s why a large number of swimmers are gathering [on the beaches],” he said. “… The beaches are the main attraction in this municipality.”
Díaz said that the presence of sargassum – a brown seaweed that emits a foul odor when it rots – isn’t dissuading tourists from going to the beach. Sargaceros, or sargassum shovelers, remove the seaweed from beaches on a daily basis, although they sometimes struggle to keep up.
One beach where sargassum has overwhelmed the sargaceros is Playa Delfines, which was the only beach in Cancún with excessive quantities of the seaweed on Tuesday, according to a map published by the Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network.
“The sargassum is removed but it keeps arriving from the sea,” Díaz said. “It caused us a lot of problems last weekend, … we removed 165 tonnes in two days.”
Published Tuesday, the network’s latest map shows that 16 Quintana Roo beaches have excessive quantities of sargassum, 10 of which are on the east coast of Cozumel. Five are in Tulum, where authorities began installing anti-sargassum barriers last week.
The installation of the barriers, which have a combined length of 2.4 kilometers, began in the Tulum National Park a few months later than originally planned, according to the newspaper La Jornada Maya.
Tulum Zofemat director Melitón González Perez said the navy is working with state and municipal authorities to put the barriers in place. “We intend to place 2,400 meters of barrier in front of the National Park beaches to try to contain the arrival of sargassum,” he said.
Defending sovereignty, whether it's threatened or not, always goes over well. shutterstock
I understand the need to create a national identity in order to recover from a decade of bloody internal war. In the wake of the Mexican Revolution, promoting a nascent nationalism was no doubt a useful response to the recent and blatant violations of Mexico’s sovereignty. I get it.
But when a guy starts talking about the superiority of his race, that’s when I reach for my laptop.
The guy in question was José Vasconcelos, Mexico’s top public intellectual of the first half of the 20th century. In his work, Vasconcelos assigns Mexicans to a “cosmic race” which represents no less than “the fruit of all the previous ones and amelioration of everything past.”
Just what the membership requirements are for this dream team of a race are lost in a contradictory discourse that cites native values as its core principle even while calling for the dilution of indigenous traditions in the service of a Pan-American mestizaje.
Still, injecting race into the nationalist project effectively recruited the entire population to the cause of protecting Mexico’s sovereignty, whether it was actually threatened or not. From then on, any potentially invasive act or comment by a foreign member of an insufficiently cosmic race was not just a violation of your nation’s political sovereignty, but an affront to you personally, an attack on your very identity.
We can roll our eyes today, but Vasconcelos was by no means the only advocate of a racialized approach to sovereignty in his time. He was, however, the only one whose day jobs included minister of education, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and director of the National Library of Mexico. It was from these perches that he inserted his ideas into the national curriculum, bequeathing words like raza and soberanía a special prominence in the political vocabulary to this day, and guaranteeing future presidents plenty of public support whenever they might play the sovereignty card.
“I think it has a lot to do with the way that Mexicans have been educated, myself included,” Denise Dresser, the bilingual Mexican columnist and commentator, said recently during an AmericasQuarterly podcast. “Decades of an official narrative . . . all of the history books that were read by children, all of the speeches, even the iconography, are all based on the idea of the protection of sovereignty.”
Fast forward to 2022, when Mexico and its two northern neighbors are carrying on a spat that could get ugly. The United States and Canada are challenging the current administration’s moves to semi-renationalize (to coin a term) the energy industry as a clear violation of the USMCA, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which guarantees a level playing field in electricity investment. That challenge, in turn, is seen by the López Obrador administration as a clear violation of Mexico’s sovereignty. Guess which position went over best with the public.
‘We’re not a colony anymore,’ said AMLO in defense of his energy policy. But the consequences for trade could be serious.
If you’ll forgive a stretched metaphor, President López Obrador played the sovereignty card in spades. Instead of quoting language in the USMCA that may support his argument, he launched into a greatest hits of time-honored grievances, including “we’re not a colony anymore” and that he’s “nobody’s puppet.”
U.S. and Canadian negotiators have surely learned to ignore nationalist noise, and even the Mexican press, once reliably on board with any accusation of violated sovereignty, isn’t buying it. In researching this article I had a hard time finding many media dissenters from the consensus opinion that the administration’s rhetoric is not only manipulative and irrelevant, but actually weakens the cause of sovereignty by jeopardizing Mexico’s credibility as a trading partner.
None of that matters. The president’s message wasn’t meant for President Biden, or Prime Minister Trudeau, or the USMCA interpreters, or the media. The target audience was the Mexican people. The motive was to galvanize his supporters and warn his adversaries that their refusal to defend Mexico’s sovereignty will be seen as traitorous behavior.
And – surprise, surprise – it worked. His support is strong. The sovereignty card has plenty of legs left in it. And President López Obrador, despite the impression left by the chattering classes, remains popular.
It should be made clear that the United States is no green angel here. Support from progressives for keeping private investment alive in the energy sector may seem out of character, but it’s seen as the shortest path to renewable energy — wind, solar, geothermal. However, that’s not the motive for the complaint. U.S. and Canadian corporations see the USMCA as guaranteeing them a piece of the Mexican energy action and they damn well want their share.
And, of course, U.S. politicians, mostly conservative, are themselves not above citing sovereignty when it suits them. It has suited them, for example, when justifying jailing children, tossing innocent asylum seekers back across the border to fend for themselves, implementing blatantly bigoted immigration rules and blocking international courts from sniffing around too close to home.
Strictly speaking, the USMCA does in fact chisel slightly at Mexican sovereignty in terms of energy policy. Any trade pact asks the signatories to cede some power for their mutual benefit. The parties go into the deal with their eyes wide open and agree to its provisions. That’s why they’re called agreements.
Mexico signed on to the USMCA as a co-equal partner (as opposed to a puppet or a colony) on López Obrador’s watch. Predictably, he’s taken a lot of razzing for labeling a document that he endorsed as being in violation of his country’s sovereignty – an own-goal if you will. But rolling back his predecessor’s energy privatization is a high priority for this president. He’s not going to give that up easily.
It’s sad that Mexico’s legitimate concern for protecting its sovereignty is so often hijacked for stirring up the masses. Mexico’s nationalist stance does not necessarily rule out resorting to a negotiated solution that the treaty provides for settling these disputes. It could just mean that Mexico gets a multimillion-member cheering section during the amelioration process. It’s possible that everyone can come out of this happy, however grudgingly.
But if Mexico decides to go to the mat and loses, observers say the consequences could be serious. Punitive tariffs would hurt the Mexican economy in ways that average residents will feel. The USMCA itself could be scarred, or worse. So might Mexico’s relations with the United States.
The visitor center near the Palenque archaeological site in Chiapas is 55% complete, said the Culture Ministry. INAH
Visitor centers are now under construction at some of the archaeological sites located near the route of the Maya Train railroad.
Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and Ek’ Balam in Yucatán and Palenque in Chiapas are among the sites that will get Visitor Attention Centers (known collectively as “CATVIs”), according to a statement published Monday by the Ministry of Culture.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History is supervising the construction of the centers, which are slated to enhance the experiences of archaeological site visitors, including Maya Train passengers who disembark to visit ancient Mayan cities in the five states — Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas — through which the 1,500-kilometer railroad will run.
The US $10 billion railroad is expected to begin operations in 2023.
The ancient Maya site of Palenque, known for its extensive hieroglyphics, is one of the more popular pre-Hispanic sites in Mexico. INAH
In its statement, the Culture Ministry provided an update on the construction of the Palenque archaeological site’s CATVI, located about nine kilometers from the town of Palenque, Chiapas. The center — which is being built three kilometers from the ancient city — is 55% complete, the ministry said.
The site where the center is being built was excavated between 1990 and 2000 and inspected again for ancient artifacts in 2021 before construction began. Carlos Varela Scherrer, a Palenque archaeological site official, said that last year’s inspection turned up just 40 ceramic shards, confirming that “there wasn’t an intense occupation of the area.”
Citing representatives from the private consortium building the Palenque-Escárcega stretch (Section 1) of the Maya Train railroad, the Culture Ministry said that the centers’ objective is to “optimize the visitor experience and to serve as development hubs for nearby communities.”
Juan Ignacio Roldán Suárez, chief engineer for the section 1 project, said that the Palenque CATVI will function as a “filter” for the archaeological area, a place where tourists can rest before and after visiting the ancient city.
The visitor center will feature solar panels on the roof.
The center’s design, inspired by traditional Mayan homes, will have parking for cars and buses, an “introductory module,” drinking fountains and washrooms that “converge at a Mayan arch,” the Culture Ministry said.
It also said the CATVI will be a sustainable building, noting that it will have its own water treatment plant and that its palm-leaf roof will have solar panels.
“With the support of biologists, we’ll create wildlife crossings and we’ll make sure that animals are not affected by power lines, bright lights or excessive noise,” Roldán Suárez said.
Over 100 residents of Palenque and nearby communities are working directly and indirectly in the construction of the CATVI, the Culture Ministry said. Palenque already has a site museum, where visitors can learn about the pre-Hispanic settlement and the Mayan people who occupied it.
A burned out bus in Zapopan, Jalisco, set alight by armed criminals. @ahtziricardenas/Twitter
An operation to arrest a Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader triggered a violent response in Jalisco and Guanajuato on Tuesday, where at least a dozen vehicles and businesses were set on fire.
Carried out by the army and the National Guard in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, the operation reportedly succeeded in detaining Ricardo Ruiz Velasco, a presumed CJNG plaza chief in western Mexico and the Bajío region.
According to a Reforma newspaper report, the violence began at approximately 7:30 p.m. when a group of armed men seized three public transit buses and two private vehicles in Zapopan, a municipality that adjoins Guadalajara. They subsequently set the vehicles alight to create fiery narco-blockades.
Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro reported on Twitter that there was a confrontation between the army and organized crime members in the area where the municipalities of Ixtlahuacán del Río and Cuquío meet. In an attempt to block the passage of security forces, vehicles were set alight on the highway to Saltillo, he said. “Fortunately, there are no injured persons. The situation is under control,” Alfaro wrote.
After Ricardo Ruiz Velasco’s arrest, criminal groups began setting fires in Zapopan.
The violent response to the arrest of Ruiz – who has previously been identified as a leader of a CJNG elite group – spread to the neighboring state of Guanajuato later on Tuesday night. Armed men set vehicles and businesses on fire in the municipalities of Celaya, Irapuato, Salamanca, Silao and Apaseo el Grande, according to a Milenio newspaper report. Reforma reported that public transit vehicles and convenience stores were also torched in León and Guanajuato city.
Irapuato, a city known as Mexico’s strawberry capital, bore the brunt of the backlash, according to Reforma, with at least a dozen stores and a gas station set alight. More narco-blockades were created by setting vehicles on fire on the highway between Celaya and Apaseo el Grande.
Guanajuato Governance Minister Libia García said that the violence in that state was related to the events in Jalisco. In a Twitter post, she also said that some of the aggressors involved in setting vehicles and businesses on fire had been detained.
“The criminal action is contained and under control, there are no injured persons,” García wrote.
This video posted on Twitter shows a person driving through Irapuato while cars were on fire Tuesday night.
Known as “El Doble R” (The Double R), Ruiz is a central figure in the CJNG, according to a report by news website Publimetro. It was reported in 2020 that Ruiz and another key cartel lieutenant could challenge the leadership of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, who is rumored to have kidney problems. However, two years later Oseguera remains at the helm of the CJNG, which is believed to operate in 28 states across Mexico.
According to Publimetro, Ruiz was wanted in connection with the 2012 murder of Venezuelan model Daisy Ferrer and the 2013 homicide of former Jalisco tourism minister José de Jesús Gallegos Álvarez.
Two of the Danzante stones at Monte Albán, which were probably carved by the Olmecs, the city's first occupants. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
The Monte Albán ruins sit majestically on a flattened hilltop in the Valley of Oaxaca, about 9 kilometers (5.5 miles) west of the city of Oaxaca. The site on which it stands has been occupied for over 1,500 years by various groups; first Olmecs and then the Zapotecs and Mixtecs.
The Zapotecs built the city, which for over 1,000 years was one of the most important in all of Mesoamerica. But despite its importance, no one today knows what its Zapotecan name was.
Several possibilities have been put forward, including Colina de Jaguar (Jaguar Hill), Montaña Sagrada (Sacred Hill) or Cerro del Tigre (Tiger Hill). And it’s not clear where the name Monte Albán came from either.
It may have been the name of a Spanish soldier, or it may refer to the Alban Hills in Italy, although why it would be named for some Italian hills is a mystery. It’s also thought that Monte Albán may be a corruption of the original Zapotecan name.
Monte Albán’s elegant and well preserved ball court.
Olmecs were the first to occupy the site and may have carved some of the stones known as Los Danzantes (The Dancers). At the very least, that civilization influenced their depictions, since some of the faces have distinctive Olmec traits, such as large heads and thick lips (more about these intriguing stones later).
It’s generally agreed that the Zapotecs arrived around 500 B.C. At that time, another Zapotec city now known as San José Mogote was the largest city in the valley. It’s believed that rulers from there decided to build a new capital on top of a hill primarily for defensive reasons — the period was characterized by ongoing warfare, and locating a city on top of a hill would certainly provide more security.
At its start, the city covered about 800 acres and had an initial population of about 5,000.
Between 500 and 150 B.C., the city grew to cover 1,092 acres, and its population expanded to about 17,000. This explosive growth is believed to be due to the relocation of residents from San José Mogote which, along with other sites in the valley, showed a rapid decline in population.
The city’s population continued to grow, reaching its peak of 35,000 between A.D. 250 and 500. It appears that the city’s center was reserved for the ruling elites while the bulk of the population lived outside the center, where they grew crops on terraces.
The city began a slow decline around A.D. 500. Then, for reasons still unknown, it collapsed completely between A.D. 850 and 900. It was then occupied sporadically by other groups, most notably Mixtecs.
Monte Alban’s spectacular Main Plaza, which measures 300 by 200 meters, has pyramids, a palace, an observatory, at least 170 tombs and large slabs covered with hieroglyphics. Along its periphery are buildings believed to have been temples and which also housed the ruling elites and priests. There are two well-preserved ballcourts on which a game called tlachtli was played. Its architecture, ceramics and murals show the influence of Teotihuacán, a major urban center located about 500 miles directly north in what is now the state of México.
One of the most interesting buildings is the boringly-named Building J, which was constructed around 100 B.C. It’s shaped like an arrow, something unique in Monte Albán, and most archeologists believe it was an observatory. In addition, the site was also where Monte Albán’s rulers announced their victories over neighboring groups.
This slab is one of more than 40 similar stones with writing that may represent areas conquered by Monte Albán. The upside down figure may show sacrificed captives.
Along its sides are more than 40 carved stones with the names of different places. Many also have upside-down heads and additional writing. It’s believed that the names refer to areas conquered by Monte Albán. The upside-down heads may represent sacrificed captives.
The carved stones known as Los Danzantes are located outside Building L. Over 300 of them depict naked men, some with their genitals appearing to be mutilated. Carved between 350 and 200 B.C., they are called The Dancers because their convoluted shapes led researchers to believe that the figures depict dancers. That theory, however, has been rejected.
Although it’s now generally believed that they depict tortured and sacrificed war captives, some of whom are identified by name, a 2019 paper offers a radically different explanation: instead of sacrificed captives, it argues that the carvings depict the city’s elites in positions mimicking those of jaguars. If so, this would suggest that the stones were carved not by the Olmecs but by the Zapotecs.
In Zapotecan culture, the jaguar represented the land and fecundity, and its roar was believed to be the voice of the mountains. In Monte Albán, the jaguar was revered as the city’s guardian god. Researcher Fahmel Beyer also argues that the figures don’t display genital mutilation. Rather, he believes that the area’s covered with a flower glyph, which represents a sex organ.
Monte Albán was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1987. Currently, a little over 5,100 acres of it are protected land. An agreement between Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the municipality of Oaxaca city in 1993 gives INAH the power to control any proposed development in and around the site and allows for archeological investigations.
The fastest way to get to Monte Albán is by car or taxi. A taxi will run 140 to 180 pesos (US $7 or $8). There are also buses that cost about 8 pesos, but the trip takes much longer and the buses tend to be packed. The entrance fee is a modest 85 pesos.
The site is open every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Like many ruins across Mexico, there’s precious little shade, so sunscreen and a good sun hat are must-haves. And water. Once past the entrance, there’s none to be had.
Figure about two hours to leisurely explore the ruins. The museum is currently closed, but you can grab a drink and a snack in the restaurant and pick up some souvenirs in the gift shop.
