Cultivating Corn on Michoacán's Purhépecha Meseta: An Ancient Wager

Looking Across Fields on the Purhépecha Meseta,
or Highlands; at 2,200 meters (7,217 ft); the cerros, hills,
can rise another 900 meters (3,000 ft)

For our first three years in Mexico, we lived in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Our initial intent was to focus on improving our Spanish by living embedded among Mexico's people in order to experience as much as we could of daily life, customs and culture. Pátzcuaro was a fortuitous choice. As one of the country's 83 Pueblos Mágicos, Pátzcuarenses are accustomed to Mexican and foreign tourists. Our impression is that Patzcuarenses were touched by our genuine interest in daily life and customs.

We had help. CELEP, our language school, views the process of learning Spanish as one of opening a 'window on the culture'. Welcoming and engaging, CELEP's teachers enthusiastically embrace their role as cultural guides. Needless to say, we took advantage of all the school had to offer!

We choose not to drive in Mexico, relying instead on taxis. In Pátzcuaro, we were regular customers of Monarca, whose drivers came to know us because we invariably struck up conversations about almost anything as a relaxed, low-key way to practice our Spanish.

One of our favorite Sunday pastimes was to engage a driver for a ride up to the Purhépecha Meseta, or Highlands. In an earlier post, I described the countryside, which is stunningly beautiful. When we decided to move to Pátzcuaro, we had no idea that we would encounter Purhépecha culture, vibrantly alive in the region around Pátzcuaro, or that it would have such an impact on us.

So you can imagine the flood of memories let loose when I came across this article in the La Jornada newspaper.  The author is César Moheno,* recently appointed Technical Secretary of the National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH). Moheno's essay is written in a lyrical, even poetic style, which I attempted to preserve in the translation.

Something to keep in mind is that corn was originally domesticated in Mexico's river basins. Corn is to the Americas what rice is to China and wheat is to the people in the Levant Region of the Middle East. The need to assure a good corn crop, essential for the people's survival, became an essential role performed by Mesoamerica's god-kings.

The current battle to prevent the cultivation of genetically modified corn in Mexico is being waged precisely to protect the multiple varieties of native corn that have grown up over millenia to adapt to Mexico's countless ecosystems ("Our Heart is Made of Corn").

With that context, here is César Moheno's essay, "The Blessings of the Dream" [Los beneficios del sueño]:

"Many days ago I walked along the road of Don Joel Equihua in one of the most remote parts of the forest on the Purépecha Meseta in Michoacán. Despite the many intervening years, he recognized my step and, as if time didn't exist, we sat on the path, resumed the conversation and began to recount the stories of the peoples. They might have happened yesterday or a hundred years ago. These stories serve to guide us in our world. So we are fortunate, he told me, that we never feel alone. 

"Waking early on a Wednesday morning in March of last year, he realized that the day would be warm, very suitable for planting. As he dressed, he remember his father and his father's father. Every year they had planted corn on the same land. He knew that his son would already be preparing the ox team, and his grandson would be pouring the fertilizer into the buckets. He remembered that it had always been so, and it would be so until the end of time. He knew his plot better than anyone, much better than his body, better than his hand, better even than his wife. All had changed over the years. Their lands and ways of relating to it would remain almost unchanged.

Milpa, Corn Field on Purhépecha Meseta, Michoacán
(Photo: Mexico Voices)

"Seeing him walk, step by step, through the newly opened furrow, one thinks of a dance learned at the beginning of life. He knows not to exaggerate his hopes, but he can never prevent yearning for the future ... that dream in which he sees himself walking in the middle of plants as tall as he. He knows that since October [harvest] the blessings of the land have been fulfilled, and he hopes that no late frost might occur. Following the team led by his son and his grandson sprinkling fertilizer into the furrow, he recalls that he had left the land fallow since late November. He sees himself and his neighbors plowing all the plots with a narrower plow. Everything seems like the needles of a large fabric. As in the second plowing of late December and early January, he hears once again the music of the cúrpites that is heard in all the fields as they are worked."

MV Note: Los cúrpites are unique in popular Purhépecha consciousness. Harbingers of spring, they are an awareness that is felt, impalpable. Los cúrpites appear to those who want them. They are pure, unrestrained, boundless fertility. There are no possible limits to their presence, no definitions, no borders. 

"When he had sown more than half the plot, that small twinge began, like every year, between his stomach and his heart. He never knows how to pinpoint it, but it is always present until the plant's 'little needle' sprouted. He remembers the first time he felt it was when his grandfather explained, with a very serious face, that he should put many stones at the foot of his land to prevent the birds and livestock from entering the plot if they tried to approach. He knew that with the first rains in late May and early June the plants would have already grown two hands [about eight inches] and then it was time for weeding, pulling all the weeds contrary to the corn. All this he knew, and he knew that I knew it, but he continued in his head with the benefits that you had to give your corn field in order to shoo away this pang of emptiness that continued between the stomach and the heart.

"Like any good farmer, after weeding he would have to hill up the corn. Many years ago, this work was tended to with his wife. He saw the muzzle made of cord that was put on the team of oxen to prevent them from satisfying their taste for eating the young corn, and he saw himself preparing the special plow for piling the earth against the seedlings so that, by remaining well repretada [hilled up], they could be protected from the wind and rain. This was the last benefit given to the planted corn. For the next three months, he would only watch it grow until toward the end of October the ears are full.

"On the way back to town, perhaps because his son and grandson walk in silence, or because of the late-afternoon light that lengthens their shadows and fades their colors, or simply to give wings to his innermost desire, he recalled that during the months of November and December, the pueblo [village] would be deserted, and he wondered why he felt like singing when, in the afternoon, returning with the caravan of harvesters, all sweaty and dirty, but with their chundes [huge baskets], gunny sacks and wagons full of corn to fill the stalls of the trojes [traditional Purépecha structures used as barns].

Drawing: Troje for Storing Corn

"The harvesters were men and women; young people, children and old folks. Everyone making jokes on the ride back to town, saying coarse things or simply smiling. Everyone was paid in kind: one chiquihuite of corn for each day worked. He smiles when he thinks that in this way those in the pueblo who have no land can have corn for themselves, since they are given preference. By this custom, at times the landless harvesters gather more corn than he himself.

Traditional Troje

"Arriving at his house and while removing the dirt from his feet, he turns to ask, as he does every year upon returning from cultivating his plot, if this time he'll be able to bear once again on his back the weight of a chunde full of fresh-picked corn. Following this unanswered question, as every year since he has worked the land, in that very instant, as always, hope returns.

"From this intensity—from the incandescent energy radiated by these men and women of the rural world in the theater of Michoacán's natural world; from this universe as close to Lorca as to Faulkner, to Berger as to Rulfo—comes the storyline of the times, paced by the pulse of harvest and sowing, of fiesta and challenge, cycles of life among those who plant. 

"So the campesinos of the Purepecha Meseta wager on what must be preserved in order to change. Of what must continue with the blessings of dream in order to preserve the culture and way of life until the end of time. This is the wager that the entire Mexican society should urgently join today. It is an invitation to recover the blessings of the dream." Spanish original

Postscript: I thought I would end this post with the translation, but I had the uncomfortable feeling of having left something unsaid, a sense that something was missing, an unarticulated message about the urgent need to develop sustainable ways of living on our Planet Earth. I never cease to be amazed by what Carl Jung termed synchronicity, or 'meaningful coincidence'—things that happen seemingly out of the blue.

Yesterday in Common Dreams this headline caught my eye: "Walk Softly. This is Earth. We Have Much Still to Learn." The author is Robert Koehler, Chicago-based Peace Journalist. Koehler begins his article by quoting the Arhuaco original people of Colombia:

"When you go to dig your fields, or make a pot from clay, you are disturbing the balance of things. When you walk, you are moving the air, breathing it in and out. Therefore you must make payments.”

Payments is simply another word for describing what Don Joel refers to when he speaks of giving benefits to his corn field. The article continues:

"Oh, unraveling planet, exploited, polluted, overrun with berserk human technology. How does one face it with anything other than rage and despair, which quickly harden into cynicism? And cynicism is just another word for helplessness. 

"So I listen to the Arhuaco people of northern Colombia, quoted above at the Survival International website, and imagine—or try to imagine—a reverence for planetary balance so profound I become aware that when I walk I disturb it, so I must walk with gratitude and a sense of indebtedness. Walk softly, walk softly . . ."

The ground of César Moheno's conversation with Don Joel Equiha is, quite literally, this same profound reverence for Mother Earth. Yes, we do indeed still have much to learn from the world's indigenous peoples . . . if we open our ears to hear.

*César Moheno, Technical Secretary of the National Institute of History and Anthropology [INAH], has extensive experience in the field of investigation; namely, Center of Rural Studies at the College of Michoacán; in the Department of Historic Studies at INAH; and Maison des Sciencies de l'Homme in Paris, France. Moheno's published works include "En la nostalgia del futuro: La vida en el bosque indígena de Michoacán" ("Yearning for the future: Life in the indigenous forest of Michoacán") and "Mayas: Espacios de la memoria" ("Maya: Spaces of Memory").  Twitter: @ cesar_moheno

Travel Journal: Purhépecha Meseta

The entrance to the Purhépecha Meseta (Plateau) is a narrow, grassy valley sandwiched between mountains  rising up on both sides. When it is overcast, the entrance is hidden from us in Pátzcuaro.  But on clear days, the entrance beckons to us.

Not too far west of Pátzcuaro, the Meseta is one of our favorite jaunts. When the call becomes irresistible, there’s nothing left to do but arrange for Pablo, our favorite driver, to take us for an afternoon recorrido (tour).  

At 7,000 feet, Pátzcuaro is already at altitude, but the two-lane highway climbs another 1,000 feet or so as it  ascends to the Meseta. Once up on the Meseta, the surrounding mountain peaks easily rise nearly another 3,000 feet.  The natural beauty of these lands defies description—and at times defeats the camera’s lens. 

Arriving at the Meseta, which spreads out in front of us.

The Meseta is home to the Purhépecha people, who were never defeated by the Aztecs. When the Purhépechas learned of the Aztecs’ devastating defeat at the hands of the Spanish, they sent a delegation to  Cortés to inform him that they were prepared to become subjects of the Spanish king. Unfortunately, their acceptance of Spanish rule did not inoculate them against the brutal excesses of Cortés’ soldiers.

Fortunately, Bishop Vasco de Quiroga—intent on establishing a Utopia among the indigenous peoples of Nueva España—arrived and intervened on their behalf with the Spanish military.  Part of Bishop Quiroga’s strategy was to help the Purhépecha develop gainful livelihoods under Spanish rule. To this end, he allegedly assigned a specific craft to each pueblo. However, our Purhépecha friends tell us that Bishop Quiroga merely formalized artisan traditions already well-established in the communities. Today many of these artisan crafts enjoy international recognition.

But this time our trip wasn't so much focused on the artesanía as it was on pure and simple enjoyment of this beautiful natural setting.  We were on a wanderweg, or (as our Australian friends say) a walkabout.  So as we meandered slowly up the Meseta, we asked Pablo to stop so Reed could photograph the flowers.   

Lupine were in bloom all along the roadside.

These blue flowers look like what in the U.S. is called "Blue-Eyed Grass." 

This delicate white flower is a nettle!  

In keeping with our intent to meander, we took the turn-off to San Isidro, a small pueblo we usually pass by. We were enchanted by the setting, the rural quiet and by the charming, freshly painted plaza that is the pueblo's center.

Band stands are a common feature in the plazas of many Mexican towns.

Here's an inviting place to sit. This two-story house is the only two-story house on the plaza.

Compañeros (Partners)

                                   Ejidos are lands that were distributed by the Mexican government (President Lázaro Cárdenas) after the Mexican Revolution to indigenous communities

Each family has its own 'plot' in the ejido but the land itself is owned by members of the community. NAFTA introduced changes to the Mexican Constitution that allowed ejido lands to be sold, which has been a source of considerable conflict.  In contrast, comuneros are indigenous lands that have always been held by the indigenous community; they can be sold only to other members of the indigenous community. The comunero system predates the arrival of the Spanish.  

Leaving San Isidro we pass by el Panteón de San Isidro (the cemetary) and stop to take a picture. 

Mexican cemeteries are remarkable for their vitality - that's corn growing in the foreground

In his inimitable way, Pablo commented that he'd like to be buried here because there's plenty of corn nearby to keep him fed with tortillas. His remark is in keeping with his oft-repeated mantra, "Primero la panza" (first, the belly).

Milpa (Cornfields) adjoining the cemetery

Who is Pablo? He is our favorite Monarca driver. Born and raised in Mexico City, Pablo is in his early 40's. He is short, trim, and always neatly dressed. He maintains his car impeccably.

Initially attracted by his sense of humor, we have come to appreciate Pablo's intelligence and calm temperament. When things go wrong--as they can--he lightens the moment with a nonchalant, "Detalles, detalles" (Details, details). He takes an entrepreneurial approach to his taxi business, has several clients (including us) who contact him directly rather than calling the Monarca Dispatcher and is in demand for long distance trips. 

In the United States, Pablo would be a small business owner, or at least a middle manager. We have met many men like Pablo. In our experience, they keep Mexico going.  

The views as we leave San Isidro are so striking that we stop more than once for Reed to take pictures. 

Fields nestle up right against the mountains,

where forests are maintained to provide leña (firewood)

During our first visit to the Meseta, it took me awhile to figure out what was different about these fields. Then it dawned on me: there are no houses here, no buildings at all.  The lands are farmed communally, and all the campesinos live with their families in the pueblos. Each day they make their way out to the fields either by walking (yes!), or perhaps riding a horse or burro, or they ride in a pickup truck. 

Pablo and I were both startled when Reed suddenly ordered, "Stop here, please."  Clearly, Reed spotted something important, but Pablo and I were still in the dark when Reed got out of the car and went to the other side of the road for a better shot.  What had caught his eye?

  Globalization arrives on the Meseta - Cellphone tower just outside pastoral San Isidro

On this discordant note, we headed farther out onto the Meseta--heading toward Paracho, the pueblo whose specialty is making world-class guitars.  We traveled along this road.

And here's the view that greeted us as we came around the bend:

The lands roll away from us--layer after layer.  The landscape on the Meseta is layered in a way that reminds me of the many levels of Mexican culture.  My favorites places are those where the land rolls away from the road, such that it feels as if we are quite literally on top of the world.  It is a breathtaking experience--impossible to photograph.

Then just to make sure we're still paying attention, this extinct volcano came into view.  

The state of Michoacán is on the Eje Volcánico (Volcanic Axis) that cinches Mexico east and west like a belt. My map geek husband has 'flown' GoogleMaps across our part of Michoacán.  His comment:  "I had no idea there were so many extinct volcanoes; the countryside is like the surface of the moon." 

Eventually, we arrived in Paracho, where Reed took this picture across Paracho's red-tiled roofs of the jagged peak known as Purhépecha.  GoogleMaps gives the elevation of the peak as 10,700 feet and Paracho as 7,300 feet.  As Reed snapped the photo, the rains moved in again.

As I complete this Post, I face a difficult choice.  I can end the Post here, but if I do, I ignore current reality. The truth is that Reed and I took this trip a year ago in June, when the Meseta was quiet.

In the last few months, the tranquility of these ancient lands has been threatened by the encroachment of bootleg loggers associated with the cartels. These men are illegally logging valuable lumber from comunero lands that have belonged to the pueblo (people) of Cherán forever--since before the arrival of the Spanish. The deforestation resulting from their illegal activity has already denuded one forest and now threatens the sustainability of a second forest.

To counter this threat, the people of Cherán have blockaded themselves in the pueblo (town). In so doing, they have closed the highway leading into and out of Cherán. Their closure forces long-haul truckers to go the long way round from Guadalajara to Uruapán.  The sad reality is that it is no longer safe to travel on the Meseta.

For more information about the struggle in Cherán. 

Mexico Culture: Campesina Wisdom

I've been back and forth to the U.S. a couple of times in the last month. Dropping in and out of both cultures has heightened my awareness of the unique qualities of each. In New York I had lunch with a long-time, beloved friend. She urged me to continue writing about the people I meet here in Mexico.

As I begin this New Post, Evangelina immediately comes to mind. I'm just a few months older than she: I just turned 70; she’ll be 70 in December. We are both grandmothers, but my grandson is nine-months old; hers are teenagers. She has worked at the Casa Mariposa for over thirty years. Her youngest daughter, now 32 years old, played in the niches for storing firewood under the kitchen counter.

Evangelina is a short, stocky, strong campesina (countrywoman) with a broad, pleasant, morena (brown) face and large brown, expressive eyes.  Always neatly dressed, her hair is graying, except when her daughter periodically ‘colors’ it. She has a keen sense of play, a vivid imagination, a delightful sense of humor and a generous spirit.

Intelligent, she wanted to go to school, but school wasn’t possible. The couple who built Casa Mariposa over thirty years ago were professors of Social Work from a university in the Midwest.  Each year they brought down groups of students to do field work and improve their Spanish. They all lived at Casa Mariposa and held seminars in the large sala (living room). Although Evangelina couldn't understand a word, the seminars fascinated her. Those years with the visiting students were clearly the high point in her life.

But Evangelina's wisdom doesn't come from education. Her considerable wisdom is campesina wisdom, and it comes from a lifetime spent close to the land and to her family.

Once a week, she helps me with the house. We begin the day by pouring each of us un cafecito (cup of coffee) from beans grown in nearby Uruápan. Then in the timeworn fashion of women everywhere, we lean against the kitchen counter, and we chat about whatever's on our minds. Sometimes we chat about family. Sometimes we discuss the latest happenings in Pátzcuaro. And sometimes, not always, but many times, we talk about our lives, and we reflect on what we've learned about what it means to be human.

When we first arrived, I was puzzled by her periodic assertions that "Todos somos seres humanos" ("We are all human beings"). Over time I have come to realize how devastating to Mexican self-esteem was the never-ending derision of Mexico’s Spanish colonists, who complained that the indigenous peoples were "lazy, ignorant...." Well, you get the idea. Sounds a lot like what some of us in the U.S. have said about African-Americans, doesn't it? And for precisely the same reason—as an insidious means of social control.

Early Spanish accounts, interestingly, describe the indigenous as intelligent, curious and cooperative. In the early stage, monastic orders were charged with educating the brightest of indigenous men to prepare them for ordination, but when both their tutor-monks and the Spanish vice regal government realized that the indigenous seminarians were outshining their Spanish mentors, the program was gradually altered and eventually phased out. At about the same time, Spanish accounts of the indigenous changed: later accounts describe the indigenous people as sullen, stupid, and uncooperative.

Here in the area surrounding Lake Pátzcuaro, Bishop Vasco de Quiroga intervened on behalf of the Purhépecha people—a proud nation never defeated by the Aztecs. In his defense of the Purhépechas from the worst of Spanish excesses, Bishop Quiroga insistently reminded everyone, "Todos somos seres humanos." Tata (Father) Quiroga is held in such high regard by the Purhépechas that he has been nominated for beatification.

But the damage has been done, and so Evangelina asserted to us, strangers in her workplace, "Todos somos seres humanos." It is impossible to relate all I have learned from her during our kitchen chats. Early on, it became evident that her life has not been easy. She spent part of her childhood in an orphanage run by the nuns. She doesn’t complain; she says she liked the order and the discipline.

When Evangelina married a Purhépecha man, she quickly learned that her life would not be easy. She told me, "I had a choice. I could be depressed, or I could decide what I wanted to accomplish. I decided that I wanted all of my children to finish school." And they have. One is an accountant, one is a social worker, one is a teacher, and two work for the government in international trade. I should add that although what Evangelina has accomplished is heroic, she is not alone. These campesina women are the backbone of Mexico. More on that in a later post.

Over time, I’ve pieced the story together. School is not free in Mexico, so there were always school expenses: uniforms, textbooks, and school supplies; fees for traditional dance (balet foklórico) and for sports. Evangelina and her husband live in the house that her husband grew up in. The property is perhaps half an acre—sufficient for a good-sized vegetable garden, fruit (including avocado) trees, and a chicken yard.

In the early years of their marriage, her husband was a fisherman bringing home in his traditional canoa (canoe) Pátzcuaro’s famous white fish, but this was before the water level in Lake Pátzcuaro fell so low that the Lake receded from their land. The good news is that the family has a corn field on the now-exposed lake bed.

As Evangelina explained to me one day with a teasing gleam in her eye, “If one of my children needed money for school expenses—it's not a problem. I've always had eggs from my chickens and fruit from my trees. I’d just take some eggs to sell in the market, or avocados from my trees, or I’d bake tortillas to sell.”

Her entrepreneurial spirit derives from Mesoamerican culture, when a network of trade routes linked marketplaces among Mexico's city-states over two thousand years ago. Evangelina's entrepreneur-ism manifests the daily operation of Mexico's informal economy—the much-debated informal economy that makes up 40% of Mexico's economy overall. Forty percent!

Just after Christmas, we had taken down and stored away a wonderful gallina piñata (piñata in the form of a hen on her nest). But when Evangelina saw that we had removed the piñata, she lamented, “Oh, you think that the gallina (hen) is only a piñata for Christmas. You don’t realize that the gallina is the symbol for the domesticity that means a contented family.” Needless to say, we restored the gallina to her place of honor hanging in an arched opening between the breakfast and dining rooms.

Just recently, Evangelina observed to me, out of nowhere, that all of us are the people we present to the world, but we are also deeply private spiritual beings as well. Then she added, “I feel that I am like the leña (firewood); first, it burns brightly as it provides heat for the family, but as it burns the leña becomes smaller and smaller. I look at my clothes and see that they are too big, and I say, ‘Hmm, I am getting smaller. Like the leña, I have done my major work in raising my family, now my body is diminishing…just like the leña’.”

The roots of Evangelina’s identification with a natural process (la naturaleza) reach deep into the Mesoamerican culture that is the substratum of Mexican culture. This ancient culture presupposes a close link between man and nature, such that man and nature are mutually obligated each to the other. It is this reciprocal relationship that is the basis for the idea of mutual obligation—reciprocal relationships—that remains a primary value of traditional Mexican culture to this day.

I wish I could communicate the calm acceptance and bemused detachment with which Evangelina uttered these words. Where else would I ever have heard such a description of the aging process? Nowhere that I know. It was as if she were an interested, kindly bystander to this process called ‘aging’.

When I began taking Spanish, my teacher commented that the Purhépecha women on the colectivos (vans used for public transportation in our rural area) have a deep sense of their own ‘place’. My teacher said, “They get on with all their baskets of things to sell, and they make themselves comfortable. The rest of us accommodate them.”

Reed has written about the verb estar (to be in the sense of location), and in an earlier post, I told the story of the young American woman visiting in Oaxaca. One morning she bought a breakfast tortilla from a vendor on the street, who asked where she was from. Our friend replied, “From the United States,” then watched spellbound as the woman drew herself up proudly before announcing, “Ya estás en mi tierra” (Now you are on my land). My land, my place. I belong to this land; this land belongs to me.  This sense of place gives rise to a profound self-confidence unknown to us in the 'developed' world.

It was with this certitude that Evangelina told me about the burning leña as metaphor for her aging body. Such is the wisdom of the campesina.  I don't know about you, but I can use more of this wisdom in my life.

Travel Journal: Mexico from a Bus Window - Time

On the highway to Mexico City, our bus takes us alongside great agricultural fields: agribusiness. Smaller, family-worked fields are also visible. Farm 'technology'—I can't think of a better word—spans two centuries.

Time itself seems altered as we take in the sight of plows pulled by ox teams or horse teams. Modern tractors pull plows in other fields. In Mexico the ancient and the modern live—they co-exist—side by side.

The bus speeds past fields where laborers are picking product—radishes, maybe?—from plants with deep green leaves close to the ground. In many fields, a man or two works with a manual farm tool—hoe or machete. The poignancy of this faithful trabajo (work) tugs at me. Setting aside the timeless quality of the men’s labor, I can’t help wondering about the efficiency of their traditional methods.

We see a variety of farm conveyances. It seems we’re watching a split screen showing two centuries. Horse-drawn farm carts loaded with harvest plod steadily down a nearly empty road running parallel to the highway. A few miles later, modern pick-up trucks outfitted to carry farm products to market pass our bus on the highway.

We pass both irrigated fields and fields lacking irrigation. We pass an area where pueblos creep up the sides of cerros (hills), undoubtedly to preserve productive farm land. We pass immense white-roofed greenhouses where fruits and vegetables are grown both for domestic consumption and for export: hydroponic lettuce, berries of all kinds, and much more.

Then we observe a curious phenomenon. With unsettling regularity and set right smack in the middle of large, fallow, open fields stand modern, multi-storied buildings. Their size and style shout ‘Multinational Corporation’. Few, if any, cars are in the parking lots. It’s difficult to know what purpose these buildings serve. Signage is minimal. Warehouses? Could be. It remains a mystery.

Changing buses in Mexico City, we head for Cuernavaca, which has been a weekend and vacation destination for Mexico City’s wealthy and landed classes since Colonial times. On the road to Cuernavaca, we observe a transition.

The modest pueblos we passed entering Mexico City slowly yield to increasingly visible wealth. Upscale fraccionamientos (large subdivisions) hint at the luxury of homes nestled safely inside secure walls.

Arriving in Cuernavaca, I feel like a country mouse in the Big City. Capital of the State of Morelos, Cuernavaca is another world—another tile in the cultural mosaic that is today’s Republic of Mexico.

When we were new arrivals in Pátzcuaro, our Mexican friend Norma observed that “Mexican culture has many levels, and each level is rich.” Each time I encounter yet another facet of Mexican culture, my appreciation for the wisdom of her observation grows.

A Connecticut friend wrote that he’s eager to read my description of Cuernavaca. His mother is Mexican-American, and he recalls spending summers on his uncle’s ranch just outside Cuernavaca: “We rode horses to the mercado (market) in Cuernavaca for comida (mid-day main meal).”

I’ve heard similar comments from Patzcuarenses (Pátzcuaro born). In both pueblo and state capital, it is safe to say that the days of tying horses to hitching posts are gone forever—although I hasten to add that horses are still used regularly to deliver firewood to houses in Pátzcuaro.

The truth is, I can’t write about Cuernavaca right now. Our time there was a private visit to renew—and extend to new family members—a cross-cultural and cross-language friendship that goes back almost twenty years. A valued friendship was warmly, joyously, inclusively renewed. In today’s world, it doesn’t get much better than that.

But it doesn’t leave me with a lot to write about Cuernavaca either. Instead, I find myself feeling the profound difference between a modern Mexican city—perhaps especially one as cultured and beautiful as Cuernavaca—and Pátzcuaro, where we live. It has taken days for me to be able to articulate the feeling, but it has to do with how residents in the two locales regard time and space.

Reed has written about how in the global world the Internet and social networking tools erase ‘time’ and ‘space’. As a corporate consultant, I participated in real-time video conferences attended by people located around the globe. ‘Time’ was ‘now’ regardless of what ‘time zone’ local clocks showed. 'Space’ was defined by the computer ‘screen’ we all watched, regardless of where we were physically located.

Cuernavaca strikes me as a modern, possibly even global city more or less decoupled from the land in a way that ‘frees’ the notion of time from the seasonally-based agricultural cycle. Once ‘liberated’ from the land, time becomes more ‘progressive’. People are more inclined to schedule X-event to occur on Y-date at Z-hour.

In contrast, life in Pátzcuaro is still inextricably linked to the land (‘la tierra’). Now we await the arrival of the spring rains, expected any day. Campesinos wait for the rains to arrive so they can begin planting maíz (corn).

Yesterday morning I heard cohetes (rockets) going off at 5:00 AM, calling the faithful to mañanitas (morning prayers). Today I found out the cohetes were for the Fiesta of San Isidro Labrador, patron saint of farmworkers (Labradores).

But there’s more. Several people described San Isidro to me not only as the patron saint of farmworkers, but as patron also of the rains and of the earth. I take notice whenever reference is made to natural elements. I’ve come to expect a connection to Mesoamerican culture.

My vigilance is rewarded. Tlaloc is the Aztec god of rain. Coatlicue is the Aztec goddess of the earth and of fertility. One might be forgiven for imagining that the Catholic Saint Isidro of Farmworkers rests atop this ancient Mesoamerican belief. It's one more dramatic example of syncretism—the intermingling of two or more belief systems.

It was all beginning to make sense. Last Friday I had passed by Plaza Chica (Little Plaza, or commercial square) on my way to run an errand at the Post Office. Streets on two sides of the Plaza were closed to traffic, and the large area in front of the Teatro Emperador (Emperor Theater) was filled with young Purhépecha women wearing traditional dress for fiestas.

A banda was playing traditional Mexican music. Dancers were performing the Torito (Little Bull), beloved balet folclórico (traditional folk dance). Men and women on horseback watched the proceedings. Men dressed as women (as for Carnival) clowned around while passing around a box and asking spectators for donations.

It was the first day of the Fiesta of San Isidro. The sights and sounds of fiesta—the vibrant colors, traditional banda music, dancers and dances—are a vivid reminder of the sensual connection between Pátzcuaro’s daily, cultural rhythm and this pueblo’s ancient relationship to the land.

The Mexican writer Maria Luisa Puga observes that Patzcuarenses live as if time and space were ‘naturally’ one. In this place called Pátzcuaro, it is time for the rains to arrive.

It is time to plant seeds in Fertile Mother Earth where they can receive Tlaloc's life-giving rain. So it is that in this time and place, the cycle of life continues…as it was millennia ago in Mesoamerican culture, as it is today, and as it shall forever be....

Travel Journal: Mexico from a Bus Window - Place (Space)

Most Mexicans travel by bus. So when Reed and I decided to visit old friends in Cuernavaca, we chose bus travel. Bus windows give us a special view of Mexico's land and its people. For me bus rides are 'time out of mind' experiences. Unburdened by daily tasks, my mind interacts freely with passing views and associates easily to related experiences, people and places.

Leaving the colonial city of Morelia, we head east toward Mexico City. The landscape first captures my attention. The sheer scale of Mexico's landscapes is awe-some—Big Sky, Big Hills, Big Valleys that twist and bend around the 'hills'. I remind myself that at 6,000 feet above sea level, these 'hills' are little mountaintops.

No photo truly captures the 'bigness' of the Mexican countryside in all its 360-degree grandeur. It reminds me of the geography of the Far Western United States—Utah, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Montana—where the Rocky Mountains rise up to meet the sky to the West and the Great Plains unfold to the East as far as the eye can see.

Walkers catch my eye. Mexicans are inveterate, seemingly tireless walkers. Well-worn footpaths wind across the land. I watch a mother holding the hand of a child about four years old. Walking steadily on a road across open land, it's my guess they are headed toward their pueblo and home. But I also see schoolchildren in school uniforms walking home from school on well-paved roads with little or no vehicular traffic.

My mind jumps to the teenager I saw from the bus two years ago on our way to Oaxaca across vast, open desert-like spaces. His clothes were international 'teen—baggy shorts, T-shirt, tennis shoes, hatless at midday in the scorching sun—casually striding along. What struck me at the time was that we were in the middle of what seemed to me to be absolutely nowhere—cactus of every kind, but not a tree in sight, endless hills rolling one after another.

But clearly this joven (teenager) was 'somewhere'—most likely, his pueblo was reasonably close by. On the flight from Oaxaca back to Mexico City, I was fascinated to see dirt roads crisscrossing these desolate ridges, connecting isolated pueblos. Many of these footpaths are remnants of Mesoamerican paths that predate the arrival of the Spanish by thousands of years.

Meanwhile, today I see numerous folks of all ages on bicycles riding in pueblos and fields perhaps an hour outside Mexico City. I don't mean fancy sports bikes. I'm talking about well-used bikes with balloon tires and baskets mounted front and back. I'm describing a basic mode of transportation commonly used on well-paved roads with minimal vehicular traffic. It reminds me yet again: Mexico is a different world.

I become aware of the variety of houses that we pass along the way—houses in all stages of completion. These uncompleted houses baffled me until I learned that mortgages are not available to most Mexicans, which makes house construction a pay-as-you-go affair.

Families save money. When they have saved enough, they buy land. Then they save again until funds are available to begin construction. They build what they can pay cash for. Construction stops while the family accumulates funds to begin again. It takes years to build a house.

But here’s the good news: Once built, the house belongs to the family, not to the bank. When hard times hit, families focus on essentials like food, gas and electricity without having to worry about mortgage payments.

Many families provide much of the labor as well. It seems every Mexican we know is remarkably multi-skilled. The range of skills, certainly those needed to build a house, is even broader when the skill set of the entire extended family is drawn upon, as it usually is. It's today's version of the 'barn-raisings' that helped farm families settle the Western United States.

At a certain point in the ongoing construction process, families move in. A Pátzcuaro friend told us how her family moved into their home when it was only partially completed. It took her father several years to complete the house, which he did himself. Today the house is a comfortable middle class home to the entire family of eight children.

My mind keeps returning to the importance of the Mexican 'family home'. It is changing somewhat now, but traditionally Mexicans are very attached to the place (pueblo) of their birth and tend to stay put. The Mexican-Spanish word order ir y venir—go and come—likely reflects this attachment.  We are intrigued by the word order because in English, of course, it is reversed; we say, come and go, rather than go and come.

Reed's 'take' seems just right:  For Mexicans, the center of reference is here—home or pueblo. So Mexicans van y vienen—they go and come, returning always to their center of reference. In contrast, the English form 'come and go' seems to imply that as a people our 'center of reference' is somewhere else.

The importance of 'place' is also reflected in the Spanish language. English has the single verb form to be.  But Spanish has two verb forms:  ser ('to be' as essential condition; for example, Soy una mujer - I am a woman); and estar ('to be' in the sense of place; for example, Estoy aquí en Pátzcuaro - I am here in Pátzcuaro).

Reed has traced the etymology of the Spanish verb estar (to be) back to the Indo-European word "sta," which means to stand. Some derivatives mean "place or thing standing"; for example, state, stage, stay, statue, station. As we move around Pátzcuaro, Reed and I sense a profound linkage between this sense of 'place' and, despite the severe poverty, a serene self confidence among indigenous Purhépecha people.

Our young American friend tells of buying a breakfast gordita (tortilla sandwich) from an indigenous woman in Oaxaca. The woman asked our friend where she is from. Upon hearing the reply, the woman drew herself up and proudly responded, "Ya estás en mi tierra" (Now you are in my land).

An illuminating question to ask a new Mexican acquaintance is, "Were you born here?"  Many people straighten with pride before confirming, yes, or having to say no, they quickly and proudly volunteer where they were born—obviously providing a key component of their personal identity.

We are extranjeros (strangers) in this Mexican land that—viewed through the windows of a long-distance bus—passes by so quickly. But as we go from Pátzcuaro to travel through the Mexican countryside, we carry with us a sense of our increasing rootedness in the pueblo where we will, indeed, come once again when our travels are done.

Mexico Fiesta: Cruz Verde in Pátzcuaro

We wakened at 6:30 AM to the now-familiar sound of cohetes (rockets, large firecrackers) announcing 7:00 AM Mass.

Today, May 3, is celebration of the Fiesta de la Cruz Verde (Green Cross)—patron saint of Cruz Verde Church located just a couple of blocks from the central plazas in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. In the Catholic Liturgical Calendar, May 3 is the Feast Day of the Holy Cross (Santa Cruz), of which Cruz Verde is a variant.

Watching today's parade to the Plaza Grande, it became clear that whatever its meaning within Catholic tradition, Cruz Verde is, in fact, a May Day festival of renewal celebrating the mid-point of spring—falling, as it does, midway between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice.


Green, of course, symbolizes resurrection and regeneration, thus strengthening the link to the season of planting, which begins when the rains arrive sometime after Cruz Verde. In Mesoamerican culture, green represented Life as symbolized by quetzal feathers (which are green) and jade.

The origin of the Feast of Santa Cruz—Cruz Verde—is shrouded in legend.  Polydoro Virgilio, a sixteenth century Italian writer, relates the Fiesta of the Holy Cross to Roman fiestas honoring Flora, the goddess who represents the eternal rebirth of vegetation in the spring.

Today's parade was led by señoras carrying arcs of paper flowers, which symbolize Life

In Greek mythology, Cibeles (goddess of the Earth and Fertility) selected Attis, a beautiful youth, to guard her temple, on the condition that he remain virgin. Attis succumbed to the charms of a nymph. Enraged by Attis' betrayal, Cibeles struck down the Tree on which Attis' eternal life depended. Repentant, Attis castrated himself.

Upon learning of Attis' action, Cibeles admitted him once again to her temple. The ancient Greeks celebrated this myth of death and resurrection involving the Tree of Life at the time of the Spring Equinox.

Another legend involves the Roman Emperor Constantine. Vastly outnumbered by an enemy army, Constantine had a dream in which he was told to construct and place the Holy Cross at the head of his army in order to assure victory. He did so and, as foretold, easily routed the enemy in the ensuing battle.

With this victory, Constantine sent his mother, Elena, to the Holy Land to find the Cross on which Jesus had been crucified. Under torture, three priests showed Elena where the three crosses lay hidden. A young man, recently dead, was laid in turn on the three crosses. When he was laid on top of the Third Cross, he regained his life—clearly, indicating that this was the Santa Cruz de Jesús.

Faithful señora carrying the Cruz Verde decorated with 

flowers fashioned from  pink and white crepe paper. 

As part of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain was heir to these Greco-Roman traditions and legends, which are relevant here because clearly the Santa Cruz celebration was brought to Nueva España (México) from Spain by Catholic missionaries charged with evangelizing the indigenous peoples.

Intent on eliminating ancient practices and superstitions, the missionaries sought to transform ancient practices into Christian symbols. In this case, the ancient May Pole (Tree of Life, or Ceiba Tree, which is also a symbol in Mesoamerican culture) was transformed into the Santa Cruz, while conserving nearly intact the cultural elements of the ancient celebration.

 Señora celebrating Cruz Verde by decorating her sombrero with paper flowers. Her silver earrings are traditional Purhépecha design.

 Handsome jovén (young man) wearing traditional sombrero and 

 a black and gray sarape folded over his right shoulder.

The Fiesta of Cruz Verde is all about color and life, animals that support the agrarian lifestyle and a fair amount of mescal, which—to my surprise!—is shared with all who watch the parade.

Teams of oxen (bueys) are still seen in the fields around Pátzcuaro.  This pair look askance at Reed pointing his camera at them. Notice the crepe paper festoons.

Burros are not an uncommon sight on Pátzcuaro's streets carrying loads of leña (firewood) for the pueblo's many fireplaces.

I love this burro. He was groomed to beat the band...and his dramatic coloring caught my eye. Check the eye shadow around his eyes!

Speaking of bands!  Every Mexican fiesta has to have a band, and the Fiesta of Cruz Verde is no exception!

The towel around the head of the tuba player is to protect against the sun, which on May 3 is very high in the sky.  But nothing can filter out the twinkle in the player's eye as he realizes that Reed is taking his picture!

This joven (young man) is wearing the traditional Purhépecha sombrero and carrying the distinctive 'Butterfly'  fish nets used by Lake Pátzcuaro's fishermen.

Dancer holding aloft the Pescado (Fish)

The parade ends in front of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall), where the Dance of the Pescadores (fishermen) is performed. Even thirty years ago, fishing in Lake Pátzcuaro was not only an important source of food, but an integral and important part of the culture as well.  As the water level in Lake Pátzcuaro has dropped, this aspect of the culture has perhaps diminished, but by no means has it disappeared. 

Next came the Dance of the Torito (Little Bull), which celebrates Fertility, Life, and the omnipresent possibility of Death. Bulls were brought to Nueva España by the Spaniards. Today bulls, bull-fighting (in the larger cities) and bull-riding (jaripéos in the countryside) remain important parts of Mexican culture.

The Torito Dance is a standard feature of many Mexican Fiestas. The head of the Torito is constructed from hand-woven natural fiber mats (petates).

When painted and with bulls' horns attached,
they become the Torito in this traditional dance.  

We were enchanted by this muchacho performing the Torito with a small bulls' head. It's never too early to begin learning the traditional dances!











For the past ten days, we've had a team of albañiles (construction workers specializing in bricks and tiles)—a family team of father and two sons—cleaning and resetting Casa Mariposa's red tiles (tejas) so rainwater will flow easily when the rains arrive. Cruz Verde is the patron saint of albañiles. Cruz Verdes festooned with crepe paper flowers and streamers are erected to protect albañiles working on often-dangerous construction sites across México.

The Fiesta de Cruz Verde, coming just after Easter Sunday, celebrates the Natural Cycle by saluting the arrival of Spring, the beginning of a new agricultural cycle and concludes with thanksgiving to nature for the harvest to come.

In line with this general celebration of fertility, the Fiesta de Cruz Verde exalts human love and all its spontaneous expressions—hence the mescal, which harks back to ancient traditions.  In this way, the Fiesta de Santa Cruz is a joyous, colorful example of syncretism—Catholic symbols superimposed on ancient beliefs.

Postscript:  I had just finished writing this blog and was ready to post it when I heard the first raindrops of the season.  I didn't quite believe my ears or my eyes because the sun had shone brightly all day long with no indication of impending rain. I kind of held my breath because we've had ever-so-light suggestions of a rain shower with the drops not really hitting the ground, just the leaves of the trees.

But this time, I heard the distinct patter of raindrops falling on our newly cleaned and arranged roof tiles. Then it started to rain even harder.  It can't really be, I thought, but it really was!  I glanced at the clock—6:00 PM. Then I heard the season's first roll of thunder (trueno).  It is now 6:58 PM and the rain god Tlaloc has not yet finished announcing his seasonal arrival!

Earlier today when I wrote, the Fiesta de Cruz Verde announces "...the season of planting that begins when the rains arrive sometime after Cruz Verde." Well, today they arrived right smack on schedule!

The thunder is growing fainter...moving up toward the Meseta (highlands).  Murmuro yo, ¡Bienvenido a las primeras lluvias de la primavera!  [I whisper, Welcome to the first Spring Rains!]


Oh...and did I remind you of the sweet, sweet smell of wet earth, trees and leaves....  Hmm, it's starting to rain even harder now.  Happy Spring!

Mexico Fiestas: How They Work & What They Mean

Let me tell you about this week after Semana Santa.  Tuesday afternoon we began to hear cohetes (rockets or huge firecrackers) being set off in Ihuatzio.  I was interested to hear the discussion among our albañiles (a family team of workmen) on our roof cleaning and rearranging tejas (red roof tiles) in preparation for the rainy season, which arrives in May.

Following a brief discussion of whether the cohetes came from Janitzio (major island in Lake Pátzcuaro) or Ihuatzio (pueblo straight across the now-dry Lake bed from us), Daniel (father) pronounced definitively that the origin was Ihuatzio, and the cohetes were announcing the beginning of Ihuatzio's annual fiesta honoring their patron saint, San Isidro.

The pueblo's full name follows the custom of the frailes (members of the Catholic Monastic Orders that sent missionaries to Nueva España) to use both the Purhépecha and a Saint's name.  So the pueblo's full name is Ihuatzio de San Isidro.

But this is a three-day fiesta, and last night was the pueblo's baile tradicional (traditional dance). I can attest to the fact that they were going strong at 2:00 AM, when I wakened briefly to enjoy the sounds of Mexican music before putting in earplugs so I could get the rest of my beauty sleep.

Mexican Fiesta Band

The story of fiestas is an excellent example of how cultural understanding builds over time. For me, the first stage was simply enjoying, even savoring, the full sensual impact of Mexican fiesta traditions.

Señoritas in Traditional Dress Bearing Bottles of Tequila
for Champions at the Jaripeo (Bull-Riding Rodeo)

All five senses are involved—sights (families, bright colors), sounds (happy chatter, music and dance, games, cohetes), touch, taste and smells aroused by mouth-watering, soul-satisfying traditional foods—corundas, atole (corn-based beverage seasoned with various fruits), tortillas a mano (handmade tortillas), tacos of all kinds, and much more.

Young men stirring huge pots of Atole

Stage Two began when I first learned how fiestas are arranged. A Mexican friend told me that one person in the pueblo accepts the cargo (charge) for the year's fiestas, which includes not only arranging, but paying expenses associated with the fiesta as well:  bands; religious services; food and drink for assistants; adornments for the Saint's image (frequently a statue); cohetes (rockets) and Castillos (towers of fireworks)!

Castillos, Fireworks Towers, are a standard element of fiestas

My initial reaction was disbelief ("But how can that be?"), followed quickly by mild censure as I learned that sometimes a family will send a son to the U.S. to earn the money to pay for the fiesta. What?—asked this incredulous extranjera (foreigner), still trying hard to understand.

My Mexican friend further explained that it has been known to happen that upon receiving money from the government, a pueblo's Elders have chosen to pay for their fiesta rather than make infrastructure improvements to the pueblo. The mild censure of this civil engineer's daughter yielded to outright disbelief:  "How can this possibly be?  How can the Elders choose to 'waste' these funds on a fiesta?"  

Over time, that is, in an ongoing Stage Three, I am coming to learn, and far more than merely learn about, but to appreciate deeply the wisdom of, this culturally-based reasoning. As my understanding increases, so does my respect.

As it turns out, a pueblo's fiestas are much more than an annual 'party'. In these communal societies, continuity of family and community is top priority. In this context, fiestas are essential social rituals for reinforcing familial and communal identity essential for preserving millenia-old cultural traditions rooted in Mesoamerican culture.

Community members living afuera (outside the pueblo, either in other regions of Mexico or in the U.S.) make annual visits—one might say pilgrimages—to attend their pueblo's fiesta. At this time and in this way, communal identity is affirmed in a traditional reaffirmation of: Who I belong to, and Who belongs to me.

Sign reads: "Employees of Tzintzuntzan 2009"
"Lord of the Rescue"
"Commission of the People and Migrant Brothers (25-year tradition)"

These traditions are built on ancient Mesoamerican customs of mutual responsibility and mutual obligation described by Gustavo Estefa and Guillermo Bonfil Battalla (México Profundo), among others.

A person's invitation to accept the cargo for the pueblo's fiestas is, in fact, one of the highest honors the pueblo can bestow. It singles out the carguero as a person who not only knows what must be done to maintain the ancient cultural tradition, but how to do it.  The role of carguero brings prestige and honor to himself and to his entire extended family.

From an early age, children begin to assume responsibilities in the larger community; that is, they begin to act in ways that acknowledge and honor their obligation to the community. As they mature, responsibilities become increasingly significant until, as adults, they may choose to participate in the sistema de cargos (hierarchy of public tasks).

It is by their service to the community over many years—even decades—that the individual develops a variety of specialized capacities for maintaining the community and assumes increasing responsibility and authority for community governance.

A majority of roles (cargos) are annual. In some situations, acceptance of a charge is voluntary; in other situations, a cargo is imposed either by designation or by election. In either situation, the social pressure to accept is intense. 

The sistema de cargos formalizes the authority of the community in three inextricably linked spheres: civil, religious and moral.  A person who successfully performs all the "laddered" tasks is admitted to the community's circle of "principles" or Elders, in whom the ultimate authority of the community resides.

This closed circle of Elders is charged with maintaining the group's cultural—that is, indigenous—heritage with its Mesoamerican roots. Participation in the sistema de cargos implies a fundamental orientation of one's life toward service to the community. For that reason, it is one of the basic norms underlying identification with and membership in the community's circle of Elders.

Council of Elders for Pueblo on shores of Lake Pátzcuaro

There is a visible congruence among seemingly diverse cultural aspects of these indigenous communities:

• Orientation of production toward self-sufficiency is congruent with a society that recognizes prestige (rather than, for example, material success); these core values—self-sufficiency and prestige—tend to equalize material gain and discourage accumulation of wealth. 
• Neighborly and familial connections based on networks of reciprocal relationships (mutual obligation—similar to the farming communities that settled the Midwest and West) are the same as those required for the acquisition of authority by means of prestige described above.  
• Communal property and restrictions placed on the acquisition of private property are congruent with roles,  relationships and values described above.

In sum, the community profile describes a society in which full realization of the individual is achieved by means of service to the community, which in turn, gives back prestige and authority to the individual who undertakes to participate in the sistema de cargos.

For this extranjera, raised in a culture that values individualism, individual effort and material success, the placement of family and community, including an ancient cultural heritage, at the center of one's effort and care involves a growing acceptance of a radically different way of thinking about all the possible ways we might consider living together on our Planet Earth.

Jenny's Update: 2014 

If you're up to having basic assumptions challenged, I strongly recommend Naomi Klein's recently published (2014) "This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. the Climate"; reviewed in New York Times by Rob Nixon, "Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’." (The review is exceptionally useful for understanding the thrust of Klein's argument.)

The first generous third of this highly researched and vetted work reviews climate science. I plowed my way through the science, which Naomi presents in the most accessible way possible. Becoming increasingly pessimistic, I was completely unprepared when Naomi Klein sprang a surprise on this trusting reader. A Canadian, she introduced a discussion of Canada's First Nations as best positioned to take on and stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Even more, she discusses the worldview underlying their way of life.

* * * * * Most Highly Recommended.