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This is series of poems that are written in Nahuatl, English translations are also included.

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Tonalmeyotl is from Atzacoaloya, Chilapa de Álvarez, in the Mexican state of Guerrero / Photos courtesy of the author

They say my tongue Náhuatl
has had her head cut off,
her feet bound together
and her eyes swathed in gauze.
I, a man from Atzacoaloya,
will show otherwise:
Náhuatl has a head,
quick feet
and an insurmountable gaze.

I am sure
that Náhuatl walks
arms free, her soul
beating like the heart
of an oak forest.

Nonauatlajtol

Kijtouaj kampa notlajtol nauatl
yokechtejkej,
yokikxisalojkej
niman yokixtlapachojkej.
Najua uan niualeua Atsakualoyan,
niteititis kampa xmelauak.
Yajua kipiya itsontekontsin,
ikxiuan makajtokej
niman melauak tlacha uejka.

Najua nikmastika
kampa notlajtol nejneme,
kampa xtsasalijtokej imauan niman iyoltsin,
sa tsikuintok ken se aokokapostsintle.

Estoy seguro
que camina,
que posee brazos libres y que su alma
palpita como el corazón de un encinal.

Attempt at Melody

Night falls, everything in its final throes.
There's no birds, no wind
not even any dried-up leaves on the sidewalk.

Kuak nikneke ninokuikatis

Uetse tonajle niman noche najmanchiua.
Xnemej totomej, xnotlaloua ajakatsintle
nin kana patlanej xijtsitsintin ipan in chikaualistle.

Noyakajtsol ken se tlakachiche
nechilia maninokuikate
niman ninokuikatsia pampa maka nelkauas in tonajle.
Kema noyolika nikake nokualis
niman tlaka nokuikaluan
kinekej tenakastlaposkej,
teixtlaposkej
niman kinekej kinpajtiskej noche tlakamej
uan melauak kintlauelmiktsia kalmaseualtin.

Intento de melodía

Cae el día y todo se vuelve agónico.
No hay pájaros, no hay viento
ni hojas secas sobre la vereda de la vida.

Mi olfato de hombre-perro
me pide que cante
para rememorar la historia del día.
Después de leer detenidamente mi propio canto,
me doy cuenta de que las melodías
tienen la intención de perforar oídos sordos,
de rescatar ojos perdidos
y de curar a hombres
impacientes ante la sociedad.

A mekapapalotl / Photo courtesy of the author

Bad Omen

Wake up, brothers: the messenger has arrived.

It's tracing an errand across the wind.

Wake up, brothers, wake up!

Get moving, don't give in to sleep.

I'm begging you-Wake up!

You all know full well: the coming of that moth-bird
is synonym of an imminent end.

Wake up, brothers, wake up!
Let's drive this intruder out of the house.

Mekapapalotl*

Xtlachakan nokniuan kampa mekapapalotl yoyejkok.

Kintlapaluiya se tlajtojle ipan ajakatsintle.

¡Xtlachakan nokniuan, xtlachakan!

Xtlakojtilikan kampa kochilistle maka maimextlane.

Imechilia te, ¡xtlachakan!

Inkimastoke kampa itetlajpalojka on totopapalotl,
kijtoneske kampa yaka mikis.

Xtlachakan nokniuan, ¡xtlachakan!
Matikixtikan tochan in mekapapalotsintle.

* In Náhuatl, the title is Mekapapalotl: meka is a prefix meaning "death" and papalotl refers to a moth or butterfly; the species to which the mekapapalotl refers is pictured here, in a photo by Tonalmeyotl.

Despierten hermanos que la mensajera ha llegado.

Traza un recado sobre el viento.

¡Despierten hermanos, despierten!

Tomen fuerzas, que el sueño no los venza.

Se los suplico, ¡ despierten!

Saben bien que la visita de esa ave-mariposa,
es sinónimo de un final pró ximo.

Despierten hermanos, ¡ despierten!
Saquemos a esta intrusa de la casa.

** In Spanish, agüero means "omen" but also has noticeable resonances of the racialized slang word güero, i.e., "fair-skinned," "blonde," "white."

Translator's note: These translations are taken from Tonalmeyotl's debut poetry collection, Tlalkatsajtsilistle (2016), which draws upon the classical Náhuatl tradition in order to address the devastating effects of colonization, narcoterrorism, climate change, and migration in Guerrero. Tonalmeyotl's rendering of his hometown, Atzacoaloya, is highly particular and, at the same time, indexes communities all over the world in which unreliable natural cycles, lack of economic opportunity, and organized violence threaten to fragment long-standing social relations and formations, especially due to mass exodus abroad. At the same time, his poems explore the enriching potential of ongoing processes of cultural contact and transformation. At once archetypal and highly contemporary, Tlalkatsajtsilistle represents a significant literary achievement for its combined usage of the vernacular and prehispanic poetic forms. One prominent example is Tonalmeyotl's iteration of the icnocuicatl (song of deprivation), described by Miguel León-Portilla as a lament in which the poet "questions what it is to live on earth, what love and death are, and what sort of truths are possible in language" ( La Tinta negra y roja, p. 19). In Tonalmeyotl's work, the social and ecological disasters serving as the occasions for each icnocuicatl are, in turn, counterbalanced by the constant reiteration that speakers of lenguas originarias and their transmission of ancestral knowledge represent alternatives to Western ways of being and knowing. Tlalkatsajtsilistle suggests it is the earth that sustains life, and life that fertilizes the imagination. The utopian "Attempt at Melody," another icnocuicatl, figures poetry as a curative wild plant whose power is thwarted only by the imposition of human borders: "But time is short / and human walls / will not allow my singing / to be a healing herb / because, if they did, it would multiply across the earth like a weed / and harm a broad swath of inhuman society."
Translations from the Spanish

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Three Náhuatl Poems from Mexico, by Martín Tonalmeyotl

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"But time is short / and human walls / will not allow my song / to be a healing herb / because, if they did, / it would spread across the earth like a weed / and harm a broad, inhuman swath of society," from "Attempt at Melody," by Martín Tonalmeyotl (trans.

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This is the only remaining interview that was conducted with Pancho Villa. The article shows what kind of a person Pancho Villa truly is, and his interesting life.

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Pancho Villa had a movie-like life. Originally a bandit, he later turned into one of Mexico's most famous freedom fighters, this biography documents his life in a detailed manner.

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Quick Facts

Name

Pancho Villa

Birth Date

June 5, 1878

Death Date

July 20, 1923

Did You Know?

Pancho Villa signed a contract with Hollywood's Mutual Film Company in 1913 to have several of his battles filmed.

Place of Birth

San Juan del Rio, Durango, Mexico

Place of Death

Parral, Mexico

Originally

Doroteo Arango

AKA

Francisco Villa

Pancho Villa

Full Name

José Doroteo Arango Arámbula

Pancho Villa was a top military leader of the Mexican Revolution whose exploits were regularly filmed by a Hollywood company.

Who Was Pancho Villa?

Pancho Villa started off as a bandit who was later inspired by reformer Francisco Madero, helping him to win the Mexican Revolution. After a coup by Victoriano Huerta, Villa formed his own army to oppose the dictator, with more battles to follow as Mexican leadership remained in a state of flux. He was assassinated on July 20, 1923, in Parral, Mexico.

Early Life

Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was born Doroteo Arango on June 5, 1878, in San Juan del Rio, Durango. Villa spent much of his youth helping out on his parents' farm. After his father's death when Villa was only 15 years old, he became head of the household. With his new role as protector of his household, he shot a man who was harassing one of his sisters in 1894. He fled, spending six years on the run in the mountains. While there, he joined a group of fugitives and became a bandit.

Although the specifics of what occurred in Villa's life during this time are unknown, it's confirmed that he changed his name while on the run to avoid getting caught by the authorities. In the late 1890s, he worked as a miner in Chihuahua in addition to selling stolen cattle. But it wasn't long before he added more serious crimes to his record, robbing banks and taking from the wealthy.

Mexican Revolutionary Leader

In 1910, while still living as a fugitive, Pancho Villa joined Francisco's Madero successful uprising against Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz. With Villa's skills as at reading, writing, fighting and his knowledge of the land, Madero was named a revolutionary leader and his company won the first Battle of Ciudad Juárez in 1911. The rebels eventually drove Díaz out of power, and Madero took the position of president, having named Villa a colonel.

It wasn't smooth sailing under the authority of the new government, as Madero's position was challenged by another rebellion, this time led by Pascual Orozco-a revolutionary who worked with Madero and felt scorned by his position in under Madero's regime-in 1912. General Victoriano Huerta and Villa sought to protect Madero's newfound authority, but after Huerta accused Villa of stealing his horse, Villa's execution was ordered. Although Madero was able to grant Villa a reprieve shortly before his execution, he was still required to serve time in prison in June 1912.

After escaping in December, it was revealed that Huerta was now against Madero's regime, and he assassinated Madero on February 22, 1913. As Huerta rose to power, Villa teamed up with a former ally, Emiliano Zapata, and Venustiano Carranza to overthrow the new president. As an experienced revolutionary leader, Villa controlled much of northern Mexico military forces during the revolt. Known as Division del Norte, or "Division of the North," Villa led soldiers into battles by the droves, to the pleasure of onlookers the United States.

Lights, Camera, Revolution

The fact that the majority of Villa's battles were on the northern border of Mexico brought the revolutionary to the spotlight in terms of photographs and stories covering the events in Mexico. And surprisingly, the bandit who once hid his presence and changed his name to avoid attention loved being photographed. He even signed a contract with Hollywood's Mutual Film Company in 1913 to have several of his battles filmed.

Civil Unrest and Death

The U.S. supported Villa in more ways than simply behind a lens. After the numerous battles that occurred, Carranza rose to power in 1914. Disappointed with Carranza's skills as a leader, a rebellion broke out yet again, with Villa joining forces with Zapata and President Woodrow Wilson to bring down Carranza. With Mexico's move towards democracy under Carranza, Woodrow withdrew his support of Villa the following year, leading to Villa kidnapping and killing 18 Americans in January 1916. Only months later, on March 9, 1916, Villa led several rebels in a raid of Columbus, New Mexico, where they ravaged the small town and killed 19 additional people.

Wilson retaliated by sending General John Pershing to Mexico in order to capture Villa. Despite Carranza's support in searching for Villa, the two hunts that occurred in 1916 and 1919 for the Mexican rebel produced no results. In 1920, Carranza was assassinated and Adolfo De la Huerta became the president of Mexico. In an effort to restore peace to the unstable nation, De la Huerta negotiated with Villa for his withdrawal from the battlefield. Villa agreed and retired as a revolutionary in 1920. He was killed three years later on July 20, 1923, in Parral, Mexico.

Fact Check

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Name Pancho Villa Birth Date June 5, 1878 Death Date July 20, 1923 Did You Know? Pancho Villa signed a contract with Hollywood's Mutual Film Company in 1913 to have several of his battles filmed.

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This is the language that the Aztec used. Above is a video that demonstrates how Nahuatl is spoken.

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This link leads to a picture gallery that includes sculptures, paintings, and several other formats of art.

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Mexico | Keyword | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Differences between Mariachi, Banda, and Norteño

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Differences between Mariachi, Banda, and Norteño

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If you have a hard time distinguishing the different genres, this video will help you

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What is Mariachi, Banda, and Norteño? 3 Types of Mexican Music

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This slideshow shows different pictures of various Mexican instruments

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This video shows the POV of the bull rider, which shows how intense this sport is.

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Cowboys compete with each other to stay on a bull for the longest. The bulls are trained to try to knock the riders off. This sport was created after the colonization of Mexico, and later inspired sports such as rodeo in the US. The above picture shows how risky and difficult the sport is.

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Since there is no interview with Frida Kahlo herself, we can only use this interview that is done with Frida Kahlo's biographer.

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Excerpts from an interview with filmmaker Amy Stechler and Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera.

Amy Stechler: This is sort of a broad question, but could you summarize in what way the accident determined who she became?

Hayden Herrera: Well, she wouldn't have been a painter if it hadn't been for the accident. She started painting because she was bedridden and she said she was bored in hell in bed and needed something to do to help support her family. It was something she could do at home. She wasn't for a long time really well enough to go out and get another job.

She had had a couple of jobs before the accident, none of them very serious, but, so the accident turned her into a painter. I mean, not just because it was a practical thing to do, but because she needed, she needed something to hold onto, and I think painting her self-image over and over again was a way of creating something that she could hold onto that steadied her.

Stechler: You think that the self-portrait is a significant aspect of her becoming a painter?

Herrera: I think she, I think part of it was a needing to know herself and to sort of make herself feel real, and in the world, and like a solid person in space somehow, that to get, not to feel so fragile. This was sort of a concrete thing. If you paint yourself, you're permanently there. And if you're about toif you feel so mortal as she did and so on the edge of having, she did almost die in the accident, I think making this concrete image of herself made her feel safer in some way.

Stechler: Do you think that that remained as a motivation in her self-portraiture as she developed as an artist? That she was trying to balance back and forth, trying to communicate?

Herrera: Yeah. I've always felt that from the very beginning Frida Kahlo's self-portraits were a way of attaching people to her. They often were gifts for friends, and she would want to keep herself in somebody's mind. It's interesting that she would paint Diego on her mind painting Diego's image in her forehead. But then her paintings were to put herself in other people's minds.

She just didn't want to be neglected. She really wanted a lot of attention. And she wanted people to focus on her, and I think that comes both from the accident and brush with death with polio also, and maybe from other kinds of loneliness as a child. I think she was somebody who was deeply lonely. I think the paintings show it. Her disconnection between herself and space and anything that's around her. In those paintings. It's all about some kind of isolation. Which, you know, having polio and staying in a room for whatever it was, you know, a long, many, many months would give her a sense of being isolated.

Stechler: Interesting she chose a man who needed more attention than she did and who primary mode was to abandon her over and over again.

Herrera: Well, that happens a lot in human beings. I mean, if you have neglectful parents, you immediately look for a neglectful man.

Stechler: Why do you think she was so bonded to him?

Herrera: To Rivera? Well, you know, she was always saying it was because she loved his bosoms and he loved her mustache. I mean, they loved this side of each other. He like her sort of macho side, her feisty side, her strong side her original She was very original and funny and forceful, and she sort of like the soft, feminine side of Rivera. But I think she was attached to him, well, in the beginning partly because he was famous, and then he was much older so he could be a bit.

You know, I guess she adored her father and Rivera's being older that might have a connection here. But I think he was just brilliant and funny and charming, and for many people he seemed rather sexy, I think. I mean his brains made him very sexually attractive to women. And also the fact that he loved women and loved to talk to women. He thought women were more interesting than men to talk to. So that helped.

Stechler: When do people start to recognize her as a painter?

Herrera: When I was doing the research, which was in the second half of the seventies, she was not really very well known. In Mexico, she was known as Diego Rivera's sort of peculiar wife with the strange little paintings that most people really didn't like very much. They were too peculiar. And too weird. They are weird. I mean, we've gotten used to them now, but they still are kind of weird.

And in the United States, I don't think many people had heard of her. At least, I'd never heard of her until somebodyMax Kozlov and Joyce Kozlov presented me with a catalog and said, "Go write about it for Art Forum." And that was about, I think around 1974 -- '74, '75 -- somewhere in there. Anyway, I think Frida Kahlo's fame began in the late '70s and had a lot to do with feminism, had a lot to do with the Chicana people in the United States loving having this sort of emblem of Mexicanidad and loving her whole story, because it's a painful one. And then there were exhibitions and lots of articles, and but it sort of picked up and came as a sort of rolling thing that kept going more and more, and now there's the movie, and that makes it even more so.

Stechler: During her lifetime, there's a point where, in the early '40's I guess, when people start to become, when Julian Levy notices her, and she gets brought to Paris, and people actually, like Edward G. Robinson, people actually begin to buy her work.

Herrera: Well, Edward G. Robinson did buy her work, because Rivera took him to her studio. Rivera was extraordinarily supportive of Frida Kahlo's painting. He was always trying to get people to look at them, and also trying to get Frida to work in ayou know, to work. Because she wasn't methodical about her work habits. In, so occasionally people would buy.

But it was mostly friends, or people that Rivera would bring. And Frida was always very surprised if anybody liked her work. I think about Robinson, she said, "He must be in love with me. I mean, he bought my paintings, he must be in love with me." Her, she did have a show in New York at the Julian Levy Gallery, but that was thanks to Andre Breton organizing. Julian Levy was a very surrealist oriented gallery, so Breton made that connection for her. And then Breton also got her to show in Paris. It was part of a much bigger show of Mexican art in general, and she had all the paintings that were in the Julian Levy show then traveled to Paris with Frida.

She went to both of those shows. But I, this was 1939. And it was a moment, it wasn't a great moment to be in Europe having a show. The war was about to start. And not that much attention was paid to that show. I mean, she didn't become famous, and she didn't sell that many paintings. And she never had a show in Mexico until the year before died. When her health had deteriorated so much that her friend, Lola Alvarez Bravo, thought, "This woman needs to have a show while she can still know about it." So that show was in 1953. And Frida loved having that show. It meant a lot to her to have a show in Mexico.

Stechler: Do you think she's a great painter?

Herrera: Yes I do. I sometimes wondered about it while I was writing the book. I don't think I wrote the book because I thought she was a great painter. I thought she was fascinating. And, but I wasn't sure. Because my training was mainly in European modernism, and this is a long way from European modernism, and it's a long way from Matisse and Picasso, and I was totally brought up to think that that was the kind of thing that was beautiful and Frida Kahlo didn't look beautiful to me in the beginning.

It looked compelling. But in, over the years, I'll wander through the Museum of Modern Art and there's a couple of Frida's often that are hanging. They're hanging sort of somewhere between surrealism and Mexican painting in there. And we see Frida in the surrealist show at the Met a couple of years ago. She looked so much better than all the other, I mean, not all the other surrealists, but her paintings looked so strong. And this is true when you pass them in the Museum of Modern Art. 'Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair'. There it is. And you sort of take a step back and think, "It's a really strong painting." Yeah, I think she's great. I think to be that profoundly into your interior and manage to make images of it that affect people so strongly takes greatness of a kind.

Stechler: So what do you think is her legacy?

Herrera: Her legacy for other painters, I think is a huge legacy in that she gave other painters permission to be personal and to be autobiographical and to deal with the body in a very open way and also to be, to use fantasy in a way that sort of digs into the self. I would say that was what her legacy was for painters. Do you think about her legacy for the whole world?

Stechler: Bigger than that. I mean, here she is.

Herrera: So Frida's legacy, besides the legacy for painters, I think for people in general - and she has become so well known - she has been this example of strength and her story is a strength-giving story. I think she's people come to me sometimes I'll give a Frida lecture somewhere, and people will come up and say that she's changed their life becauseEspecially, but it is especially painters, mainly painters, that get from her this idea that you can just keep struggling and keep working and deal with adversity and keep on going and come up with something that makes life, a whole life, seem worthwhile.

Stechler: That sort of explains why today people are interested in her. But why does that turn into this sort of kitsch freedom market? Where did that come from?

Herrera: You know, it's so, it's so sort of primitive and fetishistic, the thing of going to museum stores and finding all kinds of little earrings and mousepads, and the best was a bead curtain. I loved the bead curtain! I think, you know, I don't mind this. I think, I don't like the idea of commercialization, but I'm not surePeople like to own something. It's like when you go to some religious, if you go on a religious pilgrimage, you're probably going to buy a little image of the Virgin. Frida's become Saint Frida, and people want to have a little piece of it, so they have to have a little physical 'thing' that has her image on it. And it's very primitive. If it's commercial, I don't think it matters that much. I think Frida would have loved it and been amused by it. I think Frida's stuff is funny. And the sweater and the t-shirts and the this and that. I think she would have just rolled over in her grave laughing at this thing. Because she wanted to be know, so this is part of it. Do you thinkmaybe she'd be appalled, but maybe not.

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The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo . Understanding Frida Today . Interview Transcript | PBS

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Amy Stechler: This is sort of a broad question, but could you summarize in what way the accident determined who she became?

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This video shows accurately how Lucha Libré is performed

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This article explains the basic system of the Aztec religion, and some of the rituals that the Aztecs practiced.

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Aztec religion, the religion followed by the Aztecs, a Nahuatl-speaking people who ruled a large empire in central and southern Mexico in the 15th and early 16th centuries.

Aztec religion was syncretistic, absorbing elements from many other Mesoamerican cultures. At base, it shared many of the cosmological beliefs of earlier peoples, notably the Maya, such as that the present earth was the last in a series of creations and that it occupied a position between systems of 13 heavens and 9 underworlds. Prominent in the Aztec pantheon were Huitzilopochtli, god of war; Tonatiuh, god of the sun; Tlaloc, god of rain; and Quetzalcóatl, the Feathered Serpent, who was part deity and part culture hero. Human sacrifice, particularly by offering a victim's heart to Tonatiuh, was commonly practiced, as was bloodletting. Closely entwined with Aztec religion was the calendar, on which the elaborate round of rituals and ceremonies that occupied the priests was based. The Aztec calendar was the one common to much of Mesoamerica, and it comprised a solar year of 365 days and a sacred year of 260 days; the two yearly cycles running in parallel produced a larger cycle of 52 years.

The Aztecs had four mythological eras: those of (1) the Water Sun, which was destroyed by flood, (2) the Sun of the Earth, which was destroyed by earthquake, (3) the Wind Sun, which was destroyed by a giant, with only Quetzalcóatl, the feathered serpent, remaining, prophesying the destruction of the Earth by wind and the evolution of humans into monkeys, and (4) the present Sun of Fire, which will end in a general conflagration. Quetzalcóatl, the survivor of the age of the Wind Sun, brought civilization to the people. This mythology, which was the basis of the ceremonial life, was maintained by the ceremonial priest, but there were also common folktales that resembled those of other indigenous cultures in North America.

Two deeply rooted concepts are revealed by these myths. One was the belief that the universe was unstable, that death and destruction continually threatened it. The other emphasized the necessity of the sacrifice of the gods. Thanks to Quetzalcóatl's self-sacrifice, the ancient bones of Mictlan, "the Place of Death," gave birth to men. In the same way, the sun and moon were created: the gods, assembled in the darkness at Teotihuacán, built a huge fire; two of them, Nanahuatzin, a small deity covered with ulcers, and Tecciztécatl, a richly bejeweled god, threw themselves into the flames, from which the former emerged as the sun and the latter as the moon. Then the sun refused to move unless the other gods gave him their blood; they were compelled to sacrifice themselves to feed the sun.

The cult of the gods required a large professional priesthood. Spanish documents indicate that the priesthood was one of the most elaborate of Aztec institutions. Each temple and god had its attendant priestly order. At Tenochtitlán the high priests of Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli served as heads of the entire priestly organization. Within the orders were priests in charge of ceremonies, of the education of novices, of astrology, and of the temple lands. (These consisted of specific rural communities assigned by the state to particular temples.) Furthermore, there were several grades of priests. As noted above, the priests maintained a number of schools, or calmecacs, where sons of the nobility and certain commoners were given instruction. Most of the novices ultimately left the priesthood and carried out economic and political functions; others remained, joined the priesthood on a permanent basis, and lived at the calmecac.

The beliefs of the Aztecs concerning the other world and life after death showed the same syncretism. The old paradise of the rain god Tlaloc, depicted in the Teotihuacán frescoes, opened its gardens to those who died by drowning, lightning, or as a result of leprosy, dropsy, gout, or lung diseases. He was supposed to have caused their death and to have sent their souls to paradise. Two categories of dead persons went up to the heavens as companions of the sun: the Quauhteca ("Eagle People"), who comprised the warriors who died on the battlefield or on the sacrificial stone, and the merchants who were killed while traveling in faraway places; and the women who died while giving birth to their first child and thus became Cihuateteo, "Divine Women." All the other dead went down to Mictlan, under the northern deserts, the abode of Mictlantecuhtli, the skeleton-masked god of death. There they traveled for four years until they arrived at the ninth hell, where they disappeared altogether. Offerings were made to the dead 80 days after the funeral, then one year, two, three, and four years later. Then all link between the dead and the living was severed. But the warriors who crossed the heavens in the retinue of the sun were thought to come back to earth after four years as hummingbirds. The Cihuateteo were said to appear at night at the crossroads and strike the passersby with palsy.

The world vision of the Aztecs conceded only a small part to human beings in the scheme of things. Human destiny was submitted to the all-powerful tonalpohualli (the calendrical round); life in the other world did not result from any moral judgment. A person's duty was to fight and die for the gods and for the preservation of the world order. Moreover, witchcraft, omens, and portents dominated everyday life. That such a pessimistic outlook should have coexisted with the wonderful dynamism of Aztec civilization is in itself a remarkable achievement.

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Aztec religion | Practices, Beliefs, & gods

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Aztec religion, the religion followed by the Aztecs, a Nahuatl-speaking people who ruled a large empire in central and southern Mexico in the 15th and early 16th centuries. Aztec religion absorbed elements from many other Mesoamerican cultures. The priests' elaborate round of rituals was based on the calendar.

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This game originated during the Mesoamerican period. while the exact rules and method of playing are unclear due to the spaniards prohibiting this game during colonization, it is learned that the game is similar to football, but instead played with the hips.

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DK Find Out! | Fun Facts for Kids on Animals, Earth, History and more!

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Visit DK Find Out! to learn about dinosaurs, space, animals, nature & more. Fun learning activities for kids with videos, quizzes & galleries at DKFindOut.com

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Article on the "Americanization" of Mexican food

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Article on the "Americanization" of Mexican food

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Foods and flavors from Mexico have influenced American cuisine for centuries. But in the last half of the 1900s, Mexican-inspired foods found their way to every corner of the the United States, merging into the mainstream. Alongside traditional foods like tortillas, tacos, tamales, enchiladas, and salsas, new dishes emerged that reflected a blending of Mexican, regional American, and other Latino cultures.

For Mexican American residents and Mexican immigrants, translating their traditional foods into cookbooks, restaurants, and supermarket products provided a recipe for economic success as well as a source of cultural pride. Most Americans welcomed Mexican foods into their everyday meals, even as tensions over the flow of new immigrants from Mexico escalated in some parts of the country.

Concepción "Concha" Sanchez followed the path of many Mexican immigrants who turned their traditional foodways into a staple of community life. Concha and Abundio Sanchez migrated from Mexico in 1912 at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Through the 1920s, they worked in Kansas, in Texas, and in the produce fields of California, eventually opening a grocery store. When that failed in the Great Depression, Concha supported her family by creating a tortilleria, making and selling tortillas in her Ventura County neighborhood. Instead of making them by hand, as Mexican women had done for centuries, she used the new electric and gas-fired equipment bought by her son to produce tortillas and tamales for sale.

Wearing her apron, Concha Sanchez ground corn using this electric press, then dropped them onto the propane-fired molino, corn mill, to make masa, dough, for tortillas and tamales. She placed balls of masa onto the conveyor belt, hand-cranked them through the rollers of this comal, griddle (not shown), to cook. tortilladora,

Braceros making tortillas, 1957

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Foods and flavors from Mexico have influenced American cuisine for centuries. But in the last half of the 1900s, Mexican-inspired foods found their way to every corner of the the United States, merging into the mainstream. Alongside traditional foods like tortillas, tacos, tamales, enchiladas, and salsas, new dishes emerged that reflected a blending of Mexican, regional American, and other Latino cultures.

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Self Portrait Along the Boarder Line Between Mexico and the United States

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In this tree, we can see the development of different languages in the Mayan language family, which clearly shows the variety of languages in the Mexican region.

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Even though it seems like Mexico believes the same type of Christianity as Europe, however Mexico also has the addition of the figure Virgin of Guadalupe, which is portrayed as a native version of Mary.

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Nina Evason,

Mexico does not have an official religion. However, Roman Catholicism is the dominant faith and deeply culturally pervasive. It is estimated over 80% of the population identifies as Catholic. Many Mexicans see Catholicism as part of their identity, passed on through the family and nation like cultural heritage. However, not all Mexicans attend church services regularly. Religiosity is most visible in festivities, events and also the placement of idols throughout people's homes and public places. While approximately 5% of the population is thought to be unaffiliated with any religion, many non-religious Mexicans still engage in Catholic celebrations.

Mexican society is generally quite tolerant of other faiths. Indeed, adherents to different Christian churches are growing. There are a number of Pentecostal Christians, Evangelical Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. Much conversion to other variations of Christianity has occurred in recent decades as some Mexicans have become disenchanted with the Catholic Church, or sought a closer relationship with God. Indeed, the Pew Forum found that 44% of current Protestants were raised Catholic. 1 Members of these minority religions are more likely to actively proselytise. For example, 31% of Mexican Protestants reported that they share their faith with others outside their religious group at least once a week. ² The corresponding portion of Catholics who claimed to do the same was 7%. ³

Catholicism in Mexico

Spanish colonists introduced Roman Catholicism to Mexico in the 16th century. This religion teaches the doctrine of God as the 'Holy Trinity', consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Today, Catholicism is synonymous with the culture and society of Mexico. It is deeply infused in the public life and visible in the language. For example, one might hear the following phrases on a daily basis: " Si Dios quiere" (God willing), " Dios te bendiga" (God bless you) and " Gracias a Dios " (thank God).

There are multiple customs that Mexicans follow in daily life to pay respect. For instance, many Mexicans draw a cross with their hand whenever they pass in front of a church or altar. For the typical Mexican, life is marked by seminal Catholic moments, such as baptism, first communion, confirmation, marriage and extreme unction. These rites of passage mark key turning points throughout one's lifetime. According to the Pew Forum, Catholics living in Mexico tend to hold more traditional views than Mexican expatriates living in other countries. For example, Mexicans in the US tend to hold more lenient opinions about the constraints of priesthood. ⁴ However, not all Catholics in Mexico are strictly observant. It is estimated only 16% pray daily. ⁵

La Virgen de Guadalupe (Virgin of Guadalupe)

Mexico has a patron saint, known as the 'La Virgen de Guadalupe' (the Virgin of Guadalupe). She is depicted as a darker-skinned version of the Virgin Mary, with more Mexican features. It is believed she appeared to a peasant, identifying herself as the Virgin Mary by speaking in his native Aztec language. This image and story of the Virgin Mary is unique to Mexico, representing the way Catholicism has evolved to suit the Mesoamerican context. The incorporation indigenous heritage and culture into her origin story and legacy means that the Virgin of Guadalupe is believed to be the 'mother' of all Mexicans. She is Mexico's most important national icon and religious cultural symbol.

In the Mexican practice of Catholicism, the Virgin of Guadalupe serves the role as the appropriate messenger and means for reaching God. She is believed to answer and grant the prayers of those who revere her. Therefore, it is common for Mexicans to have a shrine in their home where they pray to an image or emblem of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Basilica built in dedication to her (the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe) is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage site in the world. On the anniversary of her apparition, the number of Mexicans that visit this sacred site exceeds millions. Her deep veneration means any perceived criticism of her can seriously offend Mexicans. It can be interpreted as an insult to their faith as well as their national identity.

Folk Religions and Magic

There are cultural forms of superstition and folk religions (unrelated to religious institutions) that are generally known to almost all Mexicans. According to anthropologists, one-third of all Mexicans believe in magic and its potential influence over events in their life. ⁶ This phenomena is common across all social classes, both rural and urban. It is thought to help offer a solution to those areas in people's lives where both science and Catholicism have not been able to provide comfort.

As part of a widespread belief in supernatural elements, some Mexicans have a fear of black magic, curses, witches ( brujos) and/or the evil eye ( mal de ojo). There are many ' curandero(a)s ' (healers) throughout Mexico. These are traditional native healers that use folk remedies (such as herbs and ointments) to cure physical ailments as well as to offer relief from bad luck. Curanderos are often cheaper than doctors. They combine both religious and supernatural elements/levels. Many people may pay a curandero to protect them from a spell or dissolve it. These traditions continue to be practised throughout many regions and cities of Mexico. People also seek fortune-tellers that read candles and tarot cards to interpret events in their daily and professional lives.

La Santa Muerte (Saint Death)

Many contemporary religious practices intermingle indigenous traditions with Catholicism to suit modern needs. A well-known example is the growing veneration of the pseudo-saint, ' Santa Muerte' (Saint Death). Santa Muerte is a female figure believed to provide healing, protection and favours to those that worship her image. Her image personifies death - a skeleton wearing a long robe holding a scythe. As such, she is thought to be associated with a continuation of the Aztec goddess of death ( Mictecacihuatl). While she is not associated with Catholicism, rituals asking for the grace of Santa Muerte mimic Catholic traditions.

Millions of Mexicans have turned to Santa Muerte under the belief that she will have more power and control over events in their lives than Catholic forms of worship. ⁷ Her followers believe she is less judgemental and often feel more comfortable asking her for favours that may be morally ambiguous in the eyes of the Catholic Church. She is also believed to have a vengeful spirit that seeks reprisal if a follower abandons her.

Many Mexicans condemn the Church of Santa Muerte (known as the 'Shrine of Most Holy Death'). However, it has growing popularity with economically and socially disenfranchised members of society. Followers come from all backgrounds, but most particularly the lower class. The morbidity of Santa Muerte is also relatable to those who have experienced the hard realities of violence.

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5 Pew Research Centre, 2014

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Learn about the religious make-up of society and how religion influences daily life and culture

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As the only native born president, Benito Juárez is one of the most renowned cultural and political figures of Mexico.

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Synopsis

Born on March 21, 1806, in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico, Benito Juárez was orphaned at age 3 and raised by relatives. He entered politics promoting reforms for the Mexican people. During the military regime of Santa Ana, he went into exile but returned to help overthrow the dictator. He then resisted the French occupation and worked to overthrow Emperor Maximillian. He served a total of five terms as president seeking to institute constitutional reforms and create a democratic Mexico.

Early Years

Benito Juárez was born into Zapotec Indian tribe in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico. His parents, Brígida García and Marcelino Juárez, died when Benito was 3 and he was raised by relatives. Before starting school at age 12, he worked in the fields and didn't speak Spanish. He entered Oaxaca Institute for the Arts and Sciences in 1827 and received his law degree in 1831. He quickly began to help poor farmers of Oaxaca in their battles with land owners.

At this time, Mexico was coming out of thirty years of domestic violence. The treasury was nearly bankrupt as two political factions emerged: conservatives, who represented the large landholders, the Catholic Church and the military and wanted to protect the status quo. The Liberals represented small merchants and rural ranchers and farmers and wanted to institute democratic reform.

A Reluctant Politician

Benito Juárez initially avoided entering politics, but soon believed the landed aristocracy's monopoly on the economy was the root cause Mexico's poor living conditions. Making matters worse, the Catholic Church was often an ally to the rich and thwarted any resistance toward them. In 1843 Juárez married Margarita Meza, the daughter of one of Mexico's wealthiest Creole families. The union increased his standing among conservatives and he frequently accepted appointments from Conservative state authorities. Politics soon became his passion and he was elected to Oaxaca's legislature. Known for his impeccable honesty and simple tastes, he was immune from corruption. He didn't play favorites to either conservatives or liberals and sought to implement reforms fairly.

Committed to Liberal Causes

In 1846, the Liberal Party took power and Benito Juárez joined the push for liberal causes. During the war with the United States (1847-1848) he was appointed Oaxaca's acting governor and then was later elected governor, which elevated his name and reputation to national politics. He promoted a guerrilla resistance toward the United States and opposed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1853, the dictator General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana came to power and Juárez was exiled in New Orleans, Louisiana, working in a cigar factory.

In 1855, Santa Ana's government collapsed and Benito Juárez returned from exile. Soon Mexico had ratified a new constitution and the liberal party was in power. Juárez was appointed President of the Supreme Court. In 1857, the presidency of Juan Alvarez ended with his retirement and Mexico entered a period of inner turmoil, known as the Three Year War or the War of Reform, a struggle for power between political factions. When it was over, Juárez emerged as president of Mexico.

President of Mexico

Over the next few years, Benito Juárez struggled to help Mexico find its financial footing. At the mercy of European powers looking to regain lost colonies, France's emperor Louis Napoleon attempted to establish a Mexican empire under Archduke Maximilian. In 1863, aided by the Conservatives, French forces took control of Mexico City.

Over the next three years, Mexico was a divided country. The imperialists controlled the cities, but the countryside was in revolt. The pressure was too much and in 1867, French forces withdrew. Emperor Maximilian was arrested and executed by firing squad. Benito Juárez was soon elected and quickly asked the congress to allow him to rule by decree, even though this was in violation of the 1857 Constitution.

Later Years and Death

Benito Juárez would rule the country for the next four years, until his death. He accomplished much during this time, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, cutting the power and funding of the military, expropriated much of the Church's large landholdings to the poor, and promoting free speech, press, and assembly. However, Juárez didn't operate his government like a democracy. Secrecy, suppressing political opposition, and corruption also marred his presidency. Despite fraud charges and widespread controversy, he was reelected in 1871. The next year, on July 18, 1872, died in office from a heart attack

Juárez's Legacy:

The period of Juárez's leadership is known as La Reforma del Norte (The Reform of the North). During this time, large tracts of Church land was redistributed to the poor, the army was put under civilian control, church was separated from state, and civil rights were expanded. As progressive as these reforms were, Mexico suffered from inadequate democratic and institutional stability. After Juárez's death Mexico returned to a centralized autocracy under the regime of Porfirio Diaz.

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Born on March 21, 1806, in San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico, Benito Juárez was orphaned at age 3 and raised by relatives. He entered politics promoting reforms for the Mexican people. During the military regime of Santa Ana, he went into exile but returned to help overthrow the dictator.

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With the pressure of cultural empiricism from the West, the important figures of Mexico are now less known to the world, which might led to the youth of Mexico losing a chance to be educated of their own history.

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This is a list of Mexican cuisines that are recommended by the BBC

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Don't leave Mexico without trying...

1. Chilaquiles

This popular traditional breakfast dish features lightly fried corn tortillas cut into quarters and topped with green or red salsa (the red is slightly spicier). Scrambled or fried eggs and pulled chicken are usually added on top, as well as cheese and cream. Chilaquiles are often served with a healthy dose of frijoles (refried beans).

Try our delicious chilaquiles in mulato chilli sauce.

2. Pozole

According to anthropologists, this pre-Hispanic soup was once used as part of ritual sacrifices. These days chicken, pork and vegetarian pozole versions are readily available in more everyday surroundings. Made from hominy corn with plenty of herbs and spices, the dish is traditionally stewed for hours, often overnight. Once it's ready to serve, lettuce, radish, onion, lime and chilli are sprinkled on top.

3. Tacos al pastor

This historic dish is one of the most popular varieties of tacos, with origins dating back to the 1920s and 30s and the arrival of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants to Mexico. To create tacos al pastor (meaning 'in the style of the shepherd'), thin strips of pork are sliced off a spit, placed on a corn tortilla and served with onions, coriander leaves and pineapple.

Other delicious options we have are our next level minced beef tacos, tacos dorados de barbacoa and for non-meat eaters, a pescatarian option of beer-battered fish tacos.

4. Tostadas

What should you do with stale tortillas? Why, fry them of course! Literally meaning toasted, tostadas are a simple but delicious dish involving corn tortillas fried in boiling oil until they become crunchy and golden. These are then served alone or piled high with any number of garnishes. Popular toppings include frijoles (refried beans), cheese, cooked meat, seafood and ceviche.

Try our vegetarian black bean tostadas with avocado salsa or our crab & avocado tostadas for two flavourful options.

5. Chiles en nogada

Boasting the three colours of the Mexican flag, chiles en nogada is one of Mexico's most patriotic dishes. Poblano chillies filled with picadillo (a mixture of chopped meat, fruits and spices) represent the green on the flag, the walnut-based cream sauce is the white and pomegranate seeds are the red. Originating from Puebla, history relates that the dish was first served to Don Agustín de Iturbide, liberator and subsequent emperor of Mexico.

6. Elote

You'll find someone selling elote, the Mexican name for corn on the cob, on nearly every city street corner in Mexico. The corn is traditionally boiled and served either on a stick (to be eaten like an ice cream) or in cups, the kernels having been cut off the cob. Salt, chilli powder, lime, butter, cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream are then added in abundance.

Try our grilled corn with chilli mayonnaise, coriander and feta or our sweetcorn with smoked paprika & lime butter, both make an incredible addition to any barbecue spread.

7. Enchiladas

Enchiladas date back to Mayan times, when people in the Valley of Mexico would eat corn tortillas wrapped around small fish. These days both corn and flour tortillas are used and are filled with meat, cheese, seafood, beans, vegetables or all of the above. The stuffed tortillas are then covered in a chilli sauce, making for a perfect Mexican breakfast.

Try making your own enchiladas with our super simple turkey enchiladas. Or for a vegetarian option, try our vegetarian enchiladas.

8. Mole

Three states claim to be the original home of mole (pronounced 'mol-eh'), a rich sauce popular in Mexican cooking. There are myriad types of mole but all contain around 20 or so ingredients, including one or more varieties of chilli peppers, and all require constant stirring over a long period of time. Perhaps the best-known mole is mole poblano, a rusty red sauce typically served over turkey or chicken.

Try our dark, sweet and spicy chicken mole with coriander rice or for a healthy low-calorie lunch that counts as 3 of your 5 a day, try our black eyed bean mole & salsa.

9. Guacamole

Guacamole is undoubtedly one of Mexico's most popular dishes, but few people know that this traditional sauce dates back to the time of the Aztecs. Made from mashed-up avocados, onions, tomatoes, lemon juice and chilli peppers (and sometimes a clove or two of garlic), guacamole is often eaten with tortilla chips or used as a side dish.

Try our fabulous classic guacamole recipe.
Watch our video guide on how to make the perfect guacamole:
10. Tamales

Tamales were first developed for the Aztec, Mayan and Inca tribes who needed nourishing food on the go to take into battle. Pockets of corn dough are stuffed with either a sweet or savoury filling, wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks, then steamed. Fillings vary from meats and cheeses to fruits, vegetables, chillies and mole. Remember to discard the wrapping before eating.

For a fun twist on the classic tamale recipe, try our cornbread tamale pie. It takes a little effort but can be frozen for days for a quick and comforting supper.
Katja Gaskell is a freelance travel writer previously living in Mexico City. She has co-authored numerous travel guidebooks for Lonely Planet, scoured boutique hotels for Mr & Mrs Smith and is the co-founder of globetotting.com, a family travel website.
Discover more delicious international dishes with our Top 10 food guides...
Top 10 foods to try in Spain Are you a fan of Mexican cuisine? Do you agree with our selection or have we missed your favourite? Share your must-try dishes below... Travellers are advised to read the FCO travel advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice for the country they are travelling to.
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If you're visiting Mexico, look out for these traditional dishes to get a real taste of the country's cuisine. Here's our pick of the top 10 must-try meals

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This picture shows a series of Olmec head sculptures that were discovered, with descriptions of each head next to it.

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How the Aztec and Mayan language is different

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How the Aztec and Mayan language is different

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Aztec and Mayan are totally different languages. Sort of.

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This article shows some aspects of the Mayan script such as writing and the numerics

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Foundation for Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc . ( Contact Likewise, among the Maya, the position of a "digit" also determines the actual value of the digit. However, unlike our system, which is based on powers of 10, the Maya (and Mesoamericans in general) used powers of 20. Also, unlike our system, which has an individual symbol for each digit (0, 1, 2, 3, ...), the Maya only employed three basic symbols: A dot for a value of "one", a bar for a value of "five", and a shell for the value "zero". Arithmetic combinations of these yield "digits" from zero to nineteen. For example, four is represented as four dots, seven is a bar and two dots, and nineteen is three bars and four dots as 3 x 5 + 4 x 1 = 19. Numbers larger than 20 are written via positional notation, like the following example: Similar to other Mesoamerican cultures, the Maya employed a 365-day solar calendar (jaab' ) and a 260-day ritual cycle (tzolk'in ). The jaab' is divided into 18 "months" of 20 days, plus 5 "unlucky" days at the end calledwayeb' . The following chart illustrates the signs ofjaab' solar calendar. Like the Western calendar, numbers identify the days in a month, but the first day of the month is zero instead of one as in the Western calendar. So for example, the first day of the month Pop is 0 Pop, although in writing the "zero" is written with the glyph that means "seating" rather than the conch shell. Therefore, the first day of the month is metaphorically called the "seating of" the month.The second cycle, the tzolk'in , is not divided into months but contains two parallel cycles, one of 13 and the other of 20. The cycle of 13 are identified by numbers, but the cycle of 20 has days with names.And the following are the signs of thetzolk'in ritual cycle. The Maya also combined jaab' and tzolk'in into a single 52-year cycle called the Calendar Round. By running the two cycles in parallel, a date such as 12 Chikchan 18 Sak will not be come around again for exactly 52 years. Mathematically, this can be computed by finding the least common multiple (the smallest number divisible by both 260 and 365), which happens to be 18980 days or 52 years. At a level even greater than the Calendar Round is the Long Count, an immensely long system of five increasingly larger cycles that ultimately measures a time period of over 5,000 years. Like the modern Western calendar which uses three numbers to denote three time units (year, month, and day), the Long Count used five numbers to represent five time units. The smallest unit of the Long Count is a day, called k'in . The passage of twentyk'ins (days) makes up onewinal , the next higher unit. Eighteenwinals yields onetun , which is 360 days, thus roughly equal to one year. Twentytuns makes up onek'atun , which is about 19 years and 8 months. And finally, the largest conventional unit is thebaktun , which is twenty k'atuns , 400 tuns , or about 394 years and 6 months. It appears that the maximum number that thebaktuns unit can arrive is thirteen. Unlike the modern calendar, the smallest number for an unit is not one (such as 1/1 or 1st of January) but zero instead. In other words, ak'in starts at 0 and increments as high as 19 before going back to 0 again. For convenience, instead of writing each number and unit name in a Long Count date, archaeologists have devised a system of writing just the numbers separated by dots starting with the largest unit. For example, 9 baktun , 3 k'atun , 17 tun , 8winal , and 11 k'in is written as 9.3.17.8.11. ) Note that Roman transliteration of Maya consonants follows 16th century Spanish orthography. This means that the letter "j" is pronounced like a rough /h/. The letter "x" represents the sound /&\#x0161;/ (like the "sh" in "ship"). And the combination "tz" is the sound /ts/ like in "catsup". In addition to syllabic signs, the Maya script also has a large number of logograms, signs that represent words or morphemes (basic units of meaning) in the language instead of sounds. The following are a few of the logograms. With such a rich inventory of signs, both logographic and syllabic, the ancient Maya scribe combined them in bewildering ways for both functional and aesthetic purposes. Scribes could and did write the same word in multiple ways. Sometimes only logograms were used. Other times just phonetic signs were employed. And sometimes logograms are accompanied by phonetic complements, phonetic signs that serve to clarify the reading of the logogram by either spelling out the beginning or ending sound of the word. In the following example, you see two words, namely pakal 'shield' andwitz 'mountain' spelled in several different ways, purely logographic, logographic with phonetic complements, and purely phonetic. Also notice how the phonetic complements can occur before the logogram (such as wi-WITZ) and after it (as in PAKAL-l(a)).One reason for the use of phonetic complements is that a sign can have multiple functions, a phenomenon called polyvalency. For example, there were two words for 'jaguar' in Maya, namely balam andjix , but the same logogram is used for both. To remove ambiguity, when the logogram is meant to be read asbalam , either the phonetic sign ba is placed in front of it or ma is placed after it. In contrast, ji is placed before the logogram if it is meant to be read asjix . Also note that the rules of synharmony and disharmony also apply to phonetic complements. If the logogram's vowel is short, then the rule of synharmony is used (such as BALAM-m(a)), but if the vowel is long or aspirated, then the rule of disharmony is used (as in TUUN-n(i)).

Introduction
The prevalent thought about the origin of Maya writing is that it grew out of an even more ancient writing system developed by the Olmecs as early as 1000 BCE, at a time period called the Preclassic by archaeologists. Only fragmentary evidence for this writing system existed until the announcement in 2006 of the existence of the Cascajal block, a small rectangular tablet inscribed with 62 symbols resembling symbols found in Olmec art but otherwise undecipherable. You can read more about it at National Geographic orMesoweb . However, the writing system of the Cascajal block is very different from that of the Maya, and it is impossible to say if it had any influence on Maya writing at all. This situation changed recently by major discoveries at the site of San Bartolo, which yielded exquisitely painted murals as well as some of the earliest Maya texts found in their archaeological context. The texts associated with the famous murals date to about 100 BCE, whereas another piece of text, found in another part of the city, date to 300 BCE, making it the oldest securely dated Maya text and one of the earliest texts in Mesoamerica in general. The 300 BCE text can be seen here . You can also find more information about the beginning of Maya writing in #a @ma_ws#. No doubt Sir Eric Thompson is one of the greatest Mayanist ever lived. Among his greatest contribution to the field was a systematic catalog of all Maya hieroglyphs. He divided the glyphs into three sets, affixes ,main signs , and portraits . The affixes are usually the little squished glyphs while the main signs are usually somewhat square in shape. The portraits are usually heads of humans, gods, or animals, and usually can appear as either affixes or main signs. Thompson gave each one a number, the lowest number going to the most frequent glyph to appear on texts, and higher numbers for less frequent signs. Affixes start at 1 and stops at 500. Main signs go from 501 to 999. And Portraits from 1000 up. You can take a lot at this cataloging by going toMaya Epigraphic Database .
SYLLABARY
Ancient Norse Migrations Mesoamerican Photo Archives Bronze Age Visitors In America
Of course, verbs can also be written completely phonetically, as illustrated in the following example:

Once the historical approach is opened, myriad of glyphs were identified with events in life, such as birth, accession, death, and so on. In the early seventies, it became possible for the first time to work out dynastic lists of rulers in particular sites. From around the same time, Knorozov's phoneticism became more widely accepted, and further advances in deciphering syllabic signs continued. With these major tools of decipherment in hand, Maya texts started to come to light for the past 20 years. New discoveries continue to come to light, and any paper published six months ago might already be obsolete .

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Foundation for Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc . ( Contact Likewise, among the Maya, the position of a "digit" also determines the actual value of the digit. However, unlike our system, which is based on powers of 10, the Maya (and Mesoamericans in general) used powers of 20.

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For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

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The day of the dead is a special festival in Mexico that celebrates the dead, and is one of the biggest festivals in Mexico

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-the Day of the Dead-is a holiday celebrated on November 1. Although marked throughout Latin America, Día de los Muertos is most strongly associated with Mexico, where the tradition originated.

Día de los Muertos honors the dead with festivals and lively celebrations, a typically Latin American custom that combines indigenous Aztec ritual with Catholicism, imposed on the region by Spanish conquistadores. (Día de los Muertos is celebrated on All Saints Day and All Souls Day, minor holidays in the Catholic calendar.)

Assured that the dead would be insulted by mourning or sadness, Día de los Muertos celebrates the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties, and activities the dead enjoyed in life. Día de los Muertos recognizes death as a natural part of the human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood, and growing up to become a contributing member of the community. On Día de los Muertos, the dead are also a part of the community, awakened from their eternal sleep to share celebrations with their loved ones.

The most familiar symbol of Día de los Muertos may be the calacas and calaveras (skeletons and skulls), which appear everywhere during the holiday: in candied sweets, as parade masks, as dolls. Calacas and calaveras are almost always portrayed as enjoying life, often in fancy clothes and entertaining situations.

Use the questions in the following tab (Questions) to inspire discussion about Día de los Muertos, Latin America, colonialism, and culture.
Want to learn a little more about Día de los Muertos? Read all about it at Nat Geo Kids!

1. Día de los Muertos is celebrated throughout Latin America, including South America (Brazilians call the festival Finados) and the Caribbean. In the United States and Canada, the tradition exists only in areas with a large Latin American population, such as Los Angeles, California, or Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Día de los Muertos predates the independence of Mexico, the U.S., and Canada. Why do you think this is not a widely celebrated American or Canadian holiday?

Answer

Answers will vary! Consider the region's history:
* Día de los Muertos has its origins in Aztec traditions honoring the dead. The Aztec Empire's influence extended throughout present-day Mexico and Central America, while few Native Americans of the present-day U.S. shared Aztec traditions. They would be unlikely to adopt Dia de los Muertos rituals.
* Latin America was largely colonized by Catholics, while northern North America was largely colonized by Protestants. Though both Christian, these traditions have different religious calendars, and honor saints and holy days in different ways. All Saints Day and All Souls Day are more important in the Catholic calendar than the Protestant calendar.
* Latin America was largely colonized by Spain and Portugal, while the U.S. and Canada were colonized mostly by the British and French. National traditions influence religious celebrations. Even though both Spain and France were Catholic nations, for instance, Spanish citizens celebrated All Saints Day with family reunions, feasts, and festivals. Few French citizens marked the day at all.
* Protestant British and Catholic Spanish explorers had wildly different approaches to the native populations they colonized. Catholic missionaries often incorporated native influences into their religious teachings. They adapted Aztec traditions with All Saints Day to create Día de los Muertos, where elements of both celebrations are retained. Spanish explorers were also more likely to marry indigenous people, creating a hybrid ( mestizo) culture where such cultural adaptation is a way of life.

2. In some of these photos, masks and other decorations are only half-decorated with calacas and calaveras. Why?

Answer

Answers will vary! Consider the philosophy of the festival:
* Día de los Muertos celebrates death as a part of the human experience: Every living thing will eventually die. Every human being, no matter how beautiful or well-dressed, will eventually be exposed as nothing more than a skeleton and skull. The half-decorated calacas and calaveras recognize this duality.
* The dead are a part of the community, participating in the same way they did in life. Although their flesh may have disappeared, their cultural associations have not. Skeletons representing firefighters may still ride in a fire truck, for instance, or a calaca of a vaquero (cowboy) may still ride a horse.

3. In many parts of Mexico, participants in Día de los Muertos festivities wear shells or other noisemakers on their clothing and jewelry. Why?

Answer

Answers will vary! Consider the culture of the festival:
* The dead are a part of the community, but invisible to the living. Shells and noisemakers will wake the dead from their sleep, and keep them close during the festivities.
* Many of the dead were musicians or enjoyed music and dancing.
* Día de los Muertos is a celebration, and music is an important part of the joyous atmosphere.

Family members often clean and decorate the graves of loved ones on Día de los Muertos.

In addition to celebrations, the dead are honored on Día de los Muertos with ofrendas-small, personal altars honoring one person. Ofrendas often have flowers, candles, food, drinks, photos, and personal mementos of the person being remembered.

Día de los Muertos is actually Días de los Muertos-the holiday is spread over two days. November 1 is Día de los Inocentes, honoring children who have died. Graves are decorated with white orchids and baby's breath. November 2 is Día de los Muertos, honoring adults, whose graves are decorated with bright orange marigolds.

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Producer

Caryl-Sue, National Geographic Society

Last Updated

Oct. 17, 2012

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Family members often clean and decorate the graves of loved ones on Día de los Muertos.

In addition to celebrations, the dead are honored on Día de los Muertos with ofrendas-small, personal altars honoring one person. Ofrendas often have flowers, candles, food, drinks, photos, and personal mementos of the person being remembered.

Día de los Muertos is actually Días de los Muertos-the holiday is spread over two days. November 1 is Día de los Inocentes, honoring children who have died. Graves are decorated with white orchids and baby's breath. November 2 is Día de los Muertos, honoring adults, whose graves are decorated with bright orange marigolds.

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the Day of the Dead-is a holiday celebrated on November 1. Although marked throughout Latin America, Día de los Muertos is most strongly associated with Mexico, where the tradition originated. Día de los Muertos honors the dead with festivals and lively celebrations, a typically Latin American custom that combines indigenous Aztec ritual with Catholicism, imposed on the region by Spanish conquistadores.

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This piece of sculpture was produced in the Aztec Empire, and was placed in the main square of the city capitol. This piece of artwork was a symbol of rulership.

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The Aztec Sun Stone (or Calendar Stone) depicts the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The stone is not, therefore, in any sense a functioning calendar, but rather it is an elaborately carved solar disk, which for the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures represented rulership. At the top of the stone is a date glyph (13 reed) which represents both the beginning of the present sun, the 5th and final one according to mythology, and the actual date 1427 CE, thereby legitimizing the rule of Itzcoatl (who took power in that year) and creating a bond between the divine and mankind.

The stone was discovered in December 1790 CE in the central plaza of Mexico City and now resides in the National Museum of Anthropology in that city. The richly carved basalt stone was once a part of the architectural complex of the Temple Mayor and measures 3.58 metres in diameter, is 98 centimetres thick, and weighs 25 tons. The stone would originally have been laid flat on the ground and possibly anointed with blood sacrifices. When it was discovered, the stone was lying flat and upside down, perhaps in an attempt to prevent the final cataclysm - the fall of the 5th and final sun - as the Aztec world fell apart following the attack from the Old World.

The Sun Stone would originally have been laid flat on the ground and possibly anointed with blood sacrifices.

At the centre of the stone is a representation of either the sun god Tonatiuh (the Day Sun) or Yohualtonatiuh (the Night Sun) or the primordial earth monster Tlaltecuhtli, in the latter case representing the final destruction of the world when the 5th sun fell to earth. The tongue is perhaps also a sacrificial knife and, sticking out, it suggests a thirst for blood and sacrifice. Around the central face at four points are the other four suns which successively replaced each other after the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca struggled for control of the cosmos until the era of the 5th sun was reached. The suns are known by the day name on which their final destruction occurred. Beginning from the top right there is the first sun Nahui Ocelotl (4 - Jaguar), top left is the second sun Nahui Ehécatl (4 - Wind), bottom left the third sun Nahui Quiáhuitl (4 - Rain) and bottom right is the fourth sun Nahui Atl (4 - Water).

On either side of the central face are two jaguar heads or paws, each clutching a heart, representing the terrestrial realm. The band running immediately around the suns is segmented into the 20 Aztec day-names (hence the Calendar Stone name). Then there is a decorative ring surrounded by another ring depicting symbols which represent turquoise and jade, symbols of the equinoxes and solstices, and the colours of the heavens. The two heads at the bottom centre represent fire serpents, and their bodies run around the perimeter of the stone with each ending in a tail. The four cardinal and the inter-cardinal directions are also indicated with larger and lesser points respectively.

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The Aztec Sun Stone (or Calendar Stone) depicts the five consecutive worlds of the sun from Aztec mythology. The stone is not, therefore, in any sense a functioning calendar, but rather it is an elaborately carved solar disk, which for the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican cultures represented rulership.

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This is a biography of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. After a car accident, Frida became an artist and later married famous muralist Diego Rivera. Her life was full of ups and downs including miscarriages, divorces and remarriages with Rivera, and catching the polio disease. Her disease and pain was a main inspiration for her artwork.

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Considered one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyocoan, Mexico City, Mexico. She grew up in the family's home where was later referred to as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Her father is a German descendant and photographer. He immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. Her mother is half Amerindian and half Spanish. Frida Kahlo has two older sisters and one younger sister.

Frida Kahlo has poor health in her childhood. She contracted polio at the age of 6 and had to be bedridden for nine months. This disease caused her right leg and foot to grow much thinner than her left one. She limped after she recovered from polio. She has been wearing long skirts to cover that for the rest of her life. Her father encouraged her to do lots of sports to help her recover. She played soccer, went swimming, and even did wrestle, which is very unusual at that time for a girl. She has kept a very close relationship with her father for her whole life.

Frida Kahlo attended the renowned National Preparatory School in Mexico City in the year of 1922. There are only thirty-five female students enrolled in that school and she soon became famous for her outspokenness and bravery. At this school she first met the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera for the first time. Rivera at that time was working on a mural called The Creation on the school campus. Frida often watched it and she told a friend she will marry him someday.

In the same year, Kahlo joined a gang of students who shared similar political and intellectual views. She fell in love with the leader Alejandro Gomez Arias. On a September afternoon when she traveled with Gomez Arias on a bus the tragic accident happened. The bus collided with a streetcar and Frida Kahlo was seriously injured. A steel handrail impaled her through the hip. Her spine and pelvis are fractured and this accident left her in a great deal of pain, both physically and physiologically.

She was injured so badly and had to stay in the Red Cross Hospital in Mexico City for several weeks. After that, she returned home for further recovery. She had to wear full-body cast for three months. To kill the time and alleviate the pain, she started painting and finished her first self-portrait the following year. Frida Kahlo once said, "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best". Her parents encouraged her to paint and made a special easel made for her so she could paint in bed. They also gave her brushes and boxes of paints.

Frida Kahlo reconnected with Rivera in 1928. She asked him to evaluate her work and he encouraged her. The two soon started the romantic relationship. Despite her mother's objection, Frida and Diego Rivera got married in the next year. During their earlier years as a married couple, Frida had to move a lot based on Diego's work. In 1930, they lived in San Francisco, California. Then they moved to New York City for Rivera's artwork show at Museum of Modern Art. They later moved to Detroit while Diego Rivera worked for Detroit Institute of Arts.

In 1932, Kahlo added more realistic and surrealistic components in her painting style. In the painting titled Henry Ford Hospital(1932), Frida Kahlo lied on a hospital bed naked and was surrounded with a few things floating around, which includes a fetus, a flower, a pelvis, a snail, all connected by veins. This painting was an expression of her feelings about her second miscarriage. It is as personal as her other self-portraits.

In 1933, Kahlo was living in New York City with her husband Diego Rivera. Rivera was commissioned by Nelson Rockefeller to create a mural named as Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Center. Rivera tried to include Vladimir Lenin in the painting, who is a communist leader. Rockefeller stopped his work and that part was painted over. The couple had to move back to Mexico after this incident. They returned and live in San Angel, Mexico.

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's marriage is not a usual one. They had been keeping separate homes and studios for all those years. Diego had so many affairs and one of that was with Kahlo's sister Cristina. Frida Kahlo was so sad and she cut off her long hair to show her desperation to the betrayal. She has longed for children but she cannot bear one due to the bus accident. She was heartbroken when she experienced a second miscarriage in 1934. Kahlo and Rivera have been separated a few times but they always went back together. In 1937 they helped Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia. Leon Trotsky is an exiled communist and rival of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Kahlo and Rivera welcomed the couple together and let them stay at her Blue House. Kahlo also had a brief affair with Leon Trotsky when the couple stayed at her house.

In 1938, Frida Kahlo became a friend of Andre Breton, who is one of the primary figures of the Surrealism movement. Frida said she never considered herself as a Surrealist "until André Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one." She also wrote, "Really I do not know whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are the frankest expression of myself". "Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself."

In the same year, she had an exhibition at New York City gallery. She sold some of her paintings and got two commissions. One of that is from Clare Boothe Luce to paint her friend Dorothy Hale who committed suicide. She painted The Suicide of Dorothy Hale (1939), which tells the story of Dorothy's tragic leap. The patron Luce was horrified and almost destroyed this painting.

The next year, 1939, Kahlo was invited by Andre Breton and went to Paris. Her works are exhibited there and she is befriended with artists such as Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian, and Pablo Picasso. She and Rivera got divorced that year and she painted one of her most famous paintings, The Two Fridas(1939).

But soon Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera remarried in 1940. The second marriage is about the same as the first one. They still keep separate lives and houses. Both of them had infidelities with other people during the marriage. Kahlo received a commission from the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican women in 1941, but she was unable to finish the project. She lost her beloved father that year and continued to suffer from chronic health problems. Despite her personal challenges, her work continued to grow in popularity and was included in numerous group shows around this time.

In the year of 1944, Frida Kahlo painted one of her most famous portraits, The Broken Column. In this painting, she depicted herself naked and split down the middle. Her spine is shattered like a column. She wears a surgical brace and there are nails all through her body, which is the indication of the consistent pain she went through. In this painting, Frida expressed her physical challenges through her art. During that time, she had a few surgeries and had to wear special corsets to protect her back spine. She seeks lots of medical treatment for her chronic pain but nothing really worked.

Her health condition has been worsening in 1950. That year she was diagnosed with gangrene in her right foot. She became bedridden for the next nine month and had to stay in hospital and had several surgeries. But with great persistence, Frida Kahlo continued to work and paint. In the year of 1953, she had a solo exhibition in Mexican. Although she had limited mobility at that time, she showed up on the exhibition's opening ceremony. She arrived by ambulance, and welcomed the attendees, celebrated the ceremony in a bed the gallery set up for her. A few months later, she had to accept another surgery. Part of her right leg got amputated to stop the gangrene.

With the poor physical condition, she is also deeply depressed. She even had an inclination for suicide. Frida Kahlo has been out and in hospital during that year. But despite her health issues, she has been active with the political movement. She showed up at the demonstration against US-backed overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala on July 2. This is her last public appearance. About one week after her 47th birthday, Frida Kahlo passed away at her beloved Bule House. She was publicly reported to die of a pulmonary embolism, but there is speculation which was saying she died of a possible suicide.

Frida Kahlo's fame has been growing after her death. Her Blue House was opened as a museum in the year of 1958. In the 1970s the interest in her work and life is renewed due to the feminist movement since she was viewed as an icon of female creativity. In 1983, Hayden Herrera published his book on her, A Biography of Frida Kahlo, which drew more attention from the public to this great artist. In the year of 2002, a movie named Frida was released, staring alma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera. This movie was nominated for six Academy Awards and won for Best Makeup and Original Score.

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Considered one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyocoan, Mexico City, Mexico. She grew up in the family's home where was later referred to as the Blue House or Casa Azul. Her father is a German descendant and photographer.

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Is a form of Mexican Westling that that is inspired by the Mayan and Aztec warriors. The mask that the luchadores (what the westlers are called)  wear, symbolizes the warrior spirit, and also has the function of keeping the anonymity of the luchadores. However this sport has become too indistinguishable from American TV wrestling after getting popularized.

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Interesting Fact: Benito Juárez stands at the height of 1.37 meters

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Escamole is type of ant eggs found in the southern part of Mexico. This kind of egg has to be harvested from wild ant colonies around April and March. This dish is from the pre-Hispanic era of Mexico, and is treated as a delicacy since it is rare and hard to harvest.

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As the name suggests, banda is a type of band music. This genre is similar to mariachi, however more heavily influenced by the Spanish era and is also significantly rarer. Instruments are mostly from the horn family, such as:
Trumpet
Horn
Clarinet
Trombone
Sousaphone

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Mexican Folk music from the north that combines pre-colonization and post-colonization elements, lyrics are mostly about love or social topics. Instruments used depends band to band, however a common composition is:
Guitar
Accordion
Banjo Sexto (A twelve string instrument that serves the purpose of a bass)

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This video is good because it shows the proper way of how mariachi is played.

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Mariachi Sol De Mexico Perform Guadalajara | GRAMMYs

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Mariachi is a music category that blends both pre-colonization and post-colonization music. One of the unique aspects of this category of music is the instruments used in performance. which are:
-Violins
-A Vihuela (traditional Spanish folk instrument with 5 strings)
-A Guitarrón (a 6 string bass guitar)
-Mexican Folk Harp (a variant of a European hand-held harp)
-Vocal (A significant part of mariachi music singing)

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Religions such as Christianity and Catholicism are extremely popular in Mexico (80 percent of the population), this might lead to ancient religions such as the Maya and Aztec to become forgotten.

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After colonization, Mexico was able to develop an unique clothing style. Such as charro and huipil that use colorful and lavish garments. But due to the effects of globalization, popular clothing brands are replacing traditional Mexican clothing. Mexican clothing such as charro and huipil use colorful and lavish garments.

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With the rise of art conscious around the world, more and more countries are starting able to present their art to a larger audience. With Mexico having such a enriched history, it is important to show their various artwork.

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The legendary origin of the Aztec people has them migrating from a homeland called Aztlan to what would become modern-day Mexico. While it is not clear where Aztlan was, a number of scholars believe that the Mexica-as the Aztec referred to themselves-migrated south to central Mexico in the 13th century.

The Mexica founding of Tenochtitlan was under direction from their patron god Huitzilopochtli, according to legend. The legend recounts that Huitzilopochtli told them to found their settlement in the place where a giant eagle eating a snake was perched on a cactus. This settlement, in the region of Mesoamerica called Anáhuac located on a group of five connected lakes, became Tenochtitlan. Archaeologists date the founding of Tenochtitlan to 1325 C.E.

At first, the Mexica in Tenochtitlan were one of a number of small city-states in the region. They were subject to the Tepanec, whose capital was Azcapotzalco, and had to pay tribute to them. In 1428, the Mexica allied with two other cities-Texcoco and Tlacopan. They formed the Aztec Triple Alliance and were able to win the battle for regional control, collecting tribute from conquered states.

Key to the rise of Tenochtitlan was the agricultural system that made it possible to feed the population. Chinampas, small, artificial islands created above the waterline, were one feature of the system. Recordkeeping was important to tracking tributes. Two pictographic texts that survived Spanish destruction-the Matricula de tributos and Codex Mendoza- record the tributes paid to the Aztecs. The codices also recorded religious practices.

A 260-day ritual calendar was used by Aztec priests for divination, alongside a 365-day solar calendar. At their central temple in Tenochtitlan, Templo Mayor, the Aztecs practiced both bloodletting (offering one's own blood) and human sacrifice as part of their religious practices. The Spanish reaction to Aztec religious practices is believed to be partially responsible for the violence of the Spanish conquest.

The Spanish, led by conquistador Hernando Cortés, arrived in what is now Mexico in 1519. They were looking for gold, and the gifts from the Mexica ruler, Motecuhzoma, proved that gold was present. Upon arriving in Tenochtitlan, Cortés took Motecuhzoma prisoner and attempted to rule on his behalf, but this did not go well, and Cortés fled the city in June of 1520.

This was not the end of the interactions, however. The Spanish conquistadors laid siege to the Aztec capital from the middle of May of 1521 until they surrendered on August 13, 1521. They were aided by Texcoco, a former Triple Alliance member.A great deal of Tenochtitlan was destroyed in the fighting, or was looted, burned, or destroyed after the surrender. Cortés began to build what is now known as Mexico City, the capital of a Spanish colony of which he was named governor, atop the ruins.

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In just a century, the Aztec built an empire in the area now called central Mexico. The arrival of the Spanish conquistadors brought it to a sudden end.

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As the earliest Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs have a deep and rich history, but the story of the Olmecs aren't as famous as the Aztecs or the Mayas due to its early period.

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The , located in ancient Mexico, prospered in Pre-Classical (Formative) Mesoamerica from c. 1200 BCE to c. 400 BCE. Monumental sacred complexes, massive stone sculptures, ball games, the drinking of chocolate, and animal gods were all features of Olmec culture passed on to those peoples who followed this first great Mesoamerican civilization.

With their heartlands in the Gulf of Mexico (now the states of Veracruz and Tabasco), Olmec influence and trade activity spread from 1200 BCE, even reaching as far south as present-day Nicaragua. Many Olmec sites suffered systematic and deliberate destruction of their monuments sometime between 400 and 300 BCE.

The Olmec Enigma

The Olmec civilization presents something of a mystery, indeed, we do not even know what they called themselves, as Olmec was their Aztec name and meant 'rubber people'. Due to a lack of archaeological evidence their ethnic origins and the location and extent of many of their settlements are not known. The Olmecs did, however, codify and record their gods and religious practices using symbols. The precise significance of this record is much debated but, at the very least, its complexity does suggest some sort of organised religion involving a priesthood. The Olmec religious practices of sacrifice, cave rituals, pilgrimages, offerings, ball-courts, pyramids and a seeming awe of mirrors, was also passed on to all subsequent civilizations in Mesoamerica until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century CE.

Around 900 BCE La Venta flourished as the new capital & eventually boasted a population of around 18,000.

Olmec prosperity was initially based on exploiting the fertile and well-watered coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico to grow such crops as corn and beans (often twice-yearly) which allowed for an agricultural surplus. They also, no doubt, gathered the plentiful local supply of plant food, palm nuts and sea-life, including turtles and clams. By c. 1200 BCE significant urban centres developed at San Lorenzo (the earliest), La Venta, Laguna de los Cerros, Tres Zapotes and Las Limas. San Lorenzo reached its peak of prosperity and influence between 1200 and 900 BCE when its strategic position safe from flooding allowed it to control local trade. Typical Olmec trade goods included obsidian, jade, serpentine, mica, rubber, pottery, feathers and polished mirrors of ilmenite and magnetite.

Evidence of San Lorenzo's high culture includes the presence of mound structures, possibly an early ball court, carved basalt drains through one of the man-made mounds and the Red Palace structure with painted red floors and workshops. Around 900 BCE the site of San Lorenzo displays evidence of systematic destruction whilst La Venta, conversely, began to flourish, and becoming the new capital, it eventually supported a population of some 18,000.

The three sites of San Lorenzo, La Venta and Laguna de los Cerros all had a bilateral symmetry in their planning and at La Venta the first pyramid in Mesoamerica was constructed. It is the pre-meditated architectural layout of the religious centres of these settlements that is most striking, for example, at La Venta the buildings are placed symmetrically along a north-south axis with four colossal heads facing outwards at key points, seemingly acting as guardians to the complex. A huge ceremonial step pyramid (now a shapeless mound), sunken plaza once lined with 2-metre high basalt columns, and two smaller pyramids/mounds provide features that would be copied time and again at the major sites of later Mesoamerican cultures with whom equal attention was paid to the precise alignment of buildings. La Venta, as with San Lorenzo, suffered systematic and deliberate destruction of its monuments sometime between 400 and 300 BCE.

Religious Beliefs

As with other areas of Olmec culture, details of their religion are sketchy. Nevertheless, with an ever-increasing body of archaeological evidence it is possible to piece together some of the most important features of Olmec religion. The Olmecs seem to have had a particular reverence for natural places which connected with the important junctions of sky, earth and the underworld. For example, caves could lead to the underworld and mountains which had both springs and caves could offer access to all three planes. Important Olmec mountain sites were El Manatί, Chalcatzingo and Oxtotitlan.

The Olmecs also liked to mix animals to create weird & wonderful creatures such as the were-jaguar, a cross between a human & a jaguar.

The names of the gods of the Olmec are not known other than that they often represented phenomena such as rain, the earth and especially maize. For this reason, identifiable gods from Olmec art have been given numbers instead of names (e.g. God VI). The Olmecs gave special significance to the animals present in their environment, especially those at the top of the food chain such as jaguars, eagles, caimans, snakes and even sharks, identifying them with divine beings and perhaps also believing that powerful rulers could transform themselves at will into such fearsome creatures. The Olmecs also liked to mix animals to create weird and wonderful creatures such as the were-jaguar, a cross between a human and a jaguar, which may have been their supreme deity. We also know that they worshipped a sky-dragon and that they believed four dwarves held up the sky, possibly representing the four cardinal directions which, along with other Olmec gods, became so important in later Mesoamerican religions.

Olmec Art

The most striking legacy of the Olmec civilization must be the colossal stone heads they produced. These were carved in basalt and all display unique facial features so that they may be considered portraits of actual rulers. The heads can be nearly 3 m high and 8 tons in weight and the stone from which they were worked was, in some cases, transported 80 km or more, presumably using huge balsa river rafts. 17 have been discovered, 10 of which are from San Lorenzo. The ruler often wears a protective helmet (from war or the ballgame) and sometimes show the subject with jaguar paws hanging over the forehead, perhaps representing a jaguar pelt worn as a symbol of political and religious power. The fact that these giant sculptures depict only the head may be explained by the belief in Mesoamerican culture that it was the head alone which bore the soul.

Another permanent record of the Olmecs is found in rock carvings and paintings. Often made around cave entrances they most typically depict seated rulers, as for example at Oxtotitlan, where a figure wears a green bird suit and at Chalcatzingo where another ruler sits on her throne surrounded by a maize landscape. At other sites there are also paintings of cave rituals, for example, at Cacahuazqui, Juxtlahuaca and Oxtotlan.

Intriguingly, the Olmecs often buried their sculptures, even larger pieces, perhaps in a ritual act of memory.

Jade and ceramic were other popular materials for sculpture and also wood, some examples of which were remarkably well preserved in the bogs of El Manati. One of the gods most commonly rendered in small sculpture was God IV, sometimes called the Rain Baby, who is a toothless human baby with an open-mouth, cleft head and headband, sometimes with the addition of strips of crinkled paper hanging at the side of his face (another feature seen in the gods of later cultures and representing the paper and rubber sap strips which were burnt during rites as the smoke was thought to propitiate rain).

Perhaps the most significant jade carving is the Kunz Axe, a ceremonial axe-head now in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The jade has been worked to represent a were-jaguar creature using only jade tools and then polished, perhaps using a jade abrasive. Animals were a popular subject, especially those most powerful ones such as jaguars and eagles. Intriguingly, the Olmecs often buried their sculptures, even larger pieces, perhaps in a ritual act of memory.

Legacy in Mesoamerica

The Olmecs influenced the civilizations they came into contact with across Mesoamerica, particularly in sculpture in ceramic and jade and objects featuring Olmec imagery have been found at Teopantecuanitlan, 650 km distant from the Olmec heartland. In addition, many deities featured in Olmec art and religion such as the sky-dragon (a sort of caiman creature with flaming eyebrows) and the feathered-snake god, would reappear in similar form in later religions. The snake-god especially, would be transformed into the major gods Kukulcan for the Maya and Quetzalcoatl for the Aztecs. This artistic and religious influence, along with the features of precisely aligned ceremonial precincts, monumental pyramids, sacrificial rituals and ball-courts, meant that all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures would owe a great deal to their mysterious forerunners, the Olmecs.

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The Olmec civilization, located in ancient Mexico, prospered in Pre-Classical (Formative) Mesoamerica from c. 1200 BCE to c. 400 BCE. Monumental sacred complexes, massive stone sculptures, ball games...

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Above is a documentary about the Maya civilization

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Lost World of the Maya (Full Episode) | National Geographic

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Mesoamerican societies such as the Olmecs, Mayas, and Aztec had extremely distinctive cultures. However these cultures are at risk due to the 300 years of Spanish rule

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Mexican food is popular all around the world, however this taste of Mexico is only the American interpretation, since it was popularized by them, instead most dishes in Mexico are not known to the world.

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Mexico has a rich and deep history when it comes to culture, however, globally influential sports such as basketball and football have superseded the native sports and activities of Mexico

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With cinco de mayo and such festivals, Mexico has an unique set of culture related festivities

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The architecture of Mexico is strongly affected by the Spanish conquest, which combines both Aztec/Maya and European styles together, this creates styles such as Hacienda.

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With the growing need for English speakers (the lingua franca of the world currently), Mexicans are more likely to choose English over native languages, which might in turn affect the health of these native languages.

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Mexican music blends pre-Hispanic and post-colonization elements together to create a unique experience. However this form of art is usually joked at, especially in Western media.And with the rise of Spanish pop music, traditional music in Mexico in under the threat.

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For this project, I will be exploring different aspects of culture in Mexico. Due to globalization, minority cultures and smaller subcultures in developing countries have been getting superseded by larger and richer cultures such as the Western world. If the world continues unequal development and globalization without preserving smaller cultures, Mexico will slowly but surely lose it’s diverse culture. After the colonization of Mexico (1519), most of their ancient civilizations have been wiped out (Aztecs, Maya, Olmec) and have been replaced by Western civilization. Even though the country is now independent, it still doesn’t have the economic and political power to preserve and revive their identity. If this path continues, Mexico will steadily lose the uniqueness of its culture. As a part of the Cultural Kaleidoscope Project online community on Padlet, I will be attempting to preserve significant cultural aspects of Mexico, and by doing this I hope to educate the public and sustain Mexican culture. This will in turn inspire others to contribute, and make other cultures sustain their legacy.