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March 2024

Mexico’s Mesoamerican Cleopatras

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

When you think of Mexico before the Spanish conquest (1521), what comes to mind? All those ruined pyramids? Confusion about who were the Aztecs, who were the Maya, who were the Incas? Maybe you think of Moctezuma, the Aztec (Mexica, to be more ethnically precise) the conquered ruler of Tenochtitlán, the seat of the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico City. Odds are, though, pre-Hispanic women didn’t leap to mind, much less women who ruled the pre-Hispanic world.

The Aztecs didn’t cohere as a political or geographical entity until fairly recently, starting in the late 1100s CE – Tenochtitlán was founded in 1325. They did, however, create a massive empire, subjugating most of the peoples of central Mexico. The Incan Empire arose just a little later, in the 1200s, in the area around Cuzco, Peru, and came to dominate northwestern South America. The Inca were conquered by Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro in 1532.

The Maya, on the other hand, date back to 7000-5000 BCE, and started to coalesce into a great civilization around 300 CE, eventually covering southeastern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala. The Maya did not amass an empire, either; they were a federation of independent city states – large urban centers focused on religious activities surrounded by rural communities that supplied food and other resources. (Those cit-states did set about trying to conquer each other.)

Pre-Hispanic Women and Power

In 2018, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City held a special exhibition, “Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas,” which presented objects from tombs and items of personal adornment. According to curator Joanne Pillsbury, “Had we organized this exhibition twenty-five years ago, we would have spoken primarily of the regalia of men. Over the course of single generation, thrilling discoveries have revealed the power and majesty of high-status women, deepening and enriching our understanding of ancient American history.”

We know that all three of the major pre-Hispanic groups had women in positions of power. Among the Aztecs and the Incas, they ruled as accompaniments to their husbands. The Aztecs required that a ruler have royal blood; a migratory, non-royal-blooded man could marry an Aztec princess to supply the qualifying royal genetics. The Incan king’s primary wife, the quoya (queen), ruled over all women.

The Maya were different. Of course, they had many queens who were the wives of ruling kings, but – even though rare – there were Mayan queens who wielded power on their own. In Mexico, there were a half a dozen or so, including three in Cobá, in Quintana Roo in the Yucatán; two in Palenque, in Chiapas; and one in Toniná, also in Chiapas. In addition, there were three female regents in different Mayan city states in Chiapas – regents ruled until their sons were old enough to ascend the throne, and depending on the age of that son, often served as the de facto ruler for years afterwards.

The Maya were different. Of course, they had many queens who were the wives of ruling kings, but – even though rare – there were Mayan queens who wielded power on their own. In Mexico, there were a half a dozen or so, including three in Cobá, in Quintana Roo in the Yucatán; two in Palenque, in Chiapas; and one in Toniná, also in Chiapas. In addition, there were three female regents in different Mayan city states in Chiapas – regents ruled until their sons were old enough to ascend the throne, and depending on the age of that son, often served as the de facto ruler for years afterwards.

Gender Relations among the Maya

Generations of archeologists, anthropologists, and historians have interpreted Mesoamerican life through the eyes of the Catholic Spanish conquistadors: a Euro-centric gender hierarchy, realized in the male superiority/female domesticity model. It wasn’t easy to even think that the Maya might have had independent queens, while clearly the Aztecs and Incas had only queen consorts, “help-meets” to the male kings, matching the Spanish model.

During the Classic Mesoamerican period (300-950 CE), particularly between 500-700, the Maya were started expanding their reach, usually through warfare. Alliances to control warring parties could be achieved through marriage, giving the bride who concluded the alliance power over the court. Times of war are times of social change, and women began to play more significant roles in upper-class life in general, participating in religious rituals and connecting with the supernatural.

A more fundamental force supporting women’s power was that “the Classic Maya concept of gender was based on a complementary, or balanced, relationship of masculine and feminine.” According to anthropologist Erika Anne Hewitt, now a Unitarian Universalist minister in Maine, and other anthropologists, Mayans thought of gender as “inclusive and reciprocal”; Mayan art seems to assume that the foundation of society is the female-male pair, which brings together different capabilities needed for life. The higher you go in the social scale, gender becomes “exchangeable” – males are shown with female traits and females take on male traits, depending on what their roles required. For kings and queens, this is reflected in the hieroglyphic inscriptions on tombs and monuments. In these inscriptions, identifiable people are mentioned with a string of “appellative phrases” – prescribed sequences of names and titles.

Ordinarily, a woman is identified with the glyph for a female, but for women who ruled independently, no such glyph appears in her appellation. Inscriptions for prominent women who were not independent queens applied the term na bate (warrior) “to accommodate their sharing of status or occupancy of roles that were traditionally masculine.” Moreover, in Mayan art that portrays high-status males conducting rituals, the men wear skirts; portraits of male rulers often included other feminine traits or symbols. It is possible to argue that, without this acceptance of gender fluidity, the Maya, like the Aztecs and Incas, might not have had queens.

The Queens of Cobá

Researchers from INAH (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico’s national anthropology institute) have identified a dynasty, beginning c. 500 CE, of 14 rulers of the Mayan city-state Cobá – the dynasty lasted until almost 800 CE. The research was complicated, given the deteriorated state of the stonework throughout Cobá. Most of the information was gleaned from study of stelae, stone slabs that recorded important events and the rulers who oversaw them.

Ix Che’enal was a most probably the daughter of Yax Yopaat, king of Dzibanche, a nearby state to which Cobá was no doubt sent to Cobá to rule as Dzibanche desired. She held the high title of kaloomte, higher than the title of her husband, K’ahk Bahlam, and was queen for a short period; based on study of two stelae, she ruled from 565 to 574. At that point, she may have abdicated to her husband; in any event, he succeeded her.

Lady Yopaat is thought to have ruled c. 600-40 CE; she is called a “warrior queen” because she apparently strengthened Cobás position as a regional power, although whether that eliminated the subordination to Dzibanche is unclear.

Lady K’awiil Ajaw (also known as Ix Kʼawiil Ek) was born in 617 and ruled Cobá from 642-82; also a warrior queen, she attacked and subjugated the nearby city of Yaxuná. She promptly built a “white road” (sacbeob) connecting it with Cobá. The white road curves its way through the jungle, connecting the smaller settlements between Cobá and Yaxuná. She commissioned two stelae (#1, #5) in which she is standing atop and is surrounded by captives, a common configuration for stelae showing rulers. She is shown with 14 captives, more than any queen – and most kings as well. There are 5, perhaps a few more, stelae showing her, and she is shown wearing a belt from which hangs a jade net skirt and jade masks, a garment usually shown only on men.

The Queens of Palenque

Palenque flourished through the Early Classic and Classic periods of pre-Hispanic culture, from about 250-900 CE. It is an astonishing place to visit – tourists have been coming to Palenque since 1841, when John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, author and artist respectively, published Incidents of Travel, which covered Central America, Chiapas, and the Yucatán.

Yohl Ik’nal (also Lady Ol Nal) started her 22-year reign over Palenque in 583 CE, when she was 33. She was the daughter, or perhaps the sister of King Kan Bahlam I, who had died without an heir. Like Prince Philip of England, Yohl Ik’nal’s husband never became a king.

Under her rule, Palenque expanded as she built new complexes of buildings. She repelled invaders bent on subduing Palenque, and her reign was considered peaceful and prosperous.

Yohl Ik’nal had two children, a son and a daughter. When she died, she was succeeded by her son Aj Ne’ Yohl Mat, who was apparently an ineffective ruler, bringing on powerful attacks from Kalakmul – both he and his father were killed in 612, and the main temple of Palenque was destroyed,

Lady Muwaan Mat (aka Lady Sak K’uk’), Yohl Ik’nal’s daughter, became queen in 612, and ruled until her son, K’inich Janaab’ Pakal took the throne in 615, at the age of 12. Muwaan Mat (there is some debate as to whether she is the same person as Lady Sak K’uk’) had to lead Palenque through the chaotic aftermath of the Kalakmul attack, a task made more complicated by the destruction of the temple – religious rituals to ensure Palenque’s survival went on hiatus. Muwaan Mat’s son Pakal, however, ruled until his death in 683; he built the Temple of Inscriptions, ushering in a period of prosperity and progress for Palenque.

The Queen of Toniná

The latest of the Mexican Mayan queens was Lady K’awiil Yopaat, daughter of king K’inich Tuun Chapat, who died in 762; he was succeeded by “Ruler 7,” thought to be Lady K’awill Yopaat, who ruled from 762 until her death in 774. She was another warrior queen, making war on and defeating Palenque in 764.

2023, April 2023

Mayan Revivalist Architecture

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By Randy Jackson

One “best book” list I continually return to over the years is National Geographic’s 100 Best Adventure Books. A number of these true adventure epics have held me riveted from cover to cover. One of the books on this list is Incidents of Travel in Yucatan by an American lawyer turned archeologist John Lloyd Stephens (1805-52). The two volumes, published in 1843, contain the classic adventure tales of hardships, endurance, fascinating characters, and life in the Central American jungles of the 1800s. However, the tale’s mark on the world went far beyond a tale of adventure; it introduced a virtually unknown (and lost) civilization to the world, the Mayan civilization.

The Aztec civilization was well established in the historical records as a result of the Spanish Conquest. But right up until the beginning of the 20th century, very little was known of earlier ruins found in Mexico and Central America. The Eurocentric view, held by most scholars of the era, was that the Aztec civilization originated long before the Spanish conquest, with the arrival of some unknown peoples from Asia, Europe, or the Middle East (a foundational belief still held by the Mormon Church). Stephens’ book marked an important turning point away from this view, towards our understanding that the Mesoamerican civilizations originated independently. As a result of this book’s publication, the mystery of and fascination with an unknown civilization, the Maya, exploded in the popular imagination of the early 20th century. One aspect of this interest was the birth of Mayan Revivalist Architecture, which emerged in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Mayan influence on design and architecture came from the illustrations in Stephens’ book, which were made by a British artist, Frederick Catherwood, who accompanied Stephens on his Yucatan adventures. Catherwood’s illustrations not only conjured up romantic images of the discovery of a lost civilization in the jungle, they also inspired new concepts of design in architecture. As an indication of the importance of Catherwood’s illustrations, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of New York called his work in the Yucatan “a landmark of architectural illustration.”

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mayan Revival Architecture

One architect who first incorporated ideas from Mayan design was the famed American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s first exposure to Mayan architecture was in connection with some architectural work he did at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. One exhibit Wright would have seen at the fair contained full-scale models of four Mayan structures in the Yucatan, based on Catherwood’s illustrations. One was the Gateway at Labnah, southeast of Uxmal.

Any web searches of Mayan Revivalist Architecture will list a number of buildings designed by Wright. Wright’s renowned contribution to architecture, known as the Prairie School, has elements that can be seen as inspired by the ancient Mayans. Some observable architectural elements common to Wright’s Prairie School designs and extant Mayan ruins are horizontal lines, flat roof construction, use of natural materials, and Mayan motifs.

Later in Wright’s career, he drew most directly on the Mayan Architectural style for some commissions in Southern California. The first of the buildings he designed in this style was the Hollyhock House in Los Angeles (completed in 1922).

Beyond Frank Lloyd Wright, there were other architects whose designs are considered Mayan Revival; to name two, Manuel Amábilis designed the Monumento a la Patria in Mérida and Stiles Oliver Clements designed the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles.

Of the many buildings designed using the concepts of Mayan Revival architecture, most of them are in the United states. Five alone – four residences (including the Hollyhock House) and the North Hollywood Masonic Lodge – are listed in the Los Angeles Conservancy, which protects historically important buildings in LA.

One building in the Mayan Revivalist style that caught my attention is in Mexico City: The Templo de la Ciudad de México. My attention was first arrested by the architecture, but I was quickly astounded by the fact that it is a Mormon Temple. Astounded because of the irony: this architectural style was chosen in part because of the Mormon belief that the indigenous peoples of the Americas originated from the lost tribes of Israel.

The long-held belief that outside influences established the Mesoamerican civilizations that preceded the Spanish conquest was the very theory discredited by John Lloyd Stephens in his book – the very book that started the Mayan Revivalist Architectural style in the first place. Nevertheless, the Templo de la Ciudad de Mexico is a beautiful building. There are many other impressive buildings designed under the influence of Mayan Revival architecture. They are well worth some of your Google time.

Email: box95jackson@gmail.com

May June 2021

The Original Buzz-Inducing Elixir

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By Kary Vannice

What could be better than chocolate and wine? How about chocolate wine?

It is a little-known fact that chocolate wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for the early Mesoamericans’ insatiable lust for fermented fruit, and a good buzz. The cocoa tree that grew wild throughout the tropics of what we now know as the Americas was originally sought after for the juicy flesh that surrounds the cocoa seed. Indigenous people found that they could harvest the small, football shaped pods that grew directly from the bark of the tree and create a slightly alcoholic drink to be used in religious ceremonies and celebrations.

In fact, “cocoa wine” was the real motivation to domesticate the cocoa tree. The eventual processing of beans into chocolate became a fortuitous byproduct, but initially was never even considered. Chocolate was only discovered because wasting the leftover beans was unthinkable in a society where all of nature’s sacred gifts were used to their fullest advantage. (See “Chocolate – Drink of the Gods,” elsewhere in this issue for what the ancients did with the seeds.)

Ironically, now that our modern society has developed their own insatiable lust for all things chocolate, the original buzz-inducing elixir is now considered a waste product in the chocolate-making process.

Several years ago at the Mercado Orgánico de Huatulco, I noticed a cocoa vendor displaying an odd assortment of bottles filled with a white, slightly transparent liquid, clearly producing the tiny bubbles that are a hallmark of active fermentation. Curious, I asked him what was in the bottles. He said it was the liquid that came off of the cocoa beans as they were fermenting in the sun, before being dried, roasted and processed into chocolate. Amazed and delighted, knowing the benefits of fermented foods for the health of the human gut, I told him I would buy all the bottles. For me, the novelty of getting to try this mysterious, effervescent juice (and its health benefits) far outweighed the fact that the drink itself might be less than delicious.

I immediately removed the mesh covering on one of the bottles and took a cautious sip, my curiosity getting the better of me. As it turned out, the taste was pleasant, if not sweet, and didn’t taste at all like chocolate. The vendor smiled with delight as he saw my reaction to this newly introduced probiotic. Noticing this, I asked him to tell me more about the fermentation process.

Seeing that I was clearly taken by this discovery, he didn’t pass up the opportunity to share his knowledge with me, from start to finish. He picked up one of the ripe cocoa pods at his fingertips and adeptly sliced it open with this pocketknife, exposing 40-60 tightly packed fleshy, seeds inside. They looked a bit like a fat, ghostly-white corn on the cob, if the kernels were about ten to twenty times as plump.

He proceeded to tell me that chocolate would not have its chocolaty flavor at all if it were not for the process of fermentation. After harvesting the pods and scooping out the seeds, they are packed into containers to ferment for about six to ten days. During this time, yeasts, bacteria, and enzymes break down and ferment the juicy white pulp that surrounds the cacao beans. As this happens, they release a juice referred to as the “sweatings” that is generally tossed out as a waste product.

However, this ingenious farmer, true to his indigenous roots, saw opportunity, not waste, in this bubbly, slightly boozy froth. Fascinated by the agro-history lesson and eager to support his sustainable practices, I told him I would take at least two bottles a week for as long as he could provide them. Sadly, the supply didn’t last long, but the lesson remains.

And now you, too, know that the origins of your favorite chocolate were not chocolate at all, but a fruity fermented wine that dates back to 1400 BC and remains a link between us and the ancient peoples of the Olmec, Aztec and Mayan cultures.

November 2020

Body Art: Mexican Tattoos

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Many tourists in Mexico shop for art in tattoo parlors rather than in galleries. Instead of buying a Frida Kahlo poster, or a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe, or a clay reproduction of an Aztec or Mayan museum piece, they have sketches of these art works indelibly inked into their skin on various parts of their anatomy. Flowers, fish and aphorisms in Spanish are etched into shoulders, backs, hands, breasts and derrieres. Those with a penchant for the Gothic, after more than a few margaritas, may opt for an inking that turns their face into a permanent day-of-the-dead mask. Given the ubiquitous tattoo artists in Mexico and their creativity, the possibilities for transforming human hide into artistic canvasses are virtually endless.

Some Mexican tattoo artists proclaim that they are carrying forward the traditional forms of art practiced by their Aztec, Mayan or other indigenous ancestors. To incise the skin and insert dyes, they use natural materials such as sharpened bones or plant spines. Many of their designs are images of artifacts readily visible in the National Museum of Anthropology. The assertion that there has been an unbroken chain of generations of indigenous tattoo artists seems to be as much a romantic story as an archeological fact.

The study of tattoos by archeologists has long been a rather neglected and, at times, disparaged approach. Recently however, as the art of tattooing has become more accepted, the study of tattoos has gained wider respectability. The firmest archeological evidence of the use of tattoos is the appearance of colored incisions on the skin of mummies. The earliest tattooed mummy found so far dates back over 5000 years and was unearthed, or perhaps the better term is un-iced, from under a glacier in the Italian-Austrian Alps. This “iceman” had over 60 tattoos colored with charcoal. However, based on the positions of the incisions, archeologists hypothesize that the tattoos were applied to alleviate pain, much as acupuncture is used, rather than for artistic reasons.

Mummified bodies bearing tattoos have been discovered on virtually every continent, with the exception of Antarctica. In Mexico, a mummy bearing tattoos on her arms was discovered in the state of Oaxaca in 1889, and scientific analysis has found that she lived sometime around 250 AD. Although the tattoos on the earliest dated mummies can be quite complex, anthropologists have postulated that the primary purposes of the tattoos were other than simply artistic decorations. Some appear to denote tribal affiliation, others were used to ward off demonic or other evil powers, and many appear to be symbols of owners who claimed slaves as their property. Seagoing communities seem to have used tattoos, much as relatively more modern sailors, as individually distinctive marks that could be used to identify bodies lost overboard that washed up on near or distant shores.

Another method of studying the use of and regional differences in tattooing is based on the examination of prehistoric or pre-Columbian figurines painted with tattoo-like marks. Anthropomorphic statutes or pots bearing such designs are considered to provide representations of similar designs incised into the skin of people who lived in the communities where the artifacts were produced. Hollow ceramic figurines with extensive tattoo designs have been found in tombs in Mexico that date from 100 BC to 400 AD; the figurines are hypothesized to represent the people with tattoos who were buried in the tombs. These tattoos are thought to be marks portraying status and ideology rather than simply artistic decorations.

During the period of the early European geographic expeditions and colonization, the writings of the explorers paid detailed attention to the tattoos of the indigenous people they encountered. The English word “tattoo” and the Spanish word “tatuaje” are derived from Cook’s descriptions of patterns borne by the South Pacific Islanders he encountered and the Samoan term for how the patterns were created: “tatau,” or “hit” or “strike.” Europeans who first explored Mexico were quite taken by the tattoos used by different cultures and communities. Some were literally impressed with the designs and returned home with tattoos. But indigenous tattooing was almost obliterated in Mexico and around the world by the European usurpers who repressed all native forms of customs and practices as being barbaric and heathen. The repression of tattoos lasted for centuries.

When we were children, tattoos were still rare and exotic. Circus sideshows sometimes had a “tattooed lady” on display; and for 25 cents we could gawk at her inked designs until it was time to move on to the “bearded lady.” Sailors started to return after War World II with anchors or stars tattooed on their biceps. But whether Christian, Muslim or Jew, we were told that tattoos were body mutilation, and therefore, forbidden. It took courage or imprisonment to reject this strong norm and become inked.

Today, tattooing has once again become ubiquitous. There are virtually countless places in Mexico to be tattooed. In the large cities of Mexico there are tattoo conventions and tattoo competitions. But once again the use of tattoos is not always merely decorative. Among drug cartels and other organized criminal subcultures, tattoos are often used to display group affiliation – and the wrong tattoo in the wrong setting can be fatal.

Many people who have opened parlors with the latest technology for producing tattoos consider themselves artists with the creative license to provide a wide spectrum of designs. And their clients are delighted to work with them to find the perfect design for almost every part of their anatomy. But before you head out to find your perfect design you might consider the following.

Tattooing is painful … think about a paper cut and then multiply that sensation for every incision. Tattoos are permanent – the cute little rosebud on a perky young butt often turns into a wilted, wrinkled flower in middle age. In the wrong hands, tattoos can be dangerous; our granddaughter’s unauthorized butterfly tattoo turned into a staph infection. There is still a prejudice against tattoos in some circles and that may be a circle possibly important to you in future years.

If you want to try a tattoo on for size, you might consider the temporary type – also widely available in Mexico. Henna tattoos are offered on many beaches in Mexico and gradually fade away; just be sure you don’t have a henna allergy. And inked paper in many designs can be safely applied and easily washed away. They look so real that we suspected our daughter was having some form of crisis after seeing multicolored flowers circling her wrist, until we realized that, rather than a crisis, she had had an interesting vacation.