Blog 17: La Mixteca 22
February 2013
During the
down times when Gabriel de Fonseca’s silver mine near Chiametla (southeastern
Puebla) was not yielding enough quality ore to support him and his young son
Tomás—we’re talking the early 1540s here—the teenage boy strung together the
mules he and his father were using to haul ore and headed down into La Mixteca
(northwestern Oaxaca) to buy cochineal to bring back to sell to a jobber in
Puebla de los Ángeles. Round trip it was about 800 kilometers, over some of the
roughest terrain in Mesoamérica, the passes at 10,000 feet plus, the valleys at
about 3,000. Thick pine forests on the heights the hillsides scrubby, cactus-studded,
scorpion and snake-infested desert (2); the gentle platforms along the rivers
home to a half dozen different Indian nations, most of them subject to the
Mixtecos, mostly growing corn, beans, and squash, or tending the rows of young nopal (paddle cactus; prickly pear
cactus) which are host to the tiny parasitic cochineal beetles, each of whose
dried, crushed, bodies yields a barely perceptible drop of the reddest and most
stable dye known to the world in those pre-acrylic days. Neither Gabriel, nor
his son Tomás, could ever imagine that four and a half centuries later they
would be the protagonists of the book I am in the middle of writing.
Linda and I
left Oaxaca last Saturday to take a week long swing through La Mixteca, if not
actually retracing young Tomás’s route—because I haven’t been able to find a
single clue to where he actually went—but at least to get a feel for the
country. And to check out the Dominican folly, or glory, depending on how you
look at it.
As soon as
the dust of conquest settled, the major religious began to squabble over how
much territory would be granted to them to missionize. Franciscans got most of
Michoacán, where we used to winter; Augustinians glommed onto the hill country
west of Cuernavaca; and the Dominicans established a hegemony over Oaxaca, a
vast region with two major Indian nations (back then, and now), Mixtecs in the
north and west, Zapotecs in the south and east. In those days, when Gabriel and
Tomás de Fonseca were struggling to dig silver in Chiametla, there were lots of
Indians in Oaxaca. Lots. And very few friars.
The plan was to send off to Spain for more friars, and to use Indian
labor—supplied to the friars for free via the repartimiento labor levies—to build huge monasteries to house the
friars who would fan out to the villages to convert the Indians to
Christianity.
It worked,
sort of. With architects trained by the great renaissance masters in Spain, and
with Indian labor, the friars erected structures in the villages of Yanhuitlán,
Coixtlahuaca, Teposcolula, and Tlaxiaco large enough and splendid enough to
compete with any in Europe. Great western façades with stone statues of
Apostles, rose windows, raised choir lofts, vaulted roofs with flamboyant
Gothic arches; and everywhere the unique Dominican crosses, often flanked by
the dogs (Latin pun: Domini-cani) which were the symbols of the order, in their
mouths either the torch of truth of truth or a sword and olive branch, to remind
people that the Dominicans come in peace, but they also run the Inquisition. (What
these churches don’t have are large stained glass windows: these walls were
solid stone, because the monasteries also served as forts – all those Indians,
you know.) Each of these conventos
faces a vast plaza, enclosed by a wall, where masses of Indians would gather
(or be gathered) to hear the missionary sermons and to watch the celebration of
mass on the altar in the outdoor chapel standing to the left of the monastery
church. To the right were the friars quarters and support structures. Elegant
Renaissance cloisters. Kitchens large enough to prepare food for a couple of
hundred clergy and their honored guests. Assembly halls, store rooms, stables,
kitchen gardens, everything a vast corps of missionaries would need to support
their labors. But . . .
… smallpox,
measles, and a host of other European maladies soon reduced the Indian
population by—in some regions—90%, a decline from which it has taken almost
four centuries to recover. The vast works begun with so much enthusiasm were
slow to finish. And the legions of missionaries didn’t come from Europe, at
least not in the numbers that the founding friars had anticipated. Worse yet,
the funding sources back in Spain began to dry up, as the supervisory councils
in the orders began to come to grips with what their vanguard missionaries had
committed themselves to.
No matter.
From a tourist standpoint the surviving Dominican behemoths —Santo Domingo in
Oaxaca City, now a museum— and these four up in the Mixteca, are Michelin
3-star attractions. And most are halfway into a process of restoration—assuming
that la crisis económica doesn’t
bring everything to a halt—that should be finished in a decade or so.
I
remember back when I was a graduate student, driving from Cambridge across the
Mass Avenue bridge in Boston, looking across the Charles River to where the Pru,
the 52-story Prudential Building, towered over the 4-story genteel brick
townhouses in Back Bay. The Pru, the only skyscraper in Boston in 1964, was of
an entirely different scale from everything else. It dwarfed everything else in
the landscape. Either the Pru was put there by a race of Giants, or Back Bay
was a cardboard village next to a Lionel train set.
That’s the impression you
get looking at the CONVENTO
DE SANTO DOMINGO next to the village of Yanhuitlán.
There is more to La Mixteca than mountains and monasteries, of course. Before the
Spaniards came, the Mixtecos who farmed the valleys lived in villages
strategically placed on the tops of the many low mountains that poke up from
the sides of the valleys. Linda and I have enjoyed prowling around some of
those too, although not all are reachable by vehicle and, given time and
energy, we’re not all that keen at long uphill walks at altitude. And there are
regional markets, that one day each week draw in hundreds, and in some cases
thousands of Indians, the women clad in red-striped, ribbon-draped huipiles, to buy, sell, trade, and
socialize. We mostly resist buying, but still . .
And there
are friends to be made. Linda and I are … as far as we can tell … the ONLY
tourists in the whole Mixteca region this week, certainly the only foreigners
in the Sunday market at Nochixtlán, the Wednesday market at Tlaxiaco, the
Friday
market at Juxtlahuaca, and presumably next Sunday’s market in
Huajhuapan. (There will be a test on all these names when we get home.) So
everybody is friendly. And as we ask questions, especially Linda about weaving
and spinning and dying, we provide an endless source of amusement to everybody
within view or earshot. That especially when they only speak Triqui (another Mixteca language).
The hotel keepers and restaurant people and shop
keepers we have met have all been gracious and giving. José Luis Vázquez, the
owner of the JV Inn in Putla (an extraordinary 4-star hotel in a 1-star town,
with 1-star prices: $25 for a magnificent double room), even took us out to
breakfast.
Putla, by
the way, is at the bottom of the Mixteca, 60 kilometers all downhill from
Tlaxiaco, and another 60 all uphill to Juxtlahuaca. Its valley is the one
tropical spot in the region, and while it has nothing special of touristic
interest, it is warm and humid, with lots of streams and bits of forest for me
to go walking in. So we stayed a couple of days, buoyed by our discovery of the
JV Inn —the couple of hotels mentioned in the guide books turned out to be a
notch below basic— and the restaurant, Tito’s, that we stumbled into the first
night. The streets in Putla are so labyrinthine, and so cobbled, and so steep,
and in so need in repair, that we looked for an
eatery on the state highway
that runs along the east side of town. Tito’s won not because it was the most
attractive but because it was the only. Inside we were surprised to find a
comfortable covered patio overlooking the hill to which the rest of the city
was pasted. The menu was ample, we ordered, and were stunned to be presented
the most imaginative and delicious meal we have eaten since we left the USA.
Linda ordered squid with garlic, a favorite, usually simple squid rings sautéed
in garlic, accompanied by rice and a small salad. But these …! Whole, chipirón sized squid, sautéed in their
own ink with a toasting of garlic over them; a mound of rice laced with tiny
steamed mussels; a salad of crisp lettuce and other greens, dotted with cubes
of fruit—watermelon, papaya, and strawberries—sprinkled with shaved almonds and
amaranto, with a delicate honey and olive oil dressing. I ordered a
seafood-stuffed fish fillet, usually a few shrimp and
maybe squid pieces in a folded-over fillet, or sandwiched between two small
fillets. Not this time: it came out as a delicately fried softball-sized globe,
with a thin crispy crust over a tender, flakey fillet. The stuffing was squid,
octopus, mussels, shrimp, oysters, molded tightly together in the center of the
fillet. Same rice, same salad. We went back a second night, but we won’t bore
you with the details.
Other than
Tito’s (we’d go back to Putla, just for the restaurant; the name of the chef
who designed these dishes –she’d call herself a cook — is Elda Bautista), we’ve
been eating mostly in comedores, a
class of eatery somewhere between restaurant and street food, and it’s been
mostly good. The favorite Mixteca breakfast is entomatadas con cecina: tortillas soaked in a tomato sauce,
sprinkled with cheese, topped by a large thin slice of cured, spiced beef, and
accompanied by grated salt-cheese and a lettuce salad. Instead of the cecina you can get it with tasajo (a thin flank steak), or fried
eggs. Or just about anything else you might want, I imagine.
One other
major difference between La Mixteca and Mexico City: In Mexico City I appear to
be normal size. Since we left Oaxaca I’ve been keeping track, and in all these
villages, all these markets, I have not seen one single person as tall as I am.
And precious few women as tall as Linda! Think of us as foreign Prudential
Buildings on tour in the Back Bay of La Mixteca.
David & Linda
