FIVE FILMS THAT DEFINE MEXICO

Scene from "Roma"

The US's sunny neighbor to the south Mexico, has been the topic of many a film as well as a popular film location. Here are some that inspired me, with a short summary.

ROMA

Filmed in monochrome, this slice of life stunner walked away with an Oscar for Best Director in 2018. Alfonso Cuarón delivers an emotional portrait of domestic worker Cleo's journey set against the prevailing domestic and political violence in 1970s Mexico.

Titled "Roma" after the affluent neighborhood Colonia Roma in DF, though not totally autobiographical, Cuarón says it focuses on his childhood growing up in Mexico City.

The film follows Cleo, a live-in maid, who works for a husband and wife with four boisterous children and a live-in mother-in-law. A houseful, even for the expansive upper-middle class setting we find ourselves, the viewer, in. 

Trouble begins when the father, Antonio, leaves for a conference in Quebec and never returns. Sofia, the mother, doesn't deal well with being left, and Cleo picks up a lot of the emotional baggage left to her to explain to the youngsters why dad didn't return.

Though the family, including parents Antonio and Sofia, love and welcome Cleo into their family, there is a strict dichotomy. At times they shower her with sweet phrases and praise, but she is clearly the hired help and walks a tight rope, being quickly reminded of her position if she steps out of line. 

The film, seen through Cleo's eyes, examines the class divide between races in Mexico, with the upper class whites in charge and people of color as the working class. During a New Year's Eve fiesta in the countryside that the family is invited to, the ranch host's hired help indicate their dissatisfaction with how the system works, signifying the realities of real life in a country so divided by class. It's Cleo's first view of outright dissension among workers.

"Roma" is set against the real life background of a country on the verge of political turmoil. Director Cuarón steps into the magnitude of the turmoil when Cleo and the mother-in-law, Therese, run an errand in the city. They're caught up in the Corpus Cristi massacre, a real event in 1971 where 120 people—mostly students—were murdered at a political demonstration where Mexico's president, Luis Eccheveria, had hired armed thug para-militaries, the Falcons, to beat back the students while police turned a blind eye.

In interviews, the director states that he has based the story on many real parts of his life that he remembers as a boy, and he dedicates the film to his real life nanny, Liboria Rodriguez.

The "New York Times" called it "an expansive, emotional portrayal of life buffeted by violent forces. A masterpiece." 

The emotional final scene at the seashore will stay with you for a long time.

Road Trip Scene from "Y Tu Mama También"

Y TU MAMA TAMBIÉN

In this film, another by Alfonso Cuarón, the background is not something that is separate from the characters—it's an all encompassing force and something that is an important part of the characters' collective unconscious. Not unlike "Roma," it pictures Mexico on the brink of a major political and cultural shift.

 

"Cuarón gives as much importance to the background as to the foreground," said one reviewer. Cuarón's distinctive style is rife with near off-camera scenes that show glimpses of the social environment that surrounds the country. It shows his characters in a world that is much bigger than their immediate world view, and an eye-opener to how society and class in Mexico really work. The adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words," is never more poignant than when Cuarón is behind the camera. 

The film tells the story of three characters—two teen boys and a woman—as they embark on an adventure—a road trip. The teens, on the cusp of adulthood, are always striving for the next best thing: the next girl, next party, next crazy road trip. These acts in themselves become their manifesto. 

But again, just as important as the characters and their yearnings is the background Cuarón shows the viewer. it's the story of a country ten years into adulthood and in the early years of democracy, a young adult itself. 

At times the camera seems to wander away from the action, giving brief glimpses of people who are all part of a shared identity: an old woman dancing by herself, a waitress carrying a tray. Slices of life. Paralleled by the two main characters—Julio and Tenoch—the background scenes are as much a part of this coming of age drama as the coming of age of a country that ends with the ousting of the long-standing PRI political party and its 71-year reign.

Julio and Tenoch also share a cultural identity that is permeated with classism. And the things Cuaró slyly shows us lets us know they are not aware of or even in control of their habits, no matter how much they might repudiate the fact.

When the riot scene occurs, they are still into adolescent desires. The road trip becomes the message as they're joined by a runaway bride, Luisa, ten years their senior. The three share a united desire to reach a beach called Boca del Cielo. Cuarón leads us to the ocean—the metaphor for rebirth. 

But in narrator overviews, we're told how even the paradise they found with Luisa, who serves as a fulcrum for their rites of passage, can be lost. The narrator describes the fate of a fisherman they meet at Boca.

"Fisherman Chùy will try to give tours to tourists but a collective of Acapulco boatmen who supported the local tourism board will block his plans. Two years later he will end up without a boat, as a janitor at a hotel. He'll never fish again."

 

Cuarón exposes how unbridled tourism along with corruption are bi-products of a system gone awry and can also displace paradise. 

The film is a devastating reminder of the impermanence of youth and how one summer can change everything, turning adolescence into a long-gone thing of the past.

In the end, when Luisa parts from them, she says, "Life is like the foam, so give yourself to the sea."

"Against All Odds"

AGAINST ALL ODDS

Though the film location opens in Los Angeles, it soon drives the storyline to spectacular Mexican locations in Yucatán and Quintana Roo, the colorful resort island of Cozumel, Cancun, Tulum, the Maya ruins overlooking the Caribbean, and the famous pyramids of Chichen Itza. Also prominently featured are the jungles of Yucatán. This movie was the first time that permission had been granted by the Mexican Government to use these sacred ruins for a theatrical motion picture. 

Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward are both fugitives from the corrupt power and manipulation of Los Angeles and for a brief moment, the virgin paradise of Mexico's jungles and ancient pyramids offer solace and redemption. The romantic, other worldliness of the Yucatán provides a setting for them to find each other, something that would not have been possible in LA due to their respective "emotional baggage and class differences," said the director. 

The plot involves Bridges as a pro-footballer with a trick knee. In need of money, he’s contacted by an old acquaintance, James Woods, a shady night club owner, who needs to find his girlfriend Jessie who stole money from him and fled to Mexico. Though reluctant to take the job, Bridges needs the cash even though he's aware Woods could be capable of blackmailing him. Things go sideways in an odd turn of events when Bridges is contacted by the girl's mother, owner of his football team, who promises to double the sum Woods has promised him if he can find her daughter and turn her over to the family, not Woods.

His quest to find the missing girl takes him first to Cozumel where he’s learned the girl is living (Isla Mujeres is the film’s actual location subbing for Cozumel). He finds Jessie; she rebuffs him believing he was sent by her mother or her boyfriend. Bridges prepares to leave, but runs into Jessie who realizes he’s not trying to expose her. She invites him back to her jungle hut and a passionate love affair begins.

If the plot appears too complicated (it is), the filming locations are worth the effort. Based on the original movie titled "Out of the Past" with Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas,  "Against All Odds" is not an exact remake. The similarity between the movies is in the cynical love triangle. This time, the bad guy is a gambler, his girlfriend is the daughter of the owner of a pro-football team, and the guy who tracks her down is a team player who's just been fired after a knee injury.

Don’t be sidetracked by the plot. Instead become enchanted with the wealth of beautiful locations—Chichen Itza, Tulum, Cozumel, Isla Mujeres—the film takes you to. Though the plot ultimately works in the end, the true star of this movie is Mexico. And if you've never traveled to that jewel of a country, believe me, you will soon be booking a flight once you see this film. "Against All Odds" shows Mexico's beauty at its very best.

TRAFFIC

At its core, Traffic focuses on three parallel stories interconnected by drugs. One of the stories takes place in Mexico with Benicio del Toro as a police officer entangled in a web of corruption involving high ranking officers and notorious drug traffickers. Across the border we meet Catherine Zeta-Jones, an affluent, pregnant San Diego housewife whose husband is arrested on charges of drug trafficking, leaving her to run the family business.

And across the country, Michael Douglas plays an Ohio judge appointed as new drug czar, not knowing his daughter is a coke addict.

The film is Steven Soderbergh's tenth, and a nod to his ability to brilliantly represent each character in this movie and their motives, be they user, enforcer, trafficker, lawyer, or politician. It's a statement on how drugs cross not only border lines but family, social, cultural, and political lines, tangling all into a grand web of deceit, tyranny, and corruption. Soderbergh won an Oscar for Best Director for the 2000 film.

Kicking off the story, del Toro and his partner stop a drug transport and arrest the couriers. The arrest is interrupted by Mexican General Salazar who wants del Toro to work for him and arrest a kingpin of one of the country's most powerful cartels. It becomes immediately clear that Salazar is corrupt and in the pocket of a cartel competitor, which leaves del Toro hanging. He drags in the DEA and the waters get murkier still.

A high stakes trial is set against Zeta-Jones' husband, and she takes steps to assassinate anyone who will testify against her spouse. When sniper attempts fail, car bombs are employed, and the viewer discovers that, in the jungle, the female is more deadly than the male. As Zeta-Jones's husband is placed behind bars, she crosses the border into Mexico to meet his suppliers. And the beat goes on, and on.

Originally based on a true story from Chennai, India, Traffic was first made into a British TV series about the Afghanistan opium trade titled Traffik.  

Scene from "Night of the Iguana"

NIGHT OF THE IGUANA 

Puerto Vallarta will forever be linked to "The Night of the Iguana," filmed in Mimaloya, a hard-to-access beach ten minutes south and a mere fishing village at the time. Taken from the Tennessee Williams 1963 play, Williams' plot lines, usually mired in Southern US settings, turns this play into a tale of tourists at a seedy Mexico hotel. At the time of the filming, Puerto Vallarta was unknown, but "Iguana" changed that forever. It was PV's coming out party.

With Richard Burton as lead, the bad boy seduces a young acolyte, Sue Lyon, on a tour bus. A scandal breaks out, and consequences lie in the offing. Though Burton is a draw, the fact that he is accompanied on location by his vamp of real life wife Elizabeth Taylor brings the paparazzi out in droves. Ava Gardener co-stars, and Sue Lyon, the ingenue, will eventually succumb to Burton's wiles years later after he and Liz divorce. Of course Williams' plot line is intense and twisted. But the real showstopper, once again, is Mexico. 

BONUS POINTS: THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

"The Shawshank Redemption"

Though the story line takes place on the grounds of a Maine prison, Morgan Freeman's parting words to Tim Robbins will forever cement this film in our minds as a Mexico movie:

"Zijuatanejo. It's a little place in Mexico on the Pacific Ocean. Do you know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I want to live the rest of my life—a warm place with no memory."

The final scene showing the two former inmates reuniting on a white sand beach make us yearn to be south of the border, though in fact, that scene was filmed in the US Virgin Islands. But it sure looks like a sub for Mexico to me!

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon. And check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. 

.

HOW MEXICO'S SILVER RENAISSANCE WAS IGNITED BY TAXCO AND WILLIAM SPRATLING'S GENIUS

 

Taxco at Night  (By Viator)

Imagine a city on a hill, the surrounding countryside brimming with the precious metal, silver. That would be Taxco in Guerrero, Mexico, situated between Mexico City and Acapulco. By some estimates, a third or more of all the silver ever mined in the world has come from Mexico's mountains with production still rising. Mexico and silver are synonymous.

Though silver has filled the coffers of great civilizations since 3000 BC— from Anatolia, now modern Turkey, to Greece, the Roman Empire, and Spain, no single event in history rivals the discovery of silver by European conquerers in the Americas following Columbus's landing in the New World in 1492. Those events changed the face of silver and the world forever.

Between 1500 and 1800, Bolivia, Peru, and Mexico accounted for over 85 percent of world silver production and trade as it bolstered Spanish influence worldwide. But long before the Spanish arrived in the Americas, according to author William H. Prescott in his sweeping 1843 epic History of the Conquest of Mexico, the Aztecs used silver to make ceremonial gifts for their gods while also producing ornaments, plates, and jewelry.

Gems Recovered from Spanish Galleons 

AZTEC JEWELRY

Along with the precious metals of silver and gold, equally prized by the Aztecs were brightly colored feathers from quetzals and hummingbirds that accentuated the metals. The feathers were difficult to come by and required trade from far away places. Aztec jewelers were incredible craftsmen but unfortunately not much of their work survived the Spanish conquest. Most pieces were melted down but what relics do remain are of excellent quality and design. 

Author Prescott paints a picture of the splendors of Montezuma's court where silver and gold ornaments were on full display. And though silver wasn't readily found near the Aztec capitol, it was mined in the northern central highlands towns of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi. Then around 1558, one of the richest silver veins ever was uncovered in an area near what would become Guanajuato, which led it to become the world's leading silver producer of the day.

In not only Guanajuato but also Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi, grand, faded colonial buildings still stand as the indirect legacies of indigenous slave laborers who worked under horrific conditions to extract vast quantities of silver, along with gold, copper, lead, and iron, for greedy prospectors and wealthy robber barons. 

ENTER TAXCO

By the end of the 16th century, Guanajuato had faded and Taxco came to be known far and wide as the silver capital of the world, supplying Europe with the precious metal for many years. But new deposits in Latin America pushed Taxco into obscurity for more than two hundred years until José de la Borda, a Spaniard who immigrated to Mexico, rediscovered silver veins in Taxco in 1716. De la Borda learned the mining trade from his older brother. Taxco was built between 1751 and 1758 by de la Borda who made a great fortune in the silver mines surrounding the town and was considered to be the richest man in Mexico. 

Guanajuato Cityscape

WANING INFLUENCE

Taxco de Alcaron, known as Taxco, is Mexico's silver capital and considered a national historic monument, home to 300 silversmiths selling wares throughout the city. Though it's recognized today as an outstanding center for silver production, after de la Borda's death in 1778, Taxco's prominence waned. 

Then in the 1930s, Taxco's ancient silver crafts were revived by US resident William Spratling, who hired a master goldsmith to create his first range of items, before engaging a local silversmith, Artemio Navarette—considered the best in Guerrero—to teach him silversmithing. With the combination of Spratling's innovative designs and his mentor's skills, by the early 1940s Taxco became known as a center for silver jewelry, not only in Mexico but also abroad.

SPRATLING'S ARRIVAL

River of Life Spratling Bracelet

As an architect and artist who had taught in Tulane University's School of Architecture in New Orleans in the mid-1920s, Spratling's appearance in Taxco was an accident waiting to happen. During summers from 1926 through 1928, Spratling lectured on colonial architecture at the National University of Mexico's summer school and had grown familiar with nearby Taxco's winding cobblestoned streets and colonial charm.

In Mexico during the 1920s, worlds collided when painters, writers, and musicians confronted a brave new Mexico after its bloody revolution. Mexico was ready to embrace renewal after the ten-year torment of war that had raged from 1910 to 1920. Artists and artisans across the newly democratized nation were inspired, ready to re-examine their national identity and cultural traditions, having defied the ruling class. It was time to empower the impoverished rural people by embracing their folk traditions and crafts. Both Mexican and American intellectuals began to collect and promote the jewelry and crafts of Mexicana history. 

HISTORY AWAITS

Amethyst Brooch by Spratling

Artists, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Juan O'Groman, descended upon colonial Taxco. Spratling, a one-time literary hopeful, had already come into contact with others on the writing scene—William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson—and he soon became friends with Rivera whose friendship broadened his cultural understanding. He began to explore the rugged, unmapped regions of southern Mexico. He moved permanently to Taxco in 1929 and began designing furniture, jewelry, and homewares based on the indigenous motifs he uncovered. 

BRINGING IT HOME

As Spratling settled into life in a colonial village, he was inspired by Dwight Morrow, American ambassador to Mexico, who told him that while Taxco's silver mines yielded thousands of pounds of silver over the centuries, little remained in Mexico. That motivated Spratling to establish his first studio in Taxco. The legend of what was to become Mexico's silver capital had begun. Spratling's ability to create stunning pieces of jewelry, flatware, and decorative objects was born.

Spratling in his studio in Taxco 

PRE-COLUMBIAN INFLUENCES

While at Tulane, Spratling had been introduced to pre-Columbian and Mesoamerican art and along with his Mexican travels, these motifs proved a strong influence on his early silver jewelry designs. His studio, named Taller de las Delicias (Workshop of the Delights) grew rapidly and by the late 1930s he employed several hundred artisans to produce his designs. From Mexico, those pieces found their way north of the border through Montgomery Ward catalogs, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Gump's in San Francisco.

Feather of Quetzalcoatl Sterling and Brass Bracelet

Known in time as the father of contemporary Mexican silver, Spratling incorporated native materials like amethyst, turquoise, coral, rosewood, and abalone into his creations. Depictions of real and pre-Columbian motifs of discs, balls, and rope designs were typical in his pieces. Art historians say that his use of aesthetic vocabulary based on pre-Columbian art can be compared to the murals of Diego Rivera, in that both artists, along with Frida Kahlo, were involved in the creation of a new cultural identity for Mexico. Spratling's silver designs drew on pre-conquest Mesoamerican motifs with influence from other native and Western cultures. His work served as an example of Mexican nationalism and gave Mexican artisans the freedom to create designs in non-European forms. For this reason, because of his influence on the silver design industry in Mexico, the monicker, "Father of Mexican Silver," came into being. 

Example of William Spratling Silver Bracelet

A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

Besides pioneering a new concept of Mexican silver design, Spratling developed an apprenticeship system to train new silversmiths. Those with promise worked under the direction of the maestros and in time would go on to open their own shops.

Through Spratling's innovation and artistic expertise, Taxco is the most famous silver town in the world's leading silver-producing country. "Probably eight out of every 10 houses in Taxco has its own silver workshop—there's the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room and the workshop," said Brenda Rojas, director of the William Spratling Museum. "Ninety-five percent of the people in Taxco live from silver. Taxco grew because of silver."

Spratling's work was recognized throughout Mexico for its originality and superior quality. Dr. Taylor Littleton, author of William Spratling: His Life and Art, is the definitive Spratling biography, creating a portrait of the fascinating, intensely driven icon of the mid-20th century, said one reviewer. And from Littleton, "His whole life flowed into everything that he designed." 

Reneé d'Harnoncourt, director of New York's Museum of Modern Art and longtime friend, praised 'the climate of understanding' Spratling built that contributed to the acceptance of Mexican art. "I know of no one person who has so deeply influenced the artistic orientation of a country not his own," she said. 

As his business grew, Spratling moved his taller to a large mansion and to manage the costs, incorporated in 1945 to provide cash flow for the company. He sold a majority of the shares to a US investor, Russell Maguire, who ultimately took the company into bankruptcy. William Spratling died in a car accident returning to Taxco from Mexico City in 1966. Spratling was 66.

Parting words soon after his death were solicited from friends and associates. Artist Helen Escobedo said this, "Although he was isolated in Taxco, he was always au jour. The man was an adventurer and nothing was too much for him. He couldn't squeeze enough out of life. He was an extraordinary character. He made his own rules. He was a rough diamond and never attempted to polish it. His charm consisted in being ridiculously generous, extremely interesting...a story teller. His silversmiths respected him. They knew he knew his job. They understood him because he thought in their ways."

Spratling Bracelet circa 1940s

In Taxco, the William Spratling Museum holds his collection of indigenous artifacts. 

Spratling Broach with Amethyst

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.

MEXICO'S MYSTERY OF PAQUIMÉ—THE WORLD HERITAGE SITE RUINS IN NORTHERN CHIHUAHUA

Paquimé Building Complex (By DesertUSA)

Paquimé, also known as Casas Grandes, an archeological zone in northern Mexico's dusty terrain, stood at an intersection—where the Puebloan people from the north and the Mesoamerican peoples from the south and southwest met. It's the largest archeological zone representing the peoples and cultures of the Chihuahua Desert. To date, only half the site has been excavated. As new technologies have been introduced, multiple theories about it have evolved, and it's become somewhat of a mystery that has yet to be solved.

Paquimé Site (By Viator.com)

Declared a World Heritage site in 1997, leading archeologists theorize that the northern Chihuahua site was occupied for thousands of years after finding crude stone hammers and scrapers commonly used by hunter-gatherers before agriculture began. Fortified hilltop terraces or cerros de trincheras were used as home and farming sites from as early as 1000 BC to 500 AD.

But when southwestern archeolgists gather at conferences to discuss Paquimé, the more they try to unravel its mysteries, the less clear their findings become.

PIT HOUSES

Early on, partially underground pit houses were constructed, eventually leading to one-story adobe homes and finally multi-story pueblos as in the Four Corners area in the US southwest. Though slow to start, its real development evolved between 700, and in 1300 AD, it emerged from shadowy origins and became the most culturally complex settlement in northern Mexico, the southwest, and the great Mesoamerican cultures of southern Mexico and Central America. It reached its height in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it served as a cultural beacon for pre-historic peoples within a 30,000 square mile area. 

Pit House (From Worldhistory.org)

Then, around a century before the arrival of the Spanish who first spoke of it in 1560, things seemed to fall apart.

LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

Established on the west bank of the Casas Grandes River, the people who lived there raised several clusters of multi-story terraced buildings and a number of religious monuments. This was shortly after a 1340 fire that destroyed Paquimé. Did it rise from the ashes? Apparently so. Excavated buildings had mud-adobe walls and were smoothed in the suavé technique, including curved corners. Collectively, the buildings housed around 1600 rooms and the largest building covered nearly an acre. 

Chihuahua Desert 

With this in mind, Paquimé marked an epoch in the development of human settlement in a vast region of Mexico and illustrated an outstanding example of the organization of space in architecture.

The site bears testimony to an important element in the cultural evolution of North America and in particular to pre-Hispanic commercial and cultural institutions. People began to congregate in small nearby settlements to take advantage of the wide fertile Paquimé valley with its rivers, raw materials, and the practicality of its major trade route between north and south. Because of its location, merchant traders became an important component of the city. 

Scarlet Macaw

The people of Paquimé raised corn, beans, squash. They hunted buffalo, antelope, and deer, harvested agave, nuts, prickly pear cactus, and wild plants. They raised and domesticated scarlet macaws, an oddity being so far from any type of jungle. But macaws were a necessary item for rituals and there is evidence Paquimé was the source for the macaw trade and likely controlled macaw production and distribution. Along with their agricultural leanings, they created high quality ceramics (Mata Ortiz pottery is very popular), wove textiles, created exquisite jewelry, and apparently well maintained their inspired trade network.

Mata Ortiz Pottery

Though the natives knew no written language, by relying on artifacts, archeologists have pieced together this much of the Paquimé story. At its height, several thousand people lived there and from archeological findings, they were deeply spiritual and that influence spread across the hundreds of pueblos that lay within their cultural sphere.

Evidence also showed the complexity of an infrastructure complete with underground drain systems, reservoirs, channels for water to reach homes, and a sewage system. After the 1340 fire, Paquimé was rebuilt and archeologists believe this disaster may have spurred on the golden age that was to come, bringing with it Mesoamerican ball courts, stone-faced platforms, effigy mounds, and a market area.

CULTURAL CROSSROADS

But who exactly energized Paquimé in the 13th century, building it into a cultural crossroads? Some archeologists believe the Mesoamerican missionary traders had a hand in it while others suggest elite groups migrated to the area in the wake of failing pueblo cultures from more distant areas. And others credit Puebloan people of southwestern New Mexico. What no one can agree on was its essence—was it primarily a manufacturing and trade center, which could have certainly been the case with its skilled artisans and wealth of raw materials. Or was it merely a consumer of imported exotic goods due to a location that attracted traders with extravagant lifestyles? And then there's the question of the religious aspect—it may have been a draw for those searching for meaning, a staple supplied by the spiritual aspect of Paquimé, as evidenced by the number of religious artifacts found in various excavations. 

Effigy Vessel from Paquimé Used for Rituals

Archeologists believe the area of Paquimé itself was relatively small, but its network reached far, far away as evidenced by the extensive commercial networks that had been forged with Mesoamerica, including finds of bead making, copper bells, copper armlets, copper ceremonial axes, Pacific Coast seashells, spindle whorls, ceramic drums, and ceramic shards. In my previous blog on Mata Ortiz pottery, those shard fragments instigated the widely popular and distinctive ceramic pottery known and lauded today as Mata Ortiz, with a white reddish surface featuring elongated sharp-edged designs, and named after a present day town that lies within the Paquimé area. Paquimé products were no doubt distributed in the extensive trade network that stretched throughout northern Mexico and as far north as present-day Arizona and New Mexico.

RELGION

Not to be forgotten was the messianic draw of religion. Even at the far reaches of Paquimé territory, the prehistoric people felt the mystic winds of Mesoamerican religious beliefs and rituals. Numerous icons found in excavations validated Paquimé's religious status. Across the region touched by its base, Puebloan peoples created a gallery of religious art and connections to the spirit world, including plumed or horned serpent-like Quetzalcoatl figures, strange Tlaloc figures, step-sided rain pyramids, zigzag lightning symbols, and sacred macaws. Also in excavations, the presence of large numbers of monumental ritual architecture, which show patterns of social integration, suggest Paquimé was a religious center.

COLLAPSE

Scholars postulate the fall of Paquimé began in the 15th century possibly due to a warlike Mesoamerican empire, Tarascans, that cut through their trade routes. While commerce dwindled, a drought tip-toed in. Also possible could have been that cultural alliances in the US southwest and northern Mexico may have realigned or fallen apart, thus depleting the influence that Paquimé once wielded. Also there was the possibility of nomadic warriors from the north, who could have sacked the city, bringing an end to a two hundred year cultural phenomenon in the northern Mexico desert land.

Yet in spite of the vast evidence of this highly advanced civilization in northern Mexico, why has it not received more acclaim? From Expedition Magazine of the Penn Museum, an article by Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen states, "The image of the prehistoric southwest as a place where small kin groups lived in pastoral settings, unfettered by the trappings of "civilization," all generations part on an endless, unchanging, and millennia-long cultural tradition is common. However Casas Grandes, or Paquimé, was one of the largest and most influential communities of its day in the North American Southwest, covering 36 hectares and had over 2000 rooms, many ritual structures, a sophisticated water system and an accumulation of extravagant wealth, and evidence of mass production of goods."

Early Dig at Paquimé

Though their thoughts were never recorded because they had no written language, their deeds speak for themselves in the visible remains of massive multi-story adobe constructions along with artistic fragments of the innovative workings of an advanced society that held reign over an immense portion of the northern Chihuahua desert in the 14th and 15th centuries.

PAQUIMÉ CULTURAL CENTER

Located on the site is Paquimé Cultural Center showing the evolution of the site and the excavations that helped recognize it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My Mata Ortiz blog is here: https://jeaninekitchel.blogspot.com/2022/04/how-thrift-shop-find-revived-nearly.html

Paquimé Cultural Center

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.

THE YUCATÁN'S CHICXULUB CRATER AND ITS CONNECTION TO THE DINOSAUR EXTINCTION

 

Chicxulub Crater (Photo UT, Austin)

For 170 million years during the Cretaceous Period, a time when oceans formed as land shifted and broke out of one big super-continent into smaller ones, dinosaurs ruled the world. Meanwhile, an asteroid was hurtling towards planet Earth after its misguided journey around the sun. The most consequential outcome of this impact would cause a cataclysmic event known as the fifth mass extinction, wiping out roughly 75 percent of all animal species, including the non-avian dinosaurs. But what really happened when the asteroid collided with Earth? 

Hidden below the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Chicxulub crater marks the impact site where the asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago. "The asteroid was moving astonishingly quickly," according to Professor Gareth Collings of Planetary Science at Imperial College, London. "Probably around 12.5 miles per second when it struck. That's about 100 times the speed of a jumbo jet."

Crater Ring After Impact Drawing

SIZE MATTERS

By studying both the geology at Chicxulub and worldwide, scientists have pieced together what happened that fateful day and in the years following. Larger than the height Mount Everest reaches into the atmosphere, the mountain sized asteroid slammed into Earth, dooming the dinosaurs. It unleashed the equivalent of energy of billions of nuclear weapons all at once. It vaporized the Gulf of Mexico. Bedrock melted into seething white flames at tens of thousands of degrees Celsius and it created a hole miles deep and 120 miles wide.

Its existence is a fairly recent discovery, first put forth in 1978 by geophysicist Glen Penfield, who worked for Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil agency. While searching for oil his crew used a magnetometer as they flew above the Gulf, and that's when he saw the outline of a perfect semi-circle in the clear water below, where the ground had been vaporized in a split second. His device let him and geophysicist Antonio Camargo Zanoguera know it had a magnetic field different from volcanic terrain, a most un-volcano-like symmetry. The saucer shaped underground structure was ten times the size of any volcano with an upward bulge at its center. The two men concurred, according to Smithsonian Magazine, that it could not be the result of a volcano, and was probably an impact crater.

SPECIES COLLAPSE

Because of this impact, Earth's water supplies were poisoned and 75 percent of species vanished. The 25 percent that survived were pushed to the brink of extinction and anything larger than a racoon didn't live. It would take 30,000 years for life to stabilize.

Luis and Walter Alvarez

After Penfield's initial fly-over, Luis and Walter Alvarez (father and son) discovered a thin layer of iridium in a geological record marking the ending of the Cretaceous Period across the entire world. Iridium is more prevalent in comets and asteroids than on earth. The scientists postulated that the impact led to global fires, smoke, and dust clouds that blocked out the sun, cooling the planet and preventing photosynthesis. They hypothesized that the crater might be the K-T impact site.

THE SCIENTISTS

Soon after that, Allen Hildebrand, Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from University of Arizona, worked with the Alvarez team and published what were considered controversial articles at the time that suggested that a large impact from an asteroid had caused the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period. The impact site was eventually determined to be at Chicxulub and the extinction it caused came to be known as the K-T event.

Ring of Cenotes Near Impact Site

In 1990 Adriana Ocampo discovered the distribution of cenotes in the Yucatán Peninsula along with her then husband, Dr. Kevin Pope, by using satellite images to map water resources on the peninsula. They found the semi-circular ring of cenotes or sinkholes that she recognized as related to the crater and they hypothesized that the crater might be the K-T event site, publishing their findings in the journal Nature in 1991.

Ocampo has visited the peninsula numerous times since her discoveries but few people are aware of the importance of the place, she was quoted as saying in an interview in Yucatán Magazine. 

"It should be preserved as a world heritage site," she said. Though not yet world heritage worthy, the Chicxulub Crater Science Museum south of Progreso, though temporarily closed due to Covid, is a stunning nod to the asteroid that literally shook our world 66 million years ago and created a new pecking order by destroying the dinosaurs.

Chicxulub Crater Science Museum

Although Ocampo began connecting the dots when she attended a 1988 scientific conference in Acapulco as a young planetary scientist from NASA, having studied with legendary pioneering astro-geologist Eugene Shoemaker, she names Houston Chronicle journalist Carlos Byars as the first person to connect the Yucatan ring to the Alvarez asteroid theory. Byars had shared his theory with Alan Hildebrand who then approached Penfield who'd flown over the Gulf for Pemex. The two of them determined the crater wasn't a volcano but an asteroid impact.

Chicxulub Fishing Boats (By Benandcarma.com)

LAIDBACK SPOT 

Chicxulub Puerto and Chicxulub Pueblo are laid back communities made famous because of the epicenter of the asteroid impact that destroyed the dinosaurs. Even the asteroid museum is miles away from them. But things may change with David Attenborough's The Final Day on BBC that explains in detail what may have transpired so long ago. Paleontologist Robert DePalma joins Attenborough to discuss his recent discovery in a prehistoric graveyard of fossilized creatures. New theories and views are continuing to be made, and PBS will air a two-part series the end of May on the asteroid and the death of the dinosaurs. Welcome to the world of yester-year and the way we, humans, managed to climb to the top of the food chain. We had no competitors and well, here we are. So—what say you? How we doing, folks? 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.

HOW A THRIFT SHOP FIND REVIVED THE NEARLY FORGOTTEN MATA ORTIZ POTTERY OF MEXICO

 

Mata Ortiz Pot (by Stanford Magazine)

Three pots found in a thrift shop just north of the Mexican border in 1976 in Deming, New Mexico, by Spencer MacCallum proved to be the breakout moment for a unique pottery style known as Mata Ortiz.

In the dusty terrain of northern Chihuahua, the discovery of Mogollon pottery shards from a little-known archeological site, Casa Grandes or Paquimé, gave birth to the unique line. (Mogollon is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico, Arizona, Northern Sonora, and Chihuahua). Named after the modern town of Mata Ortiz, the style was generated by Juan Quezada Celado. 

PAQUIMÉ

Mogollon-Mimbres Pottery

A sophisticated, pre-Columbian culture had revolved around Paquimé dominating the region from approximately 1200 to 1500 AD. Its multi-story ruins could rival those of Chaco Canyon National Park in northwestern New Mexico. Paquimé was famous for ceramics that featured geometric designs in red, black, yellow, and brown, which were traded throughout North America.

A young Juan Quezada, who had been forced to quit school after only two years of formal education to help his family survive, picked firewood in the surrounding areas and found ancient pottery fragments as he worked. The boy found shards even in his own back yard—both the Casas Grandes style and an older style still, Mimbres, characterized by bold black on white zoomorphic designs. (The Mimbres culture flourished from 200 to 500 AD). With his burro he eventually went farther into the mountains collecting firewood, picking up bright shards along the way. 

Paquimé's Massive Roomed Walls (By D. Phillips) 

Though no one knew about the people who made the pottery, everyone knew of the ruins 15 miles north, Paquimé, the center of the Casas Grandes culture. The mounds on the plains were the remains of the outlying communities that spread for miles around the site. At dusk by the light of his campfire, he'd examine his daily collection of shards, trying to figure out how they had been made. At home he dug clay from the arroyos, soaked it, and tried to make pots. They all cracked. Eventually Juan studied the broken pieces and realized that mixing in a little sand would prevent the cracking. His interest led him to the study of the pre-Hispanic pottery of the Mimbres and Casas Grandes cultures. In time, he figured out how to make round bottoms similar to the prehistoric pots by making a mold after finding some in the outlying mounds. 

LEARNING THE ROPES

Gradually he mastered the process. As a young man, without any instruction, he was making and decorating credible pots for his own pleasure. He had re-created the entire ceramic technology from clay preparation to firing, using only shards to guide him. Without help from ceramicists or specialists, he had worked out how the pots were made. But now, as a young married man, he needed to have a variety of jobs to keep food on the table for his family—from working as a cowboy to railroad worker, leaving less time to work with clay.

Mata Ortiz (By TravelThruHistory)

But pottery still enticed him. In 1974 he decided to concentrate on making pots. He could sell enough with local traders to risk leaving his job on the railroad; earnings from the sale of just one pot would outdo what he'd earn on repairing rail tracks. His modest success attracted the interest of his siblings and he began to teach them what he'd learned. He became known as the self-taught interpreter of Casas Grandes pottery, sometimes called New Casas Grandes or Mata Ortiz after the village where it originated. Now around 350 families from his small village produce this thin-walled, finely painted ceramic ware that can rival any handmade pottery in the world. Quezada had resurrected the style and ancient techniques of his ancestors' pottery.

Quezada's Family Gallery in Mata Ortiz

In the process, he rescued a village on the cusp of obscurity and put it on a trajectory that has created a thriving pottery district known for production of this original, contemporary folk pottery. Though there was enough evidence from the ancient shards to intuit the spirit of the long lost native aesthetics of a formerly active pottery production center for trade in the 13th and 14th centuries, most of the potters in Mata Ortiz were young and not beholden to historical styles. They created something similar but new—a post modern adaptation of the traditional pottery.

Spencer MacCallum and Juan Quezada, 1976 

COURTING SUCCESS

Though Juan's initial attempts to sell his pots locally failed, he came to have success with border merchants who sold the pots on the US side where MacCallum discovered them in the thrift shop. An anthropologist and art collector, MacCallum tracked Quezada down and helped him break into the larger US market.

 

ENTER WALT PARKS                                                                                                                    

Another stroke of luck for Quezada and Mata Ortiz pottery came through Walt Parks, a financial analyst with a Stanford MBA and a love of pottery, who created an artistic and economic miracle in Mata Ortiz by peddling its pots. He'd met Juan in Palm Springs in 1984 where the potter was teaching a class at an art center. Between that first meeting and 2001, Parks took over 50 trips to Mata Ortiz. In 1993 he authored a book titled The Miracle of Mata Ortiz: Juan Quezada and the Potters of Northern Chihuahua. 

Parks called Mata Ortiz before Juan Quezada's pottery renaissance a village with a past but no future. Along with Juan, the former analyst nurtured its growth, bringing the villagers' pots to the US where he arranged exhibitions, classes and acted as an unpaid translator and advisor. When asked why, he responded, "If you'd had a chance to work with Pablo Picasso in a new art movement, wouldn't you have done it too?"

Now, thanks to a couple lucky breaks and the yearnings and talent of a young boy to re-create the beauty he found in ancient pottery shards as he picked firewood in the rugged state of Chihuahua, homeland to the Tarahumara and Apache Indians as well as Spanish, Chinese and Mormon immigrants, Juan Quezada, once a poor woodcutter, has become the Picasso of Mexican ceramics.

PREMIO NACIONAL DE LOS ARTES

Said Spencer MacCallum, Quezada has received the Premio Nacional de los Artes, the highest honor Mexico gives to living artists. "Quezada's life is like a fairy tale. And it doesn't hurt a fairy tale to be true, does it?"

One of Quezada's foremost potters, Jorge Quintana, said, "We owe it to Juan; he's the teacher. Without Juan, Mata Ortiz would have perished like all the other desert towns that relied on the timber industry."

Which is why the people in the area sing corridos—ballads—in honor of Quezada. "All Chihuahua wants to give you thanks," one song says. "To our great teacher, our friend, Juan Quezada."

Juan Quezada is 81 years old and father of eight children. He lives a rural life, having moved from the town of Mata Ortiz to a ranch nearby that overlooks the banks of the Palangalas River. He named the ranch Rancho Barro Blanco (White Clay Ranch) in honor of the pottery. 

Juan Quezada in Mata Ortiz

CALIFORNIA CONNECTION

In Santa Barbara, California, 10 West Gallery, an artist-owned cooperative founded by Jan Ziegler, sells Mata Ortiz pottery. The gallery owner makes regular trips south of the border to obtain new inventory and will have new pots this fall. The gallery is located at 10 West Anapamu Street.

10 West Gallery Mata Ortiz Pottery

10 West Gallery Mata Ortiz Pottery 

If you enjoyed this post, check out my other works, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya. It's available on Amazon with tales of expat life and living within 100 miles of four major pyramid sites. Also check out my website at www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are available on Amazon where you can find my overview of the 2012 Maya calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed—Demystifying the Prophecy.