COPPER CANYON'S RECLUSIVE ENDURANCE RUNNERS—THE TARAHUMARA—FACE PRESSURE WHEN CONFRONTED BY MEXICO'S UNDERWORLD

 

Run like the wind. We've all heard the phrase, but perhaps those who best embody it are the Tarahumara Indian tribe of Urique, in Mexico's Copper Canyon.

Originally inhabitants of Chihuahua, the Taramuhara have lived five hundred years in the Copper Canyon region in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains, retreating from their original home in central Mexico when Cortés and his Spanish invaders arrived. Not willing to wait around for trouble, the Taramuhara beat feet, literally, and ran as fast and as far away from danger as they could. This took them to the remote and difficult to access area now known as the Copper Canyon or Canyons in northwestern Mexico.

RARÁMURI

In their native language, they call themselves the Rarámuri, the light-footed ones. Their unique physical abilities were largely unknown to the outside world until 2009 when the book, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen, made them famous. In remote communities where there are no roads, horses or burros, the only mode of transport was by foot, thus they ran everywhere.

Author Christopher McDougall wrote, "When it comes to running ultra-distances, nothing can beat a Tarahumara runner—not a racehorse, not a cheetah, not an Olympic marathoner." In his book, he describes a Tarahumara champion who once ran 435 miles and another who won a 100-mile ultramarathon in Leadville, Colorado, with casual ease.

Said fellow Leadville veteran Henry Dupre to "The New York Times," They run so beautifully that they seem to move with the ground. Like a cloud or fog moving across mountains."

Dupre also tagged the Taramuhara as "the kindest, happiest people on the planet," and "benign Bodhisattvas." 

DEFYING CONVENTION

Intriguing, no? Being among one of the world's most primitive Indians and among the world's best long distance runners, they defy convention. First of all, they prefer to run barefoot. In races, however, they are known to wear simple huaraches which they assemble from used tires that they bind together onto their feet with one long strap of leather. 

2006 estimates put their population between 50,000 and 70,000. Most still practice a traditional lifestyle, including inhabiting natural shelters like caves or cliff overhangs. Their diet is corn, beans, and squash, but they still do nomadic grazing of goats, sheep, and cattle. Almost all Rarámuri migrate from one place to another during the course of a year. 

SPANISH INVASION

Even though they initially escaped the Spanish invaders, by the 17th century, the temptation of gold and metals goaded the Spanish into establishing mines in the fierce country of the Tarahumara, making occasional slave raids to obtain mine workers. The Jesuits followed on their heels, expanded their missionary work, and founded a mission at the southern end of the Tarahumara territory. By 1648, the tribe had had enough and waged war against the invaders, destroying one of their missions. After this attack, they split into two groups. The northern group waged war against the Spanish but were defeated while the Jesuits, in the south, reported the Tarahumara were extremely resistant to evangelize. Their tenacity worked and by the mid 1700s most missions in their region ceased to operate. 

THE LEADVILLE TRAVEL ULTRAMARATHON

Fast forward. McDougall's book shone a spotlight on the Rarámuri with the1993 Colorado race, the Leadville Travel ultramarathon—attended by a worldwide crowd—set the stage for the Tarahumara's first act in 300 years. The Leadville ultra forces racers to run and climb one hundred miles over scrabbly trails and snowy peaks in Colorado's Rockies. It's closer to mountaineering than marathoning, says McDougall, and it continues all day and into the night. Runners grind along at 15 minutes a mile as they head towards Hope's Pass, a 12,600 foot peak. 

In "Runner's World," McDougall wrote, "Along with Polar-fleeced top guns at the starting line were a half dozen middle-aged guys in togas, smoking butts, and shooting the breeze, deciding if they should wear new Rockport cross-trainers they'd been given or their homemade sandals from scavenged tires from a nearby junkyard." 

According to McDougall, most opted for the sandals. And, he continues, they weren't stretching or warming up or showing the faintest sign they were about to start one of the most grueling ultramarathons in the world. In fact, most, he said, were nursing hangovers. 

MYSTERIOUS LEGEND

Their curious appearance matched the mysterious legend—they defy every known rule of physical conditioning and still speed along for hundreds of mile. The Tarahumara didn't work out, or stretch, or protect their feet. They chain-smoked fierce black tobacco, ate a ton of carbs and barely any meat, and chugged so much cactus moonshine that they were either drunk or hung over,  it's estimated, one-third of the year—one on their backs for every two on their feet—as explained by Dick and Mary Lutz in their book, The Running Indians. 

"Drunkeness is a matter of pride, not shame," wrote Dick and Mary Lutz. "And yet," the Lutzes insist, "There is no doubt they are the best runners in the world."

Running With the Ramámuri

SURPRISING THE SCIENTISTS

Leadville would test the Lutzes' claim, and once the starting gun sounded at 4.am., a sea of taller heads quickly swallowed the native runners who faded into the middle of the pack behind the world's most scientifically trained ultra runners. But as the sun rose and the course began the climb to Hope's Pass peak, the Tarahumara began to ease forward.

Not only were the Tarahumara gaining but they seemed to be getting stronger, said Joe Vigil, legendary American track coach who was at the ultra Leadville.

"They had such a sense of joy," Vigil would later say. And they had reason to be happy. At the finish line with a time of 20:03:33, 55-year old Victoriano Churro, farmer and oldest Tarahumara attendee, won the race at 20:03:33, followed by Cemido Charcarito in second, and Manuel Luna in fifth. The three Tarahumara were still bouncing along on their toes as they crossed the line. A year later, another Tarahumara runner won, Juan Herrera, finishing at 17:30:42.

Victoriano Churro, Winner Leadville 1993

VANISHED

Then, they vanished from the ultra running scene in the mid-90s, retreating to their canyon bottom homes and taking their miraculous distance running secrets with them. But one runner, the Caballo Blanco (White Horse), set out after them. The mysterious Blanco went to the Copper Canyons years ago to live among the Tarahumara. 

Blanco spoke with McDougall. "They eat beans, they drink a home-brewed corn beer which takes four pints to get you drunk, and they use it as a beer-based economy instead of cash. It can lead to good amounts of inebriation but they are also extremely hard workers.

"The Tarahumara," he continued, "just farm and party and run for fun, all the while staying in remarkable condition."

In 1971, physiologist Dale Groom ran cardiovascular tests on the adults and children, and concluded, as he'd write in "American Heart Journal," that probably not since the days of the ancient Spartans has a people achieved such a high state of physical conditioning. 

VITAL STATISTICS

Groom checked the pulse and blood pressure of Tarahumara runners during a five-hour race and found their blood pressure went down while running, and their average heart rate—in the midst of banging out eight-minute miles—was only 130 beats per minute. But what most impressed him was something that didn't register on his instruments: After running 50 miles, the Tarahumara didn't even look beat. They stood around and chatted while Groom pumped the diastolic cuff. 

Joe Vigil coached 19 national collegiate championship teams. Three advanced degrees hang on his office wall. He said nothing he's ever seen on the track or in physiology books left him prepared for what he witnessed at Leadville in 1993. The harder the Tarahumara fought their way through the Rockies, the more rapturous they became. Glee and determination are usually antithetical emotions, he said, yet the Tarahumara were brimming with both at once. It's as as if running to the death made them feel move alive. "It was quite remarkable," he commented. 

Heart disease, high blood pressure, and lethal cholesterol are virtually unknown among the Tarahumara, Vigil would later learn. So are crime, child abuse, and domestic violence. 

MAKING INROADS

In 1994, Caballo Blanco gave up his real name: Micah True. He was a gringo, though for a long while no one could pin a nationality on him. He said he'd had his own encounter with the Tarahumara at Leadville. He'd heard about their incredible performance the year before and wanted to see them in action for himself. But instead of competing, he offered himself as a guide. He teamed up with a Tarahumra runner over the back half of the course, he says, and "we spent the next ten hours together. Even though we didn't speak the same language, somehow we could joke and communicate."

Caballo Blanco aka Micah True (Runner's World)

After the race, he was as obsessed as Vigil with learning the Tarahumara secrets, and since nothing anchored True to his home in Colorado but an old Chevy pick-up and a one-man landscaping business, he could just hang out. But the tricky part, he learned, would be gaining access. The Tarahumara, for very good reason, refer to most outsiders as "white devils." They may let researchers monitor their hearts, but not look into them.

"I  did have one thing working for me," True aka Caballo Blanco said. "When you act out of love, good things happen. It's a law."

A NEW KIND OF RACE

The next part of this story is of a different kind of race—that of hauling a 50-pound backpack of marijuana across the border into the New Mexico desert.

With its remote location and few viable roads, the Copper Canyons have become an attractive hideout and throughway to the border for cartels. The best seller, Born to Run, had a staggering impact on the amateur-running world and its fame gave a painful twist to a formerly uplifting tale.

Copper Canyon (From WorldNomads.com)

Drug traffickers took notice and now exploit the very Tarahumara trait—endurance—that has been crucial to their survival. Cartel operatives enlist impoverished Tarahumara Indians to make a grueling odyssey running drugs by foot across the border into the U.S. 

UNLIKELY JOURNEY

Camillo Villegas-Cruz, 21, is languishing in a U.S. federal prison in California on the edge of the Mojave Desert. His unlikely journey from young athlete to drug mule shows a young man from a little-known tribe as just one of many being used by the cartels. The Taramuhara, catapulted into the limelight by a runaway best seller, are being ground down by forces out of their control, including Mexico's all-consuming drug war, a disastrous economy, and an unrelenting 70-year drought.

American defense lawyers on the southwest border say Tarahumara drug runners are a growing segment on their court-appointed clients. According to "Newsweek," Ken Del Valle, a defense attorney in El Paso, says he's represented more than a dozen of the tribe since 2007, all in similar backpacking cases. Statistics are impossible to come by as law enforcement doesn't differentiate between Indians and other Mexicans, but Del Valle says it is precisely the Tarahumara's aptitude for endurance running that makes them so heavily recruited. 

HARSH LANDSCAPE

But even in the best of times, many Tarahumara live on the edge, eeking out just enough to survive. Now farmers can't get most food crops to grow, and last winter an usual cold spell killed off much of what they did plant. That left them desperate—easy prey for wealthy drug barons looking for mules. 

Mexico's Copper Canyon Region

"It's tragic and disgraceful," says McDougall in a "Runner's World" article. "This is a culture that has tried its best to stay out of this mess, the messes of the world, and now the messes have come and found them."

"I can't even weigh the cultural impact of what the drug industry is doing to the Tarahumara," says Randy Gingrich, an American based in the city of Chihuahua for 20 years. He spends much of his time in the Sierra Madre and his NGO, Tierra Nativa, battles threats to the Tarahumara and other Indian tribes that come from miners, loggers, drug dealers, and the occasional tourist scheme.  He related that one former drug baron forcibly evicted Tarahumara from their ancestral homeland so he could build a giant Astroturf ski slope overlooking the 6,000 foot Sinfrorosa Canyon. The project fell through when the trafficker died in a plane crash.

But this is just one single situation in the manipulation of the Tarahumara that was dismantled by an act of fate. The drug trafficking will not stop. And unless the rains come and the economy recovers, young runners will continue to be coerced into tragic positions that may well lead to years in prison north of the border.

An unfitting end for a race that has tried to avoid the temptations of society, and live a life in peace. 

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS POST CHECK OUT—Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is 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. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy is on Amazon.

 

CHOCOLATE'S COLORFUL HISTORY TRACES BACK TO ANCIENT MEXICO

The devilishly addictive treat like no other—chocolate—came from Mexico. Anthropologist Sophie Coe knew it, studied it, and wrote about it in The True History of Chocolate. In her book, Coe draws on botany, archeology, and culinary history to present chocolate's complete and accurate beginnings. "Essential reading for anthropologists as well as scholars in a variety of other disciplines, and Coe's book brings serious pleasure reading to lay readers who are cooks, eaters, and students of food ways," said a review in American Anthropologist.

CULINARY ANTHROPOLOGIST

Sophie Coe's interest in the food and drink of pre-Spanish peoples of the New World first inspired her to write America's First Cuisines in 1994. During that research, she discovered the important position given to chocolate in Mesoamerica. She became smitten with a love of chocolate's history since 1988 while preparing a paper titled "The Maya Chocolate Pot and Its Descendants" for a seminar. 

Unfortunately, Coe died before the book was finished. Having amassed thousands of pages of reference materials and having outlined the first eight chapters, so near and yet so far, she couldn't complete the task. Her husband, famed archeologist and Maya scholar Michael D. Coe, promised he would see it through to publication. 

MICHAEL COE STEPS IN

Cacao Pods After Harvest

In the introduction, Michael Coe explains that writing about food and drink has only become a 'respectable' and scholarly subject in recent decades, at least in the Western world, As a consequence, culinary history was left to amateur enthusiasts, he wrote, who usually promoted one food, drink, or cuisine.

Coe goes on to say that is especially the case with chocolate and the cacao from which it was manufactured. This is because the substance's origins lay in the cloudy area of New World pre-history and ethnographic-history. Sophie Coe's book on the subject is fascinating because as a culinary anthropologist, she looked at her subject with a worldwide view. And along with husband Michael Coe, archeologist, we the reader could not have a better pair to guide us through the long, fascinating world of cacao and its origins.

Sophie Coe (By SophieCoePrize.com)

Sophie had spent hundreds of hours in both American and European libraries tracking down all possible references to chocolate and cacao as well as vast amounts of time in her husband's enormous Mesoamerican library for her research. With her scientific background and a doctorate in anthropology, she left no stone unturned.

After her death in 1994 Michael continued to organize her notes. Even though the first chapters had been outlined, the book did not see the light of day until 2003. The second edition came out in 2013 bearing a wealth of new information not only on cacao and chocolate, but what it meant to ancient Mesoamerican cultures, thanks to the recent decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic texts. 

CACAO FOUND IN BURIAL SITES

Cacao Glyph in Mayan

One thing that was determined in the decade between the book's first and second publication was this: the royal and noble occupant of every Maya tomb went to the next world accompanied by Mesoamerica's most valued drink. This is known due to numerous pyramid site excavations in recent years that have given archeologists an abundance of insights into the importance of chocolate to these civilizations.

The cacao tree, named Theobroma cacao in the 1700s, is picky. It refuses to bear fruit outside a latitude of 20 degrees north or south of the equator. Nor is it happy with this tropical range if the altitude is too high— it will shed its leaves. It's a magnet to rodents of all kinds—squirrels, monkeys, rats—who steal the pods for the sweet white pulp around the seed. 

Cacao Pod's Pulp Surrounded Seeds

FINICKY CACAO 

It gets diseases: pod rots, wilts, and fungus produced extraneous growth called witches' brooms. A botanical problem child for sure. A young tree can begin to bear fruit within its third or fourth year. At first it was thought that it needed the shade of taller trees to produce, but actually, cacao also needs the litter underneath found on rainforest floors of old leaves, dead animals, and rotten cacao pods to create a rich soil base. 

Cacao Grove 

The young pods, green in color can turn yellow, red, or green when ripe. They cannot open on their own and need humans or animals to do the deed. Animals were originally drawn to the sweet pulp surrounding the acidy bean, and would break the bean out of its pod-like shell for the meat.

It takes four steps to produce cacao 'nibs' or kernels so that the beans can be ground into chocolate: fermentation, drying, roasting or toasting, and winnowing. For three thousand years, this is how the production has gone. 

CACAO'S ROOTS

Though not one hundred percent certain, it's thought the species Theobroma cacao originated in the Amazon River Basin below the eastern slopes of the Andes. Researchers do not believe it was used by South Americans. It's thought that it could have been transported as an already domesticated fruit plant from South America to Central America and Mexico, with the discovery of the intricate chocolate process made by Mesoamericans. 

Map of Mexico Cacao Country (By eps.com)

COLUMBUS'S ENCOUNTER

It's well known that the first European encounter with cacao took place on Columbus' fourth Atlantic voyage when his son Ferdinand came across a Maya trading canoe with cacao beans in its cargo in 1502. 

Coe states it was known that chocolate was used among the Aztecs both as a drink and currency. And, he writes, Spanish invaders derived their earliest real knowledge of cacao, and the very word cacao, not from the Aztecs but from the Maya of the Yucatán and neighboring Central America. 

In fact, one thousand years before the Spaniards landed on their shores, the Maya were writing 'cacao' on magnificent pottery and vessels used in preparation of chocolate for their rulers and nobles, both living and dead. 

THE OLMEC CONNECTION

Calakmul Noble Gestures Towards Foaming Chocolate

But before the Maya, there were the Olmecs. Their complex culture flourished in Mexico's humid Gulf coast lowlands near Veracruz about 1500 to 400 BC. Prodigious builders of massive ceremonial centers, they left behind their famous collossal stone heads—multi-ton portraits of their kings—along with exquisite jade carvings. Sadly they left behind no writings that ethnographers were able to decode. They did have a script, and scattered hieroglyphs were left on inscribed serpentine blocks, but it is currently indecipherable. Linguists however did decipher a data point to an ancestral form of a family of languages, Mixe-Zoquean, still spoken by thousands of peasants near the lands covered by Olmec remains. It is thought that at the height of their influence over less advanced cultures, the highly civilized Olmecs used 'loan words' that are still in use to this day. 

And one of those loan words happens to be cacao, from the Mixe-Zoquean language and originally pronounced kakawa, linguists say. 

Colossal Stone Olmec Head Near Veracruz

So it might be said, Coe continues, that the Olmecs first domesticated the plant or at least discovered the chocolate process. Hershey Foods, U.S. purveyor of chocolate, got involved with discovering chocolate's history by scraping archeological ceramics used for liquids and detected alkaloids found in Theorbroma cacao as far back as 38 centuries, which pre-dates the Olmecs. 

16th Century Indigenous Woman Prepares Chocolate

Sedentary village culture in Mesoamerica, it was discovered, did not begin near the Gulf Coast lowlands but the Pacific coastal plain of Chiapas and adjacent Guatemala. Excavations show the first pottery producing culture of Mesoamerica, dubbed Barra, dedicated sophisticated neckless jars, so delicate they must have been used for the display of valued drinks rather than cooking, archeologist say. Radio-carbon dates were from 1800 to 400 BC, and the Barra were pre-Olmec. Some of the pieces found the compounds and/or alkaloids of cacao, proving positive for the tell-tale theobromine. 

Excavators for Hershey's lab found a stone bowl in San Lorenzo (Olmec) region dating to 1350 BC to be positive for theobromine, meaning that the Olmec kingdom knew of chocolate, had a Mixe-Zoquean word for it, and could well have been adapted from another emerging culture in Mesoamerica eventually passing that cacao knowledge on to the Maya. The Maya not only consumed the chocolate but revered it. Maya written history and art displays chocolate drinks being used in celebration and to finalize important transactions. Carvings on pots discovered in royal burial tombs show drawings of a drink being prepared, undoubtedly chocolate. 

A MAYA TRADITION

Despite chocolate's importance in Maya culture it wasn't reserved for the wealthy and powerful but was readily available to anyone. Pre-conquest, it was prepared in a number of ways: as drink, gruel, powder, possibly even as a solid substance like we know it today. In many Maya households, chocolate was served with every meal, it is believed. When used as a drink it was thick and frothy and often combined with chili peppers, honey, or water and the Maya liked to drink it hot. They also liked foam in their chocolate, not unlike a fine cappuccino, and would create it by pouring the liquid from one vessel to another like a Starbucks barista. They were as creative as modern chefs.

Ethno-historic accounts point to widespread use throughout Maya culture, in betrothal and marriage ceremonies, especially among the wealthy. In this way, chocolate drinks occupy the same niche as expensive French champagne in other cultures. In the Quiché kingdom, there were three lords whose function was to give wedding banquets. Quiché specialist Dennis Tedlock noted one of the things people did at these festivities was to 'chokola'j,' or drink chocolate together, a possible source of our English (and Spanish) word chocolate. 

A GIFT FROM THE GODS

The Aztecs took chocolate admiration to another level. They believed cacao was a gift from their gods. Like the Maya, they enjoyed the caffeinated kick of hot or cold and spiced chocolate beverages served in ornate containers, but they also used the beans as currency. In their culture, cacao beans were considered more valuable than gold. 

Cacao Beans As Currency

For Aztecs, it was an upper class extravagance though lower classes enjoyed it occasionally at weddings or celebrations. And Moctezuma II supposedly drank gallons of chocolate each day for energy and as an aphrodisiac. It's said he also reserved some beans for his military. 

CORTÉS AND CHOCOLATE

Cortés was introduced to chocolate by the Aztecs of Moctezuma's court. After returning to Spain, cacao beans in tow, he supposedly kept his chocolate knowledge a well-guarded secret. One story claims that the friars who presented Guatemalan Maya to Phillip II of Spain in 1544 also brought cacao beans along as a gift. No matter how chocolate got to Spain, by the late 1500s it was a much-loved indulgence by the court and Spain began importing chocolate in 1585. 

By 1639, a colonial source said of Mexico, "The business of this country is cacao." The Yucatec Maya had even learned how to grow cacao trees in the damp environment of cenotes, and the Spanish haciendados saw cacao pods dangling from sinkhole roofs in a form of 'silvi-culture.'

EUROPE GOES WILD FOR CHOCOLATE

Though it took a while for the European palate to embrace chocolate due to Spain keeping cacao a secret for so long, Europeans got a taste of it little by little while Phillip II was king. It was the highlight at his daughter's wedding to Louis XIII of France. Her gift to her husband was chocolate. Drinking hot chocolate became a fashionable trend in France before spreading throughout Europe. It's craze was nudged along by a pirate-botanist, William Hughes, who spent a good deal of time in the New World. A natural historian, he began to document plants and the foods he came across. In 1672 he wrote the first plant book on the New World titled The American Physician. In it he outlined a recipe for hot chocolate, adding ideas on what could be added to it, including rum or brandy.

William Hughes in the New World (By AtlasObscura)

Chocolate was ready for its close-up. And for the past 400 plus years, its popularity has skyrocketed. So we can thank the Olmecs, the Maya, the Aztecs, the traders and growers and marketers of chocolate for our long tasty love affair with a delectable and lovely treat.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is 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. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy is on Amazon.

ANOTHER MEXICO PYRAMID MARVEL— EL TAJIN IN VERACRUZ

El Tajin's Pyramid of Niches (By HistoryHit.com)

As in so many things corresponding to pyramid sites, their origins, and builders, much relies on conjecture rather than fact, especially if no written language was left behind. 

TOTONAC ROOTS

Known as El Tajin to the local Totonacs whose ancestors may have built the city, construction has also been attributed to a tribe related to the Maya. The pyramid site, located in eastern Mexico, is significant in Mesoamerica archeology because of its numerous thoroughly excavated examples of prehistoric sites dating from 600 t0 1200 AD. Timing is everything and the rise of El Tajin came between the fall of Teotihuacan and the rise of the Aztec Empire. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1992 because its architecture and engineering is of historical significance.

Partial Photo of Grounds

Despite the fact that it's thought to have been greatly damaged if not mostly burned to the ground following an attack in the 13th century by the Chichimecs, a nomadic Nahua tribe, much of El Tajin is extremely well-preserved.

OF THUNDER OR LIGHTING BOLT

The Totonacs, who resided in the eastern coastal and mountain regions of Mexico at the time of the 1519 Spanish invasion, now reside in the states of Veracruz (where El Tajin is located), Puebla, and Hidalgo. The Totanac meaning for the site is 'of thunder or lightning bolt' and relates to a Totonac belief that twelve ancient thunderstorm deities, know as Tajin, still inhabit the ruins. 

However, a series of indigenous maps dating from the time of the Spanish conquest found nearby suggest the city might have been called Mictlan, or place of the dead, a common denomination for ancient sites whose original names have been lost. This name also appeared in part in the Codex Mendoza, a portion of a surviving Aztec tribute record, which claimed El Tajin meant place of the invisible spirits. 

Classic Sites in Relation to El Tajin

CORTES ALLY

Apart from the impressive pyramid site, the Totonac occupy a significant spot in Mexican history for the part they played in assisting Cortes defeat their common rival, Moctezuma and the Aztecs. From 800 AD to 1100 the Totonac controlled the region nestled between the Atlantic and the Sierra Madre Mountains. Consequently, it's thought that they were the first native tribe the Spanish explorers encountered. 

Cortes Arrives in Mexico 1519

But less than 50 years before the Spaniards arrived, the Aztecs conquered them and they lost control of their empires. Forced into the Aztec confederation, they suffered so greatly they made human sacrifices of their own people to their gods for liberation. When Cortes arrived, the Totonac seized the opportunity as an answer to their prayers and yielded to their new Spanish rulers in hopes of shaking off their Aztec overlords. Along with the combined forces of the conquistadors and one other city-state, Cempoala, they defeated their common enemy due to dual fighting power and their knowledge of the Aztecs and their way of life.

A LAND FORGOTTEN

From the time of its fall—around 1235 AD—to 1785, no foreigners knew of its existence until a government inspector stumbled onto the Pyramid of the Niches, considered a masterpiece of ancient Mexican architecture. Impressive due to its size and 365 niches embedded into the entire structure, it revealed the astronomic and symbolic significance of the building's alignment with the calendar system and the night skies. Unique to Mesoamerica, this the site's main building has elaborate carved reliefs on the columns and frieze. Other important monuments at El Tajin include the Arroyo Group, the North and South ballcourts, and the palaces of Tajin Chico. There have been numerous ballcourts discovered at this site, the last three found in 2013. 

Close-Up of Niches (by Mexico Dave)

Major archeological excavations took place in the early 20th century which uncovered more of the city that lay beneath the jungle. And of course the six-stepped pyramid, Pyramid of the Niches, takes center stage of the 20 or so edifices that have been excavated out of what archeologists suggest could be an additional 150 more awaiting excavation. The top of it would have been crowned with a temple. The tiers are full niches—365 to be precise— one for every day in the solar calendar. Archeologists found that the stone reliefs and friezes offered insight into the lives of those who lived in El Tajin.

BALL GAMES OR WAR GAMES?

A particular pastime for which the city was renowned was ball games, depicted in numerous reliefs. Twenty ball courts have been discovered there—the most at any one site to date. In an ominous twist, the reliefs also seem to show that these ball games were related to human sacrifice which took place at El Tajin, leading some to believe the ball was in fact a decapitated head. 

Ball Court at El Tajin

At its height, it was the most important center of the Mesoamerican northeast, and its cultural influence was felt in Mexico's central valleys and plateaus and throughout the Gulf Coast into the Maya region. From 600 to 1200 AD, it was a prosperous city that eventually controlled what is now much of modern Veracruz state. The city-state was highly centralized with the city itself having more than 50 ethnicities. Most of the population lived in the surrounding hills and their food requirements came from adjacent areas that produced staples such as corn and beans and also luxury items such as cacao. One panel at Pyramid of the Niches displayed a ceremony being held at a cacao tree.

An Aerial Overview of El Tajin (By Pryamidomania)

From what archeologists can glean, their religion was based on the movements of the planets, stars, sun and moon with the Mesoamerican ball game and pulque playing extremely important parts.

ANCIENT BEGINNINGS

Archeologists believe El Tajin was first occupied as early as 5600 BC by nomadic hunters and gatherers who evolved into sedentary farmers. Again, the first city builders remain unknown to archeologists though some theories suggest the rise of the city of El Tajin was to keep pace with the rise of the neighboring Olmec civilization, around 1150 BC. Monumental construction started soon after and by 600 AD, El Tajin was a city of some consequence. The site had grown into a large urban complex with significant construction due in part to El Tajin's strategic position along the old Mesoamerican trade routes controlling what is now the modern-day Veracruz state. The flow of commodities, both exports, including vanilla, and imports, came and went from other locations in what is now Mexico and Central America. From the early centuries, excavators found an abundance of objects from Teotihuacan suggesting it was one of their major trade partners.

El Tajin (By Civitatis)

HIDDEN BY THE JUNGLE

El Tajin prospered until the early years of the 13th century and after the fall, the Totonacs established the nearby settlement of Papantla. The sprawling site was left to the jungle and remained covered and silent for over 500 years. Though the city had been completely covered by jungle after its demise until the 19th century, it is unlikely that knowledge of the city was completely lost to the local native peoples. Archeological evidence shows that a village existed there at the time the Spanish arrived and the area had always been inhabited. Though it incorporated into the Spanish regime with comparatively little violence, the region was ravaged by epidemic diseases during the 16th century. Today, 90,000 Totonac speakers reside in the region. 

El Tajin remains an outstanding example of the grandeur and importance of the pre-Hispanic cultures of Mexico. It was a thriving city of major ceremonial importance, a fact illustrated by the numerous Mesoamerican pyramids and other ceremonial structures still seen there today.

If you enjoyed this post, check out Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is 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. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy is on Amazon.

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. 

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