Santa's Little Mexican Helpers

Contrary to popular belief, Santa’s House isn’t at the North Pole. That’s just silly – it’s too cold there. Actually his house is in the small Mexican town of Tlalpujahua! Tlalpujahua is just across the Mexico State – Michoacán state border, about a half hour drive from La Jordana, the ex Marist formation house and now retreat house.

The House of Santa Claus

It is one of Mexico’s “magic towns”, preserving colonial buildings around the plaza. Tlalpujahua predates the Spanish conquest. The name in Nahuatl means “spongy earth” – a reference to the soft soil it is built on.

La Plaza

Gold and silver mines were exploited by the Spaniards from 1551. Two churches were built – one for the Spaniards and one for the Indians!

The mines failed sometime in the 18^th century and were reopened by English investors a century later. They didn’t last long.

The principal church, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Mt Carmel was mostly built in the 17^th century. A Franciscan convent of the same vintage is nearby.

The Interior of Our Lady of Mt Carmel - that's her above the altar, painted on an adobe wall. 

Oddly enough, the town is now known for the various factories that make Christmas decorations. None of your plastic Chinese decorations. These are glass and hand decorated – and incredibly cheap! At one stage this small town was the worlds biggest producer of glass Christmas baubles! And Santa’s house is in the middle of town!

The church seems to have suffered somewhat from the same desire to decorate. The baroque interior can only be described as “Mexican wedding cake” style. Oddly enough it doesn’t really seem to be over the top in the context!

A close up of the Painting of Our Lady of Mt Carmel. She was removed from an older church which was destroyed in a fire.

The flower and vegetable decoration on the ceiling.

Across the valley is the smaller township of Tlalpujahuilla. It’s a pretty ordinary town except for the sanctuary of the Virgin of San Juan. It’s a huge church – about the size of Wellington’s Cathedral of the Sacred Heart for such a small town. And that’s due to the devotion to the miraculous statue of Our Lady of San Juan. The church is massive – built in stone.

The front of Our Lady of San Juan, Tlalpujahuilla

From the side. The square building at front is where devotional candles are burnt.

The parish is obviously geared to the annual pilgrimage for the feast day. The toilets are industrial size and accessed by a pay turn style. I did wonder just how much money the parish made out of the dunnies in contrast to donations from the faithful!

The miraculous statue.

Behind the main altar, where the Statue of Our Lady is there is a room – and you can climb a staircase where there’s a cloth stretched across the top. It forces you to duck under – and it was only after doing this I noticed the signs that said something like: “Be covered by Our Lady’s Mantel” with an arrow pointing up the steps. I guess not something to be sneezed at. So I went around again!

Under the protection of Our Lady's Mantle

Still, it shows the strength of Mexican’s devotion to Mary. There are several other pilgrimage sites within an hour’s drive of Tlalpujahuilla.

Here's a link to some more photos.

One way to get the turkey home!

Tlaxcala: Cradle of the Faith in Mexico

On the pulpit of the Cathedral of Tlaxcala is a very old inscription that reads: “Aqui tubo principio el Sto Evangelio en este Nuevo Mundo” - “Here had its beginning the Gospel in this New World”.

The Pulpit

The Spanish Conquistadores advanced on Tenochtítlan from the Caribbean coast via Tlaxcala. Cortez’s troops defeated several subject nations of the Mexica people (roughly what we call the Aztecs). These defeated nations, like the Tlaxcaltecas, joined the Spanish. Cortez couldn’t have defeated Moctezuma without their help. The Conquistadores were accompanied by their chaplains: priests and friars. Some of these priests were looking to make their fortune; others were interested in converting the Indians. The sword and the cross conquered together…

The interior of the Cathedral

Chapel of San Francisco

Having been almost slaves of the Mexica Empire, most were quite happy to go to war against their old rulers. So much so that the tlaxcaltecas, after participating in the defeat of the Mexicas on the 12^th of August 1521, returned to Tlaxcala. After several years when they converted, the Assumption of Mary was adopted as their patronal feast (The feast falls on the 15^th of August, three days after “their victory over Tenochtítlan-Mexica alongside their allies, the Spaniards”). The Cathedral of Tlaxcala is dedicated to the Assumption.

The Main Altar

Interestingly Tlaxcala was considered a republic, vassal directly of the Spanish Crown, whereas the other provinces were part of the viceroyalty of “New Spain”, which in its turn was a vassal state of Spain.

When Franciscan friars arrived in 1524 they began the conversion of the Indians. They constructed an “open chapel” to facilitate this. Apparently the Indians were uncomfortable in an enclosed church. This building underwent several rebuilds in the early 17^th century, but still exists. Baptisms were carried out here.

The Open Chapel

Inside the Cathedral exists an old baptismal font hewn from rock. An inscription claims that the first baptisms of four Indian “princes” took place in the font in 1520. One of their godfathers was Hernán Cortéz, the captain of the Conquistadores.

Baptismal Font - from 1520

In 1541 Mary appeared on a hill, Ocotlán, overlooking Tlaxcala. There seems to have been some confusion between the Assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception – perhaps because the Indians had heard of the Assumption and adopted this devotion, but seen a painting of the Immaculate Conception and copied that. The statue in the shrine at Ocotlán is of the Immaculate Conception! An easy mistake to make!

The Interior of the Shrine of Ocotlán

The Assumption/Immaculate Conception...

Below the Cathedral is the bullring. It is the oldest in Mexico. There was a group of kids, practicing their manoeuvres. A lad with a rake was the bull; the toreador used a cape and a small sword. Father Alejandro showed us some moves – learnt while a lad himself on the family bull ranch.

The bullring from the Cathedral

Peter has a go with the cape.

The tower is the bell-tower of the Cathedral - and a Scotsman's stand (apologies to Willy!)

A raging bull!

The Tunnel

 Alejandro shows how it's done!

 A video of the kids in the bullring

Base Camp for the Conquest: Tlaxcala

Some time ago Alejandro, a Mexican Marist working in Rome, was home on holiday. He invited us to visit his family’s ranch. On the way there we stopped off in Tlaxcala, a small city not too far from Mexico City.

On the Plaza - Tlaxcala

What I want to show you are the murals that decorate the Municipal building. Murals are central to modern Mexican Art – the most famous being the murals of Diego Rivera, a socialist whose murals were a social commentary on the Mexico of the time. The murals in Tlaxcala were painted by Desiderio Hernandez Xochitiotzin. 

An overview of the stairway

A depiction of  pre-Conquest religious rites

In contrast to Rivera, Hernandez was a staunch Catholic – one of his sons was ordained a priest and taught Alejandro in the Seminary.

Pre-conquest Aztec foods - including nopales (cactus leaves) and tunas (cactus fruit) left bottom.

Quetzalcoatl - the white, plumed diety. Some historians maintain that Moctezuma thought Quetzalcoatl had arrived in the person of Cortéz

The Conquest of Mexica by Cortéz. The woman standing behind is horse is Malinche - Cortéz's common law wife.

Building began on the Municipality (Palacio de Gobierno - Palace of Government) in 1545. The murals are much more recent! They recount the history of Tlaxcala, the base from which the Spanish began the conquest of Tenochtitlan (the Aztec empire). The murals also recount more modern Mexican history.

The battle for Tenochtitlan - 1521

 The bishop of Tlaxcala, Fray Julian Garces petitioned Pope Paul III for protection for the Indigenous Peoples. The Bull "Sublimis Deus" 1537, defended their rights to freedom, property and respect.

 

1810. The parish priest of Dolores Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla  begins the first Mexican Revolution against the Spanish with the "Cry of Dolores". He is later shot by the Spanish.

   

Tlaxcala also has the dowdiest Cathedral I've ever seen. It's dowdy because it's the original parish church. Some of the conquistadores were god-parents at early baptisms.

Pilgrimage to Cristo Rey

The Pilgrimage Group from the University Parish

We left the warmth of the bus and set off in the cold clear morning. Our route was through dry thorn covered fields toward the mountain in the distance. We could just make out a figure erected on the hilltop. I have to confess I had my doubts as to whether I could make it. It was an awfully long way a way! And my trekking companions were all about 35 years younger than me!

That's the Mountain of Cubilete in the distance...

 In 1926 the statue of Christ the King on the mountain of Cubilete in the State of Guanajuato was bombed on the orders of the Mexican president Plutarco Elías Calles. This was during the Cristeros rebellion caused by the persecution of the Church by the Mexican State. It was replaced in 1940 by the world’s largest bronze statue of Christ.

Our pilgrimage group - sticking together as always!

Now, each year tens of thousands of young people make the pilgrimage to where Cristo Rey towers over the plains. We left Toluca at 12.20am on Saturday. We were a little late so the bus couldn’t get to starting point in the village of Cubilete. This added some 4 or 5 kilometres to our trek. The way was lined with buses from all over Mexico. The fortunate early arrivals were parked high up the mountain.

A bit closer. We're just leaving the normal starting point - 13 kms uphill to go.

The cobble-stone track was a river of young people flowing toward the statue. Most were sporting colourful t-shirts announcing where they were from. Many were singing, thumping drums or strumming guitars. 

Unbelievably happy still! And wearing our t-shirt

The day warmed, partly due to the sun coming up but mostly due to the exertion of climbing the 2579 metres to the top. And I was the second of our group to the top. Living at 2750 metres above sea level helps make hill climbs easier! After a brief visit to the chapel underneath the statue we headed for Mass.

Me and my $5.00 hat! Long sleeves a must - the sun burns at that altitude.

On a plateau a hundred metres below the peak the thirty thousand or so celebrated Mass with Archbishop Christophe Pierre, who began his career as a Church diplomat as secretary to the nuncio in Wellington in 1977. I got to speak briefly with him after Mass and he told me he had very fond memories of his time in NZ and his visits to Mount St Mary’s, Greenmeadows.

Part of the 30,000 odd crowd. Mons Cristophe Pierre is the main celebrant

After Mass most of the youth began streaming up to Cristo Rey. Others began the descent. The system is that the buses begin the climb up the track and pick up their passengers as they go – as our bus was so far away we had to wait for more than three hours as a stream of buses filed past us. Still the atmosphere was still very festive. The kids began to swap t-shirts and some of ours found a rather chubby kid who was willing to swap with me! I did quite well out of the deal.

The buses parked on the track up the mountain - the track we climbed.

 Once we got on our bus we headed to San Miguel de Allende – a very picturesque town in the same state. We arrived late – I went to bed. The young ones went out on the town. Surprisingly most of them were awake early. After some sightseeing, souvenir buying we boarded the bus back to Toluca and were home by 7.30pm. A great weekend! 

Happy Birds - Christ the King Season, Cubilete 2013

Young Mexico, Renew your Faith - the chubby kid's t-shirt!

San Miguel at night - midnight to be exact!

By morning

Breakfast! (the lad on the right is having chiliquiles - corn chips smothered in hot green sauce and cheese!)

Parish church of St Micheal the Arcangel (pink stone)

Trying not to be too tall. I bought a $10 hat!