UNFORGETTABLE VISIT TO MEXICO CITY 14 22 MARCH 2007 OTTALIL KOCHUKUNJU JOY, M.A. Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION...1 2. ATTRACTIONS...2 2.1. Teotihuacán...2 2.2. Bosque de Chapultepec Castillo de Chapultepec...2 2.3. The Monument of the Heroic Cadets...2 2.4. National Museum of Anthropology and History...3 2.5. The Zócalo...3 2.6. Palacio Nacional (National Palace)...3 2.7. Museo del Templo Mayor...4 2.8. Metropolitan Cathedral...5 2.9. El Ángel de la Independencia (Independence Column)...5 2.10. Paseo de la Reforma ( Reform Promenade )...6 2.11. Museo de Frida Kahlo (Frida Kahlo Museum)...6 3. HERNANDO CORTÉZ (1485-1547)...7 4. CONQUEST AND CHRISTIANITY...8 5. QUETZALCOATL, THE FEATHERED SERPENT...8 6. CONCLUSION...9 6.1. Vocabulary...9 1. INTRODUCTION Mexico City is a sprawling metropolis of 25 million people, notorious for its pollution problems, is the second largest city in the world. It is a traveller's paradise with desert landscapes, snow-capped volcanoes, ancient ruins, teeming industrialised cities, time-warped colonial towns, grandiose resorts, lonely beaches and variety of flora and fauna. Travel in Mexico is generally safe. However visitors are targeted by criminals in the well visited Statue commemorating the foundation of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán tourist areas such as México City and the beach resorts. Most of these incidents involve petty stealing; but more serious crimes such as kidnappings and sexual assaults also take place. It is better to use common sense at all times to avoid potential risks. Tourists from all over the world are attracted to this place to visit the ruins of the Aztecs capital of Tenochtitlán, numerous world-class museums and the massive pyramids of Teotihuacán. They are often surprised to find wide tree lined boulevards and impressive
Mexico City 2 of 9 monuments dominating the central area, whilst in the evening cosmopolitan restaurants and bars spill out onto the streets and hum with tourists and locals almost all through the night. My daughter and I stayed at Hotel Nikko Mexico, a 5-star deluxe hotel, located in the heart of the business district of Polanco, offering a magnificent view over Chapultepec Park and Paseo de la Reforma y Gandhi Avenue. The hotel is surrounded by great business corporations, restaurants, museums, elegant boutiques, monuments, parks and botanical gardens. 2. ATTRACTIONS 2.1. Teotihuacán An hour s drive to the north of Mexico City lies the legendary Great Pyramids of Teotihuacán. The Avenue of the Dead divided the symmetrical city into two sections that contained apartment compounds with pyramidal structures. Today, one can walk on the avenue to catch sight of the ancient massive and mysterious Moon and Sun Pyramids. To make a comparison, the Pyramid of the Sun and the Great The Pyramid of the Sun Pyramid of Egypt are more or less very nearly equal to one another in base perimeter, and the Pyramid of the Sun is "almost" half the height of the Great Pyramid. 2.2. Bosque de Chapultepec Castillo de Chapultepec Resting on Chapultepec Park (Aztec for Grasshopper Hill), this splendid castle has served diverse functions throughout Mexican history. The castle has been the home of Emperor Maximilian and several Mexican Presidents. Since 1939 it has served as the Museo Nacional de Historia, where visitors can see exhibits portraying the rise and fall of Nueva Espana (New Spain), the establishment of Mexico as an independent nation, and the Mexican Revolution. There are fantastic murals by O'Gorman, Orozco, and Siqueros decorating the first floor, and the area where Maximilian once resided can be entered from a garden walkway. 2.3. The Monument of the Heroic Cadets Hotel Nikko Mexico City A semi-circle of six freestanding columns at the entrance to Mexico City s verdant jewel, Chapultepec Park, the columns honour six teenage cadets who threw themselves to their deaths from the heights of Chapultepec Castle in 1847 rather than surrender to U.S. Marines who were about to take Mexico City in the Mexican War. In March 1947, as his motorcade was heading to the Mexico City Airport at the end of his official three-day state visit to Mexico, U.S. President Harry Truman suddenly ordered his driver to detour to the entrance to Chapultepec Park. The 1,600-acre park, at one time a
Mexico City 3 of 9 leafy protected neighbourhood for Aztec royalty, is Mexico City s Central Park and Capitol Mall rolled into one, and is the "green lung" of Mexico City. Truman asked his driver to stop at the Monument to the Child Heroes. There, an aide helped the President to place a Wreath at the base of the monument. The Mexicans were overwhelmed. Almost exactly 100 years after their capital city fell to the U.S. armed forces in a war they still recall bitterly; the leader of the victorious nation has spontaneously came to honour their martyrs. Witnesses to this act would remember officials, newspaper reporters and ordinary citizens breaking into tears at Truman s gesture. Press accounts the next day would declare that the President s tribute has almost singlehandedly wiped out a century of Mexican bitterness toward the United States. 2.4. National Museum of Anthropology and History Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia: designed in 1963 by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, helped by Ricardo de Robina, Jorge Campuzano and Rafael Mijares, this architecture is magnificent in an area of 79,700 square metres. Opened in 1964 by President Adolfo López Mateos, the exhibition halls surround a patio with a small pond and a vast square concrete umbrella supported by a single slender pillar around which splashes an artificial cascade. The halls are ringed by gardens, many of which contain outdoor exhibits. Some of the most fascinating exhibits are the Aztec calendar stone, giant stone Olmec heads from the jungles of Tabasco and Veracruz, treasures recovered from the sacred Mayan well in Chicen Itza, a replica of Lord Pacal's Mayan tomb from Palenque and ethnological displays of rural Mexican life as it is still evident today. It has also a very good model of the location and layout of Tenochtitlán, which puts present-day Mexico City in perspective. With an amazingly extensive collection of artefacts, spanning some 100,000 square feet, Mexico City can boast one of the finest anthropological museums in the world. The ground floor focuses on the native cultures and societies of Mexico before the Spanish conquest. See the famous Aztec sun stone, among the fantastic collection of artwork from the indigenous population. Upstairs, the museum provides information about how the descendents of these cultures live today. 2.5. The Zócalo A visit to Mexico City is incomplete without a look at the Zócalo, the heart of the city since the time of Aztecs rule. At the time of Moctezuma I (Montezuma I in Spanish) this area was surrounded by palaces and temples, now it s the second largest public square in the world (after the Red Square in Moscow). Its official title is the Plaza de la Constitución; the word Zócalo means base or plinth and arose after a monument to Independence in the square was constructed. Concheros dance, spin, chant and offer ritual cleansings 2.6. Palacio Nacional (National Palace) We can gain a good understanding of Mexico s history and culture in this square alone, from the Templo Mayor - ruins of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlán - to the Cathedral built on the site razed by Cortés, and then Diego Rivera s murals of the struggle for independence on the walls of the National Palace. Initiated by Cortés, the National Palace stands on the site of Moctezuma s palace. Today it is home to the offices of the President (he enters by the gate on the right), the National Archives and the Federal Treasury.
Mexico City 4 of 9 Above the central gate of the National Palace is the bell rung in 1810 by Migual Hidalgo declaring Mexico's independence from Spain Above the central gate is the bell rung by Miguel Hidalgo in September 1810 as he proclaimed his "Grito de Dolores", declaring Mexico s independence from Spain. On the anniversary of this occasion, every 15 th September, thousands gather in the square to hear the president repeat the words of the Grito. (Note: Mexico's national holiday El Grito is celebrated on September 16. The day is in honour of a priest named Hidalgo, who called the people to revolt against Spanish rulers. It is tradition on this day for the President to ring the Independence Bell. It is the same bell that Hidalgo rang to call the people of Dolores together. People today still repeat the Grito de Dolores, the famous plea of Hidalgo, who is called the "Father of Mexican Independence." This day is celebrated by military parades, concerts, fireworks, etc.). Today the Palace is visited not only for the massive murals by Diego Rivera along the walls of the interior, passionately depicting the origins of Mexico and its struggle for independence, they read like a history book with the heroes and villains portrayed together in vivid scenes, often violent and disturbing, but very impressive. Rivera and his assistants painted the walls of the palace, producing 1200 square feet of fantastic, vivid One of the Murals by Diego Rivera murals that decorate the second floor for 16 years. Rivera's view of the history of the Mexican civilization is represented through this vast display. 2.7. Museo del Templo Mayor In 1978 when Mexico City telephone repairmen accidentally discovered an eight-ton stone carving of the Aztec Goddess, Coyolxauhqui, the excavation of this site began. The vast ruins, including the Templo Mayor, are now an extremely significant archaeological site. Decorated with 240 skulls, this temple was dedicated to the Aztec cult of death and was the location of thousands of human sacrifices made to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. An amazing collection of Aztec artefacts including ceramic warriors, stone carvings and knives can be seen at the Museo del Templo Mayor. Between 1325 and 1521, the Mexica people of the Aztec capital ritually buried hundreds of offerings to their gods in the depths of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlán, where for more than five hundred years these gifts lay undiscovered. In complex religious ceremonies, sacred messages to the gods were expressed not only through these objects but through their exact and symbolic placement as well.
Mexico City 5 of 9 Pope John Paul II rode from the cathedral at the capital's heart north to the Basilica of Guadalupe (23 January 1999), where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered for extraordinary Mass. Bare-legged Aztec dancers, with feathered head-dresses and armadillo-shell rattled, blew conches as a 16 th century indigenous shepherd became Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. 2.8. Metropolitan Cathedral The oldest and largest cathedral in Latin America was built over three centuries, beginning in 1573. The result is a structure of various styles and containing five altars and 14 chapels. An endless amount of beautiful paintings, statues, and altarpieces decorate Tzompantli (Skull Rack) Templo Mayor the interior. The "Catedral Metropolitana" is located beside the Zócalo or Main Square. It was the first cathedral in La Nueva España and is the oldest one in the Americas. It has a Baroque-style façade and 64-meter high Neoclassical-style towers which hold 18 bells. Having destroyed the Aztec temples on this spot, Hernando Cortés ordered the construction of a Catholic church on the same spot. The first church was demolished in about 1573 and the Spaniards built a new cathedral with stones from the many local Aztec buildings that the Spanish had Metropolitan Cathedral with Sagrario Metropolitano to the right destroyed. The cathedral was built to look like those in Spain. It was consecrated in the year 1667, but the final elements - bell towers and central dome - designed by Manuel Tolsá were not finished until 1813. The soft clay subsoil beneath Mexico City and the removal of water from the soil over the past years (due to increased water demand from the increasing population) has caused the irregular sinking of many of the buildings in Mexico City including the cathedral. Restoration work mostly done underground has prevented the collapse of this largest Catholic Church in Latin America! On April 11, 1989, heavy rainfall revealed severe cracks in the cathedral building. This caused a great deal of concern about its conservation and led to the work that is still being performed. Going inside the Cathedral, we will be saddened to see the immense scaffolding that virtually obliterated the beauty of the interior. From the outside it is plain to see the tilting of the immense structures as they sink into the old lake bed on which Mexico City was founded, and the scaffolding is the price of trying to halt this destruction. 2.9. El Ángel de la Independencia (Independence Column) Performing a limpia (spiritual cleansing), a ritual involving clouds of incense and a herbal brushing El Ángel de la Independencia ("The Angel of Independence"), most commonly known by the shortened name El Ángel and officially known as Columna de la Independencia, is a victory column located on a roundabout over Paseo de la Reforma in downtown Mexico City.
Mexico City 6 of 9 El Ángel was built to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico's War of Independence, celebrated in 1910. In later years it was made into a mausoleum for the most important heroes of that war. It is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Mexico City, and it has become a focal point for both celebration and protest. It bears a resemblance to the Victory Column in Berlin. The base of the column is quadrangular with each vertex featuring a bronze sculpture symbolizing Law, War, Justice and Peace. Originally there were nine steps leading to the base, but due to the sinking of the ground fourteen steps more were added. On the main face of the base, which faces downtown Mexico City, there is an inscription reading La Nación a los Héroes de la Independencia ("The Nation to the Heroes of Independence"). In front of this inscription is a bronze statue of a giant lion led by a child, representing strength and the innocence of youth during War but docility during Peace. Next to the column there is a group of marble statues of some of the heroes of the War of Independence. The column itself is 36 meters high. The structure is made of steel covered with quarried stone decorated with garlands, palms and rings with the names of Independence figures. Inside the column is a two-hundred step staircase which leads to a viewpoint above the capital. The Corinthian-style capital is adorned by four eagles with extended wings from the Mexican coat of arms used at the time. Crowning the column there is the sculpture that gives the name to the monument. The 6.7 meter statue by Enrique Alciati represents the Winged Victory. It is made of bronze, covered with gold and weighs 7 tons. In her right hand the Angel holds a laurel crown, symbolizing Victory, while in her left she holds a broken chain, symbolizing Freedom. 2.10. Paseo de la Reforma ( Reform Promenade ) Genova in Zona Rosa Paseo de la Reforma was built under orders of Maximilian, emperor of Mexico from 1864 to 1867. Modelled on Paris's Champs Elysée, Reforma links Maximilian's castle to the city's colonial center, where Latin America's largest cathedral stands beside excavated Aztec pyramids (this is a 12 km long grand avenue; the new name commemorates the liberal reforms of 19 th century president Benito Juárez). Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera (2 nd &and 3 rd from left) in 1932 2.11. Museo de Frida Kahlo (Frida Kahlo Museum) Frida Kahlo, the wellknown feminist artist, was born in this interesting house and it was where Diego Rivera joined her from 1929 to 1954. Kahlo lived a most unusual life, as she battled with diseases and addictions. She participated in the lives of many (in) famous Leon Trosky
Mexico City 7 of 9 figures. She married Rivera twice and had numerous affairs including one with Trotsky 1. The museum displays her letters, diaries, and native costumes as well as works by Kahlo, Klee and Duchamp. 3. HERNANDO CORTÉZ (1485-1547) Being a history student, I wish to add an account of Hernando Cortés, who conquered Mexico for Spain. Hernando Cortéz was the Spanish Conquistador 2 who conquered Mexico and Cuba. He was given a land grant by the son of Christopher Columbus and later became major of Cuba. Majesties may be fruitful and deserving in His sight by causing these barbaric tribes to be enlightened and brought to the faith by Your hand." "First Dispatch to Queen Juana", July 10, 1519. "Cortéz told them of their blindness and great vanity in worshipping many gods and making sacrifices of human blood to them, and in thinking that those images, being mute and soulless, made by the Indians with their own hands, were capable of doing good or harm. He then told them of a single God, Creator of Heaven and earth and men, who the Christians worshiped and served, and whom all men should worship and serve." 1519, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, "Cortéz: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary". Cortés was a good writer. His letters to the emperor, on the conquest, are among the best Spanish documents of the period. Cortés' personal account of the conquest of Mexico is narrated in his five letters addressed to Charles V (Carlos in Spanish), the Holy Roman Emperor. Some illustrations: "We are on a crusade; we are marching as Christians into a land of infidels. We seek not only to subdue boundless territory in the name of our Emperor Don Carlos, but to win millions of unsalvaged souls to the True Faith. February 10, 1519, "Stout Cortéz: A Biography of the Spanish Conquest". "It seems most credible that our Lord God has purposefully allowed these lands (Mexico) to be discovered, so that Your "In short, after he had explained the Mysteries to them, and how the Son of God had suffered on the Cross, they accepted the new religion and broke up their idols. Thus it was with great reverence, before a large concourse of Indians, and with many tears on the part of the Spaniards, a Cross was erected in the temple of Potonchan, and our men first, kneeling, kissed and worshiped it, and after them the Indians. 1 Leon Trotsky (*26.10. 1879 +21.08.1940) was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution, second only to Lenin. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the Founder and Commander of the Red Army and the People's Commissar of War. After leading the failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing bureaucratization of the Soviet Union, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union in the Great Purge. As the head of the Fourth International, he continued in exile to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, and was eventually assassinated by Ramón Mercader, a Soviet Agent in Mexico. 2 The conquistadors were Spanish conquerors/explorers who sailed to the Americas to obtain gold, silver, and other treasures. They were often brutal and resorted to any means to get what they wanted.
Mexico City 8 of 9 4. CONQUEST AND CHRISTIANITY 1519, Francisco Lopez de Gomara, "Cortéz: The Life of the Conqueror by His Secretary On December 2, 1547, the Spanish Conquistador of Mexico, during the time of Aztec King Montezuma II (1466-1520), Hernando Cortés, died peacefully on a lavish estate near Seville, Spain. About a generation after Columbus discovered the Americas as a good source of Christian converts, Cortés found the Christianizing of the highly civilized Mexican tribes an excellent excuse to advance his appetite for conquest, control and capital. Hernando Cortéz was born about 1485 in Medellín, Spain, heir to a noble family of fallen fortunes. Giving up a study, he embarked upon an adventure for the New World to serve the governor of Cuba. The Catholic Encyclopaedia, which claims Cortéz among the faithful, admits that aside from his military aptitude, shrewdness and daring, the explorer exhibited "no excess of scruples in morals." Hernán Cortés with Montezuma II 5. QUETZALCOATL, THE FEATHERED SERPENT His big break came in 1519 with the opportunity to lead an expedition from Cuba to the Yucatán Peninsula, and thence into Mexico, to make contact with and converts of the natives. But some curious coincidences decided Cortéz on conquest instead, and so he disobeyed his orders from Cuba. It is rarely reported in popular history books that the reason the Christianizing of the Aztecs went so well in the beginning - as the leading Spanish missionary, Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún notes in his account, written in Spanish, Latin and Náhuatl was that the Aztecs were already practicing many Catholic rituals! The Aztecs sang hymns and prayers, made offerings in their temples, burned aromatic herbs on the altars, fasted, confessed sins to and received penances from their priests, and practiced a sort of "holy communion," in which they broke up a paste image of their god and distributed it to be eaten with great reverence. Even better, Cortéz had a peculiar legend on his side: Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec creator-god. When the "feathered serpent" took human form, Quetzalcoatl was depicted as a paleskinned, bearded man in a conical hat, his long, flowing robe decorated with crosses and feathers. Cortéz arrived in Yucatán looking just so. Furthermore, continuing the parallel with the Christian story, Quetzalcoatl was the only son of a supreme deity. His father, known as Tonacatecutle, meaning "god of heaven," miraculously impregnated his mother, Chamalman (or Itztli), who was, like Mary, a virgin. Finally, Quetzalcoatl let himself be imprisoned (some say crucified) so that he could return to bring mercy and reason to the world. What maximized the effectiveness of those advantages for Cortéz was ambition, coupled with his military and diplomatic brilliance but also a ruthlessness that led him to ensure loyalty by scuttling his ships on landing in Mexico, and to burn alive some Mexicans who An evening with the Lady Jumbo Pilot had attacked his men. He conquered the enemies of the Aztecs, then christianized them and turned them into his allies; he marched toward Tenochtitlán, put Montezuma under house arrest, demanded gold for ransom, and eventually destroyed the city - raising Mexico City from the ruins. In his Christian conquest,
Mexico City 9 of 9 Cortéz committed perhaps the greatest crime to history: he nearly obliterated the Aztec culture in his zeal. For the glory of God: perhaps in part? His contemporary, Bernal Díaz, noted of Cortéz: In his attendance on the services of the Church he was most punctual, devout in his manner, and charitable to the poor.... he was a good cavalier, most true in his devotions to the Virgin, to the Apostle St. Peter, and to all the other Saints. So when Cortéz died on 2 December 1547, he died a good Catholic, if not a good man. His body has been moved more than eight times. Since his body arrived in Mexico in 1567, it has been moved several times to avoid destruction. Today, unknown to most Mexicans, it is in the "Templo de Jesús" in Mexico City with the only statue of Cortéz in Mexican territory. In 1981 the statue and the body were in danger of destruction by a nationalistic group, after the statue was made public by President Lopez Portillo, so access has to be restricted. 6. CONCLUSION I was surprised to see a prominent road named after Mahatma Gandhi just near where we were staying (posh area Polanco). Later I have discovered that other important Mexican towns, namely, Acapulco and Guadalajara also have special memorial sites for Mahatma Gandhi, which have statues/busts of the Mahatma. Mexico City has a statue of Rabindra Nath Tagore, too! With a heavy and craving heart I left Mexico City; flying over beautiful mountains and the vast Atlantic Ocean most of the time, I returned to Germany with my daughter. The whole crews (Captain as well as his two co-pilots, of which one woman, the Purserette and her team) have treated me kindly. What to add to the journey: Mexico City, for all its problems smog, overtaxed In the cockpit; somewhere over the Atlantic, the Lady Pilot explains the infrastructure, crime, pollution is still difference between ground speed and the real in the air one of the most exciting places in the world. It has a sense of energy. In its perpetual spring-like climate, people are in a hurry. 6.1. Vocabulary Jet lag is a physiological condition caused by the disorientation of a person's biological clock due to travel across several time zones, characterized by irritability, lethargy, insomnia, and other symptoms.