Recommended: A Trip to Mexico
Photographs by the Author
IF you want to travel," said Torres, a Mexican classmate of mine in Prep school, "see a country whose people are different, one that has an environment with no similarities to your own, and no country is more unlike yours than Mexico. Not the Mexico of the gambling towns along the Rio Grande border, nor that of the metropolitan area around Mexico City, but the typical Mexico that extends far across the central plateau and down into the tropical jungles that border the coastal regions." Each year an ever increasing number of college students make the trek across the ocean to spend their vacations in Europe when just below our southern border lies a country with a history of its civilized races over four times as old as that of our own section of the continent. Even in the last few centuries no country has had a more vivid or colorful history since Cortez burned his ships and without any means of retreat marched inland to conquer a great and powerful Indian empire.
But Mexico is not only of interest for its history. Although controlled and dominated by Spanish influence for the past few centuries, it is still largely composed of an Indian or mixed Indian population. Vast unexplored areas contain Indians who have had little or no contact with whites. As many as fifty-two different dialects are spoken. None of the linguistic families retain any degree of the social organization of their forefathers who reigned with strength and power until the coming of the Spaniards. On the plateau, where the Spanish influence has been greatest, the majority of the population are of mixed blood. Mexico became the great gathering place of races, peoples, languages and religion. Within its original territory there were more different native tongues than in all the rest of the western hemisphere. To complete this conglomeration, there were more kinds and grades of culture here than anywhere else. The Seri Indians of Sonora are as colorless as our own plains tribes, while the Mayans of Yucatan reached the most elevated position in respect to culture in the new world. Mexico is a land full of lost civilizations. It still contains many stately and magnificent ruins verifying the great height of culture that was reached, a culture which flourished and disappeared before the coming of the white man.
Some believe the country to have a hot and "unbearable climate. There is no better summer climate than that on the great central plateau. The temperature rarely, if ever, rises above 73° and often it is noticeably cool. In the tropics it is somewhat warmer and more humid, especially during the rainy season. However, in one day's travel it is possible to pass through three different climates—tropical, temperate and frigid. No other place can provide the variety of scenery that is found in this neighboring country. From the lofty snow-capped volcano of Popocatepetl to the dense jungle of the western coast and the limestone region of Yucatan and Quintana Roo extend an endless variety of unusual sights, huge waterfalls, enormous canyons, extinct or active volcanoes, giving some landscapes the appearance of those on the moon. The Grutos de Cacahuamilpas are caves in which one chamber could hold the Woolworth Building. Inhabiting this country are many varieties of animals, reptiles, insects, and birds, all of great interest to the nature lover.
However, it is difficult to describe this picturesqueness and the variety of interests as Mexico is above all a paradise for the artist and the photographer. The best and most complete means of description lies through the medium of sketches and photographs.
THE ANCIENT EMPIRE
If two parallel lines were drawn north and south extending from the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula through the states of Quintana Roo and Campeche into Guatamala, the traveler would find a vast unexplored area where cutting through the dense shallow jungle would bring him to the massive ruins of cities belonging to a lost civilization that was created, flourished, and declined before Columbus discovered America. These crumbling temples and religious edifices still retain much of their former beauty and provide one with an unusual thrill when they are seen rising from the low, flat jungle. Although thickly covered with brush and vegetation, it is still possible to follow the course of an ancient highway by its well-built bed which stands above the surrounding country.
Modern Mayas continue to live around these old ruins in thatched huts similar to those their forefathers inhabited when they occupied these ancient cities. The Indians speak a number of related Mayan dialeicts. It is probable that they are descended mostly from the lower classes of the ancient empire. Epidemics, civil war, and other causes evidently killed off the small aristocracy that maintained the ancient culture.
On a bright moonlight night one can still descend the great pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza and find at its base a group of Mayan women and their children carrying on a conversation in their native tongue. With the shadows of the other ruins nearby, it is easy to imagine this once great city again alive and thriving after centuries of desertion.
THE LOST POWER
No country has had a richer ecclesiastical history. For over three centuries the church held practically absolute control over the Mexican people. In 1860 reform laws were issued and the power of the church was subsequently broken. Previous to this time the church had owned more than a quarter of the landed property in the country. There were some 2,000 nuns, 1,700 monks, and 3,500 secular clergy, all possessors of estates estimated at a value of about $90,000,000. Consequently, Mexico is a land of once magnificent cathedrals and churches, many fallen into disrepair, others entirely deserted with only the vestiges of their former glory remaining. Every village and hamlet has its chapel or church, all decrepit monuments to the once great power and authority that the Catholic church possessed there.
Many of these beautiful little deserted churches are found in outlying villages and cities. One, in particular, may be mentioned as typical of several hundred. This is the picturesque old church in the dead city of Marfil. The simplicity and quietness of the little overgrown churchyard adds a touch of beauty to the vine covered exterior. A great purple lilac bush blooms near the intricately carved facade,' its beauty once cheering the hearts of worshiping Peons. Entrance is gained by climbing over a parapet and into the top of the bell tower. Narrow, dark stone steps lead below to the vestry where thick layers of dust now cover all. The purple coloring that once constituted part of the highly decorated walls is now chipping away. The sole survivor is a gruesome, realistically carved life-sized Christ that is crucified on a great wooden cross. He seems to peer with longing eyes out over the empty auditorium where many priests held services and heard the confessions of the deserted city's inhabitants.
THE FLOATING GARDENS
There was once an Indian village lying on the outskirts of the valley of Mexico on the shores of a lake. The natives were often driven to dire extremities to secure food and resorted to the plan of heaping up the soft fertile mud from the basin of the lake on wattles in order to form seed beds for flowers and vegetables. Such an arrangement made it possible for the owner to tow these small gardens from place to place as he would a raft. These jardines floatandos, or "floating gardens," gradually increased in size and became more compact from the growth of interlacing roots from willows and other water-loving plants until it was possible for the owner to erect a small hut for himself and his family. Finally, the lengthening roots anchored the gardens to the shallow margin of the lake and today this little village of Xochimilco is renowned for its once "floating gardens."
The gardens are now divided into long narrow strips with canals passing through, many of which are just wide enough for the passage of a dugout canoe. The Indian cultivator poles his canoe along the narrow channels and scoops up the soft mud from the bottom to spread it over the land, and splashes the water over the growing plants with his paddle. There are other wider canals through which pleasure seekers may ride in quaint old gondolas. These are poled along by picturesque Peons. The gardens present a multitude of colors with their various colored blossoms and are singularly beautiful with the water reflections of tall swaying poplars. A touch of life is added to the scene when occasionally a gondola, filled with young people playing native airs on guitars, floats by.
THE CONGRESS OP THE DEAD
Among Mexico's people are found a number of strange and interesting customs. There is none so unusual and so fascinating as the method of burial in Guanajuato. The Panteon, or cemetery, of this Mexican city is built in the form of a great rectangular stonewall. It is composed of nothing but niches, or rectangular vaults, which serve as burial chambers for the deceased whose relatives can afford to hire one of these narrow tombs. Rents are payable for periods of five years, ten years, or perpetuity. Bodies are slipped lengthwise into the niches, the last rites are held and then the opening is sealed with bricks and mortar. A marble slab is placed in front bearing the epitaph and often a photograph of the deceased.
In many cases, after the termination of the five or ten year period, relatives and friends of the unfortunate dead forget or disappear and the new rent that falls due remains unpaid. In these cases the remains are removed from the niches and placed in a common ossuary. The unusual thing about these bodies is that, due to climatic conditions and their protection from decomposition among the inner niches of the walls, many of them have mummified in a nearly perfect state of preservation. Practically the same attitudes and positions that the individuals had assumed at the time of their death still remain in the posture of the bodies and the expression on the faces.
The calaboso, or ossuary, containing the mummies, is a long tunnel in the rock beneath the Panteon. It is reached through a heavy stone trapdoor by descending dark winding stone steps. A narrow wooden bench runs the length of the corridor and on it the rigid forms stand side by side. On the stone paved floor, with the edge of the bench as a prop and at spaced intervals, stands a second row of tall silent forms.
Many stories are connected with the different mummies. There is the old French doctor who was shot in a duel, the woman who, because of an inefficient coroner's system, was buried alive and who now tells her storv in the mute expression of her clasped hands, the soldier in a faded but once gay uniform, the head of a bandit who had died of fright after murdering a family and because of the fact that only his head had mummified the Peons had attributed it to a miracle.
It is not so much the horror of the situation that grips one, but rather the fascination of imagining all these mummies as living, breathing people again.
THE TROPICS
In striking contrast to the Mexican highlands are the tropics where a very different kind of country is found with its tropical foliage, animal life, birds, reptiles, and its many insects and scorpions. Great numbers of odd and interesting freaks of nature are discovered in this country. There is the Higuera tree which grows from a seed that has lodged in the top of some tall palm or cocoanut tree. A root grows forth from the seed which is nourished high above the earth. The root grows into the ground and many more follow it until these roots intertwine and grow together forming a great smooth trunk. The palm which gave the tree its life is choked to death and dies in the center of the huge trunk that has surrounded it.
In certain sections of Campeche, in the tropical forests bordering the southern end of the Gulf of Mexico, is an insect belonging to a family of beetles called by the Indians "cucuji." Behind the eyes are two round transparent substances full of luminous matter and underneath is a larger membrane containing the same luminous substance. When fully aroused the insect seems, saturated with this luminous secretion. Four of these insects will throw a light for several yards and it is possible to read a newspaper by the light of one of them. The Indians sometimes fasten them to their ankles when passing through the forest at night and the women often wear them in their hair under a thin veil. When they are worn in this manner they make very effective searchlights. Numerous animals abound in the tropicaL forests and coastal lagoons of these regions—beautiful pink flamingos, many other varied colored birds, alligators, lizards, iguanas, huge boas and other snakes.
And so one very hastily and sketchily passes through Mexico, the country lying below our southern border, a country of many different peoples, varied climates,, and unusual and unknown sights of which our European travelers have so little knowledge.
MEXICO Taxco and its cathedral, a typical Mexican village nestled on the mountain side. Borda, the millionaire Frenchman who made his fortune in silver mines near Taxco in the early 18th century, spared no expense in building the cathedral
GUANAJUATO As seen through the Panteon gate
CONGRESS OF THE DEAD The grim congress of the dead in which many of the former inhabitants of Guanajuato stand, gaunt spectral creatures, telling their story of life and death
A Mayan girl and her small brother
THE ANCIENT EMPIRE Ruins of The Temple of the Warriors at Chiehe Itza, an architecturally beautiful crumbling structure
Undergraduate TravelAs photographed by Bud Carterof the senior class during histrip to Mexico last summer
THE FLOATING GARDENS A native gardener pauses for a rest
