The Splendor of Mexico E V A / a v a N o i v a t c O San Juan Bautista Church. Portrait of Coyoacán Luis Everaert Dubernard * lthough Man came to the south - a called the El Pedregal area, named for its r e r r a B ern part of the Valley of Mexico, stony crags. e t n a D particularly the lake region, almost Only two of the human settlements y b A s o 25,000 years ago, today only a few ves - t buried under the dried lava have been o h p l l a tiges of his earliest presence exist. Traces discovered and studied: Copilco el Bajo d e i f i c of human beings from later periods are e and Cuicuilco, both in what is tradition - p s e s i more frequent and abundant, indicating w ally known as Coyoacán. r e h t o the high level of general development the A century ago, when the granite quar - s s e l n communities had reached with the pas - U ries were being mined in Copilco el Bajo, sage of time. a cemetery was discovered with several This rapid evolution is explained by graves that showed evidence of ritual several factors: on the one hand they had Coyote Fountain, a symbol of Coyoacán. burial, complete with very beautiful pot - magnificent soil, abundant fresh water, a tual side. A little before the Christian era, tery. In Cuicuilco, in the 1920s, excava - benign climate with a well defined rainy then, in the southern part of the valley, tions uncovered what turned out to be season and a wealth of rich and varied bordering on the foothills of the Ajusco, the largest construction in the entire flora and fauna easy to gather and hunt, there must have been many population Western Hemisphere, the Cuicuilco “pyra - all of which were very kind to a low-den - centers, prospering thanks to the favor - mid,” built 2,000 years ago, which is sity population. able environment. actually two or three large cut-off cones These conditions favored the passage At that point, catastrophe struck: a superimposed on one another. Other, less - from nomadic groups to a sedentary life - series of eruptions of a small volcano on er constructions were also found, along style, with all its accoutrements: agricul - the Ajusco known by its Nahuatl name, with pottery and, very importantly, small ture, basket weaving, pot tery, textiles and the Xitle, meaning navel, so called be - carved stone objects, outstanding among architecture on the mate rial side, and a cause of the form of its peak and crater. which is the first known Meso american religion, social organization, astronomy and Enormous quantities of lava covered the deity, the Old God of Fire, 1,000 years some incipient visual arts on the intellec - valley lowlands and plains, burying sev - later called Huehuetéotl or Xiuhtecutli eral human settlements. When dry, the by the Nahuas. We still do not know what * Chronicler of Coyoacán. thick layer of magma formed what is today the original inhabitants of Copilco and 81 VOICES of MEXICO • 50 Cuicuilco called themselves or their set - Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Coyoa - Europe; received appointments from Car - tlements, or what language they spoke. cán and its many neighborhoods prac ticed los V and used them to make governmen - The Xitle’s eruptions extinguished and perfected the art of stone carving. Or - tal decrees. In Coyoacán, Cortés would what are called the Early Preclassical dered by their Mexica masters, they made write his famous Tercera Carta de Re la - cultures in Coyoacán. Only five or six the imposing monolithic statues of Coa - ción (Third Report) to the emperor, a centuries later groups of the Teotihuacan tlicue, the stone of the Sun or Aztec cal - masterpiece of military history. But, he culture appeared in the Pedregal area, endar and the gladiatorial sacrificial stones would also sully his name by torturing but left little trace. of Moctezuma I and Tizoc. his prisoner, Cuauhtémoc, the last Mex - Around the year 1000 of the Chris - Coyoacán also makes an appearance ica king. tian era, and probably as a derivation of in another of the manifestations of Me - The Franciscan friars established them - the creation of Culhuacán, the early so american art, the codices, with its cha r - selves tentatively in Coyoacán in 1526, After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Coyoacán became very impor tant. Hernán Cortés founded his capital and created the first ayuntamiento , or city gov ernment, in the highlands there. Coyoacán’s plazas are an invitation to contemplation. Toltecs, who spoke a proto-Nahuatl lan - ac teristic, engaging glyph that represents guage, founded Coyoacán and gave it its the full figure of a coyote with an enig - name. The correct name seems to have matic black circle to one side. been “Coyo-hua-can,” or “place of those After the fall of Tenochtitlan, August who own coyotes.” 13, 1521, Coyoacán became very impor - Around the year 1200, the second or tant. When Hernán Cortés created New third wave of Nahua tribes entered the Spain, he founded his capital and creat - Valley of Mexico, the Tepanecs who ed the first ayuntamiento , or city gov ern - found ed Acapotzalco and successfully ment, in the highlands there. From occupied and developed Coyoacán until there, for two years, he planned and car - their lord, Maxtla, was defeated and ried out the conquest of Pánuco, Mi choa - killed in 1430 by Itzcóatl, king of the cán, Soconusco and Guatemala; discov - Mexicas of Tenochtitlan. At that time the ered the Mexican coast of the Pacific Tepanec capital was dominated by the Ocean; imported and adapted fruit trees, Mexicas until the arrival of the Spaniards grains, vegetables and industrial plants in 1520. from Europe; exported Mexican goods to The Conchita Church, on the plaza of the same name. 82 The Splendor of Mexico and the Dominicans took up permanent agricultural ranches, but the Crown took the priest of Churubusco, was discov - residence in 1528 when they began care to also grant communal lands to the ered and crushed. A few days after the building the large church and monastery indigenous peoples to guarantee them Battle of Monte de las Cruces, the ad - of San Juan Bautista. their own land and water rights. In the van ce of the insurgents was defeated in When Hernán Cortés was named Mar - town, spinning and weaving workshops Coyoacán. quis of the Valley of Oaxaca by Carlos V, were set up with free labor, slaves and Once independence was won and the he designated Coyoacán the capital of prison laborers. republic established, the town became his state and marquisate. Very ambitious construction was car - part of the State of Mexico. But, when the During the three centuries of Spanish ried out all over the area: seven or eight area called the Federal District was ex - domination, Coyoacán’s fertile lands pro - neighborhood and town chapels, the large panded, Coyoacán became part of it as a pitiated the creation of haciendas and San Juan Bautista parish church and mo - municipality, which it continued to be for In the 1920s and 1930s many professionals, musicians, composers and painters moved into and worked in Coyoacán: Jo sé Clemente Orozco, Frida Kahlo and Die go Rivera, among them. Interior patio of the Camilo Brothers rest home. nastery, ranch and hacienda main hous - a century until 1929 when all the Fe de ral es, avenues, a half dozen large bridges, District’s municipalities were abolished. hydraulic works and canals, public works During the War of 1847, Coyoacán of different kinds and semi-rural country was the site of a major battle, the heroic houses. Of the latter, the El Altillo ranch defense of the bridge and Churubusco house survives, as well as houses incor - monastery, and later was occupied for 10 rectly named for conquistadors, like the months by U.S. troops along with the Pedro de Alvarado house, the Diego de rest of the Valley of Mexico. Ordaz house, Hernán Cortés and the Ma - In the second half of the nineteenth linche house and the Camilos Brothers century, little by little, peace returned once Haven. again to Coyoacán. The last 25 years of the In the early nineteenth century, at the century marked increased migration and time the independence movement began new prosperity. Many wealthy families from with the Grito de Dolores (the Shout of the city moved there, but, above all i ntellec - Independence in Dolores, Hidalgo), a tuals, writers, poets, jour nalists, mu sicians, The San Antonio Panzacola Chapel, part of the conspiracy headed by Father Altamirano, priests and politicians, among them Fran - San Juan Bautista parish. 83 VOICES of MEXICO • 50 cisco Sosa, Mariano Ortiz de Mon te lla no, Adrián Unzueta, Francisco de Ola guíbel, Rubén M. Cam pos, Elena Piña y Aguayo, Francisco de P. Andrade and Je sús Galin - do y Villa. In 1890, all of them attended the inaugural c eremony of the Colonia del Car - men neigh borhood, opened officially by Pre - sident Porfirio Díaz and his wife Carmen. At the turn of the century, as Coyoa cán was modernized with streetcars, electric street lights and paving, more Mex ican and foreign families began making their homes there. New names were added to the list of resident intellectuals: José Juan Tablada, Julián Ca rrillo, Miguel Angel de Part of the original building of the former El Altillo hacienda. Quevedo, Zelia Nuttall, Concepción Ca - the most outstanding examples are Fermín a museum. In the 1940s, many others came brera de Armida, Luis Cabrera, Aure lia - Revueltas, Francisco Díaz de León, Fernan - to live: Sal va dor Novo, the former King no Urrutia, Cecil O’Gorman, Guillermo do Leal, Mar donio Maga ña, Guillermo Carol of Ro ma nia, Dolores del Río, Robert Kahlo and the young Agustín Lara.