ON THE AZTEC TRAIL IN MEXICO CITY
By Jim Johnston
First published in Atención San Miguel June 1, 2007
Hints of Mexico’s Aztec origins are all over the place in this city. Ruins of the Templo Mayor, the main site of Aztec worship and sacrifice, were unearthed in 1978 while electric cables were being installed. Carvings from Aztec buildings show up as cornerstones on colonial era residences, on display at a metro stop, and stylized on Art-Deco facades. Faces of people in the street reflect a tribal bloodline that still runs strong. The distinctive aroma of freshly made tortillas has wafted through the city for almost 700 years.
Tenochtitlán was the name the Aztecs gave to the settlement that was to become Mexico City. The Spanish tried their hardest to destroy the place, but the most they could achieve was to subsume it, envelop it, cover it up and hope for the best. Conquered, but not erased, you can still find traces of the ancient city today.
The best place to begin exploring Mexico City’s Aztec past is at the Zócalo, the vast open plaza in the Centro Histórico which was once the ceremonial center of Aztec life. Today, concheros, dressed in glitzy Aztec-inspired costumes with feathered headdresses, dance and chant here, mixing pagan traditions with worship of the Virgin Mary. As many Mexicans do, you can line up for a limpia, a ritual cleansing of evil spirits using incense and herbs (leave a few coins in the cup).
The Templo Mayor is in the northeast corner of the Zócalo, next to the Cathedral. The most important discovery from the temple site is a 10-ft. diameter stone disc, whose carved surface depicts the dismembered body of the Aztec deity Coyolxauhqui (pronounced Coil-SHWA-key). Coyolxauhqui is “dressed to kill” here, with feathered headdress, human skull belt buckle, and shoes with snake laces. In a typically violent Aztec myth, Coyolxauhqui kills her pregnant mother Coatlicue, and then is murdered by her own brother, Huitzilopotzli, god of war. He chopped her to bits (along with 400 brothers) and sent them all spinning in the sky—her head became the moon, and her brothers became the stars.
The most important Aztec art is displayed at the Museo de Antropología on Paseo de la Reforma in Chapultepec Park, a few miles west of the Centro Histórico. (www.mna.inah.gob.mx). A mammoth statue of Tlaloc, Aztec god of rain, greets you out front. The museum building designed by Pedro Ramirez Vasquez in the early 1960's is a elegant piece of architecture, incorporating pre-Hispanic references expressed in a modern idiom. Proportions of spaces echo the peaceful vastness of Teotihuacán, the pre-Aztec ruins just north of the city; decorative screens on the upper floor are updated versions of bas-reliefs from Mayan temples; a pond filled with papyrus and turtles in the patio recalls the lakes and marshes the Aztecs first encountered here. All rooms open toward this central patio in classic Mexican style, with access to cool leafy gardens behind each gallery.
The Sala Mexica, at the far end of the central patio, contains the Aztec collection. One of the most compelling sculptures is a horrific mother figure, the great maternal monster, Coatlicue. The mythical Coatlicue (whose daughter Coyolxauhqui is at the Templo Mayor) was murdered by her 401 children. This mother is a piece of work. Her statue at the Museum of Anthropology, over eight feet tall, looks like a snakeskin-covered tank mated with a Japanese super-hero. The Spanish were horrified by her and kept the statue out of sight. She is so mean and ugly that even the museum gift shop doesn’t even carry a replica. But with children like hers, it’s a wonder she doesn’t look worse. (The statue of Coatlicue is in the center of the Sala Mexica just to the left of the famous Stone of the Sun.)
According to gastronomy historian, Jose Iturriaga, the only true Aztec food is the tortilla—everything else is an amalgam of pre-Hispanic elements mixed with ingredients and cooking techniques from other countries (Aztecs used no cooking oils or fats, for example.) Many of these original ingredients are still found at street stalls throughout Mexico City. You will see women cooking over charcoal fires, making tlacoyos which look like small flattened footballs made of blue corn. They are filled with frijol (bean) requesón (mild white cheese) or haba (pureed fava beans—the best), then cooked on a dry griddle, and topped with chopped nopal cactus, onions, cilantro, shredded cheese and your choice of red or green salsa.
Pre-Hispanic ingredients are common to menus in most Mexican restaurants. Ensalada de nopales, a salad of cooked cactus with onion and cilantro, has a slightly tangy flavor and crunchy-soft texture Huitlacoche, a black fungus that grows on corn cobs with a delicate, mushroom-like taste, is used as a filling for quesadillas. Flor de calabaza are squash blossoms, used in a soothing soup and in quesadillas. Pozole, a thick soup made with hominy, was mentioned in the chronicles of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, an early Spanish missionary. He reported Moctezuma eating pozole that contained thigh meat from a sacrificed warrior. Today’s version is usually made with pork (a whole pig’s head gives the best flavor) and garnished with shredded lettuce, radishes, onion and oregano. Huazontle, a vegetable whose stems are covered with tiny edible green flowers, is most often found in market fondas (food stalls), batter-fried and bathed in salsa made of chile pasilla or tomato. Zapote shows up on menus in traditional Mexican restaurants. You will see this fruit in markets, its green-black skin wrinkled, being sold very ripe. The black pulp is blended with orange juice (and sometimes tequila) and served for dessert.
The most popular legacy of Aztec cuisine surely is chocolate--the original Nahuatl word is chocolatl. Cacao beans, first encountered in the New World, were used for money as well as to make a frothy drink mixed with chili and spices that was reserved for Aztec priests and royalty. Today it is often enjoyed with crispy fried churros, a gift from Spain.
UNESCO declared the Centro Histórico of Mexico City a World Heritage site in 1987, while it was still reeling from the devastating earthquake of two years earlier. Recent investment in the Centro and Alameda areas of the city have made it a cleaner, safer and more vibrant place than ever. And those ancient artifacts keep popping up out of the ground, constant reminders of Mexico City’s glorious Aztec past, humbled but not vanquished.
