San Sebastian del Oeste Part 6 of 6: The fascinating historical artifacts of Hotel Hacienda Matel

A cow's skull decorates a well near the entrance of the hotel. We visited Hotel Hacienda Matel during our day-trip to San Sebastian del Oeste. While there are a number haciendas in the area dating to the colonial and early-Republic eras, this one was built in 2008. It is a product of San Sebastian's growing tourist trade. The architectural design of the hotel imitates historical haciendas and the owners have filled it with artifacts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hotel Hacienda Matel is an interesting place in a lovely setting and is worth a visit if you get to San Sebastian. To find the hotel on a Google map of San Sebastian del Oeste, click here.

Hacienda Matel's Exterior

The hotel's centerpiece is a fair imitation of an historic casa grande. Like the casas grandes (big houses) it simulates, the rectangular building is built around an open central courtyard, accessed through an impressive gate. On each corner are cylindrical stone structures which imitate the bastions found on many historical haciendas. However, Hacienda Matel's bastions do not contain the gun slits used to defend against indigenous warriors or roving bandits. 

This cannon is one of several that guard the approaches to the casa grande. The hotel is situated near the head of a heavily-wooded arroyo about half a mile from San Sebastian's central plaza. Some might find it odd for a civilian hacienda to possess artillery, but this was not uncommon in the old days. Regular troops were scarce on the frontiers of Nueva España and the early Mexican Republic. Such troops were usually poorly paid and indifferently led. In addition, they were often posted at a considerable distance from the haciendas and settlements that might need their help. 

To respond to frontier security needs, while keeping costs down, the Spanish Crown sometimes awarded military commissions to hacendados (hacienda owners). In return they were required to form militia units from among their own workers and the men of nearby pueblos. These irregular cavalry units were often the only real protection from bandits and native revolts. This method of maintaining order dates back to Medieval Europe. The more remote the hacienda, the more the hacendado came to resemble a feudal lord in his manor. 

A luxurious carriage sits in the entrance to the casa grande's courtyard. In a classic hacienda, an entranceway like this is called a zaguan. The carriage is one of two at the hotel. Vehicles like this would have been used to transport the hacendado and his family. Such a carriage would have been considerably more comfortable than traveling by horseback or by the two-wheeled oxcarts called carretas. Normally, a stable with fine horses would have been situated close to an historic casa grande. I didn't see anything resembling a stable at the hotel, but I presume that guests wanting to go for a horseback ride can make arrangements through the staff.

The courtyard has an authentic feel, except for the kiosco. The surface is cobblestone and the four sides are bordered by open-air arcades supported by arched portales. Just like an historic casa grande, most of the rooms can be accessed from the arcades. The kiosco (gazebo) in the center of the courtyard is an anachronism. At the 100+ historic haciendas I have visited, I can't recall ever finding one of these in the courtyard of a casa grande. 

A kiosco (gazebo or bandstand) is typically found in the central plaza of a pueblo, town, or city. During the French Intervention of 1862-67, an Austrian nobleman named Maximilian and his wife Carlota briefly ruled Mexico as Emperor and Empress. It was they who popularized the idea of placing kioscos in plazas. Today, from the tiniest pueblos to the greatest cities, almost every plaza has one. However, you will rarely, if ever, find a kiosco in the casa grande courtyard of an authentic Mexican hacienda.

A handcrafted bench sits against an arcade wall. This antique piece of furniture is typical of the rough furnishings found at the more remote haciendas. More elegant furniture was prohibitively expensive to import. Hacendados often had to make do with what could be produced by their own craftsmen in the hacienda's workshops. Self-sufficiency was a necessity. In addition to a carpenter. there might also be a blacksmith, a leatherworker, and various other kinds of skilled workers, depending upon the hacienda's focus of production. 

These craftsmen often lived with their families in small, one-room cottages within the boundaries of the estate. They were called peones acasillados because their housing was provided as part of their compensation. Field workers and day laborers generally lived in pueblos some distance away rather than on the hacienda itself. The workers at today's Hotel Hacienda Matel all live in or around San Sebastian. No accommodations for peones acasillados were included by hotel's designers.

Interior of the casa grande

A spacious dining room was one of a casa grande's typical feature. A hacendado and his family dined on food produced at the estate, along with venison, fish from local streams, or game birds. They might be joined at their table by a resident priest or a school teacher employed by the hacienda, as well as any passing travelers who might provide news of the outside world. 

The floor is covered by the same tiles found in the arcades. Tile floors, often in artistic designs, can be found in most haciendas, even those in ruins. Made from clay that has been fired and glazed, the tiles could often be locally manufactured. The floors they covered were easy to sweep and mop and were not susceptible to termites or other insect damage.

One of the hotel's eight bedrooms.  The layout and furnishings are similar to those I have seen in historic casas grandes. Until the 20th century, central heating by gas or electricity was practically unknown in rural Mexico, so a fireplace would have been important for chilly evenings. The small round table under the window is made in a style known as equipale that dates back to Aztec times.

A large wood and metal armoire serves to store clothes and other items. Given its blue-green patina, the metal is probably copper sheeting. You generally don't find clothes closets in haciendas from the 19th century or earlier. Instead, hacendados furnished their casas grandes with armoires. This kind of furniture dates back to the 17th century and the name comes from armorium, a Latin word for a chest used to store armor and weapons.

A cash register from the late 19th or early 20th century. Given the dollars and cents denominations, this one was clearly imported from the U.S. The cash register was invented in America by James Ritty, a saloonkeeper in Dayton, Ohio. He received a patent in 1878 for what he called an "incorruptible cashier". Apparently he was fed up with employees of his saloon pilfering his profits. A few years after its founding, Ritty's cash register company was bought out by John Patterson, one of its first customers. He renamed it the National Cash Register Company. Around the turn of the 20th century, one of Patterson's agents named Parker introduced the cash register to Mexico, selling 118 of them to various companies.

A highly decorated telephone sits on a small table in the hotel's lobby. The first telephone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell, who later formed the American Bell Telephone Company. A subsidiary of that company began operations in Mexico City on May 14, 1883. The first telephone in San Sebastian del Oeste was installed in the late 19th century at Hacienda Jalisco, a silver ore processing center just outside of the pueblo. The telephone above is obviously a product of the early 20th century, because the first rotary-dial phone was not invented until 1919.

A Victor III disc phonograph, circa 1907, with its huge tuba-like speaker. The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. An improved version, called a gramaphone, was produced by the Alexander Graham Bell Laboratory in the 1880s. In the 1890s, Emile Berliner transformed the gramaphone again by introducing flat, grooved, vinyl disks on which the sound was recorded. The flat disks came to be called "records" and the gramaphone that played them became known as a "record player". The first sound recordings in Mexico were made in Mexico City in 1903. 

An early Singer sewing machine.  Isaac Singer first established his sewing machine company in 1851. His early focus was on large machines for textile manufacturing. In 1890, the Singer Company began operations in Mexico. In 1910, Singer revolutionized the business by introducing the electric-powered sewing machine for the home. However, the Mexican Revolution also began in that year, and foreign-owned corporations were often the focus of revolutionary ire. Singer solved this problem by associating its machines with "modern womanhood", thus gaining favor with the new revolutionary government.

Charcoal heated iron, also called a "box" iron. The charcoal iron was used in Mexico and many other countries for centuries. The heat was produced by raising the lid on top and placing glowing coals inside the iron. Holes on the sides allowed the charcoal smoke to escape. The idea of using heat to smooth cloth goes back at least 2000 years. In the first century AD, the Chinese used pans filled with hot coats to press cloth smooth. The Dutch imported the idea in the 17th century and produced the first "box" irons. Some of these early irons probably reached colonial Mexico in the 17th or early 18th century.

Hacienda Matel's small chapel. The chapel is located on a ledge just above the casa grande and can seat about a dozen people. Since the Church was always closely associated with the power of the ruling class in Mexico, it should be no surprise that nearly every hacienda had a capilla (chapel) attached to, or close by, its casa grande. After the Revolution, such chapels often were adopted by local people as the churches for the pueblos that grew up around the ruins of the old haciendas. Like Hacienda Matel, this chapel is an invention of the 21st century. 

A bit of anti-clerical Mexican humor. An obviously inebriated skeleton figure paws at a priest sitting in his confessional box. The use of skeletons to poke fun at the pretensions of the powerful has a long history. Guadalupe Posada was a 19th century political cartoonist who invented the famous skeleton figures known as catrinas. Posada's cartoons must have struck a nerve, because he had to flee his hometown of Aguascalientes as a result of his work.

While strong religious beliefs (primarily Catholic) still exist within much of Mexico's population, there has long existed an undercurrent of hostility toward the organized Church. This is the result of the close relationship between the Church hierarchy and secular power. Church organizations were allowed to use forced indigenous labor to build their cathedrals and convents. In addition, some religious Orders (particularly the Jesuits) owned haciendas where workers were treated no better than on estates that had secular owners.

A tough-looking group of Mexican revolutionaries. The man holding the sword may be an officer. The rifles they are holding are mostly Winchesters, the favored weapon of revolutionary soldiers. Regular army soldiers were generally better-armed with Mauser rifles made in Mexico or Germany. This is one of several photos from the Revolution that are posted on the walls of the small cantina next to the chapel.

A heavily-armed soldadera sits demurely on a porch railing. She clutches a Winchester and wears two cartridge belts across her shoulders and three around her waist. Clearly this soldadera means business. On the other hand, her expression is one of a quiet pensiveness. Perhaps she is wondering why the men around her always seem a little nervous.

General Emiliano Zapata (front, center) surrounded by his officers and advisors. Emiliano Zapata was perhaps the only true social revolutionary among the top leaders during the Revolution. While a lot of the others seemed more interested in personal power than revolutionary ideals, Zapata really believed in his slogan "Tierra y Libertad" (Land and Liberty) and put it into effect in the areas under his control. 

Zapata's followers adored him. One of his most famous quotes was "I'd rather die on my feet than live always on my knees." Like many other leaders of the Mexican Revolution, Zapata died violently. In 1919, he was lured into an ambush and assassinated by conspirators linked to his rival, Venustiano Carranza. For many years afterward, campesinos in southern Mexico insisted that he was still alive and could sometimes be seen riding the hidden mountain trails of his home state of Morelos.

Another carriage, this time a convertible. It was not unheard of for a hacendado to possess more than one carriage. At Hacienda Calera, near Guadalajara, there is a carriage house with spaces for ten. This vehicle is parked in front of the chapel above the casa grande.

Brass bell with the hacienda's name and an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Similar bells were essential features of hacienda life from the earliest years of colonial Mexico. They were not only mounted in church steeples but often on the casa grande itself. Few peones possessed watches, so bells were used to summon them to work, to call meal breaks, and to end the day. They were also used to warn of dangers such as fire or the approach of bandits.

This completes Part 6 of my San Sebastian del Oeste series and ends the series itself. I hope you have enjoyed this posting, as well as the previous five. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

 

San Sebastian del Oeste Part 5 of 6: The Museum of Doña Conchita Encarnación

One of several display rooms in Museo Doña Conchita Encarnación. This is San Sebastian del Oeste's only museum, but it is packed with fascinating objects, documents, and photos from the days when the pueblo was a silver mining boomtown. The private museum was created in 1995 by Doña Conchita Encarnación, who ran it until 2009. Since then, it has been managed by her charming daughter, Maria Guadalupe Bermúdez Encarnación, who goes by the nickname "Lupita". Her family has been prominent in San Sebastian since the 18th century. (Photo from the website Sistema de Información Mexico)

Photo of San Sebastian, looking north, as it appeared in 1880. The rectangular Plaza Publica, bordered by trees, can be seen in the upper left quadrant. El Portal Morelos fills its north side. The museum is located to the east side of the plaza. The Encarnación family's history in San Sebastian began in 1770. That year, the first member of the family arrived from Spain to become the manager of the Santa Gertrudis mine. The house containing the museum was constructed in 1774, the same year as the Plaza Publica. It originally served as the office and home of the mine manager.  However, the land on which the house sits was once part of a hacienda that had been founded the previous century.

General Amado Aguirre Santiago was a highly decorated soldier and politician. He was born in San Sebastian in 1863 into the Aguirre family who, along with the Sánchez and Encarnación families, were  the wealthiest and most illustrious people of the town. The three families came to an agreement to intermarry only among themselves in order to avoid diluting their pure Spanish blood.  

This arrangement grew out of the rigid social hierarchy of colonial New Spain which continued into the early 20th century.  The goal was to keep pure-bred Spaniards on top. The result of the three families' agreement has been a complicated and rather astonishing set of relationships. 

Lupita's mother, Conchita Encarnación, was not only the wife of Lupita's father, but his aunt and cousin. Lupita's father was also her nephew, cousin, and uncle! These head-spinning relationships reminded me of the old Dennis Warner song "I am my own grandpa".

Some of the family cutlery, probably belonging to General Aguirre. Before the Mexican Revolution, Aguirre worked as a mining engineer for the first half of his life, but the rest of it was otherwise occupied. During the Revolution of 1910, he served under General Álvaro Obregón, who later became President of Mexico. General Aguirre's military posts included commander of Guadalajara, as well as governor and military commander of Quintana Roo and later of Baja California. 

His civilian positions included constituent deputy, member of the Senate, Under Secretary of Agriculture and Development, Secretary of Communications and Public Works, and Ambassador to Chile, Brazil, and Costa Rica. This includes only some of his amazing resume! San Sebastian del Oeste has honored General Aguirre by naming its main street after him.

Rocking chairs and other furnishings of the old house. The fine china on the table is typical of the sumptuous lifestyle enjoyed by the families of mine owners. Behind the table is a stand holding a small wash basin and a pitcher. In the 19th century, stands like this provided a way to wash up when indoor plumbing was absent.

A dead father is surrounded by his loving family. Photos like this were a 19th century tradition. The custom in San Sebastian was for the strongest men in the community to carry the body to the family porch and place it in a seated position. The eyelids were sometimes painted to give the appearance of life. The family would then gather around for a last photo before the body was put in a coffin and buried. It is probable that some of our modern customs associated with death would seem equally bizarre to a 19th century family.

Elaborately-studded chest from Spain. Long voyages and rough handling required that chests like this be strongly made. Notice the heavy lock, a requirement for security against thieves. Such chests could be used after arrival for storage of clothing and valuable items.

An eerie photo of Lupita's Great-Great-Grandmother Andrea. She arrived from Spain in 1777 as a young girl. The photo was taken when she was an old woman, many years later. It was not until I downloaded the picture from my camera into my computer's photo program that I was able to look closely at it. I was startled to see the two ghostly hands resting on Andrea's shoulders. There was no sign with the photo and I have no idea how this occurred. 

Mining Life 

Various members of the three families were engaged in the mining business. Some who worked directly in the business are shown above. These men would have been engineers and managers of their families' holdings. The attire of these men indicates that they lived in the 19th century. The first photographs in Mexico were taken only six months after the daguerreotype had been invented in 1839. However, photography did not become widespread in Mexico until the period of the French Intervention (1862-1867).

Entrance of one of the silver mines. The structure doesn't look terribly stable or sophisticated to me, but apparently it served its purpose. By 1785, at least 25 mines were operating around San Sebastian. The most important included Santa Gertrudis, Real de Oxtotipan, Los Reyes, Terronera, and La Quiteria. The office for Santa Gertrudis was located in what is now the museum. La Quiteria was operated by Hacienda Jalisco (see Part 2 of this series).

A mine worker drives a hole for explosives. The technology was pretty simple: a pointed iron bar and a sledge hammer. The life of a mine worker was difficult and dangerous, to say the least. He might start work before daylight and not emerge from the mine's mouth until long after sunset. His tools were the opposite of "labor-saving". His pay was better in the 17th century, when labor was scarce, but worsened toward the end of the 18th century, as the population increased. Low pay and poor working conditions in the mines were important factors leading to both  the War of Independence against Spain and the Revolution. 

Dangerous working conditions included mine dust, which could damage men's lungs, and tunnel collapses. The explosives used were sometimes unstable. Those who processed the ore faced a more insidious danger: mercury poisoning. Little was known of its toxicity until the last half of the 19th century. During the colonial period alone, Spain exported 50,000 tons of mercury to New Spain for silver processing. Two to four pounds of mercury were used to leach out one pound of silver from the ore. After 400 years of using the mercury process, the land around some old mining sites is still heavily contaminated.

Old mining pulley. Pulleys were first used to raise water from wells in 1500 BC in Mesopotamia. A device like this can allow a man to lift more weight than he could with simple muscle power. Several pulleys can be set up in an arrangement called a block and tackle which allows a single man to lift several times his own weight. 

However, in the early days of mining, human labor was cheaper and more available than mechanical devices. At the end of their shift, workers simply loaded a hundred pound sack of ore onto their shoulders and walked it out of the mine. This might involve climbing hand-over-hand up several levels on rickety wooden ladders. 

Remains of a furnace and chimney for processing silver. These ruins are similar to the furnace and chimney at Hacienda Jalisco, seen in Part 2 of this series. After the ore was removed from a mine, it was transported to one of several processing centers operated by mining haciendas. There, it was crushed and spread out in what is called the patio process. Mercury amalgamated with silver particles when it was poured over the crushed ore. 

This amalgamation would then be put into the furnaces where the mercury would burn off, leaving the silver to be collected and poured into molds for silver ingots. The mercury-soaked debris was then removed from the patios and dumped. This contaminated the soil and eventually the streams. The amalgamated mercury that burned off was carried away in smoke which was then breathed in by those in the surrounding area.

Wooden chest in which silver ingots were once stored. The silver ingots were transported in wooden chests from the processing centers to a building near the plaza. From there, they would be hauled by mule trains or by two-wheeled ox carts called carretas. The long journey to Spain followed the Camino Real (Royal Road) to Guadalajara, Mexico City, and the Gulf port of Vera Cruz.

Corner bastion protecting a silver storage warehouse. Bandit raids were always a risk in silver mining towns. Once the silver was processed into ingots, it was stored in this adobe building. The old photo above shows one of the cylindrical bastions located at the corners of building like this. There are gun slits at regular intervals just below the domed roof. The slits are situated so that riflemen inside can cover the exterior walls on either side of the bastion, as well as firing at attackers approaching directly.

Press for printing paper script used to pay mine workers. Ironically, for all the rich hoard of silver shipped out of San Sebastian, actual silver coinage was scarce. As a result, the mine workers were often paid with script redeemable for goods in local stores. Not surprisingly, the stores were often owned by the same people who controlled the mines. 

This completes Part 5 of my San Sebastian del Oeste series. I hope you have enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. 

If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

 

San Sebastian del Oeste Part 4 of 6: Cafetelera La Quinta Mari

Entrance to Cafetelera La Quinta Mari. The cafetelera (country house) has been owned by the same family for five generations. They grow and process artesanal coffee of the highest quality. After we visited Hacienda Jalisco (see Part 3 of this series), we stopped by to see their coffee operation and sample some of their products. As is usual in Mexico, the welcome was warm and we were given free rein to wander about. 

La Quinta Mari can be found on right side of the main road as you enter San Sebastian. If you reach the old stone bridge known as El Puente Recto (the Straight Bridge), you have gone too far. To locate La Quinta Mari on a Google map, click here.

The Owners of La Quinta Mari

The founders are shown here in this old family photo. The Sánchez family has owned and operated La Quinta Mari since the 19th century. The current owners are Rafael, his wife Rosa, and his sister Lola. The father of Rafael and Lola married very young, when he was only 15. The marriage lasted 68 years and produced 21 children. However, Rafael's grandfather set the family record with 28 children, although some of them were by several mistresses.

The cafetelera's rear arcade overlooks a grove of coffee trees. The old building dates back 122 years to 1898, when it was a farm producing food and other products for San Sebastian del Oeste when it was a mining town. The Revolution of 1910 was the beginning of the end of silver mining in the area. The last of the foreign-owned mining companies departed in 1921. San Sebastian's population of 30,000 shrank until only a semi-ghost town of 600 people remained. 

Comfortable chairs and benches line the rear arcade. Faced with San Sebastian's disastrous decline, the Sanchez generation headed by Rafael and Lola's grandfather cast about for some way to keep their farm going. In the 1930s, they discovered that the area has the ideal climate and altitude to grow "altura" coffee, the very best kind. Coffee had arrived in Mexico in 1796, but until the early 20th century, most of it was grown in Vera Cruz, Chiapas, and Oaxaca. The Sánchez family demonstrated that it could be successfully raised in the cool, high mountains of Jalisco's coastal range.

Ox yoke from when the property grew crops that needing plowing. I found this hanging on the wall of the arcade. For some reason, yokes like this are very popular items of decoration at many of the old haciendas I have visited. Although this is unquestionably an antique, I still see farmers plowing their fields with a pair of oxen or horses when I travel Mexico's back country roads.

A cow skull and a gourd container decorate a pillar. The use of gourds as containers for fluids dates back to Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) times. While hiking, I have often found the skeletons of cattle along mountain trails and in famers' fields. In Mexico, large animals like cattle or horses sometimes die in remote spots. Their carcasses are usually left for scavengers, leaving only the skull and some scattered bones. Upon occasion, I have found an interesting cow skull and brought it home as a hiking trophy. Carole's reaction is usually "Don't you dare bring that nasty thing into the house". The most recent of such treasures now resides in a corner of my carport.

A bandolier-strapped soldadera rides into town with her fellow revolutionaries. The photo above is one of several from the Revolution hanging on the cafetelera's walls. Notice that she is riding side-saddle, a position that must have been difficult to maintain during a cavalry charge. Soldaderas were female soldiers who fought in battles all across Mexico between 1910 and the early 1920s. 

They are sometimes called Adelitas, after the famous corrida sung by soldiers around their campfires. The song celebrates a beautiful young soldadera, who was the lover of a sergeant in one of the regiments. Although she is portrayed romantically in the song, soldaderas proved themselves to be as fierce and ruthless as any male soldier. Some commanded all-female units and others even commanded regiments of men.

La Quinta Mari's coffee process

A rustic work shed nestles among the groves of coffee and fruit trees. La Quinta Mari maintains 11 acres of trees to produce its altura coffee. The coffee that carries this label is considered to be of the highest quality. It must come from trees that are grown in regions higher than 950m (3117ft). Given that the altitude of San Sebastian del Oeste is 1480m (4856ft), it easily qualifies. Altura coffee has a strong but pleasant odor and a taste that is better than that of coffee from trees grown at lower altitudes.

Coffee beans come from berries like those seen above. The coffee berries are harvested by hand when they have attained a cherry red color. The entire operation is organic, with no use of chemicals for pesticides or fertilizer. The trees are composted with the recycled waste from the processing. There are two kinds of coffee beans grown here, arabic (80%) and robust (20%). 

Dried coffee beans with their husks await cleaning. Once collected, the berries are spread out in the sun for approximately 22 days. During this time they are regularly raked so that they dry evenly. They are ready for further processing when the moisture level drops to 11%. They are then cleaned manually, separating the beans from the dried husks that covered them. The beans are then fermented for 24 to 48 hours.

Coffee roaster, looked after by the household dog. Roasting is the most delicate part of the process. It is at this stage that the coffee beans obtain the aroma and flavor that produce a fine cup of coffee. The roasting process brings the beans to an internal temperature of about 400F. This releases caffeol, a fragrant oil within the beans. This initiates a process called pyrolysis, the key to the aroma and flavor.

Packaged beans and other coffee-related items are displayed for sale. Our group crowded around this table and relieved it of much of its wares. The bag of coffee I brought home from this trip made our stop at La Quinta Mari especially memorable.

This completes Part 4 of my San Sebastian del Oeste series. I hope you have enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim

San Sebastain del Oeste Part 3 of 6: Templo San Sebastian Martir

The entrance of Templo San Sebastian Martir. This is the parroquia (parish church) of San Sebastian del Oeste. The church stands just behind El Portal Morelos which forms the north side of Plaza Publica. Because the steeple is the tallest structure in town, the church is easy to find. To locate it on a Google map, click here.

When I do a blog series on a colonial pueblo, I nearly always include a posting on the churches. From the earliest colonial times, Catholicism has been central to Mexico's social, economic, and architectural development. The first twelve Franciscan friars arrived in 1524, only two years after the fall of the Aztecs. They were followed by the Dominicans in 1526 and the Augustinians in 1533.

 

View of the Templo from a hill on the west side of town. The church was built by the Augustinian Order in 1608. The construction was supervised by the Augustinian priest Fray Sevando Alonso Poco Sangre, but the actual work was done by indigenous Teco laborers conscripted from the nearby village of Hostotipac.  The church was founded only three years after the area around Hostotipac was re-named Real de San Sebastian to designate it as a mining district.

The work of the Tecos (also known as the Cuyuteco) may have been a donation by a local Spaniard to whom they owed free labor under the encomienda system. Alternatively, the Augustinians may have made an arrangement with royal officials for native labor under the repartimiento system. Whichever method was used, it is almost certain that none of the physical work would have been done by a colonial Spaniard. For a description of the ecomienda and repartimiento forced labor systems, see Part 2 of this series.

The rear of the Templo and the gate to the churchyard. This is one of the oldest sections of a structure that was remodeled numerous times and substantially rebuilt at least once, after an earthquake. While exploring the town, my friend Jim B and I accessed the church through this gate, located just behind the east end of El Portal Morelos. 

Following the military conquest of the area, the Tecos of Hostotipac were forced to give up their native religion and convert to Catholicism. This was known as the Spiritual Conquest. Those who "backslid" and covertly continued to practice their ancient religion were severely punished. The Tecos responded by hiding images of their ancestral gods within the walls of the Templo they were building. This enabled them to silently pray to their old gods while outwardly following the rituals of the Spanish priests. According to one legend, this led to dire consequences.

Apparently one of the priests discovered this "devil worship" and followed the offending Tecos to where they worked. At the mouth of the mine, he took off his sandals and clapped them together, while pronouncing a curse on the workers. The mine's roof immediately collapsed, killing some and permanently trapping the rest. As the story goes, on stormy nights their screams can still be heard. In addition, the spirits of the Teco miners haunt the church each year on Holy Friday.

A statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe stands in the church atrium. The propagation of the legend of the Virgen de Guadalupe was one of the great breakthroughs in Spanish colonial evangelism. This was the first apparition of the Virgin Mary in the New World. The event was especially important to indigenous people because she was dark-skinned and spoke Nahuatl, the language shared by many different native groups, including the Tecos. Further, the person who encountered her was a recently-converted Aztec who participated in several miracles attributed to her. 

Because of these unusual circumstances, and because she was encountered at the ruined temple of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, the Virgin of Guadalupe became the subject of a rather bitter debate within the early colonial Church. The Augustinian and Dominican friars wanted to accept her as legitimate. On the other hand, the Franciscans denounced her as a fraud and a covert way to worship Tonantzin. In the end, the Augustinians and Dominicans prevailed because voluntary native conversions skyrocketed after word of her miraculous appearance spread rapidly through the native population. Practicality triumphed over purity.

The nave of the Templo. This area of a church is called a nave ("ship" in Spanish) because the arched ceiling resembles the interior of the upturned hull of a ship. At the far end of the nave is the main altar, while the walls on either side contain religious statues and paintings. The person approaching the altar is Jim B. While parts of the exterior of the church still retain the original 17th century Baroque style, the interior displays the Neo-Classical style that became popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

In 1810, after the church had been in use for more than 200 years, a local priest named Remigio Sánchez Porres, complained that its condition was "not only indecent, but useless." Eight years later, in 1818, he directed the Templo's first modifications. By then, Baroque had long gone out of style, so the remodeling was done in Neo-Classic. Fifty years later, in 1868, a strong earthquake nearly destroyed the structure, so even more of the old Baroque features were replaced by Neo-Classic.

View toward the rear of the church showing the ceiling and choir loft. While Neo-Classic architecture can sometimes be ornate, Baroque tends toward over-the-top extravagance, with every square inch of available space covered with decorative elements.

In 1871, further deterioration resulted in still another remodel. The erection of the steeple in 1884 added an entirely new feature. This was followed, in 1886, with the  completion of the frontispiece (entrance facade). A final touch was added in 1897, when the ribbed vaults over the nave were constructed. That all these changes could be afforded in the 19th century is a testament to the wealth pouring out of the mines.

The central figure of the main altar is a statue of San Sebastian. Usually, the person to whom a Mexican church is dedicated will occupy the central place on its main altar. Most often, this will be the Virgin Mary or one of the saints. Here, San Sebastian appears both as a statue in a glass case, as well as in the mural above the altar. The Neo-Classic features of the altar include tall corinthian columns, topped by ornate capitals, supporting a triangular pediment. On either side of the altar are pilasters (false columns) which are decorative and not meant to carry any weight. 

If this were a Baroque altar, there would be many more niches filled with statues and paintings and the columns would be in the spiraling Solomonic style. Every square inch of wall space would be filled with floral carvings with the faces of numerous cherubs peeking out. It is probably that just such a highly decorated altar occupied this space before Remigio Sánchez Porres ordered the 1818 remodel. 

The mural above the main altar shows the martyrdom of San Sebastian. Although I am not Catholic and not even religious, I have always been fascinated by the stories associated with the Church's almost innumerable saints. San Sebastian is one of the more unusual saints because he was martyred twice. It seems the first one didn't take. Sebastian lived from 256-288 AD, during the late Roman Empire. This was a period when Christians endured severe repression by the Roman authorities. 

Sebastian was a captain in the Emperor Diocletian's Praetorian Guard when he secretly converted to Christianity. His religious activity was discovered however, and Diocletian ordered him tied to a tree and shot full of arrows. The result of his first martyrdom can be seen in the mural above. However, his executioners left before he was dead and a woman living nearby rescued him and nursed him back to health. Once he had recovered, Sebastian decided to give martyrdom another try. He waited in the street until the Emperor came by in a procession and publicly denounced the repression of Christians. 

Diocletion was, no doubt, surprised at this sudden resurrection of an executed man. At his order, Sebastian was seized, beaten to death, and his body thrown in a sewer. This time the Emperor's effort was successful. In the Middle Ages, people began to believe that San Sebastian could offer protection against plagues. The history of such beliefs dates back to the ancient Greco-Roman tradition that the god Apollo could halt plagues. This belief in this miraculous ability was later transferred by Medieval Europeans to San Sebastian. Spanish Catholics then carried the stories with them to plague-ridden colonial Mexico, where San Sebastian became very popular.

A pulpit stands on one side of the nave. This position is typical in Catholic churches. Protestant churches, in contrast, have the pulpit at the front of the nave. The term "pulpit" comes from the Latin pulpitum, meaning platform or staging. It is a raised platform, reached by a set of stairs, from which sermons or other important liturgical statements are made. 

Often the pulpit will be hexagonal, as is the one above, with each panel highly decorated. Catholic pulpits tend to have small, separate roofs above them, often in the same hexagonal shape. The little roofs are not just decorative, but help amplify the voice of the speaker. Pulpits are believed to have their origins in ancient Jewish synagogues, where they were called bemahs. 

A statue of San José holding Jesus stands in one of the side panels of the nave. Very little is said about José in the Bible, so most of his legend comes from later writings. José, a humble carpenter, married the already-pregnant Mary so save her life. At the time, the punishment for pregnancy outside of marriage was to be stoned to death. José planned to quietly divorce her after she gave birth. However, he changed his mind after an angel tipped him off as to the real nature of the infant she was carrying. 

José is mentioned in the Bible only a few other times and then only in two of the four Gospels. All the rest of the many stories about him were invented centuries later. San José is the Patron of Mexico and some other countries. In 1870, he was declared Patron of the whole Catholic Church. During the 20th century San José became entangled in international politics. This occurred in 1955 when Pope Pius XII declared May 1 as the Feast Day of San José. The Pope's aim was to create a counter-celebration to oppose the traditional May 1 International Workers' Day.

This completes Part 3 of my San Sebastian del Oeste series. I hope you have enjoyed it. If you would like to leave any thoughts or comments, please do so in the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments box, PLEASE leave your email address so that I can respond.

Hasta luego, Jim