Tapalpa Plateau Part 5 of 6: Hacienda La Media Luna

The ruined casa grande of Hacienda la Media Luna (The Half Moon). This hacienda was once part of several large estates located on the Tapalpa Plateau that functioned until the first couple of decades of the 20th Century. Last July, I organized another of my Hacienda Hunts for a group of friends to visit the La Media Luna. Even though it was mid-summer, the chilly, blustery weather occasionally spattered us with cold rain. However, ours was a hardy group and we took it all in stride.

Hacienda La Media Luna was one of the settings in Pedro Páramo, a novel by Juan Rulfo. He has been acclaimed as Mexico's greatest author, even though this book and another book of short stories are the only major works he wrote. Rulfo invented the style of writing known as Magical Realism, which later inspired Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez to write One Hundred Years of Solitude, another masterpiece. 

Where is ex-Hacienda la Media Luna? The site is 16.5km (10.3mi) southeast of the town of Tapalpa. The hacienda's casa grande (big house) and other ruined structures sit on a low rise overlooking the western tip of a lake called Laguna Grande. A small pueblo called La Lagunilla grew up around the ruins of the old hacienda. For specific directions with an interactive Google map, click here. 

The Tapalpa Plateau rises to about 2130m (7000ft). This altitude captures the moist air moving in from the Pacific Coast and gives the area a cool, misty, alpine feel. The gently rolling countryside is covered with pine forests and shallow lakes. These are interspersed with fields of maiz (corn), orchards, and pastures filled with sheep, cattle and horses. Tapalpa is the most important town on the plateau. The others tend to be small pueblos like La Lagunilla. 

La Casa Grande

View of the casa grande from its southeast corner. Several members of our party can be seen near the main entrance. The casa grande was once a two story structure although only the exterior walls of the second story remain. Running along the front of the structure you can see a line of holes where rafters extended out. These supported the roof of the arcade which once shaded the walkway underneath. The open doorway in the middle of the second floor probably provided access to a broad porch.

La Media Luna was founded about 250 years ago, during the latter half of the 18th century. Eventually, the hacienda became one of several in the area that were owned by Juan Rulfo's family. The ruined structure above was originally built in 1884 by his maternal grandmother. It is not clear whether Rulfo ever lived at La Media Luna, but his visits clearly impressed him enough for him to make it one of the key the settings of Pedro Páramo.

View of the capilla (chapel) along the arcade walkway. Like many of the haciendas I have visited, this one has a capilla attached to one end of the casa grande. The structure shown above is not the original capilla, which later become the church of the local community, following the breakup of the hacienda. Over time, however, the old capilla deteriorated and was replaced in 1982 by the one seen above. 

La Media Luna and its casa grande may have been destroyed during the Cristero War (1926-29), one of the aftershocks of the Mexican Revolution (1910-17). Another possibility for its demise may have been the land reform carried out between 1917 and the late 1930s. This process was also accompanied by considerable violence. Today, the ruins stand as a lonely reminder of a vanished era, with only occasional visits from hacienda enthusiasts like those in my group.

Photographing the carriage gate. I am the photographer shown above. To the left is the casa grande and to the right is the beginning of the capilla structure. Like most of the carriage gates of Mexico's old haciendas, this one leads into an interior courtyard where the horse-drawn vehicles were once loaded and unloaded. (Photo by Jerry Brown)

Juan Nepomuceno Carlos Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno was born in 1917, at the Hacienda de Apulco. That estate was owned at the time by his maternal grandfather, Carlos Vizcaíno Vargas. It is located approximately 54km (34mi) southwest of Hacienda La Media Luna. The casa grande of Hacienda de Apulco can still be found in the middle of the modern-day pueblo of Apulco. However, the old structure has been occupied by the Monasterio de la Virgen de la Paz for the last 25 years. 

Main entrance of the casa grande. I concluded that this was the main entrance from its size and from the steps leading up to its double wooden doors. The other doors along the hacienda's front have smaller doors and no steps. A large wood beam--almost certainly an original feature--forms the lintel of the door. 

The estates of Apulco and La Media Luna were once part of a constellation of haciendas that surrounded the town of San Gabriel, where Rulfo's family moved when he was two years old. The town became the other major setting in Pedro Páramo.  However, in his book, the author renamed San Gabriel, calling it Comala. This has caused much confusion, because there is a real town of Comala, which is a Pueblo Magico located just outside the city of Colima. 

View into the casa grande from an entrance along the arcade. It is likely that this room was the comedor (dining room). I concluded this because of a second door  connects to a rear room which was probably one of the two cocinas (kitchens) that were once part of the structure. Why two? Not a clue. Notice the framing of the doorway, which is made from dressed cantera stone. The walls surrounding it are adobe brick covered by plaster. 

Rulfo's stories are set between the beginning of the Mexican Revolution and the late 1930s, a violent and chaotic period. At an early age, the author was himself directly affected by the violence. In June 1923, his father Juan Nepomuceno Pérez Rulfo (known as "Cheno") was shot in the back of the head by Guadalupe Nava over a land dispute. Not long after, two of Rulfo's uncles were also murdered.

In 1953, Rulfo wrote a book of short stories called El Plano en Llamas (The Plain in Flames), which drew its title from his father's tragic death. As a six-year-old boy, little Juan had stood in the darkness at Hacienda Telcampana (just south of San Gabriel) while he watched the approach from afar of the flaming torches held by the escort of the cart carrying his father's body. Thirty years later, when titling his book of stories, this searing memory was still powerful.

Interior of a rear room, possibly a bedroom. The room is now overgrown with brush. The walls are made from adobe bricks, which were once covered by layers of plaster. Adobe is made from mud, with straw as a binder. This form of construction was favored by many of those who built Mexico's rural haciendas because the materials could be obtained locally and labor was cheap. 

After his father's death, Rulfo and his mother María continued to live in San Gabriel, where he attended a local religious school for the next three years. Rulfo's life changed again in 1927, when his mother died and then the school closed due to the chaos of the Cristero War. He was left an orphan, but his grandmother took him to live in Guadalajara where he spent the rest of his childhood and youth. However, many of the places and personal names in Rulfo's writing reflect his early life in San Gabriel.

Thick layers of plaster still cover the adobe walls of this room. This is the cocina connected to the comedor seen previously. Above the rafter holes are the walls of a 2nd floor room, which was probably a bedroom. The opening in the wall is a window which has become a door by the addition of a stack of bricks used as a stair. Through this opening, you can see part of the courtyard.

Rulfo continued his schooling in Guadalajara and graduated with a degree in bookkeeping, although he never practiced that profession. He wanted to attend the University of Guadalajara, but was unable to do so because of a labor strike and a lack of preparation on his part. Next, he moved to Mexico City, where he briefly attended the National Military Academy, but left after only three months. 

Following that, Rulfo sought a law degree at the National Autonomous University but, again, nothing came of it. However, he was able to audit courses in literature at the university while working as an immigration agent. This informal educational effort was the beginning of his literary career. He began writing and, in 1944, co-founded a literary journal call Pan (Bread).

View from the courtyard into a possible living room. The rough wooden lintel over the door opening above, as well as the wooden door across the room, are probably original features of the casa grande's 1884 construction. Adobe is one of the earliest construction materials in the history of human architecture and structures built with it can survive for centuries. 

After a few years working as an immigration agent, Rulfo took a job as a sales agent for a private company. Both jobs enabled him to travel widely in Mexico and deepened his understanding of the country. Rulfo then landed a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship at the Centro Mexicano Escritores (Mexican Writers' Center). It was during this two-year period that he wrote both El Plano en Llamas and Pedro Páramo, published in 1953 and 1955, respectively. 

Corner of the back wall of the casa grande. The niche in the wall probably once contained a religious statue, most likely one of the many versions of the Virgin Mary. Above the niche is the truncated remains of another old wooden lintel. This shot was taken from the passageway leading from the carriage entrance to the courtyard.

Although he is most famous for the two great works of literature he published in the early 1950s, Juan Rulfo was also involved in other artistic work, including screenwriting and photography. From 1962 until his death in 1986, he was an editor for the National Institute for Indigenous People. Some of Rulfo's other literary work has been published posthumously, but none of it has approached the fame of his earlier masterpieces. 

La Capilla de la Virgen de Guadalupe

View of the capilla from the rear. The adobe wall to its right is part of an old bodega (storage building). The hacienda system was broken up during the two decades that followed the end of the Revolution. The re-distribution of lands to campesinos and indigenous villages often meant that the former hacendados (owners) could no longer afford to maintain their casas grandes and other structures. 

Often such buildings were simply abandoned and then cannibalized by a hacienda's former workers for materials to build homes and small shops. Many of the pueblos that now dot the countryside grew up around the ruins of old haciendas. Quite often, the only structure to remain intact was the capilla, because it was maintained by the local people as their church. Over time, an old capilla might be replaced because of deterioration, as was the case in La Lagunilla.

The front of the bodega, the capilla's porch and an atrial cross. An open area directly in front of a church, bordered by a low wall, is called an atrium. A stand-alone crucifix found in this area is called an atrial cross. These spaces were used for religious activities that were too large to be conducted inside the church itself. In the earliest times, this included evangelization and mass conversions of the native people.

In Juan Rulfo's novel, the owner of Hacienda La Media Luna was a man called Pedro Páramo. He ruled over his hacienda and the surrounding region like a feudal baron of the medieval era.  Páramo regularly exercised le droit de seigneur (the right of the lord) to have sex with any woman who caught his fancy. The population of Comala (San Gabriel) was thus full of his illegitimate offspring.

Front view of the atrial cross. It is covered with symbols representing the Passion of Christ (the crucifixion events). Since the illiteracy rate in pre-Revolution Mexico was high, the Church went to great lengths to create murals, images, and other visible symbols. Richard Perry, an expert on old Mexican religious architecture, told me that the cross is probably not from an earlier era but may be a 20th century copy of an older version located elsewhere.

In the novel:

While Pedro Páramo relentlessly pursued his lustful adventures, his true love was his childhood sweetheart, Susana San Juan. However, she had married another man and was thus unavailable to him for many years. After she was widowed and returned to Comala, Páramo was finally able to marry her. However, Susana's obsession with  her dead husband led to her into insanity, leaving him once again unfulfilled. While this is one of the central ironies of the book, the story itself begins long after Páramo's death.

The altar of the capilla is devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe. She is the Patroness of Mexico and its poor and indigenous people. The majority of Catholic churches I have visited in Mexico are either devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe, or at least have a side chapel or special altar set aside for her. She was the first version of the Virgin to appear in colonial Nueva España, and was unusual because she was dark skinned and spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec man who first encountered her.

In the novel:

Pedro Páramo had a son named Juan Preciado by a woman named Dolores. At the story's beginning, Juan follows the deathbed advice of Dolores to go to Comala in search of his father. Upon his arrival, he finds that Pedro died long ago and that the town is mostly deserted except for the ghosts of its former inhabitants. From these apparitions, we learn the brutal and violent history of Páramo family. 

A message printed on a rough sack hangs on the wall next to the altar. The Spanish printing translates "Consecrated  by the (?) Señor Dr. D. Pedro Loza, 1878". Why this humble sack should be given such an elaborate frame and place of honor is a complete mystery to me, as is the identity of Sr. Dr. D. Pedro Loza. The date on the sack is six years before Rulfo's grandmother built the casa grande at La Media Luna and 104 years before the capilla's re-construction. 

In the novel:

Miguel Páramo, was the father of Pedro and grandfather of Juan Preciado. Miguel was a violent man involved in rape and murder. Upon Miguel's death Juan's father Pedro inherited La Media Luna, along with Miguel's penchant for violence. When Pedro's beloved Susana returned to Comala, Pedro decided to win her favor by secretly murdering her father and then offering to comfort her. He succeeded in marrying her, but she later descended into madness and died.

A spiral staircase leads up the steeple to the campanario (belfry). A man who was repairing the capilla kindly retrieved a key to let us in. I asked if we could climb to the campanario and he agreed, but only after warning us to be careful. I also quizzed him about the hacienda and its casa grande, but he was from another town and could provide little information beyond what I already knew.

In the novel:

When Susana died, Pedro was devastated and decided to hold a grand funeral for her. However, the people of Comala decided not to attend. This enraged Pedro and he took revenge on them by withholding food, causing them to starve en masse. Thus, they became the ghosts from whom we learn much of the story.

One of the belfry's several bells. At the bottom of the photo, you can see part of the casco wall that surrounds the chief buildings of the hacienda. Casco translates as "helmet" in Spanish. The walls of a casco protect the casa grande, bodega, and stables, which together form the nerve center of the hacienda. 

In the novel:

One of the first of Comala's inhabitants that Juan encounters is Abundio, his half-brother by one of Pedro's many conquests. Through him, Juan learns how their father met his own violent end. When Abundio's wife had died, he went to his father for help in paying for her funeral. However, Pedro refused and Abundio's anger was such that he murdered his own father. Throughout the novel, the themes of murder and revenge reflect the violent and chaotic times of Rulfo's childhood.

A horse grazes in one of the pastures enclosed by the casco wall. The casa grande and capilla are visible in the distance. This concludes Part 5 of my series on the Tapalpa Plateau. If you enjoyed it and have any thoughts or questions, please leave them in the Comments section below or email me directly. If you leave a question in the Comments section, please remember to include your email address so that I can respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim

 

Tapalpa Plateau Part 6 of 6: Hacienda Ferreria de Tula

A horseman rides past former hacienda buildings. William Faulkner once wrote "The past is never dead. It's not even past". This could well be applied to many sites I have visited in Mexico. It is  particularly applicable to the pueblos that were once haciendas, prior to the land reform that followed the Revolution. One of these places is Ferreria de Tula. 

The afternoon we visited, a ghostly silence pervaded the town. The only sound was the clip-clopping of a horse's hooves. On it, a lone rider made his way up the cobblestone street, passing old adobe structures roofed with red clay tiles along the way. Many of these buildings had been part of the hacienda complex in earlier times. Since then, they have been repurposed as homes, stores, or workshops.

The pueblo of Ferreria de Tula is about 1/2 hour drive from Tapalpa. It is located 26.7km (16.6mi) to the north, off Highway 437. The  drive takes you through the lovely, rolling country of the Tapalpa Plateau, past pine forests and meadows full of sheep, cattle and horses. Highway 437 not only leads to Ferreria de Tula but continues north, taking you back toward the Lake Chapala area. For a Google interactive map of the whole area, click here.

Structures of the former hacienda

Ruins of a hacienda building. At first, I thought this might be the remains of the casa grande (big house). However, the lack of windows, or of any of the ornamentation typical of a casa grande made me doubt my first impression. I now think this was part of the industrial complex and that the casa grande was one of the buildings facing the cobblestone street seen previously. The structure above may have been the center of the complex.

In Spanish, ferreria translates as "ironworks", making this one of the more unusual haciendas that I have visited. The vast majority of haciendas in Mexico were farms or ranches (or a combination of the two). However, some were sugar processors, while others were involved with various kinds of mining. However, I had never before encountered a hacienda devoted to the production of iron. The need for such a facility in a remote place like the Tapalpa Plateau baffled me at first.

Another old structure along the main cobblestone street. Now a private residence, this may have been a house for one of the hacienda managers or possibly an office. The plaster-covered adobe, protected by its red tile roof, seems to have held up well over the centuries.

My puzzlement about this hacienda led me to do some research on ironworks in the colonial and early Republic periods (1500s - 1800s). Why would the Tapalpa area need such a facility? There were no railroads up here that required iron tracks and few towns of any size that would have used iron for construction or for industrial machinery during this time. So why an ironworks?

This large stone building may have once been the casa grande. A hacienda's casa grande often contained much more than just the residence of the owner. It was usually an administrative center containing offices, storerooms, and sometimes a tienda de raya (company store). There, peones would collect their pay and purchase necessities. In order to keep the workforce in place, they would often be paid in script or coins produced by a hacienda that could only be spent in its tienda de raya.

Ironworking in Mexico started with the arrival of the Spanish. Pre-hispanic civilizations, particularly those in Peru and Western Mexico, had been working with metals such as copper, silver, and gold for some time. However, they had not yet made the jump from copper to bronze and iron was entirely unknown to them. At the beginning of the Conquest, the Spanish crown initially banned the exploration for iron in the New World in order to protect Spanish industry.  

Former stables and outbuildings behind the casa grande. Stables on a hacienda are nearly always found in close proximity to the casa grande, because that's where the hacendado (owner) kept his personal horses and family carriage. This was also where a blacksmith might be found. These craftsmen were highly-valued on haciendas because they could produce horseshoes, nails, hinges, latches, and other objects vital to day-to-day living. To make these items, blacksmiths required raw iron.

The Spanish Crown's prohibition on iron production was almost completely ignored. Intent on exploration and conquest, the early 16th century conquistadors needed weapons, armor, and saddlery, as well as other iron materials for construction and ship repairs. Waiting for all this to arrive from Spain was entirely impractical. Ironworks and blacksmithing operations were undertaken almost immediately. 

La Presa (The Lake)

Stone buttresses support a dam at one end of La Presa. It is probable that the water from the lake once powered the ironworks. Otherwise, why build the dam immediately across from it? Initially, a traditional waterwheel may have been used. However, by the late 19th or early 20th century, the waterwheel may have been replaced by a water-driven electric turbine.

From the 16th until the mid-18th centuries, Puebla and Oaxaca were Mexico's main ironworking centers. However, by the end of the 18th century, ironworks could be found in many areas, including Jalisco. Because of the on-going trade with the Philippines by the famous Manila Galleons, ironworking styles in Western Mexico had a strong oriental influence.

Jim B scaled one of the buttresses to take a look at the lake. Jim has been exploring haciendas with me for almost as along as I have been going on these expeditions. I noticed that the buttresses on this side of the dam look a bit deteriorated. Hopefully, this doesn't indicate any weakness. The dam's failure would devastate the portion of the town that occupies the low area below the dam.

Blast furnace technology arrived in Mexico in 1807, when it was installed in the Guadalupe foundry. Gradually, ironworks all over Mexico began to adopt the new technologies being developed in Europe and the United States. In 1879, machinery manufactured by the Siemmens Company was brought over from Germany, allowing the production of cogwheels, corrugated rods, and drawn iron.

View of the lake, from the top of a buttress. The lake stretches off into the distance for approximately 1000m (3000ft). It varies from about 150-200m (450-600ft) wide. Today, the lake provides water for livestock and the fields and orchards in the immediate area, as well as the town itself.

How the hacienda came to its end is still unclear to me. It probably didn't survive the land reform following the Revolution. However, I haven't been able to nail down exactly when this may have happened. While poring over a Google map of the town, I did discover the location of the local ejido. These are communal land-owning organizations to which hacienda lands were transferred during the period between 1915 and the 1940s.

Water rushes from the spillway on one side of the dam. Like many other places in Mexico, Ferreria de Tula has erected a multi-colored sign proclaiming the town's name to visitors.

Iglesia de Guadalupe

The Iglesia de Guadalupe stands on a hill overlooking the lake. We were unable to go inside the church because the gates were all padlocked and we didn't have time to search for someone with a key. The church is named after Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the Patron Saint of Mexico and of its poor and indigenous people. 

The church's two campanarios (bell towers) have two bells in each. While looking over the church with my telephoto lens, I discovered signs of damage to the campanarios. Also, the window on the bottom right lacks glass. This part of Mexico has quite a number of volcanos, some of them still active. Given the unstable nature of the terrain, I suspect that the damage came from earthquakes. 

An elderly man makes his way along the side of the dam. His traditional straw sombrero (hat) and leather huaraches (sandals) makes him seem like a figure out of the past. The cobblestone street lined with old adobe buildings add to the feeling. Scenes like this sometimes make me feel that I have stepped back into the 19th century.  Faulkner was right, the past is never past.

This completes Part 6 of my series on the Tapalpa Plateau and also the series itself. I hope you have enjoyed it and, if so, you will leave any thoughts or questions on the Comments section below, or email me directly. If you leave a question, please include your email address so that I can respond in a timely fashion.

Hasta luego, Jim

 

Tapalpa Plateau Part 1 of 6: The Magic Pueblo of Tapalpa

Attractive two-story structures form the borders of the Plaza. The Meseta de Tapalpa (Tapalpa Plateau) is heavily forested. Much of the architecture of Tapalpa, its chief town, incorporates pillars and balconies made from local wood. The ground floors of the structures around the Plaza Principal are mostly occupied by tiendas (shops) selling local crafts. The upper floors are usually filled with restaurants that overlook the Plaza. 

Tapalpa is one of Mexico's 132 Magic Pueblos. These are places that have maintained their original architecture, traditions, history, and culture and are filled with symbolism and legends. Tapalpa fills the bill in all these categories and is one of my favorite destinations for a day-trip. Of the 132 Magic Pueblos, Carole and I have visited just over 40. Ajijic, the pueblo where we live, made the list not long ago. This posting is the first of a six part series.

Google map of the route to Tapalpa from Lake Chapala. The pueblo is to the southwest of Lake Chapala in the middle of a high plateau (see red marker). The plateau's east side is a steep escarpment that rises 610m (2000ft) from some shallow lakes running north to south. Near the edge of the plateau where the road reaches the lip of the escarpment, there is hang-gliding site with spectacular views. For an interactive Google map of this area, click here.

Of the three ways to reach Tapalpa, the fastest is along the 54D Autopista (toll road). Exit at Atoyac to cross one of the lakes and then make a left on Highway 401 to the turnoff on Highway 436 to Tapalpa. A slower way, but still scenic, is to take Highway 401 (the "free road") from Acatlán de Juarez along the base of the escarpment to the Tapalpa turnoff. A third (also scenic) way is to take 401, then turn onto Highway 437 about 16km (10mi) south of Acatlán.

View to the east along Calle Morelos. The shops of the first photograph of this posting were behind me when I took this shot. Calle Morelos is named after a national hero, José Maria Morelos. He led the insurgent forces in the War of Independence after Miguel Hidalgo was captured and executed. This calle (street) is typical of those in Tapalpa's Centro area.

Like many other Magic Pueblos, the Centro is painted in two tones, white and rusty brown. Tapalpa's narrow, winding, cobblestone streets add to the antique flavor of the place. Unfortunately, the narrowness of the streets and the increase in car ownership in Mexico sometimes means bumper-to-bumper traffic on weekends and holidays and parking can be problematic.

The arcade along Calle Raul Quintero borders the Plaza. Raul Quintero was born in Tapalpa in 1900 and became a noted poet, prose writer and essayist. He had a very sensitive soul but his life was hard and poor and he died of tuberculosis at only 34.  

Strollers along the arcade will find various tourist-oriented shops. La Villa Tapalpa Restaurant stands at the far end, with tables that fill the walkway overlooking the Plaza and Calle Matamoros. I enjoyed a delicious cup of café de olla at one of its tables during my second visit to Tapalpa. The clock tower in the distance is part of the Ayuntamiento (City Hall). 

Like most plazas in Mexico, Tapalpa's has a bandstand called a kiosco. Some kiosco's are quite elaborate, but most follow the same basic design. This one is fairly simple and uses wood for its columns and ceiling. The trees that surround the kiosco provide shade for the wooden benches that circle it.

The Ayuntamiento and its clocktower. Tapalpa's City Hall stands at the corner of a calle named for Agustín Yáñez. He was Jalisco's Governor from 1953-59 and national Secretary of Education between 1964-70. Yáñez was also a writer, novelist, and teacher. I have always been impressed by how Mexico honors its writers, poets, and artists and sometimes selects them to serve in important political posts.

The south side of the Plaza, looking toward the clock tower. The calle along here is called Matamoros, in honor of Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moorslayer). As with the rest of the Plaza, the ground floor along this street is filled with tiendas crammed with tourist nicknacks. It also contains the Hotel Casa de Maty, where I stayed with a group of friends several years ago. The 2nd floor contains a string of restaurants and bars with an excellent view of the Plaza.

The arcade and wooden portales along Calle Matamoros. A sign in the foreground points to El Mirador (The Lookout) a restaurant-bar above Hotel Casa de Maty. The restaurant can be accessed from a staircase in the lobby of the hotel. I have eaten here several times, including during this visit. The restaurant is clean, airy, and has reasonably-priced food and good service. 

The bar at El Mirador contains a bewildering variety of tequilas. In fact, drink menus in Mexico will usually list far more tequila brands than any other liquor, wine, or beer. The other drinks are almost an afterthought. Tequila was originally created on the 18th century haciendas near the town of Tequila, Jalisco. Some brands, like José Cuervo, Orendain, and Sauza still carry the family names of the original haciendas owners. 

Tequila is distilled from the juice of the crushed hearts of Blue Agave plants. Not only are there countless individual brands, but there are also three basic types of tequila: Blanco, Reposado, and Añejo. The difference depends upon the aging process. Blanco is colorless and is barely aged, if at all. Reposado is golden and has been aged for 2-12 months. Amber-colored Añejo is aged for at least 12 months.

There are also two variations: Joven, which is a mixture of Blanco and Reposado and Extra Añejo which has been aged up to three years. Blanco is the type usually found in mixed tequila drinks, such as a margarita, while Reposado and Añejo are usually consumed straight. Añejo is usually considered to be of the highest quality, no matter the brand, and is always the most expensive.

Food stalls along the north side of Calle Matamoros. This string of inexpensive eateries is called Portal del Taco. The stalls run along the north side of the street below Templo Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. In towns like Tapalpa, sit-down restaurants are largely for tourists or up-scale residents. Locals tend to patronize the less expensive food stalls and food carts. Street food can be quite tasty, but some places pay more attention to sanitation than others. 

If there is a large group patronizing a particular stall or cart, that's a good tip-off that it's probably OK. The locals know from experience which are safer to patronize. Be wary if the person who prepares the food is also the one who handles the money. There is nothing more unsanitary than money, because it passes through so many hands. With those cautions in mind, eat hearty!

A set of stairs leads up from the broad plaza. Ground floor tiendas line either side, with restaurants above them. When I first visited Tapalpa, I had a nice meal at the corner table of the restaurant just above the man in the green shirt. The building to the right of the restaurant is the same one shown in the first photo of this posting.

Since Tapalpa is built on the side of a hill, the town is not laid out in the usual Spanish grid pattern. The plaza and the surrounding streets conform to the terrain, so the streets may wind, curve and intersect in sometimes unexpected ways. Still, it is a great walking town, and not that big, so getting a bit lost can be fun.

View from the top of the plaza's staircase. Calle Matamoros and the Restaurant-Bar El Mirador can be seen at the bottom of the staircase. The streamers above the fountain and staircase were hung during a recent fiesta celebration.

To the left and slightly above the plaza are two churches. The one on the right is Templo San Antonio de Padua, built in the 17th century. It is now a museum containing religious artifacts from the 17th and 18th centuries. On the left is Templo de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, built in the 20th century. In subsequent postings, I will show more of these churches as well as the 16th century Capilla la Purisima, built only a few years after the first conquistadors arrived in the area.

This completes Part 1 of my Tapalpa Plateau series. I hope you 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 include your email address so that I can respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim

 

Barcelona Part 7: Life in the Late Bronze Age

Late Bronze Age hill fort. In Iberia, defensive structures on hills had been around since Los Millares, during the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) and El Argar of the Early Bronze Age (see Parts 4 & 5). However, those early fortified towns were more the exception than the rule. As militarization and warfare dramatically increased during the Late Bronze Age (see Part 6), so did protective fortifications.

All over Europe, including Iberia, people began to build distinctive structures that archeologists call "hill forts". They were usually--but not always--built on top of hills or ridges. The fortifications included one or more ditches which were sometimes circular or oval, but generally followed the contours of the top of the hill. The inside banks of the ditches rose to high walls topped by wooden palisades. Usually there was only one entrance, with a very strong gate.

In this posting, I'll give you a look at these fortified communities, the houses they contained, and the way in which people lived. In addition, I'll provide some insight into the role of women, including some surprising new information about how women traveled much more than men and how this may have made them the conduits for broad cultural changes. 

Drawing of a typical fortification. The builders used wood beams to form containers filled with rocks to create a barrier on top of the embankment. Defenders could stand on the ledge created behind the wood barrier at the top. While many of the hill forts were relatively small, some were as large as 6km (3.7m) across. Their positions at the tops of hills and ridges provided commanding views of the surrounding countryside and would have made them difficult to attack.

Recently, archeologists have begun to question whether all hill forts were built for defensive purposes. In some cases, no evidence has been found of any structures inside the embankments. This suggests that those "hill forts" may have been used to pen animals. In other cases, the artifacts found indicate that particular sites may have been used for markets and as production sites for bronze. 

Bronze Age Hoards

Flanged axeheads found in a large hoard in Catalonia. These may have been cast as ingots for trade. They would have been used by purchasers to melt down for casting into other useful objects. One activity that occurred in many hill forts was the production of bronze. While copper could be mined locally in Catalonia, the tin alloy had to be imported from western Spain or even as far north as the Cornish coast of Britain.

Bronze disks called tutuli were used for necklaces and pendants. The above objects were contained in the same hoard as the flanged axeheads. During the Early Bronze Age, much of the bronze produced would have initially been used for tools, weapons, and other practical gear. By the time of the Late Bronze Age, the metal was being produced in such quantity that it could be used for less practical purposes, including jewelry.

Collection of bronze bracelets from the same hoard. As noted in Part 4, the bronze hoards usually contain large numbers of objects of a similar type. For some, this suggests storage by metal workers who planned to return to their cache for supplies. Other hoards, particularly those found in bogs or rivers, are believed to have been buried as sacrificial offerings. Still others may have been secretly buried to protect valuable objects from raiding parties.

Bronze Age homes

Scale model of a village during the Late Bronze Age. Rectangular buildings started to replace round structures in Urnfield villages in central Europe. This style began to reach Iberia during the Late Bronze Age, but roundhouses also continued in use all through the Iron Age right up to the Roman invasion. Although the shapes may have changed, the construction materials largely remained the same: walls of wattle and daub or stone, with thatched roofs.

A family socializes around a central fire while waiting for dinner. The patriarch and his wife, distinguished by their grey hair, sit at opposite ends of the group. They are surrounded by younger people of various ages, including small children. By the Late Bronze Age, cloth had largely supplanted leather for clothing. Linen, made from locally grown flax, was widely used. In colder areas, garments woven from sheep's wool would have been popular.  

Reconstruction of a bronze age house. The fire pit in the floor would have served both for cooking and heat. The meats cooked on a grill like this would have included beef, pork, goat, and mutton. Leather from hides can be seen drying on the wall. It would have been used for belts, shoes, ropes, and various tools.

A kitchen pantry. Non-meat foods included those made from wheat, barley, millet, rye, and oats. Other foods were beans, peas, poppy seeds (used for oil or as a drug), hazel nuts, apples, pears, and acorns. Since Catalonia has a long sea coast, at least some seafood would have been consumed.

Beehive-style ovens like this are still used around the world.  I often seem them in my travels around Mexico. The remains of leavened bread left as offerings have been found in some Urnfield sites. The pottery on the shelf is unadorned, as was typical of Urnfield ceramics. 

Women of the Bronze Age

Woman of the Urnfields Culture. She wears a woolen robe over her linen blouse and leather shoes on her feet. A necklace made from bronze tutuli disks circles her neck. These disks are quite similar to those from those in the hoard shown in a previous photo. 

The contents of graves indicate that both men and women wore bronze jewelry, including arm bands and pins to hold their robes and cloaks together. Daggers were also found in both men's and women's graves. However, men's graves tended to contain razors and swords, while those of women contained large belt plates or buckles.

This bright copper bracelet once adorned an Urnfield woman. Tests on the remains of Bronze Age women, including DNA and tooth enamel, have shown some surprising results. As young adults, many of the women had traveled considerable distances from their places of origin before they settled in the communities where they were buried. By contrast, tests of male remains from those same communities showed little evidence of travel.

Further, the women did not come in groups, all from the same location, as they might if they had been captured in a war or a kidnapping raid. Instead, they arrived individually from multiple locations. When they were buried, these foreign women were treated no differently than local women, indicating that they were not slaves but had been accepted as equals by the community. 

Items of feminine decor included elaborate belt buckles. In most cultures, women raise the children. This makes them the most important transmitters of culture. All these foreign women arriving from various locations brought new ideas and new technologies. The result was much more rapid cultural change than had occurred in previous eras when people rarely traveled far from home.

A lot of this traveling was enabled by the extensive trade networks that had developed during the Bronze Age. One of the most important items of trade was the tin ore that was necessary to alloy with copper to make bronze. Many other goods were transported as well, including wine, oil, textiles and luxury objects such as jewelry. 

 

Various pins used by women to secure their hair or clothing. The Late Bronze Age cultures of Europe did not reach the cultural peaks of those to be found in the eastern Mediterranean such as the Minoans of Crete, the Mycenaens Greece, the Hittites of Anatolia or the Egyptians. Even so, the Europeans of this time were skilled metal workers and produced many beautiful artifacts of gold, silver, copper and bronze.

This completes Part 7 of my Barcelona series. I hope you found it interesting and, if so, you will leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below. If you leave a question, please include your email address so that I may respond in a timely manner.

Hasta luego, Jim