Today, we took a walking tour of Mérida Centro. Our guide was a guy named Eduardo (no relation😉). The buildings were all closed for corona - including the cathedral (the oldest in the "New" World), which was a little disappointing. We still haven't been inside a church, which is rather unusual for us in a trip.
Before the Spanish got here, the area now known as Mérida was a town called T'Hó (also known through time as either Ichcanzihó or Ichcaansihó) which had been in the Mayan jurisdiction called Chakán, one of the 16 provinces of the Mayab, as the Maya called the Yucatan. T'Hó was one of the many Maya towns that had been abandoned, in this case well before the Spanish arrived in 1542. The Maya system of government seemed to be fragile in a way that led to frequent abandonment of cities through centuries.
There is an interestingly stoic way of looking at the terrible historical relationship between the Maya and imperial Spanish. The family who the Spanish crown sent to subdue the aboriginal people here was named Montejo - hence the name of many roads, buildings, etc. Our tour with Eduardo ended up outside his family home, which of course is right on the main square, kitty corner to the cathedral. On the facade, above the door is a relief:
 |
| Part of the relief above the doorway to the Montejo home in Mérida. |
The two largest images are of Spanish soldiers (who both have faces that look a lot like Sr. Montejo). These soldiers are standing on heads. Those heads - depending on who you talk with - are either the heads of demons OR the heads of Maya. Under those, on the tier right above the doorway are two heads, one is Sr. Montejo, the other is Sra Montejo. Between them, written in Latin is the phrase "God's Love Conquers", which is a pretty convenient justification for attempting genocide, I suppose. Interestingly, the house, which is now part museum, part bank was purchased by the Mexican branch of CitiBank, so I guess every evil empire eventually meets its match - and as the risk end of CitiBank is basically an extension of the US Government (the reward end is still firmly in private hands), I suppose you can say that at least as far as Sr. Montejo goes, he was eventually conquered by a nation that he had never heard of - I suppose a lot like the Maya.
We also got a look at a couple other houses - again all from the outside due to Corona limitations. I know the US is battling with disparity between the haves and the have-nots, but let me just say that we have come a long way. Is it still corruption if its normal? Wow.
The Maya had no draft animals, so they never invented the wheel. They also had a system of government that was super fragile. By the time the Spanish arrived here, their civilization was fractured and slowly merging into other area civilizations. I find myself wondering what maybe would have happened had the Spanish not arrived when they did.
 |
| Example of a re-used Maya stone, turned outward, presumably in protest. |
One of the nifty little cultural genocidal things that the Spanish (in this case, the Jesuits) did was to enslave the Maya to knock down their own churches/temples and re-arrange the stones to build Roman Catholic churches. In doing this, the Spanish wanted all the sculpted images on the Maya stone to be turned inward, out of view. In the Church of the Third Order, several outside stones are turned outward to show the ancient sculptures and scientists have used modern imaging equipment to confirm that many of the stones carry these ancient carvings on their inward-turned faces.
After our walk with Eduardo, we spent the rest of the day doing touristy things (including a little bar-hopping!)
And so ends day twenty-six.
Comments
Post a Comment