Visiting El Tajin

Steve Keister

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I am a sculptor, ceramicist & visual artist. My first trip to Mexico was in 1979, and during the last 15 years I have traveled in Mexico annually with my wife, Jill Levine, who is also a visual artist (figure 1).  What started with a vacation during spring break has evolved into an open-ended program to visit all of the major archeological sites of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (which includes Southern Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras). We began with sites that were easily accessible and graduated to more remote destinations. In the Spring of 2005 we reached a longstanding goal by visiting El Tajin, the unique and mysterious ruined city of Northern Veracruz (figure 2). We had already been in the Gulf Coast area to see the Olmec monuments in the outdoor Parque-Museo La Venta in Villahermosa, Tabasco. El Tajin merited its own journey.

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            The modern city of Veracruz is somewhat under the radar for many Americans; there are direct flights from Houston, but from New York one must make a connecting flight in Mexico City. The city occupies the spot from which Hernando Cortez staged his conquest of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capitol, and it was the primary port for Colonial New Spain. Present-day Veracruz embodies a spirit of tropical hedonism somewhat analogous to pre-Katrina New Orleans. In the evening as the heat and humidity of the day subside, a big brass band anchored by a tuba plays as middle-aged couples dressed in white dance with barely perceptible movements as they stare past each other. While we were there it drizzled, then turned to rain. The music stopped and everyone headed for cover. Soon enough the rain passed and the dancing resumed. Meanwhile, we had chosen a restaurant and were sampling the famous “Huachinango a la Veracruzano”, red snapper in a spicy sauce whose Spanish influence is betrayed by the inclusion of pimiento-stuffed green olives, capers and bay leaves.

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            Veracruz is a major domestic transportation hub. Mexican bus service is modern, air-conditioned and computers assign a specific seat. On every bus trip I’ve taken they show some horrible American action movie with subtitles. The first destination is Xalapa. Or Jalapa. A cab driver explained that either spelling is correct and neither is preferred. However a native Spanish speaker can detect which spelling is intended because the Spanish X is pronounced like an English H, while the Spanish J is pronounced similarly but with slight glottal catch. Xalapa’s Museo de Antropologia is one of the best museums in Mexico. The modernist building conforms to the gentle slope of its setting resulting in a long series of terraces that proceed downhill in gradations from the entrance. The award winning design incorporates outdoor spaces and abundant natural light. The exhibits are displayed chronologically and commence with sculpture by the Olmecs, including seven Colossal Heads carved from basalt (figure 3). They range up to almost nine feet tall and weigh many tons. The stone was quarried using string with an abrasive such as pumice, and transported 50 miles down river by raft. The heads are thought to be portraits of rulers who wear close-fitting helmets resembling old-fashioned leather football helmets. There is much speculation as to the race of the subjects of these portraits. The thick lips and wide nose resemble those of an African man. However, one can observe similar features on the faces of present-day inhabitants, whose ancestry is predominantly Asian. The museum also owns a famous sculpture in green metamorphic stone known as The Lord of Las Limas. It depicts a seated male figure holding an infant draped limply across his lap (figure 4). The seated figure is incised with symbols of the supernatural on the face, shoulders and knees. The infant is a were-jaguar, the supernatural controller of rain and the growth of maize. One striking exhibit displays the contents of an offering to the death god Mictlantecuhtli from El Zapotal, Veracruz. It contains ceramic figurines of the Remojadas “smiling face” type mixed together with human skeletons (figure 5). The human skulls show the type of cranial deformation depicted in the smiling sculptures. It has been suggested that the figurines represent a cult of ritual inebriation. The museum owns an impressive collection of near life-size standing ceramic female figures depicting Cihuateteo, a deified woman who died in childbirth. Each wears an elaborate headdress, is nude to the waist except for jewelry, and wears a long skirt with interlaced serpents as a belt (figure 6). They are tours de force of monumental ceramic sculpture. Another hallmark of Gulf Coast culture is an array of ballgame paraphernalia carved from hard stone, including yokes, palmas and hachas. The hachas, or ceremonial axes may have been used as field markers. The collection of the Museo de Antropologia includes over 29,000 artifacts; as of two years ago there was no catalogue of the collection.

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            While visiting El Tajin we stayed in Papantla, a traditional market town for the Totonacs, whose traditional garb includes loose white shirts and trousers for men and embroidered blouses and capes for women.  Facing the zocalo is a long relief sculpture in an ethnic-modernist style analogous to the two-dimensional mural style of Diego Rivera. In the center is a frontal representation of El Tajin’s Pyramid of the Niches (figure 7). To the left are scenes of pre-Hispanic stone carving, while on the right side an oil rig stands in for the modern era. A serpent undulates throughout the fifty-meter length of the relief, uniting the past and present (figures 8 & 9)). One evening we sat on a second-story terrace opposite the relief and sipped coffee while watching the social activity unfold below in the zocalo. Young people promenaded around the square while trucks circled the perimeter. Friends sat on benches and vendors sold refreshments. It was so orderly I felt like I was looking at a tapestry come to life. On a terrace above the relief sculpture stood the Franciscan cathedral. On top of a hill beyond the cathedral the scene was crowned by the Volador Monument,1998. It represents a musician playing a pipe, performing the pre-Columbian acrobatic “dance” ritual (Volador translates as flier).

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            In the Papantla region the ritual dance is known in Totonac as Kos’niin, or “Flight of the Dead.”  We witnessed the voladores rite at El Tajin, where it is performed most days from a 30m-high steel pole next to the visitor center.  It combines acrobatic daring with pre-Columbian music, costumes and symbolism. Five men climb the pole to their perch; a small square wooden frame at the top. Four of them sit on the edge of the frame, one on each of the four sides, then rotate the frame to wrap their ropes around the pole. The fifth man dances on a tiny platform (barely large enough to stand on) in the middle while playing a chirimia, a small drum with a flute attached. When he stops playing the other four fall backwards in unison. Arms outstretched, they revolve gracefully around the pole as they descend to the ground, upside down, as their ropes unwind (unfortunately, the glare of the sun was such that I could barely look at the 5 men, let alone photograph them). Each of the 4 fliers revolves 13 times, yielding 52 revolutions. This number had a special significance in pre-Columbian calendrics, relating to the meshing of their two calendars. 

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            The site of El Tajin was first occupied by about 100 AD, but most of the ruins date from 600 -1100 AD.  The nucleus covers about 146 acres. It is set among low hills, with a lower area of pyramids and ballcourts, and an upper area of palaces and structures for elite gatherings. Tajin is Totonac for thunder, lightning or hurricane. However, the region’s Preclassic inhabitants were more closely related to the Huastecs of northern Veracruz than to the Totonacs, who were Postclassic arrivals. According to indigenous sources the site was once known as Mictlan, the “abode of the dead”. In a singular stone monolith, Mictlantecuhtli, the Death God, emerges from a complex scrollwork relief design (figure 10). There are 17 ballcourts at the site, testifying to an obsession with the linked concepts of the ball game, human sacrifice and death. The elaborately carved panels that walled the ball courts depict sacrificial rituals as well as ball game paraphernalia including yokes, palmas and knee-pads (figure 11). In one scene the rain god pierces his penis to replenish a pool of water (figure 12). These scenes are bordered by carved reliefs of scroll forms with raised outlines, a hallmark of Classic Veracruz style. Commenting on the uniqueness of this style, with its matrix of linked or intertwined scrolls with raised edges, Michael Coe has made the tantalizing observation that its closest affinities are with the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of China. I would add that the flying cornices that animate the Pyramid of the Niches remind me of the curled-up corners of a pagoda (figure 13). Just as the ball courts embody a symbolic link with death and the underworld, the pyramids link the site to time and the cosmos. The Pyramid of the Niches, El Tajin’s most emblematic structure, is comprised of seven tiers containing 365 niches, one for each day of the solar year. The dramatic relief of the niches, surmounted by a flying cornice, bestow a uniquely sculptural quality to the body of the pyramid (figure 14).  It was originally painted red with black paint inside the niches. Flanking the staircase are balustrades adorned with stone mosaics forming a repeating stepped-fret or Xicalcoliuhqui design, symbolizing lightning. The modestly sized pyramid is a late addition to the ceremonial center of the site, and succinctly summarizes its unique characteristics.

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