Teposcolula, Yanhuitlan and Sto. Domingo, Oaxaca

Oaxaca's own Santo Domingo, at night.  Lovely.  The botanic gardens, behind the exconvento-museum are truly gorgeous, and when the trees there begin to bloom in the next couple of weeks, it will be a walled paradise.  I'll go, when the trees begin to bloom.

















    My spanish teacher, Laura, organized a one-day trip to two small villages beyond Nochixtlan last Sunday.  It's known as the Dominican Route, south.  Of the four missionary orders - the Franciscans, Jesuits, Augustinians and the Dominicans, the Dominicans were the most dominant in Oaxaca.  It does seem like a miracle that the Dominican padres even found these remote villages, much less were able to direct the building of such monuments, given the tools available in the early 1500's.  Yanhuitlan was a properous and skilled Mixtec kingdom when the spanish arrived, with a large population.  Who knows how many indigenous people died just building this church, enslaved for their skills and labor?  The church was large enough to hold those who 'converted', and the walled plaza around the church was the size of about three football fields, to hold everyone. About 100 years after the church was completed, the population of Yanhuitlan collapsed.

We arrived Sunday morning, about 10am, and the tiny village was very quiet.  The doors to the church opened when we arrived, to reveal a soaring ceiling, lots of gold and about 10 pews.  I assume services are held here, and the people stand.

Much of the wall space inside the church was covered with huge 16th century religious paintings.  They were not only icons, but used in teaching the unwashed masses, since the padres had to learn the local language, which took time.  Just like in my ESOL classes, they used pictures!

The exconvent was now being renovated for use as a museum.  The small village owns the church, and collected a small fee to see the exconvent, and a small fee for those of us who wanted to take pictures.  We spent about an hour touring on our own, and climbed back in the bus to move westward to Teposcolula.  Pronounced just like it's spelled!

Teposcolula is the district capitol.  The population today is much smaller than when the Dominicans arrived in 1520.  They found strong prosperous villages, up the hillsides from a lake-filled valley.  They drained the lake for farmland, and moved the village to it's present location. They kept the Mixtec name, but, in normal fashion, added the San Pedro and San Pablo to Teposcolula.  The name is so impossibly long, no one uses it all, just calling it Teposcolula.  I took the picture on the left from outside the wall surrounding the grassy plaza in front of the church.  We arrived the day after the celebration of the church's patron saint, so it was festooned outside with colorful banners.  The zocalo, just behind the church, was also decorated for a puebla fiesta.  This church is even larger than the one in Yanhuitlan, to my amazement.

The  open-air church is an important part of the history of the church and the village.  You can see the walls, on the left side of the main capila, and that was where the unwashed masses listened to the sermons and teachings.  The stonework was magnificent, and the statues and other decorations were in surprisingly good shape after 4 centuries.

Inside the church, huge flower displays were spread across the front of the church, lily blooms the size of dinner plates in arrangements taller than me.  The gold around the altar and side altars was shiny.  True to spanish nature, the statue of Jesus was graphically displayed, bloody knees, hands and head.  We marvelled at the whiteness of the white walls, which seemed brighter than other churches.

 

Laura had hired a guide to give us some history and explain some of what we saw.  Miguel is a young local man, who is rumored to be in the running for mayor.   In the beginning, I understood some of what he said, and I was pleased.  But, ohmylord, he went ON!  Three hours later, most of our group had retired to the shady steps on the other side of the church, commenting that we wanted to know a little, not the entire history of the church!  I ran out of energy to follow him after a while, too, and because I couldn't hear everything he said, soon I was almost totally lost.  I wandered around the exconvento, which is being restored by the village, took a few pictures and enjoyed the quiet.  Eventually, Miguel either ran out of steam or ran out of info.  Or, maybe Laura told him it was time for lunch.  We made our way through the zocalo to a small restaurant (they were expecting us), and had a nice comida before getting back on the bus for the 2 hour drive back to Oaxaca. 

My question had been answered:  who owns the churches now?  The villages.  So, all the money raised for the renovation or maintenance of these two churches came from donations or the villages.  There is also a very wealthy family in Oaxaca who support Worthy Causes, like the renovation of important tourist sites like these.  We had each paid 50 pesos (less than $5US) to our guide, and I believe all that money went to the repair fund.  With labor and materials at such low prices as is common here, our tour went a long way to the renovation project.  

Now, is this enough about churches?!?  More fun in the next post, I promise.