el palacio de gobernador

Today in culture class we went on a tour of many buildings including the Palacio de Gobernador of the Yucatan. The building is less of an actual building and more of a courtyard with murals on the wall (over 20) representing the history of the Yucatan. I found these paintings to be beautiful and magnificent (they were huge). The artist of the paintings is Francisco Castro Pacheco who began the artwork in 1971 with the staircase murals shown below.

These three pictures are the three walls around the staircase that leads to the top floor of the palacio. In the sacred book of the Maya the “Popol Vuh” it claims a man appeared out of an ear of maize, which is depicted in the center picture. Maize (corn) symbolizes the creation of life to the Mayan people. The painting on the left is the representation of the West, and has a jaguar in it because for a long time people of the Yucatán were afraid of Jaguars and called them the animal of death (at night). The painting on the right represents the east and is much more uplifting due to the fact that the east is where the sun rises again. Also rain was thought to be brought from the east and was very important to the Mayan people, since their harvest depended on the fact that rain come.

Each painting in the Palacio has a description next to it which is where I have gathered the information written here. I will only talk about the most interesting ones to me.

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This is a representation of the “good and evil” in the lives of Mexicans. Last year I took a class on Latino/Latina American Literature and my professor Dr. Shuru explained to us many times about the role of serpents in the history of Mexico. That class has helped me to understand that the serpent is actually the role of “evil” however why an eagle is playing the role of good I do not understand. I have not yet been able to find an explanation either. This painting was interesting to me mostly because of my previous knowledge of serpents in Mexican history.

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The hands in the picture above represent the hands of a Mayan Peasant who is calloused from handling Henequen all day. If you read my previous posts you would remember that henequen is the crop which can be used to make strong material and brought the Mayan people great wealth. You would also remember that I cut my foot on henequen, thus proving its immense capability to cut the skin of a handler. Henequen was referred to as Sisal in the palacio.

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The above picture is a representation of the father of the “Mestizaje” or mixed persons in Mexico. Today in class our teacher Roger told us that using that word is offensive to people today because to some people it suggests that you are ‘indigenous” and therefore poor. I asked if people from the cities denied their own indigenous roots for fears of being thought of like that and he said no, so I am still a little confused about why the word Mestizaje is offensive. The man depicted above was a mariner who was shipwrecked in the Yucatan and lived with the Mayans eventually marrying the daughter of a Mayan Chief. He fought with the Mayan against the Spanish conquistadors to his death in 1536.

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The above painting is a representation of the Conquest by Francisco de Montejo over the Mayan people in Merida. This conquest took over 20 years and the Mayans were some of the last people in Mexico to be colonized. Merida was founded on January 6^th, 1542 (if you remember from my first post this is the day we arrived, and we got to see the city light up and some people even got to participate in the bread ceremony for the party in February).\\

This Saturday we are going to Oxkintok and there is a cenote there which is different than the two that we have seen already. I am very excited to see that, not to mention the fact that CARNAVAL starts next Friday!!! Carnaval is a huge city-wide event that happens every year where there is basically a festival in the street. Next Thursday I believe is the first ngiht and it lasts all week. We will be in Chichen Itza from Friday-Saturday night however there will still be plenty of time to experience Carnaval, so look forward to posts about that large cultural event. The culture here is so different than at home, however they are also in a time of celebration right now, and I do realize it is not always like this. I am very happy that we get to be in such a great city during their time of festivities, and it only makes me more nervous to sleep in hammocks for two weeks while in Kiuic.