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Tehuacán–Franciscan Outpost
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
TO all Mexico’s visitors, as to the United States’ beverage industry, “Tehuacán” is a trade-mark, a synonym for superlative mineral water. This product of some dozen bottling works at Tehuacán is justly regarded as the traveler’s health insurance in the tropics; it is, for its excellence, purchased in trainload lots by American brewers and soft-drink manufacturers. To sufferers from some exceedingly painful physical disorders the same word spells the relief obtainable from the “water cure” they take there. In pursuit of health, rest, and a superb climate for both, thousands from many nations annually make their way to the little spa “city” they find glistening in the highland sun against that masterpiece of natural sculpture, the Cerro Colorado, the advance line of Puebla’s mountain rampart against the deep tropics. Such are the facts that have realized Tehuacán’s modern fame and, thereby, prosperity.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1957
References
1 154 miles S. E. of Mexico City in the S. E. corner of Puebla state.
2 Dr. Joaquín Paredes Colín, Tehuacán’s official historian, established this fact from his diligent early twentieth-century studies.
3 Perhaps owing to this terrain’s inferiority in fertility, rainfall, mineral wealth, etc., enjoyed by the Mixtecas in Oaxaca.
4 Paredes, , Apuntes Históricos de Tehuacán, (Tehuacán, Pue., México), p. 32, questions whether old Coapan exactly corresponded to the existing town of this name (on the W. side of the valley at the base of a lower cerro and formerly a part of Riego, Hacienda El ), or occupied a more exposed zone atop the same ridge.Google Scholar
5 An inferior portion of the Coapenses founded another community, Altepexi, six or seven miles south of present-day Tehuacán, while some few declined to abandon Coapan where, or near which, their descendants still occupy the village of that name.
6 A knoll above Cacahualco where, three miles below Tehuacán, the valley bed commences its descent toward Teotitlán del Camino on the Oaxaca state boundary.
7 For a detailed description of the austerity of Tehuacán’s pagan priesthood, see Motolinia, , Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España (México, D. F.: Editorial Salvador Chávez Hayhoe, 1941), pp. 57–62.Google Scholar
8 Excepting for such violence as attended their religious observance which, like all indigenous Mexican cults, included human sacrifice; and the punishments of mutilation or death meted out to priests who offended against the rigid moral regulations pertaining to their caste. Paredes, ibid., p. 31, averred his inability to estimate whether the Coapenses shunned war because of a philosophy favoring peace, or owing to timidity following numerous defeats at the hands of braver or more numerous adversaries.
9 Paredes believed the chief of these might have been Huemac, conqueror, later god, of Cholula. Ibid., p. 37. Motolinia, ibid., called the Tehuacaneros “devil worshipers” but this was the accustomed connotation of Fr. Martín de Valencia’s first Franciscan missioners for all idolators.
10 So written consistently in the works of Torquemada and even into the eighteenth century in a volume pertaining to the Secretaría del Ayuntamiento entitled Acuerdos del Ayuntamiento. Motolinia, and Mendieta, , Historia Eclesiástica Indiana (3 vols.; México, 1870) both use “Tehuacán.”Google Scholar
11 Opposing the eighteenth-century indications of Juan Aguayo who (based on a sixteenth-century Carmelite document quoting the early Spanish interpreter, Francisco Ugalde) maintained that the name derived from the exclamation: “Tiehuacán! Tiehuacán!– Let us go! Let us go!” with which the Coapenses greeted the suggestion to move their población, (ehua–to depart quickly, ti–us, can–denoting the present plural.)
12 At a 5,500 ft. altitude.
13 Tehuacán de las Granadas (Tehuacán of the Pomegranates) was once the town’s formal title.
14 Heavy perforated stones through which was passed a rope that, knotted on the end, permitted the thrower to pull it back.
15 Historia Antigua de México, Bk. VII.
16 Shell horns whose noise created confusion in battle, a practice still employed by the Chinese Communists.
17 Amounting to 4,000 sacks (sacos, the Roman sagum), according to Clavijero. Ibid.
18 A. braza equals 6 ft.
19 Papeles de Nueva España published by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso (Mexico, D.F., 1905), Bk. I, p. 137.
20 First known as Segura de la Frontera.
21 In September, 1520.
22 I. e., their own and that immediately succeeding.
23 Headed by Fr. Martin de Valencia and including Fray Toribio de Benavente, who would achieve historical renown as “Motolinía.”
24 Some eighty miles each way. From 1530, however, it would seem they should have been able to receive the sacraments at Tepeaca, merely fifty miles from Tehuacán, since that was the year of that foundation.
25 Paredes, ibid., p. 48.
26 Quoted by Paredes, ibid., pp. 49–50.
27 Quoted, ibid., p. 49.
28 Upon embarking for America the Franciscans frequently took new names designating their towns of origin. This does not explain the change in P. Juan’s given, or saint’s name. Mendicta considers them distinct.
29 10,000 sq. meters, according to Paredes’ estimate from examination, c. 1910. Ibid., p. 50.
30 Second Marqués del Valle, Cortés’ son.
31 Paredes’ work was completed in 1910.
32 Paredes, ibid., pp. 50–51.
33 Paredes, who cites José Fernando Ramirez, Vida de Fray Toribio de Motolinía, p. 20 of an unidentified edition. I have failed to locate exact reference in Porrúa edition (México, D. F., 1944); and Daniel Sánchez, in his Introduction to Chavez Hayhoe edition of the Historia declares it was commenced at Tlaxcala. But Motolinía certainly finished the work in Tehuacán where he passed all 1540 and in 1541, dedicated the completed MS to the Conde de Benavente. See however Steck’s, Francis B. introduction to Motolinía’s History (Washington, 1953), p. 22.Google Scholar
34 Year unidentified by Torquemada in his Monarquia Indiana description.
35 Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, Bk. III, p. 480.
36 The foothills surrounding Old Tehuacán and the Cerro wall, rising from a lower level than the broader main sector of the valley, cut off the breezes, kept it close and extremely hot in summer.
37 The Indian’s tierra is ever his immediate native locale, rather than his country as a whole.
38 Although the See had been transferred to Puebla before this, the prelate was still commonly referred to as the Bishop of Tlaxcala.
39 Proving their anxiety to be for the spiritual benefits they associated exclusively with the Franciscans, rather than a purely personal attachment.
40 Torquemada, ibid.
41 Paredes, ibid., p. 59.
42 In the vacancy of the viceregal post.
43 Today it is El Riego, three miles from the Tehuacán business district.
44 Last lost through revolution and political chans.