La Quemada, an Enormous Sanctuary in Northern Mesoamerica
Marie-Areti Hers
THE BUILDERS OF LA QUEMADA
During the
first millennium AD, the region of La Quemada was colonized, like many other parts of northern Mexico, by Mesoamerican populations from the south. These populations were part of the Chalchihuite culture, whose territory spread from the south of Zacatecas to the north of Durango and from the eastern side of the Sierra Madre Oriental to the deep gorges on the Pacific slope. The Chalchihuites were farmers with a long Mesoamerican tradition and at the same time, because they were border settlers, they also became fearsome warriors. At the same time, the lack of states able to dominate, unify and protect large territories led to the emergence of pilgrimage sites visited by enemies and allies alike. In more than one of these places, there appears to have been an oracle, a sanctuary where the gods that ruled men?s destiny were invoked. The largest of the Chalchihuite sanctuaries appears to have been that of La Quemada.
LA QUEMADA, AN ENORMOUS, MULTI-FACETED SANCTUARY
The site has several complementary aspects. On the one hand, it is an
imposing fortress, a walled hill with enormous outworks. Its defensive role appears to have been accentuated in the final years before it was abandoned. Yet La Quemada also served as a temporary refuge for the villagers that occupied the surrounding valley.
Little is known of the population that lived there permanently, although it is likely that there was an elite that planned and oversaw the work for erecting these enormous constructions.
Most of the works in La Quemada appeared to have been used for ceremonial purposes, which is typical of a sanctuary that can be divided into three parts: a remarkable network of avenues in and around the site; an area used for receiving large crowds and a number of sections with restricted access.
La Quemada lies in the center of a vast network of straight avenues irradiating towards the valley. Visitors can still distinguish them when they climb up to the top of the hill and observe the straight lines that mark the vegetation over enormous distances. These avenues might have been used to protect the population in the valley by facilitating the rapid deployment of warriors or the retreat of villagers towards the walled hill. It is quite likely that another purpose of these avenues would have been to direct large pilgrimages. The solemn ceremonies held here were presided over by an assembly of priests and warriors that met in the famous Hall of Columns on the west side.
LA QUEMADA AS A PLACE OF ORIGIN
La Quemada was abandoned in the
ninth century, together with a significant portion of Chalchihuite territory and all of northern Mesoamerica. Its ruins were occupied by settlers from a very different culture, the Zacatecos. Centuries later, from the time of the arrival of the first Spaniards in these lands, their Mesoamerican allies realized that these magnificent, abandoned constructions were the legendary Chicomoztoc, the Place of the Seven Caves, whence their ancestors said they had originated. Present-day archaeological studies have largely confirmed this. Indeed, we know that the Chalchihuites were the
Toltec-Chichimecs who, according to indigenous historical memory, left Chicomoztoc, migrated south and formed alliances with other peoples in order to maintain the powerful, multi-ethnic city of Tula. The Chalchihuites had brought with them from the north the ?flowery war? and the skull rack, the image of the chac mool, the oracles and the Hall of Columns.
These northern lands were subsequently shrouded in the mists of time. Faced with uncontrollable adversity and the overwhelming defeats suffered by northern Mesoamerica, historical memory became hazy and dissolved into myth. The abandonment of the north was therefore transformed into a birth. ?We were born in the north, in the womb cave of Chicomoztoc we were born.? Afterwards these formerly Mesoamerican lands were occupied by very different Northern populations, hunter-gatherers rather than farmers. Thus the former Mesoamericans that had colonized and then lost the great north were confused in the codices and legends with these nomads and known by the same name, Chichimecs.
The La Quemada site was probably not the only Chicomoztoc or great sanctuary where the northern Mesomericans went to consult their gods yet it was the most famous one because of its magnificent constructions. Although it is now over a thousand years since wars and drought silenced the pilgrims? songs and prayers, the ruins continue to astonish visitors.
http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/english/historia/prehispanica/detalle.cfm?idsec=1&idsub=12&idpag=1863
