Exploring Colonial Mexico

Eco Tours
Father Serra in Mexico,.....But few people of any age have seen the five earlier missions he helped create in Mexico's rugged Sierra Gorda region - and even if they had, they might not recognize the famed Franciscan's handiwork......That's because these missions' brightly colored, elaborately detailed exteriors are essentially their altars, "sermons in stucco and stone," as Julianne Burton-Carvajal, a Latin American studies professor at UC Santa Cruz, calls them....The five churches - Jalpan, Tancoyol, Tilaco, Landa and Concá - were designed to appeal to the Chichimecas, an unflattering catchall term for the indigenous people of several cultures who resisted Christianity and colonization by retreating to the mountains. At Jalpan, for example, a figure that may depict the tobacco god shares space with a statue of Saint Dominic; a rabbit, squash and corn appear at Concá. Native fruits and flowers also provide the background for religious statuary at Tancoyol, while the liberal use of red pigment at Landa would have been seen as a "potent symbol of sunrise, blood sacrifice and renewal," according to Burton-Carvajal.....
Exploring Colonial Mexico
Blog on Colonial Mexico