Unlike other ceremonial centers, which have a strong inward looking quality, this site looks outward, a place from which to appreciate the grandeur of the countryside.

Children Play on one of the Yácatas

Tzintzuntzan. To English speakers, it doesn't look like a real word. But say it a few times and its pleasing allophonic qualities slip off the front of your tongue: "seen SOON sahn", "seen SOON sahn", "seen SOON sahn".

The name is said to mean "place abundant in hummingbirds", or if properly pronounced to sound like a hummingbird beating its wings. There are no hummingbirds in Tzintzuntzan today. The few trees and the grass-covered fields make it hard to imagine what it was that had attracted these tiny birds when, six hundred years ago, the Purépechan founders first surveyed the area. Understanding why a gathering spot for hummingbirds should make it so special is not much easier, especially to one accustomed to religions of the one-god "western" type.

It's especially difficult to relate the tiny birds to the the archeological site at Tzintzuntzan. Neither the austere style nor the massive scale of this ceremonial center suggest in the slightest delicate little birds sipping nectar from flowers. Its great platform, measuring 425 by 250 meters, would hold thirty soccer fields. On it's west side, combining the geometries of circles and rectangles to produce the most unusual of mesoamerican building shapes, are pyramidal bases which each held a wooden temple. With their circular bulges facing outward, the remains of theseyácataslook like stylized eyes with rectangular brows. You feel that the founders placed them because of the view.

The View of Lake Pátzcuaro from The Palace

Lake Pátzcuaro spreads out before their rounded orbs, clouds reflecting in the gray green water, with the shoreline of darker reeds sharply dividing the colors of the water from the browns of the surrounding hills. Unlike other inward looking ceremonial centers, this site looks outward, a place from which to appreciate the grandeur of the countryside. The Purépechans religion required that fires in the temples burn constantly, sending the smoke to the gods. Five fires burning atop the yácatas with rising plumes of smoke, set against the view of the lake the lake, its shore and the hills, would evoke religious feelings in anyone. Gods honored here would be pleased.

On the north side of the platform you encounter "Building B", as it's referred to in the sterile terms of academic archeology. More descriptively called "The Palace", its walls that remain are less than a meter high. As you step over them to walk among the the rooms, you share footsteps with the highest priest of the Purépechan empire, the Petámuti, who lived in Tzintzuntzan and presided over all priests in the empire, ensuring that they collected wood and kept the temple fires burning night and day. Shaded by a small grove of trees, the temple today is a tranquil spot. It's easy to imagine that the privileged priests would likely pause to contemplate the view and watch the smoke drift in the lake's breezes on its way up to communicate with the gods.

The Statue of Don Vasco de Quiróga in the Courtyard of the Ex-Convento de San Francisco

Just as delicate hummingbirds contrast with the massive architecture, the tranquility of the shaded rooms contrasts with the perforated skulls and other bones found under its floor. Blood from owners of the skulls was probably burned in the temple fires so that it could be carried up to the gods.

The current view of the Purépechans is that, absent the arrival of the Spanish, they might have gone on to dominate the Mexicas. By all accounts, they ran a tightly managed region, militarily and politically. Their empire, which spread over all of what is today the state of Michoacán, was guarded with outposts backed up by well disciplined armies. An elaborate administrative structure oversaw house construction, agriculture, lumber production and even included a tavern keeper responsible for the maguey wine consumed during feasts. In each of their three major battles with the Mexicas, the Purépechas won. They called their most senior ruler the Cazonci which is said to mean "he who never takes off his sandals", a reference to their defiance of a Mexica tradition that required visitors to meet with emperor barefoot as a sign of submission.

They were craftspeople of the first order. Working under a guild system, they produced mosaics, stone carvings and lacquered corn paste statues, which while appearing to be made of fine clay, weigh almost nothing. They made copper tools smelted from ore they mined and traded them all over Mesoamerica.

Olive Trees Planted almost Five Hundred Years Ago

In the end, their independence contributed to their undoing. Had they been part of the Mexican empire, they might have joined forces against the Spanish. Instead, they were conquered without a battle, done in by the shrewd politics of Cortés aided by a preemptive strike of smallpox.

Zuangua, the strong Purépecha chief died from smallpox shortly after his messengers returned infected from a meeting with the Mexicas. So, while Cortés was conquering the Mexican capital city, the Purépechans in Tzintzuntzan were choosing a new Chief. They settled on Tangaxoan, the oldest son of Zuangua.

Once in control of the Mexicas, Cortés sent messengers off to Tzintzuntzan and they returned with the new chief's emissaries. Cortés demonstrated his horse calvary, his guns and to cap it off, provided them a canoe tour of the destroyed capital. Assuring the emissaries that, if they subjected themselves to Spain, they would be well treated, he sent them back to Tzintzuntzan.

Cortés followed their return by sending an expedition of soldiers. Convinced that the Spanish would allow him to continue ruling and fearing defeat if he challenged them, Tangaxoan allowed the Spanish soldiers to enter Tzintzuntzan unopposed. The only precaution the Purépechans took was to sacrifice eight hundred slaves who they feared would join the Spanish if a fight did occur.

A Corn-Paste Christ

With the arrival of the Spanish army, the grand plaza of Tzintzuntzan must have been a surreal scene. Surrounded by the blood and dismembered bodies of eight hundred slaves, the Spanish proceeded to overturn religious statues, burn the temples and put on a military display of horses, soldiers and rifle fire to impress the Cazonci, his assembled advisors and the priests.

Tangoaxan should have taken his shot with the Mexicas. He was allowed to keep his title of Cazonci, but his sole purpose as far as the Spaniards were concerned was as a conduit for extracting gold and silver from his empire. At times, the Spanish even put him under house arrest until enough gold was provided to ransom him. With the arrival from Spain of the rogue Governor Nuño de Guzmán, the demand for gold increased and when Tangoaxan didn't deliver, the Calzonci now in name only was first tortured, then dragged behind a horse and finally as an act of mercy garroted before his body was burned. Many of Purépechan population either died or fled.

Don Vasco de Quiróga was the priest who, after Guzmán was displaced, convinced the Purépechans to return, organized them into villages each centered around a particular craft, built churches and served as an advocate for the local population.

Today, Quiroga is considered a hero. His statue stands just down the hill from the great plaza of the yácatas, in the garden of the Ex-Convento de San Francisco surrounded by the gnarled olive trees he planted five hundred years ago. Inside the Templo de San Francisco, built for the Spaniards, light streams in on the alter and icons. Next to it, the Templo de Nuestra Señora, built for the Indians has a distinctly darker and more primal feel. It's as if the Purépechan gods directed the hands of the designers. In both, some of the stones that make up the walls, taken by the Spanish from the yácatas on the hill above, still have Purépechan symbols on them. The complex evokes the eerie feeling of an uneasy blend of the blood of two religions.

Purépechan Symbols on a Stone in the Ex-Convento de San Francisco

In Tzintzuntzan, some of the Purépechan crafts survive. In a corner of the courtyard of the ex-Convento, the potter Manuel Morales creates pottery with pre-Columbian themes using geometrical designs in vibrant but faded cobalt blue, earth and rust colors. Just outside, you can purchase dark green pottery and reeds woven into traditional baskets as well as modern day icons like helicopters and space ships. Light corn-paste statues of Christ on the Cross in various sizes are sold by vendors who call out to make sure you notice them.

Looking up from the courtyard of the Ex-Convento to the imposing yácatas, the connection with hummingbirds remains hard to make. Why would a society militant enough to defy the Mexicas, proud enough to name leaders as a symbol of refusal to be subjugated, sophisticated enough to erect unique ceremonial centers, technical enough to manufacture copper tools in demand all over Mexico, choose a site based on a bunch of hummingbirds?

In the mythology of the Mexicas, Huitzilopochtli is God of War and God of the Sun, one of the most powerful of the Mexican gods. The Purépechas called this god Tzintzuquixu, and perhaps as befit their slightly less aggressive view of life, they paid more attention to hisnahualor other self--what we might call his alter ego. Tzintzuquixu's nahual is the hummingbird, but not just any hummingbird. His nahual is The Hummingbird of the South, a warrior who, fallen on the field of battle during the Flower Wars, was transformed into a hummingbird and went to the Paradise of the Sun to sip nectar from the flowers.

The Flower Wars were "peacetime", ritual wars, staged at arranged times between rival states so that they each could capture prisoners for sacrifice. Even "westerners" have pointed out the symbolic connection. Hearts, the flowers, were torn from the sacrificed prisoners, and blood was drunk, or sipped by the priests. That's why a gathering of hummingbirds could have influenced where the Purépechans chose to put their capital city.

Today, it is said that if you stand next to one of the walls of the Templo de Nuestra Señora, where the Purépechan symbols in the stones are prominent, and listen carefully when the breeze from the lake is just right, you can hear the sound of a hummingbird beating its wings: seen SOON sahn, seen SOON sahn, Tzintzuntzan.