Island’s Aztec mystery endures

Mexcaltitan, Mexico —- In the predawn darkness, the fishermen return with nets brimming with plump shrimp and tie up their canoes behind homes of mud and wood.

This way of life has changed little over the past thousand years in Mexcaltitan, an isolated Pacific coastal island that’s been dubbed the Venice of Mexico because its sunken streets become canals during the rainy season.

Embedded in the humble daily ritual may lie clues to one of the hemisphere’s great historical mysteries: Where did the mighty Aztec civilization originate?

For local officials and some historians, Mexcaltitan is nothing less than the mythical Aztlan, birthplace of the ancient Aztecs.

According to legend, the Aztecs left an island in 1091 and wandered for two centuries before settling in what is now Mexico City.

There they founded Tenochtitlan, the legendary island city of canals and floating gardens, and lorded over an empire that stretched from Guatemala to northern Mexico before the Spanish conquered them in 1521.

The location of Aztlan is no mere academic exercise: The term has become a flashpoint in today’s raging U.S.-Mexico immigration debate. To enter “Aztlan” in an Internet search is to be immersed in a fierce, often nasty, ideological battle over immigrant rights.

Historians and archeologists are bitterly divided over the location of Aztlan, or even over whether the place ever existed.

With some theories placing the Aztec homeland in the U.S. Southwest, Utah or California, the notion has become fraught with political overtones.

For decades, the idea of an Aztlan within the United States was an important part of the growing Chicano pride movement.

Anne Martinez, a University of Texas history professor, said the embrace of Aztlan reflected a desire by Mexican-Americans to forge a clear geographical link, and thus a sense of belonging, to the United States.

“It was also the idea that wherever Mexicans are outside of Mexico that that is Aztlan,” she said. “That we take Aztlan with us.”

Today, the term is more likely to be used by anti-immigration groups warning of a “reconquista,” or reconquering, of the U.S. Southwest by Mexican immigrants. The Just Build the Fence blog defines Aztlan as “the enemy encamped within our own borders.”

“[Aztlan] is a very powerful idea,” said Mexican archeologist Jesus Jauregui, a leading expert on Aztlan theories. “It can mean something different to each person.”

In Mexcaltitan, located in the Pacific state of Nayarit, clues that this was once Aztlan are tantalizing.

In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, who called themselves the Mexica, Azltan means place of whiteness or place of herons.

The village is indeed a favorite haunt of white herons, which nest in the surrounding lagoon, as well as seasonal blooms of white water lilies.

Hector Apodaca, a guide at the village’s museum, argues that local fishing holes have the same names as Aztec places like Toluca.

Apodaca says Cora Indians, who were among the last indigenous groups to be subdued by the Spanish and who speak a version of Nahuatl, still come to the island every year to make offerings.

“That’s because they believe that this was a ceremonial center of the Mexica,” Apodaca said.

Others point to Mexcaltitan’s striking physical resemblance to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital whose ruins sit under Mexico City.

Some historians say Mexcaltitan’s circular shape and cruciform design are similar to that of Tenochtitlan, which Spanish conquistador Bernal Diaz described as “an enchanted vision.”

Tenochtitlan was de-stroyed in 1521, long before the invention of the camera, and officials in Mexcaltitan say their village is the closest thing to a living replica.

Local officials are so certain Mexcaltitan is Aztlan that they’ve dubbed the state of Nayarit the “cradle of Mexicaness” and changed the state’s official seal to include a diagram of the Aztecs’ departure from Mexcaltitan.

Despite the local certainty, the debate rages among experts.

Jauregui, the Mexican archeologist, says he believes Aztlan is more myth than place and that the official sanctioning of Mexcaltitan as Aztlan stemmed from political, rather than historical reasons.

He said that during the 1960s and 1970s, Mexican officials grew alarmed by Chicano and Mexican-American assertions that the ancient homeland actually sat outside the boundaries of Mexico.

Jauregui argues that such a possibility embarrassed and potentially undermined what has become Mexico’s creation myth.

The state of Nayarit, traditionally one of the poorest in Mexico, was in need of a tourism boost.

Antonio Osuna Carbajal, a Mexcaltitan fisherman, smiles slyly when asked whether his home is Aztlan.

“That’s what they tell us,” he said. “But the bad thing is that the older generations didn’t leave us any writings or anything like that.”

Life on the island continues much as it has for a millennium, although the demographics changed.

After Chinese fishermen came to the island early in the 20th century to export shrimp to San Francisco, intermarriage followed, and many families on the island have Chinese surnames.

Tourism has increased in recent years, driven mostly by the state-sanctioned Aztlan theory, but the village is mostly untouched by modernity.

Residents still dwell in simple adobe homes and live off the surrounding lagoon.

The village is famous throughout the region for its unique shrimp tamales; local chefs have created a shrimp pate, shrimp empanadas, shrimp meatballs and other shrimp dishes.

Island dwellers cherish the town’s tranquility —- the village is reachable only by boat, and its streets, which are sunken about 3 feet to accommodate constant flooding, aren’t big enough for cars.

Construction materials must be brought in by boat, and the town’s trash must be taken out the same way. Townspeople have erected floating pigpens in the lagoon to keep the smell from invading the tiny island.

“Here instead of learning how to drive a car, you learn to steer a canoe,” said Anafrancisca Ahumada Villa, a mother of eight. “There’s no traffic here.”

Even as the Aztlan debate rages around their home, most residents are more focused on squeezing a living out of the dwindling shrimp population.

“The island is like a big family,” said Osuna, the fisherman.

“The island gives us what we need to get by.”

 SHANNON PEAVY / Staff
Map locates Mexcaltitan in Mexico. Inset map outlines area of detail relative to North America.