Tehuacán
Geographical location
Tehuacán
Tehuacán is the second largest city in the Mexican
state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the
states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2010 census reported a population of 248,716
in the city and 274,906 in its surrounding municipality of the same name, of
which it serves as municipal seat. The municipality has an area of 390.36 km²
(150.72 sq mi).
Originally a Native American settlement, it became
officially a city in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1660. According to the
archaeologist Richard Stockton MacNeish, the Valley of Tehuacán is the first
place maize was ever cultivated by humankind. He arrived at this conclusion
when he found over 10,000 teoscintle cobs in what is now known as the Cave of
Coxcatlan.
In the late nineteenth century, the city was well
known for its mineral springs. In fact, Peñafiel (now owned by Cadbury
Schweppes), a well known soft drinks manufacturer, extracts water from these
wells for use in their products. Tehuacán also has an important cluster of
poultry producers, making the city and its surroundings one of the most
important egg producing regions in Mexico.
Historically, the
Valley of Tehuacán is important to the whole of Mexico, as the most ancient
forms of cultivated maize known were found here by archeologists.
Glyph of Tehuacán
This is the currently accepted glyph city of Tehuacán.
It is based on the work of Felipe Franco's 1946 Geographic Indonimia Puebla
State, same as inferred from the word Teohuacan, ie instead of gods or the sun.
The glyph is interpreted as follows: At the bottom you
can see a gum with teeth, which means "place". The album is a solar
symbol, or sacred. Hence, to be known as Tehuacán "City of Gods",
"Place of those gods", "Place of those with God" or more
currently "Sun City".
Tehuacán "Place of Gods"
The Shield of Tehuacán is made up of four quarters:
In the first quarter there is a black eagle on the
nopal with two arrows in its right claw and another crossed by its legs, on the
left side of the quarter are three maize with spikes of gold which the Indians
call "Miahuatl", in a blue field.
In the second quarter it shows a Black Eagle in white
with a golden beak putting one leg on a teponaxtle and the other lifting two
clasped arrows. At the right side of the eagle an ayacaxtle or sonaja is
playing an instrument and dancing with the Indians. Just below is a drum, on
the left side are two teponaxcle and below sits a Quetzal feather.
In the third quarter there is a bush with a red flower
on its outspread branches; in the native language the flower is called a
"tlaxochitl". Below the tree is a bird digging up a flower, the tree
is called a Mezquite. On the right side is a castle on a hill and near it there
are white and colored stones, below the castle is a cave.
In the fourth quarter there is a decapitated
head which is held up by a hand that is reaching out from the right side and is
holding the head up by its hair, the left hand is also in the picture and is
grasping an arc. In the midst of the four quarters the head of Chimalpopoca and
as Cimera, the Virgin of the Conception.
History Tehuacán
Tehuacán is the second largest city in the Mexican
state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the
states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2010 census reported a population of 248,716
in the city and 274,906 in its surrounding municipality of the same name, of
which it serves as municipal seat. The municipality has an area of 390.36 km²
(150.72 sq mi).
Originally a Native American settlement, it became
officially a city in the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1660. According to the
archaeologist Richard Stockton MacNeish, the Valley of Tehuacán is the first
place maize was ever cultivated by humankind. He arrived at this conclusion
when he found over 10,000 teoscintle cobs in what is now known as the Cave of
Coxcatlan.
In the late nineteenth century, the city was well
known for its mineral springs. In fact, Peñafiel (now owned by Cadbury
Schweppes), a well known soft drinks manufacturer, extracts water from these
wells for use in their products. Tehuacán also has an important cluster of poultry
producers, making the city and its surroundings one of the most important egg
producing regions in Mexico.
After the NAFTA agreement had been signed, Tehuacán
saw a flood of textile maquiladoras established in the city and surrounding
areas. These textile factories principally put together blue jeans for export
to companies such as The Gap, Guess, Old Navy, and JC Penney. At the height of
the maquila (short for maquiladora) boom, there were an estimated number of
more than 700 maquilas in town, including those that were operating from homes,
often in secret. While this situation created a negative unemployment (zero
unemployment) and the maquilas sought workers as far away as Orizaba and
Córdoba in the neighboring state of Veracruz, it also created an urban and
environmental nightmare. In one decade, Tehuacán went from being a town of
150,000 inhabitants to a city of 360,000. Although many maquilas have closed
today, in 2007 there were still over 700 of them found in Tehuacán. Due to the
poverty of the families living in Tehuacán, child labour in the maquilas is
common, and worker's rights are often exploited there. Additionally, chemicals
such as caustic soda, chlorine, peroxide, oxalic acid, sodium bisulphate,
potassium permanganate, and sodium hexametaphosphate are being discharged into
the freshwater supplies by the jean laundries. Despite having new purifying
technologies available at certain large facilities, they are still not being
used the majority of the time. The water, which contains heavy metals such as
mercury, lead, copper, zinc, chrome, cadmium and selenium is then used by the
farmers to irrigate their land. The cost of environmental deterioration in 2002
was estimated to be $63 billion per year.
Historically, the Valley of Tehuacán is important to
the whole of Mexico, as the most ancient forms of cultivated maize known were
found here by archeologists.
