Mexican Religious Festivals

The general population responded well to governmentsponsored spectacle, even to the inquisitorial trials in which the public was known to shout disparaging remarks at individuals who refused to correct their ways and accept Catholic orthodoxy. Other festivals such as the entrance of Corpus Christi, briefly suspended the toils and hardships of daily life. Festivals attracted large numbers of visitors from the hinterland and usually coincided with market day. In the case of large urban areas, it appears as though out-of-town visitors acted very much like tourists, seeing the marvels of the celebration as well as the wonders of the city itself such as palaces and shops filled with luxurious imported items. Additionally, festivals also represented a boom to taverns and pulquerías as well as the popular theatrical performances. Spontaneous popular entertainments and activities such as dance parties continued into the night and well after the official events were finished, all to the chagrin of some religious leaders, who pointed out the large number of scandalous and sinful acts that were committed and the large quantities of alcohol consumed. This lively ex-officio street fun was connected to almost all major public festivals including religious activities, except for Easter. Feasting, dancing, merrymaking, and drinking were integral parts of the events for spectators and blurred the line between the sacred and profane.

These festivals also had economic ramifications. Businesses were closed but only after a boom of economic activity as city officials commissioned cloth, tapestry, clothing, fireworks, bleachers, platforms, and arches from musicians, dancers, artists, carpenters, bakers, architects, and manual laborers. Festivals amounted to a large transfer of wealth from municipal and royal government (since much of the funds actually were borrowed from Crown accounts) back to tributeand taxpayers. Eventually, the local authorities developed a system of economic patronage with a variety of artisans and artists. This was also a way for these citizens to obtain privileges in political or other matters from the authorities.

Religious Festivals and Authorities

Although municipal and royal authorities primarily concentrated their resources on civic displays, they also participated and partially funded a number of religious festivals. These included the feast of the patron saint of the village or, in the case of larger urban areas, a prominent citywide devotion such as the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The festival of Corpus Christi demonstrates how civil authorities could patronize and effectively affiliate themselves with and come to control even an ostensibly religious celebration. During the procession, participants reenacted the Second Coming of Christ. Dancers dressed as devils, giants, and big heads preceded a famous tarasca (dragon) representing sin. This was usually followed by decorated carts from which actors reenacted scenes from the lives of saints, extolling the spectators to follow their good Christian example. All confraternities and parishes, carrying their patron saints, and regular and secular clergy came next. Finally, the Sacred Host appeared accompanied by the archbishop and the viceroy; the city councilmen held the canopy over the displayed Eucharist. Corpus allowed civil authorities to show their piety and augment their prestige; after all, they walked in the most coveted location, next to the Eucharist. The fact that they funded all the outdoor aspects of the celebration such as plays and dances, which were very popular with the public, also added to their reputation as pious and powerful men. Officials in small towns also did the same in their communities, especially during times of floods, drought, or epidemics. Officials funded large portions of these events and held a prestigious place next to the statue of the saint in the procession. The ruling elite consistently associated themselves with the most important community symbols of piety, sanctity, and power.

The clear line between civic and religious ritual blurred when the government patronized religious festivals. This was also the case with the Autos de Fé, or public penitential trials of the Holy Office of the inquisition, events not immediately associated with civil authority. During this somber spectacle, inquisitors proclaimed the sins and punishment of each penitent before a large crowd. Those who had not recognized their errors and sought forgiveness were given one last opportunity to do so and, if they remained recalcitrant, were burned at the stake. Autos de Fé sought to anticipate the Last Judgment, placing the unrepentant to the left of the platform and the good Christian faithful to the right, as Christ would do according to the Bible. The viceroy, not a member of the Inquisition, had a prominent role to play before the crowd; he sat center stage and oversaw the event and symbolically took the place of the Christ. Thus, the governor, representing secular power, approved and officiated over the condemnations and the final sentences of the guilty.

Civic Festivals in Mexico

The civic festivals of greatest importance in the viceroyalty commemorated the monarch. These included public events honoring the sovereign's birthday, his marriage, the birth of an heir to the throne, or his death. The grandest Crown festival celebrated a new monarch's ascension to the throne. Known as the Jura del Rey (Oath to the King), this three-day celebration was the quintessential festival of submission and obedience and was celebrated in all main towns (cabeceras) in the colony. In this royal ritual, the three pillars of the Novohispanic ruling system—the city government, royal government, and the church—publicly swore allegiance to the new king. The citizenry also shouted vivas and acclamations and in this way swore allegiance. The Jura included an array of entertainment, feasting, and especially planned fireworks displays that lauded the Spanish Empire. In Mexico City, the event was conducted in Spanish and Nahuatl and included the participation and public oath of the Indian leadership, dressed in traditional indigenous finery, of the major indigenous sectors of the city. They were asked to pledge allegiance to the king before their subjects as well as the general inhabitants of the city. Indian commoners then presented flowers to their nobility as part of the ceremony. In addition, the major entertainment during the evening was the Fiesta de Gremios (Festival of the Guilds). The guilds presented large thematic floats honoring the king and empire and dressed in costumes. Although not initially the case, the Jura became, under eighteenth-century Bourbon officials, the largest and most celebrated civic festival. In the case of the capital and Puebla, it consumed much more revenue than the entrance of the viceroy. This change coincided with the Bourbon emphasis on the monarch and the implementation of new policies that sought to strengthen Crown control in the viceroyalty.

Various Mexican Traditions

The municipal and royal authorities instituted a number of traditions similar to the Conquest festival; the largest of them was the entrada del virrey (the inaugural entrance of a new viceroy or governor). The arrival of a new viceroy to the colony was great cause for celebration and demanded the introduction of a large number of rituals dictated by protocol. A new viceroy, appointed by the Spanish Crown, assumed office approximately every six years. In the viceregal political system, the governor was considered the monarch's representative, a powerful minister who had tremendous authority, although it was limited by the vicissitudes of bureaucratic overlays and colonial politics. As European cities celebrated the visits of kings, so it became customary for colonial capitals to honor the "vice-king" who governed in the sovereign's name. The inaugural entrance of a viceroy into a town or city was the major civic ritual of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was an elaborate and costly version of smaller investiture ceremonies for installing local officials into new office. These smaller local investiture ceremonies entailed an oath of office, authorities dressed in regalia, a parade, much pomp and circumstance, feasting, and entertainment such as music and fireworks. The same was done for the entrance of a viceroy, but only on a much larger and more costly scale. The entrance did not directly affect all towns in the viceroyality but impacted upon villages along the route as the viceroy traveled from Veracruz to Mexico City and stopped for extended stays at Tlaxcala, Huetjotzingo, and Puebla. This was the grand fête, more expensive than all other municipal government expenditures and all other official events combined, causing local hosts to scramble for funding, sinking more into debt with each entrance.

Although imported from Europe, the entrance ceremony eventually came to reflect and even celebrate colonial realities. In both Mexico City and Puebla, the two largest urban areas visited by the viceroy, the celebration became a particularly sumptuous affair that lasted for weeks and included ephemeral triumphal arches, bullfights, plays, jousts, and great pageantry. The cathedrals in both cities also erected arches and staged their own fanfare within the walls of the church. The festivals posited the ideals of good governance and the virtues of the new minister. However, encased within the festival were political commentary and even criticism of previous administrations. For example, ritual and accompanying imagery on the triumphal arches allowed Mexico City entrance sponsors to criticize past viceroys for their lack of diligence and commitment, and also allowed them to stage a massive event that included the meticulously planned participation of Africans and Native Americans. Thus, it served two purposes: 1) to laud and counsel the viceroy, and 2) to awe the heterogenous spectators while presenting a message of acculturation, integration, and submission. In Puebla, city organizers heralded their city as a uniquely Spanish New World cultural entity but went one step further and asserted their city's superiority to Spanish urban centers.

Ritual, Religious and Civic in Mexico Colonial

Ritual, religious or civic, and particularly large-scale public spectacle, dominated life in colonial Mexico. The sixteenthcentury Spaniard faced a newly conquered territory composed of ethnically and linguistically diverse peoples. The primary goal of this initial period was to maintain and consolidate European control and recreate or perfect Europe in the Americas. From a purely political perspective, the pivotal issue of control brought about such institutions as the labor draft, the local militia, slavery, the reduction of Indian villages, the caste system, and the integration of indigenous nobility into the Spanish governing system. A cultural policy in the form of elaborate ritual sought to showcase and emphasize Spanish superiority. Europeans imported their own ritual forms and imposed them upon the general population; ritual became the last act of taking possession of the New World. Festivals, certainly civic ones, became tools of hegemonic control. No small wonder that one of the first festivals celebrated in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, namely the Conquest festival or the feast of San Hipolito, commemorated the fall of the Mexica (Aztec) capital to the Spanish.

Sponsored by the municipal government of Mexico City, the Fiesta de la Conquista consisted of displays of prowess, horsemanship, jousting, mock battles, and dramatic performances honoring the feats of Fernando (Hernán) Cortés and associates. The event paid tribute to the fallen Spanish conquistadors who died during the Noche Triste (Sad Night) when the Europeans were driven from the Indian capital; the festival exalted the European skills and technology that theoretically brought victory against the Mexica empire. However, this fiesta never recognized the contribution of the many Indian allies of Cortés who actually ensured that Spanish victory. Although mock battles between men (both Indians and Spaniard) dressed as either Christians or Muslims (Moors or Turks) were staged frequently in Tenochtitlan and in smaller towns, the battle for the capital never was reenacted. Officials certainly must have thought better than of reminding Indians of their defeat on an annual basis. The festival presented the Conquest in an almost mythical manner, as though the Spaniards did not wish to overemphasize an event that could prove divisive, especially considering that Indians always outnumbered Spaniards in the viceroyalty. A reenactment also would have necessitated the cooperation of thousands of Indians who would have played both the vanquished Mexica and the victorious Tlaxcalans.

Human Sacrifices in Mexico

Feasts and the distribution of goods generally would accompany human sacrifices conducted by other groups in Mexican society as well, ranging from the tlatoani (Mexica ruler) himself to warriors, pochteca, and craftsmen. Feasting served to revive ties within the community and between the community and the gods. The menu always was ritually determined: depending on the occasion, guests would dine on the flesh of the gods in the form of human sacrifices, effigies made of amaranth seeds, or first fruits, which were believed to contain the spirit of the deity.

One of the most important rituals was the "New Fire" ceremony held at the close of the calendar cycle every 52 years. The Mexica believed that unless the ceremony was held the sun would lose its strength and fail to emerge from the world beyond. All fires were extinguished and all cooking vessels smashed. At the close of the ceremony a new fire was lit in the chest cavity of a sacrificial victim, heralding the survival of the world. The ceremony took place on the Hill of the Star east of Tenochtitlan and was attended by priests dressed in the regalia of several gods. It was hoped that the ceremony would fix the Pleiades in the heavens in order to reignite and distribute the new fire throughout the kingdom.

The tlatoani used public ritual to reinforce his power over the Mexica and subject peoples. Although such ceremonies as the dedication of new temples and religious monuments or the anointing of the tlatoani were ostensibly dedicated to one of the gods, they also celebrated the strength of a victorious people. Indeed, the anointing of a new ruler could not take place until he had demonstrated his valor in battle and sacrificed captives to Huitzilopochtli. Part of the pact between the Mexica and Huitzilopochtli established during the people's long journey from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan called for human sacrifice and the construction of temples. However, the tlatoani's responsibilities went beyond fulfilling the pact with Huitzilopochtli. He supervised the rituals that ensured that the sun would continue to shine, the maize to grow, and the Mexica people to fulfill the destiny assigned to them by the gods.

Ritual Ceremonies

Campesinos also conducted ceremonies individually in their fields, which also were governed by the calendar and complemented official ceremonies held in the temples. It appears that most varieties of maize were planted between February and March, but the main ceremonies in honor of Cincotl and Chicomecoatl, the gods of maize, were held in the month of Huey Tozoztli. Before the rainy season began and while the stalks were still small, campesinos would carry mats made of maize stalks cut in the eighth month to the temples in the city, and during the rite of Etzalcualiztli campesinos would offer food and pulque to their tools. In the month of Huey Tecuilhuitl rites were performed in honor of Xilonen, another god of maize, and in the tenth month, Ochpaniztli, when the maize had begun to ripen, the entire population fasted in the afternoons and pieced their ears, wiping the blood on their foreheads. In the most important maize ritual a young woman was consecrated as an image of the goddess Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent), who was subjected to a complicated series of rituals leading to her sacrifice. The following day a "living image" of the goddess Toci was offered by doctors and midwives but was accompanied by the priests of Chicomecoatl. Other rites associated with maize would take place later that month, coinciding with the autumnal equinox, consisting of a procession of young priestesses who bore seven maize stalks on their backs accompanied by priests dressed in the skins of sacrificial victims who threw four different colors of maize kernels toward the four cardinal points of the universe.

Although ceremonies in honor of many other gods were held in the temple of Huitzilopochtli, the patron of the Mexica, the three most important were in honor of Huitzilopochtli himself. Perhaps the most important of these was held by the pochteca (merchants) to commemorate Huitzilopochtli's birth. The ritual required a great deal of advance planning, including a series of rituals in which the pochteca had to demonstrate that they had sufficient funds to carry out the sacrifice. They were required to conduct a pilgrimage to Xicalanco, near present-day Ciudad del Carmen in the southeastern state of Campeche, and they also needed to hold four banquets in which they distributed goods to the guests.

Different Mexican Rituals

A different set of rituals were held for human sacrifices who were slaves rather than captives of war. If prisoners were offered up to the gods individually by their captives, slaves were offered collectively by different social groups: peasants, flower growers, salt miners, hunters, stone masons, scribes, gold and silver smiths, craftsmen who specialized in feather work, doctors and midwives, merchants, domestic servants, and even the ruler. Slaves destined for sacrifice would be purchased well in advance, consecrated as "living images of the gods," and shortly before the sacrificial rite subjected to a series of rituals that would make possible the total deification necessary for the sacrificial exchange of energy.

The most important public rituals were those associated with the sun, water, and maize, which were determined by the sun's position on the horizon. The ritual cycle associated with water began in the first month of the Mexica solar calendar (February in the Gregorian calendar) and was marked by a series of rituals to ensure favorable rainfall and please the gods of maize. An important part of these rituals was the sacrifice of children; older children were used as the maize matured. The children were sacrificed at the temple of Tlaloc, the god of rain, and on certain hills around Tenochtitlan.

The most important rite associated with Tlaloc was conducted in the month of Etzalcualiztli (June in the Gregorian calendar), which coincided with the height of the rainy season and the summer solstice. Priests dedicated to Tlaloc were confined to the calmecac for eight days. They would prepare for their confinement by going out to pick special twigs to make mats that they would use to hang offerings and to sleep on during their confinement. They would fast until midnight of the fourth day, performing autosacrifices each night to the sound of trumpets and conch shells. Using obsidian blades to cut their ears, they would gather their blood on maguey spines, which then would be offered to Tlaloc. On the fourth day they would lead a procession to the four temples known as the "houses of mist," playing instruments and singing. They would immerse themselves in the lake and, at the signal of one priest, would all begin to imitate the sounds of waterfowl. In the afternoon they would decorate the sanctuaries with fir branches and reeds.

The ceremony culminated with a feast in which the population ate a mixture of beans and cornmeal known as etzalli. The following day priests and acolytes marched to a spot on the lake known as Teotecco, bringing images of the gods made of rubber and copal pyramids, which they burned on the lake shore. Later they returned to the temple to hold four more days of fasting, concluding with a final ceremony in which they painted their head blue and their faces with a mixture of honey and ink before offering captives and later slaves to Tlaloc. The hearts of victims and other offerings were then carried by a group of priests in a boat into the lake and thrown into a whirlpool.

Public Ritual

On top of daily and life-cycle rituals, there was an additional category of cyclical rituals tied to specific days in the tonalpohualli calendar and especially the Mexica solar calendar, which consisted of 18 20-day months and an additional 5 days. There also were special rituals to mark the end and beginning of 4- and 52-year cycles. Over the course of the 18-month year, rituals were held to propitiate the gods of nature, particularly those who were necessary for the survival of the people, such as sun, earth, rain, and maize; the ceremonies also propitiated gods who were believed to have founded specific tribes or families. Another category of public rituals commemorated major state occasions, such as the naming of a new ruler or the consecration of a new temple or religious monument.

While many life-cycle rituals took place among families or clans, most rituals took place in Tenochtitlan's many temples, particularly the Great Temple in the heart of the city, which symbolized the mythical "serpent's mountain," the birthplace of Huitzilopochtli, the god of sun and war and the patron god of the Mexica. In addition to the tonalpouhque, Mexica society had 39 other types of ritual specialists. Among these was the teohatzin, a "king of the priests" who was in charge of all the city's temples as well as the clamecac, the school for noble youth. Other ritual specialists were in charge of the sacred pulque, supervised ceremonial music, or were responsible for finding the objects need for human sacrifices. Since Mexica religion was a state religion, its rituals were fairly homogeneous and controlled by the central authority; such high ceremonies as human sacrifice could take place only with the authorization of the head of state.

Virtually all high ceremonies culminated in human sacrifice, which took place on platforms on top of the temple pyramids, on hills, on by springs. The sacrificial victim was believed to supply cosmic energy to the various gods who personified various aspects of nature. The sacrifice always was conducted by a special priest who was aided by four assistants. While his assistants held the victim's arms and legs and spread him over a sacrificial stone, the priest used a flint knife to cut open the chest and extract the heart, which was then offered to the gods, particularly the gods of sun and earth. The heart was then placed in a special vessel, and if the victim was a captive the body was thrown down the steps of the temple. When it reached the bottom it was decapitated and the head placed on a special rack called the tzompantli. The body was turned over to the victim's captor, who offered a banquet of the corpse. On some occasions a priest or someone who had taken a special vow dressed himself in the flayed skin of the victim and performed a special series of rituals.

Death and Rituals in Mexico

Death required a special set of rituals to help the deceased soul disengage from the world of the living and seek her or his place in the afterlife, which varied according to how she or he had died. Funerary rites varied according to the social class of the departed. Generally the deceased was placed in a fetal position and wrapped in paper. A piece of jade was placed in the corpse's mouth if she or he had been affluent, while a simple stone was used for the poor. The tools the deceased had used during his or her life were placed alongside the body along with food and water for the journey to the next world. A red dog also was sacrificed in the belief that it would assist the deceased in crossing the river between the world of the living and the afterlife. Rulers and dignitaries were adorned in the attire of a god, and some of his spouses and servants were sacrificed to accompany him into death. Some of these victims were tribute from allied or subject kings.

Although the corpses of those who had died from drowning or childbirth or from water-related illnesses were buried, most cadavers were cremated. After cremation, the ashes were placed in an urn and brought to the person's home or, in the case of royalty, to the temple of a prominent deity. After eighty days and again after two years additional rites were held to aid the deceased's passage to the next world; after four years it was assumed that the deceased had arrived in the next world and all ceremonies were ended. A separate set of rites were held to accompany the burial of those who had died from drowning or childbirth or from water-related illnesses. In a set of rites associated with the water deities, before burial their foreheads were painted blue and amaranth was placed in their jawbones, and they also had paper adornments tied around their necks and were dressed in paper clothing. A special set of rituals were observed for warriors who had fallen in battle or pochteca (merchants) who had died abroad. An effigy was created of the dead man and was treated the same as a real body. During the mourning period the wife and children of the dead man were not allowed to wash their faces or hair.

Rites of Passage

During the third month of the year, "the great piercing," all women who had given birth during the previous year were required to undergo a purification ceremony. Children were named and bled, male children being pierced in the ear and penis and female children only in the ear. When children first began to speak, offerings of flowers and copal incense were carried to the temple of the god Ixtliton. Every four years, a ceremony was celebrated during the month of Ixcalli, the last month of the year, in which newborns were pierced and assigned godmothers and godfathers, who were required to dance in the temple of Ixtliton and given pulque (a liquor made from the fermented sap of maguey) to drink.

At an early age boys born into the aristocracy were sent away to special schools, where they were trained to be priests or warriors. Rituals were an important part of this training. Boys were required to cense images of the gods at regular hours, sweep the patio of the temple in the early morning, and practice such autosacrifices as piercing, fasts, and all-night vigils. The boys also were taken by special attendants each day to the main patio to sing and dance before the gods.

When a young person turned 20, her or his parents arranged marriage with a spouse with compatible calendar signs, and once a propitious date was chosen the wedding was held in the house of the groom. The main part of the wedding ceremony was held before a fire. The couple's wedding garments were tied together while they fed each other tamales, and afterward they retired to the nuptial chamber for four days of prayer before consummating the marriage. On the fifth day they would go to a temazcalli (sweat lodge) and later receive a priest's blessings before beginning a final round of celebrations.

Ritual and Religious Civic: Mexica

Although the peoples of Mesoamerica are believed to have shared a basic worldview, their rituals doubtless varied considerably from one culture to the next and from one historical period to another. This article focuses on the Mexica (Aztecs), about whom we have the greatest amount of information. Mexica rulers presided over a highly hierarchical society and played a key role in religious affairs; indeed, in Mexica ritual life no distinction was made between the "civic" and "religious" spheres, although we should draw a distinction between those rituals that could be practiced by the general population and rituals that were the preserve of religious specialists. "Popular" rituals included such daily routines as offering food to the elements of earth and fire, or the daily chores of small children, who were required to sweep the patios of their homes each morning and place offerings and burn incense before household icons. Campesinos (peasants) left offerings of food and incense in their fields and granaries, a tradition that continues to this day in some parts of Mexico.

If rites of passage marking such key moments in the life cycle as birth, marriage, and death were largely family affairs, they were presided over by such ritual specialists as the tonaipouhque, who intimately knew the tonalpohualli, the 260-day calendar that was believed to govern individuals' lives (he also might have been responsible for curing illnesses believed to have been caused by loss of vital energy). When a child was born, the midwife conducted a ritual at sunrise, delivering an address to remind the child of her or his mission in life. If the child was a girl she was told to be a good housewife and given a small shuttle, spindle, and chest for household items; if the child was a boy he was told to be a great warrior and was given a small shield and four arrows. The midwife then washed the child and offered her or him to the gods of water and sun. Later on the parents would consult the tonalpouhque to ascertain the child's future and, if necessary, to dispel bad omens.

New Spain's Retablos

From the appearance of the estípite, a definite change took place in the structural composition of New Spain's retablos. The traditional static model was abandoned, giving free range to new solutions: the predominant design had one single body, reasonably elevated with an ostentatious top, with both parts decorated with intense, formal patterns, managing to separate and direct the cornices, the tops, the scrolls, and other elements toward the space above, filling out the central aisle and using a superimposition of moldings. In such a way the formal energy of Baroque increased by 1750; extraordinary altarpieces were being made, special creations, rich in imagination and full of the enthusiastic piety of the New Spanish society. From the introduction of neoclassical art into Mexico, via the opening of the Academia de las Bellas Artes de San Carlos in 1785, the academics' harsh criticism of the Baroque retablos imposed a more sober aesthetic.

Unfortunately, there is no register of the number of Baroque altarpieces that remain in Mexico, but there are hundreds, scattered throughout the country. Specialists are still making important new discoveries in the most unlikely places, such as the Church of Santa Prisca in the town of Taxco and the Church of the Compañía de Jesus (Jesuits) in Zacatecas.

In the society of New Spain, strictly subject to the commands and dogma of the Catholic Church, the donation of pious works was fundamental. Almost everyone gave donations to the church, according to his or her means. To donate altarpieces was, of course, a privilege of the upper classes. The person paying for an altarpiece was able to chose the form, and the themes that would shape it, so that his pious references became clear, as did his worries and social interests. Given that, just as traditional devotions had arrived from Europe, so also there were certain cults, such as that of San José, Santa Rosa de Lima, and above all Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, who took on a political nationalistic significance; she came to symbolize a criollo ideology, an American feeling that aspired and struggled toward a political separation from Spain.

On the other hand, a donation of an altarpiece or a set of them gave enormous social prestige to the donor. The inauguration of an altarpiece would mark a great social event. The sermon given for this occasion would make known the donor's identity.

Style of the Altarpleces

In the artistic development of the altarpieces of colonial Mexico, there were three stages. In the first, approximately between 1550 and 1630, the influence of Renaissance art of two kinds was clear. On the one hand were classicist altarpieces, and on the other were plateresco altarpieces, which could be identified by the peculiar use of columns with balusters, known as candelabra columns because they were inspired by those works of art in silver or gold. The altarpieces of this phase consisted of discreet structures, using cornices, friezes, wooden sections, and capitals modeled on classical art.

In approximately 1620, Baroque art began to develop. One of the first varieties to flourish in the seventeenth century, still rather attached to its classical structures, involved the use of panzuda (paunchy) columns, completely covered by tightly woven bas-relief. Almost simultaneous in its development was the well-known form called salomónica (Solomonic), characterized by its use of spiral-shafted columns. This type of column is similar to those in the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome, and which traditionally are said to come from the Temple of Solomon. Practically all the altarpieces from the last third of the seventeenth century are Solomonic, and occasionally they are to be found in altarpieces built well into the eighteenth century. The Solomonic columns always have capitals in Corinthian style. There are some with a completely smooth shaft and others covered in vine leaves, with their bunches of grapes symbolizing the Eucharist. Images of pomegranates and other symbolic and geometric forms sometimes decorate them.

The eighteenth century proved to be the richest period for the creation of retablos in New Spain. Generally large and ornate, these altarpieces frequently employed estipíte (sticklike) pilasters, which were introduced in Mexico with the arrival of the Spanish master Jerónimo de Balbás and the erection of altarpieces at El Perdón and Los Reyes and at the metropolitan cathedral, all works done between 1718 and 1737. This style was widely accepted and considered one of the characteristic expressions of Mexican Baroque, also known as churrigueresco.

The estipíte pilaster owes its name to its distinctive shaft, which has the form of an inverted pyramid. The estipíte pilaster is a geometric synthesis of the human body, seen thus: the base represents the feet; the estipo, the legs; a shaped narrowing, the waist; the round turret, the thorax; another shaped narrowing, the neck; and the capital, the head. At the same time as the churrigueresco, there proliferated around the country other styles such as the barrocoanástilo (Baroque without style), so named because it can do without props, folding itself back against the wall. Yet another is the barroco-losángico, the pilasters of which are in the form of rhomboids.

Mexican Altarpieces

Especially during the first evangelizing years, when there were not enough architects or imagineros (religious image-makers), retablos were painted on the nave walls of the churches. Some interesting examples of these remain. Elsewhere oil-painted canvas fragments have been preserved, which once were part of altarpieces of various sizes, some of them reaching to considerable heights. This fashion was more common than is usually thought, and it flourished from the sixteenth until well into the nineteenth century, following the ornamental styles of the day in every age.

In the era in which golden altarpieces were built, artisans were organized in guilds (i.e., artisans grouped by their trade). Each guild was organized by its own rules, and various studios could belong to the same guild. Each studio was directed by a master who accepted apprentices, each of whom would live for years in the studio learning his trade. The apprentices, in time and according to their abilities, became oficiales (officials), and when they finished their apprenticeship they acquired, through an examination, the status of maestro and could therefore open a studio in their own right.

The making of an altarpiece was contracted out to the "master" of the studio, who always worked with the help of his "officials" and "apprentices." In making such an altarpiece, various maestros would collaborate. There is documentation that a maestro retablero, for example, sometimes could chose the maestro pintor (painter) to work with him, but other times such choices were imposed on him. It also is known that a maestro could combine two or more skills at a time, which would remove the necessity of employing artisans from other studios.

To validate a contract between the patronos and the artists, the plan or mounting of the altarpiece had to be presented, endorsed by a notary. Any breach of the conditions by either party was punished by very high fines. The price of an altarpiece varied according to its size and formal wealth. When the altarpieces needed to be taken into the interior of the country, the cost of the mules to carry the pieces was stipulated, as well as the price of the blankets to cover them. The price of the altarpiece could be paid either wholly in cash or partly in cash and partly with an old altarpiece or some parts, or with separate sculptures from destroyed altarpieces.