Cholula
In the US, Cholula is known as a Mexican hot sauce, though it's not at all hot. It is the height of indignity to have a sauce named Cholula that is not hot. To compound this slight, the Cholula label has woman, obviously Castilian, pale and sharped faced, not a trace of Nahuatl blood. Maybe it's an inside joke, “This sauce is for you Gringo.” If there was a cancel culture of any virtue, Cholula Hot Sauce would be right at the top for culinary reasons alone.
In Mexican history, Cholula has an illustrious heritage. When Cortes landed, Cholula was one of the great cities of Mexico, a holy city with a long history, the Jerusalem of Mexico. Instead of the Abrahamic religions, Cholula gathered various religious temples of the peoples of Central and Southern Mexico. First and foremost, it was the city of Quetzalcoatl, the great feathered serpent god, proving to be one of the many fortunate coincidences encountered by the proselytizing Conquistador and his intrepid band of adventurers.
At 7000 feet, Cholula is located in the smaller Cuetlaxcoapan Valley, directly east of the great Valley of Mexico, from which it is separated by the two magnificent volcanoes, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. To the east, the land drops steadily and quickly to the coast of Veracruz. The area has been human inhabited for at least three-thousand years. A lush fertile valley, it once included a large lake and streams flowing off the mountains allowing extensive irrigation.
Prior to the Spaniards’ arrival, Cholula had two great historical epics. The first, labeled the Classic Period, ran from 200 – 800 AD. This culture was greatly influenced by the Olmec, whose civilization along the Gulf coast was at the time in decline. Cholula was also influenced by the then flourishing great Mexican Valley civilization of Teotihuacan, adopting their god Quetzalcoatl.
During this era, the great Cholula teocalli (Nahuatl meaning temple) or pyramid was built. This pyramid, the biggest ever in the Americas, rivaled in size Cheops in Egypt. At the end of the Classic Period, both Teotihuacan and Cholula declined. Teotihuacan was abandoned forever, while in Cholula building stopped and the great pyramid was abandoned. Seven hundred years later, when Cortes arrived, the great pyramid was so overgrown, the Spaniards thought it was a natural hill.
The second Cholula historical era begins approximately one to two hundred years after the decline of the first. This was the culture the Spaniards encountered. This era was also influenced from the Mexican Valley, particularly by the Toltec, whose own city of Tula fell in the 12th century, its inhabitants migrating south, eventually to the Yucatan. The Toltec were also great worshipers of Quetzalcoatl.
By the time the Aztec or Mexica culture of Montezuma rose to prominence in the 15th century, Cholula was a centuries old established culture known across much of central and southern Mexico as a refined holy city. In his seminal, History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), William Prescott describes Cholula as excelling in various mechanical arts, rivaling Florence in beauty. Unlike the warrior Aztec, he writes, “Attention to the arts of a polished and peaceful community naturally indisposed them to war.” He adds, “Accused of effeminacy; they were less distinguished―it is the charge of their rivals―by their courage, than their cunning.”
Prescott documents, “Many of the kindred races had temples in the city, each temple was provided with its own peculiar ministers for services to the deity to whom it was consecrated.” The greatest teocalli was Quetzalcoatl's. It is thought Quetzalcoatl rose to prominence with Teotihuacan. He was the god of the wind, closely associated with Tlaloc, the rain god, who in another fortunate coincidence for the Spanish was symbolized in some motifs as a cross. Though no coincidence was more fortunate for the Spanish than Quetzalcoatl, who advantageously for the Christian evangelizing Conquerors was associated with death and resurrection. Illustrated at times as pale and with a beard, Quetzalcoatl had disappeared across the ocean to the east, promising one day to return to his rightful throne – you couldn't make this up.
Cortes claims on his arrival, Cholula had twenty-thousand buildings in the city surrounded by farmlands with “rich products of various climes growing side by side, fields of towering maize, the juicy aloe, the chilli or Aztec pepper, irrigated by numerous streams, canals, and shaded woods.” In the city itself, “Cortes tells us that he saw multitudes of beggars, such as are to be found in the enlightened capitals of Europe.” Writing in 1842 Boston, Prescott notes, “A whimsical criterion of civilization, which must place our own prosperous land somewhat low in the scale.” Be proud America, unlike the degenerate 19th century, in the 21st century we would, in the Conqueror's reckoning, be most civilized.
Cholula was allied with the Aztec. On their march to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the Conquistadors were invited by Montezuma into the great city unmolested. However after a few days, the conquerors uncovered or imagined a plot against them, thus preceded to undertake their own sort of latter day, though much bloodier, Rape of the Sabine. Inviting the leaders of Cholula into the square for a celebration, the Spaniards preceded to massacre the lot. Cortes admits three thousand, others say six-thousand or more.
Prescott assesses, “This passage in their history is one of those that have left a dark stain on the memory of the Conquerors. Nor can we contemplate at this day, without a shudder, the condition of this fair and flourishing capital thus invaded in its privacy, and delivered over to the excesses of a rude and ruthless soldiery.”
Prescott proceeds to talk about the fanatical 16th century evangelical nature of the conquest, greater than their lust for treasure, the murderous zeal by which the Christians sought to convert what they considered an empire of Satan. At one point, Cortes establishes a code for his army, stating the conversion of the Mexicans was the prime objective of the expedition, “Without which the war would be manifestly unjust, and every acquisition made by it a robbery.” Phew, what cruelties and destruction homo sapiens has inflicted on its fellows in the name of god. No wonder god is nowhere to be found today.
On the massacre, Prescott concludes with a hard exceedingly relevant lesson for our own era of prosecutorial history,
“It is far from my intention to vindicate the cruel deeds of the old Conquerors. Let them lie heavy on their heads. They were an iron race, who periled life and fortune in their cause; and, as they made little account of danger and suffering for themselves, they had little sympathy to spare for their unfortunate enemies. But to judge them fairly, we must not do it by the lights of our own age. We must carry ourselves back to theirs, and take the point of view afforded the civilization of their time. Thus only can we arrive at impartial criticism in reviewing the generations that are past. We must extend to them the same justice which we shall have occasion to ask posterity, when by the light of higher civilization, it surveys the dark or doubtful passages in our own history, which hardly arrest the eye of the contemporary.”
Lord, today, the passages grow darker and more doubtful by the hour.
Cortes would leave the holy city of Quetzalcoatl, pass between the two great volcanoes, and descend into the great Mexican Valley and the city of Tenochtitlan. There consumed by the Spaniards' march waited the Aztec emperor Montezuma, wondering if this pale, bearded lot, riding never before seen fierce horses, brandishing steel swords and flashing, roaring, smoking guns and cannons that flayed human flesh more easily than one of his priest's knifes, while marching under the banner of the cross were indeed Quetzalcoatl's people returning, as he had promised, to reclaim the long ago abandoned throne with his departure across the sea.
Today, Cholula is a small beautiful suburb of its massive sister city Puebla, founded by the Spanish crown as the “City of Angels” a decade after Cortes passed. Cholula's original descendants still abound and have built many magical small temples to the Conquerors' gods.
Atop Cholula’s great pyramid, and not until they began building did the Spaniards realize it wasn't a hill, sits the church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios.
Yet, Cholula’s most sublime monument to the Conquerors incredibly unlikely and in many ways historically ridiculous success, is the massive Franciscan constructed Convento de San Gabriel Arcángel. Using the temple's stones, the church is built atop the foundation of the great teocalli to Quetzalcoatl. Fortunately, nowhere to be seen is a bottle of Cholula Hot Sauce.