Cholula (, officially ; ), is a city and district located in the metropolitan area of Puebla, Mexico. Cholula is best known for its Great Pyramid, with the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sanctuary on top, as well as its numerous churches.
The city and district of Cholula are divided into two: San Pedro Cholula and San Andrés Cholula. Surrounding the city proper are a number of more rural communities which belong to the municipalities of San Andrés and San Pedro. The city itself is divided into eighteen neighborhoods or barrios, each with a patron saint.
This division has pre-Hispanic origins as does the division into two municipalities. The city is unified by a complicated system of shared religious responsibilities, called , which function mostly to support a very busy calendar of saints' days and other festivals which occur in one part or another almost all year round. The most important of these festivals is that dedicated to the Virgin of the Remedies, the patron of the city in its entirety, which occurs at the beginning of September. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. Pre-Columbian Cholula grew from a small village to a regional center during the 7th century. It is the oldest still-inhabited city in the Americas.
City makeup and non religious landmarks
General description
thumb|left|Overlooking the [[San Gabriel Franciscan Convent, Cholula|San Gabriel Franciscan Convent and city from the Pyramid]]
The city of Cholula is located just west of the state capital of Puebla and is part of its metropolitan area. The city is divided into two municipalities, called San Pedro Cholula and San Andrés Cholula, which also include a number of smaller communities that surround the city proper. The main plaza of the city is located in the municipality of San Pedro Cholula, but the Great Pyramid, located only a few blocks away, is located in San Andrés Cholula. Of the two sub-divisions, San Andrés is more residential and has the higher indigenous population. The city as a whole is officially called the Distrito Cholula de Rivadavia. It was created in 1895 and named in honor of Bernardino de Rivadavia.
Since the early colonial period, the city has been organized into eighteen barrios or neighborhoods. The pre-Hispanic city had official neighborhoods, called , which the Spanish reorganized around parish churches, each with a patron saint. The official chronicler of the city, however, still refers to the neighborhoods by their pre-Hispanic term. Like the city of Puebla, it has a straight street grid oriented to the cardinal directions. Most streets in the center are numbered with indications as to their location vis-à-vis the center, north, east, south or west. On the city periphery, street names lose this system. On the west side of the plaza, there is the city hall, which was built over the former Xiuhcalli (House of Turquoise) where a council of nobles met during pre-Hispanic times. This government building is fronted by a line of businesses, which in turn are fronted by a gallery, marked by 46 arches supported by Doric columns, called the . This arcade is the longest of its kind in Latin America. On another side of the plaza, one of the oldest residential structures in the Cholula area, called the Casa del Caballero Aguilar (House of the Eagle Knight) was converted into the Museo de la Ciudad de Cholula (Cholula City Museum). The museum traces the history of Cholula from about 1000 BCE through five rooms. The first three contain pre-Hispanic artifacts and the last two contain pieces and exhibitions related to the colonial period including religious art. The rooms also contain elements which recreate aspects of a colonial era home. The basis of the museum's collection is a group of about 1,500 artifacts from Omar Jimenez, from both the pre-Hispanic and colonial eras. There is also an area dedicated to photography of the city's religious festivals, and laboratories dedicated to the restoration of excavated objects.
Landmarks
is a 17th-century house located in the Santa María Xixitla neighborhood, cataloged by INAH as a historic monument. It was converted into a boutique hotel, affiliated with the Hoteles Boutique de México. It was the home of an indigenous noble by the name of Juan de León y Mendoza, built with adobe walls and very high ceilings. The hotel contains seven luxury rooms, a meeting room, a library, a lobby and a restaurant, surrounding a central courtyard which has a garden. The lobby and restaurant are located in what was the chapel. The library area contains about 3,000 books and its roof is crossed by beams which were rescued during renovations to the building. The decoration is based on paintings by Federico Silva and Gerardo Gomez Brito, various pieces done in local onyx and a number of antiques from various places in the world. The lobby occasionally hosts small concerts.
thumb|left|Cholula container city
Container City is a complex constructed from large shipping containers, located at the intersection of 12 Oeste and 2 Norte. The idea is from England, but this version was built by a Mexican organization. Fifty of these containers have been joined and painted with bright colors to create of spaces used to house workshops, restaurants, galleries and other businesses. There are even a few homes made of the containers in the area. The hallways have wireless Internet service, a music lounge for visitors, an entertainment area, ping pong tables and more.
The city contains a number of traditional Mexican markets. The largest of these is the Mercado Municipal. This market has conserved its traditional look with women seated on the floor selling seeds, flowers, herbs, and more. On Wednesdays and Sundays, this market is augmented by street vendors, which is called a tianguis, because on these days, people from the communities surrounding the city come to buy and sell. The market specializes in locally produced products, especially flowers, fruit, vegetables and others. There are also food stands preparing local dishes. a cold drink made of chocolate and water, whipped until foamy and served in wooden bowls with flowers painted on them, In reality, there are only 37 churches; or 159, if all the small chapels including those on local haciendas and ranches are counted.
The architectural styles of these churches vary from Gothic to Renaissance to Churrigueresque and Neoclassical, with many mixing elements of two or more. A number also have Talavera tile as a decorative feature, which is common in Puebla. A few have intricate stucco work done by indigenous hands.
Various church steeples in the city fell during the 2017 Puebla earthquake.
thumb|upright|Parish of San Pedro
Most of the rest of the city's churches date from the 17th to the 19th centuries and many of them are parish churches which belong to the various neighborhoods or barrios of the city proper. However, there are also several important churches in the smaller communities of the two municipalities just outside the urban area. The Parish of San Pedro is the parish church for the San Pedro municipality. It was built in the 17th century and is located facing the main square of the city. The style is a mixture of Baroque and Renaissance, with a Churrigueresque cupola.
Two other significant churches in this part of the city are the and the Church of San Francisco Acatepec. is the best known as it is the church that is located on top of the Cholula Pyramid. This church was built in 1594 and is home to an image of the Virgin of the Remedies, the patron of Cholula. The first church collapsed in an earthquake in 1854 and was rebuilt. The new church was damaged again by an earthquake in 1999 but repaired. The pyramid it is on was a pilgrimage site in pre-Hispanic times, and it remains one now with people coming to visit this Virgin image. From the top of the pyramid, in the sanctuary atrium, it is possible to see the Malinche, Popocatepetl, Iztaccíhuatl and Pico de Orizaba Volcanoes in the far eastern horizon.
The pyramid
According to myth, the pyramid was built by a giant named Xelhua of adobe bricks, after he escaped a flood in the neighboring Valley of Mexico. Building of the pyramid began in the pre Classic period and over time was built over six times to its final dimensions of on each side at the base and tall. Two of the stages of construction use talud-tablero architecture which was also used in Teotihuacan . The last state of construction has stairs on the west side leading to a temple on top, which faced Iztaccíhuatl. Due to the condition of the surface and the large number of artifacts just under the surface, it is not possible to reconstruct the last stage of the pyramid to what it was. Veneration of this Virgin in Mexico dates back to the Conquest, with various stories surrounding how this particular manifestation became associated with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Most revolve around a conquistador by the name of Juan Rodríguez de Villafuerte. One story states that he brought this image with him before leaving for the New World by a soldier who had fought in Italy. Another states that she was carried by Villafuerte, but lost during the only to be found later by a local indigenous man. Yet another states that an image of this Virgin appeared on the sleeve of Franciscan friar Martín de Valencia, while praying on the pyramid mound of Cholula. The Virgin of the Remedies is strongly associated with the Conquest as the protector of the conquistadors. She was made a "general" of the Spanish army in their battles against the indigenous of New Spain. During the Mexican War of Independence, she was invoked by royalist forces, while the insurgents carried the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. For this reason, this image is also called the Virgen Gachupina, as "gachupina" is a derogatory word for the Spanish used in Mexico. The Virgin of the Remedies was one of four Virgin Mary images which were used to substitute for pre Hispanic female deities in the cardinal directions from Mexico City. This one was placed in the east, with the Virgin of Guadalupe to the north, the Virgin of Mercy to the south and the "Virgen de la Bala" to the south. There is a story that a serpent lives beneath the pyramid. It is likely related to the myth of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent, which was converted to the snake, related to the devil and crushed under the foot of the Virgin Mary.
There are a number of stories of how the particular physical image of the Virgin of the Remedies came to the sanctuary, but she was most likely brought by Franciscan missionaries from Spain for their friary. The image measures tall, similar to those brought by Hernán Cortés and leading to speculation what it was brought by him. Images like this brought by him include the Virgin Conquistador in the San Francisco friary in Puebla, the Virgin of the Defense at the Altar of the Kings in the Puebla cathedral, the Virgin of San Juan de los Lagos, the Virgin of Zapopan and the Virgin of Juquila. There is a story that states that the image was lost from the friary and a bright image of her appeared over the pyramid. The light attracted the Franciscans, who climbed the structure to find the physical image there. This prompted the decision to build the sanctuary to her in this place. 8 September is when the apparition of the image is celebrated, but the image is honored starting the first, and the local annual fair runs from the first to the fifteenth. The church has suffered damage on various occasions from lightning strikes and from earthquakes. Before the Spanish, the pyramid was considered to be sacred to a female rain deity called Chiconāuhquiyahuitl (Nine Rains). She was accredited with striking the new church with lightning and supposedly a stone image of her was found at the site the church is now. The next major quake to damage the building came in 1999, which damaged the towers and caused the pilgrims' portal to collapse, with damage to 80% of the building. It contains oil paintings such as those depicting the birth of the Virgin Mary, the Announcement to the Virgin Mary, Mary and Joseph, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Sculptures include those of the Archangel Michael on the main altar, Diego de Alcalá, and Salvador of Horta .
Neighborhoods and festivals
Barrios and cargas
thumb|Procession in Cholula
The city of Cholula is made up of two municipalities: San Pedro Cholula and San Andrés Cholula. The more important social division is a system of neighborhoods or barrios. San Pedro consists of eight neighborhoods: are San Miguel Tianguisnahuac, Jesús Tlatempa, Santiago Mixquitla, San Matias Cocoyotla, San Juan Calvario Texpolco, San Cristóbal Tepontla, Santa María Xixitla, La Magdalena Coapa, San Pedro Mexicaltzingo and San Pablo Tecama. San Andrés consists of ten: San Miguel Xochimehuacan, Santiago Xicotenco, San Pedro Colomoxco, Santa María Coaco, La Santísima, San Juan Aquiahuac, San Andresito and Santo Niño. In the pre-Hispanic period, the city was a mixture of ethnicities. What unified them was a common religious belief. After the Conquest, the Spanish reorganized the pre-Hispanic neighborhoods, or , around various patron saints. These neighborhoods remain to this day, whose names refer to their patron saint affixed before the original pre-Hispanic name. The neighborhoods closest to the center are urbanized, with those on the edges of the city maintaining more of their rural character, with economies based on agriculture and brick making. These acts of “popular” piety may be hard to some to understand; these practices trace back to almost 500 years, with the arrival of the first Franciscan friars and the original “religious” purpose may have become shrouded with the cultural aspects of these celebrations over the years
Like a number of other cities in the area, such as Huejotzingo, Cholula celebrates , this tradition began over 90 years ago, with events centered on the main square of the city. The principal dancers of this event are called the Huehues, which means "ancient ones" in Nahuatl. Overall, the event has the participation of over 3,000 dancers from the various neighborhoods as well as from other parts of Puebla and Tlaxcala states.
There are numerous events associated with Lent and Holy Week, some of which bring in large number of visitors into the city.
Between these major events, there are numerous patron saint's days for all the neighborhoods and other communities of the two municipalities of San Pedro and San Andrés. Many of these events include amusement rides, fireworks, cockfights, horse races, elaborate decoration of the church the event is centered on, folk and indigenous dancing, and more. For a number of these, one of the images of the Virgin of the Remedies will also "visit." The various small rivers and streams allowed for irrigated agriculture and at one time, several converged into a shallow lake, which may have been used for chinampas. At the end of the Pre-classic, many other settlements in the area were abandoned but Cholula grew, possibly with migration from these other settlements. This made Cholula the dominant political force in the region. This was also the time when work on the Great Pyramid began, along with another monument called the . Cholula continued to grow during the Classic period (200–800 CE) to an extension of over and a population of between 20,000 and 25,000. It also remained dominant over the Puebla-Tlaxcala region, with more monumental construction, including the addition of two stages to the Great Pyramid. The split between the ethnic divisions of the city eventually would coalesce into three areas by the late pre-Hispanic period, which are now known by the names of San Pedro Cholula, San Andrés Cholula and San Isabel Cholula. Only the first two are considered part of the city today. On signal, the Spanish charged and killed as many as 6,000 Chololtecs. However, the Aztec record states that the Spanish attack was unprovoked and there was no plot against them. The event is called the Cholula Massacre, and it resulted in many deaths and destruction of much of the city.
However, unlike many other pre-Hispanic cities, which were abandoned or destroyed before or immediately after the Conquest, Cholula has remained to this day. there is an approximate population growth of about 3%. whose curriculum is modeled after Oxford and Harvard . The UDLAP campus was established in 1970 on a campus filled with well-groomed gardens and benches. Today, students and local can be found watching the school's basketball and American football teams, called the Aztecas, face other colleges at the Estadio Templo de Dolor. Cultural events generally take place at the main auditorium behind the library, which is home to the Cine Club Las Américas, where students present independent films. There are also two art galleries named Sala José Cuevas and Sala Bertha Cuevas, which host temporary exhibits.