Women in indigenous Mexico
- Exhibition Women in Indigenous Mexico
- Indigenous view of the universe and the feminine principle
- Structure of the exhibition curated by Karina Romero Blanco
- Symbolism of time and the feminine in Mesoamerican culture
- Duality in indigenous thought
- Reinterpretation of female deities after the Conquest
- Cultural significance of the exhibition
While it is true that the disagreements caused by both former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and current President Claudia Sheinbaum have cooled official relations between Spain and Mexico, it is also true that cultural relations are going through a good period.
This is evidenced by the massive turnout for the exhibition La Mujer en el México Indígena (Women in Indigenous Mexico), held at the Madrid headquarters of the Fundación Casa de México in Spain.
Exhibition Women in Indigenous Mexico
In addition to an adult audience eager to deepen their knowledge of Mexican history prior to the Conquest, thousands of schoolchildren are also visiting the exhibition to discover first-hand the roots of one of the American countries most loved by the Spanish.
No fewer than thirty institutions have loaned their works to be viewed, admired and studied until mid-February. All of them are grouped together in a project that has been made possible thanks to the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), a leading institution in the research and preservation of Mexico's cultural heritage.
There are 98 pieces from cultures such as the Mexica, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Olmec, Huastec and Teotihuacan.
Throughout thirty centuries, indigenous women have been the foundation, support and structure of their cultures. As guardians of memory, they have preserved and reinterpreted languages, traditions and ancestral knowledge.
Indigenous view of the universe and the feminine principle
The exhibition focuses on a fundamental aspect for understanding their customs and cultural practices: the feminine principle of the indigenous view of the universe.
A common element in the thinking of the various indigenous peoples of Mexico—up to 74 are represented in the exhibition—is the conception of the world as the result of the dynamic balance of complementary and interdependent opposites, which they related to the feminine and the masculine.
Structure of the exhibition curated by Karina Romero Blanco
Karina Romero Blanco, head curator of the exhibition, divided it into three sections to ensure a rigorous narrative accessible to all audiences, who can approach a living and deeply contemporary legacy. These three sections are:
The two parts of the world
The Two Parts of the World, which addresses the concept of duality in the indigenous worldview.
The Ostentation of the Body
The Ostentation of the Body, which focuses on the symbolic interpretations of female anatomy, and finally.
Female Sacredness
Female Sacredness, which presents predominantly female deities from various cultures, both pre-Hispanic and contemporary.
Symbolism of time and the feminine in Mesoamerican culture
The dual version of the indigenous world arises from careful observation of natural cycles, earthly waters and their tides, influenced by the moon, and relates them to the amniotic fluid that protects the foetus in the womb.
In this regard, some researchers consider that the Mesoamerican calendar of 260 days is a feminine measure of time based on the nine lunar cycles that a human pregnancy lasts.
Duality in indigenous thought
These links are examples of how the feminine is related to concepts such as humidity, cold, darkness, low, interior, receptivity, generation, night and underworld, and therefore to the number nine, which corresponds to the levels of that underground place, but also to private space (the home), the Earth, vegetation, fertility and water, among others. A presence that manifests itself in all aspects of the Universe.
Rain and drought, east and west, life and death, masculine and feminine. These are some of the opposing pairs that are shown, which are complementary and inseparable and which, in ancestral thinking, are the essence of all that exists.
This theory therefore asserts that every being—divine, human, or natural—is a mixture of opposing elements, and the predominance of one of them determines its classification. Accordingly, duality explains the origin of the universe and structures social life, symbolic thought, and its relationship with the sacred. It is a living principle that continues to give meaning to the world.
Reinterpretation of female deities after the Conquest
After the Conquest, many female deities from the indigenous world were reinterpreted as invocations of the Christian Virgin, to whom they attributed the attributes of fertility, protection and power over life and death, and embraced as the mother of all gods, of humanity, and her new children made her a goddess.
The panels that explain this change in simple terms assure us that it was not an imposed substitution or a rupture, but rather a continuation under new symbols and a strategy of cultural resistance.
The virgins became new forms of the sacred feminine, protective but also punitive, tender but powerful mothers, divine, earthly and communal. In them survive the memories of Tonantzin, Cihuacóatl or Itzpapálotl: ambivalent powers that continue to inhabit the hills, rituals and community life.
Cultural significance of the exhibition
Mexico is, therefore, as vast as its own cultural diversity. Its current shape is largely a shared history with Spain. Like many other cultural manifestations, this exhibition is a magnificent opportunity for this side of the Atlantic to learn more and better understand the pre-Hispanic history of that immense territory.