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Tamaulipas has a rich and varied range of na -tural resources, which explains why it hasbeen inhabited by different human groups

from very ancient times. It has three contrastingecosystems: the semi-desert, the forest and the jun-gle, the backdrops for the evolution of three cul -tu res that, despite reaching different levels of tech-nological development, co-existed without al teringeach others’ specific way of life for 1,500 years andeven exchanging products. With the arrival of theSpaniards, first the Huastecs and then the hunter-gatherers would suffer a common fate, the end oftheir culture.

THE PEOPLES OF THE SEMI-DESERT

North of the Tropic of Cancer lie the immensesemi-desert plains of northeastern Mexico andTexas, which were once home to groups of humansadapted culturally and anatomically to survivingin this hostile environment. To this place of aridsoil, thorny bushes and burning temperaturesarrived small bands of hunter-gatherers 12,000years ago. These groups had inherited carved stonetechnology, which allowed them to make simpletools and weapons, from their predecessors, whoarrived via the Bering Straits. The first weaponswere used for hunting and slaughtering animalslike the mammoth and other giant species thatbecame extinct about 10,000 B.C. due to severeclimatic changes. This forced humans to changethe basis for their subsistence to collecting veg-etables, supplemented by the meat of animalslike deer and other mammals, reptiles, birds andinsects.

* Archaeologist who worked five years in the state ofTamaulipas’ National Institute of Anthropology andHistory (INAH) Center. He is currently the coordinatorof research at the State of Mexico INAH Center.

All photos courtesy of Gustavo Ramírez.Photos of archaeological sites reproduced by permission of theNational Institute of Anthopology and History, Conaculta-INAH-Mex.

FromSemi-Desert

To JungleThe Ancient

Peoples of theTamaholipa

Gustavo A. Ramírez Castilla*

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Traditionally, these groups have been charac-terized as being at a low cultural stage and are la -beled as barbarians or savages; in reality they weresuccessful societies whose life style and im ple -ments were perfectly adapted to the rigors oftheir environment. For example, they lived in smallbands and moved cyclically throughout a specif-ic territory to collect seasonal vegetables and huntlocal wildlife. They carved arrows and knives outof stone for hunting or war, scrapers for curingskins, punching tools for making clothing, etc. Onmedium-sized stones rounded by flowing riverwater, they made morters to grind seeds with whichthey made flour, dough and atole (a beverage madefrom ground seeds and water). Some groups livedin the wild while others made temporary sheltersand even portable houses. They generally went

nude, covered only in skins or grass skirts. Theydecorated their bodies from head to toe with thinblue stripes.One of their known ceremonies (handed down

to us by observers from the colonial period) wasthe mitote, which consisted of a gathering of upto 700 individuals who danced, drank peyote wineand, on occasion, devoured the bodies of enemiescaptured during wartime.The fierceness of these tribes, plus the hostil-

ity of the semi-desert, inhibited the Spanish con-quest of their lands for more than 200 years, until1747, when José de Escandón developed a plan tocolonize them, which would end up by displacingand re-grouping and, in the worst of cases, exter-minating, all the indigenous in Ta mau lipas’s semi-desert.

About 300 mountain villages have been found in Tamaulipas, of which only two can be visited, Balcón

de Montezuma and El Sabinito.

Balcón de Montezuma’s characteristic circular buildings, made up of great slabs of calcite.

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THE FOREST PEOPLES

The central part of the state is dominated by twolarge mountain ranges: the Eastern Sierra Madreand the Tamaulipas Mountains. There, amidstpine and holm oak forests, a civilization emergedaround 1500 B.C. that spread an immense networkof stone villages possibly all the way to the Que -rétaro Sierra Gorda mountains, 600 kilometers tothe southwest. Nothing is known about who theseancient mountain inhabitants were or what lan-guage they spoke, but it is believed that they weredescendants of the first farmers who inhabited theLa Perra and Diablo Caves 3,000 years before.This civilization characteristically erected cir-

cular buildings with great slabs of calcite placedon top of each other with nothing to cement them.

Some were as large as 15 meters in diameter and4 meters high, with fan-shaped inset stairways.Each one of these buildings was the foundation fora circular house with walls of wooden staves andcone-shaped, palm roofs. Other smaller, circular orrectangular structures served as altars, while thelarge circular or square buildings held temples.Some eighteenth-century chronicles hint that theOlive, Pasita or Mariguan indigenous may have erect - ed these magnificent mountain buildings.Some towns reached considerable size, with as

many as 1,000 houses set around circular plazaswith walkways, passageways, water storage tanksand steam baths in the shape of igloos. Their uten -sils reveal a society based on agriculture and long-distance trading of secondary goods such as shell,semi-precious stone or ceramic ornaments. Out -

Of the many Huastec sites in Tamaulipas, only Las Flores, located on a hill overlooking the beau tiful

Chairel Lagoon, remains open to the public.

The Las Flores pyramid is now part of the urban landscape of the city of Tampico.

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s tand ing among the remains are clay pipes, that in -dicate that these people smoked. Represen ta tionsof their gods are unknown, however.About 300 mountain villages have been found

in Tamaulipas, of which only two can be visited,Bal cón de Montezuma and El Sabinito. The for-mer is located 26 kilometers from Ciudad Victo ria,the state capital. It is a small village with 90 cir-cular foundations built around two plazas. In avery fa vorable location, atop a hill surrounded byJuan Capitán Canyon, it boasts a splendid land-scape of palm trees and ancient holm oak groves.El Sa bi ni to is located 95 kilometers from the ca p -ital, in the northern foothills of the Ta maulipasMoun tains, near the flowing Soto la Marina River.Sabinito was a large village, possibly the center ofpolitical control, with more than 600 foundationsbuilt on te rra ces, corridors and plazas that testifyto urban planning. Out standing among its construc -tions is its circular, eight-meter-high pyramid, withslabs sticking out of its sides like the arms of a wind -mill. Here, the terrain is practically a tropical jun -gle, with suffocating heat and humidity.For reasons unknown to us, but possibly be cause

of a severe drought and the arrival of hunter-gath-

erer tribes, the mountain villages were definitivelyabandoned around A.D. 1200; with that, a civiliza -tion that dominated the mountain tops for morethan 2,000 years disappeared forever.

THE JUNGLE PEOPLES

The extreme southern part of the state, called theHuasteca, has a tropical climate and importantwater systems made up of the Guayalejo-Ta mesí-Pánuco Rivers and the Chairel-Cham pa yán-Pue bloViejo Lagoons. This rich environment gave sustenance and a

wide variety of raw materials to the pre-Hispanicpeoples who settled there from 1600 B.C. on.From their very origins, the Huastec indige-

nous were a complex ethnic mosaic, in which dif -ferent groups like the Teenek, Nahua, Totonac,Pame, and Tepehua shared a single territory and asingle cultural tradition, the Huastec. The Teenekor Huastec belonged to the Maya linguistic fam-ily from which they separated about 3,600 yearsago, time enough for totally different languagesto evolve.

Amatlán sculpture. Semi-desert landscape.

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The Huastec culture is characterized by its cut-off, cone-shaped structures made of packed earthand covered with a thick sand and lime plaster.These buildings, together with long plat forms andsmall earthen mounds made up their villages, dis - tributed around semi-circular or rec tan gular plazas.But, better known than their archi tecture are theirbeau tiful creations made of such di verse materi-als as stone, clay and shell. They carvedsublime representations of theirgods in thick and thin blocks ofsandstone: Teem, the fertilitygoddess, with naked breasts,hands over her belly anda great semi-circular head-dress on her head; Mam, or“old god”, related to the sunand fire, represented by a crook - ed old man with a walk ing stick;Ajactictamzemlab, or Lord of Death,represented by a man without flesh. They madeceramic receptacles with expressive human, animaland phytomorphic forms, decorated with com plexbrown geometrical designs on a natural backgroundor combining red, maroon and black. They fash-ioned magnificent shell jewelry such as earrings,bracelets and pendants, and particularly great trian -gular necklaces carved with mythical scenes likethe ehecacózcatl, or “jewel of the wind,” a sym bolof Ehécatl-Quetzalcóatl, one of their main gods.

Of the many Huastec sites in Tamaulipas, onlyLas Flores, located on a hill overlooking the beau - tiful Chairel Lagoon, remains open to the public.More than 20 enormous mounds built be tweenA.D. 1000 and A.D. 1250 were originally discov-ered, but they were over whelmed by the fearfulurbanization of the first half of the twentieth cen - tury. Today, the only remains of their greatness is the

so-called Las Flores Pyramid, locat edat Azahar Street and ChairelAvenue in Tam pico’s Las Flo -res neighbor hood. Thepyra mid has a great cir-cular foundation, 36me ters in diameter and6 meters high. Super im -posed on it are the bodies

and stairways that corre-spond to six different stages of

construction. This is a magni ficentexample —and the only one on display— of Huas -tec earthen, lime-plastered architecture.In 1522, Hernán Cortés attacked the Huastec

peoples settled along the banks of the ChairelLagoon, conquering them in less than 20 days.This brought about the end of the indigenousHuastec culture, which would only re-emerge asa mestizo culture, incorporating European andAfrican elements brought by the conquest and co l -onization.

The mountain peoples’ civilization disappeared almost 3,000 years ago. El Sabinito may have been a center of political control.