{"id":5338,"date":"2018-11-22T16:20:18","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T22:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visitpatzcuaro.com\/?page_id=5338"},"modified":"2026-09-22T17:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:54:36","slug":"como-empezo-todo","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/como-empezo-todo\/","title":{"rendered":"How did it all begin?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A name that cannot be contained in a single translation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">P\u00e1tzcuaro has carried so many names and interpretations across the centuries that any single, tidy translation deserves a little caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History records one interpretation of the name as a <strong>\u201cseat of temples.\u201d<\/strong>Michoac\u00e1n historian Ricardo Carvajal Medina, working from sixteenth-century sources, vocabularies and grammars, has proposed a reading of the older <strong>Zacapu Ham\u00facutin P\u00e1tzcuaro<\/strong> close to <strong>\u201cThe Stone on the Shore Where They Dye Black.\u201d<\/strong>These interpretations come from different readings of the historical evidence; neither should simply be presented as the one unquestionable meaning of the name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there is a phrase that generations in P\u00e1tzcuaro have known well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Gate of Heaven.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An important distinction is needed here. \u201cGate of Heaven\u201d is <strong>not a demonstrated translation of the word P\u00e1tzcuaro.<\/strong>But neither is it merely a modern tourist invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">La <em>Relaci\u00f3n de Michoac\u00e1n<\/em>, compiled from Indigenous testimony, records that <strong>the previous cazonci<\/strong> said that this place\u2014and no other\u2014was the gate of heaven through which their gods descended and ascended. The same passage says that the site was held in great veneration and associated with Curicaueri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So perhaps the most faithful way to put it is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>P\u00e1tzcuaro does not simply mean \u201cGate of Heaven.\u201d P\u00e1tzcuaro was remembered and described as a gate of heaven.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That difference matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tar\u00edmich\u00fandiro, the rocks and four stones<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ancient P\u00e1tzcuaro does not begin with a date written on a founding document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">La <em>Relaci\u00f3n de Michoac\u00e1n<\/em> places Pau\u00e1cume and U\u00e1peani at <strong>Tar\u00edmich\u00fandiro<\/strong>, que identifica como un barrio de P\u00e1tzcuaro. Desde all\u00ed se desarrolla el relato del descubrimiento del lugar destinado a los c\u00faes o templos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Among them were the <strong>pet\u00e1zequa<\/strong>: elevated rocks upon which temples were built. <em>The Relaci\u00f3n<\/em> glosses them as a \u201cseat of a temple.\u201d They were part of the landscape itself, not simply \u201cfoundations\u201d in the modern architectural sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here the source preserves a remarkable detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were <strong>four upright stones<\/strong>, resembling unworked idols. The account names them\u2014with spelling variations among editions\u2014as <strong>Zirita-cherengue, Uac\u00fasecha, Ting\u00e1rata and Miequa-axcua<\/strong>, y dice expresamente que eran cuatro dioses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We do not need to add a modern symbolism that the source itself does not provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The four stones already tell quite a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is a very different way to imagine the birth of a city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not an empty piece of land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A landscape read, recognized, and imbued with meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What about 1324?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For decades, <strong>1324<\/strong> has been repeated as the year P\u00e1tzcuaro was founded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That date belongs to the city's historical and civic tradition and should not simply be erased. But so far, <strong>we have not located its original documentary source.<\/strong>The exact historiographical origin of 1324 remains unresolved for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Las reconstrucciones de los historiadores suelen situar este proceso uac\u00fasecha en el <strong>fourteenth century<\/strong>, and INAH likewise dates the city\u2019s pre-Hispanic antecedent to that century. But this approximation should not be confused with a date actually recorded in the <em>Relaci\u00f3n de Michoac\u00e1n<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So at Visit P\u00e1tzcuaro, we prefer to say what we actually know:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>1324 is P\u00e1tzcuaro\u2019s traditional founding date. The historical process can be placed approximately in the fourteenth century; the exact year remains open to research.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some cities begin with a document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">P\u00e1tzcuaro appears earlier among water, rock, forest, power, memory and story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">P\u00e1tzcuaro before the streets we know<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Traces of that earlier city still remain beneath and within the city we know today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you walk around the present-day Museum of Arts and Popular Industries and other buildings in the historic center, you are crossing an area where archaeological research has identified platforms and foundations belonging to the ancient settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">La <em>Relaci\u00f3n de Michoac\u00e1n<\/em> also preserves an extraordinarily concrete detail. Even after the political seat had moved elsewhere, P\u00e1tzcuaro still had <strong>three c\u00faes, three hearths and three priests\u2019 houses<\/strong>, arranged around a prepared courtyard, and offerings continued to be brought to the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That helps explain why P\u00e1tzcuaro did not disappear when political power moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its importance did not depend solely on who ruled from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Three seats of power, not three labels<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a long time, an easy formula has been repeated: P\u00e1tzcuaro as the religious capital, Ihuatzio as the military capital and Tzintzuntzan as the political capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It works as a tourist shorthand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">History is more interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">La <em>Relaci\u00f3n de Michoac\u00e1n<\/em> and archaeological research show that, after Tari\u00e1curi, <strong>P\u00e1tzcuaro, Ihuatzio and Tzintzuntzan functioned as three principal seats of power<\/strong>. Hiqu\u00edngare was associated with P\u00e1tzcuaro; Hiripan with Ihuatzio; and Tang\u00e1xoan with Tzintzuntzan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Their relationships changed over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ihuatzio experienced a period of considerable importance under Hiripan. Later, Tzintzuntzan increasingly concentrated power and eventually became the capital of the polity encountered by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. P\u00e1tzcuaro, meanwhile, retained ceremonial importance and a religious memory that the sources themselves continued to record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They were not three perfectly separate compartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They were cities connected through lineage, warfare, alliances, worship and power, and their functions changed over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pur\u00e9pecha and Tarascan: words have histories too<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Visit P\u00e1tzcuaro normally uses <strong>pur\u00e9pecha<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">INALI records <strong>p\u2019urhepecha<\/strong> and <strong>p\u2019orhepecha<\/strong> as self-designations and \u201cpur\u00e9pecha\u201d as the Spanish-language name. At the same time, historical documents and much older scholarship us <strong>Tarascan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we will not erase \u201cTarascan\u201d from books or historical sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When it appears, we will explain where it comes from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when speaking in our own voice, we will prefer <strong>pur\u00e9pecha<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Conquest changed the world, but did not erase everything that came before<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <strong>1522<\/strong>, Tang\u00e1xoan II chose to avoid open war with the Spaniards and entered into a political relationship with the new power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That did not prevent the violence that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">El <strong>February 14, 1530<\/strong>, Tang\u00e1xoan II was executed after proceedings ordered by Nu\u00f1o de Guzm\u00e1n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vasco de Quiroga came to Michoac\u00e1n in <strong>1533<\/strong>, still serving as a judge of the Second Audiencia. He was appointed bishop of Michoac\u00e1n later in the decade and formally took possession of the diocese in Tzintzuntzan on <strong>August 6, 1538<\/strong>. The following day, part of his entourage, priests and civil authorities moved to P\u00e1tzcuaro, beginning a process in which the episcopal seat and political centrality shifted there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that story was not the work of one man alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The transfer met resistance in Tzintzuntzan, led to conflicts over the rank and rights of both communities, and opened a dispute that continued for decades. Indigenous nobles and authorities took an active part: some supported P\u00e1tzcuaro\u2019s project, while others defended the rights of Tzintzuntzan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The colonial city thus grew <strong>over, around and alongside an earlier Indigenous city<\/strong>, not upon empty ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <strong>1553<\/strong>, Charles V granted P\u00e1tzcuaro its coat of arms, whose image of the lake and the projected cathedral still preserves the memory of that period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But beneath the sixteenth-century city, another city remained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the stones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the lineages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And also in the way the place continued to be remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So when someone asks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How did it all begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">the answer cannot fit into a single date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You have to walk a little farther.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Un nombre que no cabe en una sola traducci\u00f3n P\u00e1tzcuaro lleva tantos siglos siendo nombrado que ser\u00eda sospechoso encontrar una traducci\u00f3n demasiado sencilla. El Instituto Nacional de Antropolog\u00eda e Historia recoge una interpretaci\u00f3n del nombre relacionada con \u201casiento de c\u00faes o templos\u201d. El historiador michoacano Ricardo Carvajal Medina, despu\u00e9s de revisar fuentes del siglo XVI, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6092,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_citadela_hide_page_title":"","_citadela_remove_header_space":"","_citadela_custom_class":"","_citadela_half_map_provider":"","_citadela_half_map_theme":"","_citadela_half_map_themeOSM":"","_citadela_half_map_customTheme":"","_citadela_half_map_dataType":"","_citadela_half_map_dynamicTrack":false,"_citadela_half_map_trackColor":"","_citadela_half_map_trackEndpointsColor":"","_citadela_half_map_filterCategory":"","_citadela_half_map_filterLocation":"","_citadela_half_map_filterFeatured":false,"_citadela_half_map_noDataBehavior":"empty-map","_citadela_half_map_noDataText":"","_citadela_half_map_clusterGridSize":80,"_citadela_header":false,"_citadela_header_over_content":false,"_citadela_header_text_color":"","_citadela_header_logo":[],"_citadela_header_bg_image":[],"_citadela_header_bg_position":{"x":0.5,"y":0.5},"_citadela_header_bg_size":"cover","_citadela_header_bg_repeat":"no-repeat","_citadela_header_bg_fixed":false,"_citadela_header_bg_color":"","_citadela_header_bg_image_overlay":"","_citadela_header_transparent_bg":false,"_citadela_content_width":"","_citadela_half_layout_position":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5338","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5338"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12577,"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5338\/revisions\/12577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/villapatzcuaro.com\/visitpatzcuaro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}