Resumen

MONTIEL ROGEL, Alma Patricia. The cultural landscape through the stories about the ahuaques in San Miguel Tlaixpan, Texcoco, Mexico. Invest. Geog [online]. 2021, n.105, e60363.  Epub 01-Nov-2021. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.60363.

In the central part of the country, specifically the Basin of Mexico, a Nahuatl heritage still exists that refers to different cultural expressions about natural goods. An example is found in the community of San Miguel Tlaixpan, in the municipality of Texcoco, located at the eastern zone of the basin, where there are accounts of ahuaques - spirits that, according to the Nahuatl cosmovision, protect water bodies such as rivers and springs, and assist in the distribution of water used in irrigation. These narratives set the grounds for building cultural landscapes. For this reason, the aim of the following text is to expose the cultural landscape of the community as a result of the symbolic representation of springs and rivers contained in accounts about ahuaques.

The work pertains to cultural geography from the recovery of the landscape concept. On the other hand, a qualitative methodology was used for data collection based on field work, including open interviews for a snowball sample type administered to flower and fruit growers, as well as non-participatory observations in festivities relating to the beginning and end of the rainy cycle. Cabinet work was also used by gathering primary documentary sources such as the Patlachiuhqui and Moyotepec map, the VaticanRíos and Xólotl codices, and the chronicles by Clavijero, Torquaza, and Sahagún to contrast some characteristics of ahuaques from interviews versus ancient historical sources and understand the broader representations of territoriality linked to the cosmovision on ahuaques. Secondary sources were also used, including research works by historians and anthropologists who study these materials and the Nahuatl worldview about water.

The analysis was divided into 3 parts: the first addresses a geographic overview of San Miguel Tlaixpan, including its location and the location of its water bodies; the second analyzes the main characteristics of ahuaques and their relationship with the water bodies of the community; and the third describes the features of a sculpture that visually depicts these spirits in the landscape.

We conclude that ahuaques are human-like spirits that inhabit water bodies. They are also capricious beings capable of distributing a beneficial rain for agriculture, sending hail or heavy rains that are harmful to orchards, and stealing the spirit of those people who invade their habitat. For this reason, popular belief is that springs and rivers should be treated with care and visited only at certain times of the day to avoid disturbing the ahuaques. Thus, the water bodies of the community are represented as sacred spaces in the stories about ahuaques as these spirits reside in springs and rivers, and protect the water. This symbolism is particularly protected in places where people claim to have seen these spirits, such as in the river near the area of basaltic prisms or in the Palmilla and Chuachicalco springs.

It can also be concluded that the frog-shaped sculpture located on the right slope of Cerro Tecuilache, a relief that distinguishes the community, is the zoomorphic physical representation of an ahuaque. The accounts of its existence reveal that it is a pure spirit whose aim is to guard the water bodies that are relevant to the community, such as the Apatzinco dam, the Palmilla springs and the Coxcacuaco river. In this way, the sculpture represents the modeling of the landscape elaborated by the local inhabitants according to the symbolism around these entities; this explains why the sculpture was placed in a strategic site within the collective conscience about water.

Palabras llave : Ahuaques; cultural landscape; sacred space; San Miguel Tlaixpan.

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