Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Mexican

I was over at Happy Catholic, looking for the "Weekend Joke" and came across an item from Mexico Bob.  It is about the Stelae of Miguel Hidalgo.

Mr Bob Mrotek, originally from Chicago, now lives in and blogs about Mexico and mentioned in the post on the "Stelae" (or Marker), that this is the year that marks the beginning of the fight for Mexico's Bicentenario or Bicentennial.  Apparently Padre Miguel Hidalgo was the Father of Mexican Independence.
Recently my friend Benjamín Arredondo ("El Bable") asked me to locate the two "Cabezas de Águila" in Irapuato because he is preparing a blog on Mexico's Bicentenario which he will publish very soon. The cabezas de águila (eagles' heads) that he was referring to are markers called "estelas" in Spanish from the Latin "stelae" meaning "marker". Stelae are upright stone slabs or columns that mark roads or boundaries. In this case they mark the route of Padre Miguel Hidalgo, the Father of Mexican Independence from where the fight for Mexican Independence began in Dolores Hidalgo on September 16, 1810, to the place where Padre Hidalgo was executed in front of a Spanish firing squad in Chihuahua, Chihuahua on July 30, 1811. The estelas are made from a column of brick or stone and are topped by the sculpture of an eagle's head. The eagle has a banner streaming from his beak declaring "Libertad".
So, Mexico, with the oldest university in North America, wasn't so far behind us in gaining independence from the "Mother Country".  On the other hand, the path was rocky, with Independence being declared on 16 September 1810, but the Spanish not finally giving up until the "Treaty of Córdoba" in 1821.

If you scroll down you can see a sketch of one of the markers.

Regards  —  Cliff

1 comment:

  1. Hidalgo was the answer to a clue in the Sunday NYT Crossword.

    ReplyDelete

Please be forthright, but please consider that this is not a barracks.