11.4 Yucuita
Yucuita
Yucuita is a community in the Nochixtlan Valley. It was populated for a while in the Early Village stage (1500-1200 BC), abandoned and resettled from 500 BC to 100 AD. At its height it had between 2000-3000 inhabitants. Around 300 AD it was resettled again, but never got to be more than a second-level center of power.
When we were first in Oaxaca we tried to find this ruin, but never did. We had searched through the town, never to find it. This Sunday, with our ?sense ruins? powers more finely honed, we set off again. It is about an hour drive outside of Oaxaca, if you take the cuota, which we did. We got there and drove to the town to see the museum first,. We usually visit the museum first because sometimes it has information that the books do not have. We drove right past the first part of the ruins. I am somewhat astonished that we missed it the first time, even with our novice detection powers.
The town is small, and since we hadn?t brought water (dummies!) we looked for a miscelanea. None in sight. We found the city center, which as always is a plaza with the church on one side and the palacio municipal (government buildings) on the other. The palacio municipal had drains that are shaped like the Quetzalcoatl heads in Tenochtitlan. We didn?t see the museum either, so I asked some folks waiting for the suburban (local bus) where it was and they pointed it out, but mentioned it was locked up.
Well, we hung around the church to see if anyone would notice the gringos and come with the key, as often occurs. Nada. So I approached some people working beside the church to ask, and they said that the keeper with the key was out of town that day. The young man I talked to seemed friendly, and we struck up a hesitant conversation. At last he said, ?Hablo Inglis,? but didn?t speak in English. But at last I think my pidgin Spanish drove him to do so, and with Suzanne now there, we carried on a conversation in mixed English and Spanish.
His name was Victor, and he had been in the US. His whole family had been, but apparently they were illegals and were caught and sent home for at least ten years. He still had a couple of brothers in Los Angeles, though. He had liked the US to earn money, but preferred his tranquil little town more. He talked about how it was a shame that no one was learning to speak Mixteca anymore and only the old folks knew it, so it would die out. He boasted proudly about the rich crops around the town, and they were evident. It was a pretty little town. He mentioned that there was an Aztec ruin up in the hills too, with a ball court, but you couldn?t get there by car. Suzanne was tickled because his English was East LA English.
Victor said that they had once had the treasure and bodies of ?the king and the queen? in the museum, but that authorities had taken them away. He said there had been a lot of gold. The book agreed about the queen, saying a rich burial site had been uncovered.
The ruins have a drainage tunnel which you can go through to get to the top. The Moon Handbook guide book warns that there might be scorpions or snakes in the tunnel. Well, of course we went in, with out tiny little key chain flashlight. We only encountered a little bat that I startled from sleep, and which Suzanne probably deafened with her totally girly shriek.
The site has been surveyed and partially excavated, and with a little bit of restoration. I found the tunnel to be the most interesting part. Actually, several such drainage tunnels were visible. It is mostly a large flat expanse where a couple of pyramid tops have been partially exposed and partially reconstructed. One section has some foundations which I assume were the priestly living quarters, behind a pyramid. One side has a couple of walls exposed, and there is a long exposed wall facing the road, which we had passed when we came in. We looked for the ball court, convinced it must be nearby, but never found it. There are some unexposed ruins on the nearby hill, which goes by the name of Yucuita, but we didn?t go to poke around them.
All in all, an interesting patch but not terribly remarkable. We will go back for the museum.