Monday, March 21,1988/The Battalion/Page 7
^Students spend spring break
trying to escape from worries
uishai
im it
n.
• Top: Sophomore Margene
Harrison, an education major, and
her roommate, biomedical science
major Beth Weissinger, relax during
spring break at the Fort Worth Wa-
tergardens. The two students
stopped to take pictures. They spent
the week traveling across central
Texas. Photo by Steve Noreyko.
• Left: Suzanne Hoechstetter, a
sophomore journalism major, and
Kristi Prevette, a sophomore second
ary education major, pause before
entering the Art Institute of Chi
cago. The lion is one of two on either
side of the museum’s entrance. The
two students spent their spring
break in Chicago. Photo by Kathy
Haveman.
• Bottom: On the way home
from Colorado, a group of Aggies
were delayed by car problems out
side of Waco. Boyd Bogus, wearing
cap, fixed the car as (clockwise from
top left) Shelly Stamler, Debbie
Quackenbush, Brian Mau and Dar
ren Gabriel watch. Photo by Andrea
Veatch.
Mexico museum
houses artifacts
of 3 civilizations
XALAPA, Mexico (AP) — Huge
carved stone heads, tiny clay figures
and thousands of other artifacts at a
museum here tell a strange story
about three civilizations that flou
rished long before Columbus discov
ered America.
It’s about the Olmecs, Totonacas
and Huaxtecs, who inhabited a long
stretch of coast on the Gulf of Mex
ico.
The fascinating and sometimes
gruesome story is told vividly at the
Museum of Xalapa, which special
izes in the region’s archaeological
treasures.
A lot is still unknown about the
three civilizations. They are believed
to have been part of a series of mi
rations from Asia that started about
5,000 years ago across the Bering
Strait, by way of Alaska, and lasted
several millenia.
But, says museum director Fer
nando Winfield Capitaine, “as new
finds are made and studies of old
ones shed new light, the results may
rewrite quite a few history books.
“We don’t know what their lan
guage was, or what they even called
themselves,” he adds. “Even the
names we use for them are false and
relatively new. They are ‘nahuatf
names, the trading language of the
Aztecs, which didn’t even exist at the
time.”
Only 3,000 of the museum’s
29,000 pieces are on display for lack
of space. They tell how these people
erformed human sacrifices, proba-
ly perceived the earth as round, de
signed remarkably accurate cal
endars and had an advanced
knowledge of mathemathics and as
tronomy, among other things.
The artifacts range in size from a
tiny Olmec carving of a rain god 4
inches high, to huge stone altars.
The museum’s centerpiece is a
monolithic head 9 feet high and
weighing 16 tons, carved from an
desite rock.
Now housed in a hew $3 million
set of modern buildings covering
14,400 square yards and surrounded
by eight acres of wooded park, the
museum is part of the Veracruz state
university in Xalapa, the state’s capi
tal 74 miles northwest of the port of
Veracruz.
The Olmecs, Totonacas and
Huaxtecas based their agriculture
on corn, frijole beans and squash,
supplementing their diets with dog
meat, river fish and wild animals and
birds, which they seasoned with chili
peppers, herbs and other spices.
Both their weapons and their
tools were crude, mostly made out of
stone or wood, and no one is sure
how they carved such huge stone
statues. But their civilizations were
surprisingly advanced for the time.
In his guidebook “Master Works
of the Xalapa Museum,” Mexican
anthropolgist Alfonso Medellin Ze-
nil says it’s possible the Olmecs were
the first to make paper out of wood
pulp in America.
Archaeologists believe the politi
cal organization was more of a loose
coalition of small towns or city-states
than one big government entity. But
their influence spread far and wide
and some of it survives in present-
day Mexico.
They could read and write and
knew what a wheel was, but didn’t
use it, probably because they had no
draft animals. Their ancestors had
hunted them all out of existence, in
cluding the ancient American horse
and the elephant.
They spun and wove natural fib
ers, including cotton. They tailored
their clothes, wore earrings and jew
elry, blackened their teeth with natu
ral tar for cosmetic purposes and
made rubber from the rubber tree,
which is native to the region.
Being cross-eyed was considered a
sign of beauty.
They played a ceremonial sport
with a rubber ball, which was a com
bination of soccer and basketball.
The winning team was afterwards
beheaded as a sacrifice, usually to a
sun god, although some authorities
claim it was the losers who lost their
heads.
Other victims had their hearts cut
out atop some pyramid or other sa
cred altar. Soipe were skinned alive
and priests donned their skins to
dance before Xipe Totec, the “god
of the flayed,” in a fertility rite to
mark the beginning of spring.
Mexico candidate
blasts U.S. policy
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP)
— Mexican presidential candidate
Cuauhtemoc Cardenas blasted U.S.
Central American policy during a
campaign appearance here Sunday.
Cardenas, son of Mexico’s most
popular 20th-century president, is
certain to lose the July 6 election to
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the candi
date for the ruling Institutional Rev
olutionary Party, or PRI. The party
has won every gubernatorial and
presidential election since it was
founded.
Cardenas is a former governor of
Michoacan state who broke with PRI
last year over Salinas’ nomination.
He organized a coalition of left-of-
center political parties under the
banner of the Democratic National
Front.
His father, Lazaro Cardenas, na
tionalized the petroleum industry in
1938 and is widely recognized as the
country’s greatest 20th-century
leader.
Addressing about 1,500 people in
the downtown Plaza de Armas, Car
denas expressed dismay over the de
ployment of U.S. troops last week in
Honduras and the United States’ ef
forts to oust Panama ruler Gen.
Manuel Antonio Noriega.
“We are reading how the Ameri
can government is once again inter
vening in Central American affairs,”
Cardenas said. “The government . . .
tries to impose in an unshameful
way of intervention, tries to impose
the procedures that already have
been imposed in the past, and to im
pose its interests in Central Amer
ica.”
He called the Honduran bombing
of a Sandinista camp on the Nicara
guan side of the Coco River “very
grave,” and said U.S. pressure in
Panama is a case of “bringing back
the politics of the garrote.”
“We ask that the American troops
cease their intervention in Central
America, particularly in Panama and
Nicaragua,” Cardenas said.
Cardenas has proven to be more
popular in rural areas than in the ur
ban north, where the National Ac
tion Party, or PAN, runs strongly
against the ruling PRI.
The candidates of those two par
ties were scheduled to visit Juarez to
day.
Mexican police nab
airport’s manager
in marijuana deals
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — Fed
eral Judicial Police said Sunday that
they had arrested the man serving as
the deputy manager of the Mazatlan
airport when he was caught unload
ing 390 pounds of marijuana at the
Tijuana airport.
They said that they believed that
the drug was probably destined for a
drop somewhere in the United
States.
This information was confirmed
according to the government news
agency Notimex.
Mexican police reportedly said
that Luis Montoya Romero, 33, also
was serving as an.airport operations
office for the national airline, Aero-
mexico.
Both of the occupations were con
sidered to be covers for a marijuana
trafficing operation that has been
going on for several months, accord
ing to the police reports.
The police reports stated that Ro
mero picked up the large container
of the illegal marijuana at the port of
Mazatlan.
He then loaded the substance
aboard an Aeromexico cargo flight.
Romero accompanied the mari
juana to the destination in Tijuana
where officials then arrested him for
possessing the substance.
They said he was arrested while
he and another Aeromexico em
ployee, who also was arrested for his
involvement in the possession scan-
del, were allegedly unloading the
contraband.
A w’oman who was allegedly going
to drive the marijuana across the
border into the United States was
also arrested, Notimex said.
Police identified her as Maria de
Refugio Beltran, 26.