Xolita is presented in the Templo Mayor, a trip to pre-Hispanic Mexico

This weekend, in the Alcázar of Chapultepec Castle, they talked about pre-Hispanic history and the methods of transmission of this legacy in current education systems.

These themes resulted from the presentation of the novel Xolita in the Templo Mayor (Almadía, 2022), written by four hands by Mira Harp Grañén and her mother, the art historian María Isabel Grañén Porrúa, who included the archaeologist and anthropologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma as a character and they had him as a guest and interlocutor in said presentation.

Xolita in the Templo Mayor tells the story of Yiniza, a young woman who travels with her family and her dog Pelusa to the past, to the Great Tenochtitlan. Yiniza explores the daily and ceremonial life of the great Mexica city: she lives a day at the flea market, witnesses a ball game, is interested in the religious weight of the founding culture and enrolls in a suspenseful story in this already mythical point of the time.

In this extraordinary journey, the product of the work of imagination and curiosity, co-author Mira Harp, with the guidance of her mother, fully explores her vocation as a writer and takes Yiniza through this world as remote and enigmatic as it is fascinating and that, in many ways, it may be related to the reader.

It is a youth book that is enriched by the generosity of its illustrations and other graphic elements that are faithfully drawn from documentary sources, that is, between the pages, the reader will find everything from faithful representations of codices to illustrations coming from the interpretation of Oaxacan artists. Damian Flores and Sabino Guisu.

a messenger from the past

The young author Mira Harp described the emeritus INAH researcher as a messenger, as reflected in the presented novel, and highlighted this quality as fundamental in a world of easily misrepresented information.

Matos Moctezuma agreed with these words: “I have always said that archeology is precisely that, to bring the message of that past that we are revealing. Archeology is not what they paint us in the movies. In a certain way we are messengers, both an archaeologist and a historian in all its aspects; we have to go to the past to bring it to the present and that requires rigor and responsibility that are reflected in our publications”.

Precisely writing the story of Xolita in the Templo Mayor, responded the young co-author, was a discovery, not only historical, own and shared, but as a motive to question the teaching methods of history in basic education: “it served to ask us if the way in which they are teaching us history is functional or if it really interests us, because, the truth is, they teach it to us in a very square way, they only ask us to memorize it and not to live it, and history is lived. In this book, those who make the story are the characters who live it.”

Regarding the position, Matos Moctezuma recounted that when he was director of the National Museum of Anthropology “it made me very angry to see that school groups arrived, whether they were primary or secondary, and they sat down to copy the identification cards, because it was proof that they had gone to the museum They didn’t appreciate the pieces, it was amazing. I ever approached to ask a teacher who accompanied them: why don’t you let them see the pieces and write what they want on that piece?

The birth of a writer

The historian María Isabel Grañén highlighted the commitment and clarity with which Mira Harp became familiar with the substantiated history and used the licenses of fiction to fill in the gaps. “It is the imagination of a girl who can make a story with elements that adults would not dare to capture. This is the result of when you learn history and, more than that, you feel it, and you identify with the characters (…) In Mira I discovered a talent that I didn’t know about. I realized that inside our house we have a born storyteller”.

The PhD in Art History from the University of Seville added that it was much easier for her co-author and daughter to address complex issues, such as human sacrifices, a subject whose historical gaps were filled with absolute skill and with total respect for the worldview of the Mesoamerican liturgies.

“That makes me think about how important it would be for us to act like this today with the other who thinks differently, or with the original peoples, because they have their worldview and we cannot approach them because we impose our way of regret. (…) Mira’s approach does not judge at any time”, praised the historian.

Xolita in the Templo Mayor

• Publisher: Almadia
• Authors: Mary Elizabeth Grañen Porrua, Mira Harp Grañen
• Year: 2022
• 127 pages
• Printed price: 250 pesos

The profits obtained for the authors and artists of Xolita in the Templo Mayor will be destined to the Archaeological Project of the Templo Mayor.

ricardo.quiroga@eleconomista.mx