Mexico, Tenancingo Degollado, : La Cascada

     Acatzingo, un municipio de Tenancingo, is reputed to be the site of the "first people" to inhabit the area, La Matlazincas. Let me say at first that really really no one knows who first lived here. It just might have been the lost tribes of Israel,,, or two guys from Harrison N.J.. So much was lost after the conquest concerning Indigenous tribes and their individual historias. The members of Matlazinca tribe were called in Nahuatl, (the aztec tongue), the "net" people, or the "green people". The "green people refers to their penchant for the forest. For me though there seems to be some confusion about the word "net". The "net people" might be a reference to two things. It can mean basket for carrying things or a net for fishing, perhaps both. In Metepec the Matlazincas probably fished given all the local legends about mermaids and such. In Tenancingo, net might have had a dual meaning, a basket for corn,,, or a fishing net. I propose a geologic theory that might just explain Tenancingo's recent past, recent anyway in geologic terms. Net may just have referred to fishing nets. Perhaps the fishermen Matlazincas might have been drawn to Tenancingo 15,000 years ago for the water. It is a high valley enclosed by mountains into which flow various streams. At one time in its recent geologic past it could have been a "high lake" teeming with what tickled a Matlazincan soul,,,, fish.
     Several years ago while digging a well by hand we encountered branches and trunks of trees three meters below the surface. This was a "wow" moment for me. There must be a physical reason for tree parts being found 3 meters below the surface. At 6 meters down while digging the well we encountered dark black soil,, what looked like lake bottom. I believe that before the last eruption of the volcano Xinantecatl, Tenancingo was a lake. The ultimate plinian eruption of the volcano, 11,500 years ago, may have abruptly disturbed an enormous body of water in the Toluca Valley 30 kilometers north of us causing a rupture in the lake's natural mountain barrier which in turn overflowed sending a wall of water debris and mud down towards Tenancingo over what is now highway 55 bringing with it a devastation that obliterated the lake that once covered this place.
     The history of Tenancingo has been, for me, always shrouded in some mystery. This valley, with ample water, great climate, and good soil should have been a prime spot for indigenous colonization, yet they didn't come in droves,, or did they? Perhaps they came much earlier, a different more primitive people,, as humble fishermen searching for some good clean water and some swarms of trout,,,, which they found here in "Lago Tenancingo". They located themselves in a place along the ancient shore up above the lake in what is now Acatzingo where they built a community. Everything was hunky dory until one day they felt the earth rumble under their feet and as their eyes focused north they could see a column of smoke shoot upwards from the volcano, Xinantecatl, which cast its withers out into the sky in crimson fire and gray ash,,, and some hours later, in a raging swirl of water and mud their paradise disappeared. Who knows? Might be a novel here along the lines of William Golding's The Inheritors.
    In Acatzingo above Tenancingo proper there is a record of their community carved in stone, ruins, mostly unexplored, and sacked of artifacts for many years. I understand that the archaeological arm of the federal government, INAH, has so many more lucrative sites to maintain, and so little money, so excavation here is of little economic value.
     In Acatzingo one finds the oldest church in Tenancingo dating from 1540. It is rumored to have been built over a Matlazincan temple. Acatzingo is a lush quiet poor place. People come to see the ruins and to hang glide from a mountainside near the famous carving called La Malinche,,, and during the rainy season to see La Cascadas or falls.