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Teocintli Mural - East Los Angeles
Ancient Indian Proverb:
"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our Children."
On the corner of East 4th Street and South Mott Street in Boyle Heights is a new mural painted by Ricardo Estrada and Raul Gonzalez of Mictlan Murals. The mural was commissioned by “Teocintli”, a cultural Store / Gallery where the local community can buy authentic Mexican-based folk art, revolutionary books, and the latest cultural apparel. The stores name is based on the ancient Nahuatl language of the Aztecs that translates to "Sacred Maize". The store owners Mayra and Nico Avina describe the mural as a gift to the community.
The mural depicts from left to right the image of Cinteotl an Aztec deity who represents the physical and spiritual manifestation of the maiz, one of the sacred sustenance of life. Next in the upper left corner we have the Ollin Tonatiuh, Ollin represents movement and Tonatiuh represents the sun that sheds light on our path and gives us fatherly warmth. Next we have a mother teaching here offspring how to live with land and work with the land. In the maiz next to the child you could see two mazorcas de maiz represented in codex form, one black and the other red. The red represents the day, fire and male energy, and the black represents the night, water, and female energy, both representing duality and the cosmic balance of the universe. Next to them we see the E.Z.L.N. maiz, based on the Zapatistas movement for autonomy in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico. They come to symbolize the continuing struggle of our Indigenous people against the colonization and destruction of our land. Under them is the Aztec deity Ehecatl-Ketzalcoatl that represents a philosophy, science, and an incarnated personage from history and the actual astronomy in our galaxy. This creative energy is a part of our verbal history that dates back over 10,000 years and explains the origins of Teocintli (sacred maiz). Next we have General Emiliano Zapata a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in Mexico in 1910. Zapata is holding in his left hand the Atl-Tlaxinolli weapon, which represents the water and fire, a symbol for war but also represents duality. In his other hand he has the seeds of maize in multiple colors of red, yellow, white and black. The seeds represent the different cultures that live on mother earth. They also represent our indigenous identity and he is offering the seeds to the community to take and plant them in the fertile soil of our minds, and remember "WE ARE CHILDREN OF THE SUN AND THE CORN A REFLECTION OF OUR ANCESTORS, WE ARE THE HOPE AND EVOLUTION OF OUR PEOPLE!"
Teocintli
2701 E. 4th Street
East Los Angeles, CA 90033
across from Rosevelt High School
T. 323.266.2117 | myspace/teocintli
Ricardo Estrada
Raul Gonzalez of Mictlan Murals
Sal Rojas - Photographic Arte
All photographs on this site (www.BrownPride.com) are
copyright protected by Digital Aztlan.
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