The New York Times called the Zapatista movement “the first post-modern revolution.” The movement boiled to the surface on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect–when mysterious balaclava-wearing Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and Comandante Romona lead thousands of armed villagers in a surprise attack on the Mexican army which culminated in a bloody shootout in the main plaza of San Cristóbal del as Casas in Chiapas, Mexico. Fighting went on for years and the Mexican Army still maintains a very visible presence in the area.
Though technically still at war with the Mexican government, the days of palpable Zapatista revolution (which called for land rights, resource rights, rights for women and economic and educational equality for Mexico’s indigenous poor) seem gone. For the visitor, at least, the most noticeable remains of the movement are hand-painted signs and murals which keep the spirit alive in the many rural village that support the EZLN (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, the Zapatista government) in Chiapas.
We saw dozens of Zapatista and EZLN signs throughout the state and here are a few of our favorites examples of this ongoing artful protest.
This mural, on a building in the Oventic caracol, an autonomous village run by or Zapatistas, depicts corn (a symbol of the land), an indigenous woman defending her rights and Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata--the inspiration for the term Zapatista.
This sign shows a snail (caracol in Spanish--which is also the word Zapatistas use for their autonomous villages) wearing the signature black balaclava of the movement's leader, Subcomandante Marcos. We love the Virgin of Guadalupe at the bottom wearing a typical EZLN red bandana over her face too.
In this sign little baby Zapatistas are depicted as growing ears of corn--wearing balaclavas, of course. Part of what was (and still is) radical about the Zapatistas was their inclusion of women and women's rights in their doctrine.
An ode to Emiliano Zapata, for which the Zapatista movement is named.
We loved the simple, graphic nature of this painted wall depicting Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos on the left and Emiliano Zapata on the right.
"Land and Liberty," two basic tenets of the Zapatista movement.
"The land belongs to those who work it" is a basic belief of all Zapatistas.
A tienda in a village in Chiapas which is sympathetic to the Zapatistas.
The Zapatistas stay involved in fresh issues that affect them too--including taking a strong stance against a major road project through Chiapas.
"You are in Zapatista territory" this sign proclaims.
This is one of the most understated EZLN signs we saw.
The Zapatistas stay involved in fresh issues that affect them too--including taking a strong stance against a major road project through Chiapas.
This sign welcomes you to an autonomous Zapatista village and makes it clear that the people here are "in rebellion."
An autonomous EZLN-run village makes its politics known.
In 1951 Danish historian, anthropologist, explorer, art history teacher, archaeologist and oil man Frans Blom and his Swiss wife Gertrude “Trudi” Duby Blom, a journalist and mountain climber turned photographer and ecologist, founded the Na Bolom Center of Scientific Studies based in San Cristóbal de las Casasin Chiapas, Mexico.
First wishes
Their goal was to preserve the ways and rights of the indigenous Lacandon people and other indigenous groups in the region and it’s virtually impossible to overstate the impact their documentation, respect and support have had on these groups. Their legacy is part of the reason the Lacandon and so many other cultures exist in Chiapas today—though with an estimated total population of just 800 people, the Lacandon aren’t out of the woods (or the jungle) yet.
One of the many jaguars at the Na Bolom (Jaguar House) museum, hotel and restaurant in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Na Bolom (which means jaguar house) continues in its original non-profit mission. There’s also a wonderful hotel (Henry Kissinger and Diego Rivera have stayed here) with rooms in the main rambling house and dotted throughout a large and lush walled garden. Each one is decorated with traditional weavings, some of Trudi’s extraordinary black and white photographs of the striking Lacandon people and most also have fireplaces to ward off the high-altitude chill of San Cristóbal de las Casas (expansion work was underway when we were there).
Rooms are still set aside to accommodate any of indigenous people who may need to overnight in the city and many people use Na Bolom as a kind of drop in club house.
Members of local indigenous groups use the Na Bolom museum, hotel and restaurant as their haven in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Many of the writings and photographs that Frans and Trudi left behind are displayed in a small but informative on-site museum (open to guests and non-guests and definitely worth a visit for a crash course in the history of the Lacandon and other local indigenous groups).
Na Bolom in San Cristóbal de las Casas operates a museum, hotel and restaurant to help fund its non-profit work on behalf of the rights of local indigenous groups including the fast-disappearing Lacandon.
A visit to the Na Bolom museum also includes a tour of intimate spaces like Frans’ beloved library and Trudi’s bedroom which brings these two larger-than-life characters into sharp focus. We were impressed with the sheer determination and innovation of Frans and Trudi (they definitely seem like “Just Do It” kind of people). We were also impressed with the passion of the staff and volunteers who continue their work, including a massive project to archive and preserve the tens of thousands of photographs that Trudi took in her lifetime.
The bedroom of Trudi Blom is now part of the museum at Na Bolom, the non-profit advocacy group she co-founded in 1951 in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
Last wishes
Both Frans and Trudi spent a good portion of their time in what is now Lacandon Jungle and when they died they stated that they wished to be buried in the jungle they knew and loved. Unfortunately, when Frans and Trudi passed (in 1963 and 1993 respectively) the jungle was still virtually impenetrable—especially carrying a coffin–and the Zapatista uprising at the time Trudi died made jungle trekking a complicated business as well.
2011 marks the 60th Anniversary of the founding of Na Bolom and the occasion seemed like the right time to finally lay its founders to rest in the place of their choosing.
Special coffins were hand made to carry the remains of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom to their final resting place in the Lacandon Jungle of Chiapas.
We were honored to be invited to travel to the Lacandon village of Nahá with a group from Na Bolom (and, of course, the remains of Frans and Trudi) and witness a very special ceremony to re-bury the Na Bolom founders in the Nahá cemetery next to Chan K’in Viejo, a legendary Lacandon leader (and friend to Frans and Trudi) who died in 1996 at the age of 104.
Na Bolom co-founder Trudi Blom with legendary Lacandon leader Chan K'in Viejo.
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Among the group of devoted people from Na Bolom who traveled to Nahá was a woman named Doña Betty. As a child she was informally adopted by the Bloms (there’s a photo of Betty as a young woman in Trudi’s bedroom at Na Bolom) and she often made mule trips with them into this jungle where she worked as the camp cook.
On this occasion Doña Betty returned to familiar territory, running the camp kitchen (and accepting very little help) to feed the 25 people or so in our group. Doña Betty is in her late 70s now and she appeared to be as respected by many of the Lacandon as Frans and Trudi were.
Our group camped on land given to Trudi by the Lacandon. Nearby, the Lacandon of Nahá have also built a handful of bunglaows available to the scant tourists who make it out here (Na Bolom can arrange complete tours). The camping area consists of a long tin-roof covered shelter with a level dirt floor. The roof (and the methodically-maintained drainage ditch dug around the perimeter of the shelter by a mute Lacandon) proved crucial given the epic downpours that pelted us while we were there.
The camp also has an open-sided cooking/dining area (Doña Betty’s domain) plus an outhouse. All in all, more than adequate and far more comfort than we expected way out here in the Lacandon Jungle.
Carved coconut shell bowls full of a fermented drink called balche during a ceremonoy marking the re-burial of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom in the Lacandon village of Nahá in Chiapas, Mexico.
Final journey
Frans and Trudi made their final journey to Nahá and their beloved Lacandon Jungle in a pair of child-sized beautifully carved wooden caskets made specifically for their remains which were removed from their original graves in San Cristóbal de las Casas along with their enormous concrete headstone with a jaguar and a Mayan cross carved into it.
At 11:00 the morning after our arrival our group headed for Chan K’in Antonio’s house. As the son of Chan K’in Viejo, Chan K’in Antonio is the most devout keeper of Lacandon traditions. But he is not a shaman. Rather he believes that he, like all Lacandon, can speak directly to the Lacandon Gods and request help and favors. Better health. Better wealth. But there are no guarantees and there are certainly no miracles.
Chan K'in Antonio, son of legendary Lacandon leaders Chan K'in Viejo, who led the traditional ceremonies surrounding the re-burial of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
Chan K’in Antonio is one of the few Lacandon to have a God House (something many Lacaondon used to have) and this is where the pre-burial ceremony took place. We filed into the God House, a 20′ by 15′ open-sided, dirt-floored, thatch-roof structure, and women sat on one side with men seated on the other. Almost everyone in the God House was part of our group from San Cristóbal de las Casas. Where were the people from Nahá we wondered.
This vessel is a replica of a very important Lacandon ceremonial piece. It was to meet an untimely end...
Chan K'in Antonio breaking out the balche, a fermented wild honey drink made in a wooden canoe.
Chan K’in Antonio wasn’t waiting around for them to arrive. He jumped right in with chanting in the fast-disappearing Lacandon language and distributing drops of balche (more on that later) to molded figures representing the Lacandon Gods. Each also received a small hand-formed ball of copal which was ultimately lit on fire.
Chan K'in Viejo leading an elaborate traditional Lacandon ceremony to mark the re-burial of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
Chan K'in Viejo leading an elaborate traditional Lacandon ceremony to mark the re-burial of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
The ceremony culminated in the drinking of balche, a beverage made of wild honey fermented for days in a wooden canoe. Balche is a cloudy, beige, sweet and sour vaguely slimy liquid. Not unpleasant, but not delicious either. However, balche is effective and a number of people noted a certain impatience in the ceremony as if some participants were rushing to get to the balche which was ladeled out of the canoe into a hand-made pottery jar (a replica of an important original vessel) then distributed in cups made from coconut shells. Sadly, the gorgeous ceramic jar was dropped and shattered later that night after perhaps one too many balches.
Part of a traditional Lacandon ceremony to mark the re-burial of Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Blom in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
In the afternoon Frans and Trudi’s coffins were taken out of the Nahá community center, where they’d been displayed on top of a small shrine, and carried to our encampment accompanied by a procession of villagers. At the encampment, the coffins were displayed on top of the picnic tables in the dining area. Small bags of soil from Frans and Trudi’s birthplaces (Denmark and Switzerland, respectively) were added to the coffins.
The remains of Frans and Trudi Blom being carried to our jungle encampment on their way to the cemetery in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
Traditional meets modern as this Lacandon boy learns how to use a GPS device and a digital camera in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
As people shared stories and memories from the lives and times of Frans and Trudi, emotions started coming to the surface and by the time we put the coffins into the back of a small white pickup truck and convoyed to the cemetery tears were on the way.
With storm clouds building, a group of men lowered Frans and Trudi into a joint grave near that of Chan K’in Viejo then placed their massive concrete headstone and grave marker on top.
Frans and Trudi Blom's joint grave, near their friend Chan K'in Viejo, in the cemetery in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
Unlike at the God House, many villagers showed up at the cemetery including two ancient sisters dressed in gorgeous traditional dresses, each with a tiny, delicate bird wing adorning her long braids.
Villagers pay their respects before Na Bolom founders Frans and Trudi Blom are laid to rest in the cemeterty in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
The Lacandon believe that now that Frans, Trudi and Chan K’in Viejo have been reunited these three old friends can “continue their conversations” even in death. After witnessing some of the most solemn ceremonies of a threatened culture as they honored two of their most fervent defenders, we tend to agree.
Check out our video, below, and make up your own mind.
The Lacandon Maya are the descendents of the Mayan who fled what is now southern Mexico and northern Guatemala in order to escape the Spanish. It worked and since that time the Lacandon have survived in the ever-shrinking jungle–what’s left of the millions of acres they once called home.
A Lacandon man sporting the traditional white tunic and long hair in the village of Metzabok in Chiapas, Mexico.
Changing times
Some Lacandon communities had no contact with the “outside world” until the mid-20th Century but things have changed fast since then. Inter-marriage, a yellow fever outbreak, the lure of the big city and general loss of the jungle areas that sustain the traditional Lacandon way of life mean that fewer and fewer Lacandon people are being born and even fewer are learning and practicing their traditional ways.
Even in what are considered to be Lacandon villages it’s common to see inter-cultural families. Some Lacandon families send one or more children to the nearest Mexican city to make pesos which are increasingly used in this society which once functioned just fine without the concept of money. As happens so often, some Lacandon kids are lured out of their villages in search of things like TVs and motorbikes.
A community meeting in the Lacandon village of Nahá.
Disappearing jungle
Then there’s the jungle problem. The Lacandon–not unlike the jaguar–require healthy jungle and lots of it to sustain their gentle and effective form of agro-forestry which includes crop rotation and hunting and gathering. Mexican ranchers and loggers, on the other hand, require enormous swaths of land to graze cattle on and extract timber from and these interests have been able to take over huge tracts of jungle only to clear it for timber and pasture land.
Almost all of the land surrounding the protected Lacandon Jungle has been cleared for ranching or logging.
Today there may be as few as 800 Lacandon left in the world…and by world, we mean Chiapas, Mexico.
In 1971 groups concerned with the continuation of Lacandon traditions and the shrinking jungle environment helped persuade the Mexican government to carve out and protect the Lacandon Jungle, a 1.5 million acre (614,000 hectare) chunk which is a haven for flora and fauna and home to the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve and important Mayan archeological sites including Yaxchilan and Bonampak.
A friendly local rancher we stopped to chat with on his cleared property on the outskirts of the protected Lacandon Jungle.
The last of the Lacandon?
Three of the most vibrant remaining Lacandon settlements are Nahá, Lacanja Chansayab and Metzabok which are each believed to be locations where Lacandon gods traditionally lived. In these areas, deep within the Lacandon Jungle, villagers and increasingly concerned anthropologists and environmentalists are working to preserve and build upon what’s left of Lacandon traditions.
Jungle cleared for cattle ranches lines the road toward the Lacandon village of Nahá.
One of the longest-standing and most effective of these groups is Na Bolom which, since unorthodox artistic and philanthropic free spirits Frans Blom and Trudi Duby Blom founded it in 1951, has been primarily concerned with preserving the Lacandon way of life and their jungle areas while ensuring they (and other local indigenous groups) benefit from modern services like health care and education on their own terms.
Recognizing that the outside world is coming in whether they like it or not, these communities have chosen to control local tourism in their own way and you can now visit most of these remote villages as a traveler and enjoy camping, cabins or homestays with the Lacandon as well as hiking and canoeing in their lovely jungle. The non-profit Na Bolom can arrange comprehensive trips to Nahá and Metzabok out of San Cristobal de Las Casas and these trips directly benefit these communities and support Na Bolom’s work on behalf of the Lacandon in general.
Nahá Lake has invitingly crystal-clear water...and a lot of crocodiles.
Scorpions, magic rocks and the underworld in a Lacandon village
The heart of the village of Metzabok, where fewer than 30 Lacandon families live some of them running a small community tourism project which includes a handful of bungalows, is Laguna Tzibana. When we visited Metzabok we headed out to cross the lake in, of all things, a small paddle boat.
Beautiful Laguna Tzibana in the Lacandon village of Metzabok.
About midway across the lake we realized that we were not alone. A scorpion was also in the tiny boat with us and we both jumped up and tried not to flip the boat while attempting to kill or evict our dangerous little hitchhiker. Eric finally squashed it and, after a quick survey for other stowaways, we continued on our way.
The Lacandon believe that this rock on Laguna Tzibana is a God.
Our destination was a very special rock on the far bank which features red hand prints and other paintings. Our Lacandon guide explained that the rock is believed to be a God and new symbols appear on it after storms. A nearby cave is also believed to be one of many pathways to the underworld that the Lacandon must navigate after death.
Our Lacandon guide (far right) explains that the petroglyphs (far left) appear on a rock face after storms then takes us into a cave believed to be a pathway to the underworld which all Lacandon must navigate after death.
We were honored to be invited to visit the village of Nahá as well, along with a group from Na Bolom as part of a very special ceremony to re-bury Na Bolom founders Frans Blom and Trudi Duby Blom in the Nahá cemetery next to legendary Lacandon leader and activists Chan K’in Viejo (who died in 1996). It’s where Frans (who died in 1963) and Trudi (who died in 1993) always wanted to be buried and the Nahá villagers believe that reuniting the three old friends will enable them to “continue their conversations” even after death.
Find out what we saw, heard and drank in Nahá in our next post all about this once-in-a-lifetime chance to be part of some of the most solemn ceremonies of a threatened culture as they honored two of their most fervent defenders.
Our time in the Lacandon Jungle coincided with some very heavy rain. Our video, below, lets you experience one of the most epic downpours we’ve ever experienced without getting wet. This is why they call it a rain forest…
All that rain made for some very high rivers too which raged past us as we drove deeper and deeper into the Lacandon Jungle.
Rivers swollen by heavy rain in the Lacandon Jungle.
Copyright © 2006-2012 Trans-Americas Journey.All rights reserved. 
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