Cholula

History

Cholula was a major religious city long before the Spanish arrived, and its Great Pyramid was built up in stages over many centuries. The division into two halves is also pre-Hispanic. When the Toltec-Chichimecas rose up and took control of the city, they pushed the previously dominant Olmec-Xicallancas to the eastern side, the area from the pyramid eastward that is now San Andrés. The two sides have stayed more or less separate under every government since.

In 1519 Hernán Cortés and his allies passed through on the way to Tenochtitlan and carried out a massacre in the city. Under colonial rule, churches went up across both halves, one for each neighborhood, many of them later dressed in Talavera tile. The sanctuary of the Virgin of Los Remedios was built on top of the overgrown pyramid. San Andrés remained the more Indigenous half and still is.

What holds Cholula together is a shared religious calendar. Festivals are paid for and organized by rotating mayordomos from each neighborhood, and the biggest of them, the feast of the Virgin of Los Remedios on September 8, centers on the pyramid. Today the two municipalities form one Pueblo Mágico within the Puebla metropolitan area.