Santa María Tepepan () is one of the 14 recognized original ("towns" or "townships") that form the Mexico City borough of Xochimilco. It sits on the lower edges of the mountain chain that limits Mexico City to the south. Although it is in Mexico City's territory, it conserves a lot of rural characteristics, like winding cobblestone streets, and economic activities, equestrianism being one of the most important ones until recently.
Its church, called ("Holy Mary of the Visitation"), dates to the seventeenth century, although it was rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and was raised on top of the original shrine built in the XVIth century when the town was founded; which, in turn, allegedly sat above a pre-Hispanic shrine to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin. The adjacent monastery was built between 1612 and 1627 by the friar Juan de Lazcano.
Geography Tepepan is found on the southern region of Mexico City, in the northwestern part of the borough of Xochimilco, at its western border with the borough of Tlalpan. It is located in the northern skirt of the Ajusco-Chichinauhtzin mountain chain that borders Mexico City to its south. More specifically, it is located in the skirts of the Xochitepec Hill, which is part of this mountain chain. It has a highland subhumid temperate climate according to the Köppen climate classification (Cwb). Tepepan has several water springs around it that historically fed the ancient Lake Xochimilco and are now used for Mexico City's water distribution system.
Toponym Like many places in Mexico, the name "" originates from two disparate sources due to the . The first part comes from the Spanish catholic tradition, and the second from the pre-Hispanic nahuatl term for the area.
The first part of the name () refers to , which is the patron saint of the town. This name was given to the town at its founding when, according to its founding myth, an icon of the , made by the instruction of Pedro de Gante for the Convent of Mexico and then moved to Xochimilco, was finally deposited by him in the original shrine built in the place where the modern church stands today. Some sources indicate that this original stone icon is the same one that can be seen today inside the modern church.
The second part of the name comes from the nahuatl "", which is an agglutination of the nahuatl noun "" which means "Hill" and the postposition "", which can be translated as the English prepositions "on something", "above something", and more importantly for this case, "on top of something". This results in "", meaning "On top of the hill", in reference to either a purported shrine to Tonantzin that sat on top of the hill on which the modern church stands today, or a pre-Hispanic settlement in the general vicinity. It seems that the original pre-Hispanic settlement of Tepepan, and the general area around it, was given this fairly generic name for being the first settlement on the path of Mexico-Tenochtitlan's southern expansion to be found on top of a hill, just as Tlalpan was given its name for being the first settlement to the south of Tenochtitlan to be raised on solid ground.
History Pre-colonial era Very little is known about Tepepan before the Spanish conquest. There are no contemporaneous pre-Hispanic primary sources that mention it. However, there is some archeological evidence showing scant and disperse habitation of the general area of Tepepan by various cultures before the Spanish colonization.
Pre-classical period A few archeological artifacts dating to the pre-classical period have been found in Tepepan. These are common household items for the cultures that inhabited the area at the time, like and flattening tools made from , dated to sometime before 1000 B.C.E. It is likely that these artifacts correspond one or more of the pre-classical cultures that inhabited the Valley of Mexico, like the Cuicuilco culture, the Tlatilco culture or the Copilco culture.
Classical period
Coming as part of the first nahua migration, the predecessors of the Xochimilca arrived at what today is Xochimilco, near the town of Cuahilama. When they arrived the area has inhabited by tribes, which went to war against the newly arrived proto-Xochimilca. The predecessors of the Xochimilca were defeated and they retreated from Cuahilama into Xochitepec, near Tepepan, in the year of 1194, establishing some settlements in the area.
Pottery pieces corresponding to both late Teotihuacan culture and Toltec culture have been found in the vicinity of Tepepan. A copy of the map stone () of the archeological site of Cuahilama, has also been found in Tepepan, dating from sometime in the Late Classical period, between 1196 and 1265 C.E., corresponding to the early Xochimilcans.
All of these and the pre-Hispanic artifacts are housed today at the Archeological Museum of Xochimilco in Santa Cruz Acalpixca.
Post-classical period
Tepepan was under the control of the Xochimilca , until the entire Xochimilca population and settlements were subdued by the Mexicas under Acamapichtli's rule, fifty-six years after Tenochtitlan's founding (around 1381 C.E.). (The author conflated History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings which he translated, with the Codex Ramirez, which is a different document) Tepepan is not mentioned in the Codex Mendoza, while both its neighbors, Xochimilco and Tlalpan are. This indicates that, at the time, Tepepan probably had either a low density rural settlement, or was too small to be counted as separate from its neighbors.
Archeological artifacts found in Tepepan from this period include statues representing Aztec warriors, a statue of the goddess Chantico, pottery pieces, and incense burners, indicating the presence of some type of settlement in the general area. The most important finding of this period is a basalt statue of the god Xipe Totec currently housed at the National Museum of the American Indian. This god was commonly venerated in rural communities for its association with agriculture. The statue represents the standing Flayed God using its flayed skin as a mask and suit, tying it with a chord at the back. It has the date "2 " (2 reed) from the calendar, which is associated to the New Fire ceremony, dating the statue to February or March of 1507.
Tonantzin Shrine Various official government sources state that there was a shrine for the Aztec goddess Tonantzin in what is today the location of the church of . According to these sources, the location is special because during the winter solstice the sun can be seen raising from the Teuhtli volcano's crater (or even the crater of the Popocatepetl) and setting at the Pico del Águila, two culturally significant places for the Aztecs and Xochimilcas. However, while the description of this cosmological phenomenon is true and can be observed today, there is very little material evidence to substantiate the claim that there was a shrine to the goddess Tonantzin at that exact location. There are no contemporary accounts that indicate the existence of the shrine, neither from Aztec or Xochimilca sources, nor from Spanish friar chroniclers. There is also no archeological evidence of such a structure existing before the arrival of the Spaniards, although there haven't been any excavations, active dig sites nor any proposed plans to unearth evidence of said structure from under the church. All evidence for the existence of the Tonantzin shrine is circumstantial, based on the cosmological phenomenon mentioned above, the particular orientation of the convent (being located north of the church, instead of the more standard south positioning), the common practice of many Spanish missionaries of raising churches on top of existing indigenous temples and shrines, and the fact that the toponym "" had been used for the area before the arrival of the Spaniards, indicating the existence of some settlement or known construction in its location.
16th century Founding There are conflicting accounts about Tepepan's founding. According to official sources, a monument outside the church of and a painting of Pedro de Gante inside the church's convent, Tepepan was founded in 1526 when, by instruction of Pedro de Gante, a shrine was built to house an icon of that was originally made for the Convent of Mexico. It is said that Pedro de Gante took some people from Xochimilco to live on top of the hill where Tepepan sits today, teaching them to work with stone and clay, building the shrine for the icon and by doing so, founding the town. However, there is no recorded evidence from this period to confirm this event occurring in 1526.
According to internal records of the Parish of , the icon was already in Tepapan by 1548. There is also a papal brief issued by Pope Clement VIII and first read on the 4 of July 1596 in Puebla, that mentions Tepepan's shrine and its icon, and states that it was well-known and frequented by the locals.Transcription of the Testimony of the papal brief found in These two sources show that Tepepan's shrine, but not the church, was built some time in the early to mid-sixteenth century, although neither gives a specific date nor do they indicate the existence of a town (or lack thereof) around the shrine at the time.
The first recorded telling of Tepepan's founding appears in Franciscan friar chronicler Agustín de Vetancurt's , published in 1697, a whole century after Tepepan was mentioned in Pope Clement VIII's brief. He also associates the depositing of the icon in the shrine with the town's founding:
However, he does not give any dates, neither for the depositing of the icon nor for the town's founding. Furthermore, he tells a different story earlier in the text, narrating that the town was built in one night and day by the people of Xochimilco to stop New Spain's viceroy "Luis de Velasco" from using the land for cattle grazing, fearing that the cattle could damage crops and contaminate the water, for he could not use the land if it was already inhabited:
By its wording, this last quote seems to imply that the shrine preceded the town's founding (not mentioning it as something that the townspeople built, but only stating that they hung a bell in it) and that the area wasn't densely settled before, considering it was granted as land for cattle grazing. Although, again, Agustín de Vetancurt does not provide any dates for the narrated events.
However, a severe chronological problem arises from this narration: namely, that there were two viceroys of New Spain with the same name: Luis de Velasco, the second viceroy, who governed from November 1550 to June 1564; and his homonymous son Luis de Velasco, the eighth viceroy, who governed from January 1590 to November 1595 and from July 1607 to June 1611. Agustín de Vetancurt doesn't specify which one of the two Viceroys was granted the land, so the year in which the town was founded could lie sometime in between 1550 and 1611 when either Luis Velasco was governing, which is a very wide window of time in which the town could have been founded.
Some authors have concluded, based on the information provided by the few documents that mention Tepepan from this period, that the shrine was built first, before the town existed, sometime in the early to mid-sixteenth century or even under the government of Luis Velasco Sr., and that the town was raised later to protect the lands surrounding the shrine from the grant given to Luis Velasco Jr. And by hanging a bell in the already existing shrine, the town could be consolidated as such by having a proper church with bells, instead of a shrine.
17th century