Oaxaca en la historia y en el mito (English: Oaxaca in history and myth) is a huge mural created by Arturo García Bustos (1926-2017) and located in Oaxaca de Juárez, know in English as Oaxaca City.
García Bustos was "an artist dedicated to the humanistic struggles and liberal ideals that he expressed profoundly in his art." He painted the mural in a stairwell in the Palacio de Gobierno in Oaxaca. In an earlier version of this article, the space where the mural is located was officially known as the Museo del Palacio Universum. But the museum has disappeared. And in 2025 the mural is seldom available for viewing.
A pamphlet distributed to attendees at the inauguration described the mural as a "mapamundi oaxaqueño" or a Oaxacan worldmap. The mural is a visual history of Oaxaca from prehistoric times to modern times, with little detail past the Mexican Revolution. The images selected and not selected in a visual history are key to the final message. Bustos focused on images of the liberal traditions and reform in his interpretation of the history of Oaxaca, largely leaving out those who opposed liberal ideas, such as the church and monarchists and also played important roles in Oaxacan and Mexican history. This article cites academic research and government publications, with the latter being prone to perpetuating what has been called "mithified" history.
In the artist's words: () Many of the individuals portrayed on the mural did not literally climb the steps and pass through the corridors where the mural now depicts their history, as the artist suggests, The entire prehispanic panel depicts an era long before the building, and Oaxaca were thought of. Also, the Government Palace was often not usable during phases of repair after earthquakes in 1787, 1801,1845,1854 and 1931. But the individuals in the mural did shape the history of Oaxaca and even Mexico. And if the events did not occur in the building, many occurred in the nearby Zocalo, the Cathedral and the surrounding area, called el centro.
The artist also explains: ()
A glossy government-sponsored book about the history of Oaxaca published in 2019, includes this summary about the mural: (). Unfortunately, under the present regime, visitors are often forbidden from visiting the mural because guards bar access when there are protests in the nearby public square. Also, the guards have orders to refuse entry to viewers when the governor is holding meetings.
The distinguished historian, Francie Chassen-López wrote in 1989, "la historia de Oaxaca es muy poco conocida" ("the history of Oaxaca is very little known"). Understanding what Arturo García Bustos tells us about the history of this region in Oaxaca en la historia y en el mito is a good place to start, to understand some, but not all, aspects of the history of Oaxaca. Presentations in about the mural, in English, have been delivered in the cultural center called the Oaxaca Lending Library. These presentations include a visit to the mural when access is permitted.
Opposition to Arturo García Bustos painting the mural The contract to paint the mural was granted without competition, by the governor Eliseo Jiménez Ruiz after an initial conversation with the brother of García Bustos. Ruiz and Bustos followed up with a longer conversation and demonstration of a partial mock-up by the artist, hurriedly cobbled together in a local restaurant. Bustos was not new to Oaxaca. In the 1950s, he had taught art at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca (UABJO) to Francisco Toledo and other Oaxacan artists. He at that time traveled extensively in the state, until he was released from his teaching for his Marxist views, after he returned to Oaxaca from a trip to Russia in 1958.
García Bustos was not from Oaxaca. Whereas famous Mexican artists Rufino Tamayo, Francisco Toledo and Rodolfo Morales were from Oaxaca City or the State of Oaxaca, although they had not completed any murals in Oaxaca before Garcia Bustos started.After he started, opposition to Bustos painting the mural grew. On 27 May 1978, The Oaxacan artist Rufino Tamayo published a letter to the editor stating that the artistic experience of García Bustos, known better for his engravings, () However, after additional exchanges, on 5 June 1978, 18 Oaxacans, from different professional and artistic areas wrote a letter to the editor supporting García Bustos.Rufino Tamayo's branding of Garcia Bustos as inexperienced with mural painting was inaccurate. In the 1960s Garcia Bustos painted a large mural about Oaxaca in the National Museum of Antropologia. He painted other murals in Mexico cities. He studied under and painted murals with the famous Mexican muralist Frida Kahlo and his wife Rina Lazo, who helped with the mural, was an assistant to Diego Rivera, the most famous Mexican muralist. Oaxaxan, Rufino Tamayo and other "modern" artists have criticized the mural in Oaxaca for being excessively literal, with images that replicated various historical figures, as they were depicted in other paintings, perhaps repeating the historical inaccuracies of the originals.
While Garcia Bustos was painting the mural he taught art at UABJO, as he had done some 25 years earlier before being forced out. It appears that by appointing Bustos to UABJO, the cash-starved state of Oaxaca compensated him for painting the mural.
The roots of Mexican Muralism
Mexican and Oaxacan muralism has deep roots. The murals on the interior wall of tombs of Monte Albán, for example, are around 1,500 years old, Tomb 104 has been carefully reproduced in the National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico), including the original murals.Modern mexican muralism received a boost after the Mexican Revolution. The man behind the program, José Vasconcelos Calderón (1882–1959) appears on the mural. After the Mexican Revolution ended in 1921, as the Secretary of Education, Vasconcelos obtained a large budget and generated projects to foster nationalism, especially through sponsoring large patriotic murals in public spaces. Arturo García Bustos, as a child, living in El Centro of Mexico City, observed Diego Rivera painting these patriotic murals. Later Bustos studied mural painting as part of the nationalist art movement with Frida Kahlo in a group called Los Fridos. Bustos collaborated with Kahlo on murals on a daily basis in the mid-1940s.
In short, the mural Oaxaca en la historia y el mito springs from the roots of muralism and nationalism that José Vasconcelos planted some 50 years before García Bustos painted his mural in Oaxaca.
Vasconcelos, a man with deep, sometimes mystical, connections to the past, lived in Coyoacán, a colonial neighbourhood of Mexico City in the home that Hernán Cortés is said to have built for his interpreter-mistress. How we call this woman shows how we view her. At birth she seems to have been called Malintzin or some version of that. It appears that when she became enslaved to Cortés she was renamed Doña Marina. Over the years, she has often been called, La Malinche, which has a connotation that she was a traitor, which she was not.
García Bustos, always the champion of Mexican history and antiquity, purchased the home in the early 1960s and lived there for half a century, painting with his wife, the artist, Rina Lazo. He also maintained a home and studio in San Filipe de Aqua, a suburb of Oaxaca and visited from time to time as his family still does in 2025.
General Description The mural covers spread over three walls. It depicts some 100 life-size images of objects, people and events, making a semi-circle around a large internal stairwell.
The artist used the elaborate, and time-consuming encaustic technique, using heated wax. The rough surface created by the wax covering the painted surface, reflects light and enlivens the mural. The mural tells the stories of Huaxyacac-Antequera-Oaxaca-Oaxaca de Juárez (0axaca City), the names given to Oaxaca City starting in the late 1400. The mural has three panels covering, three eras of Oaxacan history. In chronological order the panels are; Prehispanic, sometimes called the pre-Columbian era, of some 10,000 or maybe 20,000 years ago to 1521, the second era is colonial times when Spain ruled New Spain roughly from 1521 to 1821, and the third panel represents the 100 years of unrest punctuated by the Mexican War of Independence, the Reform War, the Second French Intervention and The Mexican Revolution, roughly from 1810 to 1921 and beyond. This third panel, the largest, lies in the middle.
It is said by some that the bottom layer of each panel pictures everyday life. The middle layer illustrates forces and events shaping the history of Oaxaca. The third, or top layer of the mural, represents the ideals and leaders of Oaxaca through the three eras portrayed.
Prehispanic Panel
The term prehispanic refers to the period in Mesoamerica before the Spanish arrived. Critics of the use of the term prehispanic, reason as follows:
"La palabra prehispánico tiene una connotación de "aparición" de los pueblos mesoamericanos en la historia a partir de la llegada de Hernán Cortés y de los hispanos que lo acompañaban. Previamente, Mesoamérica era una región habitada por civilizaciones y culturas diversas, muchas de ellas en contacto interétnico.
Google Translate converts the above to:
"The word pre-Hispanic has a connotation of "appearance" of the Mesoamerican peoples in history after the arrival of Hernán Cortés and the Hispanics who accompanied him. Previously, Mesoamerica was a region inhabited by diverse civilizations and cultures, many of them in interethnic contact."
Although, the term prehispanic has replaced the term pre columbian in many places. So far there is not a universal term to replace prehispanic but if past is prologue, there will be a new term to replace prehispanic.
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica refers to a cultural area. There were several civilizations within Mesoamerica, including the Zapotecs and Mixtecs that are illustrated in the mural. Through marriage and trade among the civilizations, they developed several common characteristics including the cultivation of corn and other crops, trade with other mesoamerican civilizations, similar polytheistic religions, large pyramids in public spaces and other similarities, including a ball game, which we will examine later. Mesoamerica included parts of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and parts of Costa Rica.
Mountains and Lightning The top left corner of the prehispanic panel depicts a mountain and the other two panels of the mural also contain mountains, a reminder that 90% of the State of Oaxaca is mountainous. This terrain has strongly impacted the history and myths of Oaxaca as reflected in several elements of the prehispanic panel. For example, the isolation created by the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountains and the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca have helped to generate and sustain 16 formally registered indigenous peoples of Oaxaca.
The origins of the mountains of Oaxaca and other geological phenomena
Three hundred million years ago, fragments of the crust were grouped together in a landmass called Pangea.
Prevailing science explains that Pangea broke into sections called tectonic plates. These plates, sometimes thought of as the Earth’s crust float on the mantle of the Earth.
Over millions of years, these plates came together to form continents. The section of the North American Continent where we find Oaxaca comprises four of these plates. They are the North American Plate, the Pacific, the Cocos and the Caribbean .