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Travelers' Club news The second meeting of the Travelers' Club was held Monday, October 23 at the home of Jessie Twohill. The group's country of study for this year is Mexico. Jane Matlach presented the first paper of the evening on the Maya civilization. About 6,000 years ago, the first Americans learned to cultivate corn, possibly in Guatemala or central Mexico. People began to move around less and to live together in one place. they built simple one-room huts and temples or shrines. Over time, religious architecture became more elaborate and highly decorated. the Maya began to make gods of the sun, the rain and other important symbols and performed bloody sacrifices. They calculated the movements of the sun, the moon and Venus. They also developed a system of mathematics , which included the zero. The zero, which makes it possible to figure large numbers, was unknown in Europe until the Middle Ages. About A.D. 800 to 900, their civilization began to decline, and scientists are still looking for the reasons for their demise.
Betsy Davison delivered the second paper of the night on Mexican pottery, jewelry and crafts. She detailed the folk art from Oaxaca, including its famous black pottery and the clay figures crated by the large Aguilar family and its whimsical, magical, spiritual and superstitious wood carvings. Pictured examples of the brightly colored art of the Huichol people from the Sierra Madre Mountain area were shown. This work, inspired by nature, is created with fibers, colored beads, small pebbles or kernels of corn placed and attached to a wooded background with beeswax. A brief history of Taxco and its connection with American tourism explained the rise of this town as a result of its considerable silver resources. Photographs of now valuable coconut banks made and sold by hardened criminals were shared.
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