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MEXICAN PINATAS The traditional Mexican celebration of birthday parties for children involving the breaking of the "Piñata" or "Cartoneria" (popular figurines made by craftsman utilizing cardboard, paper mache or newspapers) is one of the most anticipated activities awaiting families. The most popular figurines are now associated with Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Nemo, the Lion King, etc. The Piñatas are usually filled with different sorts of candies that will be collected on the ground once a lucky child breaks it with a wooden stick. The Piñata is hung on a rope overhead and maneuvered to and fro' from side to side by two individuals oftentimes appearing on top of a roof or on top of a tree {about 10 to 20 feet apart) in order to challenge the children to look for it while they are blindfolded. The fun part comes when loud screams and yelling are heard to offer some form of direction as to the location of the Piñata so that children can swing hard at the moving object. All participants are given a specific amount of time to try and hit the Piñata starting with the youngest to the oldest ones in the party. As it often occurs, the older children are the victors who finally break the Piñata completely open with newspaper material scattered all around revealing the precious candy that is to be gathered at random by all the lucky participants. Hence, the triumphant kids are seen with bags of candies that they themselves collected while shoving others for them. The unlucky ones who collect some or literally no candies are usually taken care of by the promoters of the parties who stack candies separately so that they can have candy to enjoy, too. Vendors selling the popular characters, previously mentioned, in Mexico have been routinely apprehended by federal authorities who seize their illegal merchandize in violation of international copyright laws. Though these vendors are not familiar with copyright laws, they claim that this has been going on for decades without problems. After all, Mexico has been exporting popular Piñatas to the U.S. for many years. All that the vendors have had to do is to render full cooperation enforced by 'los federates' (federal officials) who force their infamous 'under the table' schemes known as "La Mordida." This Mexican traditional is now widespread throughout the U.S. as hordes of Mexican and American families buy Piñatas to celebrate birthdays, Christmas festivities and the "Posadas",4th of July, New Years Eve giving way to the new year, Mexican independence or 16th of September, and "Cinco de Mayo," etc. Hardly no one knows what a Piñata is all about. VII. The Origins of Mexico and its Builders. Centuries later, modem scholars offer us more in-depth studies into the vast continent of Mexico. William H. Prescott, perhaps the most famous historian of the Ancient Americans and the continent they inhabited long before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, shares the following perspective: Midway across the continent, somewhat nearer the Pacific than the Atlantic Ocean, at an elevation of nearly seven thousand five hundred feet, is the celebrated Valley of Mexico. Itis of an oval form, about sixty-seven leagues in circumference, and is encompassed by a towering rampart of porphyritic rock, which nature seems to have provided, though ineffectually, to protect it from invasion. The soil, once carpeted ·with a beautiful verdure, and thickly sprinkled with stately trees, is often bare, and, in many places, white with the incrustation of salts, caused by the draining of the waters. Five lakes are spread over the Valley, occupying one tenth of its surface. On the opposite borders of the largest of these basins, much shrunk in its dimensions since the days of the Aztecs, stood the cities of Mexico and Tezcuco, the capitals of the two most potent and flourishing states of Anahuac, whose history, with that of the mysterious races that preceded them in the country, exhibits some of the nearest approaches to civili2.ation to be met with anciently on the North American continent. Of these races, the most conspicuous were the Toltecs. Advancing from a northerly direction but from what region is uncertain, they entered the territory of Anahuac,. probably before the close of the seventh century. The Toltecs were well instructed in agriculture, and many of the most useful mechanic arts; were nice workers of metals; invented the complex arrangement of time adopted by the Aztecs; and, in short, were the true fountains of the civilization which distinguished this part of the continent in latter times. They established their capital at Tula, north of the Mexican Valley, and the remains of extensive buildings were to be discerned there at the time of the Conquest. The noble ruins of religious and other edifices still to be seen in various parts of New Spain, are referred to this people, whose name, Toltec, has passed into a synonym for architect. Their shadowy history reminds us of those native races, who preceded the ancient Egyptians in the march of civilization; fragments of whose monuments, as they are seen at this day, incorporated with the buildings of the Egyptians themselves, give to these latter the appearance of almost modem construction. After a period of four centuries, the Toltecs, who had extended their sway over the remotest borders of Anahuac having been greatly reduced, it is said, by famine, pestilence, and unsuccessful wars, disappeared from the land as silently and mysteriously as they had entered it. After the lapse of another hundred years, a numerous and rude tribe, called the Chichemecs entered the deserted country from the regions of the far Northwest. They were speedily followed by other races of higher civilization, perhaps of the same family with the Toltecs, whose language they appear to have spoken. The most noted of these were the Aztecs or Mexicans, and the Acolhuans. The latter known in latter times by the name of Tezcucans, from their capital, Tezcuco, on the eastern border of the Mexican lake, were peculiarly fitted, by their comparatively mild religion and manners, for receiving the tincture of civilization which. could be derived from the Toltecs that still remained in the country. This, in tum, they communicated to the barbarous Chichemecs, a large portion of whom became amalgamated with the new settlers as one nation. The Mexicans, with whom our history is principally concerned, came, also as we have seen, from the remote regions of the North, -the populous hive of nations in the New World, as it has been in the Old They arrived on the borders of Anahuac, towards the beginning of the thirteenth century, sometime after the occupation of the land by the kindred races. For a long time they did not establish themselves in any parts of the Mexican Valley, enduring all the casualties and hardships of a migratory life. On one occasion, they were enslaved by a more powerful tribe but their ferocity soon made them formidable to their masters. After a series of wanderings and adventures, which need not shrink from comparison with the most extravagant legends of the heroic ages of antiquity, they at length halted on the southwestern borders of the principal lake, in the year 1325. They there beheld, perched on the stem of a prickly pear, which shot out from crevice of a rock that was washed by the waves, a royal eagle of extraordinary size and beauty, with a serpent in his talons, and his broad wings opened to the rising sun. They hailed the auspicious omen, announced by the oracle, as indicating the site of their future city, and laid its foundations by sinking piles into the shallows; for the low marshes were half buried under water. On these they erected their light fabrics of reeds and ruches; and sought a precarious subsistence from fishing, and from the wildfowl which the Waters, as well as from the cultivation of such simple vegetables as they could raise on their floating gardens. The place was called Tenochtitlan, in token of its miraculous origin, though only known to Europeans by its other name Mexico, derived from their war-god, Mexitli. The legend of its foundation is still further commemorated by the device of the eagle and the cactus, which form the arms of the modern Mexican republic. Such were the humble beginnings of the Venice of the Western World.