Journeying Outside Oaxaca: Mitla and a village church

Mitla is a Zapotec site, first built and inhabited about 950 A.D. During the colonial era, stones were taken from the walls and buildings to build the red-domed Catholic Church seen above. The architectural detail at Mitla can be seen below.

And meanwhile, the villages are being festooned for the approaching Day of the Dead.

Interior details from the church above.

 Wildly colorful, the designs are an amalgam of indigenous and colonial tastes. The indigenous Zapotec artists incorporated their own motifs into the work. Zapotec masks and headdresses can be found surrounding altars to the saints.