Chihuahua city, Mexico
- Chihuahua city is important in Blood Meridian as the main cast of characters comes here twice, both instances do not look positive for the kid. The first instance (detailed in the quote) shows the kid get arrested by Mexican authorities for taking part in a filibuster. It is said it took days of travel on horseback to get to Chihuahua city so i think a map of the city along with the surrounding desert as you could compare how much of the city is still there/how much it has grown over time. Not to mention, being able to map out a bustling city at the time like Chihuahua would be very insightful in visualizing/learning about what the cities were like back then. Did people live in raggedy houses or tenement like apartments? Where did they go to eat? These types of questions can be answered by mapping out the area.
- Quote: “They entered the city in a gantlet of flung offal, driven like cattle through the cobbled streets with shouts going up behind for the soldiery who smiled as became them and nodded among the flowers and proffered cups, herding the tattered fortune-seekers through the plaza where water splashed in a fountain and idlers reclined on carven seats of white porphyry and past the governor’s palace and past the cathedral where vultures squatted along the dusty entablatures and among the niches in the carved facade hard by the figures of Christ and the apostles, the birds holding out their own dark vestments in postures of strange benevolence while about them flapped on the wind the dried scalps of slaughtered indians strung on cords, the long dull hair swinging like the filaments of certain seaforms and the dry hides clapping against the stones.” (p. 76). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Coordinates
Latitude: 28.632995700000
Longitude: -106.069100400000
Longitude: -106.069100400000