LOST IN THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE

When the Spanish seamen arrived in the Caribbean in 1492, their description of my homeland caused the clergy and the lettered to proclaim that Columbus had arrived in the Terrestrial Paradise!  

© 2019 by Michael Auld 

Terrestrial Paradise: n. 1. a painting by Netherlandish artist Hieronymus Bosch, dating from around 1490. 2. where the remaining sins of the saved were washed away. The Fountain of Life stands on top of the hill. 3. the Caribbean, as believed by the arriving Spanish in 1492. 4. the pristine Indies and its people, flora and fauna inspired the idea of "Paradise". Also, the reported nudity and youthfulness of the Caribbean's Taino people was reminiscent of Bosch's painting

Unfortunately, I was not taught this point of view by the British educational curriculum by our Colonial government. Jamaica got its independence in 1962 when I was 19, headed for Howard University in Washington, DC. Jamaicans were also taught that they were mainly an African people with a mixed population of bi- and tri-racial "Brown Men", Indian (Hindu), European, Lebanese, Chinese, Sephardi Jew, Portuguese, et al minorities, all subjects in a more important British Empire. In the Empire the curriculum was standardized British. The brainwash was so pervasive that even in the movie theaters, before the film began, we stood to the playing of "God Save The Queen." Nothing was mentioned about the Amerindian Taino civilization (the "Terrestrial Paradise") on which the island was built. After marrying a Native American on campus, my eyes became opened to the realities of the Amerindian hemisphere in which I was born.

ALTERNATIVE AESTHETICS

Colonial education in the English-speaking Caribbean included very little about Jamaican history or culture. So, most Jamaicans knew almost nothing about where we were, geographically. Since the majority of islanders were of African descent, my self discovery as an artist began with our African retentions. 

During my African period, I used welded metal, inlaid with etched Plexiglass to make some pieces. Themes were Obatala, the Yoruba father figure; Olokun, the Yoruba god of the sea; a protective triptych with figures of Ast (Isis), Marcus Garvey and Harriet Tubman, as an installation to protect the children who were being killed by the Apartheid South African Government. Each figure was an icon based on an Ethiopian image of a guardian angel. 

Above Left: "Ogun" the Yoruba God of Metallurgy was also homage to the material that I chose.. [Wall sculpture from welded steel, beaten metal and bicycle rims).  

Center: Sword with the cutout of a dog, Ogun's symbol.

Right: Brass crown, topped by a lost wax casting of a bumblebee.

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Above: Metal and inlaid etched Plexiglass examples from an Egyptian inspired Horus piece titled "Sun's Sons". A tribute to father and son to compliment the traditional "Mother  and Child" artworks. This sculpture was a part of my Egyptian inspired pieces.(Metal. Made from the front forks of bicycles")

AMERINDIAN AESTHETICS: An Artist's Re-education

When Columbus arrived in my part of the world that he believed was a Terrestrial Paradise, there was a lost opportunity to discover where he actually was. Blinded by an ethnocentrism and a search for gold, he was not capable of understanding where he had arrived. He had come to an alien Amerindian hemisphere steeped in the beauty of ingenious, ancient, and diverse cultures.  

Successive myopic Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, and Asians arrived with shared blinders. As an artist, born in Jamaica, this non-Indigenous myopia was not good enough for me. I belatedly had to discover geographically where I had been born and may die. I was neither in Europe or Africa. For an artist, this self-ignorance can be devastating.

My dilemma was that a major part of my cultural puzzle was missing. The solution was self-education. I began to research my Northern Caribbean Taíno and our Eastern Caribbean Kalinago (Island Carib) cultures. After all, those nostalgic things that I identified as "Jamaican ", were actually Taíno. I was convinced that my artwork should reflect the culture on which I was weaned. Steeped in a Eurocentric Colonial education, I began research in African folklore and West African aesthetics. My sculptures were based on "Objects of Power".

For a couple of years prior to 1992, I began to research Taíno and Central American designs and sculptural aesthetics. My theory was that if the Columbian Encounter did not occur then Central American artistic aesthetics would have spread into to the Caribbean. There was already indications of Yamaye (Jamaican) Taino interaction along the island's South Coast, just across from the Maya of Mexico's Yucatan. Cortez had come across a Yamaye woman when he arrived in Mexico. In terms of stylistic borrowing, Mesoamerica would have stylistically been The Egypt of the Americas. So, I mixed Mesoamerican sculptural aesthetics with the Taíno sense of design. (This experiment can be seen below with the “Itiba Cahubaba” and the birth of the “Four Father’s of Humankind” sculpture.)

I began to research Taíno artistic, cultural, aesthetics and mythology. So, in 1991, at the advent of the Columbian Encounter, I applied for a Cafritz Foundation Grant to research indigenous retentions in Jamaica (Taino), Puerto Rico (Taino), Antigua (Arawak?), and Dominica (Island Carib),.

AMERINDIAN GALLERY

Below: “Iguanaboina”, the source of life. Iguana=the Sun, along with, Boina (the Black Raincloud), together they represent the source of life. (Welded steel, carved Plexiglass and inlay, 9' tall).

Above: "Lightening Eel: Sea 

God of the Caribs". (Carved

 from a 9' tall pine tree.)

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Below: “Guabancex" the Huracan/Hurtricane.(wall sculpture). Taino women made Guababcex, the Angry Woman Goddess and Rider of the Winds, in the shape of later satellite images of the hurricanes.(See image on the right palm of the sculpture.) To the ceramicists, the "eye" of the hurakan was the face of Guabancex. [Clay, wood, vines]

Below: “Itiba Cahubaba”, the Fifth Earth Mother” and the “Four Fathers of Humankind” (Middle pix) in the womb/birth-cave). She dies in the cesarian births.

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 Left: Detail; "The Four Fathers of Humankind" representing the four human races. They are emerging from the primordial womb/cave painted with Taino pictographs. Itiba Cahubaba is styled after Mesoamerican sculptures and her sons by cesarean birth, are from Taino aesthetics.. 

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Bottom: The epic of “Guahayona” (Three views) the First Shaman and his “Travels to the Island of Women (Matanino) and the Island of Gold” (Guanin). This story inspired the Spanish novel with the island of  "La California" (the naming of the state), and the naming of the Amazon. (Wooden slats, conch shell, paint, vines, & red and blue macaw feathers.) The canoe is in the form of the solitary fish, a barracuda (Kalinago/Island Carib word, meaning "He who stays alone".) 

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  Below: “Matanino”, the "Island of Women” from the "Travels of Guahayona". Right: Detail of head (A tri-Pointed stone cemi. Two fertility breasts, one a turtle (Childbirth), the other a frog, also associated with childbirth. 

Print: with Guahayona in his canoa (canoe) 
and images from Puerto Rico 
of Atabey, the virgin Mother of
Yucahu, main Taino god of the yuca 
and of the sea, without
grandfathers."

 Left: "Guanin" (The Island of Gold). (Cherry wood). A symbol of gold, to the Taino the hummingbird or Colibri's shimmering feathers represents that metal,

Right: A silkscreen print of Guaha-yona's travel to Matinino (meaning "No Fathers"), is the Island of Women. 

Guahayona said to the women, "Leave your children and come away with me and I will give you much gueyo." (Guahayona means "Our Pride", while gueyo is a green chewing tobacco mixed with a salty ashes of an algae. That gives a buzz. He then takes the women to Matinino where he falsely promises to return for them. The moral to women? "Be aware of pride."

Below: Accompanying silkscreen print titled, "Guanin". Guanin is 14k gold and the Guahayona Epic, he leaves Matinino for Guanin. This story was recorded on Hispaniola (Ayti Bohio or Kiskeya) by Fr. Ramon Pane, transported to Spain and influenced Spanish novelist Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo who was a Castilian author who published “Sergas de Esplandián”. California takes its name from de Montalvo’s novel and the ruler of the mythological Island’s Queen Calafia, who was the “black”, virginal Amazon ruler of La California.--http://yamaye-mike.blogspot.com/2018/12/influence-of-taino-carib.html

Enlargement of: "Guanin" (cherry wood,

Mother of Perl inlays, Gold-leaf)

Right: "Guanahani", (meaning: Island of the Iguana) on which Columbus first arrived in the Bahamas. (carved Limestone). Columbus promptly changed the name to "San Salvador".

Guahayona's Epic: "Travel to Guanin", (Silkscreen print on hand-made paper.) The central image is the incorporation of a Spanish woodcut from the period. It captures "panning" for gold, an original Taino method of gold-mining alluvial gold powder near streams in "Hispaniola" (Ayti Bohio or Kiskeya,) 

  

Top: Installation of “Anacaona on her Dujo (stool/throne) in her Bohio (Roundhouse)”. The Bohio is composed of iguanas (upright) and Boinas (roof) symbols of life. Anacaona means Golden Flower. She was the "Kacike/Cacika (queen/ruler) of Jaragua". She governed over 100 Kackies in today's Haiti (Ayte Bohio). She was assassinated in 1503 by the Spanish governor Nicolas de Ovando (for whom she had set up a reception) as part of the Taino genocide.

Left: Anacaona; made from cherry wood, Amazon parrot wings and conch shell earrings.. 

Above:: Video; “He Who Does Not Blink”, the Origin Story. The Watchman at the entrance of the cave/womb from which the Taíno entered the world.

Installation: "Bohuti Mucaro" (Shaman Owl) with maracas (Taino) and a sacred cigar (Taino)  is a life-sized sculpture of a shaman shape-shifting into a bird ("He Who Does Not Blink") --Wood, bark, tree gourds (calabash/higuera).

Enlargement: "Gifts to the World". The gourds surrounding the sculpture contains just a few items from the Taino culture that entered world cultures after 1492.

400 Years of African-American History

 

BY AN ACT OF CONGRESS:

This year was designated as “400 Years of African-American History”.

WHO WERE THESE ORIGINAL AFRICANS?

Twenty-nine Angolan African captives from a conflict between Portuguese induced hostilities against the Ndongo Kingdom arrived in North America in 1619. The Ndongo had sent expeditionary forces into distant Matamba, captured and exported as many as 50,000 people, some to Brazil and also those who ended up in Jamestown, Virginia. The Angolans brought to Jamestown were most likely Matamba who were Kimbundu-speaking people.

Conflicts between Angolan kingdoms had increased with the arrival of the Portuguese who had been allowed to set up trading forts along the coast. Originally destined for enslavement and bound for Veracruz, Mexico via the Portuguese Slave Trade, they were rescued from a slave ship by a Dutch Man-of-War. They were then taken to Point Comfort, Virginia then to Ft. Monroe then on to Jamestown and exchanged for provisions. Upon arrival they became freed people.

  

Slavery was not yet instituted in this British Colony so the Angolans might have been received as bonded servants. This contract could be from four to seven years with added rights. The indenture could be extended for running away or becoming pregnant. The fledgling Virginia colony was in dire need of labor. Especially since John Rolfe (the late Pocahontas' husband) had introduced to Virginia, the more mild (and sacred) Caribbean Taíno tobacco as a cash crop. Since local Virginia Native American tobacco was harsh, he intended to provide the Colony with Taíno tobacco to rival the same product already made popular by the Spanish in Europe. In 1492 the Spanish had been introduced to kohiba/tabako (United Confederation of Taíno People) by the Caribbean's indigenous Taíno civilization whose many products like sweet potato (batata) and peanuts (mani) later also arrived in Virginia. 

  

English bonded servants were brought to the Colony via passages paid for their transport that had to be worked off through a period of indenture. The Angolans became involved in the indenture system instituted by English landowners along with imported Englishmen and women.

"We in English-speaking America sometimes think of them [the Angolans] as the first slaves in Jamestown in 1619. But there had been many Africans in North America before that, traveling with the Spanish explorers and throughout the southeast and southwest. But this is different -- to have these people arrive aboard a slave ship and be sold to as workers in Jamestown." --Peter Wood, Professor of History, Duke University

THE LAY OF THE LAND

So, what was the lay of the land for the Angolans? This portion of North America was still Powhatan Territory whose mamanatowick (emperor) was Wahunsenacah or Powhatan II. Powhatan II had allowed the English to set up what he had intended to be an economic entity, a trading post. However, the English had other clandestine intentions. The Angolans had come from a country with Indigenous, Islamic, and Portuguese Catholic religions and were steeped in their own traditional folklore. Their kings had become involved with Portugal and the ensuing slave trade to Brazil, South America. So, they did not come from a backwoods society. Angola had allowed the Portuguese to only set up slave trading posts on the coast. The Portuguese traders were not allowed inland, so trading was done by local coastal middlemen. For trade, these prisoners of war were from the interior kingdoms and chiefdoms. Like many African rulers along the Slave Coast, Gold Coast and Ivory Coast, they had become involved with the new Portuguese international trade in goods and human beings. As for the Angolans in Africa, the first outsiders to contacted them were members of the expanding Islamic empires of North Africa. The Angolan arrivals who ended up at the fledgling Jamestown had the misfortune of probably being victims of local conflicts instigated by the expanding Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. In 1619 the 29 Angolans had arrived in Powhatan Territory where Amerindians were still the dominant force.

The Relationship With The Indigenous Powhatan People

What did the Angolan 29 live through upon their arrival in Jamestown?

At the time of the Angolan arrival, the relationship with the Native Americans of the then viable Powhatan Confederacy/Kingdom was in flux. For example, the year before the arrival in 1619, by May,1618 Powhatan II had died and his body may have remained with the Tauxenents of Northern Virginia, whom he had visited, until its transfer for burial in a sacred place in 1621. His interment site is believed to be in a large mound on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia (powhatanmuseum.com.) Powhatan II's succession was briefly passed on to his younger brother, Opitchapam, and then to his next younger brother Opechancanough.

A Brief History of the Lay of the Land

1607 - The English had landed in Powhatan Territory.1610 - Pocahontas, who was now a young woman, married a Powhatan "private captain" named Kocoum.1613 - The English kidnapped Pocahontas with the help of the Patawomecks of Stafford County, for whom the Cohkaruta River ("River of the Cohonks", was renamed the "Potomac". Canadian geese noisily arrived there yearly in Fall, so honk, Honkey and Honky-tonk came from Cohonk. 1614 - While in captivity Pocahontas was taught English ways, the Christian faith and baptized. [Her marriage to Kocoum was considered by the English, to be an unlawful heathen one so she was fair game for any Christian Englishman. As was the tradition, she may also have had children with Kocoum.] 1616 - The Virginia Company paid to send Pocahontas, her husband, their infant son and several Powhatan Indians to England, to promote the Colony. 1617 - Pocahontas became ill and died in Gravesend, England. After her death the peace between the Powhatan Indians and the English back in Virginia began to unravel. 1618 - Powhatan died.1622-1644 - Tired of English expansion Opechancanough planned two coordinated wars of expulsion of the illegal English settlements, killing many English. [The first, from 1622-1632 and the second in 1644 when he was assassinated, shot in the back while in custody by a "settler".]
[John Rolfe was one of the victims of the first war. This act exhibited the Powhatan attitude that Mamanatowick Opechancanough, Pocahontas' uncle, had towards the bigamous marriage to Rolfe. She was not divorced from Kocoum]-- National Park Service

WHAT DID THESE AFRICANS CONTRIBUTE? 

The Angolans lived the same hard life of indenture as did their English counterparts. And if converted to Christianity, possibly intermarried with whites and Indians. Because of economics, indenture became more expensive and at the end of the term of servitude, the freedmen began to compete with the elite for land. So some freed men turned to taking Native wives so as to inherit land from them. This practice emulated the Pocahontas/John Rolfe model. While others, as in the terms of their contract,  were given at least 25 acres of land, a year's worth of corn, arms, a cow and new clothes." (History Detectives -pbs). Most indentured were not so lucky and it is not certain which model the Angolans inherited. However, in 1661, the Colonial government passed slave laws. "And any small freedoms that might have existed for the [surviving Angolans] may have been taken away." --www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/indentured-servants-in-the-us/

Since its inception, for their population numbers, the African presence in the United States has had, and continue to have disproportional local and international impact. Basically, I have come to the conclusion, that American popular culture is heavily influenced by an African inspired joie de vie. African-American slang has spread worldwide. This point was brought home to me when I saw coverage of proceedings in the British Parliament when one of the members said,  "We have to do our own thing!" This slang is straight out of the Inner City communities.

In spite of legendary hardships, African-American history is replete with a wide array of cultural, scientific, economic, political and social contributions.

WHAT IMPACT DID AFRICAN FOLKLORE HAVE ON AMERICA?

Two examples of the African animal tale influence on American literature were the Brer Rabbit and Aunt Nancy tales. Although there were no rabbit but hare tales in Africa, both animals existed among North America's Algonquians (Michabo the Great Hare). Rabbit tales were told by the Cherokee among whom African-Americans had lived in North Carolina. Uncle Remus, a fictional narrator of animal tales, was introduced as an African-American by journalist Joel Chandler Harris who had heard and published them in Atlanta in 1881.He published seven Uncle Remus books, mainly framed in plantation life.For "authenticity" he narrated the stories in African-American dialect. One popular story is "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Man", a story about the mischievous Rabbit that is caught stealing from a garden by being stuck to a tar covered puppet. When caught, Rabbit pleads not to be killed but instead, be thrown into a brier patch. Rabbit escapes, saying "I was born and bred in a brier patch!" There is a traditional Anansi story parallel titled "Anansi and the Tar Baby". The sequence in which each character smacks and kicks the Tar Baby/Tar Man, remains the same.

My book, “How Anansi Came to the Americas from Africa” is a tale of the introduction of African storytelling in the Americas. (For more on the book, see anansistories.com). It is a tale of how the Angolans and other Africans got here. It is certain that the 29 Angolan refugees at Jamestown brought their folklore with them. Although the spider-man character is not Angolan, AnansiStories (Anansesem) surfaced in South Carolina as “Aunt Nancy”. In the book Anansi, an Asanti folk hero, is forced to travel with the captured Angolans and reflected the beginning of African cross-cultural engagement that is a reflection of today's reality. It is the only folkloric story that connects Africa to the Americas via an arrival in Jamestown.

  

Kweku Anansi is known by many names depending on the country and language in which he landed. For example, in Jamaica alone he is called Brother Anansi, Bra Nancy or Nancy. Some storytellers can shorten the name Anansi to to “Nancy Stories”, but within the story he remains male. His gender changed in parts of the American South. Traditionally his wife is Aso and they had a number of children. In Ghana one of his sons is “Intikuma” which changed to Takooma or Bra Tookuma in Jamaica, in some tales may or may not be cast as Anansi’s son.

WHAT BECAME OF THE "ANGOLAN 29"?

They survived in a turbulent society and melted into the Colonial fabric. The Angolan 29 was also the foundation on which African-American history was built. As a Jamaican emigre, I have been struck by what I perceive to be a distinctive "American Personality" which, in my opinion, is heavily influenced by African-American vibrancy, slang and points of view that expresses itself in the form of an exported "Popular American Culture". Exported through jazz, blues, gospel, rock and roll, etc.  As a minority, African-Americans have had a disproportionate impact on American life and history. Without them, we could not be distinguished from Australians or Canadians.

Annatto to Redskins

A small red seed that became controversial to outsiders.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

The current popular impression of "annatto" is that it is just a "condiment and food coloring derived from the seeds of the achiote tree native to tropical [America] from Mexico to Brazil" and the Caribbean. However, to some Tropical American Amerindians it is a part of a complex belief system in which the color red is one of the most powerful elements on the spiritual plain. Today, this color on the Amerindian skin has become a part of a hard-fought political battle and demonstrations by some Native Americans against Washington, DC's famous football franchise, the "Redskins", currently described in the dictionary as "a derogatory word".

The ancient “onoto” berry (achiote in Mexico and annatto in Jamaica), although its waxy seed coloring agent was seen first in use by the arriving Spanish, adorning the skins of the Lucayan Taino in the Bahamas, created a controversy that has lasted until today. It’s not that Europeans were unaccustomed to facial skin painting; it’s just that in these exotic islands the practice appeared to be naively novel. Specifically, the English with their white face paint later coined the derogatory term “Redskin” to describe Native people in North America. Their familiarity with Native Americans (a term reserved only for indigenous North Americans) was first among the Algonquian speakers of Virginia whose use of bloodroot mixed with bear fat, served the same purpose as onoto in the Caribbean. There in Virginia, the English associated red skin paint with “Savage.”

Red skin to the Amerindian was the most sacred colors of the Four Directions’ blood and the Sun’s source of life.

The Onoto:

Also annatto (a-nah-toe) 1. From the Island Carib (Kalinago) onoto. 2. Also called achiote (Nahualt, Mexico) or roucou (Tupi "urucú"). 3. The dark orange-red berries which fill the pods of this tropical American tree. 4. The dye obtained from the waxy red coating of the berries of the annatto pod used in the coloring of foods and the preparation of a cordial. 5. A low, shrubby tree cultivated extensively on both the tropical American islands of the Caribbean and on mainland South America.

Redskins 1. The color ascribed to the "red race" and probably originating among Island Caribs of the Caribbean. From the annatto color rubbed on the skin of Island Caribs and some Tropical American Amerindians as a sun block and insect repellent. 2. An often derogatory name similar to "Red Indians" applied to Native Americans. 3. The controversial name for a Washington, D.C. football team.

Annatto berries are found in pods which grow in clusters on a medium sized tropical American tree. The tree grows wild in the tropical forests of the mainland Americas and is cultivated in the Caribbean as a food coloring. The red pigment from the berries was rubbed on the skin of the early peoples of the Caribbean as it still is by many indigenous Amerindians in mainland rain forests. Anatto was also used in Taíno and Carib cooking and was the source of the red color used by them to "paint" their bodies.

On Friday morning, October 11, 1492 Christopher Columbus observed and noted the following in his log: 

"Many of the natives paint their faces; others paint their whole bodies;
    some, only the eyes or nose. Some are painted black, some white, some red;
    Others are of different colors."

Painting the body is an ancient ritual which may satisfy social or spiritual needs. The patterns or colors used by individuals identified them as members of specific families, clans or societies. In the case of the Taíno, according to their Origin Myth, black pigment which came from the sacred genep (genapa) tree was associated with the original ancestors who arrived on to the earth’s surface from within a specific primordial cave.  

Red is probably the most ancient color known to humans. It represented blood and was, therefore, associated with the life force. To the Taíno it was one of the four most important colors. Red represented east, the cardinal direction from where the sun rose. The preferred ancient color, red, was also used by other indigenous Americans as body paint which caused them to be called "Red Indians" by early Europeans. Body painting also had practical biological purposes. Some indigenous North Americans used other red pigments mixed with bear geese as an insect repellent and sun block. In our contemporary societies body painting is mainly confined to the face. Face painting. Body painting may be reserved for drama.

THE ANNATTO TODAY

Top: Dried annatto pod. Left: Commercial jar. Note it is spelled "ANNATTO", another derivation of the word. Right: Annatto seeds. Not shown here are Annatto oil and paste.   

SPIRITUAL FOOD DYE

So, remember when you eat a pastry with a natural orange or yellow coloring you are partaking in an ancient ritual of the onotto's life force.

IT SHOULD BE...

©2018 Michael Auld

The "POINSETTIA":

How Discovery Is Misplaced

As stated above, Montezuma II (c. 1460–1520), ninth Aztec emperor, was the first person of importance to fully appreciate the beauty of the Cuetlaxochitl. The local Mexica (Aztec) named their flower, whose white, sticky sap provided them with a cure for fever and flowers a source of red and purple dye. 

In 1824, Pointsett, "during his stay in Mexico as the American Ambassador, wandered the countryside looking for Mexican plants that he had never seen. While walking down a road, he came across someone's large plant growing on the corner of their property." 

• He took a cutting from the plant, shipped it home to South Carolina and grew it in his greenhouse. Renamed for him, the rest is history. Obviously, as it was the custom since 1492, the arriving foreigner who "found" an Amerindian object, had the privilege of either renaming it or being credited with being the "founder". So the Cuetlaxochitl became the Poinsettia.

• "A nurseryman from Pennsylvania, John Bartram is credited as being the first  person to sell poinsettias under its botanical name, Euphorbia pulcherrima

• In the early 1900's the Ecke family of southern California grew poinsettias outdoors for use as landscape plants and as a cut flower. Eventually the family grew poinsettias in greenhouses and today is recognized as the leading producer of poinsettias in the United States." [Poinsettias of many colors and varieties have become a multi-million dollar industry, worldwide].--https://extension.illinois.edu/poinsettia/history.cfm

Found around the world today, the Cuetlaxochitl or ... "The poinsettia is native to Mexico. It is found in the wild in deciduous tropical forests at moderate elevations from southern Sinaloa down the entire Pacific coast of Mexico to Chiapas and Guatemala. It is also found in the interior in the hot, seasonally dry forests of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. Reports of E.pulcherrima growing in the wild in Nicaragua and Costa Rica have yet to be confirmed by botanists." --Wikipedia

Back in Jamaica for the Christmas break of 1963 after my first year at a DC university... First thing. Grab some sweet sugarcane, hang out on the front lawn next to the Poinsettia that my dad had planted the year before.  

The Christmas Season has prescribed traditions. However, one Aztec Emperor's love for a local flower became an American annual obsession.

Enjoy the entire SEASON that the flower blooms!