Camilla Rodriguez Management

In Mesoamerica tree gourd or Morro (Crescentia alata) has always been considered sacred. In the Popol Vuh (part two, chapter two) narrates that the lords of the underworld killing Vucub-Hunahpú and Hun-Hunahpú to behead the latter.

"Take the head and put it in that tree that is planted on the road said the lords of the underworld, and having gone to get my head in the tree, the point was covered in fruit that had never borne fruit before you put in its branches Hun_hunahpú head. And today we call the gourd head of Hun-Hunahpú, so you say ... "
He noted that the Cup is very important to the mythology of Mesoamerican societies, but also has practical use, we see that its fruits are used in cooking, crafts and art, for example, the gourd to be a spherical fruit with a hard shell, can spread and become a vessel, called crate. Can also be used for the production of cymbals, rattles, spoons, musical instruments (the zambumba, the Guarama and ocarina), can be used as medicine for stomach pain and diarrhea, make horchata and using modern means oil can be extracted , sugar and ethanol.

Until the late twentieth century in Izalco was done preparing the carved gourd, which began with the cutting of the gourd a "once-moon" (eleven days after the visual appearance of the moon after the new moon), which with a piece of obsidian glass or a nail or güiscoyol spines could scratch the surface of the nose, after preparation, and develop a variety of artistic images ranging from animals, insects, flowers , plants, etc. The museum
site Joya de Ceren crate is a nose that was recovered by archaeologists from one of the structures that were buried during the explosion of the Loma Caldera in the middle of the classic period (200 BC to 900 AD) . This crate can be seen that was painted to adorn with figures treating (bottom).

late nineteenth century German researcher and ethnographer Carl Hartman gave special importance to the gourd, I was curious a tree with a spherical fruits hanging from the trunk, honesty is a very particular, characteristic of a climate tropical, the archaeological site of Cihuatan in the department of San Salvador, has a large population of trees or hills gourds.

References:
The carved gourds Izalco by Jorge Alfredo Calvo, Folk Art Magazine July 1977.
Museum of the Word and Image, Memory of the Izalcos 2006.