Saying that home offers refuge to people is nothing new, it allows for everyday practices to develop, and up to a point, it holds the secrets of our relationships to our families, the neighbors and the community. In the Prehispanic era and today, home is an architectural building and, at the same time, an abundant reference of cosmological concepts pertaining to the body, time, space, social organizations and the cosmos.
Even though the appearance of homes has changed over time, in certain parts of Huasteca, such as in the state of San Luis Potosí, houses preserve keys to Prehispanic homes, and to the knowledge and beneficial use of the local ecosystem. The buildings in the region feature a rectangular base, even though houses with circular bases are considered “more traditional,” because they hark back to the image of the world, as recorded by anthropologist Guy Stresser-Pean at the beginning of the twentieth century. Walls are made of wood, otate or bamboo, while the conical roofs are covered in palm leaves, zacate or other herbs. At the highest point the roofs are crowned with an upside down pot, in order to keep the strong rains from overflowing. The teenek (Huasteco) houses have several rooms, sometimes shared: kitchen, living area, bedrooms, storage or granary. Some houses still have temazcales or steam baths, and chapels for rituals. Homes continue to be sacred spaces where the inhabitants live with their ancestors; therefore, every home has an altar with images of saints and other ritual objects.
Home, as a metaphor of the cosmos, has a strong connection to the feminine, since women spend the most time on the patio, in the kitchen, outside growing plants and taking care of the animals. The most important aspect of the kitchen is the stove, to prepare food but also because its guardian is the Spirit of Fire, a sacred entity who the Teenek (Huastecos) conceive to be a lazy man who protects the women and gives them fire for the home. In addition to fire, the presence of other beings emphasizes the sacred character of the home and its cosmic counterpart. The vertical division of the sky, the earth and the underworld is reflected in the house: the Devil lives under the bed, humans occupy the surface, and the saints and splendorous entities are at the very top of the altar, in the celestial plane. The posts that keep the home upright and its inhabitants safe have important ties to the tree of life, whereas the corners of the house indicate the cardinal points of the cosmos.
Several Mesoamerican traditional groups evoke the cosmological projection between the house and the female body. For example, in southern Huasteco, the Otomis identify the temazcal with a mother’s womb; this is why they conduct rituals of birth and purification in this space. The rituals carried out in the temazcal are also metaphors for the sexual act between a man and a woman. As an image of the cosmos, the house is a space where the forces of fertility and creation circulate; all of the human processes happen there, from birth to death.
Just like all bodies, houses need rituals to guarantee their strength, to protect the inhabitants and prevent harm. The Nahua culture in the neighboring Northern Sierra in Puebla perform rituals to strengthen the home’s soul center, its yollotl or heart. In addition to these rituals, they use wording to indicate the relation between the house and the body: the door is the mouth; the foundation are the feet; the roof is the head; and at the center, the heart. The cosmos, body and home make up a complex system that includes social relationships, knowledge of the surrounding area and cosmological processes.