The celebration of the Tule Tree honors an ancient and attractive species; a living treasure of Mexico’s national tree, the ahuehuete or sabino, located in the metropolitan municipality of Santa María El Tule, east of Oaxaca City.
As is tradition, a large number of commemorative events take place on the second Monday of October, including photography exhibitions, artistic, sports, and culinary activities, live music, and dances. The main celebration is that the inhabitants of Oaxaca and its visitors are allowed access to touch the tree, embrace its trunk (the largest in the world), and leave floral offerings and food.
Cultural groups reenact the origins of the festival, when women from surrounding areas came to sell their produce, such as loquats, guavas, panela toast, corn, peanuts, wildflowers, lemon tea, and copal, among others.
The name of this ancient tree comes from the community where it is located: Santa María del Tule, where the shoot emerged in a swamp with aquatic plants, one of which was the Tule or Espadaña (Typha domingensis Pers).
Among the community’s inhabitants, a story is told: the tree was born when King Condoy buried his walking stick in this place, which was a swamp, and could no longer extract it.
One of the peculiarities of the Tule Tree is that between the trunk and the root collar, whimsical shapes resembling animals can be seen, such as a crocodile, an elephant, and the head of a lion, among others.
Compared to other notable species, the Tule Tree is the oldest specimen with an estimated age of 2,000 years, while its descendant, popularly known as “the son of Tule,” is about 1,000 years old, and its “grandson,” more than 500 years old.
Source: excelsior
