Oaxaca: Santiago Teotongo

We continue our Oaxaca series with a look at some of the lesser known churches we visited last February.

    One of the more remote places we visited was the small town of Santiago Teotongo, just to the northeast of Tamazulapan in the Mixteca Alta region of northern Oaxaca.
   The imposing church front is sparely configured, with paired Ionic columns to either side of the lobed doorframe and non supporting colonettes on the upper level beneath a grand scrolled archway. The modest shell niches contain statuary of recent manufacture.

image © IOHIO

Inside the church, several richly gilded altarpieces in a variety of baroque styles line the nave.

Beside the choir loft, set on its separate pedestal rests the ornate, painted and gilded baroque shell of a mid 18th century pipe organ.

image © IOHIO

In addition, there are some figure sculptures of interest in the church including a fine old colonial Christ Entering Jerusalem, and a dramatic Santiago Matamoros in a flowing red cloak with his sword raised against a recumbent Moor, whose arms and legs push up against the horse's belly.

           

text © 2014 Richard D. Perry.  images by the author and IOHIO