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| The urban bestiary | | January
19 , 2003. |  The
city landscape, qualified by the sterile beauty of glass, concrete and steel,
is a favorable setting for the blossoming of life, and not only the kind we know,
the one that beats and vibrates within the beings that inhabit it, but also the
kind that is immortalized in a sculpture, on a canvas or in an etching, as architecture
or pottery, in the hands of the artist who shapes the elements until they are
converted into beasts that guard the urban scenario and help draw man's spirit
closer to nature.
From time immemorial, man has tried to hold
back in time the very essence of the animals with which he has shared his evolutionary
voyage on earth. This is evidenced by the Paleolithic paintings of bison in the
cave of Altamira, Spain, which are some 15,000 years old, or the outlines of images
resembling crocodiles in Australian aborigine art that dates back more than 30,000
years. There is no question that human civilizations have always had a bestiary
that included the beings that held special significance for them, whether it be
in their esthetic archetypes or their religious or magical beliefs.  In
the Middle Ages, a bestiary was defined as a treatise in prose or verse that contained
the description of real or imaginary animals, along with the human traits that
they exemplified. Bestiaries were the source of tales of unicorns and phoenix
birds. This type of stories were used by the Christian religion as allegories
for moral and religious teachings. Bestiaries, often illustrated, inspired and
continue to inspire animal symbolism among architects, painters and sculptors
whose work fills every corner of all small towns or impressive megalopolis with
life and magic.
Just like any ancient town, cosmopolitan
Puerto Vallarta contains a series of icons that make up its particular bestiary.
In them, we can see the reflection of the devotion held by natives and neighbors
alike for the environment and the creatures that inhabit it. They symbolize the
vast debt we owe them for the infinite number of environmental services they perform
for us, making this place a tourist attraction which, logically, results in an
important economic return.  The
best known member of Vallarta's urban bestiary is without question "El Caballito"
(the seahorse). The seahorse also known as hippocampus statue is one of the few
examples in nature where pregnancy and birthing occur only in males. It is certain
that this adaptation has earned them the right to be considered symbols of creativity
and productivity. Also we should not forget that its bearing is reminiscent of
the codes of chivalry observed by medieval knights.
Vallarta's
bestiary is not made up exclusively of animals native to the region. It also includes
specimens from faraway lands. For example, there are the sculptures of mountain
gorillas, a species of monkey that lives in equatorial Africa and that was only
discovered by science as recently as 1901 when Captain De Bering brought the first
one to Europe. As the gorilla is the largest representative of the monkeys, it
is a living example of nobility, pacifism and generosity as it lives in groups
(called troops) within which they watch out for each other. These "animal
qualities" should be put into effect more often by humans.  A
marine mammal in the bestiary is the orca, erroneously called "killer whale",
that is in fact a member of the dolphin family and which spends its life in family
groups. Curiously enough, the female members of this mammal group, like women,
share the fact that they go through menopause. This quality among the females
of both species, where the period of fertility culminates at a specific point,
has important repercussions on the social life of the group to which they belong:
as they no longer have to devote their energy to reproduction, they can focus
it on teaching, training and caring for their "grand-children".
 It
is obvious that marine animals are the favorites in the bestiary of Vallarta.
One of the most popular is the dolphin. As an animal associated with the sea,
it is considered a symbol of creation, passion and sexuality. To the Greeks, the
dolphin was the messenger of the gods and the symbol of the dynamic blessing of
the ocean. Moreover, those mammals faithfully represent the altruistic feeling
as there are many well-known tales of shipwrecks where men were saved and brought
to firm land by dolphins.
The crocodile could be considered
that bad and cruel member of the bestiary. Nevertheless, crocodiles only follow
their instincts. Evilness and cruelty are characteristics reserved exclusively
for the human species. Contrary to popular belief, this reptile was considered
a god by civilizations as advanced as the one in Egypt, where an impressive sacred
city was built in its honor on the banks of the Nile, known throughout the ancient
world by its Greek name, Crocodilopolis. This spiritual capital was the center
for the cult and adoration of the god Sobek (who had a man's body and the head
of a crocodile), symbol of eternity and protection. To
culminate our tour through this town's bestiary, we should not forget one of the
animals that best identifies the Bay of Banderas with its ocean and all the creatures
that inhabit it: the humpback whale. Without question, one of the most famous
examples of the use of the whale is the one used by New York author Herman Melville
(1819-1891) in his masterpiece "Moby Dick" published in 1851. In this
novel, Captain Ahab personifies humanity in its constant fight against evil and
the imponderable forces of the universe embodied by the mythical Moby Dick. cupul@pvmirror.com Archives
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