When The Winged Warriors Returned: Monarch Butterflies and Religious Beliefs in Central Mexico

In the 1970’s researchers were finally able to demonstrate where billions of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) from vast regions of the US and Canada went, when they, each year in late summer and early fall, “suddenly” disappeared. It turned out by far that most of the characteristic black-orange and white butterflies that left their summer home set out on the longest journey performed by any insect – aiming for a relatively constricted area of forested mountains in central Mexico. Here they overwinter, at times clustering in massive groups of thousands of individuals in the branches of their favourite tree, the oyamel fir (Abies religiosa).

Pic 1: Fir tree forest, El Rosario Monarch Sanctuary, Angangueo, Michoacán, Mexico

The monarch butterflies arrive from their northern summer habitats, where they breed, around late August and into September, and like other species of butterflies have a remarkable life cycle. They go through a series of transformations: from egg to larvae, which then turns into a hard, lifeless pupa or cocoon and “dies” - only to appear as a completely different being, winged and often stunningly beautiful in its colours and patterns. Human cultures and religious traditions across the globe have seen in these remarkable transformations an attractive natural metaphor for the birth, life, death and rebirth of the human soul (or whatever term is used in specific traditions).

Pic 3: Diagram of a butterfly’s life cycle

Thus, several ethnographic studies document that butterflies are thought of as the souls of the dead returning to the world of the living. In some cases, this coincides with the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), in essence a Catholic celebration but with indigenous beliefs and practices meaningfully incorporated in the centuries after the Spanish invasion. These butterflies are of different species, typically yellow and white butterflies, and not specifically the monarchs. I will return to this, since in the past few decades, the monarchs have taken on a major role in the visual repertoire of the Day of the Dead.

Pic 5: A skull-faced goddess with attendant, and a chain of flowers, including cempaxóchitl (traditionally associated with the Day of the Dead), Codex Borbonicus, fol.28

“And when they had passed four years there, then they changed into precious birds - hummingbirds, orioles, yellow birds, yellow birds blackened about their eyes, chalky butterflies, feather down butterflies, gourd bowl butterflies; they suckled honey there where they dwelt. And here upon earth they came to suck from all the various flowers” (Sahagún 1978: 49)
It becomes apparent that it was mainly the souls of deceased warriors who earned this especially honoured access to an afterlife reborn as birds and butterflies. Obviously, sucking nectar with pointy beaks and mouth tubes or proboscises here serves as elegant metaphors for weapons, blood-letting objects and the life-giving blood that was so central in Mexica ethos and cosmology. We should recall that Sahagún recorded a narrative and point of view solely provided by elite members of colonial Mexica society.

Pic 7: Double-page feature on butterflies, Florentine Codex Book 11

It is, however, at the great imperial capital of Teotihuacan, in the period from about 100 B.C. to A.D. 600., that we find the most impressive amount of butterfly imagery – and in contexts that strongly suggest that the association between butterflies and dead warriors had its origins (or first massive cultural representation) here. As have been shown in seminal contributions by Janet Berlo (1983), Karl Taube (2000, 2006), and Annabeth Headrick (2003, 2007) there is evidence of a shared ideology and continuity in these beliefs and related practices for more than 1500 years. At Teotihuacan, where none of the surviving written texts seem to record any reference to butterflies, there is a great corpus of representations of butterflies: painted on murals, drawn upon or incised in ceramic vessels, and - not least - molded in clay and placed on incense burners.

Pic 9: Teotihuacan brazier consisting of molded applique butterfly motifs. Such braziers have been recovered from throughout those Mesoamerican sites identified with Teotihuacan interaction

The incense burners and the burning of copal would mimic such bundles and transformations, and while the weapon-adorno underscores the deceased’s identity and status as warrior, the butterfly and flower adornos point to the transformation and future rebirth.
There is no clear indication that the butterflies depicted at Teotihuacan were intended to represent specific species, for example monarchs. Rather, they seem to be generic butterflies with all the cultural connotations they would have carried. There is, however, one broken tripod vessel which shows a swarm of butterflies, and although this could simply show a single butterfly motif repeated multiple ways – it could in fact also represent one feature that is so highly characteristic of the monarchs, namely their arrival in large swarms.

Pic 11: An apparent swarm of butterflies depicted on a broken ceramic tripod from Teotihuacan; drawing by Christophe Helmke

Finally, turning towards the present and the remarkable “return” of monarch butterflies as cultural signifiers in Mexico, they are now an integrated part of the visual display of the Day of the Dead. This is particularly the case in the commercialized expressions and products encountered in the bigger cities (e.g., Mexico City, Morelia, Oaxaca etc.) that also attracts ever huger crowds of tourists during the celebrations. It seems, however, that monarchs made their modern re-appearance as directly related to the Day of the Dead in children’s books in the mid-2000’s (for example, Janice Levy’s {itaIicI Remember Abuelito – A Day of the Dead Story / Yo recuerdo a abuelito: un cuento del Día de los Muertos from 2007).

Pic 13: The front cover of Janice Levy’s book ‘I Remember Abuelito...’

Incidentally, the dominant colors of the monarch, black and orange, mirror the color scheme of Halloween, which not only takes place on the very same days as the Day of the Dead, but has also become more and more widespread in Mexico as cultural imports from the US reach Mexico – partly as the result of Mexican immigrant communities. In fact, Mexican immigrants have recently begun identifying themselves with the monarchs – moving freely across borders, and hundreds of towns and cities in the US have been declared “sanctuary cities”, including Los Angeles. meaning that local authorities work to support immigrant communities, regardless of federal policies. Finally, as monarch butterfly sanctuaries in Mexico are sadly threatened by illegal logging, their guardians being assassinated, the monarch is also emerging as a symbol of resistance against drug cartel power, corruption and a failed state system.

Pic 15: String of Monarch butterflies (top); craft shop with Monarch objects, Sierra Chincua Sanctuary in Michoacán

Suggested guide to further reading:-
• Berlo, Janet C. 1983. The Warrior and the Butterfly: Central Mexican Ideologies of Sacred Warfare and Teotihuacan Iconography. In Text and Image in Pre-Columbian Art: Essays on the Interrelationship of the Verbal and Visual Arts, ed. by Janet C. Berlo, pp. 79-177. BAR, Oxford
• ------ 1984. Teotihuacan Art Abroad: A Study of Metropolitan Style and Provincial Transformation in Incensario Workshops, 2 vols. BAR, Oxford
• Headrick, Annabeth. 2003. Butterfly War at Teotihuacan. In Ancient Mesoamerican Warfare, ed. by M. Kathryn Brown and Travis W. Stanton, pp. 149-170. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek
• ------ 2007. The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of an Ancient Mesoamerican City. University of Texas Press, Austin
• Nielsen, Jesper. 2016. The Cave and the Butterfly: Thoughts on Death and Rebirth in Ancient Mesoamerica. Contributions in New World Archaeology, Vol. 10: 101-111. Kraków
• Nielsen, Jesper and Christophe Helmke. 2018. ‘Where the sun came into being’: Rites of Pyrolatry, Transition and Transformation in Early Classic Teotihuacan. In Smoke, Flames, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice, ed. by Vera Tiesler and Andrew K. Scherer, pp. 77-107. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
• Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1978. The Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Book 3, The Origins of the Gods. Translated by Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. University of Utah, Salt Lake City and School of American Research, Santa Fe
• Taube, Karl. 2000. The Turquoise Hearth: Fire, Self-Sacrifice, and the Central Mexican Cult of War. In Mesoamerica’s Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs, ed. by Davíd Carrasco, Lindsay Jones and Scott Sessions, pp. 269-340. University Press of Colorado, Boulder
• ------ 2006. Climbing Flower Mountain: Concepts of Resurrection and the Afterlife at Teotihuacan. Arqueología e historia del centro de México: Homenaje a Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, ed. by Leonardo López Luján, Davíd Carrasco and Lourdes Cué, pp. 153-170. INAH, Mexico, D.F.

Pic 17: The first Monarch butterflies arrive in the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary in Michoacán...