The new Mexican cultural elite, including Kahlo and Rivera, set about reclaiming long-stigmatized symbols of indigenous identity-not least the xolo. The revolution ousted dictator Porfirio Diaz and his Europhile ruling class. Xoloitzcuintles were able to survive largely thanks to the mountains in southern Mexico, where they lived in the wild before being re-domesticated by indigenous farmersīut xolos were able to survive largely thanks to the mountains of southern Mexico, a remote region where they lived in the wild before being re-domesticated by indigenous peasant farmers.īut the dogs' big cultural comeback came after the Mexican Revolution of 1910. In ancient times, people with rheumatism or asthma would press the dogs to their bodies as treatment. They are also known for missing pre-molar teeth, which leads to another characteristic look: their pink tongues can often be seen lolling out of their mouths.Īdditionally, their bodies are particularly warm. Xolos lack hair-though some do have a mohawk on top of their head-because of a genetic mutation that makes their organisms unable to read the DNA for fur, according to experts. "The xoloitzcuintle has not just served as an inspiration and model to Mexican artists, it has also joined the list of icons that represent Mexican identity, such as Day of the Dead skeletons, Frida Kahlo and the Aztec calendar," said Maria Olvido Moreno, an art historian at Mexico's largest university, UNAM. Xoloitzcuintles have gone in and out of style since the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in 1519 and toppled the Aztecsīut five centuries later, they are rolling around in the glory of a renaissance, beloved by the hipster set in trendy neighborhoods across Mexico City and the country. The dogs have gone in and out of style since the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1519 and toppled the Aztecs. They had themselves buried with xolos so the dogs could guide them to Mictlan, the underworld where they believed life continued after death. The Aztecs named the dog for the god of death, Xolotl, combined with "itzcuintli," or dog. The ancient species goes back 7,000 years and was first domesticated around 5,500 years ago. "Xolos," as they are known for short, are a quintessentially Mexican dog. They even put their dogs in their paintings-some of them now on display at the museum where their great-great-grandpuppies reside. Kahlo and Rivera were proud of their Mexican heritage, which made the xoloitzcuintle-a tongue-twister pronounced something like show-low-eats-QUEEN-t-lay-an obvious choice for the family dog. The 13 dogs who reside on the leafy grounds of the Museo Dolores Olmedo are the direct descendants of ones that belonged to Kahlo and Rivera, whose searingly intimate portraits (her) and sprawling murals (him) made them the towering power couple of 20th-century Mexican art.
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