Beatriz Mijangos Zenteno learned from the jungle what was worth it

At the age of 13, Beatriz Mijangos Zenteno (1932-2025) rang the doorbell of the house known as Na Bolom, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, residence of the archaeologist Frans Blom and the expeditionary Gertrudis Duby. It was the year 1953 and today, in the chapel of the Casa del Jaguar, his family, friends, Lacandons, volunteers and staff of the iconic residence pay him a respectful and emotional farewell.

Betty, who formed her own family, today in mourning, was considered the adopted daughter of the Blom-Duby couple; Those who came to Na Bolom, whether family, friends, journalists, researchers and academics, resident volunteers or museum visitors, knew it because it was the right arm of the extravagant owners (for the time) who spent their time touring the Lacandon jungle discovering its riches and also defending their treasures at the expense of everything and everyone, even after the death of the Danish explorer in 1963.

Her adolescence was almost like that of all the girls in San Cristóbal except that Betty didn’t like school, she preferred to go to the jungle. where I learned what was worth it –he confided in me during the research for the biography Faces and traces of a legend: Gertrude Duby Blom (Coneculta Chiapas/Ed. Ink, 2015) of the Swiss woman whose death in 1993 occurred days before the EZLN insurrection.

living yearbook

Betty, with a double tt after her youth residency in the United States, was the living yearbook of Trudi and Na Bolom’s life; His contact book covers the world. At times scolded as a daughter, at other times she was a secretary, accompanying her on the purchases that would later be taken to Nahá, visiting the shaman of the Lacandon people Chan Kin Viejo García and his wives Koj María and Koj Paniagua, arranging the Yertrur camp (Lacandon pronunciation of the name of Gertrude) and traveling with her, even to Stockholm, Sweden. He accompanied the two explorers to their final resting place in the sacred pantheon of Nahá, in 2010.

For being who she was and in her own right, modest, discreet and full of wisdom, Doña Betty was housekeeper de Na Bolom, also responsible for the kitchen and the restaurant, worked hard to collect the recipes of Frans, Trudi and herself, which made them famous for the best food in San Cristóbal de las Casas, with vegetable products ; For this reason it is cited in numerous books on Na Bolom.

Doña Betty was the soul of the Jaguar House and watched over it all her life. Last survivor of a historic era.

At the end of 2023, jubilant, she told me about her recent trip to Nahá where her friends welcomed her with great parties. We made plans for the next one. We didn’t think it would be the last.

She will be, forever, missed.