The mosaic below represents the Coat of Arms of the Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa, designed by the painter and heraldry scholar Rolando Arjona Amabilis.
This coat of arms breaks with the European tradition of using shields, but in this case, it is shaped like a pitaya, a local fruit (thus the thorns on the oval). It is crowned with an eagle devouring a snake on a nopal, a traditional symbol in Mexico, and in this case, used to remember when the States of Sinaloa and Sonora together created the Estado de Occidente, between 1824 and 1830. The footprints around the shield represent the native Mesoamerican tribes that crossed the state.
The pictures inside the fruit-shaped shield represent the four main cities of the state, clockwise from top left to bottom left:
- An Aztec glyph for Culiacán, the State’s capital, representing a bended mountain: Colhuacan, the place of those who praise Coltzin, the bended God.
- A fortress for El Fuerte (‘The Fort’), a Magical Town located north of the State.
- An anchor and a deer’s head for Mazatlán (Mazatl, ‘place of the deer’ in Nahuatl).
- A torn rosary with a broken chain for El Rosario (‘The Rosary’), south of the State.
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