This is a close-up of a large wooden green cross that Cortes "himself planted with his hands" when he arrived at the Senate of the confederacy of Tlaxcala on his march toward Mexico-Tenochtitlan. This is where he forged an alliance with the tlaxcaltecas (except for Xicohtencatl II, who was not feeling it at all), a nation that had always resisted conquest by the Aztecs.
The cross sits in a small museum at the monastery of San Francisco in the city of Tlaxcala. When I saw it -- in the open air, with a meager paper "Please Don't Touch" sign, and a little chair beside it -- I really, really tripped out.