art history

Stories in Red

. . 1-h· ,.,....aterial may 00

Nott~ 15 ''"" ~ by copyright law

t-ntl<! 17 , us Code)

and Blacl<

Pictorial Histories of the

Aztecs and Mixtecs

Elizabeth Hill Boone

~ University of Texas Press, Austin

Copyright © 2000 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

First edition, 2.000

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

@) The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39 48-1992 (R,997) (Permanence of Paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boone, Elizabeth Hill Stories in red and black : pictorial histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs / Elizabeth Hill Boone, - rst ed,

p, cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-292-70876-9 (hardcover : alk paper) 1 Manuscripts, Nahuatl, 2 Aztec painting 3, Nahuatl lan- guage-Writing, 4 Manuscripts, Mixtec 5 Mixtec art, 6, Mixtec language-Writing 1 Title F1219 54A98 B66 2000 972' 01-ddc21 99-6214

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association

2

History and Historians

Histories

Defining History

"History" is one of those common, comfortable words that pervades our thoughts, speech, and writing .. We feel certain we understand its meaning and proper usage, and only if we are asked to define it might we hesitate; we would then be confronted with its funda- mental ambiguity. One also reads it or says it in a spe- cific context and is confident of its meaning, until the context expands or shifts even by a small degree; sud- denly the history being read or said is something else entirely. History slides between a range of meanings, and it is this volatile quality, the ease with which it moves from one meaning to another, that confounds historiographical discussions

History, in its broadest sense, means the past, that which has already happened. We say, "It is history," of something that occurred and is now behind us. His- tory includes everything that happened, set against the field of everything that might have happened but did not. This seems obvious, but is it really so? Can we have a past, a history that is unstructured, unorganized, un- touched by our cognition? Critics of history and nar- rative argue persuasively that we cannot. Their point is

that the past becomes history when it is organized. Just as all maps are selections and condensations of the fea- tures ofan area (there are no maps that show everything at the original scale), there are no memories or recol- lections of the past that do not select and omit. It is im- possible to spealc of all of the past. Instead, when we think about the past, we organize and structure events to create threads of comprehension.

In examining the relationship between time and nar- rative, Paul Ricoeur (1984-1988, 1: 3, 52), has focused on "the temporal character of human existence .. " Hear- gues that we make sense of the passage of time through narratives, that "time becomes human time to the ex- tent that it is organized after the manner of a narra- tive .. " Ifwe consider narrative here to mean a structure for understanding and speaking about the past, this is broadly true, for we cannot understand time with- out its passage, marked by the sequent occurrence of events

Events, too, lack ontological meaning. They are de- fined by the structures in which they appear, by the or- ganizational threads that tie them together They come to us qualified according to these structures . .AI; Hay- den White (19816: 251), summarizing Louis Mink's po- sition, has said, "the transformation of events into sto- ries endows them with cognitive meaning. In fact, as

14 HISlORY AND HISTORIANS

he [Mink] has argued, the very notion of event is so

ambiguous that it makes no sense at all to speak of an

event per ie but only of events under description. In other words, the kind of descriptive protocol used to con-

stitute event as facts of a particular sort determines

the kind of fact they are considered to be. For Minlc,

narrativity is a mode of description which transforms

events into historical facts by demonstrating their abil-

ity to function as elements of completed stories .. " 1 Al-

though Minl< and White are speal<ing of stories and nar-

ratives, their argument holds even ifwe speal, only of

mental structures that are created to linl< events

Neurologists tell us that the brain's limbic system

recollects the past by pulling memories from different

parts of the brain and gathering them into a coherent

whole (Conway 1996: esp. 76-82; Schacter 1996: 66- 71) .. The individual memory par ts are without meaning

until they are assembled with others .. This means that

memory for humans is not something that is simply

there, it is something that must be created, or struc- tured, as a coherency each time, and because humans often vary the way they assemble the individual mem-

ory parts, humans can "remember" things differently

than they actually happened. As Paul Connerton ( 1989:

27), speal<ing of memory, says, "literal recall is rare and unimportant, remembering being not a matter of re-

production but of construction; it is the construction

of a 'schema,' a coding, which enables us to distinguish and, therefore, to recall"

It might be more accurate, therefore, to define his-

tory not as the past in all its fullness but as the selected

and arranged past. Any time we think about the past, we necessarily choose to involve only a limited number

of elements (events, locations, people, times, etc.) in the process .. Their selection depends on the structure in

which we will arrange them and ultimately on the con-

struction of the past we seek. Since it is impossible for humans to consider everything at once, humans decide

each time the subject they will consider

History is not just the arranged past, however By

shifting our focus from the past itself to its structuring, we understand history to be a relation of the past. His-

tory in this sense is an account or a story The story de- cides what parts of the past are chosen and how they

are arranged.. Generally histories are considered true

accounts of the past. But historians more and more are

paying attention to the narrative or literary aspects of

histories. As Hayden White (1985: 99) has argued, it behooves us not to ignore "the literary or fictive ele-

ment in every historical account" 2 Histories not only

select and structure the elements of the past, they in-

terpret them, usually in the guise of explaining them,

and they present a perspective on the past. Every his-

tory, like every story, combines facts, explanations, and

a point of view .. Historians are now more mindful of

the points of view that so often drive the explanations

Literary theorists are tal<ing up some of these same

concerns, seeking to understand the organization of

narrative stories . Seymour Chatman ( 1978: 31), articu-

lating a position shar·ed by structuralist narrative the-

ory, distinguishes between what he calls the story

and the discourse .. For him, "What is communicated is

5tory, the formal content element of narrative [what

Ricoeur would call the plot], and it is communicated

by discourse, the formal expression element. The dis- course is said to 'state' the story." 3 For Chatman, the

story is the "what happened," and the discourse is the

telling

Chatman's two-level model of narrative is not with- out its er itics -such as Barbara Herrnstein Smith ( 1981:

209-218), who argues that every telling of a story is a different version - but still his distinction can be useful

There are stories, or histories, that hold in their out- lines but vary in their individual tellings. We call both

the stories and the tellings histories .. The Aztecs had a

migration story (a migration history, if you will) that was recorded and spoken in various ways .. The princi-

pal features of the story remained the same although

the manuscript painters might paint it as a cartograph or annals; regardless, each document recorded the his-

tory of the Aztec migration and each was a migration

history Too, the Spanish version of Cortes' conquest

of Mexico is a single story told slightly differently by Francisco Lopez de Gomara and Bernal Dfaz del Cas-

tillo in the sixteenth century, and told differently again by William Prescott in the nineteenth; thus there stands

the history of the conquest, discoursed by the histories

of Lopez de Gomara, Dfaz del Castillo, and Prescott, among others .. Each writing has its own features and

purposes, which do not conflict with the features and

purposes of the conquest story. Thus far we have reached three meanings of the

word "history," each slightly more specific than the one

before it and each closer to literanue. The broadest his-

tory is the selected and arranged past; it is the thing

presented by the story, what many people would call

historical facts or real history: for example, the sequent

acts related to the Aztecs' migrating. Then there is the

story history, the structure and point of view that se-

lects, arranges, and presents the past as a plot: for ex·-

ample, the history of the Aztec migration. Finally there

is the discourse history, the individual document that

records this story: the Mapa Siguenza as a specific mi-

gration history There ar·e other definitions of history, to be sure ..

History can be the past as an object of study, such as

world history or Aztec history. In this case, it will com- prise many histories or stories that together can reveal

a distinct point of view or perspective, what White

( 1973) has called a metahistory. There is also the history

tied to nature as in natural history Other meanings of

history narrow it, effectively restricting its usage and

applicability from the Mexican pictorials There is the history that is true, which stands in con-

trast to myth, which is invented. This definition of his-

tory is one of the most common and has probably

caused the most controversy in recent decades. It is fun- damentally a western European construct, which pre- supposes that the facts of the past ar·e knowable and can

be recorded objectively. As Donald Brown (1988: rr)

has explained it, "historians usually make their judg- ments in terms of the modem scientific standards of ob-

jectivity that date from the nineteenth century works

of Leopold von Ranke," who was committed to writ-

ing about the past "as it actually happened .. " His point is that, although critics have pointed out that all ac-

counts of the past are abstractions (even distortions) and all rest on subjective judgments about content and

presentational manner, "real history" or "sound his-

tory" maximizes its objective content. If "historical materials produced by a given people are not based on the fundamental principles of modem historiogra-

phy-do not conform, that is, to .. the 'reality' rule-

to that extent do those people lack a sense of history. An account of the past that is too remote from the his-

torians' concept of history is then classed as legend,

myth, folktale, or even as nonsense or deliberate false- hood" (Brown 1988: n-12) .. Brown, like many other

historians, distinguishes between history and myth ( or

legend) but acknowledges that the distinction is not a clear one; he sees history and myth as two poles of a

HlSIORlES

continuum and acknowledges that actual accounts fall

somewhere between the two.

If Brown's criteria for history are applied to the Az- tecs, however, there would be no Mexican history un-

til shortly before the conquest: all the migration his-

tories from Aztlan and Chicomoztoc would fall away

as being insufficiently factual .. His definition of history

is too narrow for our purposes here, and for most of

the past outside of the European tradition. The Mexi-

cans took pride in the veracity of their histories; they

knew the migration story to be true even if it were

not "factual" in Brown's terms .. Paul Veyne's investiga-

tion of whether the Greeks believed in their myths

helps us here .. Veyne (1988: 22, 17) explains that the myths were "neither true nor fictitious because [ they

are] external to but nobler than the real world"; al-

though myths might not record everyday reality, the

"legendary worlds were accepted as true in the sense

that they were not doubted " In the ancient Americas,

we must include the fabulous and legendary in our un-

derstanding of history because the Mesoamericans saw no division between myth and history. Among Meso-

americanists, Dennis Tedlock (1985: 64) has solved the

problem, and avoided unnecessary distinctions, by us-

ing the term "mythistory"

Another definition of history, widely shared among historians in the Western tradition, rests less on truth

value than on presentational structure or the story

value .. This perspective sees the project of accounting for the past as having developed from a rudimentary

form into a true history. In the Middle Ages there were the arrnals, whereby historians recorded events sepa-

rately according to the years in which they happened

Then followed the chronicle where the events came in

sequence without the need for an accompanying year- count But true history came only with narrative his-

tory. Whereas arrnals and chronicles simply end, White,

among others, argues that narrative history structures

the past in a way that has a beginning and a story that "concludes with a moralizing ending .. " This view de-

mands that a history be a narrative story about the past, a story that has closure. The "imperfect 'histori-

cality"' of arrnals and chronicles, according to White,

keeps them from attaining "full narrativity" and be-

coming "history proper " 4

This definition of history, of course, cuts the Mexi-

can arrnals and the Mixtec resgestae from the roster of

15

16 HISTORY AND HISlORlANS

histories .. It is a view of history created specifically to address the concerns of historians of Europe about the development of historical reckoning in the Middle Ages and Renaissance .. As Marilyn Waldman (1981: 240-242) points out, White has denied the presence of a story in the annals because he has not himself found one .. She notes, coming from the perspective of an Is- lamic historian, that so many cultures have nonnarra- tive ways ofrecording history that "we must find a way to read [them] without reference to a relatively late Europocentric norm" (p. 242)

A final, restrictive definition attached to history is the sense, discussed in Chapter 1, that histories must be written alphabetically. This has given rise to the gener- ally held notion that the human past has two stages, the first being ahistorical or prehistorical, and the second being historical, i e., with alphabetically written histo- ries.5 I hope I have shown the error of this position, denying, as it does, history to a great many peoples of the world who had deep historical traditions

In this volume I focus on the second and the third meanings of history: history as a story about the past and history as a specific document that carries that story The first meaning of history-the selected and arranged past-is less a concern .. This is not a book about Mexican history as such; this is not a book about the deeds and events in the Aztec and Mixtec past. Thus the truth value of episodes and stories is not a concern .. It does not matter to me here whether the Az- tecs really left Aztlan in the year 1 Flint (u68); it only matters here that their histories say they did. My pur- pose is to explain the stories painted about the past by the Mexican historians and to analyze the documents that record these stories. In Chatman's terms, I am looking at the stories and the discourses.

Support from the Past

It has been said that animals live in an eternal present, that they lack a historical consciousness and thus have no history. We humans, on the other hand, cannot es- cape our history We see the present as having grown out of the past, and we see the future as yet a further growth once the present becomes the past. The past thus creates and defines the present and ultimately the future .. We humans, therefore, feel that ifwe are to un- derstand anything, outside the laws of nanue, we must

principally understand and articulate the past. We do this by creating histories.

When in 1994 the lenses of the Hubble telescope were finally adjusted correctly, sights into deep space came to us for the first time. The astronomers who worked with this extraordinary piece of space-recording equipment were particularly excited about the possibility of dis- covering how the cosmos began. The popular press re- ported their belief that if we understood the origin of the cosmos and knew its subsequent history, we would understand its present organization and could tell its future .6 In other words, they saw the history of the cos- mos as the key to its future .. If this is true for stars and matter, it is no less true for humans

Human identity is inextricable from the human past. We are all those things that we have done and that have happened to us, and all those things we remember As G J. Whitrow (1961: m), embracing Plotinus, has noted, "Memory has long been recognized as the con- comitant of personal identity. . Memory is the means by which the record of our vanished past survives 'within' us, and this is the basis of our consciousness of self-identity." Personal pasts and memories form indi- vidual identities, but histories of groups create com- munity identity. History, by tracing a shared past, brings people together and weaves solidarity .. Families, ethnicities, and nations rely on their communal stories to affirm their identity

Histories can both bolster and question the estab- lished power because they form the background for human claims .. Spealcing of the multiple histories, or images of the past, created by the different groups who populated Mexico, Enrique Florescano (1994: vii) ex- plains: "They created those images to free themselves of the corrosive passage of time over human creation, to weave solidarity founded on common origins, to delimit the possession of a territory, to affirm identities rooted in remote traditions, to sanction established power, to back contemporary claims with the prestige of the past, to found on a shared past the aspiration of building a nation, or to give sustenance to plans laid to- ward the uncertainty of the future .. " By the slantings of many stories, humans affirm their existence and sup- port their ambitions

Multiple Histories

As Florescano notes, the images of the past created in Mexico were multiple. Histories are always being writ- ten and rewritten. Each is created by an author, at a particular time and place, and for a reason, and each is thereby governed by an underlying set of principles and assumptions .. Each new recovery of the past carries its own point of view. These principles, assumptions, and points of view govern what features of the past are gathered and how they are arranged .. They create hier- archies that characterize certain features as being cen- tral to the story while other elements are not, and they call forth structures to shape how the elements are pre- sented The recovery and recreation of the past has to be understood as an ongoing social process, one con- stantly in flux, and one that pulls new images into use as it discards others 7

A single event partakes in many histories .. Depend- ing on the story, the event may be the central feature or merely one of many secondary factors, it may come as the beginning or the climax, and it may be construed as a tr·iumph or a defeat. The story in which an event oc- curs even determines what kind of event it is and what it is called .. In the spring ofI994, the Smithsonian In- stitution's Air and Space Museum prepared to mark the fiftieth anniversary of an event they identified as the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fuse- lage of the Enola Gay, the plane that carried the bomb, had been carefully and expensively restored over a several-year period in preparation for its display Cura- tors at the Air and Space Museum had planned an am- bitious exhibition that would feature the Enola Gay and would carry messages about the destructive power of the atomic bomb, beginning with the devastation of Hiroshima and continuing with the military and so- cial impact of the subsequent nuclear arms race .. Al- most immediately, great furor erupted from veterans groups and eventually Congress who wanted not a story of atomic destruction but a story of U.S .. victory The bombing of Hiroshima (followed soon by the bombing of Nagasaki) figured prominently in their stories of World War II as the event that ended the war; they characterized it as a justified and necessary strike against an aggressive enemy, an event that ultimately saved lives (mostly American but also Japanese) ..

But this was not the only alternative history in which

HISTORIES

the bombing figured. The Japanese saw the event in their own stories of the war as one of unfathomable devastation, when 80,000 civilians perished .. Different parts ofthe Japanese population characterized the event in a variety ofways; representatives ofHiroshima called it "a nuclear attack" by the United States, and the mayor of Nagasaki compared the bombings to the Jewish Holocaust. In the United States, opponents of nuclear arms felt that the museum curators had not gone far enough in denouncing the nuclear arms race and the development of nuclear power; for them, the bombing was the beginning of a dangerous chapter in world ar·- maments .. In other histories, the bombing figures dif ferently still. For the pilot of the Enola Gay, the bomb- ing was a clean hit well delivered .. In stories about the building of the first atomic weapons--when the great scientific minds gathered at Los Alamos in secret to de- velop the devices-the bombing itself comes as an epi- logue to an extraordinary feat of science and engineer- ing .. For political historians, the event was the factor that gave the United States an edge in negotiations with the Soviet Union .. In so many other stories, per- sonal and communal, the event figures variously. 8

As the drama was played out in newspapers and magazines, each side claimed its story as the one au- thentic version .. Disagreements focused on the issue of authenticity, whether the Air and Space Museum was exercising historical standards and presenting the truth. Veterans groups and Congress charged the Air and Space Museum with historical revisionism because the museum had not planned to present the past as the vet- erans knew it. When the curators then tried to adjust the focus of the exhibition to address these concerns, other groups charged the curators with bowing to out- side pressure and renouncing their objectivity. The ar- guments went back and forth .. Everyone agreed on the importance of the event, but they could not agree on what kind of event it was .. None of the sides openly ac- knowledged that this single event figured strongly in so many separate and conflicting histories, that it meant so many different things to different peoples, and that it was a fundamentally different event in each of their histories.

The uproar reminds us that all events tal<e the mean- ings we give them. These meanings depend on how we structure the past into separate histories and on the place individual events then have in the armatures of

17

18 HISIORY AND HISIORIANS

these histories. The debate about the Enola Gay exhibi- tion was so heated-such that the director of the mu- seum evenmally resigned-because the event was of such astonishing importance for so many people. It mattered deeply how the event figured in their histo- ries and thus what kind of event it was

Ancient Mexican Histories

Mexican Understanding of the Past:

People in Time

There is nothing explicit in the ethnohistorical record to tell us how the Nahuas and Mixtecs understood the past. No chronicler addressed this issue or asked the question and recorded an answer.. We therefore come to our understanding obliquely and piecemeal from hints in the existing documents

It is clear that the ancient Mexicans shared the un- derstanding that their present world was founded on the past. Aztec accounts of the five cosmic ages, or Five Suns, tell how the world was sequentially created and destroyed cataclysmically four times before it was cre- ated anew for the fifth time, which is their, and our, present. The great ages parallel each other in their char- acteristics: each created by the gods and running under the specific patronage of a divine being, each with its different humanity, and each destroyed by a namral phenomenon, namely, flood, hurricane, volcanic en1p- tion, wind, with the fifth age to be brought down by earthquake The previous four ages or Suns stood as imperfect experiments of existence that, by their prece- dence, made the fifth a..rid present age merely the latest and most advanced one .. As the Anales de Cuauhtitlan (Leon-Portilla 1992a: s) tells us:

It was recounted, it was said that already there had existed four [ types of] lives, and that this one was the fifth age.

As the old men knew, in the year I-Rabbit the earth and sky were founded. And thus they knew, that when the earth and sky were fotmded, four kinds of men had already existed, four kinds oflife They likewise knew that each one of them had existed in one Sun [ one age].

The present world of the Aztecs, then, was the latest segment in a historical sequence. The message these sequential ages conveyed to humankind was that the world had the characteristics it did because it was pre- ceded by the four other ages Its past, therefore, estab- lished its present.

The past not only established the feamres of the pres- ent, it was corporally carried into the present in the form of human beings. In each of the cosmic ages, the Aztecs understood that humankind was created anew and differently. Humans of the fifth age-being the Aztecs, their immediate culmral predecessors, and their contemporaries-were fashioned literally from the bones of the ancestors. The Leyenda de los Soles records how, after the gods had created the sky and earth, the divine culmre- hero Quetzalcoatl went down into Mictlan, the underworld land of the dead, in search of the "precious bones" of the dead (Le6n- Portilla 1963: 107-nr) .. Quetzalcoatl underwent vari- ous trials ( similar to those undergone by the Hero Twins in the Popol Vuh story) before he snatched up the piles of bones and raced out with them. Immedi- ately he carried them to Tamoanchan, a place of ori- gins, where the old goddess Cihuacoatl ground them into meal .. Quetzalcoatl and other gods then bled them- selves over the meal, their blood wetting and trans- forming it into the living dough that composes the common people (the macehuales).

This story of the creation of humankind is often used to explain the Aztec's debt to the gods for drawing their own blood to give humans life .. But the story also shows that the Aztecs believed themselves to be formed out of the remains-the ancestr·al bones-of the past. Thus, the Aztecs did not simply hold the past within them as a factor of their consciousness, as we do; in ad- dition to this, the Aztecs also understood their corpo- ral selves literally to be composed of the past, brought to life by the blood of the gods

On more specific and practical levels, too, the Mexi- cans understood that their present simations were es- tablished by the past. The Mexica, for example, held that their authority and might as an imperial power rested with the developmental events in their history Their emergence from Chicomoztoc, their migration from Aztlan, and the hardships and various episodes during this long migration made the Mexica fit as a people to rule others (Boone 1991) It was the events in

their past that endowed them with the authority they required In southern Mexico, the ML'Ctecs also be- lieved that authority devolved from the past, although for them it came largely through bloodlines rather than through sequent events of a migration. The status of the Mix.tee ruling families rested on their genealogi- cal histories, which began with divine ancestors who emerged from trees or openings in the earth .. The Mix.- tee elite held office and power because of how they were descended and how their ancestors were de- scended (Spores 1967: 13-14) To them as to the Mex- ica, the past mattered greatly.

Time Travel. The past and future do not seem to have been permanently closed to the Mexicans. These tem- poral states were separated from the present, true, but their bounding walls were porous to the extent that the past could be visited if approached correctly, even if it could not be changed. The future could be known through prognostications and omens, and it could be seen in dreams and mirrors .. The tonalamatls, or divi- natory codices, revealed the supernatur·al forces that governed days and periods in the future; signs and por- tents signaled additional fates.. Some humans could look into the future, such as when Moctezuma Xoco- yotzin looked into a seeing instrument (like a mirror) that was miraculously located on a bird's head; he saw the image of Spaniards on horseback, well before their arrival. 9 I do not find any evidence, however, to sug- gest that humans actually entered the future.

They did go back to the past. The past, of course, was familiar because the recent past had been lived and the old past was kept alive in books, orations, and songs. There was never a difficulty with knowing about the past; the difficulty came with visiting it. Diego Duran (1994: 212-222) tells of the incident when Moctezuma Ilhuicamina sent emissaries back to Aztlan, their an- cient homeland, in order to bring gifts and offerings to the god Huitzilopochtli's mother. As Duran records it, tl1e Mexica ruler originally thought to send a contin- gent of warriors, but his counselor persuaded him that such a journey required not men of war but "wizards, sorcerers, and magicians, who with their enchantments and spells can discover that place" (p .. 213). Mocte- zuma's royal historian explained how Aztlan was once a lush and fertile island in the middle of a !alee, but that after the Mexica abandoned Aztlan, the place long ago became choked with thorns, brambles, and sharp

ANCIENT MEXICAN HISTORIES

stones, and it filled with vipers, poisonous creatures, and predatory animals, such that the Mexica would not be able to find it again .. Moctezuma nevertheless se- lected sixty sorcerers-the wisest in the land-for the journey. The wizards went first to Coatepec, birthplace of Huitzilopochtli, where they conducted an elabo- rate ritual, invoked the supernatural forces, and were thereby transformed into their nahuallis ( animal alter- egos ), talcing the forms of birds and large carnivores As beasts they miraculously and immediately reached Aztlan, where they reverted bade to their human for ms They found Aztlan to be a fertile and verdant place, un- changed from its pre-migration days .. There the wiz- ards found that time had passed, but it had passed much slower than it had in Tenochtitlan .. The people who had remained behind when the Mexica left cen- turies before were still there, although they were older, and they asked about those who had left as if they should still be alive. Huitzilopochtli's aged mother still waited for her son's return. The wizards eventually found their god's mother and conveyed to her ilieir rich offerings. In return, she gave iliem maguey fiber cloiliing-gifts iliat reflected ilie Mexica's humble ori- gins-for her son. Then ilie wizards took ilieir leave: by repeating ilieir earlier ritual, iliey transformed iliem- selves into ilie same animals for ilieir return to Coate- pee But at Coatepec, only forty of ilie sixty reappeared into ilie present; twenty had disappeared

This episode tells us a number of iliings. It tells us iliat time travel was possible but not easy. Not every- one was able to visit ilie past; only ilie wisest priests, sorcerers, or day-keepers (calendrical diviners) could achieve it, and ilien only by performing ilie appropri- ate rituals and transforming iliemselves into ilieir ani- mal nahuallis As animJl spirits, but not as men, they might be able to pierce ilie walls of ilie past. The trip was so hazardous iliat not every wizard could expect to malee it and return; fully a iliird ofilie wisest and most skillful men in Moctezuma's realm perished in ilie pro- cess. The journey back in time was also a journey from one place to anoilier, for ancient Aztlan existed as a lo- cation inextricably tied to ilie period before ilie Mexica left it. One entered it and exited it tluough ilie portal of Coatepec, ilie place where Huitzilopochtli had been born .. There in Aztlan time had still continued to run, but it proceeded at a much slower pace. The wizards reached Aztlan after ilie Mexica had already left but be-

19

20 HISIORY AND HISTORIANS

fore it became uninhabitable with thorns, spikes, and

ferocious beasts.

Books of the Past

The Mexica knew about ancient Aztlan because its fea-

mres had been preserved in their historical codices.

Although they also recounted long-gone peoples and

events in oral stories, songs, and performances, the

Mexica relied principally on the painted books to keep

the past firm. A Nahuatl poem from the Romances de

los Sefiores de la Nueva Espana collection (penned by

the mestizo historian Juan Bautista Pomar) explains

how the transience of life is preserved in the paint-

ings (Leon-Portilla 1986: 68) .. Writing with flowers is a

metaphor for poetry, just as the eagles and jaguars are metaphorically the warriors and/or nobles .. Thus:

With flowers you write, Oh Giver of Life! With songs you give color, with songs you shade those who must live on the earth ..

Later you will destroy eagles and tigers; we live only in your painting here, on earth

This sense that the past endured through the medium

of historical paintings is certainly not specific to the Mexicans; it may be a universal for those people who

have a tradition of figural painting. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Italian humanist Leon Bautista Al-

ber ti expressed a similar sentiment when he declared,

at the beginning of the second book of his 1435 com-

pendium on painting, that "Painting possesses a truly divine power in that not only does it malce the absent

present , but it also represents the dead to the liv-

ing many cenmries later" (Freedberg 1989: 44)

The Nahuas felt this deeply. The mestizo historian

Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (1975: 4-5) opens his Cronica Mexicayotl with an invocation of the ancient

history paintings

Thus they have come to tell it, thus they have come to record it in their narration, and for us they have painted it in their codices,

the ancient men, the ancient women. They were our grandfathers, our grandmothers, our great-grandfathers, our great-grandmothers, our great-great-grandfathers, our ancestors. Their account was repeated, they left it to us; they bequeathed it forever to us who live now, to us who come down from them.

Never will it be lost, never will it be forgotten, that which they came to do, that which they came to record in their paintings: their renown, their history, their memory Thus in the fumre never will it perish, never will it be forgotten, always we will treasure it, we, their children, their grandchildren, brothers, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, descendants, we who carry their blood and their color, we will tell it, we will pass it on to those who do not yet live, who are to be born, the children of the Mexicans, the children of the Tenochcans.. . (Leon-Portilla 1986: n7)

A sufficient number of these painted histories survived

the Spanish invasion to provide a treasured resource for the subsequent postconquest chroniclers. The men-

dicant fathers (e.g., Motolinfa, Sahagt'm, Duran) as

well as the Nahua and mestizo historians (e .. g., Al- varado Tezozomoc, Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Chimalpahin)

who investigated pre-Columbian history all spealc of

how crucial these paintings were to their own work, which could not have been written without them

More than being an alternative medium ( alternative

to songs and poems) for preserving historical knowl- edge, paintings were the essential documentary evi-

dence for history. As long as the paintings endured, knowledge of the past endured The converse was

equally true: when books were destroyed, knowledge

of the past was lost. Sahagun's noble informants bring this point home to us. When recounting an episode

in the distant Mexica past, they explained to Sahagun

(1959-1982, bk. rn: 191) that "No longer can it be re- membered, no longer can it be investigated how long

they [ the Mexica] were left in Tamoanchan," because

the ruler Itzcoatl later burned the history books and

thereby destroyed memory of it.

Itzcoatl's (1427-1440) book-burning program did not totally erase the episode from Mexica history, how- ever; enough of the story remained in the later history paintings for Sahagun's informants to recall it in the sixteenth century. The episode itself illustrates how the painted books -the histories, divinatory almanacs, and other genres-were understood to be models and guides for orderly and balanced living .. The story goes tl1at the Mexica, in the deep past, had followed their leaders to the "place named Tamoanchan, which is to say, 'We seek our home' And there they tarried" (Sa- hagun 1959-1982, bk. IO: 190) .. Shortly thereafter their wise men and priests left that place, carrying away their deity and all the books, leaving the people wim nam- ing: "They carried me writings, the books, the paint- ings They carried me knowledge; mey carried all-me song books, me flutes." The four old, wise ones who remained behind with me people recognized mat me sun would still rise and set, but they worried about humankind:

"How will me common people live, how will they dwell? He is gone; mey carried away the writings. And how will the common people dwell? How will the lands, me mountains be? How will all live? What will govern? What will rule? What will show me way? What will be the model, me standard? What will be me example? From what will the start be made? What will become me torch, the light?"

Then mey devised the book of days, me book of years, the count of me years, me book of dreams .. They arranged the reckoning just as it has been kept.. (Sahagun 1959-1982, bk. IO: 191)

Although the old ones in meir lament noted mat me god had gone, mey focused meir anxiety on me depar- ture of the books. They were concerned wim what would govern ramer man who would govern, me im- plication being mat me books memselves provided me model, the standard, me example .. When they recreated the books, mey metaphorically relit "the torch, me light," and started civilization, or culture, again

The books were understood to be the foundation of knowledge .. The metaphor for writings or books was in tlilli, in tlapalli, which translates literally as "the black [ink], the red [ink]" but is always used for its larger meaning.. In the images of manuscript painters, pre- served in existing codices, me scribes work wim black and red ink .10 Those who own and read books are con-

ANCIENT MEXICAN HISTORIES

sidered to own and read "the black, me red "The black, the red, was also the metaphor for knowledge or wis- dom Where Sahagun talks about me books and knowl- edge (above), his Nahuatl text strings togemer me se- quence ofrelated words to build to the larger meaning: "mey carried away the black, the red, the paper, the painting, mey carried away the knowledge .. " 11 Those who were knowledgeable were possessors of books.

These several texts and episodes that help us under- stand the importance the Mexica ascribed to books also reminds us mat song and poetry were similarly major media for retaining and conveying knowledge and were closely linked to me paintings. The metaphor for poetry, in xochitl, in cuicatl, literally translates as "me flower, the song .. " Thus, when me poem from the Romances de los Sefiores ( excerpted above) speaks of the divine being who writes with flowers and gives color and shade wim songs, it explains how past expe- riences and histories are orally preserved in songs and poems .. As Leon-Portilla (1992a: 39-40) points out, the Nahuatl word for history, ihtloca, translates as "what is said about someone or something." Alonso de Molina translates "history of ancient times" as yeuetla- tolli ("old, old speech" or, alternatively, "sayings of the elders") .. For Molina, history is bom tlatollotl ("speech or oral discourse") and nemiliz amatl ("life paper" or "life book''); a chronicle or a history is nemiliz tlacui- lolli, nemiliz tlatollotl ("life painting, life saying") . In de- scribing me concepts related to history and historians, Molina uses me words for painting (tlacuilolli) and speech or oral discourse (tlatolli) almost interchange- ably.12 It is clear mat me spoken word is inextricable from and complementary to me painted document and mat both together fill me category of knowledge that is history. The interpreters voiced me histories mey in- terpreted from me documents ..

Still, it remained for me documents to codify the knowledge and guarantee me aumenticity of what was spoken .. As me Franciscan friar Motolinfa (1971: 5) re- marked: "The memory of man is weak and sometimes forgetful, [ and] me elders differ in recounting the mings of me past, which require expounding to be un- derstood, but of all me opinions and books mat mey have, as I have been able to ascertain and deduce, the history books are me most truthfi.tl" ( aumor's transla- tion) .. The Spaniards, almough profoundly distrustful of most Aztec codices, especially admired these painted

2I

22 HISTORY AND HISTORIANS

histories, which they considered less idolatrous than other genres. Motolinia (1971: 5) lists five kinds of books that the Aztecs had: the annals history, the book of days and ceremonies, the book of dreams and su- perstitions, the books of baptism and naming of in- fants, and the book of ceremonies and omens relating to marriage .. All but the first are ceremonials and divi-

natory manuals of some kind and were clearly idola- trous to Motolinfa's thinking .. Of the historical annals, however, he says: "Only one of these books can be trusted, namely the first, which is of the years and times Thus they wrote and pictured the exploits and stories of war, and the succession of the principal

lords, weather conditions and pestilences, and at what time and under which lord these things occurred. All this they have written in symbols and figures .. This book is called in the language of these Indians xiuh- tonalamatl, which is to say the book of the count of the years" (p. 5, author's translation) .. Xiuhtonalamatl liter- ally translates as "year-day-paper," meaning a book ac- count of the years and days .. Motolinia may well have meant to write xiuhpohualamatl, literally "year-count- book," which agrees better with his tr·anslation .. Simeon

(r98r: 770) translates the related term xiuhtlapoalamatl as "papers, book of the count of the years, chronologi- cal history" and notes that the xiuhtlacuilo is "he who writes annals, [a] chronicler, [a] historian." For.xiuhtla- cuilo, Molina (1971: second pag 159) gives simply "chronicler." Motolinfa, like others of his mendicant colleagues (notably Molina, Olmos, Sahagun, and Duran), recognized in the history book, which for the Aztecs was largely the annals, a document that pre- served the facts of the past. As Dana Leibsohn (1993: 183,208,245) has noted, the historical documents "im- posed sig11jfica..11t perma..11ent outlines on contestable events" and functioned to guarantee that an oral narra- tion was both authentic and comprehensive

The Mexicans called up these painted histories to re- veal their knowledge on a regular· basis and whenever circumstances dictated, which may have been quite of- ten. Deliberations over territory or sovereignty would necessitate a check of the pertinent manuscripts, as would any question about the past. According to

Duran (1994: 213,214), when the emperor Moctezuma Ilhuicamina had it in his head to send a contingent of men bad< to ancient Aztlan, he consulted "the royal historian, an aged man called Cuauhcoatl [Eagle Ser-

pent]." The emperor told the historian, "O ancient fa- ther, I desire to know the true story, the knowledge that is hidden in your books about the Seven Caves where our ancestors, our fathers and grandfathers, lived, and whence they came forth .. " Thereupon the

historian told him about Aztlan before and after the migration, saying, "And this is the story told by our ancestors, it is what I have found [painted] in our an- cient books" The history books stood ready to be in- terpreted and voiced when needed.

In the Mixteca, the genealogical histories oflineages were also consulted whenever members of the ruling

classconsideredmarriage AsRonaldSpores (1967= 13-

14) and others have pointed out, lineage depth and the purity of the bloodline were of the utmost importance in determining rule of the Mixtec community king- doms .. "Only the offspring of the principal wife of a ruler who was herself of the ruling caste and necessar- ily descended in legitimate fashion from rulers could inherit title from either his or her father or mother In the event of failure of a ruling line, it was often neces- sary to go back two or more generations to determine what particular living person stood in the closest de- gree of relationship to former rulers " For this under- standing, the par·ties turned to the painted dynastic his- tories, where genealogies were carefully delineated As Mary Elizabeth Smith (1973a: 32) notes, "We can be sure that no one goes to be married until his prospec- tive mate is completely sure of where he 'comes from "'

Throughout Mexico, the painted histories were prized by the nobles, the elite, and those in power, who wielded them effectively as social weapons In the Mixteca, the friar Francisco de Burgoa reports that the painted histories were also hung on the walls of the nobles' palaces .. In the valleys of Central Mexico, they were guarded in amoxcallt (book houses) or archives, many of which were attached to the houses of the rul- ers. The conqueror Bernal Diaz del Castillo remarked about the great house of books within Moctezrnna Xocoyotzin's palace, and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl spealcs of the extensive royal archive of Texcoco. Indi- vidual noble families and capulli heads also guarded their own collections of the books pertinent to them 13

The Physicality of the Painted Books

The books so carefully guarded were objects of paper, hide, or woven cloth that were painted on one or both sides and folded, rolled, or left flat. They could be pro- tected with wooden end-pieces that, when folded back on the pages, made effective covers. Sometimes these wooden end-panels were also covered with decorative hide or a pattern of mosaics. An existing screenfold al- manac in the Vatican Library (the Codex Vaticanus B) still retains its wooden cover and traces of turquoise decoration, and a screenfold history in the British Mu- seum (the Codex Zouche-Nuttall) retains the imprint offeather and possibly turquoise decoration on its hide cover (Anders 1972: 29; Troike 1987= 39) We should keep in mind that some of these precious books must have been elaborately and expensively ornamented ..

Of the eleven pre-Columbian manuscripts that have come down to us from central and southern Mexico, most are screenfolds of hide (Fig .. 61). In creating them, the craftsmen took long strips of animal hide (which had already been stripped of hair and scraped smooth), glued them together to form a much longer strip, and folded this strip back on itself like an accor- dion or screen-thus its designation as a screenfold .. The hide pieces, or skins (those that have been mea- sured), tend to be 50-100 cmlong, 14 and most people have assumed they are deer skin .. Microscopic exami- nation of the Codex Colombino hides (Fig .. 63) sug- gests they are from the pronghorn deer (Antiolocapra americana) (Caso 1966: 101-102) Before being folded, the long strip was covered with a fine white gesso, which imparted a hard surface well suited for paint- ing .. 15 Not all the hide codices were folded screenfold- style .. Some may have been folded horizontally and ver- tically, as a napkin, and others may have been rolled. For example, an extant ritual manuscript dating from before the conquest (Aubin Ms. no .. 20) is composed of a single large panel of hide folded horizontally and vertically into quarters .. Postconquest historical codices like the Codex Tulane and Selden Roll are rolls of hide (Figs .. 75, 88) .. 16

Although most of the pre-Columbian manuscripts that have survived are of hide, there is considerable evi- dence that the Mesoamericans thought of their books not as hide but as paper. The pictorials from the Valley of Mexico that are not of European paper are made of

ANCIENT MEXICAN HISTORIES

native paper, most of it from the inner bark of the fig tree .. The Nahua word for book is amoxtli, which is de- rived from amatl (native paper) and oxtli (glue) and, talcen literally, means "glued sheets of paper" (Le6n- Portillar992b: 317) .. One read or voiced a book by read- ing or voicing the glued paper (the verb is amo.xitoa), and owners of books were owners of this paper (amo- .xoaque; Sahagun 1959-1982, bk ro: 190) One might think that the confluence of "paper" with "book" or "codex'' in Central Mexico reflected the fact that most extant native pictorials there are of paper .. But the con- fluence is also found in the Mixteca, where the surviv- ing preconquest pictorials are of hide. Like the Cenual Mexicans, the Mixtecs also used the same word, tutu, for "book" and "paper" When Father Burgoa recalled that the Mixtec elite hung books on the walls of their palaces, he was spealcing of books made of paper. In both Nahua and Mixtec-spealcing Mexico, books were paintings, and they were papers 17

To malce paper screenfolds, craftsmen snipped the inner bark from one of several varieties of native fig trees 18 They then soalced the bark, beat it thin, and pressed it into sheets, which, like the hides, were then glued together to create even longer snips. The strips could likewise be sized with a white gesso and were folded accordion-style.

Although most of the surviving paper books are of bark paper, a few are of maguey fiber paper; the Codex Huejotzingo, an economic document of c. 1531, uses both lcinds .. Maguey fiber books were a less common alternative to the amatl or bark fiber ones, for the pa- pers are equally fine. The conqueror Bernal Dfaz del Castillo (1956: 157) tells of how the Tlaxcalans had rep- resentations of their battles with the Mexica painted on "large henequen cloths." Motolinfa (1971: 365) reports that much maguey paper was fabricated in Tlaxcala and u·ansported throughout a large part ofNew Spain. Still today, maguey paper is fabricated and used in rituals in northern and western Mexico, and folkloric paintings on maguey paper remain a thriving craft indusuy.

Just as the hide books came in different formats, so apparently did the paper ones: as rolls and large sheets, the latter folded or not. Although preconquest paper screenfolds have survived only from the Maya region, abundant examples of paper books in Central Mexico have come down to us from the postconquest years. These talce the form of screenfolds (C. Borbonicus,

23

24 HISTORY AND HISTORIANS

Tonalamatl Aubin), single large sheets (Maguey Plan), rolls or strips (Tira de Tepechpan [Fig. I27J, Anales de Tula), and sheets of various sizes that are now separate (C. Huejotzingo, C. Xolotl [Fig. 42 ]), which probably reflect the preconquest forms. Additionally, in the co- lonial period, the native paper sheets were sometimes bound together like European books (Matrkula de

Tributos, C. Mexicanus [Fig. 34]) .. The third medium for the historical documents was

cotton cloth, in the form of great sheets, which could be folded, spread out on a floor, or easily hung on a wall (Fig. 44) .. They are usually referred to as lienzos, af- ter the Spanish word for linen. The conquerors were the first to mention them in Central Mexico as the medium for maps. In the Mixteca, Father Burgoa re- calls that the burial cave of the Mixtec rulers at Chalca- tongo contained a number of "lienzos de pinturas" in addition to funerary bundles, altars, and cult figures .. 19

Several dozen lienzos from the postconquest period, and one possibly from before the conquest, have sur- vived to preserve the tradition 20 These existing lienzos are sheets created by sewing together several strips of plain-weave cloth .. The individual strips are roughly 35-55 cm. wide, a convenient size for a backstrap loom Because of the flexible nature of the cloth, no sizing could be applied to smooth out the painting surface.

Careful examination of existing manuscripts and the few tests that have been conducted on the pigments al- low us to understand something of how the painters worked .. Spealcing of the Codex Selden, Philip Dark

and Joyce Plesters (1959: 536) explain that the artist first outlined his figures "in a thin solution ofa red dyestuff, which is probably cochineal The areas sketched out in pink were then colored Finally, the figures and other objects were delin.eated with carbon black" In other marmscripts, the artists also pressed straight lines with a stylus to frame or guide their painting. When mis- talces were corrected or changes made, the artist cov- ered the figure with white paint or a second application of gesso and painted anew.

The colors were derived from minerals, animals, and plants .. Carbon black gave a deep black; the crimson dye from the body of the cochineal insect provided that rich color; and minerals gave yellows, other reds, and some blues and greens .. Vegetal dyes yielded other greens and blues.. Some of these vegetal blues and greens are fugitive and fade over time to a dull tan,

which is why the quetzal feathers in the Mixtec codices are often this dull color.. Although Father Sahagun de- votes an entire chapter of his Book rr to explaining how the many colors were made, we still know little about ancient Mexican pigments. Francisco Hernandez re-

ports that Mexican painters used a binder derived from the root of an orchid plant (tzacutli), but Dark and Plesters found that the specific painting medium for the Codex Selden was a protein similar to egg tem- pera .. 21 Representations of painters that appear in the codices show them working with a brush and what

looks like a reed pen..22

Scribes and Sages

These books circulated in a world of painters and scholars The chroniclers tell us that the books were created by tlacuiloque, painters who drew and colored the books' images, and that the books were owned and interpreted by tlamatinime-scholars, wise men and women, or sages, literally "those who know some- thing .. " Father Sahagun distinguishes between these two occupations, but the differences between them are far from clear. In ancient Mexico there were tlacuiloque who decorated walls, sculptures, and the like (some- times with complex iconography), and there were those who worked as simple scribes under the direc- tion of priests or governmental officials; such were probably the court reporters mentioned by Sahagun and Motolinia. 23 But there were also tlacuiloque who themselves authored the painted manuscripts; these painter/scribes had to have been sufficiently well versed in the esoteric content of the books to be counted among the tlamatinime. Neither the tlacuiloque nor the tlamatinime were necessarily mernbers of the nobility, but some clearly were The evidence for these roles bears reviewing, for they intersect in the person of the historian and author

The tlacuiloque are presented in the ethnohistorical sources as artisans and craftspeople, the emphasis be- ing on their physical skill and dexterity When Sahagun (1959-1982, bk. ro: 24) describes the occupation of the tlacuilo, he focuses on its technical aspect: "The scribe:

writings, ink [ are J his special skills. [He is J a craftsman, an artist, a user of charcoal, a drawer with charcoal; a painter who dissolves colors, grinds pigments, uses colors" Sahagun clusters the tlacuilo with other ar·ti-

sans who create products valued especially by the elites In Chapter 7 of his Book IO on "the people," he de- scribes the occupations of the craftsman, goldworker, copperworker, and lapidary; in Chapter 8 he explains "other ways of gaining a livelihood," covering the car- penter, stonecutter, mason, scribe, singer, wise man, and physician, respectively. If we consider this listing of occupations as a unit, we can notice how Sahagun has tied the scribe to a sequence of artisans; we notice also that Sahagun locates both the scribe and the singer between those crafts ( carpenter, stonecutter, mason) that require more physical than mental skill and those occupations (wise man, physician) that require the op- posite .. In other sections of his General Hi.itory, when- ever the Franciscan father enumerates the artisans, he is sure to include p,ainters among them (Sahagun 1959- 1982, bk. IO: 25-30, 73; bk. 6: 224).

The pictorial evidence supports this assessment by placing the tlacuiloque with other crafts specialists In the Codex Mendoza (7or), where the artist/author presents the trades taught by fathers to their sons, he pictures the carpenter, lapidary, painter, precious-metal worker, and featherworker.. When the same manu- script (57r) explains how infants are presented with the insignia of their future trades, the implements depicted ar·e those of the carpenter, featherworker, painter, metalworker, and war1ior .. In the Mapa Tlotzin, the painter is pictured as the first of seven craftsmen-fol- lowed by the pigment grinder, mosaic worker, metal- worker, featherworker, lapidary, and fine carpenter- in a scene that shows the crafts being introduced into Texcoco during the rule ofNezahualcoyotl (Fig. 124) Here the painter is shown with twin bowls of red and black ink. In the Codex Mendoza, Mapa Tlotzin, and other representations of painters, the individual is al- ways represented as a manuscript painter instead of a painter of murals or sculpture; usually he or she paints a rectangle decorated with the symbol for a day, which suggests that it is a day-count book or almanac that is being painted (Fig .. 5) .. Manuscript painting was clearly embraced by the crafts. It was also tied to the perform- ing arts, for children born on the day 1 Monkey were favored to be singers, dancers, or scribes or to produce some work ofart (Sahagun 1959-1982, bk. 4: 82)

Although the tlacuiloque described by Father Saha- gun and represented in the Codex Mendoza and Mapa Tlotzin are treated more as commoners than as nobil-

ANCIEN1 MEXICAN HISIORIES

ity, other manuscript painters were nobles or pipiltin; literally "children of someone [important]." In the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (3or), the wife of the Mex- ica ruler Huitzilihuitl is depicted as a painter, the only female scribe identified from ancient Mexico In the Codex Xolotl (maps 4, 5), the leader of a group of people called the Tlailotlaque ("Those Who Came Back") is also identified as a manuscript painter, as is his third son .. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, who in- corporated information from the Codex Xolotl into his alphabetic history, reported that the Tlailotlaque were of the lineage of the Toltecs who came from the Mix- teca into the Valley of Mexico; he said they were crafts- men and were "consummate in the art of painting and malcing histories "Alva Ixtlilxochitl is also the one who says that "the greatest authors and historians . . were [ the deity] Quetzalcoatl, first, and, of the modems, Nezahualcoyotl king ofTexcoco and the two princes of Mexico, Itzcoatl and Xiuhcozcatzin, sons of the lcing Huitzilihuitl " 24

These esteemed historians were tlacuiloque; to be sure, but they also were tlamatinime, learned persons In Nahuatl-spealcing Mexico, the tlamatini was a highly literate individual and a scholar, an embodiment of wisdom contained in the painted books; he or she was also a counselor and a teacher. Direct references to the tlamatinime ar·e usually silent about whether they or someone else actually painted the books they had in their possession, but they are inseparable from the books and clearly controlled their content and produc- tion. The ethnohistorical sources consistently charac- terize the tlamatini as an owner of books .. When Sa- hagun describes men's occupations, he says of the tlamatini (whom he calls "el sabio" in Spanish): "The wise man [is] exemplary. He possesses writings; he owns books. [He is] the tradition, the road; a leader of men, a rower, a companion, a bearer of responsibility, a guide .. " Elsewhere when Sahagun tells how the wise men left the Mexica at Tamoanchan and carried off the books, he identifies the sages as amaxoaque, which he translates as "men learned in the ancient paintings." Af- ter these learned men carried away the books, Sahagun reports that other wise men created them anew. 25

When the Mexica lords defended their traditional

25

HISIORY AND HISTORIANS

ways before the newly arrived Franciscans, they spoke movingly about the tlamatinime:

There are those who guide us The priests, those who make the offerings The tlahtomatinimeh, sages of the word who contemplate, follow the contents of the books, noisily turn the pages, who possess the red, the black inks, who keep with them the paintings .. They carry us, guide us, those who keep the order of the years and know how the day and destinies follow their own way (Leon-Portilla 19926: 317)

The tlamatini, owner of books and possessor of knowl- edge, was clearly a person to whom others turned for advice and guidance. They were counselors to the rulers; we remember that when Moctezuma Ilhuica- mina thought to send messengers to ancient Aztlan, he summoned the royal historian for advice. Alva Ixtlilxo- chitl, in the prologue of his Sumaria relacidn, surveys the many subject specialties covered by these scholars and authors, who, he says, are "the most illustrious and knowledgeable people":

They had writers for each genre: some who handled the Annals, putting in order the things that hap- pened each year, by day, month, and hour. Others were in charge of genealogies and ancestors of the Icings and persons oflineage. Some ofthem took care of painting the limits, boundaries, and bound- ary lines of the cities, provinces, towns, and places, and of the lots and distribution of lands . Others of the books oflaws, rites, and ceremonies that they practiced as infidels; and the priests of the temple of their idolatry . and of the feasts of their false gods and calendars. And finally it was the responsibility of the philosophers and sages who were among them to paint all the sciences that they knew and attained and to teach from memory the songs that [pre- served] their sciences and histories. (Alva Ixtlilxo- chitl 1985, 1: 527, as translated in Florescano 1994: 35-36)

Alva Ixtlilxochitl's listing echoes Motolirua's (1951: 74- 75; 1971: 5) enumeration of the different type of books the Mexica had: annals, almanacs and books of cere- monies, books of dreams and prognostications, books

pertaining to baptism and the naming of infants, and books about the rites and omens relating to marriage. Although Motolirua emphasizes religious books, both he and Alva Ixtlilxochitl begin their surveys with the histories, which Motolinfa admits are the only books that recount the truth.

History was taught, along with the other liberal arts and sciences, in the calmecac, the elite school where young men and women were trained for the priest- hood. Sahagun reported that the calmecac accepted the children of "rulers, noblemen, and still others, well mothered, well sired, and still others who wished it." It was an institution into which the noble sons almost automatically went, as opposed to the telpochcalli, the young men's house that trained espe- cially commoners in the arts of war .. The calmecac was also open to the children of commoners "who wished it" and who had the aptitude for advanced learning There in the calmecac- "a place of prudence, a place of wisdom, a place of making good, of making righ- teous" -the boys and girls were taught "the god's songs inscribed in books. And especially was there teaching of the count of days, the book of dreams, and the book of years." The children were taught all the tol- tecayotl, the arts said to have originated with the Tol- tecs .. 26 In Aztec Mexico both commoners and nobles could learn to read and interpret the painted books. In the Mixteca also, according to Father Burgoa (1989: 210), both the children of nobles and those who stud- ied to be priests were instructed in the painting of histories ..

Most of the chroniclers, writing in Spanish, refer to the tlacuiloque and tlamatinime as males, and when they mention specific historians and painters, these indi- viduals are all men. Sahagun tr·eats the painter and sage among the men's occupations, as opposed to the women's professions of weaver, cook, and physician .. Most of the pictorial representations of painters are males. Nahuatl, however, is a gender-neutral language, so tlacuilo and tlamatini mean painter and sage without specifying gender. Only when it is important to indi- cate that something pertains to women, rather than to men, is the affix cihua (woman) added, as in cihuatla- toani or ''woman ruler " 27 Since Spanish requires a gender designation, the chroniclers automatically con- verted the neutral terms to masculine, and later schol- ars followed suit, so tlamatini has come simply to be

"wise man." Given the preponderance of clearly male painters referred to in the ethnohistorical sources, I would ventme that most of the painters and sages probably were males, but the female painter in the Codex Telleriano Remensis alerts us that women, too, were learned in this art Both boys and girls were trained in the calmecac where such skills were taught

Tlacuilo and tlamatini, whether male or female and ofcommon or noble lineage, come together in the per- son of the manuscript painter. The key to understand- ing this intersection rests with the divine culture-hero Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl, according to the Nahuatl legends, was the ruler of the legendary Toltecs, a de- vout priest who brought the fine and applied arts, the crafts, and all knowledge to the Toltec people. The Toltecs themselves, according to the Mexica and other later peoples, were learned in crafts and exceptionally wise; they originated the year count, the day count, and the sciences For the Mexica, Quetzalcoatl was pa- tron of the artists and craftspeople-the workers in precious metal, the lapidaries, the featherworkers, the mosaic workers, the scribes In the Mixteca, Quetzal- coatl was manifest as the culture-hero Lord 9 Wind, one of whose appear·ances was as a manuscript painter In Central Mexico, Quetzalcoatl was patron of the calmecac .. The two supreme Mexica priests, who pre- sided over the calmecac, took "their manner of conduct from the life of Quetzalcoatl" and they took his name as their title; they were the Quetzalcoatl priests. They were also the tlamatinime, the sages who possessed and interpreted the painted books and guided the people .. 28

Painting/writing, including the painting of history, was a "Toltec" accomplishment in the sense that it was one of the toltecayotl, the arts of the Toltecs taught in the calmecac. So too was the reading, interpreting, and telling of history. A tlacuilo was a toltecatl or crafts spe- cialist, and a tlamatini was equally a toltecatl in the of- fice of priest and the possessor of knowledge. Neither a priest nor a scribe was required to be of noble birth, for as Sahagun's noble informants told him: "And though [ the man] were poor, though he were in need, though his father, his mother were the poorest of the poor, ifhe well carried out the way of life, the precepts of the priests, this one was talcen, this one was given the name of Quetzalcoatl Not lineage was considered, only a good life" (Sahagun 1959-1982, bk 3: 69; also bk. 10:166-169)

ANCIENI MEXICAN HISTORIES

Both Diego Duran (1994: 503-505) and Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1985, 1: 286) mention that the pro- fessions of manuscript painter and historian were hereditary and that books passed from father to son. Several of the manuscript painters who came before the Inquisition in the years after the conquest were specifi- cally identified in the court records as sons of impor- tant priests, who presumably dealt also with books (Procesos 1912: n5-n9, 177-184); the implication was that these sons were destined to follow their fathers as priests and painters, and would have, had not the con- quest intervened .. After the conquest, a number of na- tive historians mention ancient pictorial histories that were bequeathed to them by their ancestors. Scions of the old ruling families likewise took pride in having in- herited their families' painted books (Alva Ixtlilxochitl 1985, 1: 286; Schroeder 1991: 16-19)

Historians and rulers treasured the pictorial codices because the documents held explanatory keys to the Mexican social order.. The books of hide, paper, and cloth told how the present and previous worlds were created and organized. Like community charters, they explained how the people came to occupy and control the lands they did and how their government was established. The books explained the relationships be- tween peoples, their neighbors, and their enemies These painted histories of the past held the evidence that supported the rights of the governing families to rule, and they kept true the stories of the heroic deeds of the ancestors.

27

Notes

I. Configuring the Past IO, See Glass (19756: 19-28) for the history of study and publication ofMesoamerican pictorials

See, for example, Kubler and Gibson 1951: 37-38; Ro- II See Aubin ( esp. 1849 [Spanish trans. 1886a, 18866 ], 1886c,

bertson 1959; Smith 1973a: 9-19; Boone 1990; Smith in 1893), Ramirez (1858), Chavero (1892), Ehrle (1900), Smith and Parmenter 1991: 6-n; Howe 1992; Baird Hamy (1897, 1899), Nuttall (1902), Paso y Troncoso 1993; Quinones Keber 1994 (1886), Pefiafiel (1895, 1900, 1902)

2 Peter Martyr's reaction is cited and discussed by Leon- I2 See Gates (Codex Abraham Castellanos 1931, Codex Ix-

Portilla (19926: 316-317, 321-322), who mentions other tlan 1931, Codex Meixueiro 1931), Mengin (1942, 1952), early reports and argues for a strong historiographic tra- Preus and Mengin (1937-1938), Lehmann and Smital dition in Mexico See Lopez de G6mara (1964: 345), (1929 ), Clark (1912, 1938), Caso (1949, 1950, 1954, 1955, Dfaz de! Castillo (1956: 162, 204, 257, 360 ), Martir de 1958a, 19586, 1959, 19606, 1961, 1964a, 19646, 1966, Angleria (1964, 1:425-426) 1992), Barlow (1948, 1949a, 19496, 1950), Dibble (1942,

3 Garda Icazbalceta (1941, 2:204), translated and dis- 1951, 1963) cussed by Mignolo (1992c: 325; 1992e: 313). 13 Those that ar·e undisputedly pre-Columbian are the

4 Torquemada (1975-1979, 1 :45), translated and discussed Codices Becker I and Colombino (which were originally

by Mignolo (1992e: 313-314; 1994a: 300; 19956: 94-95). joined), Bodley, Vienna, and Zouche-Nuttall; see Glass

5' Acosta's perspective is discussed more thoroughly in (19756: 12-13) Chapter 3. 14 See discussion by Kubler (1964), who considers the

6. Mignolo has taken up the related questions of the book, modes of extinction and survival of pre-Columbian

alphabetic writing, and histories in Mexico in a series of forms

articles and a book ( 1992a, 19926, 1992c, 1992d, 1992e,

1994a, 19946, 1995a, 19956).

7 Although Thomas (1995: 774-784) does include picto- 2. History and Historians rial codices in his list of major Mexican sources, he does

not draw on them See also Ricoeur (1981: 167) for a similar argument.

8 See esp. Mignolo (1992a, 1992c, 1994a, 19946, 1995a) 2 See also White (1985: 83, ro5).

9 See Florescano (1994), Klor de Alva (1989), Mignolo 3 Chatman (1978: 31), Ricoeur (1984-1988, 1: 65); see also

( esp .. 1992a, 1992c, 1994a, 19946) Chatman (1978: esp. 9, 19, 31-32, 37, 43; 19816: n7-n9)

252 NOTES TO PAGES IS -2.5

4 White (r98ra: 22, s); see also White (1987: 52) and the shared views ofHedeman (r985: r71) and Scholes (198r: 206)

s. White (1987= 54-56) points out the equivocation caused by this mental division of the human past

6. Washington Post, Dec.. 7, r994, Azo; May 12, r995, Ar, Az2

7 These views are variously articulated in B. H. Smith (r98r: 214-218), White (198ia: 9-10 ), Bmner (1984: s), and Florescano (1994: vii)

8 Washington Post, Feb 1, 1995, Ar+, A:r8, Di, Ds; Feb. 4, 1995, A:r8; Feb. IO, 1995, Az3; Goodheart (1995); Lanou- ette (1995); see also Harwit (1996)

9 Saliagun's bks. 4 and 5 are devoted to divining accord- ing to the tonalpohualli (260-day count) and to omens; for portents of the Spaniards, see Saliagun (1959-1982, bk. 8:17-19; bk. 12:1-3)

rn. E. g , G Vienna 48b, C. Mendoza 7or, C. Telleriano- Remensis 301, and Mapa Tlotzin (where the painter has pots of red and black paint).

n The Naliuatl reads: "qujtqujque in tlilli, in tlapalli, in amoxtli, in tlacujlolli qujtqujque in tlamatiliztli" ( transla-

tion mine; Saliagun 1959-1982, bk. rn: 191) See Leon- Portilla (1963: 102-103) for the other metaphors

12 This follows Leon-Portilla (1966: 381, 383; 1992a: 39- 40 ); see Molina (1970: rst pagination, 76; 2d pagination, 67,120,141,157); see also Nicholson (1971: 58-59),

13. Burgoa (1989: 210), Leon-Portilla (1992a: 43), Dfaz de! Castillo (1956: 2n), Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1985, I: 286), Po-

mar (1941: 20) For noble and capulli archives, see also Schroeder (1991: 17), Zorita (1963: no)

14 See, e g, Burland (1965: 5), Troike (1974: 52-53; 1987: 38), SmithinSmithandParmenter (1991: 5); for the skins of ritual almanacs, see Burland (1971: 19), A:rrders (1972:

28, 29, op. 30), Nowotny (1976: 13) 15. Technical analyses have been performed on only a few of

the Mexican codices, among them the postconquest pic- torials in Berlin (Schwede 1916), the C. Selden (a Mix- tee history) in the Bodleian Library (Dark and Plesters 1959), the C Colombino (a Mixtec history) in the Mu- seo Nacional de A:rrtropologfa in Mexico (Caso 1966: 89-ro2, photos r-14), and the C. Huejotzingo (an eco- nomic document) in the Library of Congress (Albro and Albro 1990). The gessos of the C. Selden and C. Co- lombino ar·e a mixture of calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate, with a medium of animal glue in the Selden

(Dark and Plesters 1959: 533; Caso 1966: 91-92) 16 The question of preconquest rolls is still open. Thomp-

son (1972: 5) recalled H.B. Nicholson's observation that "a number of screenfold skins show by folds at wrong places that probably they were rolls." Smith (in Smith

and Parmenter 1991: r), however, has suggested that since all the existing rolls are postconquest, the form

"may be a later version of the preconquest screenfold

format," although she does not insist on this

17 Leon-Portilla (1992b: 317, 326), Boone (1994a: 71-72), Mignolo (1994b: 231, 253), Alvarado (1962: +v, ro2r, 138r), Caso in Alvarado (1962: 136), Burgoa (1989: 2ro)

18 A member of the mulberry family, Ficus petiolaris is the most commonly used for paper For the production and uses of native paper, both bark and maguey, see von Hagen (1944), Christensen and Marn'. (1971), Lenz

(1973), Sandstrom and Sandstrom (1986), AlbrC> and Al-

bro (1990) 19. For cloth maps, see Cortes (1986: 94, 192, 340, 365),

Lopez de Gomara (1964: 181, 345) For lienzos in the Chalcatongo cave, see Florescano (1994: n2-n3), who

cites Burgoa (1934, r: 340) Caso (1961: 239, 251) and Smith (1973a: 89) give the width of the strips for tluee lienzos; I have measured a few others

20 The Lienzo of Yolotepec lacks European images and stylistic features except for a church, which Barbara

Mundy (personal communication, 1998) thinks may possibly have been added later

21 Hernandez (1959, 1:n8); Martinez Cortes (1974: 74- 75); Dark and Plesters (1959); Nowotny and Strebinger

(1959); Caso (1966: 89-99);AlbroandA!bro (1990) For pigments, see also Saliagun (1959-1981, bk. n: 239-245), Smith (1973a: n n. 20) For details of the manuscript

preparation and painting, see, for example, Boone ( 1983: 23-28) for the G Magliabechiano, Smith in Smith and Parmenter (1991: 1-6) for the C. Tulane, and Quifiones Kebe1 (1995: 123-125) for the C. Telleriano-Remensis

22. The Mixtec painter in the C. Vienna ( 48b) clearly uses a brush, but the Aztec painters in the C. Mendoza (7or), C. Telleriano-Remensis (3or), C. Xolotl (4, 5), and Mapa Tlotzin seem to be using reed pens

23. Saliagun (1959-1982, bk. 8:42, 55), Motolinia (1971: 354); see also Nicholson (1971: 59) for scribes working under supervision and (59-61) for historians more generally.

24 Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1985, r:430, 529; 2: 7, 32); see Dibble (1980: 62-64, 76, maps+, 5) Donald Robertson (1959: 13, 62-64) interpreted the appear·ance of the Tlailotlaque in the Valley of Mexico ( and Alva Ixtlilxochitl's com- ment) to depict "the intrnduction of the art of manu- script painting from the Mixtec region"; I feel there is in- sufficient evidence to support this. Although the pictography characteristic of the Post-Classic Mixteca- Puebla style may well have originated in southern Mex- ico rather than in the central valleys, this topic clearly needs further investigation. Meanwhile, we should keep in mind that writing was associated with the Toltecs,

those highly civilized forerurrners of the Aztecs to whom extraordinary achievements were attributed, and that the Mixtecs ( who were said to excel in the luxury crafts)

were also called Tolteca, sons of Quetzalcoatl ( Sahagun 1959-1982, bk. IO: 187-188) To my mind, the C. Xolotl depicts a group of skilled artisans ( the painter first among them) from the Mixteca who resettled in the centr·al

valley

25 Sahagun (1959-1982, bk. IO: 29, 190, 191) .. See Leon- Portilla (1963: I0-18) for a more literal translation of the description of a tlamatini, derived from the Primeros Memoriales.

26 Sahagun (1959-1982, bk. 3: 51, 6r, 63, 67); see also Leon- Portilla (1992a: 71; 19926: 324)

27 Schroeder (1991: 183); I thank Robert Haskett for advice about this matter, and Frances Hayashida for nudging me to delve into this gender question

28 Sahagun (1959-1982, bk. 3: 13, 35, 69); for Quetzalcoatl in the Mixteca, see Nicholson (1978)

3. Writing in Images

Molina (1970: 2d pagination, 120 ), Alvarado (1962: I02r, 168r), and Caso in Alvarado (1962: 134).

2 The correspondence between Acosta and Tovar is trans-

lated and published by Kubler and Gibson (1951: 77-78) Mignolo (19926: r86, 191; 1992c: 317, 321-322; r992e: 313-314) cogently discusses Acosta's hierarchy of civi- lizations and writing systems.

This is discussed more thoroughly in Boone 19946. 4 Others who define writing broadly include Hill (r96T

93-95), Harbsmeier (1988),Larsen (1988), Crump (1990:

42), Gaur (1992: 12), a.rid Martin (1994: 484-491). Gelb (1963: II, 191, 250), Sampson (1985: 29, 32), De- Francis (1989: 58), Hill (1967: 93)

6 Gelb (1963: II, 190-194, 250 ), Sampson (1985: 29-30 ),

Hill (1967: 94-95) 7 See Robertson (1970), who suggested it be called the

"International Style of Postclassic Mesoamerica" be- cause of its widespread distribution. See also Nicholson

(1960, 1982), Nicholson and Quinones Keber (1994), Pohl and Byland (1994), and Byland and Pohl (1994: 6), who argue that the Mixteca-Puebla style developed to serve "as a common idiom for the validating of author- ity among the leaders of this wide area."

8 Jansen cites Laet (1633), Kircher (1652-1654), Clavigero (1780/81), Aubin (1849), Pefiafiel (1885), and Dibble

(1971), to which we should add Berdan (1992a, 19926)

and Prem (1969-1970; 1992). 9. The same convention is used by other cultures as well

As Smith (personal communication, 1997) points out, it is also seen in the Narmer Pillette from ancient Egypt and in a twe!frh-century Spanish painting of David con- quering Goliath (Ainaud 1962: pl. IO)

NOIES TO PAGES 25-37

IO I am following Dibble (1971: 324), Leon-Portilla (1992a: 44-45, 52-53), and Lockhart in using the term "ideo- gram" rather than "logogram" because, as Lockhart

(1992: 327-328, 576-577 n. s) says, the purpose of the image is to hold an idea or a fact rather than to yield a word

II. Jansen (r988a: 97) distinguishes between what he calls the indexical mode and the symbolic mode.

12 See Boone (1992: 44-46), who argues that the histori- cal section of the G. Mendoza should be seen as a victory chronicle, recording perceived and actual "victories "

13 Compare, for example, Dibble (1971: 324) and Leon- Portilla (1992a: 52-53), who categorize the same images differently

14 Sometimes this pinwheel disk has been used to stand for a period of twenty days ( e .g , G Telleriano-Remensis rv, G Mendoza 191 [ although the same disks appear· on Mendoza 57r as single days; see Berdan 19926: 97])

15. See C. Mendoza 701, C. Telleriano-Remensis 3or, and a boulder carving near Coatlan between Yauhtepec and

Cuemavaca where Cipactonal works the image (Anders and Jansen 1988: II2).

r6 Dibble (1971: 324) extends the meaning of this meta- phor to include pestilence and devastation. Prem (1992: 54) points out that the tlachinolli part of the metaphor literally refers to "burned-off land" rather than to "fire," as it is usually interpreted. For metaphors and figures of

speech in the Mi'Ctec codices, see Furst (1978c), Jansen (1988a: 98), and King (1990)

17 See also Nicholson (1973: 33), who reports on Caso's

(19606: 16-18; 1965: 951) findings of phoneticism in the pictorial naming of Yodzocoo (Coi'Ctlahuaca) as well

18 Although King (1990; 1994: esp. 122-125) has argued that some dates ( day and year combinations) in the

C. Vienna are phonetic referents that communicate ver- bal messages about the related scene, Jansen (1998a: 7- 12) has pointed up the problems of this approach; see

also Jansen (l988a: 89) for the difficulty of interpreting tone puns

19 See Dibble (1971: 328), Berdan (1992a: 180)

20 This translation follows Dibble (1971: 330; 1973: 375) Nicholson ( 1973: 9) translates tlan as "place of," and Berdan (19926: 97) translates it as "where there is an abundance of."

21 I draw here on Dibble (1971, 1973), Nicholson (1973),

Lockhart (1992: 329-334), and Prem (1992), who dis- cuss phoneticism before and especially after the con- quest. Victoria Bricker also shared her insights with me

22 Alvarado's "sun" name sign appears in the C. Telleriano-

Remensis (46r), Lienzo de Tlaxcala (pl. 18 bis). For Zo- rita see Nicholson (1973: 18-19); for Francisco see Ga-

larza (1979: pl. 2.7) and Lockhart (1992: 332-333); for

253