Discussion Response to classmate

Lisa Sousa

The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, and Other Narratives of Native Women

in Archives of Colonial Mexico

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA

Typeset by Newgen in 10/12 Sabon

Library of Congress Caraloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sousa, Lisa, author.

Title: The woman who turned into a jaguar, and other narratives of native women in archives of colonial Mexico / Lisa Sousa.

Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. I Includes bibliographical references and index. I Description based on print version record

and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed. Identifiers: LCCN 2016021290 (print) I l c c n 2016020106 (ebook) I

is b n 9781503601116 (e-book) 1 is b n 9780804756402 (cloth) I ISBN 9781503613621 (paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Indian women—Mexico—Social conditions. I Mexico—Social conditions—To 1810.1 Mexico—History—Spanish colony, 1540-1810.

Classification: ICC F1219.3.W6 (print) I l c c F1219.3.W6 S68 2017 (ebook) I d d c 305.48/897072—dc2J

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CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

When illustrating the offerings that Nahuas made to the goddess Chi- come Coati at her temple at Cinteopan, the indigenous artist beautifully rendered the complementary and interdependent relations of men and women (see Figure i.i). His drawing shows young men presenting corn stalks, representing their agricultural labor, and young women carrying atole (a corn beverage), symbolizing their responsibility for preparing food and drink. The gifts highlight men’s and women’s gender duties and mutual obligations to their households, communities, and deities. The distinctive clothing and hairstyles mark their gender, age, and status. The location of the women in the lower register of the image, seated, and of men in the upper register, standing, corresponds to native cosmologies in which the earth (lower) is conceived of as female and the sky (upper) as male. The balanced composition of the image and the symmetry in the presence and number of men and women reveal the parallel and comple mentary organizing principles of indigenous social and gender relations.

Archival narratives from colonial Mexico both confirm and contradict the idealized view of gender relations in the ritual depicted in the temple of Cinteopan. The rich historical record in Mexico reveals a broad range of Mesoamerican women’s daily activities, which were vital to the social, economic, and spiritual life of the community. As tribute-paying com moners, they can be seen spinning yarn, weaving cloth, grinding corn, making tortillas, and providing service in the homes and on the lands of native elites and Spaniards. They emerge as market vendors, some with significant investments in native and Spanish goods. Many women appear as property owners, who inherited and bequeathed lands and belongings. They stand out as wives who, if necessary, tried to force their husbands to fulfill marital obligations. Some even appear as legitimate native rul ers, or cacicas, of their local states. Other indigenous women confronted and fought with outsiders to protect the people and resources of their

Introduction1

SOURCE:

■

Figure 1.1. Offerings to the goddess Chicome Coat! at Cinteopan revealing the gendered division of labor in Nahua society

Florentine Codex, bk. z, fol. 28. Florence: Biblioteca Medicca Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218, c. 82. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities;

further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

communities throughout central and southern Mexico. And yet so many of their stories are unknown to us and remain to be told.

This book offers a social and cultural history of indigenous gender re lations in colonial Mexico from these many different perspectives, begin ning with the Spanish conquest in the 1520s and ending in the first half of the eighteenth century. I examine cross-cultural patterns in women’s roles and status, focusing primarily on four native groups in highland Mexico: the Nahua people of central Mexico, who spoke Nahuatl; the Nudzahui (Mixtec) people of the Mixteca Alta in northwestern Oaxaca; and the Benizaa (Zapotec) and Ayuuk (Mixe) peoples of the Sierra Zapoteca in

, o’o ______________

1

Introduction 3

eastern Oaxaca. I do not claim to address the histories of all indigenous groups in highland Mexico. I do not include the Maya of Yucatan, Chi apas, and Guatemala, or the many other culture and language groups of Mesoamerica, such as the Otomi. Nonetheless, at the time of the con quest, the groups that are the focus of the study—the Nahua, Nudzahui, Benizaa, and Ayuuk—were among the most populous, sedentary civiliza tions in Mesoamerica, and they shared countless defining social, cultural, and political traits, despite differences in language and sociopolitical organization. The peoples of highland Mexico also shared a common history under colonial rule. In the first two or three generations after the conquest, the Spaniards introduced far-reaching changes in native communities by establishing town councils, parishes, and a new tribute system, and by bringing a new material culture, domesticated animals, and diseases. Much of this history of native women and men under co lonial rule considers, on the one hand, pragmatic acceptance, adoption, and adaptation of Spanish institutions, concepts, and practices and, on the other hand, rejection and resistance that has often been overlooked.

The broad geographical and temporal scope of this study enables me to trace similarities and differences in women’s roles and status among some of the major culture groups of central Mexico and Oaxaca.1 The long period from 1520 to 1750 corresponds to the periodization of sev eral important works on native society and culture at the corporate level. Furthermore, with some notable exceptions, much of the recent scholar ship on Mexican women has focused on either the postclassic period (pre- 1519) or the late colonial (post-1750) and Independence (i8io -i8io s ) periods, leaving the first two centuries of colonial rule to a handful of scholars.2 This work seeks to help fill in this gap.

In writing this book, I have five principal objectives. First, I seek to contribute to Mesoamerican women’s history by considering indigenous women from across the social spectrum, both commoners and elites, es pecially in rural communities where most indigenous people lived in this period. The existing scholarship on gender in the colonial period focuses overwhelmingly on Spanish and casta (racially mixed-heritage) women's status in the family and marriage, and especially on elite urban women.3 Despite their very significant contributions to the study of women, these works examine women’s status within a framework of Spanish custom and morality and do not specifically address indigenous gender relations. For some groups, including the Benizaa and the Ayuuk, little or nothing has been written on indigenous women’s lives under colonial rule. This book breaks new ground by integrating their experiences into a broader discussion of gender relations in central Mexico and Oaxaca. My fo cus on women does not overlook the fact that women's status must be

1

Introduction4

considered in relation to men’s. In fact, the historical record confirms that the household was the basic social unit in which men and women lived their lives as partners much more so than as individuals.

Second, I examine the formation and expression of gender identity in highland Mexico. I show how a binary gender system was imposed through roles, rituals, and behavior as a way to order and streamline the more complex realities of gender ambiguity, instability of the body, and variation in personal traits. I consider how concepts of femininity and masculinity influenced the idealized roles of women and men, and how gender ideology was tied to social, political, and economic power. I consider how gender dynamics shaped interactions in the household and community and among indigenous peoples and other ethnic groups.

Third, I place social relations in the household at the center of analysis. In doing so, I seek to shift the focus away from colonial institutions, such as the cabildo (municipal council), and predominately male actors, both Spanish and indigenous, in order to better understand the contributions that women made to their societies and cultures and to provide a more intimate, internal view of communities.

Fourth, I consider the impact of Spanish institutions, social customs, and cultural attitudes on indigenous gender relations and women’s status. I am especially interested in how Christianity, monogamous marriage, patriarchal gender attitudes, the colonial tribute system, and legal culture, for example, altered social relations in communities. Spaniards, mestizos, and Africans are not as prominent in this study, reflecting the milieus that I encountered in the sources, which originated mainly in native communi ties. Nonetheless, this investigation considers the presence and influence of nonindigenous people in cabeceras (head towns) and nearby cities, and thus sheds light on interethnic relations and interactions in New Spain.

Fifth, I show how understanding indigenous women’s history is vital to our understanding of the early modern Atlantic World. Aside from Malinche and Pocahontas, native women are rarely mentioned in nar ratives on the colonial encounter and the development of new societies in the Americas. Many scholars have not fully appreciated the fact that indigenous women and men produced the wealth in Mexico (and many other places) that stimulated further European expansion, settlement, and immigration; financed the early African slave trade; and established the patterns of economic production based on the exploitation of cheap labor and the extraction of natural resources that were key components of the emerging Atlantic World.

This study draws on a rich collection of archival, textual, and picto rial sources to identify and trace changes in women’s economic, political, and social status in colonial native societies and to consider the extent to

Introduction 5

Map 1.1. Central Mexico

which Spanish gender and sexual ideologies influenced native attitudes and practices in the first several generations after contact. These sources represent more than a hundred communities in central and southern Mexico (see Maps i.i and i.z). The records were written in native lan guages (mainly Nahuatl and, to a lesser extent, Ti'chazaa and Nudzahui) and in Spanish. Native-language sources reveal categories and concepts that are often obscured by Spanish or English translations and therefore

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Introduction 7

are critical to this study. Whenever possible, I have tried to use docu ments generated by indigenous peoples themselves rather than rely on the commentaries of Spanish observers. My sources include indigenous- and Spanish-language formal texts and speeches, confessional manuals, doctrinas, grammars, criminal records, last wills and testaments, land documents, inquisitorial proceedings, late sixteenth-century question naires (Relaciones geograficas), and pictorial writings. Many of the texts, although written after the conquest, refer to ancient traditions, society, and history, contributing a wealth of information on the postclassic and early colonial periods.

Most of the sources used in this study, however, were written at least two generations after the conquest and so reflect some degree of Spanish influence. After the initial decades of contact, most indigenous people of highland Mexico operated in a native-Christian context, often mak ing it difficult to distinguish between Spanish-Christian and native ide als. Still, in most cases the community remained the locale of indigenous cultural practices and Mesoamericans vastly outnumbered Spaniards outside of cities, especially in southern Mexico. Therefore we can rea sonably observe many indigenous patterns in the record that reflect na tive concepts and practices, particularly in regions where few Spaniards settled. Changes in ideology and social relations are less pronounced than changes in native governing institutions. I argue that it is possible to identify and trace patterns in indigenous gender relations and ideologies across the colonial period, aware that native cultures and value systems responded to dynamic, complex processes of change. Indeed, the same ideals and morals that were affirmed in formal speeches and life-cycle rituals were contested in household conflicts and disputes mediated by native and/or Spanish officials.

Since all the sources from this period were written by men, male perspectives color commentaries on society and gender in New Spain. Nevertheless, by reading these accounts critically, we can use them to reconstruct in part the roles and status of women. Even when shaped by colonial legal formulas, careful reading of the documents sheds light on gender relations and women’s legal and economic status. Women’s voices can be recovered in testaments, petitions, and testimonies from a variety of archival collections.4 Although we might expect that women in this period appealed to the patriarchal ideology of Spanish magistrates and priests, we see many examples of their assertion of gender rights and ar ticulation of marital expectations that did not conform to the attitudes of colonial elites. I use thousands of observations drawn from incidental in formation, especially from criminal records, to discern patterns of labor, social networks, and gender dynamics. I have tried as much as possible

1

Introduction8

to integrate these voices and insights into the text by using abundant examples and quotes.

The book’s title, The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, is derived from a Zapotec man’s 1684 court testimony in which he tried to justify his assault on his wife that led to her death. His captivating tale of the nahualli (a person who has the ability to transform into an animal) trans formation of his wife, discussed in Chapter 2, exemplifies the many types of surprises that historians find in the colonial record. It also reveals the persistence of indigenous concepts and practices one hundred and fifty years after the Spanish invasion and how documents generated in colonial courts can diverge significantly from legal formulas and the calculated strategies of Spanish lawyers. In this case, the Zapotec man’s testimony elicited scorn and skepticism from the Spanish judge, revealing a clash of worldviews between indigenous community members and colonial au thorities that appears time and time again in the colonial record. Finally, the story offers a reminder that the perspectives of witnesses and authors shape testimonies, statements, and texts in the colonial archive.

Competing narratives in the historical record articulate different per spectives that confirm and contradict, complement and complicate, for mal texts and prescriptions of gender roles and behavior. Many previous studies of native women in preconquest and colonial Mexico have turned first and foremost to prescriptive texts, such as speeches in the Florentine Codex; some do not venture far beyond these sources in their analysis. Such texts represent conservative, idealized roles that fail to provide a comprehensive view of women’s activities, and yet they still reveal values essential to reconstructing aspects of native ideology. Preconquest and colonial pictorial manuscripts provide another dimension to topics rep resented in the many genres of alphabetic writings.5 By reading a wide variety of sources, I have exposed certain biases and filled in gaps left by other records. Thus, archival documents, formal texts, and images, when read against each other, shed light on a range of views and conflicting perspectives of gender rights and obligations. The use of many differ ent source types allows me to consider multiple criteria in the analysis of gender relations. I liken my methodology of integrating fragments of information from different perspectives to a woman’s work of spinning thread and weaving cloth. The sources are the raw materials, which I sort and spin into threads of evidence, and then weave into patterns that tell a coherent, complex story of indigenous women’s lives.6

This project has been informed by historiographical developments in two veins of colonial Mexican scholarship: women’s history and eth nohistory. Ethnohistorical, and especially indigenous-language based, studies have emphasized the complexity and diversity of Mesoamerican

Introduction 9

THE PEOPLE AND THE SETTING

Back when I was growing up there was an infinite number of them [rulers and nobles]. And how many noble houses there were, the palaces of the former nobles and rulers! It was like one big palace. There were countless (minor) nobles and lesser relatives, and one could not count the commoners who were dependents.

In an early seventeenth-century Nahuatl-language model dialogue in tended for the instruction of friars in the art of Nahuatl rhetoric, the au thor includes the speech of an elder noblewoman (cihtiapilli) who laments the collapse of the nobility, massive depopulation, and disruption to the social order brought about by Spanish colonial rule. She reminisces:

culture before and after the conquest and have revealed the many forms of adaptation that indigenous social and political structures underwent at the corporate community level under colonial rule, in the face of mas sive depopulation and Spanish demands for wealth and labor. I have been particularly influenced by the work of my mentor, James Lockhart, and his many collaborators and students who have used indigenous-language notarial records, including last wills and testaments, land titles, and elec tion records, to reveal social categories, political structures, and modes of organization, and to show how Spaniards built upon preexisting indig enous institutions to establish colonial rule.7 I have also benefited from the studies of the evolution of Nahua cultural expression and language change through philological analyses of native-language annals, theater, speeches, and the like.8

In addition, this book has been shaped by the growing literature on women’s history and gender studies in pre-Hispanic and colonial Latin America. There is an impressive corpus on women, gender, and sexual ity in Spanish America that, although mainly focused on Spanish and casta women, sheds light on gender ideology, marital relations, honor systems, and women’s economic activities and legal status.9 Studies using native-language archival records to examine the family and land tenure in sixteenth-century Mexico, sociopolitical organization, and other top ics, broke new ground by documenting women’s agency.10 The work of scholars in art history, archaeology, and anthropology on women in pre Hispanic Mesoamerica, and that of historians of sexuality in colonial Mexico have also helped me think through some of the complexities and ambiguities of gender ideology.11 The chapters of this book offer con tributions to this rich scholarship in ethnohistory, women’s history, and gender and sexuality studies.

1

Introductionio

or the slaves; they were like ants. But now everywhere our Lord is destroying and reducing the land; we are coming to an end and disappearing. In iquac nihualnozcali huel. . . centzontli; yhuan quezqui catca in tecpilcalli in inteteepan pipiltin tlatoque catca in iuh ce in tecpancalli, amo fan tlapohualtin tepilhuan in teixhuthuan catca: auh amo onmopohuaya in tetlan nenque macehu- altin, noce in tlatlacotin; yuhquin tzicatl onoc. Auh in axcan ye nohuian motlal- polhuia motlalcanahuilia in totecuiyo ye tontlami ye tipolihui.12

Although the speech is rhetorical, it is not difficult to imagine Nahua elites, who saw their power, prestige, and wealth diminish under colonial rule, making such a profound statement. The cihuapilli goes on to recall the hierarchy of nobles who were clearly distinguished from commoners and slaves, and the many distinct peoples who lived in various city-states throughout the Valley of Mexico. She describes the gender-specific so cialization and training of elite girls and boys educated by elder women and elder men, respectively, in temple schools. The ruling class, in her memory, maintained order by meting out harsh punishments for moral transgressions. The society that she remembers had clearly defined roles and places for nobles and commoners, men and women, and elders and youth.

The cihuapilli’s speech reveals the organizing principles of Mesoamer- ican societies and reflects some of the dramatic changes that marked the first century of colonial rule. Sedentary groups lived in densely popu lated states, called altepetl by the Nahua, nuu by the Nudzahui, and yetze by the Benizaa, that were scattered across the hills and valleys of highland Mexico.13 The Ayuuk term is not yet known because these people used Nahuatl as a lingua franca during the colonial period and therefore adopted the term altepetl in their documents.14 The popula tion of these states ranged from several hundred to tens of thousands. Mexico Tenochtitlan, the largest Nahua altepetl at the time of contact, had as many as 200,000 inhabitants. These Mesoamerican states shared a number of characteristics, including clearly defined borders; a ruling dynasty, defined elite, and social hierarchy; a tribute system; a sacred temple or natural feature that was home to the principal local deity (or deities); and a shared ethnic identity and belief in a common origin and history within each state.15 The peoples of highland Mexico prac ticed similar forms of pictorial writing and shared agricultural and ritual calendars.

There were other significant differences among the Mesoamerican peoples of highland Mexico. For example, although the Nudzahui nuu were structurally similar to the Nahua altepetl, the two developed unique

Introduction li

governing institutions that are especially relevant to this study. Nudzahui elites and commoners recognized both male and female rulers (masc. yya tonine; fem. yya dzehe tonine), whereas the Nahuas showed an over whelming preference for male rulers (sing, tlatoani).'6 The right to rule in the Mixteca was based on the principle of direct descent from a ruling male and female, with noble status outweighing considerations of gender. The term cihuatlatoani (female ruler) did exist in Nahuatl in the sixteenth century, but the rulership was held by a man at the time of conquest and, in any case, female rule was an exception and may have occurred only as a result of disruption in dynastic descent.17 The Benizaa peoples also favored male rule, although the Zapotec language (Tichazaa) also ap parently included terms to designate female rulers, coquitao xonaxi, and noblewomen, coqui xonaxi or xonaxi xini joana.'s

As suggested in the cihuapilli’s speech quoted previously, in addition to status differences, gender and age were fundamental social categories that shaped an individual’s roles and responsibilities. For example, par ticipation in life-cycle and sacred rituals, tribute duties, and the division of labor were all determined by considerations of gender and age. In turn, gender and status were constructed through labor regimes, dress and adornment, and speech and gestures.

Spaniards gravitated toward the socially stratified and politically complex indigenous groups of highland Mexico who offered natural re sources, material wealth, and labor. The Spanish-led conquest of Mexico Tenochtitlan in 1521 gave way to a protracted war in “New Spain” that lasted for decades. The conquest of the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca was complete by the 1530s; the Benizaa, Ayuuk, and other groups in the Sierra Alta were not “pacified” until the 1550s.19

The political, religious, and economic institutions vital to sustaining Spanish rule were built on indigenous communities.20 In the immedi ate postconquest period, the tribute system of the altepetl, nuu, or yetze formed the basis of the encomienda, a grant of tribute and labor given to a Spaniard (called an encomendero) as a reward for his participation in the conquest or his service to the crown. The encomienda became the principal tie between the native and European populations in the early colonial period. During the mid-sixteenth century', the cabildo, or Spanish-style town council, which was staffed by native noblemen, was established in the most prominent states of the region, which were des ignated cabeceras or “head towns” in the new administrative order. The cabildo provided some continuity in terms of the political authority of nobles, and it established a system of indirect rule. Each state was also designated a parish, and by the 1620s the largest and/or wealthiest states

I

Introduction12

had monastery complexes, often built on the ruins of the preconquest ceremonial center.

As the cihuapilli’s speech suggests, contact with Europeans and Af ricans brought on waves of epidemics that decimated the indigenous populations of Mesoamerica. Labor abuses, the brutality' of warfare, and disease reduced them by approximately 90 percent in the first century of colonial rule. It is important to note, however, that, despite this mas sive depopulation, the indigenous peoples constituted the majority of the population in New Spain throughout the colonial period.21 This incred ible fact had implications for the possibility of indigenous cultural vitality across time.

More than any other native group in New Spain, the Nahuas of central Mexico came into immediate and sustained contact with Spaniards, most of whom settled among Nahuas in the Valley of Mexico and surround ing areas, where the prospects of profit were greatest, near trade routes that linked the mining regions of the north with the Atlantic port. In contrast, relatively few Spaniards went to more remote regions, such as Oaxaca. In the Mixteca Alta, for example, in the colonial jurisdiction of Teposcolula less than 5 percent of the total population was non-native by the end of the eighteenth century.22 In Villa Alta, the center of Spanish settlement in the Sierra Alta, there were only around a hundred and fifty Spaniards by the mid-eighteenth century.23 Many types of change resulted from the extent and nature of contact with the European population. Indigenous groups in regions where the Spanish presence was minimal were less affected over time than groups in central Mexico, especially the Basin of Mexico. Still, no group was immune from Spanish competition or influence.

Studies of indigenous societies under colonial rule have shown that managed change initiated by the Spaniards occurred mainly at the corpo rate level.2’’ Aside from dogged efforts to eliminate polygyny, Spaniards did not attempt to reorganize the native societies of central Mexico and Oaxaca at the household level—in reality, they could not have done so. People continued to live in nuclear or multifamily residences throughout the colonial period. Nor did Spaniards attempt to redefine social rela tions in the household. Women continued to own land, pay tribute, par ticipate in the local economy, and possess legal status, although women’s status was certainly affected over time. Furthermore, Spaniards did not need to reorient the division of labor practiced by sedentary peoples of Mesoamerica as Europeans did among semisedentary and nonsedentary groups of northern Mexico and much of North America.25 The Meso- american division of labor in which men farmed and women wove cloth and carried out other activities, corresponded to European notions of

Introduction 13

SOCIAL AND GENDER RELATIONS

Many Mesoamerican groups possessed distinct responsibilities and privi leges, yet not one was entirely independent or self-sufficient. Despite social differentiation and hierarchy, each group was recognized as an in tegral part of the whole. Power struggles and fissures erupted between and within groups, but social relations were articulated in idealized terms of reciprocity and complementarity. In other words, the distinct contri butions of each group or individual were considered necessary for the survival of the community. Reciprocal exchange through feasting and tribute created balance and maintained cooperation across social bound aries. Although nobles enjoyed a privileged status, they were obligated to provide for commoners. Elders and youth were other interdependent, paired groups that performed distinct yet complementary roles in the ritual life of the community. The fundamental principles of reciprocity’ and complementarity, as well as hierarchy, also shaped gender relations in highland Mexico.

Scholars have used complementary to describe several cultural charac teristics of Mesoamerica.26 In some contexts, the term refers to the combi nation of male and female traits in a single god or the pairing of male and female deities in Mesoamerican religion. This combination is sometimes discussed in terms of duality. Complementary also describes the way that men and women “completed” each other to achieve a certain status, such as adulthood, and it refers to the gendered tasks that men and women jointly performed to produce goods and services for the community. In this study, I use complementary (or complementarity) to describe a system in which men and women possessed distinct roles and responsibilities

appropriate gender roles. In fact, Spaniards profited by leaving the divi sion of labor intact and by exploiting preexisting tribute mechanisms to extract wealth. The survival of fundamental aspects of social organiza tion contributed to forms of indigenous cultural maintenance and recre ation, even under the strains of colonial rule. I argue that Mesoamerican concepts of family, marital obligation, and sexuality exhibited remark able continuity throughout the colonial period, even in areas of extensive contact with Spaniards. Over the course of several generations, Span ish gender systems, marital roles and expectations, and attitudes toward sex exerted a notable impact on native attitudes and practices, but the changes did not simply replace indigenous lifeways. Only after centuries of sustained interaction did changes in native values and gender relations become apparent, but they were often uneven and seldom comprehensive.

I

Introduction14

considered necessary for the well-being of their households and com munities. Complementary social relations were naturalized and projected back into time immemorial through gendered mythologies of the deities. Susan Kellogg defines the concept concisely: “Complementary gender re lations were frequently expressed through parallel structures of thought, language, and action in which males and females were conceived of and played different yet parallel and equally necessary roles.”27 These parallel structures are evident in Mesoamerican kinship systems, certain insti tutions, the division of labor, the socialization of children, cosmology, and the organization of ritual. Images drawn by native artists frequently depict men and women assembled in separate groups, like the image dis cussed in this chapter’s opening, graphically revealing how space and la bor were conceived as parallel, gendered spheres.

In many cases, however, concepts of complementarity, duality, and parallelism failed to promote full equality between men and women and, in fact masked gender hierarchy, inequality’, and difference. For example, males almost exclusively occupied the most visible positions of local au thority in all regions considered here except the Mixteca. Family structure and the organization of labor also reflect a degree of male dominance. Throughout central Mexico and Oaxaca, most heads of household were male. Although their authority over the legal and economic matters of the adult members of the household was circumscribed, men appear to have organized the labor of other household members. The colonial record reveals numerous cases of violence against women in indigenous highland Mexican communities, in which hierarchies of status differentiated the experiences of the elite and commoners. Despite these findings, however, based on my analysis of a wide variety of sources from more than a hun dred Mesoamerican communities, I do not accept the characterization of gender relations in Mesoamerica as patriarchal.28

Patriarchy is a system that clearly elevates men above women and in vests political, social, and economic power in the hands of the eldest males of households. Although it has assumed many different forms in response to specific cultural and historical contexts, some of its general features include the following tendencies: deriving a woman’s social iden tity from her affiliation with the family patriarch, either her father or her husband; in the European context, investing authority in the eldest male; denying women independent legal status so that they cannot pro duce or witness legal documents or legally represent themselves in court; and denying women economic equality so that they cannot own prop erty or carry out economic transactions without permission from a legal guardian (usually a husband or father). Evidence of these fundamental

Introduction 15

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

The chapters of this book examine multiple themes that, when consid ered together, provide a balanced and complex view of gender relations in highland Mexico in colonial times. Chapter 2 draws on theories of the body, gender performativity, and dress to show how gender was inscribed on the body to create the appearance of difference, which in turn shaped all social relations. The chapter considers, on the one hand, the fluidity of the body and gender identity and, on the other hand, the rituals and daily practices that imposed a binary system of gender. I am especially interested in the cultural construction of gender and the ways in which complementarity and parallelism shaped daily interaction.

Chapters 3 and 4 explore interrelated themes concerning marriage, a nearly universal institution in native communities practiced by nobles" and commoners alike. Chapter 3 analyzes betrothal and nuptial ceremonies

characteristics of patriarchy does not appear in the sources that I use to analyze Mesoamerican gender systems.

Finally, in some contexts gender had no bearing on one’s rights and responsibilities, especially in terms of legal status and economic activities. Community membership, either through birth or marriage, and adult hood—not gender—determined who had economic and civic rights and responsibilities. Thus, women, like their male counterparts, could hold land, order their own testaments, witness legal documents, initiate crimi nal and civil suits, and participate in local rituals. They also shared the obligations of paying tribute as required of all community members. In a more abstract sense, Mesoamericans did not make essentializing distinc tions between male and female personality traits. Both men and women could be considered, for example, hard-working, capable, providers or dishonest, adulterous drunks. Mesoamericans believed that a person’s characteristics and fate were determined primarily by his or her date of birth, not biology.

Evidence of native women’s status and activities in central Mexico and Oaxaca that emerges in the data collected for this study suggests the existence of overlapping gender systems of complementarity (along with the related concepts of duality, parallelism, and segregation) and hierar chy. In certain legal and economic contexts, gender was not a determin ing factor in gaining access to resources or institutions. The competing dimensions and discrepancies in these ideologies defy simplification and point to openings for conflict over gender rights, obligations, and status.

I

Introduction16

and practices. It also considers how Spanish attempts to eradicate na tive practices of serial monogamy and polygyny, and to enforce Chris tian monogamous marriage, altered indigenous concepts and customs. Chapter 4 first analyzes the social, political, and economic significance of native marriage to shed light on marital expectations and obligations. It then examines marital conflicts and domestic violence that developed in failed relationships. Formal and informal attempts to resolve disputes illustrate cultural expectations and attitudes about one’s rights within a relationship. My analysis reveals a complex process of negotiation among husbands and wives, their households and social networks, and local na tive officials, in which women sometimes aired their grievances before the community. Spanish legal and ecclesiastic magistrates became involved in conflicts that turned extreme or violent, usually when a woman was beaten or killed.

Chapters 5 and 6 address sexuality. Chapter 5 examines indigenous sexual ideology and attitudes based on my analysis of Mesoamerican metaphors and symbols used to discuss and represent sexual matters. It also considers how Spanish friars adopted some of these indigenous concepts in their efforts to promote Christian morality and, in turn, how Spanish mores, Christian teaching, and colonial law affected native sexu ality. Chapter 6 studies sexual crimes, including adultery and rape, and their prosecution in preconquest and colonial times. Adultery and rape were considered serious transgressions, and illicit sexuality was a central concern of indigenous moral teachings. My findings suggest that Span ish attitudes regarding virginity had very limited influence on indigenous values and customs in highland Mexico in the colonial period.

Chapters 7 and 8 reconstruct the organization of labor and the way that shared labor arrangements and other acts of sociability among households shaped community relations. Chapter 7 addresses the gen dered division of labor in the household and in the community. I compare women’s daily activities as described in archival records with idealized descriptions of their lives in prescriptive texts from the period, reveal ing significant discrepancies between observed and prescribed behavior. Whereas idealized sources locate women’s work exclusively in the home, I show that women’s duties, including laundering, selling in markets, work ing in fields, and healing the sick, took them out of the household on a daily basis. I also demonstrate that men, especially artisans, frequently worked within the home. My discussion of work thus challenges the gen dering of “public” and “private” space that is implied in prescriptive texts. In addition, I use descriptions of artisans and symbolic analysis of the goods that women produced to understand the value placed on women’s work. I also consider how increasing Spanish demands for labor

Introduction 17

and tribute and the development of a money economy shaped women’s roles and status.

Chapter 8 investigates household relations, focusing on family organi zation, ritual kinship, and residence patterns. My analysis of economic, ritual, and political activities carried out in the household advances argu ments in Chapter 7 refuting assumptions of a strong division between public and private space. I argue that household and community were in fact two interrelated spheres. Because women’s work and activities were often conducted in the home, assessing the nature of household and fam ily structure is essential for understanding the relative position of women in Mesoamerican societies. The chapter also examines how ritual kinship created multidimensional webs of relations among households and pro vided important social networks for women.

Chapter 9 studies women’s participation in public protests and acts of civil disobedience, including riots. I show how threats to the integrity of the household and community, including increased demands for tribute and labor, led men and women to seek legal redress, to protest, and at times to rebel against colonial authorities. Women often organized acts of resistance, such as refusing to pay tribute, and assumed leading roles in local riots. This chapter argues that women engaged in local political and economic struggles and that their defense of homes, communities, and allies reveals a broader consciousness among women that has not been explored in previous studies.

Chapter 10 reiterates the book’s major arguments and places the study’s contributions in the context of existing scholarship on Meso american ethnohistory and women’s history. The chapter considers the evidence for both major changes and continuities in indigenous social and gender relations in rural communities of central Mexico and Oaxaca between 1500 and 1750, brought about by increasing contact with other cultures and institutions. Finally, I include a glossary of native- and Span- ish-language terms used in the book.

Throughout, I use terms that the subjects of this study would use to describe themselves and their languages, as well as the names more com monly used in the literature: Nahua for the peoples of central Mexico who spoke Nahuatl; Nudzahui for the peoples and language of the Mix- teca Alta, also known as Mixtec; Benizaa for the peoples of the Sierra Alta, commonly referred to as Zapotec, who spoke Tichazaa; and Ayuuk for the people of the Sierra Alta, also called Mixe, who used Nahuatl as a lingua franca to write colonial documents. Men and women of highland Mexico most often would have referred to themselves as members of a particular community. For the sake of simplicity, I use placenames that are used today, aware that indigenous groups used (and in some cases

1

Introduction18

continue to use) their own names in their own languages. At times I use native or indigenous to distinguish between the original individuals and groups of highland Mexico and the Spanish, African, and mixed-race populations. These distinctions were central to colonial legal, political, and economic institutions in Spanish America, as yndios and yndias were burdened with certain obligations, judged in special courts, restricted from various privileges, or designated to fill local offices, among other things.

I have reproduced many indigenous-language terms and passages in this work. All passages follow the original orthography, with spacing adjusted to grammatical norms established in the sixteenth century. Over bars and abbreviations are resolved, but no punctuation has been added to the original passages. 1 use italics for the first use of foreign-language terms in each chapter. When I use native-language transcriptions and translations that have been published by other scholars, I indicate this reproduction in the footnotes.

CHAPTER TWO

Gender and the Body

In 1686, Marcial de la Cruz, a Benizaa man from San Francisco Cajonos, appeared before local native officials and confessed to the murder of his wife, Catalina Maria.1 He explained that he had fled the community and drifted for two years after killing Catalina in 1684, but that he had sum moned the courage to face the authorities because he was worried about the house and land that he had left behind. Marcial recalled that on the day of her murder Catalina traveled to the neighboring community of San Mateo to request his release from prison, where he had been detained because of a dispute over a mule. After she won his freedom, the couple began their journey back to San Francisco. Along the way, Marcial de cided to stop to bathe in the river, but Catalina continued on her way. Later, Marcial hurried to catch up, but he could not find her anywhere. Suddenly a jaguar jumped out from behind a large maguey plant poised to attack. Fearing for his life, Marcial commended himself to God and held out the rosary he wore around his neck to fend off the ferocious ani mal. He picked up a club and struck the jaguar three times. At the very moment that the jaguar collapsed and died, Marcial heard a voice say to him in Tichazaa, “Cuckold, don’t kill that woman,” and before his very eyes the jaguar transformed into his wife.

Marcial’s fantastic account provides an example of the Mesoamerican belief in nahualism, or the ability of a person to transform into an ani mal, fire, or meteor.2 Nahualism is just one aspect of a broader complex of ideas about the instability of the human body and its connections to the natural world and the sacred calendar. Tonalism and gender muta bility share central aspects of this ideological complex. Previous inves tigations based on colonial sources and modern ethnography examined the origins and evolution of nahualism and tonalism in Mesoamerican thought; however, none considered the implications of these beliefs about

I

Gender and the Body20

the instability of the body for understandings of native constructions of gender. Discussions of gender mutability have not linked the concept to broader understandings of the body’s dynamic nature.

Recent gender studies have shown that the body is a symbolic con struct that has different historical and cultural significations, and that discourse on the body shapes conceptions of appropriate male and fe male roles and behavior. In some Western cultures, for example, changing beliefs about women’s bodies have influenced perceptions of women’s “nature,” resulting in radically differing interpretations over time. In turn, essentialist assumptions have been used to justify women’s exclu sion from certain arenas of activity and expression. But how is difference constructed in cultures that believe the body to be capable of transfigu ration and gender to be sometimes ambiguous? How are gender roles determined when the body is not a stable entity that can be easily cat egorized or definitively assigned a set of male or female characteristics? If not based on essentialist understandings of male and female bodies, what were native peoples’ explanations of men’s and women’s personali ties, inclinations, and potential based on? How was gender marked and performed?

This chapter analyzes aspects of indigenous gender ideology and con cepts of the body as expressed in life-cycle rituals, native-language meta phors and terminology, and beliefs pertaining to the calendar, tonalism, and nahualism. These traditions are articulated in Nahuatl-language for mal texts that describe preconquest beliefs and mythology and in archival narratives from the Benizaa-Ayuuk (Zapotec-Mixe) area of Villa Alta and the Nudzahui (Mixtec) region of the Mixteca Alta. The first part of the chapter discusses the instability of the body, drawing on indigenous be liefs about body transformation and gender flexibility. It also addresses native beliefs that locate the origin of personality in the calendar. The second part examines the construction of gender through labor, drawing on Nahua and Benizaa rituals as two central case studies. It considers clothing and adornment and speech and behavior, all of which served as mechanisms to stabilize the body and impose identity.

I argue that the peoples of highland Mesoamerica developed a binary gender system to establish order in a world in which body instability and uncertain gender difference could threaten civilized existence. In dividuals were placed in complementary pairs, including couplings of male/female, elder/youth, and noble/commoner, that were fundamental to sociopolitical organization. Thus, rituals that reinforced gendered responsibilities, labor regimes, and modes of behavior maintained the social order.

Gender and the Body 21

THE BODY AND TRANSFORMATION

In ancient and colonial times, Mesoamericans believed that certain phe nomena could cause a radical and complete physical transformation of the body from one form to another. The body was dynamic and vulner able to the complex interaction of celestial forces and human action. The passage of time, natural phenomena, ritual acts, and the use of intoxicat ing substances all might stimulate metamorphosis. Furthermore, the body was not a discrete entity, but rather was linked to the bodies of one’s parents and to a companion animal.

Popular beliefs recorded in the sixteenth century reveal particular con cern with pregnant women and children, perhaps because the instability of the body made them especially susceptible to astronomical irregulari ties. Precautions that a pregnant woman or a new mother should take reflect a general understanding that the body was influenced by natural forces. A Nahua adage stated that if a woman went out of the house during an eclipse of the moon, her unborn child might be turned into a mouse.3 Linking a mother’s visual experience with the physical state of the baby in her womb, another adage cautioned a pregnant woman to avoid looking at a hanged person so that her baby would not be born with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.4 Among the Benizaa people, a pregnant woman was admonished to avoid looking at a dying person.5

A mother’s strong influence over the physical well-being of her child continued after she gave birth. A Nahua woman with a newborn, for example, was warned that her child’s face would be pockmarked if she burned corncobs.6 While we might anticipate an association between the physical experience of a mother and that of her child, the Zapotecs also believed that an unborn child endured what his or her father en dured. If a father carried a load or was beaten, the fetus would suffer the same physical trials.7 According to popular lore, a baby’s body was inextricably linked to his or her parents’ bodies, before and after birth. Nahuatl terms, including teizti (nails), teixquamul (eyebrows), tetenzon (beard), and teuitzio (spine), that describe the child as a fragment of the mother and father reinforce a physical connection between parent and child.8

Like natural phenomena, a failed ritual could stimulate a physical transformation in women and children. Concerns expressed about the New Fire festivities, which commemorated the end of a fifty-two-year calendar cycle, reveal the dire consequences of ritual transgressions and

Gender and the Body22

unsuccessful ceremonies. According to colonial descriptions of the pre conquest New Fire tradition, people in all the altepetl of central Mexico extinguished their hearth fires and a high priest drilled a fire on the breast of a sacrificed man which runners then carried on torches to each community. Thus, local authorities created and distributed fire, investing the ritual with political and social implications. Symbolically, the ceremony fostered solidarity through the distribution and sharing of vital resources among commoners and nobles of each altepetl. Ac cording to Nahuatl accounts, children who fell asleep during the New Fire ceremony would transform into mice and pregnant women might turn into vicious beasts if the fire were not drawn.9 Pregnant women and children risked becoming inhuman, their altered states representing the destruction of civilization. Such beliefs about the potential dangers of failed rituals link the destabilization of the human body with social disorder.

In her study of gender ambiguity, Cecelia Klein shows that rituals marking certain transitional times of the year included cross-dressing and dances that featured backward movements and leaping, symbolically up ending the rigid division between male and female. She argues that “as a symbol of inversion, of reversal, and of the in-between, gender ambiguity was enormously important in Nahua ideology' because it could reinstate social and cosmic order, thereby guaranteeing renewal, maturity, prosper ity, and good health.”10 In liminal times, then, Nahuas used gender ambi guity to choreograph cosmic chaos that could be overcome only through the reestablishment of proper social and sacred relations.

Throughout Mesoamerica, indigenous peoples used hallucinogens and alcohol to induce revelations and physical transformations. Men and women consumed a variety of substances, including mushrooms, peyote, tobacco, ololiuhqui (Turbina corymbosa, a psy'choactive plant,), and al cohol for ritual and divinatory purposes. Drinking was widespread at rit uals and feasts in part because it was believed to put people in the proper state to commune with deities. However, because alcohol and hallucino gens were so powerful their use was highly regulated through restrictions and moral codes. Figure 2.1 and its corresponding text represent a belief in the power of pulque to transform a person. Drawn by a Nahua tlacuilo (painter, scribe), it shows a man scolding a person who turned himself into a rabbit by drinking too much. Rabbits were associated with bestial, dissolute behavior, including drunkenness.11 If read literally, the image suggests radical physical metamorphosis from human to animal through the use of alcohol and hallucinogens. Concepts of nahualism and tonal- ism exemplify Mesoamerican beliefs in the complete transformation of the body.

Gender and the Body 23

’ I

• '•[ ♦//*

Figure 2.1. Drunkard who transformed into a rabbit SOURCE: Florentine Codex, bk. 6, fol. 209V. Florence: Biblioteca Medicca Laurenziana,

Med. Palar. 219, c. 213V. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities; further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

Nahualism

Nahualism was a central aspect of transformation ideology in Mesoamer- ican thought. In its broadest sense, it was the belief that some men and women, or nahuallis, had the ability to shape-shift into animals or natu ral phenomena and transform other people and things as well. A nahualli was both the person who possessed supernatural abilities and his or her assumed form.

The etymology of the Nahuatl term sheds little light on this complex concept. Karttunen explains that nahualli is derived from nahua: “The basic sense appears to be ‘audible, intelligible, clear,’ from which dif ferent derivations extend to ‘within earshot, near,’ ‘incantation’ (hence many things to do with spells and sorcery), and ‘language.’”12 Andrews offers a somewhat different interpretation, tracing the origin of the term to tlanahua, which he translates as “to interpose something (between self and public, skin and outer clothing, man and gods, the natural and the supernatural, and so forth).”13 According to Andrews and Hassig, na hualli has a broad range of meanings that go beyond the English sorcerer and magician.14 Compounds based on the root nahual- appear in various forms in Molina’s sixteenth-century Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary associ ated with hiding, disguising, and deceiving.15 It is this sense that possesses the closest affinity to the concept of the nahualli.16

Sacred myths tell of indigenous deities, including the Nahua teteoh (pl., god or goddess) Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, Tetzcatlipoca, and

1

Gender and the Body2-4

Titlacahuan, that had the ability to transform themselves into human form so they could cause scandals and commit treachery.17 According to one story, Titlacahuan changed himself into a Huaxtec man to seduce the daughter of the ruler of Tula.” He also took the form of a warrior, an old woman, or an old man.15 Many of the deities combined male and female attributes, demonstrating their gender ambiguity.20 They also tampered with the natural world. Quetzalcoatl, for example, turned cacao trees into mesquite trees, and Titlacahuan once made good food bitter.21

Who were nahuallis, and how did they acquire their supernatural pow ers? Men and women, nobles and commoners, could be nahuallis. Several colonial accounts attribute the nahualli’s ability to assume an alternate form to his or her birth date. The Florentine Codex states that those born on the day One Rain would be nahuallis:

And also it was said that a noble who was born on this day became a nahualli, an astrologer. That is to say, she/he was not human. She/he hid her/himself in something, she/he turned her/himself into something. Perhaps she/he possessed a wild beast nahualli, and so forth. And if she/he were a commoner, likewise it was her/his lot to appear in the form of a turkey, or a weasel, or a dog, whatever was her/his alternate form; she/he became her/his nahualli. No yoan niitoaia: in aquin ipan tlacatia pilli, naoalli moebioaia tlaciuhqui, qui- toznequi: amo tlacatl, itla quimonaoaltiaia, itla ic mocnepaia, ago teqnannaoale. Etc. auh intla maceoalli, no iuhqui itequinh catca, ago totoli, ago cogamatl, anogo chichi, ipan moqnixtiaia, in gago tiein inecnepaliz, ynaoal mochioaia.12

Those born on the day of One Wind would also be nahuallis.23 Clearly, a person born under the day signs of rain and wind, elements that trans form the landscape, would be endowed with the power to metamorphose themselves and others.

Other central Mexican calendrical manuscripts attest to the nahualli’s power being derived from his or her birth date. The Codex Telleriano- Remensis, a mid-sixteenth-century pictorial manuscript with Spanish glosses, states that those born on the day of One Death would be na huallis who could transform themselves into various animals or cause it to appear that a person’s body was breaking into pieces, “as if each arm and leg were detached.”24

Death, like the elements that brought about changing weather pat terns, effected a radical transformation of the body. The Florentine Codex identifies the ability to disassemble the body as a special trait of female nahuallis, suggesting that women could not only reproduce bodies but also take them apart.25 Those born on One Wind worshipped Quetzal coatl, and those born on One Death worshipped Tetzcatlipoca, both

Gender and the Body 2-5

Figure 2.2. Nahnalli forms of a commoner s o u r c e : Florentine Codex, bk. to, fol. nv. Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,

Med. Palat. 220, c. 23V. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities; further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

legendary nahuallis. Thus, both the deity and the day name influenced the behavior of those born under that sign. A hierarchy of animals cor responded to noble/commoner distinctions: nobles had powerful animals as their nahuallis, whereas commoners had dogs, turkeys, or weasels (see Figure 2.2).26 Significantly, no difference was reported between the animal forms that women and men assumed.

In his treatise on native religion, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcon provided several accounts of nahuallis, although much of his information on the subject was in the form of hearsay from Spaniards, including priests, who apparently lent credence to this indigenous belief. Ruiz de Alarcon recounted how on one night two priests were in their cell when a bat entered through the window. The priests threw things at it to drive it away. The next day, an “old Indian woman” came to the convent and asked one of them why they had tried to kill her, explaining that she was the bat. The priest ordered her to wait while he went for his companion, but when he returned she had vanished without a trace.27 In this account, Ruiz de Alarcon attested to the understanding that women, like men, could transform and to the continuing belief in colonial times that the body was an unstable entity.

Tonalism

Like nahualism, tonalism linked the human body with supernatural and earthly forces. The term tonalli, derived from tona (for the sun to shine, to be warm), is associated with the sun and day. It can also denote a day sign, a person’s destiny associated with his or her birth date, or one of three animistic entities that a person possessed.28 Tonalism, the belief in

I

Gender and the Bodyz6

SACRED CALENDARS, PERSONALITY, AND FATE

Mesoamericans attached great significance to their ancient calendars, which linked time to space, the natural world, and the sacred realm. Calendar readers specialized in assessing various symbols to determine whether a day would bring good fortune or bad, when a person should travel, when a couple should marry, when fields should be harvested, and so forth. The symbolic associations of each day sign, not essentializing identities based on attributes assigned to sexed bodies, shaped the fates and personalities of those who were born on a given day.

The parents of a newborn consulted a calendar reader, who named the infant and foretold his or her future. Because each day of the calendar represented the unique convergence of earthly and celestial forces, the birth date situated the newborn within a broad web of influences that de termined his or her fate and characteristics. Consequently, Nahua parents sometimes postponed naming and bathing rituals until a lucky day in the

a “companion animal” with which a person shared the same fate and earthly sensations, was widespread throughout Mesoamerica. In this as pect, it was closely related to nahualism.29

Ruiz de Alarcon also used the term nahualli to describe a compan ion animal that lived a parallel and interrelated existence with a person. He wrote of one native woman who, while she was in the home of a Spaniard weaving with other women, suddenly fell over and cried out, “Simon Gomez has killed me!” When Simon Gomez was detained and questioned, he admitted that he had killed a cayman, which happened to be the woman’s companion animal, near the river. The woman’s family informed local officials that they wanted to press charges against him for her murder.30 Whether or not the events they’ describe actually' occurred, Ruiz de Alarcon’s stories represent a narrative genre reflecting the belief that each person’s physical well-being was linked to that of a specific ani mal so that if that animal were harmed or killed the person would suffer the same wounds or death. Mesoamerican beliefs attributed simultaneous existences to people that transcended a single, fixed physical state. Indig enous understandings of gender ambiguity and formation were based to some extent on this same idea of mutability’.

The absence of a concept in Mesoamerican thought of an independent, stable body suggests that essential personalities and inherent qualities could not be attributed to the individual based on biological difference. How then, given the lack of essential identities, were personality traits determined?

Gender and the Body 27

Figure 2.3. Calendar reader naming a newborn and explaining bis fate SOURCE: Florentine Codex, bk. 6, fol. i68v. Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana.

Med. Palat. 2x9, c. xyiv. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities; further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

cycle arrived so that the child would be assigned a favorable tonalli (day sign, fate).31 The Nahuas believed that those born on the days of Five House and Six Lizard would not prosper, so they waited to perform the bathing ritual on the favorable day of Seven Serpent.32 Fate, like the body or gender identity, was not fixed, but could be manipulated by cautious parents. Even those born on propitious days had to adhere to ritual pre scriptions to maintain their good fortune. Calendar rituals thus not only predicted the fate of the child; they reinforced morality and emphasized ritual and social obligations.

A Nahua artist’s depiction of the naming ritual in the sixth book of the Florentine Codex shows a calendar reader consulting a book of days and informing a woman of her infant’s fate (Figure 2.3). A large sun looms between the reader and the woman, serving as a homonym for tonalli meaning sun, day, warmth, and fate. The image suggests that the mother played a leading role in the rituals involving her child at this early stage of life. The reader promised male and female infants who shared a birth date a similar destiny and personal traits; however, com mentary on the fate associated with specific days frequently referred to the gendered duties that each child would perform. Examples of destinies associated with the calendar are presented in Table 2.1, which shows that those born on the day of One Rabbit were promised great success— men would become accomplished warriors, and women would prosper

1

Gender and the Body28

t a b l e 2.1. Fates and personality traits associated with the calendar

Rich, good workersOne Rabbit

RichOne Serpent

One House

Eight Death

Four Dog Six Dog

One Reed One Flower

One Eagle One Vulture One Deer One Ocelot

Rich, skilled artisans [Successful]

Men will be entertainers; women will be skilled embroiderers

Unfortunate, lazy, prone to adultery

Brave, shameless Elderly or die at young age Fortunate Unfortunate, prone to

adultery Unfortunate [Skilled]

in the market; those born on the day of One Serpent would likewise be favored and honored—men would be fortunate, wealthy, renowned war riors, or respected rulers, and women would be wealthy, able providers and skillful administrators who would “properly gather, hide away, save, and distribute to their children” (vel quintlafalhuiz, quintlapachilhuiz, quintetzontiz, quintlatlamachiz in ipilhoan).33 Similar futures were pre dicted for men and women born on the days of Ten Rabbit, Eleven Water, Twelve Dog, and Thirteen Monkey.34 Because males and females who shared a birthday also exhibited similar character defects, those born on the days One House, One Ocelot, Eight Death, Eight Rain, and Nine Flower tended to be adulterers and those born on the day of One Rabbit were prone to drunkenness.

Day One Wind

Remarks on class and gender

Commoners born on this day also will perform rituals

Men will be great warriors; women will prosper in the marker; also men and women will be prone to drunkenness

Men will be wealthy and honored warriors or respected rulers; women will be “great providers, rich”

Destiny Nahualli

Men will be successful warriors; women will be “forceful, they will be capable in all things and will make their goods well”

Lucky at raising dogs Evil, gossiping, will dishonor

elders, sickly Prone to adultery, thievery’,

gossiping Prone to adultery7 Prone to adultery

SOURCE: Sahagun 1996, bk. 4.

Eight Rain Nine Flower

One Monkey One Flint Knife

Gender and the Body 2-9

People were also associated with the animals of their day signs. Ac cording to the Florentine Codex, a person born on the day of Four Dog would have good luck raising dogs because “the dogs share his or her day sign with him or her” (itonalecapooa in itzcuinti).35 In more general terms, the physical appearance and traits of the day sign animal extended to the people born on that day. The belief that those with the birthday of One Vulture would soon grow old was surely based on an association between the hunched bird and the slouched posture of the elderly.

The late sixteenth-century Relaciones geogrdficas contain many ref erences to the importance of the sacred calendar in forecasting a per son’s destiny, corroborating evidence in the Florentine Codex. According to the Relation of Epazoyuca, tonalpouhque (calendar readers) used their “paintings” to determine the type of work a baby would perform, whether he or she would be rich or poor, and whether he or she would die unhappy.36 The communities of Cuezala, Ichcateupan, Utatlan, and Tetela reported the tradition of a native priest bathing and naming the child.37

Cordova discussed the many uses of the Benizaa calendar in his late sixteenth-century grammar. One use was the assignment of calendrical names to children. Cordova explained that the tonalpouhque used the numerical portion of the name when making predictions based on the calendar and when casting lots. For example, the calendar reader would add the numbers of the names of a potential bride and groom and then cast lots, using the sum to determine whether or not the couple would be compatible.38

The ritual uses of the calendar described by Cordova continued in Benizaa and Ayuuk communities of the Villa Alta jurisdiction into the eighteenth century. In 1704, the cacique (male indigenous ruler) and ca- bildo (municipal council) officials of Lachirio confessed that the people of the community consulted their calendar readers when they wanted to name a baby and determine if he or she would be lucky or unfortunate, live in the community after marriage, and have children.3’ In the same year, Benizaa men and women of Yatoni, Yatzona, and Tagui were among the people of the many yetze of the region who admitted to taking their babies to a native priest, who consulted a book of days to determine the child’s name and predict his or her luck.40 In the Ayuuk community of Yacochi, in 1704, a man named Jacinto Martin with the calendrical name of Macpao reported that his sons Luis Martin, Pedro iMartin, and Jacinto Martin went by the names of Moxm, Meqca, and Tlaodhocpi, respectively, revealing the continued use of the ancient calendar in Ayuuk towns of the Sierra Alta.41

I

Gender and the Body3°

GENDER MARKERS AND IDENTITY

i

Formal speeches, rituals, and native-language metaphors shed light on the cultural construction of gender in preconquest and colonial Mexico. The sources that most consciously present idealized male and female roles are the many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Nahuatl-language speeches made at birth, coming-of-age, and marriage rituals that were compiled by Spanish friars to further their evangelization efforts. Equivalent speeches from Mixtec, Zapotec, and Mixe communities were apparently not col lected or are no longer extant, but archival sources from central Mexico and Oaxaca frequently contain information about men and women’s daily activities, labor, ritual roles, and behavior, as well as the expecta tions placed on them, that illuminate gender ideology throughout high land Mexico.

In Mesoamerica, gender was acquired during childhood through so cialization, ritual, and the adoption of certain mannerisms and dress. Nahuatl terms for preadolescent children were gender neutral (most commonly pilli), and sex was first assigned in terms for young men (tel- pochtli} and for young women (ichpochtli). Similarly, in the Tichazaa language children of both sexes were pini*3 and adolescents were peni- guijo (masc.)44 and penicoconi (fem.).45 These designations reveal that indigenous peoples of highland Mexico understood gender as a process of formation throughout childhood and that it became fixed by mastery of

Less information on the calendar and its uses has come to light for the Mixteca Alta region, although, archival records reveal the continued use of calendrical names into the middle of the eighteenth century, even in the prominent towns of Teposcolula and Yanhuitlan, which had been the most influenced by contact with Spaniards. Among the many Mixtec indi viduals who appeared in colonial records were Pedro Conoo (Three/One Monkey), Juan Nahoaco (Eight Flower), Maria Cunquaa (Two Deer), Melchor Xaquehuy (Seven Alligator), Pedro Naxa (Eight Eagle), and Di ego Hernandez Nachi (Eight Wind).42 These names attest to the enduring significance of the Nudzahui calendar and birth rituals.

Mesoamericans clearly recognized biological differences between males and females. However, the inherent instability of the body and gender ambiguity undermined the development of an essentialist gender system, and calendrical forces played a powerful role in determining characteris tics and behavior. To create social order, a binary system was imposed in which gender was inscribed on the body through labor and ritual roles, dress and adornment, and coded behavior and speech.

Gender and the Body

Gender and Labor

A gendered division of labor shaped the roles of men and women in cen tral Mexico and Oaxaca in which different responsibilities constituted an essential component in gender identity. In the most basic and idealized ar rangement, men practiced warfare and agriculture and women wove tex tiles and prepared food and beverages. (In reality, men and women shared many tasks and the division of labor was not entirely rigid, as discussed in Chapter 7). Men’s and women’s duties were conceived of as distinct yet complementary. Scholars have drawn on the Florentine Codex, especially the midwife’s speeches in the sixth book, to explain the socialization of children into the gendered division of labor. Here I elaborate on these tra ditions by introducing additional information drawn from other sections of the Florentine Codex and from a broader range of sources.

Historical and mythical interpretations of the past justified and re affirmed the division of labor among the Nahuas and made gender distinctions appear timeless and natural. In the third quarter of the six teenth-century, Nahua writers traced the origins of the division of labor to their Chichimec ancestors:

3i

certain skills, adoption of distinct mannerisms, and use of specific modes of dress.

If there is something to eat, they bake it, roast it, or perhaps stew it in a pot. The men do not do the work; only the women, because they take great care of their eyes, [they do not expose them to the smoke]. They say that it damages their eyes, for these Chichimeca see very far and very accurately, for when they shoot an ar row at something, not two or three times do they shoot it, only once. Even if it is very small, they do not miss it; even if it is very far away, they are able to pierce it with an arrow. They do not miss it, nor do they shoot at it many times.

auh in afo itla tlaqualli quixea, quitleoatza, anofo quipaoaci: amo iehoan quiteq- uipanoa in oquichtin, can iehoan in cioa: ipampa cenca quimalhuia in imixtelolo, amo quititlani in poctli, quit quimixtlacoa, ca cenca veca tlachia inique, y, chi chimeca: ioan cenca tlatlamelauhcaittani, ca in tiein quimina, amo oppa, expa, quitlaxilia fan cen: in manel cenca tepiton, amo quineoa, in manel no{o veca ca, vel quimina, amo quineoa, amo no quezquipa in quintlaxiliad6

While it is unlikely that nomadic groups had such clearly defined gender roles, the Nahuas projected a complementary organization of tasks onto their ancestors in which women were responsible for cooking and men were responsible for hunting (and by extension warfare).

In preconquest and colonial times, midwives performed birth ritu als that initiated an infant into a gendered role shaped by the cultural

Gender and the Body3Z

expectations and needs of the ethnic state. A female ticitl (healer, mid wife) conducted the ceremony in the presence of community members who stood to benefit from the future protection and production of the next generation. The ethnic state had a vested interest in promoting a binary gender system since tribute production and organization depended on the joint contributions of married couples and tribute obligations cor responded to gendered labor.

According to Nahua writers who described the bathing ritual in the sixteenth century, the midwife informed the baby boy that his duty was to provide military support to the altepetl; she presented him with a bow, arrows, and a shield to signify his obligation to become a warrior.47 This emphasis on warfare reflects the importance of military service for men, especially in preconquest central Mexico.48 When the ticitl initiated the baby girl, she counseled her that her duties would be carried out in the household and that she would be responsible for preparing food and producing textiles:

Significantly, the midwife used the noun tequitl (motequiuh, your duty; itequiuh, his or her duty) to highlight the duties that the newborn would assume in his or her adult life. Her speech indicates that indigenous peo ples placed more emphasis on responsibilities than on rights. Thus, the baby girl’s family prepared symbols of the socially determined labor of women for the ticitl to give to the child. As the Florentine Codex ex plains, “if a little girl were to be bathed, they prepared for her all of her women’s gear: the spindle whorl; the weaving batten; the palm bas ket; the spinning bowl; the skeins; and the comb” (auh intla cihoatzintli maltiz: quicencavilia in ixquich icioatlatqui, in malacatl, in tzotzopaztli, in tanatli, in tzaoalcaxitl, in quatzontli, ixiiotl).50 The midwife’s words and the family’s gifts emphasized specific labor assignments as the basis of masculine and feminine identities.

Descriptions of similar customs in the Relaciones geograficas corrobo rate evidence from the Florentine Codex and affirm that specific types of labor underlay the construction of gender throughout central Mexico. According to the Relation from Tetzcoco, at birth a shield, a macana

Only inside the house was she to dwell, only inside the house was her home; it would not be necessary for her to go anywhere else. And that is to say that her duty was [preparing] drink and food. She was to prepare beverages, to make food, to grind maize, to spin, and to weave. fan eel calitic, inemia, fan vel calitic ichan, amo monequi in campa iaz: ioan quitoznequi, eel itequiuh, in atl, in tlaqualli: achioaz, tlaqualchioaz, teciz, tzaoaz, hiquitiz.™

Gender and the Body j j

(a club with obsidian blades), and a bow and arrows were presented to baby boys; a spindle and distaff and other tools for spinning and weaving were given to baby girls.51 In Meztitlan, the Nahua ticitl led a procession of children when she took the infant to bathe it. If the child were male, six boys carried an axe or tumpline and a bow and arrow symbolizing the baby’s future duties of farming, transporting goods, and providing military service. If the child were female, six girls carried weaving and spinning implements representing her future tasks of producing thread and cloth for the household and community.52

Images painted by native artists in the sixteenth century depict the as signment of gender-specific duties as a central aspect of the birth ritual. An illustration in the Florentine Codex shows a ticitl seated in the house hold patio with a child and his mother.53 The foreground prominently displays symbols of masculinity—a shield, a bow and arrow, and a loin cloth and cape—to indicate that the child is male (Figure 2.4). A less elaborate drawing of weaving and spinning implements and a huipilli (woman’s shift) accompanying the text identifies appropriate ritual items to celebrate the birth of a female.54 This simpler illustration serves as shorthand, pointing to where the section on women begins; at the same time, it underscores the symbolic potency of clothing and equipment to convey gender in pictorial writing (Figure 2.5).

Nahua painters of the Codex Mendoza also portrayed the ticitl in structing the newborn child in his or her gender role in their depiction of a birth ceremony. Figure 2.6 shows a midwife carrying a four-day-old baby (indicated by the four rosettes above the cradle) toward a basin of water that sits on a bed of reeds. Symbols of the trades and duties of men represent the potential future of the child. A shield and four arrows indicate the obligation to provide military service, and various symbols signify the work of a carpenter (an axe head and a piece of wood), a feather worker (a feather), a scribe (a writing instrument and the symbol of a painter), and a silversmith (a tube for blowing fire and silversmith insignia).55 The accompanying text explains that the ticitl presents the symbol and tool of his father’s trade to the baby boy. On the other side of the mat lie the symbols of women’s labor: a broom, a basket, and a spinning whorl.56

At the time of the bathing ritual, the ticitl created a bond between the child and his or her respective place of work. Both the Florentine Codex and the Codex Mendoza describe the midwife burying the umbilical cord of a girl near the hearth or the grinding stone to signify that her'duties were to be in the household. The umbilical cord of a male child was en trusted to a warrior, who buried it on the battlefield to bind the infant to his socially defined destiny. The Relaciones geogrdficas also provide

Figure 2.4. Midwife ritually bathing a baby boy with the symbols of masculinity lying beside the basin

SOURCE: Florentine Codex, bk. 6, fol. 170. Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 219, c. 174. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities;

further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

accounts confirming the widespread Nahua practice of burying umbilical cords in places associated with the gendered division of labor. In their Relation, Tetzcocan informants report burying a boy’s umbilical cord in the land of their enemies so that he would be dedicated to warfare, and burying a girl’s cord near the hearth so that she would be dedicated to her household, “as they thought [women] were obligated.”57 The informants note that Nahua mothers train their daughters to weave cloth, produce thread, and prepare food near the hearth; however, they concede that some girls are more “inclined to play instruments, sing, and dance”— that is, to perform roles associated with temple life.58 This suggests that the true purpose of the umbilical cord ritual was to reinforce socially

Gender and the Body34

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vpobu? noks hajunmasckl / • • /enco^lasl^^fu.odclilU M,^U\ dl^inw tamales’,^makiy bostaio. Zt/ndl/imZi> >5i eta kmbtix'laqltc|i bafh cZ/a/hM/Z/ air/u/M M> 3aua apaTcjaiiaHla toda.5 la? M^t ftl/M/Zt, joiW tl^AaZ/Zl. alkxjaSTnii^eukj,que.etan mk Ztl/> //i//aaZ/i)‘l^l>hb//a/fi'i:,^ io tor patakxet pata hilar co (tth/ivt/at /Ji/tyqZfZj /aiaat/rtt mo eta vto,‘7'tiuax,<) lanca. yuf, /a/aa/acacZ, Miiaho/ia>//i, 4excxijypi.p«ta^ui!!cu^va!o^<x /^/iMa/<ar//Z,//t^aa ViilrtY at^x -y lambicn |it nipi!^ )'x//atl, ycuch^V/tt// ^|i<-!naoas,pe<|iuinjlaf .^dfltptufi J

..;. Symbols of femininity introducing text that describes the bathing ritual for a baby girl performed by a midwife

s o u r c e : Florentine Codex, bk. 6, fol. 170V. Florence: Biblioteca Medice.1 Laurenzinna, Med. Palat. 119, c. 174V. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities;

further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

1

Gender and the Body36

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Figure 2.6. Midwife performing the bathing ceremony SOURCE: Codex Mendoza, fol. 121. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Ms. Arch. Selden Al. Berdan and Anawalt 1992, 12.1. Reproduced with permission from University

of California Press Books.

constructed gender roles in which tasks essential to the survival of the household and the communit}’—military service, agriculture, textile pro duction, and food preparation—were allocated appropriately to men and women. Nahuas recognized that it was necessary to symbolically bind individuals to their respective places of service because nothing inherently inclined them to those places.

Thus, the bathing ritual was a rite of initiation that called on both male and female children to carry out their gender-specific tasks for the good of their households and communities. However, its impact on adult observers should not be overlooked, for they were the comprehending audience. The ceremony served to remind them of their place in society, and it obligated Nahua parents to socialize their children to fulfill their prescribed gender roles.

Indigenous birth rituals persisted into the colonial period and captured the attention of Spanish chroniclers. In his History of the Indians of Neto Spain, fray Toribio de Motolim'a described the bathing ceremony but in terpreted its significance in a Christian light when recounting that the newborn boy received a shield and an arrow and the baby girl received a broom: “This ceremony seemed to be a sort of symbol of baptism and meant that the baptized were to fight against the enemies of the soul and to sweep and clean their souls and consciences so that, by baptism, Christ might enter.”5’ It would seem that sympathetic Spaniards were forced to find Christian meaning in rituals dating to the preconquest era, just as

La p.

el-.- . z \ v f

Gender and the Body 37

Mesoamericans sought to understand European beliefs and customs in a framework of indigenous concepts.

Material objects that marked gender and status distinctions retained their relevance in the afterlife. According to Nahua lore, those who died passed through the place of obsidian-bladed winds on their journey to the ninth underworld, known as Mictlan (Place of the Dead). Since they would need their earthly possessions and food for the journey, men were cremated with their shields, obsidian-bladed clubs, war trophies and capes; women, with their baskets and weaving implements.60 According to the Relation geogrdfica of the Chontai community of Coatepec, be cause the deceased would need their belongings in death, nobles’ jewels and clothing were buried with them and slaves were sacrificed to serve their masters in the afterlife.61 Equivalent practices were reported among the Cuitlatecas of Tetela and among the Ixcucas, Chontals, and Nahuas of Teloloapan, who buried their rulers with food, clothing, and slaves.62

Nahua legends of supernatural occurrences warned that deceased women who needed their dhuatlatquitl (women’s gear) might return to earth to retrieve it. The Florentine Codex records the Nahua belief that women who died in childbirth went to live in the sky and each day car ried the sun from the center of the sky to the west. When the sun set, the women returned to earth to demand their women’s gear, which included “the spindle whorl, the weaving batten, and the palm basket” (in mala- catl, in tzotzopaztli, in tanatli).63 They sought out their husbands and de manded their “skirts, shifts, and all the women’s gear” (in cueitl in vipilli in ixquich cioatlatquitl).6'1

Sixteenth-century Nahuatl terminology sheds light on the association of gender and labor, dhuatlatquitl (women’s gear) was a general term for weaving and cooking implements, and oquichtlatquitl (men’s gear) was a term for agricultural tools.65 In native ritual, cihuatlatquitl and oquichtlatquitl respectively represented women and men. During precon quest times, female and male slaves to be sacrificed for the celebrations of Izcalli were customarily paraded through the temple plaza carrying gender-specific equipment to represent their masculinity and femininity.66 Furthermore, the terms cihuatl (woman) and oquichtli (man), used in compounds with other nouns, reinforced gender-specific duties in Na huatl texts. In a speech in the Florentine Codex, noble parents inform their daughter that it will be her womanly duty (modoatequiuh) to pre pare food and beverages67 They describe spinning and weaving as wom anly duties (cioatequitl) as well.68 In contrast, other parts of the Nahuatl text of the Florentine Codex equate warfare with masculinity. In one example, a warrior hangs the hair of a captured enemy in his house, and “with it he [calls] himself a man” (ic moquichitoa).6‘>

1

Gender and the Body38

The association between gender and labor was so strong that weaving and spinning implements, such as the spindle whorl, were synonymous with women and the female body. A Nahua riddle in the Florentine Co dex asks, “What is that which becomes pregnant in just one day? The spindle whorl.”70 Another puzzles: “What are those things that at their dancing places they give stomachs, they make pregnant? They are spindle whorls.”71 Thus, the tools of women’s labor represented womanhood and [reproduction and weaving gear symbolized “woman” as a social category.

Because gender was mutable and not necessarily linked to a sexed body, certain types of labor served to reassign it. In an account of a Na hua mother and father apprenticing their son to a merchant, one parent worries: “What will I make of him? Is he a woman? Perhaps I should place the spindle whorl and the weaving batten in his hands” (tie nic- chioaz cuis cihoatl ago malacatl tzotzopaztli imac nictequiliz).72 This hy pothetical question offers an example of Nahuatl rhetorical inversion in which the parents mean to emphasize that the boy is in fact masculine enough to become a long-distance merchant. Nevertheless, it underscores the dynamic nature of gender formation in young children and adoles cents, and poses the possibility that gender could be manipulated to the extent that a son would become a woman by using spinning and weaving tools.73

Because warfare was a symbol of masculinity, women provided a metaphor for defeated warriors and enemies. Nahuas emasculated their enemies by labeling them women and likened the weapons of their en emies to tools used in women’s work. Nahuatl-language incantations re corded by Ruiz de Alarcon during the early seventeenth century, which are undoubtedly of ancient origin, contain gender-based insults. In sev eral examples, the speaker calls his enemies his “sisters” and disregards their weapons as those of women. An incantation to bolster courage and strength against bandits during travel exemplifies the Nahuatl rhetorical convention, with the speaker envisioning his potential attackers as his sisters who come bearing fluffed cotton and thread (ini ichca tlahuitec ini icpateuh).7*

However, variations in gender symbols undermined rigid and abso lute categories. For example, women’s labor, and weaving in particular, could serve as a metaphor for hunting. In one incantation recited by a deer hunter as he sets the snare, the net is metaphorically referred to as the weavings of Cihuacoatl, a legendary female warrior.75 In a related incantation collected by Ruiz de Alarcon, a deer hunter likens the net to a woman’s huipilli and ribbons.76 Similarly, the ticitl employed warfare

Gender and the Body 39

imagery in her speech, likening the mother to a brave jaguar warrior car rying a captive in her womb. As she delivered the baby, the midwife was said to let out great war cries, symbolizing that the mother had performed valiantly in battle.77

Mesoamerican coming-of-age ceremonies reaffirmed gender roles first articulated by midwives in the birth ritual and reinforced the sacred na ture of the division of labor. When Nahua mothers and fathers of the highest nobility counseled their adolescent children on proper behavior and responsibilities, they described the ideal traits of both young men and women, including modesty, moderation, and self-discipline. How ever, they emphasized a strict division of labor that was at the core of their gender identity. Noble parents admonished their daughters to learn the arts of cooking, preparing beverages, weaving, and spinning, and they advised their sons to dedicate themselves to political service, warfare, craft production, and agriculture.78

Like Nahua rituals of central Mexico, Benizaa ceremonies in the Sierra Alta region of Oaxaca reveal complementary principles and a gendered division of labor. During idolatry investigations conducted between 1704 and 1705 in the Villa Alta jurisdiction, native officials provided exten sive information on the survival of indigenous beliefs and rituals and the uneven incorporation of Christian concepts and practices.79 Their state ments reveal a cosmography shaped by gender duality and reciprocity, with a gendered division of labor ritually reinforced and sanctified.

Gender Roles in Benizaa Rituals

Villa Alta idolatry investigations provide accounts of ceremonies that were usually held twice a year to ensure good health, abundant crops, sufficient rain, and protection from ferocious animals. Additional offer ings would be made during times of epidemics or drought or when land disputes arose with neighboring communities. Witnesses distinguished between rituals organized by the community for the benefit of all and those sponsored by individuals to address their own concerns. This analy sis focuses mainly on community ceremonies in order to shed light on the gendered organization of Benizaa ritual and to show how gender complementarity influenced Christian practice in some communities.80 A ceremony in Betaza illustrates a highly symbolic ritual life among Benizaa people.81

To prepare themselves for participation in community ceremonies, the men and women of Betaza fasted, abstained from sex, and bathed for thirteen days. During this time, they also confessed to native priests

Gender and the Body4°

J

or maestros (teachers), as religious specialists are called in the Spanish- language documents. Cabildo officials collected money from the people to purchase turkeys, feathers, incense, and other items needed for the ritual. Men and women gathered at a sacred site to watch male priests and their young assistants sacrifice turkeys or dogs; occasionally, the priests per formed heart sacrifice on a deer. The blood from the beheaded animals was splattered on native bark paper, feathers, and small tortillas made by the priests’ wives. Participants also sprinkled tobacco on bark paper from the small gourds they carried. The ritual leaders incensed the offerings with copal as they dedicated the sacrifice. Then they gave each person a tortilla, first tearing off a piece for the deity. Following the ritual, the men and women feasted on the sacrificial animals and tortillas and drank pulque. Later they adorned their hair with brightly colored feathers and sang and danced to the teponaztli (log drum). Interestingly, the teponaztli player wore a feather in his hat that was normally placed on the image of Our Lady of the Rosary in the church.

The ritual described by the Zapotec principales (prominent people) of Betaza reinforced fundamental social divisions based on age, status, and gender. Organized by local officials for good health and a successful harvest, it established the cabildo members and other nobles as intermedi aries between the sacred and earthly realms. The continued well-being of the community depended on the leadership capabilities of these officials and nobles and on the cooperation of commoners who participated in and contributed to the rituals. Men and women performed ritual roles that corresponded to and reinforced the Mesoamerican gendered divi sion of labor; their cooperative effort allowed the community to feed its deities and its people during the ritual act and subsequent feast. The fact that the spouses who led the ceremonies worked as teams underscores the importance of the married couple as the basic social unit in Mesoameri can society.

Age distinctions influenced ritual roles and served to promote inter- generational cooperation and solidarity—for example, the native priests’ assistants were young boys who had learned the traditions of their an cestors as apprentices. Such distinctions stand out in records from other Benizaa rituals, which specify that the elders would be the first to eat, drink, or take tobacco. In some communities, elders were also assigned to carry the sacrificial blood to other sacred sites in the area. In these ways, the ritual symbolized and reenacted complementary' relations between nobles and commoners, men and women, and young and old that were vital for the community’s health and prosperity.

Elsewhere in the Villa Alta jurisdiction, a somewhat different pattern of gender complementarity emerges in the organization of rituals. As in

Gender and the Body 4i

Betaza, cabildo officials in Roayaga organized community sacrifices at least twice a year, collecting money from community members to pur chase newborn dogs, turkeys, incense, wax, feathers from Chiapas, and stones called guiag cacbi (precious stones).82 The men gathered at a sa cred site to watch the maestro and his assistants behead the animals. They offered blood, feathers, and incense to a stone image and prayed for good health, abundant crops, and rain. In the meantime, the women and children gathered in the church to burn candles. Afterwards, everyone reconvened to feast, drink, and dance.

The organization of ritual in Roayaga, in which women performed Christian acts of worship while men sacrificed animals at a sacred site, reveals the pairing of complementary principles—male/female, center/ periphery, Benizaa/Christian—so common in Mesoamerica. The fact that men performed the more traditional ceremonies and women conducted the Christian rites provides an interesting counterpoint to the conven tional view of native women as more culturally conservative than men. In this example, women appear to be cultural negotiators between the Benizaa and Christian worlds. The Roayaga case also suggests that the church became gendered as female space, which contradicts the pre vailing view of the church as a male enclave. Perhaps the gendering of space corresponded to a distinction between sacred space within and outside the community center. Whereas men frequently ventured out to work in the fields, women’s daily activities primarily placed them in and around the community center, where their households, the market, and the church were located. These daily activities may have influenced per ceptions of gendered sacred space.

Idolatry records from the Sierra Alta document women’s participa tion in Zapotec ceremonial life, but their roles as ritual specialists are more difficult to reconstruct because all defendants and witnesses were male and investigations focused on male ritual practitioners. Even when women were named as ritual specialists or as those who ingested cuana betao (sacred herb, Turbina corymbosa) or other hallucinogens in order to prognosticate, they were not usually arrested or questioned. For ex ample, a Spanish priest reported having heard that in Latani a woman named Catarina de Aquino was being trained as a maestra. However, when ecclesiastical officials went to Latani to investigate, they did not question Aquino or even ask about her. Moreover, because all of the de fendants were male, the records provide little specific information about women’s equivalent practices or about life-cycle rituals and healing cer emonies that we associate with female spiritual leadership. References to women’s activities in the church at Roayaga are terse compared with the detailed descriptions of men’s ceremonies at the community’s sacred sites.

1

Gender and the Body42

Dress and Gender Identity

The performance of gender was enhanced by specific clothing and adorn ment. In the bathing ceremony, when the Nahua ticitl presented tools symbolizing the gendered tasks of newborn children, she also gave a baby boy a loincloth and a cloak and gave a baby girl a skirt and a huipilli (see Figures 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6).83 As a potent symbol of gender identity, clothing represented men and women in ritual contexts. In preconquest times, several days before the ritual in which Nahuas honored the god Yacatecutli, merchants placed offerings before the god’s image: capes and loincloths were hung on staffs representing the number of male slaves to be sacrificed; huipiles and skirts were hung to represent the number of female slaves.84 Thus, the garments stood in for the body.

Sixteenth-century texts continued to employ gender-specific clothing as a metaphor for male and female bodies. Nahuatl-language sources refer to women by the doublet in cueitl, in huipilli (the skirt, the shift). A sixteenth-century description of native marriage customs explains that a boy’s mother and father would arrange his marriage when he reached sexual maturity so that he would not become involved in a scandal. The parents feared that unless their son had a wife, “he may have sex with a woman [skirt, shift]; he may commit adultery” (ma cana cueitl, uipilli te- pan ca, ma cana tepan ia).S:i In his Nahuatl-language translation of a Eu ropean witchcraft treatise, Tratado de hechicerias y sortilegios, published in 1553, fray Andres de Olmos adopts this convention. Admonishing his flock to avoid committing sins of the flesh, he urges: “Do not thought lessly pursue, do not thoughtlessly desire a woman [the skirt, the shift], do not with this enter the servitude of the Devil” (ma ylihttiz tictoca, ma ylihuiz tiquelehui yn cueytl, uipilli ma yc ytlan ticalac yn Diablo).st In one passage, Olmos pairs metaphors based on women’s clothing (in cueitl, in huipilli') and weaving equipment (in malacatl, in tzotzopaztli} to represent the female body, warning the Nahua neophytes: “And also he [the Devil] greatly deceives those who covet and greatly desire a woman [the skirt, the shift], who pursue a woman [the spindle whorl, the weav ing batten] in sin” (No yoan cenca quimiztlacauia yn teyxeleuiya ye cena queleuia yn cueytl uipilli yn cenca quitoca yn malacatl yn tfotfopaztli tlatlacoltica).g7 Similar conventions were used to describe the male body. When a father advised his son to avoid excessive sex, he drew an analog)' between sexual vitality and a cloak customarily worn by indigenous men:

Despite these limitations, the idolatry records of the Sierra Alta reveal glimpses of a worldview in which women and men fulfilled complemen tary roles in the performance of rituals that linked them to their ancestors and their deities and that ensured the future of their communities.

Gender and the Body 43

“The cloak wetted, washed, and tightly wrung, dries out quickly; you will be just the same after you have given yourself repeatedly to earthly pleasures” (in tibnatli paltic, in tlapactli, in cenca motequipatzca, in mo- tetepatzca: ca hiciuhca oaqui: no tiuhqui, in otoconmotetequimacac tlal- ticpacaiotl).ai1 In formal speeches, at least, Nahuas seem to have avoided making explicit references to the body and instead used metaphors of clothing and gear in referring to sexual intercourse.89

Evidence from the Villa Alta jurisdiction attests to the persistence of clothing as a signifier of gender identity in the eighteenth-century. Ten sions escalated between the Benizaa communities of Betaza and Yalalag when Spanish ecclesiastics entered the region in 1704 to extirpate idola tries. After Yalalag relinquished its deities and provided information on continuing indigenous sacred practices elsewhere, resentment ran high. On one occasion, don Pedro de Paz, a noble of Betaza, fought with a regi- dor (councilman, a member of a municipal council) of Yalalag, casting aspersions on the masculinity of Yalalag’s nobles for having surrendered their deities to the Spaniards when they should have “fought for them to their last drop of blood.” Don Pedro quipped that the men of Yalalag did not deserve to wear pants and sarcastically suggested that it would be more appropriate for them to put on their wives’ skirts. His insult made a direct association between dress, masculinity, and local leadership, which was the purview of males in the region at this time.90

In addition to clothing, hairstyles and other bodily adornment distin guished women from men and indicated status. Throughout highland Mexico, unmarried young girls wore their hair long and loose while married women wore theirs braided and often wrapped with yarn on the head in a variety of styles. Nahua women also dyed their hair with a special black mud or indigo. Indigenous women wore body paint in preconquest and early colonial times, making designs on their hands, neck, and torso that, depending on the ritual occasion, might associate them with specific goddesses. Noblewomen used yellow ochre or bitu men to paint their faces, cochineal to color their teeth, and a mixture of burnt copal incense and dye to stain their feet.91 The extent to which commoner women colored their hair, painted their faces, or stained their teeth remains unclear. Elite women, like their male counterparts, some times wore elaborate headdresses, particularly when they performed ritual roles.

Unlike clothing, which clearly signified rank as well as gender, jewelry was often gender neutral and conveyed elite status. Both men and women wore earrings, bracelets, nose ornaments, labrets, and necklaces made of gold, silver, shell, bone, turquoise, crystal, amber, and other stones. Such adornments represented nobility in Nahuatl-language texts. The sons of

1

Gender and the Body

Coer?

Figure 2.7. Nudzahui noblemen and noblewomen making offerings at a temple SOURCE: Codex Nuttall, fol. 41, facsimile edition. Vienna: Akadeinische Druckund Verlagsanstalt;

Madrid: Sociedad Estatal Quinto Centcnario; Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economico, 1991.

44

noblemen were thus “the greenstones, the bracelets, the precious items” (in chalchiuhtin, in maquiztin, in tla(oti).92

Like the Nahuas, Nudzahui elites developed elaborate dress traditions to convey social rank. The highest rulers, both male and female, had their septums pierced so that they could wear nose ornaments of silver, gold, or stone. They possessed a vast array of elite costumes that signified their power and prestige. Preconquest-style codices show noblemen and noble women wearing feathered headdresses, pectorals, ear spools, and arm and leg bands, and carrying ritual regalia.93 For example, a scene in the Codex Nuttall shows named nobles approaching temples to make offer ings (Figure 2.7). The women wear the traditional wraparound skirt and rounded quecbqnemitl (woman’s garment similar to a poncho) as well as costume elements that display their royal status such as nose ornaments, animal or feathered headdresses, headbands, ear spools, wrist cuffs, and pectorals. They carry incense burners, sit on jaguar thrones, and gesture toward others as if speaking, further revealing their elite status and ritual roles. The men are also dressed in fine garments. Like the women, they

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Gender and the Body 45

Gendered Speech and Behavior

Unlike European romance languages, indigenous languages were not gendered. Nahuatl, Nudzahui, and Ti'chazaa did not assign gender to nouns, distinguish between male and female pronouns, or require gender agreement.’4 However, speech conventions that signified and emphasized gender identity did develop in many Mesoamerican languages. Kinship terminology in Nahuatl, Nudzahui, and Ti'chazaa reflected the age and gender of the point of reference (ego) in relation to the person being referred to or addressed. For example, parallel terminology existed that distinguished male from female ego. Nahua women used specific terms, such as conetl (child) and pihtli (older sister), which identified the point of reference as female. Fray Antonio de los Reyes listed separate Nudzahui terms for the brothers and sisters of men and women in his Vocabidario.95 Similarly, in his Ti'chazaa dictionary, fray Juan de Cordova provided dis tinct words for relatives used by men and women.96

Morphology also marked men and women’s speech. For example, Nahuas inflected the vocative differently. In his seventeenth-century grammar of the Nahuatl language, Horacio Carochi explained that the masculine vocative was formed by reducing the absolutive ending of a noun and adding -e. Women used the standard possessed or unpossessed noun form minus the normal subject prefix.97 Carochi also noted the female custom of inserting -tica between the noun stem and the reveren tial ending of certain kin terms to emphasize affection when addressing both males and females. For example, women would say nopiticatzin (my older sister) instead of the standard nopitzin, and nahuiticatzin (my aunt) rather than nahuitzin.™ Moreover, men and women used different forms in speaking of gender groups. According to Carochi, when a man spoke about another man he would say ce toquichtin (one of us men).

sport feathered headdresses, ear spools, and pectorals. They also wear gender-specific clothing, including loincloths, sandals, and calf bands, and carry shields, arrows, and staffs.

The great attention to detail in descriptions and depictions of nobles’ garments reveals the importance of clothing as a symbol of social status. But dress conveyed a message that was far more complex than simple conspicuous consumption. Quetzal feathers, shells, precious stones, and so forth, were acquired through vast long-distance trade, tribute, or gift-exchange networks with nobles in distant places. Thus, many of the luxury materials used in elite clothing attested to a noble’s wealth (to pur chase prestige goods), power (to demand tribute), and status (to acquire goods through political and social alliances). The materials were precious and rare, like the nobles themselves.

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Gender and the Body46

using the plural subject prefix and the noun. Women, however, would say ce cihuatl (a woman) rather than ce ticihua (one of us women) when speaking among themselves.”

Reyes, in his grammar of the Nudzahui language published in 1593, discussed the numerous ways that men and women’s speech differed. Like the Nahuas, Nudzahui men and women employed different forms of the vocative: the vocative suffix used by women was -ya; that used by men was -y.100 Reyes also described certain female forms of address to chil dren; women employed these same forms to express disdain and anger when speaking to their husbands or other adults.101 Furthermore, men and women used different particles when referring to a third person of the opposite sex.102 In this way, Nudzahui speech conventions, like those of Nahuatl and Tichazaa, reinforced and rearticulated gender identity.

Gendered mannerisms and behaviors are more difficult to uncover in the historical record. However, pictorials catalogue men and women throughout Mesoamerica sitting differently according to local custom. Among the Nahuas, an adult woman sat with her legs together and tucked to the side with her hands folded in her lap; men sat on little seats, stools, or reed mat thrones with their knees folded up under their capes. In the Mixteca Alta, women customarily sat on their haunches or on stools; men sat on stools only. Women from the coastal region are depicted in codices sitting cross-legged. These coded ways of carrying the body further signified conformity to a particular gender identity.

Belief in the instability of the body and the mutability of gender shaped the understanding that cross-gendering was possible in Mesoamerica. Through the performance of labor, dress and adornment, and specific styles of speech, individuals could alter their gender identities.

Cross-Gendering

The relationship between gender and biological sex was not always obvi ous in the cultures of highland Mexico. The sexed body itself was a so cial construction. Presumably, the midwife assigned socially constructed gender roles to babies at birth based on genital difference, but Meso- american understandings of physiological distinctions may have been very different from those of Europeans. In his survey of the biological basis of gender difference, Monaghan finds that many contemporary Mesoamerican groups made little distinction between male and female genitalia.103 He argues that the principal biological difference that Mixtec women and men observed was a woman’s ability to become pregnant. Furthermore, the ticitl’s criteria for assessing children who were sexually

Gender and the Body 47

Figure 2.8. Xochihuaque, or cross-dressed man and woman SOURCE: Florentine Codex, bk. io, fol. 25V. Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana,

Med. Palat. 220, c. 27V. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities; further reproduction by any means is forbidden.

1511 \

ambiguous are not known. The tradition of cross-gendering of both am biguously and unambiguously sexed individuals found among indigenous groups throughout the Americas suggests flexibility between the sexed body and gender identity. As Klein concludes: “Pre-Hispanic Nahuas viewed gender as both complex and mutable and did not expect it to necessarily conform to a person’s physiology and sex.”104 Through par ticular performances, in cither ritual or everyday settings, gender could be redefined.

Although there is limited evidence on cross-gendering among the sed entary groups of highland Mexico in the colonial period, terminology and descriptions of social types in the Florentine Codex shed some light on the subject. In the discussion of a person categorized as a xochihua (literally, possessor of flowers) Nahua authors seem to identify a cross-gendered person. Both the brief description and the single depiction of xochihua in the Florentine Codex suggest that men or women could change their gen der by adopting the opposite gender’s clothing, hairstyle, speech patterns, and behavior. Highlighting the importance of speech as a gender marker, the text begins: “The xochihua has feminine speech, has a feminine way of talking, [and if a woman] has masculine speech, has a masculine way of talking” [in suchioa cioatlatole, cioanotzale, oquichtlatole oquichno- tzale).'05 The accompanying illustration uses dress, hairstyles, and pose to signify gender, showing two seated individuals, one dressed as a man and

1

Gender and the Body48

the other dressed as a woman, with speech scrolls emerging from their mouths (see Figure 2.8). The “woman” wears a traditional hairstyle, and the “man’s” hair is cropped with bangs in the European fashion of the time. The “woman” is seated with her legs folded back behind her in the custom befitting a proper Nahua matron. The flower (xochitl) between the two is a phonetic indicator that the man and woman are xochihuaque (possessors of flowers).106 The image and the text suggest that gender has trumped biology, that the person dressed and speaking as a man is a bio logically sexed female and the person dressed and speaking as a woman is a biologically sexed male.

The Codex Tudela provides additional evidence that clothing and la bor were central to cross-gendering. The anonymous author of the text accompanying the images in this early colonial manuscript remarks in Spanish: “In Mexico there were men dressed in the clothing of women; they were sodomites and did the tasks of women, which is weaving and spinning.”107 Although the relationship between cross-gendering and homosexuality may not have been as clear as the author assumes, the passage highlights the role of clothing and labor in the construction of gender identity.

One of the limitations of colonial sources is that they do not illuminate how cross-dressers were perceived, particularly outside of ritual contexts, so our understanding of alternative gender remains limited. Part of the problem begins with the term xochihua, which is used only in the Floren tine Codex where it refers to a person who seduces people, including a procurer (see Chapters 5 and 6). This raises the question of whether xo chihua was a type of “third sex” or had a more general meaning, such as a seducer of people. It seems to me that Nahua men who dressed, spoke, and worked as women were considered women and that women who dressed, spoke, and worked as men were considered men.

Not unlike nahuallis, cross-gendered individuals escaped the confines of the body to present themselves as what contemporary Westerners would consider “the opposite sex.” Significantly, Nahuatl-language de scriptions of the nahualli and the xochihua use similar terminology, link ing the two concepts. According to the Florentine Codex, the nahualli was a xochihua, conveying the idea that both types confused people and made them lose their bearings with the use of the verbs teyolmalacachoa (spin around people’s hearts) to describe the nahualli and teixmalaca- choa (spin around people’s eyes, faces) to characterize the xochihua.105 Similarly, the Florentine Codex explains that the cross-dresser and the nahualli deceive people and cause them to change their minds, using the related terms teyolcuepa (turn people’s hearts) and teixcuepa (turn peo ple’s faces, eyes).109

Gender and the Body 49

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Mcsoamericans possessed an understanding of the body and its rela tionship to the natural world very different from modern, Western un derstandings. Concepts of nahualism, tonalism, and gender mutability shared a common assumption that the body was unstable and capable of transformation through ritual, celestial phenomena, consumption of hal lucinogens and alcohol, and performance of particular roles. Mesoameri- cans did not assign essential attributes to males and females, but rather believed that personality traits and fate were tied to the sacred calendar and the birth date. Masculinity and femininity were not inherently con nected to a sexed body, but were acquired during childhood through the development of labor skills, the adoption of dress and adornment, and the mastery of speech and gestures.

Cross-gendering highlights the way that clothing, labor, and speech conventions—rather than the body—provided the basis of gender iden tity. Duality and the pairing of opposites were organizing principles in Mesoamerican cultures. The binary gender system attempted to impose order on a world in which the body was vulnerable to natural and su pernatural phenomena and in which sexual ambiguity might complicate gender identity. On the one hand, this system seems rather rigid; on the other hand, cross-gendering provided a degree of flexibility that allowed some individuals to negotiate their gender identities. The performance of gender, rather than the body alone, determined a person’s sex. For all intents and purposes, a man who performed the tasks and behaviors of women became a woman and vice versa.

Duties and Responsibilities2-2-4

collective and

or household domain are variables that must be examined in relation to their specific cultural and historical contexts.”230 I agree, and I argue that in the context of pre-Columbian and early colonial Mesoamerica women’s contributions were not secondary to men’s. Couples worked together to produce agricultural goods, food, and cloth; some worked in teams as merchants and servants. These enterprises were cooperative rather than individual and hierarchical.

In an examination of the many different facets of women’s work, it becomes evident that the policies and practices of Spanish authorities contributed to the slow erosion in women’s status over time. The decline in prestigious positions as artisans, religious leaders, and political au thorities (especially among the Mixtecs) limited women’s opportunities. Furthermore, the discrediting of traditional medicine by religious officials threatened healers and spiritual leaders, who were once considered wise men and women in their communities. Spanish pressures did not succeed fully, however, because underlying concepts of gender parallelism and complementarity were at the very core of social organization and house hold relations.