The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico 1477318402, 9781477318409

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FLORENTINE CODEX

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The

FLORENTINE CODEX An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-­Century Mexico Edited by

Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano

University of Texas Press   Austin

Copyright © 2019 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2019 Publication of this book has been supported by funds from the UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-­Century Studies, the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, and UCLA Latin American Institute Publications

Images from the Florentine Codex courtesy of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence; any other unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-­7819 utpress.utexas.edu/rp-­form ♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-­1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, editor. | Terraciano, Kevin, 1962– editor. Title: The Florentine Codex : an encyclopedia of the Nahua world in sixteenth-­century Mexico / edited by Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018043826 | ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1840-­9 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1841-­6 (library e-­book) | ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1842-­3 (nonlibrary e-­book) Subjects: LCSH: Codice florentino. | Manuscripts, Nahuatl. | Manuscripts, Mexican. | Aztecs—History—16th century. | Mexico—History—16th century. Classification: LCC F1219.56.C7552 F55 2019 | DDC 972/.02—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043826 doi:10.7560/318409

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgmentsvii

Introduction. An Encyclopedia of Nahua Culture: Context and Content Kevin Terraciano

1

Part I. The Art of Translation 1 Images in Translation: A Codex “Muy Historiado” Jeanette Favrot Peterson

21





2

On the Reception of the Florentine Codex: The First Italian Translation Ida Giovanna Rao

3

4



Reading between the Lines of Book 12 Kevin Terraciano The Art of War, the Working Class, and Snowfall: Reflections on the Assimilation of Western Aesthetics Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

37 45

63

Part II. Lords: Royal and Sacred 5 Surviving Conquest: Depicting Aztec Deities in Sahagún’s Historia77 Eloise Quiñones Keber

6

Fashioning Conceptual Categories in the Florentine Codex: Old-­World and Indigenous Foundations for the Rulers and the Gods Elizabeth Hill Boone

7

Teotl and Diablo: Indigenous and Christian Conceptions of Gods and Devils in the Florentine Codex Guilhem Olivier

95

110

Part III. Ordering the Cosmos 8 Ecology and Leadership: Pantitlan and Other Erratic Phenomena Barbara E. Mundy

9

Bundling Natural History: Tlaquimilolli, Folk Biology, and Book 11 Molly H. Bassett

10 Powerful Words and Eloquent Images Diana Magaloni Kerpel Part IV. Social Discourse and Deviance 11 Rhetoric as Acculturation: The Anomalous Book 6 Jeanette Favrot Peterson

125

12



Flowers and Speech in Discourses on Deviance in Book 10 Lisa Sousa

13 Parts of the Body: Order and Disorder Ellen T. Baird

139 152

167

184 200

Bibliography217 Contributors231 Index233

vi • Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano

T

he Florentine Codex has inspired and catalyzed interdisciplinary scholarship over many decades. It has been scrutinized from multiple perspectives—as an incipient ethnography, a literary work, a dictionary, a historical record, and a theological reflection—and found to be all of these and more. Created by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and his indigenous collaborators, the document records two languages, features over two thousand images, and engages a broad range of fundamental questions, including those of authorship, literacy (both verbal and visual), intercultural dialogue, and historical memory. The Florentine Codex occupies a prominent nexus between the pre-­ Hispanic past and the New Spanish colonial present and, as such, opens up a fertile space to investigate the various epistemic systems that met, intermingled, and clashed in sixteenth-­century Mexico. Until recently, studies of the manuscript focused on the very important task of translating and comprehending the bilingual texts. We acknowledge our collective debt to the illustrious scholars who have gone before us and share our appreciation for this magnificent illuminated manuscript. Breaking new ground, the authors in this collection of essays direct their critical analyses to the images of the Florentine Codex: their pictorial sources, their material components, and their correspondence with the accompanying narratives. In resituating the paintings within their textual matrix and a Nahua-­ Christian context, this volume as a whole complicates a Eurocentric understanding of the images and foregrounds the roles and agency of their indigenous makers.

The impetus for this volume began with a two-­day conference, “Visual and Textual Dialogues in Colonial Mexico and Europe: The Florentine Codex,” held in 2015 at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Getty Center. The meeting convened a group of scholars from Mexico, Europe, and the United States to examine the interrelation of the manuscript’s three “texts”: the Nahuatl and Spanish alphabetic texts and the hand-­painted images. Taken together, both words and pictures offer a rich body of evidence for interdisciplinary investigation, as well as a springboard for larger questions. The conference was followed six months later by an informal workshop held at the Getty Research Institute. The dialogue generated by this workshop highlighted the need for a publication dedicated to our new interpretative perspective on the Florentine Codex. We are grateful for the participation of the invited scholars, whose thought-­provoking papers were subsequently expanded and refined into the essays found in this volume. Additionally, we acknowledge the contributions of the discussants at the 2015 conference, Kim Richter, Cecelia F. Klein, and Daniela Bleichmar. For so generously hosting and facilitating these meetings, the editors would like to express their special thanks to Barbara Fuchs, then director of the Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-­Century Studies and the UCLA William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, and to Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Kim Richter, then director and associate director of the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center. We also acknowledge the assistance of Sue Kang, Nathaniel Deines, Sally McKay, Lisa Camvii

bier, and Mahsa Hatam at the Getty, and Jeanette LaVere, Kathy Sanchez, and Erich Bollman at UCLA. We are grateful to other research centers at UCLA that cosponsored the conference: the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Center for Mexican Studies, and the Latin American Institute. We owe a great debt to the warm reception and cooperation of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, where the Florentine Codex is housed. Ida Giovanna Rao, the director of the library until December of 2017, made the original three-­volume Florentine Codex accessible for research and waived the costs of publishing its images. Our thanks also to Anna Rita Fantoni, the Laurenziana’s current director, for supporting this generous arrangement, and to the Getty Research Institute for allowing us to incorporate into this volume both images and related text from their superb digital copy of the Florentine Codex. We thank Christopher DiMatteo for his expert translation of Italian in chapter 2, and Rebecca Dufendach for collating and editing our bibliography. We are grateful to Helen Deutsch, current director of the UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-­Century Studies and the Clark Library, for cosponsoring this publication with a generous subvention, and to the UCLA Latin American Institute for the same. We are especially grateful to

viii • Preface and Acknowledgments

Kerry E. Webb, senior acquisitions editor, and the staff at the University of Texas Press. Note to readers: The editors acknowledge that the alphabetic spelling of some Nahuatl words can vary from one scholar and one chapter to the next. As one example, the name of the Aztec ruler at the time of the conquest can be spelled Moctezuma, Moteuczoma, or Motecuhzoma. Recognizing the complexity of the cultural terms “Aztec” and “Nahua,” in this volume the name Aztec is generally applied to precontact peoples who flourished in central Mexico and, by conquest or negotiation, received tribute from many communities of Mesoamerica. Specifically, those who lived in the island cities on Lake Texcoco, Mexico-­Tenochtitlan, and Tlatelolco, were also referred to as the Mexica. More current is our use of the term Nahuas for those peoples who spoke, and continue to speak, the language of Nahuatl. On the pagination of the Florentine Codex, we have followed throughout the folio numbers internally sequential within each book, found in the upper right-­hand corner (recto and verso). The exception to this practice is in the pagination of the first twelve folios of Book 1, in which the only page numbers are those for volume 1 found in the lower right-­hand corner of each folio (recto and verso).

The

FLORENTINE CODEX

Figure I.1. Victims of the first smallpox outbreak in 1520. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 53v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Introduction An Encyclopedia of Nahua Culture: Context and Content Kevin Terraciano

I

t is difficult to imagine the sense of urgency that fray Bernardino de Sahagún and his team of indigenous writers and artists felt as they struggled to complete the final draft of their encyclopedia of Nahua culture and language known today as the Florentine Codex. They worked inside the cloistered walls of the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Santiago Tlatelolco while family, friends, and some of their own group succumbed to disease. Writing during the virulent epidemic of 1576, Sahagún recalled an earlier plague of 1545, when he claimed to have buried more than ten thousand corpses before he himself fell ill and nearly died. “There is hardly anyone still in the college,” he lamented. “Dead and sick, almost all are gone.”1 Sahagún blamed the two epidemics for the decline of the colegio. The Franciscan colegio in Tlatelolco, a Mexica community just north of neighboring Tenochtitlan and on the same island in the lake of the Basin of Mexico, was the first European college in the Americas. The Holy Cross College was founded on January 6, 1536, to educate Nahua youth, primarily but not exclusively the sons of Nahua elites. The Franciscans offered a basic humanities curriculum, teaching the neophytes how to read and write in Nahuatl, Spanish, and Latin; the trivium and the quadrivium; and elements of the Christian doctrine. The college possessed an extensive library to support these endeavors. By the second half of the sixteenth century, Tlatelolco had become a center of Franciscan learning and humanist education in New Spain.

But by the 1570s, Sahagún had seen the “whole land . . . depleted of people” with his very own eyes.2 He feared that the Indians were destined for extinction, to be replaced forever by Spaniards and their descendants.3 A striking image in Book 12 of the Florentine Codex depicts victims of the first outbreak of smallpox, after the Spaniards were expelled from Tenochtitlan in 1520 (fig. I.1). A woman attends to the sick, who lie suffering on petates, or reed mats. The Nahuatl text says that the epidemic lasted a full sixty days before it moved toward the south, and “the Mexica warriors were greatly weakened by it.”4 The epidemic of 1576 struck in August; Sahagún penned the prologues and interpolations in November of that year. To describe the devastation wrought by war and disease on the indigenous peoples of New Spain, he recalled the words of an Old Testament prophecy. In the prologue to Book 1 he compares the war of 1520–1521 to the curse which Jeremiah, in the name of God, thundered upon Judea and Jerusalem in the fifth chapter, saying: “I will cause to come upon you, I will bring against you a people from afar, a very vigorous and brave people, a very ancient people skilled in battle, a people whose language you will not understand, . . . all powerful and courageous people, lusting to kill. This people will destroy you and your women and children and everything you possess, and will destroy all your villages and buildings.” This has literally happened to these Indians by way of the Spaniards.5

1

The Florentine Codex took shape amid the chaos of conquest, disease, and consolidation of imperial power in Mexico, the culmination of decades of meticulous gathering and recording of knowledge about Nahua culture. As soon as the bilingual manuscript was completed, the final version in a series of works collectively referred to as the Historia general (or universal), it was whisked away to Spain. In March 1578, Sahagún wrote a letter to the Spanish king, humbly inquiring whether his majesty had seen the books that had taken three decades to complete.6 By this time, fray Bernardino was approaching eighty years of age and wrote with a trembling hand. He would never know of the work’s final destination or fate. Table I.1 provides a timeline for the manuscript’s production.

The Manuscript This volume presents studies generated by our 2015 conference on the Florentine Codex that address issues raised by the internal dynamics of the manuscript, its “three texts,” and their external implications. The questions we initially explored, and herein pursue in writing, we hope will promote greater understanding of the relationship of the bilingual texts to the relevant imagery, with an emphasis on the methods, potential models, and intent of its multiple authors. This introductory chapter locates the production of the Florentine Codex in its historical, literary, and artistic framework and summarizes the thirteen substantive contributions to this volume. At the outset I should clarify the several titles conferred on the Florentine Codex and their inconsistent usage. The “Florentine Codex” is the title that the pioneering historians Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Arthur Anderson and Charles Dibble, and other prominent scholars have given the manuscript that now exists in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy (Med. Palat. 218, 219, and 220). The twelve books of the manuscript were originally bound in four volumes;7 today the manuscript consists of 1,223 folios (2,446 pages) and is rebound in three volumes. Ironically, historians do not know the original title of the work; it is unclear what title Sahagún chose. The manuscript preserves only a small fragment of the title page, which was probably removed when it was bound a second time. It is also called the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España and the Historia universal de las cosas de Nueva España, based on the titles of a working draft and 2 • Kevin Terraciano

a copy of the Spanish text, the Palacio Real and Tolosa manuscripts, respectively, both in Madrid.8 Many scholars have also adopted the Historia general title, including Carlos María de Bustamante, Paso y Troncoso, and Anderson and Dibble, both for Sahagún’s larger project (1558–1577) and explicitly for the final edition. In 1829– 1830, Bustamante published the Spanish translation of the codex as the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España. It is based on the Tolosa manuscript, which in general is a faithful copy of the Florentine’s Spanish text.9 In the prologues to each of the twelve books, Sahagún seems to avoid a title, referring to the work numerous times as the libros (books) or the doze libros (twelve books) or the obra (work). He also uses the title historia more than once, in the prologues to Books 9 and 10 and in his letter to the king in 1578, mentioned before. The broader meaning of the word historia in the early modern period did not refer exclusively to an account of past events; the term was often modified with other descriptive terms, such as natural (i.e., flora and fauna) or moral (mores) to indicate broader studies of nature or customs.10 The qualifying term general implies the treatment of a wide range of subjects, and universal suggests an attempt to insert the Nahuas into a universal Christian history. Jesús Bustamante García observes that the archbishop of Mexico, Pedro Moya de Contreras, referred to the work as Sahagún’s “Historia universal de las Yndias” in his letter to the king, dated December 16, 1578.11 ­Victoria Ríos Castaño provides evidence that universal was the term recognized by King Philip II and the Council of the Indies. She also points out that the choice of twelve books conforms to the symbolic import of the number twelve to the friars and to Christian ideology in general.12 Sahagún also refers to having written “twelve books of the divine, or rather idolatrous, human, and natural things of this New Spain.”13 Thus he refers to his entire encyclopedic project with many of the key words that were later applied to it: “Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España.”

The Imperial Archive Despite many dramatic postconquest changes, the Nahuatl-­speaking peoples who lived around Lake Texcoco in the Basin of Mexico continued to live and work in hundreds of separate, semiautonomous altepetl (communities) that survived in altered but recognizable forms.14 Even the two altepetl at the center of the Mexica capital,

Table I.1. Chronology of the Historia General [Universal] de las Cosas de Nueva España

Date

Production stages

1547

Sahagún first records huehuetlatolli in Nahuatl (later, Bk. 6) in the Colegio de Santa Cruz, ­Santiago Tlatelolco.

1555

First Nahuatl composition of the conquest narrative (later, Bk. 12), Tlatelolco.

1558

Francisco de Toral, Franciscan provincial, requests Sahagún compile and expand his work on the Nahuatl language and cultural data. Sahagún prepares an outline, or minuta, of planned texts.

1558–1565

Códices Matritenses or Madrid Codices (Tepepulco and Tlatelolco) A collection of Sahagún’s Nahuatl writings, bound in two volumes, that reside in two libraries in Madrid, the Real Academia de la Historia and the Palacio Real. These include: 1. Primeros memoriales (1559–1561, Tepepulco) Four sections on gods, heaven and underworld, lordship, human things. Recorded in Nahuatl with images. 2. “Manuscrito de Tlatelolco” (1561–1565, Tlatelolco)  a. Segundos memoriales (1561–1562)  b. Memoriales en tres columnas (1563–1565)  c. Memoriales con escolios (ca. 1565)

1565–1570

San Francisco, Mexico: Sahagún reorders, amends, and annotates texts.

1569

“Manuscrito de 1569”: “clean copy” of twelve books in Nahuatl of Historia general, now lost.

1570–1575

Sahagún’s writings impounded and scattered (Tlatelolco).

August 4, 1575

Arrival of Rodrigo de Sequera with orders from Juan de Ovando (d. Aug. 8, 1575), president of Council of the Indies, Seville, to commission Sahagún to produce a bilingual, illustrated copy of his encyclopedic Nahuatl manuscript.

fall 1575–­spring 1577

Florentine Codex (Tlatelolco) Production of the final edition of the Historia general commonly known as the Florentine Codex (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence).

April 22, 1577

Royal order (real cédula) to Viceroy Martín Enríquez to seize Sahagún’s works.

October 28, 1577

Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras writes to Philip II to confirm that Sahagún’s works have been sequestered and will be sent to the king. On December 16, 1578, the archbishop confirms the shipment, as does Sahagún in an earlier letter of March 26, 1578.

1580

Florentine Codex has reached Spain by this time, brought by fray Rodrigo de Sequera. It is t­ aken shortly thereafter to Rome, perhaps as a diplomatic gift for Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1563–1588).

1578–1588

Tolosa manuscript (ms. 9-­4812, Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid) First copy of Spanish text in the Florentine Codex, made in Mexico or Spain.

1587 or 1588

Florentine Codex in Medici collection moved to Florence when Ferdinando I de’ Medici made grand duke of Tuscany.

1783

First recorded entry of the Florentine Codex in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Med. Palat. 218–220).

Note: All documents were initiated and overseen by Sahagún but were multiauthored, with indigenous Nahua scholars and painters transcribing the information from oral Nahuatl to alphabetic script, creating the accompanying images, and often revising texts. Sources: Anderson 1982; Dibble 1982a; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 215v; Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 46–47, 51; D’Olwer and Cline 1973, 188–203; Baudot 1995, 496–502; Marchetti 1983, 22; Bustamante García 1990, 307–308, 327–346, 451; León-­ Portilla 2002a, 115–224; Rao 2011, 38–39; Ríos Castaño 2014, 99–109.

Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, which bore the brunt of the Spanish-­led invasion in 1520–1521, managed to regroup and reassert their identities within the new colonial order. Nonetheless, their leaders and inhabitants were forced to come to terms with new political and religious authorities who spoke a foreign language, introduced another legal system, and promoted a rapidly changing economy in which the competition for natural and human resources, especially at the center of this “New Spain,” intensified with each generation. At the same time, the Crown sought to impose its sovereignty on the distant land. Carlos V brought the chaotic early period of Cortés, and his successor, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, president of the first audiencia, or high court, to a close by appointing a second audiencia of judges loyal to the Crown and a new viceroy, don Antonio de Mendoza, who governed from 1535 to 1550. Viceroy Mendoza consolidated the Crown’s authority and supported the efforts of the mendicant orders to establish the Church.15 In this early period of violent entradas (expeditions) and Indian slaving, fray Bartolomé de las Casas and other critics of empire exposed the hypocrisy of the concept of “just war” and lamented the rapidly declining native population. The New Laws of 1542 represented the Crown’s attempt to assert its authority throughout Spanish America by reigning in conquistadores, outlawing indigenous slavery in so-­ called pacified areas, and abolishing the encomienda (royal grant of indigenous labor and tribute to a Spaniard). Although the New Laws were not carried out fully anywhere, rebellious movements and the discovery of rich silver deposits in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru stiffened the Crown’s resolve to assert control over the Indies, as the Holy Roman Empire continued to expand. The Florentine Codex is unique in its scope and reliance on Nahua collaborators, but it nevertheless falls within the parameters of the early modern European quest for collecting information on newly conquered territories and their people. Spain’s overseas ventures generated a staggering amount of information, contributing to the creation of an imperial archive. Leaders of expeditions were among the first to report, using the genre of the relación, or account. Hernando Cortés wrote the first cartas de relación from Mexico, sending his letters directly to the king beginning in 1519. Early relaciones and crónicas (chronicles), written by both secular and ecclesiastical officials, brimmed with cultural detail about the people of the new lands, the indios. The first royal chronicler of the 4 • Kevin Terraciano

Indies, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, stationed on the island of Española, in Santo Domingo, interviewed Spaniards returning to Spain for the first part of his lengthy history, Historia general y natural de las Indias, published in Seville in 1535. Fray Toribio de Benavente, one of the original twelve Franciscans to arrive in New Spain in 1524, who adopted the name Motolinía (Nahuatl for “he is poor, afflicted”), completed his Historia de los indios de la Nueva España in 1541, within two decades of his arrival, but it was not published until the nineteenth century.16 Motolinía consulted many Nahuas and was one of the first Spaniards to realize how Nahuas kept written records of their histories, using a pictorial system that he compared to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Francisco López de Gómara, author of the first history of the conquest of Mexico (after Cortés’s letters), published in 1552, copied entire sections of Motolinía’s manuscript on indigenous customs into his own work.17 Native artists in the early postconquest period contributed directly to many manuscripts by providing information and producing images. Nahua tlacuiloque (plural of tlacuilo, writer/painter) learned how to write their languages with the Roman alphabet; many culture groups in Mesoamerica had developed traditions of writing on stone, fig-­bark paper (amatl), deerskin, and cloth with natural pigments long before the Spaniards arrived. The eleventh book of the Florentine Codex features twelve pages on colors or pigments used for writing/painting. Figure I.2 is a folio from chapter 11, which shows two tlacuiloque working while assistants prepare pigments of different colors. Ironically, the images in this second part of Book 11 contain no colors; the artists seem to have run out of pigments by this latter part of the project, after painting hundreds of images throughout most of the manuscript. One of the first compilations to feature indigenous images and Spanish text was the Codex Mendoza. Produced during Viceroy Mendoza’s term of office (1535– 1550), little is known about the origins of this manuscript, for it contains no title page or prologue. One potential scenario is that an indigenous group in Mexico City, perhaps in collaboration with friars, created a pictorial manuscript that portrays Tenochtitlan and Mexica society in a positive light and then approached Spanish authorities to have it translated and sent to the king. The Codex Mendoza consists of three parts: (1) a history of Mexica dynastic leaders and their conquests; (2) a long list of tribute that altepetl subject to the Mexica empire sent to Tenochtitlan;

Figure I.2. Assistants prepare pigments for tlacuiloque (writers/artists). Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 221v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

and (3) a series of scenes describing the birth, life, and death of Nahua people. The tlacuiloque designed and executed seventy-­two pages of finely painted images. The artists then explained the meaning of the images to a translator, who wrote explanatory Spanish glosses alongside the paintings. The resulting narrative juxtaposes images, language, and a wealth of information on Mexica culture.18 But it is unclear whether Viceroy Mendoza commissioned or even saw the manuscript. More certain is Mendoza’s sponsorship of the 1541 Relación de Michoacán, a book that was written by a Franciscan based on interviews with indigenous informants and illustrated by indigenous artists. Its tripartite structure resembles the Codex Mendoza, but its purpose was to help resolve territorial disputes in and around Tzintzuntzan.19 By the 1540s, indigenous writers throughout highland Mesoamerica were producing many different types of pictorial manuscripts to support claims within the Spanish justice system, attempting to show proof of possession and hereditary authority for judges in the form of maps and lists of rulers. In fact, Viceroy Mendoza had ruled in favor of allowing pictorial claims as evidence in lawsuits.20 Indigenous artists used images to document everything from land claims to abuses of authority. The Codex Tepetlaoztoc (or Kingsborough) and the Codex Osuna, for example, were produced for legal disputes in the 1550s and 1560s. In this early postconquest period, Franciscans played a leading role among the mendicant orders in working closely with indigenous men to record their languages for evangelical purposes, creating vocabularios (translation dictionaries), artes (grammar texts), doctrinas (doctrinal texts explaining Christian concepts), and confesionarios (confessional manuals)—all in native languages, with or without Spanish translations. Many of these works were among the first books published in the Americas. Fray Alonso de Molina, who worked and taught alongside Sahagún in the Colegio de Santa Cruz, published the first Spanish-­to-­ Nahuatl vocabulario in 1555, and then added a Nahuatl-­ to-­Spanish complement in 1571, creating the first two-­ way dictionary of an indigenous language of the Americas. Obviously, Molina could not have done this without the assistance of many Nahuas who were fluent in Spanish. In spite of the indispensable contribution of bilingual indigenous scholars, the title pages of these works consistently refer to the friars as the sole authors, even when indigenous contributions are acknowledged in the prologues to 6 • Kevin Terraciano

the works. In the making of the Florentine Codex, Bernardino de Sahagún shared these collaborative working practices, but to his credit he included the names of some of his Nahua coauthors in his prologues and interpolations.

A Unique Collaborative Project Fray Bernardino de Sahagún was born around 1499 or 1500 in the ancient town of Sahagún, in the kingdom of León. He took his vows and assumed the habit of the Franciscan order in Salamanca, where he likely also attended the University of Salamanca.21 He arrived in New Spain in 1529 and established a reputation for learning Nahuatl.22 By the 1540s, he embarked on a series of projects that stand out for their originality and sheer ambition, summarized in table I.1. For example, he collected dozens of Nahuatl speeches in 1547 and recorded a Nahuatl version of the conquest of Mexico in 1555. In 1558, the Franciscan provincial, fray Francisco de Toral, commissioned Sahagún to compile a study of indigenous culture that would be useful to the religious who sought to indoctrinate neophytes in the Christian faith. To this end, Sahagún took four Nahua scholars whom he had taught at the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco to the Franciscan convent in Tepepulco, an altepetl located about eighty kilometers northeast of Mexico City and the probable source of the Nahuatl speeches that he had collected earlier. The four scholars were Antonio Valeriano of Azcapotzalco, Martín Jacobita of Tlatelolco, and Pedro de San Buenaventura and Alonso Vegerano of Cuauhtitlan. In Tepepulco Sahagún and his team consulted with elders and leaders, who used images as mnemonic devices to elicit oral recitations and responses, in the manner that preconquest-­style codices were used to guide a narrative. The Nahuatl scholars wrote down the responses prompted by the images. Sahagún also compiled word lists for various topics that were explained later, focusing on the lexicon associated with each topic.23 By 1561, Sahagún and his team produced a manuscript known today as the Primeros memoriales, considered a precursor to the Florentine Codex in its thematic structure and its reliance on a strong pictorial component. Its four chapters consist of eighty-­eight folios, or 176 pages; more than half of the pages contain illustrations. The Primeros memoriales follows a pattern detected in other encyclopedic manuscripts that organize their material from the celestial to the more earthbound realms, discussed more

fully later. The first chapter, titled “Teteo,” addresses the deities and their associated rituals; the second, “Ilhuicayotl iuan Mictlancayotl,” treats matters related to the heavens and the place of the dead; the third, “Tlatocayotl,” deals with rulers; and the fourth chapter, “Tlacayotl,” considers a variety of human affairs.24 Images serve a primary function in the Primeros memoriales, as in the Codex Mendoza, guiding the content of the alphabetic text. Unlike the Mendoza glosses, which are in Spanish, in the Primeros memoriales Nahuas wrote explanations or transmitted information in Nahuatl. In 1561 Sahagún returned to the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Santiago Tlatelolco, where he applied the methods he had developed in Tepepulco, meeting with leaders there to request support for his grander project. In the prologue to Book 2 of the Florentine Codex, Sahagún recounts how in Tlatelolco “[t]he governor with his councilmen assigned me as many as eight or ten leaders, selected from among all, very capable in their language, and in their ancient customs.”25 These men, and four or five of his most able trilingual students from the Colegio de Santa Cruz, “amended, explained, and expanded” what was collected in Tepepulco. The resulting drafts from this period are known as the “Manuscrito de Tlatelolco.” In 1565 Sahagún returned to the convent of San Francisco in Mexico City to work alone for three years, where he “examined and reexamined” all his writings. He writes in the prologue to Book 2 that he “divided them into books, into twelve books, and some books by chapters and paragraphs.” He included material already gathered on rhetoric (1547) and the conquest (1555), which became Books 6 and 12 of the Florentine Codex, respectively. The Franciscan completed this Nahuatl “Manuscrito de 1569” in Mexico City. Nahua students “added and amended many things to the twelve books when they made a clear copy.” However, at this time only the Nahuatl text of the bilingual project was complete.26 In 1570, the merits of Sahagún’s project were discussed at the provincial order chapter meeting in Mexico City. Some members voiced concern with the project, Sahagún recalls, that “it was contrary to the vows of poverty to spend monies in recording those writings.”27 It is likely that the matter involved more than economic considerations. At issue was a heated debate over the role of knowledge about indigenous cultures within the missionary program. Franciscans were divided. Did recognizing and recording indigenous culture, including sacred beliefs

and practices, advance or undermine their goals of converting the native inhabitants to Christianity? In any case, Sahagún was instructed to dismiss his scribes and complete the work alone, despite the “trembling” of his hand in old age. Even worse, the provincial, fray Alonso de Escalona, confiscated and scattered the books by sending them to friars throughout the province for their perusal. The tide turned five years later, however, and Sahagún eventually retrieved the books with the assistance of the commissary fray Miguel Navarro. In 1575, the commissary general fray Rodrigo de Sequera ordered the Nahuatl manuscript to be translated into Spanish, authorizing the project’s continuation. Sequera intended to send it to the president of the Council of the Indies, don Juan de Ovando.28 Ovando had become president in 1571, advising the king on policy regarding the Indies and building a corpus of data for the imperial archive.29 His interests ranged from geography and natural resources to the customs and history of indigenous peoples. Ovando began to develop questionnaires to be circulated throughout the Spanish empire, ultimately the basis of the Relaciones geográficas that were sent to New Spain in 1576. In 1573 King Philip II issued a decree to compile a historia, a book of descripciones, a type of encyclopedia on the history of the Indies and its people, the type of manuscript on which Sahagún and his team had been working.30 Ovando created the position of cosmógrafo-­cronista to write the official history and geography of the Indies, and he sent out scientific expeditions, including that of Francisco Hernández, the protomédico who collected a vast array of botanical and medicinal information in Mexico. When Ovando heard of Sahagún’s work he asked to see the books, and Sequera intended to send them to him, but Ovando died in 1575. In 1576, the archbishop of Mexico, Pedro Moya de Contreras, entered the conversation, urging Sequera to have the books translated into Spanish and to send them to the king.31 Meanwhile, Sahagún prepared Spanish summaries of the Nahuatl text in what would become the final edition of the Historia general, or the Florentine Codex. He focused on translating the manuscript and writing the prologues in 1576 and 1577. The prologues refer to current events of that period, including the epidemic of 1576, discussed before. Artists also added the hundreds of images in these two years, most painted in polychrome tones. Only the images in the second half of Book 11 and in Books 6 and 12 lack color (with a few exceptions), suggesting that these Introduction • 7

were the final books being illustrated when the color pigments ran out; or that their preparation could not keep up with the scribes’ hurried pace to complete the manuscript; or that the epidemic of 1576–1577 affected the availability of pigments and manpower to complete its production, or some combination of these factors.32 Everyone was forced to work faster to meet a new deadline when the Crown altered its position on manuscripts involving indigenous history and religion and issued royal cedulas ordering the confiscation of all manuscripts on the topic. In April of 1577, King Philip II issued a decree that concludes: We order that, as soon as you receive this, our decree, with great care and diligence you take measures to get these books without there remaining the originals or copies of them, and to send them well guarded at once to our Council of the Indies, that they may there be examined. And you will be advised not to permit anyone, for any reason, in any language, to write concerning the superstitions and way of life these Indians had.33

The decree suggests a shift in policy from encouraging the collection of information on indigenous culture and history to prohibiting writing on those topics. Moreover, the decree authorized the confiscation of all manuscripts and related materials on these controversial topics. The Council of Trent’s decrees (1545–1563) to condemn false doctrines and idolatries and the presence of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, established in New Spain in 1571, might have influenced the Crown’s decision. This cedula and its enforcement expedited Sahagún’s plan to send the books to Spain. Sahagún wrote a letter to Philip II in March 1578, averring that he had sent a copy of the Historia general to the king but had heard nothing of its reception, and that he would copy the manuscript and send it again if it had not reached him (unwittingly suggesting that he had defied the order by keeping a copy of the manuscript). Another reference to this manuscript appears in Sahagún’s 1585 version of Book 12, where he claims he gave a first copy to the outgoing viceroy, don Martín Enríquez, and then later gave a second copy to fray Rodrigo de Sequera.34 Since a first so-­called Enríquez copy is no longer extant, and it is difficult to believe that Sahagún and his team could produce two major manuscripts within a couple of years, the only certainty is that Sahagún entrusted a complete version with images to Sequera, who departed 8 • Kevin Terraciano

Mexico for Spain in 1580.35 This “Sequera manuscript,” dedicated to the supportive commissary general, is the Florentine Codex. Sahagún called the books of this copy “muy historiados” (profusely illustrated).36 Although the fate of the Sequera manuscript once it reached Spain is equally unclear, it likely arrived in Rome, where Ferdinando I de’ Medici acquired the manuscript, by gift or purchase, from Sequera.37 Giovanna Rao provides new evidence indicating that Ferdinando possessed the manuscript before he became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1588. She concludes that Sequera probably thought that the codex was more likely to survive if it were entrusted to the grand duke, who sought to augment the collection of international manuscripts begun by Cosimo the Elder. One fascinating piece of evidence that the codex had reached Florence by 1588–1589 comes from the depiction of Mexica warriors on the ceiling of the former Armeria (room 21) of the Uffizi Gallery, originally a Medici palace. The greatest affinity between the Florentine Codex and the Uffizi murals is found in the portrayal of a heroic Mexica warrior, Tzilacatzin, who is featured in Book 12 (fol. 60v).38 The artist must have seen the codex before he painted his stylized narrative of the conquest of the Americas. After 1587–1589, the preservation and location of the codex was unknown to all those outside a few people within the Medici circle until 1793, when the bibliographer Angelo Maria Bandini published a catalogue in Latin of manuscripts in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, designed by Michelangelo. Still, the work was not studied until it was cited again by fray Marcelino de Civezza in 1879, a full three centuries after its journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Tuscany.39 This discussion of the evolution and survival of the Florentine Codex sheds light on the unique qualities of the manuscript. Sahagún deliberates on why and how the work was produced, referring to the obstacles that beset the project and suggesting that he knew the books would continue to attract scrutiny: “[T]his work has been examined and verified by many over many years. It has suffered many travails and misfortunes until it has been put into the form it is now in.”40 Sahagún’s prologues abound with such defensive remarks about the nature of the work, beginning with his opening statement in the first prologue, in which he compares a doctor’s remedy to the extirpation of idolatry. Just as a doctor needs to know the symptoms of a sickness in order to apply a cure to the patient, he reasoned, the religious of New Spain needed to be able

to identify idolatry in its many forms in order to destroy it completely. Saving people, whether from disease of the body or the soul, required knowledge. Considering that Sahagún wrote these prologues last, in 1576 and 1577, in the midst of an epidemic, it is no coincidence that he chose to compare the work of priests with doctors. Many friars, in fact, believed that God was punishing the Indians with disease because of their idolatries. And yet this religious justification was only one aspect of the work. If fray Francisco de Toral commissioned Sahagún to compile a study of indigenous culture that would be useful to the mendicants who sought to indoctrinate them in the Christian faith, Sahagún and his team of Nahua writers and artists went far beyond this objective, creating a massive compilation of language and culture that resembles a humanist encyclopedia more than a handbook for extirpation. Indeed, no other manuscript in the Americas can match the Florentine Codex for its wide-­ranging coverage of numerous topics (some controversial at the time), its hundreds of carefully painted illustrations, and its record of the indigenous language.

“A Treasury for the Knowledge of Many Things ” : Models for the Manuscript In referring to the type of work that he and his colleagues had sought to produce, Sahagún remarks that many who knew of his project would ask about the calepino, in reference to the demonstrative vocabulary of Latin that Ambrosio Calepino (1440–1510/1511) had created.41 Although Sahagún concluded that it would be impossible to create a calepino, considering that there were very few Nahuatl (alphabetic) writings at this time, he thought his project might lay the groundwork for such a work. He interrogated his Nahua colleagues for “all manners of speech and all the words that this language uses, as well verified and certain as that which Virgil, Cicero, and other authors wrote in the Latin language.” Sahagún was certain that the compendium would be “a treasury for the knowledge of many things worthy of being known,” and a “thing of much value in New and Old Spain.”42 If recording “all manners of speech and all the words” of the language was one of Sahagún’s main concerns, organizing and preserving knowledge on a wide variety of topics regarding Nahua culture was another. Aside from the calepino, several other works seem to have influenced the objective and method

of the Florentine Codex, including classical and medieval encyclopedias, historias (general, universal, natural, moral), Christian treatises, and the many books on sermons and confessions that filled the shelves of the Colegio de Santa Cruz library. The Florentine Codex is clearly “encyclopedic” in that it attempts to encapsulate the sum of what was then known about the Nahua world in a concrete, pictorialized book form. Sahagún’s monumental endeavor fulfills the very definition of the encyclopedia, from the Greek for “general knowledge” (enkyklios paideia).43 It is also a work that “encapsulates a total or universal body of knowledge organizing it in order to preserve it and make it accessible.”44 The manuscript’s format and its sequence of twelve books conform to the hierarchical organization of classical and medieval compendia, progressing from the realms of the divine (“Gods” and “Ceremonies”) to the human (“The People”) and the natural realms (“Earthly Things”). Only Book 6, “Rhetoric,” and Book 12, “The Conquest,” break with this sequence (for a summary of the organization of the twelve books, see table I.2). For its overarching structural organization, as well as in some cases specific data, three well-­known encyclopedias have been suggested as models (see table I.3): Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis historia, found in the Tlatelolco library; the seventh-­century Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (580–636); and the thirteenth-­century De proprietatibus rerum (On the nature of things, 1220–1240) by Bartholomeus Anglicus.45 Isidore was the first Christian writer to compile a summa of universal knowledge in the Etymologiae, also known as Origines. The twenty-­volume compilation assembled parts of many books from antiquity. Two of these well-­known encyclopedists, Pliny and Isidore, also devote considerable attention to language and rhetoric.46 Sahagún seems to imitate Pliny in describing his Historia general project as a thesaurus, a treasury (tesoro), and a coffer (recamara) or storehouse.47 Anglicus’s influence on Book 6 and especially Book 10 of the Florentine Codex, in its description of the vices and virtues of various Nahua types, is well documented.48 Several Christian texts influenced Sahagún’s model and the content of the Florentine Codex. Saint Augustine, for one, wrote on the conversion of non-­Christian populations and the taxonomy of “pagan” gods. Augustine wrote De civitate dei (City of God) to defend Christianity after the sack of Rome by a Gothic army in 410. By the sixteenth century, the work was firmly established in Introduction • 9

Table I.2. Organization of the Florentine Codex

Book

Short title

Divine 1

Gods

“De los dioses . . .”

2

Ceremonies; Calendar

“Del calendario, fiestas y ceremonias . . .”

3

Origin of Gods

“Del principio que tuvieron los dioses . . .”

4

Astrology; Divination

“De la astrología . . . o arte adivinatoria Indiana”

5

Omens

“De los agueros y prenósticos . . .”

6

Rhetoric, Moral Philosophy

“De la rethorica y philosophia moral”

7

Sun, Moon, Stars

“De la astrología y philosophia natural” Human

8

Kings, Lords, Governance

“De los reyes y señores . . . el govierno . . .”

9

Merchants; Artisans

“De los mercaderes, oficiales de oro y piedras . . .”

10

The People; Anatomy

“De los vicios y virtudes desta gente Indiana” Nature

11

Earthly Things

“De las cosas naturales; animales . . .” History

12

The Conquest

“De la conquista de la Nueva España”

Sources: Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 46; Bk. 9, 71; D’Olwer and Cline 1973, 192, table 2; Bustamante García 1990, 308–327, 452–453.

the canon of Christian texts. Augustine’s intent to compile knowledge on pagan religions in order to expose their false and sinful nature resonates with Sahagún’s objective for compiling the first five books of the Florentine Codex.49 Elizabeth Boone and Guilhem Olivier refer to the influence of Augustine in this volume. Ríos Castaño demonstrates the importance of Augustine and shows that several collections of sermons, manuals of confessional practices, and texts on biblical exegesis had a decisive influence on Sahagún’s model and inquisitorial method of collecting information.50 Book 11 of the Florentine Codex on the flora and fauna, minerology, and topography of New Spain anticipates other sixteenth- and early seventeenth-­century studies of natural history. These include the works of Andrea Cesalpino (De plantis libri XVI, published in 1583), Ulisse Androvandi (De reliquis animalibus [. . .], 1605), and Francisco Hernández (Cuatro libros de la naturaleza [. . .] de la Nueva España, 1615), which feature legends and proverbs,

10 • Kevin Terraciano

superstitions, and symbols associated with specific animals and plants.51 In fact, Hernández consulted Sahagún’s manuscript in Tlatelolco. The range of potential models for the Florentine Codex continues to expand as intriguing new sources are identified, some described in this volume. For example, Boone refers to the work of Albricus, a philosopher who wrote a thirteenth-­century treatise (Liber ymaginum deorum), as well as new manuals published in the sixteenth century on the description and mythology of the classical gods, which helped frame questionnaires regarding Nahua deities and also impacted the rendering of the gods’ iconography in the Florentine Codex. The Franciscan Johann Boemus published in 1520 a work on peoples and their customs (Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus). Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo observes that Olaus Magnus’s Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1565) and Johann von Cube’s Hortus sanitatis (1536) served as models for several illustrations in the Florentine Codex. Likewise, in her recent study on

Table I.3. Five Potential Classical and Medieval Encyclopedic Models for the Florentine Codex

Pliny, Naturalis historia

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae

Bartholomeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum

Augustine, De civitate dei

Alfonso X, General estoria

*

*

*

*

*

Book 2: Ceremonies, Calendar

*

*

*

*

Book 3: Origin of Gods

*

*

*

Book 4: Astrology

*

Book 5: Omens

*

Book 6: Rhetoric, Moral Philosophy

*

*

*

*

Sahagún, Florentine Codex

Book 1: Gods

Book 7: Celestial Bodies

*

Book 8: Kings, Lords

*

Book 9: Merchants, Artisans

*

*

*

*

*

Book 11: Earthly Things

*

*

*

*

* *

Book 10: The People Book 12: Conquest

*

* *

*

*

*

*

Note: * indicates overlap with subject matter of Florentine Codex books. Sources: Pliny the Elder 2004; Isidore 2006; Hernández de León-­Portilla 2002; Ríos Castaño 2014, 111–149, 260–274, app. 2; Robertson 1966, 627; Garibay K. 1953–1954, 2:68–88; Alfonso el Sabio 1930, 1958.

the conquest of Mexico, Diana Magaloni Kerpel reveals a panorama of Christian images that informed the artists of Book 12.52 One medieval Iberian work that is never cited but might also have influenced Sahagún’s ambitious project, including its title, is the General estoria of the Spanish court of the learned monarch Alfonso X. It was the first great “historia general” produced in Castile. Written not in Latin but in Castilian, the General estoria was intended as a world history from the time of creation to the reign of Alfonso el Sabio, king of Castile and León (1252–1284). The unfinished work intertwines the Old Testament, Greek and Roman mythology, and extrabiblical information on the people and empires of the extended Mediterranean world and ends with the birth of Christ.53 The General estoria relied on a wide array of sources in Latin (especially Pliny), Arabic, Castilian, French, and English; like Sahagún’s Historia, it treats the histories of deities, kings, and earthly things. The manuscripts’ euhemeristic interpretation of legends, in which gods and goddesses are treated as old kings, queens, and heroes who were worshipped as deities

after their deaths, resembles the Florentine Codex’s treatment of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, for example, who lived in Toltec times and were later worshipped as gods. In the prologue to Book 8 Sahagún compares the legend of Quetzalcoatl to that of King Arthur, whose exploits are discussed at length in the General estoria, based on a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth.54 Sahagún likens the people and altepetl of central Mexico to those of the Mediterranean world, comparing Cholula to Rome, Tlaxcala to Carthage, Tula to Troy, and Mexico to Venice.55 Like the ancient Romans, the people left impressive antiquities and structures strewn across the land, in places like Tula and Xochicalco. Sahagún’s attempt to make sense of Mesoamerica by comparison with the Mediterranean pagan world is part of his Historia general project. There is no doubt that Sahagún planned a work that is based to some degree on the hierarchy and categorization visible in classical, medieval, and Renaissance models. But ultimately the Florentine Codex is singular in that the end product relied on the constant participation of Nahua scholars who took the various prototypes presented by

Introduction • 11

Sahagún and adapted them to their own ways of gathering and presenting knowledge, filtered through their own choices of what to document and preserve. At the same time, the scholars were exposed to Hispanic values and were well versed in Christian beliefs. The dynamic process of exchange and interaction between Sahagún and his team of Nahuas created new forms of expression and knowledge. The manuscript’s artwork makes apparent this adaptation. In many respects, the art style of the images is neither European nor Mesoamerican but an entirely new colonial creation. Thus the final product is truly unique, even compared with manuscripts produced in New Spain in the same century.56

The Present Volume Much has been written on the Florentine Codex; we are indebted to those who recognized the great value of the manuscript and spent much of their careers plumbing its rich commentary. We pay homage to such luminosos as Arthur Anderson, Charles Dibble, Ángel María Garibay Kintana, Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, Miguel León-­Portilla, James Lockhart, Alfredo López Austin, H. B. Nicholson, Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Donald Robertson—to name only a few. Many of their groundbreaking works on the Florentine Codex appear in the bibliography and throughout the many notes of this volume. This chapter draws from many previous introductory studies, especially the essays by Anderson and Dibble in the introductory volume to their English translation of the Nahuatl, which set a high standard for their clear and concise prose.57 The introduction by Ángel María Garibay Kintana in the 1953–1954 edition of the Historia general is another invaluable source. Excellent studies of the Florentine Codex and related manuscripts include those compiled by Munro Edmonson (1974); J. Jorge Klor de Alva, H. B. Nicholson, and Eloise Quiñones Keber (1988); Quiñones Keber (2002); John Frederick Schwaller (2003); and Gerhard Wolf and Joseph Connors (2011). The list of contributors to these volumes reads like a who’s who of Florentine Codex scholars. The Handbook of Middle American Indians, edited by Robert Wauchope, especially volume 13, part 2 (1973), contains several seminal essays on the Florentine Codex and manuscripts associated with Sahagún. The flagship research journal published by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, founded in 1959, deserves recognition 12 • Kevin Terraciano

for publishing hundreds of articles on the Florentine. The journal’s longtime editor and contributing author, Miguel León-­Portilla, has published many pieces related to the Florentine Codex in Estudios and is spearheading a multiauthored project to translate sections of Nahuatl text in the Florentine Codex into Spanish. A facsimile edition of the Florentine Codex, produced in 1979 by Giunti Barbera in Florence and the Secretaría de Gobernación in Mexico, spurred on studies of the codex. A facsimile edition and translation of the Primeros memoriales, translated by Thelma Sullivan and edited by Nicholson et al. (1993, 1997), represents another breakthrough. Jesús Bustamante García (1990) provides a useful, detailed examination of the composition of Sahagún’s manuscripts. Most recently, Victoria Ríos Castaño (2014) has examined the methods and models of the Historia universal and Sahagún’s mission of translation and conversion. Yet the Florentine Codex remains an understudied work, considering its depth and breadth of content. Sahagún’s primary interest was collecting and preserving the Nahuatl texts. His Spanish translation seems like a secondary consideration, an obligation frequently requested by his superiors and completed, for the most part, only in the final years of the project. The Spanish ranges from translating the Nahuatl text verbatim, to summarizing or ignoring it. And yet the Spanish data has been used more often by scholars. The very first publication of the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, in 1829–1830, by Carlos María de Bustamante, was based on the Tolosa manuscript version of the Spanish translation. Many subsequent editions were based on this same version. The monumental translation project of Anderson and Dibble (Sahagún, 1950–1982), and James Lockhart’s translation of both the Nahuatl and the Spanish of Book 12 (1993), have enabled more recent studies of the Nahuatl, understood through English translation. Likewise, Ángel María Garibay Kintana and Miguel León-­Portilla offer sections of the Nahuatl text of Book 12 in Spanish, in Visión de los vencidos (1959). Despite these excellent works, systematic analyses of the Florentine based on the original Nahuatl text are few. The images of the Florentine were created last but clearly play a prominent role in the manuscript, judging by their number, quality, and color. Our 2015 conference was, to our knowledge, the first dedicated specifically to the interrelation of the three “texts”—the Nahuatl, the Spanish translation, and the images58—and was certainly

the first to focus on how the images and their meanings differ from textual exegesis. The painstaking labor and commitment required to create so many detailed, colored paintings suggest that Nahuas insisted on including them, as discussed by Jeanette Peterson in chapter 1. One important observation to emerge from the conference, and more fully underscored in the chapters of this volume, is that one cannot call the manuscript “Sahagún’s Florentine Codex.” In reality, Sahagún was more coordinator, compiler, editor, and translator than author. Garibay and León-­Portilla advanced this idea as early as the 1950s.59 But scholars are still coming to terms with how Nahua authors and artists contributed the essential content of the work. Sahagún assumed responsibility for the Spanish translation, and there is no doubt that he wrote the prologues and Spanish interpolations, but those parts constitute less than half of the total work and are not the primary contributions. Although Sahagún contributed to this notion by calling himself the “author” in the text, he also refers to himself as a compiler, and he credits many (but not all) of the Nahuas who played a pivotal role in the project.60 In addition to those trilingual four already mentioned and on whom Sahagún relied the most—Antonio Valeriano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, and Alonso Vegerano—other scribes included Diego de Grado and Bonifacio Maximiliano of Tlatelolco, and Mateo Severino of Xochimilco.61 Still others who came from different communities around the great lake of Texcoco contributed to the manuscript. For example, in Book 11 we find a list of Nahua tiçitl, or physicians, from barrios and parishes of Tlatelolco, who contributed their knowledge to the section on medical cures and herbs in folios 139v to 181. The experienced elders include Gaspar Matías and Pedro de Raquena of Concepción; Pedro Santiago and Miguel Motolinía of Santa Inés; Francisco Simón, Miguel Damián, and Miguel García of Santo Toribio; and Felipe Hernández of Santa Ana. In Book 10, another eight médicos mexicanos are listed as providing information for the preceding section (fols. 97–113v) on illnesses of the body: Juan Pérez, Pedro Pérez, Pedro Hernández, José Hernández, Miguel García, Francisco de la Cruz, Baltasar Juárez, and Antonio Martínez.62 Even those talented Nahuas who remain unnamed were not simply his “informants” or his “aides.” They were Sahagún’s sources of information: the multilingual writers of the Nahuatl text, the part of the work that was produced first; and the artists who “illuminated” the manuscript, the part that was done last.

Finally, it is important to consider what the manuscript means for Mexico and for the Americas in general. There is no doubt that the Florentine Codex is the most remarkable and most important intellectual product of the exchange between indigenous and European cultures in the early modern Atlantic world. Such a work could have been produced only in Mesoamerica, where the introduction of the Roman alphabet and European art style made sense to people who had been writing and painting with ink and natural colors for centuries. It is among the rare first manuscripts to represent indigenous cultures that involved indigenous people. It is the richest resource for the study of “classical” Nahuatl. As a collaborative, multivoiced enterprise, the Florentine Codex embodies various modes of interpretation and transformation, processes that may be characterized as distorting or betraying the original while simultaneously, in the “creative destruction” that defines all translation, also being perceived as processes of “invention and renewal.”63 The Nahua scribes and artists actively constructed versions of their cultural identity through their choice of vocabulary, as well as by means of syntactical and pictorial choices. Sahagún, on the other hand, seems to reconcile his inherited intellectual traditions and orthodox religiosity with his desire to bear witness to the differences, as well as the similarities, that marked the Americas. These dual objectives were not without tension, as manifest in Sahagún’s outlook as well as our modern assessment of his achievements. Scholars have tended to characterize the friar in rather polarized terms, as a learned scholar who sought to record indigenous language and knowledge, or as a physician of souls who employed inquisitorial methods of collecting information for pragmatic missionary purposes. Rather than regarding Sahagún primarily as a pioneer ethnographer (and something of an anachronism), or conversely as firmly rooted in a sixteenth-­century Euro-­ Christian framework, the Franciscan seems to be caught between a medieval and modern mindset: the former defined knowledge as revealed by the grace of God, whereas the ideas of modernity credited the human intellect with the capability of producing knowledge, as Walden Browne argues.64 In his task as cultural translator, collating and permanently inscribing the language and culture of the Nahuatl-­ speaking peoples, Sahagún adopted a Western book form and hierarchical organization of topics. Anthony Grafton critically notes that the vast quantity of incoming informaIntroduction • 13

tion was shoehorned into existing schemata; in his words, Sahagún bent “the New World to the old systems.”65 Nonetheless, while recognizing the European influences on the content and organization of the work, many of the authors in this volume discern indigenous or Nahua modes of categorizing knowledge, underscoring the discretionary power of the tlacuiloque over their sources and interpretative strategies. In other words, Sahagún had confidence in those who had trained with him, even if his trust in the Nahua population eventually dissipated into a darker suspicion, as censorship, age, disease, and the growing decline of the regular orders grew ever more debilitating in the later years. In the end, nothing went exactly according to plan in New Spain. Spanish intentions were seldom fully achieved and were always tempered and compromised by local actors and negotiations. This was true of Sahagún’s Historia general, as well. Sahagún clearly had his models, but the final manuscript reflects the profound input and subjectivity of the Nahua artists and writers on whom he depended to complete the project, as the chapters of this volume hope to show. While keeping in mind the intellectual coherence of this volume and the complementary overlap between essays, we have subdivided the chapters loosely into four thematic sections: “The Art of Translation,” “Lords: Royal and Sacred,” “Ordering the Cosmos,” and “Social Discourse and Deviance.” We recognize that in doing so we, too, are guilty of imposing our academic need to classify knowledge.

The Art of Translation The philological objective of Sahagún, that is, his aim to produce a sweeping and inclusive dictionary of the Nahuatl language, is laudable in a time period when the indigenous languages of the Americas were increasingly under siege. For Spanish officials, particularly ecclesiastical authorities, words in native tongues were inherently suspect and images potentially idolatrous; translation itself might camouflage heretical ideas and harbor dangerous political meanings. The first section, “The Art of Translation,” encompasses four chapters that directly and indirectly confront the textual and pictorial facets of the translational process within the contested social, political, and counterreformational milieu of late sixteenth-­century Spain and New Spain. The slippage inherent in these acts of translation is understood as a process that generates new meanings.66 14 • Kevin Terraciano

Jeanette Favrot Peterson addresses not only the nature and motives behind the plethora of images in the Florentine Codex but also the historiographic factors that promoted textual exegesis of the manuscript while hindering serious scholarship of its paintings. While acknowledging the pervasive stylistic and iconographic Europeanizations visible in the imagery, Peterson also locates meaningful signs reflective of an indigenous worldview and long-­standing pictographic tradition. As indices of intercultural dynamics, the images reinforce the appeal of the Florentine Codex to dual audiences and betray the Nahua painters’ roles as vital participants in the creation of the manuscript. Ida Giovanna Rao’s remarkable discovery of the earliest translation into Italian of the first five books of the Florentine Codex (with Lia Markey) underscores the almost immediate recognition of the illuminated manuscript’s significance. Notwithstanding Ferdinando I de’ Medici’s own Catholic fervor and his belief in a universal Christendom, his humanist education made him open to the value of the newly discovered Americas. Through a selection of excerpts published for the first time, herein also in English, Rao demonstrates the care with which the professional (if anonymous) translator worked literally, rather than liberally, making changes primarily in the abbreviation of some passages. Nowhere are the partisan motivations of translators more apparent than in the competing Nahua-­Spanish dialogues on the conquest in Book 12. Kevin Terraciano deconstructs the Mexica (Nahua) narrative, one of the earliest accounts (1555) from an indigenous perspective. He identifies significant differences between the Nahuatl text and the Spanish translation, which is much shorter than the original, and considers reasons for the discrepancies. The paintings of Book 12 operate somewhat independently, both adhering to the narrative and veering off to depict other memories not articulated in the alphabetic texts. Terraciano connects the conspicuous, exaggerated display of feathers in the headgear of both indigenous and European protagonists with Nahua concepts of tonalli and teotl, extreme force and power. A close analysis of all three “texts” enriches our understanding of this invaluable indigenous account of the encounter and war. The appropriation and translation of a wide array of pictorial prototypes by the Florentine’s painters is the theme of Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo’s chapter. Given the wealth of humanist publications in monastic libraries from

which the tlacuiloque drew inspiration, Escalante Gonzalbo points to the influence of emblem books and published pharmacopeia of nature,67 as well as of the 1565 edition of Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, by the bishop Olaus Magnus. The author explores the formal analogies with these sources, and analyzes their content and meaning to reveal linked messaging that is not neutral but imbued with political and moralizing commentary.

Lords: Royal and Sacred Given the attention to elite history, governance, and cosmology in the extant precontact records of Mesoamerica and coeval colonial accounts, it is not surprising that several books in the Florentine Codex are devoted to the lordly class in Aztec society, as well as to the priesthood, divine beings, and the rituals held to honor them. Paradoxically, while Sahagún’s mission was obsessed with eradicating idolatry, in the encyclopedic project he preserves those same “idols,” methodically, but not always objectively, documenting the indigenous Mesoamerican pantheon in order to create a kind of missionaries’ guidebook to the Aztec supernatural world. Sahagún intended the Florentine Codex to serve as one of several “weapons” to fight the devil, under whose dominion idolatry was practiced.68 The three chapters in the section “Lords: Royal and Sacred” interrogate the transformations that occurred between the indigenous and the European prototypes of gods and kings and their depictions in Sahagún’s manuscripts. These authors suggest varied motives for the Aztec deities assuming more humanlike representations, while addressing the core issue of the gods’ ontology, or how divinity (the complex Nahuatl term teotl) was understood, even when filtered through a Christian perspective. Eloise Quiñones Keber undertakes a comparative study of the representation of Aztec deities and their calendrical festivals as they evolved from the Primeros memoriales to the Florentine Codex twenty years later. In the weaving together of memory, oral testimony, and the mnemonic prompts provided by the “ancient paintings,” Sahagún’s team gathered information about the attire worn by each of the deities, their perceived powers, and their ritual roles. Quiñones Keber reconstructs how and why the descriptions of the gods expanded to their more fulsome treatment in the Florentine Codex, focusing on the evolution of the earth and corn goddess Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent). The author also analyzes the increased extravagance

and complexity of the veintena, or twenty-­day festival, as practiced in the martial ceremonies of the Mexica capital. In exploring the disparity between the Aztec kings and the supernaturals in the illustrated manuscripts attributed to Sahagún, Elizabeth Hill Boone traces the continuities and ruptures with the antecedents available to the Franciscan and his team. Royal lords easily migrated almost verbatim from the flat, ideoplastic images of precontact annals histories to the folios produced by Sahagún’s team of Nahua artists. In contrast, the representations of Aztec gods required scribes and artists to innovate from bicultural models. Sixteenth-­century publications on the pagan gods offered appropriate templates for the textual information on their taxonomy, appearance, and physical attributes, referring to both pictorial models from indigenous codices and manuals of classical deities. In the transfer to the European mimetic canon, Boone concludes that Aztec deities were severed from their divinatory preconquest meaning, yielding “simple visual representations of anthropomorphic beings.” The anthropomorphism of the godly images is further explored by Guilhem Olivier, who probes the delicate semantic and conceptual overlap between the humanity of the gods and the divinization of mortals as manifest in the Florentine Codex. In the search for an antecedent, Olivier points to the theory of euhemerism, from the Greek Euhemerus of the fourth century BCE. As Quiñones Keber and Boone also recognize, the equivalency of Aztec deities to their classical counterparts was intended not only to enhance the reader’s familiarity with a known European entity but also to diminish the divinity of the indigenous gods. Although perhaps a successful reductive strategy, this process was never one of complete erasure, as Olivier demonstrates with his painstaking analysis of the multivalent term teotl (plural teteo), often translated as “god.” Teotl had a wide semantic range, referring to something marvelous or one imbued with solar energy (tonalli), a significance that allowed for the assimilation of the European newcomers at contact to be perceived as teteo, connecting with observations made by Terraciano in chapter 3.69

Ordering the Cosmos The chapters in this next section rest on a fundamental tenet of the Nahua worldview, that of cosmic order. One of the awesome responsibilities of the Nahua governing class was to maintain an equilibrium between the human Introduction • 15

and the supernatural realms, a balance that ensured a predictable rotation of the universe and dependable provisions for life. An order-­disorder dialectic framed Nahua cognitive structures, social interactions, ritual behavior, morality, and even the animacy with which painted images were endowed. Order in the Nahua world was menaced routinely by the ecological challenges of the lacustrine environs of Mexico City–­Tenochtitlan. Water, both an essential life-­ giving entity yet a deadly force, had to be properly managed. Barbara E. Mundy links the relationship of such natural threats as floods to the authority of Mexica leaders, who were perceived as appropriate custodians of water management. The author highlights the propitiatory offerings and sacrifices to petition and control water-­related threats that occurred at the ceremonial site of Pantitlan, an anomalous whirlpool-­spring in Lake Texcoco. Mundy also investigates a second aberrant phenomenon, the furry aquatic creature known as acuitlachtli (water bear), a type of nutria that was equally transgressive in its hybridity, habitat, and the danger it posed to the city’s water supply. Both the ritual site and the animal occupied liminal zones, representing the kind of eruption that indigenous leaders were charged to eliminate or minimize in their efforts to sustain a precarious cosmos. Molly H. Bassett similarly erases the Western boundary between the natural and the supernatural in the Nahua lifeworld. In a bold proposal, she argues that “nature” provided a template for a Nahua way of clustering knowledge: literally and figuratively conceived of as a quimilli, or bundle (a unit of twenty). Bassett explores one of the sacred bundles, the tlaquimilolli, conceptualized as a temple-­mountain, not only as biologically and socially essential, but also as an embodiment of divine forces. Another example, the ocelotl bundle, is more hypothetical, but the author provides evidence for the potency of the spotted jaguar pelage as an organizing principle and a sign of sacred and political power. Bassett’s project resonates with Olivier’s contention that although the structural clustering of the Aztec deities in the Florentine Codex conforms to an overarching Roman pantheon, we need to investigate alternative autochthonous taxonomies.70 The permeable membrane between the interlocking human and sacred spheres is also a foundational idea in Diana Magaloni Kerpel’s essay on the expressive carriers of Nahua knowledge from the “other side,” crossing time,

16 • Kevin Terraciano

space, and degrees of animacy. The author explores spoken word and painted image in the Florentine Codex as creative acts, divinely generated and in some cases displaying a “living presence.”71 Images could be embodiments of the sacred, thus becoming more than just a representation.72 To reveal the layered meanings of ritual discourse, as well as in the Florentine’s imagistic sign system, she uses the Tzeltal Maya metaphor of a flower’s “unfolding” with all of its sensory implications, as recorded by Pedro Pitarch. Magaloni Kerpel also applies her understanding of the pigments used in the Florentine Codex to support the tenacity with which the tlacuiloque continued to perceive images as signifying vehicles with their own palette and material makeup.

Social Discourse and Deviance The spoken word, and its power to communicate knowledge in a culture that valued orality above all, was also crucial to maintaining stability in an inherently disorderly world. In this final section, “Social Discourse and Deviance,” words are shown to exert so much weight that they bear authority over the Nahua body politic. These chapters also underscore the composite, often contested, nature of pictorial representation when caught between two discrete cultural and religious systems. Whereas pictures in other encyclopedic manuscripts, such as the Codex Mendoza, discussed before, juxtapose indigenous pictorial models with Spanish alphabetic script,73 the images in the Florentine more commonly conflate diverse systems of representation to create new syntheses within competing prescriptive norms in a multiethnic society. If the elite played a central role in maintaining cosmic order, as Mundy makes clear in the previous section, they manifested this fundamental responsibility in their cultivated mastery over rhetoric and the esoteric knowledge it encapsulated. Jeanette Favrot Peterson explores the most formal of the discourses, known as the huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders), that transmitted Nahua values and beliefs to the next generation. Sahagún recognized the metaphorical elegance of these orations as well as their didactic utility early in his career. Although the Nahuatl texts constitute some of the most authentic material in the Florentine Codex, paradoxically, the huehuetlatolli and prayers were regularly appropriated for the mendicants’ sermons. Christian scenes were similarly integrated into

the mixed syntax of the black-­and-­white images in Book 6, ironically sacralizing Nahua rhetoric. Similarly, Lisa Sousa reveals the variety of strategies in Book 10 deployed by the indigenous authors and artists to retain Nahua values while adhering in part to new Christian prescriptions of good and evil in the sections on social deviants. The Nahuatl text articulates traditional ideals of what constituted morality, employing verbal metaphors of speech and flowers. The more hybrid images adopt certain European style traits and figural forms that either condemn or condone certain behaviors, while signaling speech and flower metaphors or adding new information featuring Nahua glyphic elements. The figures of the so-­ called prostitute (ahuiani) and adulteress (tetzauhcioatl), for example, are shown standing precariously on, or holding, water (the atl glyph). The water glyphs operate phonetically as well as symbolically, reinforcing the censorious Nahua attitude toward women whose deviant behavior was considered fluid, irresponsible, and ultimately a threat to the social, economic, and political order. There is no more dramatic disjunction between the Spanish and Nahuatl texts in the Florentine Codex than those found in chapter 27 of Book 10. Ellen T. Baird compares Sahagún’s Spanish lament at the status of mendicant affairs regarding their indigenous charges with the parallel Nahuatl texts that steadily enumerate anatomical parts. Although the two textual narratives reveal a kind of split agenda, the images manage to bridge or comment on both texts. The visualization of severed body parts mirrors Sahagún’s cognizance of the increasing dissolution of the Nahua body politic in the face of colonial threats and natural disasters. Baird parses, in both the written and pictorial elements of the Florentine, the order-disorder dialectic as it played out within a New Spain reeling from the impact of recurrent, deadly plagues. The contributors to this volume share a genuine and deep respect for the authors and artists of the Florentine Codex, who compiled such a monumental encyclopedia of Nahua culture in a time of crisis. Not only are all thirteen chapter the product of collegial exchanges within our community of scholars; in addition, they acknowledge the work and insights that preceded our own. We hope that our present volume will encourage others to appreciate the “treasure” that we now call the Florentine Codex.

Notes I thank Jeanette Peterson for her many contributions to this introduction and for the extensive comments, suggestions, edits, and additions she has made to multiple drafts. She also deserves credit for creating first drafts of the tables. I am fortunate to have worked closely with Jeanette on this project, since we began to plan our conference at UCLA and the Getty in 2014. Her consummate professional manner, enthusiasm, friendship, and good humor are most appreciated. I also thank Eloise Quiñones Keber, Barbara Mundy, and Lisa Sousa for their valuable comments on a draft of the introduction. 1. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 10, 84. There were three major epidemics in New Spain in the sixteenth century, but the first occurred in 1520, before Sahagún’s arrival. 2. Sahagún 1950–1982, prologue to Bk. 11, 99. 3. Sahagún 1950–1982, prologue to Bk. 11, 94, 99. See also Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 4. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fol. 53v. 5. Sahagún 1979, prologue to Bk. 1, 47. 6. A. Anderson 1982, 37. 7. According to Sahagún’s description in the prologue to Book 9. See also Dibble 1982a, 19. 8. On the manuscripts’ titles, also see Bustamante García 1992, 248– 249, 328–334. 9. Dibble 1982a, 22. 10. In his Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, published in 1611, Sebastián de Covarrubias defines historia as “cualquiera narración que se cuente . . . se llama historia, como historia de los animales . . . de las plantas, etc.” (Covarrubias Orozco 1995, 639). On the overarching definition of historia, see also León-­Portilla 2002a, 260–261. 11. Bustamante García 1990, 339. 12. Ríos Castaño 2014, 113–116. 13. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 46. 14. On Tenochtitlan in the early colonial period, see Caso 1956; Kellogg 1995; Connell 2011; Mundy 2015. On the Nahua altepetl after the conquest, see Lockhart 1992. 15. Ruiz Medrano 2010, 15. 16. Motolinía 1969. 17. Chapters 200–248 of López de Gómara’s Historia are from Motolinía’s manuscript Historia de los indios de la Nueva España. 18. Bleichmar 2015. 19. Afanador-­Pujol 2015, 3n11. 20. Ruiz Medrano 2010, 33–35. 21. On Sahagún’s early education in Spain, see Bustamante García 1992, 257; León-­Portilla 2002a, 26–70; Ríos Castaño 2014, 37–62; Peterson, chapter 1 of this volume. 22. A. Anderson 1982, 30–31. 23. Dibble 1982a, 10–11. 24. Dibble 1982a, 12–13; Sahagún 1979. See also the facsimile edition, Sahagún 1993b. 25. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 53–58. 26. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 27. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 28. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55–56. 29. See Poole 2004 on Ovando’s career. 30. A. Anderson 1982, 35. 31. A. Anderson 1982, 36. 32. Magaloni Kerpel 2014.

Introduction • 17

33. A. Anderson 1982, 37n47; quoted from Códice Franciscano. 34. Sahagún 1989b, 141. 35. On the murky issue of whether one or two manuscripts were produced as “final” bilingual copies, see León-­Portilla 2002a, 214–222; Ríos Castaño 2014, 109. Some scholars have suggested that the “first” Enríquez manuscript was in fact the “Manuscrito de 1569”; however, it was only in Nahuatl and is now lost. Others conflate the two, as does Bustamante García (1990, 341–344), who also suggests that Enríquez might have possessed the two drafts, the Códices Matritenses, that are now in the libraries of the Palacio Real and the Real Academia. On the date of Sequera’s 1580 departure to Spain, see Dibble 1982a, 19. 36. A. Anderson 1982, 37n50. 37. Markey 2011, 198–213. 38. On Ludovico Buti’s frescoes and the influence of the Florentine Codex, see Heikamp 1982, 132–136; and Markey 2011, 199–201, 216–217. 39. Rao 2011, 39–43; chapter 2 of this volume. The Florentine Codex was transferred to the Laurentian Library in Florence in 1783, along with 248 other manuscripts from the Medici collection, but it was not described fully until an inventory of 1793. 40. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 56. 41. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 50. Calepino’s popular Latin-­Greek dictionary was first published in 1502 and inspired other polyglot vocabularies. 42. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 51. 43. Carey 2003, 17. 44. Quoted from Anna Sigrídur Arnar (“Encyclopedism,” 1990) in Murphy 2004, 11. 45. Garibay K. 1953–1954, 2:70–71; Robertson 1966, 617–628; Mignolo 1995, 194–201; Hernández de León-­Portilla 2002, 41–59; Ríos Castaño 2014, 118–129. Thomas of Cantimpré, a thirteenth-­century Dominican who wrote De natura rerum (1224–1228), has also been suggested as influential. 46. Isidore of Seville relied heavily on Pliny’s work and others; his compendium of ancient and Arabic learning was printed in ten editions between 1470 and 1520 (Isidore 2006). Other works attributed to Isidore include On the Nature of Things, a book of astronomy and natural history, and Chronica majora, a “universal history.” 47. In his prologues to the books of the Florentine Codex, Sahagún speaks of his work as a treasury or coffer (tesoro; recamara) and “a treasury for the knowledge of many things worthy of being known.” Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 51, and Bk. 11, 87–88. Similarly, Pliny, in his preface 17 of Natural History, speaks of his work as a “treasury” and a “storehouse.” See Carey 2003, 75, 138. 48. Robertson 1966, 623–626; Ríos Castaño 2014, 120–129. 49. On Augustine as a model for the Florentine, see Bustamante García 1992, 355–364. 50. Ríos Castaño 2014, 111–149.

18 • Kevin Terraciano

51. Escalante Gonzalbo 1999. 52. Magaloni Kerpel 2016. 53. Most of the extant (lengthy but incomplete) manuscripts are in the Biblioteca de El Escorial or the Biblioteca Nacional de España. 54. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 8, 69. 55. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 48. 56. For comparative purposes, Diego Durán’s Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas y tierra firme, completed in 1579, deserves mention. The Dominican conducted interviews with elders and consulted pictorial texts, especially in Tetzcoco. Nahua artists added dozens of illustrations to the manuscript, which was not published until the late nineteenth century (1867–1880). 57. See Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol. 58. See Terraciano 2010 on the idea of the three texts. 59. Sahagún 1956, vol. 1, 10–12; León-­Portilla 1958, 18. Cited in Bustamante García 1990, 237–238. 60. Lockhart 1993, 28. Sahagún claims to be the author in the prologue to Book 2, and then his interpolation in the Spanish column of chapter 39, Book 12, bears the heading “author.” In this same prologue he refers to the vital role that Nahuas played, and again in chapter 27 of Book 10 he attests to the abilities and potential of native scholars. He refers to “compiling” the manuscript in the prologue to Book 10. 61. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 62. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fols. 180v–­181, and Bk. 10, fol. 113v; López Austin 1988, 1:42; Dufendach 2017, 220. It is possible that the same Miguel García is listed in both groups, although it is a common name and could represent two different men. 63. Cronin 2003, 38. 64. On the tension between the medieval and modern mindset, see Browne 2000, esp. 9, 72; for a counterargument, León-­Portilla (2002a, 9–11, 258–267) maintains Sahagún’s title as a “pioneer of anthropology.” 65. Grafton 1992, 116–117. Grafton is severe in his condemnation, claiming that Sahagún “freeze-­dried the multiple, protean ingredients of their [the Nahuas’] cultural tradition” (1992, 146). 66. Wouk 2017, 1–3, 8–9. 67. Escalante Gonzalbo 1999. 68. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 3, 59. 69. Bassett 2015. 70. Olivier 2016. 71. Other Mesoamerican traditions that endowed animacy or a living essence to their glyphic signs include the Maya, the Mixtec, and the Cotzumalhuapan cultures. On this see Chinchilla Mazariegos 2011, 59–66. 72. Alonso de Molina (1977, pt. 2, fol. 95v) defines teixiptla as “image of someone, substitute, or delegate” (“imagen de alguno, sustituto, o delegado”). 73. Bleichmar 2015, 686–689.

Part I

T H E A RT O F T R A N S L AT I O N

Figure 1.1. Fernando Gallego, El Cielo de Salamanca. Mural, ca. 1485. Vault frescoes, Escuelas Menores, University of Salamanca. Photograph by Kirk L. Peterson.

Chapter 1

Images in Translation A Codex “Muy Historiado” Jeanette Favrot Peterson

B

efore taking his vows and venturing to the “New World” in 1529, it is likely that a young Bernardino de Sahagún studied in the library of the University of Salamanca beneath a spectacular vault of the night sky. Painted by Fernando Gallego between 1483 and 1486, the extant portion of the original dome is populated with a zodiacal mix of fantastic creatures and accurately plotted constellations (fig. 1.1).1 The celestial signs in what has popularly come to be called the Cielo de Salamanca can be traced to Islamic and classical models that Gallego creatively combined from multiple sources.2 Among his prototypes are the medieval ink drawings of the constellations based on Islamic iconography that were used to teach astronomy at Salamanca, as well as the traditional globes illustrating the Islamic signs of the zodiac, so popular in fifteenth-­century Spain.3 Additional models have been traced to Italian and Northern European graphics, such as the woodcuts from Hygin’s Poeticon astronomicon of 1482 and various editions of the Triumphs of Petrarch.4 No single source, however, can adequately account for all of Gallego’s inventive, even inverted, variations. Gallego’s artistic independence, quite as freewheeling as the airborne constellations that spin across the picture plane, can be productively compared with the creativity displayed by the indigenous painters of the Florentine Codex. What also might have caught Sahagún’s eye as he gazed upward to Gallego’s mural is the Latin inscription that frames the circumference of this star map. The inscription marks the limits, both physical and conceptual, of the

celestial scene. The biblical text quotes Psalm 8: “When I look up at the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars set in their place by thee.”5 The order imposed by the linear-­reading pattern of the quotation, as much as its message, suggests to the viewer that the firmament, even the passage of time itself, is in the hands of a divine sovereign. An audience from Sahagún’s time would have appreciated the differences between the word-­ signs and the picture-­signs, whether or not they were fully legible; at the very least, the lofty location of the mural evoked an appropriately heavenly scene and echoed the learned ambiance of the academic library, considered to be a “temple of knowledge.” To the educated, Latinate spectator, both systems of communication would have been recognizable. Just as in this ceiling mural, in which Gallego deftly reconciles several epistemological systems within the scaffolding of Christian tenets, so the Florentine Codex’s scribes and artists negotiate between several semantic and representational systems. This feat was not unusual for individuals immersed in the social, religious, intellectual, and aesthetic crosscurrents of early modern Spain and New Spain. For both the Spanish painter and the Florentine Codex team, their projects were an exercise in transmission and translation on several levels, adapting and recombining old and contemporary, classical and Renaissance, pagan and Christian, alphabetic text and pictorial imagery. The dialectics of reading and viewing conflated word and image and mixed the profane with the sacred. In this and other ways developed in this chapter, the Gallego 21

fresco acts as an apt metaphor for the formidable task confronted by Sahagún and offers us an entry point into the issues of translatability that Sahagún and his indigenous team of collaborators undertook in producing the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, terminating in the Florentine Codex. The conjecture that Sahagún passed a portion of his student days at the University of Salamanca is based on an offhand remark by Gerónimo de Mendieta and on the close academic ties between the Franciscan monastery in Salamanca, where Sahagún took his vows, and the famed university.6 His broad education in the liberal arts and theology illuminates his objectives and the manner in which he packaged his information in the Historia general. Like Gallego, Sahagún was nurtured in a cosmopolitan university city and a multicultural milieu that profoundly shaped his worldview.7 Moreover, the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries witnessed a flood of new publications. By 1500, Spain had multiple printing presses (Salamanca alone had eleven registered printers) that in two decades produced over 1,307 books.8 Sahagún had access to much of the world in print. In this same time period, the advent of printing accelerated acts of translation, acts that could be heard and seen almost everywhere in Castile. The university encouraged philological studies in languages from Aramaic to Greek; the production of dictionaries and polyglot bibles was being actively pursued; and the visual landscape of Spain continued to be a heterodox combination of artistic traditions, from North African tiles and mudéjar wooden-­inlay ceilings to the Italianate facades that increasingly graced palaces and civic buildings. As Salamanca was situated on one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela, the community participated in the string of art fairs in which imported books, prints, paintings, and decorative arts were sold duty-­free.9 Sahagún could not have been immune to this intoxicating mix of the foreign and the familiar, a potent brew of intercultural expressions that must have rendered the friar more receptive to the alterity of the New World. The diverse modes of translation, indeed the very translatability of the Florentine Codex, underpin this chapter. Both Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators encountered the challenges of translation while trying to bridge their discrete worldviews. As do other of the volume chapters, I attend to the interface of the Florentine texts and pictures and probe questions raised by the almost 2,500 images 22 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

in books that Sahagún called “muy historiados,” or lavishly illustrated.10 I argue that the Florentine is as much a pictorial as a textual compendium. This essay also explores the rationale for including the plethora of images as well as their sources and function, issues that require historiographic hindsight. With the surfeit of scholarship on the textual content of the Florentine Codex, when did the Florentine’s images begin to be analyzed seriously, why have they been sidelined as mere illustrations, and how do they function as carriers of meaning? Are the associated paintings complementary to the text, contradictory, or are they entirely new creations quite independent of their textual matrix?

The Dialectics of Translation Translation always entails movement as texts and images are transposed through time, space, and the pen or brush of the human mediator, promoting, in every case, changes and innovations both overt and subtle. These shifts are foregrounded throughout the production of the Historia general, as the transmission of indigenous knowledge was passed from oral testimony to an alphabetic record; from Nahuatl speakers to bi- or trilingual scribes conversant in Spanish and Latin; from painted pre-­Hispanic scroll or flat cloth (lienzo) to a Westernized book format; from machine-­printed models to hand-­crafted pictures. In transit across language, media, and cultural dimensions, expressive modalities were displaced, reconfigured, and recontextualized, thus acquiring new signification. Given these translational shifts, to what degree can scholars today fully appreciate the sixteenth-­ century meaning and intent of the Florentine’s texts and images? This question touches on the fundamental concern of cultural incommensurability, particularly when separated by some four and a half centuries. Said another way, can a modern-­day historian overcome the challenges of decoding a colonial document and its claims to record memories of a preconquest past?11 Alessandra Russo’s use of the term “untranslatable image” is applicable to this inquiry, not to imply that cultural and linguistic differences are irreconcilable, but rather to emphasize the ongoing and dynamic process of translation: the discovery of the “infinite possibilities at play during the passages from one artistic world to another.”12 There is no presumption here that we can entirely untangle the indigenous and Hispanic worldviews embedded in the Florentine Codex, but we can situate the

Figure 1.2. Omens in Tenochtitlan presaging conquest. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 3r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

manuscript and its makers more securely at the nexus of an intense Nahua and European interchange in New Spain. To one degree or another, all the volume authors probe the intertextual relationships and ask how the images are related to the accompanying language texts, as well as how the imagery may signify differently. Although its bilingual words and pictures are sometimes referred to as three “texts,” one needs to recognize the multivalence of the image, or the “suggestive intricacies” of the pictorial component, as Nicholas Thomas puts it.13 Both texts and images can breed ambiguous readings, and both entail the acts of “reading” and seeing, but images are more evocative in their sensory capacity, and they possess wider interpretative latitude, somewhat analogous to Gallego’s painted

constellations in his Salamanca sky. The celestial signs in Gallego’s mural provoke wonder in their delicate hues and curvilinear posturing; they also incorporate multiple cultural and stylistic traditions in contrast with the enframing ribbon of Latin text that anchors the scene to a single biblical source. Similarly, in the Florentine Codex the images betray layered spatial and temporal dimensions, readily sliding across and combining formal and iconographic conventions. A majority of the narrative or “primary” pictures (ca. 1,860) in the Florentine Codex occupy rectangular, black-­ framed enclosures that set them off spatially from the double columns of alphabetic lettering, a format that mimics the typography of a printed book (fig. 1.2). The formal Images in Translation • 23

isolation of the pictures in the page layout, as well as the mimetic and illusionistic nature of many of the images, speaks to their resonance with European traditions. The indigenous painter-­writers called tlacuiloque (singular tlacuilo) adapted the newly imported writing and artistic canons in inventive ways. Nonetheless, a noteworthy portion of the Florentine Codex imagery also displays a mixed graphic system, incorporating elements of the precontact Mexican pictorial script, whether of syntax, style, or linguistic signs.14 In spite of the radical changes that ensued in modes of visual communication after the conquest, certain Nahua iconic and glyphic elements endured. Indeed, it is the images that betray the most striking intermingling of the indigenous and the European ways of knowing and seeing. With only one slight reference to the opulent illuminations (“muy historiados”), Sahagún is surprisingly mute on his rationale for leaving open the spaces they fill. Whereas in places Sahagún’s Spanish translation abbreviates or eliminates the Nahua text, thus leaving lacunae in the left-­hand vertical column that the images could occupy, the layout alone does not explain the expense and training allocated to having a phalanx of painters on his collaborative team.15 Additionally perplexing, the Franciscan says virtually nothing about the painting skills of his indigenous assistants or their education, sources, and agency—in part, perhaps, because the scribal and painting arts were traditionally conjoined in the profession of tlacuilo; we cannot now know who in the Tlatelolco scriptorium brandished the paintbrush and who wielded the quill. However, Sahagún does explicitly name the seven multilingual grammarians and scribes who assisted with the text.16 This volume takes a significant step toward filling some of these gaps in our knowledge, providing logical source material for the Florentine’s images, both indigenous and imported, and helping to build a more compelling argument for the artists’ broad humanist and artistic education, as well as their relatively independent status.

A Profusion of Images: Historiography and Rationale Despite the expertise devoted to transcribing and translating the Nahuatl and Spanish-­language texts,17 comparatively little attention has been paid to the Florentine Codex images and even less to their critical evaluation. Attending to three broad, interrelated factors, I first address 24 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

this historiographical lapse: why has the study of images lagged behind the veritable mountain of textual exegesis? Were there physical limitations or disciplinary barriers that interfered with a close analysis of the images? As important, when examining the history of Sahaguntine scholarship, at what point was the imagery assumed to be a meaningful “third text,” as mentioned before? Second, why did the Franciscan expend so much time, energy, and coinage, funds that he and his order could ill afford, to ensure that his cherished Historia general would perform as an aesthetic object and not merely as a textual document of a native culture and its language? Were these editorial decisions exclusively Sahagún’s, considering the multiauthored, collaborative nature of the Florentine Codex’s production? To what degree was input from the indigenous artists working in the tlacuilo tradition also a major factor? Third, to begin to answer the more challenging question of the Nahua painters’ role in determining the nature of the imagery, I explore the merits and limitations of tracking the potential artistic sources. In order to gain insight into the creative process as well as the problematic issue of authorial control, one fruitful avenue is to locate the painters’ models, both indigenous and European. While many of the studies in this volume ferret out new connections with an ever-­widening source of pictorial models at the artists’ disposal, scholars are only beginning to grasp the implications of the artists’ selections. In delineating the processes of translation, with concomitant misunderstandings and inversions of meaning, scholars are in a better position to grasp the complexity of the Florentine Codex paintings.

Historiography of Image Scholarship To begin with the historiographical issue, the comparative paucity of scholarship on the Florentine Codex images can be attributed in part to the afterlife of the codex, that is, to its delayed publication record and the inferior quality of reproductions in these publications, as well as to disciplinary biases that relegated visual culture to a secondary, even second-­class, role in academia. Soon after the arrival of the Florentine Codex in Italy (ca. 1587–1588), its first five books were translated into Italian, attesting to the immediate recognition of the manuscript’s significance. For some three centuries thereafter, however, the codex re-

sided essentially hidden in its Medici repository.18 The last two decades in the nineteenth century finally witnessed a concerted scholarly effort to compile and translate Sahaguntine material, including the Madrid Codices (Códices Matritenses) and the Florentine Codex. Two of the most prominent scholars who led this effort, Eduard Seler and Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, placed a value on preserving and studying the images as well as the Nahuatl texts. Eduard Seler, an ardent Americanist, applied his prodigious talents as a comparative linguist, archaeologist, and ethnographer to the task of translating and interpreting many Middle American pictorial manuscripts and, in 1888, was one of the first to publish facets of Sahagún’s illustrated works.19 Seler’s synthetic commentaries have remained fundamental to the study of Mesoamerican indigenous cultures, particularly in religious and calendrical observations, as well as in deity recognition and costume paraphernalia. Seler’s erudition and keen eye prompted him to apply a comparative technique, making astute, sometimes overly determined analogies between the signs of indigenous writing systems and the images found in Sahagún. They provide evidence that Sahagún’s painters remained conversant with traditional Nahua knowledge, even if imperfectly preserved and understood. Seler would encounter his only obstruction to an otherwise prolific publishing record when confronted with the mandate of Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, an historian of equal talent and perseverance. As director of the national museum of Mexico and a representative of the Mexican government, Paso y Troncoso was able to impose an embargo on Seler’s access to Sahaguntine material.20 A second ironic twist in this intertwined history of competing agendas is that the Mexican scholar’s grand plan—to systematically locate, edit, and publish all of Sahagún’s writings—was stymied by Paso y Troncoso’s own obsession with meticulous note-­taking; only a fragment of the many archival documents he copied and annotated was ever published, and many only posthumously.21 Although his zeal and ambitious goals exceeded his funding and the constraints of one lifetime, Paso y Troncoso’s publications (1905–1907, 1926) did eventually bring to light a large portion of the images.22 Like Seler, the Mexican scholar recognized the cultural significance of the illustrations in Sahagún’s writings. Paso y Troncoso’s images created a template for reproductions that persists in most publications on Aztec or colonial Mexico. His efforts established the value of the

Sahaguntine images but also, paradoxically, have impeded our ability to assess accurately the original paintings and their context. Volume 5 of his envisioned fifteen volumes incorporates the loose folios of Sahaguntine plates, including the images from the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex (fig. 1.3). Paso y Troncoso commissioned Alejandro Ruffoni to produce chromolithographs in Italy after drawings made from the original in Florence, from 1893 to 1895, by the Mexican artist Genaro López. As precise as were the manual copies by López, they introduced slight and unintended alterations. Ruffoni’s lithographs were subsequently printed and replicated ad infinitum, undergoing an additional transformation when they were widely circulated as black-­and-­white photographic reproductions in Arthur Anderson and Charles Dibble’s invaluable transcription and translation of the Florentine’s Nahuatl texts.23 Even after the 1979 facsimile of the Florentine Codex appeared, limited in its circulation, the interested public continued to rely primarily on the third-­generation black-­and-­white photographs—of the lithographs—of the ink and wash drawings by a late nineteenth-­century draftsman. Just as Paso y Troncoso gathered the Florentine’s images for publication under separate cover, so Anderson and Dibble grouped the pictures in discrete, central sections within each of the twelve books in their series of the Florentine Codex (fig. 1.4). The clustered images are thus physically prohibited from having any dialogue with the relevant texts, a separation that greatly reduces, and even forecloses, their signifying capability. Like taxonomic specimens, each image is bounded within a black frame, numbered and keyed to a caption below that also provides an approximate location in the narrative of the Florentine Codex, generally a chapter. The reader is not only left to guess where precisely the Nahua painter intended to locate his image but also required to undertake the cumbersome mechanics of flipping back and forth between the corresponding image section and relevant text. The discrepancy between the original hand-­painted images and their reproduced monochromatic copies also introduces formal inaccuracies: scale is standardized, and a heavier, undifferentiated outline of each pictorial element does not adequately convey the fluid grace of the manuscript’s ink lines, to say nothing of omitting altogether the translucent washes and vivid colors of the originals. A portion of what is lost in the images’ signifying capacity can be assessed through one comparative example Images in Translation • 25

Figure 1.3. Rulers of Tenochtitlan and two omens in Book 8. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (1926 [1905]), ed. Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, vol. 5, pl. XLVI. Lithograph. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (91-­B18105 [v.5]).

taken from Book 8, “The Kings.” Both the Paso y Troncoso and its duplicate plate in black and white from Anderson and Dibble condense the images of twelve folios (1r–­6v) to a single plate (compare figs. 1.3 and 1.4). Twenty-­five rulers from Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco are shown on one composite folio, the rulers rendered in profile and seated on their woven-­mat thrones with their name glyphs hovering behind them. These codified depictions remain faithful to the traditional indigenous conventions known to the Nahua tlacuiloque, as Elizabeth Boone argues (see chapter 6 of this volume). The royal figures are consigned to a cellular grid, bracketed off from each other as well as from the explanatory texts. Conversely, in the Florentine Codex, the rulers float unbounded but proximal to the relevant commentaries on their reigns (see fig. 6.4, p. 100). 26 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

Figure 1.4. Rulers of Tenochtitlan and two omens from Book 8. Florentine Codex (1950–1982), ed. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Lithograph. Courtesy of University of Utah Press.

The importance of studying the Florentine Codex images in concert with the written story line and their original color scheme is confirmed in a close examination of the center rectangular panel (no. 10 on the composite plate) of this folio on Aztec kings (see figs. 1.3 and 1.4). A large scene encapsulates three omens that presage the fall of Tenochtitlan during the reign of the ninth Aztec ruler, Motecuhzoma II.24 Only when inserted back into the original text of the Florentine Codex can we fully comprehend the meaning of the omens depicted (see fig. 1.2). By resituating the image within the Nahuatl narrative we can interpret the three foreboding signs, visually read in a counterclockwise movement from the top (fig. 1.5). This circular pattern follows the order of the text that describes the omens as, first (top and center), a strange “singing”

Figure 1.5. Omens presaging conquest: House of Song sings and Cihuacoatl (Serpent Woman) appears. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 3r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

building; second (middle left), the nocturnal appearance of the Serpent Woman (Cihuacoatl); and, third (lower right), a woman lying on her back. The prone figure likely represents the woman who is said to have died of a sickness but was then resuscitated, at which time she confronts Motecuhzoma II with predictions of the end of his reign. Four other indigenous participants (three male and one female) in this complex drama tearfully respond to these apocalyptic omens. Using traditional song scrolls, the artist carefully delineates the relevant Nahuatl description of the strange intonations emanating from the dislodged wooden beam of the song house (cuicacalli) and the wailing of the hybrid Serpent Woman, who prophesizes abandonment and defeat. The sound scrolls are communicated through vivid orange, blue, and blue-­green volutes that curl away from the architectural beam and the Serpent Woman, vocal in-

flections that in their brilliant coloration move beyond ordinary speech. Absent the varied color scheme, the monochromatic Anderson and Dibble plate (see fig. 1.4) cannot convey the rich implications of the original image. I will return to further explicate this image for its stylistic hybridity and the painter’s inventive use of glyphic signs, an indigenous strategy that relied on the images to communicate certain concepts. Given the limitations imposed by Paso y Troncoso’s composite reproductions, and their recycled monochromatic appearance in the Anderson and Dibble editions, it is perhaps not surprising that there was a time lag before the images of the Florentine Codex were themselves the object of sustained research.25 Not until 1959 did Donald Robertson, an art historian, pioneer one of the first studies on colonial manuscript painting with a chapter on the images in Sahagún’s manuscripts.26 Although Images in Translation • 27

still dependent on the Paso y Troncoso lithographs in black and white, he analyzed them for the first time using the tools of formal analysis specific to the discipline of art history. To name only a few of the traits Robertson discusses, they include spatial relationships, scale, quality of line, and figural realism or abstraction; by necessity, his consideration of color in the images is largely missing. Robertson uses these stylistic criteria to construct “patterns of classification” in order to distinguish between preand postconquest schools, making the useful distinction between native painting styles that are conservative and more “conceptual” in nature, and the “perceptual” painting styles in pictorial manuscripts that demonstrate a greater degree of Europeanization and three-­dimensional illusionism.27 Robertson recognized that some of the Florentine’s images, in spite of their acculturation, still performed their indigenous roles as stand-­alone bearers of information. Those images with a visible “dual legacy” of native and imported elements, on the other hand, such as many of the architectural representations in book 11, he found “confusing.”28 At this preliminary stage of image analysis, Robertson grapples with how to characterize the intermingling of two artistic idioms, reluctant to render a positive assessment of the in-­between-­ness of most colonial visual culture. Robertson’s legacy has been profound and multigenerational.29 With the publication of the 1979 facsimile of the Florentine Codex, a companion study of the codex by the Mexican historian José Luis Martínez underscores the “documentary value” of the images.30 Curiously, rather than featuring the vibrant polychrome facsimile images, Martínez incorporates many of the lithographs from Paso y Troncoso’s edition, but in black-­and-­white copies. Martínez points out what he terms the “mestizo,” or mixed art, evident in the enduring presence of pre-­Hispanic glyphic elements alongside Western artistic traits. The author concludes that the presence of these dual features exhibits the artists’ “confusion” when the tlacuiloque negotiate “between two worlds.”31 In his discussion of the image of the venerable Toltec capital of Tula, in Book 8, Martínez attributes the artist’s combination of classical colonnade with an indigenous frieze of concentric circles to a misunderstanding (fig. 1.6). By attributing “confusion” as a motivation to painters who combined and reworked the Florentine Codex images, both Martínez and Robertson (who uses the same term) suggest a certain haphazard, even arbitrary process of constructing the 28 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

images. Alternatively, and more positively, one can interpret the painter’s quotation, indeed an appropriation, of classical ruins as a complex reenvisioning of Tula, the near-­ mythological Toltec center of arts and civilization, as a fount of Aztec culture and their own Greco-­Roman past. By intentionally juxtaposing the classical ruins with the frieze of disks that characterized high-­status Aztec buildings, the Florentine’s painter is not “confused,” but rather conflates two discrete architectural vocabularies and their cultural referents. The tlacuilo here, as elsewhere in the Florentine Codex, selectively draws from traditional and European sources to glorify his artistic reputation as an heir to Toltec excellence (referred to broadly as possessing toltecayotl, or artisanship) and to buttress his status in the colonial present.32 From the decade of the late 1980s forward, the work in integrating, analyzing, and theorizing the meaning and function of the Florentine Codex images accelerated. This scholarship has coincided with two important developments, the recognition in academia of both pre- and postcontact cultures in the Americas as legitimate fields of study, as well as the acknowledgment of the place of visual culture across the humanities. Images or visual sign systems, from popular to fine arts, are no longer peripheral or merely illustrative to text-­based exegesis but play an evidentiary role in their own right in illuminating history and cultural identity. Given this visual turn, two anthologies on the works of Bernardino de Sahagún include chapters that focus squarely on the Florentine Codex images. A section in a 1988 anthology is allocated to illustrations,

Figure 1.6. Tollan or Tula. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 10v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

with two of the essays providing preliminary overviews of the nature and possible models of the imagery, and three dedicated to the iconography of deity representations.33 From these foundational studies, scholars began to explore the hybridity of the imagery in greater depth. Four of the five chapters in a second, 2003 anthology, Sahagún at 500, track the stylistic and iconographic sources of the Florentine’s images to dual legacies, labeling the mixtures as bivisual, the Nahua-­Christian dialogue, and a mediation between “two worlds.”34 Additionally, Ellen T. Baird and Eloise Quiñones Keber have contributed valuable insights comparing the Florentine Codex and Sahagún’s earlier illustrated manuscript, the Primeros memoriales, the latter published in facsimile format in 1993.35 In Mexico and Spain, scholarship on the Florentine Codex has been primarily text-­based and somewhat skeptical of the value of its paintings; exceptions include the work of Guilhem Olivier, Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo, and Diana Magaloni Kerpel, all of whom fully exploit imagery as primary sources of data.36 In addition to the advances in stylistic and iconographic analysis, a very important recent breakthrough has been the scrupulous examination of the Florentine Codex as a material object, not just a cultural artifact. In particular, Magaloni Kerpel led a team of conservators to conduct a chemical analysis of the pigments utilized by the painters and scribes.37 Their fascinating study concludes that both indigenous and European pigments were deployed, and were done so purposefully. In other words, the same conscious selection that is evident in the choice of subject matter is supported by the very materials used to represent them: in one case, pigments made of flowers render the translucent tones of the celestial spheres, and mineral-­based pigments represent the darker and heavier terrestrial realm.38 While science for Magaloni Kerpel’s investigation helps elucidate the symbolic meaning of the images through a chemical probe into the pigments, in Molly Bassett’s study (chapter 9 of this volume), Western notions of scientific classification need to be put aside in order to facilitate a better understanding of the organizing principles within Nahua epistemologies. Recognizing the value and limitations of our own scholarly apparatus allows us to come closer to the original impulses in the making of the Florentine Codex as a multiauthored project, with indigenous scribe-­painters contributing in ways both conscious and self-­reflexive. While this brief trajectory of the Floren-

tine Codex scholarship has revealed the increasing weight being given indigenous authorship, in exploring images with relevant texts, scholars are only beginning to see and hear the Nahua voices as they express their own cultural heritage and identity.

“ Worthy of a King ”

Turning from the evolving scholarship and historical reception of the Florentine Codex’s imagery, I now ask what might have motivated Sahagún to plan for such a profusion of illustrations, as well as whether the decision was the Franciscan’s alone. By the 1560s printed books were the norm in New Spain, and graphic illustrations provided the most prolific and accessible artistic models. These models were available to Sahagún and his indigenous team in the well-­stocked libraries both in the Colegio de Santa Cruz as well as the monastery of Santiago Tlatelolco and other Franciscan libraries.39 Only a few of the illustrated volumes with lavish woodcuts or engravings were not sold off or stolen from the Tlatelolco collection before the late nineteenth century; however, among the 372 books that remain are some with engravings and a substantial number that feature handsome frontispieces and historiated initials.40 The “fill-­in” floral vignettes and grotesque embellishments visible in the Florentine Codex mimic graphic counterparts, as do the primary or narrative images set apart within single or double black frames.41 It is possible that the codex was intended to represent an initial step on its way to ultimate publication. Yet the Florentine Codex is also witness to the continuing value of the richly ornamented illuminated manuscript in an age of print. In its retrograde move from machine print to hand-­crafted script and with such extravagant expenditures of space and talent lavished on its images, was not the aim to produce a work of art as alluring to the eye as to the reader’s mind? Sahagún’s loftiest dream for the Florentine Codex was its imperial destination: to have it travel overseas to the Spanish court. In 1577, the final production year of the codex, Sahagún dedicated Book 6 to fray Rodrigo de Sequera, the Franciscan provincial who fiercely advocated for the completion of the Florentine Codex. In his Latin inscription to Sequera, Sahagún writes: “You have here, observant father, a work worthy of being contemplated by a king.”42 The worthiness of the work lay not just in the accumulation, organization, and annotation of its data, but also in its aesthetic presentation. Just as the native author Images in Translation • 29

Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala enhanced his document of Andean culture with 399 lively pen and ink drawings, as his Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1616) was intended for Philip III, so too Sahagún aspired to royal approbation, envisioning his manuscript as beautifully illustrated and thus “worthy of being contemplated by” the Spanish monarch, Philip II.

The Rhetorical Power of Images To explain the sheer quantity of the Florentine’s images one also needs to consider the crucial role of visual culture in the mendicant effort to instruct and convert the indigenous populations. In the sixteenth century, images overcame language and ideological barriers; they served pedagogical, devotional, and inspirational functions and, as such, were ubiquitous in the early colonial world, emblazoned on banners, walls, prints, and large painted cloths. Sahagún, like Pedro de Gante, Diego Valadés, Gerónimo de Mendieta, and other fellow Franciscans, was keenly aware of the rhetorical power of visual aids as mnemonic devices and persuasive, didactic tools. Valadés, who was working with large indigenous populations in the primary Franciscan monastery in Mexico City, summed up the need for images in one concise statement, “Since the Indians are lacking in letters, it was necessary to teach them by means of some illustrations,” a policy he famously asserted the Franciscans invented and thus patented.43 Sahagún’s goals for the Florentine Codex were not just to amass linguistic data and record ethnographic information about Aztec life and culture, but also to “reap the Harvest of Souls,” an evangelistic mission furthered by images.44 This is not to say that there were not inherent dangers to deploying images among a neophyte population still fragile in its transition from “pagan” to Christian beliefs and practices. During the Reformist movement, a period when images were increasingly suspect as potentially idolatrous, why was Sahagún not more skeptical, or at least cautious, in allowing so many images to inhabit the folios of his manuscript? The tension between the Tridentine edicts’ endorsement of decorous images in Catholic sanctuaries and the potential for idol worship in the Americas is palpable in one of Sahagún’s interpolations in Book 1, “Gods.” In these passages, Sahagún rails against idolatry, emphasizing the materiality of false gods that are only “carvings of stone, carvings of wood, representations [in teixiptla], images.”45 30 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

This tension can be felt in Book 1, where the tlacuilo creates two sequential episodes (fig. 1.7). The upper image shows the cutting down of a tree from which a woodcarver on the right can fashion a male effigy using mallet and chisel; this sculpture is referred to as teixiptla, a deity representation or surrogate, in the companion Nahuatl text. However, the designation of teixiptla shifts to “his god” (iteouh, from teotl) when the wooden figure is attired in some of the emblems that define the deity Yiacatecuhtli (Lord of the Nose, or Lord of the Vanguard) of the pochteca, or long-­distance merchants. In the lower image, the now more animated deity is being ritually honored, and three devotees on the right are shown bringing baskets of food, comparable in the postures to the Three Magi.46 There are opposing interpretations at play here. From one perspective the artist’s insertion of the biblical kings verges on the sacrilegious, subverting the original Christian intent. From another, the artist has cleverly introduced a Christian motif that elevates the veneration of a pre-­Christian god to a more acceptable level. It is interesting that the native painter took care to visually identify the deity as Yiacatecuhtli, most importantly with his characteristic “stout cane staff ” or traveling stave, with black pyrite and white facial striations, and with his precious breechclout.47 The adjacent texts, however, neither mention the deity’s name nor allude to any of these recognizable insignia. The degree of specificity in the image, then, speaks to indigenous, not European, knowledge, anchoring the deity representation within a Nahua pantheon. While both Latin and Nahuatl texts in this passage in Book 1 castigate the “wretched idolater” who is petitioning and worshiping the completed “idol,” the imagery is both more ambiguous and viscerally expressive, opening up alternate interpretations that simultaneously condemn and condone the depicted behavior. It is in this sense that mimetic representations, figurative images in particular, were considered to be deceitful (desengaño). The dangers posed by the blurring of lines between nature and artifice, between the real and the fictive, was sounded by the ancients, including Pliny the Elder.48 In his Natural History, Pliny critiques (although he privileges) naturalism for the way illusionistic tactics can play tricks on the eye.49 Sahagún was well aware of the perils associated with producing image-­idols, such as the human effigy of the Nahua deity in figure 1.7. To counter this perfidy, the Franciscan attaches the generic label of teotl (god or divinity) to homogenize indigenous deities and deploys anthropomor-

Figure 1.7. Top: woodcarver making teixiptla (deity representation); bottom: Yiacatecuhtli (a teotl, or deity) being venerated. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 26r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

phism as a way to strip away claims of the gods’ powers and emphasize their humanity.50

ochre roots (or flames) suggest uprooted (and burning?) plants. The companion Nahuatl text and its Spanish translation provide a crucial context as they tell us that these The Tlacuilo Tradition omens occurred after two or three years of drought, causMy arguments for the plethora of images found in the ing a great famine in central Mexico, perhaps the reason Florentine Codex have thus far revolved around the as- for the female seer’s sickness and death.52 This informasumption that authorial control was vested in Sahagún tion is keyed to our interpretation of the fire represented and that the Florentine Codex was created for a European in the center of figure 1.5. The painter has rendered an viewership. As I have mentioned, the Latin interpolations image of four yellow-­and-­orange flames that curl upward and the Spanish translations can be primarily attributed to and threaten to burn the two leaves positioned horizonthe Franciscan. However, it is clear that the well-­educated tally above them.53 In the Nahuatl language and pictorial collaborator-­grammarians (gramáticos) who worked from lexicon, the implications of dry or burnt fields went beyond both oral testimony and pictorial manuscripts helped to the devastation of a drought, as the “act of burning the shape the Nahuatl narrative. Sahagún himself states that fields” (tlachinoliztli) is linked to the concept of warfare.54 “[t]he Mexicans amended and added many things to the The idea of war or conquest in Aztec pictography was twelve books when they made a clear copy.”51 Among the often represented by paired words, atl tlachinolli (water-­ many voices audible in the codex, were not the indigenous fire) or teoatl tlachinolli (sacred or divine liquid-­fire), refertlacuiloque also relatively free agents, participants in the encing the sacrificial blood and destruction of warfare.55 creative process, rather than mere copyists? Among the several Nahuatl references to atl tlachinolli in That the painters were readily able to appropriate the the Florentine Codex, the metaphor “teuatl, tlachinolli” is pictorial ingredients needed in order to convey their mes- defined as “[t]he Sea, the Conflagration: This saying was sage adequately has already been demonstrated (see figs. said when there befell a great war, or a great pestilence” (uei 1.6 and 1.7). A striking example is also found in Book 8 cocoliztli; emphasis mine).56 Huey cocoliztli surely refers, (see figs. 1.2 and 1.5), discussed in part earlier. To return to in this context, to the deadly epidemic that was decithis complex image, the tlacuilo depicts the three fearsome mating the indigenous population at that moment.57 In omens associated with the rule of Motecuhzoma II, whose other words, the hazardous aftermath of conquest exreign coincided with the demise of the Aztec empire as tended beyond defeat on the battlefield to the devastation foretold by the woman who returned from the dead. Sty- of famine and disease. Ritualized warfare in the cosmolistically, the image displays indigenous pictographic and, logical scheme of the Aztec empire was also associated to a lesser degree, European illusionistic traditions. The with earth and fire goddesses, in which case the presence extraordinary events are splayed across a flat plane and of Cihuacoatl, a martial deity, in this omen is conceptuin a centrifugal syntax that rejects spatial illusionism and ally linked and appropriate.58 While the burning leaves in a linear reading order. Yet traditional motifs, including figure 1.5 do not resemble the stylized glyphs on Aztec the song scrolls and the post-­and-­lintel house, are com- monuments for atl tlachinolli, they retain an independent bined with three-­dimensional traits, such as the figures’ signifying capacity; they also reveal the breadth of the tladynamic poses and the hatching that shadows the folds of cuilo’s knowledge in inserting both metonymic and metaphoric signs of uprooted and burning vegetation and his their clothing. Color, too, provides a hermeneutic assist; the brilliant inventiveness in simultaneously evoking drought and the orange and blue-­green hues of the speech scrolls convert scorched-­earth policies of battle. The tlacuilo locates the mere “speech” into wailing from the Serpent Woman’s three omens within a perilous time period, a preface to mouth and singing from the building’s beam. Similarly, the violence and suffering of the imminent conquest precolor helps interpret several other puzzling glyphic ele- dicted by the omens. ments. Six stylized green and blue leaves tumble hapThe Nahua pictographic tradition and its practitionhazardly in the interstices between the figures; the free-­ ers persisted in every aspect of colonial life, in spite of the floating placement of the leaves as well as their prominent overwhelming impact of European culture, the medium

32 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

of print, and alphabetized writing.59 Indeed, the professionals working in the tlacuilo tradition continued to paint on many types of surfaces, from paper documents to monumental stuccoed walls.60 Without denying that Sahagún appreciated and exploited the didactic power of images, the Franciscan was not the sole impetus for his manuscript’s profuse illustrations. The drive to incorporate images must have also emanated from the native artists’ priorities. Evidence for the creative intervention of the indigenous painters can be found in the meaningful manner in which semantic information is incorporated into images that illumine the Nahuatl text. Lisa Sousa’s reading of this interplay has uncovered the use of indigenous modes, such as speech and flowers, to express concepts of deviance in Book 10.61 Moreover, these uniquely Nahua symbols retain some phonetic value. In this sense, a select number of Florentine Codex images exhibit traits of Nahua pictography, a semasiographic system that was basically iconic (resembling what the pictures denote) and with embedded glyphs, some of which were sound based.62 Kevin Terraciano (in chapter 3 of this volume) has revealed how feathers served a similar role as cultural symbols, but also to designate the elegance and persuasiveness of certain speeches, an addition that only a Nahuatl-­speaking audience would have understood. In tailoring images for a bicultural audience, I suggest, the artists kept a native readership in mind. Max Harris notes that in the very act of laying hand to paper, of transcribing text or selectively hybridizing images, the ultimate product becomes an “inherently dialogical gamble,” a document recording a plurality of voices.63 The highly ritualized acts of writing and painting are foregrounded by Diana Magaloni Kerpel (chapter 10 of this volume), who traces the transmission of knowledge to a divine source, powers she asserts the Florentine’s tlacuiloque continued to exert. At the same time, it is also true that the meaning formerly intrinsic to a traditional imagistic sign system was slowly dissipating in the wake of the increasing dominance of the imported alphabetic writing. Elizabeth Boone has remarked on the evolving “dual graphic code” after the conquest, arguing that colonial texts, the Florentine Codex in particular, “completed the bifurcation; it has split and transformed itself into the dual graphic codes of alphabetic script and figural illustration.”64 While ac-

knowledging that the Florentine Codex is no longer a pristine record of precontact Nahua culture, nor that the pictographic script survived intact, a number of the chapters in this volume counter the notion that the acculturative process was so overwhelming as to erase all traces of the Nahua systems of communication. The highly visible Europeanizations cannot be assumed to be evidence of a capitulation to the Spanish presence. Ellen Baird (chapter 13 of this volume) also notes how expertly the images can mediate between the two alphabetic texts. Baird deconstructs the fragmented body parts in chapter 27 of Book 10 that resonate with both the lexicon found in the Nahuatl passages and concurrently comment on the tragedy unfolding within the eroding body politic (república). This facility underscores the sensitivity of the indigenous tlacuiloque to the explicit and implicit meanings of the texts. Performing acts of self-­representation, Nahua artists created these dynamic images as a way to preserve the past and to position themselves within a new world order. Moreover, as Barbara Mundy reminds us (chapter 8 of this volume), none of these decisions were made in a vacuum; local circumstances, natural, economic, and political, affected both the indigenous and the European elite who inhabited an often hostile, lacustrine environment. Mundy elucidates the striking images in the Florentine Codex that reveal how the Nahua leadership coped with the ecological challenges and retained an orderly cosmos through their manipulation of water-­related rituals.

Double Vision: Translating the Sources In identifying the eclectic sources that inspired the Florentine tlacuiloque and how they reworked them, a range of responses can be detected, from direct visual quotes to partial, fragmented paraphrasing. The Florentine’s images can be particularly quixotic in their appropriation of varied systems of representation. When their artistic models can be found to be thematically appropriate, we can assume the resemblances were intentional: their meaning can be reasonably linked to their form. Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo demonstrates how artists carefully chose and recast European images that were adapted to the subject matter in dynamic ways.65 Although seldom selected at random, images in the Florentine Codex can also appear to be untethered from their sources, as fragments of larger icono-

Images in Translation • 33

graphic programs that when reassembled serve purposes that do not immediately reveal their logic. In Book 6, on rhetoric, and Book 12, on the conquest, there is a seemingly uncomfortable disconnect between some of the earliest Nahua material collected and recorded and the highly Europeanized images that accompany the texts. One plausible explanation points to the chronology of the publication process and its condensed time frame. Books 6 and 12 were two of the last books to be illustrated (almost the entirety of the imagery in these books is only in black and white), and the artists who survived the epidemic of 1576 might have been younger, with greater training in the European canon and less familiarity with the traditional tlacuilo vocabulary. Moreover, because the epidemic, in its severity, felled a large percentage of the indigenous population and disrupted the social and economic life of the colony, painters had less recourse to the pigments they needed. Additionally, the subject matter of Books 6 and 12 had no indigenous precedents, and artists were forced to rely on imported sources. In illustrating the huehuetlatolli (speech of ancients) in Book 6, the tlacuiloque adopted, then refashioned, their images to combine familiar Christian iconography with representations of Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), the supreme Aztec deity. References to familiar biblical compositions, such as the worshipful crowd below the assumptions of either Jesus or Mary, allowed the artist to sacralize his own past while reimagining the colonial present.66 The Florentine Codex forces its modern audience to engage with the coexistence of an indigenous and a European vision, even if the native point of view is notoriously difficult to reconstruct. The critical appraisal of its texts and images requires a “double vision” to appreciate the “combination of connection and separateness” between several perspectives.67 The images bridge at least two representational systems, ultimately forging new pictorial statements that adhere to neither one nor the other.68 Although the push-­pull so evident in the Florentine Codex has been given a variety of names over time—bicultural or bivisual, the product of two cognitive systems; between two worlds; and Indo-­Christian or Christian-­indigenous—scholars may wish to rethink the utility of these binaries. Instead, it may be more useful to stress the coming together of seemingly discordant elements to convey what the original authors and painters perceived as a coherent perspective from their vantage point in the second half of the sixteenth century in Mexico.69 The conceptual and repre34 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

sentational boundaries between systems of knowledge are so interlocked that it is often difficult to tease out where one begins and the other leaves off; rather, epistemologies overlap and collapse into one another. The authors in this volume have taken steps to further deconstruct the three “texts” of this masterful document without, of course, presuming any degree of completeness.

Notes I extend my heartfelt thanks to Kevin Terraciano, coeditor and colleague, whose historical insights and linguistic skills (including many assists to my nascent Nahuatl) immeasurably enhanced this anthology. His even-­keeled perspective and good cheer leavened the lengthy process of bringing the volume to publication. 1. Fernando Gallego (ca. 1440–1507), one of Castile’s best-­known Hispano-­Flemish artists, was likely born in Salamanca. The mural, generally dated to ca. 1485, was described in travel accounts in 1493 and by the German humanist Hieronymous Münzer in 1494–1495. See Martínez Frías 2006, 8–9; B. Anderson 2008, 93, 105. 2. The remnants of Gallego’s fresco (about one third of the original murals) have since been relocated to the Escuelas Menores at the University of Salamanca. 3. On the relationship of the astrological elements in the mural with contemporary science, clocks, and the teaching of astronomy at the university, see Martínez Frías 2006, 12–20, 27–32; B. Anderson 2008, 106–107. 4. On the iconographic sources, see Garcia Avilés 1994, 48–53. See the work of Julius Hyginus (or Higino; 64 BCE–­17 CE) first published by Erhard Ratdolt in 1482 as Poeticon astronomicon, with engravings by the Florentine Maso Finiguerra (1426–1464). 5. “Videbo celos tuos, opera digitorum tuorum lunam et stellas que tu fundasti” (Psalm 8:3). Also translated as, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained.” 6. Among the many lacunae in our knowledge of the young Sahagún is his original name prior to taking his Franciscan vows, possibly Bernardino de Rivera. For biographical data on Sahagún between the years 1500 and 1529, see León-­Portilla 2002a, 26–70; Bustamante García, 1990, 14–24. The Franciscan historian Gerónimo de Mendieta (1945, 4:114) mentions that Sahagún was a student at the university (“siendo estudiante en Salamanca”). Unfortunately, the University of Salamanca does not have any archival records that predate 1530, and San Francisco de Salamanca was almost totally destroyed by the Napoleonic invasions in the first decade of the nineteenth century. See Bustamante García 1990, 16–17, 20. 7. On Sahagún’s early education, see León-­Portilla 2002b, 37–43; Ríos Castaño 2014, 37–62. 8. On the output of printing presses in over twenty-­five Spanish towns, or what Kagan calls the “coming of the book,” see Kagan 1974, 35; Dotseth 2008, 119–121. 9. Medina del Campo, geographically near to Salamanca, was one of the busiest of these duty-­free art fairs. See Dotseth 2008, 119–120. 10. This comment of Sahagún’s is in his 1585 revised Book 12, in A. Anderson 1982, 37. The count of the Florentine Codex images varies, ranging from a total of 2,463 (1,862 primary and 601 ornamental or border figures; see Peterson 1988, 274) to 2,686 total images (with 1,855

primary or narrative images; in Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 47). There are three calendrical graphs that may account for some of the discrepancy. 11. Lezra (2015) explores the contingency of translation, both as a practice and as a self-­aware form of historiography. On the trustworthiness of recollections of the pre-­Hispanic past in a colonial pictorial manuscript, see Leibsohn 2009, 3–4, 93–104. 12. Russo 2014, 7, 32, 223. 13. Thomas 1999, 1. On the fluid, not oppositional, relationship between “text” and “image,” see Elkins 1999, 82–85. 14. Boone 2011b, 197–225. 15. I have suggested that between four and nine artists worked on any one book in the Florentine Codex (Peterson 1988, 274). Magaloni Kerpel (2011b, 52) cites as many as twenty-­two artists total. It may be that among a core of seven experienced linguists and scribes/artists, three or four acted as the masters and oversaw the work of other “hands” in what was clearly a very diverse team in both ability and training. 16. On Sahagún’s four named trilingual scholars (gramáticos) and three scribes, see Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 54–55. See also Terraciano, introduction to this volume. On the debate surrounding the alleged artist of the Florentine Codex identified as Agustin de la Fuente, see Peterson 2003, 231n21. 17. Including Wigberto Jiménez-­Moreno, Miguel León-­Portilla, Alfredo López Austin, Charles Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, and James Lockhart, among others. 18. From 1587 until mentioned briefly by bibliographers in 1783, 1793, and again in 1879. The history of the Historia general is summarized in Rao 2011, 27–45; Terraciano, introduction to this volume, table I.1. For a comprehensive historical treatment, see Dibble 1982a, 9–23; Bustamante García 1990. See also Rao, chapter 2 of this volume. 19. Eduard Georg Seler (1849–1922) was director of the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin (Museum für Völkerkunde) from 1904 to 1922. For Seler’s biography and bibliography, see Nicholson 1973a, 348–368. 20. This “embargo” lasted for the duration of Paso y Troncoso’s European stay, from 1893 to 1916. Nicholson 1973a, 354. 21. On Paso y Troncoso (1842–1916), see Cline 1973, 391–403, 410. 22. Sahagún 1905–1907. 23. Sahagún 1950–1982. 24. There is partial overlap of these three omens with the eight omens (tetzauitl) described in more detail in Book 8 (fols. 11–13) and Book 12 (fols. 1–3). For a reading of this sixth prophecy as both the end of the Mexica era (the fifth sun) and an apocalyptic event in Christian teleology, see Magaloni Kerpel 2016, 221–228. 25. See also Quiñones Keber 1988b, 200–202, 209–210. 26. Robertson 1959, 167–178. 27. Robertson 1959, 3, 23. 28. Robertson 1959, 34; 1974, 161. 29. Ellen Taylor Baird wrote her dissertation under Robertson on Sahagún’s Primeros memoriales (Baird 1993). Elizabeth Hill Boone has extended Robertson’s interest in Mesoamerican pictorial manuscripts and mentored a new generation of scholars. 30. Martínez 1982, section 2, 31–89, is dedicated to the illustrations. 31. Martínez 1982, 55–57, 62, 89. 32. On this image of Tula and its classical models, see Peterson 2003, 246–248. On toltecayotl, or artisanship, see León-­Portilla 1980; Peterson, forthcoming. 33. See essays by Quiñones Keber, Peterson, and Nicholson, in Klor de Alva, Nicholson, and Quiñones Keber 1988. 34. The relevant chapters in Schwaller 2003 include those by Baird, Boone, Escalante Gonzalbo, Magaloni Kerpel, and Peterson.

35. See, among others, Baird 1988, 1993; Quiñones Keber 1988b, 199–210. 36. For example, in the anthology edited by León-­Portilla (2002b), no studies are dedicated to the images. However, see Olivier 2007a; Escalante Gonzalbo 1999, 2003, 2014. 37. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 47–76. 38. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 73–75. 39. The extant Tlatelolco collection of books originally in the Colegio de Santa Cruz, Santiago Tlatelolco, are now housed in the Sutro Library (so named for the bibliophile Adolph Sutro, who purchased the collection in 1889) at San Francisco State University. See Mathes 1985. 40. For a discussion of similarities between the illustrated volumes in the Sutro collection and the Florentine Codex images, see Peterson 2017. 41. On the relationship of the Florentine Codex to the layout of printed books, see Garone Gravier 2011, 156–197. 42. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, preface, facing fol. 1: “Habes hic admodum obseruande pater, opus regio conspectu dignuum.” 43. Valadés 1989, 477. 44. “[H]arían grandissimo fruto en las animas”; in Sahagún 1950– 1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 10, 76. 45. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 57, fol. 26. These texts, in an appendix in Book 1, include the Latin from the Book of Wisdom (rather than the Spanish) and a parallel Nahuatl text in the right column. 46. See also Escalante Gonzalbo 2003, 178, fig. 8. In some instances the motif of the Three Magi is used appropriately to visualize the bringing of gifts to a mother and child (for example, in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 62v). 47. This image of Yiacatecuhtli is, however, missing several key identifying insignia, such as his columnar hairdo tied with quetzal feathers, bells on his legs, a knotted turquoise cape, and a shield with the stepped fret design, the latter replaced by a fan in figure 1.7. For complete descriptions of Yiacatecuhtli, see Sahagún 1993b, fol. 262r; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fols. unpaginated, 17, 39v; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 41–44, 74. 48. Carey 2003, 106–113. 49. Pliny’s Natural History is listed in the 1572 inventory in the Tlatelolco library. Mathes 1985, 30. 50. See Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 51. This statement refers to the 1569 “clean” copy of all twelve books of the Historia general known as the “Manuscrito de 1569,” whose whereabouts is unknown. Between 1565 and 1568, Sahagún claimed that he alone “examined and reexamined” all his writings. In Sahagún 1950– 1982, introductory vol., 14, and the prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 52. There were years during which it did not rain and there was “great suffering,” including maianaliztli (hambre general, or famine). Sahagún 1979, Bk. 8, fols. 2v–­3, 11–13; and 1950–1982, Bk. 8, 17–19. 53. Identical treatment of the tongues of fire are depicted by the same artist in other omens of Book 8 (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 8, fols. 3v, 11v, and 12). Magaloni Kerpel (2016, 227) posits an alternative explanation, interpreting the “tongues of fire” as a celebration of Pentecost, a biblical event that presaged the apocalyptic end. 54. From the root tlachinolli, or burnt thing (Molina 1970, pt. 2, 117v). 55. For an analysis of this paired linguistic and visual metaphor, or difrasismo, see Quiñones Keber 1989. 56. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 244. 57. For a discussion of the sixteenth-­century epidemics in Mexico, variously identified with smallpox, typhus, hemorrhagic fever, and, most recently, salmonella, see Marr and Kiracofe 2000, table 1; Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 58. On the use of atl tlachinolli embedded in the eight Aztec prophecies

Images in Translation • 35

as alternating cycles of solar and earthly forces, see Magaloni Kerpel 2016, 82–82, 113–115. 59. On tlacuiloque, see Lockhart 1992, 326–331; Boone 2000, 24–27. 60. On tlacuiloque as colonial muralists, see Peterson 1993, 46–50. Eloise Quiñones Keber (1988b, 209) posits that Sahagún recognized the major “role images played in communicating and preserving Aztec culture”; see also chapter 5 of this volume. 61. Lisa Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume. 62. Boone 2011a, 384–386. On semasiographic systems as the triadic interlocking of writing, pictures, and notation, see Elkins 1999, 85–87, 90, 120–142, 143–163. Elkins consigns Aztec sign systems to the status of “pseudowriting,” both limited and defective in recording ideas.

36 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

63. Harris 1993, 13–14; Peterson 2003, 224. 64. Boone 2008, 273–274; see also Boone 2011b, 202–206. 65. See Escalante Gonzalbo, chapter 4 of this volume. 66. See fig. 12.7 in this volume, p. 195. 67. Thomas 1999, 5–6. 68. Russo (2014, 244–245, 247) rightly points to the “panoply of referents” in what she labels “mestizo art.” 69. See Leibsohn (2009, 97) on recording the past as an endeavor that is never a “single, crystalline narrative.” I do not suggest that the Florentine’s account of the past is a seamless one, but suturing disparate cultural elements was a way of life for an indigenous individual negotiating a colonial present.

Chapter 2

On the Reception of the Florentine Codex The First Italian Translation Ida Giovanna Rao

From “ Nueva España ” to Florence

This chapter presents the first analysis of a little-­known and unedited sixteenth-­century translation, from Spanish to Italian, of the first volume (Books 1–5) of Bernardino de Sahagún’s Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España.1 The translation dates to the 1580s (ca. 1580–1587) and was likely copied somewhere in or near the city of Rome. From the beginning of the twentieth century it has been preserved at the Hispanic Society of America in New York, as MS B1479.2 Here I offer only a few excerpts from the text, attempting to show the method used by the unknown scribe who wrote this manuscript, MS B1479. Based on my examination, it seems that the translator unquestionably relied on the varietas method, creating a translation that tends to be literal. However, the translator also altered the text when necessary to make it more comprehensible in Italian, or adapted it to the more specific objectives of Sahagún’s work. Thus, we are looking at a “fourth text,” considering that the Florentine Codex consists of three original texts: the Nahuatl and Spanish-­language texts, and the approximately 2,500 illustrations that embellish its folios, with all their unique cultural implications. The overall meaning of the translation, however, only occasionally changes the substance of the one expressed in the original Mediceo Palatino 218, which is specifically religious in nature. Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici (1549–1609) commissioned a translation of the manuscript after he obtained it, when he was in Rome, and before he became grand duke on October 19, 1587, at the age of thirty-­eight.

Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici’s objective in commissioning this first Italian translation was to learn about the manuscript and to circulate its content, translated into Italian. The cardinal clearly endorsed the mission of Sahagún’s innovative scholarship. He commissioned its translation while in office, before his dynastic marriage in 1589 to Maria Christina of Lorraine (1565–1637). In fact, Ferdinando, protector of Spanish affairs from 1583, was known to favor the religious orders.3 He was protector of the Friars Minor Observant from 1580.4 He was also a patron of the Stamperia Orientale Medicea, established in Rome in 1584 under the auspices of Pope Gregory XIII (1502– 1585) to evangelize Muslims and reunite the Eastern Christian churches with the Church of Rome.5 For these reasons, I believe that the Italian text of MS B1479 can be considered part of the cardinal’s sweeping political agenda for global evangelization. Indubitably, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and the spirit of the Counter-­Reformation influenced the cardinal’s objectives, but personal motives and a deep intellectual curiosity also encouraged Ferdinando to learn about the customs and religious rituals of an unknown population from the New World. In this period, the Catholic Church sought to restore and promote a more intense, sincere, and disciplined religious life, made urgent by the spread of the Protestant Reformation. Church leaders sought not only to reform doctrine but also to influence political and military affairs in the global struggle against heresy. Ferdinando became a cardinal in 1563 at the age of thirteen and then went to live in Rome in January of 1569, when the city was steeped in 37

the cultural climate of the Counter-­Reformation. By necessity, the cardinal absorbed the movement’s main tenets and went on to distinguish himself for his strict observance of devotional practices. Ferdinando did not enjoy a brilliant career in the papal court; however, he turned out to be a shrewd and sharp observer of international events and of papal politics, an arena in which he acted with remarkable ability but always in the interests of the Medici dynasty. Clear examples of this acumen include his acquisition in Rome of the imposing Villa Medici in 1567, his sponsorship of an expedition to the Amazon, his early curiosity about agricultural development, his superb collection of statues from antiquity (now in the Uffizi Palace), and his collection of books about history and universal and political geography.6 He did all this while keeping an eye on innovations of the time, which was why he acquired Sahagún’s Historia general (General history) on Mexico and the volume Della descrittione de Paesi Bassi, or Description of the Netherlands (Antwerp: G. Silvio, 1567), by Lodovico Guicciardini (1521–1589), an excellent primary source for the political history of Belgium and Holland that he acquired in 1583.7 The Florentine Codex probably reached Spain through the commissary general of the Franciscan order for Mexico, fray Rodrigo de Sequera (fl. 1575–1585), who left New Spain at the end of January 1580,8 taking the work that had been dedicated to him by Sahagún.9 Sequera reached Rome by the end of 1587 and from there traveled to Florence as part of the retinue of Ferdinando I de’ Medici. The best evidence for this scenario comes from a work titled “Index eorum librorum qui privatim regalibus in aedibus Ferdinandi Medicaei S. R. E. Cardinalis et Magni Ducis Etruriae tertii asservantur,” compiled by the librarian Domenico Mellini (fl. 1565–1606) in 1588.10 I recently found an entry in this work that refers to a codex, which is defined as “De costumi de’ Mexicani libri 5,” and includes the crucial addition “È traduzzione” (it is a translation).11 It is listed among the “Libri volgari scritti in penna” (handwritten books in the vernacular) as no. 1138. At almost the same time, Lia Markey,12 unaware of Mellini’s index, discovered a manuscript at the Hispanic Society of America Library in New York, catalogued as MS B1479, entirely bound in red Moroccan leather with the Medici coat of arms and the cardinal’s insignia on the front plate. It contained the very text referred to in the index of 1588, a vernacular (Italian) translation of the Spanish

38 • Ida Giovanna Rao

text of the first five books of Sahagún’s work. This translation could have been commissioned only by Ferdinando I de’ Medici, who might also have envisaged a translation of the entire Florentine Codex, which was either never completed or is now lost. It is telling that Ferdinando considered the Florentine Codex significant enough to authorize its translation immediately into Italian. The first volume of the work treats religious and cosmological beliefs. Cardinal Ferdinando would have been especially interested in these topics, and no doubt other Church leaders in Rome shared his interest. An earlier translation project resulting in the Codex Vaticanus A (3738), which had been brought to Rome by the mid-­1560s, also describes ancient Mexican sacred beliefs and practices in the Italian language.13 From these two independent archival discoveries in Mellini’s index and the Hispanic Society of America Library, it is reasonable to deduce that the Franciscan Rodrigo de Sequera, or someone in his stead, donated Sahagún’s work to the Medici ruler who, as already mentioned, had close ties to the conventual orders. Nevertheless, we cannot rule out the possibility that Sequera wanted to prevent the codex from being confiscated by the Spanish king, Philip II.14 In 1577, Philip II ordered the confiscation of all writings related to the Indies and Indians, demanding that they be sent to Madrid. Writings describing sacred practices and beliefs, and containing images of the same, ran the risk of being accused of preserving information on “idolatries.” The decree reinforced the dictates of the Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834) and the Index librorum prohibitorum (1559–1966) of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, one of the most important emanations of the Council of Trent. Sequera must have been aware that he was offering the manuscript, instead, to someone who would certainly preserve it and appreciate its highly innovative cultural content. In fact, Ferdinando was so enthusiastic and interested in the manuscript that he immediately ordered the translation of at least the first five books, probably in Rome.15 Listed in the inventory of his library, this Italian translation somehow ended up in the United States by mysterious means. As a precaution, however, he decided to preserve the three-­volume original Florentine Codex elsewhere.16 The latter is listed neither in Mellini’s index nor in the subsequent “Inventario della biblioteca granducale,” dated to around 1610.17 The Historia general was inventoried briefly for the first

time in the “Catalogo ragionato e istorico de’ manoscritti della biblioteca imperiale Medicea Lotaringia Palatina”, by the underlibrarian Gaspero Menabuoni, dated 1763–1765, as no. 711.18 The codex was transferred to the Reale Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana on June 21, 1783, by the sovereign order of Peter Leopold of Lorraine (1765–1790). It was not until 1793, in the Catalogus of Angelo Maria Bandini,19 prefect since 1757 of the Biblioteca Laurenziana, that we find a printed description of the manuscript, de-

fined as “Historia mexicana libri XII lingua hispanica et mexicana exaratis, tribus voluminibus comprehensa, et innumeris figuris, rudi penicillo, in singulis ferme paginis delineatis exornata, quae ad mores, vivendi rationem, religionem, artes, naturae foetus illarum regionum attinet.”20 Although the Florentine Codex was essentially hidden from public view for yet another century, this earliest of translations into Italian testifies to the high value of its contents for the early guardians of its safekeeping.

A Comparison of the Two Texts I present here five excerpts that compare the original Spanish text of the Med. Palat. 218 in the left-­hand column with the Italian translation of MS B1479 in the

right-­hand column.21 Each text is followed by an English translation in the corresponding column.

Excerpt 1 Folio 1r Prologo

Folio 1r Proemio

El medico no puede acertadamente aplicar las medeçinas al enfermo que primero conozca: de que humor, o de que causa proçede la enfermedad, de manera que el buen medico conviene sea docto en el conoçimiento de las medeçinas y en el de las enfermedades para aplicar conveniblemente a cada enfermedad la medeçina contraria.

Il medico non può sicuramente applicar le medicine all’infermo senza conoscer prima da che humore o da che causa procede l’infirmità, di maniera che conviene che sia dotto nel conoscimento delle medicine e del male per applicar convenientemente a ciascuno il suo remedio.

Prologue

Prologue

A physician cannot properly administer medicines to the patient without first knowing of which humor or from which cause the illness derives. Thus the good physician should be expert in the knowledge of medicines and illnesses to administer appropriately the different medicine for each illness.

A physician cannot prescribe with certainty medicine to the patient without first knowing what humor or what cause produces the illness, and so he should be educated in the knowledge of medicines and illnesses to administer appropriately to each its own remedy.

This passage reveals that the translation follows the text word for word, but with the addition of a few changes intended mainly to improve or modify form or style without affecting content or substance. In fact, the translator uses proemio rather than prologo in reference to the prologue, because prologo in Italian was used normally to introduce more theatrical texts, whereas proemio most often precedes a variety of works, such as orations and treatises.22

The translator eliminates buen medico to avoid repetition because the subject is clear. The translator also replaces enfermedades with the more generic Italian term male, again to avoid repetition. Lastly, he reformulates the Spanish phrase “a cada enfermedad la medicina contraria,” which in Italian becomes less colorful but more incisive with “a ciascuno il suo remedio”—to each its own remedy— underscoring the metonymy ciascuno for enfermedad.

The Reception of the Florentine Codex • 39

Excerpt 2 Folio 13r Libro I. De los dioses

Folio 19r Libro primo. Delli dei

Capitulo primero, que habla, del principal dios: que adoravan y a quien sacrificavan los Mexicanos llamado Vitzilubuchtli.

Capitolo primo, che parla del principal Dio che adoravano et al quale sacrificavano i Mexicani chiamato Vitzilubuchtli.

Este dios, llamado Vitzilubuchtli, fue otro hercules: el qual fue robustissimo, de grandes fuerças, y muy belicoso: gran destruydor de pueblos, y matador de gentes: en las guerras, era como fuego bivo, muy temeroso a sus contrarios: y assi la devisa que traya, era una cabeça de dragon, muy espantable: que echava fuego, por la boca.

Questo dio, chiamato Vitzilubuchtli, fue un altro Hercole, robustissimo, di gran forze, e molto bellicoso, gran destruttore de’ popoli et homicida delle genti. Nelle guerre era come fuoco vivo, tremendo à suoi nemici, però l’impresa che portava era una testa di drago di gran spavento, che buttava fuoco per bocca.

Book 1. Of the gods

First Book. About gods

First chapter, which speaks of the principal god that the Mexicans worshipped and to whom they sacrificed, called Huitzilopochtli.

First chapter, which discusses the principal god that the Mexicans worshipped and to whom they made sacrifices, called Huitzilopochtli.

This god, called Huitzilopochtli, was another Hercules, he was very strong, of great strength, and very bellicose. [He was] a great destroyer of villages and killer of peoples. In war he was like a flaming fire, very terrifying to his enemies. And thus the device that he wore was the very frightening head of a dragon, which cast fire from the mouth.

This god, called Huitzilopochtli, was another Hercules, very robust, of great strength and very bellicose, a great destroyer of peoples and a killer of persons. In war he was like a hot fire, terrifying to his enemies, and thus the costume he wore was a frightening dragon’s head, which cast fire from the mouth.

In this passage the text is translated almost literally; only the repetitive el qual fue is eliminated, and matador, or killer, is rendered with the pregnant term homicida, or murderer, referring specifically to a killer of human beings, although human beings are the objects of both verbs. Whereas the

Spanish pueblos (literally “peoples”) most likely refers to villages in the Mexican context, a term adopted in the Americas to refer to communities (especially indigenous pueblos), it has no such connotation in the Italian and comes across simply as popoli, the plural of people.

Excerpt 3 Folio 66r Libro segundo, de las fiestas fixas [sic]

Folio 72r Libro secondo, delle feste mobili

Capi. 19 De las fiestas movibles La primera fiesta movible se celebrava a honrra del sol en el signo que se llama ce ocelutl, en la quarta casa que se llama naolin:

Capitolo decimonono Delle feste mobili La prima festa mobile si celebrava a honor del sole nel segno chiamato Ce Ocelutl, nella quarta casa detta Naolin.

40 • Ida Giovanna Rao

En esta fiesta ofrecían a la ymagen del sol codornjzes y incensavan: y en el medio matavan captivos delante della a honrra del sol. En este mesmo dia se sangravan todos de las orejas, chicos y grandes, a honrra del sol y le ofrecian aquella sangre.

Offerivano in questa solennità coturnici all’immagine del sole e la incensavano ammazzando nel mezzo della festa schiavi dinanzi a essa a honor del sole. In questo medesimo dì ogn’uno, vecchi et giovani, si cavavano sangue dell’orecchie offerendolo al sole.

Second book, of fixed feasts [sic]

Second book, of movable feasts

Chapter 19 Of movable feasts

Nineteenth chapter Of movable feasts

The first movable feast was celebrated in honor of the sun, in the sign called ce ocelutl, in the fourth house which is called Naolin. In this feast they offered quails to the image of the sun and they burned incense. And in the middle [of the ceremony] they killed captives before it [the image] in honor of the sun. On this same day everyone, young and old, bled themselves from the ears in honor of the sun, and they offered it [the image] that blood.

The first movable feast was celebrated in honor of the sun in the sign called ce ocelutl, in the fourth house, called Naolin. In these solemn ceremonies they offered quails to the image of the sun and they burned incense; in the middle of the feast they killed slaves in front of it in honor of the sun. On this same day, all of them, old and young, bled themselves from the ears in honor of the sun, offering it to the sun.

Here, as well, we can observe only two changes to the original, first by placing offerivano (they offered) at the be-

ginning of the sentence and then the postposition of “si cavavano sangue,” or “they bled themselves.”

Excerpt 4 Folios 71v–­72r Libro 2

Folio 81r Libro secondo

Capitulo 21, de las cerimonias, y sacrificios, que hazian en el segundo mes que se llamava Tlacaxipeoaliztli

Il capitolo 21 tratta delle cerimonie et sacrifitii del secondo mese Tlacaxipeoaliztli

En esta fiesta, matavan todos los captivos, hombres y mugeres, y niños: antes que los matasen, hazían muchas cerimonias: son las siguientes.

In questa festa ammazzavano tutti i captivi, huomini e donne et fanciulli, et prima che li sacrificassero facevano le seguenti cerimonie.

La vigilia de la fiesta, despues de medio dia, començavan, muy solemne areyto: y velavan por toda la noche, los que avían de morir, en la casa que llamavan calpulco: aquí los arrancavan los cabellos del medio de la corona de la cabeça: junto al fuego hazían esta cerimonia, esto hazían, a la media noche, quando solían sacar sangre de las orejas, para ofrecer a los dioses: lo qual siempre hazían, a la media noche.

La vigilia della festa, doppo mezzo dì, cominciavano un solenne ballo, vegliando tutta la notte con quelli che dovevano morire nella casa chiamata Calpulco, dove li sbarbavano i capelli di mezzo il capo, facendo ciò vicino al fuoco, alla mezza notte, quando solevano cavar sangue dell’orecchie per offerirlo alli dei.

The Reception of the Florentine Codex • 41

Al alva de la mañana, llevavan los, adonde avían de morir, que era al templo de Vitzilobuchtli: allí los matavan, los ministros del templo, de la manera que arriba queda dicho,23 y a todos los desollavan, y por esto llamavan la fiesta Tlacaxipeoaliztli, que quiere dezir, desollamiento de hombres.

La mattina all’alba li conducevano dove havevano da morire, che era il tempio di Vitzilobuctli. Quivi li ministri del tempio gl’ammazzavano nel modo detto di sopra et li scorticavano, et però la festa si chiamava Tlacaxipeoaliztli, che vuol dire scorticamento d’huomini.

Book 2

Second book

Chapter 21, of the ceremonies and sacrifices that they performed in the second month that was called Tlacaxipeoaliztli

Chapter 21, treats the ceremonies and sacrifices of the second month, Tlacaxipeoaliztli

On this feast day they killed all the captives, men and women and children. Before they would kill them, they performed many ceremonies. They are the following:

On this feast day they killed all the captives, men and women and children, and before they would sacrifice them they made the following ceremonies.

The day before the feast, after midday, they began a very solemn dance. And all night they kept vigil over those who were going to die, in the house that they called calpulco. Here they tore out the hair from the middle of the crown of the head. They performed this ceremony next to the fire; this they did at midnight, when they would draw blood from their ears to offer to the gods, which they always did at midnight. At dawn in the morning they brought them to where they were to die, which was the temple of Huitzilopochtli. There the priests of the temple killed them, as mentioned above, and they skinned all of them. And thus they called the feast Tlacaxipeoaliztli, which means “skinning of men.”

The day before the feast, after midday, they began a solemn dance, staying awake all night with the ones who were to die, in a house called calpulco, where they removed the hair from the middle of the head, doing that nearby the fire, at midnight, when they would draw blood from their ears which they offered to the gods. In the morning at dawn they brought them to the place where they were to die, which was the temple of Huitzilopochtli. There the ministers of the temple killed them as described above, and they skinned them, and thus they called the feast Tlacaxipeoaliztli which means “skinning of men.”

Here, too, the translator intervenes only to delete what he felt was not needed to comprehend the passage, which was clear without the added details of the Spanish text. For example, “las cerimonias y sacrificios que hazían en el segundo mes que se llamava Tlacaxipeoaliztli” (the ceremonies and sacrifices that they performed in the second month that was called Tlacaxipeoaliztli) becomes “cerimonie et sacrifitii del secondo mese Tlacaxipeoaliztli” (ceremonies and sacrifices of the second month, Tlacaxipeoaliztli). The passage “hazían muchas cerimonias: son las siguientes” (they performed many ceremonies, they are the following) is simplified to “facevano le seguenti ceri-

monie” (they performed the following ceremonies), and “junto al fuego; hazían esta cerimonia, esto hazían a la media noche” (they performed this ceremony next to the fire; this they did at midnight) is translated as “facendo ciò vicino al fuoco, alla mezza notte” (doing that nearby the fire, at midnight), thereby eliminating the repetition “lo qual siempre hazían a la media noche.” The Italian translator knew Spanish well enough to recognize the word areyto (translated as ballo), a Taino term borrowed in the Caribbean and used in reference to indigenous dances throughout the Americas in general.

42 • Ida Giovanna Rao

Excerpt 5 Folio 202r Libro 3. Del principio de los dioses

Folio 149r Libro terzo. Dell’origine delli dei

Capitulo primero, del principio que tuvieron los dioses

Capitolo primo, del principio ch’hebbero li Dei

Del principio de los dioses, no ay clara, ni verdadera relacion: ni aun se sabe nada, mas lo que dizen es: que ay un lugar, que se dize Teutioacan, y assí, de tiempo inmemorial: todos los dioses, se juntaron y se hablaron diziendo. Quien ha de governar y regir el mundo? Quien a de ser sol (y esto ya es platicado, en otra parte).24 y al tiempo que nascio, y salió el sol: todos los dioses murieron, y ninguno quedo dellos; como adelante se dira, en el libro septimo, en el capitulo segundo.

Dell’origine degl’idoli non c’è vera relatione, né si sa altro se non quello che per tra(dizion)e degl’antichi si dice qui, cioè ch’in un luogo chiamato Teutioacan si adunarono tutti gli dei et la fine di questo loro concilio fu chi di loro havesse a governare il mondo et, come si racconta in altra parte, quando uscì fuora ‘l sole ad alluminare ‘l mondo, moriron tutti questi dei, come si dice più inanzi nel 7° libro al 2° capitolo.

Book 3. Of the beginning of the gods

Third book. On the origin of the gods

First chapter, of the beginning that the gods had

First chapter, on the beginning that the gods had

As to the beginning of the gods, there is not a clear or true account, nor is anything known beyond what they say: that there is a place called Teutioacan, and that in time immemorial all the gods gathered and spoke, saying, “Who is to govern and rule the world? Who is to be the sun?” (and this is already discussed in another part). And at the time when the sun was born and rose, all the gods died, and none of them remained, as it is told ahead in the seventh book, in the second chapter.

Of the origin of the idols there is no real account, nor is anything known but what is told by ancient tradition, which is: there is a place called Teutioacan all of the gods assembled and the purpose of this council of theirs was to determine who was to govern the world and, as it is told elsewhere. When the sun came out to light the world, all these gods died, as it is told further ahead in the 7th book at the 2nd chapter.

Here we see another example of revision, albeit a modest one: the Spanish phrase “ni aun se sabe nada, mas lo que dizen es que ay un lugar” (nor is anything known beyond what they say: that there is a place) is changed to “né si sa altro se non quello che per tra[dizion]e degl’antichi si dice qui, cioè ch’in un luogo” (nor is anything known but what is told by ancient tradition, which is: there is a place). Immediately after this phrase, however, the translator returns to his usual concise and conservative approach; this method is evident in the shift from direct discourse—in which the gods wonder, “Quien ha de governar y regir el mundo? Quien a de ser sol?” (Who is to govern and rule the world? Who will be the sun?)—to paraphrasing, whereby he simply reports their words but somewhat ar-

bitrarily reduces two questions to one: “chi di loro havesse a governare il mondo” (who was to govern the world?). Although it is tempting to think that the use of idoli (idols) to translate the Spanish dioses (gods) suggests a conscious censoring of the manuscript, denying the application of the term dei to pagan gods, it is most likely that the choice of words was to avoid repetition, as the term dei was used above in the chapter title and elsewhere in the manuscript. Furthermore, the terms dei and idoli were more or less synonymous for Italian-­speaking Catholics in this period. In conclusion, I think it is quite clear that even these few examples, as noted in my opening lines, reveal that the translator, who was fluent in Spanish and Italian, was always very faithful to the text, simply seeking to improve The Reception of the Florentine Codex • 43

its style without altering its content. This was the principal characteristic of a successful Italian translation in this period. And we can also surmise that the translator, commissioned by Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici, was a highly educated writer. The translation is distinguished by the prevalence of hypotaxis (the subordination of one clause to another), over the parataxis (the placing of clauses or phrases one after another, without words to indicate coordination or subordination) of the Spanish text, often accompanied by a synthesis that takes some of the color from the immediacy and genuine tone of Sahagún’s more popular prose, but that gives the slightly more elaborate Italian translation a stylistic level that verges on artistic prose. Could the sixteenth-­century Italian translator and his patron have forseen that their work would be only the first in a lengthy and ongoing process of scholarly efforts to unravel the multiple texts within the Florentine Codex?

Archives Consulted Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF): Guardaroba Medicea 237ter Archivio Storico della Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (ASBL): MS Pluteo 92 sup. 227b Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (BML): Mediceo Palatino 218–220 Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF): MS II. II. 309 Hispanic Society of America (HAS): MS B1479

Notes 1. The Florentine Codex, Mediceo Palatino 218, 219, and 220 in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. Books 1–5 are in Med. Palat. 218: Mexico, 16th cent. (1576–1577), paper, folios IV, 353, III’, 309 × 215 mm. Selected references: Bandini 1791–1793, coll. 454–456; Paso y Troncoso 1896; Sahagún 1950–1982; Sahagún 1979; Sahagún 1989b; Cacho 2001, 2:403–405; Wolf and Connors 2011; Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 2014; Markey 2011; Rao 2011 (also for analytic description, codex history, and bibliography). 2. New York, Hispanic Society of America, MS B1479: central Italy (Rome?), 16th cent. (1580–1588), paper, 230 fols., 309 × 215 mm. According to direct information from the HSA, the codex was purchased by an art patron and enthusiast of Hispanic studies, Archer Milton

44 • Ida Giovanna Rao

Huntington (1870–1955), who founded the HSA in New York in 1904. Huntington bought it in the 1920s from a London bookshop, G. Michelmore & Co. The work was listed as no. 96 in the bookseller’s catalogue, Choice and Rare Old Books, now unavailable on the market and also at the HSA, as I have been told. The manuscript contains the Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España without author and title identifiers: Inc. Proemio. Il medico non può sicuramente applicar le medicine . . . (fol. 1r) Expl. . . . che il diligente predicatore e confessore anderà investigando per eradicarle (fol. 227v) See Cline 1973, 453; Markey 2011, 206–210; Rao 2011, 41–42. 3. See Pieraccini 1986, 2:285. 4. See also Markey 2011, 212. 5. For more recent studies of Medicean typography, see Borbone 2012, 19–42; Farina 2012, 43–72; Fani 2012, 73–84. 6. Hale 1986, 151–152. 7. See Perini 1980, 2:582. It refers to a Descrittione di M. Lodovico Guicciardini patritio fiorentino di tutti i paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania inferiore. Con più carte di geographia del paese & col ritratto naturale di più terre (Antwerp: Guglielmo Silvio, 1567). 8. See Rao 2011, 40n41. 9. Med. Palat. 219, fol. 3v. 10. BNCF, MS II. II. 309 (before Magl. X. 13), fols. 1r–­41v. 11. BNCF, MS II. II. 309, fols. 30r–­33r: 31v. The title is also recorded in “Inventario della biblioteca granducale,” stored in ASF, Guardaroba Medicea 237ter, fols. 1r–­41v, published in Perini 1980, 2:653. 12. See Markey 2011, 206–210. 13. Anders and Jansen 1996, 29. 14. Regarding the adventurous phases of the work’s compilation, sometimes supported and at other times impeded by the religious and political authorities in charge of it, see Dibble 1982a, 9–23; Corsi 1982, 80–86; Spagnesi 1993, 7–24. 15. See also Markey 2011, 208. 16. See note 1. 17. See Perini 1980, 2:588–667. 18. ASBL, Pluteo 92 sup. 227b, fol. 121r. 19. Bandini 1791–1793, coll. 454–6. 20. Bandini 1791–1793, coll. 454. The title Historia mexicana was reproduced in Cacho 2001, 2:403–405. 21. The presence of individual witnesses does not pose any problems regarding the choices to be made about the form of the text, which is essentially unchanged. Therefore, my work has been limited to resolving nearly all of the evident abbreviations without using parentheses; placing ambiguous or uncertain abbreviations or letters in parentheses; adding the drafter’s interventions in brackets; transcribing the j with an i, except where it is used for the semivowel sound; distinguishing between u and v, using the vowel and semivowel sound for the former and the consonant sound for the latter; maintaining the y with the value of the simple i; and using capitals, small letters, and punctuation according to modern criteria. 22. See also Tommaseo and Bellini 1865–1879, 3:1871, 1254, 1267. 23. See Book 2, chapter 2. 24. See also Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 3, 1n2.

Chapter 3

Reading between the Lines of Book 12 Kevin Terraciano

T

he twelfth and final book of the Florentine Codex claims that an unprovoked Spanish massacre of unarmed men and women in the ceremonial plaza of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan started a war that destroyed the city. A Nahua artist sketched an image of the violence at the very beginning of the first chapter (fig. 3.1), even though the event does not occur in the narrative until chapter 20, in the middle of Book 12.1 The Nahuatl text reports that Spaniards ordered Mexica leaders to celebrate the feast day of Toxcatl, and then slaughtered the participants during a ritual dance ceremony, beginning with the drummers. Nahua writers and artists remembered the act as a premeditated mass murder that belied any pretext of a “just war.” In this chapter, I examine how the most extensive indigenous account of the Spanish-­led war on Mexico, and the most extended narrative of any event in the Florentine Codex, reveals very different Spanish and Nahua perspectives of the war, by elaborating on the idea that the manuscript consists of three separate texts: the two alphabetic texts and the images. The three texts—Nahuatl, Spanish, and pictorial—were produced by several men at various stages of the project, begun in the 1550s and completed in the late 1570s. Nahua scholars generated the original Nahuatl text, divided into forty-­one chapters, and fray Bernardino de Sahagún was responsible for its translation into Spanish. The expression in this chapter’s title, “reading between the lines,” refers to the act of looking for or discovering meaning that is hidden or implied rather than

explicitly stated. Here I read between the lines of Book 12 to consider how and why the Nahuatl and Spanish texts differ, and especially how content in the Nahuatl has been altered or omitted in the Spanish. In comparing the parallel columns of prose, reading one against the other, I examine the multivalent nature of this rare manuscript and the colonial context in which it was produced.2 In the second part of the chapter, I show how certain images add meaningful content to the narrative that is not articulated in the Nahuatl or Spanish—that is, how the images function as a third text.3 The images are not simply illustrations; they offer evidence that can complement, amplify, contradict, or transcend the alphabetic text, as Diana Magaloni Kerpel has demonstrated.4 Although the manuscript betrays the influence of European art style and models, Mesoamerican writing conventions abound.5 For example, the tlacuiloque (plural of tlacuilo, writer/painter) employed “speech scrolls” and hand gestures to indicate conversation, sketched footprints to depict movement from one place to another, and drew toponymic glyphs to refer to places. The chapter concludes by considering how the Nahuatl narrative contradicts many Spanish accounts of the so-­ called conquest and how, in retrospect, the authors and artists of Book 12 clearly understood the treacherous nature of the war and its momentous consequences.

45

Figure 3.1. Image of Toxcatl massacre, beneath the title of Book 12. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 1r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Differences between the Spanish and Nahuatl Texts First, it is important to consider the probable order of the manuscript’s composition and the interrelation of its parallel columns of Nahuatl and Spanish texts and images.6 The Nahuatl is primary in that it was produced first, although it appears in the right-­hand column. Many Church-­sponsored texts, such as doctrinas and vocabularios, are organized in this manner, designed primarily for a Spanish-­speaking audience, so that the Spanish appears first as one reads the page from left to right. The Nahuatl seems to be based squarely on oral tradition, as some narratives are prefaced with expressions like “they say that” and “according to what is said.”7 Considering that Book 12 was first written down in 1555, thirty-­four years after the war ended, the men who participated would have remembered much of what they saw and relied on the local oral tradition to fill in what they had not seen. In his prologue to Book 12, Sahagún called it an “account of the very Indians who took part in the conquest.”8 The Nahua authors 46 • Kevin Terraciano

do not refer to having used any previous writings, including pictorial manuscripts, although it is possible that they did so. The Nahuatl text never refers to the corresponding Spanish, whereas the Spanish sometimes alludes to the Nahuatl. For example, at the end of chapter 19, when the narrative describes the amaranth-­dough image of Huitzilopochtli that was made for the feast of Toxcatl, the translation breaks off and concludes, “which are explained in the [Nahuatl] text, as well as other ceremonies that are included throughout this whole chapter.”9 Finally, neither text refers to the images, which were added last by Nahua artists. James Lockhart concluded in We People Here that Sahagún was responsible for the translation but that Nahuas copied the final version. Sahagún said as much in the prologue to Book 2, where he describes how the Franciscan commissary general fray Rodrigo de Sequera “was very pleased with them [the books of the manuscript] and ordered said author [Sahagún] to translate them [from Nahuatl to Spanish].”10 Sahagún mentioned three Nahua scribes in particular who copied the entire manuscript: Diego de Grado and Bonifacio Maximiliano of Tlatelolco, and Mateo Severino of Xochimilco.11 Lockhart did not think that the Nahuas who participated in the project “did much direct translation of the Nahuatl” and concluded: “I have little reason to doubt that the Spanish text faithfully represents Sahagún’s intentions and views, and even for the most part his phrasing.”12 Since there are so many differences between the Spanish and Nahuatl texts, it is important to analyze the choices that Sahagún made when translating—namely, his “intentions and views.” In this first part of the chapter I examine several significant differences between the original Nahuatl and its translation before considering some likely reasons for those differences. Most apparent is the fact that the translation is much shorter in length than the Nahuatl text. There are 1,330 more lines in the Nahuatl column than in the Spanish. The Nahuatl comprises 4,646 lines of text, whereas the Spanish translation has 3,316 lines—approximately 30 percent less.13 All but three of the 160 images in Book 12 are located in the Spanish column, where the translation shares space with or is displaced by images and thus fails to translate all the Nahuatl. The translation presents information that clearly came from Spanish sources, independent of the Nahuatl origi-

nal. In chapter 2, for example, the translation twice mentions Juan de Grijalva’s ship, referring to a previous Spanish expedition to the mainland, but the Nahuatl does not mention Grijalva. In chapter 27, when the Spaniards retreat to Tlaxcala, the translation begins to describe what happened with the phrase, “According to reports of the Spaniards who were there.”14 The Nahuatl text, instead, makes detailed references to the veintenas, or twenty-­day periods of the Mesoamerican solar calendar. The Spanish concludes: “Captain don Hernando Cortés and those who were with him, having escaped from the war, took courage to outfit themselves again and conquer Mexico back.” In contrast, the Nahuatl states that the Mexica hoped that the Spaniards were gone for good and would never return.15 Here the two texts diverge entirely; the translation provides information that comes from Spanish sources.16 Similarly, the translation relates many events from a decidedly Spanish perspective. The very title of the book highlights this difference: whereas the Nahuatl refers to “how war was waged here in the altepetl [local Nahua community or state] of Mexico,” the Spanish refers to “the conquest of New Spain, which is the city of Mexico,” striking a victorious tone.17 In chapter 10, the Spanish relates that “Moteuczoma, considering what he had heard about the Spaniards, as well as the prophesies that had been made in ancient and modern times, that the Spaniards were to rule in this land, left the royal palace and went to his house [where he had lived] before he was king or emperor.” The corresponding Nahuatl passage does not refer to prophecy or to Spanish rule; it merely says, “Then Moteuczoma abandoned his patrimonial home, the great palace, and came back to his personal home.”18 Another example of divergent perspectives appears in the following chapter, when the Nahuatl states that the Tlaxcalan lords “gave them [the Spaniards] their daughters,” presumably in the hope of making marriage alliances; the Spanish reads, “[T]hey gave them their maiden daughters and they [the Spaniards] received them and used them as their women” (my emphasis).19 The difference in word choice suggests that the Spaniards used them (usaron dellas) for labor or sex or both, which is neither stated nor implied in the Nahuatl. The translation omits information that Sahagún apparently did not consider important.20 In chapter 8, when the Nahuatl text enumerates twenty-­five different types of fruits and vegetables that were offered to the Spaniards, the translation refers only to frutas. In chapter 15, which

treats the appearance of the Spaniards and their auxiliaries as they march toward Mexico, the translation does not attempt to keep up with the Nahuatl and concludes: “In all the rest of this chapter, nothing is said except the order of the Spaniards and the Indian friends kept when they entered Mexico.”21 Likewise, in chapter 19, the translation concludes abruptly: “In all this subsequent text, nothing else is said except the way they made the statue of Huitzilopochtli from the dough of various vegetables, how they painted it, how they arranged it, and how afterward they offered many things before it.”22 This one sentence refers to nearly five columns (pages) of Nahuatl text. The reference to “nothing else is said” indicates that it was deemed irrelevant, or at least not worthy of translation. Conversely, the translation is occasionally longer than the corresponding Nahuatl, when it adds detailed information that does not exist in the Nahuatl, as if Sahagún used material that was collected elsewhere. Apparently, he felt a need to add information, although the reason for the need is not always clear. One place where the translation presents information not included in the Nahuatl is the description in chapter 4 of the appurtenances of Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Tlaloc that the Mexica emissaries gave to Cortés. This information is very detailed; the Spanish, for example, refers to “a gold medallion that they call a[n] ecacozcatl” as one of the ornaments associated with Quetzalcoatl’s appurtenances.23 This particular Nahuatl term does not appear even in the Nahuatl text. The Spanish descriptions of the appurtenances of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca are approximately twice as long as the original Nahuatl descriptions. Whereas Sahagún decided not to describe the Nahuas’ first impressions of the Spaniards on their march to Tenochtitlan, discussed earlier, because a Spanish reader would have known how the Spaniards appeared, perhaps he chose to describe the gods’ attire in detail because Spanish readers would not have known this information, and because this type of information fulfilled Sahagún’s expressed intent to document idolatrous practices and paraphernalia so that they could be identified and destroyed.24 In reference to the legend of Quetzalcoatl, Sahagún alludes to material in other parts of the manuscript; the translation mentions the belief that Quetzalcoatl would return from the east, where he departed, “as appears in the history of this god,” likely referring to the appendix to Book 1 and various chapters in Book 3.25 The Spanish text refers to a transformed urban landscape after the war. Many Nahua place-­names are not Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 47

translated; instead spaces are identified by new churches or structures, such as a place that is “close to the church called Santa Lucía,” or “next to the church of Concepción,” or “where the houses of Alvarado are today.”26 When Moteuczoma and Cortés meet for the first time, the Nahuatl says that the meeting took place in Huitzillan, which is translated as “the place they call Huitzillan, near the Hospital of La Concepción.” Later Huitzillan is referred to as near the church of San Pablo.27 Thus the Spanish frequently qualifies or substitutes references to sites with the names of new churches or houses that were built on those sites. Near the end of the book, at the end of chapter 39, when Quauhtemoc went in a boat to surrender to the Spaniards, Sahagún inserted a paragraph in the Spanish column that is not based on the Nahuatl. Calling out this section with the heading “Author,” Sahagún commented that Captain don Hernando Cortés could have destroyed the Mexica many times over, but always showed mercy and gave them as many chances to make peace as possible, so that they would not be completely destroyed. Likewise, the translation before this intervention makes repeated references to Cortés’s efforts to convince Quauhtemoc to surrender, whereas the Nahuatl speaks of how various Mexica rulers gathered to decide how to surrender and how much tribute should be given to the Spaniards. Unlike the Nahua authors, Sahagún sought to protect Cortés from appearing too cruel, despite the violent tenor of the narrative. Sahagún made many interpolations throughout the Florentine Codex, but this one stands out as an obvious attempt to protect Cortés from accusations of brutality. Finally, a fundamental difference between the Spanish and the Nahuatl is that the translation often tones down Nahuatl passages that present the Spaniards as treacherous, evil, or greedy and tends to omit entire sections of the narrative that might have offended a Spanish audience. For example, when the Nahuatl describes the Spaniards as greedy for gold, they are likened to pigs and monkeys. The passage reads: “And when they had given the things to them, they seemed to smile, to rejoice and be very happy. Like monkeys they grabbed the gold. It was as though their hearts were put to rest, brightened, freshened. For gold was what they greatly thirsted for; they were gluttonous for it, starved for it, piggishly wanting it.” In contrast, the translation reduces this part as follows: “and according to the external signs that the Indians saw in the Span48 • Kevin Terraciano

iards, it seemed to them that they were pleased and greatly rejoiced over the gold, for they held it in great esteem.”28 Similarly, Nahuatl and Spanish versions of how Moteuczoma’s treasury was sacked reflect very different points of view. In chapter 18, when the Spaniards go to Moteuczoma’s personal home, the Nahuatl calls them “covetous and greedy,” whereas the translation calls them “joyful.”29 The Nahuatl frequently employs a form of the word poyotl, “treachery” or “something evil,” to modify the verb “kill.”30 The Nahua writers use this term in reference to the unprovoked massacre in Cholula, where the Tlaxcalans have a hand in the treachery but the Spaniards clearly lead the slaughter.31 The translation of this episode is actually longer than the Nahuatl text; it acknowledges the attack on unarmed Cholulans but attributes the violence in part to the insulting treatment of the Spaniards, who were not greeted in peace and thus suspected the Cholulans of “treason.” The Spanish concludes: “The Cholulans bore neither offensive or defensive weapons, but went unarmed, thinking that what was done would not be done, so that they died a bad death.” Nothing in this cited passage appears in the Nahuatl. The Nahua writers employ the word poyotl, or evil, again in reference to a massacre on the feast day of Toxcatl, when Spaniards attacked unarmed men and women in the ceremonial precinct of Tenochtitlan, when the blood of warriors “ran like water,” when the ground became “slippery with blood.”32 This episode receives very little attention in the Spanish column. Dozens of lines of graphic Nahuatl text detailing the ceremony and subsequent violence go untranslated. Instead, there are numerous (large) images in this section that dominate the Spanish column. Chapters 19 and 20, which document preparations for the Toxcatl feast and the subsequent massacre, contain only a few lines of Spanish. The omission is glaring. There are many reasons why the Spanish translation might diverge from the original Nahuatl. Sahagún clearly thought that certain passages in the Nahuatl were irrelevant to Spanish readers. He seemed more interested in recording the original Nahuatl language, eliciting as many different words and expressions as possible, than in translating every word and phrase. In the prologue to Book 1, Sahagún explains that his main intention was to lay the foundation for a dictionary of usage, like Ambrosio Calepino had done for Latin; he sought to provide Nahuatl texts akin to those of Virgil and Cicero.33 He clearly intended to leave space in the Spanish column for images.

Perhaps most important, Sahagún and his team were under pressure to complete the manuscript and probably had to paraphrase and summarize many chapters. Many blank columns on the left-­hand side of the page, toward the end of Book 12, where translations or images were to be added, suggest that Sahagún and his colleagues ran out of time to complete this part of the work. Finally, the epidemic of 1576 interrupted the project. Sahagún comments on the devastating effects of disease in Book 11. Writing in Tlatelolco on November 8, 1576, he complained of the plague that continued to rage since August of that year. He lamented the decline of the indigenous population and even feared its extinction.34 Since the images were added last, when Sahagún was translating the Nahuatl text, it is possible that the artists simply ran out of time. We can see that the artists ran out of colors midway through Book 11; only a few images in Book 12 are painted.35 Despite many possible reasons for a divergent or deficient Spanish translation, a close comparison of the two texts suggests that Sahagún made conscious, careful choices about what to include and what to omit in the translation, considering the tone and the content of the Nahuatl and anticipating who might read the Spanish version. He appears to have been concerned with how a Spanish audience would respond to the original text. In the prologue to Book 12, Sahagún attempts to disarm skeptical or suspicious Spanish readers who might object to a Nahua version of the war by claiming that he decided to record a narrative “in the Mexican language, not so much to derive certain truths from the account of the very Indians who took part in the Conquest, as to record the language of warfare and the weapons which the natives used in it, in order that the terms and proper modes of expression for speaking on this subject in the Mexican language can be derived from it.”36 His principal interest in language seems to have tempered any inclination to intervene or change the original Nahuatl text. However, judging by his prologues, his notes to the reader, and his subsequent revision of Book 12 in 1585, Sahagún seems to have realized the controversial potential of the account that he had compiled and preserved. I will return to the question of Sahagún’s selective translation in this chapter’s conclusion. Now let us examine how the images present a visual, episodic narrative of events, and how they correspond to the alphabetic texts.

Images as a Third Text Most of the images appear to correspond to the Nahuatl text. However, the fact that the Nahuatl of Book 12 was written down first, around 1555, and that the illustrations were drawn about two decades later, most likely by different men, suggests the potential for differences between the alphabetic text and the images.37 At times the tlacuiloque added content and meaning to the narrative that are not articulated or emphasized in the Nahuatl or Spanish. For example, one or more of the artists remembered or imagined the Spaniards wearing large feathers on their heads.38 The Nahuatl text refers once to the fact that they wore feathers; a detailed description of Spaniards on the march to Mexico recalls that “plumes stood up, parting and spreading” on the Spaniards’ heads.39 These lush plumes are not the long, straight, tapering quetzal feathers and other types of feathers that the Nahuas wear; they are ostrich feathers from Europe. The artists might have seen ostrich feathers being worn in Mexico, illustrated in books of the Colegio de Santa Cruz library, or depicted in the crests of Spanish coats of arms. In the medieval and early modern European tradition, as in Mesoamerica, wearing feathers on the head signified elite status and military rank. In Book 12, the artists tended to exaggerate the size of the feathers and seem to have attributed special meaning to them. For example, four frames in chapter 20 depict strangely attired, armed Spaniards who wear prominent feathers (figs. 3.2 and 3.3). I have argued that feathers symbolized power and prestige in Nahua and Mixtec iconographies.40 Nahuas associated precious feathers with rulers and warriors.41 Chapters on the rulers’ dress in Book 8 of the Florentine Codex refer to numerous types of feathers. The most detailed references appear in chapter 12, describing the feathers from the red spoonbill, the quetzal, the blue cotinga, the parrot, the troupial, and the heron that the rulers wore when they went to war. This brief chapter mentions feathers more than sixty times in reference to different articles of clothing and accoutrements associated with the rulers’ warrior outfits. In his Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, the Dominican chronicler Diego Durán reported that feathers distinguished “men of [elite] lineage” (hombres de linaje) from “low [ranking] men” (hombres bajos) in battle. Accomplished warriors of the hereditary nobility wore feathers “from head to foot,” whereas commoners who had distinguished themselves in battle wore animal skins. He concluded that feathers were Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 49

Figure 3.2. Feathered Spaniards attack Mexica drummers. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 33r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

reserved mainly for rulers, nobles, and warriors.42 Durán also observes how sending feathers to an enemy signified a declaration of war. He reports how a Tenochca delegation brought feathers to the ruler of Tepeaca so that he might “feather his head” in preparation for war. Likewise, Tlacaelel brought feathers to Azcapotzalco, announcing an impending attack.43 Barbara Mundy examined the significance of feathers for rulers in Mexico-­Tenochtitlan, who wore exotic colors from distant conquered provinces and who adorned themselves with the feathers and clothing of specific deities.44 50 • Kevin Terraciano

Jill Furst links feathers and precious stones to the Nahua concept of tonalli, the life-­giving solar essence, the vitality attributed to humans at birth. All living things receive their tonalli from the heat and light of tonatiuh, the sun. Nahuas associated feathers with the auspicious destinies, or tonalli, of rulers and nobles. Furst found that feathers, gems, and military outfits “carried or outwardly manifested” a warrior’s tonalli, which was transferred from captive to captor before the act of sacrifice, and Alessandra Russo elaborates on the connection between feathers, tonalli, and Mexica rituals of sacrifice.45 Patrick Hajovsky extends the analysis to consider images and objects and ritual acts endowed with tonalli, from speech and name glyphs to feathers and divine rulership.46 Mexica warriors in Book 12 wear feathers, usually quetzal feathers, on the head or attached to the back, and they bear feathered shields (fig. 3.4). One of the outfits worn by a courageous Mexica warrior, Tzilacatzin, featured a “feather hairpiece or wig, with eagle feathers tied at the back of the neck.”47 When Quauhtemoctzin exacts revenge on the Xochimilca for attacking Tenochtitlan, he wears a conspicuous feather headdress.48 Another brave young warrior wears a quetzaltecolotl (quetzal-­owl) costume that belonged to Quauhtemoc’s father, Ahuitzotl. He “looked very frightening and splendid,” and when the Spaniards saw him “it was as though a mountain had fallen.”49 The feathered warrior penetrated enemy territory in his shimmering outfit, snatched precious feathers and gold from the Spaniards, took prisoners, and eluded capture. The second half of Book 12 is filled with the exploits of Nahua heroes who fought bravely against the enemy. Feathers mark ethnicity in Book 12 in that only Spaniards wear ostrich feathers and only Nahuas wear quetzal feathers. The Spaniards receive quetzal feathers as gifts, but they do not wear them. In chapter 26 the people of Teocalhueyacan offer bundles of precious quetzal feathers as a form of tribute to Cortés, who is seated, holding a lance, wearing plumes of ostrich feathers on his head. In contrast, those who make the offerings are featherless, representing their subordinate status. In fact, it is likely that Cortés did wear feathers when he arrived in Mexico. Bernal Díaz del Castillo remarked that Cortés began to wear a penacho de plumas (headdress of feathers) and other signs of distinction after he was chosen by the governor of Cuba to lead an expedition to the mainland, and that he looked like a “gallant and coura-

Figure 3.3. Feathered Spaniards in the sacred courtyard of Tenochtitlan, the Teoithualco. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 33v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

geous captain.”50 Other sixteenth-­century sources depict Cortés wearing feathers.51 The appearance of Cortés and other Spaniards wearing strange feathers on their caps and helmets would have made a distinct impression on the Mexica, considering that they “interpreted everything about the newcomers as some familiar aspect of their own culture,” as Lockhart observed.52 Unlike Europeans, however, the Nahuas also associated precious feathers with a teotl—a being or force that possessed awesome power, extreme tonalli. Nearly all of the teteo (plural of teotl) in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex, titled “The Gods,” wear prominent feather head-

dresses and possess feather regalia. The Mexica gave Cortés elaborate outfits with feathers because they thought of him as a teotl. Book 12 clearly states that the Mexica greeted Cortés as a teotl and attempted to dress him accordingly. In chapter 4, Moteuczoma sent a leader with the title of teohua (teotl custodian) to greet Cortés and to give him the regalia of four deities, each consisting of many feathers, presenting alternatives for the specific teotl that he would embody.53 The teohua, a specialist learned in the ritual calendar and sacred offerings, brought the teutlatquitl (teotl properties), or dress and accoutrements of Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Tlaloc.54 Two of the four Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 51

Figure 3.4. Top frame: Mexica warrior wearing quetzal feathers. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 36r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

outfits belonged to two different manifestations of Quetzalcoatl. Twice, in chapters 2 and 3, the Nahuatl text associates the Spaniards’ appearance with the return of the legendary teotl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. In the next chapter the messengers attempt to dress up Cortés in the first outfit, and they lay the other three before him (fig. 3.5).55 Cortés appears to wear some of the items in the corresponding image, but he continues to sport a European-­ style cap and ostrich feathers—not the quetzal-­feather headdress associated with Quetzalcoatl, despite the fact that the Nahuatl text states the following: “They put on him the turquoise serpent mask attached to the quetzal-­ feather head fan, to which were fixed, from which hung the green-­stone serpent earplugs.”56 Nahua sacred practices included deity “impersonators” called teixiptla, who would assume the attributes and tonalli of a teotl when they wore the regalia and accoutrements associated with that teotl, embodying and personifying—not simply impersonating—the specific deity. Often the teixiptla was offered ritually to the teotl as a sacrifice. Bassett considers the act of dressing Cortés in the garb of a teotl as a Mexica attempt to prepare him as a teixiptla for sacrifice.57 The Nahuatl text of Book 12 makes repeated, unambiguous references to Cortés as a teotl. Cortés is called “the teotl, the captain” (in teutl in capitan) and “our lord, the teotl” (in totecuio in teutl), and Spaniards in general are “the teteo, the Spaniards” (in teteu in españoles).58 The Nahuatl text refers to individual Spaniards or the Spaniards as a group seventeen times with the word teotl or its plural form.59 The term occurs throughout the book, including the last chapters. The Spanish column translates each reference as “god” or “gods” but only refers to “god” when teotl appears in the original Nahuatl. When Spaniards speak in the dialogue of the Nahuatl narrative, they never refer to themselves as teotl or gods or associate themselves with Quetzalcoatl’s return. As I have argued elsewhere, it is difficult to believe that Nahua men who remembered the war invented or imagined such specific references.60 Some of the “elders” who contributed to Book 12 in 1555, who remembered the war, would have been old enough in 1520–1521 to have fought the Spaniards. Sahagún averred in the prologue to Book 12 that this history “was written at a time when those who took part in the very conquest were alive.”61 Sahagún refers twice in his brief prologue to the fact that the account is informed by witnesses to the war. Thus the claim that indigenous accounts of the war in Tenochtitlan were

Figure 3.5. Mexica emissaries offer gifts to Cortés on his ship. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 8v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

recorded several generations after the events, described by men who did not witness the events, does not apply to Book 12.62 The Nahua authors of the Nahuatl text of Book 12 used the same term, teotl, for deities to whom sacrificial victims were offered during the war: in teouan catca, “their former deities,” suggesting that the authors no longer believed in those gods or that it was no longer acceptable Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 53

to speak of them in the present tense.63 But the text does not refer to any Nahua person, even the highest-­ranking lord, as teotl. The term used in reference to the Spaniards is attested in other contemporary Nahuatl sources, such as the Annals of Tlatelolco and the List of Rulers of Tlatelolco. The latter narrative refers to Cortés and the king of Spain as teotl and Spaniards as teteo thirteen times.64 The Annals of Tlatelolco, which dates to the 1540s, employs the term twice in reference to Cortés as “teutl capitan” (teotl captain).65 The same text also refers to native deities, such as Huitzilopochtli, and images of deities, as teotl. In the Codex Aubin, another mid-­sixteenth-­century Nahuatl source, Moteuczoma refers to Cortés in dialogue as teotl and uses the same word in the passage to refer to Huitzilopochtli.66 In his study of Book 12 and other Nahua accounts of the conquest, Lockhart concluded that “we are still far from an understanding of the semantic range of the Nahuatl word teotl.”67 The seminal works of Arild Hvidtfeldt and Richard Townsend, recent books by Molly Bassett and James Maffie, and Guilhem Olivier’s chapter in this volume, to name only a few studies, bring us closer to comprehending the expansive semantic field of the concept, ranging from a sense of the fearsome and transformative to the venerable and divine.68 Bassett argues convincingly why and how the concepts of teotl and teixiptla (“local embodiment”) might have been applied to Cortés and the Spaniards.69 A recognition of how frequently Nahua writers applied the word teotl to Spaniards in sixteenth-­century texts and a systematic analysis of the concept have altered the terms of a debate as to whether Nahuas thought of Spaniards as “gods” in the initial contact period.70 In many ways Cortés lives up to Nahua expectations of a fearsome and powerful teotl in the narrative of Book 12. In the beginning, in his first encounter with the Mexica, he appears angry and volatile. He is disappointed with the symbolic gifts that the Mexica emissaries offer him. “Is this everything you have by way of greeting?” he asks.71 Then he frightens the Mexica messengers by tying them up and firing the ship’s cannon, forcing them to lose consciousness—to lose their tonalli. He then challenges the messengers to hand-­to-­hand combat. When they seek to avoid confrontation, Cortés insists that they must fight. He orders his men to feed the messengers so that they will be ready for combat. Cortés appears as a capricious and terrifying teotl. But then the fickle teotl changes his 54 • Kevin Terraciano

mind and sets them free, apparently, as there is no report of a fight, and the messengers hurry back to Tenochtitlan. Throughout the Nahuatl narrative, Cortés seems unrelenting in his thirst for power and wealth. In the very end, when Cortés and his forces have destroyed the city, he is not at all satisfied with the spoils of victory. This vicious, fearsome side of Cortés and his men sheds light on a passage in another sixteenth-­century Nahuatl source, the Annals of Quauhtitlan, which says that people regarded the Spaniards as teteo when they saw them because they thought that they were tlatlacatecollo, literally “owl-­people,” employing a term adopted by the friars for the devil, based on a Nahuatl term for a malevolent creature of the night.72 In other words, they called the Spaniards teteo because they thought they were devils. The writer then referred to Quetzalcoatl as an example of a devil, making a clear connection between the Spaniards as teteo and Nahua deities such as Quetzalcoatl. Finally, the writer recounted, “[L]ater they called them Christians.” Book 12 contains another detailed description of feathers, also in reference to a teotl. In chapter 19, the Mexica create an image of Huitzilopochtli made of corn-­ amaranth dough for the Toxcatl feast. After shaping the dough into a teixiptla, or image of the deity in the form of a person, they place feather down and a hummingbird totem on the head, a feather arrangement called anecuiutl, a ball of parrot feathers at the back of his neck, a cloak feathered with eagle down, and a shield feathered with eagle down.73 Huitzilopochtli was associated with the sun, tonatiuh, the source of tonalli.74 Men and women who danced during the feast of Toxcatl wore brightly colored feathers on their arms and legs.75 In Book 12, Spaniards wear ostentatious ostrich feathers on their heads, especially when they begin to take control of Mexico, when they seize Moteuczoma and massacre people in the Teoithualco, “the sacred courtyard” in the ceremonial center of the altepetl, during the Toxcatl festival (see figs. 3.2 and 3.3). It is highly symbolic that the teotl-­strangers dominate the Teoithualco. The Spaniard who claps leg irons on Moteuczoma after the outbreak of total war wears a billowing plume of feathers on his head that appears almost as long as his body.76 As tonalli is associated with the head and hair, giant feathers worn on the head symbolize the heightened expression of one’s tonalli.77 This conspicuous display of feathers is not described in the alphabetic text (fig. 3.6). The Florentine Codex artists employed images to con-

Figure 3.7. First appearance of “Ironman” in the visual narrative, seizing Moteuczoma. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 26v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT. Figure 3.6. Moteuczoma is bound in leg-­irons by a feathered Spaniard. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 36r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

vey some ideas that are not articulated in the alphabetic texts. One tlacuilo created an armored man wearing a helmet and an iron grid mask who is not described in either the Nahuatl or Spanish. He holds a lance and wears conspicuous feathers. Often, the feathers on his head crowd the top of the bounded frame in which he is drawn. I will call him “Ironman.” Ironman appears for the first time in the visual narrative at a key moment: escorting Moteuczoma to his house arrest (fig. 3.7).78 Ironman oversees the stripping of gold from shields and other feathered devices belonging to Moteuczoma’s patrimony, which were taken from the sacred temple part of the palace named Teocalco (“place of the god house”), and then destroys those devices (fig. 3.8). After desecrating the Teocalco, he directs the melting of all the gold, called teocuitlatl in Nahuatl, literally “sacred/god excrement.”79 Ironman appears front and center when the Mexica lords are ordered to celebrate the Toxcatl festival, and then plays a leading role in the massacre (see fig. 3.3, middle frame). 80 At one point Ironman falls in battle and appears to have lost his lance and his feathers, if not his tonalli.81 Furst observes that staggering and falling are signs of tonalli loss.82 As Ironman falls, a Mexica warrior attacks the enemy with a spear or lance, perhaps Ironman’s lance (fig. 3.9). This is one of the few

colored images in the book, and, appropriately, the warrior wears large feathers that are painted a fiery yellow orange. But Ironman soon reappears on a horse, girding himself for war.83 Next, Ironman and a feathered Spaniard throw the corpses of Moteuczoma and Itzquauhtzin, the ruler of Tlatelolco, into the waters of the lake (fig. 3.10).84 Thus, Ironman presides over the seizure and death of Moteuczoma and the Toxcatl massacre. And he appears in subsequent images, lancing and killing people during the Spaniards’ retreat from Tenochtitlan.85 The Nahuatl text alludes earlier in the narrative to the fact that the Spaniards wore iron, how some of them “came wearing iron all over, turned into iron beings, gleaming, so that they aroused great fear and were seen with fear and dread.”86 The Spaniards’ shining armor must have astonished the Nahuas. The depiction of Ironman might refer to a particular Spaniard, or he might represent one artist’s invention of a prototype that personifies the cold, steely side of the invaders. The Nahuatl text introduces a striking phrase soon after Ironman’s first appearance, in reference to the fear and chaos that prevailed among the Mexica when they found out that the Spaniards had looted the palace complex and had seized Moteuczoma: “It was as though a beast were loose, as though it were the deep of night” (ça iuhquin tequani unca, ça iuhquin tlalli mictoc).87 The “beast” in this Nahuatl phrase is tequani, literally “people-­eater,” but more accurately a wild beast or Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 55

Figure 3.8. Ironman oversees the melting of gold from Moteuczoma’s Teocalco. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 28. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

a cruel, malicious person.88 It is the term used in Book 10 to describe the thief who beats and murders people treacherously.89 Ironman personifies that deathly beast. He is the only person whose face is covered by a twisted iron mask. He is a scary, faceless, feathered, armored beast who is implicated in the Toxcatl massacre and the assassination of Mexica rulers. One feathered image in Book 12 stands out as especially symbolic. Chapter 19 relates how Pedro de Alvarado ordered the Mexica to hold the Toxcatl ceremony.90 The Spaniard who gives the order, presumably Alvarado, wears large feathers in his hat and bears a lance in a bellicose stance, his forefinger pointed to those whom he commands (fig. 3.11). His speech scroll is attached to a feather. What does the feathered speech scroll signify? The armed Spaniard appears to order three Mexica men to do some56 • Kevin Terraciano

thing, and they respond by moving in the opposite direction. The subject of the order is revealed in the following frame, when Moteuczoma instructs people to organize the Toxcatl feast, flanked by Ironman and another lance-­ bearing Spaniard (fig. 3.12).91 It seems likely that the artist constructed a homonym or logogram based on a Nahuatl word for feather, ihuitl, and feast, ilhuitl.92 The artist drew a subtle sign that perhaps only Nahua eyes would have detected: that the Spaniards instructed the Mexica to celebrate the Toxcatl festival and then ambushed and massacred them. It was an unprovoked act of aggression, the cause of the war. Perhaps the feathered speech scroll also signifies a declaration of war, recalling the symbolic Mexica gesture of sending feathers to enemies whom they intended to attack, recorded by Durán. In any case, the text and images indicate that Spaniards ordered the

Figure 3.9. Ironman falls, loses his feathers, and is overtaken by a Mexica warrior. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 34. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Mexica to celebrate the feast day, and that the Mexica did not request Alvarado’s permission to stage the ceremony as a pretext for rebellion, as many Spanish writers claimed.

Unmistakable Differences The Nahuatl text and the images in Book 12 diverge in many significant ways from most Spanish accounts of the war. Francisco López de Gómara’s history, for example, published in the same decade that the Nahuatl of Book 12 was first recorded, presents a very different view of the Toxcatl massacre and of many other events.93 One significant difference involves the claim that Mexica rebels killed Moteuczoma. When the Spaniards were besieged in Tenochtitlan after the Toxcatl massacre, Cortés com-

manded Moteuczoma to pacify his people; the Mexica tlatoani and the ruler of Tlatelolco, Itzquauhtzin, addressed a mob from the roof of the palace. The Nahuatl text of Book 12 states that the rulers were protected and not injured when warriors threw stones and arrows at them. The translation repeats this claim, contradicting many Spanish histories that the rebels mortally wounded Moteuczoma. In the very next chapter, Spaniards throw the corpses of Moteuczoma and Itzquauhtzin into the lake (see fig. 3.10). The translation of this episode is terse. If the Nahua authors did not or could not explicitly say that Spaniards killed their leaders, they claimed instead that the rulers were unharmed and then died suddenly in their captors’ custody. Whereas most Spanish writers attributed the war to rebels who committed treason by killing Moteuczoma and thereby rejecting the king of Spain, whose sovereignty the Mexica ruler had accepted, the Nahua authors insist that the Toxcatl massacre was the cause of the war and imply that Spaniards assassinated their leaders soon after the fighting began. Diana Magaloni Kerpel noted a shift in the chapters dedicated to the war, in which the images are transformed from “clean line drawings” to “shadowy representations.”94 Toward the end of the manuscript, at least one different artist took over to depict the final battle scenes. The perspective is often aerial and distant; most of the characters are small and nondescript. The last five chapters (fols. 70–87) contain no images. Almost all the images appear in the Spanish-­language column. Lockhart’s observation that the images “make up for the difference in length between the Spanish and Nahuatl versions” is especially true for the second half of the book.95 Several pages in chapter 20, on the Toxcatl massacre, feature illustrations that are so large that they seem designed to plug gaping holes in the translation, filling up the entire Spanish column (see fig. 3.3, for example, one of many pages in Book 12 with no Spanish translation). Most of the images in Book 12 are in the second half of the work, after the pivotal encounter between Cortés and Moteuczoma in chapter 16. Of the 160 images in chapters 1–36, 116 appear in chapters 16–36. Images seem to substitute for translation when the narrative turns violent in chapter 16, when the Spaniards seize Moteuczoma. The last five chapters (37–41) contain many blank spaces in the Spanish column, including entire pages left blank on the left-­hand side, indicating that more images were to be added. Sahagún and his team might have run out of time, Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 57

under pressure to complete the manuscript. King Philip II issued a decree in 1577 prohibiting further writings on native history and religion and demanding that all manuscripts on the subject be sent immediately to Madrid.96 However, I contend that the content of the narrative is another reason why the Spanish column contains so many blank spaces, lacking translation or image. In the end the Nahuatl prose paints a bleak picture. The desperate Mexica leaders surrender, dressed in ragged, dirty clothes. The Christians brand slaves on the face, carry women off, and sack the city as they search everywhere for gold. The smell of death and destruction fills the air. The last chapter documents Cortés’s insatiable thirst for gold, the Nahua leaders’ exasperated reply, and a veiled Mexica plea for the Spaniards to leave Mexico now that they have conquered the city. When Cortés demands more gold, the Mexica lords suggest that the Spaniards 58 • Kevin Terraciano

Figure 3.10. Ironman and another feathered Spaniard dump Mexica leaders into the lake. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 40v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

already took everything. After some confusion, the cihuacoatl Tlacotzin responds in paradoxical terms, suggesting that maybe a commoner took it, or maybe a woman hid it under her skirt, and makes half-­hearted promises that it will be found someday.97 Finally, a leader named Ahuelitoctzin closes the chapter by describing how subject towns used to pay tribute to the Mexica. The last Nahuatl passage of Book 12 reads as follows: May the lord our lord, the Captain, pay heed. When Moteuczoma was still alive, when there was a conquest

Figure 3.12. Ironman guards Moteuczoma, who commands people to comply with the Spaniards’ order to celebrate the Toxcatl festival, before the massacre. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 30r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 3.11. Spaniard orders Mexica to celebrate the Toxcatl festival, with a feathered speech scroll. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 29v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

somewhere, the Mexica, the Tlatelolca, the Tepaneca, and the Acolhuaque all went together. All of us . . . moved together when we went to conquer, but when the [conquered] altepetl fell, then everyone came back, each one heading for his own altepetl. And afterward came the people of that altepetl, the ones conquered, bringing their tribute; they brought green-­stone, gold, precious feathers, and other precious stones, turquoise, cotinga and spoonbill feathers, and they came and gave it to Moteuczoma. It arrived all together, all the tribute and gold arrived together in Tenochtitlan.98

Ahuelitoctzin seeks to explain how Mexica customs of war and tribute allowed each state time to deliver tribute and to maintain relative autonomy after surrender. His

speech implies that the Spaniards violate these customs by demanding large quantities of gold on the spot, and by occupying the conquered city and using it as their new base of operations instead of returning to their own land. The Spanish translation of this passage conveys the thrust of Ahuelitoctzin’s statement, but only the most astute Spanish reader would have comprehended its implications. Conversely, any Nahua who could remember the way things were before the war would have understood Ahuelitoctzin’s statement. There was no mistaking the new for the old in this matter. Although the Mexica must have expected to pay tribute to the Spaniards after their defeat, according to their own custom, they could not have anticipated the new terms of payment, or that the Spaniards would occupy their altepetl and make it their capital. Ahuelitoctzin’s speech suggests that Cortés and his men should leave, and that the Mexica will deliver the tribute to them, as was done in times past. But of course the Spaniards did not leave Mexico, and Book 12 ends abruptly and awkwardly, as if there were little more to say. By the time this account was written down in the mid-­sixteenth cenReading between the Lines of Book 12 • 59

tury, the consequences of the war were all too clear. Many things were not like they had been “when Moteuczoma was still alive.” Although the Spanish translation does not always follow or faithfully reproduce the Nahuatl text of Book 12, especially in the second part of the book, it cannot conceal the violence of the war. Most of the narrative of the Toxcatl massacre is not translated, but its vicious nature is apparent to the Spanish reader nonetheless. Unlike many Spanish histories that interpret the massacre as a preemptive strike to thwart a surreptitious rebellion, the translation of Book 12 simply repeats the Nahuatl assertion that the Spaniards “killed the leaders and warriors treacherously.”99 Sahagún himself acknowledges this fact. In the prologue to Book 9, the first book of the third and final volume of the manuscript, he wrote: “In Book 12 the wars when this land was conquered are dealt with as a thing horrible and contrary to human nature.”100 And in the prologue to Book 1, he compared the war to “the curse that Jeremiah, in the name of God, thundered upon Judea and Jerusalem.”101 If Sahagún did little to alter the Nahuatl text of Book 12, however, he attempted to create another, entirely different version in 1585. He claimed that this later account was designed to correct “certain errors that were made” in the first version.102 He cast the war in a Christian light and praised Cortés as an instrument of God’s will. This version ends not with Cortés demanding gold, but with the good news of the coming of Jesus Christ. Whereas the Nahuatl text of Book 12 makes no mention of priests, saints, the Christian God, or Christianity in general, Sahagun’s 1585 version abounds with Christian references. Apparently, Sahagún came to realize the problematic nature of the account that he had compiled, or he succumbed to pressure from peers and superiors who might have had access to versions of the manuscript. Sarah Cline concludes that Sahagún’s second version responded to criticisms and debates within his own Franciscan order.103 The predictable nature of the 1585 version, written to defend Cortés and Christians from accusations of vice and violence, reinforces the unique value of Book 12. A select group of Nahua men used two graphic systems to record collective memories of the encounter and the war that did not seek favor from the king with claims of service and obedience, as did many other Spanish, mestizo, and indigenous accounts that were crafted to gain some advantage or relief in the colonial system.104 Reading between 60 • Kevin Terraciano

the lines of Book 12 reveals how Nahua writers and artists succeeded in telling their side of the story in their own words and images.

Notes 1. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 1. 2. Miguel León-­Portilla and Ángel María Garibay were the first to recognize the value of the original text, in Visión de los vencidos (León-­ Portilla 1959). This famous work has been reprinted dozens of times in multiple languages. The first English edition, titled Broken Spears, was published in 1962. 3. On the idea of the three texts, see Terraciano 2010. On the relation between image and text see Mitchell 1986, 1994. See Boone and Cummins 2012 for a discussion of “text” as a multivalent term applied to Mesoamerican and Andean alphabetic writings, visual images, and objects (esp. 158–159, 449–459). See Peterson 2017 for the application of the term to sixteenth-­century Mexican murals. 4. For the most comprehensive study of the images in Book 12, see Magaloni Kerpel 2016. 5. See Magaloni Kerpel 2016, 32; and Peterson 1988, 279–280. 6. Arthur Anderson, Charles Dibble, and James Lockhart have made this study possible by transcribing and translating the Nahuatl text of Book 12 into English. Anderson and Dibble published their translation in 1975, as one of thirteen volumes (Sahagún 1950–1982), and again in 1978. In 1993, Lockhart published transcriptions and translations of both the Nahuatl and the Spanish texts in a volume on Nahuatl accounts of the conquest (Lockhart 1993). Lockhart’s translation of both the Spanish and the Nahuatl texts brought my attention to the many differences between the two. When citing passages from Book 12 in this chapter, I refer to Lockhart’s translation of the alphabetic texts, but I cite a facsimile of the original manuscript (Sahagún 1979) when referring to images and details related to the original manuscript. 7. Lockhart 1993, 82, 128. 8. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 12, 101. 9. Lockhart 1993, 133. 10. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:56. 11. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:55. 12. Lockhart 1993, 37. 13. I counted any new line in the Spanish and Nahuatl columns as a line, even if it contains only one word (or a partial word). I think that the Spanish is comparable to the Nahuatl text in terms of the length required to translate the original. When the translation follows the Nahuatl closely, the length of the two columns is more or less equivalent. 14. Lockhart 1993, 175. 15. Lockhart 1993, 175–176. 16. This is not the only place in the Florentine where the two texts differ entirely in content. Another prominent example of interpolation can be found in Book 11, chapter 13, where the first two sections on maize are replaced with a Spanish discourse on how the animals and foods of New Spain are different from those in Spain and a consideration of whether the Gospel had ever been preached in these regions. These columns neglect to translate two lengthy passages of Nahuatl text. See Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:96–99. 17. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 50–51. 18. Lockhart 1993, 90–91. 19. Lockhart 1993, 92–93. 20. Again, this is true for other books of the Florentine as well. In

Book 9, for example, large sections of the Spanish translation are omitted and were considered unnecessary, as many of the crafts described could still be observed in New Spain, according to Sahagún. 21. Lockhart 1993, 109. 22. Lockhart 1993, 127. 23. Lockhart 1993, 69. 24. At the same time, the detailed description of Huitzilopochtli’s amaranth image in chapter 19 is left untranslated. 25. Lockhart 1993, 59; Sahagún 1950–1982, 2:69, and chapters 3, 4, and 12–14 of Book 3. 26. Lockhart 1993, 213, 187. 27. Lockhart 1993, 191. 28. Lockhart 1993, 96–99. 29. Lockhart 1993, 122–123. 30. Karttunen 1992, 204. Often written as popoyotl. 31. Lockhart 1993, 94. The term appears in the verb tlaixpopoiomictilti, “they were treacherously killed,” employing a reduplicative form of the verb poyo or poio. 32. Lockhart 1993, 134. On p. 140, in the verb quinpoiomictique, “they killed them treacherously.” 33. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:50. 34. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:94–95, 98–99. 35. See Magaloni Kerpel 2014 for a discussion of the elaborate process and skilled labor required to produce paints that were used in the manuscript, and how the epidemic that began in 1576 must have disrupted that labor-­intensive process. 36. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 12, 101. 37. Magaloni Kerpel concluded that the images in Book 12 “have a visual structure that works independently from the text” (2004, 22). 38. For examples of Spaniards wearing large feathers, see Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fols. 23v, 26v, 28, 30, 33, 33v, 36, 39, 40v, 47v. 39. Lockhart 1993, 110. 40. Terraciano 2001, 36, 312; 2011, 60. 41. On the significance of feathers for the Aztecs, see Hajovsky 2015, 81–82. 42. Durán 1967, 1: chap. 11, para. 22, 116. Cited in Russo 2002, 231. 43. Durán 1994, 152, 76. 44. Mundy 2015, 53–56. 45. Furst 1995, 72–73, 137; Russo 2002, 230, 233. See the many excellent chapters on Mexican feathers in Russo, Wolf, and Fane 2015, especially Magaloni Kerpel’s essay in that volume (pp. 364–377) on the divine essence of feathers. See also Caplan 2014 for an examination of philological and aesthetic associations between tonalli and feathers and gold, as shimmering and luminous media. 46. Hajovsky 2015. 47. Lockhart 1993, 200; Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 60v. 48. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 63. 49. Lockhart 1993, 238, 240. 50. Díaz del Castillo 1955, Bk. 2, chap. 20, p. 33. 51. Durán 1579, fols. 202, 207, 208v, 216v, 219v. Cortés appears to be the only Spaniard who wears feathers in these illustrations. 52. Lockhart 1993, 5. 53. Lockhart 1993, 62. See Bassett 2015, 30–39, on the symbolic importance of the gifts given to Cortés, including feathers; see also Russo 2002, 231–234, on the significance of feathers as gifts in the context of the encounter. 54. Lockhart 1993, 68, 72. In the Annals of Tlatelolco, toward the end of the war, leaders seek advice from the teohua of Huitzilopochtli, described as a keeper of the ritual calendar and “learned with papers, cutter of papers” (Lockhart 1993, 269). The reference to cutting papers

likely refers to cutting paper images of natural deities, or tlatecmeh, a practice continued in the Huasteca today. See Sandstrom 1991, 260–279; Bassett 2015, 23–24; Bassett, chapter 9 of this volume. 55. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 8v. 56. Lockhart 1993, 72. 57. Bassett 2015, 43. 58. Lockhart 1993, 252, 244. 59. Lockhart 1993, 60, 68, 70, 78, 82, 86, 158, 166, 244, 252. 60. Terraciano 2010, 2014. 61. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 12, 101. 62. Some historians consider indigenous accounts of the war, written decades after the event, to be influenced by legend formation or myths, especially regarding how the Mexica initially viewed the Spaniards. Many scholars have not understood the timing of the writing of Book 12, however. Matthew Restall (2003, 96), for example, claims that Book 12 was “written down several generations after the events described.” 63. Lockhart 1993, 214. 64. Terraciano 2014. 65. Lockhart 1993, 264, 268. 66. Lockhart 1993, 274–275. 67. Lockhart 1993, 20. 68. Hvidtfeldt 1958; R. Townsend 1979; Maffie 2014; Bassett 2015. 69. Bassett 2015, 27–88. 70. C. Townsend (2003, 659–687) and Restall (2003, 108–120), for example, reject the idea that the Nahuas thought of the Spaniards initially as “gods.” 71. Lockhart 1993, 72. 72. Lockhart 1993, 281. 73. Lockhart 1993, 128; Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 31. 74. According to Durán, Huitzilopochtli was “el numen solar.” Durán 1967, 2:580. 75. Durán 1967, 1: sec. 2, chap. 8, para. 9, 257. 76. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 36. 77. Furst 1995, 110, 126–128. 78. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 26v. 79. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 28. 80. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fols. 30, 33v. 81. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 34. 82. Furst 1995, 112. 83. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 38. 84. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 40v. 85. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 45v. 86. Lockhart 1993, 96. 87. Lockhart 1993, 124–126. 88. Molina 1977, fol. 104v (2nd num.). “Tequani. bestia fiera, o ponçoñosa, o persona brana y cruel.” 89. Sahagún 1950–1982, 11:​38–39. 90. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 29v. Actually, the Spanish text says Alvarado ordered the Mexica to perform the ceremony, whereas the Nahuatl text does not specify which Spaniard gave the order. 91. Sahagún 1979, 3: Bk. 12, fol. 30. 92. Molina’s Vocabulario defines “pluma de ave” as yhuitl (Molina 1977, 96v, 1st num.) and “fiesta de guardar” as ylhuitl (fol. 62v, 1st num.). A single consonant (l) distinguishes the two words. On the Nahuatl side (2nd num.) ilhuitl is defined as “fiesta de guardar o qualquier dia dela semana” (fol. 37v) and iuitl is “pluma menuda” (fol. 44). The term for “feast” was also the general term for “day,” as it is today in Huastecan Nahuatl. I thank Bas van Doesburg for suggesting this association between the two words. 93. López de Gómara 1997.

Reading between the Lines of Book 12 • 61

94. Magaloni Kerpel 2004, 243. 95. Lockhart 1993, 11. 96. Brading 1991, 120–121. 97. Lockhart 1993, 254. 98. Lockhart 1993, 254–255. 99. Lockhart 1993, 141. 100. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:71–72. 101. Sahagún 1950–1982, 1:47.

62 • Kevin Terraciano

102. Sahagún 1989a, 25. In her introduction to the translation of this work Sarah Cline observed that the 1585 version advanced Spanish (and Tlaxcalan) perspectives that were not included in the original Book 12. 103. S. L. Cline in Sahagún 1989a, introduction. 104. See Wood 2003; Sousa and Terraciano 2002; and Matthew and Oudijk 2007 for examples of indigenous accounts that emphasize victory and alliance over defeat.

Chapter 4

The Art of War, the Working Class, and Snowfall Reflections on the Assimilation of Western Aesthetics Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

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uropean books and prints were in circulation and used as models throughout the sixteenth century in New Spain.1 For the writers and artists who produced the Florentine Codex, the use of European printed sources was methodical, comprehensive, and exhaustive. The scholars working with Bernardino de Sahagún were highly educated; they had access to many books in the monastic libraries and also conducted library research in order to structure and enrich the contents of what became the Florentine Codex.2 This practice was not the result of mere academic interest, but rather it was an essential part of the education and intercultural dialogue initiated by the friars in the Colegio de Tlatelolco, in the art and crafts schools, and, in general, in the monastic milieu, where Europeans and Indians mutually familiarized each other with their respective cultures. Previously, I have pointed out the presence of several textual passages, in Spanish and Nahuatl, and among the images in the Florentine Codex, that were inspired by specific printed sources. Sometimes entire books were used as models, and their contents were influential in the construction of complete chapters in the codex; they offered solutions for dozens of illustrations and helped to structure the text.3 Such was the case of the book Hortus sanitatis, by Johann von Cube, which was used for the section on the animals in Book 11.4 The reliance on such an encyclopedic European work also provided the Nahua contributors to the Florentine project with explanations and points of view from other authors whose work was quoted by Johann von

Cube, such as Aisopos (Aesop), Aristoteles (Aristotle), Plinius (Pliny), San Epifanio, San Isidoro, Avicena, and Albertus Magnus. For example, when the Nahua writers of the Florentine Codex claim that the pelage taken from the forehead, nose, chest, and tail of the ocelotl strengthened the men who wore it,5 they are most likely following the text in the Hortus sanitatis: “leonum virtus est in pectore, firmitas in capite et audaci in caudam” (the power of the lion is on his chest, his strength on the head, and boldness in his tail).6 However, it should be kept in mind that even if native informants were following a passage in a European text, the notion that a jaguar (ocelotl) had special powers, and that it was possible to acquire those powers by wearing its skin, was also clearly present in Mesoamerican thought. Kings and priests used to wear such garments, and jaguar skins were used to cover royal thrones.7 The confluence of meanings of both native and European concepts usually favored the acceptance of European symbols and narratives, seen as familiar and compatible. In fact, compatibility was the first condition in order to develop the syncretic project, which friars set up to link both cultures in contact. Such compatibility has been observed in the analysis of postconquest religion, as well as in art.8 The association of themes and images of both traditions is produced on the basis of structural, functional, or symbolic resemblances that might not always be evident.9 Likewise, the information in the Florentine Codex about the ocelotl who dies with its eyes open10 must come from Cube, who, speaking of the lion, says, “[D]ormiens apertos habet oculos” (when asleep his eyes are open).11 63

Figure 4.1b. Hermes teaching Odysseus the secret of the moly plant. After an engraving from Andrea Alciato, Emblems (Guillielmo Rovillio, 1549). Line drawing by Aban Flores. Figure 4.1a. Decoration of altars with plants for the Aztec feast of Teotleco (Arrival of the Gods). Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 73r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

This analogy between the lion and the ocelotl resembles those applied to the case of the rooster, the hen, and the turkey, when illustrated in the codex, following the Hortus sanitatis.12 It makes sense that the turkey and the rooster, as poultry, were seen as equivalent. Two engravings of the Hortus represent something like everyday “life scenes” of the chicken family.13 One of them is a scene of courtship, in which hen and rooster stand face to face; the other depicts a hen surrounded by her chicks. The artist of the Florentine Codex who illustrated this section made an exact reproduction of the European composition, replacing the chickens with turkeys.14 As for the text, it is in the Spanish section where the expression “gallinas de esta tierra” (chickens of this land) was written, while the Nahuatl text uses the original name for turkey hen, totollin.15 Another European work that likely also influenced the contents of the Florentine manuscript was Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata.16 We see traces of this book of em64 • Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

blems in the chapter dedicated to proverbs, in Book 6 of the Florentine Codex, as well as in several images with an allegorical and moral content. For example, in the chapter dedicated to the feast of Teotleco (Arrival of the Gods) in Book 2, in the preparation for the ritual, the altars were decorated with acxóyatl, clusters of bound branches (in clusters of three, either fir or reed, according to the Nahuatl), in order to receive the gods (fig. 4.1a).17 The artist who illustrated this ceremonial episode must have been instructed by one of the Nahua scholars to use an illustration from Alciato’s book, the one in which the god Hermes comes to Earth into the presence of Odysseus and teaches him the secret of the moly plant (fig. 4.1b).18 In this comparison, the visual parallels include the waving cape, the joyful movement of bodies, and the figures’ light feet that scarcely touch the ground. The encounter seems like a dance. The Nahua artist adopted the gestural language of the original image.19 Both episodes, the beginning of the Teotleco feast and the arrival of Hermes in the presence of Odysseus, treat the same basic theme: the descent of gods into the human world. The moly plant seems less relevant, since there is no direct connection between the meaning of the plant

boughs in both narratives: moly is a magic plant, provided with flowers, that was supposed to protect Odysseus from Circe, while acxóyatl was a display of branches to be placed as an offering. The breadth of intercultural communication that involves the transfer of classical culture, its rhetoric, and its mental images, has never been sufficiently insisted upon. The Florentine Codex demonstrates, better than any sixteenth-­century artwork, how the Christianization of New Spain became a complex process of occidentalization that included the traditions of antiquity and those of the rich medieval and early Renaissance Spanish cultures. Gruzinski also addresses the traumatic nature of this process, the delicate problem of psychic breakdown in indigenous society.20

Ordinary People, Workers The representation of ordinary things, everyday life and labor, became a new subject for native artists in sixteenth-­ century New Spain. For several Renaissance painters, such as Albrecht Dürer or Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the depiction of working processes, peasants, and ordinary events had been a matter of much interest. But it was probably the publications on various technologies that favored the presence of labor and working people as models for artists in the New World.21 Northern European artists of the sixteenth century, such as Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) and Hans Sebald Beham (1500–1550), developed almost a genre of representing peasants (fig. 4.2a). Even biblical scenes by Holbein emphasize aspects of technology and labor, including some compositions that seem to have influenced the Florentine Codex. For example, from the book of Ruth, the image of the young widow who gleaned what barley harvesters had left behind and Boaz (the landowner and future husband of Ruth) was certainly within the grasp of Sahagún’s team of painters when they represented harvest scenes. The character kneeling in the scene designed by Hans Holbein is reminiscent of a farmer in Book 4 of the Florentine Codex.22 But it is the figure of Ruth carrying freshly cut barley that shows a greater resemblance to a peasant of the same Book 4. The Nahua peasant in the Florentine embraces a bundle of amaranth.23 The majority of scenes of labor in Northern European prints evoke collectivities and cooperation. The joyful scenes of monthly feasts in engravings by Beham portray a humble community starving for distraction and

Figure 4.2a. Peasant couple. After an engraving by Hans Sebald Beham. Line drawing by Aban Flores.

Figure 4.2b. “The Year’s End.” After an engraving by Hans Sebald Beham. Line drawing by Aban Flores.

War, the Working Class, and Snowfall • 65

catharsis. With steps that appear to be part of a dance, Beham represents peasants in his allegorical treatments of the months of the year (fig. 4.2b).24 Some illustrations in Books 1 through 4 of the Florentine Codex suggest familiarity with Beham’s festive compositions. One of them in Book 1 portrays a group of fishermen arriving in the presence of their “patron” god, Opochtli.25 The way in which all the men walk, almost prance, in a compact festive group rather than in a solemn procession strongly evokes the peasants by Beham, especially those in the fifth plate of the series.26 This similarity between festive village scenes by Beham and images in the Florentine Codex is further reinforced in an analysis of representations of a frightened man and a drunkard in the Florentine Codex. The image of a terrified man is part of the explanation of the fortune of the third day sign, ce mázatl, or One Deer, in the third chapter of Book 4 (fig. 4.3).27 According to both the Spanish and the Nahuatl texts, ce mázatl was a good, propitious sign. However, people born under this sign could be easily frightened, and their constant fears could bring them other calamities; they were vulnerable to thunder and could drown easily when they bathed in water, when their eyes and fingernails could be torn out.28 The Floren-

Figure 4.3. The fate of someone born on the day ce mázatl, or One Deer. Florentine Codex, Bk. 4, fol. 8v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

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tine Codex painting in figure 4.3 represents both the state of fear and the risk of drowning in water. The male figure is half submerged in water, and his upper body’s pose and gestural language strongly resemble Beham’s representation of some peasants, with the man’s mouth wide open and his hand emphatically raised (see fig. 4.2a).29 In the fifth chapter of Book 4, the same painter depicted a drunkard when representing the destiny of those born on the day sign ome tochtli, Two Rabbit (fig. 4.4).30 In Nahuatl thought, the rabbit was associated with the moon and with the alcoholic beverage called pulque (octli in Nahuatl, fermented maguey juice). The day sign ome tochtli was disastrous, for they thought that on this date many drunkards were born. Spanish and Nahuatl texts in chapters 4 and 5 of Book 4 describe in detail the behavior of drunkards, who were considered transgressors and were subject to serious punishments, at least among Tezcocan, Mexica, and other Nahua peoples. In the illustration, the artist managed an interesting conflation of sources. Although the Nahua artist borrows the outfit of Dionysus,31 a garland draped around his body and a lovely flowered crown on his head, for the gestural language he seems to have followed a composition very close to the representation of peasant festivals by Beham.32 Notice the similarities between the drunkard in the Florentine Codex and the extroverted man in Beham’s representation of December festivities (see figs. 4.2b and 4.4). Some additional elements in the illustration in Book 4 correspond to the written description and some Nahua conceptions and ways of graphically depicting drunkards, like the falling flower, probably referring to the fact that drunkards are prone to shout and sing lustily or are associated with lewd or deviant behavior.33 Also in figure 4.4, on either side of the drunkard, the open bowl and the jar with the overflowing beverage painted blue, the artist uses glyphic signs for water or liquid that are additional pictorial elements related to the ingestion of pulque in sixteenth-­ century paintings and codices.34 Whether the patterns of gestural and social interaction that emerge from hundreds of European illustrations are in any way influential on the actual processes of transformation of labor and sociability is a question worthy of further examination. I will discuss another possible influence of a Beham composition in the Florentine Codex, one that arrived indirectly and rather surprisingly as an illustration in a book on the ethnography of Scandinavia. But before addressing that case, I would like to examine the affinities in Book

Figure 4.4. Representation of a man born on the day ome tochtli, or Two Rabbit. Florentine Codex, Bk. 4, fol. 11v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

12 from the Florentine Codex and some European works that might have served as formal and iconographic models.

The Conquest Book 12 is cosmopolitan and rich in many ways, including its diverse sources. Traces of other books, travel narratives, and histories of warfare can be seen in many of its pages. Some pictorial compositions, such as the lyrical image that adorns the frontispiece (fig. 4.5), seem to integrate elements from different sources. The fleet that passes through the rainbow to arrive at the shore was most probably derived from the popular atlas of the cities of the world known as Civitates orbis terrarum (fig. 4.6a).35 Scenes of disembarkation were common in early modern paintings and prints. I have found striking similarities between Book 12’s frontispiece and an illustration of a history of the war of Troy, circa 1440, attributed to Konrad von Würzburg (fig. 4.6b).36 In the latter composition, notice the following analogous items: a man wearing a hat who organizes the disembarkation from the ship’s deck, the unloading of bundles from the boat, a trunk and a chest (one with a rounded lid and the other flat and angled) already on the shore, and the image of a pig in the lower left corner. However, when one notices similarities with a manuscript whose presence in America is not likely,

one has to assume that there were some copies and engravings that ultimately allowed for the diffusion of a specific composition. It is possible that some images of merchants who are trading goods while sitting next to bundles and piles of grain were also the source for aspects of Book 12’s frontispiece. These would include the conversation of an indigenous messenger with doña Marina, the group of sitting Spaniards (one of whom is writing—a letter or inventory?), and especially the small hillock behind them.37 In trying to understand the multiple steps in the artistic process, scholars are still grappling with how and why native artists combined various elements to create the Florentine Codex compositions. Certain war scenes and allegories represented in Book 12 demonstrate the complexity of this creative process. Several potential models include artworks and prints that were made in the middle of the sixteenth century to celebrate the victories of Emperor Charles against the alliance of Lutheran princes known as the Schmalkaldic League, and more specifically to record the Battle of Mühlberg (1547). An outstanding example is the print by the Italian artist Enea Vico celebrating the crossing of the river Elbe, first printed in Mantua in 1551.38 The group of fusiliers in the Florentine Codex, drawn to represent the display of force made by Cortés before his entry into Tenochtitlan, is notably similar to that of Vico’s print.39 Many other passages of that war were drawn and printed in subsequent years. The official chronicle of the war is the Comentario de la guerra de Alemania hecha por Carlos V, máximo Emperador Romano, Rey de España, en el año de 1546–1547, written by Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga and printed with many illustrations that seem to be related to the Florentine’s Book 12 in several ways.40 It is worth noting that scholars and painters of the Florentine Codex were familiar with a wide variety of allegorical and emblematic compositions, and they were also well aware of the exaltation of the Spanish monarch Charles as Holy Roman emperor, king of Jerusalem, and victor of the war against the Protestant league.41 We do not know which printed version of a copy of the famous 1548 painting by Titian, of Charles V after the Battle of Mühlberg, could have been seen by Mexican painters who developed the composition depicting the entrance of Hernando Cortés into Tenochtitlan (figs. 4.7 and 4.8). But it is difficult to believe that they did not have that royal image in mind when they portrayed Cortés as conqueror in a manner distinct from other representaWar, the Working Class, and Snowfall • 67

Figure 4.5. Frontispiece for Book 12, “The Conquest.” Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, unpaginated. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

tions in the codex; notable parallels are his prancing horse and the brilliant helmet as well as Cortés’s elegant beard. Beyond the similarities with Titian’s composition, it is also striking to notice the allegorical implications of this image. In the Florentine Codex, Charles/Cortés enters Jerusalem/Tenochtitlan, with the crossed, juxtaposed spears creating the powerful Chi-­Rho symbol, the labarum of Constantine (☧).42 One of the many implications of this association is that Hernando Cortés was an alter ego of the king of Spain and an emulator of Constantine. The identification of Tenochtitlan with Jerusalem helped to reconcile pre-­Columbian history with the biblical past, an intellectual maneuver frequently used by native Christians of New Spain who were actively involved in the culture of evangelization. The identification of Tenochtitlan with Jerusalem also established a parallel between the triumph of the Christian empire over the pagan Amerindians, and the desired triumph over the Turks in order to establish a Christian domain in the holy city of Palestine. 68 • Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

Battle scenes in Book 12 are influenced by different sources, such as the 1550 Comentario by Ávila y Zúñiga, on the Catholic war against the Schmalkaldic League, mentioned before. Prints and treatises on military strategy, which were abundant in early modern Europe and might have traveled to New Spain, might also have inspired some of the Florentine Codex images. Indeed, part of the Comentario is a graphic and written examination of warfare strategies. Such literature on the art of war appears both in books dedicated to that specific matter and in chapters of books of a more general nature. I turn next to an unusual source that served as an inspiration for the Florentine Codex authors and artists— the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, written by Olaus Magnus, bishop of Uppsala, Sweden. Two editions were available to Franciscans in Mexico City, one in Latin, printed in 1555 in Rome, and a second edition in Italian, printed in 1565.43 This history of the Scandinavian peoples by Olaus Magnus contains one of the composi-

Figure 4.6a. Scene of Barcelona. After an engraving in Civitates orbis terrarum (Cologne, 1572). Line drawing by Aban Flores.

Figure 4.7. Entrance of Hernan Cortés into Tenochtitlan. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 54r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 4.8. Anonymous. Lithograph of 1754, after Titian, Emperor Charles V at Mühlberg, 1548. Oil on canvas (335 × 283 cm). Museo del Prado, Madrid. Figure 4.6b. Loading ships. From a German manuscript on the history of the war of Troy by Konrad von Würzburg, ca. 1440. Line drawing by Aban Flores.

tions by Hans Sebald Beham mentioned previously, that of Ruth in the harvest at the land of Boaz. The image was copied in Europe, taken out of its biblical context, and used to illustrate the subject of the variety of harvests in Scandinavia within an extensive ethnographical survey of the Northern European peoples. It is likely that the friars brought this treatise, on a culture that was seen as primitive and marginal, as a tool or a model (among many other books), with the express purpose of using it to study and write about the customs of Amerindian peoples. In Europe the work of Olaus Magnus had become an important source for writers and artists trying to represent the “other,” whether human or beast. Certain images taken from the section on war strategy from the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus seem to have inspired compositions in Book 12 of the Florentine Codex.44 These influences include the representation of cannons, the illustration of a city under siege by encircling it with scenes of warfare, or images of attacks carried out on water, with cannons supported by large rafts.45 In the first pages of Book 12 on the conquest, there is a somewhat bizarre representation of a group of Spaniards seated at a table, allegedly recounting their arrival in Veracruz in 1519 before they traveled to the central highlands (fig. 4.9).46 They are receiving food and drink sent to them by the Aztec ruler, Moctezuma II. The composition of the scene, with interior and exterior sections, the table and the architectural setting, the curious hats of the Spaniards, provoke the question of not only what inspired the scholars and painters but also what could have been their ultimate intent when they decided to present this scene. The Nahuatl narratives that accompany this illustration relate it as follows:47 Moctezuma sent Cortés and his entourage a complex embassy of captains, all kinds of priests and sorcerers, slaves and servants. These messengers of the Mexica emperor presented some food to the Spaniards: turkey meat, eggs, and white tortillas. In front of the conquerors, the native priests sacrificed the slaves, dropping their blood over the food until everything was well soaked in blood. They did all this in order to determine whether the Spaniards were gods. According to the Nahuatl text, Moctezuma thought they were gods, took them for gods, and wanted to worship them as such. Accordingly, they were called teteu ilhujcac vitze, or “gods who arrived from heaven.” The narrative ends by stating that after the shocking sacrificial episode, the Spaniards dined

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on white tortillas and other food, but without blood. Before going back to Mexico, the sorcerers tried to bewitch the conquerors, with no success. There is a comparable image in the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus in which four men eat and drink at a table inside a room (fig. 4.10). The interior setting and their European dress and hats are similar to the Florentine’s image of Cortés and his companions at the table in Veracruz. The fact that the Florentine Codex painters decided to retain the hats instead of switching them for helmets or other headdresses is probably related to the use of the hat as a mark of rank, which was an attribute of Spanish authorities frequently registered in native-­style pictorial manuscripts of the sixteenth century. It is important to note that the event discussed and depicted in the Historia de gentibus passage was directed at the quality of wine in Scandinavia, considered so inferior that they needed to import it from other countries.48 In my experience, a print that is chosen as the model for a colonial composition is never used arbitrarily, ignoring its context and original meaning. Quite the opposite, the interest in analogizing Nahua and European cultures was

Figure 4.9. Spaniards receive food sent by Moctezuma, consisting of tortillas covered with human blood. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 12v (detail). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 4.10. “On the poor quality of wine in Scandinavia and the need to import it.” After a woodcut in Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, by Olaf Magnus (Venice, 1565). Line drawing by Aban Flores.

part of the syncretic process in which indigenous artists and authors carefully considered the contexts and meanings of images that they used as models. This is how I would explain the use of the print about Scandinavian wine from the Historia de gentibus by the Nahua artists of Book 12. The engraving offers an appropriate composition for the theme in a broad sense: a group of European people seated at a table. On the left-­hand side of the image, beyond the doorway, a boat is moored at a dock, with a ramp for the unloading of merchandise. It seems that the European engraver tried to divide the composition into two different scenes: the importation of foreign wine, on the left, and its consumption, on the right; but these thematic and chronological divisions might be confused as spatial divisions, as the inside and outside of the same place, which seems to be the way in which Florentine Codex artists interpreted it. In point of fact, the whole episode of the Nahua-­Spanish interchange took place by the seashore, in Veracruz. The emphasis in Olaus Magnus’s narrative on the fact that Scandinavian wine was distasteful could have served as a point of comparison with the reaction of the conquistadores to the disgusting meal that was offered to them, bathed in sacrificial blood. Furthermore, it is possible that the neophytes who worked on the Florentine Codex might have associated blood with wine, as in the Eucharist. The Eucharist refers to the Christian ceremony commemorating the Last Supper of Christ, in which bread and wine are consecrated and consumed. The bread and wine are referred to as the

body and the blood of Christ. The native scholars working with Sahagún spent many years figuring out the best ways to translate into Nahuatl and communicate to their fellow indigenous Christians concepts such as transubstantiation. For example, one liturgical verse reads, “[I]n tlascalli teunacatl omuchiuh: auh in vino, teueztli omuchiuh” (tortillas became divine flesh and wine became sacred blood), as recorded in Sahagún’s Psalmodia christiana in the Nahuatl language.49 I have proposed several images from the work of Olaus Magnus that might have served as models for the development of the Florentine Codex. One was the scene alluding to Scandinavian crops (itself based on a biblical engraving by Beham), which seems to have informed Sahagun’s artists in their making of the image of the harvest of amaranth, and perhaps other images in Book 4. Another example, from Book 12, is the representation of rafts and cannons, from a chapter on Scandinavian war strategy with instructions to lay siege to a city surrounded by water, which influenced some drawings of the siege of the Mexica capital of Tenochtitlan. It also seems likely that the scene of the sacrificial feast offered to the Spaniards in Veracruz and also found in Book 12 was influenced by an engraving of the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus. I conclude by referring to another example of the reliance on and adaptation of European printed illustrations by the Florentine Codex painters. This example is especially compelling in that the peculiar composition makes it difficult to think of an alternative source: it is an illustration related to the representation of snow.

Snowfall In the year of chicome acatl (Seven Reed), or 1447, there was so much snow that men in the Mexican central highlands died. This disaster is hard to imagine, considering the generally temperate weather in the area, but blizzard conditions are not impossible. Actually, the date perfectly matches one of the first dramatic decreases of temperature in the beginning of the “Little Ice Age.” To represent snow and snowfall, conventions did exist in the pictographic language of Mixteca-­Puebla codices, and in conservative or indigenous-­style pictorial manuscripts of the 1540s, such as the Codex Telleriano-­Remensis, where snow is represented by tiny dots that fill the pictorial field.50 And there are even some representations of snow-­covered

War, the Working Class, and Snowfall • 71

Figure 4.11a. Representation of a cloud and snowflakes. Florentine Codex, Bk. 7, fol. 13r (detail). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

mountains in pre-­Columbian manuscripts, such as the Codex Nuttall.51 In Book 7 of the Florentine Codex, dedicated to “astrology and natural philosophy,” there is a section on ice, snow, and hail. A picture represents the clouds with the color purple, snowdrops underneath, and a group of irregular, almost geometrical shapes that are intended to represent configurations assumed to be snowflakes (fig. 4.11a).52 The clouds, the snowfall, and the capricious, geometric shapes of snowflakes in the Florentine manuscript closely resemble those in the illustration used by the editor of Olaus Magnus to represent snowfall, within a long chapter on the harsh weather of Scandinavia (fig. 4.11b).53 Illustrations in Book 7 are characterized by their departure from native visual traditions, since they follow European conventions for representing the sun, the moon, winds, clouds, and stars. Consistent with this pattern, the representation of snowfall moves away from native pictographic formulas as seen in the Codex Telleriano-­Remensis and instead follows the European printed model. In doing so, 72 • Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

Figure 4.11b. “A cloud and various forms of snowflakes.” After a woodcut from Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, by Olaf Magnus (Venice, 1565). Line drawing by Aban Flores.

the Florentine’s illustration offers a detailed depiction of snowflakes that has no equivalent in the written text. A few Nahuatl sentences describe the snow as a servant of Cetl, the god of frost, and establish that snowfall was a prelude to good harvests. The Spanish text does not elaborate further on the issue.

Conclusions The Florentine Codex is a bound book, written in two columns, with numbered pages. It is a type of research book, descriptive and analytical. Hence it belongs to the great bibliographical tradition of the West; it is related to the medieval encyclopedias and to the Renaissance treatises. In addition, the Florentine Codex exhibits detailed knowledge of various European texts. As other scholars have demonstrated, its illustrations show the use of several books printed in Europe between the late fifteenth and the mid-­sixteenth centuries. Emblemata, by Andrea Alciato, and Johan von Cube’s Hortus sanitatis are two works whose influence I uncovered some years ago, both on the texts and

on the images of the Florentine Codex. One can also detect the influence of the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus by Olaus Magnus, based on the evidence in this chapter. But the Florentine Codex is also a Mexican “códice,” a manuscript produced within the indigenous tradition in which traces of countless compositions, formulas, and symbols of the ancient pictographic repertoire can still be noted. Additionally, the Nahua authors’ descriptions and written accounts often come from the indigenous oral tradition, and they are frequently mixed with European sources. For example, Mesoamerican narratives about animals, with all their mythological connotations, coexist with Aesop’s fables in the sixteenth century. The construction of the visual language of the manuscript is marked by this double identity. Columns, frames, and friezes correspond to the design of medieval illuminated manuscripts and some printed books of the modern era. At the same time, most of the images still show traces of indigenous pictographic conventions and color and design preferences. The presence of the ancient Mesoamerican tradition in the Florentine Codex manuscript and its images is due not only to their makers’ memory but also to the use of various codices that were models and reference sources.54 These sources would have included calendrical codices for divination, known as tonalpohualli (count of days), screenfolds and long strips of paper recording historical data, tribute records, and genres of which we have only indirect references, such as pictographs for the interpretation of dreams and storage inventories. The Florentine Codex is a book that contains within itself many other books. In this masterpiece, we can see the interaction of two ancestral traditions. In particular, the images of the Florentine Codex provide a unique field to explore the oscillations of native artists between Western canons of representation and pre-­Columbian ways.55 We can appreciate the juxtapositions, analogies, and experimental syntheses that constituted the very core of dialogic culture in the first six decades of the colonial era.56

Notes 1. Victoria 1986; Niedermeier 2002, 95–121; Escalante Gonzalbo 1998, 235–257; 2010. 2. Escalante Gonzalbo 2003. 3. Escalante Gonzalbo 1999, 2008, 2014. 4. There is evidence of Johann von Cube’s book, Hortus sanitatis (Strasbourg: Mathias Apiarius, 1536), in the monastic libraries of Mexico. See Yhmoff Cabrera 1996, 1:458. 5. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 3v.

6. Cube 1536, fol. 24v. 7. Bassett, chapter 9 of this volume. 8. Gruzinski 1991, 234; Lupo 1996, 16–18. 9. Escalante Gonzalbo 2012, 312. 10. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 3v. 11. Cube 1536, fol. 25r. 12. Escalante Gonzalbo 1999, 57. 13. Cube 1536, fols. 43v, 44r. 14. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fols. 56v, 57r. 15. Totollin is translated as gallina in Molina (1970, fol. 150v). 16. While the only edition, which is kept in the National Library (UNAM, Mexico City), was published in 1591 by the Plantin Press in Antwerp, we have evidence of the presence of the book in 1559 in the school of San José de los Naturales, in the Franciscan monastery of Mexico City. Yhmoff Cabrera 1996, 51–52. 17. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 2, fol. 73r; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 127–128. 18. Alciato 1975 (1549), 215. 19. Escalante Gonzalbo 2014, 163–165. 20. Gruzinski 2002, 45–51, 62–63. 21. Among the books in which workers are represented: Biringucci 1990; Agricola 1950; and Amman 1970. On the influence of Jost Amman’s publication on Florentine Codex artists, see Peterson 2003, 223–253. 22. Holbein 1538. For a single-­sheet print, see Hans Holbein, Boaz ontmoet Ruth bij de oogst van gerst (1538, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 72r. 23. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 72v. 24. The Peasants’ Feast; Twelve Months (1546–1547, Victoria and Albert Museum, London). 25. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, appendix, fol. 39r. 26. Beham, The Peasants’ Feast; Twelve Months, fifth plate, “Egidivs Herbstmon and Simon Weinmon.” 27. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 8v. 28. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 8r. It was said that the ahuítzotl (a malicious dog that lived in the water) removed the eyes and nails of those who drowned in his domains (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 71r). 29. Engraving, “Peasant Couple Walking to the Left” (ca. 1537), from Procession of the Newlyweds of Hans Sebald Beham, in Koch 1978, 100. 30. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 11v. 31. As can be seen in several artworks. In figure 4.4, the artist used a sixteenth-­century engraving, commented on and reproduced in a recent edition of Diepenbeeck and Picart Le Romain (1990). 32. Engraving, “The Year’s End” (ca. 1546), from The Country Wedding of Hans Sebald Beham, in Koch 1978, 93. 33. See Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume. 34. On iconographic parallels between this Florentine Codex image, the Codex Mendoza, and a moralizing mural on drunkeness in the sixteenth-­century visita chapel of Santa María Xoxoteco, see Peterson 1995, 14–35. 35. This wonderful rainbow scene is a view of the port of Barcelona in the 1572 edition of the Civitates orbis terrarum project. Braun and Hogenberg 2008 (1572). 36. Cardini 1989, 86. 37. See images of traders from German and Italian sources in Cardini 1989, 87. 38. There is an original print at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Army of Charles V Crossing the Elbe River. 39. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fol. 23r. 40. Ávila y Zúñiga 1550.

War, the Working Class, and Snowfall • 73

41. Indigenous people knew about the prestige of Charles V as Christian emperor and his participation in battles. The earliest information we have refers to the theatrical representation or “auto” of the conquest of Jerusalem, held in Tlaxcala in 1538; during the re-­creation of the battle, the banner of Charles V was placed on top of a building that represented Jerusalem. This auto-­de-­fé was staged many times throughout the sixteenth century. Escalante Gonzalbo 2001, 82–83. The victorious image of Charles V was also exalted in the obsequies (1554), a project and performance in which native artists and authorities of central Mexico were involved, especially those of the workshop of San José de los Naturales. Native authorities of at least Mexico, Tlaxcala, and Tetzcoco were present. Escalante Gonzalbo 2008, 16–17. 42. The emblem of Constantine is composed of an X-­shaped character (chi) and a superimposed P-­shaped character (rho). Its appearance came at night, before the last battle of Constantine against the army of Maxentius. Lactantius says that “Constantine was warned in a dream to engrave the celestial sign of God on the shield. He put into practice what he had been ordered and, by rotating the letter X with its upper end bent in a circle, he recorded the name of Christ in the shields.” Lactantius 1982, 189–190. See also Cesarea 1994, 28–29. From that time, the emblem of Constantine became the banner of the triumph of the Catholic religion over paganism. Soler Frost 2013, 93. 43. Editors’ note: The Latin 1555 edition was in the Tlatelolco library (currently in the Sutro Library), and the Italian copy published in Venice

74 • Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo

made its way to the primary Franciscan monastery in Mexico City (San Francisco de México). Both editions have copious images, with some discrepancies between the woodcuts. 44. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fol. 56r. 45. Magnus 1565, fol. 112v. 46. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fol. 12v. 47. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fols. 12r–­13r. 48. Magnus 1565, fol. 159r. 49. Sahagún, “Corpus Christi, Third Psalm,” in Sahagún 1993a, 172–173. 50. Quiñones Keber 1995, fol. 32r. 51. Anders, Jansen, and Pérez Jiménez 1992, fol. 11r. 52. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, fol. 13r. 53. Magnus 1565, fol. 13v. 54. Boone, chapter 6 of this volume; Quiñones Keber, chapter 5 of this volume. 55. Escalante Gonzalbo 2006, 341. 56. An interesting issue that I will address in the future is the fact that many of the “naturalistic” representations in the Florentine Codex, such as those of battles and the court, are ultimately representations of the inexistent, as expressed by Theodor Adorno (2004, 22, 30) in reference to Mannerist art. Thus, the forces of oscillation occur within that “interior territory” where reality expresses itself sublimated.

Part II

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Chapter 5

Surviving Conquest Depicting Aztec Deities in Sahagún’s Historia Eloise Quiñones Keber

T

he developmental stages of the encyclopedic compilation of contact-­period Nahua culture, early if variously cited as the Historia general [universal] de las cosas de Nueva España,1 remarkably survive in voluminous drafts and revisions. Among these are two illustrated manuscripts that can be regarded as final clean copies produced about twenty years apart, titled in more recent times the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex. In Bernardino de Sahagún’s narrative of the origin and trajectory of the overall Historia project,2 written in Spanish in the prologues that precede each book of the Florentine Codex, modifications and informational gaps are apparent.3 These observations have drawn attention to the project’s evolving contents, successive reorganizations, and excision of previously planned sections. Also pertinent to this study is Sahagún’s failure to mention any painters involved in the production of the Historia’s final manuscripts or the planning of any images for them. My subject focuses on a particular facet of these changes: the shifting delineation of Aztec deities in the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex.4 I begin by examining the prologues to bring to the fore the reworking of the Historia material in relation to indigenous images. Next, I analyze the differing representations of the deities as they appear in the images and texts of the two manuscripts to assess the alterations that occurred from one to the other.5 I also speculate on why the Florentine Codex contained such a profusion of images, who might

have painted them, and why. I conclude with a proposal about the impact of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan–­Mexico City on the final iteration of the Historia project and its images and artists. Indigenous religion, with its numerous deities and their associated rituals, understandably drew the attention of missionaries because of their evangelical mission to eradicate idolatry in New Spain. Pursuing information about such subjects at the very time that deity images were being destroyed as idolatrous was a risky undertaking that calls for an explanation today as it did in the sixteenth century. This contentious subject continues to attract the attention of present-­day scholars who probe the various aspects of indigenous religion and its manifold connections with the salient aspects of Nahua culture.6 A brief comparison of those sections devoted to indigenous religion reveals the expansion of material from the Primeros memoriales to the Florentine Codex.7 “Rituals and Gods” is the title of the first of the four chapters of the Primeros memoriales, which contrasts with Books 1 (“The Gods”), 2 (“The Ceremonies”), 3 (“The Origin of the Gods”), and 4 and 5 (“The Soothsayers and the Omens”) that comprise the first five of the twelve books of the Florentine Codex.8 Moreover, as Guilhem Olivier points out,9 the gods also appear throughout the other books, a ubiquity that no doubt corresponded to their pivotal roles in the everyday life of the inhabitants of Aztec Mexico.

77

What Do the Prologues Reveal about the Historia Project and Native Pictorial Sources? The prologues to the first two books of the Florentine Codex emerge as the foremost sources for learning about the Historia project. It is here that Sahagún articulates his rationale for undertaking the venture, based on his dismay that idolatry persisted in Mexico after decades of evangelization. He believed that it could not be effectively eradicated and durably replaced by Christianity unless his fellow missionaries could recognize the extent of its religious expressions.10 At the same time, as a missionary dedicated to the extirpation of idolatrous practices, Sahagún was obliged to deal with these matters judiciously, for such a perilous project demanded forceful oversight. At times it drew censure in royal, pontifical, and ecclesiastical pronouncements from the Vatican, Spain, and New Spain, and closer to home from fellow Franciscans. As has long been recognized, the prologues provide critical details about the innovative research procedures Sahagún inaugurated in the town of Tepepulco with the indispensable assistance of his team of indigenous collaborators.11 First among them were named Acolhua elders and leaders, who undoubtedly had received an intensive education in the local pre-­Hispanic calmecac, the school that had educated elite males. These survivors of the conquest preserved an unparalleled knowledge about their culture, a deep familiarity with the pictorial and oral traditions that encoded it, and a unique store of personal experiences and memories that straddled critical years from the ancient preconquest order through the turmoil of the conquest to a negotiated postconquest existence under foreign domination. Their partners in processing the data collected were highly educated and multilingual former students, again identified, of the colegio that adjoined the Franciscan convento of Santiago Tlatelolco.12 As scholars and denizens of two worlds, these collegians served as bicultural intermediaries by recording the information the elders supplied in pictures and in added verbal explanations, thus preserving their knowledge in the transliterated form of written Nahuatl. Scribes, also named, wrote the final texts for the clean copy of this research, now called the Primeros memoriales.13 It is thus surprising that neither painters nor the included images are mentioned,14 yet this manuscript contains an already sizable 545 images, while the later Florentine Codex would boast an extraordinary 1,855.15 78 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

Thus, while the prologues offer a starting point for probing the question of what use was made of native pictorial materials, nothing is said about how the elicited pictorial sources were preserved in the final form of either manuscript. This omission challenges us to search out a rationale for the overwhelming number of images that ultimately appeared in the two clean copies and the possible identities of the anonymous artists who painted them.

Prologue to Book 1, “The Gods”

In the prologue to Book 1, Sahagún relates that in 1569 a “clean copy” of twelve books included only a completed Nahuatl column and a completed grammar and vocabulary that were part of an appendix that was later discarded in the subsequent Florentine Codex.16 Two planned columns, a Spanish translation of the Nahuatl text and a scholia (glossary) were also omitted and would never be produced.17 The contents of this now lost “clean copy” were thus still in flux, with no indication of an intent to include images. About a decade later, a bilingual version called the Enríquez manuscript, sent to Spain in 1578 and now lost, also lacked any reference to images.18 A brief mention of images appears only retrospectively in 1585 in Sahagún’s reference to a well-­illustrated manuscript sent to Spain in 1580, generally considered to be the Florentine Codex.19 A rare passage in this prologue does, however, report the survival of “ancient paintings” that told of the fabled city of Tula.20 This pre-­Hispanic manuscript might have been a local relic, for Tula and Tepepulco are located in the same vicinity. What Sahagún’s statement indicates is that not only were preconquest manuscript paintings still in existence about 1560, but the friar recognized their value as historical sources. One of Sahagún’s interpolations, this one negatively referring to native pictography, appears in an appendix to Book 1. Directly addressing native peoples, he deplores the confusion and idolatry found in their ancient picture writings and in images of the gods made of stone, wood, and gold. Even as he praises the indigenous painters’ “marvelous” representations, he expresses regret that they, too, led to the worship of idols.21

Prologue to Book 2, “The Ceremonies”

A well-­known passage in the prologue to Book 2 supplies additional information about the way the Tepepulco elders conveyed their knowledge, for here Sahagún specifies that

all topics were obtained from “pictures” because that was “the writing” used in ancient times.22 The colegio-­trained assistants then placed the elders’ additional verbal explanations below the paintings.23 His words indicate that the “pictures” were likely native manuscripts, parts of them, or copies thereof. It is also possible that the assistants themselves drew images based on verbal descriptions supplied by the elders. This valuable passage indicates that a combination of ancient paintings, oral tradition, and the recall of trained memories produced the information obtained in Tepepulco, but it does not specify how it was pictorially incorporated into the final manuscript.

Prologue to Book 3, “The Origin of the Gods”

In the short prologues to Books 3 through 5, Sahagún changes his focus to their contents. Ambitiously titled “The Origin of the Gods,” Book 3 treats only three male gods, Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, and Quetzalcoatl, and the birth of only the first, with information likely deriving from the narratives of mythic or legendary tales that had been preserved in oral tradition.24 Because passages in Book 3 shed some light on the use of pictorial sources, they are also briefly considered here. Chapter 1 tells the story of Huitzilopochtli, accompanied by four narrative scenes. Three vignettes depict him in his full traditional attire and one in abbreviated array; two relate to his mythical birth, while two others show what appears to be an ixiptla (a deity’s human embodiment or “impersonator”) or a priest of his cult. Here Huitzilopochtli’s figure is based on his image in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex with slight modifications, which itself was copied from the Primeros memoriales with modifications. A short chapter 2 relates episodes from the story of Tezcatlipoca (called here Titlacaun, among other names), with only one vignette showing an ixiptla of the god being honored, which bears no resemblance to his image in Book 1. The remaining chapters of Book 3 provide a lengthy narrative about Quetzalcoatl that likely stemmed from the same “ancient paintings” about the Toltecs of Tula mentioned in the first prologue. They feature eleven scenes, three showing Quetzalcoatl in the attire of the god in Book 1, a modified copy of his Primeros memoriales image. The pictorial vignettes that first appear in chapter 2 of the Primeros memoriales (as discussed later in this chapter) represent postconquest inventions of the Florentine Codex artists, since this type of depiction does not occur in preconquest Aztec pictography. Stylistically, they also

reflect compositional adaptations derived from European sources, such as readily available paintings and prints in New Spain, or, as noted, they might also have been based on verbal descriptions. The saga of Quetzalcoatl appears again in the prologue to Book 8, “Kings and Lords,” and Book 10, “The People.”25 The Quetzalcoatl-­related Tula paintings thus present a rare and remarkable example of how a single pictorial source was likely used for both images and texts in several books of the Florentine Codex. They provide evidence that a type of manuscript dealing with episodes in the myth or legend of a personage, here Quetzalcoatl, existed in pre-­Hispanic times and would have been utilized as mnemonic springboards for recitations or dramatizations of his exploits, or practices related to his cult. López Austin additionally proposes that other sources for the three gods might have been based on song, stories, or other literary forms that the elders would have learned in the calmecac.26

Prologue to Book 4, “The Soothsayers”

In the prologue to Book 4, Sahagún condemns the astrology of ancient Mexico as “a necromantic craft or a pact and invention of the devil.”27 He avoids using the term tonalamatl (book of days), although Book 4’s contents clearly derived from a native tonalamatl, a pictorial arrangement of the 260 days of the tonalpohualli (count of days) that in central Mexico took the form of twenty thirteen-­day periods (trecenas in Spanish).28 Considered a diviner’s almanac or handbook, its purpose was to align an individual’s activities with the will of the gods by determining the most favorable day on which to undertake a particular action (e.g., birth, marriage, travel, war, agriculture). Each trecena panel contained numerous images that embodied potent divinatory forces for that period. These included thirteen numbered day signs, whose combination reflected their dual mantic energy; one or two deity “patrons,” whose large size in each panel reflected the immense divinatory power they exerted over that period; thirteen rotating “day lords”; nine rotating “night lords”; and a rotating series of flying creatures with their own influence. Since the twenty day signs changed with each trecena, so did the pictorial components of each of the following days. The diviner’s challenging task of calculating a final prognostication for a particular day therefore consisted of weighing the changing mantic charges of that day’s multiple images. Since depicting ancient deities and other Surviving Conquest • 79

supernaturals as part of a divinatory practice would have placed the tonalamatl in the realm of idolatry, Sahagún chose to treat this perilous subject in Books 4 and 5 very cautiously. By obliterating the tonalamatl’s many visual divinatory components, Sahagún avoided dealing with the thorny subject of soothsaying. Instead, he drastically shrank the myriad individual images to only one type, a calendrical day sign, using it to foretell a newborn’s attributes, with its destiny based on the day and hour of its birth, and its name. These were bestowed as part of a cleansing and naming ritual painted in newly composed vignettes.29 He thus reconceived the native ceremony as one that resembled Christian baptism and could be utilized for evangelical purposes. In the appendix of Book 4 this radically reductive view appears in two charts that display only the 260 days of the tonalpohualli.30 As the tonalamatl was the only type of pre-­Hispanic manuscript to feature a systematic array of fully attired deities, avoidance of its images also eliminated the only available pre-­ Hispanic pictorial source for depicting a sizable group of Aztec deities in the postconquest period.31

Comparing Depictions of Aztec Deities in the Primeros Memoriales and the Florentine Codex Primeros Memoriales, Chapter 1, “Rituals and Gods”

Chapter 1 of the Primeros memoriales, “Rituals and Gods,” contains the manuscript’s most concentrated treatment of these subjects in two well-­illustrated paragraphs. Paragraph 2A, on festivities of the gods, correlates with the Florentine Codex’s Book 2, “The Ceremonies”; and paragraph 5A, detailing how the gods were arrayed, correlates with the Florentine’s Book 1, “The Gods.” The Primeros memoriales thus prioritizes ritual, which occupies most of the fourteen paragraphs of the first chapter. This arrangement indicates that the gathering of information commenced by first considering the overall structure of the intricately organized Aztec ceremonial system within which the deities played a prescribed part. Their ceremonial roles appear in paragraph 2A (paragraph 1 is missing), in the annual cycle of eighteen lavish public ceremonies of twenty days each (veintenas in Spanish) that involved a broad spectrum of activities throughout the year, with each one dedicated to specific deities. Because treating all 80 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

the deities involved would encompass a volume of its own, for comparative purposes I focus on only one, the preeminent maize goddess Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent).

Primeros Memoriales, the Feast of Hueytozoztli, and the Maize Gods

The standardized format used for the eighteen festivities of the gods economically shows two quasi columns that pair a Nahuatl description with a selection of the many activities that took place during each period. Figure 5.1 shows one of the three folios that display the veintenas, with the uppermost framed scene on the right pictorializing and the text on the left describing the major events of Hueytozoztli (the Great Vigil) that honored the maize gods. At the top left of the framed image, a quadrangular enclosure represents a maize field, within which a seated figure holding a maize stalk and a rubber-­spattered banner typical of rain gods faces three tlaloque (minor rain god figures), here abbreviated to only heads. Below are two small temples, one containing food offerings. At the top right, four females join hands in a celebratory dance, while below them, two other females walk toward a large temple festooned at the top with a maize stalk and several cobs. One female bears a maize stalk on her back, while the other, an ixiptla of a female maize goddess, with face, arms, and legs painted red, holds double maize cobs. To their right, two priests, their bodies painted black and one holding a sacrificial knife, also approach the temple, where the repeated image of the ixiptla of the maize deity meets her sacrificial fate, as indicated by a blood-­smeared costume. The short Nahuatl text describes Hueytozoztli as a celebration of the maize plant that was also called the “Taking of the God of Maize.”32 It relates that in maize fields everywhere people took stalks of maize home to make offerings. On the following day, maidens carried the maize cobs on their backs and deposited them in the temple of Chicomecoatl, also called the place of Centeotl (Maize Cob Lord), a male maize deity. From the viewpoint of the elders of Tepepulco who described this feast, this veintena celebrated the maize cycle of this basic staple as critical to the sustenance of the community, with three maize gods associated with different developmental stages of the plant. The corner field recalls the beneficent effect of the rain god Tlaloc and his assistants on the ripening maize. The populace then participated by detaching tender green stalks and honoring them in their homes. Maize cobs deposited in the temple

Figure 5.1. Festivities of the gods. Top, ceremony of Hueytozoztli. Primeros memoriales, fol. 250v. Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España.

of Chicomecoatl were placed under the efficacious care of the male maize god Centeotl, who oversaw the drying out of the kernels that would in turn become seeds to be resown in the maize field. The two female ixiptla figures likely represent the young maize goddess Xilonen (from xilotl, or tender ear of green maize), who is the first sacrificed, while Chicomecoatl, the goddess of the mature maize plant, awaits her own sacrifice at the appropriate time. Jíménez Moreno viewed the event primarily as a celebration of the green stalk of the tender maize, which culminated in the sacrifice of Xilonen.33 If, as some scholars hold, depictions of the veintena cycle were not painted in native manuscripts but were a postconquest invention, the gathering of information from the memories of the Tepepulco elders would have played a significant role in the novel depictions created for the Primeros memoriales. In their youth the elders would likely have observed or even participated in the many events, and would have retained vivid memories from which they drew their verbal descriptions. The Primeros memoriales artists would thus have devised a new type of ritual depiction to match the narrated events, the aforementioned vignettes, and the collegians for their part would have recalled European sources that featured complex multifigural compositions arranged within a framed pictorial stage.

Primeros Memoriales, Paragraph 2B, The Feast of Atamalcualiztli

This following paragraph represents another type of ceremony, the exuberant feast of Atamalcualiztli (Eating of Water Tamales) (fig. 5.2), which also informs us about the depiction of deities. It commemorates the completion of an eight-­year Venus cycle and shows a rare example of an assembly of deity impersonators costumed in the attire of several gods, among them Chicomecoatl. It occupies one of only two full-­page paintings in the manuscript, accompanied by a long, detailed description. The pictorial and textual attention to the feast no doubt reflects its importance to the Tepepulco community and the abundant information provided verbally by the elders. Atamalcualiztli included dancing, processions, and food offerings, highlighted by the consumption of maize in a variety of differently seasoned tamales. The religious context of the lively celebration is emphasized by items shown along the central axis of the scene: a temple pyramid at the top; below it, a stepped platform in a temple courtyard; and beneath that, a large flowering maize plant. The costumes of the 82 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

gods scattered across the picture plane later reappear in the individual deity depictions of paragraph 5A. Chicomecoatl, at the lower right, can be recognized by the two red maize cobs she carries and the red facial coloration typical of fertility deities. In contrast, the populace appears in inventive costumes of birds, flying insects, and other picturesque disguises. This festive scene is also significant for informing us that individuals who ritually impersonated the gods wore accurate replicas of their attire on ceremonial occasions, as further indicated in the next section.

Primeros Memoriales, Paragraph 4, Those Who Served in the Temples

This paragraph is important for the light it sheds on the multiple duties carried out by priests of various gods, such as the teaching and performing of songs. It is especially informative about the costume items, ritual objects, component events, and materials (paint, food, drink, offerings, birds, flowers) that the priests had to obtain and prepare. The detailed itemization of ceremonial props indicates the exhaustive arrangements that preceded any ritual performance. While Chicomecoatl’s priest is not mentioned, that of Centeotl/Xilonen is, with responsibilities “to see to, to order that there be gathered together the papers, copal, rubber, and powdered sweet-­scented marigold that were required at the time of the festival to Xilonen.”34 Like the itemization of deity outfits in the Atamalcualiztli feast discussed in paragraph 2B, this paragraph demonstrates how lists of ritual items committed to memory could be readily recalled. It is likely that the Tepepulco elders relied on such memorized lists in answering queries about deities, their attire, and their rituals, and it was this type of verbal information that aided the Primeros memoriales artists in fashioning their depictions.

Primeros Memoriales, Paragraph 5A, How Each of the Gods Was Arrayed

Like paragraph 2B, paragraph 5A presents a similarly well-­organized and consistently maintained format for the appearance of individual gods, with a focus on their characteristic attire and accoutrements (fig. 5.3). The layout of images on the right with corresponding texts on the left again reflects the way the information was obtained from the elders. Here, the deity figures, twenty-­four male and twelve female, in addition to small molded-­dough figures of the five tepictoton mountain gods associated with the rain god Tlaloc, are carefully delineated in a some-

Figure 5.2. Feast of Atamalcualiztli. Lower right, Chicomecoatl. Primeros memoriales, fol. 254r. Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España.

what rustic indigenous style with unwavering attention to their visual appearance.35 Painted deity figures did not appear as isolated figures in preconquest native manuscripts. Their detached forms in the Primeros memoriales thus give little hint of the active roles they played in indigenous religion and ritual and appear to be another innovation of the manuscript’s artists. It may also reflect the influence of Christian depictions of individual sacred figures, such as saints who could be identified by their attire and traditional symbols, as seen in imported printed books and the sculptures and paintings displayed in churches.36

Primeros Memoriales, Chicomecoatl in the Images and Texts of Paragraph 5A

In figure 5.3 (top), Chicomecoatl’s placement as the first of the female deities signifies her importance in Tepepulco as the major deity of the Mesoamerican staple of maize. She is doubly identified by the alphabetic gloss of her written name inserted above her as well as by the maize cobs she holds aloft that already serve as markers of her identity and role in maintaining human sustenance and survival, as already noted in the Atamalcualiztli painting (see fig. 5.2). The color red predominates in her face painting, attire, and insignia, as it does for Xilonen. Often associated with fertility deities, red alludes to the ritual sacrifice undergone by female maize deities who symbolically made it Surviving Conquest • 83

Figure 5.3. How the gods were attired. Top right, Chicomecoatl. Primeros memoriales, fol. 262r. Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España.

possible for the maize plant and other cultigens to be agriculturally reborn. The text to Chicomecoatl’s left is precisely rendered in Nahuatl script, and her name appears again in the title of the text, which reads in English translation:

The Array of Chicomecoatl Her face is painted ochre red. Her paper crown is on her head. Her green stone necklace. She is wearing her shift with the evening primrose ­design, [and] her skirt with the evening primrose design. On her legs are small bells, pear-­shaped bells. 84 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

Her lordly sandals. Her shield is the shield with the sun symbol design. Her double maize ears are in her other hand.37

Essentially, the text is a formulaic listing of the individual components of Chicomecoatl’s accoutrements, from top to bottom, with one line allotted to each item, although the greenstone necklace and small bells are missing in the painting. This pairing demonstrates the closely maintained relationship between image and text here and in the manuscript as a whole. But while the mention of maize ears alludes to the goddess’s sphere of influence, the limited text gives little indication of her significance in religious ideology, mythic narrative, or the sacrificial ritual in

which her ixiptla played a major role in guaranteeing the reappearance of a new maize crop. The fact that the Tepepulco elders provided local pictorial sources or copies of them, or that the drawings might have been based on verbal descriptions, may account for the somewhat rustic and static delineations of the deity. López Austin also suggests that the rigidity of the language in the Nahuatl itemization may indicate that the Tlatelolco informants were repeating phrases learned by rote in the calmecac.38

Primeros Memoriales, Paragraph 10, Things Attributed to the Gods

This paragraph also details characteristics of twenty-­three of the thirty-­six gods depicted in paragraph 5A. For Chicomecoatl, it relates that she is the one who makes things sprout, makes things green, and preserves them, and thus extends her godly domain in the human sphere to providing sustenance in general, beyond that of maize.39

Primeros Memoriales, Paragraph 14, Songs of the Gods

The twenty sacred hymns to the gods further contribute to their characterizations as expressed in oral tradition and ritual practice. The “Song of Chicomecoatl” invokes her as Chicomollotzin, or “Seven Ears of Maize,” personifies her as “our mother,” and, by addressing her as “you who are the maize,” associates her with the maize plant. Even more, it exhorts her to “arise, wake up,” and “sprout up” on the earth,40 identifying Chicomecoatl not only as a goddess of maize but as maize itself. The song is notable for its plaintive personal plea to her to awaken from her seasonal slumber and sprout anew, so as to prevent leaving her children on earth bereft.

Florentine Codex, Book 1, “The Gods”

The expansion of material on the gods in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex is immediately apparent by contrasting its thirty-­five folios with the seven of paragraph 5A in the Primeros memoriales. This increase was no doubt based on the vast amount of material gathered in Tlatelolco during the second research round of the Historia project. Despite this expansion, only twenty-­one deities and five tepictoton appear in Book 1, with a first section of five gods identified as “major” deities, a second section of seven “major” goddesses, a third section of nine additional “minor” gods, followed by the five tepictoton. The designations of “major”

and “minor” had not been previously used to categorize indigenous deities. This compares to the thirty-­six deities and five tepictoton that appear in paragraph 5A of the Primeros memoriales. Even the titles of the corresponding sections reveal the Florentine’s expansion. “How Each of the Gods Was Arrayed” in the Primeros memoriales signals a narrow focus on the visual appearance of the deities, whereas “The Gods” of the Florentine Codex announces an open-­ended consideration. These changes also highlight the Florentine’s shift in the relationship between image and text, as well as a greater Europeanization of the deity depictions, features that exemplify the later manuscript’s varying omissions, modifications, and innovations.

Florentine Codex, Book 1, Format 1: Chicomecoatl

The Florentine’s deities are further presented in two formats, each differing from the consistent columnar pairing of image and text in the Primeros memoriales. The first format divides the folio into quadrants enclosing large individual figures (fig. 5.4), with five tepictoton unevenly occupying the last three quadrants. Less indigenous in bodily and facial character, their more elongated proportions, active poses, and sure-­footed stances contrast with the stocky, floating figures in the Primeros memoriales (fig. 5.5). Gender differences are also manifest in the attire, as males are garbed in abbreviated clothing so that their bodily contours are more evident, whereas females are conservatively dressed in a long skirt and loosely fitted native huipil (tunic) or quechquemitl (triangular upper garment). The greater adherence to European anatomical conventions no doubt reflects the Florentine Codex artists’ greater exposure to imported European standards of representation available at the colegio and in the viceregal capital of Mexico City. As noted earlier, no central Mexican pictorial source displays the gods as a coherent group, as they are displayed in format 1 (see fig. 5.4), which attempts to show an entire pantheon in a few sequential folios. Their large size and clearly delineated forms may indicate that they were designed to facilitate the rapid recognition of individual native gods to provide missionaries with a ready reference. Making the Florentine’s gods look more realistically human also relates to Sahagún’s refrain in the appendix of Book 1, where he repeatedly emphasizes that what native people believed to be gods were in fact only human beings. Although Chicomecoatl’s image is stylistically different, it is iconographically similar to the Primeros memoSurviving Conquest • 85

Figure 5.4. The gods. Top right, Chicomecoatl. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 10v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

riales goddess (see fig. 5.5), revealing here the Florentine Codex artists’ dependence on the earlier manuscript, or a draft or copy of it, albeit with modifications. Nahuatl names of the gods appear in an alphabetic script above their heads, adding for some the names of related gods of antiquity. Chicomecoatl’s gloss thus identifies her as a goddess of maize and equates her with the Roman goddess of grain, Ceres (“es otra diosa ceres”). The familiar names of ancient pagan gods might have been intended to make the character of the Mexican gods easier to grasp and remember. López Austin points out that in the Códices Matritenses (Madrid Codices) the names of the Roman gods were added in Sahagún’s own hand.41 Doing so placed the Mexican gods in the category of an obsolete ancient pantheon that no longer had an active religious role or 86 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

cult after having been replaced by the Christian god, an erasure that the Spanish missionary fervently sought to duplicate. In a further departure, the grouped deity images are separated from their intended related texts. Lacking folio numbers for Book 1, they thus appear to be a later insertion, with a gloss below the deities’ feet directing the reader to a preexisting text, further severing the close connection seen between image and text found in the Primeros memoriales. In contrast to the earlier manuscript’s strict line-­by-­ line itemization of Chicomecoatl’s array, the Florentine Codex provides a brief discursive description of her, beginning with her name and its meaning, then portraying her as the representative of maize and sustenance. It repeats the earlier manuscript’s array of the goddess from top to

Figure 5.5. Chicomecoatl compared. Left, Primeros memoriales, fol. 262r. Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España. Right, Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 10v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

bottom, from her ochre-­red face painting and misnamed “headdress” to her shield with a sun design, though it fails to mention the proprietary maize cobs she holds aloft.42 Another short description in the Spanish text follows the Nahuatl text, identifying Chicomecoatl as the goddess of sustenance, food, or drink, but it lacks any mention of maize, misidentifies the maize cobs as a vase, and erroneously calls her the first to make bread or cooked foods.43

Florentine Codex, Book 1, Format 2: Chicomecoatl

The second format used in Book 1 takes the form of seven added vignettes, a continuation of the novel narrative scenes introduced in the veintena rituals of the Primeros memoriales. These go beyond the bare description of the deities’ attributes and array and venture into ritual roles, a province that properly belongs to Book 2, “The Ceremonies.” The vignettes mainly refer to water deities, reflecting the importance of their cults in the island locations of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan–­Mexico City.44 The elders of these urban cities had no doubt witnessed ornately staged deity rituals in contrast to the simpler versions celebrated in the inland town of Tepepulco, north of the Basin of Mexico, a reminder that while general features of religion and ritual were widely observed, local considerations were also accommodated. Chicomecoatl appears at the end of chapter 1 in a passage dedicated to the water goddess Chalchiuhtlicue ( Jade

Figure 5.6. The gods. Left to right, Tzapotlantenan, Chalchiuhtlicue, and Chicomecoatl. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 6v (detail). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Skirt), in yet another type of narrative scene that displays her in an unusual composite grouping of fertility deities (fig. 5.6). The two standing deities are based on those in the Primeros memoriales: at the far left, Tzapotlantenan, a female goddess whose name is connected to the medicinal uses of turpentine; in the center, Chalchiuhtlicue; and at the right, a striking image of Chicomecoatl, here displayed frontally like a statue and drawn in a different style. Aside from the red paper crown, the twin maize cobs, and the shield already noted as emblems, hers is a distinctively indigenous delineation not found in the Primeros memoriales. She appears in a stately seated position wearing a red quechquemitl atop a red skirt with a diamond decoration related to rattlesnake markings. Most surprising are the seven live serpents spread out beneath her that, along with the skirt markings, visualize her name, Seven Serpent. These details ally her to earth fertility deities who also display symbolic serpentine features and were greatly honored in the Basin of Mexico.45 Both the additional Spanish and Nahuatl chapter titles and the texts of Book 1 focus on the water goddess Surviving Conquest • 87

Chalchiuhtlicue, with Chicomecoatl and Huixtocihuatl only briefly mentioned at the end of the text, when the three are jointly cited for their beneficence to humankind. These long texts report that on Chalchiuhtlicue’s feast day the other deities honored were “the image of the maize,” that is, Chicomecoatl, and the goddess of salt, Huixtocihuatl,46 who is, however, replaced by Tzapotlantenan in the vignette.

Florentine Codex, Book 2, “The Ceremonies”

Ritual matters occupy most of chapter 1 in the Primeros memoriales, and Book 2 similarly constitutes one of the longest books of the Florentine Codex. In the earlier manuscript various aspects of Nahua ritual were deconstructed into fourteen paragraphs. The Florentine Codex ceremonies, however, emerge as a complex synthetic project that integrates separate aspects of the Primeros memoriales rituals and adds an extraordinary amount of material. As the prologues reveal, what preceded the final Florentine Codex was written, revised, copied, abandoned, again pursued, and again copied, resulting in the discarded folios of the interim Códices Matritenses and sundry other related writings known to have been produced and subsequently lost. The abundance of information about the Florentine’s veintenas was due to various reasons. Those who answered Sahagún’s questions about native religion certainly faced a challenge in attempting to explain to an outsider the complexities of a religious tradition whose myriad rituals had suffused their entire lives. Another reason is that each veintena occupied twenty days, nearly an entire year to complete an extremely complex ceremonial cycle. Commandeering not only the stunning architectural setting and expansive spaces of the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan, the ceremonies involved the entire community and included an array of activities, such as processions, offerings of various kinds, dances, songs, fasting, and feasting, as well as numerous items and materials, fauna and flora, and often culminated in sanguinary ritual sacrifices. Some activities extended into the surrounding city and beyond to distant lakes and mountains and other natural earthly features. The meticulous preparations mentioned for these events in Tepepulco are just a brief rendering of what these extravagant and laborious ceremonial productions must have demanded in the Aztec capital. In addition, other rituals, titled “movable feasts,” were guided by the 260-­day tonalpohualli rather than the 360-­plus-­5-­day 88 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

year count, or xiuhpohualli, that determined the veintena cycle. Yet other ceremonies observed life’s personal milestones, like birth, marriage, and death.

Florentine Codex, Book 2, Hueytozoztli and Chicomecoatl

Compositional disparities between the two manuscripts are apparent as well. While the veintenas of the Primeros memoriales present an equal number of images and related texts, those of the Florentine Codex are accompanied by forty-­nine illustrations, which are inconsistently allotted to the deities. Only eleven veintenas include images, with the greatest number being twelve for the spectacular ceremony of Tlacaxipehualiztli (Flaying of Men) dedicated to the male fertility god Xipe Totec (Flayed Our Lord). Others receive fewer illustrations, or none at all. Thus, unlike paragraph 2A, Book 2 abandons an organizational consistency, a regular format, and a close correlation between image and text. As with the gods of Book 1, the later veintena scenes are more Europeanized in style, consisting of animated narratives filled with figures who sometimes interact with each other or the architectural or landscape backgrounds in a European rather than indigenous mode. Chapter 23 of the Florentine offers a long and detailed version of the feast of Hueytozoztli (Great Vigil) that honored Chicomecoatl as well as Centeotl, the male maize god.47 Two scenes show devotees honoring the goddess with maize and other food offerings (fig. 5.7). In the first (bottom left), standing males offer maize stalks at the temple of Chicomecoatl while seated females render maize cobs and bowls of atole, a maize gruel. They are portrayed at close range in the manuscript’s more Europeanized figural style, though the devotees remain clothed in traditional garb. Their ample size gives them greater visual impact, facilitating an easy reading of the scene, a device also employed with the deity figures of Book 1. An unusual second scene shows a large seated image of Chicomecoatl (bottom right), similar to that in figure 5.6. She appears on a larger scale than her smaller devotees, who deposit proportionally large baskets overflowing with food offerings at her feet. The painting emphasizes the appearance of the goddess, whether as a statue or an ixiptla, as does the detailed text of the ceremony: “They formed her image as a woman,” she who was their sustenance and made all their food. The text goes on to enumerate the various colors and forms of maize, as well as those of beans, amaranth, and chia.48 When it was her feast day they gave

Figure 5.7. Hueytozoztli compared. Top, Primeros memoriales, fol. 250v (detail). Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España. Bottom left, Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 28r (detail); bottom right, Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 29v (detail). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

her human form, and her arms, legs, face, paper crown, embroidered shift and skirt, and shield were “anointed all in red . . . completely red,” and she carried a double maize ear in either hand.49 The description expands on many of the features first mentioned in the Primeros memoriales and enhances the activities of the feast by consolidating the additional traits that appeared in separate paragraphs of the Primeros memoriales, where she was honored as “our sustenance,” “our flesh,” “our livelihood,” and “our strength.” It also includes new details about her cult, such as relating that the old men in charge of the calpulli (wards) sang and beheaded quail for her.50 The shorter versions of Hueytozoztli in the Florentine Codex and the Spanish text also reprise the many activities typical of her feast, including the making of her image with tzoalli, a dough of maize and amaranth, in the patio of her temple, thus intensifying her identification with the maize plant itself.51 Despite the differing pictorial styles (see fig. 5.7), there is

a strong correspondence, textual if not visual, between the characterization of Hueytozoztli in the two manuscripts. The extended textual treatments of Hueytozoztli in the Florentine Codex thus contrast with the abbreviated account in the Primeros memoriales, as befit the more expansive staging of the veintenas in Tenochtitlan. It introduces a four-­day fast, then repeats episodes from the Primeros memoriales, with variations that highlight the more public roles of males, such as the setting up of sedge plants everywhere while at night women made atole. It amplifies the young men’s skirmishes with priests as they walk the roads to the fields to get stalks of green maize to carry to their homes to honor the maize gods. They also leave offerings at the temple of Chicomecoatl, where yet other skirmishes follow. Also repeated is the young men’s taunting of young girls who carry dried maize cobs to the temple, where they are made into “hearts,” that is, the hearts of the grain that became seeds to be planted the following year. Surviving Conquest • 89

There is a marked difference between the simplicity of the events described in Tepepulco and the Florentine’s increased activities, abundant food offerings, and strained social relations. The Tepepulco ceremony, where the community as a whole, and young women in particular, played a central role, contrasts with the aggressive young males who dominate the antagonistic activities described in the Florentine Codex. Class antagonisms are expressed in skirmishes between them and the priests, reflecting discord between the elite calmecac students and those of the commoners’ telpochcalli (house of youth), as well as among themselves. Gender tension is also apparent in the banter exchanged between them and the young females. This competitive spirit might have stemmed from the crowded urban location and more militaristic ethos of Tenochtitlan, where the bold actions of warriors had been admired and rewarded. Chicomecoatl also acquires more roles in the Florentine Codex. Beyond her major participation in Hueytozoztli, she also appears in the veintenas of Tlaxochimaco (Bestowing of Flowers), dedicated to Huitzilopochtli; Ochpaniztli (Sweeping of Roads), which honored the earth fertility goddess Toci; and Atemoztli (Descent of Water), where the tepictoton were honored, one of which was made in the form of Chicomecoatl. Her repeated appearances in other veintenas thus considerably expanded at a time when Aztec hegemony and tribute requisitioned throughout Mesoamerica were also significantly escalating. It was also fueled by carrying out the ceremonies in the largest and most populated urban center of its time in pre-­Hispanic Mesoamerica, with the ritual showcase of the Templo Mayor providing an unparalleled outdoor setting for numerous events. In short, the veintena ceremonies in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitan were more elaborately staged than in the distant regional center of Tepepulco, as would be expected, and hence were more spectacularly presented in the Florentine’s images. In addition, most of the material for the Florentine Codex was amassed and recorded over a period of about twenty years, far beyond the two years when the Primeros memoriales data was gathered and finalized. This partially accounts for the tremendous increase of data from the 88 folios of the Primeros memoriales to the approximately 1,200 folios of the Florentine Codex. The vast accumulation of pictorial and textual material that had to be organized, as well as the increasing pressure to conclude the project, coincided with Sahagún’s advanced years at a time 90 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

when opposition to his project had reached a peak and the epidemic of the late 1570s devastated Mexico and the colegio.52

How Did Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan–­Mexico City Impact the Making of the Florentine Codex and Its Images? Having examined in the prologues Sahagún’s plan for the Historia and his use (or not) of native pictorial sources, and having analyzed disparities between the deity depictions in the images and texts in the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex, I now consider the question of how the metropolitan centers of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan–­ Mexico City further impacted the completion of the Historia project and its images. Why was such an extraordinary number of images painted for the manuscript? And which group of artists could have accomplished this titanic task without any mention of a plan for their inclusion? Let us briefly turn back to the early postconquest period, when the gifted Franciscan lay brother Pedro de Gante arrived in Tenochtitlan–­Mexico City in 1523 with two companions, and a few years later founded the Chapel of San José de los Naturales. Intended for the education and conversion of indigenous youths, it adjoined the then humble church and convento of San Francisco. The friar taught his students Christian doctrine as well as music and singing to better participate in the Christian liturgy. He not only explored new uses for native Mexican arts that allowed trained indigenous artists to pass on their expertise to subsequent generations but also introduced students to a wide spectrum of European art, crafts, and skills, in which they excelled.53 The colegio, established about ten years later in Tlatelolco, represented a major step in further educating the sons of indigenous lords and leaders by giving them a humanistic Renaissance education.54 Mendieta reports that the most able boys were selected to attend the colegio, and this group surely included Gante’s students, who had already been exceptionally well educated and trained in the arts, both traditional and imported.55 The ambitious academic program of the colegio was further enhanced by the establishment of a library that boasted numerous European volumes from which students could not only learn about their subjects but also see how books were constructed and embellished with frontispieces and Renaissance-­style illus-

Figure 5.8. Tlatelolco, caja de agua, north wall. Bottom, fresco with water scenes; above, drawing of water scene detail. Photograph and drawing by Arqlgo. Salvador Guilliem Arroyo, director of Proyecto Tlatelolco, 1987–2018, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Reproduced with permission.

trations.56 In addition, a printing house was established in Mexico City as early as 1539, making more books available as scholarly sources and pictorial models. The educational pursuits of the colegio provided a lively intellectual and artistic environment, encouraging projects that made use of the knowledge and talents of those selected to attend. The number of students in residence, and possibly former students as well, were available to assist in creative enterprises, such as collaborating with Sahagún on the Historia, as well as the projects of other friars. Certainly, too, the number of artists available in the urban hub far surpassed those in other areas. Related to the colegio’s ambiance and accomplishments is the fact that manuscript scholars have attributed to Tlatelolco the Badianus, Tlatelolco, and Cozcatzin manuscripts, and the

Uppsala and Santa Cruz maps, an indication that experienced artists were available there. Indeed, no other location in New Spain has been credited with producing so many major manuscripts in different genres.57 And, like the Florentine Codex, these projects bridged native and European epistemologies. Additionally, excavations following the discovery in 2002 of a caja de agua (water tank) for the Tlatelolco convento have unearthed the remains of sixteenth-­century polychrome water scenes painted on three of the four surrounding walls of the water box (fig. 5.8). The style of the frescoes has been compared to images painted in the Florentine Codex, further revealing that artists affiliated with the colegio, which adjoined the convento, were involved with other ambitious artistic projects.58 Many years Surviving Conquest • 91

Figure 5.9. Scriptorium of Tlatelolco imagined. From National Geographic 158, no. 6 (December 1980): 733. Felipe Dávalos/National Geographic Creative. Used with permission.

ago Donald Robertson called attention to the achievements of the scriptorium of Tlatelolco, and the Florentine Codex as an exemplar of what he labeled the School of Tlatelolco.59 Connecting the activities of the colegio to pre-­ Hispanic antecedents, Miguel León-­Portilla has further compared the scriptorium to a tlahcuiloyan, a place of writing and painting that had flourished before the conquest.60

The Tlatelolco Painting Workshop Imagined Turning to the question of the copious images produced for the Florentine Codex and the artists who might have

92 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

made them, I propose that those artists trained in the arts in Tenochtitlan–­Mexico City and Tlatelolco be credited with playing a critical role in the production of the Florentine’s voluminous illustrations. Looking back to the 1560s and 1570s, when he was unable to work on the Historia for a variety of reasons, including his advanced age and infirmities, Sahagún, ever resourceful, might have called upon his former students and collaborators, and others affiliated with the scriptorium, to carry on the work of producing the images of the Florentine Codex to complete the Historia project (fig. 5.9). Since Sahagún never mentions artists or images as being an integral part of the Historia project, possibly to forestall even further criticism of

it, the experienced artists of the Tlatelolco scriptorium, abetted by those from San José de los Naturales, who had worked under the guidance of Pedro de Gante until his death in 1572, might have taken the initiative to plan and produce the myriad paintings of the Florentine Codex. In some cases, they modified images based on those of the Primeros memoriales, created vignettes that combined ancient and European features, and devised others to match the existing texts. As has been shown, they even found ways to modify deity images to retain their necessary inclusion. Only with this concerted effort would the Florentine Codex, as we know it, have been completed in time for it to be personally carried by fray Rodrigo Sequera from Mexico to Spain in early 1580.61 Finally, why was the Florentine Codex illustrated with such an abundance of images? As the Tepepulco and Tlatelolco collaborators knew, and Sahagún himself realized, it was the way knowledge had been recorded, and it preserved Nahua culture in proprietary pictorial and linguistic (Nahuatl) modes of expression, thus perpetuating a besieged heritage. And since the intended three columns of text in the 1569 “clean copy” were in the end reduced to only two, and much of the planned Spanish translation of the Nahuatl texts was replaced by a shorter paraphrase, the images played a practical role in filling the leftover spaces of the manuscript. Painted in a Mexico that was in the process of being reconfigured from afar as a New Spain, the bicultural illustrations of the Florentine Codex and its bilingual texts recall a preconquest past that was being reimagined in a rapidly evolving postconquest present. By bridging the two eras and bringing the ancient Nahua past into their own time and place, the anonymous Tlatelolco artists made the Florentine Codex their own.

Notes 1. The title Historia general broadly characterizes the project as one treating the “things of New Spain.” On the various titles offered for the Historia, see Dibble 1982a, 15–16; Terraciano, introduction to this volume. 2. For a review of the origin and history of the Historia project, see Dibble 1982a, 9–23. 3. On Sahagún’s Spanish prologues, see Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., 45–101. 4. Aztec, an anachronistic term, here refers to Nahua culture in the pre-­Hispanic period. 5. Transferring the Spanish terms dios or diosa, as well as those from other languages, to native gods raises the question of the meaning of

the Nahuatl term teotl. See Bassett 2015; and Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 6. See also in this volume chapters 6 (Boone), 7 (Olivier), 9 (Bassett), and 10 (Magaloni Kerpel). 7. On distinctions between the contents of the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex, see Nicholson 1973b, 207–218; 1997, 3–14. 8. English titles for the Primeros memoriales are from Sahagún 1997, and for the Florentine Codex, from Sahagún 1950–1982. 9. Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 10. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 53. 11. On Tepepulco as the first site of Sahagún’s Historia research, see Nicholson 1974, 145–154. 12. On the colegio of Tlatelolco and its collegians, curriculum, and accomplishments, see SilverMoon 2007. 13. Sahagún’s references to scribes in the prologues apply to those who wrote the alphabetic texts, which gives the term a European connotation, for although dealing with an indigenous culture, the Historia manuscripts are Europeanized documents in format, alphabetic texts, and many materials. The scribes and artists thus performed a function closer to that of European scribes and manuscript painters than the native tlacuiloque who painted native pictorial manuscripts. Producing the Florentine’s lengthy texts (approximately 1,200 folios, or 2,500 pages) would have required a dedicated team of scribes proficient in writing in Spanish and written Nahuatl. 14. On the artists of the Historia, see Quiñones Keber 1988a, 1988b; and Boone, chapter 6 of this volume. On the artists of the Florentine Codex, see Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 27–34; and Peterson 1988, 273–293. On the artists of the Primeros memoriales, see Baird 1993; and Quiñones Keber 1997. 15. The number of images varies, consisting of figures and multifigural scenes, as well as numerous decorative tailpiece designs that are not tallied in the total. 16. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 46, 51. 17. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 48. The first publication of the Spanish paraphrase of the Florentine Codex by López Austin and García Quintana appears in Sahagún 1989. 18. Dibble (1982a, 15) cites a letter published in Baudot. 19. Dibble 1982a, 19; based on a suggestion by García Icazbalceta. 20. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 48. 21. Sahagún 1950–1982, app. to Bk. 1, 55, 59. 22. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 54. See also López Austin 1974a, 116–117. 23. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 3, 59. 24. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 3, 59–60. 25. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 48–50, and Books 8 and 10. 26. López Austin (1974a, 129) discusses possible sources for Book 3 in oral tradition, while Escalante Gonzalbo (2008) calls attention to European models on folios 18r, 19v, and 22r of the Florentine Codex. 27. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., 61. 28. On the tonalamatl, see Boone 2007. 29. On what was made of the tonalamatl in the Florentine Codex, see Quiñones Keber 2002a. 30. The omens of Book 5 were also associated with soothsaying, and their interpretation derived from oral lore rather than a pictorial source like the tonalamatl. 31. Preconquest screenfolds depicting various permutations of the 260-­day tonalpohualli were utilized in other areas of central Mexico, the best known of which are the Codex Borgia Group painted in an Aztec-­

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related but distinctive Mixteca-­Puebla style and iconography. The Codex Borbonicus is the closest example from the Basin of Mexico of what a preconquest ritual manuscript from that area might have looked like. See Anders, Jansen, and Reyes García 1991. 32. Sahagún 1997, 98. 33. Sahagún 1974, 28–30. 34. Sahagún 1997, 83. 35. For the significance of the array of the gods, see Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 9–13. 36. On other possible sources for imaging the Florentine’s gods, see Boone, chapter 6 of this volume; for the conception of indigenous gods, see Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 37. Sahagún 1997, 98. 38. López Austin 1974a, 123. 39. Sahagún 1993b, 121–122. 40. Sahagún 1993b, 148. 41. López Austin 1974a, 124–125. 42. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 13. 43. Sahagún 1989b, 40. 44. Chalchiuhtlicue appears in two additional scenes and is included in a third; the tepictoton have two scenes; and a Tlaloc-­related god, Nappatecuhtli, has one. 45. On the visual overlap between Chicomecoatl and Coatlicue, another earth fertility deity, see Lois Martin, “The ‘Coatlicues’ as the Chicomecoatls: Rattlesnakes, Corn, and Aztec Science” (paper presented at the Pre-­Columbian Society of New York, Institute of Fine Arts, New York, March 2016). 46. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 21–22. 47. On Hueytozoztli, see Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 7–8 (short

94 • Eloise Quiñones Keber

version), and Bk. 2, 61–65. While the Primeros memoriales depicts Chicomecoatl and Xilonen in this ceremony, only Chicomecoatl appears in one of two related vignettes in the Florentine Codex. 48. Sahagún 1982, Bk. 2, 64–65. 49. Sahagún 1982, Bk. 2, 65. 50. Sahagún 1982, Bk. 2, 65. 51. Sahagún 1982, Bk. 2, 7. 52. Sahagún was a victim of the devastating plague of 1545–1548. The epidemics (pestilencia in Sahagún’s words, cocoliztli in Nahuatl) in those years and in 1576–1578 killed up to 80 percent of the population in the first epidemic and about 50 percent of the remaining population in the second. See Acuña-­Soto, Stahle, Cleaveland, and Therrell 2002; see also Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 53. Mendieta 1971, 407–408. 54. Mendieta 1971, 414–418. 55. Mendieta 1971, 414. 56. Mathes 1985. 57. Although famed for its production of native-­based arts, such as featherwork, and the adaptation of European architectural construction, San José de los Naturales has not yet been directly associated with the production of manuscripts, but further research and manuscript studies may yet reveal a connection. 58. Salvador Guilliem Arroyo (2013) has drawn attention to a detail of the water box in the Uppsala Map (ca. 1550) and correspondences to other Tlatelolco manuscripts, such as the Codex Cozcatzin (ca. 1572). 59. Robertson 1959, 155–178. 60. León-­Portilla 2003, 104. 61. Dibble 1982a, 10–15. For alternative dates for the making of the Florentine Codex, see Terraciano, introduction to this volume.

Chapter 6

Fashioning Conceptual Categories in the Florentine Codex Old-­World and Indigenous Foundations for the Rulers and the Gods Elizabeth Hill Boone

T

his chapter explores two aspects of Sahagún’s ethnographic project: the old-­world sources (many ancient) that helped him conceptualize the cultural categories that would guide his investigation, and the indigenous images that were the foundation for the data that brought life to his ethnography. To do this I put into dialogue Sahagún’s and his assistants’ treatment of the Aztec kings with their treatment of the Aztec gods. One can see that the Aztec kings easily migrated from their preconquest frame to the pages of the Primeros memoriales and then to the Florentine Codex, but the Aztec gods had to be constructed from an array of discursive practices, both European and indigenous. It is clear that Sahagún and his indigenous colleagues from the Colegio de Santa Cruz were deeply influenced by the writings of the ancients—classical and medieval authors who likewise gathered and organized broad-­ranging data on the spiritual and secular world.1 These possible intellectual influences include Pliny the Elder’s Naturalus historia, Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, and the popular thirteenth-­century encyclopedia De proprietatibus rerum by the Franciscan friar Bartholomeus Anglicus.2 Donald Robertson proposed Anglicus as a model, as its organization proceeds, like the Florentine Codex, from the divine, to the heavens, to humankind, and finally to mundane earthly things.3 For more specific topics, Garibay has also proposed Theophrastus’s study of moral characters for “The People” (Book 10), Flavius Josefus’s history of the Jews for cus-

toms, and Pliny’s natural history for Book 11.4 To this list can be added the newer studies of foreign peoples that began to be written in the thirteenth century and were published in the sixteenth. Ellen T. Baird has mentioned the thirteenth-­ century ethnographies of the Mongols by the Franciscans John de Plano Caprini and William Rubruck. I propose also that Sahagún was probably influenced by a broadly popular collection of customs, the Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus of 1520, gathered and arranged by Johann Boemus, another Franciscan, whose own study was influenced by Caprini and Rubruck. Also relevant is Polydore Vergil’s De inventoribus rerum, published in 1499, whose first book begins with the origin of the gods.5 European models that specifically describe foreign gods are considered in greater detail later in this chapter. Sahagún’s encyclopedic project was an extraordinary undertaking, but it necessarily relied on the efforts of earlier compilers who helped to chart a path. The indigenous image was the other dominating model. For some realms of knowledge, Sahagún and the grammarians, as well as other friar ethnographers, relied more closely on the indigenous tradition of pictorial expression and on indigenous literary genres than on European literary collections and encyclopedias. Such decisions were likely determined by which native genres the indigenous informants thought most appropriate. In particular, the native calendar, divination, and historical accounts as they appear in the early colonial cultural encyclopedias derive from indigenous prototypes; indeed, two of the most im-

95

portant preconquest literary genres were the books of fate based on the divinatory calendar and the annals histories of community kingdoms. This differential reliance on native or European models is especially clear in a comparison of Sahagún’s treatments of the Aztec kings and the Aztec gods. The descriptions of the kings in both the Primeros memoriales (1559–1561) and the Florentine Codex (1575–1577) follow no European model but instead track closely to preconquest precedents as these can be reconstructed from surviving annals histories. There being no indigenous model for a structured and focused description of multiple Aztec supernaturals, as appears in the Primeros memoriales and Book 1 of the Florentine Codex, Sahagún and the grammarians looked to classical, medieval, and early-­modern encyclopedias that list and describe the gods of foreign religions, notably the pagan gods of antiquity. The painted figures that served to help distinguish these gods, however, were derived—much altered and repurposed—from the indigenous image.

Lords A very many paintings in the Florentine Codex are highly Europeanized, characterized by a three-­dimensional pictorial illusionism that yields a window onto an observed subject. The images of the rulers stand out, however, for their orthodoxy in adhering to the canons of Mexican pictography.6 They are even more conservatively treated in the earlier Primeros memoriales, where the sequent rulers of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Huexotla are stacked top to bottom on the right side of the page (fig. 6.1).7 In the Primeros memoriales each image adheres stylistically to its preconquest source—for it is a pictogram: a symbolic statement rather than a likeness of the ruler. The figures are flat and ideoplastic, in being composed of forms that are canonically known rather than observed with the eye. They are simply constructed of a profile head, selective body parts (lower back, rump, toes, and lower feet), and signifying attributes: cloak, headdress, nose bar (or absence thereof ), distinctive seat, and name sign. Within the royal line of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan the pictographer distinguishes the first three Mexica rulers (Acamapichtli through Chimalpopoca) from the others by means of the circular fan device of yellow parrot feathers (cozoyahualolli) on their heads, the leather cloak, and the simple seat of

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reeds (tolicpalli) that signal their preimperial, Chichimec-­ derived status. But beginning with Itzcoatl, the imperial rulers wear the pointed turquoise diadem (xihuitzolli), the turquoise nose bar, and the royal turquoise blue cape with star border, and they sit on the high-­backed woven-­reed throne (tepotzoicpalli).8 These Primeros memoriales images retain much of the flavor of preconquest originals. Glosses just to the left of the images name each attribute in a monotonous litany of symbolic elements: name sign written in red, and in black from top to bottom, headdress, cape, and seat. Beginning with Itzcoatl the scribe also names the nose bar, the turquoise cape, and its star-­eye border. The viewer senses the requirement that each attribute be labeled, as if each were also meant to be individually recognized and voiced. Before the conquest a viewer of such images would have automatically appreciated the signifying force of each element as an attribute of rule and could well have read these attributes aloud for his listeners, but the early colonial drive to translate native discourse into alphabetic script called for the addition of the individual glosses here, repetitive though they are. These same attributes are listed for each ruler through Cuauhtemoc, but not thereafter. The subsequent, colonial governors of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan lack the indigenous attributes of rule—the headdress, the nose bar, and the turquoise cloak—and although they sit on high-­ backed thrones, which had come to signify authority more broadly, they are identified by name only.9 The texts that run down the left side of each page are equally repetitive, naming the sequential rulers, the number of years they ruled, and sometimes one or two of their major conquests and the events that were especially noteworthy (such as the conquest of the Tepaneca and the famine of the year One Rabbit). It is clear that this section of the Primeros memoriales—in its union of ruler, reign length, and events—is derived from fairly standard preconquest annals histories. Although annals histories have survived only in early colonial copies, many of the copies retain fundamental features of their prototypes. The Codex Mexicanus, for example, records the identity of the rulers and the memorable events of each reign—such as natural and climatic phenomena, conquests, and other events of general import to the polity (fig. 6.2).10 In this annals the sequent rulers are crowned, seated, enthroned, and named much as they are in the Primeros memoriales. A prototype for the ruler presentation in the Primeros memoriales might

we know of preconquest pictorial annals, ruler images were part of a historical discourse that also included reign lengths, conquests, and other events. Thus, when the ruler images were extracted from the annals histories and transferred first to the Primeros memoriales and then via this or also have been something like the ruler list in the first part another draft to the Florentine Codex, they brought with of the Codex Mendoza, where history is segmented ac- them as attributes some of the events associated with the cording to the rulers and their conquests: each ruler and rulers in the original sources. his conquests are recorded together on a page (fig. 6.3). The rulers section in the Primeros memoriales distills the The Mendoza rulers canonically wear the xihuitzolli (dia- major features of these annals (see fig. 6.1). Like them, it dem), have a speech scroll that signifies the title of tlatoani emphasizes the unbroken sequence of rulership, a canoni(speaker), are seated on a woven mat, and are glyphically cal presentation of the rulers’ form and costume, and the named. In a column on the left side of the page are the se- length of their reigns. But because its subject is the rulers quent years of his reign, and the conquests are arranged themselves and not Aztec history per se, only some of the in rows to the right. A related presentation of rulers, but historical material is retained, not to be pictured but to be without the conquests, is found in the back of the Codex included in the explanatory texts. The text accompanying Aubin, where, on each page, the ruler is identified—with the image of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina, for example, says: name sign, crown, blue cloak, speech scroll, and high-­ “And when Itzcoatzin died, Motechuzomatzin the elder, backed throne; although it does not specify the individual Ilhuicamina, was installed, and he ruled thirty-­five years. years, it does give the quantities of years. Thus, from what In this time occurred what was called being one-­rabbited Figure 6.1. The lords of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan. Primeros memoriales, fols. 51r and 51v. Códice Matritense. © Real Academia de Historia, España.

Conceptual Categories in the Florentine Codex • 97

Figure 6.2. Annals history of the Codex Mexicanus, p. 71, showing events of the years Four Reed to Nine Reed, including at Seven Rabbit the accession of Ahuitzotl. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

[necetochhuiloc], that is, in this time there was a famine in the one year sign One Rabbit.”11 This is just the kind of information included in the annals. The Florentine Codex continues both the traditional form of representation and the historical content in the texts. Its texts are more detailed, they especially include more conquests, and they also correct mistakes in the Primeros memoriales (e.g., the reign length of Moctezuma Ilhuicamina). The Spanish version follows the Nahuatl closely. Thus, for Moctezuma, the Nahuatl text of the Florentine Codex says: The fifth ruler of Tenochtitlan. Moctezuma the Elder was fifth, and ruled Tenochtitlan thirty years. He conquered and made war on all the people of Chalco; and on Quauhnahuac and on all who were subject to Quauhnahuac; and on Maçauacan. And in his reign there came a great famine which spread over the land for four years. Hence it was said that all were affected by the year One Rabbit [Necetochuiloc]. All the 98 • Elizabeth Hill Boone

people of Mexico, and the Tepaneca and those of Acolhuacan dispersed among other [people].12

In the same way, the painter of the rulers in the Florentine Codex followed the precedent set in the Primeros memoriales but adjusted it. He seated both the preconquest rulers and the colonial rulers on the high-­backed throne, assigned them all turquoise diadems, and named them glyphically (fig. 6.4). He ignored the distinction in clothing that usually characterizes the first three, preimperial rulers and instead standardized all the preconquest kings with signifiers of imperial rule: the turquoise diadem, turquoise cloak, and high-­backed throne. The painter marked even the postconquest rulers with the diadem and throne. His message is a simpler one than that in the Primeros memoriales: to wit, all the preconquest rulers were equal in their status, and the colonial ones continued in their tradition. His success in stressing continuity from the preconquest past into the colonial present reinforced the authority of contemporaneous indigenous elites, who often asserted claims to privileges based on their descent from royalty. It also satisfied a desideratum for indigenous polities seeking cabecera (chief town) status, which was an unbroken history of direct tlatoani rule.13 The Florentine Codex artist did, however, reserve the royal-­blue cloak for

Figure 6.3. Annals history of the Codex Mendoza, fol. 13r, showing conquests of Ahuitzotl during his sixteen-­year reign. MS. Arch. Selden A. 1, fol. 13r. Photograph, Bodleian Libraries.

the royal kings, by dressing the nonroyal colonial rulers and governors in simpler capes. It is abundantly clear that the preconquest canon was to signify rulers in profile, seated, enthroned, appropriately accoutered, and glyphically named. One almost never sees rulers posed in other positions in the traditional annals.14 Jeanette Peterson points out that Old Testament kings were often rendered in high-­backed thrones,15 which might have reinforced this indigenous convention. This preference for the seated ruler is not limited to Sahagún but extends even to the paintings of Diego Durán’s Historia (1581), which are laden with European Mannerist embellishments and pictorial illusionism and are so visually descriptive and representational. Occasionally the Durán artists present the Aztec kings standing or fighting within the three-­dimensional space of a narrative scene,16 but more often the kings hew to the canon of

the seated ruler, with turquoise cape and diadem, seated on a high-­backed throne (fig. 6.5).17 This holds true even when the indigenous throne is transformed into a Mannerist construction of scrollwork and arabesques; despite the Europeanization of the image, the painter has also retained the preconquest discursive custom of the death of one ruler (Axayacatl) followed by the seating of the next (Tizoc).18 One of Durán’s painters extended the convention of the seated and specially dressed ruler to Hernando Cortés, who was thereby conceptualized as a ruler himself. When the image of Cortés is first introduced in Durán’s history (fig. 6.6), after the episode of his landing in Veracruz, the painter rendered the conqueror seated on the X-­shaped, folding hip chair of European imperial authority, which serves the same semiotic function as the native high-­backed throne. He also clothed Cortés in a cloak of deep black (the luxury of princes) with a tan (perhaps fur) collar and wearing a large, black, feathered hat: all symbols of elevated status and power.19 Sahagún’s painters developed their pictorial lists of the Aztec rulers simply by extracting the ruler images from the annals histories and transferring them to the ethnographic manuscripts. The images maintained the customary preconquest poses and costumes, which relocated easily to the new genre, and the rulers’ images brought with them as attributes some of the information associated with them in the originals—such as reign lengths and events. Although the painters themselves did not reproduce this historical data, it is clear that knowledge of it and its importance was retained, because the scribes in both the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex included it in the alphabetic texts, and in the Florentine it was included in both the Nahuatl and the Spanish versions.20 The treatment of the Aztec lords is one of the most conservatively indigenous parts of the Florentine Codex.

Gods The Aztec gods were vastly more difficult to capture, however. At the time of the conquest, no book existed of the indigenous supernaturals, so it was not simply a matter of copying an existing genre.21 The gods were visually known by means of cult images housed inside temples, which were inaccessible to many, and by means of deity impersonators who publically enacted their rituals. Almost invisible to European eyes were the aniconic bundles, tlaquimilolli, that functioned as the most sacred embodiments

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Figure 6.4. The lords of Mexico-­Tenochtitlan. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8; fol. 1r presents the first four rulers, and fol. 4v presents the four rulers after the death of Cuauhtemoc. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

of the divine, as Bassett and Olivier explain.22 Images of the gods also appeared in divinatory manuals, where their role was adjectival: they served as patrons of the calendrical units (e.g., day signs and trecenas) or participated in actions that characterized the augural influences of units of time. Preconquest Aztec intellectuals seem not to have been interested in listing, naming, and describing the supernatural forces as an exercise in and of itself, so there was no indigenous template per se for such a study. Neither were there acceptable European models for recording and explaining a host of supernaturals that Europeans recognized as devils; such a study would easily 100 • Elizabeth Hill Boone

and quickly have been condemned as heretical. The principal deity of Calicut in southern India, for example, was described and pictured in 1515 as a generic horned devil with hairy arms and avian feet in Ludovico Varthema’s popular account of his travels to the east.23 Acceptable models did exist, however, for considering the pagan gods of antiquity, and in the broad humanist climate of early-­modern Europe, scholars and educated people were open to such. Since studies of pagan gods were fodder for humanist thought across Europe, they became the safest model for treating the Aztec gods, who then could be conceptualized along similar lines. The Primeros memoriales and Florentine Codex differ in their approach to the gods. The Primeros memoriales presents only the gods’ images—thirty-­six in number plus five tepictoton (small effigies of mountain rain supernaturals) grouped on thirteen pages—and an itemization of their physical attributes (fig. 6.7); the title of this section

Figure 6.5. The accession of Tizoc following the death of Axayacatl. Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y islas de la tierra firma, fol. 111r. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid.

Figure 6.6. Doña Marina, Hernando Cortés, and Tlillancalqui, lord of Cuextlaxtlan, shortly after Cortés disembarked in Veracruz. Diego Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y islas de la tierra firma, fol. 202r. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid.

specifies that it tells “how each of the gods was arrayed.”24 The Florentine Codex is more holistic, for although it likewise details costume elements, it also describes the gods’ characteristics, realms, and feasts. Quiñones Keber illustrates this well in her comparison of the presentations of Chicomecoatl.25 Book 1 of the Florentine Codex opens with six pages that picture most of the same gods included in the Primeros memoriales but framed four to a page, ending also with tepictoton; glosses name them and sometimes link them to Roman counterparts (e.g., Huitzilopochtli as another Hercules, Tezcatlipoca as another Jupiter) (fig. 6.8).26 The Nahuatl and Spanish texts that immediately follow these six pages of illustrations describe the gods’ attributes, noting the gods’ principal and variant names,

their relation (if any) to other deities, their realms and influences, the rituals for them, and their physical attributes, clothing, and accoutrements. The Nahuatl texts, closer to the texts in the Primeros memoriales, focus more on the deities’ costume elements, itemizing them in detail. The Spanish texts are slightly longer; they cover the gods’ association, realms, and ceremonies more fully but ignore the costume elements and accoutrements for several of the gods, including Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca, and Tlaloc.27 Within these texts, seven paintings illustrate offerings and ceremonies. The Florentine Codex divides the deities into major gods, major goddesses, and lesser gods, which Guilhem Olivier and Andrew Laird note follows the taxonomy used by Saint Augustine and derived ultimately from Roman authors.28 I propose also that for Sahagún’s overall presentation of the gods—and for the idea of a descriptive genre that treated the gods—he and the grammarians looked beyond the encyclopedias of Pliny, Isidore, and Bartholomeus Anglicus to the descriptive collections of pagan gods that appeared in Europe in the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries and flourished especially in the mid-­ sixteenth century.29 European studies of pagan gods can be traced back to the early thirteenth-­century treatise Liber ymaginum deorum, by an author known simply as “Albricus philosopher.”30 Albricus gathered information from a variety of earlier authors, but his contribution was to organize it as an encyclopedia. He devoted a chapter to each of almost twenty gods, describing for each the god’s appearance and physical attributes, realms of influence, associated meanings, and relation to other gods, just the kind of information that Sahagún and the grammarians would eventually include in the Florentine Codex. For example, Albricus’s first chapter on Saturn begins thusly: Saturn. 1. The first god was Saturn: they say that he was old, sad, white haired, his head covered in a blue grey cloak, that he devoured his own sons, carrying a sickle, and in his right hand a fire-­vomiting snake that devours its own tail. 2. History maintains that Saturn’s father and Jove, his son, had obtained a kingdom in Crete.

Albricus then continues in this vein with details about Saturn’s offspring, actions, and astronomical associations.31

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for the imagery and mythology of the classical gods until the mid-­sixteenth century, when it was replaced by a cluster of new manuals published between 1532 and 1556. These include Georg Pictor’s Theologia mythologica of 1532, which, in the tradition of Albricus and Boccaccio, Albricus’s treatise, with its emphasis on visual appear- focused on the names, appearance, and allegory of over ance, would exert “a profound and lasting influence on twenty gods, including mention of those of Egypt and the iconography of the gods.”32 It affected Petrarch’s com- Assyria.36 There followed Lilio Gregorio Giraldi’s De deis mentary on the Olympian gods, which likewise described gentium of 1548, Natale Conti’s Mythologiae of 1551, and, their poses, costuming, and attributes.33 It also influenced the best known, Vincenzo Cartari’s Le imagini con la spoGiovanni Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium (1360), sitione de i dei de gliantichi of 1556.37 Cartari emphasized the best known and most authoritative of the fourteenth-­ the iconography of the gods’ statues and representations century encyclopedias of ancient gods.34 Boccaccio sought with a view to providing pictorial subjects for painters and to regularize the intricate genealogies of the classical gods, sculptors, and the third edition (1571) of his manual was and although he focused on the gods’ genealogical ties, he illustrated with vivid woodcuts that led to its outstandalso interpreted their material attributes. For Minerva, ing popularity.38 Such studies, or the idea of such studies, for example, he explained that her elaborately embroi- probably helped Sahagún frame what questions he would dered floral peplum was intended as a directive that wise ask of his informants, what information the team would speeches should be ornate, florid, and witty.35 ultimately include, and how it would be organized. The Boccaccio’s Genealogia remained the principal source Franciscan and his team might also have had in mind that

Figure 6.7. The first six Aztec gods. Primeros memoriales, fols. 261r and 261v. Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España.

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Figure 6.8. The first four Aztec gods. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 10r (pagination in lower right). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Christian saints were visually recognized by their attire and symbols, as Quiñones Keber points out in chapter 5 of this volume. The Mexicans’ decision to illustrate each god separately also had precedents in Europe, for by the sixteenth century a few of the printed editions of the studies of pagan gods were being illustrated with woodcuts of each god. The European illustrations differ from the Mexican ones, however, because they typically locate the gods in scenic space, engaging in activities specific to them and surrounded with images of their attributes that are described in the texts they accompany. Examples are two French editions

of Boccaccio’s Genealogia (1498–1499, 1531) illustrated with woodcuts, including, for example, a large scene of Saturn eating his son, holding a sickle and the snake that devours its own tail, and surrounded by figures that signify other of his aspects, including the birth of his daughter Venus from sea-­foam.39 Simpler woodcuts in two midcentury German studies—Johannes Herold’s 1554 Heydenweldt und ihrer Götter and Pictor’s 1558 Apotheseos tam exterarvm gentivm qvam Romanorvm deorvm libri tres (a republication of his Theologia mythologica), which repurposed Herold’s illustrations—also embed the gods in scenic space and show them holding or surrounded by an

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Figure 6.10. Major gods of the Goths: Frigg, Thor, and Odin. Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome: De Viottis, 1555), 100. Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, Munich, 2 Gs 533, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-­bsb11197030-­2.

Figure 6.9. Apollo. Georg Pictor, Apotheseos tam exterarvm gentivm qvam Romanorvm deorvm libri tres (Basel: Nikolas Brylinger, 1558), fol. 24. Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, Munich, Exeg. 475#Beibd.3, urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-­bsb00029735-­1.

array of attributes (fig. 6.9).40 The engravings in the 1571 edition of Cartari, which isolated the gods more fully and greatly influenced later print cycles, came too late to be a model for Sahagún’s overall project. One exception to this layering of attributes is the pair of woodcuts of the major and minor gods of the Goths in Olaus Magnus’s 1555 Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, a copy of which was held in the Colegio de Santa Cruz library.41 Escalante Gonzalbo proposes that Magnus’s publication might have served as a model for several descriptions and images in the Florentine.42 It might have influenced the presentation of the gods as well. Magnus’s illustrator united the three major gods—a seated Thor flanked by Frigg and Odin—in a single woodcut but kept 104 • Elizabeth Hill Boone

them conceptually isolated (fig. 6.10). He gave them all a decidedly classical pagan look to reflect Magnus’s text, which identified the female Frigg as another Venus and the warrior Odin as Mars. It is hard to say how much, if at all, these European deity images might have influenced the visual form and presentational style of the Aztec gods in Sahagún’s project and the other Mexican encyclopedias. The prints in Magnus’s Historia are closer to the Aztec paintings in the Florentine Codex, because they situate the gods in undefined space and focus only on their dress, here Romanized to fit the classical analogy Magnus proposed. But the Mexican paintings stand out because they or their antecedents are foundational to the descriptive texts, which derive partially from them, rather than being descriptively illustrative of the texts. They also innovate in focusing on the gods’ indigenous costume elements rather than simply dressing the gods in classical, medieval, or early-­ modern fashion. This focus on specific elements of costume, especially in the Primeros memoriales, which labels them all, and in the Nahuatl text of the Florentine Codex, which itemizes them, reflects the indigenous understanding that the teotl (sacrality) of the gods was manifest in the items that came together to form their teixiptla (localized embodiment): for example, the capes, headdresses, back panels, pectorals, and other ornaments that are glossed in the Primeros memoriales.43 The visual sources for the gods’ insignia in Sahagún’s actual images are found within indigenous pictography.

Figure 6.11. Tlaloc as patron of the seventh trecena (beginning with One Rain). Codex Borbonicus, 5. Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale Français, Y.120.

Alfredo López Austin suggested they came from original paintings the elders copied or drew from memory, and H. B. Nicholson suggested that these memories were of deity impersonators, such as those depicted in the second (veintena) section of the Codex Borbonicus.44 It is also probable that images were pulled from surviving preconquest divinatory codices.45 When the Tepepulco elders were called upon to produce the images of their former gods in the 1550s, they might well have turned to the divinatory codices—ones similar to the tonalamatl (book of days) in the Aztec Codex Borbonicus and the manuscripts of the Borgia Group—which contained images of the gods in abundance. The elders might have brought the books themselves, which many of them might have owned, or intermediary paintings representing the individual supernaturals. In the Primeros memoriales the Aztec gods are presented, much like the Aztec lords, as ideoplastic, two-­ dimensional entities in the preconquest tradition. In a similar way, glosses name both the gods and the items of

their attire but do not otherwise describe them. Beyond this, the commonalities the gods share with the rulers end. Almost all the Primeros memoriales gods are upright, with their legs positioned one in front of the other, knees somewhat bent, and feet seeming to dangle.46 It is not quite a standing pose, but close to it. One finds distant models for these figures in the Aztec and Borgia Group divinatory manuscripts, where the gods appear as patrons of the day signs, the trecenas, and other units of time. The Codex Borbonicus and Tonalamatl Aubin invariably pose these supernaturals with arms outstretched in front, at an angle, and their legs positioned in a pinwheel, one leg up and one leg back (fig. 6.11).47 This is the standard pose (with a few exceptions) of the male trecena patrons and the male lords of the night in Aztec tonalamatl; the females have their knees together beneath their skirts. Both have their arms outstretched, in a distinctive pose that may signify their control over the temporal units. When the friars asked for images of the gods, the in-

Conceptual Categories in the Florentine Codex • 105

digenous collaborators might well have turned to tonalamatl as the only relevant graphic sources at hand. In extracting the images and repurposing them for the cultural encyclopedias, they enacted two fundamental changes. First, they reconceptualized the images ontologically, and then they transformed them visually. By reproducing them individually, the indigenous painters tore them from their divinatory and sacred contexts and discarded all their meaningful associations and roles there. Unlike the ruler images, which transferred to the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex with their associated historical data, the divinatory association of the deities was suppressed. The transfer also reduced what had formerly been signifying signs, to yield images that were simple visual representations of anthropomorphic beings. What had been a complex visual statement within a rich network of meaning became an illustration of the figure and costume of deities for a postconquest viewership. Colonial ethnographies from the mid-­sixteenth century, such as the Codices Magliabechiano, Tudela, and Telleriano-­Remensis, consistently employ images of individual supernaturals to signify the veintena celebrations (fig. 6.12);48 Nicholson has called them veintena “logos.”49 These figural renderings were isolated on the page of European paper, framed by pristine space that invited inspection and the addition of textual exegesis. Descriptive annotations were then written opposite or below. As the first mark put on each page, the deity figure commanded an extravagant amount of paper, where it waited for discussions and words to complete it and articulate its meaning. The image remained the foundation for the unit of information and the source from which the discursive text sprang, but neither the text nor the image could adequately inform without the other. This process of reconceptualizing the deity images also transformed their formal properties. In the Codex Magliabechiano especially, the painter made the figures full and fleshy, with curved lines to suggest a new three-­ dimensionality and a more organically coherent human form (fig. 6.13). Since the distinct pose of the augural patron no longer carried its preconquest divinatory meaning, the artists allowed the pose to degenerate. Arms are still usually outstretched and holding attributes, but often one arm was simply omitted. The leg position, while retaining the basic pinwheel, has become less distinct, so the figures appear in awkward half-­seated, half-­standing, or crouching poses. The Magliabechiano painter, recognizing 106 • Elizabeth Hill Boone

Figure 6.12. Mixcoatl as the deity celebrated on the veintena feast of Quecholli. Codex Telleriano-­Remensis, fol. 4v. Manuscrit Mexicain 385. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

Figure 6.13. Tlaloc as the deity celebrated on the veintena feast of Atemoztli. Codex Magliabechiano, fols. 43v–­44r. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence, CL. XIII. 3 (B. R. 232).

this awkwardness, even added a low stool to give his posed deity something to sit on. The image has changed conceptually from an element in pictography to a mimetic replication of a deity’s anthropomorphized figure, a teixiptla. The painters of the Primeros memoriales (see fig. 6.7) kept the indigenous ideoplastic form, but, like the Ma-

gliabechiano and Telleriano-­Remensis painters, they discarded the original context in order to create visual representations that are intended to educate a new audience, one that expected a pictorial likeness. The old pinwheel pose, having lost its meaning, was further reduced to two bent legs, one in front of the other, with dangling feet. Only some costume elements were retained and became the basis for the alphabetic annotations. The transformation of the Aztec pictographic image into a European mimetic one is carried further in the Florentine Codex, where the figures are even more corporeal than those in the Magliabechiano. Their proportions more closely approximate those of the human body, most are rendered with their upper torsos turned to a three-­quarter view, and many stand firmly on an implied ground. As Quiñones Keber points out in this volume, this visual humanization parallels Sahagún’s statements in the appendix to Book 1 that these figures are not actually gods but only humans.50 Olivier also explores Sahagún’s efforts to render the Aztec supernaturals as ordinary people.51 Conceptually, also, the images have been gathered into a set, and sets, by nature, establish parity between members of the assemblage and relate them to each other as entities that belong to the same class of thing. Sahagún’s team provided what they considered a canonical set of the Aztec pantheon. And this idea of gathering together all the gods in a set probably came from the model of European collections of pagan gods: Albricus and those that followed. The texts in the Florentine Codex are telling, for, like the godly descriptions in Albricus, they present the gods’ names and titles, their powers, their ceremonies, and their attire. The Nahuatl and Spanish texts overlap in this respect, but the Spanish texts cover the ideological aspects more thoroughly, while the Nahuatl texts focus more on the attire. Ultimately, only the attire derives from the ancient indigenous image, and then much reduced iconographically and transformed pictorially. Sahagún’s treatments of the Aztec kings and the Aztec gods differ largely because they differentially relied on indigenous and European models. For the rulers, there were precedents in the preexisting annals histories, and perhaps even in special-­purpose ones somewhat like that in the Codex Mendoza, which concentrates on the sequence of rulers, the reign lengths, and the conquests. Data from the annals easily made the transfer into the European con-

ceptual category of “rulers,” such that the figures themselves retained their pictographic character, and historical events from the annals provided substance for the texts in both the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex. Sahagún’s pictorial and textual descriptions of the Aztec kings, then, remain fairly local. The structured presentation of the gods, however, was more of a challenge, for there was no preconquest antecedent. Moreover, as Olivier explains in the following chapter in this volume, the indigenous supernatural was a contentious concept that was at the heart of the mendicant efforts to extirpate idolatry. The Aztec gods—whether considered teotl, diablome, or manifest as teixiptla—­comprised a contested and potentially dangerous realm that called for careful handling, in a way the rulers did not. The gods are omnipresent in the first three books of the Florentine Codex, and Book 1 focuses squarely on them as a set. Sahagún and his colleagues found a satisfactory conceptual model for this set in the descriptive collections of the pagan gods of antiquity, which had become so popular among European humanists in the sixteenth century. Such collections were ideal templates for presenting foreign gods from a neutral, impartial position. Thus, although the appendix to Sahagún’s book of the gods decried the ancient supernaturals as devils and refuted “the idolatry described above,”52 the descriptive texts that preceded this appendix and that actually explain the gods’ realms, attributes, and features were more objective and aligned several with the gods of Roman antiquity. Sahagún’s artists, for their part, might have found models for separating and distinguishing individual gods by noticing this system in woodcuts that illustrated some studies of pagan gods, but their own efforts otherwise stayed closer to indigenous sensitivities. They rendered the gods’ distinctive costume elements rather than their realms and mythological aspects and set the figures in undefined, flat space, according to the tradition of indigenous pictography. As Magaloni Kerpel points out, they also organized the figures in rectangular cells that fully fill the page, as in preconquest divinatory almanacs.53 It was likely from these books of fate that the iconography originally came. The painted images of the gods in the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex clearly look back to preconquest paintings and practice, but they had been changed in their pictorial essence. The conceptual divide between pictographs of supernatural patrons in the con-

Conceptual Categories in the Florentine Codex • 107

text of a preconquest almanac and the pictorial and descriptive listing of Aztec gods that Sahagún ultimately desired meant that the original preconquest images had to be fundamentally transformed: they had to be stripped of their prognosticatory associations, reconceptualized as painted replicas of three-­dimensional physical entities, and subsumed within an encyclopedic effort modeled after European goals. European encyclopedic models helped Sahagún and his indigenous collaborators construct, or reconstruct, what we would now call ethnographic knowledge about native peoples. The raw data of this knowledge, however, remained grounded in indigenous practice and in the figures and paintings of Mexican pictography. In Mexico, the European model joined the native image to create cultural encyclopedias that are uniquely pictorial. No other culture colonized by Europeans in the early modern period was documented in paintings to the extent that the Aztecs of Mexico were. The prominence of the paintings in these cultural encyclopedias remains a legacy of the indigenous tradition of Mexican pictography.

Notes 1. On the Greco-­Roman sources, see Hernández de León-­Portilla 2002, 41–59. 2. In the introduction to this volume, Terraciano cites several other sources. See also Garibay K. 1953–1954, 2:66–71; Anderson in Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., 34; Pliny the Elder 2004. 3. Robertson 1959, 169–172; 1966. For Bartholomeus, see Seymour et al. 1992. 4. Garibay K. 1953–1954, 2:66–71. The Pliny connection has since been further developed by Palmeri Capesciotti (2011) and Escalante Gonzalbo (1999). 5. Baird 1993, 17–18; Beazley 1903; Boemus 1520; Boemus 1970; Vergil 2002. These early ethnologists are discussed by Hodgen (1953; 1964, 91; 1966). See also Vogel 1995, 19–20; and Boone 2010, 372–388. 6. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 8, fols. 1–10r (2:251r–­260r). 7. Sahagún 1993, RAH (Real Academia de la Historia) 51r–­53v; 1997, 185–196. 8. For analyses of the blue cape, see Anawalt 1990; 1993, 30–36; 1996, 187–206. 9. Most of the rulers of Texcoco and Huexotla are differently dressed, but all lose the turquoise diadem and turquoise cape at the point of the conquest. 10. Mengin 1952, 387–498. For the Codex Mendoza, see Berdan and Anawalt 1992. Similar features are characteristic of the annals in the Codex Telleriano-­Remensis; see Quinoñes Keber 1995. For the Codex Aubin, see Lehmann and Kutscher 1981. For a synthetic study of the pictorial histories, see Boone 2000. 11. Sahagún 1997, 186. 12. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 8, 1–2.

108 • Elizabeth Hill Boone

13. Gibson 1964, 44; Smith and Parmenter 1991, 20, 32. 14. Exceptions are the Codex Mexicanus (atlas, plates 69–70; see Mengin 1952), where the annalist twice includes a figure in combat, presumed to be Axayacatl but glyphically unnamed; and the Codex Boturini (Huitzilihuitl brought before Cocoxtli; see Corona Núñez 1964– 1967, 2:20, plate 20). 15. Peterson in personal communication with the author. 16. Durán 1579, fol. 41v. Published in Durán 1967, 2: plate 14; and 1994, plate 14. 17. Durán 1579, fol. 25r. 18. Durán 1579, fol. 111r; see also fol. 176v. 19. Durán 1579, fol. 202r. For the folding hip chair as an icon of rule, see Diel 2005, 307–317. See Pastoureau 2008, 100–103, for black clothing as “the luxury of princes,” especially championed by the Habsburgs. 20. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 8, 1–14. 21. Botta (2010, 411–432) has explored the idea that the Aztec “pantheon” was a Franciscan invention. 22. Bassett, chapter 9 of this volume; Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 23. Varthema 1515. 24. See also figure 5.2 in this volume, p. 83. Sahagún 1993b, 261r–­267r; 1997, 93. 25. Quiñones Keber, chapter 5 of this volume. 26. See also figure 5.4 in this volume, p. 84. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, three folios paginated in the lower right, 10–12, and fols. 1r–­23r; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 1–51. Quiñones Keber (1988a, 255–272; and chap. 5 of this volume) has compared the images and texts in the Primeros memoriales with those in the Florentine Codex. Among those who have discussed Sahagún’s correlation of the Aztec gods with the Roman gods of antiquity are Olivier (2010, 389–410; 2015, 189–214), Umberger (2015, 83–112), and Laird (2015, 167–187). See also Pohl and Lyons 2010. 27. See Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 1–51, for the Nahuatl, and Sahagún 1974, 29–76. The Spanish texts for Huitzilopochtli, Paynal, Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloc, Tzapotlantenan, and Ixtlilton ignore the gods’ array (Bk. 1, chaps. 1–4, 9, 16). 28. Olivier 2010, 401–402; Olivier 2015, 202–203; Laird 2015, 172. 29. This interest began as early as the seventh century, when Isidore of Seville included a chapter on the pagan gods in his Etymologiae. See Isidore 2006. 30. Discussed more extensively in Boone 2010, 372–388. See Seznec 1981 for the Renaissance interest in the pagan gods. 31. Based on the edition of Bode 1834, 153; translated from Latin by Eva Struhal. 32. Seznec 1981, 170; see pp. 170–183 for the features and importance of Albricus’s work. 33. Wilkins 1957, 511, 513. 34. Seznec 1981, 225. For Boccaccio, see also Coulter 1923, 317–341; Osgood 1956. 35. Boccaccio 2011, 195. For more on the connection between flowers and eloquent words, see Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume; and Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 36. Seznec 1981, 228–229. Albricus philosophus et al. 1976. 37. Giraldi 1548; Conti 2006; Cartari 1556; Cartari 2012. For a review of the mid-­sixteenth-­century manuals, see Seznec 1981, 229–256. 38. Cartari 1571; Seznec 1981, 251. The 1647 edition of Cartari’s study additionally includes Mexican deity images derived from the Codex Ríos, which has been in the Vatican Library since the late sixteenth century; Anders and Jansen 1996, 377–388. 39. Boccaccio 1489–1499; 1531, fol. 1v. See also a similarly complex

illustration of Saturn in the 1484 French translation of the popular Ovidius moralizatus, a moralization of Ovid, by a follower of Albricus; Ovid 1484, fol. 1r. 40. Herold 1554, 330, for Saturn; Pictor 1558, 77, for Saturn. Hyginus 1535, 109–113, illustrates seven planetary gods in their chariots; the other major mythographies before 1560 are scarcely illustrated. 41. Magnus 1555, 100; Mathes 1982, 60. 42. Escalante Gonzalbo, chapter 4 of this volume. 43. Boone 1986, 2, 9; Bassett 2015. 44. López Austin 1974a, 122–123; Nicholson 1988, 229–230. 45. The sequences for the deities in the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex, which differ between themselves, still remain a puzzle, for they are specific to Sahagún’s manuscripts and are not reflected in preconquest or other early-­colonial codices. Thomas Barthel, Rudolf van

Zantwijk, and Ellen Baird have explored, from different perspectives, the notion that Sahagún’s listing correlates with the sequence of gods in the divinatory codices. See Barthel 1964; Zantwijk 1982; Baird 1979, 179– 222; 1993, 155–157, figs. 59–61. 46. Baird (1993, 117–138) describes the drawing and painting style of the Primeros memoriales at length. See also Quiñones Keber 1997, 33–37. 47. Nowotny and Durand-­Forest 1974; Seler 1900–1901. 48. Nowotny and Durand-­Forest 1974; Anders 1970; Tudela de la Orden 1980; Quiñones Keber 1995. 49. Nicholson 1988, 243. 50. Quiñones Keber, chapter 5 of this volume. 51. Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 52. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 55. 53. Magaloni Kerpel, chapter 10 of this volume.

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Chapter 7

Teotl and Diablo Indigenous and Christian Conceptions of Gods and Devils in the Florentine Codex Guilhem Olivier We cannot deny that in some basic elements there is often a surprising uniformity between Old World and New World art. I recall the step meanders and the running dog who play no less significant a role in ancient Peruvian and ancient Mexican decoration than in the ancient Grecian. Likewise, we acknowledge that single words in Indian languages often bear a remarkable resemblance in sound to those of the languages with which we are familiar, for instance teotl, the Mexican word for “god.” Eduard Seler, “ On the Origin of Central American Civilizations ”

W

ithout a doubt, among the many subjects addressed by Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators in his sweeping and encyclopedic work, the gods stirred the friar’s greatest interest and were the topic to which he devoted the most space.1 This chapter analyzes how the deities were named and represented in Sahagún’s work, taking into account the context in which they appear and the views that are expressed about them, both by the Franciscan and by his Nahua team of scribes and artists. The use of the term “devil,” even in the Nahuatl text, along with depictions of diabolic figures in vignettes of the Florentine Codex, reveal some of the ways that Sahagún and his collaborators understood Nahua religion. In particular, by examining how the Franciscan debated the meaning of teotl—a Nahuatl term commonly translated as “god”—it may be possible to uncover the diverse and even contradictory strategies that he adopted to combat indigenous beliefs. Despite the “filters” that determined Sahagún’s outlook and the fact that his collaborators were professed Christians, it is possible to gain a deeper understanding of the Nahua concept of teotl. Above all, I evaluate Sahagún’s deployment of teotl in a broader semantic field based on a critical and contextual study of the Nahuatl and Spanish texts in his work. In doing so, I introduce new arguments concerning the discussion of the “divinization” of the Spaniards, who were referred to as teteo (plural of teotl) in Nahua sources. Let us begin with the place assigned to the gods in Sahagún’s work. Although specific books in the Floren110

tine Codex are devoted to them, pre-­Hispanic deities are omnipresent in both the Spanish and Nahuatl columns of text, as well as in the illustrations. In fact, the first three books of the Florentine Codex are dedicated to the description of the gods and their insignia, the feast days when they were venerated, and the origin of the gods, which we might call their myths. The next two books deal with the divinatory calendar and the divine influences that make themselves manifest on specific day signs of the 260-­day tonalpohualli and the “omens and evils” that characterize the intervention of the gods under special circumstances. Moreover, Book 6, on rhetoric and moral philosophy, begins with prayers addressed to Tezcatlipoca and Tlaloc,2 and the seventh contains the renowned myth of the origin of the sun and the moon. Whereas the eighth, ninth, and tenth books address more mundane matters related to Nahua society, they nevertheless include important data on the gods of the pochteca, or merchants, as well as on the deities venerated by various ethnic groups. Even Book 11, “Earthly Things,” contains a number of allusions to the native gods in addition to images of supernatural beings, such as a peculiar representation of Huitzilopochtli (fig. 7.1).3 Finally, the indigenous version of the conquest in the celebrated twelfth book contains valuable accounts of rituals, such as those carried out during the twenty-­day veintena of Toxcatl, and a remarkable description of the appearance of Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror,” revealing to Motecuhzoma’s terrified envoys the apocalyptic vision of their capital city of Tenochtitlan in flames.4 The omnipresence of gods in Sahagún’s oeuvre repre-

sents two complementary realities: on the one hand, the Franciscan’s supreme interest in extirpating native idolatry, and on the other, an interest in identifying the role played by gods in the indigenous world, gods that permeated all aspects of life.5 As is widely known, the purpose of Sahagún’s work was to make known to “preachers and confessors, physicians of the souls . . . the spiritual ailments . . . [such as] the sins of idolatry, idolatrous rituals, idolatrous superstitions, auguries, abuses, and idolatrous ceremonies [that] are not yet completely lost.”6 To carry out this purpose it was necessary to have a command of the Nahuatl language, as fray Bernardino points out in the prologue to the Historia general: “This work is like a dragnet to bring to light all the words of this language with their exact and metaphorical meanings, and all the ways of speaking, and most of their ancient practices, the good and evil.”7 Sahagún’s mission to exhaustively record the Nahuatl language naturally extended to the numerous members of the Nahua pantheon. Although certain gods—such as Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and so forth—were well known through other textual sources, other deities would have remained completely unknown were it not for the Franciscan’s work. For example, it would appear that the only extant reference to Xiuhtlati and Xilo, the goddesses of feather artisans (or amanteca), comes from the Florentine Codex.8 Similarly, Sahagún’s collaborators—some of whom were most likely linked to Figure 7.1. Huitzilopochtli with a falcon. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 47v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

the merchant guild—provide a long list of the numina that they venerated.9 Furthermore, Nahuatl texts—prayers, for example—present the rich divine nomenclature associated with one deity or another. Tezcatlipoca is presented under the names of Titlacahuan, Yaotl, Necoc Yaotl, Telpochtli, Yohualli Ehecatl, Ce Miquiztli, and Ome Acatl, as well as his names linked to the supreme deity, Monenequi, Moyocoyani, Tloque Nahuaque, Ipalnemoani, and others.10 In addition to discovering the countless visages concealing the devil, Sahagún attempted to prevent indigenous people from adopting these pagan names. Indeed, by speaking of four aspects of the goddess Tlazolteotl, Sahagún explains: “Of these four goddesses they took and still take their names for Mexican women, which are Tiacapan, Teicu, Tlacu, Xuco. It is better to remove them.”11 At the same time, after listing the twelve pulque gods, the friar states, “Until today these diabolical names endured among the noble men.”12 Yet names, as well as divine representations and their associated rituals, were captured in Sahagún’s work; lists of attire recorded in Nahuatl and in a rich iconography have been the subject of considerable study. Even though they were influenced by a Western anthropomorphic tradition, the representations of the gods in the Primeros memoriales and the Florentine Codex adhere to the ancient pictographic tradition through their identifying insignia.13 Other images illustrate the appearance of deities, at times under the guise of their animal doubles, and their performances during myths, such as the birth of Huitzilopochtli or Quetzalcoatl’s heroic deeds in Tollan. The tlacuiloque (scribes/artists, plural of tlacuilo) painted acts of devotion and offerings, as well as the unfolding of feast days that featured the participation of the ixiptla (impersonator or image), a slave or war captive who personified the gods. Noteworthy is the fact that even when showing the production of statues or the veneration to which they were dedicated, the divine representations are always depicted as living persons.14 Although some of the painted figures are ixiptlahuan, or god surrogates, in other cases this systematic anthropomorphism seems to respond to a strategy that consisted of stripping divinity from the pre-­ Hispanic gods, in other words, in presenting them as ordinary men.15 I will show that this iconographic strategy also has its parallels in the text with Sahagún’s usage of the theory of the Greek Euhemerus.16 Teotl and Diablo • 111

Figure 7.2. Representation of Tlaloc as a devil. Florentine Codex, Bk. 6, fol. 28r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

The diabolical figures that Sahagún’s collaborators called diablome and even diablosme, using the Spanish term with a Nahuatl plural, should be added to this corpus of “divine” representations. Ever pessimistic and always suspicious, the Franciscan warned readers, “I know of a certainty that neither does the devil sleep nor is the reverence these natives render him forgotten; and that he is awaiting an opportunity, that he may return to the dominion he has held. And it will then be an easy matter for him to awaken all things pertaining to idolatry that are said to be forgotten. And for that time it is good that we have weapons on hand to meet with him.”17 Despite this warning, it is significant that there are relatively few images of devil-­like creatures in the Florentine Codex. Furthermore, and somewhat paradoxically, although Sahagún’s Nahua collaborators used the terms diablome or diablosme to describe the native gods in the first books of the Florentine Codex, it is not until Book 6 that we find the presence of a European devil in the illustrated vignettes. In this case, we see a devil with horns taking the place of Tlaloc to receive offerings in times of drought (fig. 7.2).18 In Book 7, to illustrate the ritual of the end of the fifty-­two-­year century, which consisted of renewing domestic utensils, a vignette shows an angry man tossing out pieces of ceramics and stone, as well as a smiling European devil.19 A similar devil appears as a statue or a sacred bundle borne by a priest.20 A devil with a serpent tail witnesses a human sacrifice, while another appears behind the procuress who tries to tempt a woman to become a prostitute (fig. 7.3).21 And

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in Book 11, a devil with a bird’s head and clawed hands and feet perches atop a hallucinogenic mushroom, while an analogous figure, with a bird head and talons but with a human body and loincloth, stands before a large stone that is a type of jet (fig. 7.4).22 The Nahuatl names for both this mushroom (teonanacatl, or divine mushroom) and the jet stone (teotetl, or divine stone)—names that included the prefix teo- from teotl—might explain the presence of the devils in these vignettes; that is, the image of the devil served to express the word teotl. However, another interpretation is possible of the “devil” figure as Huitzilopochtli,23 who is similarly represented on folio 47v of the same Book 11 (see fig. 7.1). Therefore, in both the name of the stone, teotetl,24 and that of teonanacatl, Huitzilopochtli might represent the word teotl, perhaps given his identification with the sun. On the one hand, the solar identification of Huitzilopochtli is explicitly expressed in the text accompanying his depiction on folio 47v;25 on the other hand, Sahagún states, “they called the sun teotl because of its beauty,” which is confirmed by his Nahua collaborators when they describe the celestial orb: “The sun: the soaring eagle, the turquoise prince, the god” (Tonatiuh, quauhtleoanitl, xippilli, teutl).26 Moreover, the solar disk expresses the word teotl in Nahua pictographs.27 Even if Huitzilopochtli as the sun served as the referent for the word teotl in these glyphic compounds, his representation in these cases remains an image that could be called “diabolical,” quite unlike its pre-­Hispanic and early colonial antecedents.28 One final image of devils in the Florentine Codex includes two creatures, one with unruly hair and one a goat, both diabolical animals inside twin temples (fig. 7.5).29 The pyramid is probably a representation of the Templo Mayor (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlan, with the devils— described by Sahagún’s Nahua collaborators as “in tzitzimitl, in coleletli, Diablo”30—replacing the images of Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc in their respective temples.31 More needs to be done to identify the European sources used by the Florentine Codex tlacuiloque to render these devils, as well as comparisons with devil iconography in the visual culture of New Spain. As a preliminary observation, the devils in the Florentine Codex lack the accoutrements characteristic of pre-­Hispanic deities, unlike the diabolical figures in the Atlas de Durán or in the illustrations accompanying the Descripción de la ciudad y provincia de Tlaxcala.32 In fact, in these works we find European

Figure 7.3. A devil behind a procuress. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 41r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 7.4. A devil or Huitzilopochtli before a jet stone (teotetl). Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 209v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

devils with headdresses, nose plugs, or masks and serpentine staffs that identify them with specific pre-­Hispanic deities. None of this can be found in the Florentine Codex, except perhaps in the case of the hummingbird-­ headed Huitzilopochtli mentioned earlier.33 I would like to highlight the scene in the Florentine Codex of the devil that appears behind the procuress, which resembles two sixteenth-­century wall paintings in the visita chapel of Santa María Xoxoteco, Hidalgo (fig. 7.6).34 In fact, in these murals each of the women is shadowed by a devil speaking and gesturing to her. In one case, the woman is drinking pulque alongside a man—also with a devil behind him—who is handed a gourd by a third individual. To return to Book 11 and the chapter dedicated to different types of buildings, we find the sole representation of Christ in the entire Florentine Codex, in an image of a shrine called Totecujo Ichan, or House of Our Lord (fig. 7.7)35 Several authors have noted the influence of Chris-

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Figure 7.6. Temptation scene with devils. Mural, Santa María Xoxoteco, Hidalgo. From fig. 54, Juan B. Artigas, La piel de la arquitectura (1979). Drawing courtesy of Elbis Domínguez.

Figure 7.5. Templo Mayor with devils. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 240v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

tian iconographic models on the tlacuiloque who painted the vignettes in the Florentine Codex. Thus, it is clear that Christian models have been used to depict the representatives (ixiptlahuan) of the fire god Ixcozauhqui—in this case the figure of ecce homo—and of Tezcatlipoca,36 as well as for a curing scene, in which the tlacuiloque used a model of a pietà, or “lamentation” (fig. 7.8).37 Given the host of native gods and faced with the ample semantic field of the word teotl, Sahagún not only set about the task of refuting the divine character of members of the Nahua pantheon but also attempted to define and censure the indigenous concept of teotl. Thus, when speaking of 114 • Guilhem Olivier

Figure 7.7. Crucifixion scene in the House of Our Lord. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 243r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

the sea, teoatl, the Franciscan clarifies this term “does not mean ‘god of water’ or ‘goddess of water,’ instead it means ‘water wondrous in depth and grandeur.’”38 Sahagún explains that the indigenous people thought the sky and the water met in the sea—expressed by the term ilhuicaatl (sky water)—but that “now that the faith has arrived, and they now know that the sky does not meet the water or the land, and therefore they call the sea hueiatl, which means ‘great and fearsome and raging water.’” In the Nahuatl section, the Franciscan’s prudent collaborators return to the same interpretation: “It is called teuatl, not that it is a god; it only means wonderful, a great marvel.”39 The indigenous authors also cite and explain the name ilhuicaatl to refer to the sea, and they conclude: “But now, because of

the true Faith, it is only called ‘uei atl’ [great water].”40 The reader might have noted that the “rational” explanation of the change in the nomenclature of the sea employed by Sahagún—that the indigenous people realized their error in thinking the sea met the sky—vanished in the Nahuatl text. Indeed, his collaborators attributed the change from teoatl to uei atl solely to the imposition of the new faith.41 Another significant example of the use of words with the teotl prefix appears in the Nahuatl text of Book 11, where the Nahua authors describe gold, coztic teocuitlatl, as follows: They named it “the excrement of the sun”; it was very yellow, very wonderful, resting like an ember, like molten gold. So it appears that [the name] gold is taken from this. It is not from God. It is said that this is the sun, for the only God, the true God, was not yet known; for many gods were worshipped. And “sun” was really the name of a god. It was said, “The god comes up; the god is in the middle; here is the god; the god leans on his side; the god enters.” Teotlac is still said today; it means “the god [the sun] has entered, has set.”42

It is not known why Sahagún did not deem it necessary to translate or comment in Spanish on this Nahuatl passage describing gold as a divine substance. The fact is that in the left parallel column, facing the Nahuatl text cited above, after briefly stating that gold is found in mines and

Figure 7.8. Curing scene modeled after the pietà. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 166r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

streams, the Franciscan shifts his attention to describing the uses of sticky materials such as chapopotli (tar) and ulli (rubber).43 Be that as it may—despite the friar’s shame over his people’s greed—the Nahua testimony on gold reinforces the same meaning they attribute to the word teoatl, although they offer additional details to support their argument. Essentially, they explain how the name teocuitlatl is not related to the concept of deity—which they name ipalnemoani, “He for whom everyone lives”—but instead to the sun, tonatiuh, while the sole god, the true god, “in jcel teutl, in nelli teutl,” was not yet known and many gods (mjequjntin teteu) were venerated. In addition to assuming—as I will show—that the term ipalnemoani was applied to the Christian God, the Nahua collaborators divest the use of the word teotl applied to the sun god of any sacred significance. In fact, they conclude, “Teotlac is still said today; it means ‘the god [the sun] has entered, has set’” (teutlac noma mjtoa in axcan, qujtoznequj onac, oncalac in teutl); in other words, they present this appellation for the sun as a simple lexical phenomenon deprived of any sacred connotations. Sahagún persisted in his efforts to limit the semantic field of the word teotl and its manifold meanings. In the prologue to Book 11, the Franciscan warns in more general terms: This work will also be timely to inform the natives of the meaning of created things, that they not attribute divinity to them, because whatsoever creature they see as being eminent in good or in evil they called teotl, which means god. So they called the sun teotl because of its beauty; likewise the ocean because of its grandeur, its fury; and also they called many of the animals by this name because of their frightening aspect and ferocity. From this it is inferred that this name, teotl, is taken as good and as evil. And this is much better recognized when [the term] is in a compound: as in the name teopiltzintli, a very handsome child; teopiltontli, very mischievous or bad boy. Many other words are compounded in this same manner, from the meaning of which it can be conjectured that this word teotl means a thing consummate in good or in evil.44

The compound example that Sahagún chose to illustrate the ambivalent meanings of the word teotl is surprising. In effect, it would seem that the difference in meanings between teopiltzintli (handsome child) and teopiltontli (bad Teotl and Diablo • 115

boy) may be attributed more to the positive and negative connotations of the suffixes used, -­tzintli and -­tontli in these cases, than to the supposed semantic valence of the prefix teo-­.45 Nevertheless, in another part of his work Sahagún criticizes the way that the natives have attributed divinity to the dead, especially to their deceased rulers: “And when one of them died, they used to say of him that he was now téutl, which means that he was now dead to be a god spirit. And the ancients believed, deceiving themselves, that the lords, when they died, became gods, which they used to say because the lords that ruled them were obeyed and feared.”46 In other words, just as the devils tricked men into venerating them, the pre-­Hispanic rulers sought deification so their subjects would fear and obey them. The phenomenon that consisted of deifying mortals— which Sahagún condemned—also gave rise to the warning of the first twelve Franciscans when they spoke with the tlamatinime, the Nahua wise men, in the famed Coloquios de los doce (1564): “we are also people, we are like you, in no way are we gods” (no titlaca in anjuhque amehoantin, amomã titeteu).47 Later in the same work, emphasis is also placed on the humanity of the pope in Rome, described as “also mortal, transitory” (no miqujnj, poliujnj).48 On the subject of the divinization of mortals, it is important to introduce Sahagún’s use of an interpretative scheme that came from Euhemerus, a Greek writer born around 316 BCE. In his work entitled Hiera anagraphē (Sacred history)—one of the first books translated into Latin—Euhemerus describes a journey of initiation to the island of Panachea. There a golden column was found bearing an inscription that associated the feats of several individuals with the names and origins of deities. According to this inscription, Zeus had been a wise king, Aphrodite a courtesan of the king of Cyprus, Athena a warrior queen, Saturn a king of Latium, and so forth. All the Greek gods were in fact outstanding historical figures who were later deified. Euhemerus’s work met with great success in antiquity, but above all at the beginning of the Christian era. In fact, apologists and later fathers of the Church—Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Tertullian, Saint Augustine, and others—used Euhemerus against the pagans to demonstrate the falsity of their gods.49 Elsewhere I have emphasized Sahagún’s use of Euhemerus’s theory, above all in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex, to disparage the native gods with claims of their mortality.50 For example, the Franciscan claimed that 116 • Guilhem Olivier

the god Paynal was merely “he who, being a man, was worshipped as a God”; similarly, Opochtli was included among the gods known as tlaloque, “even though they knew that he was completely human”; as for Quetzalcoatl, “even though he was a man, they regarded him as a god.”51 In the same way, Sahagún identified Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl with the deified hero Hercules as another means of highlighting their human origins.52 Additionally, Sahagún compares the priestly ruler Quetzalcoatl of Tula to “King Arthur among the English.”53 In his further appropriation of Euhemerus’s theory, Sahagún notes the case, which he regards as extreme, of the “goddesses called cihuapipiltin [that] were all the women who died in their first childbirth and who were canonized as goddesses.” And the Franciscan exclaims, not without a touch of misogyny: “This adoration of women is something worthy of mockery and laughter, so there is no need to speak of the confutation of the Holy Scripture by the authorities.”54 It is equally significant that Sahagún, as well as other friars, appropriated the term teotl to refer to the Christian god.55 Thus, Sahagún refutes idolatry of the natives in the appendix to Book 1, using the term “yn izel teutl ipalnemoanj dios,” or “the only god, He for whom everyone lives, God,” joining the Spanish word Dios, or God, with the terms teotl and ipalnemoani, the latter of which is employed to refer to the supreme deity and on occasion to Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl.56 After this explication of the Christian God, Sahagún enumerates the Nahua deities, specifying for each one ca amo teotl or amo teotl, which means “he is not a god.” Similarly, he dismisses the sacred nature of the celestial bodies, such as the sun and moon, the stars, and the earth, as well as the sea.57 In another work, the Coloquios de los doce (1564), Sahagún goes further in this appropriation by explaining, ostensibly in the words of the twelve Franciscans who first confronted the amazed Nahua priests, that the indigenous people did not know Ipalnemoani, Tloque Nahuaque, the true God, the nelli teotl: “In truth all of them whom you have held as gods, none of them is God [teutl], none is He for whom everyone lives [ypalnemoanj], because all of them are devils [Diablome].”58 Using the same nomenclature that is applied to the supreme deity, the friars established that the god of the conquerors “is truly God, Tloque Nahuaque” (Ca nel dios tloque navaque).59 As Berenice Alcántara Rojas explains, “By making these terms [teotl, Tloque Nahuaque, Ipalnemoani] their own, the authors of the Coloquios wanted to disassociate the native words

from their ancient recipients and to reconnect them to the Christian divinity, as had occurred in other times with the word deus.”60 The European schema followed by Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators to describe the ancient gods was also expressed in the order they chose to present them, especially in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex. I have proposed that the division of the pantheon adopted by the Nahua collaborators into major gods, major goddesses, and minor deities corresponds more closely to a Western scheme than to an indigenous classification.61 A tripartite division is also applied to the deities of the Roman pantheon in the sixteenth-­century works of Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan de Torquemada, both authors explicitly citing Saint Augustine’s City of God as the source for this model. Far from corresponding to an indigenous way of classifying the gods, the taxonomy in Sahagún’s work also follows a model inspired by Saint Augustine’s City of God, a model that has been reproduced by most of the contemporary scholars without questioning its Western origins. To understand the autochthonous divine taxonomies, it is necessary to clarify the diverse ways of ordering the gods in pre-­Hispanic religious codices—as patrons of days, of the trecenas, lords of the days or thirteen gods, of the night or nine gods, and so forth.62 Nonetheless, indigenous conceptions concerning the gods are clearly reflected in certain Nahuatl materials compiled by Sahagún, such as the sacred hymns (that the Franciscan certainly did not translate), prayers, and diverse fragments. It is unfortunate that a short section in the Primeros memoriales, “in which are named what were attributed to the gods,”63 was not developed further in the Florentine Codex. It contains extremely brief definitions applied to the deities; for example, the section on Huitzilopochtli reads, “He nourishes people. He makes people rich. He makes people wealthy. He makes people rulers. He is wrathful with people. He kills people.”64 This description corresponds well with the dual, simultaneously positive-­negative vision that the ancient Mexicans had of their gods. For other numina, simple phrases appear, such as in the case of Tlaloc: “He rains. He thunders. He strikes [with lightning].” Other gods are described with a single word: blood (eztlj) for Atlahua, adultery (tetlaximaliztlj) for the cihuateteo, fire (tletl) for Ixcozauhqui-­ Xiuhtecuhtli, pulque (octli) for eight different gods of this inebriating brew, and the list goes on. This brief enumeration of attributes in some way defined the essence or the

most outstanding features that the Nahuas attributed to these deities. Book 1 of the Florentine Codex also includes other interesting descriptions: for example, Tezcatlipoca “was considered a true god” (ynin vel teutl ipan machoia); and of Chalchiuhtlicue, Tlaloc, and Xiuhtecuhtli, it is said of each one that “He [or She] was considered a god” (Teutl ipan machoia).65 For reasons that would be worth pursuing in a more in-­depth study, other deities do not merit these identifying traits of divinity. In the first place, Huitzilopochtli is defined as “only a common man, just a man” (çan maceoalli, çan tlacatl catca); Cihuacoatl, “a savage beast and an evil omen . . . like a court lady” (tequanj yoan tetzaujtl . . . tecpan cioatl); and the cihuapipiltin, “These were five devils, whose images were of stone” (Diablome catca y, macujltin, teme yn jmixiptlaoan).66 Other comments more closely approach indigenous conceptions, such as the identification of deities as natural elements defined as the essence of their own bodies: water for Chalchiuhtlicue, corn for Chicomecoatl, turpentine for Tzapotlan Tenan.67 Deities were also associated with specific towns or social groups: Macuilxochitl and Xochipilli, “gods of the palace folk”; Opochtli, “the god of the waterfolk”; Xipe Totec, “god of the seashore people, the proper god of the Zapotecs”; Yacatecuhtli, “god of the merchants.”68 A fragment from the Coloquios de los doce reveals a discourse in which the tlamatinime (wise ones) explain the principal characteristics of the gods they venerate: The gods are for whom one lives, they were worthy of us . . . they give us our sustenance, our food, everything that we drink, eat, what is our flesh, corn, beans, amaranth, chia. They are whom we ask for water, rain, from which things are produced on the land. They themselves are rich, they are happy, they have things, they are owners of them. . . . They also give people courage, authority, taking captives in war, the ornament for lips, that which is tied, loincloths, capes, flowers, tobacco, jade, quetzal feathers, gold. . . . Because in this way in our heart [we understand] who is the giver of life, who is the giver of birth, who is the giver of growth, who is the giver of development. That is why [the gods] are invoked, they are supplicated.69

In addition to the origin of life, sustenance, and the power of growth, the tlamatinime attributed to the gods the oriTeotl and Diablo • 117

gin of their social customs, from political power and social hierarchy to warfare and sacrificial practices. The wise men also emphasized the “riches” and “happiness” of their gods, as well as the necessary reciprocal homage of the human devotees. These reflections lead us to the polemic surrounding the possible divinization of the Spaniards, who in Book 12 of the Florentine Codex, as well as in other sources in Nahuatl, are called teteo, or gods.70 No doubt the Spaniards thought they could benefit from this opinion, as revealed by fray Toribio de Benavente, or Motolinía: The Spaniards were called tetehuv, which means gods, and the Spaniards corrupting the word used to say teules, the name that was used for them for three years, until it became clear to the indigenous people that there was no more than one God and that the Spaniards were called Christians, to which some headstrong Spaniards took offense and complained, and indignant against us they said that we robbed them of their name.71

From the work of Francisco Clavijero, some scholars have argued that the name of “teules” given to the Spaniards was equivalent to teuctli or tecuhtli, “noble.”72 It is true that the words teotl and tecuhtli seem to be interchangeable in names of deities such as Ometeotl, Ometecuhtli, Tlalteotl, Tlaltecuhtli, Meteotl, Cinteotl, Cihuateteo, Mictlantecuhtli, and Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, among others. Nevertheless, this identification of the conquerors with deities is documented among other groups of diverse languages, both in Mesoamerica and in other parts of the American continent.73 For example, when the Spaniards led by Pedro de Alvarado reached Iximche, the Kaqchikel capital, they were seen as gods: “Thus it was when the Spanish people arrived long ago, you my sons! In truth, it was frightening when they arrived; their faces were not known. The lords perceived them as divine beings. We, your fathers, perceived them thus, we who truly saw their arrival at Iximche.”74 Instead of judging the process of deification of their conquerors as degrading for indigenous people,75 it seems more appropriate to follow James Lockhart’s hypothesis that regards it “as another attempt to include the intruders within the existing framework and bypass (thus implicitly denying or obscuring) the notion of radical distinctness.”76 In point of fact, the semantic field of the word teotl was

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sufficiently broad for the Nahuas to be able to apply it to the Spaniards. Moreover, and this seems to be essential, the native perception of their gods was highly distinct from Christian conceptions. It is worth noting that in Mesoamerica it was customary to negotiate with the gods, to beseech them and give them offerings, as well as to threaten, trick, or insult them.77 It was also possible to confront a divine apparition, fight with it, and even defeat it. In Book 4 of the Florentine Codex the almighty Tezcatlipoca could be the recipient of insults on the part of penitents or warriors who accused him of causing their diseases, or of having allowed a captive to escape.78 Similarly, in Book 5 the Lord of the Smoking Mirror appeared on a mountain as a giant or a decapitated man with his chest cut open. Although some fled, terrified by this apparition, other brave warriors or priests confronted it and were able to firmly grasp the giant or the heart of the decapitated figure. After forcing the apparition to speak, the valiant one was rewarded by Tezcatlipoca with a gift of four agave spines, symbolizing the prisoners that he would capture on the battlefield.79 As these examples suggest, describing the Spaniards as teteo did not imply an attitude of submission or defeat. Supporting this interpretation, Molly Bassett observes that by donning the divine attire sent by Motecuhzoma, Cortés became an ixiptla (god surrogate), a status that implied “the possibility that he could be revered and/or sacrificed” (fig. 7.9).80 A similar explanation can be applied to why the cazonci, or king, of the Purépechas in Michoacán “had the Spaniards adorned, as they adorned their gods: with gold garlands and they put their gold bucklers on the neck and each one was given an offering of wine, in large cups, and offerings of amaranth bread and fruit. The cazonci would then say: These are gods from the sky.”81 Right before dressing the newcomers as gods, the Purépechas threatened them as follows: “the cazonci sent all his men, their skin blackened, to hunt, a considerably large number of people, to frighten the Spaniards and with many bows and arrows and they took many deer and gave the Spaniards five deer.”82 This demonstration of power deployed by the cazonci—in which one should remember that the act of hunting is equivalent to an act of war83— clearly demonstrates the absence of any attitude of submission on the cazonci’s part, even though he identified the Spaniards as divine beings. Kevin Terraciano proposes that the Nahuas perceived Cortés as a “furious and terri-

when the Toltecs were among them: “They addressed one as ‘the god, my elder brother; the god, my younger brother.’”89 These observations contributed to a debate over the concept of “deity” among the ancient Nahuas.90 Bassett details the number of Nahuatl terms associated with the word teotl in the Florentine Codex:

Figure 7.9. Cortés and divine attire sent by Motecuhzoma. Florentine Codex, Bk. 12, fol. 8v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

fying teotl,” which supports the preceding hypothesis.84 In fact, were not Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca also deceitful and bloody warrior gods? Significantly, we can add the fact that the conquerors came from the sea, teoatl, “divine water,” used beards like the sun god (teotl), wore strange attire, and brought with them ships, horses, and weapons, which made the Spaniards exceptional beings that fit perfectly into the broad category of teteo.85 At the same time the application of the term teotl to the conquerors might be related to their identification as envoys or followers of Quetzalcoatl.86 For instance, according to Alonso de Zorita’s chronicle, prior to the arrival of the Spaniards the indigenous people “would say that their god Queçaocouatl [Quetzalcoatl] was soon to come and that he would bring teucalles by sea, but when they disembarked they [the natives] said there were many gods, this was said of the Spaniards and in their language they called them miequeteteuth [many gods].”87 Returning to the Florentine Codex, one finds that the Toltecs claimed, “There is only one god; [he is] named Quetzalcoatl.”88 In addition, if one hypothesizes that the Spaniards were somehow regarded as Toltec followers of Quetzalcoatl, it would be necessary to take that into account

According to teotl’s use in the Florentine Codex—both in overtly religious contexts and seemingly nonreligious ones—teotl does indeed mean “god,” but the older Nahuatl concept of teotl-­as-­god conveys a culturally specific set of criteria and meanings. Teotl is never the monotheistic God, the polytheistic gods, nor simply god. Instead, (1) a teotl has axcaitl (possessions, property); (2) a teotl has a tonalli (heat; day sign; fate, fortune, privilege, prerogative); (3) a teotl has a neixcahuilli (an exclusive thing, occupation, business, pursuit); (4) a teotl is mahuiztic (something marvelous, awesome, worthy of esteem); and (5) a teotl is tlazohca (valuable, beloved). Translation of teotl as “god” or “deity” should invoke these five properties (axcaitl, tonalli, neixcahuilli, mahuiztic, and tlazohca).91

In addition to these terms that nuance the meaning of the word teotl—to which Bassett adds, following the example of Arild Hvidtfeldt, that of teixiptla—other Nahuatl terms should also be analyzed, such as yohualli ehecatl, “night wind,” which is linked to the invisibility of the gods,92 and tetzahuitl, “omen,” which often describes deities such as Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca and forms part of the name of a numen, Tetzauhteotl.93 Additionally, López Austin has made the following provocative observation: “[T]here are vestiges of the relationship between blackness and divinity. . . . The Nahuatl word teotl, which means ‘god,’ seems to have the value of ‘blackness’ in some compounds.”94 According to Karen Dakin’s recent etymological proposal, “the word teutl comes from the proto-­Uto-­Aztecan root *tura, associated with darkness and the supernatural realm,” which invites one to explore the complex world of the gods of Mesoamerica.95 At this stage of research on the term teotl in Sahagún’s corpus, it is time to offer a preliminary assessment. First, I have reviewed the abundant nomenclature for the divine that stems from Sahagún’s zeal in exploring the many faces of the pagan gods to prevent natives from adopting

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and retaining their names. Although human impersonators of the gods (ixiptlahuan) were rendered in vignettes in the Florentine Codex, the systematic process of anthropomorphizing deities visible in the images might be related to the adoption of the Greek theory of euhemerism in order to identify the indigenous numina with deified men. A complementary aspect of this process of identifying Aztec deities with the pagan gods—making them more comprehensible and perhaps less threatening to Europeans96—was their assimilation with the multifaceted diablo (devil), present both in Nahuatl texts and images of the Florentine Codex. Thus, what is striking is the use of a “demonized” Huitzilopochtli to signify the word teotl in glyphic compounds. In the same way, Sahagún’s commentaries on the term teotl reveal the missionary’s double-­ edged strategy: to deny the divine character of members of the Mexica pantheon, while also appropriating Nahua terms to define the Christian deity. The Nahua collaborators accepted in part the semantic delimitation of the term teotl and even added subtle nuances to its divine connotations for certain words, such as those associated with the sun. At the same time, the collaborators assigned to teotl the meaning of “god” in the framework of Nahua concepts, as well as the richness of its semantic field. These linguistic elements, in addition to a few texts specifically dedicated to characterizing the Nahua deities, shed light on the “nature” of the gods, which permits a more complex interpretation of the application of the term teteo to the Spaniards. Far from implying a “superstitious” attitude of submission and defeat, it reveals instead a process of integration into Nahua, and other Mesoamerican, cognitive structures. This integrative attitude coincides with one of the principal characteristics that Claude Lévi-­ Strauss assigned to Amerindian mythological systems, that of containing “a gap” or “a void” (en creux), the place of the other, which enabled them to easily assimilate it into their myths.97 Inspired by this brilliant proposal, I have analyzed how Mesoamerican accounts adopted and integrated the arrival of the Spaniards into their mythical models and temporal cycles.98 Identifying the newcomers as teteo fully exemplifies this system of thought. As a final testimony on indigenous strategies of integration, I return to the subject of the appropriation of a foreign word to name the gods, a phenomenon that I have examined with the Franciscan use of Nahuatl terminology to define the Christian deity.99 To the best of my knowledge, scholars have not noticed the existence of an equiva120 • Guilhem Olivier

Figure 7.10. Tezcatlipoca, supreme god of the Nahua pantheon. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 10r (detail). Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

lent phenomenon in reverse by Sahagún’s Nahua collaborators. In fact, in looking for occurrences of the word Dios, or God, in the Nahuatl part of the Florentine Codex—in addition to its use in the appendix of Book 1, in which Sahagún refutes in Nahuatl the divine character of the native numina100—it turns out that the Nahua authors used the Spanish word Dios on only one significant occasion: to refer to none other than Tezcatlipoca (fig. 7.10). And so one reads with a degree of amazement: “Second Chapter, which telleth how they considered one named Titlacauan or Tezcatlipoca to be a god [Dios]; even as an only god [ce dios] they believed in him.”101 In this way the indigenous collaborators appropriated the Spanish divine term par excellence—under the very nose of the Franciscan—to define, in their own language, the “Lord of the Smoking Mirror” as their principal divinity.

Notes 1. Translation to English from Spanish by Debra Nagao; English from Nahuatl passages in Florentine Codex, in Sahagún 1950–1982. 2. Sahagún expresses his admiration for the texts in Book 6 and even describes the prayers dedicated to the pagan gods as “very elegant, very moral phrases. And even those that touch upon the gods and their ceremonies can be said to be very theological.” Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 9, 71. 3. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 47v. 4. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 12, fol. 18v. 5. Olivier 2002. 6. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 45. 7. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 47. 8. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 9, fol. 58r. See also López Austin and García Quintana (in Sahagún 2000, 1346). 9. Yiacatecuhtli (Nose Lord), Cocochimetl (Soporific[?], Dream Agave[?]), Yacapitzauac (Thin Nose), Chiconquiauitl (Seven Rain), Chalmecaciuatl (Chalma Woman), Acxomocuil (From Whom a Foot Is Taken[?]), Nacxitl (Four Foot), Ce Coatl Utli Melaoac (One Serpent Straight Path), Tlacotzontli (Stick Hair), Çacatzontli (Straw Hair). Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fols. 64, 74; and Bk. 9, fols. 9–10; Olivier 1999. 10. Titlacahuan (We, Our Men; or We, Our People), Yaotl (Enemy), Necoc Yaotl (Enemy of Both Sides), Telpochtli (Young Man), Yohualli Ehecatl (Night Wind), Ce Miquiztli (One Death), Ome Acatl (Two Reed), Monenequi (Capricious One), Moyocoyani (Maker of Oneself ), Tloque Nahuaque (Owner of the Near and Far), Ipalnemoani (He for Whom Everyone Lives). Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fol. 5; Bk. 4, fols. 33, 56; Bk. 6, fols. 1–28; Olivier 2003, 11–44. Other examples can be found in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fol. 29; Bk. 4, fols. 87–88; López Austin 1987. 11. Sahagún 2000, 72. The correct names of these goddesses appear in the Nahuatl section of the Florentine Codex (Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 23). 12. Sahagún 2000, 74. 13. Nicholson 1988; Quiñones Keber 1988. See also Quiñones Keber, chapter 5 of this volume; and Boone, chapter 6 of this volume. 14. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fols. 6v, 26r, 35r; Bk. 2, fols. 29v, 60v, 135r; Bk. 3, fols. 4r, 6r, 8v. For a Florentine Codex image depicting the fashioning, then worshipping, of a lifelike wooden deity image, see figure 1.7 in this volume, p. 31. 15. See also Boone, chapter 6 of this volume. Quiñones Keber (chapter 5 of this volume) suggests a Christian source, such as saints identified by their attire and traditional symbols. 16. López Austin 2002; Olivier 2016, 176–179. 17. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 3, 59. 18. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 28r. 19. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 7, fol. 21r. Some scholars have interpreted this devil as an image of an “idol” or effigy of an indigenous god. 20. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 8, fol. 34r. 21. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 7, fol. 34v; Bk. 10, fol. 41r. On the latter image of the devil near the procuress, see Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume. 22. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fols. 142r, 209v. 23. Thouvenot 1982b, 67–68. 24. This stone, teotetl, was also used to create divine insignia (Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 161). 25. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., 87; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 44. 26. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 7, 1; see Bk. 1, 82; and Bk. 11, 233. 27. Berdan and Anawalt 1992, fols. 10r, 16r, 33r, 42r, 46r, 49r, 51r; Seler 1963, 1:153. 28. Boone 1989.

29. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 240v. 30. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 269. Defined by Molina (1970, fol. 153r) as “name of the devil,” the term tzitzimitl refers to female skeletal supernatural beings that would descend to the earth to devour men at the end of the Fifth Sun. Coleletli, “Certain Devil,” according to Molina (1970, fol. 24r), is another term applied to the tzitzimime and sometimes to Huitzilopochtli. 31. Boone 1989, 70. 32. Durán 1995, 1: plate 30; Muñoz Camargo 1981, fol. 239v. 33. Some of the devils rendered in the Florentine Codex might be compared, for example, with a diabolical face that appears as the image of a tzitzimitl in the Codex Aubin (Lehmann and Kutscher 1981, fol. 40r). The word tzitzimitl is used by Sahagún to describe “devils” venerated by the natives: “Omnes dij gentium demonja: that is to say, all whom the idolaters worship, all are devils, tzitzimime, culeletin” (Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 64). 34. Artigas 1979, 53–55, 64–66. 35. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 243r. 36. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 2, fols. 30v–­31r, 103r. See also Escalante Gonzalbo 2003; Klein 2015. 37. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 166r; Peterson 1988, 291–292. On the parallels between the representation of the dead ruler Motecuhzoma II and Christ’s deposition, see Magaloni Kerpel 2003, 38–39. 38. Sahagún 2000, 1134. 39. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 247. 40. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 247. 41. It is worth noting the word teoatl is part of an important difrasismo, teoatl tlachinolli (sea or divine water, conflagration), which means “war,” an expression employed repeatedly in the Florentine Codex and in other indigenous sources (Alvarado Tezozómoc 2001, 285). Other interpretations of the difrasismo silence its religious and sacrificial dimension or, conversely, refer to the teoatl as sacrificial blood (Seler 1963, 1:14, 90; Garibay K. 1953–1954, 1:101, 2:409; Quiñones Keber 1989; and Wright Carr 2012). 42. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 233. 43. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 213v. 44. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 11, 87. 45. Garibay K. 1978, 54–55; Sullivan 1992, 38–41. According to Garibay (1978, 55), piltzintli means “venerable hijito,” and piltontli, “hijuelo, hijillo.” 46. Sahagún 2000, 974–975. Motolinía (1971, 39) confirms that “they called all their dead teutlh [teotl] so and so, which means god or saint.” As for the ancient Mixtecs, fray Antonio de los Reyes (1890, 19) states, “For the dead they also have a different designation, which is: ñu Andres, ñu Domingo, the dead Andres, Domingo.” Although the friar claimed that the word ñuhu means “earth,” Maarten Jansen (1982, 308) proposes it can also be translated as “god,” which would suggest a “divinization” of the dead, similar to what is mentioned in Nahua sources. Mixtec is a tonal language in which the same “word,” when written in the Roman alphabet, can actually refer to very different (and unrelated) words differentiated by tone (Kevin Terraciano, personal communication, June 27, 2016). 47. Sahagún 1986, 102–103. 48. Sahagún 1986, 108–109. 49. Augustine 1994, 1:83, 88, 94, 270, 305, 333, 365–367; Alphandéry 1934; Seznec 1993, 22. 50. Olivier 2016, 176–179; see also López Austin 2002. 51. Sahagún 2000, 70, 73, 97. 52. Sahagún 2000, 308; 1906, fol. 34r; 1979, Bk. 1, fol. 10r. 53. Sahagún 2000, 719. 54. Sahagún 2000, 78–79, 122.

Teotl and Diablo • 121

55. Burkhart 1988; Alcántara Rojas 2007, 146; 2008, 179–183. As far as I know, the first to use the term teotl for this purpose was fray Pedro de Gante (in Morales 2011, 61). In a 1529 letter, he bade farewell to his Franciscan brothers with this Nahuatl expression: “Ca ye ixquich ma moteneoa in toteh in totlatocauh in Jesu Christo” (Otherwise I have nothing more to say, may Our Lord and his blessed Son Jesus Christ be praised). A similar phenomenon arose among the colonial-­period Mayas, who roughly equated Dios and ku used in reference to non-­Christian divinities as well as the Christian god (Hanks 2010, 357). 56. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 63. 57. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 67–76. 58. Sahagún 1986, 175. 59. Sahagún 1986, 164–165. 60. Alcántara Rojas 2007, 147. 61. Olivier 2016, 182–184; Boone, chapter 6 of this volume. 62. On the organization of Maya gods in pre-­Hispanic codices, see Vail 2000. 63. Sahagún 1993b, fols. 270v–­271r; Sahagún 1997, 121. 64. For this and the following deity descriptions, see Sahagún 1997, 121–122. 65. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 5, 21, 29; Bk. 7, 17. 66. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 1, 11, 19. 67. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 13, 17, 21. 68. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 31, 37, 39, 41. 69. Sahagún 1986, 150–153. 70. Some scholars claim that the sources in which the Spaniards are called “gods” (teteo) are “late,” and probably were manipulated by the conquistadores. Yet there are mid-­sixteenth-­century sources, such as the Anales de Tlatelolco (Klaus 1999, 39, 41, 43, 45, 141, 143; Terraciano, chapter 3 of this volume). Moreover, in an Inquisition court case dated 1539, a witness confessed, “[T]he gods had to arrive, this is how they referred to the xpianos [Spaniards]” (González Obregón 1912, 183). 71. Motolinía 1971, 171. 72. Clavijero 1987, 303n14. Guzmán in Cortés 1958, 146–147; Pastrana Flores 2004, 113–117. In Peru the Spaniards were called “Viracochas”—the name of an Inca deity identified with the Christian God (Duviols in Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamaygua 1993, 30, 53; Itier 2013). In fact, “[a]lready, by 1560, the equation of Spanish and the god Viracocha was so generally accepted that Domingo de Santo Tomas, in the first Quechua dictionary, translated viracocha as ‘Christian’” (Harris 1995, 13). On the continuing usage of wiraquča in many Quechua dialects to mean “gentleman, sir from a high social class,” see Itier 2013, 35. 73. Wachtel 1971, 49–51. Describing the arrival of Pedro Álvares Cabral on the coast of Brazil in 1500, fray Vicente do Salvador (1889, 5) commented, “[T]he weapons were not necessary, because just from seeing clothed men with shoes, white, and with beards (all of which they lack), they took them as divine and more than men, and in this way, calling them ‘caraíba,’ which means divine thing in their idiom, they came peacefully to our men.”

122 • Guilhem Olivier

74. Maxwell and Hill 2006, 260. Matthew Restall (2003, 115) rejects the idea that the indigenous people regarded the Spaniards as gods, saying rather that the original Kaqchikel phrase suggests a figurative meaning. I beg to differ. In any case, the Kaqchikels used the word k’ab’owil, which fray Tomás de Coto (1983, 168) lists in his seventeenth-­century dictionary under the following entry: “Divine, thing: . . . In ancient times they used to say: qabovilal, from qabovil, name of the god they venerated.” 75. For example, Townsend (2003). This author, along with Restall (2003, 120)—who claims that “[t]he Spaniards-­as-­gods myth makes sense only if natives are assumed to be ‘primitive,’ childlike, or half-­witted”— does not take into account indigenous conceptions concerning the notion of divinity (see also Terraciano, chapter 3 of this volume) and their capacity to integrate “the other” into their models of explaining the world. 76. Lockhart 1993, 20. 77. Monaghan 1995, 215. 78. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 4, 35; Bk. 5, 163; Garza 1983, 1:286. 79. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 5, 157–159, 175. 80. Bassett 2012, 432. 81. Alcalá 1988, 301. 82. Alcalá 1988, 301. 83. Olivier 2015. 84. Terraciano 2014, 231; and chapter 3 of this volume. 85. Graulich 2014, 309–310. 86. As H. B. Nicholson (2001) and Michel Graulich (2014) argue. 87. Zorita 1999, 1:203. 88. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 10, 169. 89. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 10, pp. 169–170. 90. See León-­Portilla 1979; Hvidtfeldt 1958; López Austin 1990a; and Maffie 2014. 91. Bassett 2015, 127. 92. Olivier 2003, 20–24. 93. López Austin 1990a, 161; Vabre 2004. 94. López Austin 1990a, 203. 95. Quoted in Alcántara Rojas 2008, 181. Black light (nûr-­e siyâh), called Oneness, also connotes the perfection of divine union in Sufi mysticism (Roberto Sánchez Valencia, personal comunication, September 25, 2015). 96. Kevin Terraciano, personal communication, June 28, 2016; and introduction to this volume. 97. Lévi-­Strauss 1991. 98. Olivier 2010. 99. See also Baudot 1979. 100. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 55–75. The only other occurrence of the term Dios (God) in the Nahuatl text of the Florentine Codex is in the title of the appendix to Book 5: “Here are told the different things, which God’s [Dios] creatures, the idolaters, wrongly believed” (Sahagún 1950– 1982, Bk. 5, 183). 101. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 3, 11.

Part III

ORDERING THE COSMOS

Figure 8.1. Map of the Basin of Mexico. Olga Vanegas.

Chapter 8

Ecology and Leadership Pantitlan and Other Erratic Phenomena Barbara E. Mundy

T

he environment of the Basin of Mexico (fig. 8.1) was as life giving as it was lethal. Situated in the temperate highlands of Mexico, the basin yielded bounties of maize, amaranth, chilies, and squash, but lacking a natural outlet for its abundant waters, its summer rains were both needed and dangerous. A great flood engulfed the island cities of Tenochtitlan-­Tlatelolco in 1499; by the end of the 1530s, drought would grip the basin, followed by yet another flood in 1555. Bernardino de Sahagún and his collaborators in the creation of the Florentine Codex, island residents all, were keen observers of this environment, and as a result they left us a natural history of the world around them of unparalleled richness in Book 11. But the Nahua men who gathered around the Franciscan scholar were more than observers. They were elites and governors as well, and thus the Florentine Codex also registers Nahua ideas on the proper role of leaders. Environment and rulership were not separate domains, as Nahua rulers not only were leaders of people but also were charged with keeping the relationship to the natural world in balance. Most famously reported in Book 12, when the huei tlatoani Moteuczoma learned of the surprising appearance of comets, lightning, and flood, he responded with the appropriate ritual action to set an unbalanced world back to rights. That his actions failed to prevent his own assassination and the invasion of the island by hostile (and largely indigenous) armies under the lead of Hernando Cortés did not mean that two generations later, as Nahua elites gathered to discuss Sahagún’s

queries, the special linkage between the ruler and the natural world had been severed. Instead the Florentine Codex presents us abundant evidence that its Nahua collaborators were still puzzling out the ceaseless and unfolding pattern of environmental threat and ritual reaction. In this chapter, I focus on two moments of environmental aberration recorded in the Florentine Codex that document cycles of threat and reaction, to argue that the Nahua fascination with the environmentally aberrant— an unsurprising interest given the temperamental environment—continued to be linked to ritual intervention and the need to appease potentially destructive forces. These moments are to be found in Books 1 and 11: the first, an account of the great whirlpool/drain of Pantitlan that lay in the eastern lake of Texcoco, and the second, the abnormal behavior of the acuitlachtli (water bear), a small furry animal with an aquatic habitat. These episodes are particularly notable for the images that accompanied them, images that are more than mere illustrations of the text, as is argued throughout this volume, and are equally rich sources of information provided by the book’s creators. Diving into the watery microenvironment in and around the island cities of Tenochtitlan-­Tlatelolco allows a better purchase on the actual conditions of the book’s genesis. More important, it accompanies a shift of our frame of interpretation to emplacement, by which I mean a focus on the immediate, physical context of the work’s creation. This interpretative frame attempts to move beyond the polarities that structured an earlier body of scholarship, as seen in the next section. So obvious as to be largely 125

unmentioned, Sahagún and his informants were all residents of the same place, the Basin of Mexico; by the time that they compiled the Primeros memoriales, Sahagún had spent more of his life in New Spain than anywhere else, and likely more time in the company of his Nahua collaborators than his Franciscan brothers. Ellen Baird captures some of the social dimensions of emplacement in describing their late-­life intimacy—both intellectual and physical—as they found shelter from the plague, from old age, from threatened obscurity, within Tlatelolco’s sturdy walls.1 Certainly in creating the Florentine Codex they all were “navigating the terrain between cultural traditions” (in Peterson’s phrase),2 but that terrain was not a terra incognita. It was home.

Intellectual Framework of the Florentine Codex Authorial control of the text has been of major concern to past scholars.3 How much of the book is the work of Sahagún? How much is the work of the Nahua informants? In the past, scholars have tended to argue along binaries, pitting ethnicity (Spanish/Nahua) or temporalities (pre-­Hispanic/modern Europe) against each other, setting different parts of the text along a spectrum, one end deriving from the purely Nahua (meaning oral and/or pictorial and pre-­Hispanic) and the other from the purely Spanish (meaning alphabetic and contemporary European). At one end are set relatively unmediated Nahua orations like the huehuetlatolli of Book 6. Thelma Sullivan, a major scholar of Nahuatl, claimed that no other part of the Florentine “is as rich in language or as revealing of the pre-­Hispanic Indian mind and thought as [these] rhetorical orations.”4 Set at the middle of the spectrum are the texts “where the informants answered under pressure of a [written] questionnaire” that Sahagún used to elicit responses, whose formats Alfredo López Austin elucidated in a 1974 article.5 At the other end of the spectrum are set the Spanish-­only texts authored by Sahagún alone, which are often found as prologues or “confutaciones” in the text. Scholars pursuing the nature of the Florentine’s sources have mapped them along complementary binaries: Do pre-­Hispanic models predominate? Do imported European ones? This volume offers abundant evidence that the Florentine is the result of a close collaboration between Sahagún and the Nahua men he gathered around him, rather 126 • Barbara E. Mundy

than a product of one individual author, a category itself made considerably more capacious by poststructuralists. But polarities continue to color scholarship (Spanish Sahagún / European source / modern alphabetic text versus Nahua informants / indigenous source / pre-­Hispanic pictorial manuscript or oral account). They have the danger of obscuring how much of the Florentine Codex was the product of mutual interests and shared habitus of the Nahuatl-­speaking, Spanish-­born intellectual and his Spanish-­speaking Nahua counterparts; they also tend to constrict an understanding of the breadth of the currents that colored intellectual discourse on both sides of the Atlantic in the sixteenth century, currents in which those men sitting together in convent libraries were eager to participate. To parcel out the content of images along the same binaries also tends to obscure their innovative nature and the shared emplacement of the work’s creators. Both innovation and emplacement are seen in the ways the authors (by which I mean Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators) registered responses to local and immediate phenomena. Rather than tracing the ideas to either expressly “Nahua” or expressly “European” beliefs, heuristic categories in themselves, I see them as localized expressions of relevant ideas that were shaped by habitus. Sahagún and his collaborators all lived within the same city and were responding to the same changes in the local environment. They had access to the same libraries and would have shared in the same confessional practices. And the material that was included in the Florentine Codex had to have been of interest to all of them: while Nahua collaborators were directed by the standardized format of the questionnaire that Sahagún used, at many junctures they expounded freely, expositions that Sahagún included in the final text. The same is true of disruptions to the prescribed format of the page that dictated both the bilingual columns as well as the sizes of the images. Just as with the texts, a moment in which the otherwise even format of the page is ruptured by the image is where the unique and extraordinary phenomenon finds expression. These moments of rupture were ones particularly important to the text’s creators, who saw fit to include them.6 There is no better place to explore emplacement than in the authors’ collective preoccupation with the surrounding environment, evidenced in their decision to include a natural history and in the depth and complexity of the text and its images of Book 11. In doing so, they set “las cosas

de Nueva España” into a format suggested by the books of the ancients. (And who is to say that don Antonio Valeriano, fluent in Latin, steeped in classical texts, could not claim Pliny as a tlamatini?) An analysis centered on the images reveals which environmental phenomena preoccupied these elite authors at late century; the images’ iconographic content and composition allows me to show the ways that elites underscored their roles as environmental custodians, key intermediaries between the populace and the fickle environmental conditions that the basin subjected them to. Nahua elites had played this intermediary role before the conquest, and the ones gathered within the great Franciscan monastery of Tlatelolco were actively reframing their roles to respond to new environmental challenges and to resonate within Christian parameters, the latter best seen in the artists’ use of color.

Elites and the Shaping of the Local Environment As can be seen in the map in figure 8.1, Tlatelolco and its sister city of Tenochtitlan sat on an island in the middle of a system of lakes, which through careful engineering projects carried out under Mexica rulers during the fifteenth century, and by other altepetl in the basin, had been transformed into a veritable paradise. On the map, which reconstructs the system as it existed from 1500 to 1519, one can see a dike and causeway stretching across the bottleneck formed by the skirt of the hill of Huixachtlan (known today as Cerro de la Estrella) near Culhuacan, which resulted in a careful corralling of fresh water in the southern lakes. This dike, as well as ones built to the north and south of the island of Mexico, where Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco were situated, allowed for the buildup of a massive system of chinampa agriculture to provision the basin’s burgeoning population, estimated at some quarter of a million people in 1500. The Nezahualcoyotl dike, to the east of the island, further protected the system from flooding coming from the salty Lake Texcoco. While the important sixteenth-­century historical sources from the basin have always underscored the unpredictable, and sometimes violent, nature of the city’s surrounding waters in the fifteenth century and onward, modern archeological data has further confirmed the extensive manipulation of the lacustrine environment, the engineering marvels of the basin’s indigenous peoples. The Florentine Codex was clearly inflected by these local conditions: imagery record-

Figure 8.2. Number of images showing water in each of the twelve books of the Florentine Codex.

ing water in some fashion accounts for 204 images, about a quarter of the book’s total, and more than half of these appear within Book 11, as the table in figure 8.2 shows. Through the fifteenth century, as histories of the basin underscore, pre-­Hispanic Mexica rulers positioned themselves as custodians of the surrounding basin environment.7 In particular, they made the island habitable and increased lands for cultivation by sponsoring two kinds of infrastructure projects to deal with the city’s waters: huge dikes and causeways were constructed in the lake bed around the city, both to connect the city to neighboring communities and, more importantly, to control the ebb and flow of water during the rainy and dry seasons; in addition, aqueducts were built to provision city residents with fresh water, as scholars such as Ángel Palerm and Luis Gonzalez Aparicio have established.8 During the rainy season, the waters flooding into Lake Xaltocan, Lake Zumpango, and the salty Lake Texcoco threatened to engulf the city in salt water; during the dry season, enough water needed to enter the system to keep open vital canal routes to provision the city. Solid causeways planked out across the lakes to the mainland to connect neighboring altepetl, parceling the lake up into smaller and more manageable sections, and openings in the causeways allowed regulation of the water flow between sections. Such massive infrastructure projects were often connected to ruling elites. Notably, two of the most important projects bore the names of sponsoring rulers: the great dike of Nezahualcoyotl, which was the main bulwark against saltwater flooding from Lake Texcoco, was named for ruler of the altepetl of Texcoco (r. 1431–1472); the dike of Ahuitzotl, which further protected the eastern flank of the island of Ecology and Leadership • 127

Tenochtitlan-­Tlatelolco, took the name of its Mexica huei tlatoani (r. 1486–1502). After the conquest, the crucial role of elites did not come to an end; they were the ones who possessed the technical know-­how as well as the ability to manage the huge labor gangs necessary for water-­management projects. Two examples will suffice to make the point. During the siege of the city in 1521, the conquistador Cortés broke the pipes from the springs at Chapultepec, starving the city into submission;9 in the aftermath of the war, it was the Mexica nobility who stepped in to rebuild the city, including, in all likelihood, provisioning it with water.10 In 1555, a catastrophic flood engulfed the city. Thousands of workers were marshaled to reinforce dikes that the Mexica had carefully engineered but that the Spanish-­run government of the city had neglected. The viceroy, don Luis de Velasco, called in indigenous leaders to help him confront the crisis, and an indigenous account in the Codex Osuna underscores the crucial role that the indigenous labor force, organized by indigenous elites, played in rebuilding the dikes.11 These are but two examples of the continuing role native elites played in maintaining the water infrastructure. These roles were not only practical; they were also ideologically charged, in that human communities were conceived of as continuous with the environment. Such continuity is indicated by the Nahuatl term altepetl, combining words for “water” and “hill.” Hills and mountains were conceived of as the containers of water, and water was crucial for agriculture and human survival. Mountains not only were biologically and socially essential but also were perceived of as animate embodiments of divine beings.12 An altepetl’s tlatoani, including the Mexica huei tlatoani, was conceived of as the protector of his altepetl, charged with maintaining the balance between the human community and the forces of nature, such forces conceived of as deities. Thus the tlatoani was not only a political leader but also a head priest. Indeed, he was conceived of as a great tree sheltering his people. Such an idea was expressed by the Dominican Diego Durán, who recorded an oration that Nezahualcoyotl was believed to have delivered to Moteuczoma I, the Mexica ruler (r. 1440–1469): “You well know, great prince, that all your subjects, nobles as well as the common people, are under your shade for you have been planted here like a great juniper tree [sabina] under which men wish to rest in order to take pleasure in the freshness of your friendship and love.”13 By sabina ( Juniperus sect. Sabina), Durán probably meant the native ahue128 • Barbara E. Mundy

huetl, or cypress, which is an enormous, long-­lived, water-­ loving tree that often grows near springs or other sources of fresh water.14 It is described in the Florentine in terms similar to Durán’s quoted oration: “It is large, high, thick, shady, shadowy. There is constant entering into its shade; under it one is shaded.”15 Metaphoric couplets in Book 6 where rulership is “pochotl [silk cotton], ahuehuetl,” make a similar point, as does that book’s comparison between forefathers and trees that provide shade and water.16 That the ruler should be thought of as a water-­loving tree corresponds to his responsibility to supply the altepetl residents with fresh water, evidence of which is found in surviving remains of aqueducts and expansions of chinampa agriculture—all of them almost certainly public works projects—built around the basin to serve its peoples.17 But to talk of “human community” and “nature,” and to set these terms in opposition, is to rely on heuristic devices that reflect a Western idea of the cosmos: in all likelihood, the Nahua did not see the two as opposed entities, but rather as a more integrated whole. But the more salient point is this: when water supplies dried up during periods of drought, it was the Nahua ruler’s responsibility to rebalance the relationships with the forces of the divine, and to restore the normal supply of life-­ giving water. Such responsibility of rulers did not end when the Spanish assumed political control of the basin. In 1539, when the basin was gripped by a major drought, the peoples of Huexotzinco made desperate appeals at mountaintop Tlaloc shrines for the rains to return, appeals that were condoned, if not led, by basin elites.18 These appeals to the ancient god to end the drought came to light in Bishop Zumárraga’s investigations of idolatry among the Texcocan elite, an investigation that quickly led to accusations against the Texcocan lord don Carlos Ometochtli, among them of idolatry, and he was burned at the stake in Mexico’s main plaza in November of 1539. While it is usually the tragic figure of don Carlos that commands attention, as well as the interfamilial battles that caused him to fall, the case also underscores the traditional role of elites in maintaining relationships with the protective water deities who lived in surrounding mountains, as most recently argued by León García Garagarza. Having established the ongoing role of Mexica elites in water management, both “practical” and “religious” (the distinction deriving from modern secular Western categories, not Nahua or Catholic ones), I turn to the Florentine Codex, and to the collaborator that Sahagún described

as “the leader, and wisest,” don Antonio Valeriano, to further emphasize that the role of environmental custodian continued during the sixteenth century. Valeriano was also a member of the high Mexica elite, involved in a number of water infrastructure projects. Born around 1522 in Azcapotzalco, Valeriano was a great-­grandson of Axayacatl, as María Castañeda de la Paz has demonstrated.19 After the death of Mexico City’s indigenous governor, don Luis Cipac, in 1565, and an interregnum of almost a decade, Valeriano was seated as juez-­gobernador (judge and governor) of the indigenous city in 1573, a position of both judicial and executive authority. When Valeriano was in his fifties and serving as governor, he would spearhead a project to bring more potable water from Chapultepec to the city, particularly to its thousands of indigenous residents, whose own access to fresh water had been curtailed by the city’s Spanish-­led households.20 This aqueduct-­ building project of 1575 to 1582 overlapped with the final drafting of the Florentine.

Pantitlan Valeriano’s manipulations of the environment were echoed in the work of his fellow Nahua who helped create the Florentine, a work that reveals them to have been highly sensitive observers of their unique lacustrine local environment as well as its flora and fauna.21 Despite the interest they expressed through texts, most of the illustrations that capture landscapes are fairly generic ones, hard to pin to unique places in the Basin of Mexico. A singular exception is the image of Pantitlan, a kind of whirlpool that existed in the eastern lake, about a mile off the dike that protected the eastern edge of Tenochtitlan and near Tepetzinco (see figure 8.1). The image breaks out of the neat formatting that guides most of the book: unlike other illustrations in the codex that are typically one column wide and about a quarter of a page high, this one occupies more than half the left-­hand column of the page (fig. 8.3). In the upper two thirds of the image, the artist offers a bird’s-­eye view of a portion of the lake, the horizontal wavy lines and swirls conveying water. A brownish ring dominates this upper part, the stipples across its surface identifying it as earth that rises like a berm above the water level. Set into the earthen ring are white flags. In this context, these flags also function as a place-­name. Pamitl (which combines as pan-­) means “banner,” -­ti- is a ligature, and -­tlan means “place of,” so that Pantitlan means “Place of the Banners.” Since the

Florentine Codex shows similar white flags in the hands of victims to be sacrificed, Pantitlan can also be interpreted to mean “Place of Sacrifice.” At the center of the earthen ring is a square construction with four sets of stairs on each flank ascending to a water-­filled middle or cistern. In the lower quarter of the image, the artist shifts perspective, and here we see three canoes as if viewed from the surface of the lake. Their three oarsmen all engage with the circular precinct. The one at left seems to have just thrown one of the green objects into the water in the center; the one at center holds up a box made of woven reeds; and the one at right holds a ceramic pitcher aloft, its form similar to the pitchers that are visible in the water, as if it, too, is destined to be an offering. At the top of the image, the lake fades into mudflats, and three waterbirds are visible, the one at the left foraging in the soft muck. The colors are unusual: typically, in sixteenth-­century maps from the basin, the artists opt for a standard palette of cochineal red, ochre yellow (for earth), and the brilliant turquoise we know as Maya blue (for water). In this image, the color register is shifted from red / yellow / turquoise blue to orange / green / blue violet; instead of Maya blue for the water, the artist uses a deep blue-­violet pigment. It contrasts with the vivid green used for some of the offerings and on the large vessel in the canoe at right. The pigment used for both the men and their canoes is quite orange, more so than the flesh color used in other parts of the manuscript, and offers yet another dramatic contrast to the violet. In a manuscript where color was used sparingly, this blue violet, a transparent organic pigment almost certainly derived from indigo, has dramatic visual impact.22 The larger size of the image of Pantitlan is also dramatic but not especially called for by the accompanying text, a long chapter describing the worship of the tlaloque, a complex of water and related mountain deities.23 The last sentence of the Spanish text simply states that at the end of the main festival in their honor, all the adornments and vessels used for that feast were taken up and pitched into the sumidero, or drain, of Pantitlan. The Nahuatl text pays more attention to the kind of stuff that was disposed of: “And when day broke, thereupon took place the disposal of the remains . . . all their adornment—the paper garlands worn over one shoulder . . . their staves of round thick reeds, and their flame sticks, their cloud-­bundles; and the jade cups and their little sauce bowls with which [the celebrants] ate, the little wooden bowls and the clay Ecology and Leadership • 129

Figure 8.3. Pantitlan. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 23r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

bowls, all these they left at Tepetzinco, they threw them into the water, off shore, at a place called Pantitlan.”24 But as we know from other studies of the images of the Florentine, the images are never merely illustrations to the text, and the large size of the Pantitlan image likely corresponds to its ritual importance, made clear in a number of other sections of the Florentine and in other sources. On the feast of Tlaloc, Atlcahualo, the Florentine Codex reports that child sacrifices were made at Tepetzinco and Pantitlan to the rain deity, Tlaloc, in return for abundant rains, stating, “There was the payment of the debt at Tepetzinco or there in the middle of the lake at a place called Pantitlan.”25 These annual child sacrifices had a commemorative function: the Leyenda de los soles, a cosmogony written in Nahuatl, perhaps by one of the members of the circle of indigenous intellectuals who helped make the Florentine, recounts the ancient sacrifice at Pantitlan of a young Mexica girl, Quetzalxochitzin, in order to bring the end to a drought, and which resulted in the gift of maize from the rain deities.26 Recall that the name Pantitlan can be understood as “Place of the Banners,” or “Place of Sacrifice.” And as Anthony Aveni has demonstrated, Pantitlan was one of a circuit of sites around the basin, threaded together in pre-­Hispanic rituals of child sacrifice on Atlcahualo.27 Aveni has shown that the rituals were carried out at seven sacred sites around the basin, three of them clustering together to form a node on the eastern lake: Pantitlan, the small hill of Tepetzinco (known today as Peñol de los Baños), and Poyauhtlan (at Tepetzinco’s foot).28 Pantitlan was also the site of offerings during the feast of Etzalcualiztli, which was held a few months after Atlcahualo, during the rainy season, when captives in the likenesses of rain gods were sacrificed and their hearts offered at Pantitlan; “cloud vessels” (mixcomitl) containing the sacrificial hearts were tossed into the waters, as if to propitiate the water deities.29 Thus, these sources show three kinds of rituals associated with Pantitlan: the interment of objects used in ritual, the commemorative child sacrifices to bring rain, and the offerings of sacrificial hearts to propitiate the rain deities. The last two of the rituals taking place at Pantitlan centered on maintaining a steady supply of water, held during the anxious moments before the fall of the rain (Atlcahualo) and upon its arrival (Etzacualiztli), because Pantitlan itself was an environmental index to those changes, a bellwether to the larger conditions that obtained in the lake. The caching of the ritual objects seemed to occur at

the beginning of the cycle when the lake levels were low: while the Florentine image of Pantitlan shows canoes approaching the site, the far side shows mudflats at the edge of the lake, corresponding to the conditions one would find in the dry season. In contrast, the written description of Pantitlan during the festival of Etzalcualiztli, which occurred when lake levels were higher, describes a quite different scenario, telling us that when the cloud vessels holding sacrificial hearts were cast into the water, “the water foamed, kept surging, roared, crackled continually, crackled as it surged. Bits of foam were formed.”30 But any site on the lake could have been chosen if the Mexica were just interested in the rise and fall of water levels. Instead, Pantitlan was understood to be a conduit to a vast system of underground waters that originated in the mountains—these waters could either flow out from Pantitlan or be sucked into it. Like the Florentine’s creators, the Dominican chronicler and Mexico City resident Diego Durán also shared a fascination with Pantitlan, and he called it a sumidero—that is, a great drain, which, if unplugged, would suck all the water out of the lake. At the same time, he also described it as a place where enormous waves could engulf a boat, even on a windless day.31 This phenomenon suggests the opposite of a drain, that is, a spring, a place where water could surge upward. To resolve the dueling natures of Pantitlan as drain/ spring, the archeologists Margarita Carballal Staedtler and María Flores Hernández attempted to locate Pantitlan as well as to identify the precise geology that could create such variable effects.32 While unable to pinpoint the spot, they were able to determine the general region and derive from core samples of the stratigraphy some explanations for the phenomena observed there.33 Pantitlan sits on a highly seismically active site, at the juncture of plates, and some of the lake’s erratic movements might have been produced by frequent seismic microquakes at the site. There also seems to have been underground springs lying beneath the lake bed; during the dry season, pressure from the water in the lake on the tightly packed clay strata beneath might have led to liquefaction of these layers, causing the “drain” effect; seismic activity could do the same. During the rainy season, underground flows of water from the surrounding mountains into the strata below the lake bed might have caused water to explode upward from the lake floor, causing dramatic waves on windless days, as well as the foaming and surging that the Florentine describes. In the Florentine’s image, the outer ring with its banEcology and Leadership • 131

ners shows Pantitlan as protected by a man-­made earthen barrier anchored with wooden pilings. This barrier appears similar to the way that the dikes were constructed, where archeologists have shown them to have had retaining walls created by driving tree trunks down into the lake bed for vertical support and then weaving them together with strong saplings to hold the inner fill.34 Durán tells us that these were the remains of great tree trunks, again objects left over at the end of ceremonies, that were brought to the site at the close of a ritual and driven into the lake bed. He offered eyewitness testimony to these pilings when he reported seeing “great hoary trunks rising from the water” when he passed the site by boat.35 He does not mention the inner construction, but in my reading, the Pantitlan image captures a dry moment, and the radial four-­sided pyramid with a central cache at the center of Pantitlan would have likely been visible only when lake levels were low. When it was visible, the architecture served as a kind of alarm clock to signal that the time for ritual had arrived; and given the history of radial pyramids throughout Mesoamerica, it was an appropriate marker for period-­ ending rites.36 Unfortunately, the slim opportunity of archeology in the current area (near Mexico City’s international airport) has made further exploration of these features nearly impossible, and thus this image may offer a singular piece of evidence about the perceived relationship between Mexica ritual and the watery environment, beyond the more abundant information on mountain ceremonies. While the image comes in a section of the book concerned with rituals of the pre-­Hispanic past, Pantitlan and its waters still posed a very real threat to the Florentine’s writers in the 1560s and 1570s. The reasons for the great flood of 1555 were many and various. Incessant Spanish campaigns to build the city using huge amounts of wood as pilings in the swampy lake bed and as roofing materials meant that the surrounding mountains had been denuded of trees; deprived of its natural anchors, the topsoil bled into the lake, and the naked hills became unable to absorb runoff. In addition, the Spanish leaders of the city neglected the elaborate system of dikes that the Mexica had constructed to maintain water levels in the basin, instead choosing to use native work gangs to build their houses and civic and religious buildings, such as the cathedral. Historical evidence suggests that the floodwaters of the 1555 inundation came from the east of the city, that is, from the area around Pantitlan, because in response to 132 • Barbara E. Mundy

the flood, Viceroy Velasco ordered the reconstruction of a dike to protect the east littoral, which would have been the flank of the city closest to Pantitlan.37 We do not know the role that Valeriano played in the reconstruction of this dike, but we do know that Velasco called on Nahua elites from basin cities to offer advice on how to deal with the catastrophe, and if Valeriano was not among them, members of his family were.38 Thus, both Valeriano and Sahagún were living in a moment of terrible aberrations in the normal patterns of the city’s lacustrine environment—a sixteenth-­century version of climate change, with documented droughts in the late 1530s and terrible flooding in the mid-­1550s. These were not the only natural catastrophes. When the Florentine’s authors hurriedly worked to finish the last books of the volume, they shut the monastery’s doors against the plague that raged outside, a plague that might have killed a quarter of the city’s indigenous population. The image of Pantitlan shows that the Florentine’s creators possessed keen awareness of the surrounding environs, as do other parts of the work, particularly Book 11. But it also includes human figures interacting with their environment, and it is important to pay close attention to what they are doing. As the three men bring their boats close to the defined precinct, they throw ceramic vessels, jade objects, including one in the form of a human, and things contained by a woven reed box into the cistern. The great vertical banners may be more of this refuse that remained at the end of a ceremony. The Mexica and other Nahuatl-­speaking peoples typically engaged in breakage and cleansing rituals at the end of chronological cycles; in the New Fire ceremony that occurred every fifty-­two years, households broke household objects and threw them out. As Byron E. Hamann has noted, “The destruction of household contents reenacted on a homely scale the cosmic devastations that destroyed previous ages of creation.”39 In the case of the festival to the rain deities depicted in the Florentine’s image of Pantitlan, the dumping of used-­up ritual costumes and vessels and the vertical caching of tree trunks at the site of a radial pyramid was the small-­scale equivalent of the wide-­scale cleansing of households at New Fire, “in which a new age could be symbolically brought into being.”40 The hillside adjacent to Pantitlan, Tepetzinco, served a similar function. The Codex Chimalpahin, a history of the Mexica written in Nahuatl at the beginning of the seventeenth century, tells us that upon the defeat of the evil sorcerer

Copil, “[Huitzilopochtli] cut off his head and cut open his breast. When he had cut open his breast he took his heart from him. And he placed his head on top of Tepetzintli [or Tepetzinco], a place now named Acopilco, [for] there Copil’s head died.”41 Following this sacrifice, the city of Tenochtitlan was founded. Thus, Pantitlan and Tepetzinco are marked as sites where disruptive “refuse” (like the head of the enemy Copil) was interred. In the Florentine’s image of Pantitlan, the foreground figures engage in actions that symbolically cleansed and renewed the world while simultaneously ensuring the orderly continuation of their universe.

tal, thus striking the same pose that Mictlantecuhtli, the deity of the underworld, adopts in the Codex Magliabechiano (fig. 8.5). On this page of a manuscript picturing the “idolatrous” rituals of the pre-­Hispanic period, Mictlantecuhtli sits atop the stepped temple platform at the right. He is identifiable by his skeletal lower jaw and five small banners composing his fan-­shaped headdress. His clawed hands stretch out in front, toward the six penitents at left. In this pose, the acuitlachtli of the Florentine is thus visually associated not with the regenerative watery underworld of Tlaloc, the rain deity, but with the realm of the dead. While it is the normal behavior of most animals that the Florentine’s text describes, it is the abnormal behavior of the acuitlachtli that catches the authors’ attention. Both The Acuitlachtli the Spanish and the Nahuatl texts mention the recent While Book 1 deals with the world of past ritual, Book 11 appearance of an acuitlachtli in waters from Santa Cruz is set in the present. Not only does it discuss the sources of Cuauhcalco, “which is the spring that flows to Tlatelolco” water in its chapter 12, but many of the texts and images (in ompa catqui ameyalli, in huallaticac Sanctiago).42 Other also deal with plants and animals with aquatic habitats, sources tell us that water from a spring (known as Xanand thus Book 11 has a great deal to say and show about copinca), which was situated near Cuauhcalco, a site on water. More than half of the 204 images in the Floren- the lakeshore, was carried by an aqueduct into the center tine Codex that deal with water appear within Book 11, as of the urban nucleus of Tlatelolco.43 The second image of the table in figure 8.2 shows. The water-­associated animals the acuitlachtli appearing on relevant folios shows us this included in Book 11 were certainly of interest because of episode: the beast, seated with his forelegs on the ground their utilitarian value and were often divided into “edible” like a dog, appears in a water fountain, defined by a low and “inedible” kinds. But more importantly, their normal hexagonal base (fig. 8.6). By its shape and the description behaviors were connected to the overall stability of the en- in the text, this is likely a freshwater fountain that the invironment. This stability is thrown into relief by another digenous leaders of Tlatelolco had built in the 1550s to aberrant or abnormal episode, in this case the behavior capture the Xancopinca waters and serve the urban popuof an animal. Within chapter 2 of Book 11, a chapter de- lace. The construction of this elegant stone fountain was voted to waterbirds, on folios 33v–­34v, we are treated to registered in the Codex Tlatelolco, a manuscript of una much longer narrative about the acuitlachtli, a name that certain date that records events of the 1550s and 1560s translates to “water bear.” Many names of waterbirds in (fig. 8.7). In this indigenous codex, the fountain is shown this section begin with a, the root stem of the word atl, or with an octagonal base, filled with a blue pigment to sigwater, but in this case a is combined with cuitlachi, or bear, nify fresh water; at its center rises the fountain’s spigot in to describe an animal that is not a bird at all, but instead the shape of a bird, with streams of water coming out of likely a type of nutria. The name captures the anomalous pipes emerging from its mouth and its chest. This founnature of the animal, a hybrid between a ferocious land tain would have been well known to the Florentine’s cremammal and a water creature. According to the text, the ators, in that it was placed in Tlatelolco’s main plaza, just animal’s normal behavior was to hide under the water, to steps from the monastery where the Florentine was being remain invisible, and to cause the water to boil—a small-­ created. scale version of the behavior of Pantitlan. Freshwater sources, like the fountain of Tlatelolco at The opening image to the section on this beast shows the center of the island city, had both practical and symthe acuitlachtli in his watery home of the lake, surrounded bolic importance. A freshwater source was essential for by fish and serpents (fig. 8.4). His profile pose, however, is the health and survival of an urban population, and supnoteworthy, as he sits on his haunches and holds out his plying the residents with fresh water was one of the key clawed hands in front of his body, so they appear horizon- responsibilities of Nahua rulers both before and after the Ecology and Leadership • 133

Figure 8.4. The acuitlachtli (water bear). Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 33v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 8.6. The acuitlachtli in the fountain at Santiago Tlatelolco. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 34r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT. Figure 8.5. Mictlantecuhtli, from the Codex Magliabechiano, fol. 79r (late sixteenth century). Ministerio dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Banco Rari 232 (già Magl. XIII, 3).

Figure 8.8. Death of the acuitlachtli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 34v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 8.7. Fountain at Tlatelolco from the Codex Tlatelolco, section 6 (ca. 1565). Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Reproduced with permission from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.

conquest, as discussed earlier, and connected to the native concept of altepetl.44 Their interest was shared with that of the Franciscans who engineered water in and around their establishments, evoking the streams of Jerusalem.45 The entry of such an animal into the city’s freshwater source would have been quite threatening, as its dirty and disruptive habits would have fouled the precious liquid that sustained the urban community. The text does not tell us what caused the acuitlachtli to end up in the fountain, but contemporary science offers abundant evidence that animals often leave their normal habitats because of some environmental disruption, in the way that rising temperatures in Alaska and the northern Yukon are causing changes in the caribou migrations. Given what we know of the dramatic changes during the sixteenth century in the Basin of Mexico, which was whipsawed between drought

and floods, the dramatic changes in lake levels is the most likely cause for the acuitlachtli’s aberrant behavior. The fate of the aberrant acuitlachtli would be an unhappy one, but the role of human actors can be understood as an attempt to set the world back in balance. The third and final image of the animal that the Florentine offers shows us the acuitlachtli being hunted down by two men with spears, who stand with their feet in shallow water (fig. 8.8). Between them is the shaggy beast, who suffers a spear thrust to its proper right side, the mortal wound emitting a corona of blood. The wounded acuitlachtli thus resembles both the human sacrificial victims frequently depicted on the pages of the Florentine as well as the crucified Christ, with a lance piercing his right side. And the text also relates that when one was captured and brought to the ruler of Tlatelolco in the 1530s, “he was so terrified by it that he had it buried in Tepetzinco,” that is, on the outcropping of land adjacent to Pantitlan. The burial of the acuitlachtli, an animal that strikes the pose of the underworld deity, at the same site as the head of the evil sorcerer Copil, who conspired against the Mexica, was hardly insignificant. The ruler’s decision to bury the animal at this spot reasserts an initial ordering act that, at another moment in time, resulted in the foundation of the city in the aftermath of propitiatory sacrifice. These two cases, then, present a landscape feature, Pantitlan, that was, by its nature, aberrant in its alternations between fountain and drain, and an animal that was also liminal, both furry mammal and aquatic creature (as was Ecology and Leadership • 135

another important transgressive animal, the feathered serpent), and on one notable occasion exhibited aberrant behavior. In both cases, the Florentine’s creators make clear that human beings are not powerless, as the codex carefully registers responses as well as the initial phenomena. In the image of Pantitlan, the men in boats consign the refuse from the rain deity feast at the site, thereby paving the way for world renewal. In the image of the acuitlachtli, the beast is sacrificed by a thrust of the spear to the chest, as were human victims whose own deaths were necessary to keep the natural (and therefore divine) order of the world in balance. These images ultimately show us the importance of human action in keeping the world in balance, a key principle of Nahua belief. The form of the spatial representation of Pantitlan is worth underscoring. While we know little of what Pantitlan looked like, the Florentine’s artists show it following a recognizable template: a square construction, almost certainly a radial pyramid, surrounded by a ring of water, then by a ring of earth and another ring of water. This is an amplification of the basic template of Aztlan, the mythical place of origin of many of the altepetl of the basin. Consider the Tira de la peregrinación, page 1 (fig. 8.9). Here, the oval form at left is an island within which a temple, a seated male-­female couple, and six small houses appear. The couple faces to the right, as if to watch a solitary oarsman cross the surrounding lake. This oval island, ringed by lake, is the idyllic homeland of Aztlan. The template found its fullest realization in Tenochtitlan itself, which was an

Figure 8.9. Departure from Aztlan. Tira de la peregrinación, 1 (mid-­sixteenth century). Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Reproduced with permission from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.

136 • Barbara E. Mundy

island ringed by a lake, which was in turn surrounded by the land of central Mexico, which was then surrounded, or so it once seemed, by the vast seas that stretched out to the east and west forever. Thus Pantitlan, the most dangerous part of the lake, a threat to the order of the world, is here translated into an idealized model, itself a visual synecdoche for the larger achievement of the Mexica in taming the water that surrounded the city. In sum, in these responses to local environmental anomalies, the creators of the Florentine drew on a worldview within which environmental disorder could be set right by a human response, and they cared enough about it to devote pictures and pages of their magnum opus to underscore the point.

Color What can color add to our understanding of this work? Diana Magaloni Kerpel has argued that the application of colored pigment in the images of the deities in Book 1 was meant to emphasize their status as teixiptla, or localized embodiments of deities.46 So now, any consideration of water in the Florentine would seem to be incomplete without discussion of its color.47 The colors used for water in the Florentine Codex can be basically broken down to four, used in various concentrations—gray, tan, violet, and Maya blue. When one looks at patterns of color used across the manuscript, one pattern is striking—and that is the availability of color. Beginning around folio 179 in Book 11, color disappears almost entirely, likely because the trade networks that supplied urban markets were shut down by the plague that began in 1576. In addition, if we understand that the manuscript, from beginning to end, represents various temporal sequences ( Jesús Bustamante García has shown that the trajectory from Book 1 to Book 12 was not an uninterrupted sequence),48 we can see that in some of the sequences, like the time when artists were at work on Book 11 between folios 48 and 66, Maya blue was abundant. But interestingly, it is not Maya blue that is the favored color for water of the surrounding lakes, but rather a rich violet purple, found as both a concentrated pigment as well as a pale, almost gray wash. In the case of colors used for water, the Florentine itself is aberrant. In cartographic manuscripts from the same time and place, artists uniformly use turquoise pigment, most likely derived from Maya blue, to show flowing water. As for the Florentine, it is not just that artists would have opted for Maya blue if they had been able to

showing water, the use might be a convention particular to the Florentine. In the books dealing with pre-­Hispanic rites, the painters show us water marked by a different level of animation and sacrality than ordinary water, like the waters that ushered the neonate into the local human community. When the Florentine was created, this community was a Christian one, and some of their present-­day water, captured in Book 11, shared this color and perhaps its meaning as well.

Conclusion Figure 8.10. Violet (top) and Maya blue (bottom) pigments were available and used on the same page. Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 26v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

acquire the pigment. In Book 11, chapter 2, folio 26v, the artist working on the page had access to both, but used violet for the water in the figure above and turquoise for the bird below (fig. 8.10). So why the anomalous use of this violet pigment for so much of the water in the Florentine Codex? Turning to the way water appears in Book 2 offers an interpretive path. This part of the manuscript deals with pre-­Hispanic rites, and water is frequently shown in rituals of the washing of infants. Ritual washing, also done during rites of royal consecration, was a way that the Nahua moved from one life state to another. In the case of infants, they moved from the ungendered and unordered neonatal state into a world of gender roles and fixed responsibilities, which were described to them in the orations of the elders. But for those gathered in Tlatelolco, these past ritual washings in water had their present-­day correlation in baptism, the first Christian sacrament that brought to their souls the possibility of salvation. In a featherwork now in the Museo Nacional del Virreinato showing Christ as Salvator Mundi, which was perhaps produced in Mexico City, his resplendent cloak is made of purple-­hued feathers, the work linking the extraordinary color to Christian salvation. The water used to effect such passages in the Florentine is almost always violet or violet tinged. And the waters of Pantitlan are also violet tinged. Since this pigment almost never, that I can think of, appears on quotidian maps

The conquest unleashed terrible environmental changes in the Basin of Mexico, and sixteenth-­century residents of the region were well aware that they lived in an era of ecological (particularly hydraulic) turmoil, a time of climate change not unlike our own. In writing about and picturing the surrounding lakes, the minds and imaginations of the intellectuals who worked on the Florentine Codex were snagged on the aberrant behavior of water and of animals. At least one of the scholars, don Antonio Valeriano, was also a ruler and thus, like the long line of rulers that preceded him, bore some responsibility for water management for the community he led. This chapter has barely mentioned the long Franciscan theological tradition dealing with the natural world,49 but certainly Valeriano’s sense of responsibility was deepened by the education he received at the Colegio de Santa Cruz, as was his conviction that propitiatory sacrifice can save the world. By shifting from a Nahua/European binary to emplacement as the site of analysis, and in focusing on certain environmental phenomena, I have hoped to show that the creators’ innovative responses were not those of “pre-­Hispanic” minds, but to suggest that all the Florentine Codex creators were grappling with inherited beliefs and Christian notions as they faced the ever new challenges that their surrounding environment posed. If one accepts that it is these intellectuals’ responses that are registered in text and image, one can see how the Florentine underscores the human role in righting ecological disorder, whether it was the carefully tendered offerings at Pantitlan that were carried out before the conquest, or the sacrifice and interment of the acuitlachtli at the nearby site of Tepetzinco that was done in the 1530s. At the same time, the Florentine’s creators sought ways to make these roles compatible within a Christian framework of baptism and salvation. Despite the tragic cast of their age, these intellectuals still had acEcology and Leadership • 137

cess to a world where human action could set the cosmos right: in the violet waters that ushered the neonate into the human community came both a promise and a responsibility.

Notes 1. See Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 2. Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 3. Jiménez Moreno (1938) set the frame by crediting Sahagún with the conception, if not the actual execution, writing that “[l]a concepción— tan grandiose por sí sola—le pertenece a Sahagún de un modo exclusivo.” For a summary of the authorship debate up to the early 1970s, see López Austin 1974a, 111–149, esp. p. 112. A more recent summary of this debate is encapsulated in Olivier 2007a. 4. Sullivan 1974, 79. 5. López Austin 1974a, 122. 6. “Sahagún realized the value of the spontaneous information he was receiving, so he let them expound freely, answering questions in the order they wished and narrating digressions that occupy whole chapters” (López Austin 1974a, 131). 7. Mundy 2015, 25–51. 8. González Aparicio 1973; Palerm 1973. 9. Cortés 1969, 111. 10. Mundy 2015, 77–84. 11. Mundy 2015, 199–200; Pérez-­Rocha 1996; Rojas Rabiela 1981, 98–115; Cortés Alonso 1973. 12. See Bassett, chapter 9 of this volume. 13. Durán 1994, 125. The Spanish original reads: “Has de saber, señor, que todos aquellos tus vasallos, así principales como gente común, se someten debajo de tu sombra, pues estás puesto por árbol de gran sombra, como la sabina debajo del cual se quieren meter y amparar para gozar del frescor de tu amistad y de tu amor” (Durán 1990, 1:70). 14. While there are many types of juniper native to Mexico, none of them were well known enough to the creators of the Florentine Codex to be listed in Book 11. 15. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 108. 16. Thanks to Jeanette Peterson for this information in Book 6. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 58, 73, 137.

138 • Barbara E. Mundy

17. Sanders, Parsons, and Santley 1979, 260–281. 18. García Garagarza 2012, 193–214. 19. Castañeda de la Paz 2013, 167, 275–279, 461. 20. Mundy 2015, 190–208. 21. Espinosa Pineda 1996. 22. Diana Magaloni Kerpel, personal communication, 2015. 23. Broda 1971. 24. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, 24. I have changed their translation of chalchiuhxical from “turquoise cup” to the more appropriate “jade cup.” 25. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 42. 26. Tena 2002, 170, 197. 27. Aveni 1999, 58–73. 28. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 43. The Spanish text identifies Poyauhtlan as at the foot of Mt. Tepetzinco in Tlaxcala, but I suspect that this is an error and Poyauhtlan is at the foot of Tepetzinco in the basin. 29. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, p. 89. 30. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, p. 89. 31. Spanish: Durán 1990, 2:393–400; English: Durán 1971, 164–169. 32. Carballal Staedtler and Flores Hernández 1989a, 8–101. 33. Carballal Staedtler and Flores Hernández 1989a, 258–264. 34. Carballal Staedtler and Flores Hernández 1989b, 71–80. 35. Spanish: Durán 1990, 2:393–400; English: Durán 1971, 165. 36. Tozzer 1957. Thanks to Mary E. Miller for bringing Tozzer’s comparison of Pantitlan to the cenote at Chichen Itza to my attention. 37. Pérez-­Rocha 1996. 38. Pérez-­Rocha 1996. 39. Hamann 2008, 806; Elson and Smith 2001, 157–174. 40. Hamann 2008, 806. 41. Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin 1997, 1:87. 42. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 33. Spanish text: “que es la fuente que viene al Tlatelolco.” 43. Castañeda de la Paz 2013, 87, including notes 138 and 139. 44. Mundy 2014. 45. Lara 2004. 46. Magaloni Kerpel 2014; and chapter 10 of this volume. The term “localized embodiments of deities” comes from Bassett 2015. 47. Wolf and Connors 2011; Magaloni Kerpel 2014. 48. Bustamante García 1990, 305–328. 49. Sorrell 1988.

Chapter 9

Bundling Natural History Tlaquimilolli, Folk Biology, and Book 11 Molly H. Bassett

B

ook 11, “Earthly Things,” is the lengthiest and most illustrated volume of the Florentine Codex, and given the Church’s directive to fray Bernardino de Sahagún—to create an aid in the extirpation of idolatry—its subject, natural history, may seem at odds with the overall project. Attending to the details of “the little insects called fireflies,” “the mushrooms,” or “the nature of the soils” looks, at least at first glance, irrelevant to the identification and eradication of indigenous religion. However, Aztecs—like many indigenous peoples—did not distinguish nature from culture in the way that moderns did (and do).1 Neither did they associate nature with God as sixteenth-­century Catholics did. In his prologue to Book 11, Sahagún remarked pointedly on natives’ confusion about the origin of the natural world, its features and creatures: “This work will also be timely to inform the natives of the meaning of created things, that they not attribute divinity to them.”2 As is clear from the resources he devoted to Book 11, Sahagún valued it as a resource for understanding Nahuatl and for the insight it provided into how Aztecs perceived their environment. In the following, I argue that Book 11 is crucial to understanding Aztec religion because it showcases some aspects of the folk-­biological knowledge essential to the religion’s ritual activities. In their introduction to Folkbiology, Douglas L. Medin and Scott Atran take the position that “people’s actions on the natural world are surely conditioned in part by their ways of knowing and modeling it.”3 Folk biology “reflects rich direct and indirect experience with biological kinds in the indigenous culture,” and

folk-­biological knowledge depends upon intimate contact and social interactions with the local environment and its populations.4 These are culturally constructed relationships; folk biology is a relational observation of “nature.” Book 11 is essential for understanding Aztec religion in that it reveals connections Aztecs saw between nature and gods and provides specific information about many of the plants, animals, and stones they engaged with in rituals. For example, priests drew on folk biology to wrap tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles) that included stones, osseous materials, animal pelts, and other naturally occurring and human-­made objects. The bundles’ physical construction and material composition were fundamental to their (re)presentation of a teotl (god). The surface appearance of objects in bundles signaled a host of associations each carried so that a bundle wrapped in a jaguar pelt incorporated characteristics of the feline. In fact, the multicolored coat of a jaguar pelt and the characteristic blue green of turquoise contributed essential aspects of the animal and the stone to the material composition of the god-­body so that nature was bound up in the (re)creation of the divine. The structures of bundles, temples, and mountains suggest that Aztecs highly valued physical rituals, such as layering, wrapping, and clothing, in the production of animate entities and that they saw similar structures as equivalent. Sacred bundles recreated god-­bodies, and given their materiality, they also (re)collected folk-­biological knowledge. Thus, they represent a mode of engaging the world that incorporates nature and god.

139

scriptions of teoxihuitl and tlapalteoxihuitl not only make turquoise’s connection with teotl clear but also expand the terms’ significance by drawing a comparison to the lovely cotinga, a small bird prized for its blue-­green feathers. The xiuhtototl, the lovely cotinga (Cotinga amabilis), is a beautiful blue bird, “a dweller in Anahuac. . . . Its breast is purple, its back a really light blue, a very light blue, its wings pale, and its tail mixed, part blue-­green, part black.”7 Two images of the lovely cotinga’s entire body appear alongside bunches of blue, green, and red feathers in Codex Mendoza tribute lists for the province of Xoconochco.8 Located on the Pacific coast in present-­day Chiapas, Xoconochco was home to the bird.9 Feathers collected there made their way to Tenochtitlan, where feather workers wove them into precious goods, such as the deity clothing listed as belonging to Huitzilopochtli and Teteoinnan in the Primeros memoriales.10 According to the description of Huitzilopochtli in the Primeros memoriales, several other blue-­green elements adorned the god, including the xiuhtlapalli (knotted turquoise cloth), blue stripes on his legs, and his xiuhcoatl (turquoise serpent staff ).11 Turquoise and the lovely cotinga share a single signifiFigure 9.1. Lovely cotinga (Cotinga amabilis). Courtesy of William cant attribute: their blue-­green color. Color mattered in Orellana, Beaks and Peaks. every sphere of Aztec culture, and the value Aztecs attributed to blue green cannot be overstated. In his study of mining and turquoise in Mesoamerica, Phil Weigand Coloring the Surface of Things writes, “Turquoise became an extravagantly valuable posMy curiosity about surfaces and appearances increased session and status marker, laden with so much symbolism as I noticed mentions of teotl in Book 11’s descriptions that it is difficult for us to comprehend. Turquoise appears of objects belonging to the natural world, like turquoise. at almost every explanatory and symbolic juncture within Among the many kinds of jadeite Aztecs knew, they the Mesoamerican ideological system.”12 Indeed, as Elizaidentified three distinct types of xihuitl, “turquoise.” In beth Benson notes in Birds and Beasts of Ancient Latin addition to xihuitl (ordinary “turquoise”), two others—­ America, “The colors of feathers may often have been more teoxihuitl and tlapalteoxihuitl—stand out because they con- significant than the birds they came from.”13 The symboltain the prefix teo- from teotl.5 The Nahuatl text explains ism that inheres in everything blue green illustrates the their etymology: teoxihuitl “is the property, the lot, of the significance of color and surface in Aztec culture.14 Drawgod; and it means that it is much esteemed, because it does ing on scientific analyses of pigments in the Florentine not appear anywhere very often. . . . And when it appears Codex, Diana Magaloni Kerpel suggests in this volume some distance away, it is quite pale, like the lovely cotinga, and elsewhere that color vivified images.15 verily as if smoking” (fig. 9.1).6 As Guilhem Olivier argues Given the value and prominence of green stones in in chapter 7 of this volume, Sahagún’s efforts to under- Aztec luxury goods and Nahuatl rhetoric, turquoise may stand Aztec religion and prepare a guide for its extirpa- appear to have an “essence” that connoted and denoted tion involved attempts to clarify religious language while specific associations.16 Indeed, the ideas of essences, eneralso limiting religion’s significance. By contrast to the de- gies, and forces of the gods have a long history in the study scriptions of teoatl (ocean) or teocuitlatl (gold), in which of Aztec religion. Other scholars have argued that Aztec Sahagún downplays associations with the gods, teoxihuitl deity images functioned as containers that housed the seems to have escaped his editorial eye. In fact, the de- energy, force, or essence of the god.17 The interplay be140 • Molly H. Bassett

tween interiority and exteriority in Aztec understandings of objects in the natural world deserves more attention than I can give it here. For the purposes of this chapter, I contend that Aztecs were acutely aware of and concerned with surfaces, appearances, and color, and their use of equivalences illustrates the importance of the physical forms and materials they employed in ritual activity.

Equivalences In the case of the Aztecs, language, image, and matter converged in ritual activities that recognized and produced animate entities and sacred structures in the natural environment and human-­made world. Put differently, Aztecs “admitted no ontological distinction between human and nonhuman creation (i.e., ritual/“nature”). . . . Nature was ritualized just as ritual was naturalized.”18 Instead, Aztecs identified specific equivalences and like characteristics in significant objects, entities, and structures. Elsewhere, I argue that the etymology of teixiptla, literally “something characterized by a flayed surface,” as well as its function in ritual apotheosis, depended on materiality, physicality, and appearance. Aztec mythology and ritual abound in examples of men, women, and things that became gods by taking on the physical appearance and comport of a particular teotl. What looked like mounds of amaranth dough were the tepictoton, the little mountain gods.19 What seemed to be a bundle of cloths and blankets was Tezcatlipoca. The teixiptla (god-­body) is the most striking equivalence in the Aztec cosmovision, but other examples—and some of them quite curious—abound.20 For instance, “the heart-­shaped fruit from the [nopal] cactus also served in sacrifice, not because it stood for, or replaced, the human heart but because it was equivalent, one more manifestation of nourishing food.”21 As this example illustrates, Aztec understandings of their local environment operated according to assumptions about animacy and modes of engagement that did not (and, for Nahuas, do not) align with Western conceptions of flora, fauna, and landscape. Importantly, in the equivalence Aztecs made between hearts and tunas (nopal fruits), the juicy red tuna became the bloody heart just as a teixiptla became the god. Processes of ritual manufacture made some things acquire other ways of being, and these ontological transformations facilitated ceremonial activities, including the heart sacrifice of living (formerly human) deity embodiments. The tuna was both fruit and

flesh, ordinary and extraordinary. A physical and ritual paradigm emerges through the examination of equivalences, and an established equivalence—that of temples and mountains—may be extended to include bundles.

Why the Bundle Is Better The quimilli (bundle), and the related tlaquimilolli (sacred bundle), are two of several ways in which Aztecs quantified and, in the case of tlaquimilolli, qualified things. Speakers of older Nahuatl routinely used what linguists call classifiers or quantifiers. Quimilli, “bundle of cloths or blankets,” is the nominalized form of quimiloa, “to wrap someone or something in a blanket, to enshroud.”22 Danièle Dehouve identifies quimilli as a kind of classifier that quantified groups of twenty beings or things and referred specifically to a wrapped package of twenty capes, cloths, or blankets.23 Dehouve underscores the significance of the bundle’s physical form, its shape: “It must be understood that capes were tied in bundles and not, as in the case of ipilli [another class of quantifier], placed one over the other in layers.”24 The Florentine Codex and other texts from postcontact central Mexico, including the Codex Mendoza, attest to the use of quimilli and the Spanish equivalent carga in reference to bundles of (twenty) capes or mantas (cloths) (fig. 9.2). During the festival of Panquetzaliztli, for example, merchants purchased sacrificial victims in the marketplace. An explanation of the costs associated with purchasing the would-­be victims illustrates quimilli as a quantifier: “In amo cenca mihmati ic mitotia in ipatiuh cenquimilli ommatlactli. Auh in cualli ic mihtotia in chipahuac inacayo in ipatiuh onquimilli in cuachtli” (If he were not highly skilled as a dancer, his price was thirty

Figure 9.2. Mantas (cloths) in bundles. From the Codex Mendoza, fol. 31r. Drawing by the author.

Bundling Natural History • 141

large capes. But if he danced well, if he were clean of body, his price was forty large capes).25 These examples demonstrate how Nahuatl speakers increased the quantity of bundles of capes from twenty to thirty and forty. The unskilled dancer cost cenquimilli ommactlactli, one bundle (of twenty) and ten (20 + [2 × 5] = 30), whereas the skilled dancer cost onquimilli, two bundles (2 × 20 = 40). This example illustrates how Aztecs used quimilli in their marketplace exchanges, and it draws attention to the significance of twenty. To the Aztecs, bundles represented complete and whole things, and part of quimilli’s ability to represent wholeness derives from its association with the number twenty. Like other Mesoamericans, the Aztecs conceived of cempohualli, “twenty; one full count,” the foundation of their vigesimal numerical system, in relation to entirety and totality.26 Cempohualli is a compound word. Cem, “one,” attaches to the necessarily bound -­pohualli, “a unit of twenty in the vigesimal counting system,” which comes from the verb pohua, “to count something, to read something, to recount, relate, or give account of something, to assign something.”27 The way in which Nahuatl names numbers reflects their close relationship to the human body: The basic numbers are given from one to four (ce, ome, ei, nahui); number five signifies “what the hand takes” (macuilli), numbers six, seven, eight, and nine mean “the incomplete plus one,” “plus two,” “plus three,” and “plus four” (chicuace, chicome, chicuei, chicnahui). Ten returns etymologically to hands, as extremities of the upper part of the body (matlactli), to distinguish the first two series of five numbers from the following two, which all together made “a count”: twenty.28

The definition of cempohualli/twenty arises from human activity: counting, reading, and relating. That quimilli contained twenty cloths or capes brings to the bundle the sense of completeness resulting from the human activities that cempohualli connotes. The significance of quimilli in Aztec culture can be extended far beyond its ability to count and quantify. As examples from the Florentine Codex illustrate, the process of wrapping bound things together and into a whole was like wrapping a broken bone that facilitates healing: [I]ntla aca mocxipoztequi: yehuatl ic pati, in acocotli, inelhuayo, monamictia, in inelhuayo nopalli moteci, onca 142 • Molly H. Bassett

Figure 9.3. Setting a broken bone. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 238. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

onmotema, in oncan omocxipuztec: auh in onmotecac, zatepan lienzotica moquimiloa. . . . auh cempohualihuitica in motomoa. . . . auh in omototoni, zatepan motema: iquac in ye chicahuac, in ye quihuelmati, iicxi. If someone breaks a leg, it is cured in this way. Acocotli root is added to nopal root, [and] they are ground. They are placed there where the leg is broken. And when they are placed on, then [the leg] is wrapped with a cloth bandage. . . . And after twenty days it is untied. . . . And when the poultice has been applied, then when his leg [is] strong, when it becomes whole, a hot bath is taken.29

Quimilli and quimiloa occur in contexts where curing and healing take place through wrapping (fig. 9.3).30 A “bundle” was more than just a bunch of cloth; it was a physical means of (re)creating wholeness. The sense of completeness bound up in quimilli’s numerical significance, and in wrapping’s ability to actively (re)construct the body, contributed to its role in marking temporal and political transitions. The importance of wrapping in ceremonies of establishment and renewal can be seen throughout Amerindian cultures, including those of Mesoamericans.31 Studies of both k’altun (stone binding), a feature of some Maya monumental architecture, and political rhetoric, concerning the roles of bundles and burdens during the transfer of power from one ruler to the next, highlight bundles’ connections to bodies, time, and space.

As David Stuart explains, binding, sometimes accompanied by bloodletting, marked critical times of transition, including the end of cosmic eras. Based on stelae in Copán’s Tomb 1, Stuart argues, “From what we know of the importance of cloth wrappings and bundles in Mesoamerican ritual, it is reasonable to suppose that the purpose of the k’altun ritual was to protect and contain the divine essence held within the stones that embodied time and its movement.”32 The Maya also constructed cloth bundles to transfer power during times of transition, and ch’ulel, the divine essence present in stelae like those bearing “stone bindings,” imbued rulers. Brian Stross explains that in Maya rulers’ inauguration ceremonies, the outgoing ruler passed a knotted bundle, the i-­ka-­tz(i), or “burden,” of office, to his successor.33 Similarly, Aztecs spoke of the responsibilities of rulership as a tlamamalli, a “burden,” and of the transfer of power from one ruler to another as being borne in quimilli or on cacaxtli, “carrying frames.” In the many prayers offered after a ruler’s installation, the language of bundles and burdens appears frequently: “O master, O ruler . . . . Now, in truth, thy progenitors, thy great-­grandfathers, have departed, have gone on to reside. . . . For they departed placing, they departed leaving the bundle [quimilli], the carrying frame [cacaxtli], the governed [in tlaconi in tlamamaloni]—heavy, intolerable, insupportable.”34 It may be impossible to know the contents of the bundles like those depicted on Yaxchilan Lintels 1 and 2. However, the idea that Maya bundles and their counterparts in Aztec rhetoric contained symbols that transferred the “burden” of office indicates that they were more than inert containers or passive quantifiers. In addition to ordinary quimilli, Aztecs recognized a special category of bundle: the tlaquimilolli (sacred bundle). From cloth exteriors to ash, bone, and chalchihuitl (greenstone) “heart” interiors, the composite materials of tlaquimilolli both constituted the god-­body and made it recognizable. Sacred bundles bound together deity relics, but they were more than a simple collection of things. Tlaquimilolli were deity manifestations, and according to Andrés de Olmos, sacred bundles were “the main idols held in great reverence, and they did not hold in as much reverence those creatures that adorned buildings or the figures they made from sticks or stones.”35 Elsewhere, Olivier states matter-­of-­factly that “first and foremost, the tlaquimilolli served to establish a direct communication with the god head . . . the sacred bundle of Tezcatlipoca, which con-

sisted of a wrapped mirror, guided the forefathers of the Tetzcocans, ‘talking to them in a human voice [hablando con ellos este espejo en voz humana].’”36 Given Tezcatlipoca’s prominence, biography, and iconography, his tlaquimilolli provides an excellent example of how these extraordinary bundles (re)presented gods. Regardless of the fact that tlaquimilolli were neither anthropomorphic nor zoomorphic, devotees identified the gods they embodied by virtue of a bundle’s (re)collection of a given god’s constitutive qualities.37 According to Pomar’s Relación de Texcoco in the Relaciones geográficas, Tezcatlipoca’s tlaquimilolli contained “a polished mirror, the size and measure of half of a large orange, set in a crude black stone. With it were many loose fine stones, including greenstones, emeralds, turquoises, and many other kinds. And the cloth that was closest to the mirror and stones, it was painted with a human skeleton.”38 Bartolomé de Las Casas, a second source, reports that Tezcatlipoca “left his devotees ‘el hueso de su muslo’ [the bone of his thigh] and a mirror.”39 These reports indicate that people believed Tezcatlipoca’s bundle contained a mirror and osseous symbols or remains. The idea that Tezcatlipoca’s tlaquimilolli contained a mirror comes as no surprise given the god’s many connections to smoking mirrors, in particular, and to obsidian generally.40 Tezcatlipoca’s name means Mirror Smoking, his lower leg/foot is a smoking mirror, and his tlaquimilolli contained a smoking mirror bound with a leg bone. Tezcatlipoca both is (Lord of ) the Smoking Mirror and is identified by the visual or material smoking mirror. As I argue elsewhere, this makes it difficult (for us) to distinguish the eponym from its embodiment.41 It also calls attention to the closeness Nahuas experienced in language, representation, and materiality: the thing, its name, and their depiction lacked significant distinction (or, conversely, they overlapped significantly). The bundle was the god, the (re) assembled god-­body, and an image of the god, none apart from the other. Visual evidence of the close connection between tlaquimilolli and the burdensome bundle of rule transferred during accession ceremonies appears in two illustrations from Book 8, “Kings and Lords” (figs. 9.4 and 9.5). Both the Nahuatl and Spanish texts surrounding these images indicate that the ruler-­elect and his entourage made offerings of incense and blood to Huitzilopochtli in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. While the Spanish text stresses that the offerings were made to “la estatua [de HuitziloBundling Natural History • 143

Figure 9.4. Huitzilopochtli’s tlaquimilolli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 46r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

pochtli],” neither the Nahuatl text nor the accompanying images indicate that Huitzilopochtli appeared in iconic form.42 Each image depicts a tlaquimilolli, sacred bundle, in the temple, and the Nahuatl refers simply to Huitzilopochtli: “Auh in yehuantin, papahuaque teopixque: caantiuh in tlatoani in quitlecauja ixpan Huitzilopochtli” (And these long-­haired ones, keepers of the gods, went to the ruler, making him go up before [the image of] Huitzilopochtli).43 By contrast, the Spanish text repeatedly refers to the god’s figurative form. This suggests that the three texts’ authors/artists registered Huitzilopochtli’s appearance differently. By contrast to a statue of Huitzilopochtli, the god’s tlaquimilolli would have appeared unremarkable in form, if recognizable (to outsiders) at all. In his examination of Aztec tlaquimilolli, Olivier notes that “their study is difficult, partly because of the secret character of the rituals devoted to them.”44 In addition to their rituals being secret, bundles were esoteric objects. The process of their physical manufacture—wrapping— 144 • Molly H. Bassett

both created and occluded the sources of their powers, the relics around which the cloths and skins wound. Mountains and temples share structural and functional similarities with sacred bundles insofar as both house sacred elements, objects, and entities.

A Mountain Was a Temple Was a Bundle Decades ago Eduardo Matos Moctezuma pointed out that the right side of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan recreates Coatepec.45 The Templo Mayor’s symbolism— its serpent statues and archaeologists’ recovery of multiple Coyolxauhqui stones—indicates that the Aztecs recreated the site of their patron god’s birth in the heart of their capital’s ceremonial center. In the myth of Huitzilopochtli’s birth, Coatlicue became pregnant while sweeping the temple/Coatepec, and the Templo Mayor/Coatepec set a ritual stage for the state’s reenactment of Huitzilopochtli’s triumph over formerly powerful polities. The idea that a temple could be a mountain and that a mountain could be a temple is well established. I am proposing that mountains and temples were also bundles insofar as they shared functional and structural similarities.

Figure 9.6. Chicomexochitl (Seven Flower). Clothed paper effigies constructed during an annual ritual of the same name. Nahua community near Chicontepec, Veracruz, August 2010. Photograph by the author.

in the many teocalli (temples) of the Aztec empire. As figures 9.4 and 9.5 demonstrate, both tlaquimilolli and teocalli contained gods; tlaquimilolli embodied gods, and teocalli protected a variety of god-­bodies. What, then, about Figure 9.5. Huitzilopochtli’s tlaquimilolli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, mountains? fol. 46v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– Altepetl, literally “water mountain,” means “town” or 220. Courtesy of MIBACT. “pueblo,” and each Nahua town has its own tepetl, mountain. People identify with their altepetl, and they identify it with local deities. In the community where I have worked Tlaquimilolli, temples, and mountains were god-­ in Veracruz, the altepetl is home to the Chicomexochitl bodies (or, in the case of teocalli, “temples,” god-­houses) (Seven Flower), the “holy” family seen in figure 9.6. The by virtue of the fact that they contained teotl-­stuff, god-­ community treats these paper god-­bodies as living beings. stuff. As we have already seen, tlaquimilolli embodied gods Indeed, at great expense they orchestrate an elaborate by re-­collecting a deity’s bioarchaeological remains (Tez- ritual sequence that shapes each figure, dresses it, and encatlipoca’s femur), possessions (his mirror), and clothes dows it with vitality.46 At the close of the ritual, these gods (animal hide and cloth wrappings). Temples protected tla- reside in a family’s home for a year, but they also live in/on quimilolli and housed other forms of deity embodiments. the community mountain. Like the gods, the mountain is An incredible number and variety of god-­bodies resided a living, breathing being. As one of the women with whom Bundling Natural History • 145

Figure 9.7. Aztec cosmogram. Frontispiece, Codex Fejérváry-­Mayer. Courtesy of the National Museum, Liverpool, England.

I spoke in the Huasteca told me, “Yes [the mountain] is alive.” You can tell it is alive, she explained to me, because it needs food, and it talks: “Quemman tlatomoniz ne piltepetzin no como tlanquilia. No tlatomoni quehuac. Ne quennopa ne piltepetzin” (When it thunders, it is as if the hill also answers. It also responds. That’s the way the hill is).47 In Mesoamerica, mountains are alive, and they relate to and participate in a community’s social life: they feel hunger; they talk; they house spirits; they embody deities; and they shape identities. Aztecs and their contemporaries perceived mountains’ animacy too. Mountains and volcanoes were active features of the imperial landscape. Aztecs delivered water from the springs of Chapultepec hill, they watched water vapor rise from the smoking mountains that surrounded them, and they compared fog rising from caves to mountains’ respiration. Myths recorded in the sixteenth century explain that mountains contained water or corn, the sustaining elements of life. Matos Moctezuma emphasizes the importance of recognizing that “Tlaloc’s side [of the Templo Mayor] is the mountain of sustenance, or Tona-

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catepetl, also mentioned in myth—in particular the one in which Quetzalcoatl must enter the mountain to steal the corn stored there to be given to men.”48 Mountains are temples are bundles insofar as each holds vital sustenance: water, corn, life, and gods. Mountains are temples are bundles because they share a common structure too. An image of Xiuhtecuhtli, Turquoise or Year Lord, from the Codex Fejérváry-­Mayer demonstrates this point (fig. 9.7). Scholars frequently read this image as a bird’s-­eye view of Xiuhtecuhtli atop a temple. He appears in the center of an image of the Aztec cosmovision with the calendar, cardinal directions, and other deities surrounding him. A three-­dimensional reconstruction of the frontispiece shows Xiuhtecuhtli standing on the summit of a mountain/temple (fig. 9.8). In the subsequent image, the sides of the mountain/temple enclose the god as if he rests inside a bundle (fig. 9.9). This mountain is a temple is a bundle, and from either vantage point—on the mountain/temple or within the bundle—Xiuhtecuhtli is (in) the center of the cosmovision. From either location he can see the entire cosmovision and is central to it.

Figure 9.8. Copy of Aztec cosmogram from the Codex Fejérváry-­ Mayer folded like a temple. Photograph by the author.

The Templo Mayor’s layered structure reveals it as another temple/mountain that is a bundle. Layers of new temples wrap, bind, and enclose the earlier structures. In between the masonry layers, priests and rulers buried offerings, caches, and stone replicas of standard bearers within the rubble fill. Indeed, some of those caches might have functioned as tlaquimilolli, containing deities and/or deity relics.49 Prior to contact, the Templo Mayor housed tlaquimilolli and other deity embodiments in its active shrines while caches and other artifacts lay buried below. Given its bundle-­like layers and multiple mountain significations, the Templo Mayor was the ultimate mountain-­ temple-­bundle in the Aztec world. That a mountain was a temple was a bundle demonstrates that elements of natural, supernatural, and built environments were not confined to bounded or discrete lives in those worlds. The animacy of mountains, temples, and bundles depended on relationships established by the people who created and maintained them. These same people recognized the mountains, temples, and bundles as life-­giving and sustaining, and they represented this recognition by layering meaning upon meaning in the construction of ceremonial structures and god-­bodies, including tlaquimilolli. In the following, I explore how folk-­biological knowledge related to one key animal, the ocelotl (jaguar; ocelot), illustrating the importance of appearance and surface in Aztec cosmology and in the manufacture of god-­bodies.

Spotting the Jaguar

Figure 9.9. Copy of Aztec cosmogram from the Codex Fejérváry-­ Mayer folded in a bundle. Photograph by the author.

Even though European manuscripts influenced the organization of Book 11, the ocelotl held an indisputable place of importance in Aztec culture, as it had throughout Mesoamerica. Often identified as Panthera onca, or jaguar, the older Nahuatl word ocelotl referred to more than one creature. Ocelotl referred to the jaguar (Panthera onca) and the animal known as the ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), a smaller and similarly marked cat.50 Ocelotl is the first subject of Book 11, which includes four Nahuatl entries for these felids (fig. 9.10). The primary entry emphasizes the animal’s appearance and attributes: It is long: long bodied, straight, round like a pillar; squat, not tall, thick, corpulent; hard-­fleshed, very hard-­ fleshed; long-­tailed; of gopher-­like paws, very thick;

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Figure 9.10. Ocelotl (jaguar or ocelot). Florentine Codex, Bk. 11, fol. 1v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

wide-­padded—of very wide pads; thick, fat of neck; of pot-­like head, very pot-­headed, great-­headed; of droplet-­ shaped ears; of thick, stubby, spongy, soft muzzle with a fatty, oily nose; of wide face with eyes like live coals; toothy, with small, pointed front teeth, with molars like pestles; wide-­mouthed, open-­mouthed; clawed, with sharp, curved claws, with dewclaws.51

Following the listing of its physical features, the text turns toward the ocelotl’s coloring, the animal’s identifying characteristic: It is varicolored [cuicuiltic], quite varicolored [cuicuilpatic], spotted with black, blotched with black; white chested, smooth, sleek. Like ocelots [ocelotic], it becomes varicolored [cuicuilihui]; it is variously colored [mocuicuiloa], variously marked [cuicuiltic]; it becomes varicolored [cuicuiltia], it is variously colored, like an ocelot [mocelocuicuiloa]. Claws emerge. They grasp, they clutch. Teeth, molars, canines, emerge. It bares its teeth, gnaws, bites, tears. It growls, snarls, howls, roars like the blowing of trumpets.52

The second sentence emphasizes the significance of the ocelotl’s coloring. Cuihcuiltic, defined by Karttunen as “something painted,” also carries the connotation of being multicolored.53 As Marc Thouvenot observes, cuicuiltic, 148 • Molly H. Bassett

the adjectival form of icuiloa (paint; write; imprint), reflects “a very broad and varied universe that encompasses not only human works and artifacts, but also nature in general.”54 Hear its repetition in the Florentine Codex: “ocelotic, cuicuilihui, mocuicuiloa, cuicuiltic, cuicuiltia, mocelocuicuiloa.” This sentence begins and ends with ocelotl, but in between, the indigenous writer named the cat’s multicolored coat five times. Repetition like this typifies the Nahuatl text in the Florentine Codex, but here it also works to establish the primary characteristics of a keystone animal in the Aztec world. Indeed, the jaguar’s skin was its defining characteristic, and it is key to the word’s appearance elsewhere. Ocelotl occurs in the names of animals and plants that were varicolored. In oceloxochitl and ocelomichtli, the ocelotl modifier refers to the spotted surface of this flower and fish. In the case of oceloxochitl, glossed as “tiger lily,” the text notes, “it is called oceloxochitl for the reason that the yellow ones are sprinkled with red, the chili-­red ones are sprinkled with yellow.”55 In both oceloxochitl and ocelomichtli, ocelotl carries the signification “varicolored,” but in other terms, including those that refer to ocelotl warriors and to the ocelotl paraphernalia of gods and rulers—their ocelotl clothing, footwear, mats, and cushions—the term carried connotations of bravery, dexterity, and humility. Aztec hunters witnessed these characteristics in the jaguars they encountered in the wild.

To native speakers of older Nahuatl (and to Nahuas today), wild animals—especially sizeable ones—were tecuanimeh, “people eaters,” a word that describes one crucial relationship Nahuas had to jaguars. Again and again the Florentine Codex identifies ocelots and jaguars as “wild” and groups them with other wild animals, such as the bobcat, the serpent, the spider, the rabbit, and the deer. Perception and perspective are key in understanding Nahua folk biology.56 As Leon García Garagarza confirmed to me, “the Nahua taxonomy was not as linear as ours— both the small ocelot [Leopardus pardalis] and the larger jaguar [Panthera onca] would have been called Ocelot in antiquity—they are both felines, morphologically related carnivor[es]—and hence dangerous, ‘Man-­eaters’ [tecuanimeh] animals. Spotted felines, essentially.”57 Given that the felines were tecuanimeh, it is worth considering that Aztecs called these animals by the same name because they looked and acted alike from a human perspective, that is from the perspective of someone about to be eaten. The physical description of ocelotl in Book 11 stresses the significance of the interchangeable perspectives of hunter and prey between the human and the jaguar. The jaguar’s hunting prowess became a source of inspiration in elite Aztec military and divinatory cultures.58 An account of how humans hunted these cats appears near the end of the entry on ocelotl, and it concludes by explaining the unskilled archer’s fate: And the hunters have their reckoning (as well as their custom) that they shoot only four times. If he shoots four [arrows], the hunter is [as good as] dead. There upon the ocelot prepares itself; it stretches, it yawns, it stirs, it shakes itself; it cleans itself, it licks itself. Then indeed it crouches, springs, flies through the air. Whether the hunter stands ten spans—even fifteen spans—away, there it goes to seize him. Only once does it leap—fly— swish—bristling, its hair ruffled. There dies the hunter; there he is eaten.59

This passage portrays the ocelotl as a confident hunter practically bored by the task before him: the people-­eater yawns, licks his paws, and pounces. The ocelotl imparted these same characteristics—patience, ferocity, accuracy, and deadliness—to Aztec warriors in the ocelopetlatl, the Order of the Ocelotl. The ocelotl figured prominently in the language and imagery of the Aztec military and in its ritual culture. One

of the Aztecs’ most prestigious military schools, the Order of the Ocelotl, took its name from these animals, and both the “ocelopetlatl and oceloyotl were considered appropriate terms to refer to particularly brave warriors.”60 Aztecs associated the ocelotl day sign with bravery and fierceness, and according to its various uses in the Florentine Codex, the word also connoted nobility, humility, dexterity, command, and glory.61 Aztec deities and rulers wore ocelotl capes, breechcloths, caps, skirts, and sandals. They sat on ocelotl mats and cushions. Ocelotl skins and goods were the properties of rulers, warriors, and diviners.62 Following their description of hunting, the scribes add a note about the ocelotl’s relationship to diviners: The conjurers went about carrying its hide—the hide of its forehead and of its chest, and its tail, its nose, and its claws, and its heart, and its fangs, and its snout. It is said that they went about their tasks with them—that they did daring deeds, that because of them they were feared; that with them they were daring. Truly they went about restored. The names of these are conjurers [nonotzaleque], guardians of traditions [pixeque], debasers of people [teyolpachoani].63

Elsewhere the Florentine Codex describes a pouch priests carried: “[the] incense bags of the offering priests were made only of paper painted like ocelot skin [tlaoceloicuilolli], painted to look like ocelot skin [oceloicuiliuhqui].”64 Notably, a painted paper bag served as a useful substitute for a real pelt pouch because the two appeared alike. Carrying an ocelotl skin—even a paper facsimile—­imparted to diviners some of the same qualities these fierce cats gave warriors and rulers: courage, ferocity, and daring. Jaguars and their skins clearly held prestigious places in the Aztec world. Mesoamericans physically bundled precious goods (green stones and bioarchaeological materials) in tlaquimilolli wrapped with ocelotl skins.65 Olivier notes that “Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl described a tlaquimilolli of Quetzalcoatl that was made after his death and cremation with his ashes wrapped in a jaguar skin,” and in the Mixtec Codex Bodley, “4 Wind appears in front of a tlaquimilolli wrapped in jaguar skin.”66 These examples, alongside the overall importance of the jaguar in Mesoamerican cultures—and in Aztec notions of military, political, and religious power—strongly suggest that some god-­bodies were wrapped in ocelotl skins. Jaguars and the concept of ocelotl functioned together Bundling Natural History • 149

in tlaquimilolli and, likely, in other ritual scenarios. Jaguar pelts were grouped in bundles in trade and tribute, and they physically wrapped some sacred bundles. They draped the bodies of rulers, warriors, diviners, and gods. Jaguars’ physical characteristics, their behaviors, and their pelages made them a cultural keystone species among the Aztecs.67 In order to bundle potent talismans, diviners, hunters, and other specialists developed a working knowledge of the powers available to them in nature. This kind of knowledge—an intimate understanding of animals’ characteristics, behaviors, and associations—was critical in Aztec rituals that wrapped tlaquimilolli or clothed other deity bodies in capes, cloaks, and pelts. Priests not only knew the lists of ornaments for each deity reported in the Primeros memoriales and depicted throughout the Florentine Codex but also understood what each element evoked because of their knowledge of folk biology.

Tying It Together: Surfaces, Color, and Equivalences The inclusion of so many elements of the natural world in tlaquimilolli, likely the most important god-­body in Aztec religion, strongly suggests that Aztec priests had a highly specialized knowledge of folk biology in addition to ritual expertise. The texts in Book 11 that describe precious stones, like turquoise, precious birds, like the lovely cotinga, or highly prized animals, like jaguars, attend to the appearance and characteristics of the objects and creatures. The accompanying illustrations often highlight these features. Taking into account appearance, material composition, and associated characteristics or behaviors, Aztecs recognized equivalences among some objects and entities that they explored and exploited in ritual activities like bundling. Further, the descriptions of fireflies, mushrooms, and soils alongside long passages on beautiful birds, fascinating felines, and precious stones offer insight into the ways Aztecs perceived nature. The inclusion of highly valued objects from the natural world (or handmade substitutes) within tlaquimilolli suggests that Aztecs associated the appearance of some objects with specific characteristics, which, in particular combinations, embodied gods. Bound together, obsidian, greenstone, and bone were more than a collection of relics; they were a god. Unpacking the tlaquimilolli means taking each element on its own and recogniz-

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ing that in some contexts, obsidian, stones, and bones may be more than they first appeared to be. The notion of unpacking a tlaquimilolli highlights a tension between the significance of exteriority and the importance of interiority in god-­bodies. The obsidian, bone, stones, pelts, and textiles that embodied Tezcatlipoca in his tlaquimilolli, for example, were mostly hidden from the eye. It seems (to us) as if only the outermost artifact, a textile or pelt, would have been visible, and that the many other critical components of the bundle would have been hidden, if not completely undetectable. If, as I argue elsewhere, ritual manufacture was key to animating god-­bodies, then perhaps tlaquimilolli did not occlude their contents.68 It seems possible that by being ritually wrapped, the ordinary objects became extraordinary so that their “appearance” in the bundle was as clear to an onlooker as an iconic image of Tezcatlipoca would have been. This interplay between ordinary objects and extraordinary god-­bodies offers a rich avenue for understanding the role folk biology played in Aztec religion.

Notes I appreciate Jeanette Peterson and Kevin Terraciano’s having invited me to contribute to this collection. I have learned so much from working with them and the other contributors. I am indebted to the external readers for their feedback, and I want to acknowledge the support of my folk-­biology reading group: Richard Milligan, Brent Woodfill, and Dan Weiskopf, who generously read and commented on a draft. Finally, this is my first publication as a mother, and I could not have done it without Mike, Jennings, Dory, and our little village: Kathryn, Lane, Kimberly, Kathleen, our parents, and others. 1. Ingold 2000, 40–43. 2. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., 87. 3. Medin and Atran 1999, 1. 4. Hatano and Inagaki 1999, 321. Different folk biologies recognize and prioritize various characteristics of flora, fauna, and landscape based on a number of factors. For instance, people who live in heavily forested jungles may recognize birds by their songs rather than their appearances, because the density of jungle plant life prevents them from seeing birds closely or often. 5. Xihuitl also means “grass” and “year.” Karttunen (1992, 324) notes that in his 1645 Arte de la lengua mexicana con la declaración de los adverbios della, Horacio Carochi states that xihuitl meaning “year” and xihuitl meaning “grass; green stone; turquoise” differ in that the latter “forms the abstract derivation xiuhyō-­tl . . . [while the former] is associated with the abstract form -­xiuhcayō-­tl (which is always prefixed with a number).” 6. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 224. 7. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s online neotropical birds repository describes the lovely cotinga’s current population status in Mexico. See Rodríguez-­Flores et al. 2013.

8. Berdan and Anawalt 1992, 3:47r. 9. Berdan and Anawalt 1997, 118. 10. Sahagún 1997, 93–94, 102–103, 264, 265. 11. Sahagún 1997, 94. 12. Weigand 1994, 22. 13. Benson 1997, 75. 14. See Bassett and Peterson 2012, 59–61. 15. Magaloni Kerpel, chapter 10 of this volume. See also Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 20–21. 16. In “How Biological is Essentialism?,” Susan A. Gelman and Lawrence A. Hirschfeld explain folk-­biological notions of essence by citing the butterfly as an example: essence demonstrates that “a caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly are in a crucial sense the same animal.” Gelman and Hirschfeld go on to say that this centuries-­old concept has no basis in biology: “[B]iologists insist that biological species do not truly have essences, and certainly other essentialized categories such as race lack biological coherence. Still, despite the fact that essentialism may yield little insight about the nature of the world, it promises to yield insights on how the human mind constructs reality.” See Gelman and Hirschfeld 1999, 403–405. 17. See, for example, López Austin 1990b, 139; Carrasco 1990, 89–90; 1999, 131–132. 18. Taylor 2005, 38. 19. Durán 1994, 40. 20. For a detailed explanation of teixiptla, see Bassett 2015, 130–136; and Olivier, chapter 7 of this volume. 21. Taylor 2005, 106–107. 22. Karttunen 1992, 211. 23. Dehouve (2011, 42–43) explains that quimilli belonged to a group of digital quantifiers that classified groups of twenty objects or entities according to their forms or shapes. Quimilli, she explains, “designates ‘twenty pieces of fabric.’” See also Bassett 2015, 165–166. 24. Dehouve 2011, 42–43. 25. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 9, 48. 26. Karttunen 1992, 29. 27. Karttunen 1992, 29, 201, 202. 28. López Austin 1988, 1:163. 29. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 10, 161. 30. See Bassett 2015, 165–172. 31. See Stenzel 1968, 347–352. 32. Stuart 1996, 156–157. Similarly, evidence from Yaxchilan suggests that stones identified as column altars were wrapped in cloth before rulers ritually bled on them. Lintels from Yaxchilan depict tuns, stones—likely these column altars—bound in cloth receiving the ruler’s autosacrifice during k’altun, period-­ending/stone-­binding rituals. 33. Stross 1988, 118. 34. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 48. 35. Quoted in Mendieta 1971, 79–80; my translation. 36. Olivier 2006, 206. He quotes Juan Bautista de Pomar. 37. Bassett 2015, 165. 38. “Estaba un espejo de alinde, del tamaño y compás de una media naranja grande, engastada en una piedra negra tosca. Estaban con ella, muchas piedras ricas sueltas, como eran chalchihuites, esmeraldas, turquesas, y de otros muchos géneros. Y la manta que estaba más cercana del espejo y piedras, era pintada de osmenta humana.” In Pomar 1986, 59. 39. Las Casas 1967, 1:643; Pomar 1986, 59.

40. I make this argument in more detail in Bassett 2015, 183–187. 41. See also Bassett 2014, 389–398. 42. Sahagún 1979, fol. 45r. 43. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 8, 62. See also Olko 2014b, 317–318. 44. Olivier 2006, 199. 45. See Matos Moctezuma 1980, 7–19. 46. See Bassett 2015, 192–201. 47. Author interview with ritual participant, August 2010. 48. Matos Moctezuma 2009, 437. 49. David Stuart raised the possibility that stone boxes like the caches found at the Templo Mayor could have functioned as tlaquimilolli after I presented a version of this paper at the University of Texas in February of 2016. 50. Dibble and Anderson (Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 11) identify ocelotl as Panthera onca, as does Nicholas Saunders (perhaps not independently of Anderson and Dibble). In their first footnote to Book 11, Dibble and Anderson explain that their identification of mammals derives from two sources: Rafael Martín del Campo’s 1941 study of animals from Book 11 and Bernardo Villa R.’s “Mamíferos silvestres del Valle de México” from 1952. They note that Stephen Durrant, a zoologist at the University of Utah, assisted in their identifications. 51. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 11. 52. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 11–12. 53. Karttunen 1992, 72. 54. Thouvenot 2010, 167, 169. 55. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 212. 56. Viveiros de Castro (2004, 463–484) examines “perspectivalism” in Amazonian cultures, and he explains that Amazonian understandings of perspective emerge from the lack of differentiation among “selves” at the time of creation. 57. Leon García Garagarza, personal communication, March 1, 2015. 58. See Benson 1997, 46–47; 1998, 53–60. 59. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 12–13. 60. Saunders 2005, 25. 61. On the day sign, see Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 4, 5. On qualities associated with the ocelotl, see Bk. 6, 71, and Bk. 8, 73 (nobility); Bk. 6, 11, 84, 126 (humility); Bk. 6, 73, and Bk. 8, 88 (dexterity); Bk. 6, 110, 116, and Bk. 8, 57 (command); and Bk. 6, 38 (glory). 62. Benson 1998, 62–65. 63. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 11, 13. 64. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 87. 65. See Benson 1998, 63–64. 66. See Olivier 2007, 296, 300n244. In addition to Olivier’s examples, David Stuart indicated in a personal communication that a bundle wrapped in a jaguar skin appears in an unpublished portion of the murals at the preclassic Maya site San Bartolo. 67. Biologists identify the jaguar, North America’s largest felid, as a keystone species. See Nogueira 2009; and Seymour 1989, 1–9. 68. Bassett 2015, 130–136. The vital nature of surfaces is embodied most exquisitely in (the) teixiptla, a word whose meaning—“one characterized by a flayed surface”—depends on appearance, physicality, and exteriority. Linguistically, teixiptla is inherently possessed, so the god-­body is always someone’s body. In the case of human god-­bodies, the person not only looked like the god but also learned to speak, act, and be the god. Clearly interiority mattered.

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Chapter 10

Powerful Words and Eloquent Images Diana Magaloni Kerpel

T

he Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, known as the Florentine Codex (1575–1577) in its final edition, is a bilingual encyclopedia that encompasses many aspects of the Nahua culture and people of central Mexico before and after the conquest.1 The Florentine Codex was handwritten and painted by a team of Nahua scholars and artists collaborating with fray Bernardino de Sahagún at the Colegio de Santa Cruz Tlatelolco—the first higher education institution in the Americas.2 Sahagún in the prologue to Book 2 mentions by name four of the Nahua “wise men,” or tlamatinime, whom he calls gramáticos principales (principal grammarians), who assisted him in writing the twelve books: Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacovita, and Pedro de San Buenaventura.3 Through their characteristic style of draftsmanship, I have identified twenty-­two Nahua artists, or tlacuiloque (plural of tlacuilo), who participated in the creation of the images. Four of them were deemed “master painters” for the conceptual sophistication of their paintings and their excellent draftsmanship.4 These four master painters could very well be the four grammarians mentioned by Sahagún. The close relationship between written text and image in the Florentine Codex may shed some light onto the nature of their practice as intellectual leaders of the project, for if they were considered tlamatinime (singular tlamatini, “he who knows something”), keepers and creators of knowledge, they would have mastered the ancient way of writing through images.5

152

In this chapter, I review some significant ways in which the bicultural creators of the Florentine Codex (the tlamatinime and tlacuiloque) connected the handwritten alphabetic texts (a form of recording knowledge that is of European origin) with the images (which are related to the ancient Mesoamerican tradition of writing through painting). I focus on two fundamental categories of Nahua culture: the concept of “words of the ancient ones,” huehuetlahtolli,6 linked to what we refer to as the transmission of knowledge through “oral tradition,” and the practice of painting as a creative action linked to the primeval time when the gods gave form to the world, called in tlilli in tlapalli, “black ink, red ink.”7 I also focus on how some images become ixiptla, a Nahua concept that has been translated as “substitute,” or “impersonator.”8 I propose that the concept of ixiptla or teixiptla can also be understood as “living image,” or “image/presence,” and that the materiality of the paintings themselves was motivated by this ontological concept.9 I focus on the first and second books, which concern the gods and their festivities, for, as Guilhem Olivier notes, in describing the religious festivities in these books, the artists painted acts of devotion and offerings that were presented to sculptures representing the gods, but these sculptures were actually depicted as living persons.10 In this regard, these late sixteenth-­century Nahua paintings of the gods would have been made as performative agents that guided the relationship between text and image.11

Tlahtolli, “ the Ancient/ Powerful Words ”

This idea is similar to the concept of ixiptla in Nahuatl.19 It is through a specialized process that both the words and Tlahtolli, a Nahuatl word translated as language, dis- the images are brought from the “other side” into our time course, or speech, has a particular reference to the narra- and place. The ritual specialists who do this are “wise men,” tives that keep cultural memory alive. In most Mesoameri- tlamatinime, keepers of their tradition. I want to propose can traditions, and specifically for the ancient Nahua, here that the paintings in the Florentine Codex help to these “powerful words” were recorded as “paintings” in transform the Nahuatl and Spanish texts into ritual disbooks made with bark paper or deer hide folded in an ac- course, song, or performance that carries on tlahtolli. That cordion fashion.12 These images were decoded by the ini- is, without the images the alphabetic texts would not tiated reader tlamatini, who uttered tlahtolli preserved as reflect the power of the “ancient words,” the tlahtolli of oral tradition.13 John Monaghan and Mark King have both the Nahua. The images serve to add a necessary layer of shown how in the ancient Mixtec traditions sacred texts, meaning—a ritual or supernatural meaning. In this sense, which were also composed of images, contained what they the images enable the books of the Florentine Codex to have referred to as the script for the performance of histo- become tlahtolli. Reading both images and texts in the ries. Images thus served as notation of a larger performa- proper manner would be equivalent to Nahuatl song, extive narrative that could be danced, sang, or recited, and pressed by the metaphorical couplet in xochitl in cuicatl, as such, images had the agency of reactualizing memory, “the flower, the song,” the correct enunciation of tlahtolli— history, myth, and ritual.14 Furthermore, as King posits, as performative action that is different from merely readpainted books are termed tacu (“to paint,” “to hear,” “to lis- ing the texts.20 Moreover, as León-­Portilla has remarked, ten”) in Mixtec, a word that implies both representation the tlamatinime were the keepers of knowledge, for “in tliand recitation, and were also referred to as tutu (“page,” lli in tlapalli [the black ink, the red ink] belonged to them, “design,” “to whistle”), a word related to toto (“to sing”). to them belonged the codices.”21 Without these images Thus, books connected metaphorically meaning, perfor- painted with a black outline filled with many colors (tlapamance, sound, and painting.15 The performative nature lli in the couplet can also be translated as “all the colors”) of these powerful words is made evident in the sixteenth-­ there was no knowledge, no tlahtolli to be recited. As King century Nahua manuscript known as Cantares mexicanos. has observed, there are multicolored scrolls in the Mixtec Although the manuscript is rendered in alphabetic writ- Codex Vienna that evoke sacred, living energy emanating ing, the songs themselves reveal a unique, distinctive tra- from the smoke of copal offerings, from the first rising of dition where the singing itself becomes palpable, materi- the sun in mythic times, from music, and from the speech alizing an ulterior world formed by music and precious of historic characters. These multicolored scrolls, King materials such as jade, flowers, and feathers, and thus re- concludes, are a representation of “song” as “a spiritually lating tlahtolli with these meaningful materials.16 heated offering that rises skyward.”22 Pedro Pitarch explains that for the Tzeltal Maya peoples As Pedro Pitarch has proposed in his translation of of Chiapas, as for other Amerindian cultures today, the the shamanic chants and prayers of the Tzeltal Maya of “ancient words,” as opposed to the quotidian language or the Altos de Chiapas, the action of pronouncing songs (the “new words,” refer to the primeval narratives of origins powerful, sacred words) is conceived by the Tzeltal as an (legends), the ritual dialogues, the shamanic chants, and “unfolding,” as when flowers open to release their scent. certain songs and music.17 These “ancient words” do not The words of the sacred chants come from “the other side” exist in the ordinary solar world but on the “other side,” into this solar world through dreams. The words, and the a sacred realm that has a different ontological status and visions (the images), are thought to live on the other side in that can be accessed only through ritual and dreams. There an ancient book. The Tzeltal dreamer keeps the words and in that other place, sometimes called the “underworld” by images of the book in his or her heart. The sacred words, Mesoamerican scholars, the ancient words, and the images Pitarch further explains, come into this world folded, inthat help to represent them, reside. Pitarch calls these verted, closed in a wrapper; the songs sung in the ritual images “cuerpo-­ presencia” (body-­ presence); in Tzeltal throughout the night help the shaman to “unfold them, Maya, winikel, from win, “to appear,” “to show itself.”18 to open them as flowers, and it is then when these words

Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 153

can perform their power.”23 This same concept is an essential part of Nahua song, for as Tomilson explains, referring to the Cantares mexicanos, these songs routinely feature flowers that reveal the “sacred immanence of fragile earthy things.” Flowers, as human lives, fade quickly, but the singing evokes their substance, and “song and flower undergo the sacred transformation of the material here-­ and-­now.”24 The Nahua contributors to the Florentine Codex refer to the same ideas about the supernatural origins of art and song, whereby the “good artist,” the toltecatl, is described as someone who knows how to dialogue with his own heart (where the book of knowledge is kept), who has the presence of the sacred in his heart, and who knows how to compose chants, music, and song.25 If the images in the Florentine Codex transform the handwritten texts into “ancient words,” or tlahtolli, the process of painting can be understood as an unfolding—in a similar manner to the unfolding and vocalizing of the shamanic chants; that is, the tlacuiloque, the painters, “unfold” the images from the otherworld and bring them into the solar world, the present, through the process of painting. In fact, the Nahua song “In Your Painting Place” clearly describes this process and the role of the painters as cocreators with the gods: You paint with flowers, with songs, Life Giver. You color the ones who will live on earth, you recite them in colors, and so you are hatching eagles, jaguars, in your painting place. You are here on earth! (xochitica oo / totlatlacuilohuan ipalnemohuani cuicatica oo toco tlapalaquiya tocotlapalpohua y nemitz i tlalticpacco yc tictlatlapana cuauhyotl oçeloyotl y motlacuilolpani ça tiyanemim ye nican i tpacca ohuaya ohuaya) And so you are giving outline to these comrades, these companions, these nobles. In colors you recite the ones who will live on earth, and so you are hatching eagles, jaguars, in your painting place. You are here on earth! (yc tictlilania cohuayotl / a yn icniuhyotl a y tecpilotl huiya tocotlapalpuhua y nemitzi y tlalticpaco yc tictlatlapana cuayotl oçeloyotl y motlacuilolpani çā tiya nemi ye nican i tpaca ohuaya ohuaya.)26

This song is actually describing the power of paintings to create the world. Life as we know it in this solar time 154 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

is the unfolding of words and images of the otherworld. Paintings, reliefs, sculptures, and monuments, such as the pyramids, were the flesh and the bones of the created world—a layered visualization of the ancient primeval world of myth. Through these works the ancient peoples kept memories of mythical time, of creation that was recreated each time through the poetic reading of paintings, tlahtolli.27 In the following section I will focus on the way images and texts work together as tlahtolli in the first two books of the Florentine Codex, which deal with gods, rituals, and religious festivities. However, I precede my analysis of these two first books by describing the process of painting as meaningful, using the concept of “unfolding” presented by Pitarch. As the “correct” enunciation of the shamanic chants unfolds the power of the words, the correct process of painting allows for the “unfolding” of visions into the creation of living images, or ixiptla.

Meaningful Painting Materials In the book Colors of the New World I employ scientific and art historical methods to explain the process of painting the Florentine Codex as a practice imbued with meaning.28 Chapter 11 in Book 11 of the Florentine Codex is devoted to “the making of all the colors.” Calling that chapter a “Nahua Treatise on Painting,” I describe how the tlacuiloque, by employing two different resources—painting and writing—document the natural sources for the pigments, how the colors were produced, and how the artists painted with them. The tlacuiloque conceived of the colors as a system of binary oppositions or complementary polarities— the same polarities that constitute the living world. They distinguish two realms from which colors are obtained: those made with flowers and insects, living matter that depends on the energy of the sun; and those made with minerals found beneath the ground, which do not need the sun to exist, and actually represent the deep, humid, and dark energy of the earth and the underworld. The Nahua believed that the world itself was created by these complementary oppositions: the deities that belonged to the underworld, where only moonlight existed, were akin to colors made with minerals; the divine forces that belonged to the realm of the sun were akin to the colors made out of flowers and insects. In this manner painting was a creative act in which the materials mimicked the forces of nature. Thus, the making of a painting, its sheer materiality, sup-

ports the idea of imagining the images as “living presences” and ixiptla that resulted from the “unfolding” of a vision brought from the otherworld into the present. The power of the materials of “song” (in cuicatl in xochitl)—that is, feathers, flowers, and jade—to bring forth the power of the otherworld into the present is clearly demonstrated by the proceedings against Nuño de Guzmán, the conquistador of Nueva Galicia, made in Huejotzingo in 1529 and analyzed by Alessandra Russo. Guzmán was accused of requesting that the chief of the town give him “an image of St. Mary made with gold, to take it with him to war.” The council of elders of the town, however, decided that the image was not powerful enough to go into war and decided to commission an image of Mary made in gold and feathers. In order to accomplish this the council traded twenty slaves for “three gold ingots and nine green plumages.” The proceedings from Huejotzingo describe in detail the length, color, and appearance of the plumages, explaining that these “precious feathers” were meant to protect the image. As Russo further notes, the witnesses in the document explain that the feathers had to be used as the enclosure or frame for the image of Mary, and that without them “the image simply would not have had the power needed.”29 The act of painting with the correct materials resembles the act of chanting described by Pitarch for the Tzeltal shamans—a process that has to be correctly performed to be effective, for painting, as well as enunciating the ancient words, is connected to the actions of the gods themselves when they created the world.30

Book 1, Of the Gods Book 1 of the Florentine Codex begins with six folios in which the paintings cover the entire surface. Each folio is divided into four rectangles that are occupied by the image of a particular deity; this presentation is of Mesoamerican origin (fig. 10.1). In the section “twenty deities and eighty days” from the Codex Borgia, the same strategy is used in the composition; the only difference is that the outline in the Codex Borgia is red, whereas in the Florentine Codex it is black.31 This seemingly simple difference in color can have some significance. In the study of the pigments used in the Florentine Codex, the team of Italian scientists led by Dr. Piero Baglioni and me identified through X-­ray fluorescence (XRF) that these frame lines were made with a charcoal-­based black ink, the same pigment that was used to paint the outline of all the figures and to write the glosses

inside the rectangles.32 The glosses in Nahuatl and Spanish indicate three things: the original name of the deity in Nahuatl; the name in Spanish of a god from the Greek and Roman classical past that could be associated with the Mesoamerican god; and, finally, instructions that refer the reader to a section inside the first chapter of Book 1 explaining the attributes of the deity and the festivities in which the deity participated. The explanatory texts in the first chapter follow the format of the whole work, parallel columns in Nahuatl and Spanish written with iron gall ink, also identified with XRF. This ink, used only for the written parallel columns in Nahuatl and Spanish, has a distinctive dark-­brown hue very different from the black charcoal pigment used in the glosses, the perimeter lines of the grid, and the outline of the figures (fig. 10.2). The difference in the material nature of both inks (one being gall ink, the other carbon-­based ink), and in the tonality of their color (the first being brownish, the second very black), helps to set aside these two groups of written texts: the first are the handwritten bilingual columns made with a gall-­based ink; the second group is comprised by the glosses and the contour drawing lines of the figures and frames. The difference between the material nature and color of these two groups is a matter of importance: they establish different relationships between texts and images. The written glosses (regardless of the language in which they were written), the contour of the figures, and the rectangular containers seem to be grouped together, and it is likely they are related to a Mesoamerican tradition, for the carbon-­black ink was known in the indigenous painting tradition long before the Spaniards arrived. The handwritten texts (regardless of the language) are different in their materiality and belong to the world of European writing; gall ink is European in origin and had never been used in the Americas. What is most significant about this finding is that it seems that the tlacuiloque were consciously creating a written and painted work that differentiates the handwritten texts in Nahuatl and Spanish from the images, relating the former to the European world and the latter to their indigenous tradition of painting. On the other hand, by grouping together the handwritten glosses, the frames, and the contour lines of the figures through the materiality of the ink used to make them, the tlacuiloque were also equating the text of the glosses to the images of the gods. The script written in carbon-­black ink inside the rectangular frames where the gods live seems to have transformed writing into an image. Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 155

Figure 10.1. The gods in the Florentine Codex. Bk. 1, fols. 11v and 12. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Pedro Pitarch has called attention to the fact that writing is the act of creating an image; that is, inscribing black lines onto a surface is considered a powerful act by the Tzeltal in Chiapas today not because of the meaning that the writing conveys but merely because of the way that writing creates different shapes with color over a surface. For the Tzeltal, writing is an emblem of power that comes from the “other side,” just as the spots on the jaguars’ coats and on the skin of powerful snakes—both are considered writing. Similarly, the Tzeltal Maya consider Europeans powerful because they had writing. As Pitarch observes, in the indigenous world it is always the powerful “others” who possess writing: the Europeans, the otherworld deities and powerful beings that could cause sickness. Disease, Pitarch further explains, is visualized as black and red spots—the combination of colors that Mesoamericans 156 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

used to describe writing, in tlilli in tlapalli, “black ink, red ink,” as a powerful text. Thus the old Mesoamerican gods in Book 1 of the Florentine Codex acquired the newly discovered form of alphabetic writing as a sign of their power in the new world. However, the artists who created them placed black ink glosses inside the rectangular frames that contained the images of the gods and used writing as a mark of their power. Through these glosses, writing helped the traditional deities acquire the power of those ancient Greek and Roman gods with whom they were equated by the friars who oversaw the conversion of the indigenous tlacuiloque. Through the figurative texts of the glosses made in carbon-­black ink, the tlacuiloque appropriated European writing and history. The gods in Book 1 are actually different from their old Mesoamerican counterparts; these gods are also European and bear writing as a proof of this new identity. The artists of the Florentine Codex created yet another layer of meaning between texts and images: there is a striking difference in the way that the Spanish and the Nahuatl explanatory texts relate to the paintings of

making the representation very close to the description in Nahuatl: He was dressed in this manner: He wore the costly cape made entirely of precious feathers. He also wore a feather headdress. His face was painted with stripes and with the symbols of stars. He wore on his nose a turquoise device. He was dressed as a hummingbird. He had a shield made with turquoise mosaic and wore a mirror on his chest.35

Figure 10.2. Paynal. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 10r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

the gods in Book 1. I will focus on the image of one single deity, but what I am going to present is valid for all of the gods in Book 1.33 The figure of Paynal (see fig. 10.2), the avatar of Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica patron deity, is richly dressed in a cape and feather headdress; he is in a seated position and in profile. The Spanish explanatory text of this image narrates the story of his festivity in which priests, dressed as Paynal, ran quickly through the city to exemplify the speed that warriors needed to achieve when facing the enemy.34 The static image of Paynal in the first folio has nothing to do with the actions described in the Spanish description; thus the figure serves simply as a reference to the reader. However, the parallel Nahuatl narrative is closely tied to the painting, for the text focuses on the attributes of the costumes that define the god and describes them in detail,

We learn that in Nahuatl what defines the deity is not his actions in the festivities but strictly what he wears. Paynal is his attributes. Among these attributes, the most important ones are the royal blue cape (xiuhtlapalli tilmahtli), made with the precious blue-­green feathers of hummingbirds and turquoise appliques, and the turquoise shield (xiuhtlapalli chimalli). Interestingly, neither of them is painted with the blue pigment that would have embodied the preciousness of those materials, the pigment we know as Maya blue, called texotli by the Nahua painters of the Florentine Codex. Maya blue is used in the Florentine Codex extensively to symbolize all that is beautiful and precious; the painters are able to differentiate this turquoise blue from all other blues, attaching a precise meaning to the turquoise tonality as precious (fig. 10.3).36 Why was the royal cape and turquoise shield of Paynal painted gray instead of Maya blue in Book 1? The painters used a grayish blue instead of Maya blue to represent the different “energetic” quality of Paynal’s power. In this image his cape has lost its luster, its brilliance, ultimately its solar energy and character. In his study of the production of yarn paintings in Huichol art in Mexico today, Johannes Neurath comments that the famous author Juan Ríos Martínez “suffered the wrath of the gods depicted in his paintings” because “the characters that according to the logic of Western art were simply represented in the works of yarn, do not stop ‘being gods.’ ” The images in Huichol art, he says, “are powerful beings and thus need to be worshipped.” In fact, Juan Ríos Martínez decided not to create any more of what he considered “high art.” Instead he concentrated on simple formulas that could be sold as handicrafts to tourists because the latter do not have the power of vision embodied by his great works.37 The phenomenon experienced by Ríos Martínez may explain the subdued colors used to paint the gods of the Aztec pantheon in Book I of the Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 157

Figure 10.3. Maya blue pigment in an illustration of Moctezuma. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 2v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Florentine Codex. The tlacuiloque did not want to create the powerful images of the past. In the sixteenth century they could no longer revere them as they used to; that is why they did not paint the gods in their original powerful colors, particularly with Maya blue. Paynal, like the other gods featured in Book 1, as a sixteenth-­century Nahua-­ Christian representation, has acquired a new powerful attribute: the alphabetic writing of the glosses. The last important characteristic of Book 1 on which I want to focus, which is also valid for Book 2, is the constant presence of flower bands in the beginning and end of each chapter (fig. 10.4). Of the fifty-­four folios that describe the gods in Book 1, only fourteen have figurative vignettes; the remaining folios have floral branches replacing the images. That is to say, only one quarter of the entire book presents drawings of the gods in the chapters that explain their attributes. Flower bands replace the descriptive images in the rest of the book. Are these flowers merely ornamental or do they bear meaning? In Nahua culture and language, flowers signify preciousness, among many other things; in Book 1 they represent the precious, powerful words of ritual discourse, or tlahtolli. As mentioned before, for the shamanic tradition of the Tzeltal, the sacred words pronounced in the chants by the shamans are seen as flowers that unfold and open; sacred, powerful words are said to have a distinct aroma, just as real flowers do when they open. Also, according to Berenice Alcántara Rojas, flowers possess the energy of the deities, their tonalli, or characteristic “solar heat.”38 In the Cantares mexicanos, the most complete 158 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

Figure 10.4. Band of flowers. Florentine Codex, Bk. 1, fol. 4. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

work of Nahua songs and ritual, flowers are mentioned as the jewels of the otherworld; flowers come from “inside the mountains,” and they are described as “worthy, scented, fragrant, dressed in dew with the glow of the rainbow.”39 Thus flowers come from the “other side,” to use Pitarch’s terms, and their colors and scents are intrinsic to their otherworldly power. As León-­Portilla has argued, the term in cuicatl in xochitl, “the song, the flower,” is used in Nahua thought to express what is considered “truthful on earth,” what is worthy.40 I think that the borders of flowers in Books 1 and 2 represent the worthiness and truthfulness of what is expressed in the written texts; thus they are there to qualify those words about the ancient gods as tlahtolli, like the in cuicatl in xochitl of Nahua song. The flowers are in fact a substitute image of the deities; they are their essence, they are the tonalli of the gods.

Book 2, the Calendars, Holidays, and Ceremonies Book 2 presents the rituals practiced during each of the eighteen veintenas (twenty-­day Nahua months), which is how the solar year, called xiuhpohualli, was divided. Each veintena, or metztli, had particular deities who were

Figure 10.5. The festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 73v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

honored through such ritual practices as sacrifices, dances, food offerings, and pilgrimages. How themes were represented in this book likely required special attention because many of the practices described, in particular human sacrifice in its many variants, were considered inhuman, savage, and inconceivable by Europeans. However, for the Nahua, human sacrifice was a fundamental part of their ceremonial and communal life. It should be noted that not all the festivities are illustrated, and those that are painted seem to follow the same ritual process in their making, emphasizing the transformative power of sacrifice and the ability of representations to capture this power. The paintings in the second and fifth veintenas, Tlaca-

xipehualiztli and Toxcatl, respectively, are very significant. Several folios are dedicated to both, where the series of images take up the entire space of the Spanish column. Significantly, the order followed by the vignettes is different from the chronological order established in the texts. Both festivities begin with the most prominent image that captures the result of all the ritual actions, the apparition of a deity to whom the festival is dedicated, called the ixiptla (impersonator of the deity) in the Nahuatl text. The second festival, Tlacaxipehualiztli, is represented by a series of vignettes (figs. 10.5 and 10.6). The first two frames on folio 73v show the sacrifice of a captive: four men hold the limbs of the victim, and at the center a man appears to Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 159

Figure 10.6. The festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 74r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

be skinning the captive; in the frame below, the executor wearing the sacrificial victim’s skin presents himself as the ixiptla of the god Xipe Totec (Flayed God). Because he has been transformed into a god through the ritual process described in the first vignette, he is presented in full attire and in a frontal-­facing position (see fig. 10.5, lower image). The following folio has three frames describing the festivities that took place during Tlacaxipehualiztli, before the sacrifice and skinning of the captive (see fig. 10.6), whereas the last two frames on folio 74v reiterate the coming to life of the ixiptla. Thus, the sequences of the images do not relate strictly to the chronological order of the text, but re-

160 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

iterate the significance of the ixiptla’s living embodiment of Xipe Totec, who begins and ends the ritual sequence. The images of the fifth festivity, Toxcatl, follow a similar strategy. A vertical column of three framed images in folio 84v replaces the Spanish text in the left column (fig. 10.7). The first (upper) image in the series of paintings is the ixiptla of the god Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror), who is forward facing, dressed in full regalia. This image is actually the culmination of a long and rigorous ritual process, a festival that according to the texts began a year earlier. In the next folio, the three vignettes illustrate this previous ritual process (fig. 10.8). First, we see a captive youth

Figure 10.7. The festival of Toxcatl. Florentine Codex, Bk. 3, fol. 84v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

leaving the house where he was kept for a year. The following (middle) frame shows the young man playing the flute in the streets. This same flute will be ritually broken in the Templo Mayor before the captive’s sacrifice (as shown in the third or lowest frame of the previous vignette in folio 84v). The third frame shows the participants attending to the ixiptla of Tezcatlipoca. The ixiptla of the god is the first and last representation of the series of framed paintings. In the two mentioned veintenas, Tlacaxipehualiztli and Toxcatl, images and text relate to each other, but the syntax of ritual dictates the manner in which images are presented, whereas the texts follow a linear narrative

order. That is, the paintings of the veintenas actually serve a ritual purpose while also being illustrations. In other words, the images elaborate on the text and do not merely complement it. This example suggests that the painters were preserving aspects of their own pictographic traditions in spite of the strong European, Christian influences on their work. Probably the best example of how the tlacuiloque created images according to notions and traditions that have nothing to do with concepts of Western representation is the image of the festivity of Panquetzaliztli (fig. 10.9). During this festival young people from different neighbor-

Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 161

Figure 10.8. The festival of Toxcatl. Florentine Codex, Bk. 3, fol. 85r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

hoods, or calpolli, fought in a skirmish or allegorical battle with young warriors who were trained at the calmecac, the official state school. It is also said that on the fourth day of the festival slaves who had been ritually sacrificed would appear on the earth while the mock battle was taking place. The sequence of paintings illustrating this ritual is very particular. In the first frame we see two youths facing each other and a larger man in the middle who has tangled hair and a heart hanging from his neck. These youths dressed in cotton capes represent the groups that fought each other, the youths of the calpolli and the ones of the calmecac. They can be seen fighting with wooden sticks in the frame below. Again, the sacrificial victim, transformed into the 162 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

ixiptla of a powerful being, appears in the first frame. In addition to being depicted facing forward, the ixiptla is larger in size than the youth, reinforcing its supernatural character. If we look attentively at this image we discover that it was drawn by a group of three different artists and that each one painted one of the figures. The young warrior on the left was crafted with a small head, straight hair, and a small nose. In contrast, the warrior on the right has a large head and a prominent nose. In my work identifying the artists of the Florentine Codex, I managed to determine that the distinct features seen here are the work of three different artists.41 The fact that different artists painted the figures is an

Figure 10.9. The festival of Panquetzaliztli. Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, fol. 143v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

act that gives each figure a sense of individuality. This dual authorship suggests that the act of painting them was part of the ritual itself, for each figure represents a different contingent, the calpolli people and the calmecac youths. Another artist who also worked on Books 2 and 4, to whom I refer as “the painter of complex skin colors,” painted the captive-­ixiptla who appears facing forward.42 His style is similar to European engravings, as he uses shading to create the illusion of volume. The painter used an intense pink hue to color the skin of the sacrificial victim, and thus differentiates him from the two young contending warriors created by the other two artists. Book 2 uses visual strategies that might have remained

hidden to any observer outside the indigenous tradition of painting. These strategies follow a ritual logic that not only conveys the sacredness of the appearance of the ixiptla in the festivities but also signifies that the paintings continued to be imbued with a ritual reality. The ixiptla are presented frontally, they are greater in size than humans, and they are always at the beginning and the end of a series of images, the alpha and the omega, as the creator gods of the Aztecs. These ixiptla can be compared to one of the greatest ixiptla of all time, who was at the beginning and the end of life: Coatlicue, the mother of creation. All of the ixiptla represent the culmination of a complex and long ritual, and all of them are an expression of a moment in Powerful Words and Eloquent Images • 163

time when the actions of sacrifice summon the powerful “other” that creates and destroys life. Coatlicue and the ixiptla in Book 2 of the Florentine Codex were made in accordance with a ritual and artistic tradition that reveals images as powerful because they unfold in their making a ritual world and its actions. We should continue to investigate the power of writing and painting as indigenous arts related to ritual. In the Florentine Codex, as I have shown, alphabetic texts contain the power of the other, the European, whereas images possess the power of the otherworld where deities live. Together they form the unique world that the Nahua artist-­writers were able to evoke—or rather to unfold— before our very eyes.

Notes 1. The three-­volume facsimile: Sahagún 1979; and a twelve-­volume English translation of the Nahuatl: Sahagún 1950–1982. 2. Burkhart 1996, 55. 3. Sahagún, 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 4. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 47–76. 5. Boone 2000; Stuart 1988, 1–25. 6. Molina lists huehuetlahtolli as “[v]euetlatolli. historia antigua, o dichos de viejos” (Molina 1992, fol. 157, 2nd num.). See also Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 7. Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 16–18. 8. Molina 1992, fol. 95v (2nd num.). Molina records this word as “[t]eixiptla. imagen de alguno, sustituto, o delegado.” He also gives “[t]laixiptlayotl. imagen pintada [painted image]” on fol. 122v. 9. Elsewhere I have discussed the possibility of applying the concept of ixiptla to the paintings in the Florentine Codex, based on the ideas of the following authors (see Magaloni Kerpel 2014). First, the Anales de Juan Bautista, a collective book by indigenous painters (1564–1569), records the sacred images of the Virgin, Jesus, and the saints in oil paintings, cornstalk sculpture, silver bas-­relief, and mural painting as ixiptlatzin, in which the suffix -­tzin is reverential (see Reyes García, 2001, 150, 296, 300). Arild Hvidtfeldt (1958, 80–89) considers the ixiptla as the living presence of the gods and extends the concept to plants and objects. Alfredo López Austin (1973, 118–121) analyzes ixiptla as “a wrapping, clothing, or envelope” infused with sacred, creative heat. In his view, the key of this concept is the morpheme -­xip, which is derived from xipehua, “to flay,” “to peel the skin,” thus indexing skin as a powerful, symbolic envelope. Serge Gruzinski (2001, 50–51) reflects on the differences between the Western concept of “image” and that of ixiptla, stressing that the Nahua notion of representation did not trace the reality of the senses but referred to the envelope, the skin enclosing a divine force. Finally,

164 • Diana Magaloni Kerpel

Salvador Reyes Equiguas (2006, 89–91) posits that ixiptla were always the product of human creation: sculptures in stone, wood, and edible dough or live slaves wearing costume. He specifically states that they could be paintings on hide, paper, or stucco, any human creation that would have “eyes” and “mouth” to become alive. 10. See Guilhem Olivier’s discussion on Nahua deities in chapter 7 of this volume. 11. Monaghan, 1994, 87–100. 12. Boone 2000, 20. 13. León-­Portilla, 1980, 58–60; Gruzinski 1982, 15. 14. Monaghan, 1994, 86–89; King 1994, 101–103. 15. King 1994, 106. 16. Lockhart 1992, 578–580; Tomilson 2015, 261–268; León-­Portilla 2011, 269–280, 286–288. 17. Pitarch 2013b, 13–27. 18. Pitarch 2013a, 42–46. 19. See Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 9–13. 20. León-­Portilla and Shorris 2001, 25–31; Monaghan 1994, 87–100; King 1994, 209–217. 21. León-­Portilla 2001, 64–65. 22. King 1994, 217. 23. Pedro Pitarch, Postgraduate Course in Mesoamerican Studies (UNAM, August 27, 2013); and Pitarch, 2013b, 14. 24. Tomilson 2015, 261. 25. León-­Portilla 2001, 260–261, 267; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 10, 25. 26. Bierhorst 2009, 148–149. For an alternative translation of this ballad, see León-­Portilla and Shorris 2001, 148. 27. The myths of creation for the Nahua people of central México are recorded in prose in the Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas, the Histoyre due Mechique, the Codex Chimalpopoca, and the Florentine Codex, among the most important sources. Painted images with glosses are preserved in some books: Codex Vaticanus A or 3738, Codex Telleriano-­Remensis, and Historia Tolteca-­Chichimeca. For the Maya myths of creation the most important source is the Popol Vuh, but the Books of Chilam Balam are also important sources. 28. Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 19–26. 29. Russo 2015, 26. 30. Russo 2015, 34–52. 31. In the Codex Borgia (Diaz and Rogers 1993, 62–69). 32. Baglioni et al. 2011, 79–105; Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 47–76. 33. This same example is presented in Magaloni Kerpel 2014. 34. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, fols. 2–3. 35. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 1, fol. 3. 36. Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 40–46. 37. Neurath 2010, 104–105. 38. Alcántara Rojas 2011, 107–132. 39. Taube 2004, 69–97; León-­Portilla 2011, 2:17. 40. León-­Portilla 2001, 143. 41. Magaloni Kerpel 2014, 46–58. 42. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 57.

Part IV

SO CIAL DISCOURSE AND DEVIANCE

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Chapter 11

Rhetoric as Acculturation The Anomalous Book 6 Jeanette Favrot Peterson

A

mong the twelve books of Bernardino de Saha-­ ​gún’s encyclopedic Florentine Codex, the sixth ​is prominent and anomalous. Book 6 is in​serted at the nexus of the Franciscan friar’s vast proj­ect, between the texts dedicated to the sacred realm and those of the human and earthly domains. The book compiles oral discourses known in Nahuatl as huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders) that are at once lofty in tone, replete with metaphorical language, and pragmatic in their social and political implications. To reinforce this rich legacy of Nahuatl, a collection of adages and proverbs is appended at the end. Book 6 tells us that oration was held in high esteem in Aztec culture and was cultivated as an art by officials of the state as well as those who guided behavior and values at the local and family level. Rhetoric in this chapter is narrowly constructed in the classical sense as verbal persuasion intended to shape and validate communal values. Given the prestige that rhetoric also held in the educational programs of early-­modern Europe, the acculturative power of oration was mutually appreciated after the conquest, when language from Nahua elite speech was harnessed to serve the Christianizing program of the mendicants.1 Reserving the highest praise for this book, Sahagún singles it out in his Latin inscription as “the greatest of them all, as much for its length as for what it expresses.”2 Indeed, Book 6 constitutes the second longest book (215 folios) and was first bound as a separate volume (in a series of four). Moreover, in a singular gesture, Sahagún dedicates it to fray Rodrigo de Sequera, the commissioner

general of the Franciscan order and, with his 1575 arrival in Mexico, the catalyst for the creation of the Florentine Codex. Sahagún also lauds the book’s “very elegant, very moral prayers,” as well as the “esteem in which the rhetoricians and orators were held” by the Nahuas.3 The huehuetlatolli recorded in Book 6 comprise Saha­ gún’s earliest material, gathered in 1547 and partially penned in the Primeros memoriales of 1558 to 1561.4 Thus, the famed Aztec prayers and speeches are among the most authentically Nahua in language and concept. While Sahagún’s collaboration with his intercultural Nahua brokers necessarily accommodated indigenous epistemologies throughout the Florentine Codex, Book 6, “de la rethorica y philosophia moral y theologia,” exists in uneasy tension with its contents.5 On the one hand, its texts capture the Aztec worldview and social mores. On the other, the book’s contents betray conflicting views on the power of indigenous speech, on the utility of the huehuetlatolli in constructing Christian discourse, and on the composite, often contested nature of visual representation in sixteenth-­century New Spain. As in Book 12, on the conquest, Book 6 reveals the paradoxical relationship between the indigenous nature of the text and its “Europeanized” imagery in style and iconography. The movement from precontact orality to the colonial hegemony of alphabetic writing is everywhere apparent in the Florentine Codex, mediated by shifts in the textual translations and the figurative content of the imagery, including an inventive range of speech glyphs.6 Evidence of this transition is revealed in the inescapable limitations of 167

Figure 11.1. Ruler exhorts youths: sons (top) and daughters (bottom). Florentine Codex, Bk. 6, fol. 70r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

letters and pictures to capture the rhythms, to say nothing of the nuanced poetic intent, of the Nahua spoken word. In contrast to the syntactical and conceptual linearity of European rhetoric, Nahua spoken communication was more free-­form, metaphorical, and repetitive.7 The Nahua scribe-­painters, the tlacuiloque, were faced with even more daunting translational challenges: consistently navigating the terrain between cultural traditions and appropriating elements that drew on both indigenous and imported sources to construct their images.8 Within a Euro-­ Christian framework, the artists continued to be inspired 168 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

by an older pictographic tradition; in the process, they foregrounded, and in some cases endorsed, their own values and practices.9 The creative interchange between discrete ways of speaking, writing, and seeing that generate knowledge are revealed in a comparative analysis of the bilingual texts and images. In this chapter, I also attend to the relevant pictorial element, generally neglected or omitted altogether from the more ample scholarship directed toward translating the huehuetlatolli or discourses themselves (fig. 11.1). While the uniformly black-­and-­white images of Book 6 cannot be uncoupled from the accompanying textual narratives, their

monochromatic nature and mixed iconographic and visual syntax raise questions about the book’s models, its intended viewership, and its completion in 1577, the final year of the Florentine’s production.

Rhetoric and the Encyclopedic Tradition Understanding the use of rhetoric as a technique to transmit knowledge and regulate behavior requires a brief foray into Bernardino de Sahagún’s humanist education.10 At the University of Salamanca, knowledge was imparted not only through traditional lecture-­style discourses on the latest intellectual trends but also through access to a burgeoning scholarly world in print. Sahagún’s student days coincided with the increased literacy that came with the printing press and the university’s curricular expansion.11 Antonio de Nebrija (1444–1522), famed classicist and grammarian, occupied chairs of Latin and rhetoric at the University of Salamanca. Nebrija was among a group of scholars who introduced the study of sacred texts in their original languages, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldean (or Aramaic), and elevated the status of vernacular Spanish by publishing its first grammar.12 As professors themselves, Nebrija’s students further innovated the approaches adopted to understand classical texts.13 At this propitious moment, impressionable scholars like Sahagún were exposed to the philological avenues that opened up cross-­cultural inquiry and were made aware of the drive to fix and order knowledge in print.14 Nonetheless, in addition to his education in theological matters and honing his homiletic skills, Sahagún pursued a traditional program based on the seven liberal arts, among which rhetoric was considered one of the higher expressions of intellect. Rhetoric, grammar, and logic (the trivium) were taught along with the mathematically based studies of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy (the quadrivium). Printed handbooks transmitted the ars rhetorica of Aristotle and ancient Rome, dispersed throughout Europe and overseas, including to the mission libraries of the Americas. Classical rhetoric was systemized and made dependent on the written word. Early-­modern European emblems of rhetoric, for example, include an accompanying book or scroll with the allegorical female figure as rhetorica, thus pairing orality and textual literacy, as seen in an engraving by Diego Valadés, Sahagún’s fellow Franciscan (fig. 11.2).15

In New Spain by 1529, Sahagún possessed the necessary intellectual framework to embark on a comprehensive project of Aztec civilization, initiated by his interest in words and rhetoric.16 The rationale for labeling the Florentine Codex “encyclopedic” rests on the many structural parallels between several classical and medieval prototypes and the Florentine Codex, schemata moving from the celestial to the earthly realms that also appear in the diagrams of Diego de Valadés’s Rhetorica christiana of 1579.17 Suffice it to say, over several decades, Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators had diligently collected information on all aspects of preconquest Aztec life, collating and revising his notes in various monastic venues.18 The friar and his indigenous team produced the Florentine Codex in the Colegio de Santa Cruz at the Franciscan convento of Santiago Tlatelolco, where they exploited the contents of its library. Although heavy in theological tracts and commentaries on the Bible, the Tlatelolco collection still contains surprising breadth in the humanities, from Alciati’s emblem book to Ptolemy’s Geographia and treatises on rhetoric (Cicero and Quintilian, for example, were represented).19 Also found on the library’s shelves were several encyclopedic compendia, including two well-­ known works that devote considerable attention to rheto-

Figure 11.2. Emblem of rhetoric. Detail of engraving, “The Seven Liberal Arts,” in Diego Valadés, Rhetorica christiana, fol. 17. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2860-­179).

Rhetoric as Acculturation • 169

ric: Pliny’s Naturalis historia and the seventh-­century Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (580–636).20 Sahagún and Pliny share certain literary tropes when they describe their works as a “treasury” (tesoro), and both reflect the same desire to contain and preserve the treasured memory of things through words. For Isidore of Seville, the origins of words additionally enabled him to extract the meaning of all things. Moreover, according to Isidore’s Etymologiae, eloquent rhetoric was a civilizing force “designed to persuade people to the just and the good.”21 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, classical rhetoric spread rapidly in Europe, meeting the needs of both humanists and Christian scholars, as well as leaders of the new nation-­states looking for educational tracts on statesmanship.22 Projecting these goals onto the Aztecs, Sahagún states that it was their “wise, superior and effective rhetoricians” who “ruled the states, led the armies and presided in the temples” and allowed them to assume imperial dominion.23 Sahagún underscores, as does Pliny, the place of language and rhetoric as the divide between the civilized and the barbarian, and a necessity in ensuring strong leadership and effective governance. Diego Valadés further invokes the role of rhetoric as a major tool in the pacification of the New World “savage.”24 The goals of rhetoric were “to teach, to convince, and to rouse,” as stipulated in the educational treatise of the Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540).25 Persuasive speech in a well-­educated individual was indicative of a person’s judgment, moderate behavior, and clarity of thinking. Christian theologians and thinkers articulated a more expansive role for oratory; Saint Augustine, for example, drew on it to “move the hearts of the audience” and to promulgate Christian precepts.26 It is clear that there was a shared recognition regarding the power of rhetoric and a great curiosity, certainly on the part of Sahagún and other Franciscans, on its presence and practice in New Spain.

In Cenca Qualli Tlatolli (A Very Good Discourse) Book 6 contains a collection of Nahua huehuetlatolli,27 from huehue, or very old, and tlatolli, a term that can mean “word” but more expansively encompassed speech, statement, or language. Molina defines veuetlatolli as “ancient history” or “sayings of the elders” (historia antigua; dichos de viejos); I will use the term to refer to the “speech of 170 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

the elders,” emphasizing the oral transmission of knowledge or wisdom from one generation to the next.28 Like a Greek chorus, the forefathers or progenitors were always “present” (as embodied in the elders) to comment on Aztec society and thus provide guidance in navigating life’s major events. Although we find abundant use of tlatolli and tlatoliztli (the act of speaking) in Book 6, as well as the phrase “words of the old men” (intlatol vevetque), curiously, the precise term huehuetlatolli occurs only once.29 The essential orality of Nahua culture is acknowledged at the beginning of every chapter in Book 6 with the statement, “Here are told the words which truly issued from their hearts when they spoke.”30 As an animistic center, the heart generated comprehension and memory, as well as having a profound affective role.31 The enduring strength of an ancient oral tradition is given concrete expression throughout the Florentine’s imagery where speech scrolls are ubiquitous, varied in form, and, in some cases, continue to fulfill similar functions as those found in Aztec pictographic script, as described later. More broadly referred to as “sound scrolls” in the study of ancient Mesoamerica, they represented visually the emanations related to breath, vitality, smoke, speech, and song, crossing sensate boundaries.32 As one of the bodily exhalations, speech scrolls were associated with life (the breath-­soul), a linkage that remains remarkably intact in the Florentine, particularly in describing a ruler’s vocalization. In some of the earliest creation myths, the ability to communicate verbally set humanity apart and defined its relationship with the gods. Proximity to the divine, of course, was a prerogative of the upper classes, especially the royalty, as were their more refined sensory responses. In Mesoamerica’s hierarchical cultures, mastery of speech demarcated social rank; conversely, those of the highest status were expected to retain and recite long passages with verve and fluidity. Incantations, songs, and admonitions were characteristic of rulers, noblemen, ritual specialists, and the wise ones (tlamatinime), in short, all those in vital positions of authority. Special terms identify these elevated forms of speech in Book 6, such as tecpillatolli (noble or courtly utterances), tecutlatolli (lordly speech), or tlatocatlatolli (ruler’s speech).33 With proper upbringing, Aztec elites were not only “noble of heart” but also “gentle of words.”34 The power of the tongue was embodied in the Aztec ruler, called the huey tlatoani (or huei tlahtoani: great speaker), a speech scroll emanating from his mouth, as much a signifier of his office as his royal diadem (xihuitzo-

lli), nose plug (yacaxihuitl), and high-­backed, woven-­reed throne (in petlatl in icpalli).35 Within Motecuhzoma II’s (r. 1502–1520) composite name glyph, carved and painted on Aztec monuments, the addition of a speech scroll connoted the inalienable prerogatives and heightened presence of divine kingship, as analyzed by Patrick Hajovsky.36 The energy involved in speech as an extension of an emoting, thinking individual is captured in the paired phrase “his breath, his word” (inijo, itlatol).37 This was a life force (tonalli) magnified in the Aztec supreme leader, who was conceived of as the deity’s mouth, jaw, and “flute,” as well as his “godly sheddings” (teeth, fingernails). Royal orations articulated the commands of the supreme god, Tezcatlipoca, through whom the ruler governed; conversely, an ungoverned city was mute, dark, and without direction.38 Scholars disagree on the parameters, and thus on the count, of huehuetlatolli. Estimates range from a strict classification of only seven intergenerational discourses to a more inclusive definition of over one hundred huehuetlatolli that recognizes the fluid boundaries between Nahua verse and prose and incorporates both the longer formal admonitions and the dispersed remnants of these discourses.39 In Book 6, the huehuetlatolli encompass prayers to the gods, courtly discourses, judges’ admonitions, congratulatory orations, and professional advice, both practical and ethical. By Thelma Sullivan’s count, among the forty-­nine huehuetlatolli in Book 6, there are eight prayerlike invocations to two prominent deities, Tezcatlipoca (seven) and Tlaloc (one), followed by seven recitations delivered at critical moments in the life of the state by the ruler or his lordly subjects at the time of his election. Next in order are thirty-­four speeches given by elders, merchants, matchmakers, and midwives that mark significant rites of passage, such as marriage, birth, entry into school, and death.40 In Aristotelian terms, the majority of the huehuetlatolli fall into the category of civic speeches that are epideictic, setting societal standards through techniques of praise or blame and thus conditioning honorable behavior.41 Drawing from the vast store of Nahua oral literature at the popular level, the final three chapters of Book 6 incorporate adages, riddles, and metaphors. The internal order of Book 6 mirrors the hierarchical organization of the entire manuscript, moving from the divine sphere to more human concerns, and may help explain why this book acts as a pivot in the sequence of the codex. However, its sig-

Figure 11.3. Priest teaching the art of singing in the calmecac. Florentine Codex, Bk. 2, app., fol. 128r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

nificance primarily lies in the elevated nature of indigenous rhetoric that Sahagún rightly claims is the “greatest of them all for what it expresses.” The Franciscan appreciated these Nahua orations not only for their aesthetics and abundant vocabulary but also as a key to understanding the precontact worldview. As a code of Aztec civic and moral conduct, the huehuetlatolli rehearse how to live one’s life wisely, in moderation, and on the straight and narrow.42 As important, they reinforced Sahagún’s conviction in the intellectual and spiritual potential of Nahua society and the eventual creation of a successful Christian república. Like the discipline of rhetoric in Europe, the teaching of oratory played an essential role in an Aztec boy’s upbringing. In both Aztec educational institutions, the telpochcalli and the calmecac, but most especially in the latter, priests instructed boys in the craft of oral recitation: “Very carefully they were taught good discourse. If one spoke not well . . . then they drew blood from him.” Speaking was regulated; to shout, to “murmur,” or to “squeak” betrayed ill breeding.43 The pupils in the calmecac were also carefully “taught the songs which they called the gods’ songs [teucuicatl]. They were inscribed in the Books.”44 Figure 11.3 features the priest before his pupils, vocalizing the lilting “gods’ songs” with a flowerlike flourish. Song texts were often described as flowers (xochitl/cuicatl), intimately allied with their sensory power, and performed within the context of dance and religious theater.45 Of equal interest in the Florentine Codex text cited above is the reference to inscribing the songs in “the Books” (cuicamatl), that is, in having some kind of pictographic-­mnemonic record. Rhetoric as Acculturation • 171

It is possible the huehuetlatolli were similarly transcribed, as suggested by the sixteenth-­century lawyer-­ chronicler Alonso de Zorita. In his description of parental counsel given by fathers to their children, Zorita states that the nobility (indios principales) still (ca. 1570) retained these speeches by memory, but he also acknowledges that the speeches could be “derived from their paintings which was like writing.”46 Although pictographic script might have encoded a mnemonic prompt for the long formal speeches, Sullivan concludes that the sage words of the elders were committed only to memory in order to perpetuate “the traditions of a people whose form of picture writing was inadequate for this task.”47 Indeed, Book 6 repeatedly refers to the crucial need to memorize, to guard, and to inscribe in one’s heart the ancient words.48 It is precisely in the effectiveness of this retentive capacity and bodily inscription that Book 6 testifies to the agency of the Florentine’s writers and their fidelity to an enduring legacy.49 Whatever the method of capturing the spoken or sung word in the precontact period, the potency and tenacity of words themselves were never in question. Book 6 reveals that the verbal art of these exempla inculcated the mores of the Aztec state and subsequently could be harnessed to help promulgate Christian values or, more darkly, endanger orthodoxy. The shared tradition of rhetorical training converged in the sixteenth-­century mendicant schools, as seen in several well-­known engravings by Diego Valadés in his Rhetorica christiana. As the multitasking friars are shown going about their duties, a number are preaching, articulating the articles of the Christian faith, the biblical narrative of the origins of the world, and the need for penitence.50 Although the monastic orders used oral communication in concert with didactic images as part of their multimedia arsenal deployed to transfer the new doctrine to the neophytes, the familiar cadences and vivid metaphors of the huehuetlatolli provided a ready-­made resource for composing sermons and pedagogical material.51 Sahagún encourages preachers to emulate the Nahua orations of royal parents to their daughters when he states, in Book 6: “Because of their language and style, these two speeches if given from the pulpit mutatis mutandis would be of more use than the many sermons for young men and women.”52 However admiring of the eloquence of Nahua speech, the friars were also fully aware of its dangerous potential to undermine the missionizing efforts. The dance songs mentioned before were perceived as a way to draw 172 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

natives to Christianity but also continued to be highly suspect by the Catholic Church.53 Sahagún not only distrusts the subtexts of the “obscure” (the Spanish reads cerrado, or closed) verses but also fears the propagandistic fervor of the songs. The ancient songs continued unabated, he claims, only superficially “cleansed,” as those that “deal with the things of God and His Saints, they are enveloped in many errors and heresies.”54 In addition to his underlying anxiety about the intransigence of the indigenous population, Sahagún is guilty of editorializing, with an occasional slippage into Christian phrasing. For example, Tezcatlipoca’s omnipresence over “the heavens and the earth” made him ripe to co-­opt as the Christian God, Señor Dios. On the other hand, he could also be demonized, as when after “el dios Tezcatlipoca” Sahagún inserted, “o por mejor dezir, Diablo.”55

From Painted Word to Acculturated Image Just as the range and quality of oration is amply described in the Nahuatl texts, from language that is lyrical to a vocabulary considered loud and obdurate (as “words of stone, words which are clubs”),56 many of the Florentine’s images display an expressive array of speech-­scroll glyphs. As visual analogues of the textual descriptors, speech scrolls are surprisingly consistent in their basic carved or painted configuration, a comma-­like form that issues from the speaker’s mouth and curls away as a single or double volute. The earliest example we have in the Sahaguntine material is found in the first of two huehuetlatolli in the Primeros memoriales (1558–1561).57 In the image, four judges are seated on woven-­reed seats above an assembly of four men and four women who are a mixture of nobles, warriors, and commoners (fig. 11.4). The judges are admonishing them for failing to carry out their responsibilities and for indulging in behavior ranging from lax to dissolute, thus breaking with Aztec social conventions. The judges’ harsh indictments for disobedience and disorderly conduct prompt tears from all but two of the listeners. Throughout, the judicial utterances are said to emanate “from the mat, the seat” (in petlatl in icpalli), a conjunctive metaphor for their elevated civil office as embodied in their woven-­reed thrones. The value of this formal rhetoric is also conveyed through the description of the judges’ words as “green stones, like turquoises, green, round, circular.”58 The application of jade or greenstone as a meto-

Figure 11.4. Huehuetlatolli, judicial oration. Primeros memoriales, fol. 61v, upper section. Códices Matritense. © Real Academia de Historia, España.

nym for good discourse connotes a “pure life”; being wise and “pure in heart” go hand in hand.59 The geometric perfection and rarity of the gemstones are the Mesoamerican counterparts to the proverbial pearl associated with edifying sayings in Western axioms. Only one of the judges is depicted with an open mouth; however, in each case speech scrolls roll out from their mouths, simulating sound waves. The spatial directionality of their discourse is underscored, in the cases of two judges, with deixis, a rigidly pointed index finger that dramatizes the force of the pronouncement and the prerogative of the speaker.60 The association of the emphatically pointed index finger and the standard speech glyph that is visible in Sahagún’s Primeros memoriales is also evident throughout the Florentine Codex (as in fig. 11.1). In the Florentine, however, speech scrolls can also be elaborated with additive elements that qualify the manner or mode of speech with the use of several colors or a variety of af-

fixes. For Nahuas, words were inherently powerful; they could convince, assail, and cajole, with the speaker’s tonal inflection and bodily posture indexing these different intentions.61 To express the lustrous, refined value of the well-­ chosen, expertly crafted words of a ruler, nobleman, or judge, the most common Nahua metaphor invoked the “precious greenstone, precious turquoise,” (uel chalchiuhtic, uel teuxiuhtic),62 as noted before. In general, the inherited wisdom handed down by the elders, the “white-­ haired ones,” was so valued, it was also equated with “a precious greenstone . . . a turquoise . . . perfectly cylindrical” (vel chalchiuhtic, vel teuxiuhtic, vel acatic, vel ololiuhqui), the same metaphors (machiotlatolli) for new life that were applied to newborns and to tender, young plant life, as well as to other cherished qualities or persons.63 The gems shared the color green, connoting life-­sustaining elements such as water and vegetation, like the highly coveted quetzal feather that was “deep green, a precious feather” (in uel xopalcoac quetzalli).64 These metaphors materialize when attached to speech glyphs as circular beads (for jade) and concentric rings (for preciousness).65 Aztec and Mixtec representations also affix a stylized flower to speech scrolls to signify flowery speech, ritual song, or prayers.66 In the Florentine, such floral adornments designate the harmonious chirping coming out of the beaks of songbirds,67 the priestly instruction of song in figure 11.3, or the marketplace chant of an Aztec seller of cloaks.68 In figure 11.5, a floral affix must evoke both eloquent and persuasive speech, as shown in a representation of a war conference where plans to besiege a city (in the upper right) are being debated. Three seated figures include two rulers with precious or royal diadems (xiuhuitzolli) over their heads. A third individual is a warrior of high rank who points to the map of the city laid out between them. His impassioned address is represented as a florid vocalization of his conviction in the viability of the military strategy. In this image, too, we find the enduring presence of the linguistic roles of speech scrolls that Boone has identified in precontact sources.69 The two rulers with their crowns also have nominal speech scrolls that stand in for rulership and are differentiated from the warrior’s speech scroll by a different color. The military leader’s speech scroll, on the other hand, has an adjectival component, qualified with a prominent flower and coupled with his emphatically pointed finger. Finally, all three speech scrolls have a verbal function, identifying the protagonists Rhetoric as Acculturation • 173

Figure 11.5. Making war plans to attack a city. Aztec war captain addresses two rulers. Florentine Codex, Bk. 8, fol. 33v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

in the narrative, activating the pictorial space between them, and denoting impending action.

The Anomalous Images in Book 6 Given the impressive range of images throughout the Florentine Codex that reify the Nahuatl texts on the prestige and inventive vocalizations inherent in speech and song, the notable absence of these elaborated scrolls in Book 6 is all the more curious. Why would the painters of a book dedicated to the huehuetlatolli, the highest form of Aztec rhetoric, ignore the greenstone beads, floral attachments, and symbols of preciousness that we find in the other books? Instead, unadorned, black-­and-­white speech scrolls are standardized (see fig. 11.1) and executed hastily in some cases. The answer to this question lies in the nature of the subject matter and the timing of the images of Book 6 at the terminal stage of the Florentine’s production in 1577. While some of the foremost scholars and Nahuatlatos have analyzed the texts of Book 6, its pictorial record is understudied and anomalous in some features. For its length (215 folios), it has proportionally fewer primary images (52), a disproportionate number of ornamentals (88), and a surfeit of spaces left blank for missing images. There are likely several determining factors by way of ex174 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

planation. As mentioned, Sahagún greatly admired the content, elevated tone, and lyricism of the huehuetlatolli, of which, he claimed, “there is not a living man who could invent the language.”70 Both out of respect for the poetic refinement of the original huehuetlatolli, as well as for the utility of their moralizing character, the Franciscan’s Spanish translation is more literal;71 ultimately his intent, like that of the friar Andrés de Olmos, was to recycle these orations, with Christian emendations, for use as sermons. This resulted in a robust column of Spanish text, leaving less room for images. In addition, to understand the uniform black-­and-­ whiteness of the illustrations, it must be remembered that the book and its images were among the ultimate sections completed. On the last folio of Book 6, and in the same paragraph in which Sahagún touts his authorship by including his name (although clearly not his signature), the Franciscan states that the original Nahuatl (la lengua mexicana) was first recorded some thirty years earlier (in 1547), and he adds the current year of 1577.72 Given that the images were the last of the ingredients to be added to the Florentine’s bilingual texts, these pictures were the painters’ final contributions and, as such, are strikingly uneven in workmanship.73 Although their monochromatic nature has been attributed to a reliance on black-­ and-­white sources, printed illustrations were the most common models for the lion’s share of all the Florentine Codex images. Moreover, the thesis that black-­and-­white prints were more “authoritative”74 is not borne out, since color was applied to the majority of European graphics from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. The monochromatic nature of the images in Book 6 can be linked to the dire consequences of the 1576 epidemic on the indigenous population, a pestilence that swept away many of Sahagún’s creative team at the very height of their labors. Thus, by 1577, at the finale of his monumental project, time, skilled labor, and access to color pigments had run out.75 The painters of Book 6, like those of the last folios of Book 11, and almost the entirety of Book 12, were forced to rely exclusively on grisaille, shades of gray and black. It is also true that without specific indigenous models, the painters might have struggled to pictorialize the more conceptual orations of Book 6 and, in their haste to meet an impending deadline, added more decorative “fillers” and grotesques. The tlacuiloque, here as elsewhere, drew their inspiration from a range of sources and repurposed them in in-

Figure 11.6. Prayer to Tezcatlipoca. Florentine Codex, Bk. 6, fol. 1r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

ventive new ways. I focus on several of the unconventional and clearly bipartisan artistic solutions that are evident in the first seven chapters that contain the prayers to Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Smoking Mirror and supreme deity.76 Each of the orations invokes a litany of names for Tezcatlipoca, beginning with “Our Lord of the near, of the nigh [Tloque Nahuaque], the great Lord, invisible as the night, impalpable as the wind.”77 His appellation as the Night Wind (Yohualli Ehecatl; iooale, ehecatle) emphasizes his invisibility and omniscience. The very act of enunciating his titles and names “conferred a power,” according to Guilhem Olivier, and activated the presence of the divinity (teotl).78 In four puzzling images of Tezcatlipoca that accompany the prayers (figs. 11.6, 11.7, and 11.8 depict three of these images), a disembodied head representing the numen floats in a nocturnal sky above a desolate landscape. A single devotee, clearly indigenous (barefoot and wearing a loincloth in figure 11.6) stands below the zoomorphic head. All of the devotees also assume the native posture of humility described in Nahuatl as one that required a bowed head and “arms folded” across the chest. This latter submissive gesture is included in an admonition of father to son to avoid pride and vanity before the omniscient deity: “Just conduct thyself; especially be thy head bowed, thy arms folded” (emphasis mine).79 Examined more closely, the floating heads have an extended proboscis, a serpent’s tongue that is sometimes bifurcated, and feather-­like extensions, reminiscent of the dragons and griffins that populate medieval books.80 These images

clearly depart from the renderings of Tezcatlipoca as a male figure with his identifiable emblems. Instead, the composite reptilian heads respond to the god’s title as the wind, ehecatl, who in the Nahua lexicon had a buccal mask or duckbill extension. Although still reliant on indigenous precedents, the strange airborne heads are composites in that they refer visually to more than one Aztec deity. The addition of feathers, a serpent’s tongue, as well as a symbol for preciousness (a concentric ring) surmounting the disembodied head in figure 11.7 evokes Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent) rather than Tezcatlipoca. As Olivier has shown, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl were often paired, both deities associated with the Night Wind, sorcery, and creation myths.81 The composition of Tezcatlipoca as a free-­ floating head above a standing supplicant also replicates images that feature calendrical signs, both pre- and postcontact; among these, for example, are images of Quetzalcoatl in the Florentine Codex that feature the day sign “one wind” hovering above the deity (fig. 11.9). Although the images in Book 6 have resonance with the “ancient paintings” to which Sahagún and his team had access, they are selectively filtered from the precontact sign system, then fragmented and reassembled. But for all the degrees of separation, this visual transposition reveals that artists strategically, if artificially, gestured to their Nahua heritage, promoting a more indigenous way of telling, of showing. Despite their resemblance to Aztec iconographic conventions, the fragmented depictions of Tezcatlipoca that I have been analyzing may also reflect the increasing pressure to relinquish traditional belief systems and instead to align Nahua beliefs with Christian conceptions of a more disembodied, abstract God.82 Euro-­Christian illustrations were also pilfered as pictorial sources, with a concomitant migration of meaning.83 Two coupled images juxtapose depictions of Tezcatlipoca as the Night Wind with scenes that recall Christian narratives. In one of the paired images of Tezcatlipoca just examined, an additional scene is appended below featuring nine kneeling devotees (see fig. 11.7). Only a single line separates the two compartments, as opposed to the double line that frames the entire composite image, indicating that the dual images should be read as one. In the bottom register, a cluster of kneeling figures peers skyward—most with hands clasped together in the Christian gesture of prayer—but two individuals adopt the more indigenous pose, with “arms folded” across Rhetoric as Acculturation • 175

Figure 11.7. Prayer to Tezcatlipoca. Florentine Codex, Bk. 6, fol. 8r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

their chests, as does the single devotee above them. The composition of the worshippers mirrors any number of vignettes of the Ascension of Christ, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, or the descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), with a faithful throng below gazing heavenward.84 While both European and Nahua viewers likely would have made this familiar visual association, the handiwork of the Nahua artist dignifies a pre-­Christian prayer to a non-­Christian deity by transposing it into a Christian colonial context. A second juxtaposed image sets up a similar “oscillation of elements that display antagonisms and complementaries,” to borrow Serge Gruzinski’s words,85 that is, a composite image that includes a priest hearing confession above the scene of Tezcatlipoca with his native devo-

176 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

tee (see fig. 11.8). Nahuas declared their lapses to Tezcatlipoca, as nothing was hidden from him: the god could “see into men’s hearts.”86 The Aztec practice of confession called for an annual ritual when a penitent would verbalize his transgressions to the deity’s priest, as the kneeling couple is doing in figure 11.10. In spite of the European figural proportions and the Christian posture of kneeling in this image, the painter records rather faithfully the ritual accoutrements of the priest (or the god’s surrogate) and his smoking pipe, flowers, and flute during Tezcatlipoca’s primary ceremony of Toxcatl.87 Once an Aztec confessed, the priest meted out punishments, including drawing blood (autosacrifice), making offerings, sweeping, or fasting—all thought to have been purification rituals.88 Catholic and Nahua moral codes were similar; dissolute

Figure 11.8. Confession (top) and prayer to Tezcatlipoca (bottom). Florentine Codex, Bk. 6, fol. 21v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

behavior that was considered punishable included adultery, drunkenness, lying, or sloth, infractions that could result in physical illness. Concepts of morality and sin, however, diverged dramatically, as Louise Burkhart has shown.89 Those who broke Aztec proscriptions were wayward, aimless persons, or were described as dirty or having a rotten stench. To be dishonored or defiled was to live in “dust, garbage” (in teuhtli tlaçulli).90 Nahuas were admon-

ished for bad conduct, but not because it showed disobedience to God or had consequences for the salvation of one’s soul. Instead, their disorderly actions endangered the community’s welfare and undermined the cosmic order. In figure 11.8, however, the painter has modeled the confession scene from Book 6 after imported images of exorcism from Northern Europe and merged them with traditional Aztec practices. In the upper half of the image,

Rhetoric as Acculturation • 177

Figure 11.10. Tezcatlipoca hearing confession. Florentine Codex, Bk. 3, fol. 8v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT. Figure 11.9. Quetzalcoatl (Feathered Serpent), with day sign One Wind. Florentine Codex, Bk. 4, fol. 59r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

the indigenous priest is elevated on a high-­backed reed seat and extends his clay incensario with burning copal. The priest faces a kneeling penitent who disgorges his sins in a venomous stream of snake, toad, and scorpion. Similar vermin depict sins in a Valadés engraving of the sacrament of confession and penitence, where they spew forth from the mouths of natives in the upper tiers of a multilayered composition, between the devil in the uppermost register and the punitive fires of hell below (fig. 11.11).91 As the ultimate manifestation of evil, serpents writhe in Satan’s Medusa-­like hair and emerge from his mouth. According to medieval iconography, these reptilian creatures are graphic embodiments of vices such as avarice, lust, and demonic forces. Although notoriously ephemeral, similar prints of confessional scenes must have circulated in the Americas, as a copperplate engraving from the Andean region (ca. 1612–1620) depicts an Inka lord kneeling before a seated Jesuit priest, flanked by an angel and the devil, both anxious to claim the confessant’s soul. As the na178 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

tive acknowledges his sins verbally, a snake emerges from his mouth; other snakes, lizards, spiders, and frogs crawl around below him.92 These are the vices enumerated by Valadés as the seven cardinal sins introduced by the devil; he summarizes them by stating that the devil places “evil thoughts in the heart, false words in the mouth and also wicked actions in our limbs.”93 In his explication of the engraving, Valadés points to the worship of the devil, shown in the upper tier as the recipient of obeisance and offerings, as the most “heinous cause of all evil.” He then links the Indian to this type of devil worship (presumably idolatry) and the “arts of black magic,” among which words themselves are singled out, impugned as harmful, insolent, and blasphemous.94 The Manichean struggle between good and evil is clearly cast as a war between satanic and angelic forces, as fluttering angels seek to assist the native penitents. The confessional image in Book 6 (see fig. 11.8) featuring a “sinful” indigenous male is particularly poignant as the Florentine’s production coincided with the 1576 plague, one of the most devastating in Mexico’s history. At the outset of the Florentine Codex, Sahagún self-­identifies as

Figure 11.11. Sacrament of confession. Detail of engraving from Diego Valadés, Rhetorica christiana, fol. 216. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2860-­179).

one of the “physicians of the souls” (médicos de las animas) who makes a diagnosis by studying his patient in order to root out his “illnesses,” such as idolatry and drunkenness.95 The figurative parallel between the medical doctor and the recognition of sins is instructive. Amara Solari has traced the conflation of the “rhetoric of disease” and idolatry, broadly defined, to long-­standing medieval practices that censored the unchristian behavior practiced by Jewish, Muslim, and Amerindian peoples.96 When assessing the shortcomings of the mendicant program, Sahagún explicitly links sickness to the Indians’ weaknesses, licentiousness, and “evil works,” which were so “odious to God” as “to [even] cause them great sicknesses.”97 Disease, in other words, strikes humans in retribution for their sins. With

their lack of immunity, the indigenous population was the most vulnerable and, by implication, the most culpable. But is it possible that the Florentine Codex artist of the confession scene in Book 6 is not capitulating wholesale to a Euro-­Christian interpretation? One intriguing preconquest parallel for the penitent’s disgorging of reptiles in figure 11.8 occurred during the Aztec ceremony of Atamalqualiztli (Eating of the Water Tamales), when priests engaged in the ritual act of eating snakes and frogs. Held every eight years, Atamalqualiztli was celebrated to give thanks for the earth’s bounty; the maçateca, or priests, who ate and swallowed live frogs and snakes (“they just chewed them up”) were rewarded with gifts, and all participants danced in costume and feasted on tamales.98 In a detail from the image describing Atamalqualiztli in Sahagún’s Primeros memoriales (fig. 11.12), the three priests, whose blackened bodies mark them as sacred, are positioned diagonally from lower left to upper right toward a pond, each with a snake emerging from his mouth. This festiRhetoric as Acculturation • 179

Figure 11.12. Feast of Atamalqualiztli. Lower left to upper right: three blackened priests eating snakes. Primeros memoriales, fol. 254r (detail). Códice Matritense del Palacio Real de Madrid. © Patrimonio Nacional, España.

val honored Tlaloc (Earth Lord), the storm and vegetation deity, and these aquatic creatures, in particular the serpents, did not symbolize evil but embodied fertility and regeneration. Might a Nahua viewer have read the Florentine Codex image of confession in figure 11.8 not as abhorrent or as a rebuke, but with a more equivocal response? In other words, there may be visual homology here, but dissonance of reception.

Rhetoric as Acculturation The phrase “rhetoric as acculturation,” derived from Thomas Habinek’s work on the role of classical rhetoric in educating the young males of ancient Greece and Rome, suggests a useful paradigm because of the author’s emphasis on rhetoric as “social practice” and acculturation as “social replication.”99 Through the memorization of traditional orations by students moving from childhood into adulthood, they were initiated into the larger corporate culture, 180 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

a process Habinek describes as cross-­cultural and transformational in the Roman Empire. “Because this transformation often entailed a permanent migration from one culture to another (e.g., Egyptian to Greek, Spanish or Gallic to Roman), and because it encompassed attitudes, practices and beliefs, indeed the student’s very sense of self, it is helpful to regard rhetorical training not just as acquisition of knowledge, but more generally as a process of acculturation.”100 There are instructive parallels in how the teaching of rhetoric in Aztec Mexico, and subsequently in sixteenth-­ century monastic schools, ingrained a respect for traditional social, political, and moral values to create a shared sense of community. And in the polyglot, multiethnic environments of both the pre- and the postcontact periods, the need for a lingua franca and a cohesive cultural foundation was essential in promoting civic order and governance. However, as powerful an ideological tool as oratory could be, Habinek also recognizes that traditions could constitute the raw material out of which a new social order was fashioned; in other words, the very traditions inculcated via rhetorical strategies were being constantly reevaluated and adapted. Rather than characterizing Sahagún’s Nahua authors and painters as being transformed, or as “migrating” from one culture to another, the Florentine Codex demonstrates their creativity in amalgamating the visual and textual languages available to them. The ways in which rhetoric could be appropriated for divergent purposes and discrete audiences is demonstrated in the textual discrepancy of the Nahua metaphor in Book 6 for good discourse: “as the light, the torch, the sign, the measure, the wide mirror” (in tlavilli, in ocotl, in machiotl, in octacatl, in coiaoac tezcatl). In the accompanying image, the pine torch and circular black (obsidian) mirror are centered between the “speaking” male adult in the woven-­reed seat on the left and his attentive audience of younger boys on the right.101 For the Nahua, the sage words of their forefathers and leaders were illuminating models and reflective exempla: “From it [the good discourse] you are to take yourself a model, to take an example, in order to live well or in order to speak well.” The Spanish text however, redirects the audience from their elders to the new Catholic intermediaries: to hearken to the wisdom of the preacher’s sermon (“el sermón que el predicador predica”).102 While Book 6 contains some of the most uniquely Nahua ways of expressing and transmitting knowledge found in Sahagún’s masterful project, paradoxically its

images and the Spanish interpolations betray the entanglements of a multiethnic authorship and the larger colonizing agenda. In a two-­way acculturative process, rhetoric played an essential role in promulgating a different moral and social order and, indeed, in creating a “world anew.”103

Notes 1. Oration was the major form of rhetoric in sixteenth-­century Europe. See Abbott 1996, 6–15. 2. The Latin dedication includes the phrase, “Hic sextus omnium maior, cum corpore tum vi: grandi tripudio”; translated in León-­Portilla 2002a, 223. 3. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 9, 71. 4. Perhaps inspired by Andrés de Olmos, Sahagún’s fellow Franciscan and linguist who early on (1533–1539) recorded at least twenty-­nine Nahua speeches. His Arte y vocabulario de la lengua nahuatl, recorded in 1547 but not published until 1600–1601 by Viseo, includes seventeen huehuetlatolli. On Olmos, see León-­Portilla and Silva Galeana 1991, 7–45; Ruiz Bañuls 2009, 48–51, 113–116, 126–127. 5. On the difficulties in translating Book 6, see Roa-­de-­la-­Carrera 2010b, 70–87. 6. On the evolution of the pictographic tradition in postconquest central Mexico, see Boone 2008, 253–286. 7. On a discussion of Nahua songs and European poetry, see Lockhart 1992, 393–398. 8. Peterson 1988, 273–293. 9. That Aztec-­style iconography was available to imitate is alluded to in the Florentine; a reference to “ancient paintings” occurs in Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 48; and author’s account or “Relación,” Bk. 10, 82. On the self-­representation of the tlacuilo, see Peterson 2003, 223–253. On the bicultural sources for the Florentine Codex, see Escalante Gonzalbo 2003, 167–191; and Boone 2003, 137–166. 10. On the young Sahagún at the University of Salamanca in the 1520s, see Terraciano, introduction to this volume; and Peterson, chapter 1 of this volume. 11. On the glut of book publishing, see Kagan 1974, 35. 12. In addition to writing the first Spanish gramática, Nebrija also published a handbook on rhetoric (Artis rhetoricae compendiasa) in 1515. See Abbott 1996, 8; Ríos Castaño 2014, 41–42. 13. Hernando Alonso de Herrera was such a student, becoming a professor of rhetoric at the University of Alcalá de Henares, then at the University of Salamanca in 1513. See Morocho Gayo 2000, 186–187. 14. Kagan 1974, 162, 231–232. On Sahagún as a humanist aware of cultural relativism, see Browne 2000, 75, 81, 85; León-­Portilla 2002a, 43. 15. Valadés 1989, image between pp. 16–18 (79–83). Hereafter, page numbers from the Latin facsimile in the Rhetorica christiana precede the Palomera Spanish translation of the Valadés, shown in parentheses. 16. On the Florentine Codex’s production, see Bustamante García 1990; León-­Portilla 2002a; and Terraciano, introduction to this volume. 17. The schematic ordering of things, also apparent in the diagrams of the Rhetórica of Valadés, drew from widely circulating sources, such as those of Ramon Llull (1232–1315). See Báez Rubí 2005. 18. See table I.1 in the introduction to this volume. 19. Volumes by Cicero and Quintilian were inventoried in the Tlatelolco library on July 31, 1572. On the Tlatelolco collection, see Mathes 1985, 30; and Peterson, chapter 1 of this volume.

20. Isidore of Seville’s compendium of ancient and Arabic learning was printed in ten editions from 1470 to 1520. On rhetoric, see Isidore (2006, thirty-­one chapters in Bk. 2); and six volumes in Pliny (Carey 2003). 21. Isidore 2006, Bk. 2, chap. 1, 69. 22. Habinek 2005, 90. 23. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 6, 65. Pliny underscores “the sharing of a common language” in order “to bestow civilization on mankind” (Historia naturalis, 3:39; as quoted in Carey 2003, 35). 24. Valadés 1989, preface, 27–29. 25. Vives 1971, 181. De tradendis disciplinis of Juan Luis Vives (1531) includes a chapter on rhetoric that relies on Aristotle, Pliny, Cicero, and Quintilian. The goals cited by Vives echo those of the classical handbooks on rhetoric, “to teach, to move, to persuade,” as in Habinek 2005, 47. 26. Luis de Granada (1504–1588) was the first to develop and adapt “evangelical rhetoric” for the non-­Christians of the New World; see Abbott 1996, 9–17; also Habinek 2005, 88–90. 27. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fols. 128v, 204. 28. Molina 1977, pt. 2, 141, 157; Karttunen 1992, 267; Lockhart 1992, 406, 412. Librado Silva Galeana uses the literal translation, “la antigua palabra,” rather than underscoring the transmitters of the word (Silva Galeana 2002, 117). Thelma Sullivan amplifies huehuetlatolli to incorporate both “sayings of the ancients” and “of the elders”; see Sullivan 1974, 80–84; León-­Portilla (2002a, 175) uses the phrase “testimonies of the ancient word.” For a good review of the definitions and parameters of the huehuetlatolli, see Ruiz Bañuls 2009, 62–67. 29. In Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 93v; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 113, 215. However, it is used elsewhere in the Florentine, as in ueuetlatolli that occurs in a merchant-­elder’s speech admonishing returning merchants to lead austere, humble lives (see Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 9, 42); also in Sullivan 1974, 92–94. 30. “[V]uncan mijtoa: in tlatolli in vel injollo intech qujçaia”; in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fols. 1, 4v, 8v, 12. 31. On Nahua beliefs regarding the heart (yollotl), see López Austin 1988, 1:190–191, 2:212–223. When conjoined with toltecayotl (artisanship), the multivalent heart fuses the mastering of crafts, including painting, with intellect, passion, and dexterity. See Leon-­Portilla 1980; 1990, 166–176; Peterson, forthcoming. 32. Houston, Stuart, and Taube 2006, 153–163, 227–251. Sound and speech scrolls appear very early in Mesoamerican civilizations. 33. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 63, 83, 99. Molina 1977, 93–93v, 141, 140v. Tecpillatolli is also written texpilatlolli; and tecutlatolli as teuctlatolli. 34. Whereas lack of training was reflected in poor speech; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 11v. 35. As shown in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 241v. The right, indeed necessity, of forceful speech is also reflected in the Maya term for lord, or ajaw (Houston, Stuart, and Taube 2006, 153). 36. On this composite royal icon and the significance of speech scrolls in defining rulership, see Hajovsky 2015, 1–11, 38–39, 58–78. 37. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 63, 246; Sahagún 1979, fol. 203v; see also Bk. 6, 99: “the spirit, the words of the lord [in ihijotzin, in itlatoltzin].” On the “bodily exhalations,” or breath-­soul, see Houston, Stuart, and Taube 2006, 142–143. 38. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 47–48. 39. Anywhere from sixty-­one to around one hundred of the orations have been attributed to Sahagún alone, dispersed throughout the Florentine Codex and beyond. Díaz Cíntora (1995, 5–15) identifies only seven huehuetlatolli in Book 6 of the Florentine Codex (chaps. 17–22, 40) based on parental or intergenerational orations; Ruiz Bañuls (2009, 62–67) counts thirty-­nine ancient speeches in Book 6. Sullivan analyzes

Rhetoric as Acculturation • 181

eighty-­nine huehuetlatolli and classifies them according to genre (Sullivan 1974, 86–98, 100–107, tables 9–14). See also García Quintana 1976, 61–71. 40. Sullivan 1974, 86–94, 100–102. 41. In his treatise, Aristotle identifies epideictic speech as one of three types of rhetoric; see Aristotle 2007, 7, 15–16. On European and Nahua rhetoric, see Abbott 1996, 32–37. 42. What Abbott (1996, 30) calls the “rhetoric of behavior” that ensured social stability. 43. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 122; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fols. 100–101. 44. Sahagún 1950–1982, app. to Bk. 3, 65. While the text on the instruction of songs in the calmecac is in Book 3 (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 3, fol. 39), the image is in Book 2, fol. 128 (see fig. 11.3). 45. John Bierhorst (2009, 25–30) translated and transcribed thirty-­ six Nahuatl song texts (netotliliztli), describing them not only as highly ritualistic but also as having a coercive and militant power. 46. Alonso de Zorita observes that Andrés de Olmos, or his informants, relied on pictorial sources for the collecting of the Nahua orations: “y los sacaron de sus pinturas que son como escritura e se entienden muy bien por ellas”; see Zorita 1992, 100–101. See also León-­ Portilla 1991, 12–13; Silva Galeana 2002, 118–119. 47. Sullivan 1974, 99. Lockhart (1993, 9) similarly claims that there were no indigenous pictorial records for these “elaborate set speeches.” 48. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 91, 99. 49. Roa-­de-­la-­Carrera 2010b. 50. As described in the ideal monastic atrium, in Valadés 1989, 108(473), 219(493), 221(501), and 222(503). 51. Baudot (1982, 125–145) and Ruiz Bañuls (2009, 159–211) deconstruct the huehuetlatolli for their Christian adaptation and application. 52. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 80v; see also Ríos Castaño 2014, 91n77. 53. As evident in Sahagun’s Psalmodia christiana (circulating by 1564 but published in 1583), where he is still concerned that the indigenous converts are backsliding; that “they use other canticles to persuade the population to do what they want, or about war or other matters that are not good” (Sahagún 1993a, prologue, 7). The provincial Church councils in Mexico City (1555, 1585) ordered the “cleansing” of indigenous texts for superstitious or heathen subject matter. 54. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 10, 81. 55. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 3, fols. 11–12, Bk. 6, chap. 43, fol. 210v; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 254. See also Olivier (chapter 7 of this volume) on the use of “diablo.” 56. “[I]n tlatoltetl, in tlatolquavitl”; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 63. 57. Sahagún 1997, 229–245; Sahagún 1993b, fols. 61v–­64v. This court oration (para. 15 in the section on rulership) is followed by an Aztec ruler’s shorter discourse. 58. Sahagún 1997, 241: “chalchiuitl. yn iuhq’ yeuxiuitl, in xictic yn olloliuhqui in teuilacachiuhqui.” 59. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 79–81, 113–114. 60. On finger-­pointing as a pre-­Hispanic gesture, see Olko 2014a, 167–175. 61. On the potency of words, see Ruiz Bañuls 2009, 96–97. The topic is discussed as well in chapters 3 (Terraciano), 10 (Magaloni Kerpel), and 12 (Sousa) of this volume. 62. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 248. 63. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 248; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 205v. 64. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 252, 99. 65. On concentric rings as affixes for preciousness or value on speech scrolls, see Sahagún 1979, Bk. 2, fols. 104v, 143v; Bk. 5, fol. 1; Bk. 10, fol.

182 • Jeanette Favrot Peterson

47; Bk. 11, fol. 55v. Kevin Terraciano (chapter 3 of this volume) elaborates on the feather affix. 66. Boone 2016, 38–39. 67. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 55. 68. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 45. 69. See Boone 2016, 35–37. 70. Sahagún 1979, prologue to Bk. 6, unpaginated; Sahagún 1950– 1982, Bk. 6, 65. 71. Kevin Terraciano (personal communication). 72. “Fue traduzido en lengua española por el dicho padre Fray bernardino de sahagun: depues de treynta años, que se escriujo en la lengua mexicana: este año de mjll y qujnjentos y setēta y siete” (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 215v). 73. Speech scrolls were not even added to the first sixteen images of Book 6 (until folio 53). 74. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 72–73; Dackerman 2003, 11–15. Susan Dackerman also argues that the stated preference for Dürer’s black-­and-­ white graphics by Erasmus was primarily to establish printmaking as an independent medium. 75. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 50–51; Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 76. Although Tezcatlipoca was a shape-­shifting supernatural, as several of his names indicate, in most colonial representations, the deity, or his priestly representative (teixiptla), is rendered as human. See Olivier 2003, 44, 247–249, 252. 77. Sullivan 1994, 127. 78. Olivier 2003, 13. 79. “[C]an ximonemjti, cenca ic in motolol, in momalcoch.” Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 92v; Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 111. 80. Dragon-­like grotesque ornaments are found in several volumes in the Tlatelolco library, including a 1543 edition of the Vita Christi Cartuxano by Ludolph of Saxony (Ludolfo de Sajonia). 81. Olivier 2003, 22–24. 82. My thanks to Lisa Sousa for this observation. 83. Escalante Gonzalbo 2003; and chapter 4 of this volume. 84. Peterson 2017. 85. Gruzinski (2002, 145; see also 31, 128–130) differentiates this blending of elements as mestizo or mélange in the postconquest Americas distinct from hybridization, the mixtures that occur both within and between cultures over time. 86. Olivier 2003, 24–25. The Spanish text uses words such as “sinner” (pecador) and “penitent” (penitente): Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 21v. 87. Tezcatlipoca’s representative (teixiptla) during Toxcatl carried with him his flute, flowers, and smoking tube: Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 68. 88. The entire Aztec confessional rite is contained in Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 29–34. The Nahua word neyolmelahualiztli (literally “straightening one’s heart”) was an approximation of “confession” borrowed by the mendicants, but the Nahua idea was to be truthful or honest. On this see Burkhart 1989, 82; Lara 2008, 98–116. 89. The Nahuatl word is tlatlacolli when used to convey “sin”; it meant something that was damaged or broken and is related to tlazolli, or filth, disorder. See Burkhart 1989, 87–129. 90. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 209, 215; see also p. 32: “in excrement, in filth” (in cuitlatitlan, in tlaçultitlan). 91. In Valadés 1989, between the Latin texts on pp. 215–218. For the description of this image by Valadés, see 218(491). 92. Cummins 2011, 222–223. 93. Valadés cites as sins gula (gluttony), lujuria (lust), pereza (sloth), inedia (evidia[?]: envy), avaricia (avarice), ira (anger), and soberbia (pride); Valadés 1989, 216(487). 94. Valadés 1989, 218(491).

95. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 45. 96. Amara Solari (2016, 485) concludes that “idolatry and disease comprised a mutually informing conceptual space.” 97. Sahagún 1979, prologue to Bk. 10, unpaginated; Sahagún 1950– 1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 75; and see Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. On the differences between the Nahua and the Christian link between disease and morality versus sin, see Burkhart 1989, 170–183. 98. On Atamalqualiztli, see Sahagún 1997, 67–69; 1993b, fol. 254r; 1950–1982, Bk. 2, 177–178. These parallels are also noted by Solari (2016, 495–496). For a full image of Atamalqualiztli, see figure 5.2 in this volume, p. 83.

99. Habinek 2005, 60–78. 100. Habinek 2005, 61. 101. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 6, 246–247. This metaphor is used elsewhere in Bk. 6, as on p. 107; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 204. 102. The full Spanish text: “Esta letra quiere decir: lumbre y hacha encendida y dechado y modelo y espejo ancho. Por metafora quiere decir, Rasonamiento que los principales hablan a los macehuales: y el sermón que el predicador predica y el buen ejemplo de Buena vida que alguno da.” Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 204. 103. Habinek 2005, 61, 82–83, 91.

Rhetoric as Acculturation • 183

Chapter 12

Flowers and Speech in Discourses on Deviance in Book 10 Lisa Sousa

I

n Book 10 of the Florentine Codex, a Nahua author described the procuress’s ability to lure clients using speeches, incantations, and spells: “She is a charmer [lip-­flower], a smooth-­talker [mouth-­ flower], a sweet-­talker [mouth-­flower-­sweet-­water]; she is of pleasing, agreeable speech. She is soft-­spoken. Her words are flowers, sweet, pleasing. She is an artful, skilled speaker, a master of discourse.”1 The Nahua writer drew upon two symbols of seduction—speech and flowers—to convey the procuress’s ability to tempt others and to promote illicit sex.2 The Nahuatl warning is just one of three distinct commentaries on the subject of how a procuress leads people astray. The accompanying Spanish translation and the illustration can be considered separate texts that express related concepts and concerns, but that vary significantly in their presentation of the procuress.3 Similarities and discrepancies in the descriptions and images of procurers, prostitutes, thieves, and murderers, among other social deviants, shed light on the Nahua-­Christian dialogue on immorality in the sixteenth century. A close reading of these selected texts against one another also elucidates the active role of Nahuas in the conceptualization of Book 10 and the intended bicultural audience of the manuscript. Previous scholarship has revealed the complex process in which indigenous concepts of morality informed local Christian beliefs in New Spain. Research based on the study of native-­language Church texts has shown how the friars’ reliance on native languages to evangelize promoted the incorporation of indigenous moral concepts 184

into Christianity, giving rise to unique regional forms of Catholicism.4 Pioneering studies of images, material objects, and colonial texts have considered moral attitudes related to the body and gender ambiguity.5 Several works have examined European influences on some of the images and texts in Book 10 concerning prostitutes, the intersexual, and the homosexual.6 This chapter contributes to the scholarship on morality, gender, and sexuality by analyzing a range of texts and images in the Florentine Codex, and especially Book 10, to shed light on Nahua symbols of moral transgression and to reveal the persistence of these concepts in Nahua verbal and visual expression after the conquest. In this chapter I examine how discourses on deviance feature speech and flowers as metaphors for illicit sexuality and for immorality, more generally. These symbols appear in both the Nahuatl texts and the images of social deviants in Book 10 but are obscured or eliminated in the Spanish translation. The images betray significant European influence, reflecting the bivisual world of sixteenth-­century Mexico, while retaining an underlying coherence in Nahua ideology.7 In some cases, Nahua artists attempted to innovate Mesoamerican writing conventions by including phonetic elements that went beyond expressing place-­names and personal names. A comparison of the Nahuatl texts, Spanish translations, and images reveals how multiple understandings of immorality operated in the early colonial period and how writers and artists employed a variety of strategies to convey moral danger.

Book 10 Book 10 of the Florentine Codex covers several interrelated themes, including kinship, age, and occupations; parts of the human body; illnesses and medicines; and brief descriptions of some of the ethnic groups that inhabited New Spain.8 Nahuas wrote the first draft of the Nahuatl text between 1558 and 1565, based on interviews with elders and nobles in Tepepulco and Tlatelolco, when Sahagún’s educated and Christianized Nahua coauthors asked them to describe different social groups and the traits associated with them. The text was later expanded with additional information from Tenochtitlan and revised in subsequent editions as Sahagún and the Nahua scholars made corrections.9 Sahagún reorganized the material into books and chapters and added the Spanish translation, likely between 1575 and 1577; the images were painted last.10 Book 10 of the latest version of the manuscript, known today as the Florentine Codex, describes roughly 204 categories of people based on age, kinship, status, and occupation. In the first twenty chapters, each with multiple entries, the text provides the characteristics and qualities of a good person and a bad person in each category.11 From the beginning, there was some redefinition of pre-­Hispanic social types to fit a Christian moral framework. The imposition of good/bad distinctions, following European concepts of virtues and vices, or good and evil, reveals Christian influence in the organization of the book. At the same time, the division of the material into chapters on men and women of differing status and occupations follows Nahua social conventions and Mesoamerican conceptualizations of society, the natural world, and cosmology in terms of complementary pairs, suggesting that Nahua scholars influenced the structure of the book and its chapters.12 This framework also corresponds to Spanish distinctions based on gender and status. Of the more than two hundred categories, there are sixteen social types that did not elicit positive associations and apparently were considered social deviants, at least in the context of the emerging Nahua-­Christian morality of mid-­sixteenth-­century New Spain (see table 12.1). These classifications include groups who committed or promoted sexual transgressions or those who defied gender boundaries. Others who were defined in strictly negative terms were associated with violence, robbery, and trickery. By examining the texts and images of all social deviants as a corpus, rather than focusing strictly on one type or another, central tropes of Nahua moral ideology emerge.

In creating the list of social types for the interviews, Sahagún and the Nahua scholars must have discussed which kinds of people would be identified as deviants, and they must have determined the labels to assign to these groups. However, some categories that include positive and negative evaluations reveal slippage between indigenous and Christian ideologies, suggesting that Nahua authors played a significant role in determining the categories and deciding which groups would be described in both positive and negative terms.13 For example, the description of the nahualli (shape-­shifting ritual specialist), which the friars associated with the devil, includes good and bad types. While Catholic priests were quick to condemn the nahualli, whom they believed engaged in the dark arts as a “bruxo” (witch, sorcerer), Nahuas continued to admire (and fear) such figures’ power.14 Similarly, there were good and bad tlapouhque (calendar readers, prognosticators). In his prologue to Book 4, on divination, Sahagún denounced the calendar readers, for, in his opinion, “[t]his trick of reckoning is either a necromantic craft or a pact and invention of the devil, which should be uprooted with all diligence.”15 Given Sahagún’s support for the elimination of traditional rituals that used the calendar, it is clear that the Nahua writers decided to include the positive description, not Sahagún. Nahua authors also ascribed positive traits to the tlaquetzqui (storyteller), although Sahagún overlooked this when he placed the storyteller description in the chapter that dealt with “the vicious people.”16 While the characterization of certain criminals, such as thieves and murderers, in strictly negative terms seems fairly straightforward, for other groups it is less obvious. Nahuas seem to have had more nuanced views of transgender men and women, homosexuals, and ambiguously gendered individuals than the Florentine suggests, and these groups had roles in certain ritual contexts that are not acknowledged in the texts or images of Book 10.17 Book 10 also distorts the importance of the ahuiani, “one who indulges in pleasure,” by portraying her as a “prostitute” and failing to acknowledge her part in spiritual life as a temple dancer or a caretaker of deity impersonators. The perspectives of the project’s participants and the timing of the collection of materials in part explain Book 10’s biases. Sahagún’s coauthors were Christianized men who had been raised and educated in the Church. From the time of the conquest, and especially after the arrival of the first Franciscans in 1524, all indigenous people

Flowers and Speech in Discourses on Deviance • 185

Table 12.1. Social Types with No Redeeming Qualities

Nahuatl term

Translation of Nahuatl to English

Spanish Translation of Nahuatl

Translation of Spanish to English

Tlacatecolotl

Owl person

El hombre que tiene pacto con el demonio

The man who has a pact with the devil

Iolpoliuhqui

Person with a destroyed heart

El hombre perdido

The vicious man

Telpuchtlaueliloc

Wicked youth

El moço desparatado

The terrible youth

Ueuetlaueliloc

Wicked old man

El viejo putañero

The old whoremaster

Tetlanochiliani

Procurer/procuress

El alcaguete

The procurer

Xochihua/suchioa

Possessor of flowers

El enbaucador / la enbaucadora

The deceiver (masc./fem.)

Cuiloni

Homosexual (“one who receives”)

El sodomético

The sodomite

Iautl

Enemy

El homiciano

The murderer

Necoc iautl

Enemy everywhere

El traydor

The traitor

Ichtequi

Thief

El ladró[n]

The thief

Temacpalitoti

One who enchants

El ladrón que encantava para hurtar

The thief who enchants in order to rob

Teichtacamicti

Assaulter who kills

El salteador

The assaulter

Ahuiani

One who indulges in pleasure

La puta

The whore

Tetzauhcioatl

Scandalous woman

La adultera

The adulteress

Patlache

Intersexual (Molina: “lesbian”)

La muger que tiene dos sexos

The woman who has two sexes

Tetlanochili

Procurer/Procuress

La alcagueta

The procuress

Sources: Sahagún 1996, Bk. 10; Molina 1992.

came under increasing pressure to accept Christian marriage and sexual morality. In addition, in the 1530s and 1540s the friars waged an intense campaign to extirpate ­idolatries and eliminate polygyny.18 Sahagún himself and other Franciscans served as interpreters in these apostolic inquisition trials, which often targeted nobles for crimes against the faith. Memories of the persecution of nobles who had challenged Christian doctrine must have been fresh in the minds of many Nahuas when Sahagún undertook his ambitious project of information gathering. Those nobles who agreed to participate in the project might have been more open to the evangelizing mission of the friars, or they might have offered responses that they believed did not challenge Christian teachings, for fear of reprisal. The Christianized Nahua authors of the Florentine might have omitted any positive comments that participants offered about certain social types, such as the ahuiani, that they believed would have been controversial. 186 • Lisa Sousa

Sahagún also might have eliminated any information that he considered offensive when he compiled drafts of the manuscript. These perspectives and editorial practices have distorted to some extent the indigenous discourse on deviance in Book 10, especially in terms of gender ambiguity and sexuality. Nevertheless, Nahuas continued to draw upon traditional metaphors and beliefs to describe and depict the nefarious behavior of the groups described solely in terms of their deviance.

Speech and Flowers in the Nahuatl Text One of the hallmarks of Mesoamerican culture groups was their development of elaborate and eloquent speech and song genres used, for example, in rituals and healing. Mesoamericans invested speaking with considerable

political and social power, and the Nahua ruler, or tlatoani, was “one who speaks.” Mesoamerican nobles distinguished themselves from commoners by speaking a reverential, metaphorical language that conveyed their high status and refinement.19 Elders and nobles gave moralizing speeches at life-­cycle rituals and other public events to instill a strong ethical code among their families and communities. Numerous examples of the speech of elders, the huehuetlahtolli, collected in Book 6 emphasize moderation, humility, responsibility to others, sexual fidelity, and respect for elders as principal virtues in Nahua culture.20 Colonial sources reveal that, in addition to formal rhetoric, Nahuas possessed a highly developed genre of speech related to intimacy and courtship. In some texts the act of speaking represented sexual intercourse. In a moralizing speech in Book 6, a Nahua father cautioned his son that indulging in sex as a young man would destroy his virility later in life, warning that the time would come “when you are no longer able to say anything, no longer able to do anything to your spouse.”21 In another example, Nahuas described the wicked youth (telpuchtlaueliloc) as a womanizer and a smooth talker: “he has mistresses, he is a talker; he lives with concubines.”22 The placement of the statement “he is a talker” between the phrases “he has mistresses” and “he lives with concubines” conflates his talking with sex. Book 10 discusses how men or women could change their identities by adopting speech patterns of the opposite gender. The text explains, “[T]he xochihua [possessor of flowers] has feminine speech, has a feminine way of talking, [and if a woman] has masculine speech, has a masculine way of talking.”23 (Of the more than two hundred categories, this is the only one that addresses both men and women in the same entry, and the only place in which a description of a certain type of woman appears in the section on men.) The Nahua writer reiterates a link between speech and sexuality when he describes the passive homosexual (cuiloni) as one who “speaks like a woman, he pretends to be a woman.”24 The parallel phrase “he speaks like a woman, he pretends to be a woman” suggests that his mode of speech is used to deceive others. If we read the reference to speaking as a metaphor for sex, the construction further suggests that he takes the part of the woman in sex. Nahua authors used a similar format in the description of the patlache (intersexual). The patlache befriends lots of women and “speaks like a man, goes about as a man.”25 Because the text states that the patlache has

a penis, the paired phrase that he/she “speaks like a man, goes about like a man” may be a play on words that intimate that he/she “has sex like a man.”26 Nahuatl descriptions of the procurer and the procuress (tetlanochiliani, tetlanochili,) emphasize their abilities to deliver arousing discourses. According to the Nahua authors of Book 10, it was principally through speech that the procurer led clients astray: “The procurer is a mouse, a charmer, a windbag, an enticer, a possessor of flowers, one who seduces people with flowery words, one who flatters people with pleasing words, one who poisons people. He entices, he poisons people; he stretches out long-­winded speeches; he summons people with spells, he lays ambushes for people.”27 The tempting speeches of the tetlanochili stand in stark contrast to the huehuetlahtolli. Whereas the edifying counsel of the elders set people on the right path, the procurer’s words corrupted and destroyed unsuspecting people. The tetlanochili lured, enticed, and poisoned his victims with flattery and cunning. Similarly, the Nahuatl description of the procuress associates her command of provocative speech with her ability to encourage moral breaches: She is a charmer, a sweet-­talker, a smooth-­talker; she is of pleasing, agreeable speech, soft-­spoken. Her words are flowers, sweet, pleasing. She is an artful, skilled speaker, a master of discourse. She is one who flatters, tricks and induces people with pleasing words; she is one who entices, entrances, and lulls people with incantations. She is a cajoler, one who summons people with spells, one who destroys people with sorcery, one who places obstacles so that others will stumble. She stretches out long-­winded speeches; she converses deceitfully; she tricks people with pleasing words; she lulls one with words. She perverts, provokes, confuses, corrupts people; she fools people; she induces people, she induces people with spells; she lulls people with incantations; she entrances people.28

The text concerning the procuress uses twenty-­two terms to convey her skills at entrapping and confusing others with her incessant talking. She made eloquent speeches, but she also knew the forbidden words of incantations and spells. The repetition in the text emphasizes the seductive nature of speech and the power that procurers and procuresses wielded through their command of language. The descriptions of the murderer, the traitor, and the

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thief who uses incantations further reveal Nahua concerns over deceptive words. The murderer “brings false testimony against people; he accuses people; he hates people; he slanders, lies, and makes up stories about people.”29 Not only did the murderer commit acts of violence, he destroyed his victims with falsehoods. Similarly, the traitor posed a threat to social and political stability by creating animosities and stirring up trouble. “He comes between people, he stirs people up, he agitates people. His lies make people bow their heads. He spits in people’s mouths. Words are his food. He incites rebellion, he causes riots, he stirs things up.”30 Whereas the procurer and procuress aroused sexual passions that threatened the moral order, the traitor provoked controversies that led to chaos and challenged the political order. The thief who uses incantations (temacpalitoti) knew spells and songs, two other powerful verbal genres: “he possesses words, he possesses songs. He is one who robs people by enchanting them to put them to sleep, one who enchants in order to deceive people, he is a thief.”31 The descriptions of both the thief and the procuress use the terms tecochtlaçani (one who enchants in order to put people to sleep to rob them) and tecochteca (one who enchants to deceive people); whereas procurers and procuresses caused moral lapses, the thief who uses incantations caused a mental lapse, making people lose consciousness with his spells. Thus descriptions of deviants reveal a complex of immorality that includes concepts of the corrupting use of spoken word, song, and incantations to promote illicit sex, violence, and social discord. Many of the entries in Book 10 also express moral concerns using flowers as symbols of temptation, seduction, and sexual excess. In Mesoamerican ideology, flowers conveyed a broad range of concepts and meanings, from potency, fertility, and (re)production to destructive aspects of illicit sexuality.32 Nahuatl expressions recorded in the Florentine Codex suggest the negative connotations of flowers, as for example, in the Nahuatl phrase “I caress one with flowers” (nictexochitzotzona), meaning, “I seduce him/her.”33 Similarly, the expression “I destroy one with flowers” (nitexochipoloa) meant, “to entice one with drink, with food, with flowers, with tobacco, with capes, with gold.”34 In both cases, flowers represent temptation and forbidden pleasures. The term xochihuia, based upon xochitl, or “flower,” in fray Alonso de Molina’s Nahuatl dictionary, means “to enchant, to seduce the woman with pleasing words in order to take her to another place, or 188 • Lisa Sousa

to bewitch her.”35 Nahuas associated sexual diseases with certain flowers, including the white amaryllis and the poinsettia, revealing their perception of flowers as potentially harmful.36 Nahua contributors to the section on the procurer employed three terms based on xochitl, describing him as a “possessor of flowers, one who seduces people with flowery words, one who flatters people with flowery words.”37 Similarly, the procuress’s “words are flowers,”38 and the prostitute “appears like a flower.”39 Flowers convey sexual transgression in the Nahuatl term xochihua (literally “possessor of flowers”) used in Book 10 for a transgender person and for a procurer.40 Nahua writers also drew upon traditional concepts in their discussions of immorality in Book 10 by attributing malicious behavior to indigenous supernaturals. The murderer was “a tzitzimitl, a coleletli,” terrifying beings who descended from the sky to torment people. A single reference to the Christian devil in the description of the procuress shows how Nahuas also began to associate immorality with the devil’s corrupting influences. Even then, however, the devil appears only as one of several malevolent deities: “The procuress, one who procures: The procuress is truly a tlacatecolotl, [the tlacatecolotl] truly lives within her, truly hides within her. She is truly the nahualli of the tzitzimitl, the coleletli. The deceiver is truly the eyes, the ears, the messenger of the devil, the tzitzimitl.”41 As though writing for an indigenous audience, the writer sensed a need to elaborate on the European devil by defining him as a type of Nahua malevolent deity. In doing so, however, the threat seems to come more from ancient supernaturals, including tlacatecolotl, nahualli, tzitzimitl, and coleletli, than from the devil. The critical statements concerning homosexuals (cuiloni), and the conclusion that they deserved to be burned, reveal some of the strongest evidence of Christian influence in Book 10.42 Friars denounced homosexuality as the nefarious sin in sermons and confessionals.43 And on occasion, Spanish officials in New Spain burned homosexuals at the stake in the public spectacle of an auto-­de-­ fé.44 By contrast, sources on indigenous justice do not refer to the execution of homosexuals, and there is no evidence that burning was a form of punishment for social deviance in preconquest times. Therefore, it seems likely that the Nahua authors adopted this view from their Spanish mentors. It is not clear whether this strong condemnation of homosexuality was intended to reassure Spanish

readers of the text, to provide language that friars could use in their sermons on sexual morality, or to serve as a didactic statement to Nahua readers.

Spanish Translations Some Nahua social categories did not fit European conceptual frameworks, and one encounters the same difficulty in translating these terms into English. Table 12.1 shows the discrepancy between Nahuatl and Spanish categories and sheds light on some of the difficulties of evaluating, discussing, and translating moral concepts and ideology. For example, ahuiani, “one who indulges in pleasure,” was a term for a woman who lived and danced in the temple in preconquest times. The friars adopted this term for the Spanish “puta,” or whore, clearly demoting a woman who participated in sacred rituals to a prostitute who sold her body. In his refutation of idolatry, Sahagún also used the term ahuiani when he denounced Nahua “goddesses of filth,” or deities of sexuality, especially Tlaçolteotl, “who is like the goddess Venus,” denigrating them as nothing more than “harlots” and demanding that Nahuas cease worshipping them.45 “Prostitute” in English perpetuates a distorted meaning of the original term, while expressing the intent of the colonial text. Similarly, the Nahua authors assigned the label xochihua, or “possessor of flowers,” to men and women described as transgender individuals, although in the description of the procurer this term is used more generally for a person who promotes or engages in illicit sex. It is not entirely clear whether xochihua was an actual social category, or whether transgender men and women were simply considered members of the gender with which they identified (i.e., a biologically sexed male who adopted the speech, work, and dress of a woman or became a woman).46 Sahagún translates xochihua as enbaucador or enbaucadora, “deceiver,” which fails to represent the metaphorical meaning of xochihua or to convey gender fluidity. The term patlache also poses certain difficulties. The description of the patlache refers to a person who has the attributes of an intersexual individual and has sex with women. Sahagún translates the term as a “woman who has two sexes” (“mujer que tiene dos sexos”). Although according to the description, the patlache had a penis and performed some aspects of gender as a male, both in terms of speech and dress, Sahagún assigned the label “woman” and put this entry in the section on women, trying to force a person who was biologically and socially complex into a

binary gender framework.47 Molina provides the term patlachuia, “for a woman to have sex with another woman,” suggesting the term lesbian.48 Because of a lack of corroborating sources that use many of these terms, it is difficult to discern precisely what type of person the Nahua authors had in mind in their descriptions. In some sections, Sahagún did not reproduce much of the rich Nahuatl vocabulary that drove home the point of the text. For example, whereas the Nahua author used more than twenty terms to describe the procuress’s ability to lead others astray with her enticing words, Sahagún summarizes her command of speech in a single statement: “[She is] very rhetorical in her speech; using delightful words in order to deceive, she goes about offering women like roses, and in this way she brings [them] with her sweet words to stupefied and entranced men.”49 The twenty-­two lines of Nahuatl that describe the procuress are reduced to twelve lines of Spanish. Similarly, the Spanish text downplays the power of the procurer to bring harm; there is no mention of his ability to “poison” or “ambush” people. Whereas the translation does allude to the procurer’s ability to seduce women, Sahagún streamlined the more elaborate Nahuatl description, stating succinctly, “[H]e deceives women with beautiful speech.”50 The four Nahuatl terms that refer to flowers (tensuchitl, suchioa, tetensuchiuiani, tetensuchitzotzonani) in the description of the procurer’s speech are summarized as “[the procurer uses] deceits and falsehoods . . . that are like roses that please men with their beauty and good scent.”51 The translation fails to tap into the metaphorical power of speech and flowers as tropes for seduction and illicit sexuality. Sahagún also renders the Nahuatl term for flower (xochitl) as “rose” when he states that “the prostitute appears like a rose.”52 For a Spanish reader, references to roses might have evoked the practice of love magic and the belief that those who had been rejected could attract lovers by casting spells on roses.53 At times, Sahagún introduced concepts that would have resonated with a Spanish audience but that are not included in the Nahuatl text. For example, in the description of the prostitute, the Nahua writer discusses how the ahuiani had the custom of wandering around and chewing chicle to freshen her breath. In Sahagún’s translation of this section he adds that “when they chew, their teeth sound like castanets.”54 He repeats this in the description of the chicle chewer: “the public women, without any shame whatsoever, walk around chewing chicle

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in all places, in the streets, in the markets, clacking their teeth like castanets.”55 His commentary seems to express greater concern with manners than with morality. Sahagún’s translation of the text on the tlacatecolotl (owl person) provides another example of his attempt to explain indigenous concepts to a Spanish reader by adding details that are not in the Nahuatl. Sahagún defined the tlacatecolotl as “the man who has a pact with the demon,” although Nahua authors do not mention the devil.56 This example also demonstrates how the Spanish translation obfuscates Nahua beliefs, shoehorning this complex concept of a ritual specialist who had the ability to cast spells on others and to shape-­shift into a Christian framework. Finally, Sahagún omitted references to the tzitzimitl and coleletli from his translations, which Nahua authors used to characterize the procuress and the murderer. Sahagún did not feel the need to comment on morality in these sections of the manuscript, even though this would have been an ideal place to do so. He reserved his commentary for the prologue to the book, where he lamented the decline in Nahua morality due to increasing drunkenness among the native population and the collapse of institutions that reinforced traditional hierarchies and enforced discipline.57 Thus, although he often summarized the Nahuatl, Sahagún did not veer entirely away from the original text, except in a very few places. While Nahuas might have expressed their discourses on deviance using their own concepts and language, in this final version of the manuscript, at least, they did not directly challenge Christian morality in any way that would have required Sahagún’s intervention.

The Images The images that accompany social types in Book 10 reflect the negotiation of Christian and indigenous worldviews in sixteenth-­century Mexico. The depictions are more like illustrations from a European book than Nahua pictorial writings in that they are entirely removed from the rich context of Mesoamerican codices.58 Some of the images show individuals who float in open space, and others are confined to bordered spaces. Nevertheless, they retain many familiar symbols and conventions of the postclassic writing system. All of the illustrations of social deviants correspond to the Nahuatl text, and some of them introduce distinct information and concepts. Several of the depictions include phonetic glyphs and markers that 190 • Lisa Sousa

conveyed specific words or syllables. As a corpus, the iconography of deviance in Book 10 further highlights speech and flowers as moral signifiers, but the images also rely on other fundamental concepts, including the distinction between center and periphery, to convey ethical and criminal violations. Nahua tlacuiloque of the Florentine Codex placed social interaction in specific settings to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and positive and negative influences. To convey the proper moral and social order, Florentine Codex artists depicted parents, nobles, or elders making speeches in the household or temple complex. They rendered hierarchy and harmony through seating arrangements of adults and children, elders and youth, men and women, nobles and commoners. In Nahua society, the household was a moral unit, and members of a household socialized and raised children together.59 The adults of the household monitored each other’s behavior to ensure that moral transgressions would not threaten the stability and health of the family. The image of a Nahua ruler making a speech to his sons (top frame) and to his daughters (lower frame) is set in the patio of a tecpan (palace), indicated by the circular disc motif at the top of the image, an architectural detail of central Mexican palaces (see fig. 11.1, p. 168).60 The noble father sits on a reed-­mat throne, which conveys his authority as tlatoani, and his children are gathered on the floor at his feet, looking obediently at him and listening attentively to his counsel. The artist emphasized the importance of the father’s oration by drawing a prominent speech scroll in front of his mouth (also a standard glyph to identify him as the tlatoani) and by showing him gesturing with his hand.61 On the other hand, Nahua artists of Book 10 depicted all sixteen scenes of deviant behavior in a generic countryside setting, far from the watchful eyes of the community and household members. In locating certain activities outside of the community, Nahua tlacuiloque drew upon associations of the periphery with moral danger that were not directly expressed in the text.62 For example, a depiction of a prostitute and a client places their meeting in a rural setting (fig. 12.1). Peterson noted the prominence of the road in the image, which corresponds to the description of the prostitute as one who “wanders shamefully along the road.”63 More specifically, the scene is placed at a crossroads (otlamaxalli, “crotch of the road”), a location associated with illicit sexuality, sorcery, and the underworld, as

Figure 12.1. Prostitute with client. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 70r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

well as with the cihuateteo (deified women who had died in childbirth).64 In addition to depicting social deviants in the periphery, the artists showed them standing, suggesting that they were itinerant vagrants. There are a few exceptions: a man who propositions a prostitute sits on a little seat (emphasizing her deviance by showing her standing; see fig. 12.1), and the traitor is lying down (fig. 12.2). Victims of deviants, however, are often shown seated according to Mesoamerican pictorial conventions, which convey gender and moral order (see, for example, figs. 12.1 and 12.2).65 Another fascinating exception to the standing position of deviants is the xochihua couple who sit facing one another in the traditional manner of a married couple (fig. 12.3, left frame). The “woman” wears the traditional hairstyle of an adult Nahua woman, and the hair of the “man” is cropped with bangs in the European fashion of the time. The artist used pictorial conventions of hairstyle, dress, and seating position to gender one of the figures as male and the other as female. If not for the text that indicates that one or both of the people is cross-­gendered, it would be difficult to

distinguish, for there is no visual ambiguity. The harmonious image suggests that as long as a cross-­gendered person fully adopted the roles, dress, and behavior associated with his or her chosen gender and formed a relationship with a person of complementary gender, then the couple would conform to a Nahua moral framework of acceptable, even desirable, behavior. The rendering of the xochihua couple using iconography that conveys morality reveals a discrepancy between the image and the alphabetic texts; whereas the image shows a harmonious couple, the written text concerning the xochihua focuses especially on female sexual deviance and, like the description of the cuiloni that immediately follows, seems to show significant European influence in the negative assessment of these types of individuals. Although the images do not illustrate every detail discussed in the corresponding Nahuatl, many of the depictions of social deviants reinforce the fundamental importance of speech and flowers in Nahua moral discourse. In figure 12.1, the artist placed a speech scroll emerging from the mouth of the man, who propositions the pros-

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Figure 12.2. The traitor. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 12.3. Left: the suchioa (xochihua), “possessor of flowers”; right: punishment of the cuiloni, homosexual. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

titute with pleasing words and money. Likewise, artists used speech scrolls to convey the idea that it is through the power of speech that delinquents confuse and deceive others. To emphasize the traitor’s duplicitous nature, the artist drew two strings of speech scrolls going in different directions and reaching separate groups of men to show that he speaks out of both sides of his mouth (see fig. 12.2). Even when the Nahua artist did not include speech scrolls, he indicated communication, negotiation, and speech by showing people making hand gestures and looking directly at one another. In the depiction of the wicked youth (telpuchtlaueliloc), a man stands between a woman and another man who holds a cup and a pitcher (fig. 12.4). 192 • Lisa Sousa

Figure 12.4. The telpuchtlaueliloc, wicked youth. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 24v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

The man in the center points at the other man, as though facilitating their liaison, and both men look at the woman. In a very similar format, the illustration of the procurer shows him standing between a man and a woman, gesturing and looking at the woman (fig. 12.5, right frame), and the procuress stands between the devil and a woman, pointing her finger and looking at the woman (fig. 12.6). In their studies of Florentine Codex images, Margaret Arvey and Jeanette Peterson have pointed out European influences in the depiction of prostitutes. Arvey identified the poses, hand gestures, and flowing hair as evidence that Nahua tlacuiloque drew from European models (fig. 12.7). Peterson also noted the harlot’s red shoes and golden goblet, which were symbols of dissolute women in European paintings and texts (see fig. 12.1). While I agree with these observations, I also consider how native artists invoked Nahua symbols and moral concepts to convey immorality and deviance in these and other images from Book 10. Several depictions of social deviants in Book 10 incorporate flowers to represent promiscuity. Arvey considered the abundant flowers in these illustrations as additional evidence of Christian influence. I argue, however, that as multivalent symbols, the flowers were used by the tlacuiloque to convey concerns with seduction, temptation, and illicit sex. The tlacuiloque might even have used flowers as phonetic indicators to suggest certain terms that contain the root of the word for “flower” (xochitl) that appear in the alphabetic text. Nahua artists show prostitutes hold-

Figure 12.5. Left: the ueuetlaueliloc, wicked old man; right: the tetlanochiliani, procurer. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 24v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

ing flowers as symbols of sexual impropriety (see fig. 12.7).66 Although flowered clothing could be worn by indigenous men and women without any inherently negative connotations, in the Florentine it conveys seduction and sexual excess when worn by the ahuiani (see fig. 12.7, top frame) and the wicked old man (ueuetlaueliloc) (see fig. 12.5, left frame). Some illustrations use both speech scrolls and flowers to emphasize moral danger and sexual transgression.67 The Nahua artist drew upon the traditional repertoire of gender markers when he depicted the intersexual wearing a married woman’s hairstyle and a man’s cape to convey gender ambiguity and bisexuality (fig. 12.8).68 The elaborate speech scroll calls particular attention to the phrase in the Nahuatl text “she speaks like a man,” and the figure is shown in conversation with a seated woman who has a

flower speech scroll emerging from her mouth. The image of a xochihua, or transgender person (or couple), shows two seated individuals with speech scrolls in front of their mouths, and a flower (xochitl) between them is a phonetic indicator that they are xochihuaque (possessors of flowers) (see fig. 12.3, left frame).69 Some of the European influences in the Nahuatl text are also conveyed in the images. For example, an illustration showing the execution of a homosexual by burning corresponds to the statement that sanctions this punishment for same-­sex relations (see fig. 12.3, right frame). The image might also have been intended to show a person burning in hell, and might have been influenced by European paintings and woodcuts showing such horrific scenes. The depiction of the devil in an illustration showing a procuress complements the description in the Nahuatl and Spanish texts of the procuress as “the eyes, the ears, the messenger of the devil, the tzitzimitl” (see fig. 12.6). However, whereas the original Nahuatl described the devil as one of many Nahua supernaturals, the illustration only shows the European devil, painted following European conventions as a goatlike creature with horns,

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Figure 12.6. The tetlanochili, procuress. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 41r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

clawed feet, and a tail. Perhaps by the time the image was produced, Nahuas were familiar enough with the European devil that he alone would do, or it might have been that the friars would not tolerate the depiction of other gods and powerful supernaturals in this context. Although the Nahua tlacuilo modeled the image on European examples, he posed the devil with his body facing one direction and his head turning the other way. According to Nahua pictorial conventions, this twisted position signified gender ambiguity, sexual excess, and immorality.70 Thus the Nahua painter took the European image of the devil but reconfigured him in a way that conveyed Nahua moral ideology. Several images suggest that the Florentine’s artists 194 • Lisa Sousa

drew inspiration more from the Nahuatl text than from the Spanish translation. For example, when Sahagún defined the tlacatecolotl as a man who has made a pact with the devil, a detail that is not in the original Nahuatl text, the Nahua artist did not depict the devil; he depicted him as a nahualli instead, showing a man with the head of a beast (perhaps a dog) to convey his ability to transform into different animals, as discussed in the alphabetic text (fig. 12.9).71 The use of the Nahuatl text as the primary source of information for the images explains the somewhat puzzling illustration of the traitor, who lies on the ground between two groups of men (see fig. 12.2). The tlacuilo literally depicted the term “moteca” (he lies down), which appears in the string of phrases “among people, in the middle of people, he lies down,” meaning that “he comes between people.”72 In addition to incorporating European images and styles, Nahua tlacuiloque of Book 10 innovated with pictorial writing, extending traditional techniques and sym-

Figure 12.7. The ahuiani, prostitute. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 39v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

bols of postclassic Mesoamerican writing systems. The flower elements on clothing or bouquets held by figures who were prone to sexual excess express specific words and sounds in the pictorials of the Florentine Codex. The tlacuilo also depicted several of the nouns that describe the procurer, adapting the practice of writing calendrical and personal names, even placing them near the head of the figure. Specifically, a flower conveys that the procurer is “a possessor of flowers,” and the mouse expresses that “he is a mouse,” corresponding to statements in the Nahuatl text (see fig. 12.5, right frame).73 There are elaborations on speech scrolls, as, for example, when the tla-

cuilo adds wispy flourishes to the scroll in the depiction of the patlache and a flower on the scroll of the woman who converses with him/her (see fig. 12.8). The depiction of the murderer with a dog’s head reflects the Nahua belief that emotions are conveyed on the face and expresses the Nahuatl statement that “he is a dog at heart, a real dog” (fig. 12.10).74 Illustrations of the ahuiani and the adulteress (tetzauhcioatl) show them holding a water (atl) glyph and standing on a stream of water. The atl glyph conveys the sound of the first syllable of ahuiani and of the term auilli used in the description of the adulteress. The significance of the stream of water is less clear. The

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Figure 12.8. The patlache, intersexual or lesbian. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 40v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

Figure 12.10. The iautl, murderer. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

of Nahua tlacuiloque who continued to find elements of their traditional writing system viable and useful, even as they incorporated European influences into their images.

Concluding Remarks Figure 12.9. The tlacatecolotl, “owl person.” Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 21r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

water is reminiscent of a depiction in the Codex Borbonicus of the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue, a water deity, with a birth stream emerging from beneath her throne. Thus the Florentine’s image may represent the overt sexuality and fertility of the ahuiani or may refer to her wandering through Mexico City on the canals. Finally, the depiction of the adulteress (tetzauhcioatl) includes glyphs that conform more to the traditional writing system in that each element conveys the phonetic sound of one of the syllables of a word (fig. 12.11). On the left side of the image there appear a mouth, a spindle whorl, and a woman’s head.75 Together the glyphs express the components of the word tetzauhcioatl: te- from tentli, “lips,” shown on the mouth; tzaua-­, “spin,” indicated by a spindle whorl; and cioatl, “woman,” expressed by the head of a woman. The inclusion of glyphs in Book 10 images reveals the creative expression 196 • Lisa Sousa

Nahuatl texts and images on social deviants reveal the persistence of a moral complex that shaped understandings of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Speech and flowers were just two of the many symbols that constituted this expansive moral framework. While Christian beliefs began to seep into Nahua ideology, they did not replace traditional values, concepts, and attitudes entirely. A close reading of the Nahuatl texts, Spanish translations, and Nahua images reveals a rich intellectual and cultural exchange of ideas, concepts, and symbols in sixteenth-­ century Mexico. In these sections of Book 10, Sahagún rather faithfully translated the Nahuatl, yet he omitted some of the symbolism in terms for seduction and immoral behavior, and he often eliminated the repetition of certain phrases in the Nahuatl text that emphasized dangerous behavior. It is paradoxical that Sahagún condensed the Nahuatl text, considering that his objective was to collect language and document beliefs that would help the friars uproot idolatry.76 He seemed satisfied to collect Nahuatl language, but he did not feel the need to translate every term word for word. He surely understood that the repetition added emphasis to a point and reflected the speaker’s mastery of

Figure 12.11. The tetzauhcioatl, adulteress. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 40r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

rhetorical speech and that this was lost in his more abbreviated translation. Sahagún might have rushed to complete his translation, and he might have felt that the repetition did not substantially change the meaning of the text. Given the mounting controversy surrounding the project by the 1570s, Sahagún might have also simplified or glossed over gender, social, and religious concepts that did not fit neatly into Spanish Christian morality.77 Only rarely did he elaborate on the original Nahuatl text by adding descriptions that would make sense of foreign concepts to Spanish readers. The reliance on problematic categories that were intended to conform to Christian morality misrepresented

or oversimplified certain aspects of Nahua gender, sexual, and religious ideology. The characterization of social deviants, for example, often relied on Nahuatl terms that did not possess inherently negative connotations in preconquest times or that did not fit neatly into the gender-­ binary framework of the book. Although Sahagún is often credited for the organization and content of the text, a close reading of the Nahuatl and Spanish sections against one another reveals the Nahua scholars’ authorial voice. The images negotiate between Spanish and Nahua worldviews, but they are more directly tied to the Nahuatl text. Nahua painters incorporated some European stylistic elements and techniques into their illustrations in Book 10. European books and paintings also surely served as models for some of the images (as shown, for example, by Escalante Gonzalbo in chapter 4 of this volume), but they were reconfigured with Nahua characters. However, the tlacuiloque also innovated with postclassic pictorial

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and phonetic writing conventions to express Nahua moral concepts and language. Perhaps what is most surprising is what is not discussed in the book of vices and virtues. There is only one mention of the devil in the Nahuatl commentaries on deviance, one illustration of the devil, and two references to him in Sahagún’s translation. One might anticipate a much greater emphasis on the devil’s pernicious influences, considering that Nahua authors and painters were living among Franciscans and that sermons, confessional manuals, and plays often blamed moral corruption on the devil. It is also surprising that there is not a single reference to sin (tlatlacolli) in the descriptions of social deviants in either the Nahuatl or the Spanish texts. And where are the polygynists? Polygynists were a primary target of early evangelization efforts, and yet they were not even mentioned as a particular type of moral deviant (although Sahagún does denounce polygyny in the Spanish interpolation that comes in between the sections in Book 10 on social and occupational categories and on parts of the body, as discussed by Baird in chapter 13 of this volume).78 While European influence on the style and content of Book 10 is clear, underlying indigenous concepts and metaphors permeate Nahua verbal and visual expression in the Florentine Codex. Nahuas very selectively incorporated aspects of Christianity into their own views of ethical and unethical behavior. For colonial Nahuas, words continued to have great power to hurt and harm. Flowers, too.

Notes 1. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 41. All translations from Nahuatl and Spanish are my own. 2. For an analysis of flowers and speech as metaphors that express Nahua sexual attitudes in formal texts and archival documents, see Sousa 2017, chapters 5 and 6. 3. Terraciano’s careful study of Book 12 of the Florentine Codex reveals the discrepancies between the Nahuatl alphabetic text, the Spanish translation, and the images drawn by Nahua artists in accounts of the conquest of Mexico. He concludes that differences are significant enough to consider them three separate texts in one manuscript (Terraciano 2010). Ellen Baird also argues that “the choices of form and style with which the pictures were created, the prototypes used as models, and the context in which the pictures were created provide parallel texts which are often as important as the subject matter itself ” (2003, 117). See also Edmonson 1974a, 7. 4. Burkhart 1986, 1989; Sell and Burkhart 2004; Sell, Burkhart, and Poole 2006; Alva 1999; Christensen 2013; and Terraciano 2001. 5. Klein 1990–1991, 2001; Sigal 2000, 2011. 6. Arvey 1988; Peterson 1988; Sigal 2003, 2007, 2011; and Olivier 2004.

198 • Lisa Sousa

7. See especially: Boone 2003; Escalante Gonzalbo 2003; Peterson 2003; and Magaloni Kerpel 2003. 8. For a discussion of the methodology that Sahagún used to compile the information in Book 10, see López Austin 1974a, 141–144. 9. For an overview of the various manuscripts related to the Florentine Codex, see Munro 1974a, 1–15. 10. Dibble 1982a, 19–20; and see Terraciano, introduction to this volume. 11. Chapters 21–26 of Book 10 do not follow the same format of providing the qualities of a good and a bad example, suggesting that perhaps a different questionnaire was the source of information for this section. 12. Nahuatl texts and archival documents often organize references to men and to women or material pertaining to men and to women into distinct groups. Lists of men or material on men are usually discussed first. For example, last wills and testaments list the male testators first and the female testators second (see Cline and León-­Portilla 1984). This convention is used to organize the coming-­of-­age speeches in Book 6 of the Florentine Codex, in which the father’s speeches to the sons appear first, followed by the father’s speeches to his daughter. The mother’s speech to the daughter follows the father’s speech; a mother’s speech to her son is missing (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fols. 70–106). 13. López Austin notes that the metaphorical terms and degrees of kinship that follow Nahua kinship systems indicate that Nahuas must have determined the kinship categories in Book 10 (1974a, 141). 14. See, for example, Olmos 1990, 40–41, 56–59. 15. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, title page verso. 16. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 24. 17. Klein 2001; and Sigal 2011. 18. Greenleaf 1969; Don 2010; Tavárez 2011; and Sousa 2017. 19. Terraciano 2001, 77–81. For examples of Nahuatl speech, see Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6; Karttunen and Lockhart 1987; and Silva Galeana 2011. For examples of Nahuatl song, see Bierhorst 1985. 20. See Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 21. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 97v. The meaning of the phrase “aoc cuelle tiquilvia” remains open to various interpretations. The Spanish translation in the original takes the position that it means, “the man says to the woman that he can do no more.” 22. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 24v. 23. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 24. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. 25. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 40v. 26. On the difficulty of trying to sort out Nahua attitudes toward the patlache, see Sigal 2007. 27. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 24v–­25. 28. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 40v–­41. 29. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. 30. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. 31. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 26v. 32. Flowers were also associated with concepts of paradise and the afterlife. See Burkhart 1992; Hill 1992; Taube 2004; and Schwaller 2006. 33. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 215. 34. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 11, fol. 215. 35. Molina 1970, fol. 161v. 36. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 5, fols. 15r–­v. 37. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 38. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 41. 39. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 40. 40. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 41. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 40v.

42. I agree with Sigal (2007, 23–24) on this point. 43. See, for example, Córdova 1970. 44. See Trexler 1995. 45. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 1, fols. 37–37v. The Nahuatl in this section is not a direct translation of Sahagún’s Latin and Spanish text. The reference to Venus is not included in the Nahuatl. Sahagún also makes an error when he refers to three sisters, instead of four (Tiacapan, Teicu, Tlaco, and Xocotzin), who were part of this complex. (Sahagún condemned the Nahua practice of giving these names to daughters.) Sigal (2007) discusses how Sahagún describes Tetzcatlipoca as a puto. Apparently, describing Nahua gods and goddesses as sexual deviants was part of the strategy to defame and denounce preconquest deities, and indigenous religious beliefs more generally. 46. For a related discussion of the challenges of determining gender in some Mesoamerican depictions and the ways in which scholars’ assumptions have shaped gender attribution of deities, see Mandell’s 2015 article on the “Great Goddess” in the Tepantitla mural at Teotihuacan. 47. The Nahua tendency to see male and female as complementary pairs might have also promoted this binary gender framework. The assignment of the patlache to the category of women seems to be based on affiliation, since according to the text the patlache befriended women. 48. Molina 1970, fol. 80 (Nahuatl-­Spanish). 49. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 40v–­41. 50. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 51. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 52. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25. 53. This practice is discussed in an Inquisition document that is translated and published in Chuchiak 2012. Bristol and Restall (2009) also document the use of roses and other flowers in the love-­magic rituals of Afro-­Mexicans in colonial central Mexico and Yucatán. Interestingly, red roses were associated with the Virgin Mary in Spanish culture ( Jeanette Peterson, personal communication, May 9, 2016). 54. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 39v. 55. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 65. 56. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 21. 57. For further discussion of Sahagún’s despair over his belief that immorality was on the rise, see Baird, chapter 13 of this volume. 58. For another example of colonial depictions of immorality, see the Codex Mendoza, fol. 70r, which shows the punishment of thieves, adulterers, and drunkards (Berdan and Anawalt 1992). Like the Florentine Codex images, the depictions in the Mendoza are out of context and float in space on the page. For further analysis of the Mendoza images, see Sousa 2017, chapters 5 and 6. 59. See Sousa 2017, chapter 8. 60. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 6, fol. 70. Note that the artist incorporated European architectural features, including columns, arches, and tiled floors to convey the grandeur of the ruler’s home. 61. For a discussion of the function of speech scrolls in pictorial writing, see Boone 2016.

62. Burkhart 1989, chapter 3. Many of the images of social types in Book 10 appear in the countryside, not only the images of social deviants. This may reflect influence of European models, or it may be the result of the pressure under which the artists worked to complete the manuscript. Nevertheless, the placement of deviant behavior outside of the community center or outside of a household setting corresponded to Nahua ideology and stands in contrast to depictions of ethical behavior in other books of the Florentine Codex. 63. Peterson 1988, 290. 64. Burkhart 1989, 63–64. 65. Nahua pictorial manuscripts show men seated with their knees drawn to the chest and women with their legs folded behind them. 66. Arvey 1988. 67. Sigal (2007) also notes some discrepancy between the Nahuatl text and the image of the patlache. 68. For a discussion of clothing as a metaphor for the body, see Sousa 2017, chapter 5. 69. The image may show a man dressed as a woman and a woman dressed as a man to indicate that each uses the speech convention of the opposite sex; however, the text does not refer explicitly to cross-­dressing. 70. To convey disorder, Nahua painters would show the body in a twisted position, either seated or standing (Klein 2001, 206–211; and Sousa 2017, 114–116). 71. Note that the artist did not depict the tlacatecolotl (owl person) with an owl head. The head of the beast may also be meant to convey the man’s inherent character and emotions. 72. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. Note that accompanying the text concerning the tlaueliloc tentzontli (wicked man) there is a similar image in Book 10 on fol. 12 showing a man lying down between two seated men. All three have speech scrolls. The alphabetic text of this entry also uses the term moteca. 73. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 24v–­25. 74. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 25v. For another example, see the depiction of the “mature woman,” quauhcioatl (literally “eagle woman”), which has an eagle head on a woman’s body (Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 36–36v). 75. Arvey (1988, 187) suggested that the symbols of the spindle whorl and the woman’s head referred to motherhood. 76. Given the complexity of the Nahuatl, it seems that only a very few highly trained friars could have ever used the Florentine Codex as a source unless they could consult an educated Nahua or Sahagún himself about the range of meanings of some of the terms. 77. See Terraciano’s introduction to this volume for the historical context surrounding the project. On the oversimplification of gender concepts, see Overmyer-­Velázquez 2005; Sigal 2007. 78. For a discussion of the friars’ efforts to eliminate polygyny and the persecution of polygynists, see Sousa 2017, 50–63.

Flowers and Speech in Discourses on Deviance • 199

Chapter 13

Parts of the Body Order and Disorder Ellen T. Baird

C

hapter 27, “Parts of the Body,” of Book 10 of the Florentine Codex (1575–1577) is an intriguing anomaly in that the two alphabetic texts are very different.1 The Spanish text in the left column, “Relación del autor digna de ser notada” (Account of the author worthy of being noted), initially continues the theme of virtues and vices begun in the preceding chapters of Book 10, but from a postconquest perspective as fray Bernardino de Sahagún retrospectively and selectively addresses sixteenth-­century Franciscan missionary history in Mexico. The Nahuatl text in the right column is an extensive (and important) lexicon of body parts and related words.2 The pictorial text consists of six drawings of body parts placed in the left, Spanish column, usually above or below Spanish paragraph headings for body parts. The drawings, executed by indigenous artists, are placed close to or immediately adjacent to the Nahuatl word (in the right column) that names the part represented in the left column.3 Both alphabetic texts have been used extensively in scholarly work, as they provide significant historical and linguistic information. In sharp contrast, the six drawings in chapter 27 have been dismissed as “unimportant” and “poor and badly drawn.”4 This study analyzes the three texts (Spanish, Nahuatl, and pictorial) and their relationships to one another relative to the theme of the body considered from several new perspectives. These include the abstract lexical body, the corporeal indigenous body, conversion, social organization, and disease. Although the Spanish “Relación” is 200

clearly not a translation, summary, or commentary on the Nahuatl terms for body parts, the two texts are linked by the contrast and tension between the empirical, static list of Nahuatl words for the body in the right column and the often impassioned Spanish prose text to the left, which describes the dynamic, mutable situation of the indigenous body in the here and now: bodies afflicted by extreme punishments, drunkenness, disease, and altered by education. The body of Christ (the Church, although not explicitly mentioned) underlies much of the text, as does the body politic (república), both integral to the discussion. Although few in number and directly related to the Nahuatl text, several of the drawings play a significant role in augmenting and complementing the Spanish text and thus mediating between the two alphabetic texts. The drawings exist in the space between the two alphabetic texts, both literally and figuratively, and speak to the artists’ autonomous authority.

Sahagún in 1576 Fray Bernardino de Sahagún was clearly dispirited and pessimistic in 1576, as he dictated the “Relación del autor digna de ser notada” to his scribe in the scriptorium of the Franciscan Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco.5 All was not well. Covert indigenous religious practices persisted, new policies of Church and state undermined the friars’ authority, and the return of a deadly disease decimated the indigenous population. The utopic Indian Church instituted by the “Apostolic Twelve” Franciscans was changing

rapidly as the first wave of missionaries died or returned to Spain and the number of Franciscan friars greatly diminished.6 Their influence further waned when the Crown issued the Real Patronazgo (1574), which diminished the Franciscans’ authority by placing them (and all ecclesiastical matters) under the king’s authority and favoring the secular clergy over the friars.7 There were also internal conflicts within the Franciscan order between those who stressed education in conversion, such as Archbishop Juan de Zumárraga, Sahagún, and his fellow friars at the Colegio de Santa Cruz, and those who stressed piety and mysticism, such as fray Toribio de Benavente (Motolinía) and other members of the Twelve.8 In 1572, Sahagún denounced Motolinía before the Mexican Inquisition for having dangerously confused two preconquest indigenous calendars: the 260-­day divinatory calendar (the tonalpohualli) with the 365-­day solar calendar.9 In the appendix to Book 4 of the Florentine Codex (and obliquely referring to Motolinía without naming him), Sahagún again condemned the confusion between the two calendars, describing the tonalpohualli “as very dangerous, superstitious and idolatrous.”10 As testimony to the veracity of his account and the depth of his convictions, he appended his spidery signature (fig. 13.1), with its characteristic three crosses, the only place where his signature appears in the Florentine Codex. By 1569, when Sahagún had completed the Nahuatl version of the twelve books that formed his Historia, the financial support for his work had been withdrawn and his scribes were dismissed.11 Five years later, through the efforts of the newly appointed Franciscan general commissary, fray Rodrigo de Sequera, Sahagún regained possession of his manuscripts and was allocated funds to employ scribes and artists.12 By 1575, Sahagún and his indigenous

Figure 13.1. Sahagún’s signature. Florentine Codex, Bk. 4, fol. 81r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

collaborators were in residence at Tlatelolco completing the final version of the twelve-­book manuscript with a Spanish text and paintings. A year later, a disastrous fourth epidemic of cocoliztli (a hemorrhagic fever endemic to Mexico) began, one of many diseases in sixteenth-­ century New Spain that decimated the vulnerable native population, malnourished, overworked, and weakened by previous waves of epidemic disease.13 During the first cocoliztli plague (1545), approximately 80 percent of the indigenes had died; Sahagún himself had been stricken and almost died after having “buried more than ten thousand bodies,” according to his own account.14 The return of the disease in 1576 was catastrophic; roughly 50 percent of the remaining indigenous people died.15 The immediacy and the devastating effects of the 1576 huey (great) cocoliztli epidemic shape and inflect the “Relación” in Book 10. Multiple factors might have led to Sahagún’s somewhat abrupt decision to abandon the intended Spanish translation of the Nahuatl body parts text in favor of an unrelated narrative.16 The primary reason, I suggest, was that he felt compelled to memorialize his evangelization mission in New Spain as he confronted what he perceived to be its imminent failure caused by the astronomical mortality rate of indigenous people (and consequent depopulation), which he discusses at length in chapter 27, and in an interpolated Spanish text in Book 11.17

The Texts of Chapter 27: Page Organization and General Visual Aspects Chapter 27 begins with Spanish and Nahuatl chapter titles at the foot of folio 70r that continue to the top of folio 70v (see table 13.1 for chapter organization). They are very similar: The Spanish (translated) reads, “Chapter twenty-­seven of all the external and internal members [of the body] of man as well as woman”; the Nahuatl says, “Chapter twenty-­seven. It discusses the intestines and everything inside man, and all that is on the surface, [and] the joints, [and] what belongs to males and to women.”18 The Nahuatl title is followed by the first paragraph heading for body parts (which treats the domain of the skin), “Inice parrapho . . . ,” followed below by a paragraph mark and the first word, “Eoatl” (skin) (fig. 13.2). The first drawing (fig. 13.3) follows the Spanish title in the left column. Immediately below the drawing are three heavily inked Parts of the Body • 201

Table 13.1. Organizational Outline of Chapter 27, Book 10, of the Florentine Codex

Left-­hand column: Spanish chapter title, “Relación” title and text, “ghost” paragraph headings (parts of the body), and drawings

Folio

Chapter or paragraph

Right-­hand column: Nahuatl parts of the body text and paragraph headings

70r

Chapter 27

“Chapter twenty-­seven of all the external and internal members [of the body] of man as well as woman”

“Chapter twenty-­seven. It discusses the intestines and everything inside man, and all that is on the surface, [and] the joints, [and] what belongs to males and to women.”

70v

Paragraph 1 of “Relación”

Drawing 1: dismembered body (figs. 13.2 and 13.3)

“First paragraph. It speaks about our flesh, the skin of us men and women.”

“✚ Rela ✚ cion del ✚ autor digna de ser notada”

First word: eoatl (skin)

Paragraph begins, “Despues . . .” 72v

Paragraph 2

“Second paragraph of the head and of its parts”

“Second paragraph. It discusses the head and all that is in it.” First word: tzontecomatl (head)

74v

Paragraph 3

Continuous Spanish text; no paragraph mark or title

“Paragraph three. It speaks of the eyes and all that pertains to them, and about our nose and all that concerns it.” First word: ixtelolotli (eye)

76r

Paragraph 4

“Fourth paragraph of the face with all its parts/attachments”

“Paragraph four. It speaks about the face and all that pertains to it.” First word: camatapalli (palate)

77v

78v

Paragraph 5

Paragraph 6

“Fifth paragraph of the teeth, and molars, and eyeteeth”

“Paragraph five. It speaks of teeth, molars, and our eyeteeth.”

Drawing 2: tooth (fig. 13.4)

First word: tlantli (tooth)

“Sixth paragraph of the lips with their circumstances”

“Paragraph six. It speaks about our lips and what pertains to them.” First word: totexipaliamanca (external part of the lips)

79v

Paragraph 2 of “Relación”

Paragraph begins, “Hemos recibido . . .”

80v

Paragraph 7

“Seventh paragraph, of the neck with its circumstances”

“Paragraph seven. It speaks of the neck and all that pertains to it.”

Drawing 3: neck (fig. 13.5)

First term: quechtli (neck)

202 • Ellen T. Baird

Table 13.1. Continued

Left-­hand column: Spanish chapter title, “Relación” title and text, “ghost” paragraph headings (parts of the body), and drawings

Right-­hand column: Nahuatl parts of the body text and paragraph headings

“Paragraph eight. It discusses the shoulder, the forearm, and the fingers.”

Folio

Chapter or paragraph

81r

Paragraph 8

“Eighth paragraph, of the shoulders, arms, and fingers”

82r

Paragraph 3 of “Relación”

Paragraph begins, “Aya mas de quarenta anos . . .”

83r

End of ­paragraph 8

Drawing 4: hairy armpit (fig. 13.7, upper frame)

Last word of paragraph: ciacatzontli (armpit hair)

83r

Paragraph 9

“Ninth paragraph, of the body with its attached parts”

“Paragraph nine. It talks about our trunk and what is on it.”

Drawing 5: torso (fig. 13.7, lower frame)

First term: tlactli (torso)

84r

End of “­Relación” text

Drawing 6: kneeling man (figs. 13.8 and 13.9)

Last primary words of paragraph: elchiquiuitl (chest), omicicuilli (rib), eltepicicitli (sternum)

84v–­97r

Paragraphs 9 to 27

Left column blank

Right column text continues through paragraph 27

Sources: Translations of Spanish are the author’s. Translations of Nahuatl are from López Austin 1988, 2:77, 81, 85, 88, 91, 93, 98, 102.

Greek crosses with a second Spanish title for the chapter written between the crosses: “✚ Rela ✚ cion del ✚ autor” (first line), “✚ digna ✚ de ser no ✚ tada” (second line). These words are in Sahagún’s distinctive hand, which signifies not only the Christian context but also that the subsequent text is his voice, although penned in the hand of the principal indigenous Spanish-­text scribe, who was trilingual (in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Latin).19 Written in a slanted, cursive hand in sentence form with a variety of punctuation marks, the Spanish prose text flows down the left column from folio 70v to the end of folio 84r, periodically punctuated by seven vestigial headings. These are the Spanish paragraph headings that are parallel to the Nahuatl paragraph headings (all beginning with “Inic,” the Nahuatl for “By means of ” or Idem).20 Although both headings name the domain of the body part or parts to be treated in that section, the Spanish text bears no relation to the Nahuatl content. In addition, the Spanish “Relación” has its own internal set of paragraph marks that divide the text into three sections; the text continues above and below the Spanish vestigial, “ghost” paragraph headings as though they were invisible, ghostly reminders of the original intent to translate, summarize, or comment on the Nahuatl text.21 Clearly,

Sahagún decided to write his “Relación” after some of the Spanish body part paragraph headings had already been put in place. The multiple systems at work in the Spanish column are readily visible in the published facsimile and the online digitized manuscript.22 In the parallel right column of chapter 27, the dispassionate list of Nahuatl terms for the parts of the body and their attributes stands in sharp visual contrast to the Spanish prose on the left (see fig. 13.2). The Nahuatl text is a list of words, each separated by commas, for the parts of the body followed by descriptive words related to each part. Heavily inked paragraph marks and bold capitalized initial letters mark the initiation of subparagraphs. The repetition of paragraph marks and capital letters at the left edge of the right column and the lists of words coupled with letters that are larger, usually printed separate from one another and more vertical than those in the Spanish text, give the appearance of greater regularity and create a visual staccato effect on the pages with many subsections. The stylistic difference in the parallel texts is quite striking and visually expresses the disjunction between the subject matter and tone of the two texts, as well as the hands of different scribes and the chronological disparity of the texts; while the Nahuatl text was completed in 1569 and Parts of the Body • 203

Figure 13.2. First page of chapter 27. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 70v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

copied in 1575, the Spanish text was written and the drawings executed from 1576 to 1577. The drawings are placed in the spaces left available above or below the paragraph headings, with the exception of the last drawing at the end of the text. The first drawing (by Artist 1; see figs. 13.2 and 13.3) occupies a much larger space than the other drawings, and its placement after the chapter title and the first paragraph heading and before the “Relación” title and three crosses suggests it was probably made before the alphabetic text. The subsequent images appear to be by a different artist (Artist 2) and to have been drawn after the text was written.

204 • Ellen T. Baird

Nahuatl Domains of the Body and Their Parts Sahagún’s first list of Nahuatl names for body parts appears in the Primeros memoriales manuscript (1558–1561). Without drawings, the two-­paragraph lexicon organizes the body into two domains: first, the exterior parts of the body (fifty-­one terms), and second, the interior parts (seventeen terms).23 Some of the terms in both paragraphs are accompanied by words that tell the parts’ functions, purpose, or attributes.24 Subsequently, Sahagún continued to collect words for the lexicon that ultimately comprised chapter 27 of Book 10. Fourteen paragraphs

of the chapter, there is an attempt to relate an organ to its function by means of paired-­off sentences.28

The Nahuatl text of chapter 27 is a taxonomical lexicon, an enumerative litany of body domains and their parts, ordered, abstract, and dispassionate.

Indigenous Bodies: The Spanish Text and the Drawings of Body Parts

Figure 13.3. Dismembered body. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 70v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

(fols. 70r–­97r) organize the body into fourteen domains, with over three hundred names of body parts and fluids with accompanying “adjectives attributed to these parts, the verbs related to them, adverbs in which the names form component parts, or ordinary expressions that derive semantically from them.”25 López Austin suggests that Sahagún’s informants were encouraged to spontaneously associate words related to the named body parts in order to elicit as much information, words, and word forms related to the body parts as possible.26 As organized by Sahagún and his indigenous collaborators, the body part domains follow a format that corresponds to their physical relationship to one another in the body. The list begins with the outer part of the body, the skin, followed by the visible parts of the body: the head; eyes and nose; face; teeth; lips and other parts of the face; neck (cervix); shoulder and the parts attached to it; torso; legs; and bones; and the interior parts of the body: organs within the body; very small organs; bodily excretions and secretions (excrement, perspiration, saliva, mucus, among others).27 López Austin observes that there are five things worth noting [about chapter 27]. First, the thirteenth paragraph included some body marks and defects. Second, there is a list of locatives that have parts of the human body as elements in their composition. Third, the testicles are not mentioned, and the names of kidneys take their place. Fourth, in the last part

The Spanish text of chapter 27 begins with the chapter title (“Chapter twenty-­seven of all the external and internal members [of the body] of man as well as woman”) and a large drawing of body parts by Artist 1, clearly reflecting the original plan for the Spanish text and image to parallel the Nahuatl text. In the drawing (see fig. 13.3), a male torso is at the center of the scene, with the untethered parts of his dismembered body suspended above a gently rolling, green landscape. Unlike other nude torsos in the Florentine Codex, this image lacks the indications of human anatomy—ribs, nipples, pectoral muscles, and so forth—found elsewhere. The central part of this unique torso is defined by two vertical wavy lines, which are repeated in the upper stubs of arms, perhaps to reflect the wrinkled desiccation of the skin after death. The headless neck and the legless bottom of the torso are marked by vibrant red strokes that denote blood; the triangular space between the stumps of the two missing legs is notable for its lack of genitalia.29 A left foot hovers above the groundscape on the left, followed above by a lower leg; a wrinkled knee (?); a shoulder; a profile view of a short, straight, black-­haired male bob; a flat, masklike face (with eyes closed, indicating death); and a right hand seen from the back. Edged with strokes of red, the parts appear freshly severed and are similar to body parts found in scenes of sacrifice in the manuscript, although with less blood.30 The parts float in space, disassembled and incomplete, the full complement of body parts missing (most notably genitals, thighs, and arms; bones are also absent).31 In the Florentine Codex, only one nude body (an infant) has male genitals (Bk. 4, fol. 19r).32 As public nudity was prohibited by both the Catholic Church and the Nahua, the depiction of male genitalia would have transgressed both Church and indigenous societal norms and morality.

Parts of the Body • 205

“ Relación del Autor Digna de Ser Notada ”

As noted before, the primary Spanish title of chapter 27, “Relación del autor digna de ser notada,” is written in Sahagún’s own hand and marked with three heavily inked crosses. Catholic in context, the three crosses signal that the sign of the cross is to be made and the Trinity invoked (“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”) and recall Sahagún’s incorporation of three crosses in his signature (see fig. 13.1).33 In sixteenth-­century Mexico, “indigenous people were required to understand and make use of [the concept of the Trinity]: the everyday exercise of crossing oneself (persignum crucis), and the momentous occasion of opening one’s testament with an invocation of the Trinity.”34 The prominent use of the sign of the cross coupled with his handwritten title of the “Relación” suggest that Sahagún was also invoking the Trinity to bless, authenticate, and mark the veracity of his testimony that follows.35 Although the “Relación” is Sahagún’s history of evangelization, the images in the left, Spanish column continue to be directly linked to the body part terms in the adjacent Nahuatl text. Accordingly, they appear disconnected and visually disruptive to the Spanish “Relación” text in which Sahagún speaks of intact, living human bodies rather than the disarticulated parts of bodies in the six drawings. Analysis of the images in the context of the Spanish text, however, provides insight into Artist 2’s inventive development of a nuanced pictorial text that both responds to and augments the alphabetic texts and reveals his agency and authority. Embedded in the left, Spanish column, the disjointed body parts reinforce Sahagún’s narrative of societal disorder and fragmentation with the advent of epidemic disease and imminent death. I have located my discussion of each drawing at the juncture where it appears on the page relative to the Spanish text to emphasize this interrelationship. Although this creates a sense of disjuncture (for me at least), it often provides insight into the artist’s decisions about what to draw and how and why to draw it. Sahagún constructs his narrative in terms of order and disorder, employing what Louise Burkhart defines as “the Mesoamerican dialectic of order and chaos, structure and anti-­structure” that the friars used to express Christian concepts of good and evil. For example, “For sin they substituted tlatlacolli [something damaged]; . . . Thus native concepts were carried over into the most fundamental aspects of Christian moral teaching,” in essence Nahuatizing what the friars were trying to say.36 206 • Ellen T. Baird

Paragraph 1: Folios 70v–­79v

Sahagún begins paragraph 1 by describing an ordered preconquest, indigenous world of talented and capable Mexican people under the administration of an ancient republic that governed according to the needs of the people. He describes at length their aptitude for learning not only the mechanical and musical arts but also “the knowledge of [Latin] grammar, of logic, of rhetoric, of astrology, of theology. . . . There is no art they do not have the capacity to learn and practice.”37 He also praises the ancient [Mexican] republic for governing in conformity with natural and moral philosophy, because the mildness and abundance of this land and the climates [constelaciones] which prevail in it considerably aided human nature to be licentious and idle and much given to sensual vices. And moral philosophy taught these natives through experience that, to live morally and virtuously, rigor, austerity, and continuous concern for things beneficial to the state [republica] was [sic] necessary.38

In doing so, Sahagún voices the prevailing Hippocratic “theory of ‘climate,’ or environment as it applies to politics,” that a people’s temperament was governed by climate and the stars and that a “Republic should be adapted to the natural aptitudes of its people.”39 He praises the “prudent and wise old [indigenous] men” who employed constructive measures to counter the deleterious effects of the climate, but in contrast, “we [Spaniards] drift with our evil tendencies” (my emphasis),40 and “if they are not very careful, become different [se hazen otros] a few years after reaching this land, and I think the clime or climates [constelaciones] of this land bring [the difference] about.”41 Principally concerned with implanting the Catholic faith, Sahagún criticizes the government put in place by the Spaniards as not appropriate to the temperament of the Mexican people and lacking the rigor and austerity necessary to maintain moral and physical health and thus introducing disorder. He notes that the Spanish concept of an ordered society (“policia”) had detrimental disordering effects on the indigenous people, as seen in the vices (and impediments to conversion) that resulted or continued: idolatry, drunkenness (which led to murder and abuse), deceit, polygyny, excessive sensuality, and lascivi-

ousness.42 Drunkenness was the principal cause for the evils and disorder of indigenous society, which included drunken feasts, murder, and abuse caused by inebriation, as well as “great dissension in the state [republica],” especially since “that olden rigor of punishing drunken feasts with the death sentence has ceased.” Neither lesser punishments nor sermons “nor the threats of hell [are] enough to restrain them.”43 He extolls the virtues of the ancient republic even as he disparages its idolatrous nature: And, if this manner of administration had not been so corrupted by idolatrous rites and superstitions, it seems to me it was very good. And, if cleansed of all idolatry which it possessed and made completely Christian, it were introduced in this Indian and Spanish state [republica indiana y española], it would be the means of freeing the one state as well as the other of great ills and the rulers of great hardships.44

Idolatry and the unsuccessful missionary attempts to extirpate it become the dominant themes of disorder in the remainder of paragraph 1.45 This theme echoes Sahagún’s statements in the first paragraph of his prologue to Book 1 of the Florentine Codex in which he links the “physicians of the souls,” the preachers and confessors, to “the curing of spiritual ailments.” He further notes in the prologue that “[t]he sins of idolatry, idolatrous rituals, idolatrous superstitions, auguries and abuses and idolatrous ceremonies are not yet completely lost.”46 In the “Relación,” paragraph 1, Sahagún describes the need to destroy everything idolatrous (things, buildings, rites, and ceremonies associated with the state [republica] and governance) and place [the Indians] in another kind of established order [policia] which in no way smacked of idolatry. But now, seeing that this kind of established order [policia] produces very licentious people of very evil tendencies and very evil works which make them odious to God and to men, and even cause them great sicknesses and a short life, it will be necessary to remedy it.47

Sahagún’s statement indicates that, broadly conceived, idolatry incorporates both evil tendencies and evil works and is directly related to causing “illness and a short life.”48 As Amara Solari has noted, “the definition of idolatry was expanded to include all religious crimes. . . . The result was

the conceptual conflation of two of the defining characteristics of early colonial experience: epidemic disease and ongoing idolatries.”49 Sahagún employs the “disease metaphor” of idolatry in noting that young married couples were separated from their parents and settled in separate villages where there were monastic establishments to “free them of the infection of idolatry and other evil practices that they could contract through association with their parents.” However, their evangelization was not successful, and this effort was again rewarded with deceit, “idolatry and drunkenness and many evil practices.”50 Sahagún’s frequent references to the “state” (republica) reflect a concern for not only the development of an ordered society of individual bodies but also the establishment of a utopic Christian republic (the body politic).51 To this end, the friars emulated indigenous child-­ rearing practices in which children were reared “through the efforts of the state” (potencia de la republica) and not by their parents. However, the friars’ efforts to rear indigenous children apart from their parents were not successful and created disorder and evil practices; “they [the children] began to feel a strong sensuality and to practice lascivious things.”52 In the monastery schools, the friars organized and led their students on expeditions to demolish pyramid-­ temples. The boys became more aggressive and banded together in groups of sixty to one hundred; with one or two friars, they “secretly fell upon those who held some affair . . . idolatry, orgy, or feast. And they seized all of them, bound them and led them to the monastery, where they punished them, [made them] do Christian penance, and taught them the Christian doctrine.”53 The people were so fearful of the boys that, to avoid punishment, they continued their idolatrous practices in secret. However, “some of the boys, who were reared in our houses at the beginning, told us of the idolatrous things their parents did, having been baptized, and because we punished them therefore, their parents killed them and others punished [their boys] severely.”54 The society he describes is not only one of individuals in disarray and disorder but a communal body that has turned on itself and torn itself apart. The narrative is disrupted (disordered) by a drawing (fig. 13.4) followed by a “ghost” paragraph title, “Fifth paragraph of the teeth, and molars and eyeteeth,” that parallels the Nahuatl paragraph title. The two terms to the right of Parts of the Body • 207

Figure 13.4. Tooth. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 77v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

the image are “tooth” (tlantli) and “molar” (tlancochtli). The setting (another rolling, green landscape, this time with tall grasses along the groundline) is similar to that in the first scene of the dismembered body. However, this and subsequent drawings are the work of a second artist, as the contours of the land are marked by black outlines rather than the prominent cross-­hatching seen earlier. Here, three giant, eye-­catching, stylized molars with thin gums rest on the low groundline. The molars are primarily white with areas of gray at the top to suggest cusps. The red band probably reflects the practice of using cochineal (prized for its intense red color) in tooth cleaning, as described in Book 10, chapter 28, folio 102v. To the right, a man with short, wavy hair, dressed in a European-­derived tunic with puffed sleeves, sits on a reed box. With his oversized right hand (which draws attention to his actions), he nonchalantly cleans his prominently displayed teeth with a small stick. The actions of this figure are drawn from a paragraph on tooth infections in Book 10, chapter 28, folio 102r, which is accompanied by a drawing of a seated man who holds his hand to his cheek, suggesting his discomfort. Three all-­white molars with an attached water glyph float beside him and presumably signify washing the infected teeth with water, the text’s recommended preventative treatment. The alphabetic texts of this paragraph also describe other precautionary measures to avoid infected teeth and emphasize the importance of removing meat from the teeth. The Spanish text includes the additional instruction “to remove the meat . . . with a little stick” (quitarse la carne . . . con un palito), as the man in figure 13.4 is doing. The incorporation of these elements from chapter 28 into the drawing suggests that Artist 2 208 • Ellen T. Baird

has chosen to cross-­textually select relevant material from a subsequent chapter. In Nahua pictorial manuscripts, glyphic teeth (tlantli, usually incisors) often serve as homonymous phonetic qualifiers to signify “below” (tlani or tlanipa) or “near,” to indicate a spatial relation or render a place-­name.55 However, in the tooth drawing in chapter 27, the three giant glyphic molars didactically announce that this picture is about teeth (and dental hygiene) and draw attention to the tooth-­cleaning activities of the seated man. The artist demonstrates his versatility and facility in choosing to depict two modes of representation (European and indigenous): corporeal teeth (in the young man) and large glyphic teeth. In doing so, he moves the drawing into a figurative space between the two alphabetic texts that combines the naturalistic and the semasiographic.56 The artist also demonstrates his inventiveness in creating an image that both “illuminates” and is more expansive than the Nahuatl text.

Paragraph 2: Folios 79v–­82r

In the second paragraph of his “Relación,” Sahagún turns more specifically to his personal involvement in evangelization, the education of indigenous youth, the teaching of language, and the reciprocity of knowledge. He begins by describing the ancient Mexican books as painted with figures and representations in such a way that they knew and had records of the things their ancestors had done and had left in their annals more than a thousand years ago. . . . Most of these books and writings were burned. . . . But many remained hidden, for we have seen them . . . [and] through them we have understood their ancient customs.57

Had the artist of the tooth (see fig. 13.4) read this text? Was he responding to it by drawing on his knowledge of a traditional indigenous glyphic referent (the molars), as found in the preconquest books (“figures and representations”) Sahagún describes? Was the artist devising an image that responded to both the Nahuatl and the Spanish texts? Sahagún turns from indigenous books to discuss the establishment of the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Santiago de Tlatelolco, where “the most capable boys, best able to read and write” were brought to live in the monastery school, where they were taught reading, writing, sing-

Figure 13.5. Neck. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 80v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

ing, and grammar. Initially, Spaniards and other clergy mocked Sahagún and the other founders of the college for attempting to teach indigenous boys (“so incapable a people”) grammar, but after two or three years, the students “came to understand all the subjects of the grammar book and to speak Latin, and understand it, and to write Latin, and even to compose hexametric verse.”58 On folio 80v, the image of a neck fills the space remaining at the end of and below the “ghost” paragraph title, “Seventh paragraph, of the neck with its circumstances,” clearly indicating that the drawing was executed after the title (fig. 13.5). Artist 2 repeats the familiar landscape setting, and the image again correlates to the Nahuatl term opposite (quechtli, or neck). A spectral, deathly pale, gray-­ green headless upper torso and neck outlined in black looms ominously on the horizon, appearing to emerge from behind a hill. The trachea and esophagus, also outlined in black and colored red, project upward from the neck, making the figure even more phantasmagorical.59 The text below reads, “When the Spanish laity and clergy saw this [the indigenous students’ knowledge of grammar and proficiency in Latin] they marveled [espantanronse] much that [it] could be done.”60 Was the artist responding not only to the Nahuatl term for “neck” in his drawing but also to the Spanish word espantaronse, which can mean “frightened,” as one might be on encountering a walking, dead, headless torso with bloody appendages protruding from its neck? Was he incorporating his knowledge of another frightening headless creature, the menacing and ominous “Night Axe” (fig. 13.6), an apparition that accosted indigenous men in the night?61 Was the artist again acknowledging both the Nahuatl and the Spanish texts in

Figure 13.6. Night Axe. Florentine Codex, Bk. 5, fol. 6v. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

constructing his drawing, as he would have done in other Florentine Codex chapters where both texts treat the same topic? Was he also drawing on his own knowledge of a headless being like the Night Axe or, cross-­textually, referring to that of Book 5? The Spanish laity and clergy were indeed afraid of the indigenous people in general and specifically those educated at the colegio, and they had good reason. The graduates of the colegio were trilingual (in Latin, Spanish, and Nahuatl) and, as Burkhart notes, had been taught to reason according to Western as well as Nahua logical principles and to construct arguments according to Western as well as Nahua rhetorical arts. Who could be better equipped to compare and evaluate both cultures, to challenge Spanish authority on its own grounds, to subvert its paradigms through subtle manipulations and restatements? . . . Anomalies among the native people, the collegians were an affront to Spanish colonists aiming to make of the Nahuas a class of servile laborers.62

Continuing his narrative of education of indigenous youth at the colegio, Sahagún changes from “we” to “I” to give a firsthand, eyewitness account to buttress his testimony: I was the one who worked with them the first four years and gave them understanding in all subjects. . . . Because I was a witness to all these things, for I lectured to the Indians of the college on [Latin] grammar, I can accuParts of the Body • 209

rately tell the objections they [the laity and clergy] raised and the answers they were given.63

Objections were raised to the indigenous boys learning Latin grammar to translate scripture into Nahuatl at a time when the Counter-­Reformation Council of Trent had mounted vigorous opposition to vernacular scripture.64 Having direct, unmediated access to scripture, the students might read of the polygynous patriarchs of the Old Testament (for example), which “would place them in danger of becoming heretics.”65 Sahagún responds to these objections with an ardent defense of the production of scripture in the vernacular and of the grammarians (his former students), with unqualified praise for them and their work, and the importance of translation for conversion in the third and final paragraph of the “Relación.”66

Paragraph 3: Folios 82r–­84r

Sahagún lauds the colegio’s exemplary, faultless students and their essential linguistic role in the implantation of the Catholic faith through the production of vernacular texts: This college has persisted for over forty years and its collegians have transgressed in nothing, neither against God, nor the Church, nor the king, nor against his state [republica]. Rather they have helped and still help in many things in the implanting and maintaining of our Holy Catholic Faith, for if sermons, Apostillas, and catechisms have been produced in the Indian language, which can appear and may be free of all heresy, they are those which were written with them. And they, being knowledgeable in the Latin language, inform us to the properties of the words, the properties of their manner of speech. And they correct for us the incongruities we express in the sermons or write in the catechisms. And whatever is to be rendered in their language, if it is not examined by them, if it is not written congruently in the Latin language, in Spanish, and in their language, cannot be free of defect.67

However successful the Franciscans’ collaboration with and education of indigenous young men, their program was not immune from falling into disorder, through disease (the 1545 cocoliztli plague), insufficient oversight, and mismanagement of the colegio in the following twenty years. In the early 1570s, Sahagún was present when the school was reorganized and new ordinances created “so 210 • Ellen T. Baird

that the college might progress.” After noting the “great blow” the 1545 plague gave the colegio, Sahagún then turns to the immediacy of “this plague, of this year of 1576 . . . for there is hardly anyone still in the college. Dead and sick, almost all are gone.”68 This text is followed by a drawing of a hairy armpit that accompanies the word for armpit hair (ciacatzontli) at the end of the “ghost” paragraph title “Eighth paragraph, of the shoulders, arms, and fingers” (fig. 13.7, upper frame). Represented in dynamic motion, the armpit strides over the landscape, with its thickly luxuriant underarm hair flowing as though on a breezy day. The armpit (and the following torso drawing) has bones projecting out of the flesh at both ends in an anatomically incorrect manner, as the joint is in the armpit itself. It possible that the artist might have depicted the strolling armpit both to represent ciacatzontli as well as to convey the sense of departure in the Spanish text immediately above it: “[T]here is hardly anyone still in the college. Dead and sick, almost all are gone.”69 A torso floats above the landscape in the space immediately below the “ghost” Spanish title “Ninth paragraph, of the body with its attached parts” and to the left of the Nahuatl term tlactli (torso) (see fig. 13.7, lower frame). Yellow beige in color and headless, the torso has markings on the chest that depict fourteen ribs (humans have twenty-­ four) and a long central element that resembles a spine rather than the much shorter sternum to which ribs are attached. Anatomically, the human shoulder has a socket joint in the scapula (the shoulder blade) instead of the double-­knobbed bones depicted, but the image does fulfill, however inaccurately, the idea of a torso. The torso and the hairy armpit both reflect the artist’s ability to read the Nahuatl text, his artistic inventiveness, and his apparent lack of firsthand knowledge of human anatomy. Sahagún’s concerns for the Colegio de Santa Cruz continue following the two drawings. He laments the current cocoliztli plague deaths (and those of 1545) and the lack of medical care, which could have been provided by indigenous doctors educated in the colegio (had it been properly supported). He also expresses his fear that the annihilation of the Mexican people is imminent. The “Relación” and the “Ninth paragraph, of the body [trunk] with its attached parts” end at the foot of folio 84r next to the Nahuatl words omicicuilli (rib) and eltepicicitli (sternum) with the final drawing: a poignant and evocative image of a solitary young man with short, curly hair kneeling in an empty landscape (figs. 13.8 and 13.9). His

Figure 13.7. Upper image: hairy armpit; lower image: torso. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 83r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

head and gaze turn downward, and he appears resigned and contemplative as, in a rather inscrutable gesture, he stretches out his right hand to the ground in front of him. His left hand rests by the front of his thigh. He wears a garment, rolled down at the waist, that covers his legs and envelops his feet (each separately wrapped in fabric), his bare chest frontally oriented to the viewer.70 A double-­scalloped line defines his pectorals, and his nipples are defined by small irregular circles.71 Irregular black dots interspersed on his chest depict the petechial eruptions of hemorrhaging documented as occurring with cocoliztli, a prelude to imminent death.72 Curiously, the young man kneels with his buttocks resting on his heels, the only male figure in the Florentine Codex depicted in this pose, the “Aztec woman’s pose.” Men are commonly shown kneeling in both preconquest and colonial images with one knee on the ground and the other knee raised with the foot on the ground. In the colonial period, both

men and women kneel with their thighs and upper torsos erect, often with hands clasped in front of their chests in attitudes of prayer, adoration, or obeisance. Is the young man’s “collapsed” pose, with his buttocks on his heels, an indication of resignation to his fate? A mural of the sacrifice of Isaac in the cloister of the sixteenth-­century Augustinian convent of Metztitlán (Hidalgo) depicts Isaac in the same submissive, kneeling pose in front of his father, Abraham.73 Is this pose, when used by a man, associated with sacrifice, submission to the word of God, or trust in God’s providence?74 Sahagún’s words immediately above the young kneeling man, “y ansi se mueren por no tener remedio, nj socorro” (and so they die having neither remedy nor aid),75 form a haunting lament for the dead and dying. The young man’s solitary location in the landscape, his pensive downward gaze, and his hand gesture toward the earth are immensely touching and express the futility of the moment, Parts of the Body • 211

Figure 13.8. Final page of Sahagún’s “Relación,” chapter 27. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 84r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218– 220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

reinforced by the heart-­wrenching Spanish text immediately above him. This final image fully mediates between the Spanish and Nahuatl texts and ends the “Relación” on a tragic note. The left columns of the last twenty-­five and a half pages of chapter 27 are devoid of words or images.

Conclusions The seven Spanish “ghost” paragraph headings make it clear that Sahagún originally intended for the chapter 27 Spanish text to address the Nahuatl list of body parts. I suggest that the devastating effects of the 1576 huey cocoliztli epidemic caused him to abandon the intended translation of the Nahuatl terms for body parts and to write 212 • Ellen T. Baird

instead his elegiac testament of the incomplete, even failed efforts to convert the indigenous people to the Church (the body of Christ) in the face of their imminent decimation. The text is also a paean to the intelligence, diligence, and impeccable character of his indigenous collaborators (his former students) of the Colegio de Santa Cruz and a lament for the lack of support for the college, which, had it been adequately financed, would have educated more doctors to minister to and save the indigenous victims of the plague. Charged with creating drawings to accompany two disparate texts, Artist 2 responded imaginatively and authoritatively to the challenge. Making images that represented the adjacent Nahuatl words, reflected the Spanish “ghost”

Figure 13.9. Kneeling man. Florentine Codex, Bk. 10, fol. 84r. Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 218–220. Courtesy of MIBACT.

headings, and occasionally acknowledged the Spanish text suggests that Artist 2 was literate in Nahuatl and Spanish and able to read both texts. Scribe 1, in whose identifiable handwriting the “Relación” is written, was himself trilingual (in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Latin).76 In the second drawing, “Tooth,” Artist 2 used a somewhat didactic visual approach to explain tlantli: corporeal, as teeth in a human mouth, and semasiographical, as a glyphic referent. Was the artist incorporating both Sahagún’s subsequent reference to the indigenous use of “figures and representations” and his own knowledge and facility with traditional glyphs and of dental hygiene in chapter 28 to further instruct the viewer?77 For the third drawing, “Neck,” the artist might have responded to the Spanish text’s espantaronse as “frightening” rather than “marvel at,” in addition to referencing the ominous indigenous apparition, the Night Axe from Book 5. The fourth drawing, “Hairy Armpit,” is quite inventive and imaginative, although anatomically inaccurate. Its strolling appearance may again be the artist’s response to the text above the image, “casi todos son salidos” (almost all are gone),78 and conveys boldness in the face of approaching death. The fifth drawing, “Torso,” appropriately responds to the paragraph headings in Spanish and Nahuatl, as well as to the Nahuatl

word for “torso,” tlactli, and is again anatomically inaccurate. In the sixth and final drawing, “Kneeling Man,” the artist skillfully links the Nahuatl and the Spanish texts, captures both Sahagún’s deep despair and his own, and poignantly represents the very present, tragic moment in which the drawing and the “Relación” were created. The (mostly) empty, rolling green landscapes with body parts and the tragic figure of the kneeling man reflect the desolation and indigenous depopulation caused by disease and disorder even as trenches were being dug for the bodies of the plague victims in the plaza outside the scriptorium of the Colegio de Santa Cruz, Tlatelolco.79 As Sahagún and his collaborators worked, despair and the smell of death hung in the air.

Notes 1. “Book 10 of the vices and virtues of the Indian people and of all the internal and external parts of the body and of the diseases and indicated medicines and of the people who have come to inhabit this land” (my translation). A translation of the Spanish text of Book 10, chapter 27, is in Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 74–85. Related anomalous interpolated Spanish texts that treat Christian themes unrelated to the Nahuatl text are in Book 11, chapter 12, paragraphs 6, 7, 8, and 9, and chapter 13, paragraphs 1 and 2 (Sahagún, 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 11, 89–99). Dibble (1982a, 20) provides an overview of textual anomalies in Sahagún’s Historia. See also Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume. 2. See López Austin 1988. 3. Magaloni Kerpel 2011b, 47–55; chapter 10 of this volume. 4. López Austin 1974b, 212; 1988, 1:44. 5. Burkhart (1996, 55–65) provides an overview of the Colegio de Santa Cruz, Tlatelolco.

Parts of the Body • 213

6. Phelan 1956, 42. 7. Turley 2016, 128–131. 8. Bustamante García (1992, 294–310) discusses the two groups of Franciscans in New Spain. 9. Baudot 1990, 13–17. 10. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 4, app., fol. 78r. 11. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 2, 55. 12. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 46–47. See also Baudot 1988, 119–134. 13. Acuña-­Soto, Stahle, Therrell, Griffin, and Cleaveland 2004. Drawing on colonial descriptions of the disease and twentieth-­century scientific analytical methods, medical historians and scientists have determined that cocoliztli was a hemorrhagic disease endemic to Mexico and without known European or African precedents. Four major outbreaks occurred in Mexico in 1545, 1576, 1736, and 1813, with ten lesser outbreaks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Marr and Kiracofe (2000, 344, table 1) provide a summary of epidemics occurring in Mexico from 1520–1616 by year. See also Acuña-­Soto, Calderon Romero, and Maguire 2000, 733–739; Acuña-­Soto, Stahle, Cleaveland, and Therrell 2002, 360–362; and Somolinos D’Ardois 1982, 369–381. 14. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 11, chap. 12, para. 8, 94. 15. Acuña-­Soto et al. 2004, 1–3. 16. For other reasons some Florentine Codex Nahuatl texts were untranslated; see Dibble 1982a, 20; Peterson 2003, 239, 243–244. López Austin (1988, 1:44) thinks the terms were not translated because “Sahagún considered this part of his book to be a rich source for the lexicon of his dictionary but thought it absurd to translate what was only a list of words.” 17. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 11, chap. 12, para. 8, 93–99. 18. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 70r–­70v. All translations of the Spanish paragraph headings are my own. All translations of the Nahuatl paragraph headings are from López Austin 1988, 2:77, unless noted otherwise. 19. Garone Gravier 2011, 185–187; see p. 187, fig. 6, Scribe 1. 20. Nine Nahuatl paragraph headings share folios with the “Relación.” The Spanish text has seven parallel titles (paragraphs 2, 4–9). The first is missing because it was supplanted by Sahagún’s title for the “Relación”; the third was not written. 21. Occasionally a word is broken before the heading, and the second half of the word continues after it as though the body part heading did not exist; Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 72v, para. 2: “re” before the title and “gia” below it (regia, or govern). Other examples in Book 10 can be found on folios 76r and 78v. 22. Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 70r–­84r. 23. See Boone, chapter 6 of this volume, for a comparable listing of deities’ accoutrements in the Primeros memoriales. 24. López Austin 1988, 2:1–3 (in Nahuatl) and 2:67–69 (English translation). 25. López Austin 1988, 1:18. 26. López Austin 1988, 1:170. 27. López Austin 1988, 2:13–66 (in Nahuatl) and 2:77–129 (English translation). 28. López Austin 1988, 1:44–45. 29. As López Austin noted (1988, 1:44–45), the Nahuatl word for testicles was omitted from the body part lexicon in chapter 27. 30. Sacrificial and battle scenes in the Florentine Codex often depict bodies being dismembered, chests opened, and hearts extracted, which provide comparable images of body parts that are lacking here.

214 • Ellen T. Baird

31. “The ancient Nahuas believed that part of an individual’s vital forces resided in his bones. The femur of a sacrificed individual was kept in the house of the warrior who had captured him in combat. . . . The name for the femur of a sacrificial victim gives some idea of its sacred nature: it was a malteutl, ‘the captive god’” (López Austin 1988, 1:166). 32. In sixteenth-­century European painting, the infant Christ is often shown nude with genitals in an expression of his humanity, of God Incarnate, and, as Leo Steinberg (1983, 6) noted, “very man, very God.” The sixteenth-­century Mexican Codex Mendoza includes a recumbent nude male with genitals in the place-­name of Miquiyetlan (Berdan and Anawalt 1992, 4: fol. 10v). 33. Thomas Bestul first alerted me to the significance of the three crosses (personal communication, February 8, 2016). Church historian Herbert Thurston notes that the sign of the cross is used in exorcisms, “to commence the liturgy of the Mass, before the reading of the gospel invoking the word of God, at other points of the Mass, and generally with the sacraments and sacramentals of the Church. It . . . [invokes] the presence of the Trinity” (Thurston 1912). 34. Tavárez 2000, 25. 35. Jaime Lara noted that “the sign of the cross was used when someone had to solemnly swear to something,” suggesting that Sahagún might be swearing to the veracity of his statement (personal communication, March 24, 2016). 36. Burkhart 1989, 28, 39. 37. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 74. See Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 38. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 75. Republica is translated as “state” in Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 74–85. I have retained the original spelling from Sahagún’s Spanish text. 39. Tooley 1953, 64. According to Tooley, “The astrological system of the world was . . . universally accepted in the later Middle Ages, and expounded in literature at all levels of scholarship” (64). She identifies Ptolemy, Aristotle, Galen, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Albert Magnus, and Duns Scotus, among others, as sources for the sixteenth-­century French jurist and political philosopher Jean Bodin’s ideas on the formation of a republic appropriate to the natural aptitudes of its people (64–65). Cristián Roa-­de-­la-­Carrera (2010a, 84) points out that the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas in his Apologética historia sumaria similarly applied the theory of climate and the stars to the indigenous people of the Americas drawn from Hippocrates’s treatise De aere, acquis et locis (Air, water, places), published in a sixteenth-­century edition of Galen’s works. See also Solari 2016, 486–487. 40. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 75. 41. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 77. 42. According to Kagan (2000, 28), “in the sixteenth century . . . policía . . . implied all of the benefits that accrued from urban life: law, order, morality, and religion.” 43. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 75–76. Gibson (1964, 150) attributes drunkenness to “the deep-­seated distress of the native society, from which intoxication offered a relief.” Burkhart (1989, 29) points out that “[t]he most frequently mentioned tlatlacolli are sexual excesses, intoxication, and theft.” 44. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 77; my emphasis. The terms república de indios and república de españoles refer to indigenous and Spanish people in sixteenth-­century Mexico as separate and segregated entities, socially and legally. On this, see also Tavárez 1997, 1255. 45. Sahagún uses “idolatry,” “idolater,” and “idolatrous” twenty-­two times in paragraph 1. 46. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., prologue to Bk. 1, 45.

47. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 75; my emphasis. 48. See Peterson, chapter 11 of this volume. 49. Solari 2016, 481, 483n10: “This linkage between disease and idolatry can be traced . . . back to [the Christian theologian] Tertullian’s usage of the ‘contagion of idolatry’ . . . in the second century.” 50. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 78–79; my emphasis. This passage refers to the sixteenth-­century practice of creating a separate indigenous town (congregación) to provide a framework for administrative efficiency, political control, and Christian indoctrination (see Gibson 1964, 282; Baird 2005, 295–296). 51. Bustamante García (1992, 288–289) notes that Sahagún had “a utopic state in mind” and drew on a vast utopian literature and widespread ideas of utopian republics that were in circulation in the sixteenth century. Bustamante points to such authors as Plato (Republic), Saint Augustine (The City of God against the Pagans), and Sahagún’s contemporary Thomas More (De optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia [On the best state of a commonwealth and on the new island of Utopia], completed in 1516); and he persuasively argues that Saint Augustine’s City of God served as the model that defined the contents of the Florentine Codex (Bustamante García 1992, 355–364). 52. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 77–78. Burkhart (1996, 60) notes that “attributing excessive sensuality and carnality to colonized peoples was widely used as a mode of asserting and legitimizing European domination.” 53. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 79–80. On the use of corporal punishment and imprisonment in Franciscan conversion practices, see Tavárez (2011, 17); Turley (2016, 93, 98). 54. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 81. 55. Two incisors are commonly depicted in “tlan” glyphs, but three teeth are not uncommon, and sometimes four are depicted in the place glyphs of the Codex Mendoza. See Berdan and Anawalt 1992, vol. 4; Boone 2000, 32–33, 36–37. Peterson (2003, 242, fig. 8) notes the use of the tooth glyph in the Florentine Codex. 56. On this, see also Sousa, chapter 12 of this volume. 57. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 82. 58. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 82. 59. “Trachea” (cocotl) and “esophagus” (tlatlhoatztli) are also in the Nahuatl text. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 10, 108. 60. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 82. 61. Sahagún 1950–1982, Bk. 5, 157–158.

62. Burkhart 1996, 59. 63. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 82–83. 64. The Counter-­Reformation Council of Trent prohibited the translation of the scriptures into the vernacular (1564), and in May 1576, the general council of the Spanish Inquisition banned Nahuatl scriptural editions. See Nesvig 2013, 165–201. 65. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 83. 66. Bustamante García (1992, 355–358) points to Saint Augustine, De doctrina christiana, as the model for Sahagún’s emphasis on language and translation in the conversion of pagans. 67. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 83–84. 68. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 84. 69. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 84. 70. Shrouded figures’ feet are individually wrapped in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 5, fol. 13v, and Bk. 8, fol. 27v; in the Codex Telleriano-­Remensis, fol. 46v, the shrouded ruler’s feet are also wrapped individually (Quiñones Keber 1995, 96). 71. Other male figures with pectoral muscles defined by a line with two downward curves are found in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fols. 109v and 111r, and Bk. 11, fol. 34v. 72. León 1982, 383–397; cited as one of the characteristics of cocoliztli in Marr and Kiracoffe 2000, table 2, 352. Lung hemorrhage was noted in some of the autopsies performed (Acuña-­Soto et al. 2004, 2). See “Petechia,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title =Petechia&oldid=722407791 (accessed May 30, 2016), for an excellent photograph. 73. Lara 2008, 232–234, fig. 9.4. 74. The deity Xiuhtecuhtli kneels with his buttocks resting on his legs in the Codex Telleriano-­Remensis, ninth trecena, fol. 24r, glossed 1563 (Quiñones Keber 1995, 51). Quiñones Keber (1995, 190) suggests that this trecena might have been consulted for rituals associated with the sacrificial death of a warrior. 75. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 85. 76. Garone Gravier 2011, 186–187. 77. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 82. The tooth drawing is in Sahagún 1979, Bk. 10, fol. 77v; the reference to the books is on fol. 79v. 78. Sahagún 1950–1982, introductory vol., Bk. 10, 77. 79. Torquemada 1986, Bk. 5, chap. 22, 642. See also Mundy 2015, 203.

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Contributors

Ellen T. Baird is a professor emerita of art history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of The Drawings of Sahagún’s “Primeros Memoriales”: Structure and Style (University of Oklahoma Press). Her articles on the Sahaguntine corpus drawings consider the implications of gridded space, the representation of history, and the transformation of the pictorial text, as well as the identity of the indigenous artists. With Cristián Roa-­de-­la Carrera, she cocurated the 2016 exhibition The Aztecs and the Making of Colonial Mexico (Newberry Library, Chicago; http:// www.newberry.org/aztecs-­and-­making-­colonial-­mexico). Her work in progress focuses on the depiction of disease in the Florentine Codex. Molly Bassett is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Georgia State University. Her book The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-­Bodies was published by the University of Texas Press in 2015. Her work focusing on the intersection between religion and the natural world in Aztec (Nahua) culture has appeared in Material Religion, History of Religions, and Religion Compass. With Vincent Lloyd, she coedited Sainthood and Race: Marked Flesh, Holy Flesh (Routledge, 2014). Elizabeth Hill Boone, a specialist in the art of the Aztecs of Mexico and their method of writing with images rather than letters and words, holds the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art at Tulane University. Among her many edited and coedited books are

Writing without Words and Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-­Columbian America. Among her single-­authored books are The Codex Magliabechiano, Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs, and Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo is a professor and researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He specializes in the transformation of indigenous art and culture in the sixteenth century, especially syncretism in religious art. His many publications include Los códices mesoamericanos antes y después de la conquista española: Historia de un lenguaje pictográfico (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010). Most recently, his article “La cruz, el sacrificio y la ornamentación cristiano-­indígena: Luces sobre un taller de alfarería de mediados del siglo XVI en el Valle de México” appeared in the Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, no. 113. Diana Magaloni Kerpel studied restoration and mural painting at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City and earned her graduate degrees in art history from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Yale University. Her research examines Mesoamerican and indigenous pictorial techniques in the sixteenth century. She has written extensively on pre-­ Hispanic mural art and the Florentine Codex. Dr. Magaloni served as the director of the Museo Nacional de

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Antropología in Mexico City and is now the director of the Program for the Art of the Ancient Americas at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Barbara E. Mundy is a professor of art history at Fordham University. With Dana Leibsohn, she cocreated the online resource Vistas: Visual Culture in Spanish America, 1520– 1820. Her recent book The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City (University of Texas Press, 2015) was awarded prizes from the Latin American Studies Association, the Association for Latin American Art, and the Conference on Latin American History; the book has been published in Spanish as La muerte de Tenochtitlan, la vida de México (Grano de Sal, 2018). Guilhem Olivier is a research professor at the Institute of Historical Research at the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México. He has authored Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror” (University Press of Colorado, 2008) and Cacería, sacrificio y poder en Mesoamérica: Tras las huellas de Mixcoatl (Fondo de Cultura Económica; UNAM, 2015). On Sahagún’s work, he recently published “The Mexica Pantheon in Light of Graeco-­Roman Polytheism: Uses, Abuses, and Proposals,” in Altera Roma: Art and Empire from Mérida to Mexico, edited by John M. D. Pohl and Claire L. Lyons (Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2016).

after the conquest and issues involved in the intersection between indigenous and European art and cultural traditions in colonial central Mexico. She is the author of Codex Telleriano-­Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript and editor of several books and numerous articles dealing with early colonial Mexican manuscripts, including the works of Sahagún. Ida Giovanna Rao received a laureate degree in Italian philology and wrote her dissertation on the Profugiorum ab aerumna of Leon Battista Alberti. Appointed library conservator in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana of Florence, she worked on the study, cataloguing, and restoration of the library’s rare codices. Recently, she served as director of the Laurentian Library. She also taught codicology for two years at the University of Lecce. Her numerous publications range from codicological analyses and critical studies of manuscripts for facsimile editions, to catalogues of the holdings of the Laurentian Library and those of other institutions, including the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Lisa Sousa is a professor of history at Occidental College, where she teaches colonial Latin American history. She is the author of The Woman Who Turned Into a Jaguar, and Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico and is a cotranslator and coeditor of Mesoamerican Voices: Native-­Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Jeanette Favrot Peterson, a research professor at the Uni- Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala and The Story of Guadaversity of California, Santa Barbara, focuses on pre-­ lupe: Luis Laso de la Vega’s “Huei tlamahuiçoltica” of 1649. Columbian and colonial Latin American visual culture. She has published articles on indigenous women of Mexico She has authored The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco and the conquest of Mexico. Her current research focuses (1993, Charles Rufus Morey Book Award) and Visualiz- on iconoclasm and violence in colonial Mexico. ing Guadalupe: From Black Madonna to Queen of the Americas (2014); and she coedited, with Dana Leibsohn, Seeing Kevin Terraciano is a professor of history and the direcAcross Cultures: Visuality in the Early Modern Period (2012). tor of the Latin American Institute at the University of Her most recent publications on Sahagún’s work include California, Los Angeles, where he received his PhD. He “Crafting the Self: Identity and the Mimetic Tradition in specializes in colonial Latin American history, especially the Florentine Codex” (2003) and “Translating the Sacred: Mexico, and indigenous writings and languages of MesoThe Peripatetic Print in the Florentine Codex” (2018). america (Nahuatl, Mixtec, and Zapotec, in particular). He is the author of The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca and several Eloise Quiñones Keber is a professor emerita of art his- prizewinning publications and has received many awards tory at the City University of New York’s Baruch Col- for his teaching and graduate mentoring at UCLA. He is a lege and the Graduate Center, where she taught pre-­ founding member of the Digital Florentine Codex Project, Columbian and colonial Latin American art. Her research directed by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. and publications center on Aztec (Nahua) art before and

232 • Contributors

Index

Notes: Topics in italic type separated by a “/” symbol represent singular/plural forms of the Nahuatl word. Page numbers in italics indicate topics ­represented in images or image captions. acculturation: and dual legacy of codex imagery, 28, 33; Europeanization of Nahua imagery, 33, 85, 88, 96; rhetoric as, 180–181 acuitlachtli (water bear) anecdote, 125, 133–136 adulteress (tetzauhcioatl), 17, 186, 195–196, 197 agriculture and irrigation, 127, 128 Ahuelitoctzin, 58–59 ahuiani (“one who indulges in pleasure”), 185, 186, 189, 195–196. See also prostitutes Ahuitzotl, 50, 98, 127–128 Albricus (philosopher), 10, 101–102 Alcántara Rojas, Berenice, 116–117, 158 Alciato, Andrea, 64, 72–73 Alfonso X (Alfonso el Sabio, monarch), 11 altepetl (communities), 2, 4, 128, 145 Alvarado, Pedro de, 56–57, 118 Álvares Cabral, Pedro, 122n73 amanteca (feather artisans), 111 Anderson, Arthur, 2, 12, 25–27, 60n6 Androvandi, Ulisse, 10 Anglicus, Bartholomeus, 9, 11, 95 animals: acuitlachtli (water bear) anecdote, 125, 133–136; ocelotl ( jaguar/ ocelot), 16, 63–64, 147–150; parts of and mythic powers, 63, 149– 150; sources used for textual representations, 63–64; taxonomy (Nahua) and symbolism of, 148–150; water-associated, 133. See also feathers annals histories as sources, 54, 61n54, 96–97, 98, 99, 107 anthropomorphization of deities, 15, 30, 32, 85, 106–107, 111. See also under Huitzilopochtli (god of sun and war); ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate) “Apostolic Twelve” church, 200–201 Apotheseos tam exterarvm gentivm qvam Romanorvm deorvm libri tres (Pictor), 103, 104 aqueducts, 127, 129, 133 armored character (“Ironman”) in imagery, 55–56, 57, 58, 59 Arvey, Margaret, 192

astrology, 72, 79–80, 214n39 Atamalcualiztli (Eating of Water Tamales), feast of, 82, 83, 179–180 atl tlachinolli (water-fire), 32, 121n41 Atran, Scott, 139 attire and accoutrements of deities: and divination of Spaniards, 50–51, 118–119; Florentine Codex imagery examples, 85–90, 100–104; focus on, analysis of, 47, 101, 104–105, 107, 157–158; Primeros memoriales imagery examples, 80–85, 87, 89. See also feathers; ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate) attire and accoutrements of lords and leaders, 96–99, 100 audiencias (high courts), 4 Augustine, Saint, 9–10, 11, 101, 117, 215n51 Aveni, Anthony, 131 Ávila y Zúñiga, Luis de, 67, 68 Axayacatl, 99, 101, 129 Aztlan, 136 Baglioni, Piero, 155 Baird, Ellen T., 17, 29, 33, 95, 126, 198n3, 200 Bandini, Angelo Maria, 8, 39 Basin of Mexico, 2, 124, 125–126, 127, 137. See also Tenochtitlan Bassett, Molly, 16, 29, 53, 54, 118, 119, 139 Battle of Mühlberg, 67–68, 69 Beham, Hans Sebald, 65–66, 70 Beltrán de Guzmán, Nuño, 4 Benavente, Toribio de (Motolinía), 4, 118, 201 Benson, Elizabeth, 140 Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 2, 8, 39 black pigments: in codex facsimile productions, 25–26, 28; epidemic and unavailability of pigments, 7–8, 34, 49, 136, 174; of frames and structural elements, 23–24, 29; of latter-stage images, theories on, 34, 174; sources and symbolism, 155–156; symbol of divinity, 119; symbol of sacrality, 80, 179, 180; symbol of status or power, 99; in tlilli in tlapalli (“black ink, red ink”) concept, 152, 153, 156 blue pigments: blue-green, 139, 140, 157; blue-violet, 129, 130, 136–137;

233

Maya blue (texotli), 129, 136–137, 157–158; turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol, 96, 97, 98–99, 108n9, 140, 157, 172–173; water, colors used in representation of, 66, 67, 133, 134, 135, 136–137 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 102, 103 body parts (Book 10): artist interpretations, analysis, 212–213; divergent perspectives represented in, 200; organization and format, 201–205; Spanish content analysis, 206–212 Boemus, Johann, 10, 95 Boone, Elizabeth Hill, 10, 15, 33, 95, 173 Borgia Group manuscripts, 105. See also Codex Borgia Browne, Walden, 13 bundles/binding: in establishment and renewal rituals, 142–144; and healing, 142; and ocelotl symbolism, 149–150; overview, 16, 139; as quantifier, currency, 141–142; as temples/as mountains, 144–147. See also tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles) Burkhart, Louise, 177, 206, 214n43 burning of idolaters/deviants, 128, 188, 193 Bustamante García, Jesús, 2, 215n51 cacaxtli (carrying frames), 143. See also bundles/binding calendars, 47, 73, 88, 158–164, 185, 201. See also tonalamatl (book of days); tonalpohualli (count of days) Calepino, Ambrosio, 9, 48 calmecac (school for elites), 78, 90, 162, 171 calpolli (neighborhood), 162, 163 Cantares mexicanos, 153, 154, 158 Carballal Staedtler, Margarita, 131 carbon-based inks, 155 Cartari, Vincenzo, 102, 104 Castañeda de la Paz, María, 129 ce mázatl (One Deer day sign), 66 cempohualli (twenty), significance of, 142 Centeotl (Maize Cob Lord), 80–82, 88 Cesalpino, Andrea, 10 chalchihuitl (greenstone), 84, 143, 172–173. See also turquoise (stone/ color) as royalty symbol Chalchiuhtlicue ( Jade Skirt, water goddess), 87–88, 117, 196 Chapultepec, 128, 129 Charles V, Emperor, 67–68 Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent, maize goddess), 80–82, 83–90, 94n45, 101 Chicomexochitl (Seven Flower), 145 Chicomollotzin (Seven Ears of Maize), 85. See also Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent, maize goddess) Cholula massacre, 48 Christian ideologies and symbolism: baptism, 80, 137; biblical art sources, 65, 68, 70, 71, 99, 172; Christ, representations of, 113–114, 135; Christianization of indigenous practices and images, 80, 83, 106, 113–114, 115, 116–117, 120, 190–198; confessional practices, 10, 126, 176–180; Magi, Three, 30; morality and sexuality, 185–186, 188–196; number twelve references, 2; Pentecost and “tongues of fire,” 35n53; prayer imagery, 175–176, 177; salvation, 137; sin (tlatlacolli), 182n89, 198, 206; war, characterization of, 60. See also anthropomorphization of deities; evangelical efforts; god, Christian Cielo de Salamanca, 20, 21–22 Cihuacoatl (Serpent Woman), 27, 32, 117 cihuateotl/cihuateteo (cihuapipiltin) (goddesses, women who died in childbirth), 117, 191 Cipac, Luis, 129 circular disc motifs, 28, 98, 168, 190 City of God (Augustine), 9–10, 117, 215n51

234 • Index

Civezza, Marcelino de, 8 Civitates orbis terrarum, 67, 69 Clavijero, Francisco, 118 cleansing rituals (Nahua), 132–133, 137 Cline, Sarah, 60 Coatepec (sacred mountain, birthplace of Huitzilopochtli), 144. See also Templo Mayor (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlan Coatlicue (Serpent Skirt), 94n45, 144, 163–164 cocoliztli (hemorrhagic fever), 32, 201, 210–212, 214n13. See also epidemics and plagues Codex Aubin/Tonalamatl Aubin, 54, 97, 105 Codex Bodley (Mixtec), 149 Codex Borbonicus, 94n31, 105, 196 Codex Borgia, 93–94n31, 155 Codex Chimalpahin, 132–133 Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, 146, 147 Codex Magliabechiano, 106–107, 133, 134 Codex Mendoza, 4, 6, 97, 99, 107, 140 Codex Mexicanus, 96, 98 Codex Nuttall, 72 Codex Osuna, 128 Codex Ríos, 108n38 Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 71, 72, 106, 107 Codex Tlatelolco, 133, 135 Codex Tudela, 106 Codex Vaticanus A (3738), 38 Codex Vienna (Mixtec), 153 Códices Matritenses (Madrid Codices), 18n35, 24, 86, 88, 102 Colegio de Santa Cruz, Santiago Tlatelolco: collaborative production process, 6–9, 78–79, 169–170, 210, 212–213; and education of indigenous boys, 90–91, 208–210; epidemic, impact of, 1, 90, 210–211; establishment and background, 1; excavation findings, 91–92; library of as source material, 9, 29, 104, 169–170 Coloquios de los doce, 116–117 colors: and Christian symbolism, 137; in nature, connotations and meanings, 140–141, 148–149; in tlilli in tlapalli (“black ink, red ink”) concept, 152, 153, 156; values and schemes, importance of to interpretations, 26–27, 32. See also pigments Comentario de la guerra de Alemania hecha por Carlos V (Ávila), 67, 68 confessional practices, 10, 126, 176–180 conquest, symbolism and representations of: conflation of indigenous and European culture in imagery, 49–57; imagery sources and influences, 67–72; omens presaging, 23, 27; Sahagún’s prologues on imagery and sources, 77–80; Spanish and Nahuatl text comparisons, 46–49; Spanish manipulation of narrative, 57–60. See also military symbolism Constantine, labarum of (☧; Chi-Rho), 68 Conti, Natale, 102 Cortés, Hernando, 101; character and reputation, Sahagún’s protection of, 48, 60; divinization of, 47, 51, 53–54, 118–119; entry into Tenochtitlan, imagery of, 67–69, 69; expedition report of, 4; gifts and tributes to, 47, 50–51, 53, 54, 70; indigenous-styled representation of, 99; sabotage of water system, 128 cosmograms, 146, 147 Coto, Tomás de, 122n74 Council of Trent, 7–8, 37–38, 210 Counter-Reformation movement, 7–9, 37–38, 210 coztic teocuitlatl (gold). See gold (coztic teocuitlatl) cross symbols in codex, 68, 203, 206 crucifixion imagery, 114, 135 Cuauhtemoc, 96, 100

Cube, Johann von, 10, 63–64, 72–73 Cuextlaxtlan, 101 cuicatl (song), 153, 155 cuihcuiltic (“something painted”), 148 cuiloni (passive homosexual), 186, 187. See also homosexuality/ intersexuality cultural perspective and divergence of texts, 46–49, 60n16, 189–190, 200, 203–204 currency system and bundles, 141–142 Dakin, Karen, 119 De civitate dei (City of God) (Augustine), 9–10, 117, 215n51 De deis gentium varia et multiplex historia (Giraldi), 102 De inventoribus rerum (Virgil, P.), 95 deities: Christian appropriation of, 116–117, 120; imagery comparison over time in Sahagún’s work, 80–90, 100–101, 102, 104–105; models and sources for imagery/text, 53–54, 78–80, 99–108; omnipresence of in Florentine Codex, 110–111; origin representations, 79; sequence of, 101, 109n45, 117; source materials and creative process, analysis of, 155–158. See also anthropomorphization of deities; attire and accoutrements of deities; “divinization”/deification; ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate); natural history; rituals and celebrations; teotl/teteo (god or divinity) deity surrogates. See ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate) Dejouve, Danièle, 141 Della descrittione de Paesi Bassi (Description of the Netherlands) (Guicciardini), 38 De proprietatibus rerum (On the nature of things) (Anglicus), 9, 95 Descripción de la ciudad y provincia de Tlaxcala (Muñoz Camargo), 112 devils, 100, 110, 112–113, 120, 188, 193–194, 198 diablo/diablome, 112. See also devils Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 50–51 Dibble, Charles, 2, 12, 25–27, 60n6 divination/diviners, 79–80, 95–96, 105–106, 185 “divinization”/deification: of dead Nahua rulers, 11, 116; of mortals, Franciscan polemic on, 116–117; of Spaniards, 47, 50–51, 53–54, 70, 110, 118–119. See also anthropomorphization of deities droughts, 32, 125, 132, 135 drunkenness, 207 “dual graphic code,” 24, 28–29, 33, 34, 73, 180–181. See also image sources/models and cultural hybridity Durán, Diego: devil image comparison, 112; on feather symbolism, 49–50, 56; imagery comparison to, 18n56; on Pantitlan phenomenon, 131, 132; pose/positioning comparisons, 99, 101; and role of tlatoani, 128 Eating of Water Tamales (Atamalcualiztli), feast of, 82, 83, 179–180 education/schools: calmecac (school for elites), 78, 90, 162, 171; Franciscan education of Nahua, Sahagún’s observations on, 207–210; telpochcalli (“house of youth,” public school), 90–91, 162 elites (Mexica), roles of: in engineering and infrastructure, 16, 127–128, 132, 133, 135; in maintaining relationship with deities, 16, 128–129, 135; as masters of oratory, 16–17, 170–171, 172. See also lords and rulers Emblemata (Alciato), 64, 72–73 Emperor Charles V (painting) (Titian), 67–68, 69 encomienda (labor system), 4 encyclopedic works, tradition of, 6–7, 9, 169–170 Enríquez, Martín, 8 Enríquez manuscript, 8, 78 entradas (expeditions), 4

environment and ecology: engineering projects under Mexica rulers, 127– 128; geology, 131; Nahua relationship with, overview, 125–126; relationship with and ritual maintenance of, 128–129, 135, 137–138; and role of emplacement in intellectual framework, 126–127, 137; Spanish interference with, 132. See also natural history epidemics and plagues: and availability of pigments, 8, 34, 49, 136, 174; cocoliztli (hemorrhagic fever), 32, 90, 201, 210–212, 214n13; impact on Sahagún’s work, 90, 132, 201, 210–212; metaphor and pictorial representation of, 32; as punishment for idolatry, 9 equivalence concept (nature/human-made), 141, 150 Escalante Gonzalbo, Pablo, 10, 14–15, 29, 33, 63, 104 “essence” concept, 140–141, 151n16 Etymologiae (Isidore of Seville), 9, 95, 108n29, 170 Etzalcualiztli, feast of, 131 Euhemerus, 11, 15, 116, 120 European influences: for expression of Mesoamerican concepts, 63–65, 95–96; on formats and structural organization, 6–7, 9, 23–24; humanism, Renaissance, 14–15, 100, 107, 169; on imagery, 28, 33, 85, 88, 96, 108. See also Christian ideologies and symbolism; image sources/ models and cultural hybridity; mythologies, classical, influence and parallels evangelical efforts: Counter-Reformation movement, 7–9, 37–38, 210; incorporation/co-option of indigenous concepts/rhetoric, 16–17, 167, 172, 184, 206; and indigenous language texts, 6; and morality issues, 185–186; and power of visual media, 30, 32. See also anthropomorphization of deities; Christian ideologies and symbolism; idolatry exteriority/interiority relationship, 140–141, 150. See also surfaces and color in Nahua culture feathers: color of, significance and symbolism, 140; ethnic differentiation symbolism, 50–51; goddesses of feather artisans, 111; images and symbolism of, 49–51, 52, 53, 54–57, 99; material power of, 155, 157; Quetzalcoatl, symbol of, 175; in speech symbolism, 33, 56 fertility symbolism, 82, 83–84, 87, 180, 188 1585 revised version of Book 12 of Codex, 8, 49, 60, 78 flaying practices, symbolism of, 42, 88, 159–160, 164n9 floods, 125, 127–128, 132, 135 Florentine Codex, development and creation of: emplacement and interpretive framework, 126–127, 137; evolution and survival of, overview, 6–9; historiography of image scholarship, 24–29; influence of on subsequent works, 10; influences and models overview, 9–12, 21–22, 95–96; materials and implements used in codex, 4 (see also pigments); pictorial manuscripts and imperial archive, 2, 4, 6; timeline overviews and issues, 3, 8, 14, 34, 49, 57–58, 174; titles and evolution of, 2, 77. See also Colegio de Santa Cruz; formats and structural organization; image sources/models and cultural hybridity; Sahagún, Bernardino de; translation dynamics Flores Hernández, María, 131 flowers, symbolism of: flower bands/branches in place of deity images, 158; in oratory imagery, 173, 174; as sexual metaphors, 184, 188, 189, 192–193, 195; as song metaphor, 153–155, 158, 171, 173 folk biology, 139 formats and structural organization: body parts chapter, 201–204; columnar layout overviews, 46, 126–127; deities pages, 80, 82, 85–88, 101, 107, 117, 155–158; European style influences, 6–7, 9, 13–14, 23–24; and ink colors, 155; list of Books, 10; Primeros memoriales (manuscript), 80, 82–83, 85, 96, 100–101, 105; space for images, isolated vs. scenic, 83, 103–104, 106 “fourth text,” 37–44 Furst, Jill, 50, 55

Index • 235

Gallego, Fernando, 21–22, 23 gall ink, 155 Gante, Pedro de, 90, 93, 122n55 García Garagarza, León, 128, 149 García Icazbalceta, Joaquín, 2 Garibay Kintana, Ángel María, 12, 13, 60n2, 95 gender: discord reflected in codex, 89, 90; Franciscan bias against women, 17, 116, 189; Nahua binary cultural framework of, 198n12, 199n47; nontraditional and ambiguous, 185, 187, 188–189, 193; signifiers in imagery, 85, 105, 191, 193, 211 Genealogia deorum gentilium (Boccaccio), 102, 103 General estoria (Alfonso X), 11 genitals, representations of, 205 Gibson, Charles, 214n43 Giraldi, Lilio Gregorio, 102 glosses (captions): deities, 101, 102, 104, 105; lords and rulers, 96, 97; pigment choice and power symbolism, 155, 156, 158 god, Christian: indigenous acceptance of, 53–54; Ipalnemoani (Christian supreme being), 115, 116–117; Tezcatlipoca referenced as, 120. See also Christian ideologies and symbolism; devils godhood, testaments of, 117 gods. See deities gold (coztic teocuitlatl): and divinity, 118; as gifts to Cortés, 47; seizure and melting of, 55, 56; Spanish greed for, 48, 58–60; and teo- prefix, semantic analysis of, 115 Goth/Germanic deities, 104 Grado, Diego de, 13, 46 gray pigments, 136, 157–158, 209 Greek pantheon, sources and parallels, 116 green, symbolism of, 140, 173. See also under blue pigments; turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol greenstone (chalchihuitl), 84, 143, 172–173. See also turquoise (stone/ color) as royalty symbol Gruzinski, Serge, 65, 176 Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe, 30 Guicciardini, Lodovico, 38 Gusmán, Nuño de, 155 Habinek, Thomas, 180 Hajovsky, Patrick, 50, 171 Hammann, Byron E., 132 Harris, Max, 33 heads (floating), symbolism of, 175, 176, 177, 178 healing, 13, 142 heart(s) in Nahua culture, 131, 133, 141, 170, 182n88 Hercules, parallels to, 40, 101, 102, 116 Hernández, Francisco, 7, 10 Herold, Johannes, 103 Heydenweldt und ihrer Götter (Herold), 103 Hiera anagraphē (Sacred history) (Euhemerus), 116 Hippocratic theory of politics, 206 Hispanic Society of America, 37, 38 Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (Magnus), 10, 15, 68, 70–71, 72, 73, 104 Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e islas y tierra firme (Durán), 18n56, 49–50, 99, 101. See also Durán, Diego Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (Motolinía), 4 Historia general/universal de las cosas de Nueva España (Sahagún), 2, 8, 12. See also Florentine Codex, development and creation of Historia general y natural de las Indias (Oviedo), 4

236 • Index

Historia project, definition and summary, 77 histories of indigenous peoples, recording of. See indigenous culture and history historiography of image scholarship, 24–29 Holbein the Younger, Hans, 65 Holy Cross College. See Colegio de Santa Cruz homosexuality/intersexuality, 185, 186, 187, 188–189, 193 Hortus sanitatis (Cube), 10, 63–64, 72–73 huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders): Book 6 sources and references analysis, 171, 174–180; illustration of, 34; and oral tradition, transmission through, 153–154; Sahagún’s use of, 3, 16; significance in Nahua culture, 167; Spanish translation of, 174. See also rhetoric huei tlatoani (great speaker, Mexica leader), 128, 170. See also huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders); tlatoani/tlatoque (altepetl ruler, speaker) Hueytozoztli (the Great Vigil), 80–82, 88–89 Huichol art, 157 huipil (tunic), 85 Huitzillan, 48 Huitzilopochtli (god of sun and war), 103; attire and accoutrements, 140; attributes of, 117; demonization and humanization of, 111, 112, 113, 116, 117, 119–120; Hercules parallel, 40, 101, 116; origins of, 79; Paynal (avatar of ), 103, 116, 157, 158; in rule transfer rituals, 143–144; in surrogate form, 47, 54; and Tlacaxipeoaliztli, feast of, 42; tlaquimilolli of and ritual, 144–145 Huixtocihuatl (goddess of salt), 88 humanism, Renaissance, 14–15, 100, 107, 169 humanization of deities. See anthropomorphization of deities Hvidtfeldt, Arild, 54, 119 iautl (murderer), 40, 186, 187–188, 195, 196 idolatry: dichotomy of using knowledge as weapon, 8–9, 15, 30–32, 78, 110–111, 196–197; and ineffectiveness of evangelism, 206–207; punishments for, 9, 128, 179. See also evangelical efforts ihuitl (feather), 56. See also feathers ilhuicaatl (sky water), 114–115 ilhuitl (feast), 56 images, form and production: comprehensibility and translation dynamic, 22–23; format and structural organization, 23–24, 29, 155, 201–204; historiography of image scholarship, 24–29; as important source of data, 26–29, 45; isolated space vs. scenic space formats, 83, 103–104, 106; numbers of, 78, 93; painting as creation of tlahtolli, 153–155; as representational system or narrative, 21–22, 49–57; role and power of visual culture, 30, 32; signifying capacity and separation from text, 25–27, 86, 103, 106, 206. See also pictorial system of Nahuas; pigments; tlacuilo/tlacuiloque (Nahua artists and scribes) image sources/models and cultural hybridity: conquest imagery, 67–72, 77–80; deities and supernaturals, 99–108; dual graphic legacy, 24, 28–29, 34, 73, 180–181; Europeanization of Nahua imagery, 33, 85, 88, 96; everyday life and labor, 65–67; overviews, 63–65, 107–108; preconquest indigenous sources, 78–80, 95–96, 107; rhetoric and huehuetlatolli imagery, 167–169, 174–180. See also Christian ideologies and symbolism immorality: confession and contrition parallels, 176–178; and effect of Spanish “order” on Nahua, 206–207; image and iconographic analysis, 190–196; morality, concepts and overviews, 17, 184; nudity, prohibitions on, 205; and powers of speech/rhetoric, 185–189. See also sexuality imperial archive, Spanish, 4, 6, 7 in cuicatl in xochitl (“the song, the flower”), 153, 155, 158, 171 Index librorum prohibitorum, 38

indigenous culture and history: Counter-Reformation prohibitions, 8, 38, 58; morality, concepts of, 17, 184; Nahua integration of Spaniards into mythic culture, 118, 120; postconquest Spanish policies, impact of, 4, 5, 200–201, 206–208; Sahagún’s perspective on preconquest culture, 206–207 indigenous population, decline of, 4, 49, 201, 210–212 inks, 155–158. See also pigments interiority/exteriority relationship, 140–141, 150. See also surfaces and color in Nahua culture intersexuality, 186, 187, 189, 193 in tlilli in tlapalli (“black ink, red ink”) concept, 152, 153, 156 “In Your Painting Place” (Nahua song), 154 Ipalnemoani (Christian supreme being), 115, 116–117 “Ironman” armored character, 55–56, 57, 58, 59 Isidore of Seville, 9, 11, 95, 108n29, 170 Italian translation of codex volumes, 37–44 Itzquauhtzin (ruler of Tlatelolco), 55, 57, 58 ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate): and anthropomorphization of deities, 111, 136; Christian influence on imagery of, 113–114; Cortés as, 118; in effigy form, 30, 31, 47, 54, 89, 141, 142; and equivalence concept, 141; examples of in imagery, 79, 80, 81, 82; function of, 53; as “living image/presence” of deity, 152, 160–161, 162, 163–164; sacred bundles as, 143, 145–146 Jacobita ( Jacovita), Martín, 6, 13, 152 jade/jadeite, 140. See also turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol jaguar. See ocelotl ( jaguar/ocelot) Jerusalem/Tenochtitlan parallel, 68 jet stone (teotetl, diving stone), 112, 113 Jíménez Moreno, Wigberto, 82 Josefus, Flavius, 95 juez-gobernador ( judge and governor), 129 “just war” pretext, 4, 45 k’altun (stone binding), 142–143 Kaqchikels, 118 Karttunen, Frances, 148 King, Mark, 153 King Arthur, parallels to, 11, 116 kneeling pose, 175–176, 178, 210–211, 212, 213 Lake Texcoco, 124; Pantitlan, whirlpool/drain phenomenon, 129–133, 135–136; water management projects in, 127–129, 133, 135 Lake Xaltocan, 124, 127 Lake Zumpango, 124, 127 language issues: indigenous learning skills, 209–210; Nahuatl, knowledge of and evangelistic success, 111. See also translation dynamics Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 4, 117 Latin language, 209–210 Le imagini, con la spositione de i dei de gliantichi (Cartari), 102, 104 León-Portilla, Miguel, 12, 13, 60n2, 92, 153, 158 Leopardus pardalis (ocelot), 147. See also ocelotl ( jaguar/ocelot) lesbianism, 186, 187, 189, 196 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 120 Leyenda de los soles, 131 Liber ymaginum deorum (Albricus), 10, 101–102 List of Rulers of Tlatelolco (Nahuatl narrative), 54 Lockhart, James, 12, 46, 51, 54, 60n6, 118 López, Genaro, 25 López Austin, Alfredo, 79, 85, 86, 105, 119, 126, 205

López de Gómara, Francisco, 4, 57 lords and rulers: analysis of representations, 96–99, 100; deification of (Nahua), 116; transfer of power rituals, 142–144. See also elites (Mexica), roles of lovely cotinga (Cotinga amabilis), 140 Madrid Codices, 24, 86, 88, 102 Maffie, James, 54 Magaloni Kerpel, Diana: on Christian symbolism, 35n53; on format of deity images, 107; on pigments, 29, 136, 140; on speech and image symbolism, 16, 152; tlacuiloque team makeup, 35n15, 57 Magnus, Olaus, 10, 15, 68, 70–71, 72, 73, 104 maize deities, 80–82, 83, 88. See also Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent, maize goddess) Mannerist representations, 99 “Manuscrito de 1569,” 7, 35n51, 78 “Manuscrito de Tlatelolco,” 7 María de Bustamante, Carlos, 2, 12 Markey, Lia, 14, 38 Martínez, José Luis, 28 Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo, 144, 146 Maximiliano, Bonifacio, 13, 46 Maya blue pigment (texotli), 129, 136–137, 157–158 Mayan culture: ancient words and transmission of pictorial language, 153; bundles and ritual, 142–143 medical and health issues: disease and idolatry rhetoric, 179, 207; and moral integrity, 190, 206; physicians, Nahua, 13; sexual disease, 188. See also epidemics and plagues Mediceo Palatino 218 (Med. Palat. 218) (Medici manuscript), 37–44 Medici, Cosimo de’, 7 Medici, Ferdinando I de’, 8, 14, 37–38 Medici repository, 25 Medin, Douglas L., 139 Mellini, Domenico, 38 memory and oral history as resource, 15, 78–79, 82, 105, 153–154, 170–172 Mendieta, Gerónimo de, 22, 34n6, 90 Mendoza, Antonio de, 4, 6 metaphors (machiotlatolli): in cuicatl in xochitl (“the song, the flower”), 153, 155, 158, 171; and knowledge of Nahuatl, 111; and leadership responsibility, 128; Nahua tradition of, in image and speech, 32, 153, 167– 168, 172, 173, 180; preciousness, value, nobility, 157, 172–173. See also flowers, symbolism of Mictlantecuhtli (underworld deity), 133, 134 military symbolism: “Ironman” armored character, 55–56, 57, 58, 59; war/ warriors, 32, 49, 50, 121n41, 149, 173, 174. See also conquest, symbolism and representations of mirror symbolism, 143. See also Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror) Mixcoatl, 106 mixcomitl (“cloud vessels”), 131 Mixtec language and symbolism, 121n46, 153 Moctezuma/Moteuczoma, 59, 158; conflicting stories of death of, 57; response to environmental phenomena, 125; seizure and murder of, 55, 58; textual descriptions of reign, 97–98 Molina, Alonso de, 6, 188, 189 Monaghan, John, 153 morality. See immorality Motolinía, 4, 118, 201 mountains, significance and symbolism of, 128, 144–147 “movable feasts,” 41, 88

Index • 237

Moya de Contreras, Pedro, 2, 7 Mundy, Barbara, 16, 33, 50, 125 Muñoz Camargo, Diego, 112 murderer (iautl), 40, 186, 187–188, 195, 196 mushroom, hallucinogenic (teonanacatl), 112 Mytholgiae (Conti), 102 mythologies, European: classical, influence of and parallels to, 10–11, 66; Euhemerism, 11, 15, 116, 120; Goth/Germanic deities, 104; Greek pantheon, 116; pagan gods, European studies of, 100, 101–104, 119; Roman pantheon, 40, 86, 101–104, 107, 116, 117 nahualli (shape-shifting ritual specialist), 185, 188, 190, 194 Nahuatl and Spanish text comparisons: anatomy (Book 10), 201–204; conquest (Book 12), 46–49, 57–60; deities (Book 1), 100–101; social categories and morality (Book 10), 184–186, 189–190, 196–198 natural history: equivalence concept (nature/human-made), 141; mountains, significance and symbolism of, 128, 144–147; Nahua folk-­ biological knowledge, 139, 150; surfaces and color in Nahua culture, 140–141, 148–150, 151n68. See also bundles/binding; turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol Naturalis historia (Pliny the Elder), 9, 30, 95, 170 Navarro, Miguel, 7 Nebrija, Antonio de, 169 Neurath, Johannes, 157 New Laws (1542), 4 Nezahualcoyotl, 127, 128 Nicholson, H. B., 105 Night Wind, Tezcatlipoca appellation, 175 Nueva corónica y buen gobierno (Guaman Poma), 30 numbering system, Nahua, 142 ocelotl ( jaguar/ocelot), 16, 63–64, 147–150 Ochpaniztli (Sweeping of Roads), 90 octli (pulque), 66 Olivier, Guilhem, 54, 110; on divinity, 15; on invocation of power, 175; on ixiptlatl, 152; on tlaquimilolli of deities, 143, 144, 149; on ubiquity of deities in codex, 77 Olmos, Andrés de, 143, 174 omens, representations of, 25–26 ome tochtli (Two Rabbit day sign), 66, 67 Ometochtli, Carlos, 128 Omnium gentium mores, leges et ritus, 95 Opochtli (“god of the waterfolk”), 66, 116 oral tradition, 79, 82, 152, 153–154. See also huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders); memory and oral history as resource; metaphors (machiotlatolli); song/chant oratory, power of. See rhetoric Origines (Isodore of Seville), 9 ostrich feathers, 50, 53, 54 “other side” concept, 153–154, 156, 158 otlamaxalli (“crotch of the road,” crossroads), 190–191 Ovando, Juan de, 7 Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de, 4 ozoyahualolli (yellow parrot feather headdress), 96 pagan gods, European studies of, 100, 101–104, 119. See also mythologies, classical, influence and parallels painting as creation of tlahtolli, 153–155 Panquetzaliztli festival, 161–162, 163 Panthera onca ( jaguar), 147. See also ocelotl ( jaguar/ocelot)

238 • Index

Pantitlan, whirlpool/drain phenomenon, 129–133, 135–136 Paso y Troncoso, Francisco del, 2, 24 patlache (intersexual), 186, 187, 189, 196 Paynal (avatar of Huitzilopochtli), 103, 116, 157, 158 Peterson, Jeanette Favrot, 14, 21, 99, 167, 192 Philip II, 7, 8, 29–30, 38, 58 “physicians of the souls,” 8–9, 13, 111, 179, 207 pictography, Nahua: Europeanization of, 14, 105–107; limitations of and memorization, 172; oral transmission and creation of tlahtolli, 152, 153–154; power of, 30–32; as self-source material, 79, 96, 104–106, 107; Spanish understanding of, 4. See also image sources/models and cultural hybridity Pictor, Georg (Georgius Pictorius), 102, 104 pigments: availability of, 7–8, 34, 49, 136, 174; chemical analysis, 29, 155; deity images, analysis of, 155–158; gray, 136, 157–158, 209; preparation and use overview, 4, 5; red, 82, 83–84, 87, 89, 192, 205, 208; source materials and interpretive selection, 154–155. See also black pigments; blue pigments; colors Pitarch, Pedro, 153–154, 155, 156 place names, Spanish treatment of, 48 plagues. See epidemics and plagues Plano Caprini, John de, 95 Pliny the Elder, 9, 11, 30, 95, 170 pochteca (long-distance merchants), 30, 110 Pomar, Juan Bautista de, 143 poses of figures: death association, 133, 135; deity positions, influences and sources, 105, 106–107; European influence examples, 66, 85, 175–176, 192, 194; gender signifiers, 105, 191, 211; kneeling position, 175–176, 178, 210–211, 212, 213; lying position, significance of, 27, 191; pinwheel position, evolution of, 105–107; rulers and lords, 99; seated/ half-seated positions, significance of, 26, 97, 98–99, 106, 172, 191; standing positions, significance of, 105, 191; twisted, 194 poyotl (evil), 48 prayer imagery, 175–176, 177 Primeros memoriales (manuscript): comparisons of imagery to Florentine Codex, 80–90, 96–99, 100–101, 102, 104–105; and deity attributes, inclusion of, 117; formats and structural organization, 80, 82–83, 85, 96, 100–101, 105; overview of production, 6–7, 78; speech representations in, 172–173 printing, advent and influence of printed material, 22, 63, 90–91, 169 procurer/procuress (tetlanochiliani/tetlanochili), 112, 113, 184, 186, 187– 188, 189, 193–194. See also prostitutes prostitutes, 185, 189–191, 192–193, 195. See also ahuiani (“one who indulges in pleasure”); procurer/procuress (tetlanochiliani/tetlanochili) Protestant league, war with, 67 Protestant Reformation, 30 Psalmodia christiana (Sahagún), 71, 182n53 pulque, 66 Purépechas, 118 purple, Christian symbolism of, 137 quantifiers and classifiers in Nahuatl, 141–142 Quauhtemoc, 48, 50 quechquemitl (triangular upper garment), 85, 87 questionnaires used by Sahagún, 7, 10, 126, 198n11 Quetzalcoatl: appurtenances given to Cortés, 47, 51, 53; association with arrival of Spaniards, 47, 53, 54, 119; comparison to King Arthur, 11, 116; Franciscan humanization of, 116; Hercules parallel, 116; narratives on, 79; as supreme deity, 116, 118 quetzal feathers, 50, 52

quetzaltecolotl (quetzal-owl), 50 quimilli (bundle), 16, 141–144. See also bundles/binding Quiñones Keber, Eloise, 15, 29, 77, 101, 107 Rao, Ida Giovanna, 8, 14, 37 Real Patronazgo, 201 Reformation (Protestant) movement, 30 Relación de los señores de la Nueva España (Zorita), 119 Relacion de Michoacan, 6 “Relación de Tezcoco” (Pomar), 143 Relaciones geográficas, 7, 143 Restall, Matthew, 122n74, 122n75 Reyes, Antonio de los, 121n46 rhetoric: as acculturation, 180–181; European educational discipline of, 169–170; huehuetlatolli, roles and influence of, 170–171; Nahua educational tradition of, 171–172; power of pictographic language, 30–32. See also speech/oratory, power of Rhetorica christiana (Valadés), 169, 172 Ríos Castaño, Victoria, 2, 10, 12 Ríos Martínez, Juan, 157–158 rituals and celebrations: cleansing, 132–133, 137; environmental phenomena, leadership response to, 125, 128–129; Florentine Codex depictions of, 85–90; images, creative process analysis, 101, 106, 158– 164; and maintenance relationship to nature, 128–129, 135, 137–138; nahualli (shape-shifting ritual specialist), 185, 188, 190, 194; and natural equivalences, 141; Primeros memoriales depictions of, 80–85; renewals, 142–144. See also sacrificial practices Robertson, Donald, 27–28, 92, 95 Roman pantheon, sources and parallels, 40, 86, 101–104, 107, 116, 117 Rubruck, William, 95 Ruffoni, Alejandro, 25 Russo, Alessandra, 22, 50, 155 sacred bundles. See tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles) sacrificial practices: child sacrifices, 131; founding of Tenochtitlan, 132– 133; imagery of, 159–161; as offerings to Cortés, 70; symbolism and spiritual power of, 159; of teixiptla, 53, 84–85 Sahagún, Bernardino de: background and early work, 6; challenges of final production stages, 200–201; Christian texts, influences on Sahagún, 9–12; education, 169; goals and motivations, reflections on, 8–9, 13, 29–30, 47, 48–49, 57–58, 60, 206–207; signature, 201. See also evangelical efforts Salvador, Vicente do, 122n73 San Buenaventura, Pedro de, 6, 13, 152 San José de los Naturales, Chapel of, 90, 93 Santa Maria Xoxoteco, Hidalgo, 113, 114 Santo Tomas, Domingo de, 122n72 Schmalkaldic League, 67, 68 schools. See education/schools scrolls (speech/song), symbolism, 27, 170, 171, 172–174, 191–193, 195 seated/half-seated positions, significance of, 26, 97, 98–99, 106, 172, 191. See also thrones/seats, symbolism of Seler, Eduard, 24 Sequera, Rodrigo de, 7, 8, 38, 46, 167 “Sequera manuscript,” 8 serpents/snakes, symbolism of, 87, 175, 177, 178, 179–180. See also Chicomecoatl (Seven Serpent, maize goddess); Cihuacoatl (Serpent Woman); Coatlicue (Serpent Skirt) Severino, Mateo, 46 sexuality: body parts, omissions of, 205; flowers, symbolism of, 184, 188,

189, 192–193, 195; homosexuality/intersexuality, 185, 186, 187, 188– 189, 193; lesbianism, 186, 187, 189, 196; and morality, 185–186; oratory, power and symbolism of, 186–189; trans/ambiguously gendered individuals, 185, 187, 188–189, 193; water symbolism, 17, 196. See also gender; immorality shape-shifting ritualist (nahualli), 185, 188, 190, 194 sin (tlatlacolli), 182n89, 198, 206 skinning of offerings/sacrifices. See flaying practices, symbolism of smallpox, x, 1 snakes in imagery. See serpents/snakes, symbolism of snow, imagery of, 71–72 Solari, Amara, 179, 207 song/chant: and bringing forth wisdom of the ancients, 153, 154, 155, 158; and hymns in manuscripts, 85; in Mesoamerican culture, 186; song scrolls in images, 27; textual symbolism of, 158, 171 Sousa, Lisa, 17, 33, 184 space for images, isolated vs. scenic, 83, 103–104, 106 Spanish and Italian text comparison, 39–44 Spanish and Nahuatl text comparisons: anatomy (Book 10), 201–204; conquest (Book 12), 46–49, 57–60; deities (Book 1), 100–101; social categories and morality (Book 10), 184–186, 189–190, 196–198 Spanish cruelty and brutality, modulation of in translation, 48 Spanish Inquisition, 38 speech/oratory, power of: and deception/lies, 188, 192; and gender ambiguity, 187, 189; and Mesoamerican social culture, 170–172, 185–186. See also rhetoric; speech symbols speech symbols: action, direction, emphasis, 172–174; and metaphors for seduction, 184; scrolls and glyphs, 27, 170, 171, 172–174, 191–193, 195; and sexuality, 186–189; snakes/toads/scorpions, 175, 177, 179– 180. See also huehuetlatolli (speech of the elders); metaphors (machiotlatolli); rhetoric Stamperia Orientale Medicea, 37 Stross, Brian, 143 Stuart, David, 143 Sullivan, Thelma, 126, 171 sumidero (great drain), 131 sun, characterizations of, 50, 112, 115 Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, 38 surfaces and color in Nahua culture, 140–141, 148–149, 151n68 surrogates, deity. See ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate) syncretic process in image creation, 63, 70–71 taxonomies of deities, 101–102, 117 tecuanimeh, (wild animals, “people eaters”), 149 teeth, representations of, 208 teixiptla (deity surrogate). See ixiptla/ixiptlatl (deity surrogate) telpochcalli (“house of youth,” public school), 90, 162 telpuchtlaueliloc (wicked youth), 186, 187, 192 temacpalitoti (enchanter), 186, 188 temples, symbolism of, 144–147 Templo Mayor (Great Temple) of Tenochtitlan, 112, 114, 144, 146–147, 161 Tenochtitlan, setting and overview, 2, 4, 6, 124, 127. See also conquest, symbolism and representations of; Cortés, Hernando; elites (Mexica), roles of; Lake Texcoco; Moctezuma/Moteuczoma teoatl (sea), 114, 115, 121n41 teoatl tlachinolli (sacred or divine liquid-fire), 32, 121n41 Teocalco (“place of the god house”), 55, 56 teocalli (temple), 145

Index • 239

teocuitlatl (“sacred/god excrement,” gold), 55, 115. See also gold (coztic teocuitlatl) teohua (teotl custodian), 51 Teoithualco (sacred courtyard), 51, 54 teonanacatl (hallucinogenic mushroom), 112 teotetl (divine stone), 112 Teotleco (Arrival of the Gods), 64 teotl/teteo (god or divinity): Cortés/Spaniards characterized as, 47, 110; and natural history, concepts from, 140–141; semantic analyses, 15, 54, 110, 112, 114–120; Spanish homogenization of, 30. See also deities teoxihuitl (turquoise, possession of teotl), 140 Tepepulco: codex production in, 3, 6, 78–79, 105; interviews and memory of elders, 80, 82–83, 84, 87, 89–90, 185 tepetl (mountain), 145 Tepetzinco, 129, 130, 132–133 tepictoton (mountain gods), 82, 84, 85, 90, 100 tepotzoicpalli (woven-reed throne), 96 tequani (“people-eater,” wild beast), 55–56 Terraciano, Kevin, 1, 14, 33, 45, 118–119, 198n3 teteo (gods). See teotl/teteo (god or divinity) tetlanochiliani/tetlanochili (procurer/procuress), 112, 113, 184, 186, 187– 188, 189, 193–194. See also prostitutes tetzauhcioatl (adulteress), 17, 186, 195–196, 197 teuctli/tecuhtli (nobles), 118 “teules,” 118 téutl. See teotl/teteo (god or divinity) teutlatquitl (teotl properties), 51 Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirror): appellations of, 111, 175; appurtenances of given to Cortés, 47, 51; attributes of, 117, 118, 172; Jupiter parallel, 101; narratives on, 79; representations of, 34, 103, 120, 160–161, 175–178; sacred bundles of, 143, 145, 150; as supreme deity, 34, 111, 116, 120 Theologia mythologica (Pictor), 102, 103 Theophrastus, 95 thief (ichtequi, temacpalitoti), 126, 188 Thomas, Nicholas, 23 Thouvenot, Marc, 148 three-dimensional imagery, 28, 32, 96, 105, 106, 146–147 “three texts” concept, 2, 12–13, 23, 45, 198n3, 200 thrones/seats, symbolism of, 96, 98–99, 171, 172, 190 tiçitl (physicians), 13 Titian, 67–68, 69 Tizoc, 99, 101 tlacatecolotl/tlatlacatecollo (owl person), 54, 186, 190, 194, 196 Tlacaxipehualiztli (Flaying of Men) festival, 42, 88, 159–160 Tlaçolteotl/Tlazolteotl, 111, 189 tlacuilo/tlacuiloque (Nahua artists and scribes): collaborative production process, 6–9, 78–79, 169–170, 210, 212–213; imagery sources and models, 32–34; number and composition of team, 13, 24, 35n15, 46, 57, 78, 92–93, 152, 162–163; style analysis, 91–93 tlahtolli (language, discourse), 153–154, 158 Tlaloc (rain god), 80, 103, 105, 112, 117, 131, 146 tlaloque (minor rain gods), 80, 129 tlamatini/tlamatinime (Nahua wise men), 116, 117–118, 152 Tlapalteoxihuitl (colored turquoise), 140. See also turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol tlapouhque (calendar readers, prognosticators), 185 tlaquetzqui (storyteller), 185 tlaquimilolli (sacred bundles), 16, 99–100, 139, 143–144, 145–146, 150. See also bundles/binding

240 • Index

Tlatelolco: environmental setting, 127; excavations at Santiago Tlatelolco monastery, 91–92; freshwater system for, 133, 134, 135; Itzquauhtzin (ruler of Tlatelolco), 55, 57, 58; List of Rulers of Tlatelolco (Nahuatl narrative), 54; Mexica, historical overview, 2, 4, 6, 124; scriptorium, profile and speculation on, 90–93. See also Colegio de Santa Cruz; Tenochtitlan tlatlacolli (sin, something damaged), 182n89, 198, 206 tlatoani/tlatoque (altepetl ruler, speaker), 57, 97, 128, 186 Tlaxochimaco (Bestowing of Flowers), 90 Tlazolteotl, 111 Tloque Nahuaque (true God), 111, 116, 175 Toci (earth fertility goddess), 90 tolicpalli (seat of reeds), 96 Tolosa manuscript, 2, 12 toltecayotl (artisanship), 28, 154 Toltecs, 11, 28, 79, 119 Tomilson, Gary, 154 tonalamatl (book of days), 79–80, 105–106 tonalli (life-giving solar essence), 50, 54, 158, 171 tonalpohualli (count of days), 73, 79–80, 88, 201 tonatiuh (sun), 50, 112 Toral, Francisco de, 3, 6 Torquemada, Juan de, 117 Totecujo Ichan (House of Our Lord), 113, 114 Townsend, Richard, 54 Toxcatl festival, 46, 160–161, 162 Toxcatl massacre, 45, 46, 48, 54, 55, 56–57, 59, 60 traitor (necoc iautl), 186, 188, 191, 192, 194 trans/ambiguously gendered individuals, 185, 187, 188–189, 193 translation dynamics: and challenges to scholarship in reproductions of imagery, 24–29; comparison of Spanish to Italian translation, 39–44; comprehensibility of images, 22–24; divergent styles and cultural perspectives, Nahuatl vs. Spanish, 46–49, 60n16, 189–190, 200, 203– 204; English translation contributions, 60n6; 1585 revised version of Book 12 of Codex, 8, 49, 60, 78; limitations of cultural shift from, 167–168; omissions/additions in Spanish translation, 47–48, 87 trecenas, 79. See also tonalpohualli (count of days) tribute system Mexica, 58–60 Tridentine edicts. See Council of Trent Tula, Toltec capital, 28, 78, 79, 116 turquoise (stone/color) as royalty symbol, 96, 97, 98–99, 108n9, 140, 157, 172–173. See also blue pigments twenty (cempohualli), significance of, 141–142 Tzapotlantenan, 87 Tzeltal Maya, 153–154, 156 Tzilacatzin, 8, 50 tzitzimitl/coleletli (supernatural being of torment), 113, 121n30, 121n33, 188, 190, 193, 194 ueuetlaueliloc (wicked old man), 186, 193 Uffizi Gallery murals, Mexica-styled art on, 8 underworld/hell, 133, 134, 135, 154, 178, 193 University of Salamanca, 6, 21, 22, 169. See also Cielo de Salamanca Valadés, Diego, 169, 170, 172, 178, 179 Valeriano, Antonio, 6, 13, 129, 132, 137, 152 Varthema, Ludovico, 100 Vegerano, Alonso, 6, 13, 152 veintenas (twenty-day Nahua months), 47, 80, 88, 106, 158–164. See also rituals and celebrations

Velasco, Luis de, 128, 132 Vergil, Polydore, 95 Vico, Enea, 67 violet. See under blue pigments “Viracochas,” 122n72 Vives, Jean Luis, 170 war/warriors: armored character (“Ironman”) in imagery, 55–56, 57, 58, 59; symbolism of, 32, 49, 50, 121n41, 173, 174; and tribute in Mexica custom, 58–60. See also conquest, symbolism and representations of washing, ritual, 137 water: acuitlachtli (water bear) anecdote, 125, 133–136; and Christian symbolism, 137; colors used in representation of, 66, 67, 133, 134, 135, 136–137; freshwater sources, symbolism of, 133, 135; Pantitlan, whirlpool/drain phenomenon, 129–133, 135–136; sexual symbolism of, 17, 196 water bear (acuitlachtli) anecdote, 125, 133–136 water management systems, Mexica: engineering projects of Mexica leadership, 127–129, 133, 135; fountain of Tlatelolco, 133, 134; freshwater sources, symbolism of, 135 Wauchope, Robert, 12 Weigand, Phil, 140 wicked old man (ueuetlaueliloc), 186, 193 women: Franciscan bias against, 17, 116, 189; and gender ambiguity, 187,

189; and lesbianism, 186, 187, 189, 196; in morality imagery, 192–196; woman’s pose (“collapsed pose”) in imagery, 211 wrapping, symbolism of, 142. See also bundles/binding Würzburg, Konrad von, 67, 69 xihuitl (ordinary “turquoise”), 140 xihuitzolli (turquoise diadem), 96, 97 Xilo (goddess of feather artisans), 111 Xilonen (goddess of green maize), 82, 83 Xipe Totec (Flayed God), 88, 159, 160 xiuhcoatl (turquoise serpent staff ), 140 xiuhpohualli (year count), 88, 158 Xiuhtecuhtli (Turquoise Lord, Year Lord), 117, 146 xiuhtlapalli (knotted turquoise cloth), 140 Xiuhtlati (goddess of feather artisans), 111 xiuhtototl (lovely cotinga), 140 xochihua (possessor of flowers, deceiver), 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193 xochitl (flowers), 171. See also flowers Xoconochco, 140 Yiacatecuhtli (Lord of the Nose, or Lord of the Vanguard), 30, 31 Zorita, Alonso de, 119, 171 Zumárraga, Juan de, 128, 201

Index • 241