intertext

In the Humanities 110 alumni bookgroup, we have moved on from the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean, to Mesoamerica! Woo-hoo! I have been waiting for this for AGES.

We got off to a slow start: most of our readings were pretty minimal, and many of us (including me) got frustrated and started doing a bunch of extra reading, just to get a better grounding in the time of place. Consequently, I lagged on doing monthly posts: in a lot of cases, I didn't have much to say until I'd finished my supplementary reading. So here, have it all at once!

Assigned plus supplemental readings from September through December, minus one book I'm still working my way through. Pre-Conquest (i.e., pre-1521) through 1649.


Camilla Townsend, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2019)

What it says on the tin! Episodic history of the Mexica from their coming to the Valley of Mexico through the first century after the Spanish conquest, drawing primarily on Nahuatl-language sources. Each chapter begins with a fictionalized epigram of a key moment in a historical figure's life, then spends the chapter itself expanding on the historical context. Very much intended to be a Mexica-pov history, Townsend's primary sources are Nahuatl annals, the most useful of which are discussed in an appendix. She is careful to point out where the annals are ambiguous or contradictory, or what aspects of a narrative rely on inference, or are found only in Spanish-language sources, or are just plain conjecture, which I appreciate.

I found this a good read, and a satisfying introduction to Mexica culture and history.


Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (eds.), Codex Mendoza (1541/1992)

On its own, this was relatively dry: neither the original glyphic writing nor the Spanish nor English translations were that compelling. (Although it is cool to see how significant items such as shells, rubber balls, and feathers were as tribute.) But when taken with this next work...


Gordon Whittaker, Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs: A Guide to Nahuatl Writing (2021)

Not assigned for the course/bookclub, but I very much wish it had been. One of the lectures on the Codex Mendoza invited us to try to interpret its heiroglyphs on our own, without any instruction. When in fact it is more than a rebus writing system! There are many non-literal conventions! Some glyphs are used phonetically, not literally! Some glyphs have multiple meanings! Glyphs have multiple forms and the different forms mean different things! AGH.

( Thorough introduction to Mexican glyphic writing. )

Great book, hugely recommended, sometimes a bit more technical than I could quite grasp, it helps if you already speak some Nahuatl (but Whittaker teaches you most of the Nahuatl you need to know to follow the text), and lots and lots and lots of glossy full color illustrations and scans or photographs of various codices and carvings.


James Lockhart (ed. and trans.), We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico (late 1500s / 1993)

Translation of several Nahuatl-language texts about the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The vast majority of the page count is devoted Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex (La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España -- in English, The General History of the Things of New Spain), an encyclopedia compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún during the latter half of the sixteenth century. La Historia General was conceived to fill two primary purposes: to be a primary source for an eventual Nahuatl dictionary, and to be an encyclopedia to Mexica culture, to better aid the twin projects of colonization and conversion. In the Florentine Codex, La Historia consists of two parallel texts presented on facing pages, the original Nahuatl and a Spanish translation created by Sahagún, plus additional illustrations (which for the most part are European-style illustrations, and not the heiroglyphic texts of earlier Mexica codices). Books 1 through 11 are an encyclopedia of various cultural and natural history topics; Book 12 is a narrative of the Spanish conquest. In We People Here, Lockhart provides side-by-side English translations of both the Nahuatl and Sahagún's Spanish translation -- which is fascinating.

( Nahuatl and Spanish )


Luis Lasso de la Vega (eds. Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole and James Lockhart), The story of Guadalupe (1649/1998)

Earliest written account of the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, set to pen nearly a century after the first written reference to the famous artifact. There's a lot of fascinating context about who wrote it (a white Spaniard) and in what language (Nahuatl) and for what purposes (to persuade the Mexica to be more Catholic about their worship at a holy site for the Mexica goddess Tonantzin; to convince the Iberian Spanish elite that the New-Spain Spanish elite were as legitimate as the Iberians and/or should be the new center of the Spanish empire).

Almost none of that context is actually in the story (except its being written in Nahuatl, which is made much of at the beginning). Instead, this is the story of Juan Diego, lowly and humble, and the visions that appeared to him, and his attempts to make the Bishop listen. There's some interesting symbolism about Spanish birds and flowers appearing miraculously, but the event we liked best is the part where Juan Diego decided he didn't have time to be harassed by Mary and tried to ghost her, and she called him on it. (And then, very graciously, solved his other problems so that he could return to working on hers.)