[Aztlan] Exact location of Aztlan

[Robert Hall]

Estimados colegas,
   
  To address the issue of Aztlan the place versus Aztlan the myth I wish to point out that over a hundred years ago Zelia Nuttall suggested that the seven Chichimec tribes, precursors of the "Aztecs," came, in fact, from the seven stars of one of the Dipper constellations. I have not run across any papers suggesting that this idea was ever taken seriously, even for the purpose of refuting it. I think it appropriate then in this the 150th anniversary year of Zelia Nuttall’s birth, to give Nuttall’s suggestion its due, because I believe that her thinking, though undeveloped, was headed in the right direction. (See p. 57 of Nuttall, "The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations," Archaeological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 2, Cambridge, Mass. 1901.)
   
  First, one must consider that because the night sky can be viewed as the equivalent of the underworld, descent from the night sky can be equivalent to ascent from the earth’s interior. When the sun in is the underworld we see the starry night sky above us. When the sun is above us, the underworld is in darkness except for the stars. The jaguar, for instance, was associated with darkness and the underworld, its spotted hide symbolizing the starry night sky. Hence, emergence from seven caves in the earth can be seen as descent from the night sky.
   
  Second, it has long been observed that the place Aztlan from which the Aztecs migrated has a remarkable resemblance to the place to which they migrated. This puts the Aztec origin in the category of origin myths like that of the (Muskogean) Choctaws of Mississippi. In a paper presented at the San Juan meetings of the SAA in 2006 John Blitz posed the question, "How can a mound of emergence be a mound of destination?" How is it that the Choctaw can regard the mound called Nanih Waiya "as both the place where the Choctaw first emerged out of the earth and, in another telling, arrived at . . . after a long journey."
   
  Third, the seven caves of the Chichimecs, were within or associated with a geological anomaly, Colhuacan, meaning ‘hill bent forward’ or ‘bent-over mountain.’ Compare this with the Choctaws’ place of origin and destination, Nanih Waiya or ‘bending-over mound.’
   
  Fourth, Chichimec is commonly translated as ‘lineage of dogs’. This recalls an origin story for the (Siouan) Hidatsa Dog Soldier societies in the northern Plains. The forerunners of this society originated from Dog Den Butte and after a time became the seven stars of the Big Dipper. This gets us back to Zelia Nuttall and her suggestion that the seven caves of the Chichimecs were the stars of a Dipper.
   
  Fifth, many Siouan speaking Indian nations have associations with seven stars in the north. The Dakotas, for example, trace their ancestry to an original seven ‘council fires’ or seven bands associated with seven stars, which was a name for the Big Dipper.
   
  Sixth, as it has been illustrated, the ‘bent-over mountain’ Colhuacan can hardly be real. The twisted top does, however, resemble the cane- or crook-shaped horn on the head of each Fire Serpent on the Aztec Sun Stone. Each of these two crooks has seven circles representing seven stars. While these seven stars are commonly thought to represent the Pleiades, there is only one Pleiades asterism and there are two Dippers. We see Ursa Major and Ursa Minor as dippers. They can just as easily be seen as crooks.
   
  Seventh, crook lances, or more accurately standards of crook shape, were used in pairs as emblems of the Dog Soldier societies of the more nomadic Plains tribes and as symbols of authority or warrants of leadership by the more settled agricultural Prairie tribes. The pointed tips allowed them to be stuck in the ground. One use was in a no-retreat situation where the Dog Soldier tethered himself by a sash to a crook so erected and defended himself only with a token wooden-handled quirt against an enemy with lethal weapons. It is hard not to see a resemblance between this form of combat and that in the so-called Aztec gladiatorial sacrifice or tlahuahuahnaliiztli in which a tethered captive warrior defends himself with a feathered wooden club against free-moving adversaries with obsidian-bladed clubs. This brings us back again to Zelia Nuttall, who compared the action in this Aztec sacrifice to the motions of the Dipper constellations. (See Nuttall 1901, p.12). It should be
 remembered that the Big Dipper wheels around the North Star, Polaris, which is located at the end of the Little Dipper handle, which is thus fixed in place like the Dog Soldier's crook.
   
  In sum, I believe that the idea of Aztlan can be better understood in a broad continental perspective than in one restricted to Central Mexico. The limits of the Gran Chichimeca extended farther into the north than most scholars have allowed for.
   
  Robert Hall