[Aztlan] El mantra de la manipulacion de la historia

[Jerry Offner]

Recent work on Nahua historiography has become more instructive and encouraging--in terms of analyzing the important sources with better, even-handed methodology and in terms of trying to get at Nahua historiography in its own cultural terms--to grasp and understand its otherness so we can see, among other things, the historiographic strengths and weaknesses in our own Western historiographic tradition.  It is not enough to take Western standards as--well--as a standard--and find other historiographic schools always wanting.  

Certainly, the original very vigorous post on this thread raises many of the central questions and there has been--in line with the general argument--recent movement to expand our understanding beyond sloganeering and the arguing of this position vs. that position. It is first necessary to understand the materials themselves and the historiography in their own terms.  (There have been over the last several decades numerous reasons for the exasperation evinced in the original post).  

Sylvie Peperstraete's recent book on the Cronica X sources demonstrates that Tenochcan sources show the same sorts of patterning and bias that have been harped about in sources from other Aztec cities for a few decades.  She does this by working through the texts word by word and discovering patterns in the data, as well as by relating such detailed work and understanding to other sources.  By the end of her study, it is clear that Tenochcan historiography is as much in play as that of any other city or region of the time. This book is in French but there are lengthy and detailed abstracts in Spanish and English at the end of the volume that capture much of the important detail of her presentation and findings.    

Lori Diel's new book on the Tira de Tepechpan examines the actions of one principal Aztec historiographer, later "assisted" by others of differing skills on the Tira de Tepechpan.  She looks at the layers of pictorial and written evidence to show historiography in process.  By working very close to the pictorial document and relating it to other documents, written and pictorial, we get a strong sense of an initially robust, bold and assertive Nahua historiography under increasing pressure in the decades after the conquest.

Neither of these two authors proposes a reconstructed, somehow more correct history as a substitute or end product of their work.  This is a good call because many of the basic sources, especially the Codex Xolotl and its derivative alphabetic sources, are still not well understood from an historiographic point of view.  It's still too early for the "big picture"--although this situation could be remedied in less than a decade with some focused work.  

Finally, Camilla Townsend's article in the latest issue of Ethnohistory shows that the Nahua were well aware of the complexity of historical events and the problems of capturing them, comparing them and presenting them to the advantage of a certain party or point of view.  They were well aware that various cities might have differing claims and they had ways to understand them and work them out--ways that the Spanish legal apparatus failed to develop or to bother to develop with its clumsy and obtuse "dueling interrogatorio" process.  She also begins and develops the valuable conversation of how these historiographic practices relate to Nahua culture itself.  Further, the article does a good job, through indirection, of relaxing and defusing prior conflicts about the quality of Nahua historiography. 

These are positive developments in that it is not a simple matter anymore of pointing out contradictions in Nahua sources or mythic intrusions in these sources and then gleefully announcing claims of destruction and claims that the documents have no value.  Nor is it a matter of arguing that one interpretation of the documents is a good history and that another one is not.  Instead, we all will go to the calmecac and see how much of what is still being said there through these surviving documents we can understand. The emphasis should be on the most careful listening.   

Western historiography certainly has its own problems. It is a slippery standard or perhaps it is more like a sword with no handle that would prevent its bearer from being wounded. There are older issues in Western historiography such as the simultaneously studied and naive misrepresentation and misunderstanding of Greek and Roman society by British scholars in the times of empire-building in Great Britain. People can also contemplate the various portrayals of the Maya by Mesoamericanists over the last 100 years or the portrayal of the Aztecs in just the last 70 years.  These portrayals were historiographic efforts and they were variously partisan and representative of this or that center of interest, influence or power.  There is no reason to think this is not true of current efforts.  

In the end we are going to find that the Nahua were very astute historiographers. And if we can assemble the evidence someday, we will find the same of the Otomi, the Totonac and other groups.  (Mayanists can comment on the sources from that region).  

As for these sources containing no more than a thimbleful of what happened--that is probably too large a measure given the complexity of actions of so many people over so many years.  I hope to see in the next decade or so someone or some people who can put the archaeological evidence together with the documentary evidence.  That is going to take a very special set of abilities (and interests) in a single person.  In the end, it may well turn out that we will learn more about the Nahua school of historiography than the full scope of what happened over all those centuries but we will know more than we know now.   


Jerry Offner
ixtlil at earthlink.net