Crucible of Distortion

The Impact of the Spanish on the Record of Native Oral Trandition

			Abstract: The information we have concerning Nahua tradition and myth is heavily reliant upon texts created after the Conquest. This paper examines the way in which those post-contact texts were effected by the unique contexts of the Spanish conquest. Examples are given of the different types of alterations effected upon our understanding of pre-contact myth. Section Contents: Distortion by Transcription Error 2 Distortion by Interpretation 4 Distortion by Selection 6 Distortion by Accretion 10 Conclusions 12 Bibliography 12 Introduction The recent translation of Maya glyphic texts provides an insight into the pre-Hispanic mind with a potential clarity not previously available. The texts were written prior to the Conquest, the meanings were encoded by natives for natives, and the carvings in stone have been altered only by the passage of time, not by significant tampering with the texts themselves. The glyphs present the most exciting chance to glimpse the Maya at a time before there was contact with, and potential influence by, the Western world. Such demonstrably pristine texts can only be envied in Central Mexico, where the graphic encodings of native lore lack the direct relationship to words or text that is the important aspect of the translation of the glyphs. Nevertheless, the case of the glyphs is still instructive for the type of information which can be gleaned from the texts. All translations depend upon our interpretation and analysis of the glyphs. Some of them can be said to have accepted meaning. Some of them have meaning only because of our interpretation of their contexts. Even with native, untouched text there is still the possibility that our own interpretations will somehow color our view of what that text originally communicated.(1) The problem is compounded in Central Mexico. For all that we learn of meaning in Central Mexican painted texts, the interpretation of that meaning relies upon our own subjective analysis of the signs, symbols, and written texts. If the readings of the glyphs cannot be assuredly divorced from our Western interpretations, how much more do our interpretations impact our understanding of the Central Mexican texts? One of the advantages of Central Mexican studies is the larger number of written texts which discuss pre-contact beliefs and customs. Unlike interpretations of Maya glyphs or Central Mexican codices, these texts are available in a written form which is much more readily accessible. Of the texts in Spanish there is rarely a problem of interpretation of a word. Even for the recorded Nahuatl texts, the problems of translation are little different than the process for any other comparable language text. Nevertheless, this rich corpus of information about the pre-contact culture of the Nahua is itself the result of the same interpretive problems associated with glyph translation or codical interpretation. While some work has been done to use the corpus to reconstruct pre-contact information, there is yet more to do(2). Western historical tradition has developed methodologies which are useful to trace the various branches of a text in its various copies and variations. While this method has clear relevance to the interrelationships among the writings of the Spanish fathers, it has less applicability to the connections between the Spanish text and the original native information. On that level, the concepts of textual transmission can obscure the real nature of the relationship between text and source. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Mesoamerican cultural and historical tradition was embodied in a rich oral tradition, which was interwoven with, but ultimately separate from, the painted codices. The very nature of oral tradition is one of constant reworking and variability, as contrasted with the fixed form and content of a text. Our evidence for the nature of this pre-contact oral tradition is ironically embodied in texts. In other words, we have a mode of recording which inherently limits the nature of the information it attempts to encode. At the very least, recording a text freezes it in time and space. While an accurate snapshot is important information, the comparison between snapshot and movie is apt. Oral tradition is a never-ending movie, and a text is no better than a snapshot of a part of that movie at any one time. The very fact that whole texts are recorded is therefore a significant alteration (and mild distortion) of the pre-contact relationship of oral and written traditions. For the ethnohistorian who uses these written sources, this alteration means that almost all information about Mesoamerican oral tradition has been funneled through some form of European culture, whether the language and thought patterns of the Spaniards who first recorded the lore, or merely the writing system later used by the natives themselves. A reconstruction of Nahua culture prior to European contact must rely heavily, not only on documents produced after contact, but on a written system which did not exist before contact. As a consequence, our understanding of pre-Hispanic oral tradition depends entirely upon the impact effected upon native lore when oral tradition encountered the conquerors and when information transmittal entered the crucible of the Conquest. The impact of the Spanish upon our record of native oral literature ranges from the subtle to the blatant, the virtually imperceptible to the grossly obvious. This paper examines the types of distortions the contact with the Spanish made upon the oral literature of Central Mexico. These types are 1) distortion by transcription error; 2) distortion by interpretation; 3) distortion by selection; and 4) distortion by accretion. Distortion by Transcription Error In the historical tradition, errors in the text which can be ascribed to the error of the copyist are termed scribal errors. The situation is slightly different in the case of captured oral tradition. Where in a text tradition the scribe is making an error in copying from one text to another, in the case of captured oral tradition the original is heard and not seen. Thus an error does not come from mistakenly copying the text, but from an error in transcribing the oral information to paper: hence transcription error. It is very difficult to determine whether or not the recorder has faithfully written the material as he heard it. Not only is it impossible to recover the oral original against which a written version might be compared, the living nature of oral tradition is such that the telling itself may not have provided the full picture of the lore. It is consequently difficult to separate transcription error from multiply coexisting variations of the oral lore. While this type of distortion of the native material may have been as frequent as scribal error in the written tradition, I have been able to discern only one probable example in the mythological literature related to Quetzalcoatl. One of the important aspects of the Quetzalcoatl myths was his participation in the creations of the world. There are multiple texts which provide views of the oral tradition on this point. In Mesoamerican religion the world has undergone a succession of creations and destructions. Each previous creation was defective in some way, and only the present world was deemed viable. In the creative effort Quetzalcoatl is aided and opposed in a celestial struggle by his twin/nemesis Tezcatlipoca. The outcome of their various confrontations yielded the destruction of one world and the creation of the next, a process which appears to alternate between the protagonists in a destructive/creative sequence. One of the important sources for the myth of creation is the "Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas". In one of the descriptions of a particular creation, some elements which can be reconstructed with some degree of confidence into different creative periods are conflated into a single creative period. "And they say that from the first man and woman they made, as has been said, was born (when these things began to occur) a son, who was called Piltzintecutli. And because he had no woman with whom to be married, the gods made one for him of the hair of a woman named Xochiquetzal, with whom he was first married. And this done, all four gods saw how the medium they had created gave little light and they resolved that another medium be made in order to light well all the earth. . ." "In this way Tezcatlipoca made himself the sun. All four gods then created the giants, who were very large men, of such strength that they uprooted trees wit their hands(3). Most of these events finds corroboration in other sources for the Central Mexican creation myth. However, a careful reconstruction of that mythology suggests that this account has made a sequencing error in reporting the myth(4). There is a creation which is associated with Tezcatlipoca and with giants. There is a creation which recounts the story of Piltzintecutli and the lesser light source. In the other texts they are in different suns, or creations. At a different point in the narrative in the HMP there is a reference to giants, and that passage is in perfect harmony with the other sources. While it is possible that the variation listed in the HMP was a variant which was in oral circulation, the overwhelming thematic uniformity of the various sources for the suns diminishes that possibility. The probability of transcription error is increased by the method by which the HMP was compiles. At the very beginning of his narration, the author indicates the sources of his information: "[These things appear to be so] from the characters and writings they use, and by the relation of the old ones. [Also] from those who in times of their infidelity were priests, and by the words of the lords and leaders, to whom the law was taught and were raised in the temples. . . Together before me [they] brought their books and figures which as they showed were ancient, and many of them, the greater part, were anointed with what appeared to be human blood"(5). The ultimate source of the information is unimpeachable. This tale comes directly from natives who should know the tradition, and who were aided by their own records. If this is the source, how could the passage concerning the sun of Tezcatlipoca and Piltzintecutli be in error? The author is not citing a single source. He is not recording a word for word performance, but rather providing a compilation of the information he received from multiple sources. The author in this case is an extremely active part of the transmission of the information. As a foreigner who was not nearly as familiar with the material as his sources, the error in reporting the information is easy to understand. The best explanation of the anomaly in this text can best be explained by transcription error. This example can be discerned only because a sufficient body of corroborating texts are available, and the analysis of those texts show sufficient consistency that variations or anomalies can be noted in comparison. With much of the recorded oral tradition, either sufficient corroborating texts are unavailable, or those which are available show enough variation among them that such a fine line cannot easily be drawn. It is for this reason that a probably significant mode of distortion of the native oral tradition is the most difficult to find and document. Distortion by Interpretation Most of the information about native oral tradition in Spanish documents comes from the Spanish collector of the lore, and is not a written copy of the lore itself. Sahagún's Nahuatl documentation comprising the Florentine Codex is the notable exception. In the majority of the cases, the Spanish author makes no attempt to record the performance of the lore, but gives his own synopsis of the lore. Given the condensation process, it was inevitable that the Spanish author would distort the original oral tradition. A distortion by interpretation is one in which the alteration of the information of the native tradition occurs because of the intervention of the Spanish author's interpretation which becomes the written record. Frequently, the cases of distortion by interpretation are the result of an attempt to understand native lore much more than an attempt to change information about that lore. The distortion occurs when European descriptions and meanings were given to authentic native categories. In this type of distortion, the Spaniard is seeing or hearing material which is pre-conquest, but the interpretation of that information is European, and it is the European interpretation we have in their written works. For example, Mendieta describes the conclusions of certain Friars concerning a lienzo (cloth/hide with picture writing) in their possession: "... The vicar of that convent showed them some painted papers which had been reproduced from some very ancient paintings, made on certain large rolled leathers, which touch on our faith, and were where the mother of Our Lady and three of her young sisters (who were held to be saints). And the one which represented Our Lady, was [painted] with hair done up in the style in which the natives pull up and tie their hair, and in the knot which was behind she had placed a small cross, by which was given to understand that she was the most holy, and that from her was to be born a great prophet who was to come from the heavens, and that she was to give birth without joining with a man, remaining virgin..."(6) The description of the actual painting in front of the fathers seems to be native enough. The women all wear their hair in the native fashion. There appears to be no question that the original source (in this case a visual source, not an oral one) was authentically representative of the native tradition. The interpretation of this section (for it was only a part of a larger roll) appears to be based solely upon the cross found in the hair of one of the four women. The cross had very specific meaning in Mesoamerican culture, but the one given here is very obviously European. In pre-conquest texts certain symbols might be attached near the head of a person, suggesting once again that these good Fathers are examining a legitimate source, but those signs near the head generally indicated their name, not a degree of holiness. The rest of the description of the history of the Lady with the cross in her hair is a pure departure from the pictures, a clear interpretation based on the European categories, rather than the native. What the native meaning might have been, we might never know. When these good men examined the paintings, there is no indication that they consulted a native as to the interpretation. The merely saw the cross in the hair of the woman, and deduced that this woman must have been Mary. Fortunately, their written text which contains the interpretive distortion also contains sufficient description of the source that we can see the process occurring. An even more obvious example of the distortion of a native text comes form Durán: "The disciples of this holy man [Topiltzin or Quetzalcoatl] walked along with long robes to their feet, they wore on their heads coverings of kerchiefs or bonnets, which was what the Indians meant to paint when they, to show the hats or bonnets they wore, painted shells.(7)" It cannot be denied that the shells were there (Durán even includes a reproduction in his text)(8). What is interesting is that Durán can be so certain of what the natives meant. Durán does not see the shells as shells, but as representations of what the natives meant to paint, that is kerchiefs or bonnets. Durán makes an interpretation based on some preconceived notion of what he would find, or what he wanted to find. In this particular case, he left us the indication that he was interpreting shells. Here we can at least see what Durán saw, and therefore catch him in the act of an interpretive distortion. When we are not so lucky as to have the evidence of the reasoning process, the interpretive distortions become harder to find, but this process was certainly a major factor in the development of the Quetzalcoatl material in Spanish hands. Spanish Pro-Indian sources display a fascination with Quetzalcoatl's manner of dress. They specifically remark on his modesty, which contrasted with the comparative nudity of the common native. Cervantes de Sálazar is one of the authors who emphasizes the unique nature of Quetzalcoatl's attire: "He was never dressed but in a robe of white cotton, well girded to the body and so large that it covered the feet, for greater modesty".(9) It is difficult to trace the native origins of this statement. Native texts do not mention Quetzalcoatl's attire unless they are specifically describing the regalia of the idol, and the Spanish sources are clearly referring to something other than the idol's ritual paraphernalia. While there may have been some native tradition which stressed Quetzalcoatl's mode of dress, there is no available evidence for it. Virtually all of the comparative information comes from Spanish sources, not native. In those Spanish sources there is reasonable uniformity amongst the variations. How might this be an example of interpretive distortion? It appears more likely that the Spanish were basing their information on pictorial rather than verbal information, similar to the lady with the cross in her hair, and the shell 'hats' noted earlier. In addition to the common loincloth, male dress allowed a sort of cape called a tlilmatli, which was a piece of cloth worn across the shoulders and tied in a knot over the left shoulder. The most common style reached to just below the shins, but social status dictated longer lengths for those of higher social rank. Only the most important men could wear a tlilmatli which reached the ankles. It is therefore highly probable that when the Spaniards were shown representations of Quetzalcoatl or any other important figure in the codices, he would be wearing a tlilmatli which indicated his high rank by reaching the ankles. Indeed, Durán's seated Quetzalcoatl is wears just such a garment.(10) The distortion occurs not in the reporting of a long garment, but in the labeling with which it was reported. Not only did the Spanish emphasize this long tlilmatli, they transformed it. The Spanish word used for Quetzalcoatl's garment is ropa 'clothing, garment, or robe'. Once the garment was called ropa instead of tlilmatli, the concept was free to alter its basic shape and take on the characteristics of Spanish ropa. Even though ropa is sufficiently generic as to be a logical word to describe the foreign mode of attire, to the Spanish mind it also connoted the familiar rather than the exotic. Very soon, Quetzalcoatl's ropa was no longer a cape tied over one shoulder, but a garment with sleeves. In addition, during the labeling process the native garment not only tended to gain sleeves, but the original tlilmatli lost its capacity to distinguish rank and became a sign, not of power, but of humility and modesty. So completely did Quetzalcoatl's apparel lose its original significance that the Relación de genealogía actually states that the clothing of those who accompanied Quetzalcoatl was "like the dress of Spain."(11) The more the Pro-Indian authors examined Quetzalcoatl the more Catholic he became. The royal tlilmatli-become robe eventually became a friar's habit in Torquemada.(12) The lack of concern for Quetzalcoatl's dress in native texts immediately marks this element of the Quetzalcoatl cycle as suspicious. The addition of moralistic meaning to the garment rather than native social status again indicates the nature of the Spanish alteration. The culmination in a friar's habit can only be seen as the logical end to the series of increasing Westernizations of meaning which pulled this element of the Quetzalcoatl cycle into something it was never meant to be. Distortion by Selection Where distortion by interpretation alters the nature of native lore by twisting pre-contact meanings into Western categories, a further distortion of native lore occurred not so much by the way in which the information was recorded, but specifically for what was not recorded. The selection of certain elements in preference over others, or the exclusive reporting or avoidance of elements of the lore also worked a significant distortion in our picture of pre-contact oral tradition. Modern writers tend to mistakenly impute our putatively objective methodologies onto previous chroniclers. Such a assumption is rarely correct. In the case of Central Mexico, virtually all of the Spanish writers on New Spain had an agenda which superceded either history or ethnography. The underlying interests of the chroniclers of the Aztecs had a profound effect upon the nature of the material they reported. In The Aztec Image in Western Thought, Benjamin Keen has surveyed the literature on Aztec themes and found "a link between the positions of the Spanish writers on Indian policy and their attitudes toward Aztec civilization."(13) The comparison of the treatment of the Quetzalcoatl material in these sources is dramatic. Anti-Indian writers consistently describe only the idol of the god. Pro-Indian writers are virtually the only ones who give elaborate details of the Quetzalcoatl legends, but usually very little about the idol. It is almost as though the two camps are writing about an entirely different subject. When Pro-Indian and Anti-Indian writers are compared for the themes they portray, the differences are instructive. The idol in Anti-Indian writings contrasts with a benevolent culture hero among the Pro-Indian writers. The sacrifices to the idol prevail among Anti-Indian writers, and the Pro-Indian writers stress Quetzalcoatl's aversion to sacrifice. The Anti-Indian writers describe ritual, the Pro-Indian writers detail myth. With such clear divisions in the material they chose to record, it is imperative that we understand the underlying reason why the Pro-Indian writers made their selections of the available Quetzalcoatl material. These writers had the impetus of the debates raging in the far off courts of Spain about the humanity of the Indians. The Anti-Indian writers saw them as subhuman, and therefore subject to slavery and exploitation. The implicit argument of the Pro-Indian writers was that evidence that the Indians had once had the gospel preached to them - even if they had fallen from it - was proof of their humanity and value. This underlying purpose in their writings, to defend the humanity (and fallen Christianity) of the natives, colored the material they presented, from the choice of material itself (Quetzalcoatl the culture hero as opposed to Quetzalcoatl the idol, or the wind-god) to the way in which the culture hero was presented.(14) The most explicit example of the way these forces modified the native information comes from the analysis of three nearly identical texts about Quetzalcoatl. In the succession of citations all ultimately stemming from the original passage in Nahuatl, the shift in meaning is frequently based as much on what is left out as for what is included. The Florentine Codex is one of the manuscripts prepared under Sahagún's direction. It is written in Nahuatl (in European script) by natives. Although the informants used to create this document were Christianized, and trained by the friars, the Florentine Codex remains one of the best sources on pre-contact Nahua culture. From that work comes this native description of Quetzalcoatl: "[the story of] Quetzalcoatl, who was a great wizard; and of the place where he ruled, and of what he did when he went [away]. There, it is said, he lay, he lay covered, and he lay with only his face covered. And, it is said, he was monstrous. His face was like a huge, battered stone, a great fallen rock; it [was] not made like that of men. And his beard was long.(15)" Sahagún used this Nahuatl source material to write his Spanish version of the history and culture of the Nahua. Sahagún's version of this passage in his Historia General loses some of the information contained in the native version: "Quetzalcoatl was esteemed and held to be a god, and they adored him in ancient times in Tula, and he had a very tall temple with may stairs which were so narrow that a foot would not fit on them. And his statue was always lying down and covered with blankets, and his face was very ugly, and his head large and bearded.(16)" The first change is subtle because it changes the context of the ugly Quetzalcoatl. The native statement on Quetzalcoatl's appearance comes in a passage concerning the priest-king of Tula, whereas Sahagún's follows a description of Quetzalcoatl's temple in Tenochtitlan. Sahagún is describing an idol, where the native informants were giving information considered to be related to the person. The second slight shift occurs when Quetzalcoatl is described as ugly rather than monstrous. Anderson and Dibble are using the word "monstrous" to translate the Nahuatl atlacacemelle. They are apparently following Molina in this, as this is a meaning of "tlacacemele" in Molina's dictionary, and presumably Sahagún would followed the same connotation which led to "monstrous". However, Siméon's entry for atlacacemelle has "turbulent, insane, fool, a perverse person." Frances Karttunen suggests that the understanding of the word has to do with an essential non-humanness (and therefore monster).(17) Ugly is an aesthetic value judgement, atlacacemelle is attempting to define something more than mere appearance. The description which has been translated as "monstrous" is attempting to communicate the essential "otherness" of Quetzalcoatl (remember that his face was described as a "huge, battered stone, a great fallen rock"). These "monstrous" characteristics were important signals to the native mind which classified him as extra-human, a demi-god. The third change is a similar selection of the information Sahagún decided to exclude from his Spanish version of the Nahuatl information. The Florentine Codex introduces Quetzalcoatl with the phrase "in hue nahualli catca.(18) This phase is translated by Anderson and Dibble as "[Quetzalcoatl,] who was a great wizard." Our English "wizard" is perhaps the best word to use, but it fails to provide the full connotation of the Nahua nahualli. The nahualli was a shaman, a shape shifter who could appear as various animal alter egos. This phrase, which would have imparted extremely important information to the native mind, is totally absent from Sahagún's Spanish account. Just as when Sahagún chose to label Quetzalcoatl "ugly", but not the "monstrous", he again strips important cultural information from the native account, and sets the stage for a further transformation of Quetzalcoatl from native wizard to Christian Saint. Torquemada relates a similar description of Quetzalcoatl, but his text is based on Sahagún's account rather than the original text in Nahuatl. Torquemada is relatively faithful to the Spanish Sahagún source, but includes a further elaboration and interpretation of the account: "In the city of Tula they has a very sumptuous temple, and very large, with many steps, and so narrow that a foot would not fit on them. [Quetzalcoatl's] image had a very ugly face, and a large head, and was very bearded: he was lying down, and not standing, covered with blankets, and it is said that they did it in memory that in another time he was to return to rule, and in reverence of his great majesty they should keep his figure covered and lying down, which must signify his absence, as one who sleeps, who lies down to sleep, and when awakening from that dream of absence, will rise to rule...(19)" Torquemada perpetuates and makes explicit Sahagún's shift from the person to the idol. As in Sahagún's version, Quetzalcoatl is still ugly, but not monstrous. The information on Quetzalcoatl as a great nahualli is still missing (as would be expected since Torquemada is simply using Sahagún's Spanish version as a source). In Torquemada, however, Quetzalcoatl undergoes a quiet transformation. In Torquemada the meaning of Quetzalcoatl's monstrous appearance is even further removed from its native context by explicitly relating the covered face to a deference for his majesty. The native extra-worldly context of the monstrous nahualli is replaced by a substitute pseudo-Christian extra-worldly context of majesty and veneration. Torquemada's suggestion that the prone position is a symbol for his sleep of absence might be a plausible native category, but it is not corroborated by Sahagún's Spanish text, nor the native section of the Florentine Codex, nor any other source on the Quetzalcoatl legend. This progression of concepts, from reasonably native to suggestively Christian is typical of the Quetzalcoatl material. Even the Spanish sources which least alter the legend exert their own kind of distortion. The interests of the Spaniards increased the pressure to see native materials in a certain light. This pressure exerted its influence not only upon the selections made by the Spaniards among the native material, but also influenced the material natives presented to the Spaniards. The result is that all native documents show evidence of Christian influence, due to their desire to appease the Spaniards.(20) Very early the Indians worked their own type of selective distortion on their own lore, selecting items which were specifically intended for the Spanish audience and which were directed to easing the pressures of the Conquest. Judeo-Christian monotheism came into sharp conflict with the extensive pantheon of the Nahua. For the Spaniards, one of the most attractive traits of Quetzalcoatl was his putative opposition to this proliferation of deities, and his insistence upon one god. The evidence for this "doctrine" preached by Quetzalcoatl has support among Sahagún's native informants, men who knew their culture, and who wrote in their own language. These native informants write of an earlier Toltec society, headed by Quetzalcoatl, which believed in only one god: "They were very devout. Only one was their god; the showed all attention to, they called upon, they prayed to one by the name of Quetzalcoatl. The name of one who was their minister, their priest [was] also Quetzalcoatl. This one was very devout. That which the priest of Quetzalcoatl required of them, they did well. They did not err, for he said to them, he admonished them: "There is only one god" [he is] Quetzalcoatl. He requireth nothing...(21)" Here then is a passage from knowledgeable informants recorded in the original language. Should this not be corroboration of the highest order? Yes, it should. No, it isn't. While the passage is originally in Nahuatl, and coming from one of the best extant sources, it is still likely that it is the result of a distortion by selection. This time, the natives are selecting from their corpus the information the Spaniards wanted to hear. This passage would not be so much in question if it did not follow an earlier list (in that very same text) of the gods worshiped at Tula, the capital of the Toltecs. That previous list is a direct contradiction of the statement of belief in only one god. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan concurs that there were more than one god at Tula. Speaking of Quetzalcoatl himself' "it is told that, idolatrizing, he prayed in the heavens and that he invoked Citlalyncue, Citlallatonac, Tonacacihuatl, Tonacatecutli, Tecolliquenqui, Yeztlaquenqui, Tlallamanac, and Tlallichcatl."(22) The overwhelming evidence of a large pantheon of deities through all of Mesoamerica at all time periods, as well as the contradictory evidence within the same document (as well as others) highlights the "one god" theme as an aberration in our understanding of the pre-contact mythology of Quetzalcoatl. The passage in the Florentine Codex undeniable came from native sources, and therefore cannot be attributed to the direct hand of a Spaniard. Nevertheless, it is attributable to the increasingly keen interest the Spanish demonstrated in particular aspects of the Quetzalcoatl cycle, aspects which the natives emphasized in the telling to the exclusion of other equally valid parts of the cycle which would not appeal to the Spanish Fathers. Serge Gruzinski analyzed various native documents produced after the Conquest (known as the Relaciónes geográphicas) and noted a similar process where the interests of the natives were best served by altering their tradition for the benefit of the Spaniards. In one case, "It was in fact convenient to consign to an already distant past, more than 50 years old, all that could have to do with idolatry, with 'rituals and ceremonies that they practiced and did of old in the time of the infidelity', which made it possible at the same time to dismiss the somewhat thorny question of the retention of paganism. Thus the spotless present of the Christianization followed upon the long pastime of the idols.(23)" The information provided matched a favorable conception by the Spanish. Whether or not it accurately represented either history or pre-contact mythology, the telling provided the parts of the story which would place the teller in the most favorable light. Distortion by Accretion The same pressures which selected and overemphasized elements of the native lore eventually altered the native lore itself. Inevitably, themes from Spanish lore and literature were incorporated into the indigenous tales. As this process became more prevalent, the alterations and borrowings became part of the cultural lore patterns and were thoroughly syncretized. Donald Robertson suggests that this process of interweaving the lore of two cultures significantly impacted our record of at least one historical figure: "I arrived at the conclusion that Tlacaelel shows such strong evidence of influence from European romances of chivalry and rests upon such a limited historical base that he too can serve as evidence of European influence upon the history and literature of the Aztecs (24)" A similar incorporation of European literary tradition in the record of Nahua lore occurs in the writings of Ixtlilxochitl. When he discuses the early life of Topiltzin the account reads very much like a European fairy tale, complete with an abducted princess locked in a type of tower and a baby born under the astrological signs foretelling his eventual usurpation of the throne.(25) While the names in the recorded legend are native, the structure and themes are not. Since Ixtlilxochitl is a source showing signs of heavy Spanish influence, and since the particular themes are unattested in any other source, the distortion due to the inclusion of European elements is the best explanation of this text. One example of the intrusion of European elements into native lore was so obvious that the collector immediately recognized it. Fray Diego Durán notes the following information he received from an informant when he was collecting material on Quetzalcoatl, or Topiltzin as he appears in Durán's work: "Asking another old Indian what information he had of the departure of Topiltzin, he began saying that the Papa [Topiltzin] had arrived at the sea with many people and that he continued and had struck the sea with a staff and it had dried up and become a road through which he entered. Both he and his people. Also that his persecutors had entered after him and the waters had returned to their place and nothing more was ever known of them. And as I saw that he had read the same as I and I knew were he was going with the story, I didn't ask him more so that he would not relate Exodus to me, of which I felt he had received notice, yet he went as far as to mention the punishment which the children of Israel had with the serpents because of their murmurings against God and Moses"(26) This passage is fascinating for both the amount of Biblical material related, and for the fact that Fray Durán recognized it and discounted it. There is no doubt that his "informant" was repeating a story from the Bible. What is much more interesting, however, is the very fact that it was a native informant who gave this material in response to a question about Quetzalcoatl. How was it that he was able to do this? If we indulge in some speculative reconstruction, we can understand how this passage ended up in Durán's collection of notes. Undeniably, it required that the story of the Exodus be taught where the informant either learned it directly, or perhaps heard it second hand. Not only did he understand elements of the Exodus story, he understood them sufficiently well to relate them with enough precision that Durán n would recognize the story. The second requirement is a little more subtle, however, and returns us to the theme of distortion by accretion. The native had to take the information learned about Genesis and find sufficient correspondences with the Quetzalcoatl material as he understood it that the two stories might possibly combined into one. In the reconstructable native legend, the departure of Quetzalcoatl takes place at the seashore. In some versions, Quetzalcoatl does have a number of his followers with him, and miraculous things occur both on the way, and at the edge of the sea. Quetzalcoatl has a symbolic connections to serpents. Each of these points are conceptual nodes of meaning which parallel the story of Moses. Thus the native had to know both tales, and begin to sort them out by finding the similarities and using those similarities to reconstruct his version of the Quetzalcoatl material. Of course this account is so throroughly close to the Bible that there is probably little real syncretization. The interesting point is that the similarities allowed this story to be told in response to a question about Quetzalcoatl. Whether the telling was the result of a syncretized belief, or whether the telling was specifically designed to give the good Father something the native thought he wanted to hear, the importance of the relation is in the capacity of the native to conflate disparate traditions. The earliest entry of European categories was likely in the form of this kind of recasting the lore of one culture in the names and contexts of another. As the process continued over time, and the natives were constantly required to comprehend the multiple facets of their new reality, these wholesale intrusions were recut, fused, and forged into a new tradition entirely. Conclusions There has never been any doubt that the conquest drastically altered Mesoamerican civilization. Native folklore was in no way immune from the powerful forces of change set in motion by the clash of cultures. Indeed, native oral tradition may have played an active role in the readjustments which followed the conquest. Certainly the types of distortions seen in the lore as written in the native languages show certain types of accommodations to the European realities even while they purport to record pre-contact beliefs. Why do any of these types of distortion matter? They lie at the heart of our attempts to reconstruct the pre-contact culture of Central Mexico. They lurk in the background of the best texts available, they hide valuable information inside a too Western cloak in the worst of the texts. They distort our very understanding because they allow us to work with a text, and forget that the text represents a vivid underlying oral tradition. The historical methods developed to understand the long Western textual tradition are not sufficient to reconstruct and comprehend the oral literature of Central Mexico. In working with the available textual evidence, no text can be taken at face value, even though it be written in Nahuatl (or any other indigenous language). The processes of distortion were sufficiently powerful to reach those who wrote in their own language, and could effect both the selection of the material, it's presentation, or particular aspects of the lore presented. Among all of the cautions, however, it is important to remember that what we have is not the result of total fabrication, but of a discernable process whereby the influential themes and interests of the conquerors altered the legendary material they were collecting. Given sufficient comparative material, it is possible to make reasonable reconstructions of the pre-contact lore, but the process must involve careful examination of the types of distortions present in any given text. Bibliography "Anales de Cuauhtitlan". In Codice Chimalpopoca, 3-118. Edited Primo Feliciano Velazques. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975. Anawalt, Patricia Rieff. Pan-Mesoamerican Costume Repertory at the Time of the Spanish Contact. Dissertation. UCLA, 1975. Carmack, Robert M. Quichean Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Cervantes de Sálazar, Francisco. Crónica de Nueva España. 3 volumes. Madrid: Hauser y Menet, 1914. Durán, Diego de. Historia de las Indias de Nueva España. 2 volumes, Edited by Ángel María Garibay Kintana. Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1967. ___________ Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar. Translated and edited by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. Freidel, David, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. Maya Cosmos. New York, William Morrow and Company. 1993. Gardner, Brant A. "The Aztec `Legend of the Suns': A Multi-Dimensional Approach to the Ethnohistory of Myth." Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community. 19-34. Ed. Gary Gossen. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, 1986. Gruzinski, Serge. The Conquest of Mexico. Translated by Eileen Corrigan. Polity Press, 1993. "Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas.". In Teogonía e Historia de los Mexicanos, ed. Ángel María Garibay Kintana. Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1973, 23-90. "Histoyre du Mechique." In Teogonía e Historia de los Mexicanos, ed. Ángel María Garibay Kintana. Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1973, 91-120. Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de Alva. Obras Históricas. 2 volumes. Edited Alfredo Chavero. Mexico: Editora Nacional. Keen, Benjamin. The Aztec Image in Western Thought. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1971. LaFaye, Jacques. Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe. Translated Benjamin Keen. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. "Leyenda de los Soles." In Códice Chimalpopoca. 119-142. Translated and edited by Primo Feliciano Velazques. Mexico: Imprenta Universitaria, 1975. Mendieta, Gerónimo. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana. 4 volumes. Mexico: editorial Sálvador Chávez Hayhoe, 1945. Molina, Alonso de. Vocabulario en Lengua Castellana y Mexicana y Mexicana y Castellana. Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1970. Nicholson, Henry B. Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan: A Problem in Mesoamerican Ethnohistory. PhD. Dissertation. Harvard, 1957. "Origen de los Mexicanos." In Nueva Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México.3:281-308. Edited by García Icazbalceta. Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1971 (reprint 1891). "Relación de la Geneaolgía y linaje de los Señores..." In Nueva Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México. 3:263-280. Edited by García Icazbalceta. Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1971 (reprint 1891). Robertson, Donald. "Commentary" on an article by H.B. Nicholson in: Investigaciones contemporaneas sobre historia de Mexico. Texas: University of Texas Press, pages 91-95 Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex. 12 volumes. Translated and edited by Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. New Mexico: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1950. ________ Historia General de las cosas de Nueva España. 4 volumes. Edited Ángel María Garibay Kintana. Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1969. Siméon, Rémi. Dictionnaire de la Langue Nahuatl. Graz-Austria, Akademische Druck -U. Verlagsanstalt, reprint of 1885. Torquemada, Juan de. Monarquía Indiana. 3 volumes. Mexico: Editorial Sálvador Chávez Hayhoe. 1943. Endnotes 1. Freidel, Schele, and Parker discuss a ballcourt whose name is given as "Wuk Ek'-K'anal Ox-Ahal-Ebnal", translated as "Seven-Black-Yellow-Place Three-Conquest-Ballcourt" (Freidel, Schele, Parker, Maya Cosmos (New York, William Morrow and Company, 1993), 372. While the translation is undoubtedly correct, the direct translation does not obviously translate meaningalong with the words. Any current understanding of the meaning of "Seven-Black-Yellow-Place" will be heavily reliant on our interpretations of the translated words. 2. Most notable is H.B. Nicholson's seminal dissertation on Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl. Nicholson's work is the most exhaustive attempt at using the methods of historical criticism on the textual tradition available for this Central Mexican figure. David Carrasco's source analysis for Quetzalcoatl in his Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire is a continuation of that analysis, but adds little to it in terms of the interrelationships of the documentary tradition. 3. "Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas." In Teogonía e Historia de los Mexicanos. 1973:27-28). 4. Gardner, Brant A. "The Aztec `Legend of the Suns': A Multi-Dimensional Approach to the Ethnohistory of Myth." Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community. 19-34. Ed. Gary Gossen. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York, Albany, 1986. 5. "Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas." In Teogonía e Historia de los Mexicanos. 1973:23). 6. Gerónimo Mendieta. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana. 4 volumes. (Mexico: editorial Sálvador Chávez Hayhoe, 1945), 537-538. 7. Diego de Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, 2 volumes (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1967), 1:13. 8. Durán 1971, 324. 9. Francisco Cervantes de Sálazar, Crónica de Nueva España. 3 volumes. (Madrid: Hauser y Menet, 1914), 1:36. 10. The description of the tlilmatli is found in Patricia Rieff Anawalt, Pan-Mesoamerican Costume Repertory at the Time of the Spanish Contact. (Dissertation, UCLA, 1975), 77-78. The reproduction of the picture is found in Durán 1971, p.323. 11. "Relación de la Geneaolgía y linaje de los Señores..." In Nueva Colección de Documentos para la Historia de México, edited by García Icazbalceta, (Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1971, reprint 1891), 3:263-280. 12. Torquemada, Juan de, Monarquía Indiana. 3 volumes, (Mexico: Editorial Sálvador Chávez Hayhoe) 1943, 1:254-5). 13. Benjamin Keen, the Aztec Image in Western Thought, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1971), 71. 14. See LaFaye 1974, 30-50 for an excellent discussion of the spiritual mind set involved in the discovery of the New World. 15. Sahagún, Bernardino de. de. Florentine Codex.(New Mexico, The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1950-75), 3:13. 16. Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia General de las cosas de Nueva España, 4 volumes, edited Ángel María Garibay Kintana, (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1969), 1:278. 17. "When one adds the negative particle ah- to tla:ca-tl 'person', one gets 'un-person' in the sense of inhumane, monstrous. In construction with the negative, the word ceme:lleh carries the sense of 'disharmonious(ly)'. So the frame of ah-...ceme:lleh around tla:ca- 'person' indicates a being in disharmony with the qualities associated with humanity." (Frances Karttunen. E-mail to Nahuat-l mail list. January 31, 1997). 18. Sahagún, 1950-75, 3:13. I have substituted the more standard orthography for the Codex's "in vej naolli catca." 19. Torquemada, Juan de, Monarquía Indiana. 3 volumes, (Mexico: Editorial Sálvador Chávez Hayhoe, 1943), 2:52. 20. Robert M. Carmack, Quichean Civilization, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 19. 21. Sahagún, 1950-75,10:160 22. "Anales de Cuauhtitlan". In Codice Chimalpopoca, edited Primo Feliciano Velázques, (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975), 8. 23. Serge Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico, translated by Eileen Corrigan, (Polity Press, 1993), 78-9. 24. Robertson, Donald. "Commentary" on an article by H.B. Nicholson. Investigaciones contemporaneas sobre historia de Mexico. (Texas, University of Texas Press, 1971), 74. 25. Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de Alva. Obras Históricas. (Mexico: Editora Nacional. 1891), 1:43-46. 26. Durán, Diego de. Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espana. )Mexico: Editorial Porrua. 1967), 1:12.
			by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998