I thought that one of the most interesting characters in the primary source we read this week was the old woman who congratulates the mother on her sons having turned out well. In her lifetime, this old woman has witnessed the fall of the indigenous order under which she grew up, the arrival of the Spanish, and the consolidation of Spanish rule over the Mexica people. While she would have most likely been brought up in the Mexica tradition, worshiping the Mexica panoply of gods, she now speaks the rhetoric of the Catholic church just like the other Nahuatl speakers seen in this text. It would seem that the Catholic worldview has been syncretically absorbed by her, and made to fit the world around her. Yet, despite this seeming adoption of Spanish values, her reminiscences of the past are fondly nostalgic and her view of the present and future is exceedingly grim. In congratulating the mother on raising such fine sons, she expresses the fact that very few people grow up anymore, they just die off. This is perhaps an allusion to the wave of disease brought by the Spanish, or perhaps it refers to the hard life led by indigenous people, particularly males it would seem from the Burkett article, in the wake of Spanish contact. She describes the splendor of the Mexica nobility, contrasted with the way everything now seems to be coming to an end. She invokes the idea of the Lord’s wrath in this apocalyptic world view, implying that He is punishing the Mexica for some offense they have done Him. I think it is interesting that even though it is the Spanish themselves responsible for the destruction, she sees it in terms of their own religious view which she has adopted. She takes the idea of the vengeful God and applies to what she is experiencing in her own life.
Throughout her monologue, one can trace many contradictions that are probably fairly representative of the condition faced by indigenous Mexicans during this time. She refers to the indigenous gods as “demons” and “false,” describing that period as a “time of darkness,” yet her recollection of pre-contact life seems imbued with a sense of order, whereas her life now is overcast by doom. This brings up an important question about the nature of indigenous adoption of the Catholic faith: did people like this old woman truly adapt the Catholic vision to their own lives, or were they merely trying to stay out of trouble with the new order? Did adoption of these new religions allow for the old traditions to be kept alive by merely changing the names of the idols? Or, did the nobles of Tetzcoco who penned this document over-emphasize the Christian influence as their own means of pleasing the new order? These are important things to think about when examining the first-hand documents of the past.
February 12, 2010 at 1:56 am |
I think you really raise some interesting questions about why these speeches emphasize this shift to Christianity, and yet, a “nostalgic” air to how things used to be is still apparent. I find it hard to believe that the Indigenous simply shifted to Christianity in a seemingly noncontroversial way, as these references to God and His Blessings basically dominate these speeches. Maybe the Spanish had more control over primary sources like this, and so as we look back upon this Nahuatl society, in particular, we have a limited viewpoint of how people talked to one another. I would have to believe that the Spanish had alot of control over what was preserved and how the Nahuatl were to conduct themselves. I would have to imagine that there was an attempt to preserve old traditions as the grandmother indicates, and yet little power to do so.