Two Pictorial Documents from the Colonial Period in Mexico A Guide and Commentary by Don E. Dumond The Bulletin of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Oregon Museum Bulletin No. 27, October, 2018 The Bulletin of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Oregon is published to increase the knowledge and understanding of the natural history of Oregon. Original articles in the fields of Archaeology, Botany, Ethnology, Geolo- gy, Paleontology, and Zoology appear irregularly in consecutively numbered issues. Contributions arise primarily from the research programs and collections of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. However, in keeping with the basic purpose of the publication, contributions are not restricted to these sources and are both technical and popular in character. Communications concerning manuscripts or previous issues of the Bulletin should be addressed to the Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403, or by email to [email protected]. Volume and Technical editor—Edward B. Davis Two Pictorial Documents from the Colonial Period in Mexico A Guide and Commentary by Don E. Dumond The Bulletin of the Museum of Natural History of the University of Oregon Museum Bulletin No. 27, October, 2018 BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON NO. 27 Acknowledgments ed, as of the present writing the Tulane University ver- sion held in the “Mapas Project” can be opened via the First of all, it must be noted that photographs of the cop- URL http://mapas.uoregon.edu/mapa_single_intro.las- ies of the two mapas held by the University of Oregon so?&mapaid=cuauh. Sometime after this, she incorporat- Museum of Natural and Cultural History, the subject of ed photographs of the Mapa de Mixtepec in the “Mapas the present guide, and of which a selection is reproduced Project.” These can be accessed by the URL at http:// here, were by photographer Jack Liu, to whom the muse- mapas.uoregon.edu/mapa_single_intro.lasso?&mapaid=- um is indebted for the uniform high quality of the work. mixtepec. In addition to this, Dr. Wood, a student of the In addition, selections of his photographs were delivered Nahuatl languages, has provided a number of communi- to certain other locations (and individuals) in Mexico, as cations regarding aspects of the text to follow, which are is indicated in the Prologue of this bulletin below. cited within it. We are also indebted to Dr. Stephanie Wood, Of the staff of the Museum of Natural and a major force in the Wired Humanities Project of the Cultural History, we are especially indebted to Elizabeth University of Oregon. Dr. Wood has also been an effec- White for professionalizing the original draft of Figure tive go-between, connecting the museum to interested 3.1 herein, and to Kristin Strommer, for her untiring people in Mexico (as is also indicated in the Prologue of efforts in seeing the draft finally through to press. this bulletin). Dr. Wood has her own history of involve- ment with documents of the colonial period in Mexico. Finally, I am grateful to two anonymous review- Notably, sometime before she moved to Oregon (in the ers for helpful comments on the text of this bulletin. late 1980s) in a research visit to Tulane University she Although there were disagreements with some of the became aware that they held a copy of the Mapa de comments, simply because the reviewers approached the Cuauhtlantzinco. Intrigued, she obtained permission and text as though it were expected to be an up-to-the-minute photographed pictures in that holding, and upon con- contribution to matters of the ethnohistory of Mexico, necting with the Wired Humanities Project at Oregon she the aim of this bulletin has been to provide significant succeeded in incorporating these images into a “Mapas aspects of such a contribution, but with the additional Project.” It was sometime later that she learned that the expectation that a number of readers, perhaps even a University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural majority, will be self-selected as a result of interest in the History also holds a version of that Mapa. Her Tulane museum displays although with no prior knowledge of photographs, then, illustrate what is evidently a separate this complex social history. Hence, background to some copy of the Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, between which localized civilizational developments are summarized and the copy held by this museum close comparisons more extensively than more professional readers may have not yet been completed. For those readers interest- find entirely useful. We ask for their forbearance. iv DUMOND—TWO PICTORIAL DOCUMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN MEXICO CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments ii List of Illustratrions iv Prologue 1 Chapter 1. Stunning Discoveries 2 The First Document 2 The Second Document 6 Summary 9 2. The Central Highlands and the Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco 10 What Else the Newcomers Found 10 Social Organization in the Highlands 12 The Story Told by the Manuscript of Cuauhtlantzinco 12 3. The Oaxaca region and the Mapa de San Andrés Mixtepec 16 A Note on Local History, as Now Understood 16 The Story Told by the Painting of San Andrés Mixtepec 17 Why So Late? 19 4. With a New Dynamic in the Active Colonial Backdrop 20 The Decline 20 Developing Function of Mapas 21 A Concluding Note 24 References 25 v BULLETIN OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON NO. 27 Illustrations Figure Page Figure 1.1 Representation of the Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco 3 Figure 1.2 Location map of Cuauhtlantzinco, with the lake system as of 1519 4 Figure 1.3 Outline map of central Mexico, with locations mentioned in the text 7 Figure 1.4 Color photograph of the original “Cuixtla” mapa 8 Figure 1.5 Diagram of settlement locations in San Andrés vicinity 9 Figure 2.1 The region around the lake system (cf. Figure 1.2) 11 Figure 2.2 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 1 13 Figure 2.3 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 5 13 Figure 2.4 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 9 13 Figure 2.5 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 2 14 Figure 2.6 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 13 14 Figure 2.7 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 21 14 Figure 2.8 Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, panel 27 15 Figure 3.1 Diagrammatic summary of the “Cuixtla” mapa (Mapa de San Andrés) 18 Figure 4.1 Population of Tlaxcala from AD 500 to Modern Years 21 Table Table 4.1 Epidemic Maladies in Sixteenth-Century Mexico 21 Table 4.2 Assessments of Native Population Loss in the Basin of Mexico 22 Table 4.3 Relocation of Agricultural Resources in the Sixteenth Century 23 vi DUMOND—TWO PICTORIAL DOCUMENTS FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN MEXICO Prologue museum, so it seems well to begin with a brief history of how they came to be in the museum collection, and to This brief report concerns two colonial-period summarize efforts made to determine precisely both what picture documents from Mexico that are now in the pos- it is they represent—in a historical sense—and also the session of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History at ways they can be seen to relate to the time and condi- the University of Oregon. Both concern historical matters tions of their Mexican places of named relationship. To of geographical import, both are termed mapas (“maps” in approach this, Chapter 1 unwinds to provide information Spanish) but most strongly represent political statements. regarding the comparatively recent discovery of the docu- ments within the museum and then summarizes research The first of these treated, identified as the that revealed how they came to the institution. It goes Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco, is apparently one of at least on to discuss the specific geographical areas and ethnic a half-dozen known copies, or partial copies, of an older regions of Mexico to which the documents each relate and document now unknown, and concerns especially people adds basic information regarding the substantial differ- said to represent the town of Cuauhtlantzinco, which is ences between the mapas in construction and physical located on the central Mexican highlands somewhat more appearances and then of their apparently much smaller than one hundred kilometers (62 miles) southeast of the differences in probable dates of actual creation. heart of modern Mexico City. The second, now designated the Mapa de San Andrés Mixtepec is evidently a single, Following this, Chapters 2 and 3—each of them original document that directs itself to the history of a devoted to a separate document—will delve at least super- small settlement in the state of Oaxaca, and at a point ficially into the specific historical and ethnic backgrounds located well over four hundred kilometers (249 miles) against which the documents themselves should be southeast of Mexico City, and more than three hundred viewed, considering their differing geographical sources fifty kilometers (217 miles) from Cuauhtlantzinco. Both of within Mexico. Each of these documents also focuses these mapas are of evident interest to local inhabitants of especially on matters of concern to aboriginal people of the two areas, which led the museum some years ago to Mexico, rather than on those of overriding concern to their gift photographic copies to people of these areas, which new colonial Spanish masters. As historical details emerge were delivered in Mexico through the good offices of a regarding each document and its milieu, questions can museum colleague, Dr. Stephanie Wood, of the University be raised as to why they were composed and completed of Oregon. The first of these towns was Cuauhtlantzinco at the dates that seem indicated by the evidence—dates (on modern maps spelled Cuautlancingo) which led a that in both cases are more than a century after the actual local resident and student, Alberto Sarmiento Tepoztecatl Spanish conquest of Mexico was brought to completion.