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The Path from Aztlan to Mexico: on Visual Narration in Mesoamerican

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The Path from Aztlan to Mexico: on Visual Narration in Mesoamerican The path from Aztlan to Mexico On visual narration in Mesoamerican codices FEDERICONAVARRETE The aim of this article is to examine certain graphic Mexica from Aztlan (a given place at a given time) to conventions used to represent time and space in Mexico (a different place at a later time). sixteenth-century Mesoamerican pictographic codices As will be seen below, all the other Mexica codices dealing with the history of the Mexica migration.1 This dealing with the migration employ similar devices for an as will, in turn, lead to analysis of such documents depicting space and time, and all of them combine visual narratives. these devices in a fashion that is deliberate and The most remarkable of these conventions is a set of systematic. The use of these conventions reflects the or lines blocks marking distance and duration that unites existence of highly developed visual narrative traditions the towns of Aztlan and Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the inMesoamerica. A comparison with other visual beginning and the end of the Mexica migration, and that narrative genres, such as modern comics and film, will a appears in different guises in all the codices dealing allow for better understanding of the Mexica codices with that historical event. as narrative discourses. Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of the Perhaps the best known codex dealing with the chronotope will, in turn, clarify the role of the space and Mexica migration is the Codex Boturini (also called time lines as devices used to organize and structure Tira de la Peregrinaci?n, Codex Boturini 1975). In this narrative genres (Bakhtin 1981). This approach will lead beautiful sixteenth-century pictorial history, the to a new definition of native historical genres that differs distance between Aztlan and Mexico is marked by two from the traditionally accepted classification, based on a row different lines (fig. 1).2 The first is of footprints categories borrowed from the Western tradition, such as representing the path followed by the Mexica in their annals and maps. The fact that the pictographic a migration; the second is continuous line that unites documents belonging to, and narrating the history of, the rectangular year signs that represent the time other Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Acolhua, elapsed during the migration. Cuauhtinchantlaca, or Mixtee, use markedly different These two lines are carefully intertwined throughout ways of representing space and time, while also near a the codex: the footprints always begin year sign, managing to incorporate them into a single visual clearly establishing the date of the departure of the narrative discourse, points to a relationship between Mexica from each place, and they lead to a place sign, these genres and specific ethnic groups. The final line of next concern the stopping point in their migration. Each place analysis will the colonial adaptation of these a sign, in turn, is followed by meandering block of year traditions, which preserved their narrative foundations frames that represents the length of the sojourn of the while incorporating many of the conventions of Mexica in In are art. that place. this way, time and space European into a integrated single narrative of the journey of the Iwill not deal with the pictographic reading of the codices, nor with the traditional art-historical analysis of style, figure, and form, not because I reject their usefulness or validity, but because Iam proposing a 1. Throughout this article, Iwill use the term Mexica, rather than to to different, road of the Aztec, refer the Nahuatl-speaking people who lived inMexico complementary analysis: reading as Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco in order to clearly distinguish them from codices visual narratives. their neighbors in the Valley of Mexico. 2. My drawings of the codices dealing with the migration were The to inspired by Robertson's scheme of the year sign and footprint lines of path from Aztlan Mexico-Tenochtitlan the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. I have omitted many details to isolate There are six that deal with the elements used for depicting time and space, plus some figures that pictographic manuscripts are to one the Mexica clearly linked them. This allows to better perceive their migration: the already mentioned Codex complexity and their systematic nature. Boturini, the Codex Mexicanus, the Codex Azcatitlan, 32 RES 37 SPRING 2000 ** <+* Figure 1. The lines depicting time and space in the Codex Boturini. Drawing: Federico Navarrete. and two related the the Sig?enza Map, documents, However, the artist or tlacuilo3 took great care to draw Codex Telleriano-Remensis and the Codex Vaticano-R?os the time lines and the footprint lines on each page at known as Codex Vaticano-3738 and Vaticanus same (also A); exactly the height as on the previous one, a seventh known as the Codex manuscript, Aubin, maintaining the illusion that the book was a continuous combines elements with text written in pictographic unit. Ifwe analyze this ?mage as such, the year signs Latin All of these documents use some kind of script. form an uninterrupted row in the center of the page. The or other to and time in lines, devices, represent space footprints always start from a year sign (springing from a the followed the but on path by Mexica, they implement thick line planted the year frames) and always go as them in different and insert them in ways radically far as the next toponymie glyph. visual contexts. diverging Because of the central ity accorded to the year signs, Of all of the Codex would at them, Boturini, appear, this codex has been likened to the Tira de Tepechpan, first to be the closest to sight, pre-Hispanic conventions, which Robertson considered a prime example of the because it has the traditional of a foldout shape long original time-oriented style of Mesoamerican codices and depicts a "spaceless landscape," lacking horizon (1959:62-64). As we shall see below, this form was or to the as line any other method ground characters, assimilated to the European genre of the annals, defined Robertson The by Donald (1959:61). only considered as the earliest and least developed form of elements that the series of events and join toponyms historiography. in the codex are the that depicted footprints represent However, the Mexicanus ismore complex than the the followed the Mexica and the continuous a path by annals genre. First, the row of year signs begins at line the or frames. this utter uniting year signs However, specific place in space: the river crossed by the Mexica well be a colonial as simplification may elaboration, when they departed from Aztlan. Another time line, will be seen below. sometimes painted pink, joins the place signs to the year Mexicanus a different The Codex (1952) presents very sign for the year inwhich the Mexica arrived and to the implementation of the space and time lines (fig. 2). First and foremost, in this document, the continuity of these 3. Iwill the N?huatl term for "artist," tlacuilome, lines faces a new because it is not a employ pluralized challenge, because itmeans both painter and writer, and thus conveys the dual continuous like the but a codex the an foldout, Boturini, (in nature of the codices as images and narratives, and provides European usage of the word, Chartier 1995: 256-257). accurate description of the complex craft of their creators. Navarrete: The path from Aztlan to Mexico 33 L*-? -* ~* -^?-^ ^-<%fr> =1^ :: [ TJDnn c --\ ? J_l^ ^ ^ j3. * -<-?j^ 3f sal DC DtzDn [ ] [ ^ - in 18 to 25. Federico Navarrete. Figure 2. The lines depicting time and space the Codex Mexicanus, pages Drawing: year sign for the year inwhich they departed, thus Furthermore, we see the reappearance of the bird that were marking the length of their stay. The fact that the place sang to the Mexica when they leaving Aztlan (very a or sign is always placed near the middle of the period likely nahualli, animal manifestation, of the god was defined by this second time line makes the footprint line Huitzilopochtli [Del Castillo 1991:135], and that seen as longer than would be strictly "necessary" if this walking with them they left their first stopping now document were indeed depicting time alone. In that place, Tlatzallan (see fig. 2). This divine bird is case, the place sign should be put above the year of shown diving from the top margin of the page, toward an arrival, marking the time at which the Mexica got there; Chicomoztoc, idea that is stressed by the presence of and the footprints should go from the year of departure a second footprint line representing its flight. Its to the year of arrival in the next place, marking the time reappearance seems to suggest that it had been flying they spent on the road. Yet, in this case, the footprints above the Mexica all along, and above the top margin row are clearly depicting the distance in space between the of the page. This indicates that the of year signs is as a places visited by the Mexica. being used horizon line and that Chicomoztoc is an In fact, throughout the section dealing with the placed in the underworld, interpretation that is a migration in the Mexicanus, the interaction between the strengthened by the presence of tree growing out of depiction of time and space is so elaborate that Chicomoztoc and rising to the sky. sometimes the tlacuilo seems to be make puns with it. For There is another line, starting from the bird's beak and instance, there is always a human figure at the beginning diving below the main time line. Both lines (the human on of the footprint line: he is placed above the thick line and the divine) reappear the other side of the large marking the moment of departure of the Mexica.
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