Appendix A The Mandate of the Huey Tlahtocan (Great Council) of 1519 Sometimes called the Consigna de Cuauhtémoc, this message has been attributed often to the Huey Tlahtoani (Great Speaker), Cuauhtémoc, on behalf of the supreme governing council of the Anáhuac Confederation seated in México-Tenochtitlan (sixteenth century). The message was delivered at the end of the wars of resistance to the inva- sion. The text in Náhuatl and Spanish is taken from Nieva (1969), with my English translation. This message is one of the primary man- dates for the Mexicayotl movement. Table A1.1 Members of the Mexicayotl movement promote the Consigna de Cuáuhtemoc as an ancient mandate Náhuatl Spanish English Totonal yomotlatih. Nuestro sol, se ocultó. Our sun is hidden. Totonal yoixpolih, Nuestro Sol se perdió de vista, Our sun is out of sight, iuan zentlayouayan, y en completa oscuridad and it has left us in complete darkness. o tech Kahteh. nos ha dejado. Mach tikmatih man Ka okzepa ualla, Pero sabemos que otra vez volverá, But we know that it will return, man Ka okzepa Kizakin, que otra vez saldrá, that it will rise again, iuan yankuiotika tech tlauilikin. y nuevamente nos alumbrará. and it will illuminate us again. Mach inoka ompa Kah mitlan maniz Pero mientras allá esté en la mansión del But while it resides in the mansion of silence, 186 silencio, manzanueliui tozentlalikan, totechtecho muy prontamente nos reunamos, nos let us quickly gather, hold ourselves kan, estrechemos, iuan tozolnepantla, tiktlatikan, y en el centro de nuestro corazón, ocultemos, and in center of our heart, let us hide nochi intlen toyolkitlazohtla, todo lo que nuestro corazón ama, everything that our heart loves, Ki ueyi tlatkiomati. que sabemos es gran tesoro. that which we know is great treasure. Man tikin pohpolokan toteokalhuan, Destruyamos nuestros recintos al principio Let us destroy our houses dedicated to the creador, creative force, tokalmekahuan, totlachkohuan, nuestras Escuelas, nuestros campos de pelota, our schools, our ball courts, totelpochkahuan, tokuikakalhuan. nuestros recintos para la juventud, nuestras our youth priories, our houses of song. casas para el canto. Man mozelkahuakan tohumeh, Que solos queden nuestros caminos, May our roads be in solitude, iuan man tochanlzakua y que nuestros hogares nos encierren and may our homes shutter us in, Kin ihkuak Kixouaz toyankuiktonal. hasta cuando salga nuestro nuevo Sol. until the time when our new sun rises. In tahtzintzin iuan in nantzitzin Los papacitos y las mamacitas, The fathers and the mothers, Man aik kilkuaukan Kimilhuizkeh Itel que nunca olviden conducir a sus jóvenes, may they never forget to direct their children, pochhuan, iuan matechnazkeh mo pipilhuan inoka y enseñarles a sus hijitos mientras vivan, and teach them while they live nemizkeh, uel kenin yoko, como buena ha sido, how good our beloved Anáhuac has been kin axkan totlazoh Anauak hasta ahora nuestra amada Anáhuac, until now in tlanekiliz iuan tlapeluiliz in al amparo y protección de nuestros destinos, in the aid and protection of our destinies, tonechtoltiliz uan, iuan zan ye nopampa tokenmauiliz iuan por nuestro gran respeto y buen because of our great respect and good tokem pololiz, comportamiento, behavior, 187 okizelihkeh totiachkatzitzihuan, que recibieron nuestros antepasados, as given to our ancestors, iuan tlen totahtzitzin auik y que nuestros papacitos muy entusiastamente, and that our parents enthusiastically yolehkayopan, oki xi nachtokateh toyelizpan. sembraron en nuestro ser. sowed in our being. Axkan tehuan tikin tekimakah in Ahora nosotros ordenaremos a nuestros hijos. Now we will guide our children. topilhuan. Amo kin ilkauazkeh kin nonotzazkeh No olviden informar a sus hijos, Do not forget to inform your children, mo pilhuan, uelkenin yez, kenin imakokiz, iuan cómo buena sea, cómo se levantará, y cómo how good it is, how it will rise, and how well uelkenin chikahkauiz, bien alcanzará fuerza, it will gain strength, iuan uel kenin kiktzon kixtitin iueyika y cómo bien realizará su gran destino, and how well it will fulfill its destiny, nehtoltiliz, inin totlazohtlalnantzin Anauak. ésta nuestra amada madre tierra Anáhuac. this, our beloved land of Anáhuac. Appendix B Palimpsest in Academic Fields The following is a compendium of uses of the concept of palimpsest in various academic fields: M Archeology. Archeologists use the notion of palimpsest to describe their field sites and the remains that time has washed over, including the visible traces left by epochs in procession. F. Clarke Howell, in an article about his own documentation of the artifacts in a cave in Turkey, quotes an anonymous archeologist, “For all we know, the archaeological record is just one big palimpsest, incompletely effaced” (1981). Wikipedia offer the following: “Archaeologists in particular use the term to denote a record of material remains suspected of having formed during an extended period but that cannot be resolved in such a way that temporally discrete traces can be recognized as such.” M Architecture. Architects sometimes describe the forms they create as speaking symbols or texts (of sorts) to be interpreted. These structures are said to have syntax of their own. Layered constructions are full of meaning and prior constructions are often visible. Consider the follow- ing text: “Architects imply palimpsest as a ghost—an image of what once was. In the built environment, this occurs more than we think. Whenever spaces are shuffled, rebuilt, or remodeled, shadows remain. Tarred roof- lines remain on the sides of a building long after the neighboring structure has been demolished; removed stairs leave a mark where the painted wall surface stopped. Dust lines remain from a relocated appliance. Ancient ruins speak volumes of their former wholeness. Palimpsests can serve a noble duty in informing us, almost archaeologically, of the realities of the built past. Thus architects, archaeologists and design historians some- times use the word to describe the accumulated iterations of a design or a site, whether in literal layers of archaeological remains, or by the figurative accumulation and reinforcement of design ideas over time. An excellent example of this can be seen at The Tower of London, where 190 Appendix B construction began in the 11th century, and the site continues to develop to this day.” (http://www.reference.com/browse/palimpsest) M Art, art criticism, and art history. Many art pieces and instillations make explicit reference to palimpsests. Palimpsest is used as a medium, an art- making process, and/or an analytical tool. Writers such as Hakim Bey (pen name for Peter Lamborn Wilson) critically, and playfully, theorize about theory as well as art from outside academic institutions. M Astronomy. A Dictionary of Astronomy defines palimpsests as they are used in planetary astronomy: “An impact crater whose topography has been smoothed by glacier-like flow of the surface. The term was coined for features on the icy surfaces of Ganymede and Callisto. Palimpsests there consist of bright circular features, sometimes at the centre of con- centric rings.” M Chirography. The study of handwriting alludes to symbolic features in a piece of writing. M Classics, theology, and philosophy. I put these areas together because the use of the term palimpsest by their scholars is closely related. These fields and disciplines refer to the most literal meaning of palimpsest and the manuscripts of antiquity—from early Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian, Syrian, or medieval writers, for instance. There are frequent references to the monks who created many of the palimpsests, the ancient texts they effaced, and the new, often religious texts they copied. M Computer science. Palimpsest is the word assigned to a process of the tracking of concurrent collaborative editing of hypertext documents in computer programming. M Cryptology. Cryptology is the study of codes and the process of writing and/or solving them. Many code makers and code breakers use the term palimpsest to describe the ciphers or underlying codes in their various encryptions. A famous example of a cipher that has captivated many in the United States is found on an outdoor sculpture, Kryptos, by the American artist James Sanborn at the CIA headquarters (a bastion of codes) in Langley, Virginia. The text on the sculpture is written in code and the keyword to unlock part of the code is “palimpsest.” M Education. Palimpsest tropes are part of the discussion of teachers and scholars of education. I have found palimpsest analogies in articles about classroom organization and student writing portfolios, among others. M Genetics and genomics. DNA and RNA sequences are seen as genetic codes/texts, which are written, reproduced, and shared by cells, which can mutate or evolve and to which the palimpsest metaphor can be applied. These sequences are documented, interpreted, and even acted upon as authors by scientists.Geology, paleontology, and earth science. From deserts to glaciers to marine shelves, palimpsests are used to describe changing, anthropogenically altered, superimposed, layered, and evolv- ing terrestrial landscapes in geology, paleontology, and earth sciences. Appendix B 191 M History. Palimpsests are used by historians to describe the multiple truths, documents, voices, texts, precursors, and perspectives available for the examination of events. Many writers have discussed México in these terms. José Rabasa wrote about México City, “On the ruins of the ancient city, México City arises and retains indelible traces of the ancient order for the present. This transformation of reality may be likened to a palimpsest where the text of the conquered furnishes and retains its formal structure in the text of the conqueror. It is not the explorer’s accidental and fortuitous mushrooming of colonial entrepôts on a land- scape that murmurs and extraneous language. The fuerat, the had-been Tenochtitlan, retains a ghostlike presence in a mnemonic deposit of infor- mation about the land despite the city’s destruction.” M Internet. Internet scholars and bloggers can be found using the term palimpsest to define the pages on the World Wide Web.