Stear Dissertation COGA Submission 26 May 2015

BEYOND THE FIFTH SUN: NAHUA TELEOLOGIES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES By ©Copyright 2015 Ezekiel G. Stear Submitted to the graduate degree program in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson, Santa Arias ________________________________ Verónica Garibotto ________________________________ Patricia Manning ________________________________ Rocío Cortés ________________________________ Robert C. Schwaller Date Defended: May 6, 2015! ii The Dissertation Committee for Ezekiel G. Stear certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: BEYOND THE FIFTH SUN: NAHUA TELEOLOGIES IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES ________________________________ Chairperson, Santa Arias Date approved: May 6, 2015 iii Abstract After the surrender of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to Hernán Cortés and his native allies in 1521, the lived experiences of the Mexicas and other Nahuatl-speaking peoples in the valley of Mexico shifted radically. Indigenous elites during this new colonial period faced the disappearance of their ancestral knowledge, along with the imposition of Christianity and Spanish rule. Through appropriations of linear writing and collaborative intellectual projects, the native population, in particular the noble elite sought to understand their past, interpret their present, and shape their future. Nahua traditions emphasized balanced living. Yet how one could live out that balance in unknown times ahead became a topic of ongoing discussion in Nahua intellectual communities, and a question that resounds in the texts they produced. Writing at the intersections of Nahua studies, literary and cultural history, and critical theory, in this dissertation I investigate how indigenous intellectuals in Mexico-Tenochtitlan envisioned their future as part of their re-evaluations of the past. I am concerned with indigenous teleological thinking under unprecedented colonial circumstances. The term teleology refers not to the notion of external intelligent design, but rather to how Nahuas chose to live, adapting their traditions in order to influence their future. I argue that Nahua intellectuals appropriated alphabetic writing and, by assuming linear temporalities, formulated alternative approaches for extending their traditional ways of balanced living into the years ahead of them. Close readings of the Florentine Codex (1578), the Anales de Juan Bautista (1582), and the Crónica mexicayotl (1609) reveal Nahua writers’ efforts to promote the future importance of native healing practices, ritual, and indigenous mediatorial roles in the economic and political arenas of central Mexico. iv By understanding how Nahua intellectuals used their writing to recommend actions that promoted futures different from !and a times critical of! the Spanish teleologies of religious conversion and exploitative economic relationships, we gain insight into their agency and their key role in shaping culture. While the memory of traditional cyclical time survived, the imposition of Western linear time meant that these pivotal agents of cultural hybridity had to look beyond their traditional understanding of repeating cycles of cosmic change. We shall see that there was no single Nahua answer to the questions that the unknown future posed. However, with their pens they preserved textual representations that reveal complex negotiations and philosophical reflection concerning what the future should be like. These writings served also as guides to their native readers on how to take action to promote future balanced living in Central Mexico. v Acknowledgements The dissertation would not have been possible without the sacrifices of my parents. I am grateful to my mother, Mary Kay, who taught me to love reading and to not be afraid to follow my dreams. I’m grateful to my late father, Ken, a veteran who contracted leukemia in Vietnam, and who spent 35 years as a mechanic so that his children could go to college. He taught me the value of patience, hard work, and of uncompromising optimism. Heartfelt thanks go to my advisor, Santa Arias, for her mentorship and indefatigable dedication to my scholarly formation. I appreciate her guidance in my writing, research, and professional aspirations. Her dedication to the colonial literatures of Spanish America and to its students on all levels is inspiring. Thank you as well to my dissertation committee: Rocío Cortés, Verónica Garibotto, Patricia Manning, and Robert C. Schwaller. The hours you have given to reading and providing feedback on this dissertation are a gift of time and talent. My graduate studies at KU have opened up a number of opportunities that have enriched this project. The FLAS fellowship allowed me to meet John Sullivan, who I thank for his assistance with translating passages from the Anales de Juan Bautista. I’m also grateful to my Nahuatl instructors, especially Ofelia Cruz Morales, Sabina Cruz de la Cruz, and Victoriano de la Cruz Cruz for their commitment to helping me take the first steps on a lifelong journey with Nahuatl. Tlazcamati miac. I owe thanks to the scholars I have met in the Nahuatl Studies community. Camilla Townsend, Louise Burkhart, Alan Sandstrom, and John F. Schwaller all made helpful suggestions for my research and writing. James Maffie generously offered theoretical insights and recommendations for my terminology. My graduate colleagues in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese have also supported me with friendship, intellectual conversation, and pedagogical collaboration. I think particularly of Matías Beverinotti, Pablo vi Celis, David Dalton, Edma Delgado, Tiffany Creegan-Miller, Jake Rapp, Katya Soll, and so many others. I also appreciate conversations with Stuart Day, Jill Kuhnheim, Jorge Pérez, and Vicky Unruh. Thank you for the professional tips and feedback throughout graduate school and the development of this project. Remembering my years teaching and studying before I came to KU, I appreciate the advice and guidance of my mentors Christopher Biffle, Karla Franko, and June O’Connor, who made their love of teaching and learning examples of how our intellectual activity transforms ourselves and society. From my years as a bilingual elementary school teacher, I am appreciative for the words and wisdom of the stellar educators Barbara Flores, Aidé Villalobos, Victor Palmer, and Spencer Holtom. Thank you Catherine Wall for sparking my interest in Spanish colonial literature at UC Riverside! A special thanks goes to the UC Mexis program and the UNAM in Mexico City. Gracias a mis amigos allá: recuerdo en particular a Laura Barranco Mancera, Edgar Leíja y a Paco y Erica Rincón Guerrero. Gracias también al “Grupo hoy”. Los llevo en mi corazón. Thank you to my friends John Bawden, Josiah Pruiksma, Darrick Taylor, and Jonathan Townsend, who helped me with everything from proofreading my dissertation to providing moral support. In the end, I could never have finished the dissertation without the support and love of those dearest to me. Thank you, Lukas, Thomas, and Aurora. Your playfulness, inquisitiveness, resourcefulness, and love keep me on the path. I also thank Olivia, who has supported me over the years. Her wisdom, fire, sense of humor, and insights ground me in the real world. I hope to always harmonize my intellectual and professional activity with that same spirit. vii To Olivia viii Table of Contents Chapter One: Nahua Time, Experience and Intentional Teleologies in Mexico Tenochtitlan…………………..1 Chapter Two: “My Heart is Tormented”: Nahua Teleologies of Healing in the Florentine Codex…………….37 Chapter Three: “In Vain We Contradicted Them”: Crisis, Agency, and Nahua Teleologies in the Anales de Juan Bautista……………………………………………………………………..…...93 Chapter Four: “We Will Go on Telling of Them”: Nahua Teleologies of Education in the Crónica mexicayotl……………………………………………………………………………..137 Chapter Five: Beyond the Fifth Sun: Conclusions and New Directions………………………………………196 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….207 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 Chapter One: Nahua Time, Experience, and Intentional Teleologies in Mexico-Tenochtitlan After the conquest Nahua scribes used their writing to propose paths toward futures different from those that the Spanish were attempting to impose through conquest and colonization. Colonial native writers drew on the depth and complexity of their traditional view of reality as resources for reflecting on the nature of time, the cosmos, and their actions under the unprecedented challenges of colonialism. A longstanding tradition that informed indigenous writing in Central Mexico in the colonial period was that of the tlamatinime, the keepers of wisdom. The tlamatini (sing.), a “wise person, sage [and] scholar” (Karttunen, 281), was the principal didactic figure before the conquest in Central Mexico (Carrasco, Religions 99). A tlamatini could be male or female and, as Elizabeth Hill Boone explains, embodied “the wisdom contained in the painted books” (Stories 25). The tlamatinime taught in the calmecac schools, devoted to the formation of Nahua nobles in each locality, or altepetl. The basic political and territorial unit of the altepetl (pl. altepeme) forged a link between vivifying water (atl-) and a local hill (-tepetl) or high place (Chávez par. 6).1 The tlamatinime meditated on reality as they understood it, which included interpreting the past and present,

Load more