The FLOWER and the SCORPION

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A book in the series latin america otherwise: languages, empires, nations

Series editors:

Walter D. Mignolo, Duke University Irene Silverblatt, Duke University Sonia Saldívar-Hull, University of Texas, San Antonio

PETE SIGAL t
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The FLOWER and the SCORPION

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Sexuality and Ritual in

Early Nahua Culture

Duke University Press Durham and London 2011 ∫ 2011 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by Heather Hensley Typeset in Warnock Pro by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. For Brooke

Always challenging me to go further, to do more, to break down boundaries, to create our new reality

CONTENTS about the series ix

illustrations xi

acknowledgments xiii

preface The People, the Place, and the Time xv

1. The Bath 1

2. Trash 29

3. Sin 61

4. The Warrior Goddess 103

5. The Phallus and the Broom 139

6. The Homosexual 177

7. Sex 207

8. Mirrors 241

appendix The Chalca Woman’s Song 255

abbreviations 263

notes 265

bibliography 327

index 353

ABOUT THE SERIES

Latin America Otherwise: Languages, Empires, Nations is a critical series. It aims to explore the emergence and conse- quences of concepts used to define ‘‘Latin America’’ while at the same time exploring the broad interplay of political, eco- nomic, and cultural practices that have shaped Latin American worlds. Latin America, at the crossroads of competing imperial designs and local responses, has been construed as a geocul- tural and geopolitical entity since the nineteenth century. This series provides a starting point to redefine Latin America as a configuration of political, linguistic, cultural, and economic intersections that demands a continuous reappraisal of the role of the Americas in history, and of the ongoing process of glob- alization and the relocation of people and cultures that have characterized Latin America’s experience. Latin America Oth- erwise: Languages, Empires, Nations is a forum that confronts established geocultural constructions, rethinks area studies and disciplinary boundaries, assesses convictions of the acad- emy and of public policy, and correspondingly demands that the practices through which we produce knowledge and un- derstanding about and from Latin America be subject to rigor- ous and critical scrutiny. Focusing on sexuality in early Nahuatl culture, Pete Sigal’s exploration goes beyond the time and place of his inquiry and x ≤ ABOUT THE SERIES argument. The most striking aspect of the book is the philosophy that underlies his research and argumentation. Poring over the many Spanish- language reports that distorted the meaning of sexuality in early Nahuatl culture and digging into Aztec codices and other documents in the Na- huatl language, Sigal engages in a necessary and brutal work of restoration —not necessarily the restoration of the original meaning, but of the ‘‘dif- ference’’ that Spaniards never understood, blinded as they were by Chris- tian cosmological principles. Unveiling the colonial difference that made of Nahua sexuality a depository of devilish amoralities, Sigal’s book alerts us to what happened in subsequent centuries when British, French, and later U.S. Americans took over the control of knowledge to report on the sexuality, cosmology, habitus, and way of life of non-Western civiliza- tions. This book is important not only for its content but for its method— the method, indeed, is its content. ILLUSTRATIONS

1. The temazcal, steambath 2 2. The cihuateotl, woman who died in childbirth 25 3. Tlazolteotl, ‘‘goddess of trash’’ 35 4. Tlazolteotl 36 5. Tlazolteotl 36 6. The tlacuilo, painter-writer 41 7. Tlazolteotl and Tezcatlipoca, ‘‘Smoking Mirror’’ 44 8. Ochpaniztli sweeping ceremony 45 9. Ochpaniztli (detail) 46 10. Tlazolteotl 50 11. Ochpaniztli sweeping ceremony 51 12. Tezcatlipoca 52 13. Tlazolteotl and the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli 54 14. Toci, ‘‘Our Grandmother’’ 54 15. Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros memoriales (extract) 83 16. Tezcatlipoca 108 17. Toxcatl, a warrior ceremony 112 18. Ixiptla ‘‘impersonating’’ Tezcatlipoca/Titlacauan 114 19. Ixiptla, Toxcatl ceremony 115 xii ≤ ILLUSTRATIONS

20. Ixiptla, Toxcatl ceremony 117 21. Conclusion of the Toxcatl ceremony 119 22. Xochiquetzal 122 23. The cihuateotl 124 24. The cihuateotl with backward feet 124 25. The tzitzimitl, a death figure 124 26. Xochiquetzal 127 27. Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of floods 130 28. Chalchiuhtlicue 130 29. Deities of sexual excess 132 30. Tlazolteotl 135 31. New Fire Ceremony 144 32. Warriors and sacrifices 149 33. Itztapaltotec and Xiuhtecuhtli 150 34. Itztapaltotec and Xiuhtecuhtli 150 35. Itzpapalotl 154 36. A woman sacrificed 165 37. The colotl, a scorpion 173 38. A curing ceremony 187 39. Titlacauan 192 40. The sodomite 196 41. The hermaphrodite 201 42. Prognostication related to adultery 211 43. The alhuiani, a pleasure woman 226 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over the past years, I have noticed that my intellectual debts have grown far and wide. I was lucky enough to have James Lockhart introduce me to his incredible passion for the study of Nahuatl. Once I began research for this book, a series of in- dividuals encouraged me with their suggestions, often provid- ing me with feedback at my talks and reading and critiquing my writing. In particular I want to single out Jocelyn Olcott, who not only has read the entire manuscript, but also has read so many drafts and listened to so many talks that she is undoubt- edly tired of hearing about Nahuas having sex. Others who have provided me with extensive feedback on my work have in- cluded Susan Schroeder, Matthew Restall, James N. Green, Heidi Tinsman, Neil Whitehead, Zeb Tortorici, Kathryn Burns, Kim- berly Gauderman, Caterina Pizzigoni, John Chuchiak, Kevin Terraciano, Lisa Sousa, William Reddy, Micol Seigel, Richard T. Rodríguez, Anna Krylova, Kathleen DuVal, Dirk Bonker, Moshe Sluhovsky, John D. French, Thomas Robisheaux, Lynda Coon, Lisa Lindsay, Bruce Kapferer, Kevin Ohi, Mary Kay Vaughan, Anne Phillips, Sean Parrish, Benjamin Reed, Jonathan Bird, Enri- que Ochoa, John Martin, Christopher Endy, Cheryl Koos, Cece- lia Klein, Ulrike Strasse, Anjali Arondekar, Eve Oishi, David Ser- lin, Michelle Hamilton, and Cynthia Brantley. My first year at Duke I also was greatly encouraged by the weekly meetings of the xiv ≤ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS beer and theory group: Tina Campt, Kevin Haynes, Tyler Curtain, Clare Hemmings, Richard Langston, and Anne-Maria Makhulu. I would like to acknowledge the Rockefeller Foundation and the Na- tional Humanities Center for providing me with a yearlong fellowship to begin the writing process. And I thank the University of California Hu- manities Research Institute for its support. Both California State Univer- sity, Los Angeles and Duke University have graciously provided me with research and writing grants. My editor at Duke University Press, Valerie Millholland, has strongly encouraged me, even when I have been down about the writing process. I also thank all the others at the press, par- ticularly Miriam Angress. The anonymous reviewers did an excellent job critically engaging my manuscript, and the copy editor was magnani- mous in helping me produce the final product. Often one closes acknowledgments by referencing those closest to them, but I owe far too many debts to the people closest to me. I have found that my primary intellectual motivation comes not from the tradi- tional confines of the academy, but rather from those who have taught me to appreciate the knowledge that comes from challenging traditional boundaries. My close friends from act up, many of them, including Rick, long since dead, made me think about sexuality and politics in new ways. And the pansexual bdsm communities from Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Durham have inspired me to think beyond the confines of the human and the sexual. Most recently the mob and the tribe have stimulated me. Unfortunately, so much hate still exists in our society that I cannot name most of these people, but they know who they are, and they know that we will conquer the haters. When one seeks a world that challenges boundaries, one begins to think, to want, to know, and to grow a new movement for change. Many years ago I began a journey. Many people have traveled that journey with me. We have fought against a world that cannot accept the radical alter- ations that our mutual existences demand, a world that forces us to lie about our lives, a world populated by people who demand the extermina- tion of our differences. Struggling with this hostility, we fight to create a new reality. Preface

THE PEOPLE, THE PLACE, AND THE TIME

For the reader unfamiliar with Nahua scholarship, my use of the term ‘‘Nahua’’ may need explanation. First, the term priori- tizes linguistic unity, referring simply to people who spoke the language Nahuatl. Second, the alternative term, ‘‘Aztec,’’ im- plies some sense of national identity and cohesion that did not exist among the city-states that comprised the ‘‘Aztec Empire’’ at the time of the Spanish conquest.∞ Third, ‘‘Nahua’’ has be- come a term used by many academics to describe the bulk of the indigenous peoples of central Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. ‘‘Aztec’’ was a term sometimes used before the Spanish con- quest to describe the people of Tenochtitlan, the leading city- state of the empire. I instead use the term ‘‘Mexica’’ when dis- cussing the people of Tenochtitlan. This is the term that they most commonly used, at least in written form, to refer to them- selves. I reserve the term ‘‘Aztec’’ for discussions of the empire. According to most accounts, the Mexica, a group of wan- derers, arrived in the area now known as central Mexico some- time in the twelfth century ce, and after a series of struggles, they settled in Tenochtitlan in the early 1300s. In another hun- dred years, they had become the dominant city-state in an alliance that would go on to conquer vast swaths of territory throughout northern Mesoamerica.≤ They had great pride in a xvi ≤ PREFACE city that they built up to be among the largest cities in the world at the time of the Spanish conquest. Tenochtitlan, a city in the middle of lake Texcoco, served both as a bustling metropolis crisscrossed by canals and as an important ceremonial center.≥ This book begins with the time period immediately preceding the Spanish conquest of the so-called Aztec Empire, the military phase of which took place between 1519 and 1521. The book ends in 1650, the time when, because of increased contact between Spanish and Nahua people, we witness significant changes in Nahua culture and society. At that point, the nature of Nahua documents changes fundamentally. The year 1650 saw the beginning of what James Lockhart calls ‘‘stage three’’ of the process of Nahua cultural change.∂ This period of increased bilingual- ism and biculturalism presumably also transformed the relationship that Nahuas had to their fertility rituals and their sexual lives, though I will leave it to others to study this process in later colonial times. ≤ 1 ≤

THE BATH

A mid-sixteenth-century rendition of the Nahua temazcal, a steam bath (figure 1), depicts a relatively minor structure, but it signifies both the difficulties that Spaniards had under- standing Nahua sexual activity and the ambiguities involved in writing about Nahua sexuality when the Nahuas did not have a category that one can translate as ‘‘sex’’ or ‘‘sexuality’’; the image of the temazcal thus serves as an icon for the thesis of this book. Reproduced in a codex written under the auspices of Franciscan friars and copied from a prototype produced by a Nahua painter-writer, the image foregrounds the many layers of interpretation modern scholars must use to derive meaning from such a source. Tlazolteotl, whose image appears above the small door to the steam bath, and who is the most important goddess dis- cussed in this book, guarded the temazcal, a place intended to cure individuals but one that many Catholic priests argued fo- mented sexual sin by allowing for secret sexual liaisons.∞ Tla- zolteotl, the ‘‘deity of trash,’’ guarded the steam bath because she, along with a series of related fertility goddesses, controlled the process in which individuals cleansed themselves, both metaphorically, through ritual, and literally, through wash- ing one’s body. The Nahuas did not distinguish between the metaphorical and literal cleanings, because when one cleaned 2 ≤ CHAPTER 1

FIGURE 1 The temazcal, a steambath. From The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (Codex Magliabechiano, facsimile), ed. Zelia Nuttall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1903), 156. oneself, one also kept at bay all of the other things signified by the term tlazolli, which I translate here as ‘‘trash.’’ As we will see, it is precisely this tlazolli that allows me to analyze colonial Nahua sexuality. Furthermore, the difficulties of translating tlazolli and of understanding the social sig- nificance of Tlazolteotl form the core problematics of this book. Nahuas did not have a category that a modern scholar can responsibly equate with all the things that are meant when one uses the category ‘‘sex- uality.’’ By analyzing Nahua fertility rituals as they existed at the time of the conquest and discussing the changes in the structures of these rituals through the early colonial years, I will show that neither the sexual taxon- omies developed by colonial society nor those later promoted by modern Western peoples can capture the history of sexuality of the Nahuas. The paradoxical question faced by all scholars studying sexuality who deal with non-Western or premodern societies is, how does one write a history of sexuality for a society that did not have sex? As others have shown, once a scholar exits the modern Western world, the parameters THE BATH ≤ 3 that define ‘‘sexuality’’ immediately change.≤ One then faces a definitional conundrum reflected in the challenges confronted in this book; I do not wish to replicate the concept of sexuality as defined in the modern West, but neither do I wish to suggest that Nahua notions of the sexual are so esoteric that we cannot ever understand them. Building upon this concept, this book argues that modern researchers of sexuality, following Michel Foucault, have placed far too much em- phasis on the ability of the Roman Catholic sacrament of confession to change the ways in which individuals conceived of themselves and their behaviors.≥ Reading and analyzing all of the available sources, and not only Spanish clerical documents, allow me to argue that this assumption is incorrect. The process of cultural assimilation and appropriation lasted much longer, was slow and inconsistent, and in fact is not yet complete.

The Flower and the Scorpion Tlazolteotl was one of many fertility deities, and the flower and the scor- pion are two representations of sexuality. As we will see, all of the gods and the ‘‘natural world’’ linked to concepts of fertility, and its corollary, waste.∂ Nahua cosmology was a complex amalgam of different concepts in which deities had the ability to transform themselves into virtually anything, and humans and animals under certain circumstances could become gods. Underlying this structure was a particular set of beliefs about the intercon- nections among the earth, the heavens, and the land of the dead.∑ Sources vary on the events that led to the division between these three realms, but for my purposes what is most important is that the mythology alludes to a set of powerful deities that asserted a feminine earth and a masculine sky but also allowed them to change genders and identities in order to access relevant levels of the cosmos.∏ The actual substances that made up these gods could be exchanged when the god willed it. The deities most important to this book had particular qualities that linked them most closely with fertility (Tlazolteotl, Teteo Innan, Toci, Xochiquetzal, Chicomecoatl, Chalchiuhtlicue, Tlaltecuhtli) or warfare (Tezcatlipoca). The deities linked with fertility are most often deemed ‘‘female,’’ but we will see that such a gendered identification is deeply flawed. Moreover, while most of the deities linked with warfare are deemed ‘‘male,’’ Tezcatplioca’s male ‘‘identity’’ is generally overstated. 4 ≤ CHAPTER 1

Also important for my purposes are the ambiguously gendered ‘‘super- natural’’ figures linked with death (cihuateteo and tzitzimime). The gods, in addition to having qualities that linked them to a broader and shared Nahua cosmological universe, were connected with the alte- petl, the local Nahua city-state.π Hence, for example, Tezcatlipoca (a powerful warrior god worshiped throughout the Nahua universe) was the patron god of Texcoco.∫ Other gods too were patrons of some of the subdivisions of the city-states. Religion, thus, much as in early modern Europe, had both local variants and universal narratives.Ω According to Nahua cosmology humans came upon the earth, created by the gods after several attempts. These humans needed to respect the gods by performing ritual ceremonies designed to move time forward and thus allow for the continued survival of the deities.∞≠ These hu- mans had bodies made up of a variety of substances that could be ex- changed at particular (ritually important) moments. Moreover, the hu- man body always maintained a very close connection to both the natural world and the world of the gods. Hence a Nahua could not view the human body in isolation from the existence of the gods or from the centrality of plants, animals, and the earth.∞∞ And humans could also alter their bodies, though only in ritually appropriate ways, and only with the support of the gods. singing of the flower As one of the signs of sex, flowers proliferate in the descriptions of the gods and rituals.∞≤ The flower held central importance to Nahua con- structions of their world, so much so that the great Nahuatl scholar of the twentieth century, Miguel Léon-Portilla, made the flower the primary metaphor for all life forces.∞≥ A bit more conservatively, the linguist Fran- ces Kartunnen maintains that xochitl, flower, when used as a modifier, signified something precious, and that, when paired with the term for song, referred to poetry.∞∂ It is clear that, whatever the limits of the use of the flower as a symbol or metaphor, it referred to something of great importance to the Nahuas. While the flower will remain partially un- knowable, an entity that exceeds our ability to understand Nahua dis- course in a foreign cultural framework, I will show that it primarily re- lated to intimate connections with others and itself signified fertility in all of its forms. THE BATH ≤ 5

In the early sixteenth century, the Franciscan friar Alonso de Molina created the first comprehensive Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary, in which he had the following definitions linked to xoch, the Nahuatl root for flower:

Xochitl. flower Xochtia. to utter witticisms or make people laugh Xochuia. to enchant, bewitch, or seduce a woman∞∑

In Molina’s definitions of flower, only the third has possible sexual mean- ing (and even there one can suggest many other derivations for the term). Yet the flower signified ritualized fertility: ceremonial rites in which the fertile nature of human coupling extended outward to all of the natu- ral and supernatural universe.∞∏ Further, virtually any time ceremonial sexual activity took place, the flower signified the presence of sexual desires. As one example, the flower in a Nahuatl song discovered in the middle of the sixteenth century links directly with sex:

Please do not stick your hand in my skirts, Little boy, King, Little Axayacatl. Perhaps I am painted, My little hand is itching, Again and again You want to seize my breast, Even my heart.

Now perhaps you will ruin my body painting. You will lie watching The coming of the green quechol bird flower. I will put you inside of me. Your chin lies there. I will rock you in my arms.

It is a quetzal popcorn flower, A flamingo raven flower. You lie on your flower-strewn mat. It lies there inside . . . no longer.∞π 6 ≤ CHAPTER 1

In 1479 nobles from Chalco, a city-state conquered by the Mexica in 1464, went to their conquering city to perform this song, titled simply chalca cihuacuicatl, ‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song.’’ Axayacatl, the Mexica leader, received the people from Chalco, and he liked the song that the men and women performed, at least according to our one source describ- ing the reception of this performance.∞∫ The erotic joking of ‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song’’ suggests some- thing about the sexual imaginings of the Nahua peoples on the eve of the Spanish conquest. The flower signified body parts, sexual acts, and noble sexual performances. The selection above suggests flirtation, sex- ual humor, intercourse, and erotic tenderness. Though it does not at first seem to hide anything, there is much hidden meaning: linguistic tricks, erotic puns, and a variety of connections between sexual desire and the manipulation of masculinity, and between warfare and sexual subjugation.∞Ω But here we begin with the flower. The first line referring to xochitl states explicitly that Axayacatl watches the ‘‘quechol bird flower’’ as the Chalca woman places Axayacatl’s penis inside of her. Immediately fol- lowing this event, she provides Axayacatl with tenderness, rocking him in her arms, perhaps during intercourse, or perhaps following it, as she will remind him that it no longer ‘‘lies there inside.’’ Before she does so, though, she says much about flowers: his penis is a ‘‘quetzal popcorn flower, a flamingo raven flower,’’ and the place where they en- gage in intercourse is strewn with flowers. Here the flower refers to the nobleman’s endowment and perhaps to the place where nobles perform sexual acts. Of course such an interpretation is far too literal, but this particular songwriter, and presumably, if Chimalpahin’s discussion of reception is correct, the nobles of Tenochtitlan and Chalco (together quite represen- tative of the worldviews of the nobles in the basin of Mexico), believed the flower signified something related to the sexual seduction of the emperor. In fact, this seduction was not a discrete historical event, but rather a ritual intended to emulate power, violence, fertility, and a dis- course of noble eroticism and desire. The mention of the flower, repeated in many of the rituals, aimed to make the audience members think about the proper role of nobles in maintaining and enhancing the fertility of the universe. THE BATH ≤ 7 curing scorpion stings

The goddess Xochiquetzal climbed up and, covering him with her huipil,≤≠ caused him to fail in his purpose [of chastity]. . . . [Then a warrior watching this man said to him]: ‘‘Are you not ashamed, . . . because you have ruined things? For however long you live, . . . you will be able to do nothing upon the earth, you will be able to achieve nothing. The commoners will call you ‘Scorpion.’ ’’≤∞ —An incantation recorded in a Nahuatl-speaking community of Guerrero, New Spain, in 1629 by a Catholic priest

The story of Xochiquetzal and the man who became Scorpion suggests that the gods punished men for violations of chastity, and indeed that violations of particular sexual vows could lead one to stray down the wrong path—the path of excess. The incantation points to a story in which the goddess tricked a man who was preparing himself to fight for his community. Xochiquetzal’s name (‘‘Quetzal Flower’’) shows us the importance of the flower to this ceremony of commoners, a curing rite intended to coax the poison out of an individual stung by a scorpion. More important to the structure of the story, as we shall see, was the historical power of the fertility goddesses Xochiquetzal and Tlazolteotl. In the early seventeenth century, when the Catholic priest Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón recorded this myth in his effort to suppress idolatry among indigenous people, Nahua commoners (probably about 90 percent of the Nahua population)≤≤ believed strongly in the connection between fertility goddesses and their own lives. During that time they regularly invoked these goddesses in their testimonies in idolatry cases. Among other things, Xochiquetzal protected them from scorpion stings, while Tlazol- teotl promoted the health of the mother and child during childbirth, and Chicomecoatl, another fertility goddess, aided men and women in achiev- ing a successful harvest. In each case, Nahua thought connected these goddesses with sexual acts and imaginations. The evidence related to the rituals performed by commoners indicates the persistence of distinctly Nahua ways of understanding sexual acts. After the Spanish conquest, the Spaniards prohibited the grand state ceremonies such as those that nobles had performed in Tenochtitlan.≤≥ Catholic priests actively sought to coopt noble Nahua children, and, 8 ≤ CHAPTER 1 despite the ability of these children to maintain some semblance of a connection with Nahua tradition, the priests often succeeded in pre- venting them from leading traditional ceremonies.≤∂ During the first gen- eration after the conquest, the Spaniards actively and violently sup- pressed noble support for non-Catholic religiosity.≤∑ But the documents suggest that the views of the bulk of the indigenous population did not change so radically that they would willingly give up their traditions.≤∏ How could the commoners and those nobles who did not adhere to Catholic religiosity continue to support the belief system in place at the time of the conquest? First, the Nahua religious system had a dynamic and adaptive structure, which could change, sometimes quite radically, depending on circumstance.≤π Second, Nahua commoners, like nobles, could adapt Catholic ritual to meet some of their needs—and they could suggest the similarity of such ritual practices to preconquest concepts.≤∫ Third, hidden rites, whether in caves or in churches when priests were not looking, could serve the function of maintaining religious practice and knowledge.≤Ω Finally, commoners in particular could maintain small- scale ceremonies, in houses and fields, to continue to worship the deities most central to their daily survival. In the scorpion story, the man went to the mountains to fast and, most important, refrain from any sexual activity. If he successfully maintained his vigil, the gods would give him the power to kill his enemies. Upon Xochiquetzal’s successful seduction of the man, however, a warrior be- headed him and turned him into a scorpion. Thus the story signified the ability of the gods to give and take away the powers of humans and animals. When a scorpion stung an individual, that person would go to a curer who would recount the story to him or her. The curer then would coax the scorpion’s poison out of the individual by simulating sexual inter- course with that person, thus suggesting that the curer is Xochiquetzal, the body of the one stung just a conduit for the scorpion. The curer, as Xochiquetzal, then reminds the scorpion that, because he failed to main- tain his vigil, he cannot kill this person. People in Guerrero in 1629 faced scorpion stings on a somewhat regu- lar basis, and they designed rites to control the power of the scorpions to kill them. The evidence suggests that, when sick, these commoners went to medical practitioners of various kinds as well as traditional shamans and Catholic priests.≥≠ When they went to the traditional shamans and THE BATH ≤ 9 curers, these individuals invoked many Nahua gods and goddesses, in- cluding Xochiquetzal. Seventeenth-century commoners, who provided for most of their own sustenance through farming, worshiped those dei- ties that had a direct effect on daily life; they linked these gods and goddesses to quotidian survival.≥∞ In many cases the stories told by the Nahuas in such localized cere- monies (and this in some senses is similar to local religious practice among the Hispanic population during colonial times) link to sexual activity.≥≤ In the tale of the scorpion we find a warning: a violation of a vow (in this case, the man’s vow not to have sexual intercourse) can lead the gods to disempower you (turn you into a scorpion). But the perfor- mance of the ceremony contradicts this rather chaste discourse: only through the simulation of sexual activity can the shaman cure the indi- vidual. The curer gains power in this ritual, while the sick individual gives his or her body over to that curer. Further, Xochiquetzal’s seduction of the man and consequent disempowerment of him saved humankind. Thus, sex in particular circumstances (even involving trickery and seduc- tion) can maintain life, while sex in other circumstances can destroy and disempower. Unpacking this story related in Nahuatl to a Catholic priest by a Nahua commoner over three centuries ago has become my central fixation over the past decade and it speaks directly to this book’s focus: the persistence and gradual change of indigenous knowledges regarding what Western peoples later would come to term sexuality. How did such a myth become part of colonial history? How could a (shaman representing a) Nahua goddess have sex with an ostensibly Catholic man or woman in order to rid him or her of a scorpion’s poison? How can we interpret such a story, mediated by historical change, recorded partly in Spanish and partly in Nahuatl? How can we understand its place in the archive? Following this, how can we comprehend the process in which this text (and sex) became written?

The History of Sexuality When the Nahua texts tell stories of people singing to the king who conquered them (‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song’’) and a curer calling upon a goddess to help an individual stung by a scorpion (the Xochiquetzal incantation), even the most astute reader may be blind to the eroticism in 10 ≤ CHAPTER 1 the stories, because we can read the erotic and the sexual≥≥ only as filtered through our own notions of sexuality.≥∂ Here we have two stories in which individual actors feign or describe—whether or not they perform —sexual intercourse.≥∑ But how can I provide a responsible historical analysis of these stories, asking what they mean to the writing of a history of early colonial (sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century) Nahua communities? Asking this question in a slightly different way, can I write the early colonial Nahua history of sexuality?≥∏ Since the Nahuas did not have a concept of sexuality, the epistemolog- ical problems incurred in writing a book such as this seemed daunting to me.≥π However, other sexuality studies scholars have shown that in all times and places in which the modern West has not dominated, the responsible scholar must question the role of sexuality as a given cate- gory. Karma Lochrie, in her analysis of medieval European literature, usefully argues that we cannot understand medieval peoples as hetero- normative because, during medieval times, concepts of sexual normativ- ity did not exist. This does not mean, according to Lochrie, that medieval society was a utopian fantasy in which ‘‘anything goes,’’ but rather sug- gests that medieval understandings of behaviors that modern societies deem sexual did not conform to such categorization.≥∫ Similarly, Helmut Puff shows that even when social taxonomy changed by the early modern period, sodomy in Germany and Switzerland did not fit easily into the categories that we have deemed ‘‘sexual’’; but neither did the early mod- ern peoples form categories so esoteric that we can say that they do not relate at all to modern notions of sexuality.≥Ω Instead, Puff shows, allega- tions of sodomy could be seen as fundamental challenges to the con- struction of self: ‘‘Sodomy was a particularly disruptive and therefore potent suspicion undermining the fabric of hierarchically organized so- cial relations. Such accusations could be effective, because sodomites were not viewed as a distinct category of human beings. Potentially, all Christians, especially Christian men, could act as sodomites and be typed as . . . sexual heretic[s].’’∂≠ When the scholar moves beyond Europe, questions related to the import and even existence of something that one can call ‘‘sexuality’’ come immediately to the forefront.∂∞ The now classic study of Melane- sian fellatio by Gilbert Herdt shows that concepts of homosexuality are so culturally contingent that a younger boy fellating an older youth in Mela- nesia signified masculine exchange and maturation, not sexuality.∂≤ Mary THE BATH ≤ 11

Weismantel argues that tenth-century sexually themed pottery produced by the Moche on the coast of what is now Peru presented fertility as a social process, not a singular ‘‘sexual’’ act.∂≥ Anjali Arondekar, studying colonial Indian sexuality, focuses on the archive, where she shows that if one studies the process of archivization, one will find that both modern scholars and colonial authorities have certain investments in creating and maintaining the category of sexuality as a singular truth.∂∂ Afsaneh Najmabadi shows that early twentieth-century Iranian notions of sex and eroticism could not fit into the paradigms put into place by notions of modernity coming both from Europe and from certain sectors within Iran. Thus, the veil, for example, signified (and continues to signify) a particular contestation over the very definition of modern sexuality: ‘‘There is yet another location in which this contest is positioned: the veil as a marker of the homosocial, homoerotic affectionate world of men and women. Its association with backwardness . . . stood for the backward- ness of homosocial and homoerotic affectivity.’’∂∑ Whether analyzing the sexual heretic or the veil, these historians of sexuality studying diverse places and time periods present one vital concept: what modern Western peoples take for granted as ‘‘sexuality’’ signified different things in pre- modern and non-Western societies. writing colonial nahua sexuality To understand this different order of signification, The Flower and the Scorpion focuses not on the recovery of the sexual lives of the Nahua people during the colonial years, but rather on the ways that writers, both indigenous and Hispanic, produced ideas about Nahua sexuality. The book decodes this writing process, arguing that the links between sex- uality and writing tell us something about the ways in which the writers and the people who influenced them understood and helped to produce the changes in meanings related to sexual acts during the late precon- quest and early colonial years. In this study I draw on an archive of pictorial manuscripts, clerical texts, chronicles, and legal documents to show the development of a sexual system in which many indigenous people, particularly common- ers, did not place sexuality within the framework of colonial distinctions, but instead related their sexual lives and imaginations not just to con- cepts of sin and redemption but also to pleasure and seduction, as well as rituals of fertility and warfare. 12 ≤ CHAPTER 1

The Nahuas constituted a variety of relations as ones in which the human couple would engage in bodily activities related to fertility. These activities included categories that modern Western peoples would invest with sexual meaning: vaginal and anal intercourse, manual and oral stim- ulahtion of male and female genitals, imaginary conditions designed to allude to these activities and stimulate a genital response, and the use of nonbodily objects in these actions. Yet these elements also included ac- tivities that modern Westerners would not consider sexual: the ritual killing of humans and animals; burning of maize, incense, and other items; letting of blood; and sweeping houses, streets, and other areas. Nahua categories linked all of these activities together and suggested that they formed a part of the matrix of sacrifice. Much Nahua thought at the time of the Spanish conquest envisioned sexual relations as elements of a larger set of ritual practices designed to promote fertility: of gods, humans, animals, and the earth.∂∏ A cultural history of these rituals also shows that Nahuas closely linked the mainte- nance and expansion of the political system with fertility rites.∂π The logic of ceremonial warfare such as the ‘‘flower wars’’ (ritual wars fought pri- marily between the nobles of rival city-states designed to weaken the enemy—with the eventual, but not immediate, goal of conquest—and to gain captives for sacrifice) suggests that these were meant to expand the power of the state through a type of violence envisioned as promoting the fertile nature of the empire.∂∫ Indeed, this system links sexual pleasure, fertility, violence, warfare, and sacrifice. This book will examine such con- nections, and we will see that Nahuas linked all of these elements within a single cultural matrix. Two main principles organized Nahua thoughts about the sexual.∂Ω First, sexual behavior related directly to the fertility rituals, ceremonies large and small, in the many realms described above, promoting the notion that everything and everybody must exude fertility in order for the community to survive. Second, an individual’s sexual possibilities divided between those acts deemed moderate and those deemed excessive. Nahuas considered moderation in sexual activity a virtue, excess a vice.∑≠ Cere- monial performances, from those of the household to the grand state rites, as well as ritual and quotidian discourse, marked both the encouragement of fertility and the distinction between moderation and excess.∑∞ In no way, however, did Nahuas before the conquest equate sex with sin, at least the way that Catholic clerics understood the term. The con- THE BATH ≤ 13 cept of sin, as Louise Burkhart has shown, did not adequately translate into the Nahuatl language, much less the cultural framework for that language.∑≤ Simply put, Nahuas did not believe that sexual activity, or any other activity based on human choice, could place them in spiritual dan- ger. Rather, the only things that could influence one’s position in relation to the gods were carefully honed skills and particular types of luck.∑≥ Representatives of the Catholic Church who encountered the Nahuas deemed their views of sexual behavior problematic, and they engaged in a focused debate over how to change behaviors. The result of that debate was the attempt to link sex with sin, often using particular indigenous concepts (trash, dirt, dust, damage, disorder, and excess being the most common) as signifiers of sinful behavior. The means for such a linkage was the discourse of confession, whether through the actual confessional or through advancing such an analysis in the broader social field.∑∂ The attempt, through the confessional, at conquering thoughts about sex- uality largely failed, instead eventually producing a hybrid sexual system that still survives today in many indigenous Mesoamerican societies.∑∑ The means by which the Catholic Church attempted to enforce changes, however, were altered during the sixteenth century. At this time, the Catholic Church as an institution engaged in significant reforms, most prominently represented by the Council of Trent. The mid-sixteenth- century (1545–63) Tridentine reforms in particular mandated that only a Catholic priest could provide the sacraments, including confession. The bilingual confessional manuals that I cite in chapter 3 are part of this effort, in which the hierarchy worked to assert more control over the administration of the sacrament and to make sure that parishioners un- derstood the priest’s power in this regard.∑∏ But, as Stuart Schwartz has recently remarked, historians often forget that the original settlement and colonization of Latin America took place before the Council of Trent, and it proved impossible to impose the Tridentine reforms on the Hispanic, much less the indigenous, populations.∑π The relationship between the church and the indigenous population also faced intense debate at this time. After an initial period during which the Inquisition imposed harsh penalties on indigenous leaders in cen- tral Mexico, the Indians were exempted from the Inquisition’s authority. Other measures were taken to control indigenous religiosity, of course, but these too led to great controversy, as witnessed in the debates around the extreme penalties imposed by Diego de Landa on the Maya popula- 14 ≤ CHAPTER 1 tion for alleged idolatry and human sacrifice.∑∫ In all, these debates led to great variation in attempts to alter indigenous religion because panics re- garding idolatrous practices would pop up from time to time, leading to more efforts to exercise clerical control, followed by long periods of calm during which many indigenous communities would see few priests.∑Ω Though conscious efforts by Spaniards to alter Nahua ideas of sex- uality did not succeed, much change did occur as the Nahuas came into daily contact with Hispanized peoples and, by the middle of the seven- teenth century, we witness in various sources (in both Nahuatl and Span- ish) Nahua descriptions of sexual acts and categories largely consistent with views then common in Hispanic popular culture, though not in official Catholic discourse.∏≠ In the same time period, however, Nahua commoners continued to connect sexual desires with preconquest gods and goddesses, and both nobles and commoners had great difficulty understanding the clerical concept of sin. As I note throughout this book, Nahua nobles on the eve of the Span- ish conquest believed that the flower signified, among other things, ex- cessive sexual desire. One hundred years later, some Nahua common- ers believed that the existence, life, and death of the scorpion showed them the ways in which the gods manipulated human sexual behavior. These two stories alone, related to Nahua metaphor and myth, demon- strate that indigenous understandings of sexuality were different from the views of the Spanish colonizers and that these concepts will remain at least partially unknowable to us. However, a careful analysis of the place of sex within the text will allow us to see the ways that these myths and metaphors constructed particular relationships between Nahua culture and individual sexual imaginations, desires, and acts.

Sources Our knowledge of Nahua sexual desire and subjectivity, indeed of Na- hua history and social reality in general, is necessarily contingent. I have worked with Nahuatl-language texts, with some information from Spanish-language sources; but we should never assume that Spanish authorities did not mediate the postconquest Nahuatl-language docu- ments.∏∞ And, even when Nahuas wrote the documents outside of Span- ish influence, we must note the internal conflicts and external power relations involved in the production of these texts, whether pre- or post- THE BATH ≤ 15 conquest. Further, as preconquest Nahuas wrote in pictographic form, these sources require significant decoding of the painting process, and even this decoding has its limits. Most people who ask me about my research first query me about the nature of the documentation, which they assume must be limited. The Nahuas produced a diverse array of texts related to sexuality, first in the form of pictorial manuscripts that described in great detail ritual cere- monies, then, during the colonial years, in the form of alphabetic texts (often incorporating visual imagery) that discussed changes in ritual structure as well as quotidian behavior. The most central texts include the pictorial manuscripts, the Florentine Codex, idolatry cases, Catholic religious texts, and the texts of indigenous intellectuals. These are sup- ported by other sources, including Inquisition documents and criminal trials. The pictorial texts begin chronologically with the Borgia Group (the Borgia, Laud, Cospi, Fejéváry Mayer, and Vaticanus B), a set of precon- quest codices, read in screenfold fashion, and produced from the bark of a tree. While the provenance of the Borgia Group is contested, these manuscripts unquestionably emanate from before the Spanish conquest, and from an area outside the basin of Mexico. Some argue that they come from the Tlaxcala region, while others suggest a Oaxacan provenance. It seems likely that they come from some combination of areas, and that they were copied from prior versions of the same texts. These manu- scripts produce a coherent and relatively consistent cosmology, though with some significant differences in style.∏≤ The Tonalamatl of Aubin also was produced as a screenfold but ema- nates from the basin of Mexico. The date of this text is controversial as it may be the only example of a preconquest document from the area around Tenochtitlan. According to Karl Nowotny, ‘‘It is painted on bark- paper and of very poor quality. It comes from the hands of a simple shaman who used it as an instrument of divination.’’∏≥ It contains only the tonalamatl, the divinatory calendar. The Codex Borbonicus, a key manuscript for this book, was also pro- duced in screenfold fashion, but likely written in the basin of Mexico (probably from the region to the south of Lake Texcoco, the lake upon which Tenochtitlan sat) soon after the Spanish conquest. We find some evidence of stylistic changes in the depictions, but the Borbonicus ap- pears to be a good copy of earlier manuscripts. The Borbonicus contains 16 ≤ CHAPTER 1 minimal annotations in Spanish, and it provides depictions of gods, ca- lendrical rounds, and a series of rituals. The Magliabechiano Group (the Magliabechiano, Tudela, Ixtlilxo- chitl, and Vaticanus A), a set of manuscripts produced in the mid- to late sixteenth century under Franciscan sponsorship, was based on a proto- type produced by a traditional Nahua painter-writer. The images show significant deterioration from preconquest texts and were not produced in traditional Nahua fashion. The books themselves were produced in Hispanic style, with one side of most pages containing an image, the other side a descriptive text in Spanish.∏∂ The Codex Telleriano-Remensis was produced in the 1550s in an in- teractive framework, in which a Nahua painter-writer, Dominican friars, and Hispanic notaries worked together to produce an extensive pictorial manuscript with many Spanish annotations. Those painters and writers were often somewhat at odds with one another, but the collective effort of at least seven different people included one well-trained Nahua artisan.∏∑ In chapter 3 I discuss extensively the production of the Florentine Co- dex, which was produced by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and his indigenous aides, comparing it with the ethnographic texts pro- duced by the Franciscan friar Motolinia and the Dominican friar Diego Durán. Each of these texts was produced in the mid- to late sixteenth century by friars interested in ethnographic discovery but primarily in instructing indigenous people in Catholic principles. The texts them- selves, however, betray the hybrid nature of their production. The Floren- tine Codex, for example, was produced in Nahuatl based on extensive testimony over two decades from Nahua elders in three communities, interviewed by the indigenous aides, then transcribed from notes into Nahuatl text and (partially) translated into Spanish.∏∏ The idolatry cases I have used include one well-known case from the year 1629, mentioned above, and a series of other cases spanning from the mid-sixteenth century through the early seventeenth century. These cases show a concerted effort on the part particularly of Nahua com- moners to continue worshiping fertility deities and other gods associated with daily survival. One should always be mindful of the cautions urged by Dennis Tedlock: in many cases the alleged idolaters only tell their interrogators what they think they want to hear.∏π The methodology I outline below and through the next two chapters suggests, however, that THE BATH ≤ 17 the interactions between the Nahua commoner and his or her interroga- tor nevertheless yield some knowledge about the place and voice of the Nahua within the colonial institution. Catholic religious texts, primarily sermons and confessional manuals, discuss a variety of ritual practices and all of the sexual activities that the Catholic Church deemed sinful. Here I have used texts produced in Mex- ico from the early sixteenth century through the middle of the seven- teenth. The sermons that I use, primarily those produced by Sahagún, Andrés de Olmos, and other Franciscan friars, were written in Nahuatl to be used by friars and priests during services in indigenous communities. Franciscans, Dominicans, and secular clergy produced the confessional manuals used here. They were based on European models, but often had some changes specifically addressing the indigenous population. The manuals had parallel Nahuatl and Spanish columns.∏∫ Finally, I use some texts produced by Nahua intellectuals in the late sixteenth century and the early seventeenth. These intellectuals varied in their affinities and their connections to Nahua communities. The most important for my purposes, don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimal- pahin, wrote in Nahuatl and expressed a close connection with the Nahua altepetl (city-state) of Chalco.∏Ω

Voice My historical project seeks to uncover the voices of Nahua commoners, however refracted through the prism of the written text. If we read only the clerical documents, such as the reports of the priests and friars, ser- mons, and confessional manuals, or only notarial sources, such as crimi- nal records and petitions—in whatever language—we would incorrectly believe that the sexual conquest succeeded. Tlazolteotl became recon- figured as a demon; sex became reconfigured as sin. But if we leave our analysis there, we forget that the quotidian experiences of Nahua com- moners, the vast bulk of the indigenous population, involved neither priests nor courts. We fail to understand the nature of notarial creativity in a society dominated by oral tradition. And we never pursue the prob- lematic inconsistencies of our concerned clerics. Some modern scholars have said that the Nahuas engaged in a ‘‘moral dialogue’’ with priests, while others have asserted that the act of con- 18 ≤ CHAPTER 1 fession destroyed the traditional sexual ideologies of Nahua peoples.π≠ My work, while building on the scholarship of Louise Burkhart, Serge Gruzinski, Noemí Quezada, and Alfredo López Austin, alters these his- toriographical trajectories by showing that the Catholic priests could not assert such influence over the sexual beliefs of Nahua commoners.π∞ Hence, a more appropriate description of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century sexual discourse, at least as it affected those Nahuas outside of a small and select group of intellectual elites trained by the Franciscan friars, would be a series of mutual monologues. While some dialogue took place (as Burkhart shows), much of it was so misunderstood that the primary motor for change was not clerical discourse, but rather daily contact between Nahuas and people of the Hispanic world, who had their own popular views of religion (views that the Inquisition would find bordering on heresy).π≤ Moreover, as we will see, when clerics did discuss sex with Nahuas, they needed to use a language that Nahuas understood. Thus they used the language of tlazolli (trash), entering squarely within what I call the tlazolli complex, to warn Nahuas of the dangers of trash and dust; the Nahuas heard the terms the clerics used, and they interpreted those terms as parts of the tlazolli complex. Most important with regard to my methodology in understanding commoner voice, filtered through the voices of the clerics, is the issue of translation.π≥ Since I work with many sources in Nahuatl and Spanish, I focus on translation between an indigenous language and a European one. I particularly question the techniques the translators, often priests and notaries, used to render one social reality into another. I show ways in which translation, both in the sense of translating oral discourse into writing and translating Nahuatl into Spanish, was a fundamentally politi- cal act that altered the meaning of the original utterances.π∂ In this book I provide a method that links sex to the broader cultural histories of the early modern world. I read the sources against each other such that we can envision the ways that a sixteenth-century Nahua com- moner connects sexual discourse with his or her everyday experiences and material well-being. Thus, by analyzing the pictorial manuscripts, idolatry investigations, clerical literature, and notarial documents to- gether, I complicate our understanding of subaltern voice, deal with the relationship between oral discourse and writing, and enter into the imag- inary and material worlds of the Nahua commoner. THE BATH ≤ 19

Tlazolli Theory While I began this book by translating tlazolli as trash, already I find my own translation inadequate because the Nahuas in fact developed a complex set of meanings related to the term. The tlazolli complex links closely with the notion that while excess is necessary for the continuation of the community, ritual practitioners must always work to control the nature of the tlazolli or else the community will become infused with excess and disease. This is no place better represented than in Nahua and Spanish analyses of the temazcal, the steam bath. In figure 1, the old woman on the left stokes the fire as another woman cures the sick men on the right side of the image. The temazcal serves as a curing ground, a place in which one can remove filth from the body. Still, Nahuas during the colonial period also used the temazcal for other reasons, particularly to engage in sexual behaviors that had become illicit. Tlazolteotl’s image on the temazcal signified it as a structure that con- trolled the tlazolli, but it was only one of many places that served such a purpose: ‘‘In general, tlazolli consists of little bits and pieces of things, which might once have belonged somewhere but now, through processes of decay, deterioration, or digestion, have become formless and uncon- nected; these fragments are now scattered about, interfering with things that are new and tidy.’’π∑ Burkhart, in dedicating an entire chapter of her book to the concept of tlazolli, suggests its central importance both to the Nahua moral universe and to the dialogue that took place between the Nahuas and the Catholic clerics. Clerics and scholars since the early sixteenth century—from the Franciscan friars Alonso de Molina and Bernardino de Sahagún, to early Nahua intellectuals (including the au- thors of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis) and modern scholars of the Na- huas such as Miguel Léon-Portilla, Alfredo López Austin, Noemí Que- zada, and Burkhart, as well as such transnational scholars as Eric Wolf— have all commented on what I call the tlazolli complex.π∏ The trash, rubbish, and excrement that make up the tlazolli complex signified to the Nahuas a disruption to the cleanliness needed to function. This disruption was a necessary part of life, but it required care so that the trash did not take over.ππ Hence, as we will see in chapter 5, Nahuas viewed sweeping and cleaning as vital ritual activities. Importantly, tradi- tional Nahua discourse and performance did not simply assert the nega- tive aspects of tlazolli, despite the immediate connotations that Burkhart 20 ≤ CHAPTER 1 alludes to in stating, ‘‘The term tlazolli covers a whole series of impurities used in moral discourse to connote negativity.’’π∫ Burkhart herself points out the liminal notions embedded in tlazolli: ‘‘The process of living inevi- tably brought one into contact with tlazolli. Maize grew from the mud, from the body of the tainted earth deity. One linked oneself with the earth by eating cultivated foods and also by acts of tlalticpaccayotl, ‘earth- liness’—sexual activity. The souls of unweaned children free from these contaminations could go back up to the creator deity’s heaven; others were in effect claimed by the earth and had to go down into mictlan [the land of the dead, the underworld].’’πΩ ‘‘Tlazolli’’ did not simply signify vice, excess, or perversion, despite what the friars may have wished. Still, those very friars worked to use the tlazolli complex to instill in their Nahua parishioners concepts of sin and redemption. Indeed, the tlazolli complex resonated with Catholic clerics, who had their own discourse related to the filth of sin and the cleansing effects of baptism and other sacraments.∫≠ But we have no evidence that this clerical discourse had much of an effect in changing the views and actions of the bulk of the early Nahua population, in particular among the commoners. Rituals that took place in the seventeenth century retained much of the traditional character of the tlazolli complex, maintaining that from the fertile earth—itself made up of tlazolli—emanated all life forces.∫∞ Hence it would be simplistic to say that the Nahuas during the colonial period viewed tlazolli as a negative force to be overcome through confession and redemption. Still, it would be just as simplistic to suggest that coloniality had no effect on concepts of tlazolli. The clerics influenced the views of many nobles and some com- moners, and daily contact between Nahuas and a variety of people of Spanish and African descent instilled in Nahua communities values not present before the conquest.∫≤ The Nahua intellectuals who worked with Bernardino de Sahagún were instrumental in helping him argue that tlazolli signified abasement, and that Tlazolteotl, the goddess of tlazolli, represented sexual promiscuity and demonic influence.∫≥ Further, even for those Nahuas who preserved more traditional views of the tlazolli complex, ‘‘the friars’ interest in applying native moral discourse to their own purposes accounts for the preservation of some of this informa- tion.’’∫∂ Coloniality thus had significant influence upon the tlazolli com- plex, but the complex itself exceeded the effects desired by the clerics. THE BATH ≤ 21

Burkhart correctly focuses her discussion of tlazolli not on its ‘‘transla- tion’’ as trash, but rather on two vital and more dynamic elements: first, the process of creating what I call a digested remainder, and second, the interference of that remainder with ‘‘things that are new and tidy.’’ In the first case, ‘‘tlazolli’’ signifies the excesses, including excrement, always produced in the living of life.∫∑ Just as one wishes to prevent these ex- cesses from interfering with daily life activities, Nahuas wanted to pre- vent tlazolli from interfering with social formations. But, just as one knows or at least senses that elements such as excrement play a major role in an individual’s survival, Nahuas knew that tlazolli played a major role in the survival of society.∫∏ So when Nahuas discussed tlazolli, they did so not to eliminate all tlazolli from life but rather to control the placement of the undigested remainders: the forces that created tlazolli formed a necessary part of life and needed appropriate respect, but they could not and should not be unleashed in an uncontrolled manner into the community. This social problem emanated from Burkhart’s second focal point for tlazolli, the interference with the new and tidy. While Burkhart’s implica- tion of a division between the new and the old was something alien to the Nahua framework (in which the old always formed a part of the new, just as trash always formed a part of cleanliness), her understanding of the concept of interference is an important element in the tlazolli complex. In the Nahua universe, tlazolli always interfered with daily productivity. A commoner could never engage in his or her standard pursuits without regularly coming into contact with tlazolli. The commoner man, by farm- ing the earth, contacted the tlazolli on a regular basis: the earth itself, the fertilizer used in conjunction with the planting, the dirt left on the har- vested maize. The commoner woman, when in the household, came into contact with the tlazolli in her daily ritual of sweeping but also in her maintenance of the hearth, when she cleaned the dirt off the wood, and in her cooking activities. And all people, commoners and nobles, came into contact with excrement. The interference of the tlazolli with an orderly life caused ritual activ- ity: Nahua priests and political leaders put the rituals in place, and Nahua nobles and commoners performed the rituals, in order to assert some control over the tlazolli.∫π As all people came into contact with tlazolli, it asserted its necessary presence throughout all life, but not just as a nega- 22 ≤ CHAPTER 1 tive. As life built upon tlazolli (the dirt of the earth, the manure), no life could exist without it; thus Tlazolteotl, the goddess of tlazolli, not only controlled the trash, but also, as a mother goddess, controlled fertility.∫∫ This sense of tlazolli, as both productive and destructive, interests me the most here. To develop a theoretically informed understanding of Nahua sexuality, we must move beyond what I have called the ‘‘creative colonial act of vaginal intercourse.’’∫Ω The Nahuas did not believe that human couples, through the act of vaginal intercourse, alone created children. While, as López Austin and Quezada have shown, the Nahuas understood human coupling as an important activity in this process,Ω≠ they also believed that a variety of other ritual activities and social actors were necessary to maintain the fertility of humans—connected to the fertility of gods, animals, and the earth. The Nahuas did not privilege vaginal intercourse as the only or even the primary intimate act needed to produce a child, and they thus connected many other elements with the continuity of life. These elements together formed the fertility rituals and the tlazolli complex. The Nahua tlazolli complex formed from the excesses produced through fertility rituals that allowed the world to survive. These excesses fertilized the world through sexual relationships. As this became translated into a European notion, Hispanic people conceptualized tlazolli as sin, but this conceptual framework failed to tame the tlazolli complex. In fact, tlazolli has become for me a formative framework for compre- hending changes in Nahua understandings of sexuality. Thus the tlazolli complex formed rites of fertility by performing liminality.Ω∞ In Victor Turner’s classic study of the enactment of ritual, he describes liminality as a process in which social distinctions important to everyday life be- come erased to create a position, an individual, that is ‘‘betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.’’Ω≤ In this, the structures of the everyday disappear, and the individuals involved in the ritual process are transformed in order for the community to continue to reproduce itself in an orderly fashion. The end of the ritual forecloses the process in which social distinctions dis- appear, reinstalling the structures of the everyday.Ω≥ Liminality, Turner notes, ‘‘is frequently likened to death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or the moon.’’Ω∂ The Nahuas, as we will see, likened all of these elements to ritual liminality and also linked them closely with tlazolli and its in- THE BATH ≤ 23 cumbent dangers. Further, while the Spanish conquest in a sense fore- closed this ritual process, it enacted an alternate ritual process, trans- forming but never eclipsing the Nahua symbolic universe, continuing the development of the ever-changing tlazolli complex until at least the mid- dle of the seventeenth century. Long before the Spanish arrived, these rites of fertility became linked to daily activities such as farming, sweeping, and sex through the use of tlazolli as a signifier. This signifier also linked the quotidian and ritual activities with the gods, animals, and the earth. We can think of the tlazolli complex in a schematic form as an intersecting matrix with four vectors: household (feminine) labor, the earth, pleasure, and ritual. The household labor controlled in the feminine sphere particularly involved the sweeping up of tlazolli. This labor became transformed and often involved men as well as women as it extended outward from the house- hold. The earth formed a central part of tlazolli because from the earth all tlazolli emanated. The earth always signified life and fertility, but it also signified danger and death: one needed to control the earth. Pleasure of various kinds, including sexual pleasure, linked with the earth—as Burk- hart notes, it was earthliness—and as such needed nurturing and support, but also had to be controlled so that the dirt from the earth did not over- whelm one’s life (hence the differentiation between moderation and ex- cess). The final vector, ritual, formed a set of ceremonies in which the other vectors came together: in order to please the gods, Nahuas performed ceremonies that linked household labor, sexual pleasure, and the earth. As the Spanish conquest took hold, tlazolli figured extensively in a discourse of confusion, the mutually reinforcing monologues of the friars and the Nahuas, as translating this concept from one social system to another proved extraordinarily fraught.Ω∑ The movement from rites of liminality to ambiguities of translation forms the core of the first chapter, and the organizing principle for the entire book. As the friars translated the concept of tlazolli into Spanish, the confu- sion between differing discourses became a dominant factor. Franciscan friar Molina made it clear at one point that tlazolli forms the basis for life: it is crop fertilizer.Ω∏ At the same time, tlazolli is demonic and perverse, as it holds the central position in the identity of ‘‘Tlaçolteociuatl: diabolic and perverse woman.’’Ωπ And it can signify a large spider,Ω∫ a creature associated with a disorder related to tlazolli. Since this book places the concept of tlazolli at its center, I note the 24 ≤ CHAPTER 1 close association between scorpions and other ‘‘animals of the dirt’’ with the tlazolli complex.ΩΩ The ‘‘dirty’’ animals played a major role in ritual discourse, at least when that discourse invoked tlazolli. In an image from a preconquest codex (see figure 2), a feared cihuateotl (plural, cihuate- teo), a woman who has died in childbirth, has a centipede emanating from her mouth. Nahuas feared her for her ability to spill tlazolli out into the social sphere, thus killing people, particularly children. Death in child- birth, a regular part of Nahua life, became linked to the tlazolli complex. Hence, Nahuas needed to control the cihuateteo, and they did so by fomenting fertility rituals designed to manage the tlazolli. In the image of the cihuateotl we see several elements common to all images of cihuateteo. First, she vomits tlazolli onto the earth. This tlazolli signified a productive danger: fertility could emanate from it, but so could death. Second, she carries sacrificial implements in her left hand, while carrying a broom in her right. She brings up the possibility of sacrifice, a central defining signifier of the Nahua world, and closely related to tlazolli, while also showing that she will provide the implement to clean the tlazolli from the earth. Third, she appears both topless, signifying sexual excess, and with a damaged belly, due to her struggles in childbirth. She appears to be unambiguously female, but her body also signifies a damaged femininity. Finally, she wears both a loincloth and a skirt. Only Nahua men wore loincloths, and the images always picture Nahua commoner men in loincloths, while women wore and were pic- tured in skirts.∞≠≠ This signified the cihuateteo as in-between figures, ambiguous entities that always skirted around the edges of life and death, human and god, man and woman. This liminality is the key component of the entire tlazolli complex, and indeed of Nahua sexuality itself. Tlazolli first relates to trash. Second, it forms excrement, waste. Third, it creates life through its use in fertility (fertilizing the crops). Fourth, it takes life, allowing a gateway to death. Fifth, it is specifically gendered: the Nahuas link tlazolli to women and femininity, but also to an indetermi- nate, in-between notion, perhaps moving femininity beyond gender. Fi- nally, as Burkhart points out, tlazolli signifies chaos. This study focuses on the tlazolli complex as a creative enterprise in which we, along with the Nahuas, create waste and chaos. I discuss the marginalia, the waste of the central discourse used to turn tlazolli from a complex signifier into Spanish trash. Tlazolli becomes not just trash, but also a matrix of meaning linked closely with fertility and sexuality. In THE BATH ≤ 25

FIGURE 2 The cihuateotl, a woman who died in childbirth. From Codex Vaticanus B (Codex Vaticanus 3773, facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972), 77. promoting tlazolli theory, I do not mean to say that I will develop a theory in which we can understand Nahua concepts of sexuality, or a theory in which we will unmask authentic indigenous meanings of the sexual.∞≠∞ Rather, I suggest tlazolli theory will render for us an approximation of the problems encountered in the interaction between Spanish individuals and institutions and Nahua people and concepts. Thus we will witness the ways in which this interaction took place to form a Nahua sexual subject that always exceeded the definitional parameters assigned to him or her in colonial society and culture. The steam bath that I use to represent the thesis of this book existed as a place of curing rituals that signified much for the Nahuas at the time of the conquest: the imbrication of tlazolli and cleanliness, the purification of ritual, and the importance of taking the goddess into the self. Thus our curer perhaps takes on her extra skin, wearing that skin to promote his or her body as the body of the goddess, though we no longer see it in the image. But the image does exceed the Spanish frame, which on the other 26 ≤ CHAPTER 1 side of the page tells priests to beware the bath as men engage in carnal sin with other men, women with men, and men with women. The excess of meaning in the image, the place of the curing rite, signifies a particular interaction between the Franciscan authorities and the Nahua writer- painters. But we can only begin to read this image if we apply to it concepts of tlazolli, instead of simply asking if the Spanish description is correct or incorrect.

The Chapters of This Book There are eight chapters in this book, and they proceed topically, not chronologically. As a historian of sexuality, I wish to develop a theoreti- cally and methodologically informed historical ethnography of Nahua sexuality in the late preconquest and early colonial years. To accomplish this goal, I begin the book by engaging some theoretical and methodolog- ical conundrums; then I analyze sexual cosmology and ritual and discuss two ways in which sexual acts entered public discourse. Chapters 2 and 3 form the core methodological intervention of the book. In these chapters, I relate sexuality to coloniality, showing that in order to read sexuality during the colonial years, we must pay attention to the process in which sexuality became written. Chapter 2, ‘‘Trash,’’ uses the figures of Tlazolteotl (‘‘the goddess of trash’’) and the sixteenth- century Nahua commoner to argue that we must read beyond the notarial archive in order to analyze effectively the ways that Nahua commoners understood sexuality in the early colonial years. Examining preconquest and postconquest pictorial manuscripts and idolatry investigations along- side notarial sources, we find that Nahua commoners at the end of the sixteenth century linked sexuality with sin, fertility, ritual, and traditional deities. Chapter 3, ‘‘Sin,’’ shifts the focus to the priests and friars, analyzing the ways in which they conceived of their relationships with the Nahuas. Beginning with the stories of three friars and concluding with a series of sermons and confessional manuals, this chapter shows that, while the priests and friars tried to alter the Nahua moral universe in a significant manner, they often used language that could only have served to maintain the importance of the fertility goddesses in Nahua imaginations. Only by carefully dissecting these sources for the culturally laden values of the Nahuatl terms that the priests and friars used can we hope to understand the relationship between clerical discourse and Nahua sexual concepts. THE BATH ≤ 27

Chapter 4, ‘‘The Warrior Goddess,’’ discusses the gods and goddesses that had some influence on the Nahua fertility rites as they existed at the time of the Spanish conquest. The title of this chapter alludes to the conundrums that I faced when trying to understand these deities in a gendered paradigm. Thus the god Tezcatlipoca, a paragon of masculinity, had many qualities that the Nahuas associated primarily with femininity. And the rituals related to warfare mandated not only aggressive mas- culine prowess, but also the ability to give birth. Some colonial Nahuas continued to invoke Tezcatlipoca, at least through the 1620s, presenting him as a warrior god with a complicated, perhaps ambiguous, sexual persona. The fertility goddesses too did not fit easily into Nahua concepts of femininity. I argue in this chapter that the Nahua deities may move beyond our ability to conceptualize gender and sexuality. And, perhaps Nahua mothers too, imagined as warriors, exceeded gender and sexual categories. The Nahua cosmologies associated with masculine and femi- nine sexuality asserted a god or goddess who could engage in warfare and promote both fertility and sexual pleasure. Chapter 5, ‘‘The Phallus and the Broom,’’ analyzes ritual production, looking at both large-scale rituals of the state and the smaller-scale rituals of the household. Rituals performed before the conquest, often produced by the nobles of the city, focused extensively on promoting fertility. In doing so, the ritual practitioners radically altered the human body so as to produce the liminal body, the body that existed in between the human and the divine.∞≠≤ This liminal body incorporated the masculine and the feminine in one body. The writers of the ritual ceremonies used sexual acts, whether feigned or not, to allow the people participating in or watch- ing the ceremonies to imagine that the rituals would show humans suc- cessfully reproducing with the gods, thus saving lives and creating the future of the world. When, in the middle of the seventeenth century, Nahua commoners used fertility deities to produce curing rites, imagined the gender transformation of the curer, and wrote about the performance of a sexual act with that curer, we can see that some sense of these rituals survived well into the colonial period. The curers and their patients, pri- marily Nahua commoners, maintained and often utilized memories of the liminal body and the fertility and warrior deities to perform sexual rituals far into colonial times. Chapters 6 and 7 continue by analyzing specific types of sexual be- haviors, but even here, one will not get a sense of what the Nahuas 28 ≤ CHAPTER 1 actually did when they had sex. Instead, in these chapters I discuss the ways sexual acts entered the public sphere to produce particular kinds of reactions among the Nahua population. Chapter 6, ‘‘The Homosexual,’’ uses that anachronistic category to challenge the idea that such an iden- tity could have existed for the Nahuas at the time of the Spanish con- quest. Instead, we find at least three different identifying categories, all of which changed through time. Those categories include one that we can associate with a particular type of act, one related to aesthetics and gen- der comportment, and one that we cannot identify. In all, though, the Nahuas did not correlate male or female same-sex sexual desires or acts with sin. Rather, they viewed the ‘‘passive’’ role for a man as a deeply problematic but necessary sexual function. We do not know what Na- huas thought about same-sex sexual acts for women, but chapter 6 pre- sents some suggestive evidence. Chapter 7, ‘‘Sex,’’ also works with an anachronistic category, challenging us to find ‘‘sex’’ in Nahua discourse. I provide three stories of seduction, one from Toltec times, one from the late fifteenth century, and one from the late sixteenth century. These three tales of seduction served as cautionary warnings for the Nahua people, and I provide some analysis of them to suggest ways that Nahuas conceived of the limits and opportunities for sexual pleasure. Nahuas used sexuality to understand and manipulate politics, and they did so with careful attention to the sociohistorical circumstances: suggesting the moral failures of a Toltec leader, providing for some resistance to or accommodation with a Mexica ruler, and trying to control an errant Catholic priest. Chapter 8, ‘‘The Mirror,’’ provides some reflections upon this work, considering why a search for sex would come up with a story of interac- tions: between writers and other people, nobles and commoners, Span- iards and Nahuas. These interactions and the changes that they imply form the core of my analysis. When Nahuas allowed sex to enter the text, they did so to present people with a view that connected sexuality with fertility. During the colonial years, as the Spanish presence foreclosed the possibility of large-scale non-Catholic religious ceremonies, the perfor- mance of sexual rituals changed dramatically. Still, despite coloniality, which mandated many changes, including the linking of sex with sin, the writings and symbols associated with sex remained remarkably consis- tent in the years after the Spanish conquest. ≤ 2 ≤

TRASH

In 1589, in the small town of Chihuatzinco on the outskirts of central Mexico, a Catholic priest, Bartolomé López, attempted to seduce the never-named wife of an indigenous commoner, Miguel Hernández. Six years later, Miguel, with the help of a notary, wrote a petition in Nahuatl to a local representative of the Inquisition. The priest had refused to allow the wife to con- fess, instead ‘‘inciting her to sin’’ and urging her to run away from her husband. She told him that she could not leave her husband because he would beat her, at which point the priest said that he would beat the husband and hide the wife with friends in Puebla. She continued to refuse the priest’s advances and told him that her husband was very fierce. At one point in 1593, the priest whipped her because she would not have sex with him. Miguel asked the inquisitor to order Bartolomé López expelled from the town.∞ As the narrative unfolds, we find that Miguel, an indige- nous commoner and monolingual Nahuatl-speaker, and/or the scribe writing the petition, had by the late sixteenth century comprehended Catholic concepts of right and wrong, sin and redemption, confession and absolution; they understood that a clerical violation of the confessional would require a punish- ment of great magnitude.≤ This document suggests to us that Miguel equated illicit, adulterous, and clerical sex with sin, but 30 ≤ CHAPTER 2

Miguel’s story is much more complex. Once we analyze different genres of documentation, we will find that sixteenth-century and seventeenth- century Nahua commoners equated sex not just with sin but also with the fertility of the earth. While one might think this petition is unique, there exists a sizeable group of similar sources in the archives. How can one hear, through such petitions, the voice of the colonized person, particularly the Nahua com- moner?≥ Most commoners had little sustained contact with priests, but they viewed Catholic iconography, participated in Catholic festivals on a regular basis, and sometimes heard Catholic sermons in Nahuatl.∂ Still, representations of traditional Nahua deities, particularly gods and god- desses associated with agriculture, disease, and fertility, remained in their communities. This chapter presents a methodological tale, using the presence of the Nahua fertility goddess Tlazolteotl to peel away the layers of sixteenth-century Nahua discourse linking sex with sin.

‘‘Evil and perversity, a lustful life—these Tlazolteotl offered, inflamed, inspired.’’ So says a text written in the middle of the sixteenth century, translated into Spanish from a Nahuatl original by a Franciscan friar and his indigenous aides.∑ Had the Nahuas, just one generation after the Spanish conquest, come to think of Tlazolteotl—the goddess of tlazolli and the central figure maintaining the tlazolli complex—as a demon who could only inspire evil? I will argue that when we contextualize the Nahua pictorial manuscripts with alphabetic texts written in Nahuatl and Span- ish, we find that the indigenous painters and writers, along with the commoners to whom the texts were directed, at times negotiated and at other times ignored the official sexual ideology promoted by the Cath- olic priests.∏ In this chapter I present the methodological issues involved in the process of writing and researching early colonial Nahua sexuality, and I argue in particular that scholars can access the voices of Nahua com- moners only through a method in which one seeks to uncover, however ambiguously, a subaltern set of ideas present in our texts. I provide an example of this method through an examination of the presence of Tla- zolteotl in a series of texts from the late preconquest and early post- conquest years. I then contextualize Tlazolteotl’s presence with notarial documents asserting the Catholic discourse equating sex with sin. This TRASH ≤ 31 method connects disparate documents with one another and takes into account the various outside influences on each text. In chapter 3, I ana- lyze a different series of documents to discuss the changing views of Catholic clerics during the same time period. These two chapters present my methodological story: only through a close analysis of the social, cultural, and intellectual parameters of the varied documents in both Nahuatl and Spanish, can we approach an understanding of the shared changes in sexual concepts that took place in the indigenous societies of early colonial central Mexico.

The Voice of Miguel Hernández When we read Miguel’s narrative, we immediately begin to imagine his voice. We can hear the Nahua commoner complaining, for both his wife and himself, about the sexual abuses of the cleric. We can imagine, par- ticularly in the wake of modern scandals related to the sexual activities of Catholic priests, that Hernández feels powerless, his wife feels abused, and the family feels shattered by the authority of the abusive priest. While I wish to encourage us to maintain our historical imaginations, I also want us to uncover the illusion of the first-person narrative, particularly as it relates to Miguel and his wife. After all, here we seem to have the direct voice of Miguel, unmediated by the indigenous or Hispanic elite, unfiltered by the archive. But then we notice that the voice of the one abused, Miguel’s wife, is nowhere directly represented. Further, Miguel went to a notary to pro- duce the text of the petition. Finally, the petition itself would not exist had it not been pertinent to the Inquisition, hardly a transparent, impar- tial institution.π Thus the archiving of such a text signifies a complex creative process in which writing becomes an interaction between indig- enous commoners, indigenous and Hispanic notaries, indigenous elites, Hispanic elites, and particular institutions. Can we hear Miguel’s voice? This question relates to Gayatri Spivak’s similar question regarding the voices of peasant women in Indian history, ‘‘Can the subaltern speak?’’∫ Spivak, in asking this question, critiques history as traditionally written, and asserts instead a constructive engage- ment with the archive.Ω She maintains that the subaltern cannot speak because the academic and others (descendants of subalterns) who have entered Western society in some manner always mediate her voice.∞≠ 32 ≤ CHAPTER 2

I show here that, while the subaltern voice is complex and always refracted through an archival prism, those refractions are not meaning- less, and they do not reflect empty signifiers. Subaltern peoples enter the archive as they interact with colonial institutions. In early Latin America, the state’s interests were decentralized in such a manner that many peo- ple took advantage of the contradictions in the laws and policies and the arguments between the diverse actors present. In these interstices, one can find codings of subaltern voices. I analyze these codings as signifiers that show us something about a signified that we may term ‘‘subaltern.’’ However, it should be clear: we cannot imagine a subaltern voice un- mediated by archival and institutional interests and needs. I agree with Spivak as she says, ‘‘The authority of the author is there [in the archive] matched by the control of the archon, the official custodian of truth.’’∞∞ Thus we must analyze the power relationships that construct the ar- chive. And we need to create a knowledge base in which we work to understand the relationship between the archive and the subaltern per- son’s subject formation. As my main interest here relates to understand- ing the sexual concepts of Nahua commoners, I am of course troubled by the problem of authenticity as it relates to archived voices. The texts that I discuss are documents mediated not only by the creators of the archive, but also by indigenous and sometimes Hispanic elites. Still, we cannot reject these texts as simple reproductions of or responses to the domi- nant sexual discourse. Dennis Tedlock, arguing that historians of the Maya too often have ignored or explained away the place of torture in the archives of inquisitors, suggests that ‘‘the testimony takes on a new inter- est as an intersubjective production of Christian inquisitor and Maya witness, a convergence of imaginations more than an objective account of real events.’’∞≤ Similarly, I do not argue that the postconquest pictorial manuscripts show the true sexual ideology of the authors, much less of the Nahua people in general. Nor do I argue that the idolatry trials pres- ent us with an unmediated view of the way that Nahua commoners understood the relationship between religion and sexuality. The texts of the trials were produced in interactive frameworks between people and between and among other texts. Thus, they are, to borrow the linguist William Hanks’s word, ‘‘intertexts.’’∞≥ I show that they present an alternate narrative, part of a broader set of codes within which the colonial institu- tions presented an interaction among Nahua commoners, Nahua nobles, Catholic clerics, and others about the relationship between sex and fertil- TRASH ≤ 33 ity. We can trace some of the ways in which Nahua commoners’ attempts at activating ‘‘voice’’ worked and analyze the methods that Nahua com- moners used and had used upon them to place their sexualized bodies in the archive.∞∂

Reading Tlazolteotl Before the Spanish conquest, the Nahuas produced an extensive array of writings, though few have survived to this day. We cannot view the authors of these preconquest manuscripts as subaltern—this writing was the preserve of noble men. And these writers of course wrote for different purposes than did Miguel Hernández. The authors of the Nahua pictorial texts that were produced before the Spanish conquest focus much of their attention on the gods and rituals that I will relate to sexuality in this and future chapters, but they pay less attention to the daily lives of the people. In this chapter and throughout much of this book, I use these pictorial texts, produced both before and after the conquest, in conjunction with alphabetic texts, to read Nahua sexuality. Together, these manuscripts tell us a series of stories about the ways in which our writer-painters conceptualized par- ticular approaches to sexual topics. Our methods for reading such images cannot be facile, and we must engage in as much criticism of the images as we do of the alphabetic texts.∞∑ The Nahuas before the conquest did not intend their texts to be read as transparent assertions of a reality that they had witnessed. Nor did they produce texts that we can read as complete narratives. Nahua society had an oral culture, so the authors produced texts in interaction with other people, and they, along with various other textual experts, ‘‘read’’ these documents out loud in a variety of ceremonies by expanding on the images presented on the page.∞∏ Thus, for us to read these images, we need some of the ‘‘back story’’ provided by the contexts found in archaeological and ethnohistorical studies.∞π The images themselves require substantial interpretation based on a method for reading Nahua iconography. I have interpreted the images based on comparative studies within particular genres. So, for example, art historians have studied extensively the Borgia group and have found that the artists did not attempt to provide realistic portrayals of the hu- man body; they tended to provide images in profile, and they had specific 34 ≤ CHAPTER 2 icons designed to signify such things as movement through space, the progress of time, and, more to the point, the positions of dirt, tlazolli, and fertility.∞∫ The postconquest manuscripts—the Codex Borbonicus and the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, for example—became hybrid texts, at least in format, with influence from both European and Nahua styles.∞Ω We will see formal changes in iconography, such as the provision of less cosmological context and more frontal images. In each case, despite the fact that we cannot read what a Nahua priest would have read in the picture, the images themselves tell a story that we can interpret: a story of fertility, sacrifice, and tlazolli.

The Goddess and the Commoner Tlazolteotl is one of the most prominent goddesses in the Nahua codices, though her image is not found to the same extent on major structures in the basin of Mexico. As a goddess, she most prominently signifies tlazolli, but also fertility; she is alternately called the ‘‘mother of the gods’’ or ‘‘our grandmother.’’ Here I will use Tlazolteotl as a symbol to understand sexual change in early colonial Nahua society, while later I will engage in a more extensive analysis of her place in the sexual cosmology of the Nahuas as it existed at the time of the Spanish conquest. In the Borgia Codex we find an image (figure 3) in which Tlazolteotl gives birth to a glyph of a flower, symbolizing Tlazolteotl as the mother of fertility and sexual excess.≤≠ Several other elements of this image are noteworthy. First, and most immediately apparent, Tlazolteotl is naked except for her headgear and her necklace, her nakedness signifying sexual excess, since this is what the nudity of women in preconquest manu- scripts always appears to have signified.≤∞ Second, Tlazolteotl’s headdress and earrings are made of a spindle and unspun cotton, signifying her as the goddess of spinning cotton.≤≤ Third, her right foot sits on a flint knife, an implement used in blood sacrifice. Fourth, her legs are tied, either with rope or with two snakes whose heads do not appear; the act of tying Tlazolteotl presents her as a deity linked with the earth. Finally, Tlazol- teotl has no navel, perhaps suggesting divine birth.≤≥ The image is part of a set of images of divination, so we should note here that the elements connected to Tlazolteotl’s body, such as the flower and the flint knife, are day signs within the Nahua calendar. Tlazolteotl in TRASH ≤ 35

FIGURE 3 Tlazolteotl, the ‘‘goddess of trash.’’ From Codex Borgia (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1976), 74. this image is the patroness of these particular day signs, so she modifies the days in some way, leading to prognostications. In other words, one might suggest that somebody born on the particular day that Tlazolteotl controls would engage in sexually excessive activities.≤∂ In another preconquest image (figure 4), from the Codex Laud, we find Tlazolteotl handing a child to a female death figure.≤∑ Tlazolteotl was a goddess closely linked with childbirth,≤∏ and this image represents the dangers involved in the birth process. We also see that Tlazolteotl wears a snake as a belt. Nahua lore envisioned the snake as signifying sexual excess and as a phallic symbol;≤π Nahuas also linked it with the tlazolli complex, as they envisioned the snake as one of the key powerful and dangerous animals emanating from the dirt of the earth. In this image, Tlazolteotl is topless, but she wears two bottom garments: the loincloth of a man and the skirt of a woman. A third preconquest image (figure 5), from the Codex Fejéváry Mayer, shows Tlazolteotl holding two brooms, signifying her role as the goddess in charge of cleaning trash.≤∫ In this image, Tlazolteotl, again topless, FIGURE 4 Tlazolteotl. From Codex Laud (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1966), 29.

FIGURE 5 Tlazolteotl. From Codex Fejéváry Mayer (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1971), 4. Illustration by Beth Mauldin. TRASH ≤ 37 wears two snakes, both wrapped around her, one with a head emanating from her mouth, the other with a head coming out from beneath her skirt. The phallic implications seem clear. These three preconquest images, taken together, signify three ele- ments of Tlazolteotl’s preconquest identity that are important for my methodological discussion: her gender, her sexual role, and her ritual purpose. In two of these illustrations, Tlazolteotl’s image signifies gender ambiguity in a traditional Nahua frame.≤Ω In all preconquest Nahua ico- nography, men are identified by the presence of a loincloth, a phallic image designed to allude symbolically to the presence of the penis.≥≠ But in figure 4 Tlazolteotl wears a loincloth and a skirt, which, as we shall see, is not an uncommon occurrence for a powerful goddess; in figure 5 the snake emanating from beneath Tlazolteotl’s skirt suggests the presence of a phallus. Further, the name Tlazolteotl, literally translated as ‘‘deity of trash,’’ has an ambiguous gender, and both boys and girls could be named Tlazolteotl.≥∞ Could Tlazolteotl have been a deity who signified both male and female? If so, how can we deem her a goddess? How can we even use gendered pronouns to describe Tlazolteotl?≥≤ Despite the many markers of gender ambiguity in a wide variety of deities, we can in fact determine a primary gender for almost all Nahua gods and goddesses. That primary gender allows that deity to enter into a Nahua imaginary framework, and also largely governs the ways that the Catholic clerics interacted with deities in Nahua religion. Thus Tlazolteotl herself primarily marks par- ticular aspects of Nahua life associated with femininity,governing at least three female spheres: childbirth, cleaning, and sex. These gendered attributes of Tlazolteotl are key to understanding gen- der complementarity. While scholars of the past generation have main- tained gender complementarity as central to the maintenance of Nahua society both before the conquest and during the colonial years, few have linked such complementarity to the cosmological positioning of sexuality. Here, Tlazolteotl through her loincloth and skirt, and her ambiguously gendered name, presents within her own self the complementarity of male and female—the necessity of having both genders within in order to accomplish the activities that the Nahuas desired her to accomplish.≥≥ The Nahuas viewed the initiation of sex as a fundamentally feminine activity. I say this, knowing it to be a provocative claim, but it is based on my understanding of the distinctions between Mesoamericans and Span- iards. For Mesoamericans, and the Nahuas in particular, sexual seduction 38 ≤ CHAPTER 2 and provocation were elements of social discourse defined in the context of femininity.≥∂ Tlazolteotl’s sexual role is as complex as her gender iden- tity: her image undoubtedly signified sexual excess, but she both asserted and crossed the boundaries between moderation and excess in the Nahua world.≥∑ Nahuas viewed Tlazolteotl as a seductress who would pull one toward engaging in excessive sexual activities, but they also saw her as the deity to whom one would confess those activities. Her own sexual actions were seen as excessive when they led to the destruction of society, but moderate when they led to the continued fertility of the gods, humans, animals, and the earth. Since femininity controlled the sexual sphere (as it controlled the earth), Nahuas viewed goddesses, women, feminine males, and female animals as those who policed the sexual boundaries between moderation and excess. The last of the three elements that characterize this goddess, after her gender identity and sexual role, is her role in ritual. Figure 5 shows Tla- zolteotl’s position in the Ochpaniztli ritual. This was an annual event in which entire communities came out to dance, engage in mock battles, and sweep the community. Nahuas viewed the ritual as purifying the community and preparing the people for war; it thus was central to the maintenance of the city-state: it maintained the city’s internal hierarchy and also established divisions between insiders and outsiders. Another of Tlazolteotl’s ritual roles is in the process of birthing; figures 3 and 4 show her in the highly ritualized process of giving birth. Thus Tlazolteotl’s influence extended into the intimate realm of the household, indicating a major role in local religion, particularly among Nahua commoners.≥∏

Sex and the Earth The Nahuas before the conquest equated sex not with sin, but rather with the fertility of the earth and the gods.≥π Further, both nobles and com- moners believed in moderation with regard to sexual activity. Those who engaged in moderate sex were rewarded by the gods with plentiful crops and basic survival, while those who engaged in excessive sex were penal- ized with slavery, famine, disease, and death.≥∫ Thus, for commoners sexual moderation, linked with the fertility of the earth, provided eco- nomic security. For nobles, sexual moderation connected with the main- tenance of linear descent patterns. Further, noble fathers urged sons to delay sexual activity not because of its supposed ‘‘sinful’’ nature, but TRASH ≤ 39 rather to preserve pleasure for later in life. Thus they said: ‘‘Do not lose yourself hastily. Do not devour earthliness as if you were a dog. . . . [If you do not act hastily], then, when you engage in earthliness, you will be rugged, strong, and swift.’’≥Ω So one purpose of moderation in sexual pursuits, at least for men, was the preservation of fertility and virility.∂≠ The term Nahuas used to stand in for sexual activity, tlalticpacayotl, was a term both burdened with and buttressed by the tlazolli complex. The term linked with the earth, seen as a generative being, always signify- ing fertility. But the earth also spawned both dirt and danger. One always needed to use care to prevent too much dirt from coming into one’s life (hence the young nobleman needed to avoid too much tlalticpacayotl). And while one needed to feast (moderately) on the earth, one needed to be wary of that which the earth produced: dangerous animals and poi- sonous plants could kill. Similarly, sex signified potential danger. Men in particular could be seduced by the gods or by women into engaging in excess sex, which would lead to the destruction of society.∂∞ Later in this book, I present mythological and historical narratives that warn men against the seduc- tive nature of the goddesses. After the conquest, some Catholic priests believed that the concept of sexual sin could roughly correlate with the Nahua desire to avoid excess. Hence, they related sexual excess and sin with a specific Nahua meta- phorical dyad: trash and dust. The Nahuatl phrase yn tlaçolli yn teuhtli, ‘‘trash and dust’’ is repeated throughout clerical literature.∂≤ One problem for the clerics, however, was that the Nahuas considered trash and dust the province of Tlazolteotl, the goddess of tlazolli.∂≥ Thus the priests used her in an attempt to establish the notions of sexual sin and vice in the Nahua mind, but in doing so, they helped to preserve Tlazolteotl’s mem- ory in Nahua imaginations. So what was the province of Tlazolteotl at the time of the conquest? Evidently, it was wide-reaching. When one wished to confess, one ‘‘un- burdened one’s heart’’ to her.∂∂ As a goddess linked with the moon and the fertility of the earth, Tlazolteotl was seen as controlling childbirth and the spinning of cotton. Those who had syphilis and other sexual diseases asked her to rid them of the diseases. Those men and women who wished to perform sexual magic, to seduce a lover or to ward off another, sum- moned Tlazolteotl.∂∑ So the Nahuas did not see Tlazolteotl as a demon of any kind. Rather, they believed her to be a goddess: a mother goddess, a 40 ≤ CHAPTER 2 goddess of fertility, but also one who could provoke an individual into sexual excess. She could signify both trash and cleanliness, both excess and moderation. It was not so in the Catholic world. Catholic morality depended on strict binary divisions between good and evil, God and devil. The ambigu- ity of a figure like Tlazolteotl could not be understood in such a frame- work. The Catholic priests who mentioned her consistently evoked her as a purveyor of sin in league with the devil.∂∏ But did the priests successfully resignify Tlazolteotl as demonic? Did she become associated in the minds of Nahuas with the evil and the perverse, with sinful sexual activity itself? In order to answer these questions, I will divert attention away from Tlazol- teotl for a while and focus on the tlacuilo: the painter, the writer, the scribe of the Nahuas.

The Tlacuilo The Nahuas viewed tlacuilos as reflective artists. Before the Spanish con- quest, Nahuas wrote texts in the form of various types of images painted on paper made from the bark of a tree or the hide of a deer, or on stone edifices. The tlacuilo, a noble male who engaged in the process of paint- ing and writing, is the person who concerns us here, for he placed a sexual discourse into writing.∂π The picture did not equal the spoken word, and trained readers interpreted the images, in effect translating writing into oral discourse.∂∫ The tlacuilo came from a lineage of tlacuilos and went through an extensive training process. One Nahuatl text describes the good tlacuilo as one who is ‘‘honest, circumspect, far-sighted, and pen- sive.’’ He is ‘‘a teacher of art.’’∂Ω The good tlacuilo contrasts with the bad, not in what we might call his ability to represent accurately a given reality but rather in his artistic merit. Thus the bad tlacuilo is said to be ‘‘dull’’ and one who ‘‘paints without reflection.’’∑≠ In the image from the Codex Mendoza (figure 6), we see that the tlacuilo places his quill upon a text, just as he speaks with an individual, who presumably tells the tlacuilo what to write.∑∞ The tlacuilo also speaks back to the person across from him. In Nahua concepts of the tlacuilo’s world, then, the tlacuilo neither reproduces a reality placed in front of him (he is not a realistic painter), nor does he simply write down what he is told. Rather, he engages in a creative, reflective, and interactive process that stresses the oral nature of the text he will produce.∑≤ TRASH ≤ 41

FIGURE 6 The tlacuilo, the painter-writer. From Codex Mendoza (facsimile), ed. Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), vol. 3, f. 70r.

In the cases of the ritual texts that I discuss, the tlacuilo wrote the documents as scripts for the performances that would take place. The performance, directed by the nobles of a given community, was aimed at an audience that included the commoners of that community and the foreign nobility.∑≥ For example, the Ochpaniztli, or ‘‘sweeping,’’ ceremony began with musicians announcing the beginning of the festivities, fol- lowed by the participation of priests and other notables.∑∂ The nobles danced, engaged in mock battles, swept temples, streets, and houses, and sacrificed captives.∑∑ Since the tlacuilo knew that his art was designed to create the spectacular performance, he had in mind a ‘‘readership’’ that comprised the entire community. He was one of several creative forces behind the mass ritual performances that held together Nahua city-states before the Spanish conquest.∑∏ Following the conquest, of course, the practices of the tlacuilos changed. Friars identified many of their number to become escribanos, who would write either Nahuatl or Spanish text in the Roman alphabet.∑π These scribes became intermediaries in the colonial project, and they over- whelmingly produced texts designed in some manner for the Spanish legal system.∑∫ Moreover, the tlacuilos who continued to paint their im- ages were influenced by European artistic conventions.∑Ω Still, early tla- 42 ≤ CHAPTER 2 cuilos were trained not only by friars but also by traditional painters knowledgeable in preconquest aesthetics. The friars and some Spanish authorities argued that these texts helped them understand traditional indigenous religion. At the same time, the very same Spaniards at- tempted to prevent these tlacuilos from producing their art for the Na- huas.∏≠ Nonetheless, the evidence from idolatry investigations, criminal trials, and Inquisition cases shows that these artists continued to get their works into the hands of a wide variety of indigenous people.∏∞ To understand how this worked, let us take two examples. For the first, the Codex Borbonicus, we have few details about the production of the manuscript. We know that one indigenous artist produced the text, probably within twenty years after the Spanish conquest. It was created in the basin of Mexico, probably in the southern lake region, to the south of Tenochtitlan.∏≤ The text was produced in traditional indigenous form (on paper made from tree bark and folded like a screen), but there is some evidence that it was organized both spatially and thematically with the idea that some writing in the Roman alphabet would be added later. The text was used in indigenous communities, although the specific people who used the text and their purposes in using it are unknown.∏≥ The second example, that of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, provides us with a text produced for a Hispanic patron. The Dominican monastery in Mexico City discovered a painter well trained in traditional Nahua imagery. They ordered him to produce the manuscript, under the direc- tion of fray Pedro de los Ríos, who was brought to Mexico City from Puebla in 1553 specifically to oversee this project. Ríos instructed the tlacuilo to produce a manuscript that included an indigenous ritual cal- endar, a set of prognostications, and a historical annal. A less talented artist contributed a set of images related to Nahua migration to central Mexico. The first tlacuilo had extraordinary skills, as he produced de- tailed images appropriate to each of the different genres. Ríos and four other people, at least one of whom was a trained indigenous notary, provided glosses in Spanish to explain the images. In 1555, Ríos brought the manuscript with him back to Puebla, where he and some others revised the glosses and added some material to the historical section. The manuscript later was sent to Spain and then France.∏∂ In the images related to sex, and particularly those that portrayed Tlazolteotl, the tlacuilos who produced both of these texts, as well as the others cited below, negotiated the meanings of sexuality in their docu- TRASH ≤ 43 ments. They related to the preconquest tradition in which tlacuilos pro- duced spectacles for the commoners. We know this because they accu- rately and imaginatively produced an integrated Nahua cosmology and a vast array of ritual performances. The creators of the documents with Hispanic patrons obviously also viewed the Spaniards as part of their audience, and they adjusted their texts accordingly. They also knew that the Spaniards could not read their narratives; they could only enjoy, or be repulsed by, the images. One is amazed at the nature of the ritual sections of the documents: the tlacuilos, at least through the late sixteenth cen- tury, produced an extensive display of what the clerics considered idola- try, a display that correlates well with preconquest manuscripts. This spectacular performance, while no longer viewed in the form of massive sacrificial rituals, continued to seep into the lives of the commoners, who based their understandings of sexuality and fertility partially on such ritual reconstructions of sexual cosmology.

The Twinned Sins Through the figure of the goddess Tlazolteotl we will see the ways in which tlacuilos narrated and performed postconquest changes in sexual discourse. The Codex Borbonicus, for example, presents Tlazolteotl as mother and seductress. Here we first see Tlazolteotl in a section designed for prognostica- tions, in which she gives birth.∏∑ Tlazolteotl in this image retains her traditional cotton headdress, along with her traditional necklace. We also can note the presence of moon glyphs on her headdress, huipil, and the blanket beneath her, signifying that Tlazolteotl is a lunar deity.∏∏ In this image she gives birth to Cinteotl, the god of maize.∏π This act signifies that Tlazolteotl represents fertility of the gods, humans, and the earth. The staple crop, maize, is central to the maintenance of community and the fertility of the earth. Tlazolteotl also wears the skin of an animal sacrificed to her. And present in the picture is a disguised Tezcatlipoca, ‘‘Smoking Mirror,’’ a god often partnered with Tlazolteotl. Between the two of them we see entwined figures of a snake and a centipede, both signifying sexual excess and tlazolli. As I have noted, the snake is also seen as phallic, while the centipede is a symbol of tlazolli and dirt, and hence of Tlazolteotl.∏∫ Beneath Tlazolteotl and Tezcatlipoca, we see a severed head and a skull on a skull rack. So here Tlazolteotl signifies birth and death, moderation 44 ≤ CHAPTER 2

FIGURE 7 Tlazolteotl and the powerful Nahua god Tezcatlipoca, ‘‘Smoking Mirror.’’ From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 11. and excess. The tlacuilo wants his readers to know that Tlazolteotl is an important goddess who will maintain the fertility of humans and the earth, but that she also is a dangerous goddess, one who will encourage excess and destruction. We should note further, however, that the tlacuilo does not condemn the production of excess. The excess signified here is necessary for the completion of the ritual. Mikhail Bakhtin has pointed out that ritualiza- tion can and does allow, even mandates, excess that must remain unac- ceptable in daily life.∏Ω Hence, here the figure of Tlazolteotl signifies rit- ual discourse itself, pointing to excess, violence, and death at the same time as she signifies the maintenance of life and the continuity of the people. Indeed, for the community to continue to exist, Tlazolteotl and her priests must engage in violent excess.π≠ In a section of the codex highlighting the ritual calendar (figure 8), the images show Tlazolteotl as a goddess of sexual arousal. Here we have an image that art historians have traditionally considered to be a TRASH ≤ 45

FIGURE 8 Ochpaniztli, or the Sweeping, a ceremony of ritual renewal. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 28. representation of Ochpaniztli, the sweeping ceremony, and a grand state- run performance. In a recent book, Catherine DiCesare has argued that this particular set of paintings signifies not Ochpaniztli, but rather a particular historical ceremony intended to prevent famine and make the earth become more fertile.π∞ In either case, this image shows that the tlacuilo wants Tlazolteotl to signify the ritual renewal of the earth. We see Tlazolteotl toward the bottom of the picture, not in the center, dedicated to Chicomecoatl, the maize goddess. This signifies the conjunction of several goddesses related to the fertility of the earth.π≤ In the center of the image we see a powerful priest of Tenochtitlan wearing the flayed skin of a woman said to be the goddess of maize. Here, even with the maize goddess at the center, the ritual requires the presence of Tlazolteotl, encouraging the phallic priests (figure 9). Tlazolteotl is on the right side of the page at the bottom. She wears her traditional headdress, is fully clothed, and she carries a broom in her left hand. Facing Tlazolteotl is a central priest, said to be from Tenochtitlan. 46 ≤ CHAPTER 2

FIGURE 9 Ochpaniztli, detail. From Codex Borbonicus(facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 28.

This extensively arrayed priest wears an ornate gown and robe, beau- tifully colored in red, orange, green, and blue.π≥ The priest himself is colored black. He holds in his right hand a long blue snake that emanates from his body in a seemingly phallic manner. Behind him are two other priests, wearing headdresses, masks, and loincloths. They place their right hands on their hyperextended phalluses, made from paper. These priests are not colored in, and they appear to be imagined as similar to Tlazolteotl, who also is not colored in. They are called in the Spanish gloss Huastecs, and we know from other descriptions of this ceremony that this is a representation that Nahuas traditionally gave these priests.π∂ As Huastecs, people from the gulf coast, also the area from which Tlazol- teotl’s image emanates, these priests signified partial outsiders with hy- permasculine sexual desires. The joke is on them, though. Upon the successful seduction, presumably including penetration, orgasm, and conception, as this, after all, must lead to a successful harvest, Tlazolteotl will in effect castrate the Huastec priests as she will take away their phalluses and the priests later will have only brooms, a symbol of Tlazol- teotl, and of course the ostensible purpose of the ritual in which temples, houses, and streets are swept.π∑ The Florentine Codex describes the Huastecs as barbarians of a par- ticular kind. Thus the text says that the defects of the Huastecs were such that ‘‘the men did not provide themselves with loincloths, although they had many large capes. They perforated their noses with palm leaves. And when they were enlarged, they inserted there a gold palm leaf stem, or a reed from which emerged a red feather. They filed their teeth; they dark- ened them with red or with the tlamiaualli herb.’’π∏ The lack of loin- cloths, the perforation of noses, and the darkening of teeth were all TRASH ≤ 47 elements that Nahuas connected closely with the sexual, and the writers of the Florentine Codex considered these elements signs of barbarism. According to the Dominican friar Diego Durán, the Huastecs partici- pated in the Ochpaniztli ceremony by guarding the woman representing Tlazolteotl, who was to be sacrificed. After the sacrifice, they fought against the warriors of Tenochtitlan in a mock battle:

A bloody fray took place among them. With sticks and stones count- less men came to the combat and fight, something awesome to see, all armed with their quivers, swords, and shields. Fighting all the way, they went to the shrine of the goddess . . . that stood at the entrance of the city, called the Shrine of the Woman. The man wearing the skin and maguey-fiber clothes of the woman went behind, among the Huaxtecs. One of these was dressed in white, another in red, an- other in yellow, yet another in green, each holding his broom high in his hands.ππ

The Huastecs had lost their swords, now replaced with brooms. The movement from sword to broom in the Nahua conceptual universe moved them from the male sphere to the female. The castration works to feminize the Huastecs so as to make them less of a threat. Instead of engaging in ritualistic sexual aggression, a mas- culine activity, they will engage in sweeping and cleaning, a feminine activity. While in Nahua society there was no shame to the feminine sphere, for men such a maneuver would have moved them away from their proper roles, and effectively disempowered them. They could con- tinue to perform productive roles, but unlike the priest from Tenochti- tlan, who will wear the slain woman’s skin, the Huastecs would no lon- ger be able to perform warrior functions—they would sweep. In both cases, violence and mutilation moved the ceremony forward to maintain gender balance and complementarity. In removing the Huastecs’ phal- luses and placing brooms in their hands, the ritual practitioners effec- tively controlled the outsiders and protected the city-state of Tenochti- tlan. The contrast with the Tenochtitlan priest is instructive: he will take the woman’s skin with him as he fights. Her skin in essence empowers him through a ritual gender transformation. Yet the same gender trans- formation disempowered the Huastecs. Tlazolteotl here is linked with fertility, as she maintains the earth; she plays a central role in seduction, making certain that the men are sexually 48 ≤ CHAPTER 2 aroused; she controls male sexual excess by removing their erect phal- luses and giving them brooms; and she will reassert the essential power of the priest of Tenochtitlan by demanding the sacrifice of a woman and allowing the priest to wear the woman’s skin. She performs and enacts a ritual that links sex with creation and destruction, with life and death. gender performativity This performance, filtered through our tlacuilo, in which the ritual prac- titioners invoke gender may remind the reader of Judith Butler’s argu- ment about performativity, first enunciated in Gender Trouble. There Butler argues that through reiterative performance and ad hoc citation, gender is formed: ‘‘The substantive effect of gender is performatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practices of gender coherence. Hence, within the inherited discourse of the metaphysics of substance, gender proves to be performative—that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed.’’π∫ The body engages in gendered performative maneuvers to produce subjectivity and identity: ‘‘If gender attributes and acts, the various ways in which a body shows or produces its cultural signification, are performative, then there is no preexisting identity by which an act or attribute might be measured; there would be no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fic- tion.’’πΩ So, to Butler, bodily performance produces gender through par- ticular enactments in which each individual performs his or her ‘‘truth,’’ an internalized sense of self always already constructed by society. But can such a theoretical intervention be applied cross-culturally, par- ticularly to a society that is neither modern nor Western? In many ways, we see a similar phenomenon occurring among the Nahua. Through gendered and sexualized performance, the Nahuas produce social, eco- nomic, and political stability. In other words, they produced the stable polity and community by engaging in specific gendered and sexual perfor- mance. It is through the ritualization, destabilization, and consequent reassertion of gender that the Nahuas engaged in state formation and the maintenance of material well-being. It is also through sexual penetration that the Nahuas enacted fertility. Rather than gender as a reified category, we witness gender as an aspect that needs ritual disarticulation and re- TRASH ≤ 49 formation in order to build and maintain social structure. This relates to modern Western society as explicated by Butler, in which the ritualized performance of gender takes place on a daily basis, but contrasts with the masking of the performance from the performers (except in clearly deline- ated subcultural forms like the performance of drag). For the Nahuas, ritual performs gender in a highly conscious manner: the priest intends to increase his power by performing drag; he intends to move closer to the gods. Our tlacuilo intends for the people to witness the ritualized castration of the Huastecs and to understand that this castra- tion effectively tames the Huastecs and makes the city-state and society safe. And the public performance (feigned or ‘‘real’’) of sexual acts enacts the rationale of the entire ceremony—fertility. sweeping up the conquest The Spanish glosses in this manuscript suggest the beginning of a recon- ceptualization of Tlazolteotl as evil. The text refers to her as a demon, and the sacrificed people as her victims. The phallic priests are said to be not only Huastecs but also putos, faggots. The Spaniards looked to recon- figure Nahua cosmology to correspond with Catholic notions: Tlazolteotl signified the demonic, while her priests engaged in unacceptable sexual behavior configured as that of the Spanish puto. We note that both tradi- tional Nahua and Hispanic conceptual frameworks feminized the priests, although in different ways. The Spanish gloss simply turned the priests into effeminate men,∫≠ while the images presented them as central actors in a ritual in which they both engaged in a penetration of a goddess and cleaned the community. We can interpret the roles of these priests and Tlazolteotl in the images as signifying balance and complementarity between masculine and feminine and between insider and outsider.∫∞ The translation from image to alphabetic text and from Nahuatl to Span- ish renders the ambiguously gendered priests as improperly gendered sub- jects.∫≤ As the sixteenth century progressed, Catholic clerics maintained an interest in Nahua religion and ritual. In figure 10, we see a full page of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis (produced 1553–55), which makes clear that this text is a hybrid genre that incorporates Spanish-language alphabetic writing with Nahua pictographs. At the top, the pictographs date the text. In the center, the image of Tlazolteotl dominates, suggesting her 50 ≤ CHAPTER 2

FIGURE 10 Tlazolteotl. From Codex Telleriano- Remensis: Ritual, Divi- nation, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manu- script (with facsimile of Codex Telleriano Remensis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Aus- tin: University of Texas Press, 1995), f. 17v.

role in the indigenous calendar. Along the side and across the bottom, the Spanish text, in several different hands, both names the deity and provides a discussion of her attributes, adopting a decidedly Catholic moralistic tone. The tlacuilo relates fertility to sacrifice, but the taming of sexual excess and the relationship with sexual arousal in general are missing.∫≥ Tlazol- teotl in this image wears her traditional headdress and contains glyphs of the moon, now on her backpack instead of her clothing. She also wears a skull on her back, and she now wears two excess skins: one animal and one human. In a pot, she carries a human head and hand, perhaps those of a child. The image thus most clearly signifies her role in human sacri- fice. Such sacrifice also signaled for the Nahuas human and earthly re- generation and fertility.∫∂ In the same text, in the Ochpaniztli sweeping ceremony (figure 11), we now see Tlazolteotl in much of her traditional costume, also carrying a broom and a shield. We do not see her wearing human or animal skin. TRASH ≤ 51

FIGURE 11 Ochpaniztli sweeping ceremony. From Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (with facsimile of Codex Tell- eriano Remensis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), f. 3r.

Here the broom and the shield signify the gender complementarity im- plicit in Tlazolteotl’s identity.∫∑ She plays the appropriate masculine role as a warrior and also the appropriate feminine role as one who sweeps, who cleans the community, who plays a vital role in ritual renewal.∫∏ The Spanish glosses of this codex relate Tlazolteotl to the fallen Eve and describe her as a signifier of sin. She tempts men to evil sexual activ- ity. She symbolizes the fall of man in one text; in another she is the two- faced goddess, and the cause of all evil and deception. She also is the patroness of adulterers and other evil women.∫π All of these elements had been parts of Tlazolteotl’s identity before the conquest, but now, in the translation from oral to written discourse, from the image to the alpha- bet, from Nahuatl to Spanish, Tlazolteotl has lost any sense of duality, and instead represents evil—the European figure of the wild woman, the witch, the temptress.∫∫ Meanwhile, we find Tlazolteotl’s regular partner, Tezcatlipoca (figure 12), has became the devil himself.∫Ω The Spanish gloss is simple: ‘‘The Devil as he tricked Eve before she sinned.’’ Those 52 ≤ CHAPTER 2

FIGURE 12 Tezcatlipoca. From Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (with facsimile of Codex Telleriano Remensis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), f. 23r. who wrote the Spanish had resignified both deities to fit in the European frame. This is unsurprising, but what is more interesting is that these glosses had no influence over the imagery. In this manuscript, as in the Codex Borbonicus, two sexual and moral discourses exist side by side, neither influencing the other: this is a hy- bridity of form, not of content—and the maneuver by the indigenous authors maintained traditional Nahua sexual values in the face of a Cath- olic onslaught.Ω≠ The Spanish text itself, illegible to a Nahua readership, did not affect the imagery, illegible to the Spaniards. Of course a text produced under Catholic sponsorship would not find itself in the hands of Nahuas, but the images presented are standards, and similar images, from idolatry investigations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were reported to be in the hands of Nahua commoners. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the clerical effort to demonize Tlazolteotl continued, and she became disconnected from her motherly qualities as the texts asserted a clear distinction between her (as the demonic figure) and Toci, ‘‘Our Grandmother,’’ a goddess very closely related to Tlazolteotl, who could now be asserted as a parallel to TRASH ≤ 53 the Virgin Mary.Ω∞ In the Ochpaniztli image from the Codex Telleriano- Remensis (figure 11), the goddess is named in the text both Toci and Tlazolteotl. The only later pictorial manuscript that names Tlazolteotl describes her as a demon and positions her with the ‘‘earth monster,’’ tlatltecuhtli, actually an underworld deity of indeterminate gender, the ‘‘lord of the earth’’ (figure 13).Ω≤ At the same time, the image of Toci is placed in the position as the head goddess of the Ochpaniztli ritual, but she appears tamed.Ω≥ Gone are the skin and skulls of the captives. Instead we see Toci kneeling, following a god or receiving flowers from her admirers (figure 14).Ω∂ So, has Toci been tamed and regendered to be the helpful female? We need to think about the Nahua person reading an image like this. The goddess wears the traditional headdress, which we have related to Tlazol- teotl, and she carries a shield and broom, signifiers of gender comple- mentarity. Plus we have the flowers. Here the artist appears to cleverly connect two traditions related to Spanish iconography and Nahua lore. The idea within much European art and literature of giving a revered woman flowers could be a symbol of either amorous intent or great respect.Ω∑ In the Nahua texts, the flowers, when connected with the Toci/ Tlazolteotl figure, would have signified fertility and sexual excess.Ω∏ Thus the tlacuilo may have recourse to both concepts. By the seventeenth century, we see enacted a separation between good and evil. Toci is imagined as the good mother, while Tlazolteotl is presented as the evil demon. Those who wrote the Spanish glosses had asserted a binary division familiar to the Catholic clerics, but this division did not exist in the images, or, more to the point, it may not have existed for the commoners viewing or hearing about the similar images passed around their communities. There, the images in circulation asserted an ambiguity that closely connected Tlazolteotl with Toci. And we must remember that the tlacuilos, trained partly by the friars, understood the Catholic concepts involved, but they chose to negotiate the meanings of sexual symbols, ignoring the progressive demonization of Tlazolteotl. For they knew that many Nahuas who saw the pictures would not have understood them solely in the context of medieval European demons or mother figures, but rather would have viewed them, in some fragmented manner, in the context of Nahua traditions. In their presentation of the images, our tlacuilos enacted a ritualized performance, a spectacle for the commoners and also perhaps for the Spaniards. FIGURE 13 Tlazolteotl and the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli. From Codex Tudela (facsimile) (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1980), f. 104r.

FIGURE 14 Toci, ‘‘Our Grandmother.’’ From The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (facsimile of Codex Magliabechiano), ed. Zelia Nuttall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1903), 79. TRASH ≤ 55

For the Nahuas before the conquest, the seduction of the spectacle would take place in the form of mass sacrificial rituals. Nobles would per- form for commoners, seducing them into a desiring position. The com- moners may have desired the spectacle as a phallic performance, as we witnessed in figure 8, in which case the Nahua notion would support Lacanian concepts in which the seduction always becomes associated with the phallus.Ωπ However, I would suggest that, while we may interpret such seduction as desire for the phallus, perhaps we witness the Nahua version of spectacle as an eroticization of the body in a performative man- ner. Thus the body performs in public and seeks to attract the audience members, seducing them into some sort of identification with that body.Ω∫ The commoners would then desire a connection with the nobles be- cause that connection would provide them both with safety and with a conduit to the gods. Once these mass ceremonies were disrupted (rela- tively soon, although not immediately, after the Spanish conquest), the commoners continued on their own (and/or with the support of some nobles) to perform public spectacles. In doing so, the commoners at- tempted to keep together their communities by seducing others to watch their own bodies. They performed a spectacle by offering blood, incense, and prayer to the gods. In return, the gods offered them survival through human and earthly fertility and curing.ΩΩ Such a spectacle allowed the commoners to continue to identify with each other as parts of a tradi- tional city-state, even if that city-state no longer existed.∞≠≠ Of course, another spectacle occurred, a Catholic spectacle, that also in its own way solidified postconquest indigenous community formation.∞≠∞ I argue here that commoners, with the help of the tlacuilos, at least partially displaced the resignification of Tlazolteotl. Thus when we see Tlazolteotl, even in the seventeenth century, she continues to signify fertility and sexual excess, curing and disease, transgression and con- fession, trash and cleanliness.

Performing Commoners When priests found these texts in the hands of Nahuas, they often seized and burned the documents, although some survived. Idolatry investi- gations throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries emanating from all over central Mexico referred to books of banned images, de- stroyed in the course of the trials. Seventeenth-century commoners, no 56 ≤ CHAPTER 2 longer having nobles performing mass ceremonies, continued to engage in public spectacles, if on a smaller scale. While these commoners prayed to the Christian God and the saints, they also worshiped fertility, agri- cultural, and curative deities by burning incense, sacrificing blood, and engaging in prayer.∞≠≤ For the larger ceremonial events as well as the curing rites, people entrusted with hiding the pictorial manuscripts sup- plied them to community members to aid in the proper performance of any particular ritual.∞≠≥ The ceremonial participants then consulted the texts to provide them with what they considered ‘‘ancient knowledge.’’ The sources from the investigations show that Nahua commoners and some nobles continued to see Tlazolteotl and affiliated goddesses as fertile mothers who also could tempt one with sexual excess. A priest recorded the following incantation in Nahuatl from a 1620s idolatry investigation: ‘‘Come fire, come water, come incense.∞≠∂ Come you, Tlazolteteo, . . . come see me, night tlazolli, white tlazolli, green tlazolli. I have come. I am the priest. . . . Beware of rising up against me.’’∞≠∑ The curer then harnessed the power of the Tlazolteteo (the plural of Tlazolteotl), the trash goddesses, to cure the patient of his illness, an unnamed disease coming from sexual activity, represented here as tlazolli.∞≠∏ These commoners had continued to worship Tlazolteotl, and they willingly evoked her name for the purpose of understanding disease of sexual origin. In fact they had pluralized her— likely signifying that these commoners viewed Tlazolteotl as a composite of a series of deities. In other texts recorded in these investigations, the trash goddesses also mandated the growth of maize and performed their role as goddesses of childbirth.∞≠π Here I have emphasized mass rituals and curing ceremonies, but most important to the commoners was the link between sex and the fertility of the earth. On a daily basis, before and after the conquest, farmers in their fields prayed to fertility deities and enacted sacrificial rituals, pro- viding gods and goddesses with incense, blood, or ears of corn. Fisher- men, market women, artisans, and women preparing meals, weaving, or spinning cotton, performed similar rituals.∞≠∫ These commoners con- nected sex and fertility with material realities, with their very livelihoods. Thus, for them, the idea of linking sex solely to the matrix of sin could be a major threat. However, we must use care not to overemphasize the ‘‘agency’’ of the commoners, impoverished individuals working on a regu- lar basis for both indigenous nobles and Hispanic people. Their contact with these others would have evinced many changes, evidenced most TRASH ≤ 57 prominently by the huge Catholic churches erected by the hands of these same commoners.∞≠Ω Still, the tlacuilos, along with the commoners implicated in these idol- atry investigations, actively negotiated the meaning of sex to their own lives. Our sixteenth-century tlacuilos knew very well the Catholic dis- course that linked sex with sin, but at least at times they chose to favor the Nahua discourse that linked sex with the gods. Many commoners con- tinued to engage in daily performances in which they asserted the power of the gods over fertility, sacrifice, and sexual behavior. This is not, of course, to say that the Spaniards had no effect, because daily contact with Hispanized peoples altered Nahua lives. By the end of the sixteenth cen- tury, the tlacuilos appear to have stopped producing new pictorial manu- scripts, although older ones continued to be kept in the communities. Further, we can have little doubt that oral tradition continued. Even today Nahua farmers link the production of maize with the gods.∞∞≠ And what about Miguel Hernández? The last idolatry case came from his region, clearly suggesting that Miguel and other commoners con- tinued to worship fertility deities. But the Nahua commoner working to protect his wife and himself from the incitement and abuse of the errant priest clearly had understood Catholic sexual ideology. Or had he? The petition argued that the priest had violated the confessional and incited his wife to sin. The situation had gotten so bad that Miguel believed that he had to ask the Inquisition to remove the priest. We are led to believe that he understood a substantial amount about Catholic notions of sin, confession, and punishment. Further, we witness in the petition the cre- ation and/or maintenance of the monogamous sexual subject. Of course, we know that the placement of the concept of sin in the petition was an act invested with power. If the inquisitors believed the charge, Miguel would gain leverage over the priest, and perhaps over future priests as well. Moreover, we must recall that Miguel himself could not write the petition, and he had gone to a notary who lurked behind the scenes, writing the petition in Nahuatl, telling the inquisitors a story over which he did not claim authorship. What role did the scribe play?∞∞∞ Many times the same tlacuilos who produced the pictorial manu- scripts, or their relatives, also wrote notarial documents such as Miguel’s petition. There the tlacuilos/escribanos equated various forms of ‘‘illicit’’ sex with sin and never with fertility and the traditional gods. But this appears to have been a conscious strategy on the part of the scribes, 58 ≤ CHAPTER 2 working in concert with other Nahua people, both nobles and com- moners. In a cursory look for anticlerical petitions in the Inquisition section of the Archivo General de la Nación in Mexico City, I have found over fifty petitions from throughout Mexico that made the same standard claim: the claimant was a monolingual Indian, always male, who stated that the priest attempted to seduce his wife, both inside and outside of the confessional.∞∞≤ The priest also beat the wife and often the husband as well. In every case, the wife refused the advances of the priest and the priest continued to pursue her. The narratives engaged in standard linguistic tropes. The overwhelming similarities that exist across cultural and linguistic boundaries, traversing distinct languages such as Maya, Mixtec, Nahuatl, and Spanish suggest a common prototype.∞∞≥ The scribes, uninterested in incorporating concepts of sexual sin into their regular lex- icon, appear to have simply memorized a discursive formula: if you want a priest removed, you argue that he violated the sanctity of the confessional and engaged in sexual sins with women, particularly married commoner women.∞∞∂

The Smoking Mirror If we were to base our understanding of Nahua sexuality on these notarial sources, even the ones written in Nahuatl, we would believe that com- moners equated illicit sex with sin. Thus, this chapter offers a cautionary tale: if we study just criminal or Inquisition cases, we may find that the hegemonic power of the sexual regime of colonialism shows the judge or inquisitor putting new ways of thinking in people’s minds. If Miguel’s petition was based on a prototype, then it tells us little to nothing about Miguel’s understanding of sexual sin. On the other hand, if we study just the religious texts, we may find the overwhelming influence of the clerics, said to create either a moral dialogue or the ever-powerful discourse of confession to conquer the sexual morality of the indigenous. Little dia- logue appears to be represented by the interaction, or rather, lack of interaction, between the images and the Spanish glosses in the pictorial manuscripts. This is not to say that no dialogue existed. As Burkhart carefully shows in her excellent study, Nahua intellectuals engaged in an important dialogue with priests. Further, Nahua parishioners engaged in a regular dialogue with the clerics, particularly about such things as their fees, but also about religious issues. As Burkhart, Gruzinski, and Que- TRASH ≤ 59 zada have shown, though, this dialogue resulted in such a wide variety of miscommunications that it became what I term mutual monologues.∞∞∑ When studying the sexuality of a colonized people, we must understand the creative energy of the indigenous intermediaries and the ability of the commoners to both ignore and negotiate colonial precepts.∞∞∏ We must decode translation, not just from the indigenous language to the European, but also from the spoken to the written word. And we must uncover multiple narratives in which the colonized peoples equate the sexual with elements of their society and culture that are not parts of sexuality as defined by the colonizers. Economic and social historians must show ways that non-European peoples and premodern Europeans, particularly commoners, connected sex with material realities. Nahua commoners, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, linked sex and fertility with their livelihoods and with the maintenance of a stable state and society. One of the key historiographical debates in colonial Latin American history deals with assessing the social and cultural changes brought about by the Spanish conquest.∞∞π This chapter provides a method for measur- ing those changes, in which we listen to the traces that remain of the voices of the indigenous commoners. If we listen only to clerics and gov- ernment officials, we hear only their voices asserting success or failure. If we instead try to hear the voices, however faint, of the colonized peoples, particularly those of the commoners, we can hear the ways that colonial- ism intersects with the histories of sex and gender. As we listen closely to Nahua commoners, we no longer hear priests screaming about demonic sinners; rather, we hear people praying to goddesses of trash.

≤ 3 ≤

SIN

In his Spanish-language introduction to a discussion of Tla- zolteotl, Bernardino de Sahagún states that she was ‘‘the god- dess of carnal matters, who was called Tlazolteotl, otherwise Venus.’’ Further, ‘‘This goddess had three names: the one where she was called Tlazolteotl, which means goddess of carnality; the second name is Ixcuina . . . who was made up of four sisters . . . who were said to be goddesses of carnality. . . . The third name of this goddess was Tlaelquani, which means one who commits dirty deeds; carnal men and women confessed their sins to these goddesses.’’∞ How did Tlazolteotl become the goddess of lust and carnality in the imagination of the Francis- can friar? Reading the desires of the sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Catholic priests through the documents that they pro- duced presents a methodological conundrum. As these priests had a hand in the creation of almost all of the documents that I use in this study, their desires, interests, and intellectual frame- works must be central to any interpretation of these sources. I wish to understand the frameworks in which the priests, in interaction with Nahua parishioners, created concepts of sexual sin in early New Spain. In this chapter, as I begin my analysis with three prominent friar-ethnographers≤ and end with Cath- olic sermons and confessional manuals from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, I ask whether, when we listen to the 62 ≤ CHAPTER 3 voices of Catholic clerics, we can discern a change in a Nahua moral framework from the tlazolli complex to the matrix of sin. Since I engage in an interpretive reading practice filtered through clerical imaginaries, I begin by thinking about the ways that those imaginations formed, the endeavors that produced ethnographic reflection, and finally the mean- ings negotiated in the ‘‘truth’’ producing practice of confession.

Friar-Ethnographers Two caveats are necessary as I begin to discuss the group of people that I have termed ‘‘friar-ethnographers.’’ First, the friars did not consider themselves ethnographers. Rather, they viewed themselves as working in a Christian framework to alter the beliefs of the Nahuas. However, I use the term ‘‘ethnographer’’ because it is precisely the part of their roles that resembled modern ethnographic practices that interests me here, and these roles led them to closely identify with particular Nahuas. The second caveat is, just as there is no one Spanish or European view of Catholicism at this time, there also is no one Catholic view of the Nahuas or of Nahua sexuality. We would be hard pressed even to come up with a single Franciscan or Dominican view. While the friars did not operate independently of one another, they did hold significantly dif- ferent views on theology, evangelization, and the indigenous populations. Here I have chosen three articulate friars along with a series of writers of confessional manuals in order to discover something of a diversity of views. One might also argue that my choice of these three friars limits the applicability of my argument regarding the place of tlazolli in clerical thought. Still, I would suggest that these relatively elite friars had greater access to the European intellectual tradition than did the average priest administering sacraments to the Nahuas, who, for the most part, spent the vast bulk of his time in Nahua culture and society, thus placing him further inside the tlazolli. We find in the ethnographic studies of each of our friars a series of views in which they express great interest in the relationship between Nahua religion and sexuality. Throughout their extensive ethnographic studies, the friars emphasized to an extraordinary degree the sexual de- sires and behaviors of the Nahua population, especially as those desires and behaviors interacted with religious ritual and the pantheon of gods. SIN ≤ 63

But why did they emphasize sexuality to such a degree? Why didn’t they instead focus more of their attention on the more mundane activities, such as education, that would have a greater influence on their abilities to instruct the Nahua population in the Catholic faith?≥ To answer these questions, I will analyze the clerical discourse emanating from three fri- ars: fray Toribio de Benavente, also known as Motolinia, one of the origi- nal twelve Franciscans; Sahagún, a Franciscan; and fray Diego Durán, a Dominican. In focusing on these three, I do not claim that they are representative, nor do I believe that they are the most important clerics that had contact with the Nahuas. Like other priests that worked directly with Nahua parishioners, these three focused much of their attention on the mun- dane realities of Nahua daily life, but they also worked extensively on understanding the Nahua religious system and contemplating Nahua worldviews. Still, they are no more exceptional in this regard than priests such as Pedro de Gante, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, or Jacinto de la Serna.∂ I have picked Motolinia, Sahagún, and Durán both because they are il- lustrative of three different approaches to understanding the Nahuas and because some of their writings are published and thus widely available to my readers. In the previous chapter, I argued that the Catholic priests failed to effectively colonize the sexual views of Nahua commoners, in essence failing to colonize Tlazolteotl. Did Tlazolteotl colonize the priests? Did she lure Catholics into her seductive lair of sexual sin? Could Catholicism survive the onslaught of a goddess of trash, supported by an army of Nahua commoners armed only with their minds and their bodies? Would the mother of the gods, the grandmother of the people, conquer Catholic priests wielding bibles, hiding behind suits of armor, swords of steel? In asking these questions, I do not mean to become an idealistic advo- cate for subaltern agency. Nor do I mean to suggest that the priests began to worship Tlazolteotl. Catholic discourse held sway in much of the Spanish Empire, and it was particularly strong in central Mexico, the very center of Spanish hegemony in early Latin America.∑ However, far too often scholars have asserted an intellectual and cultural trajectory that moves only in one direction, in which the culture of the colonizers simply and directly influenced the colonized, but the culture of the colonized never influenced the culture of the colonizers.∏ Recent work, particularly that in the vein of the new philology, has sought to correct this im- 64 ≤ CHAPTER 3 balance.π If one looks closely, one finds indigenous peoples and cultures influencing the lives, minds, and systems of meaning of the colonizers.∫ And one has to look no further than the imaginary identity of one of the early Franciscan friars, Toribio de Benavente. Benavente arrived in 1524, one of the legendary original twelve Franciscans. Along with the eleven others, he walked barefoot from Veracruz to Mexico City, where he and the others greeted Hernando Cortés, who appeared before them on his knees. Benavente arrived at a time of great Franciscan idealism, influenced heavily by the thought of the spiritual Franciscan reformers, those who believed that a corrupt church and society needed to move toward a state of nature, a closeness with God, a position in line with an attempt to recre- ate what these reformers believed to be the simple lives of the early follow- ers of Jesus.Ω This intellectual package led the twelve to believe that they could form, in the Nahuas, a kingdom of heaven on earth.∞≠ Benavente himself believed strongly in this ideology and supported the mass bap- tisms that quickly took place after the arrival of the twelve.∞∞ In his effort to gain access to Nahua imaginations, Benavente took on the Nahuatl name Motolinia, ‘‘the poor one.’’ In taking on such a name, Motolinia not only worked to influence the Nahuas through his example, but more effectively, he rearticulated his own notion of the Franciscan mission: he was to become the poor one, the one in the image of Saint Francis taking on the weight of the world of the people around him.∞≤ Thus Motolinia saw himself as a close adherent of Nahua philosophy as reimagined in Franciscan thought.∞≥ His imagined identity allowed him to incorporate much of Nahua ideology into his own life, an idea that stemmed from his conscious attempt not at syncretizing but rather at placing nonidolatrous Nahua concepts within his Franciscan beliefs, and then using this altered framework to Christianize (and thus colonize) the Nahuas. We will see conscious and subconscious alterations in Moto- linia’s imaginary framework through many years of life inside Nahua communities.∞∂ By the time Bernardino de Sahagún and his four Nahua aides began their ethnographic research in the 1550s, the Franciscan days of idealism had ended, even as their linguistic skills increased. Sahagún, who had arrived in New Spain in 1529, turned out to be a philologist extraordinaire, and he provided what he viewed as a realistic humanist critique of conver- sion and instruction in Christianity.∞∑ In doing so, he portrayed himself as a doctor engaging in a diagnosis of his patient. Like a good doctor, he SIN ≤ 65 asserted, the cleric must understand the medical-religious history of the patient-parishioner.∞∏ In this case, that meant a careful, painstaking dis- section of Nahua religion and society. Through decades of working very closely with Nahua aides, living in Nahua communities, talking to elders, searching through preconquest Nahua manuscripts, and educating him- self and others in Nahua traditions, Sahagún came to identify closely with the Nahuas, but, unlike Motolinia, he never viewed the Nahua commu- nity as a potential utopian society on earth. Rather, Sahagún maintained what he viewed as a certain critical distance from Nahua philosophical precepts, urging other clerics to struggle with their parishioners against the diabolical influences of traditional Nahua religion.∞π Sahagún’s intellectual framework emerged from his training in Sala- manca, influenced by a humanist strain less present in the earlier Francis- cans. Thus, Sahagún was less interested in forming a traditional society based on the lives of the early followers of Jesus, and more interested in studying contemporary societies to find practical solutions to diabolic influences.∞∫ These solutions could not be found only in the studies of ancient philosophers and theologians. Instead, by closely surveying the lives of the people that the priest desires to change—whether pagans or Lutherans, witches or other heretical practitioners—he would discover the real problems that the parishioners sought to solve through their non-Catholic frameworks. Then the priest could patiently explain to them the reasons that following a Franciscan would be a better option to solve both their daily problems and their more long-term conundrums.∞Ω As we study Sahagún, we will see that he too becomes seduced by Nahua concepts of the world. As he engages in close analysis of Nahua ritual, he becomes enamored of that ritual to such an extent that he begins to place rather unorthodox concepts, intimately linked with Nahua notions of the sexual, in his writings. Diego Durán, finishing his written work in 1581, shows the influence of the Dominican order, but even more than that, one can view in reading his work the influence of a life among the Nahuas, and particularly of his childhood in Texcoco.≤≠ Durán, even more so than our previous two friars, emphasized a filial love and devotion to the Nahuas and to their notions of the world. Yet he continued to despise their blatant recidivism and idolatry. He thus signified most prominently a vital conundrum that all of the friars faced: loving the Indians, while hating their idolatrous and demonic practices.≤∞ Of our three friars Durán was the most seduced by 66 ≤ CHAPTER 3 the Nahua understanding of eroticized ritual. He mentioned the rituals as if he were in many ways a proud father of misbehaving children. He even asserted the closeness of the ritual framework to various ancient prac- tices of learned peoples. We see this approach in the beginning of Durán’s Historia, in which he asserts a close relationship between Jews and Nahuas: ‘‘Because of their nature, we could affirm that they are Jews and Hebrew people, and I believe that I would not be committing a great error if I were to state this fact, considering their way of life, their ceremonies, their rites and super- stitions, their omens, and false dealings, so related to and characteristic of those of the Jews.’’≤≤ Thus Durán provides the key to this chapter: the three friars all operate through analogy and, although they use different intellectual frameworks, their analogies both instruct Nahuas to move religious discourse in a different direction and also seduce our friars to think through Nahua ritual, connecting that ritual to sexualities invoked in contemporary and/or ancient times in European societies. This ana- logic method allowed our friars to extensively discuss Nahua belief, even if this discussion meant perpetuating some of this belief and thus falling into the trap laid out by Tlazolteotl.

Confession

There is only penance if there is confession, but there is only confession if one confesses to a priest. The power of the keys, held by the priest alone, gives the priest the possibility of remitting sins himself, or rather of practic- ing the ritual of absolution, which is such that God himself remits the sins through the priest’s words and gestures. . . . Starting in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is the priest himself who, by freely giving his absolu- tion, induces the working of divine nature—absolution—through human mediation. The priest’s power can now be said to be firmly and definitively anchored in the practice of confession. —Michel Foucault, Abnormal, 176

Now is the time (my beloved child) for you to recount to me your sins, humbly and honestly in the presence of our Lord God, and before me, his representative. For you to help your soul, to redeem it from hell, and (through confession) to gain eternal life, our creator, our ever compassion- ate God, wants to give you his compassion, his mercy, so that you will not SIN ≤ 67 perish forever, so that it will not be his will that you need to go to hell. With all of your heart, you must want to change your life and never once hide your sins.≤≥ —Alonso de Molina, Confesionario mayor

Paralleling the ethnographic discourse of our friar ethnographers, we find the confessionary discourse of the priesthood. In this discourse, as in the ethnographies, the priests work to find the internal ‘‘truth’’ of Nahua parishioners. Molina’s request requires a ‘‘recounting’’ of sin, and his Nahua parishioners must recount their sins in order to receive God’s ‘‘compassion.’’ But, in doing so, this ‘‘truth’’ producing practice, the con- fessional, creates the sinning individual. At least that is the theory, as promulgated by Foucault and others.≤∂ The confessional is the realm of power most discussed in the Foucaul- dian understanding of sexuality. In this manner, the confessional be- comes the fount of all knowledge, the discursive production of the will to truth, the incarnation of the individuation of the self, and, by implication, the most critical method of colonization.≤∑ Molina, a Franciscan friar who in the mid-sixteenth century produced an extensive corpus of Nahuatl language materials designed to train other friars, asserted the power of the priest as an intermediary who would listen to the series of sins and interpret them with compassion, thus saving the individual Nahua soul. Still, one must ask how successful he and his colleagues were in uncover- ing the ‘‘sin’’ and redeeming the ‘‘soul.’’ I argue that the place of the confessional manuals within Nahua confes- sionary discourse is quite ambiguous. Moreover, the power asserted in the confessional appears fraught with problems that go beyond clerical intent. A series of confessional manuals and sermons, produced between the early sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries, shows a pronounced change in language and discourse. The early- to mid-sixteenth-century confessional manuals suggest that the priests writing them believed that the Nahuas could understand abstract concepts such as the soul, sin, and hell. They therefore allowed these concepts to determine their discussion of sexual morality. By the end of the sixteenth and through the mid- seventeenth century, the writers of the confessional manuals attempted to use traditional Nahua metaphors related to sex and sin, clearly in an ef- fort to instruct Nahuas in a method in which they would begin to learn these concepts. 68 ≤ CHAPTER 3

When I saw this change in language, I was indeed perplexed. Is it possible that the later Nahuas understood less about Christian morality than their earlier counterparts? This seemed to me an unlikely hypothe- sis. However, what was an alternative explanation? I quickly came to determine that the priests in the late sixteenth century likely had realized that the Nahuas had not internalized the sense of a guilty confessing self that the earlier sixteenth-century clergy had wanted.≤∏ In the seventeenth century, the priests tried a new tactic, utilizing a notion of a hybrid discourse in which they brought Nahua sensibilities into line with their Christian counterparts. But these notions, when combined with the evi- dence from other sources, suggest several tentative conclusions. First, Catholic priests did not easily alter Nahua notions of sexuality, and at least through the middle of the seventeenth century, the bulk of the Nahua population had difficulty understanding the clerical concept of sin. Second, Nahuas did not become, through the confessional, individu- ated sinners with guilty souls that required cleansing. Third, the power of confessionary discourse to instantiate within individuals a sense that in their own selves, through guilt, they contain the truth is overrated in the Foucauldian model. Fourth, priests used different strategies to confess different Nahuas, depending on how much knowledge of Christian pre- cepts the priest believed the individual had developed. Finally, and most tentatively, this model in some ways may have the power dynamics re- versed: the Catholic clerics partially adopted Nahua notions that con- nected sex not with the contrast between earthly sin and divine salvation, but rather with the fertility of both the earth and the gods. Thus the overwhelming numbers of indigenous people combined with the mainte- nance of Nahua traditional culture to influence and alter the sexual views of the colonizers. The ethnographic relationship between the friar-ethnographer and his subject and the confessionary relationship between the confessor and his confessant form the archive from which this chapter is drawn. These two relate to each other in their attempts at producing ‘‘truth’’ and creating sexual ‘‘sin.’’ I suggest that the obsession of the conquerors and friars with the three tropes of sacrifice, cannibalism, and sodomy signify not just European values but also clerical fantasies and fears.≤π The three cleric ethnographers that I discuss spoke consistently with a sense of awe about Nahua religious devotion. Similarly, the Nahua rela- tionship with their fertility goddesses seduced the priests into engaging SIN ≤ 69 in a phantasmatic relationship with their Nahua parishioners, a relation- ship in which the erotic nature of Nahua religious life attracted our eth- nographers and confessors. This is not to say that the priests were at- tracted to sodomy as either trope or act. Nor is it to say that the priests wanted their parishioners worshiping Nahua fertility goddesses. Rather, I argue that the level of religious devotion to the fertility goddesses se- duced the three friars into thinking about their own notions of religious devotion in creative ways. The failure of the Nahuas to comprehend sin similarly led to creative thought about ways in which to instruct Nahua parishioners: the con- fessors entered the tlazolli complex. For the three friars, their positions as legitimate religious ethnographers allowed them to use sexualized rituals to enter a liminal space in which their own discourse promoted a some- times jumbled mixture in which they equated sex with sin and promoted traditional Nahua ideas that linked sex with fertility goddesses. For the confessors, their positions as authoritative priests allowed them to enter a liminal space in which sin became submerged in tlazolli. Perhaps here I push liminality to its limits, but these friar ethnographers and confessors existed in a world ‘‘betwixt and between’’ Catholicism and Nahua reli- gion.≤∫ In this chapter, we witness the colonization of the intimate in reverse: the Nahua seduction allowed the priests to transgress the con- fines of Catholic notions of sexual sin. In this, the friars and priests created what elsewhere I have called an ethnopornographic relationship. By ‘‘ethnopornography’’ I mean that the friars and priests created their materials to circulate among a particular audience (usually limited to other clerics), and entice that audience with a sexualized reading of the bodies of individuals determined to be other, not part of the same group (ethnic or otherwise) as the author and the audience. The ethnopornographic project makes the bodies of the sub- jects desirable to an audience consuming those bodies and distorts indig- enous codes of bodily presentation.≤Ω To entice the carnal imaginations of those who read their works, the friars promoted a close connection between the sexual otherness of the Nahuas and their own ethnographic projects. In order to engage in an effective analysis of these texts, therefore, the scholar must decode the ethnopornographic project, discuss the imaginary identifications of the friars, and deconstruct the codes placed in the texts.≥≠ Similarly, the confessional manuals sought the interiority of the Na- 70 ≤ CHAPTER 3 hua soul, and in doing so produced an ethnopornography of Nahua sex- ual acts. We must decode the production of the ethnopornographic re- lationship in order to understand the place of the confessional in the supposed invention of the Nahua sexual self.

Motolinia and the Nahua Self

Those [friars] who remained in the land assembled in their houses [of worship] the children of the lords and chiefs and, with the consent of their parents, baptized many of them. These children, trained and instructed by the friars, became well behaved and quite skilled. They understood the good lessons so well that they taught them to many others. They also assisted them very much by revealing to the friars the rites and idolatries and the many secrets of their parents’ ceremonies.≥∞ —Motolinia

When the first twelve Franciscans arrived with great fanfare in the basin of Mexico, they brought with them a particular agenda: to establish a world in which the Franciscan reformers of the previous centuries would have wanted to live.≥≤ In the epigraph to this section, a quotation from Motolinia’s Historia de los indios de Nueva España, the friar supports and defends Franciscan practice, stating the voluntary nature of baptism, asserting the importance of the children that were taken from their par- ents, and showing that these youth became good devout Christians al- most immediately.≥≥ All of these elements signified success to the early Franciscan ventures. One should not, however, confuse Franciscan idealism with a lack of appreciation for the struggles that they faced. The Franciscans aggres- sively sought the destruction of the temples, and they had no tolerance for what they viewed as backsliding into idolatry.≥∂ They could be extraor- dinarily violent toward an indigenous person whom they saw as encour- aging resistance to their preaching. In the quote from Motolinia, we note that he relies on the youth to report on their parents. And he will go on to condemn Nahua ‘‘blindness’’ and ‘‘errors’’ in their ways of life. Still, as the historian David Brading points out, the leader of the twelve, fray Martín de Valencia, was ‘‘more liable to scourge his own mortified flesh than to whip dissident Indians.’’≥∑ Motolinia and the early Franciscans resolved a set of contradictions in SIN ≤ 71 their thinking by asserting the importance of the distinction between God and devil. The Nahuas had been tricked by the devil into developing a false religion full of the horrors of sacrifice and cannibalism.≥∏ But, because of their overall good natures, they also maintained a series of positive values in which their society promoted moderation in all re- spects.≥π And for Motolinia, this is where sexuality entered the picture most coherently: the Nahuas condemned adultery and sodomy while they promoted chastity among women.≥∫ And it is through an analysis of feminine sexuality that Motolinia finds a key entry point into creating a new Nahua society. For Motolinia wanted to move the Nahuas in a sort of exodus. They were to move, with the Franciscans leading them, from Egypt to the promised land of Jerusalem.≥Ω While that movement was fraught with danger (Motolinia discusses ten plagues brought on by the Spanish con- quest),∂≠ the Nahuas needed to get to the promised land. And they would attain this promised land through some central sacraments: baptism, confession, and marriage. Thus Motolinia strongly promoted the quick baptism of large numbers of Nahuas in order to save them from the fires of hell.∂∞ He also celebrated the Nahua desire to confess, and he stated that Nahuas simply overwhelmed the available confessors.∂≤ And, finally, regarding marriage, he stressed both the desire of the Nahuas for the sacrament of marriage and the difficulties involved in getting the lords to give up polygynous marriage.∂≥ If these could be accomplished, Motolinia believed that the Nahuas could establish a society much like the commu- nity envisioned by the early followers of Jesus. It was his millennial thinking (based on that of Joachim de Fiore)∂∂ that led Motolinia to adopt his new name and to actively assert his liminal identity. Unlike Martín de Valencia, who retreated to become a hermit in a cave, and who was then venerated by much of the indigenous popula- tion for his asceticism, Motolinia continued actively preaching to the indigenous peoples.∂∑ He came to so closely identify with the successes and failures of the process of conversion and instruction that he soon became the liminal figure so promoted by his own ideology. In other words, as the Poor One, he was no longer Spaniard, but he did not be- come Nahua. As we will see, Motolinia took his liminality further, and in a common tradition for the Franciscans, identified with a particular aspect of what he perceived as Nahua notions of feminine sexuality—chastity. The friar’s 72 ≤ CHAPTER 3 in-between identity thus moved him far from the world of Hispanic men. He imagined a society much like that which he believed Jesus’s followers also imagined.∂∏ His imagination, though, was infused with an eroticism that he could never identify. the erotics of identification Motolinia’s Nahuas had a wide variety of institutions with which he closely identified, and here I will focus on just three: polygynous matrimony, female ritual worship of the gods, and the general status of Nahua femi- nine sexuality. These three elements, all of which attained some impor- tance in Motolinia’s discourse, were of course three things to which Cath- olic priests and many other Spaniards fervently objected. Yet, as we shall see, Motolinia’s condemnation of these practices is not only inconsistent, but often displays significant attempts to justify each institution, so much so that one begins to wonder about the imaginary structures within Moto- linia’s thoughts.∂π In a series of chapters dedicated to noting that the Nahuas followed natural law in relation to marriage and sexuality in general, Motolinia develops his narrative on adultery and polygyny.∂∫ As others have noted, the Nahuas had varying marriage systems, including polygynous mar- riage for nobles.∂Ω Motolinia tells us that the Nahuas taught their children the values of honesty and chastity, and the parents, unlike the Spaniards, punished them severely for violation of these values.∑≠ At about the age of twenty, a male youth asks permission to search for a wife, and when he finds her, he asks permission for marriage. He may in fact seek marriages from among his slaves and captives. These would most often be second or third wives, captured or sold into slavery by their families for this express purpose.∑∞ And we hear about the marriage brokers, women selling their daugh- ters into sexual service: ‘‘The mothers say, ‘my daughter is very beloved, yet you will take her as your wife’ ’’ in exchange for goods and land. Further, Motolinia notes that several reasons existed for this system of taking women from their natal homes and bringing them to their cap- tors, including ‘‘service, love and reverence’’ for the one to whom she is married.∑≤ Motolinia’s language in this section consistently opposes involuntary marriage and polygyny, while also arguing that there are rational, natural reasons for both, and the system warrants support. Thus Motolinia ar- SIN ≤ 73 gues against those who would doubt that the indigenous peoples had marriage. He says that without a doubt, they had matrimony, including ‘‘voluntary marriage’’ with ‘‘mutual consent.’’∑≥ Further, the Nahua system mandated penalties for adultery, and, unlike in Spain, those penalties were widely enforced.∑∂ Finally, when Motolinia does condemn a noble for committing sin, he does not focus on polygyny, but rather on incest.∑∑ We should note that Motolonia’s embrace of natural law was neither new nor unique. Still, Stuart Schwartz has argued convincingly that such an embrace of natural law, while having theological support, also led to heterodox ideas. The Inquisition appears to have seen a clear line be- tween supporting the concept that pre-Christian peoples could have ap- propriately followed natural law (a concept that they found supported by canon law) and the related concept that ‘‘all can be saved’’ in their own law (a heterodox concept that the inquisitors would condemn).∑∏ Motolinia appears to have skirted this clear boundary. In yet another section of his writing, Motolinia unambiguously con- demns polygyny as ‘‘an ancient carnal custom that greatly embraced sen- suality.’’∑π He then discusses various difficulties in getting some of the lords to give up their wives, and he admits that the job is not complete. Hence the lords committed ‘‘great sins’’ as they were ‘‘not content with one woman.’’ But, ‘‘now they all receive [the sacrament of] matrimony and the law of God, although in some provinces they have yet to give up all of their concubines and mistresses.’’∑∫ As a whole, the Nahua marital system allowed for an easy transition to Christian concepts of marriage. Nobles took to marriage with great ease, even if Franciscans had to take care to watch out for impediments like bigamy and incest.∑Ω Motolinia’s view then hardly seems unorthodox. In his discussion of marriage, he argues simply that Nahua concepts allowed the Franciscans to perform Christian marriage ceremonies with rela- tive ease. Thus he promotes the Franciscan view of the legitimacy of the sacraments performed in the early days of Christian conversion and instruction.∏≠ But witness Motolinia’s narrative. He moves from a system in which polygynous marriage is utterly and directly condemned (Christianity) to one in which it is applauded for nobles (Nahua religion). He does not denounce the second in order to support the first. Rather he takes the position that polygyny within Nahua society played a particular role that was supportive of women and nature. In other words, polygyny helped 74 ≤ CHAPTER 3 maintain the society’s moral order by spreading greater wealth around to poorer families. In Motolinia’s continuing identification with the Nahuas, he needed to explain away their idolatry in two manners: first, it was a thing of the past; second, and more central, it was not as bad as we may think. Hence we find the following statement about the area within the main temple com- plex ‘‘set aside for women’’: ‘‘Although it stood open, since doors were not in vogue, the women were orderly and chaste.’’∏∞ One cannot help but think that Motolinia imagined an analogy related to the Virgin Mary and nuns, the proper role of women in Franciscan discourse. In case we have any doubts, Motolinia continues his analysis:

These women served in the temples by virtue of vows they had made. Some out of devotion promised to serve in that place one or two or three years. Others made the same promise at the time of some epi- demic. Most of these women were virgins, although there were also some aged women who out of devotion wished to die there, finishing their days in penance. These aged women were custodians and mis- tresses of the girls. And, for being in the service of the idols, both the women and girls were highly esteemed.∏≤

The girls and women were expected to be chaste and either virginal or no longer sexually active. In Motolinia’s discourse, can one detect a note of anything but respect? Despite the fact that these women served the ‘‘idols,’’ they performed a role that so closely correlated with the Catholic role of the nun that some Spaniards called them nuns.∏≥ Still, Motolinia knew that they were not nuns, and he points out three key differences. First, they serviced the idols and demons. Second, they faced greater punishments for sexual transgression: ‘‘If any one of them was seen with a man, a great penance was imposed on her; and if one had an affair with a man, the truth being established, both were slain.’’∏∂ Finally, he discusses their sexual indiscretions in a manner in which he would not have discussed the similar indiscretions of a nun: ‘‘If one com- mitted a sin of the flesh in the temple, however secret it might be, she believed that her flesh would rot, and she did penance so that the demon might cover up the sin.’’∏∑ The idea that these women served idols and demons is a constant refrain throughout his analysis. In fact, Motolinia incorporates these women at the end of a chapter on sacrifice. The chapter begins, appropri- SIN ≤ 75 ately, with a discussion of the sacrifice of one’s own blood.∏∏ Thus Moto- linia condemns such sacrifice, argues that the purpose of the sacrifice (i.e., to promote the demon by bleeding on his idolic representation) was inappropriate, and suggests that Franciscans needed to struggle against such barbarity. However, even here Motolinia compares the Nahuas to the Spaniards (‘‘who often bleed themselves and others’’), arguing that Nahua bloodletting shows certain superiority to Spaniards. Motolinia makes this argument in what seems at first glance to be an aside: ‘‘On the one hand, the Spaniards here are conceited and vain; on the other hand, they [the Nahuas] have the best and most inoffensive way of speaking in the world.’’∏π While Motolinia does not recognize it, this digression is actually central to his discourse of identification. Nahua religion and ritual, despite the perversity of their dedication to demons, is in many senses not only valid, but also superior to many of the forms of Chris- tianity practiced in Spain (though not, of course, to the Christian ideal). Thus, even when discussing the cruelties of sacrifice, Motolinia re- turns to a discourse filled with contradictions. He describes, for example, a practice among the Nahuas in frontier areas, in which foreskin of the penis is cut, making a hole so large that they could pass a rope as thick as a wrist through it. Motolinia notes: ‘‘If one of them grew faint over such cruel folly, he was told that his weakness was due to his having sinned and to his having had dealings with a woman.’’∏∫ Here we see Motolinia’s narrative turn back on itself as sexuality reenters the picture: the practice of penile penetration, otherwise to be condemned as cruel and barbarous, has the salutary effect of exposing sexual sin. The primary reason that Motolinia in the end condemns such a practice has nothing to do with the cruelty, but rather relates to the fact that he does not believe it actually exposes such sin, as he notes that, after all, ‘‘circumcision is known to be the greatest pain one can suffer in the world.’’∏Ω And indeed, we see similar elements in his discussion of the lack of sexual activity among the women in these temples, reserved for the idols. While Motolinia condemns the goals of the women (worshiping demons), he appears to support their sexual chastity, and he represents the punishment of death for breaking a sexual taboo as something in which both he and the Nahuas take great pride. His final point in the chapter regards the women committing sins of flesh in the temples. There one begins to think about the many cases that Motolinia and other friars faced when alone in their monasteries. Fran- 76 ≤ CHAPTER 3 ciscan writings from the time are replete with references to masturbation and involuntary ejaculation, sexual behaviors discussed in the monas- teries.π≠ These texts for the most part argue that such things stemmed from the weakness of the will of the friar and required some penance. Here he argues that the women in the temples were doing the same. Had they heard the teachings of Saint Francis? Motolinia ends his chapter with one more comment. Apparently, these women danced in front of the idols during some festivities, but they did so ‘‘very decently.’’π∞ As he moves on to a more direct discussion of women’s chastity, Motolinia’s erotic identification with the Nahuas does not end with the female position in ritual activity. Here Motolinia moves us unambigu- ously to the success of Nahua conversion to Christianity. The women signify this cultural move, and their chastity suggests the presence of a more ideal society in God’s image; in other words, the very society pro- moted by Franciscan intellectual traditions. Throughout his narrative, Motolinia shows that Nahua women during colonial times were extraordinarily chaste.π≤ He credits this fact to a convergence of two factors: first, despite such institutions as noble poly- gyny, preconquest Nahua women generally advocated chastity and per- formed their tasks, including sexual, in an extremely circumspect man- ner. Second, the Franciscans had taught them well the chaste values promoted by God.π≥ In one chapter of his Historia, focusing on the education of noble girls, Motolinia uses two examples to signify these points. He says that the noble girls greatly desired an education in the ways of Christian marriage, which the Franciscans made possible through houses where these girls were lodged and instructed by Spanish women. ‘‘These girls were not taught more than that which they needed for marriage. As they already knew how to weave, they learned how to sew and embroider.’’π∂ These noble girls began to learn their proper role in Christian marriage, but most important, they already had a basis from which to gain this knowl- edge. In other words, their weaving signified a series of other things, including nobility and chastity, as Motolinia knew well.π∑ Motolinia continues by stating that the girls began to learn Christian precepts; in particular they recited the office of Our Lady in her chapel. This promotion of the Virgin was central to Motolinia’s narrative, and thus he viewed it as important to the instruction of Nahua girls. Through the Virgin Mary, Nahua girls would learn the appropriate sacraments SIN ≤ 77 that would allow them to continue to live such chaste lives as they had known before the conquest, but now without the impediments of incest and polygyny.π∏ To make his point more clear, Motolinia cited two examples, the first of an ‘‘Indian maiden [who] was molested and solicited by an unmarried youth,’’ and the second of a woman whose husband had died and who was propositioned by a married man. These two central metaphors pro- duce for Motolinia the point that Nahua women were circumspect in every way. In the first case, the woman defended herself against the man, only to have ‘‘the demon’’ impassion another man to try the same with her. At this point, the two plotted ‘‘to take the maiden by force.’’ Then they dragged her to a deserted house, where

they tried to ravish her, but she bravely [varonilmente] defended her- self and called to God and the Holy Mary so that neither of them could succeed with her . . . , at which point they began to mistreat her, slapping, punching, and hurling cruel threats at her. Through all of this, she persevered in the defense of her honor. This continued all night, but [the youths] achieved nothing because God, whom the maiden invoked with her tears and good heart, freed her from that danger.ππ

Then, despite the fact that the girl was a commoner, because she had acted with such honor, she was accepted into the house where the noble girls were trained. To Motolinia, drawing on such a story signifies the status of the proper feminine role, the strong role that allows the Francis- cans access to Nahua society. Her brave role, signified through the mas- culinist term ‘‘varonilmente,’’ shows the position that she plays within the society. She will bravely promote the values of God and the Franciscans. Whereas the male aggressor is problematic to Motolinia and to the Fran- ciscans in general, the chastity of women can save society. This contrasts with the Franciscan position regarding European women, who, while they could be chaste, more often were viewed as temptresses.π∫ The second story provides further support to this point, and signifies Motolinia’s position identifying with Nahua women. In this case, a widow found herself alone with a married man, who was ‘‘inflamed by his lewd desire.’’ At this point, she asked him, ‘‘Do you think that because I have no husband to defend me that you can offend God with me?’’ She tells him 78 ≤ CHAPTER 3 that he must take into account the ‘‘confraternity of Our Lady’’ and closes her statement by telling him that she would ‘‘sooner die than commit such an evil act.’’ To which he responds, ‘‘You have saved my soul, which was blind and corrupt. You have acted like a good Christian and served Holy Mary. I promise you that I will not commit this sin, and that I will confess and do penance. I will be greatly indebted to you for all of the days that I live.’’πΩ With this, Motolinia closes his chapter. Thus we now move from feminine sexuality struggling with aggressive masculine sexuality, to win the fight only with the help of God, to an alternative but related trope in which feminine sexuality actively curbs masculine aggression. Thus God, in correlation with the woman’s chaste nature, converts the married man, whence he becomes a good Christian. In the first case, we see the development of a chaste female community learning the ways of God. In the second, we see a woman educated in that community out in the world, preventing a masculine sexual nature from overcoming God’s will. We have seen Motolinia addressing polygynous marriage in a contra- dictory manner, but one that ends with a promotion of the values of monogamous Christian marriage, even if polygyny made sense in a dis- course of natural law. We then witnessed Motolinia showing that the demons had tricked the Nahuas into having women and men worship them through sacrifice, but there even with those tricks, the women remained noble representatives. Even when these women engaged in sexual sin, Nahua rules prevented the women from benefiting from this sin, and they punished them severely. In each case, Motolinia finds himself identifying closely with Nahua women, so much so that his primary gendered identification is with them. Certainly he does not identify with Spanish men, whom he often deplores as sexual aggressors. Nor does he identify with Spanish women, who are hardly mentioned here. His attitude toward Nahua men is incon- sistent, but there is little question that he viewed their sexual attitudes as difficult. He instead found himself most closely aligned with Nahua women, and he identifies them as the ones most intimately related to the values that he wishes to promote. On several occasions he expresses his ‘‘love’’ for these women, an undoubtedly paternalistic love. In his efforts to establish a Franciscan utopia on American soil, Moto- linia wished to assert a close relationship between the ostensibly asexual SIN ≤ 79

Franciscan friar and the chaste Nahua woman. By developing a gendered identification with Nahua women, he fixed his place in the colonial proj- ect as an identity transformed: always a Franciscan friar, he imaginatively became a Nahua woman.

Sahagún and the Ethnographic Project Fray Bernardino de Sahagún helped create the most important corpus of documents used in this book and the set of texts probably most used to study preconquest and colonial Nahua society. The ethnographic project that produced the magisterial Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, otherwise known as the Florentine Codex, involved a large group of Nahua informants, a small group of trilingual Nahua aides, a few Franciscans, and Sahagún himself. This project influenced both Saha- gún’s own thinking, as represented not only in the Historia but also in his sermons and other works, and the process by which priests, particularly Franciscan friars, came to understand Nahua realities and the possibili- ties for Nahua sacramental knowledge. In other words, despite the fact that the Historia was not published until modern times, one cannot overestimate Sahagún’s influence on the dialogue that took place be- tween Christian clerics and Nahua intellectuals, the early colonial pro- duction of knowledge about the Nahuas, or the modern historical inter- pretation of Nahua culture and society. Sahagún had attended the University of Salamanca, where he was deeply influenced by the Salamanca school of philosophers and the lin- guistic interpretations and grammatical works of Antonio de Nebrija. He understood and worked in the tradition of philosophers and theologians who had constituted a series of (Thomist) ideas related to the theory that natural law instituted certain human rights, and that philosophy should work not only to interpret the supernatural but also to develop practical solutions to human problems.∫≠ Sahagún also developed Nebrija’s pas- sion for language (Nebrija had not only worked on Spanish grammar, but also on a philological project to analyze the Bible and Christian theology), and probably also his concept that one must work to spread literacy in vernacular languages in order to advance civilization.∫∞ A particular sense of the Franciscan mission also deeply influenced Sahagún, as it had all of the other early friars.∫≤ Arriving in 1529, only five 80 ≤ CHAPTER 3 years after the creation of the mission, he rather quickly became disillu- sioned with the state of the process of conversion and instruction, and he was part of a wave of Franciscans that moved beyond the idealism of Motolinia’s early days.∫≥ In his first twenty years in New Spain, Sahagún developed a consistent critique of the evangelization project. In particu- lar, he found it intolerable that priests would allow Christian festivals to become superimposed on their indigenous counterparts, thus providing cover for idolatrous behavior.∫∂ He found great solace, though, in the work of, and particularly in the linguistic skill of, the students in the Colegio de Santa Cruz.∫∑ This col- lege, founded by the Franciscans in Tlatelolco in 1536, was designed to educate noble Nahua boys in the classical traditions, Christian theology, and the Latin and Spanish languages.∫∏ Assigned to teach in the college at its opening, Sahagún, though moving in and out of teaching duties, began a lifetime association with the school and its students. According to his own account, his work with the school deeply influenced his views. While from the beginning he trained students in the Latin tradition, he was primarily interested in getting the boys to inform on their parents and stop all idolatrous activities. He notes with pleasure that the commoners feared the boys trained by the friars.∫π Once the college was founded, he further argues that the increased training, particularly in the Nebrija tradition of learning Latin grammar, led to great advances in the intellec- tual capacities of the students.∫∫ His work in the college led Sahagún to think more about what was necessary for the conversion and instruction of the Nahua population. Thus began, in the 1540s, a project of writing religious literature in the Nahuatl language. Soon to come was the ethnographic project, always dedicated to the eradication of idolatrous and diabolic activities. The production of the Historia represents the most complex process of Sa- hagún’s work, one that opens up extensive questions about authorship and interpretation. Sahagún desired a detailed ethnography of the peo- ple, based on some similar European studies, which required him to gain extensive access to Nahua communities and texts. He wanted in his employ several of his former students, who he believed would help him gain access to these materials. He thus worked with four Nahua men whom he called the trilinguals: Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, and Pedro de Sanbuenaventura, all of whom could read SIN ≤ 81 and write in Latin, Spanish, and Nahuatl.∫Ω All but Jacobita, a native of Tlatelolco, came from Quauhtitlán.Ω≠ In 1558 Sahagún and his aides moved to Tepepolco, then in the prov- ince of Acolhuacan (today in the state of Hidalgo). Sahagún writes of what he did, once they arrived there:

I assembled all the leaders with the lord of the town, named don Diego de Mendoza, an old man of great distinction and talent, very expert in all things courtly, military, political, and even idolatrous. . . . I re- quested that they provide me qualified and experienced persons with whom I could talk. . . . The next day the lord came with the leaders. And, having made a very solemn speech, as they used to do at that time, they assigned me ten or twelve leading elders. They told me I could communicate with them, and that they would answer all that I asked them. There were also four Latinists, to whom I had taught grammar a few years earlier in the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco. With these leaders and grammarians, who were also leaders, I talked many days, close to two years, following the sequence of the outline that I had prepared.Ω∞

From their work in Tepepolco, Sahágun and his aides produced the text now known as the Primeros memoriales. Sahagún claims to have engaged in a similar method in Tlatelolco and finally in Tenochtitlan.Ω≤ Sahagún devised an outline, which determined some of the informa- tion he received, ignoring some important elements of Nahua life. (The outline followed the parameters of European encyclopedias.)Ω≥ He must have used his own contacts, as well as those of other Franciscans, to- gether with his Nahua aides to begin to gather his informants. The local leader whom he contacted initially would likely have required the par- ticipation of particular elderly men whom he trusted to tell something of the story that he wanted the Franciscan to hear. Sahagún considered the noblemen of the communities reliable informants, and he saw his aides as people qualified to get the detailed information required. While there exists much debate among modern scholars as to the nature of the collaboration involved in the production of the Florentine Codex, Sahagún alone did not write this extensive manuscript; nor did the document simply reproduce Nahua values.Ω∂ The Nahua aides wrote the overwhelming bulk of the Nahuatl text (in some cases likely follow- 82 ≤ CHAPTER 3 ing virtually verbatim the words of the informants), and while Sahagún edited their writing, his attempts at doing so clearly varied from section to section of the project. the creation of nahua sexuality: tlazolteotl in sahagún’s imagination Throughout this book I decode the interest of Sahagún and his aides in subjects related to sexuality; in this chapter I present a few observations on ways to understand this particular element of their interests. First, we must understand the ethnographic project as a joint venture, but one with individual interests and authoritative voices. The example presented in figure 15, a page of the Primeros memoriales, is instructive in this regard.Ω∑ At the end of the second paragraph (on terms used for men and women), we see, in the last few lines, Sahagún’s own handwriting. In a paragraph that has included only terms that describe the life cycle of men and women and does not have any terms with sexual meaning, Sahagún adds an extra description for an old woman, a term for a ‘‘wicked youth,’’ and then:

cuilonj (‘‘passive partner in sodomy’’) tecuilontianj (‘‘active partner in sodomy’’)Ω∏ patlachpul (‘‘lesbian’’ [?]) tetlanochilianj (‘‘procurer’’)Ωπ

While we cannot know why Sahagún and not his aides added these terms, the fact they are included suggests that Sahagún had a particular interest in sexual sin, perhaps an interest not in line with that of the trilinguals or the informants. Most important, it suggests that we cannot envision even the Primeros memoriales, much less the more polished Historia general, as a collective project. At times Sahagún’s voice would predominate, while at other times the thrust of the discourse shows that the aides or the informants formed the dominant voices in the narrative. Thus, it seems important to note that, in bringing sexuality to the forefront, the various authors have different agendas, and that we cannot always discern the nature of these agendas. Sahagún believed that the people must remain chaste. In a rather odd paragraph in his prologue to one of the books of the Historia, Sahagún argues that the key problem with early efforts to educate noble boys was that they engaged in lascivious activities because, when placed in a home SIN ≤ 83

FIGURE 15 A paragraph from Primeros memoriales. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Primeros memoriales (facsimile) (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), f. 82r. next to that of the friars, they had too much idle time on their hands. Thus, to prevent these activities (masturbation and sodomy?), the friars returned the boys to their parents.Ω∫ Despite the possibility that the boys then would have more exposure to idolatrous activities and heterodox thoughts, the friars decided to place more of an effort on the prevention of sexual sin. Still, Sahagún did not believe that sexual sin equaled the more serious sins related to idolatry, and in the Historia he and the aides focused much more attention on ritual and the supernatural than on the more mundane carnal relationships between people.

In the epigraph to this chapter, we witnessed Sahagún’s treatment of Tlazolteotl as a goddess linked only with lust and carnality. But what was Tlazolteotl’s role in the imaginary frameworks of Sahagún and his aides? The Nahuatl text suggests an interpretation somewhat different from Sahagún’s Spanish: ‘‘Tlazolteotl: also called Ixcuina and called Tlaelquani. As to being called Tlazolteotl, it was said that was because her realm and domain were the dust and the trash: the life of desire, the pleasurable life. It was said that she was the ruler of the pleasurable life’’ (see note for original Nahuatl).ΩΩ While one can interpret the metaphors in the way that Sahagún does in his Spanish translation, the Nahuatl keeps Tlazol- teotl in the tlazolli complex. She becomes the leader of the one seeking the desirable and pleasurable life. One should not, however, assume that 84 ≤ CHAPTER 3 the Nahuatl terms had a positive connotation. Auilnemiliztli, for exam- ple, which occurs at the end of the quoted passage in the form ‘‘aujlnem- jlizçutl,’’ derives from auil-, ‘‘pleasure,’’ a term used for prostitutes. The life described emanates from the tlazolli complex and signifies excess. But unlike in the Spanish, we find nothing in the way of moral condemna- tion in the Nahuatl text. Further, the Nahuatl has seduced the aides and the informants, and perhaps even seduced Sahagún himself. For if they continue to use the concept of tlazolli and the persona of Tlazolteotl to make moral arguments, and more to the point, to advance the discourse of confession, they will continue to find Nahuas ensnared by the mean- ings implicit in these terms. And thus the Historia continues: ‘‘Confession: It was said that Tlazol- teotl inspired and offered trash, dust, and the pleasurable life. Similarly, she forgave, . . . washed, and bathed one.’’∞≠≠ This world of Tlazolteotl, in which she controls both the pleasurable life that Sahagún so wishes to condemn, and the process of confession, which Sahagún so wishes to pro- mote (though in a different form), remains very seductive for our friar, his aides, and their informants. Sahagún and other clerics will promote the language included here: trash, dust, bathing, and washing will continue to exist in clerical discourse at least until the middle of the seventeenth cen- tury. But as the clerics attempted to engage in a binary division between the dirt and the cleanliness, they needed to beware that both fell under the rubric of the tlazolli complex. And the ‘‘heart-straightening’’ process of preconquest Nahua confession (in which neyolmelahualiztli, the word used to describe the process that literally refers to the straightening of one’s heart) can further seduce our friar and the other clerics, as the ‘‘truth’’-producing discourse of such a correction would seem apparent. But the Nahuas, perhaps including Sahagún’s aides, and certainly includ- ing his informants, viewed heart straightening in a different manner, associating it with the tlazolli complex and the realm of sacrifice.∞≠∞

Durán and the New Nahua Diego Durán, raised in Texcoco from the age of five (that is, from 1542), had come to identify closely with the Nahuas long before he took his Dominican vows. He believed that the indigenous peoples were direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, and that the Toltecs had devel- oped an extraordinary civilization.∞≠≤ He so closely identified with the SIN ≤ 85 indigenous population that one commentator declared him effectively a mestizo or a hybrid, despite the fact that the commentator knew Durán had been born in Spain: ‘‘It is evident that though he writes in Spanish, he seems to be thinking in Nahuatl. Rather—he mixes both cultures in such a way that they are difficult to separate.’’∞≠≥ While we might dispute the in- separability of the two cultures in Durán’s work, there is little question that he produced two volumes that approach indigenous worldviews more closely than many other works before or since. While Sahagún, for example, produced a much larger corpus, and although both Sahagún and Durán focused much attention on the details of the rituals and the gods, Sahagún never equaled Durán in his apprecia- tion for the subtle meaning involved in some of the texts. Durán does not, however, have the interest of either Motolinia or Sahagún in the daily lives of the indigenous population; his two volumes focus on ritual and history. He explicitly wants to think through a Nahua soul in understand- ing its ways of connecting sex, desire, and religion. In this sense, he fits in with the Dominican critique of the Franciscans. He does not believe that the Franciscans understood the Nahuas very well, nor does he see Franciscan conversion as an effective model. Like other Dominicans, he critiques the conquest.∞≠∂ But these similarities with other Dominicans go only so far, as Durán expresses great interest in the details of indigenous culture while strongly criticizing it.∞≠∑ Durán in essence tries to place the Nahuas in Christian history. How can the Nahuas, practitioners of sacrifice and cannibalism, relate to Chris- tians? How can their history be rescued from the various influences clearly incompatible with Christian life and values?∞≠∏ He finds an answer in Judaism. These people are Jews who have taken their religion in a different direction. As such, their origins relate closely to Exodus, and their history must be explored in the light of their potential Christianity.∞≠π But Durán’s volume on the gods and rituals quickly contradicts this relationship. There he states that the Nahuas are ‘‘poorer in spirit and the least prone to abandon their way of life and rites.’’ And he goes on to consider the reason that the indigenous peoples would not accept Chris- tianity: ‘‘This may be the result of their inborn wretchedness and the lowly condition nature gave them or of their gloomy, melancholy, and earthy constitution or the result of social conditions under which they lived.’’∞≠∫ Thus, to say that Durán adored the Nahuas is patently false. Rather, Durán believed that the Nahuas were a deficient people in need of 86 ≤ CHAPTER 3 instruction. But what could that instruction entail? He states that most important in this regard is understanding the rituals and preventing what we might call syncretism:

Thus the practice of the Faith is corrupted where there remain sur- vivals of the cult and faith in another god. . . . While the memory lasts, they will turn to it, like those who find themselves ill or in need. While they call on God, they also seek out sorcerers, shamans who laugh, and then return to the superstitions, idolatries, and omens of their fore- bears. . . . I believe there is nothing in the world so barren as a man who lives out his entire life attempting to grasp something he does not understand, who feels no need of penetrating the roots of heathen beliefs of ancient times, who vainly tries to prevent these frail and weak people from mixing their old and superstitious rites with our Divine Law and Christian Religion.∞≠Ω

Durán moves directly from a critique of the Nahuas as weak to a criticism of those priests who try to change indigenous people without gaining knowledge of their religious traditions. In this, Durán sets up an opposi- tion not so much between Franciscans and Dominicans or between Span- iards and Indians, but rather between the people like himself and the other ethnographers who will work with the indigenous population, trying to understand them at every level, and those who do not care to do this work. And what will he and the other ethnographers try to do? They will work to eradicate the memory of these earlier times in the minds of the Nahuas while seeking to preserve this memory, this knowledge, in their own minds. Thus Durán strongly critiques those who destroyed the Nahua pictorial manuscripts, for he notes that they thereby prevented knowledge from moving to the friars, while they did nothing to prevent the maintenance of that memory in the minds of Nahua lords.∞∞≠ Durán pays close attention to Nahua goddesses, who seduce him in a particularly obscure manner. In one case he inserts for the reader’s enjoy- ment the following statement: ‘‘In our present chapter we shall deal with many remarkable things that will bring joy, interest, and even wonder [to the reader] when he becomes aware of the manner of this celebration and the accompanying festivities and ritual. Therefore, I request the attention our story merits in order to consider the consistency, awe, and reverence with which the laws and rites of the false religion were obeyed.’’∞∞∞ At first glance we can discount such a statement as a stylistic device encouraging SIN ≤ 87 the reader to continue in his or her task. Yet, when we find that this comes at the beginning of a core chapter on fertility, one wonders why it is placed here. Further, one must think about what Durán means by bringing ‘‘joy, interest, and even wonder’’ to the reader. How could such gruesome acts bring the reader joy? Could Durán have been referencing a sense of morbid curiosity? Or can we consider the possibility that this tale brought our friar joy? Here Durán has entered the realm of ethnopor- nography. The violence done to the female body in an effort to promote fertility suggests a sexual connection between the reader and the goddess. The reader gains happiness through his imagining of the fertile body of the goddess of a people deemed different from himself. Durán proceeds to tell the story of Chicomecoatl/Chalchiuhcihuatl, a story of fertility that links feminine sexuality with violence against the female body. Thus he first says that Chicomecoatl means ‘‘Serpent of Seven Heads,’’ for in this guise the goddess did harm in the ‘‘barren years.’’ At these times, ‘‘ice has eaten the crops.’’ Chalchiuhcihuatl, meanwhile, means ‘‘Woman of Precious Stone,’’ and she is responsible for ‘‘abundant and fertile years.’’ Durán provides one image of this goddess, which he describes as follows:

It [the statue] was made of wood, carved in the form of a young woman, a maiden some twelve years old, modeled in the best carving in the land. She was garbed in the native feminine garments, all red, the most splendid obtainable. On her head she wore a tiara of red paper upon her cropped hair, which fell to her shoulders. In her ears were incrusted golden earrings. On her neck she wore a necklace of golden ears of corn, carved like real ears of corn, tied with a blue ribbon. In her hands she held ears of corn, imitated in featherwork and garnished with gold. She held her arms open, like a woman dancing. Her cheeks were colored like those of a woman wearing rouge.∞∞≤

This goddess thus signifies the fertility of the earth, just as she signifies the sexual availability of the young woman, the maiden about to flower. By wearing rouge and covering herself with the elements from the earth, the goddess not only becomes recognized as part of the tlazolli complex, but also compares with Nahua prostitutes. They too wear rouge, and they simply substitute flowers for the corn. This sense of feminine sexuality that comes through in Durán’s description must have crossed his mind. This goddess signifies not only abundance but also a decadence (the 88 ≤ CHAPTER 3

finest cloth, the rouge) that Durán elsewhere condemns. Yet here I will suggest that not only is he attracted to this image of feminine abundance and decadence, but also to this ostentatious display of female sexuality. The remaining narrative of the scene, though, supports Durán’s sense of feminine sexuality as necessarily chaste: ‘‘On September eighth, the time of the fasting, or ‘little Lent,’ began. . . .This lasted seven days in a row, during which no one ate anything but leftovers, scraps of old, dry tortillas without salt, or anything except water. This feast was common throughout the entire land, inviolable, similar to Lent in Christendom. This fast was kept with a great deal more rigor and care than Lent and fast days are kept.’’∞∞≥ We see in this narrative why Durán would consider this so close to a Christian rite, though the Nahuas kept to their rites in a much stricter fashion than Spaniards. But this tale does not allude to the sexual nature of the ritual that Durán will describe. For in the ritual a young maiden (‘‘a girl twelve or thirteen years old, the most pretty to be found’’) is about to be penetrated with a knife, and with all of the symbolism designed to assure her a role in a fertility rite. Thus, first she was ‘‘purified,’’ although Durán does not specify how this purification was accomplished. Then,

she was given ornaments, a tiara upon her head, ears of corn on her neck and hands. She was forced to make merry and dance and was taken from the home of one nobleman to another who had been in sadness, penance, and fasting. To the hair of the crown of this woman’s head was tied a vertical green feather, which represented the tassels of the stalks of corn. It was tied with a red ribbon, indicating that at the time of this feast the maize was almost ripe but still green. . . . And the poor little one went about all day with the splendid feather stuck on her head.∞∞∂

Durán presents this young girl as one about to lose her virginity, and he expresses his sadness at the loss of virginal innocence. The green feather signifies the corn about to ripen, just as she herself is about to ripen. We cannot know what Durán believed was happening in the houses of these noblemen, but the fact that she was forced to make merry and dance in their homes did signify to the Dominicans a sexually suggestive theme.∞∞∑ Further, these noblemen had to end their fasts, and Durán understood the significance of sexual abstinence as a central element in the fast.∞∞∏ SIN ≤ 89

After this beginning, the ritual continued with many elements signify- ing abundance and fertility. A priest cut the feather off the young wom- an’s head, offering it to the god. Then she is brought to an area where a great crowd surrounded her, clearly watching her in her special place in the center (‘‘It almost seemed Christmas Eve’’). The next morning the nobles, followed by the commoners, hurled dried blood in front of her (‘‘as an expiation of their sins and as a thanksgiving’’), after which the people went to eat freely (‘‘Easter morning’’) in their houses. The ritual of abundance thus becomes in Durán’s imagination a simple parallel with Christian ritual. This ritual, linked in the description with feminine sexuality and fertil- ity, clearly must lead to sacrifice, and Durán does not disappoint:

Then she was cast upon the piles of ears of corn and seeds and decapi- tated. Her blood was gathered in a small bowl, and the wooden god- dess was sprinkled with it. All of the chamber was sprinkled, and so were the offerings of ears of corn, chili and squash, seeds and vege- tables which lay there. After her death she was flayed, and one of the priests donned her skin. On it were placed all the garments the girl had worn—her tiara on his head, her ears of corn on his neck and hands. He was presented to the public while the drums sounded, and all danced, led by the man dressed in the skin of the young girl and the robes of the goddess.∞∞π

This spectacle of the transvestite priest wearing the girl’s skin and clothes suggests his position in the in-between space; the priest, moreover, will use the fertility goddess’s skin to make the earth fertile. In Durán’s de- scription we find a clear indication that the violence done to the female body signifies fertility. While he represses much of the gendered dynamic of the ritual, we hear that the priest leads those who dance in order to provide for a strong harvest. It was the penetration of her body and the ritual donning of the skin that allowed such a thing to happen. Thus feminine sexual availability led to a specific violence against the female body, while the performance of the combined male/female body pro- moted the survival of the community. Durán continues to describe the ritual, suggesting that ritual cannibal- ism ‘‘was like the presentation today of a couple of hens to the church.’’∞∞∫ He ends his description by noting in a positive manner the transforma- 90 ≤ CHAPTER 3 tion of this ritual into its postconquest equivalent: ‘‘It must be noted that the offerings of strings of ears of corn and flowers on the Day of Our Lady in September . . . are a survival of that custom. But I believe they have been turned into an offering to His Divine Majesty.’’∞∞Ω In postconquest times, Nahuas presented the fertile earth to the Virgin Mary, destined for God. The portrayal of feminine purity remains with the Virgin, but no longer do we witness the sacrifice of the maiden. What values does Durán derive from this movement of feminine sex- uality? His ‘‘joy’’ at recreating the preconquest ritual of course has to do with a certain critical distance that he maintains from the reality of the ritual event. Nonetheless, the portrayal of feminine innocence lost causes him joy at least on the surface because the Nahuas have moved from a lost innocence (Chicomecoatl) to a found innocence (Virgin Mary). It is still noteworthy that, whereas elsewhere Durán condemns any signs of syn- cretism, here he appears to support such mixture with great enthusiasm. Perhaps Durán believes in the power of feminine sexuality and its relationship with the fertility of the earth. For in the ritual described he reserves his condemnation only for the violence done to the human body (and even there, his protestations are comparatively mild). He does this because he imagines a world in which feminine sexuality maintains its power, now portrayed through the Holy Mother.∞≤≠ While in many senses Durán identifies with Nahua symbolism of femi- nine sexuality, one should compare this with his treatment of male sex- uality. He appears to condemn many treatments of male sexuality as aggressive and an unwarranted intrusion in the ritual sphere.∞≤∞ In much Mesoamerican ritual, the male role in fertility was signified through self- sacrificial rites, and particularly through genital bleeding.∞≤≤ In one of the few cases where he mentions such a thing, Durán unambiguously con- demns this ritual of masculine sexuality. In discussing rituals dedicated to Ehecatl, the god of wind,∞≤≥ Durán notes that, unlike most Nahua peoples, ‘‘in a certain Mixtec province even the bleeding of the genital organ was practiced by passing cords as long as fifteen to twenty yards through it. Others, in order to become impotent, not to sin, slit it in two (something that makes the flesh crawl), so as to be considered servants of the devil, holy, penitent, chaste, and virtuous men, things that were highly ex- tolled.’’∞≤∂ Utter condemnation and disgust mark Durán’s phallic fears here; yet he still finds a way to suggest that some good came out of it: the men considered themselves holy and worked to control their desire to sin. SIN ≤ 91

While Durán’s imagination may have allowed him to identify with ritual that connected female sexuality to the fertility of the earth, he condemned any direct sexual display he witnessed. In other words, for Durán, the symbolics of sexuality could be displayed within ritual dis- course, but only when he imagined this signified a heavenly activity. In those cases where the signifier went on to display a signified on earth, Durán could not be seduced into an identification with his Nahua broth- ers and sisters. Thus we come to his discussion of the goddess of waters, Chalchiuh- cueye. He has little to say about festivals to celebrate this goddess, instead regaling us with stories of superstition about water. Durán believed that water was treated with the reverence of a god, and he does link it to Nahua thoughts on fertility, but then he tells us, ‘‘since this has all been forgotten and left behind, there is no reason to refer to it or tell about it in detail.’’∞≤∑ But the one key remaining practice that relates to Chalchiuh- cueye is the practice of bathing in the temazcal. Durán explains that when bathhouses were built, idols were placed underneath them. Then men and women went to bathe together, for it was considered a bad omen to bathe without a person of the other sex around. Durán notes his strong objection to the lascivious nature of such bathing:

I would not hold all this to be so unchaste and immodest if the hus- band entered with his wife, but at times there is so much confusion and laxity that, mingled and naked as they are, there cannot fail to be great affronts and offences to our Lord. As a warning to those who are concerned with these matters, while I am not referring to the ancient, pagan, heathen, superstition, I am dealing with the evil that can come of being mixed up this way.∞≤∏

For Durán, the presentation of sexual acts on earth signified an evil that he could not tolerate. Nonetheless, the connection between sex and idol- atry was central in his mind, and he consistently argued that the idols promoted illicit sexual behaviors. So we have aggressive feminine voraciousness and the temptations of sin on earth as maintained by Chalchiuhcueye, and the relationship be- tween fertility and feminine sexuality, as supported by all of the fertility goddesses. This latter element indeed seduced Durán into a complicit identification, an imaginary framework in which the goddesses of fertility morphed into the good, the Christian. 92 ≤ CHAPTER 3

Confession The reforms that came out of the Council of Trent presented confession as vital for the connection established between the priest, the parishioner, and God. In this way, and in this way only, could a penitent be forgiven for his or her sins.∞≤π These confessions led to increasing attention to the concept of sin, clarified throughout this time period.∞≤∫ Similarly, many of the clergy who came to Mexico during the colonial period believed that confession was extraordinarily important, and they saw themselves as physicians curing the sins of the penitents.∞≤Ω This emphasis, however, was tempered by the lack of sufficient numbers of priests and the vari- ability in their quality. The most consistent complaint in indigenous anticlerical petitions was that priests were unavailable to perform the sacrament of confession.∞≥≠ Medieval and early modern Catholicism could not support a Nahua confessional discourse based on the concept of moderation, and the friars found Tlazolteotl particularly abhorrent.∞≥∞ But the confessors ended up squarely within the tlazolli complex, and Sahagún explains why:

The physician cannot advisedly administer medicines to the patient without first knowing of which humour or from which source the ailment derives. Wherefore it is desirable that the good physician be expert in the knowledge of medicines and ailments to adequately ad- minister the cure for each ailment. The preachers and confessors are physicians of the souls for the curing of spiritual ailments. For him who preaches against the evils of the State, in order to marshal his teach- ings against them, and for the confessor, in order to know how to ask what is proper and understand what they may say pertaining to his work, it is very advisable to know what is necessary to practice their works. Nor is it fitting that the ministers become neglectful of this conversion by saying there are no sins among the people other than orgies, thievery, and lustfulness, because there are many other, much graver sins among them that are in great need of remedy. The sins of idolatry, idolatrous rituals, idolatrous superstitions, auguries, abuses, and idolatrous ceremonies are not yet completely lost.∞≥≤

If we see the confessor as a physician aiding the soul, as did Sahagún, that physician would need to understand the disease, particularly as it related to the tlazolli complex. Of course, one must recall that Sahagún’s state- SIN ≤ 93 ment comes in defense of his ethnographic project, suggesting that con- fessors needed to read his ethnography, and, more to the point, that the Spanish crown, the Catholic Church, and the Franciscan mission needed to support and publish his research. Still, one cannot help but notice the relationship between his concep- tualization of the confessor as physician and Foucault’s notion of the ‘‘truth-making project’’ of confession: ‘‘The truthful confession was in- scribed at the heart of the procedures of individualization by power.’’∞≥≥ The confessor required information from the confessant, and Sahagún was convinced that his ethnographic project provided background infor- mation necessary for the confessor to discern the truth and engage in the cure. Sahagún’s despair at the end of this statement signifies for the Franciscan the key problem: the physician has failed in his diagnosis because he does not understand (or perhaps willfully ignores) the true disease. The Nahua soul has been infected with a sickness manifested in idolatrous behavior (and here contrasted with lesser sins related to sex- uality). Indeed, Sahagún was not alone in thinking that confessors had failed in their approach to confession. As we analyze the changes in the lan- guage of the confessional manuals, we see repeated concerns about Na- hua understandings of confessionary discourse. Molina, in his statement about confession that I quoted earlier in this chapter, uses the Spanish term ‘‘ánima’’ for the soul. He does not use the Nahuatl term teyolia, which will be used later in other confessional manuals in a variety of contexts. Nor does he use the Nahuatl term tetonal, which he elsewhere translates as ‘‘soul.’’∞≥∂ For the Nahuas before the conquest, the term teyolia referred to the entity within the body that went to the land of the gods after death. Thus Spaniards could quite easily translate the term as ‘‘soul.’’ However, the term could only approximate the Christian con- cept of the soul, and preconquest Nahua thought does not ever dis- tinguish teyolia from the body. However, for Christianized Nahuas after the conquest, as historian Alfredo López Austin notes, the teyolia was directly identified with the soul.∞≥∑ Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, a Nahua chronicler, makes this clear in his Nahuatl text, when he states that, because of Mexica worship of Huitzilopochtli, ‘‘a great many teyolia, teanimazhuan were lost, were led to hell.’’∞≥∏ For Tezozomoc, as a Nahua Christian, writing in 1609, the words teyolia and ánima are synonyms, and he has even turned ánima into a Nahuatl word by placing Nahuatl 94 ≤ CHAPTER 3 grammatical markers on it. But he feels the need to place the terms next to each other in order to be understood by his Nahua readers. Further, when arguing that the Nahuas had a concept of the soul, he also states that they had a concept of hell, here in Nahuatl simply mictlan, which literally translates as ‘‘land of the dead.’’ Molina uses the term in the same manner. The fact that almost all Nahuas went to mictlan, and nothing they did or did not do during life led them there, would have made it difficult to use mictlan as a threat. In essence, Tezozomoc attempted to assert the colonization of the soul and hell.∞≥π Molina used the term ánima in a context in which he believed the Nahuas would need to learn the term (it seems unlikely that he would have believed that the Nahuas already understood the complexities in- volved in the Christian concept of the soul). One senses in Molina a discomfort with the translations that he had helped to develop. For if teyolia was not an effective enough translation for the term at this early point, he would want the Nahuas to learn the term ánima because it signified a different concept, one that he believed would aid the Nahuas in their acceptance of Christianity, and more important, one that was a necessary concept for them to learn. A confessional manual from 1634, two generations later, shows more Nahua acceptance of some of the outward manifestations of Christianity. For by this time, many Nahuas were acculturated, some were bilingual, but the manuals were only for priests preaching to those more comfort- able speaking in Nahuatl. The manuals for this period show that a sig- nificant number of Spanish terms had entered Nahuatl, but that a wide variety of key concepts remained or even reverted to Nahuatl ideas. The manual, from a mestizo secular cleric, don Bartolomé de Alva, be- gins with an address to the penitents somewhat different from that with which Molina began his confessional:

May God, the giver of life in the world, give His divine and heavenly radiance to you who today have come and gathered together here in his temple in order to bathe and wash yourselves now in the precious honored time of suffering of our beloved Savior Jesus Christ, for on our account He wants to open the heavenly and divine fountain of the holy Sacrament of confession where bubbles and effervesces the good, pure and preciously transparent water with which our soul is washed and purified of its sinful blackness and dirtiness. Now, first it is neces- SIN ≤ 95

sary that we teach you, opening your eyes concerning what is the dark and obscure night in which you still live and with which you greatly frighten and scandalize the other Christians who are your neighbors, the Spaniards. For they see that you are not strong in the faith, that still today the faith has not yet taken root and borne fruit in your heart.∞≥∫

Two things have happened by 1634. First, Alva believes that the Nahuas know more about some of the basic concepts of the faith, so he can talk about the sacraments, Jesus Christ, and other of the outer trappings of Christianity in a way that Molina could not. However, he also sees that the Nahuas have not embraced Christianity, and he complains about this regularly throughout the confessional manual. Lest we think that this has to do with his being a member of the secular clergy, Franciscans, Domini- cans, and Jesuits of this time period had similar sentiments. In order to instruct the Nahuas in the faith, Alva moves to traditional Nahua con- cepts and uses these to attempt to make certain changes. Alva declares, ‘‘For you who want and desire to purify your soul of its dirtiness, its blackness . . .’’∞≥Ω The term he uses for soul here is derived from yolia, which is simply teyolia without the indefinite prefix normally attached to the term. He does not use the Spanish term, nor does he appear con- cerned with the differences between the two concepts. In fact, Alva’s text up to this point is full of traditional Nahua concepts fully embedded in the tlazolli complex: dirtiness, blackness, bathing, and so on. While none of these concepts contradicted Christian teachings, they were not the elements emphasized in early modern confession.∞∂≠ Molina’s attempts at asserting the sinning individual have given way to Alva’s understanding of Nahua concepts as parallel to their Christian counterparts. But Alva too will attempt to assert individualism, for his statement addressing the Nahua penitents goes on to explain that the way to purify their souls is to ‘‘turn and remember your life behind you, counting and pursuing all of your sins with which you offended God, your deity and ruler.’’∞∂∞ Such a recounting of sin and a search within oneself is central to the act of early modern confession and a necessary precondition for an effective Nahua confessional genre. Confession in the preconquest Nahua world did not invoke the same sense of individualization as Catholic confessional rites. Rather, one would confess to losing one’s way along the path, tripping, taking a de- tour, or entering the tlazolli complex when it was not ritually appropriate 96 ≤ CHAPTER 3 to do so. Then one would have to confess to Tezcatlipoca or Tlazolteotl that one had ‘‘mixed oneself with filth.’’∞∂≤ The logic of the confession that Molina had wanted to impart to the Nahuas was that one had to give to the confessor one’s inner sense of self; one had to impart the truth of oneself, never hiding sin. One’s own truth, he would go on, had to come from a searing search within oneself, within one’s heart. Then one could properly confess and effectively avoid the fires of hell. In a similar vein, an early confessional manual, published by the Dominicans in Mexico in 1548, begins: ‘‘I, who am a sinner, confess before God,’’∞∂≥ where the word for confess, yolcuitia, means ‘‘to name the heart,’’ suggesting the internalization of the self and the creation of a con- fessing being who will reveal all before the priest, God’s representative. Throughout the central areas of colonization of Latin America, during this time period, priests were pessimistic about the indigenous conver- sion process. Idolatry investigations were the theme of the day in both Mexico and Peru, and the investigators uncovered significant evidence of commoners in particular practicing traditional indigenous rites.∞∂∂ For confessors in Nahuatl-speaking regions of Mexico, the failures of the spiritual conquest led them to reassert the tlazolli complex. Thus dirt, dust, and trash became key concepts in their narrative. They must have known that Tlazolteotl controlled these concepts in the Nahua universe, but they would try to rearticulate her control in order to engage her di- rectly in the struggle over souls. This was the struggle that so concerned Sahagún and that would relate to the confessors. But, of course, these were confessional manuals, and the question for the day would have been whether confessors would use these concepts in their regular interac- tions with Nahua parishioners. While we cannot know the answer to this question, the treatment of sexual sin within the manuals provides us with some clues. sin The priests and friars had great difficulty instructing the Nahuas in ap- propriate notions of sinful behavior, not just because the Nahuas resisted the Christian moral framework but, more important, because precon- quest Nahuas did not have a concept of sin that resembled its Christian counterpart. Burkhart notes that the Christian concept of sin was predi- cated on the ‘‘dichotomy between good and evil,’’ something that was alien to the Nahua world.∞∂∑ One may also note that the Nahuas did not SIN ≤ 97 believe that they could control their own destinies in the manner neces- sary to conceive of sin like Christians conceived of the concept. The priests used the term tlatlacolli to stand in for ‘‘sin.’’ Tlatlacolli in the Nahua universe related to the damage done to somebody or some- thing, not to the intent of the act.∞∂∏ In Christian thought of the time, damage was inherent in the concept of sin, but it was hardly the central matter. More important aspects included the intent to ignore the church and God’s will and, in the more serious sins, the violation of a sacra- ment.∞∂π These concepts of conscious intent and sacramental violation do not appear to relate to the Nahua notion of tlatlacolli. Serge Gruzinski notes the difficulty friars and priests had in getting parishioners to con- fess properly, to make their sins known, and to distinguish sinful behavior from acts that could not properly be categorized as sinful.∞∂∫ Sexual sin complicated matters considerably. While sexual morality was less important to the friars than the graver sins related to idola- try, they still preached strongly against ‘‘fornication.’’ The language that the priests used to describe sexual sin is what interests me here. All of the confessional manuals I have cited were published in Mexico for the use of particular groups of clergy administering sacraments to Nahuatl- speaking peoples. The documents have parallel Nahuatl and Spanish texts, intended as primers for Spanish-speaking clergy with some knowledge of Nahuatl. The texts are divided into sections related to the various Com- mandments, the relevant one for my purposes being the Sixth. Other scholars have focused on these confessional manuals for different pur- poses, and they have found that the writers of the manuals, an elite group of clergy, engaged in a creative process, thinking along the way very seriously about the nature of the indigenous audience, as compared with the European audiences that had been the most common recipients of confession.∞∂Ω The Dominican doctrina of 1548, for example, attempts to teach the Nahuas about the concept of virginity.∞∑≠ In doing so, the Dominicans use the term virgen instead of any Nahuatl approximation. Nahuatl had no term for virgin, but some friars attempted to modify the terms for young man and young woman to emphasize virginity. Molina uses a term (ocuel ychpuchtli) that literally means ‘‘still a young woman,’’ to translate as virgin.∞∑∞ The Dominicans, however, believed that the Nahuas needed to understand the different Spanish context for the concept of virginity. In clerical texts for the remainder of the sixteenth century, the authors used 98 ≤ CHAPTER 3

Nahuatl terms derived from Molina’s ‘‘still a young woman.’’∞∑≤ By 1634, Alva, clearly sensing some confusion in the confessional, specifies the concept yet again, using the rather complex extended term huel oc ma- citicate ichpopochtin (‘‘still very pure young women’’).∞∑≥ By 1673 and throughout the eighteenth-century confessional manuals, the term ich- pochtli, ‘‘young woman,’’ itself suffices for all of the authors. So how had the social context and thus the meaning of the term changed through the centuries? One may conjecture that the term ichpochtli, which at the time of the conquest had not meant virgin, but which was used to describe young women who in some cases clearly were not virgins (including some women with children and a young goddess who engaged in sexual activity) was not at first an appropriate translation of the concept implied by Christian virginity. In the earliest of colonial times, the clerics did not believe that an appropriate Nahuatl translation of the term existed. Soon thereafter, however, the priests, certainly in consultation with Christian Nahuas, developed a complex terminology that would get across the idea. By the early seventeenth century, some clerics believed that the complex term needed to become yet more complex, for the Nahuas did not under- stand what it meant to be a virgin and why such a concept was important. By the end of the seventeenth century, this terminological complexity collapsed and, as far as the authors of the confessional manuals were concerned, ichpochtli had become the appropriate translation for ‘‘vir- gin.’’ Had it really come to mean virgin in the way that the Spanish authors of the confessional manuals intended? While we cannot know for sure (unfortunately the archival documents remain silent on this point), we do know that some modern-day Nahua communities have Virgin Marys who engage in ritualized sexual activity.∞∑∂ In the cases of lust and fornication, the priests wanted to get across the idea that sexual activity in itself could be considered sinful, an entirely foreign concept within Nahua thought. While in the Nahua moral uni- verse sexual behavior could be dangerous, the dangers related to the destruction of the community, not the threat of hell. Moreover, when practiced in moderation, in the sense of not creating a public scandal, sex signified fertility. With fornication, the clerics most clearly struggled with a way of communicating the correct methods for avoiding sexual sin. For both fornication and lust, the Dominicans in 1548 and many other clerical texts throughout the colonial period used a Nahuatl term that has SIN ≤ 99 the literal meaning of ‘‘pleasurable life.’’∞∑∑ Several of the texts also use another term, ‘‘to tie,’’ which Nahuas understood as relating to their sys- tem of concubinage, as a translation for fornication. Hence Juan Bautista in 1599 asks, in Nahuatl, ‘‘Have you engaged in concubinage or com- mitted adultery?’’ But his Spanish text translates this as, ‘‘Have you com- mitted fornication or adultery?’’∞∑∏ This use of a traditional institution was an attempt on the part of the clergy to delegitimize an aspect of licit Nahua sexuality, to make it illicit. However, we cannot suggest that this means that the Nahuas suddenly regarded their traditional institution as a sinful den of perversion. Witness the changing language regarding sodomy. Molina’s Confessio- nario breue, published in 1565, asks the penitent, in Nahuatl, ‘‘Did you sodomize someone, or did someone sodomize you: perhaps you pun- ished or forced him/her?’’∞∑π Yet in Spanish the text is somewhat dif- ferent: ‘‘Did you give yourself to some man or him to you: you persuading or inciting it?’’∞∑∫ The Spanish text specifies the gender of the partner, while the Nahuatl does not, and the Nahuatl specifically refers to sod- omy, while the Spanish does not. The Spanish text needs to refer to gender, for if it did not, the question would make no sense to the priest (without a reference to either the specific act or the gender, the priest would be left befuddled). In the Nahuatl, Molina, trying to be circum- spect, did not need to refer to the partner’s gender if he believed that the penitents would understand the term derived from cuiloni as a specific reference to sodomy between two men. Whether the Nahuas would have the same interpretation is unclear. In the confessional manual produced by Juan Bautista in 1599, sod- omy is relegated to a concluding part of a question regarding impure thoughts, where the manual simply asks if the penitent has had impure thoughts regarding sex with a man.∞∑Ω By 1634, the distinctions between the Nahuatl and the Spanish texts are changed through the increasing specificity of the question. The Nahuatl asks: ‘‘When you were drunk, did you fall into the frightening sin? That called sodomy; that which is with your fellow man?’’∞∏≠ The Spanish is: ‘‘Perhaps when you got drunk and lost your senses, you fell into the abominable sin of sodomy, having something to do with another.’’∞∏∞ Note that, as the Spanish term otro is gendered, sodomy here referred specifically to men. By 1634, the Nahuatl text suggests that the author, Bartolomé de Alva, believed that Nahuas needed some explanation as to what sodomy was in order to understand 100 ≤ CHAPTER 3 and properly respond to the question. Thus the Nahuas are told that sodomy referred to a same-sex act. The words used suggest a series of problems related to translation. The term used (temamauhti) to modify sin refers specifically to some- thing frightening, while the term Molina had used for the Spanish abomi- nable was telchiualoni,∞∏≤ a term likely coming from chihua, ‘‘ to make.’’ By the time Alva wrote his confessional manual, he believed that the term temamauhti was more appropriate. Did he believe that this term would incline Nahua men against sodomy? Or did he believe that the term simply was more common among the Nahuas? In the next hundred years, the context changes as the confessional manuals of 1673, 1713, and 1716 do not include sodomy at all.∞∏≥ By 1765 the term cuilonti (the –tisuffix is a shortened form of –tia, a causative, so cuilonti would mean to cause somebody to engage in the act expressed by the term cuiloni) is used as a translation of the Spanish fornicar, ‘‘to fornicate.’’∞∏∂ Later in the text, the term is used to refer to sodomy, but in this case explicitly to both same-sex and opposite sex sodomy: ‘‘Have you sodomized a woman or a man in the anus?’’∞∏∑ The Spanish text is simi- larly quite specific, and makes it clear that the author believes the correct translation of cuilonti is ‘‘penetrate’’: ‘‘Have you penetrated some woman or man in the rear end?’’∞∏∏ As the centuries of colonization progressed, the meanings of many terms changed. We do not know if the Nahuas understood the author Aquino and the priests who followed his manual when they used the term cuilonti to mean penetration or fornication, or if they understood its earlier postconquest meaning as sodomy. It seems likely that the language used in the confessional manuals, in order to assist the priests in the confessional, was an attempt by the priests to follow the changing views of the Nahuas, rather than a futile attempt to force changes upon them. Nahua concepts of confession and sin changed very slowly, and the confessors remark consistently that the Nahuas had great difficulty understanding what was sinful.∞∏π As we evaluate the importance of these hybrid texts, we must remem- ber that sodomy between men was a minor concern of the priests. None of these manuals dedicates more than two questions to these topics. These are usually at the end of a long list of questions on the Sixth Command- ment. Did the clergy even ask these questions? One can only speculate, but the Mexican clergy appear to express some concern with indigenous same-sex sexual activities and desires. As the 1634 clarifications of Alva SIN ≤ 101 show, he wanted to make sure that the penitents understood the restric- tions against sodomy. Burkhart has noted that some clergy connected sodomy with vague concepts of dirt, filth, blackness, and excrement. These concepts came partly from an attempt at reticence, derived from the European intellectual debates, and partly from an attempt at under- standing and applying Nahua metaphors within the tlazolli complex.∞∏∫ Confession, sin, fornication, sodomy, and the like had meanings that changed during the colonial period. This surprises nobody. Still, while we understand the Foucauldian concept in which the confessor’s discourse creates the true confessing subject, one must be reticent to jump to the conclusion that such subjectification worked in the Nahua case. We find instead a confused discourse in which the Nahuas appear to have re- quired continual attention lest they stray from the concept of the sinning subject and reenter the tlazolli complex. the dirty one Sahagún’s Nahuatl sermon regarding the control of carnal desire tells us much about the position of the tlazolli complex in his thought: ‘‘Listen well, my beloved children. Now I want to tell you that filthy happiness enrages our lord, God. He condemns many people throughout the world because of this sin. Also, the divine word contains precious words against the dust and trash.’’∞∏Ω Here the friar has attempted to assert the precon- quest dyad of dust and trash as a translation of the Catholic concept of vice, sexual sin. The Nahuas would have understood this terminology. Thus our Franciscan attempted to place Nahua concepts of morality within the Christian framework. For here the Christian God opposes all filthy happiness (tlaelpaquiliztli).∞π≠ This becomes associated with the twinned problems of dust (teuhtli) and trash (tlazolli). These concepts signified aspects of disorder, tlatlacolli, before the conquest (though we should be clear here: tlatlacolli included things that we could not equate with sex), and they would continue to signify such disordered and prob- lematic issues after. All of these issues fell under the purview of Tlazol- teotl, whom we recall also received the name Tlaelquani. Sahagún continues by asserting the divine words of God in favor of virginity (jchpuchnemjljztli) and against adultery (tetlaximaz).∞π∞ Since he uses traditional Nahua concepts, he knows that Nahua parishioners will understand the distinctions between the young maiden (ichpochtli) and the adulterer who causes things to spoil, to become ruined,∞π≤ and he 102 ≤ CHAPTER 3 hopes that they will come to terms with the binary distinctions that he asserts between the two. Sahagún closes his sermon by stating that God abhors the dust and trash of those who have filthy happiness, as he wishes to save their souls (ánima).∞π≥ Sahagún here has entered entirely into the tlazolli complex. He uses the terms of the complex to assert the necessity of avoiding carnal plea- sure and lust, and he knows full well that these concepts are within the realm of Tlazolteotl. Yet he has no choice: he must use the tlazolli com- plex in order to get the Nahuas to understand the binary oppositions at play in Christian concepts of sin, and most importantly, to pursue their souls. Similarly, another Franciscan, Andrés de Olmos, claims that the man who lusts for a woman ‘‘knows the fear of dust, dirt, urine, and excre- ment,’’ provided by the devil.∞π∂ And Sahagún, in another of his sermons, speaks of lust in similar terms:

You black one, you dirty one: you please your body with filthy happi- ness. Because of your filthy happiness you harm the heart of our lord. And with your spouse you do that which should not be done. You make him black and dirty. You touch things for him and you make him touch things for you, etc. Thus you sin and you cast him into sin, you malign God, who prohibits you from filthy happiness because of its wickedness.∞π∑

From the middle of the sixteenth century onward, the priests realized that to make the indigenous population understand the concepts of lust and fornication, they had to use and converse in the tlazolli complex. As time continued, the priests became more ensconced in Tlazolteotl’s snare. In the seventeenth century, we see Bartolomé de Alva centering his confessional manual on the tlazolli complex. To begin confession, he states that God ‘‘wants to open the heavenly and divine fountain of the holy Sacrament of confession [heart-straightening] where bubbles and effervesces the good, pure and preciously transparent water with which our soul is washed and purified of its sinful blackness and dirtiness,’’∞π∏ thus once again referring to the province of Tlazolteotl, a province from which our friars, ethnographers, confessors, and priests never escaped. ≤ 4 ≤

THE WARRIOR GODDESS

The tlazolli complex that so perplexed the friars emanated from a Nahua notion of common sense, a need to maintain and protect the community from the many dangers presented to it by the unknown—always thought to have the potential to cause catastrophe. Most important in this respect was the world of the gods, a world replete with both danger and the potential for pleasure and success. Nahuas made sense of this world by presenting their deities as assemblages of character- istics and powers seen as impossible in the mundane realities of human existence. In this chapter I will show that the Nahuas viewed the war- rior deity as a set of characteristics that combined male and female, incorporated notions of violent masculinity and ma- ternal care, and signified fertility. Thus Tezcatlipoca, an icon of Nahua warrior masculinity, still revered today in much of Mexico, combined masculine and feminine attributes in a bi- sexual whole; and Tlazolteotl, a mother goddess who signified the excesses of feminine sexuality, had a phallus. We shall see that the presence of these and other deities makes it impos- sible to place Nahua thoughts, histories, and memories into binary formations of gender and sexuality. Indeed, the categories implicit in gendered binaries (male/ female, man/woman, boy/girl) do not fit with the presence of 104 ≤ CHAPTER 4 these deities, and I only use them here to reflect upon the division be- tween masculine and feminine that Nahuas enforced in their daily lives. Need we know if the warrior gods discussed in this chapter are gods rather than goddesses? Need we know if the fertility goddesses discussed in this chapter are goddesses rather than gods?∞ Is it important to recall that the term teotl, ‘‘god,’’ had no gender, or that Nahuatl does not contain gendered pronouns? One wonders if, while in everyday affairs Nahuas imposed a strict gendered division, they may not have done so in ritual life. The gods and goddesses, who appear as a result of and within ritual, would never have to follow human rules, so the fertility goddesses and warrior gods did not follow the strict gendered divisions often applied in daily life. Nahuas thus viewed another goddess whom I discuss elsewhere, Cihuacoatl, as a warrior deity, but one who more likely would play a major role in particular rituals and in childbirth.≤ Most Nahua gods ex- ceed the category of gender and transform the notion of sexuality. We also must ask what use seventeenth-century commoners would have for a god or goddess of war. What does Tezcatlipoca’s presence signify about the process of colonial memory formation? Would Nahua commoners in the seventeenth century have continued to worship the gods and goddesses that made the lands and the people fertile? I base this chapter on a reinterpretation of commonly used docu- ments, including pre- and postconquest codices, ethnographies pro- duced by Catholic clerics, and an idolatry investigation. I argue first that, at the time of the Spanish conquest, Nahuas (both nobles and com- moners) linked gods and goddesses with fertility and feminine sexuality. Second, despite Catholic attempts at connecting most Nahua deities with diabolic masculinist impulses, and others with the characteristics of the Catholic saints,≥ many Nahua commoners one hundred years after the conquest continued to worship their deities as powerful fertile and war- like beings. Nahuas linked their gods, even the gods of war, with the fertility of humans, animals, and the earth.∂ Nahuas viewed warfare and sacrifice as extensions of life, as necessary ritual elements to maintain and expand the community.∑ Thus many Nahuas viewed Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica patron and a prominent war god, as an extension of and closely related to the curing and shamanistic goddesses—those who provide life.∏ I will begin this chapter with fighting and warfare, continue with pleasure and THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 105 danger, and end with seduction and fertility, all interspersed with an analysis of a series of sexualized deities.π I will not attempt to discuss all of the gods,∫ but will instead use as an analytic frame the dualistic themes that organize Nahua discourse on the deities: fertility and the phallus. Fertility, constantly reified in rituals de- signed to placate the gods, is maintained partially by the presence of the phallus—always shown as the deified centerpiece, yet always veiled until, finally, it is destroyed. Such Nahua narratives move beyond Western notions of gender, confuse Spanish conceptualizations of humanity, and signify instead a way of formulating rituals of control and notions of war, pleasure, and excess.

Pleasuring Your Sister In the early seventeenth century we find in the incantations recorded by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón a large number of Nahuatl texts that maintain a connection between war, sexual pleasure, fertility, and disease.Ω An incantation that Ruiz collected in Iguala (Guerrero) promotes one’s suc- cess in a fight. Juan Vernal, who had lived his entire life in Iguala, stated that he had used this spell many times to kill highwaymen who had come to rob him. He begins the incantation by invoking several gods, including Yaotl, an appellation that literally translates as ‘‘war, warrior, enemy’’ and that is also the name of an ancient war god, used here to refer to Tezcatlipoca.∞≠ Juan asserts that he will ‘‘give pleasure’’ to his ‘‘older sisters,’’ using the term alhuia, pleasure, as a metaphor for his fight. Nahuas commonly used this term to refer specifically to sexual pleasure. He also uses the term nohueltihuan, ‘‘my older sisters,’’ as a fictive kinship term feminizing his attackers.∞∞ By pleasuring his enemies, Juan develops an imaginary incestuous relationship with his older sisters in which he penetrates and overpowers them. Juan asks Yaotl/Tezcatlipoca to provide him with a weapon with which to defeat his enemies. He further demands that the gods make his enemies weak and him strong. And he asserts his strength through the use of a metaphor for fertility: ‘‘The stones will become drunk, the trees will become drunk; the land will become drunk at my will.’’∞≤ Juan goes on to assert the power of the gods by stating, ‘‘I am the priest, I am Yaotl.’’∞≥ But his enemies ‘‘are accompanying my older sister, 106 ≤ CHAPTER 4

Xochiquetzal. They are bringing that which will be her breath, her cotton fluff, and her ball of thread, with which they will give me pleasure.’’∞∂ Juan then will close the incantation by stating that his enemies will be covered with blood. He also will add some terms in the final stanzas of the incan- tation, including tonacametzin, ‘‘sacred sustenance thigh,’’∞∑ and several other elements that refer to the land. As Juan’s enemies pleasure/fight him, he feminizes them by showing that unlike him, they do not possess the weapons of the warrior god, but rather the cotton and thread of the weaving goddess, Xochiquetzal.∞∏ Cot- ton and thread help maintain Nahua communities as they provide cloth- ing and are the central items of exchange and tribute.∞π The text then directly discusses the fertility of the earth and the community, and meta- phorically relates heterosexual play and sexual activity to fighting, points supported by a variety of other incantations and idolatry investigations.∞∫ Juan, like the others in these incantations, asserts a direct relation- ship between warfare (through the figure of Yaotl/Tezcatlipoca), fighting (through his own actions), and sex (through the imagined relationship with his enemies). This signifying chain is central to the construction of the gods. Thus Yaotl here becomes the penetrator, the powerful individ- ual who will make humans bleed. Both the gods and the goddesses plea- sure each other through sexual activity and warfare, but the gods bring the weapons and the goddesses bring other elements.∞Ω The mention of the ‘‘sustenance thigh’’ parallels the use of the same in the Ochpaniztli ceremony. There, a priest plants, in enemy territory, the thigh skin of a woman sacrificed as the goddess of maize. This planting of the thigh skin signifies that the Mexica will defeat the enemy, after which the grounds will become fertile with maize.≤≠ Warfare connected directly with the gods and also maintained a close relationship with the fertility of the earth.

Which God Devil Caused Eve to Sin? In his fights, Juan uses two key Nahua gods to engage in pleasurable acts. Tezcatlipoca, ‘‘Smoking Mirror,’’ in and out of his Yaotl guise, signifies warrior status. Here he pleasures Xochiquetzal, ‘‘Flower Plume,’’ an im- portant fertility goddess. Scholars universally rank Tezcatlipoca among the most powerful gods in the Nahua pantheon, and they show that he signified a series of elements including war and trickery.≤∞ In this incan- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 107 tation, Juan appears to use the highly masculine warrior Tezcatlipoca to defeat the feminine Xochiquetzal. Yet, as the art historian Cecelia Klein first argued, in a talk delivered at Dumbarton Oaks in 1996, Tezcatlipoca was bisexual.≤≤ Elsewhere I have discussed Tezcatlipoca’s bisexuality,≤≥ but here I wish to analyze the god’s origins and rituals as they relate to the theoretical and historical prob- lems linking the changing cultural constructions of sexuality with late preconquest and early colonial memory formation. In an article based on her Dumbarton Oaks talk, Klein expanded on her claim of Tezcatlipoca’s bisexuality. She argued that Nahuas viewed Tez- catlipoca as sexually immature, and that he ‘‘represented the sexual behav- ior that was fundamentally opposite to that of the ideal, married man.’’≤∂ Hence the god’s sexuality signified a world turned upside down, a system unacceptable for the ‘‘ideal’’ man. Further, Tezcatlipoca had an ambiguous gender identity that Nahuas found unacceptable among humans.≤∑ Still, one must wonder about a god who signified such a strong war- rior: could he really have represented in so many of his guises the unac- ceptable? Or could Klein’s notion of the ‘‘ideal, married man’’ still be too wedded to Western concepts of normativity?≤∏ While I agree with Klein that Nahuas viewed Tezcatlipoca’s sexuality as excessive in relation to the quotidian realities of masculine sexual comportment, I argue that his sex- uality signified the necessity of multivalent sexual behaviors in the ritual construction of fertility. Klein’s arguments, like mine, remain counterintuitive for many of those who study Nahua religion. All understand the importance of Tez- catlipoca to the Nahuas, and to many he signifies masculinity, even hyper- masculinity (a point on which both Klein and I would agree).≤π But few will admit to his complex sexuality or his gender ambiguities.≤∫ Nevertheless, building upon Klein, I argue that Tezcatlipoca’s complex sexuality is central not only to his position but also to the ways in which Nahua commoners and nobles imagined him and gave his being cultural value. Even in images of Tezcatlipoca intended to signify and evoke him at his most masculine, we witness great interest on the part of the tlacuilo (painter-writer) in his complex sexual investments. In figure 16 we see Tezcatlipoca decked out in all of his warrior gear.≤Ω The figure con- nects the twenty-day signs with parts of the body of the black Tezcatli- poca. The image also relates the day signs to the magical and curative aspects of his body in its parts.≥≠ Tezcatlipoca here signifies aggressive 108 ≤ CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 16 Tezcatlipoca, ‘‘Smoking Mirror.’’ From Codex Borgia (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1976), 17. warrior masculinity through his possession of many weapons (darts, clubs, arrows, knives) and through the signifiers of death: the skulls of humans and the heads of animals. He will fight off all enemies and defend the community.≥∞ He also signifies phallic sexual prowess through his long loincloth. Yet, emanating from his mouth we find two flower glyphs strung to- gether with an element resembling a Nahua signifier of birth, the umbili- cal cord. These elements suggest that Tezcatlipoca, through his mouth, gives birth to sexual behaviors deemed excessive. Of course, the flower signifies more than excessive sex, and this image has traditionally been interpreted as showing Tezcatlipoca singing, a fact I do not dispute. The art historian Elizabeth Hill Boone, moreover, argues that the flower in this type of divinatory image signifies speech, perhaps through the con- cept of flowery rhetoric.≥≤ I add, however, that in other cases where such flower glyphs are present, the tlacuilo in an explicit fashion recognizes the flower as having some content linked with fertility and/or sex. Fur- ther, the tlacuilo paints song with a different type of glyph, a large and thick scroll (to distinguish the glyph from the speech glyph) in front of the open mouth. Here we fail to see a fully open mouth. Instead, the tlacuilo has left for us a cord emanating out of the mouth. Since Tezcatli- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 109 poca’s tongue gave birth to the flower, his tongue and mouth signify fertility, perhaps through rituals designed to maintain the fertility of humans and the earth. The positioning of sexual excess in Tezcatlipoca’s mouth signifies both his excessive nature, as discussed by Klein, and his link to the feminine. In an image from the same text, Tlazolteotl gives birth to the same glyph (see figure 3, in chapter 2). She, however, gives birth from an umbilical cord between her legs. Tezcatlipoca cannot give birth in a similar man- ner, as his long, heavily decorated loincloth points out. His masculinity thus assured by the loincloth, Tezcatlipoca seemingly vomits up sex and fertility. The mouth here signifies Tezcatlipoca’s erotic orality, but, as we will see, the penetration of the mouth with sexual excess signifies feminine sexuality in preconquest and early colonial imagery. Tezcatlipoca re- mains after the production of this image a central figure in the Nahua pantheon, a powerful god who signifies a masculine ideal. Yet the posi- tion of the flowers emanating from the mouth suggests Tezcatlipoca’s concurrent effeminacy (he gives birth, his sexual behavior is out of con- trol), even as he maintains his masculine prowess through both warfare and the phallus. Tezcatlipoca’s tongue becomes an imagined umbilical cord, the pene- trating body thus penetrating his child, the flower. Moreover, the tongue/ umbilical cord penetrates Tezcatlipoca’s body as well.≥≥ Is Tezcatlipoca really a woman giving birth to a child? Perhaps the tlacuilo plays with a concept in the Nahua imaginary: Tezcatlipoca becomes a fertile being who must play both the masculine and the feminine role, for, as a power- ful deity he must reproduce the cosmos in order to produce ritual. Despite his feminine position here, Tezcatlipoca’s extraordinary phal- lus, his loincloth, ends in a serpent and also doubles itself. The phallus ends with yet another animal, a lizard designed, with circular glyphs inside curved lines representing its legs, to replicate the image of the tongue/umbilical cord. Thus he has two phalluses, and they control the day signs of the lizard and the serpent. Boone, meanwhile, points out that in the corporeal almanacs in which the tlacuilo draws a deer skin, he almost always places the lizard at the phallus and the serpent at the tail.≥∂ As we have seen, the serpent signified the phallus and the fertility of the earth in the Nahua universe. The lizard too was one of the animals of the dirt, and thus of the tlazolli complex. Here, through the flower, the ser- 110 ≤ CHAPTER 4 pent, and the lizard, Tezcatlipoca asserted his dominance (with Tlazol- teotl) over tlazolli. The brief description of Tezcatlipoca in the book of the Florentine Codex that describes the gods presents Tezcatlipoca’s position in the tlazolli complex and attempts to translate him into European ideology: ‘‘Tezcatlipoca: he was considered a true god whose dwelling was every- where—in the land of the dead, on earth, and in the heavens. When he existed on earth, he placed dust and trash in people’s hearts. He intro- duced anguish and affliction.’’≥∑ The dust and trash, teuhtli and tlazolli, specifically signify the tlazolli complex, associated with Tlazolteotl, and Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl were the lords of the tlazolli complex. Thus asserting a heterosexual dyad, one might assume the fundamental nor- mativity of this complex. Yet Tezcatlipoca hardly seems male, and, as we will see, Tlazolteotl hardly seems female. Instead, the two together signify the marriage and marginalia of the tlazolli complex. Tezcatlipoca’s introduction of anguish and affliction also perhaps as- serts him as a type of devil figure, but ‘‘sometimes he bestowed riches: wealth, bravery [oquichyotl], valor, dignity, rulership, nobility, honor.’’≥∏ Perhaps we can suggest that Sahagún’s aides, the trilinguals, greatly de- sired a parallel for the devil and the demons in Catholic thought, but they could not find one without entirely perverting Nahua cosmological vi- sion. Thus they could have found the most likely candidates and empha- sized their demonic qualities in order to assert this sense of syncretism, but they probably also recognized their project was doomed to fail. This same passage in the Florentine Codex also associates Tezcatlipoca directly with masculinity. Oquichyotl, ‘‘bravery,’’ comes from oquichtli, ‘‘man,’’≥π for he can endow people with bravery and manhood. Does that mean that Nahuas considered his feminine characteristics negative? In order to answer this question we must first recognize the nature of the positive/negative binary asserted in this Europeanized narrative. As we noted in regard to the image in figure 16, Tezcatlipoca could not be divided so easily. Further, as the authors of the Florentine Codex discuss Tezcatli- poca in more detail, even their own text breaks down the binary. The extant pre- and postconquest texts show that many Nahua tlacui- los viewed Tezcatlipoca as a god who made humanity wealthy by provid- ing people with crops; but he could also plague humans with disease and poverty. Thus he was ‘‘like the darkness, the wind. When sometimes he called out to one, he spoke like a shadow.’’≥∫ Tezcatlipoca was associ- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 111 ated with the night and the moon, themselves linked with both trickery and femininity;≥Ω with the help of the night and the moon, Tezcatlipoca tricked individuals as he changed genders.∂≠ As we will see, Tezcatlipoca could use both masculine and feminine no- tions of sexuality to control all. An example occurs in a book of prognostica- tions. On a day that he controlled, known as One Death (ce miquiztli), people honored Tezcatlipoca by giving pleasure to their slaves.∂∞ Here one must pay attention to Tezcatlipoca’s alter ego, Titlacauan (which literally translates as ‘‘we are his/her slaves’’).∂≤ On One Death, Titlacauan forces masters to treat their slaves well, and slaves during the day in essence become the masters. This day, then, reverses the social order in a temporary manner, thus befitting a day possessed by Titlacauan. If, however, on this day an individual mistreats his or her slave, Tezcat- lipoca mocks and curses that person, then sacrifices and eats him or her. To prevent such a sacrifice, the person thus threatened calls Tezcatlipoca/ Titlacauan a cuiloni, a word that has been translated as puto, ‘‘faggot,’’∂≥ meaning the male penetrated during sex with another man. The individual uses Tezcatlipoca/Titlacauan’s sexuality as an insult, but Tezcatlipoca does not take this as an insult and simply follows through on his original intent (by sacrificing the individual). Perhaps more important, the narra- tive pursues Titlacauan as the specific attribute of Tezcatlipoca to be criticized as a cuiloni. This suggests not that Tezcatlipoca had a specific sexual identity, but rather that one aspect of him, Titlacauan, the enslaved aspect of Tezcatlipoca, relates to a passive sexual construct linked to sacrificial discourse.∂∂

Toxcatl Following on this observation of the connection between passivity and sacrifice, we can envision Tezcatlipoca’s ritual position as one that desta- bilizes sexuality. While I will treat a wide variety of fertility rituals in the next chapter, here I will discuss in detail Toxcatl, the central ceremony designed for the worship of Tezcatlipoca, and a major rite of warfare.∂∑ For in this ceremony we discover the sexual excess permitted the gods and the gendered ambiguity involved in Tezcatlipoca’s existence. In one image of Toxcatl (figure 17), we find that the tlacuilo who painted the Codex Borbonicus presents Tezcatlipoca at the bottom of the image, showing him in his characteristic stance, embracing his rattle and 112 ≤ CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 17 Toxcatl, a ceremony for warriors. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Aka- demische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 24.

standing across from ritual flute players.∂∏ The individuals at the top of the page are destined for sacrifice. The flute players are described in Nahuatl as tlapixque, a term that comes from the stem pitz, ‘‘to blow on something,’’ also linked with the penis and with sexual activity. The flute was and remains explicitly linked to the phallus in Nahua lore.∂π Does this mean that the tlacuilo painting the Codex Borbonicus imag- ined Toxcatl as a sexual ritual, one that involved oral sex along with a call for warfare and sacrifice? Whether here he engaged in a humorous play on words we will never know, but it seems likely that he did not believe THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 113 that the flute player fellated Tezcatlipoca. On the other hand, Tezcatli- poca’s overtly sexual persona could not have escaped the attention of the tlacuilo. He must have known that the god had a penchant for a wide variety of sexual activities. And he must have known that Nahuas could interpret the image and the words used to describe the image in a sexual manner. Further, one can note that, theoretically, if a Nahua tlacuilo imagined a highly sexual god receiving fellatio from a flute player, he could suggest that such an engagement, if it satisfied the god, likely would result in success in warfare.∂∫ The description of Toxcatl in the Florentine Codex provides more information about Tezcatlipoca’s sexual activity and gendered aesthetic. Klein notes that Tezcatlipoca’s body in the Toxcatl ritual sounds quite androgynous.∂Ω I argue elsewhere that Tezcatlipoca’s body in this ritual signifies both a masculine and a feminine ideal.∑≠ The Florentine Codex images of Toxcatl allow us to witness the Tez- catlipoca ixiptla (the ixiptla, commonly translated as ‘‘impersonator,’’ ob- tains Tezcatlipoca’s name and becomes destined for sacrifice)∑∞ with the headdress, shield, mirror, and smoking cane (another of the markers of Tezcatlipoca’s identity). But the ixiptla is pictured in a type of body suit that covers his genitalia in such a manner that we do not know if the individual even has genitals (figure 18).∑≤ This is an atypical fashion for the illustrators of the codex, and it may be that they intended to dis- tinguish the ixiptla from the other men, who generally wear loincloths, and the women, who generally wear skirts. Unlike the loincloth, which draws our attention to the cloaked phallus, here our attention is focused elsewhere. The Toxcatl ixiptla has no phallus. This lack of a phallus appears to place the ixiptla in a subservient position where we can imagine him penetrated with the sacrificial knife. Of course we cannot analyze Nahua imaginaries with oversimplified psy- choanalytic tools. The phallic lack here signifies not an incomplete sub- ject formation that required correction to make the individual function in society, but rather asserts a ritualistic appreciation of a deified human body that we cannot encapsulate in modern ‘‘scientific’’ knowledge of the body and sexuality. Thus, perhaps this body signifies a divided subject, but one supported in ritual discourse.∑≥ Another image places the ixiptla between the men and the women of Tenochtitlan, who have come to worship him (figure 19).∑∂ This division of men from women, while typical of Nahuas in such a ritual ceremony, 114 ≤ CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 18 The ixiptla (‘‘impersonator’’) of Tezcatlipoca/Titlacauan at the Toxcatl ceremony. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice flo- rentino (Florentine Codex, fascsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 2, f. 30v. also signifies the in-between nature of Tezcatlipoca: neither man nor woman, he brings both together in an effort to support the warriors. This positioning of the ixiptla suggests the ambiguous sexual com- portment and obscure gender of Tezcatlipoca. If this god gives birth to sexual excess, then he would seem to take the female position not just in sexual intercourse, but also in the entire panoply of activities required to give birth to a child.∑∑ At the same time he remains a highly ranked warrior fighting battles; he sustains his position as a masculine man. Again we must consult figure 16, where he possesses a decorated shield, arrows, spears, and several club-like items and the center of his chest is decorated with a flint knife. This figure is far from androgynous, but rather signifies a hypermasculine ideal even while it asserts feminine sexuality. The ritualistic discourse present in the Florentine Codex de- scription of Toxcatl suggests why. The narrative begins with a lengthy discussion of the necessary physi- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 115

FIGURE 19 Ixiptla at the Toxcatl ceremony. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Florentine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 2, f. 30v. cal attributes of the person to be chosen the ixiptla, for he had to be ‘‘good to look at and [have] a good body.’’∑∏ Importantly in a heteroformative matrix,∑π women should not make fun of him: ‘‘To anyone who was formed defectively, who was too tall, the women said to him, ‘Tall one, head-nodder, handful of stars.’ He who was chosen ixiptla was without defects.’’∑∫ The long discussion of this person’s looks then begins by going over every part of the individual’s body, suggesting that his looks were most important. It seems that perfection and moderation are the most central operating principles here.∑Ω The narrative continually reiterates that the body must have no defects. Further, the text constantly repeats an argument in which the body is not too much of either one or the other (i.e., tall or short), suggesting that the Nahuas valued a body that was in between.∏≠ Further, the process continues with the commoners treating the ixiptla well because he is seen as Titlacauan, the slave persona of Tezcatlipoca: 116 ≤ CHAPTER 4

‘‘Care was taken that he would be prudent in his speech; that he would talk graciously, converse well, and greet people agreeably on the road. For he was much honored when he appeared as the ixiptla because he was the ixiptla Titlacauan. He was acknowledged as our lord, treated like a lord; one begged favors with sighs. Before him the commoners bowed in rever- ence and kissed the earth.’’∏∞ This self-presentation connected with the commoner desire (as presented in the narrative; of course we have no idea if commoners really desired such a thing) to relate to a great lord and god. Since he was Titlacauan, the commoners had reason to believe that he would treat them well.∏≤ Thus one can suggest that the ixiptla’s presenta- tion to the commoners suggested to them that the nobles had their interests at heart, and that the Mexica rulers would provide them with an opportunity to get their wishes fulfilled through Tezcatlipoca/Titlacauan. But his body was not the only element of importance to our narrators. Rather, his intelligence, oral presentation, and skills also were vital. He could not speak a ‘‘barbarous language’’ or with a ‘‘lisp.’’ And he had to be able to play a flute well.∏≥ For, ‘‘with [the flute] he held his flowers and his smoking cane, and [he would] blow and suck on [the flute], and smell [the flowers].’’∏∂ The acts of blowing on the flute and smelling the flowers signify Tezcatlipoca’s sexual nature. We have seen that Tezcatlipoca, through his mouth, gives birth to the flower as a symbol of the sexual. The ixiptla smelling his flower similarly suggests he gives birth to sexual elements in society. And we have noted that the flute, as a phallic signifier, becomes a central element in Toxcatl. Here, as the ixiptla goes about the community blowing and sucking on the flute, one can suggest a sexual component to the act. The authors want the people to desire the perfection of the ixiptla’s body, and they continue this theme by showing that the Mexica leader will worship the ixiptla as he adorns his body with many costly articles, including ‘‘sweet-smelling flowers on his head, a crown of flowers. And these were hung over both his shoulders, as far down as the armpits. This was called the flowery garment.’’∏∑ Such a garment (figure 20) continues to signify the erotic nature of the ixiptla’s body, and also suggests his sexual availability.∏∏ We see in the image that the ixiptla in this garment remains phallus-free and appears to wear a headdress and earplugs asso- ciated with women. He moreover stands before the king, ready to serve him. The flowered garment, signifying feminine sexuality, re-presents our ixiptla as a sexual being.∏π Still, the garment was not intended to THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 117

FIGURE 20 Ixiptla at the Toxcatl ceremony. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Florentine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 2, f. 32r. suggest to people that the ixiptla himself was sexually available (a ridicu- lous concept under the circumstances for, as we shall see, his body was reserved for a select few). Rather, it was intended to show that he pro- moted the community’s sexual availability. The Mexica leader also provided the ixiptla with an extremely long, precious loincloth (ytlaçomaxtli). This loincloth suggests the ixiptla’s great masculinity, yet it also contradicts the pictures we have seen. In- deed, we never see the ixiptla fully adorned in all of his regalia. And we note that even as he is in the community, worshiped by men and women (separated from each other), he has his regalia, but without the loincloth: in the image where we witness the Mexica leader regaling the ixiptla, we see the flowered headdress and a great staff, but no loincloth appears. As the narrative moves along, though, the ixiptla’s masculine sexuality becomes rearticulated as that of a polygamous lord seeking to make the earth and humanity fertile. Some time before the Toxcatl ceremony, his 118 ≤ CHAPTER 4 captors married him off: ‘‘Just twenty days he lived, lying with and mar- ried to the women. He lived with four women. . . . The first one was named Xochiquetzal, the second Xilonen, the third Atlatonan, the fourth Uixtocihuatl.’’∏∫ The four women are key fertility goddesses and impor- tant elements to Nahua survival: weaving, maize, water, and salt. Here Tezcatlipoca asserts the presence of the fertile man, and he and the goddesses will assure the continuity of the world. He maintains his mas- culine persona during this period through his performance of sexual activity with the women. Additionally, one may note that during the same period, ‘‘his hair was shorn; he was given a tuft of hair tied upon his forehead, like that of a war captain.’’∏Ω He became a leader of warriors and a man who has sex with women in order to produce offspring. But soon he will die. On his way to his execution, he ascends a pyra- mid, and there he ‘‘shatters his flute [itlapitzal], his whistle [jvilaca- pitz].’’π≠ As Klein notes, one should not underestimate the significance of the shattered flutes here.π∞ Further, as we have seen, the flute signifies the phallus, and its root, pitz, has sexual significance. The term relates to huffing and puffing on something, blowing something, playing an instru- ment. At the same time, pitz relates closely to pitzahtzi, ‘‘to speak in a high voice,’’ which is presented elsewhere as ‘‘to sing in falsetto,’’ or to ‘‘speak like a woman.’’π≤ The trampling of the flutes suggests a type of phallic divestiture that moves the ritual forward. Thus this ritual begins with an attempt at asserting the beauty of the ixiptla. He becomes beautiful through, among other things, his flowery garment. He signifies a certain feminine sexual allure, always partly contradicted by his masculine corporeal self.π≥ The tlacuilo, however, resolves this contradiction through the explicit use of heterosexual intercourse, and the ixiptla is made into a man through the cutting of his hair in the style of a warrior (and possibly through his presentation of a highly phallic decorated loincloth). But then, as the image (figure 21) from the Florentine Codex shows us, the ixiptla crushes his own flute.π∂ In the end he divests himself of his masculinity (note his active engagement in this penultimate process, contrasted with his pas- sivity in much of the rest), just before the priests will penetrate his chest with their knives, thus destroying the masculine self entirely.π∑ But we cannot end the story here because the feminine gender presen- tation, contradicted by the masculine (heterosexuality?), finally destroyed by the priest’s knife, does not tell us the whole story of the ritual or of the THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 119

FIGURE 21 The conclusion of the Toxcatl ceremony. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Florentine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 2, f. 30v. god. For Toxcatl links also to the powerful war god Huitzilopochtli. We discover at the end of this chapter of the Florentine Codex that another man had lived the entire year with the Tezcatlipoca ixiptla. This man appears to have been an ixiptla of Huitzilopochtli.π∏ Klein suggests a sexual relationship between the two men, an interpretation that seems entirely plausible.ππ This other ixiptla, of Huitzilopochtli, becomes the central focus in the Florentine Codex description at the end of the chapter on Toxcatl. The warriors, in the ritual intended to show their adherence to Huitzilo- pochtli, danced a seductive ‘‘serpent dance.’’ In this dance, the warriors ‘‘moved back and forth, and from side to side, and met each other face to face. They held each other’s hands as they danced.’’π∫ In most other Nahua narratives, such dance moves signified feminine sexuality.πΩ Now women join the dance: ‘‘And a number of young women danced, having so vowed, a popcorn dance. Their popcorn garlands were as thick as tassels 120 ≤ CHAPTER 4 of maize. And these they placed upon their heads. And they were painted; down to the thighs they were bedecked with feathers.’’∫≠ These women danced much like the warriors and they were decorated in ways similar to the ixiptla. Further, as they were guarded, they could not have sex with anyone: ‘‘If anyone was seen seducing [one of the dancers], then the masters of the youth threw [the seducer] to the ground. They dragged, stepped on and trampled [the individual] as he/she lay stretched out.’’∫∞ While the dance suggests seduction, any person who took this to the next level and seduced another faced a severe punishment for violating the ritual space. The Huitzilopochtli ixiptla led the dance in the end, just before he too was killed. The narrative notes that during this dance ‘‘his headdress hung in disarray.’’∫≤ The sign of feminine promiscuity was often hair in disarray, so one can suggest that the headdress hung in disarray here reflects an allusion to the feminine sexual activity and promiscuity of this individual.∫≥ In the end he is killed and his head is hung on the skull rack next to the head of the other ixiptla. Toxcatl intends to signify fertility, sexual activity, and warrior status. Nahuas believed that, in order to make Toxcatl successful (and thus to succeed in warfare), they needed to assert both masculine and feminine sexuality, and they needed to engage in ritualized seduction. Such ritu- alized seduction, though, must never become earthly seduction, as this would violate the cosmological importance of the event.

Tezcatlipoca, You Devil The Toxcatl ceremony existed in the manner described above at the time of the Spanish conquest, but the presence of Spaniards would forever alter Tezcatlipoca’s presence. At the time the Spaniards arrived, Tezcatli- poca was first and foremost the primary god of the city-state of Tex- coco, the most powerful ally of the Mexica (hence the Tezcatlipoca/ Huitzilopochtli ritual connection).∫∂ As a supreme Nahua deity, and according to some sources, the highest-level Nahua god,∫∑ Tezcatlipoca would seem at first a god of the nobles. But, as we have seen, in his Titlacauan persona, Tezcatlipoca represented those who had little. Still, the carnivalesque nature of the worship of Titlacauan suggests that the nobles used his image to maintain and reinforce a social hierarchy.∫∏ And Tezcatlipoca’s position in the commoner imaginary was much more THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 121 complex than this, since commoners continued to call upon him long after the dissolution of the Aztec Empire. The text underneath one image of Tezcatlipoca that we viewed in chapter 2 (figure 12) reads ‘‘the devil as he deceived Eve before she sinned.’’∫π As noted earlier, this text, produced in the 1550s, signifies a hy- brid, a mixture of Nahua and Spanish forms; here we can note that the Dominicans who produced the final text believed Tezcatlipoca an equiv- alent for the devil himself.∫∫ As we work to identify the way that commoners would have read and understood such a text (or similar ones passed around Nahua commu- nities), we must more closely analyze the image and place it in the context of other similar pictures from the same document. In addition to the limited Spanish text, we see a figure with various Tezcatlipoca insignia (the headdress, face paint, and disc on his chest). Because he became an animal at will, his presence in animal guise signified a traditional relation- ship for the god. His disguise both shows his ability as a trickster god and relates him to the human warrior wearing animal skin.∫Ω Perhaps most important here, the text pictures Tezcatlipoca opposite Xochiquetzal. As the tlacuilo arranges the codex in couplets, he viewed Tezcatlipoca as Xochiquetzal’s partner.Ω≠ In the image of Xochiquetzal (figure 22),Ω∞ three animals emanate from beneath her: a snake, a centi- pede, and an unknown feline. The snake and centipede, most often asso- ciated with Tlazolteotl, signified sexual excess.Ω≤ As animals of the dirt, they formed part of the tlazolli complex, the snake associated with the phallus and the earth, and the centipede associated also with the earth and with women who have died in childbirth. The batten Xochiquetzal holds signifies her role as a goddess of weaving, and that plus her head- dress and facial paint would identify her to any Nahua familiar with her images. The Spanish text notes that Xochiquetzal was the wife of Centeotl (the god of maize) and that she represented the sin of the first woman (thus signifying her as Eve). Another Spanish writer associates Xochiquetzal with demons that descended from the heavens. Nahuas had connected Xochiquetzal with the dangerous cihuateteo, women who died during childbirth and who were reputed to roam the earth, seeking children.Ω≥ This understanding of cihuateteo was well known to Nahua commoners through the mid-seventeenth century and is still commonplace in Nahua communities today.Ω∂ We know from a 122 ≤ CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 22 Xochiquetzal, ‘‘Flower Plume,’’ a Nahua goddess. From Codex Telleriano- Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (with facsimile of Codex Telleriano Remen- sis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Austin: Univer- sity of Texas Press, 1995), f. 22v.

wide variety of texts that Nahuas viewed cihuateteo as dangerous war- riors. And indeed this suggests the importance of the connection be- tween Tezcatlipoca and Xochiquetzal as well as something of Tezcatli- poca’s gender ambiguity. He signified a woman giving birth to a child at least partly because Nahua mythology represented the woman in child- birth as a warrior; in this, she is a reverse image of Tezcatlipoca, the warrior god who became a woman giving birth to a child. I also note the awesome power of cihuateteo in warfare. For, when a woman died in childbirth, her body was believed to confer great strength on warriors, such that the midwives would try to protect the woman’s body. When the entourage carried the body away, warriors attacked them, and the midwives protected themselves and the dead woman with shields. The warriors sought to break off the middle finger or a lock of hair from the dead woman. If successful they would insert the hair or finger into their shields to make them fiercer in war.Ω∑ Further, we may note at least one key similarity between the image of THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 123

Tezcatlipoca and preconquest images of cihuateteo (see figures 2 and 23):Ω∏ cihuateteo too have sexual excess emanating from their mouths. As I noted earlier, Nahua thought promoted a discourse that equated much feminine sexuality with excess. Cihuateteo, key feared signifiers of this excess, promoted the same erotic orality as we witnessed in Tezcatlipoca. In figure 2, we see that the cihuateotl has a centipede coming out of her mouth; in figure 23, we see a serpentine figure emanating from the mouth. In each case, the elements signify sexual excess, both through the figures coming out of the mouths and through the exposed breasts of the cihuateteo. We further witness that the cihuateteo wear both skirts and loincloths. The eyes hanging from their sockets, and the skirt in figure 23 (with the crossbones) intend to signify the appropriate fear that the popu- lation would have for these individuals. In another image from the same text (figure 24), the cihuateotl had backward-pointing feet, signifying her as a figure walking backward, thus representing disorder.Ωπ Tzitzimime (singular, tzitzimitl), death figures and underworld deities, also related closely to both the cihuateteo and to the gender ambiguities present in Tezcatlipoca. As we can see in figure 25, from the Codex Magliabechiano, a snake appears to emanate from beneath the tzitzimitl. The cognate image from the Codex Tudela contains no snake; instead, blood comes from the tzitzimitl’s open mouth, pouring down the front of the image, ending in an arrow-like point between the figure’s legs.Ω∫ The blood signifies the tzitzimitl’s power, which stemmed from the figure’s ability to get Nahuas to engage in sacrifice. The blood moving from the open mouth, between the legs, to the ground, replicates the position- ing of the tongue, liver, and snake on the body of the Magliabechiano tzitzimitl. Tzitzimime are most often characterized as male. But to characterize them as simply male mistakes a colonialist reinscription for preconquest reality. The Spanish text describing this figure in the Codex Magliabechi- ano says that the tzitzimitl is a ‘‘dead man.’’ΩΩ Yet we see that he wears a huipil, the top worn by Nahua women. His huipil covers his bony body, but the snake emanates prominently from beneath him to show his phallic power, just as he wears a necklace of hearts (with a liver in the center) to show his ability to get people to engage in sacrifice for him. In addition to the huipil, tzitizmime wore skirts laced on the bottom with shells: the cognate image that has the blood emanating from the open mouth also has a red back panel laced with shells at the bottom.∞≠≠ Nahua women wore FIGURE 23 The cihuateotl, a woman who died during childbirth. From Codex Vaticanus B (Codex Vaticanus 3773, facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Aka- demische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt, 1972), 78.

FIGURE 24 The cihuateotl with back- ward-facing feet. From Codex Vati- canus B (Codex Vaticanus 3773, fac- simile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972), 79.

FIGURE 25 The tzitzimitl, a Nahua death figure. From The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (Codex Magliabechiano, facsimile), ed. Zelia Nuttall (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1903), 153. THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 125 both the skirt and the back panel, and the lacing and shells are reminis- cent of the goddess Cihuacoatl’s costume.∞≠∞ Why then would their mas- culine characteristics prevail in the Spanish characterization of them? To begin with, tzitzimime have attributes that Spaniards, particularly Catholic clerics, could see as demonic. According to a wide variety of sources, Nahuas feared tzitzimime like they feared cihuateteo.∞≠≤ Tzitzi- mime and cihuateteo would come from the underworld and lurk in the forests, waiting to steal hearts. Only sufficient sacrifice could satisfy them. These fearful (highly masculine?) figures thus signified the draw of the underworld, and hence could be coded as demonic figures in the Nahua world and identified with the (male) figure of the devil in the Christian imaginary.∞≠≥ A few early colonial documents describe the tzit- zimime as female, but the texts that declare them male, as Klein notes, appear to actively and consciously seek to alter the identity of the tzitzi- mime to make them demonic: because the devil is male, tzitzimime be- came male.∞≠∂ In Nahua cosmology, tzitzimime signified neither as male nor as purely evil; they could help one with cures just as easily as they could kill an individual. But they nevertheless became both male and demonic, at least in the Hispanic mind, during the early colonial period. First, as underworld gods who created mischief for people on earth, in the imaginations of the Catholic priests, it made great sense to categorize them as types of demons, ignoring the fact that Nahuas did not view them as universally evil. Second, as deities pictured with properties presumed phallic, the Spaniards could easily categorize them as male, ignoring sartorial codes that would problematize such a gender categorization. These two rationales, though, suggest more of an unconscious process at work than the conscious recategorization process promoted in some of the secondary literature: it was not so much that the priests made an effort to recategorize these individuals to fit into their agendas; rather, they witnessed images that they automatically coded as demonic male figures, and they acted accordingly. The cihuateteo and tzitzimime also signified excess and disarray. Thus the Spanish text describing Xochiquetzal (as pictured in figure 22 and discussed above) promotes a traditional Nahua ritual discourse, associat- ing excess with death, signified by the combined images of Tezcatlipoca, Xochiquetzal, the cihuateteo, and the tzitzimime. The Spanish text re- produces the tlazolli complex. Despite this conjunction, we also must note the differences between 126 ≤ CHAPTER 4

Spanish text and Nahua image. In the image we see a series of parallels familiar to the Nahua commoner: Tezcatlipoca connects with Xochi- quetzal, a sexualized fertility goddess; he plays a trickster role and is cos- tumed as an animal. This is a more complex characterization than the Spanish text gives us, with its simplistic identification of the god with tlazolli. Would the commoner, though, have understood the ideas behind the Spanish text, even if she or he could not read it? There existed by the 1550s, after all, a series of people, including family members of com- moners, who were acculturated and who understood a great deal about Catholic ritual and ideas. These people would have contact with their family members, and they likely would express their religious ideas to them. We can only answer these questions by noting particular changes that took place in the documents between the mid-sixteenth and the mid- seventeenth centuries. Thus, in the earliest postconquest Codex Bor- bonicus we find a fuller picture of the ritual circuit and the broader cosmology. In the image of Xochiquetzal (figure 26), we find that Tezcat- lipoca has no apparent role, although it seems likely that the tlacuilo understood that the animal across from Xochiquetzal represented Tez- catlipoca. In the earlier period of the Borbonicus, we witness the sexual innuendo present in Xochiqueztal’s persona, as she has both a snake and a centipede emanating from below her. We also see several phallic images below her and others extending from her mouth (or behind her face).∞≠∑ Idolatry investigations in the seventeenth century, which primarily evoked the somewhat obscured views of Nahua commoners, retained a prominent role for Tezcatlipoca and Xochiquetzal.∞≠∏ Returning to the discussion on an incantation to be used when fighting, from Ruiz de Alarcón’s treatise (see the section ‘‘Pleasuring Your Sister,’’ above), we find the god Yaotl, an embodiment of Tezcatlipoca, on prominent display. He protects Juan Vernal, Ruiz’s informant, from assault as Juan asserts the connection between (sexual) pleasure and (warrior) violence. In that text, even though Tezcatlipoca/Yaotl could no longer participate actively in warfare, Juan himself remained a warrior. And Juan still could connect Xochiquetzal with pleasure, though only in a way that taunted his at- tackers. Moreover, despite the fact that Nahuas at this point partially connected sex with Catholic notions of sin, Juan asserted the connection between these gods and an implicitly sexual pleasure. In other texts within Ruiz de Alarcón’s treatise, the storytellers ex- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 127

FIGURE 26 Xochiquetzal. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 17. plicitly assert the connections between the gods and sexual acts and imaginations. Thus, in one story, Yaotl unsuccessfully attempts to pre- vent a man from engaging in sexual activity with Xochiquetzal.∞≠π In another incantation, for beekeepers to get their bees to make honey, Yaotl (also called Titlacauan) declares that the bees may seduce his wife (Xochiquetzal).∞≠∫ With such a statement, Yaotl gets the bees to produce more honey. In one of the most explicit incantations in the text, Yaotl engages in an incantation to make Xochiquetzal fall asleep. Then he kidnaps and seduces her: ‘‘When I turn her [Xochiquetzal] in the four directions, she will not know it. I am the one who is Yaotl; I am the one who is Moquehqueloatzin. Therefore I will soon give her pleasure and I will change them [her guards] into dead people. I am Yaotl; I am Moqueh- queloatzin. I will soon give it to them so that they become drunk in the night.’’∞≠Ω As Yaotl pleasures Xochiquetzal, he first puts her into a trance- like state; then he has sex with her. Yaotl/Tezcatlipoca engages in sexual 128 ≤ CHAPTER 4 acts with women by tricking and seducing them, or by putting them into trances. He engages in sexual activity that Nahuas on other occasions would have viewed as excessive. In order to do this, Yaotl necessarily takes Xochiquetzal away from her guards/family members, brings her to the center of the earth, turns her in the four directions (thus confusing her), and finally pleasures her (ahuiltiz). The Nahuas of the 1620s in this text did not equate sex with sin, and they asserted the power of the Tezcatlipoca/Xochiquetzal dyadic rela- tionship to promote sexual activity. Thus, while Tezcatlipoca could no longer evoke the warrior/seducer/trickster status that he once had, he continued, in the imaginary frameworks of many Nahua commoners, to promote a sexual discourse outside of Catholicism. Did Tezcatlipoca, then, become the devil who seduced Eve? And did the many serpents in the Nahua texts become the single serpent from the Garden of Eden? In the discourse promoted by the Catholic Church and accepted by many more acculturated Nahuas, particularly of the nobility, the answer is yes. To many others, however, Tezcatlipoca remained ensconced in a tradi- tional ritual discourse where he promised sexual pleasure. Tezcatlipoca, both in and outside of Toxcatl, both before and after the conquest, existed as a complex figure that moved beyond both Span- ish conceptions of gender and Catholic moral frameworks in which sex equaled sin: Nahuas imagined him as a woman giving birth (just as they imagined the woman as a warrior), a man playing a masculine role, a trickster disappearing into the smoky mirror to alter his body into a body that appeared feminine, and a masculine warrior figure; he promoted sexual trickery and seduction, engaged in sexual activity as a woman and as a man, and seduced and even raped Xochiquetzal. This imaginary framework confounds contemporary analysts perhaps even more than it disturbed Spanish priests. Such deified sexuality shows us that the phallic warrior god can be a goddess too and a woman giving birth.

Tlazolli, Warfare, and the Gender Question But did this work the other way around? Could a goddess have qualities that the Nahuas considered masculine? Could a goddess attain status in warfare? We have already noted that Tlazolteotl gained such status at times. Elsewhere I have commented on the role of Cihuacoatl as a warrior goddess.∞∞≠ Here I will show that a wide variety of fertility goddesses con- THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 129 tained within their beings and aesthetic presentations qualities that the Nahuas considered masculine. Moreover, I will argue that only through a gendered and sexualized analysis can we begin to understand that the position of the Nahua goddesses—perhaps not god-dess-es at all—points to the absolute limits of modern Western conceptualizations of gender and sexuality, and the key problematic of grammar in our attempts at providing an analysis of Nahua culture. Take the example of the goddess of water and floods, Chalchiuhtlicue. In the Codex Tonalamatl Aubin we find an extraordinary and obscure image that signifies the relationship of Chalchiuhtlicue and Tlazolteotl with tlazolli (figure 27). There we see Chalchiuhtlicue with Tlazolteotl’s head emanating from between her legs like an outstretched penis. The image may represent Chalchiuhtlicue giving birth to Tlazolteotl, but at the same time, the goddess of tlazolli’s long neck has become Chal- chiuhtlicue’s phallus. In Chalchiuhtlicue’s more standard image, like that of the Codex Borbonicus (figure 28), we see her unleashing the floods from beneath her throne, and we witness people caught in the torrents of water.∞∞∞ Her nose ornament serves to present her as a fertility goddess, and one of the images across from her is Tlazolteotl’s headdress.∞∞≤ Here the people caught in the stream may be a man and a woman sacrificed to the goddess, although they may also symbolize men and women born to the cleansing effects of Chalchiuhtlicue’s water.∞∞≥ (When midwives bathed newborns, they would call upon Chalchiuhtlicue.) Chalchiuhtlicue controls the water and bathes the newborn child, ridding her/him of dirt. The important ceremony, bringing the child into the world, was partially controlled by this goddess, and, by implication, by Tlazolteotl as well. The two were paired, as the art historian Eloise Quiñones-Keber maintains, because of the association between dirt and cleanliness. Tlazolteotl’s ‘‘dual association with generation and filth is recognized; the latter is part of her name. . . . Thus the pairing of Tlaztol- teotl and Chalchiuhtlicue . . . may have been intended for contrasting purposes, one representing filth, the other the cleansing with water that followed birth.’’∞∞∂ While Quiñones-Keber places too much emphasis on these two as individual goddesses rather than as complements to each other, I agree on the necessity of both in Nahua thought for the mainte- nance of fertility. Perhaps the tlacuilo who authored the Codex Tonalamatl Aubin saw Tlazolteotl as a masculine type of figure, relating to Chalchiuhtlicue’s FIGURE 27 Chalchiuhtlicue, ‘‘Jade Skirt,’’ a goddess of floods. From Tonalamatl of Aubin (Codex Tonalamatl Aubin, facsimile), ed. Eduard Seler (Berlin: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1900–1901), 5.

FIGURE 28 Chalchiuhtlicue. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 3. THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 131 femininity. Yet, while Chalchiuhtlicue, ‘‘Jade Skirt,’’ appears to signify as female, we have seen throughout this chapter that the gods and god- desses could hardly be contained within a single gender. (Chalchiuhtlicue seems to have a penis, and other images relate her to warfare; she sym- bolized both the destruction of the flood and the creation of birth.)∞∞∑ Further, the gender of Tlazolteotl becomes extraordinarily complex, and we must continue to question whether she can possibly be a goddess as opposed to a god. The penile image, associating not the symbolism of the phallus (through the loincloth) but rather the physiological male member, seems entirely unique in the Nahua corpus. Perhaps the tlacuilo intended Tlazolteotl as penis to signify the fertility of both goddesses. In the images in the water in figures 27 and 28, we witness the male and the female figures, both clothed (the male figure appears to wear only a loincloth). The use of Tlazolteotl could suggest two elements: first, the use of dirt and water in the washing away of the trash of the newborn child; second, the male and female principles involved in creation. But we cannot maintain Tlazol- teotl as male. Indeed, Tlazolteotl’s headdress in figure 28 likely signifies offerings to the deity as goddess in order to protect children in the birth- ing process. Codex Vaticanus B presents Tlazolteotl as a goddess of excess part- nered with a god, similarly related to excess (figure 29).∞∞∏ In chapter 2 (figure 3), I discussed Tlazolteotl’s part of the cognate image in the Codex Borgia; here we may add that the god below, like Tlazolteotl, has a flower emanating from him, perhaps through an umbilical cord. He also has a cord ending in a skull coming out of his anus. The figures together signify the panoply of sexual excesses committed by the gods. These deities existed to promote excess through tlazolli, and the Nahua pantheon re- quired them to engage in activities that the spiritual leaders of Nahua society would have viewed as excessive for men and women. In figure 29 Tlazolteotl signifies feminine sexuality, while in figure 27 she signifies the phallus and is presented as Chalchiuhtlicue’s penis. Her gender thus seems far from clear, and we can suggest that perhaps it was the Nahua notion of tlazolli that allowed the goddess to supersede all gendered categories: she could signify all excess, whether Nahua society would define that excess as masculine phallic tlazolli or tlazolli emanating from feminine sexuality. In the seventeenth century, such a complex gendered configuration 132 ≤ CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 29 Deities of sexual excess. From Codex Vaticanus B (Codex Vaticanus 3773, fac- simile) (Graz, Aus- tria: Akademische Druck- und Verlags- anstalt, 1972), 74. remained, at least among Nahua commoners. Perhaps the tlazolli com- plex even expanded during the colonial years, taking on different mean- ings. In Ruiz de Alarcón’s treatise of 1629, we find several incantations that invoked Tlazolteotl and closely related goddesses. In one, the Nahua informant discussed a cure that he called tetlazolaltiloni, ‘‘bathing some- one regarding tlazolli.’’∞∞π Of course the washing away of the trash would require water, so the shaman called upon a series of goddesses, including Chalchiuhtlicue. These goddesses signified fire, water, and incense. Then he called upon the Tlazolteteoh, the goddesses of tlazolli.∞∞∫ These to- gether formed the cure for an illness caused by tlazolli and by what the Nahuas deemed ‘‘excess.’’ The being that created the disease was coded specifically as female, whereas the disease itself had no specific gendered markers, and the ill person could be either male or female. The curer, either male or female, led the diseased person to the steam bath, where she or he cured that person. Only through the careful invocation of both THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 133

Chalchiuhtlicue and Tlazolteotl would the sick individual become cured. Thus, these goddesses, through the invocation of the tlazolli complex, could cure disease and save humanity—or they could kill people. In the case of the ritual purification involved in the steam bath, the wa- ter washed away the trash, but only as the trash goddess helped the water goddess. The two together signified tlazolli and curing. Chalchiuhtlicue required Tlazolteotl in order to help, in order to cure the individual. Tlazolteotl remained Chalchiuhtlicue’s phallus even in the 1620s, but here she has become the phallus in the symbolic register in which Tlazol- teotl combined male and female power. In other words, here the phallus becomes not a physiological manifestation of the male body, but rather a symbolic presentation of the power of tlazolli, a power that exceeded the categories of gender and sexuality. Tlazolteotl ‘‘played’’ with concepts of sexual excess and the human body while also asserting the coming together of genders. Thus we wit- nessed, in figure 4 (chapter 2), Tlazolteotl’s exposed breasts, signifying the sexed female body, while other elements signify a coming together of two genders and a phallic symbolism. We see that Tlazolteotl wears a skirt, a feminine cueitl, but even on the skirt we note that bones signify her role in sacrifice. Sacrifices were largely considered a masculine ritual sphere, but many sacrifices occur for the goddesses; so, even though male priests and victims dominate most of the ceremonies from the vantage points of the viewers, the goddesses play a major role. Further, the cihua- teteo also commonly wore such skirts.∞∞Ω More centrally, emanating from beneath Tlazolteotl’s skirt, we find a loincloth, a seemingly exclusive signifier of the male body, intended to evoke the male member. As we rarely see penises in any Nahua texts, we may infer that the author intends the loincloth to evoke the penis, to suggest its presence without directly showing it. The loincloth is thus a signifier without a signified. The signifier (loincloth) is a creative applica- tion of the signified (phallus) that does not exist in any place but the symbolic sphere.∞≤≠ Thus, while a Nahua individual can imagine the pos- sibility of a penis beneath Tlazolteotl’s loincloth, just as that individual can imagine the possibility of a penis beneath the man’s loincloth, in both cases the Nahua cultural and linguistic frames intend the loincloth not to assert such an imaginary, but rather to leave a symbolic imprint that relates to the power and prestige of the individual wearing the loincloth. The tlacuilo does not intend to make the Nahua commoner believe that 134 ≤ CHAPTER 4

Tlazolteotl’s loincloth hides her penis. Rather, these authorial voices in- tend the loincloth to evoke a certain sense of awe at the power (encoded as phallic) of the individual thus portrayed. Despite these male attributes, Tlazolteotl cannot be coded as male, either in her images or in the 1629 text. She gives birth to children, and she signifies a feminine sexuality that seems at one moment out of con- trol and at another moment not only in control but also leading to the continuation of society. An image from the Codex Laud (figure 30) has Tlazolteotl in much of her traditional costume and headdress.∞≤∞ Here she holds cotton-spinning implements in one hand and sacrificial imple- ments in the other. She wears a cueitl, but instead of the loincloth she has a serpent emanating from beneath her skirt. The serpent’s head en- closes the head of a man also seen on the other side of the image. The man wears the mask of Ehecatl, the god of wind; his head connects with a body that seems to disappear into a glyph that contains some serpent-like creatures; he points a (beckoning? accusatory?) finger at Tlazolteotl. All the while, underneath the man, we see an unusual image of a naked woman in a squatting (childbirth?) position. This woman has many of the features of Tlazolteotl, but she lacks the facial paint and the identify- ing markers associated with spinning cotton. The woman connects with Tlazolteotl, who herself connects with the phallic figure, the god of wind. All together, they signify a coherent, if excessive, unity. Tlazolteotl be- comes at once a phallic aggressor (using Ehecatl to have sex with the woman?) and a goddess engaged in feminine sexuality (being the woman, having sex with Ehecatl?). Here again Tlazolteotl signifies what her name points out: her excess, her tlazolli, supersedes any attempt to provide her with a category that makes her fit one gender or another. When a goddess has a phallus, does she remain a goddess? Or, does she become a man? In essence here, I ask in what ways gender matters. Does performing a gendered analysis of history obscure some of the degendering and regendering taking place in the case of the gods?∞≤≤ Do the grammatical markers of the English and Spanish languages force us to place Tlazolteotl, Tezcatlipoca, and the others into categories that Nahuatl, which does not contain such grammatical markers, would not have done? As Chalchiuhtlicue has the identity of the ‘‘precious jade skirt,’’ and the skirt in Nahua discourse signifies female, she appears to remain a god- dess.∞≤≥ But what could it mean for a goddess, clearly coded female and THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 135

FIGURE 30 Tlazolteotl. From Codex Laud (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1966), 39. feminine by both the jade and the skirt, to have a phallus? Could a Nahua woman have had a phallus? This Lacanian question leads us back to the rationale behind the Freudian use of the term ‘‘phallus’’ instead of ‘‘penis.’’ It suggests that Nahuas before and after the conquest understood phallic notions in symbolic terms. In other words, if a goddess is a warrior, and a warrior was required to have a phallus, then a goddess had a phal- lus. Thus the Lacanian notion of the phallus as sexual signifier appears problematic.∞≤∂ The question of whether Nahua women had symbolic phalluses also may in some senses be misplaced. We have found few images of Nahua women with loincloths or other phallic signifiers. The portrayal of god- desses with loincloths, snakes, and other phallic signifiers appears not to have extended to human women.∞≤∑ And this is precisely the point. The gods existed as assemblages of parts that they (the gods, the priests, the ixiptlas) could place on or take off the body at will. In ritual performances, the practitioners, mimicking the gods, were required to do much of the same. In changing their sym- bolic skins, the gods and ritual performers altered their presentations of self, and in doing so they enhanced the community’s ability to alter existence. For Tlazolteotl, her character as a goddess stems from her excessive activity, seemingly in both the masculine and feminine sexual spheres. Her phallus, whether as a snake or as a loincloth, never entirely obscures 136 ≤ CHAPTER 4 her skirt. For Tlazolteotl to engage in excessive behavior, Nahua culture and aesthetics require both. Tlazolteotl’s sexual excess, a central part of her character, points to her position as a gender-indeterminate deity. With her secondary sexual characteristics often shown, we must categorize her as a goddess. Yet, as I have argued, she occupies the linguistically (in English) impossible posi- tion of one who signified, through symbolic structures and sexual ex- cesses, the power of tlazolli to exceed gender.

Remembering the Fertile War I have not discussed real-life warfare or warriors. Nor have I discussed the actual birth of children or the positions of mothers in society. I have avoided such topics to make the analysis more clear: I use the concept of the fertile warrior to understand the fundamental break that we need to make from Western binary conceptions of gender and sexuality in order to understand the relationships that Nahuas had with their gods. Nahuas largely viewed war in material terms, but they also asserted that warfare contained a spiritual aspect in which they linked masculine and feminine excess closely with the warrior and the warrior gods.∞≤∏ And fertility became the central goal of all ritual activity. We already have noted that the assemblages of characteristics pre- sented in the deities were not available to people during their quotidian existence. While, as we will see in the next chapter, priests, warriors, individuals destined for sacrifice, and other ceremonial practitioners had their presentations of self altered during ritual, even they could not change their genders or engage in excessive sexual activity when they went about the rest of their lives. The defined assemblages, though, al- lowed Nahua culture to present complex phenomena that moved beyond earthly realities and instead enacted an aesthetic of excess, the tlazolli complex. As we have seen, if we link the concept of the masculine warrior with a lack of feminine aesthetic presentation, then we have entirely missed the ritual presentation of Tezcatlipoca. In the imaginations of the tlacuilos producing the texts, Tezcatlipoca closely parallels the cihuateteo and other feminine beings. His sexual connections too appear to link him with the feminine, at least in preconquest Nahua thought. And when Nahuas invoke Xochiquetzal and Tezcatlipoca together, THE WARRIOR GODDESS ≤ 137 even in the 1620s, we find that war becomes sexual seduction: ‘‘Already I accompany my older sister, Xochiquetzal. She comes mantling herself with One Serpent. She comes girding her loins with One Serpent. She comes tying up her hair. Since yesterday, and since the day before, I have been crying because of her. I have been sad because of her.’’∞≤π This incantation, designed to ‘‘attract or inspire affection,’’ invokes ‘‘Mirror Mountain’’ (tezcatepec) as a meeting place for seducing a potential lover. Xochiquetzal arrives with a serpent around her waist. We have seen preconquest images that accord closely with the parameters of this in- cantation. And indeed, the seducer will go on to describe himself as Yaotl, the warrior god, but then he will end the incantation with a play on words, in the grand tradition of Tezcatlipoca, an attempt at combining trickery with seduction: he will say ‘‘It is not true that I am Yaotl; I am only Cihuayotl.’’∞≤∫ The warrior will no longer engage in warrior activity, he only will seduce women.∞≤Ω Thus, the seducer will leave the domain of war in order to seduce his loved one. The matrix of the gods connects this seduction with land, fertility, and war. These gods struggle for dominance throughout the colonial period, but in 1629 in Guerrero, they mandate sexual seduction, all the while shocking the Catholic priests who stumble upon them. Here we have seen gods that seduce and gods that are seduced. We have witnessed a warrior god, ostensibly male, giving birth. We have gazed upon a goddess of floods, ostensibly female, with an erect phallus. And then we have Tlazolteotl. The deification of the phallus fails to conform to modern normative expectations of gender and sexuality, and certainly Nahua society in 1629 preceded the gender and sexual norms that Western society so often takes for granted. Still, all of these deities perform sexual acts and gendered transformations that Nahua leaders, as noted before, considered unacceptable for the population. How is it possible that Nahua leaders promoted a religion devoted to Tezcatlipoca, Xochiquetzal, and the others? How is it possible that commoners worshiped the Tlazolteteo deities with such vigor? For, if these gods, so highly sexualized, do not represent the sexual behaviors expected of people, it would seem obscure for Nahuas to believe that Tezcatlipoca gave birth, Xochiquetzal seduced men, and Tlazolteotl and Chalchiuhtlicue had phalluses. The seventeenth-century Nahua commoners produced a memory of preconquest fertility goddesses and war gods not because of the needs of 138 ≤ CHAPTER 4 an obscure preconquest system that we remember as the Aztec Empire, but rather because of their contemporary needs and desires. They needed to make the earth fertile and to produce cures for disease. They de- sired gods that would aid them in sexual performance. The Catholic gods could not do this, so Nahua commoners used oral and written practice to keep reproducing their fertility goddesses. In order for these deities to attain such power, Nahua conceptualizations of the world re- quired these deities to exceed gender, to go beyond the sexual expecta- tions of the population, and to, in our analytic frame, confound our attempts to translate these god-dess-es within the constraints of English grammar. ≤ 5 ≤

THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM

Tlazolli overwhelmed the senses in the massive ceremonies de- signed to make life continue in the city. One can imagine hun- dreds of thousands of people watching ceremonies in which merchants and warriors take captives in large groups up to the main pyramid, offering these captives to priests, who wield their flint knives to open the chests, retrieve the still-beating hearts, then roll the bodies down the temples to the people.∞ Or one can imagine the same people watching the festivities as well-armed warriors fight their captives, with the captives tethered to stones and holding clubs with feathers attached.≤ The tlazolli that emanated from these rituals, if we view tlazolli as a sacred remainder, would come from the bodies of the captives, the excess thrown away when the priests offered the heart to the gods. And that tlazolli would overwhelm the masses of spectators. It would become an awesome spectacle and a grand assertion of the power of the priests and nobles of Tenochtitlan. By suspending the rules of the social order, the priests al- lowed for an opening described by some as orgiastic.≥ Such a linkage between the realm of sacrifice and that of sex would have fit squarely inside the tlazolli complex—tlazolli signifies the excesses of desire, the violence to the everyday implicit in warfare, sacrifice, and sex. Only through proper performance 140 ≤ CHAPTER 5 of sacrifice or sex could you promote the fertility of humans, gods, ani- mals, and the earth. In the grand rituals, like the small ones, the disarray that you would see only vaguely masked the fact that the priests engaged in a highly struc- tured ritual that left nothing to chance.∂ Hence tlazolli always had struc- ture; and sex, like the other ritual activities, needed order. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Nahuas performed a wide variety of rituals that had sexual content. Most important in this regard was the connection between the sacrificial act and tlazolli. Nahua sacri- fice signified the creation of a transformed body, one that incorporated godly, human, animal, and earthly elements into a cosmological whole. The transformed body as such became eroticized, sexualized, and, most important, deified. These were the acts of nobles in rituals designed to maintain their connection with the cosmos and the social cohesion of Nahua city-states.∑ But as examples of commoner ritual discourse will show us, Nahua commoners believed in similar acts of transformation through ritual, even if they could not engage in public spectacles on such a grand scale as state-sponsored noble ceremonies. Since the transformed bodies in the sacrificial ritual deified humans, the conquered and colonized Nahuas believed that they needed to find a way to continue to transform their bodies. Many Nahuas, particularly commoners, found ways to engage in such bodily transformations, if not on the scale of the preconquest ceremonies. Many of the ritual activities continued after the conquest, and the written evidence makes it clear that Nahuas performed such rites through the middle of the seventeenth century.∏ In the intervening years, large-scale state ritual practices, in which Nahua nobles invoked discourses on fertility, disappeared.π How- ever, commoners continued to engage in ritual practice that called upon fertility deities to aid them in the farming of their fields, the spinning of cotton, fishing, curing, and other similar activities, all so important for the survival of the people.∫ This chapter argues that one must place the rituals within a particular sociohistorical context in order to understand the relationship between sexuality, ritual practice, and social cohesion. For nobles in the sixteenth century, the appropriate relationship between sex, fertility, and power was symbolized by rituals related to the flower; for commoners in the seventeenth century, the destructive and creative potential for ritualized sex was symbolized by the scorpion. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 141

Tlazolli, as the defining metaphor for the excess and disorder ever present in the world, mandated a ritual opening in which the practitioner priest could unleash all the remainders produced in the quotidian main- tenance of moderation. Thus, by producing rites of extraordinary excess, the priest brought the ordinary existence of the extremely structured city of Tenochtitlan into a state of equilibrium. This chapter engages in a detailed analysis of three rituals: the New Fire Ceremony, the Sweeping Ceremony, and the ritual for the cure of scorpion stings. The first two were state-sponsored rituals performed for the entire community at the time of the conquest. The third was a curing ritual performed by commoners in the early seventeenth century. Historical and theoretical work on ritual produced in the past genera- tion has stressed the need to take ritual activity seriously, primarily be- cause people often have made sense of their worlds through ritual.Ω Peo- ple engage in repetitive rituals because rituals allow them to focus on a connection with the divine grounded in their core beliefs; they then perform such ritual functions to assert these connections. Victor Turner has shown that such views are signified by a liminal moment in which individuals transmogrify beyond their usual self-identities and become entities in-between, with their quotidian identities stripped away. In the liminality of ritual, the logical cognitive rules of mundane existence do not apply. Such a liminal moment allows the individual to experience the divine world.∞≠ Other anthropologists, most notably Bruce Kapferer and Marshall Sahlins, have shown that, for the people engaged in ritual ac- tivity, such activity signifies not an escape into the liminal, but rather a moment in which they may embrace the in-between and speed up the process of social transformation.∞∞ For the Nahuas the aesthetics of ritual, at least as they related to fertil- ity and sexuality, signified the connection between humans, gods, ani- mals, the earth, and the sky. This connection required sacrificial activities considered excessive in daily life. Thus the concept of excess, rejected in the mundane world, became a necessary, core part of ritual activity. Both extreme violence and public displays of sexual activity became central components of ceremony before the conquest. The postconquest trans- formation of such ceremonialism, then, replaced a notion of appropriate ritual excess with a different concept, the carnivalesque escape from daily reality. In other words, colonialism turned the ritual order of the world upside down. Still, for commoners able to ignore parts of colonial rule 142 ≤ CHAPTER 5 over ritual activity, the excesses that mandated a connection with the world of the gods continued to reign, and traditional relationships be- tween shamans and the rest of the population were maintained. One should note that, in analyzing ritual discourse, I focus not on the performance of the ritual (which would be inaccessible to me anyway), but rather on the ways that performance ended up in writing. As I noted in chapter 2, the tlacuilos creatively produced their texts and participated in the enactment of ritual. They were the coauthors of the ritual cere- monies. Priests and others would use their texts reiteratively to enact ceremonial practice. I thus focus on the logic presented in the pictorial and alphabetic writings about these ceremonies. That logic signifies par- ticular kinds of ritual practice, but likely occludes other kinds. Our tlacui- los thus produced both state and nonstate rituals by placing quill to paper, and in this production they represented their own interests as well as broader Nahua cultural phenomena. Still, their task would have been to help produce the rites in a manner that nobles and commoners found convincing and logical. One Nahua prognostication that the authors of the Florentine Co- dex linked to sacrifice signifies the importance of this rite to the tlazolli complex:

One House, they said, was a very bad day sign, the place where trash and dust lived. Also, at that time the so-called cihuateteo descended. . . . The midwives especially feared them.∞≤ . . . They fully expected the one who was born at that time to have a dangerous end. Perhaps s/he would die in battle, be taken captive, or conquered by the crossing waters, . . . Perhaps s/he would be offered up in gladiatorial sacrifice, or be shot full of arrows, or his/her head would be burst in the fire, or s/he would be cast into the flames. Perhaps they would twist him/her in a net, or smash him/her, or tear out his/her entrails—violently tear out his/her entrails.∞≥

This prognostication connects trash and dust, the signs of the tlazolli complex, with the cihuateteo, the goddesses who have come to earth to take children to their deaths. These cihuateteo represented the fears associated with sex and fertility.∞∂ Here I wish to expand on the connection made in this text from the Florentine Codex between the trash/dust dyad and human sacrifice. This document closely connected fertility with sacrifice. One unlucky enough THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 143 to be born on the day mentioned would die a difficult death through sacrifice, caused by the presence of the cihuateteo, goddesses who could steal children but who also were paragons of fertility. If we closely analyze this narrative, we find a series of elements at play. First, the cihuateteo control this day. Second, the day will end in violent death. Third, that violence will involve one or more of a series of ritualis- tic killings: through warfare, gladiatorial combat, arrow shot, and so on. As we look more closely at the sacrificial activity, we see the way it becomes a liminal moment, a time in which the human approached the divine. The penetration of human flesh morphed the individual into a close relationship with the gods. Motolinia tells us that particularly grue- some sacrifices were performed with war captives as their victims. For these sacrifices, the executioners used knives that were not very sharp, and they laid the victim down on a sacrificial stone, stretching out the chest skin, perforating the skin and pulling out the still beating heart. The priests then held it up for the gods, sometimes consuming the heart and at other times burying it. They also would sometimes smear blood on the god (‘‘demonio’’).∞∑ Durán similarly tells us that the ritual involved heart extraction performed upon people, and that the idols were smeared with blood. The bodies were rolled down the pyramids and then distributed to the nobles for consumption.∞∏ The sacrificed person, along with the priests, at the moment of his or her death, approached the god. That individual, transformed through the presence of the priests and the cihuateteo, became no longer an individ- ual but rather a liminal entity. The heart, the sacrificed organ, became one with the divine, while the remainder (the body) became the tlazolli.

Fire It was said that every fifty-two years, ‘‘the movement of the heavens would cease,’’ and the world could come to an end.∞π Such a prognostica- tion would, of course, have caused extreme anxiety for the priests and nobles of the society. Still, there is little evidence that such intense anxi- ety existed. Rather, the Nahuas at the end of such a fifty-two-year period performed the New Fire Ceremony, also called the Binding of Our Years (toxiuhmolpilia), in order to engage in a ritual of renewal and rebirth. They extinguished all fires in all the communities and all the houses in the Nahua world; a new fire was to be lit. The priests left the temple in 144 ≤ CHAPTER 5

FIGURE 31 The New Fire Ceremony. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 32.

Tenochtitlan and went to a pyramid at the summit of a mountain. There, they lit the new fire, which signaled to all the people that the new period of life had begun.∞∫ After the lighting of this fire, runners took their places and ran with fire throughout all of the communities in the land. They lit the community fires, from which the household fires would then be lit, thus relighting humanity for another fifty-two years.∞Ω The New Fire Ceremony signifies phallic dominance, as the extin- guishing and reigniting of all of the fires in the communities symbolizes the destruction and consequent rebirth of feminine ritual space. The fire of the hearth was a central metaphor for femininity, and women largely controlled household fires.≤≠ For these fires to be extinguished at the beginning of the ritual, only to be relit later through a solemn procession begun by a male priesthood, signifies the dominance of that priesthood over the female realm.≤∞ The power of these priests, nevertheless, man- dated that they perform the feminine role of maintaining the fire in the larger household signified by the temple on the mountain.≤≤ In the images and descriptions we have of the New Fire Ceremony, we THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 145 can see the sexual investments of the ritual. The picture in the Codex Borbonicus, reproduced in figure 31, shows the core fire priests, the ones lighting the fire, walking with bundles of wood past a series of people in a house, a warrior guarding a pregnant woman inside a raised granary, followed by another group of people in a house, and finally to the fire. These priests will then light the bundles of wood, from which they will light the new ceremonial fire that signifies renewal and rebirth. The fire directly refers to the role of human sacrifice (based, as it is, on a creation myth in which the gods sacrificed themselves by jumping into a fire).≤≥ The people in the houses signify the community, protected by the (male) priests lighting the fire. The pregnant woman in the granary signifies the fertility of humans and the earth: continuity becomes the important theme of this ritual. But as I will show, the ritual has a phallic nature and the community must be protected from the disorders and dangers inherent in the priests who relight the fire.≤∂ Note again the presence of the community on the outskirts of the ritual. The household is organized according to a particular model, with the man out front, the women and children behind; the man appears to protect and control the household, and thus the community.≤∑ In another part of the image, the warrior standing in front of the pregnant woman both protects the community from her and protects her from the po- tential disorder signified by the fire priests. Those who bear fire bear heat, defined as excess and hence dangerous to the survival of the com- munity.≤∏ Similarly, the pregnant woman signifies fertility, but she can change into one who engages in cannibalistic excess≤π (those women who die in childbirth become the dangerous cihuateteo, those who will con- sume the children). Thus the New Fire Ceremony signifies danger at every turn. We can note the transformative nature of the New Fire Ceremony in the Florentine Codex’s description of its beginning: ‘‘First they put out fires everywhere in the country. And the statues, made from either wood or stone, kept in everybody’s home and considered gods, were all thrown into the water, as were the grinding stones and the hearth stones. And they swept everywhere; nothing lay in any of the houses.’’≤∫ We have seen the metaphorical importance of trash in Nahua cosmology, and here the Nahuas cleaned to expiate all the tlazolli—thus they cleaned away all of the trash and all of the fires that lit their way. Recall that both trash and the fire of the hearth were associated with the feminine. 146 ≤ CHAPTER 5

The central component of the ritual takes place when the priests light the new fire. In the illustration from the Codex Borbonicus (figure 31), we see them holding bundles of wood, which they will light from other bundles. In essence, the priests share the heat and fire that each has. The four central priests from Tenochtitlan, the fire priests, then go to the center of the temple on the top of the mountain and light the fire, shown in this and other images to be a hearth, a central sign of femininity. The priests penetrate the cold hearth and provide it with fire, giving it warmth, making it fertile. This ritualized penetration is accentuated in the Borbonicus image, where the priests hold the bundles in positions that extend their penises. The bundles, perhaps the phalluses of the gods, contain the fluids that will fertilize the world for the next fifty-two years. We are told in another account that the priests start the fire ‘‘upon the breast of a captive’’ who was born of nobility;≤Ω once the fire was lit, the priests slashed open the captive’s heart and tossed it into the flames.≥≠ The priests thus penetrated the hearth, the symbol of femininity, just as they penetrated the breast of the noble warrior, a masculine being sud- denly feminized through his capture and ultimate sacrifice.≥∞ The pregnant woman in the granary also plays a key role in this ritual. She at first appears out of place in a generic painting. However, we must recall that the tlacuilos producing these images created a coherent real- ity, a totality that comprised the entirety of the cosmos and the commu- nity. The pregnant woman signified continuity. Moreover, she played a role devised as between masculine and feminine.≥≤ She was a symbolic warrior, but also a cihuateotl, a purveyor of tlazolli, a cannibal. The war- rior outside protected the community from her. Or alternatively she could be seduced by the priests, and therefore have the heat/semen of the priests destroy her and hence kill off the continuation of the community. Thus the warrior also protected her. The Florentine Codex tells us that at this time the priests and people were scared of the dangerous tzitzimime, who would eat men.≥≥ Preg- nant women were particularly feared in this regard, for they could bring forward the tzitzimime or themselves become cannibals. They ‘‘put on maguey-leaf masks, and they were put in granaries, for they were looked upon with fear. It was said that if, truly, the new fire were not drawn, these [women] also would eat men.’’≥∂ Note the highly gendered nature of this ritual, the concern with phallic divestiture, and the fear of the female body. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 147

The priests play a highly phallic role in the New Fire Ceremony, and the remainder of the community is placed on the sidelines for the ritual. In essence, the priests, as they hold excess heat, engage in extraordinarily dangerous activity, signified within this framework as the phallic nature of the gods brought inside the community, and thus too close to the feminine sphere;≥∑ the community requires protection.≥∏ The Nahuas normally reserved the symbolism of excess heat, the fire, and the phallus, for the outside, the parties at war.

War Inga Clendinnen argues, in her provocative book Aztecs: An Interpreta- tion, that Nahua concepts of masculinity stemmed from the category of the warrior. Through warfare, men proved their manliness, and only through metaphors of war did women achieve public recognition of their roles.≥π While I find such an analysis problematic (particularly because the Nahuas had an agrarian society, so proof of manhood had as much to do with success in farming as success in war), here I will show that Nahua nobles viewed warfare as an arena of fertility. Thus war, as a male ac- tivity,≥∫ asserted the masculine sexual role.≥Ω Nahua discourse visualized war as generating an expansive vision of the human community, thus asserting the transformation of the land in a fertile manner.∂≠ In essence, warfare was the ultimate male reproductive ritual. Still, even in warfare, the masculine warrior needed to access feminin- ity. Nahuas also saw mothers as warriors, commonly calling Teteoinnan, the mother of the gods, yaocihuatl, ‘‘Warrior Woman.’’∂∞ Nahua dis- course also connected mothers giving birth with warriors.∂≤ And we have noted the shields of warriors connected with the fertility goddesses. This gendered concept stems from the relationship between the war- rior and his body, as we can see exemplified from the ways that he con- nected his body with the animals and the gods. The warrior in his finery, as he heads out to conquer foreign lands, brings an animalistic spirit with him. He allows the jaguar (for example) to penetrate him, to enter his body, to feminize him, to allow him to access the feminine realm.∂≥ He consciously acts to allow this spirit to penetrate him because he knows the jaguar as a fierce animal; he has encountered him while hunting on many occasions. However, he does not want the jaguar to overpower him or to take over his spirit, and just as the jaguar penetrates him, he also 148 ≤ CHAPTER 5 penetrates it and kills it, thus accessing the masculine realm. He calls upon the animal with care, using its blood and its skin to aid the warrior in battle.∂∂ Mexica leaders used warfare to expand their empire, provide them with wealth, and prove their worth as leaders.∂∑ Warriors were arrayed with a wide variety of costumes and implements that signified a close relationship with the gods. The most revered gods in the Mexica world (Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca) were warrior gods. Most other gods and goddesses were pictured arrayed as warriors, even if warfare was not within their purview.∂∏ Nahuas practiced extensive rituals to mandate the success of warriors going to war. Finally, the flower wars, battles for dom- inance that took place when the Mexica did not believe that they could easily conquer another group, were highly ritualized and regulated affairs in which nobles sought to wound and capture, not kill, one another.∂π The ritual importance of warfare, as well as its relationship with sex- uality, is highlighted by the importance of the bodily aesthetics of the warrior. The Nahuas marked the various ranks of the noble warrior by both cutting hair and adorning warriors with new uniforms.∂∫ These uniforms involved wearing animal skins, thus signifying the donning of a newly transformed body and the positioning of the dead body above the live: the liminal position of the warrior between the living and the dead, between savagery and civilization, are marked in the aesthetics of the warrior. The Codex Telleriano-Remensis preserves one of many images of warriors (figure 32). In this, the warrior from Tenochtitlan, on the right, wears a skull over his head and has groups of feathers on his back. The skull signified the position of this warrior. He was protected from death by the very figure of death surrounding his body. Further, the feathers showed his position as a highly ranked warrior. His opponent, from Chiapan, is less regally attired, wearing a heron-feather head ornament, which may signify his position as one who will be sacrificed.∂Ω The bodies of these warriors exist both inside and outside of the parameters that we consider to be those of the human body. For these warriors, their bodies incorporate elements designed to become internal to their selves. For example, when a high-level warrior dons the flayed skin of a jaguar, using the jaguar’s head as a helmet, he does not simply use the pelt as a uniform designed to protect him. Rather, he takes the essence of the jaguar into THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 149

FIGURE 32 Warriors and sacrifices. From Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (with fac- simile of Codex Telleriano Remensis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Aus- tin: University of Texas Press, 199), f. 39v. his being.∑≠ Thus he becomes a man-jaguar, increasing the likelihood of his success during warfare. The body of the warrior signifies most clearly a relationship between fertility and sacrifice in the body of an obscure god about whom we have little information (Itztapaltotec) and the deity with whom he is partnered in the final calendar round of the year, Xiuhtecuhtli. Itztapaltotec, pic- tured in figures 33 and 34 as a deity in the body of an obsidian knife, clearly links with sacrifice. In most images he appears to have the regalia of a warrior. He is pictured opposite Xiuhtecuhtli, the god of fire, and the images and text around them associate both deities closely with war- fare.∑∞ Several elements relate these two deities with fertility. First, in the image of the two in the Codex Borgia (figure 33), Itztapaltotec wears an excess skin, marked with moon glyphs, suggesting that he wears the skin of a woman who was the ixiptla of a lunar deity, a goddess associated FIGURE 33 The war god Itztapaltotec and the fire god Xiuhtecuhtli. From Codex Borgia (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1976), 61.

FIGURE 34 Itztapaltotec and Xiuhtecuhtli. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Aus- tria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 18. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 151 closely with fertility. Second, in all of the images of Xiuhtecuhtli, the god appears with highly phallic entities extending from his groin. Third, in the Codex Borbonicus (figure 34), a glyph signifying women’s attire is placed above the knife head of Itztapaltotec.∑≤ Finally, as we have seen, the Nahuas viewed fire as a symbol of creation. All of these elements mandate a close association between war and fertility. These two deities maintained their connection as a fertile couple. This couple signifies the fire presented by Xiuhtecuhtli, who, as a powerful war god, links closely with Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli, coming together with the obsidian knife of Itztapaltotec.∑≥ But here the fertile couple, despite the unambiguous masculinity signified by the loin- cloths of both deities, needed to access femininity, accomplished by Itzta- paltotec’s connection with the moon—in addition to the skin with moon glyphs that he wears in figure 33, in figure 34 he is shown wearing a lunar nose ornament. Itztapaltotec’s connection with femininity is further signified within this and all other ritual texts through the term ixiptla. This word has been translated as impersonator, image, likeness, representation, or stand-in.∑∂ In ritual contexts Nahuas used the term to signify the individual who became an image of the god. This individual, though, does not appear to signify an image in any straightforward manner. Instead, ixiptla stands as a placeholder for the liminal itself. We recall from chapter 4 that the Mexica leader knew the person in front of him was the god Tezcatlipoca. The commoners worshiped him, and thus they too knew that he was their god. And we have many examples of the same thing occurring with other ixiptlas.∑∑ The translations of ixiptla fail to recognize the ritual transformation of the human body into the liminal space. As the warrior wears the skin of the animal, he transforms into a figure in between an animal and a hu- man. This animal/human body recalls the nahualli, the shape-shifting Nahua religious practitioners who could turn themselves into animals linked with their self-identity.∑∏ Similarly, as the captives wear the outfits of the gods, they transform themselves into figures in between humans and gods. As they engage in such transformations, they become sexual- ized beings with great powers, but they also lack the power to free them- selves from captivity or to prevent their captors from sacrificing them.∑π The captive’s liminality thus goes further: s/he exists between male and female, between god and human, between lord and slave. 152 ≤ CHAPTER 5

The Fertile Flower Through its penetration by an outside force, then, the human body be- comes transformed into a liminal body, a space in between. The warrior or priest required the gods and the ancestors of humans and animals to penetrate his very being in order to give him power over the universe. I use the concept of the fertile flower to explain this transformative force, this penetrating agent. The flower signifies the fertility implicit in all Nahua ritual activity. In the song of Teteoinnan, the ‘‘Mother of the Gods,’’ the flower is con- nected intimately with motherhood, fertility, ritual, and warfare:∑∫

Song of Teteoinnan The yellow flower bursts into bloom. She, our mother with the godly thigh skin face paint,∑Ω Comes forth from Tamoanchan.

The yellow flower has bloomed. She, our mother with the godly thigh skin face paint, Comes forth from Tamoanchan.

The white flower bursts into bloom. She, our mother with the godly thigh skin face paint, Comes forth from Tamoanchan.

The white flower has bloomed. She, our mother with the godly thigh skin face paint, Comes forth from Tamoanchan.

The goddess is on top of the cactus. She is our mother, Itzpapalotl.

You’ve seen her on the nine plains. On deer hearts she’s been fed, Our mother, Tlaltecuhtli.

New is the chalk. New are the feathers in which she is clad. In every quarter, the arrows lie broken.

She has been changed into a deer. There on the plains Xiuhnel and Mimich have had mercy on you.∏≠ THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 153

The flowers burst into bloom to signify the beginning of life, and par- ticularly the beginning of the season designated for war. The ritual cere- mony to which this song relates connects the harvest and fertility rites directly with the warrior.∏∞ What is most important here is the way the songwriter treats the flower. This writer symbolizes Teteoinnan’s presence through the burst- ing forth of flowers into the spring.∏≤ The flowers show that she has come forth from Tamoanchan, the land of the gods,∏≥ to promote life on earth. Her ‘‘thigh skin face paint’’ also relates to her role in warfare. She is a dualistic goddess, one who promotes fertility but also promotes war. Once the flowers have bloomed in the first four stanzas of the song, two other fertility deities, Itzpapalotl and Tlaltecuhtli, come forth. These two deities dominate the last four stanzas, providing further balance between the blossoming of the flowers and the ritual production of war. Itzpapalotl, the ‘‘Obsidian Butterfly,’’ is a goddess often placed in the realm of mother goddesses related to Teteoinnan. Her image (figure 35) shows her relationship with both fertility and warriorhood.∏∂ Signifying the butterfly and the flower, she presents us with the possibility of ritual transformation and growth. At the same time, the obsidian knives that ring her costume and form a part of her name show that she plays a major role in sacrificial rituals. Her claws and threatening demeanor, as well as her long loincloth, present her as a fierce warrior. Again, we see the ritual transformation of the body into the liminal being: part deity, part human; part male, part female; part butterfly, part eagle. She becomes one type of animal, then another. She signifies both warfare and fertility. In essence, the fertile flower becomes the threatening goddess. In Tlaltecuhtli’s presence, we see further gender inversion. For Tlal- tecuhtli, the ‘‘Lord of the Earth,’’ sometimes is presented as male. Pre- and postconquest texts present him/her as the god of the earth, an individual created from fish.∏∑ In colonial times, Tlaltecuhtli is demonized, called the ‘‘earth monster,’’ sometimes seen as a representation of the devil himself.∏∏ His/her image, as shown in figure 13, has no clear gender. In other images and texts, we see him/her presented more strongly as male. In Tlaltecuhtli’s image on the Templo Mayor from Tenochtitlan, as seen in the November 2010 issue of National Geographic, we witness the de- ity’s knife-like phallus and relationship with death.∏π Tlaltecuhtli, how- ever, also appears in a squatting position that recalls the position of both Tlazolteotl giving birth to Cinteotl (figure 7) and the naked woman squat- 154 ≤ CHAPTER 5

FIGURE 35 Itzpapalotl, ‘‘The Obsidian Butterfly.’’ From Codex Telleriano-Remensis: Ritual, Divination, and History in a Pictorial Aztec Manuscript (with facsimile of Codex Telleriano Remensis), ed. Eloise Quiñones Keber (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), f. 18v. ting by the phallic Tlazolteotl (figure 30). Several texts present Tlal- tecuhtli as a mother figure. Our songwriter has presented Tlaltecuhtli as ‘‘our mother’’ (tonan), and, as an earth deity, s/he clearly has components gendered feminine and connected with fertility.∏∫ In other rituals, s/he is connected closely with a series of mother goddesses, and s/he is intended to work (read, have sexual intercourse) with them to reproduce, to create an abundant harvest. In the song, Tlaltecuhtli, the mother figure, has come from the out- side, the nine plains, where she has eaten deer hearts. The nine plains refer to the underworld, while the deer hearts refer to sacrificial rituals. She has come to the community to support the aims of the fertile flower, which began the song. Now, as she enters the human community, she will promote the expansion of the warrior class. This is why she is clad in THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 155 feathers, those of the eagle, as we have seen in Itzpapalotl’s image. The broken arrows point in the four directions, where she will run as she is transformed into a deer. But she asks the people to have mercy on the deer, to not pursue the hunt (the war) to the death. Instead, they will follow the example of their mother and engage in ritual transformations of their human bodies, both deifying themselves and connecting their bodies with those of the animals.∏Ω

Sweeping Teteoinnan’s song refers to the ritual first mentioned in chapter 2, Och- paniztli, ‘‘The Sweeping.’’π≠ There I noted several aspects that related to my method, particularly emphasizing the transformation of ritual dis- courses of sexuality from preconquest to colonial times. Here I engage in a detailed analysis of the structure of the ritual in order to suggest ways in which the Nahuas connected the transformation of the human body, the ritual regeneration of the earth, and the promotion of warfare into a cosmological whole. I begin with an extensive discussion of the ritual as represented in book 2 of the Florentine Codex. There we have the most detailed analysis of the ritual, from the perspective of Sahagún and his indigenous aides.π∞ Bear in mind that the project that led to the Florentine Codex was an extensive ethnographic account that requires decoding; nonetheless, the descriptions in book 2 provide us with a very literal account of the rituals, at least as they existed in the memories of the community elders from Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, and Tepepolco.π≤ In this description of the rit- ual, Teteoinnan (‘‘Mother of the Gods’’) and Toci (‘‘Our Grandmother’’) are the same goddess—in the middle of the depiction of the ritual, the text inexplicably changes from using the name Teteoinnan to using the name Toci; I have duplicated that change.

The festivities of Ochpaniztli began with a silent, highly structured dance.π≥ The people danced in four rows, each person holding flowers and branches, and they never broke ranks. After eight days of such dances, a group of medicine women began to engage in mock battles. Soon, other women, old women, maidens, and prostitutes (jlamatque, jpuchti, avienjme) joined them: 156 ≤ CHAPTER 5

They were divided down the middle. Teteoinnan went with some and an equal number went against her, fighting against her. They tried to banish her sadness. . . . For if she should cry, it was said that it would be an omen. It was said that many eagle and ocelotl [warriors] would die, or that many women would die in childbirth.π∂

The women allied with Teteoinnan began the battle, pelting the oth- ers with plants, flowers, and gourds filled with tobacco. The others re- sponded in kind. The battles ended after four days, when the priests of Chicomecoatl (the goddess of maize) came out and surrounded Toci and her supporters in the marketplace. There, Toci scattered cornmeal, walked all over it, and took leave of the marketplace. To console her, the medicine women told her, ‘‘My precious daughter, now at last the ruler, Motecuçoma, will sleep with you. Be happy.’’π∑ Then the priests of Chicomecoatl took her to the temple, whereupon they seized her. A priest

took her on his back, and they quickly cut off her head. . . . Then they flayed her. And when they had flayed her, a [priest] quickly flung on her skin. He was called Teccizquacuilli. [He was] strong, powerful, and very tall.π∏

They also flayed the skin of her thigh, which was worn by another priest, who was then called Cinteotl (the god of maize). Then Tociππ went, with a group of supporters, to the top of the pyramid. All of them, including Huastec priests, came running down from the pyramid at the people of Tenochtitlan, banging their shields into the frightened commoners. The people, armed only with brooms, ran away. The war party made its way to the base of the pyramid of Huitzilo- pochtli. There, Toci and Cinteotl (who had put on a cap called itztlaco- liuhqui, ‘‘curved obsidian blade’’), along with the Huastecs and others, faced Huitzilopochtli. The nobles of Tenochtitlan then made offerings, including feathers, a quail, an ‘‘eagle blouse’’ (iquavipil, probably a blouse with an eagle design or eagle feathers on it), a skirt (icue), and incense, to Toci. They then offered her/him four captives, ‘‘stretched out upon the sacrificial stone,’’ whom s/he then slew through heart excision sacrifice.π∫ Following this, other priests sacrificed more people, while Toci left the temple with Cinteotl and the Huastec priests, who wore ‘‘tied-up loin- cloths’’ (inmemecamaxtli).πΩ This party proceeded to march, surrounded THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 157 by the medicine women, until they all reached the place of the skull rack. Toci then took the spears, shields, and loincloths from the Huastecs, replacing them with brooms, and the Huastecs proceeded to raise those brooms to Toci.∫≠ After this scene, Cinteotl departed with a group of warriors from Tenochtitlan, heading out to the land of a Mexica enemy, whereupon they went to a mountain and, fighting against enemy forces all the way, buried the mask of thigh skin in this territory.∫∞ Upon returning, the warriors went to Toci, who ordered them and the Huastec priests to present to Motecuçoma all of their weapons and their loincloths. The weapons were given to the nobles, while the commoners received the ‘‘Huastec things.’’∫≤ Then the people danced, ‘‘moving like flowers.’’ Then Toci, the Huastecs, and the medicine women sang in ‘‘high falsetto’’ voices. They danced and sang like this all night and into the next day. Following this dance, the priests of Chicomecoatl came forward, all wearing the flayed skins of people sacrificed with Toci. These priests then scattered seeds for maize among the population. Following this, a series of priestesses of Chicomecoatl, regally attired, went and spread the maize seeds further around the community.∫≥ Finally, Toci went forth, yelling war cries. The people spat upon and threw flowers at him/her. S/he took off the skin and left it upon a wooden frame set up for that purpose.

This narrative shows that the ritual, ostensibly about sweeping the streets, signified the broader theme of the tlazolli complex. The ceremony focuses on the fertile nature of warfare, seen as an act in which warrior-priests took the reproductive capacity to enemy territory for a system in which conquest equaled expansion of the human community.∫∂ Nahuas under- stood the system as a closed incorporation of things that the modern West sees as separate: the world, the cosmos, the gods, humanity, and nature. Through such a system, the Nahuas enacted a ritual that assured con- tinuity and survival. In my analysis of this ritual, I suggest that the reader needs to under- stand the space of the liminal body. Ritual discourse is a way of under- standing social interaction and thus is neither rational nor irrational; it simply signifies ways in which the people involved attempt to interact with others.∫∑ 158 ≤ CHAPTER 5

This particular ceremony enacts a restructuring of the human body in such a literal manner as to become almost unbelievable. The ritual, how- ever, is centered not around the sacrifice of the woman, but rather around the image of the woman’s body and skin. This body begins and ends the ceremony. Teteoinnan/Toci is the centerpiece of the dance that starts it all. Maidens, signifying sexual potential, and prostitutes, signifying sexual fulfillment, join powerful medicine women, signifying health. They all dance around Teteoinnan/Toci to make her happy. At the ceremony’s conclusion, some days later, Teteoinnan/Toci is left on top of a pyramid created for her, and all worship her because she will allow Tenochtitlan to have a successful harvest and success in warfare. The problem is, of course, that in the meantime, the person inside Teteoinnan/Toci’s skin appears to have changed. The aesthetic change certainly was extreme, and the people watching the ceremony as well as its participants would have seen the difference between the woman in her own skin and the man wearing the skin flayed off her.∫∏ However, the symbolic identification is largely the same. Within the original text, the woman is consistently called both Teteoinnan and Toci. In no case does the text use the term ixiptla to describe the woman/goddess. When the woman was flayed, the man about to don her skin was called Tecciz- quacuilli, but only during the time in which he was about to put on the skin. After this point, s/he is only called Toci. This identification should not suggest to us that people could not tell that the woman inside the skin had been killed; rather, we should see that the intent to identify the goddess and place her in a position on earth continues after the woman’s death. Such ritualized death became for the Nahuas a prelude to disassembly and reassembly. The priests disassemble the body of the woman/god- dess, and reassemble the body of the priest/goddess. At this point of reas- sembly, the priest uses the powerful skin to enact the presence of the goddess. The Nahuas here do what they did in all of the rituals described above: they manipulate the human body so that the priest enters a liminal space in which he literally becomes the goddess at the same time as he retains his position as a person.∫π We see a series of bodily boundary crossings in the ceremony. First, the woman (impersonating) Teteoinnan crosses the boundary skirting the distinction between the woman and the goddess. This happens as her body is arrayed with the finery of the goddess. Second, the projectiles THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 159 thrown by the medicine women, old women, maidens, and prostitutes penetrate the boundaries of the bodies of the people in the community. These projectiles all involve ‘‘natural’’ products of the earth. Third, the priests of Chicomecoatl come out in their finery, decorated in the lavish colors and gowns of the goddess that they worship. Fourth, the priest wears the skin of the now flayed Toci. Fifth, Cinteotl wears the thigh skin of the flayed goddess. Sixth, the Huastec priests wear ‘‘tied-up loincloths,’’ which are in effect paper phalluses. Finally, the priests of Chicomecoatl now don the skins of other sacrificed individuals. In each of these cases, the tlacuilo and the priests authoring the ritual envision the bodily transformations as representations of concepts re- lated to fertility (and the creation/destruction complex inherent in sac- rifice).∫∫ Hence the bodies are transformed in such a manner that they become denaturalized in one sense and hypernaturalized in another. Take Cinteotl as an example. Since he wears the thigh skin of the sacri- ficed woman (as in Teteoinnan’s song), he provides a generative complex, the mother status, and he brings that complex to enemy territory. Since he is an example of a god who promotes the growth of maize, he plants the thigh skin mask in the ground as one would plant seeds of maize into the same ground. In order for that thigh skin to germinate, the Mexica need to proceed to conquer that land. If we look at this metaphorically, Cinteotl plants the principle that warfare is a generative, fertile process. Most important is that to engage in this process of making the ground (read, the state) fertile through the expansive movement of the warrior, the Ochpaniztli ritual must work to physically manipulate the bodies of women.∫Ω Hence, if we look at the key pieces of this process, we see that first a woman must be captured or enslaved and told to stand in for the goddess. Then other women must use their bodies—through a series of structured dances—to convince the woman that she is lucky to be chosen as the goddess. Those women all signify bodily penetrations: the medi- cine women can invoke potions; the maidens can show the sexual poten- tial of youth; the prostitutes can seduce. Next, the goddess is told that she will sleep with the Mexica leader, an apparent reward.Ω≠ But instead of being penetrated by the ruler, the priest comes at her with the knife and proceeds to penetrate her neck and remove her head. Then the ritual participants manipulate her bodily remains to ensure the future fertility of the land, both at home and away. Thus the planting season begins, and the men are assured that they can both plant the crops for fertile ground 160 ≤ CHAPTER 5 and conquer the enemy for fertile humanity. The female body thus be- comes the most important element of the ritual. Of course this female body that centers the ritual becomes discon- nected from a female identity. The art historian Cahterine DiCesare argues that the body of the goddess ‘‘eventually assumes a talismanic function—in remaining at the city outskirts, she wards off potential in- truders and safeguards the newly cleansed city. . . . As the corporeal agent of corporeal change, she ushers in a new, reformed era.’’Ω∞ Thus the fe- male body becomes the sign of both change and continuity, but only on the outskirts. One can note further the gender inversion that is central to this ritual, but underplayed in the Florentine Codex description, when compared with other accounts.Ω≤ Diego Durán makes castration the most important ritual component, decentering the female body while centering the dam- aged male body. The beginning of his description parallels that proffered by the writers of the Florentine Codex. He begins to diverge from this description when describing the mock battle after the sacrifice of Toci. He says that the sacrifice of several men then took place. When these men were sacrificed, Toci wet her/his finger with their blood, licked the blood off the finger, and, moaning, made the earth shake. Then all other priests did the same. The last man to do this was the warrior who had fought the most valiantly in the mock battles. At this point he faced the crowd now ready- ing to leave the temple. They fought him:

A bloody fray took place among them. With sticks and stones countless men came to the combat and fight, something awesome to see, all armed with their quivers, swords, and shields. Fighting all the way, they went to the shrine of the goddess . . . that stood at the entrance of the city, called the Shrine of the Women. The man wearing the skin and maguey-fiber clothes of the woman went behind, among the Huastecs. One of these was dressed in white, another in red, another in yellow, yet another in green, each holding his broom high in his hands. Many of those who took part in this combat were badly wounded by stones and sticks. This battle raged from the gates of the Temple of Huit- zilopochtli. . . . I believe this was a kind of ceremonial self-sacrifice that they performed instead of bleeding their tongues or ears, as was usual on other feasts.Ω≥ THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 161

The battle ended when the entourage reached Toci’s shrine, a place ‘‘dec- orated with branches, together with the four tall poles which served as scaffolding.’’

The Indian who represented the goddess, together with the Huastecs and attendants, climbed the pole to the platform [at the top]. On the platform he stripped himself of his clothes and finery, together with the woman’s skin he had worn. He placed the latter upon a straw figure that stood on the platform, covering it with the rest of his finery so that the straw image seemed a representation of the goddess. Those who had impersonated the Huastecs and the others now stripped off their disguises, hanging them on the corners of the platform, leaving them as trophies.Ω∂

Then Durán states that the key point to Ochpaniztli is the sweeping cere- mony. The entire ceremony is intended to sweep the city clean. Durán says that this was the only day all year when the people swept their houses. It is clear from his discussion that this sweeping was ritualistic in nature: ‘‘On this day, everyone swept his house and properties, the streets and the baths, the [four] corners of the houses. Nothing was left unswept, and this is what the four Huastecs signified when they held their brooms in their hands in front of the goddess or her impersonator.’’Ω∑ Durán makes it clear that the act of sweeping is closely associated with the goddess and her ceremony:

I believe that they do not sweep the inside of the house except on this day, [and that this practice is followed] because it is such an ancient rite. I consider this to be evil; I have fought against it. . . . Roads and highways were also adorned and swept on this day, especially the one that goes to Coyoacan, paying homage at the shrine of the goddess whose day it was. This stood on the road and was associated with the combat that had taken place on that day.Ω∏

To Durán, this ceremony was evil even though it had the appropriate result: the cleaning of houses and streets. He proves the evil through the external observation that the houses were generally filthy, and were only cleaned once a year. However, he believes theologically that the true evil is internal to the hearts and souls of the individuals engaged in the act of cleaning.Ωπ In other words, because they believe that they clean in order to please the goddess and celebrate her, and because their belief in her is 162 ≤ CHAPTER 5 an idolatrous act that the devil has taught them, the entire activity, in- cluding the cleaning of the houses and the streets, is evil. Even when, after the Spanish conquest, the sacrificial ceremony itself is no longer per- formed, all of the acts that were once associated with this festival remain tainted; that is, until they have taken Catholicism into their hearts, all ritual activity will be sinful and evil. Durán does not see or does not comment on the sexual nature of the ritual, which involves a variety of phallic images surrounding a goddess, denoting fertility. The goddess engages in acts of fertility with the various phallic figures. She also transvests and transsexualizes the priest who wears her skin, who becomes for the remainder of the ceremony invested with the attributes of the goddess herself. S/he signifies an inverted rela- tionship in which s/he becomes the being who will reproduce humanity, crops, the gods, and the earth. The Huastecs and the other men involved in the ceremony become ritualistically feminized. The Huastecs signify the uncontrollable mas- culinity of the other, the outsider, the barbarian. As they engage in sexual acts with the goddess, they are represented by enormous phalluses that signify the possibility for a giant crop yield. At the same time as these phalluses signify potential and potency, they also represent danger and destruction. For, when uncontrolled, the phalluses will promote tlazolli. Thus they must be brought under control, and the goddess herself will do this. She will replace their phalluses and their swords with brooms, be- cause, after the battle, they will need to clean up the mess. Their brooms signify their ritualized feminization, a ritual in which they are placed under the control of the goddess. Durán makes this clear: at the time of the initial battle, the Huastecs are ‘‘armed for war,’’ which he later says means that they and their oppo- nents carried ‘‘swords and shields.’’ But the goddess and her forces (the nobles of Tenochtitlan) will defeat the Huastecs and thus feminize them. At this point, ‘‘instead of the swords they had carried, brooms were now placed in their hands—as I have said, this was the day of Ochpaniztli, which means the Feast of Sweeping. As these stood to one side lifting their brooms on high as insignia of the goddess, just as kings bear their scepters, the man who impersonated the goddess descended.’’Ω∫ It is at this point that Toci wets her/his finger in human blood and makes the earth shake. What happens to these men, the Huastecs, that so empowers Toci to make the earth shake? THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 163

The structure of Durán’s text makes it clear that, after the ritualized battle (remember, Tenochtitlan, defending the goddess, wins), two things happen. First, several men are sacrificed, hence penetrated. Second, the Huastecs have their swords replaced with brooms. Durán’s words regard- ing the men sacrificed (atop a platform) to the goddess make this clear:

And then the four sacrificers brought out him who was to be sacri- ficed, forcing him to ascend the poles. He wore a paper hood on his head. The four went behind him, ascending, and if by chance he hesi- tated through fear of death, they pricked his buttocks with maguey thorns. When they arrived at the spot where the two [sacrificers] stood at the summit, those who had ascended with him stood to one side while those on top pushed him. He fell from the poles with a mighty crash and was shattered to bits. Once he had fallen, others arrived to behead him.ΩΩ

The text clearly intends for the reader to think about the ways in which the body of the man to be sacrificed faces the possibility of penetration. If he slows from fear, he will be ‘‘pricked’’ from behind. They will threaten him with penetration and subtly show him his fate. When he reaches the top of the scaffolding, the priests (each tied to a pole to prevent that priest from falling) push him off, and his body is literally penetrated by the many things placed on the ground. Then, as a final insult, he is beheaded, ritualistically castrated. And the theme of castration brings us back to the Huastecs. For, in Durán’s text, immediately after the beheading of the sacrificial victim, we hear about the movement from swords to brooms. Are we to believe that this placement was accidental? Of course not: the Huastecs were given brooms at this point in the ritual to symbolize their own movement from the male sphere to the female. They are no longer warriors; they become women who clean the houses and the streets.∞≠≠ They are symbolically castrated, turned into civilized and feminized beings.∞≠∞ And they must not only sweep and clean, but they must raise their brooms to the god- dess as she passes—a futile attempt at raising the phallus to penetrate the goddess. Instead of allowing this to happen, the goddess uses the power of the phallus and the blood remaining from the ritualized castration of the sacrificed in order to make the earth shake. And of course this is the very part of the ritual most disturbing to Durán; the powerful overtaking of a natural phenomenon could only signify to him the power of the one 164 ≤ CHAPTER 5

True God, and Durán says that he ‘‘tried to investigate this and attempted to laugh off and mock this absurd belief. But I was assured that this part, this area of the temple, trembled and shook at that moment. Imagination may have served them well in this case, and the devil, always present, undoubtedly aided the imagination.’’∞≠≤ Undoubtedly the castration com- plex associated with the shaking of the earth filled Durán with the fear that the demon destroyed the souls of the people. But was such castration a simple figuration of the repressed Christian imagination? The friar no doubt would deny such a thing happened in the ceremony or in his mind. A close textual analysis reveals much, but does not present us with the cul- tural meaning of the ceremony itself, much less with the imaginary uni- verse of the Mexica people participating in the ceremony or the broader Nahua community in attendance. The phallicism present in Durán’s description, though, does replicate much of the discussion of the Florentine Codex and parallels some of the images of the Codex Borbonicus. If we compare the image of this ritual from the Codex Borbonicus reproduced in chapter 2 (figure 8) with the image from the following page of the codex (figure 36), we can see the gendered dynamics at work in that text. The image of a woman sacrificed shows her about to be penetrated by the priests. The phallic priests from the previous page needed the woman to be penetrated, the goddess to be sacrificed, so that they could engage in the fertility rites mandated by this ceremony, whether representing Ochpaniztli or a different agricul- tural rite.∞≠≥ Still, we must analyze the gendered and sexual nature of the require- ment of phallic divestiture by Toci. And we must remember that Toci is a human male priest wearing the skin of a human female sacrificed specifi- cally for that purpose. Hence, we see a series of elements that suggest a violent gender complementarity.∞≠∂ In order to increase his ability to command a fertility rite, the priest needs to wear the skin of a woman, for Nahuas acknowledged that women gave birth to children, and thus had great power over fertility. As both warfare and farming mandated the ability to be fertile, the priest authoring and authorizing the ritual de- signed to promote agriculture and war needed to access his feminine side. He did so in the most literal way possible, by placing upon himself the skin of a woman. By disassembling her body, taking part of it (the skin) for himself, and reassembling his body, he brought upon himself all of the attributes of the goddess. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 165

FIGURE 36 A woman sacrificed. From Codex Borbonicus (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1974), 29.

The goddess, though, also needed to control the excess mandated in ritual discourse. She had to prevent that excess from invading mun- dane existence. She did so by castrating the priests and providing them with brooms. Their hyperextended phalluses signified the excess, the tlazolli, necessary to engage in the type of fertility mandated for the abundance of crops and the success of the conquering army. The brooms that replaced those phalluses signified the order of the community, clean- liness, and moderation.∞≠∑ Hence Durán’s interpretation is fundamen- tally correct, but he places an indigenous structure within a European moral framework. The goddess in essence allowed the ritual to reinte- grate into the framework of community survival. The Nahuas, by manip- ulating and altering the human body in the most literal fashion possible, engaged in a ritual that mandated sexual excess, then brought that sense of excess back into the community through the moderating force of the goddess. 166 ≤ CHAPTER 5

The Deadly Scorpion Thus far in this chapter, I have emphasized ritual discourse as it existed at the time of the Spanish conquest. I have shown that the Nahuas manipu- lated the parameters of the human body and challenged the margins of human existence to transform themselves into gods. They did so to for- mulate a connection with the gods that would lead to increased fertility in the earth and greater success in wars of conquest. I have thus placed ritual discourse within a sociohistorical framework that Nahua ritual spe- cialists, tlacuilos, and political leaders perceived as the truth of history.∞≠∏ Now I will explore the survival of that framework after the Spanish conquest. I show that, while the grand state ceremonies vanished, and the bulk of Nahua nobles by the middle of the sixteenth century largely followed Catholic rituals and abandoned traditional Nahua rites, we see evidence that Nahua commoners as late as the middle of the seventeenth century continued to perform public spectacles in which they manipu- lated the human body to create a liminal space between their mundane existence and the world of the gods. It is in that liminal space that we find Nahua commoners performing and developing meaning from sexuality. In the early postconquest days, before the indigenous peoples were ex- empted from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, inquisitors found several Nahuas worshiping traditional deities.∞≠π In most cases, the documents describe Nahua commoners and nobles attempting to assert traditional worship practices in order to avoid some of the hardships associated with particular cataclysms that occurred during these early colonial years.∞≠∫ Not surprisingly, many of these cases emphasized curing rites that re- lated closely to fertility. One Nahua leader in 1536 claimed that he could become an animal at will, bringing the animalistic spirit into his body.∞≠Ω Another in 1537 focused his attention on the rain gods, performing fertility rituals to get those gods to respond to his requests. He too produced liminal space by calling upon the animals to join him and the gods in promoting the fertility of the earth.∞∞≠ In another case, a group of Nahuas from Azcapotzalco in 1538 wor- shiped Tezcatlipoca in the Toxcatl ceremony. In doing so, they did not perform human sacrifice, but they did worship an individual as Tezcatli- poca. He placed on his body all the appropriate accouterments of the god, and the people of the community considered him to be the god. When THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 167 asked why they did so, those who testified in front of the Inquisition said that the devil had tricked them into believing that this individual was their beloved god, and that he would make the crops grow.∞∞∞ Similarly, in 1539 in Culhuacan, the indigenous ruler of the commu- nity led his people in the worship of a series of deities, among the most prominent fertility gods, at a place that they called Xochitlan (‘‘Flower Land’’), probably referring to Tamoanchan, the home of the gods.∞∞≤ Xo- chitlan referred to a cave in Culhuacan in which they performed the ceremonies. The cave, signifying the womb of the earth deity Tlaltecuhtli, was the place where they worshiped Tezcatlipoca, Cihuacoatl, and Xan- tico.∞∞≥ There, several priests and the ruler dressed in the (unspecified) clothes of the gods and began to sacrifice their own blood. Then they performed a heart excision sacrifice of a youth, feeding his heart and his blood to Tezcatlipoca and Cihuacoatl. We can note that Cihuacoatl and Xantico (‘‘In the Home’’) are both goddesses closely linked with the earth fertility complex. Cihuacoatl is treated as an earth deity constantly in need of food, while Xantico is the goddess of fire. Both signify the con- tinuity of the world. In this case, teamed with Tezcatlipoca, the Nahua deities signified an attempt by certain Culhuacas to maintain the fertility of the earth.∞∞∂ The promotion of such deities in the early period detected by the Inquisition is unsurprising as little assimilation would have oc- curred by 1539. However, the maintenance of rituals that promote both the manipulation of the body and the creation of liminal space remains important to my argument. As several scholars have noted, many indigenous rites performed by the middle of the sixteenth century had been reimagined in a Hispanic framework as idolatry and devil worship.∞∞∑ Thus, when Nahuas per- formed such rites, they belonged to a tradition that incorporated Euro- pean and African ‘‘witchcraft’’ as well as Nahua religion. When a Nahua man was found worshiping the devil, he understood the heretical nature of his worship, particularly when he tattooed the devil next to an image of Jesus on his arm.∞∞∏ We might note that, with both the Jesus and dia- bolical images, he placed deities upon his body in such a way that we can see similarities with the liminal body asserted in the Nahua ritual frame- work. Still, we do not find the same relationship between liminality, sex- uality, and fertility deities. In idolatry investigations from the end of the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, however, investigating clerics began to focus 168 ≤ CHAPTER 5 more expeditiously on rites performed by commoners. There, while the Catholic priests reimagined these rites within the framework of the idola- try investigation, we can envision the ways in which the commoners framed the rituals, and we see great emphasis upon fertility rites, par- ticularly as they relate to curing and agriculture. A Nahua invocation in 1587 promoted the intercession of the Virgin Mary to engage in a cure. At the same time, the curer placed a jaguar skin upon his body and another upon the body of the person to be cured. He invoked various unspecified fertility deities in the rites performed.∞∞π An idolatry investigation in the middle of the seventeenth century con- ducted by Jacinto de la Serna found Nahua commoners worshiping Tlal- tecuhtli at the same time that they requested the intercession of the ‘‘Holy Mother,’’ perhaps a reference to Toci, but reinscribing her with some of the qualities of the Virgin Mary. The commoners sought to make their crops grow, and in doing so they placed earth upon their bodies and offered incense and blood.∞∞∫ These cases of idolatries show us that com- moners viewed fertility as intimately related to their livelihoods. They could not give up their fertility rituals, even if they had to alter them to avoid the Catholic authorities. Nor could they assume that Catholic reli- gion would take care of them: they saw little in the way of fertility rituals emanating from the Catholic clerics.∞∞Ω Still, by the late sixteenth century, these commoners had inculcated Catholic elements like intercession into the basic Nahua fertility rites.∞≤≠ As we have noted, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, a priest in Guerrero, in 1629 recorded a myth in which Nahua commoners recounted the cre- ation of the scorpion.∞≤∞ Ruiz de Alarcón was the priest of the parish of Atenango, on the border between what would become the states of Mex- ico and Guerrero. Impoverished Nahuatl speakers populated the bulk of this parish. Ruiz quickly learned that the commoners engaged in what he termed ‘‘heathen superstitions.’’ He was commissioned by the archbishop of Mexico to learn about the ‘‘pagan customs, idolatries, and supersti- tions’’ that existed in his parish, and he took his work seriously, collect- ing a wide variety of stories that his indigenous tlacuilo/escribano tran- scribed in Nahuatl. The stories, both mythological tales and, more often, ceremonies performed on a daily basis by Nahua commoners, appear to follow a consistent cosmological pattern that has great similarities with that represented in preconquest documents from throughout Mesoame- rica.∞≤≤ Such a pattern was undoubtedly intentional on the part of both THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 169

Ruiz and the tlacuilo/escribano. Further, Ruiz states that he works to fit the texts into his overall discourse on heathen superstitions, and in sev- eral places he notes conscious censorship on his part. One can have no doubt that those who gave the testimony also censored their words. Still, as long as one works to decode the censorial process, the representations of these ceremonies are valuable sources that point to the interactive intertextual process.∞≤≥ In most cases we hear only about commoners in these texts, for the nobles of the region had largely been Hispanized.∞≤∂ The scorpion text is one of the most telling incantations in the treatise, as it signifies the sexual seduction of men by women or, to be precise, by goddesses. It also connects the natural world with the world of humans and the world of the gods. Here the goddess Xochiquetzal seduces a man and turns him into a scorpion.∞≤∑ The narrator presents Xochiquetzal as a temptress,∞≤∏ yet she engages in her seduction with the express purpose of saving humanity. Based upon this creation myth, the text asserts a cure for scorpion stings. In that cure, the curer calls upon Xochiquetzal to enter his or her body. The curer thus transforms his or her own body into the liminal body, existing between human and deity, and if the curer is a man, between male and female. Her/his body thus signified universality, which enabled her/him to engage in the cure. The bodily transformation of the preconquest priest and warrior became resignified after the con- quest, asserted by the curer in this text. The man in the mythological origin text was to become a powerful and deadly being and, in order for the transition to take place properly, he could not engage in any sexual activity.∞≤π In Ruiz’s words, ‘‘For the sake of improving his condition in the transmutation that he felt near, in order to placate the gods and capture their benevolence, this man went off alone to do penance in abstinence and chastity, and he lived on a rock called tehue- huetl [stone drum].’’ Thus he went to live in seclusion, and a guard, Yaotl, was assigned to him. After two other goddesses failed to do so, Xochiquet- zal eventually seduced him. Xochiquetzal says to the man, Yappan:

‘‘My older Brother, Yappan, I have come. I, your older sister, Xochi- quetzal, have come to greet you. I have come to give you greetings.’’ {To this Yappan replied}:∞≤∫ ‘‘My older sister, Xochiquetzal; you have come.’’ {She answered}: ‘‘I have come; Where will I climb up?’’ {To which he answered}: ‘‘Wait, I am already coming over there.’’∞≤Ω 170 ≤ CHAPTER 5

Ruiz then tells us, in Spanish, ‘‘With this the goddess Xochiquetzal climbed up and, covering him with her huipil, caused him to fail in his purpose [of chastity].∞≥≠ . . . With the reported outcome, the spy Yaotl, who was not sleeping, said to Yappan’’ [in Nahuatl]:

‘‘Are you not ashamed, priest, Yappan, because you have ruined things? For however long you live upon the earth, you will be able to do nothing upon the earth; you will be able to achieve nothing. The commoners will call you ‘Scorpion.’ Indeed I have called you, I name you ‘Scorpion.’ Come, thus you will be.’’ [Yaotl] cut off his head and carried it on his shoulders. That is why he is called tzonteconmama [‘‘Head Carrier’’].∞≥∞

Then Ruiz tells us that ‘‘because of Yappan’s having sinned, the god- dess Citlacueye decided that all those who were stung by a scorpion would not die.’’∞≥≤ Xochiquetzal seduced and deceived Yappan, and then Yaotl castrated him.∞≥≥ Indeed, in this text, castration becomes a central metaphor. The Nahuatl text is perhaps most interesting for what it does not say. The Nahuatl does not state that Yappan failed to maintain chastity, or that Xochiquetzal seduced him. Instead the Nahuatl writer is quite circum- spect about these issues. Instead of using any direct ‘‘sexual’’ terminology, the Nahuatl text describes Yappan’s actions related to the results, both internal and external. Internally, the text suggests that Yappan should feel shame (pinahua), while externally, his actions were ruinous (tlatlaco). The narrative presents these two terms, shame and ruin, as parallel to each other, suggesting that within Nahuatl discourse sexual shame led to ruin.∞≥∂ Further, as we have seen, the friars used the term tlatlaco, from tlatlacolli, as the closest equivalent to the concept of sin. Here the mean- ing, though, directly relates to ruin, as the text discusses Yappan’s actions as ruining, destroying, his life. The power in the text moves from Yappan to the goddesses to Yaotl. Yappan begins the document in a move to become an extraordinary being with the ability to destroy human life. He becomes a simple scorpion. The goddesses begin the text with little power, as they prove unable to dis- suade Yappan from his course of action. Xochiquetzal changes that by using sexual attraction, here seen as her most powerful attribute, to at- tract Yappan and cause him to fail. She also uses a fictive kinship connec- tion with Yappan∞≥∑ in order to symbolically represent her authority. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 171

Finally, Yaotl begins the text as a guard for Yappan, but later chastises him and cuts off his head. Yaotl’s transformation signifies the power of the warrior. Thus the goddesses maintain their power and protect the com- munity through sexuality, while Yaotl aids them through violence. As we have seen, in Nahua discourse, the warrior’s violence linked directly with fertility and sexuality. Here the warrior and the goddesses of fertility remain, in the 1620s, the defining metonymic signifiers of ritualized ex- pansion and reproduction. After presenting the mythological text, Ruiz proceeds to relate the specific incantation given to him by his Nahua informants. The incanta- tion provides a ritual that Ruiz calls a heathen fable: ‘‘Come priest, Yap- pan, thorn curve. Where have you stung us? It is right there in our needed place. You will not pass my boundary.’’∞≥∏ Ruiz then tells us that the boundary is a cord used to tie off the poisoned area. Once this is com- pleted, the incantation follows:

It is I, in person. I am the priest, Seven Flower.∞≥π Come priest, Yappan, thorn curve. Why are you making fun of people? Do you not already know, does your heart not already know that, in order to make you break your fast, my older sister, Xochiquetzal, went there on top of the stone drum, where you mocked her? There is nothing that you can do. There is nothing that you can accomplish. Go over there far away in order to make fun of people. Go over there far away to amuse yourself with people. Come my mother, Tlaltecuhtli. Cause the priest Yappan, Pelxaya- queh, to leave things quietly. Let him leave quietly. Let him step aside for you quietly. Will it be tomorrow or will it be the day after tomor- row that he will go? It will be immediately, at this instant. If he will not leave, if he will not go, I know what to do with him.∞≥∫

This, Ruiz tells us, ends the cure. However, if the person remains ill, the curer goes on and asserts greater power by summoning Xochiquetzal:

My older brother, Pelxayaqueh, are you not ashamed? Why is it that you are making fun of people? Why is it that you are amusing yourself with people? Do you not already know, does your heart not already know that, in order to cause you to break your fast, I went there on top of the stone drum, where you slept with me, Xochiquetzal? I, who am your older sister, Xochiquetzal, have come. I have come in order to 172 ≤ CHAPTER 5

greet you. I have come in order to give you greetings. Just step aside quietly for my vassal. Let me drape my huipil over you. Let me cover you with my huipil. Let me wrap you in my huipil. Just sleep quietly. Let me embrace you. Let me take you in my arms. Let me hug you.∞≥Ω

Here, as the curer places upon him or herself Xochiquetzal’s huipil, her figurative skin, the curer harnesses her power and seduces the scorpion. Indeed, the curer asserts the power of Xochiquetzal, transforming him or herself into the powerful goddess. In this speech, the curer seduces the scorpion’s tail. Through the sexual act, the curer can enact the cure and prevent further harm to the ill person. By becoming Xochiquetzal, the curer asserts the goddess’s power. The curer/Xochiquetzal then allows Yaotl the opportunity to engage in the literal castration of the scorpion, thus reestablishing the proper social order in which the person stung will survive, as will society. Survival mandates ritual seduction and sexual activity. We can see the phallic nature of this cure in figure 37.∞∂≠ There, the woman sitting across from the man wears her huipil. Between the two, the scorpion hangs in the air, hardly a threatening creature. The scor- pion’s curved tail, pointing toward the woman, perhaps senses the threat the curer offers it. The tail will fail; the castration will become complete; the man will be saved. The curer in the incantation uses a series of elements to transform both his or her body and the body of the person to be cured. First, the curer enters the scene seeing that the person’s body is out of order, possessed with excess heat.∞∂∞ The scorpion has penetrated the body of the ill person. The curer then recalls that Xochiquetzal, one of the curer’s patron goddesses, has used her seductive powers, signifying fertility, to defeat the scorpion. Thus the curer expresses his bewilderment. He tries to get rid of the scorpion sting by calling the scorpion by his metaphorical name, Yappan (literally ‘‘black maize-flag,’’ showing this to be a black scorpion) and using the phallic signifier, huitzcol (‘‘thorn curve’’). The term huitzcol signifies that the curer engages in a play of words with the scorpion. He demands that the thorn (huitz) of the scorpion (colotl) remove itself. The curve (col), placed in the text through the connection between col and colotl, signifies the curved tail, the phallic signifier, of the scorpion at the same time as it signifies the sting.∞∂≤ This wordplay does not work, however, as the curer needs to tie off the poison. THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 173

FIGURE 37 The colotl, a scorpion. From Codex Laud (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1966), 38.

Then the curer must gain some greater powers than him- or herself, and these powers must somehow enter his or her body. Hence the curer calls upon Seven Flower, a sacred deer who will enter the body of the curer. This deer is the manifestation of Piltzintecuhtli, the child lord, a god who signified rain and fertility.∞∂≥ By becoming a signifier of the child, by allowing for rain and fertility to enter his or her being, the curer becomes further empowered to engage in the difficult cure. But the child lord must continue to remind the scorpion of his mother, Xochiquetzal, and eventually, in a kinship reversal, the child will become the mother goddess. After the child lord reminds the scorpion of Yappan’s sexual relation- ship with Xochiquetzal, he calls upon Tlaltecuhtli, the lord of the earth, the dirt, here also seen as feminine, a transgendered Nahua signifier. Tlaltecuhtli should cure the person and prevent the scorpion sting from poisoning him or her. 174 ≤ CHAPTER 5

However, if this should not work, Xochiquetzal will engage in the final transformation, entering the body of the curer, coaxing out the phallus of the scorpion, convincing Yaotl, the warrior, to engage in another castra- tion.∞∂∂ For here we must understand the role of the huipil. This Nahua blouse, wrapping around the woman’s body, in many senses defines that body in early colonial Nahua discourse.∞∂∑ While before the conquest, Nahua iconography suggests that women were identified as much by their skirts as their huipils, after the conquest the skirts that Nahua women wore did not easily distinguish them from women of Hispanic and African descent. However, the huipil remained a sign of indigeneity, of the indigenous woman. That sign, reincorporated into Nahua ritual, here signified Xochiquetzal’s skin. This huipil, a privileged signifier, rep- resented for the priest Xochiquetzal’s power. He used the huipil to en- gage in a simulated sexual act with the scorpion, to seduce the stinger, the phallic thorn curve, out of the body of the ill person. The liminal space opened by the curer wearing the huipil of the goddess allows the curer to engage in the ritual of the cure.

The Liminal Body of the Commoner Both commoners and nobles needed to control the tlazolli unleashed through the excess mandated in ritual ceremonies. The community could not survive with the excess heat promoted by the priests who relit the fire (thus reassembling the body of the community); nor could the commu- nity survive with the excess skin that the priests wore in the Ochpaniztli ceremony (thus reassembling the body of the gods); nor could they sur- vive with the excess sex promoted by the curer (thus reassembling the body of Xochiquetzal). In each case, the community had to control the tlazolli by disassembling the excessive bodies and reasserting quotidian equilibrium. William Taylor notes, ‘‘The most common kind of ‘idolatry’ found in the late eighteenth-century [Mexican] judicial records was associated with fertility rites.’’∞∂∏ Indigenous commoners believed fertility crucial for individual survival. Hence Taylor sees the survival of these ceremonial practices even in the eighteenth century. Commoners witnessed a close correlation between their bodies and the bodies of the gods of fertility. Thus not only did they worship these deities, but they also continued to THE PHALLUS AND THE BROOM ≤ 175 draw blood from themselves to allow their own bodies to connect with the bodies of the gods. Curing rites too continued to invoke the gods into the bodies of the curers and, even when a curer was not available, into the bodies of the commoners to be cured.∞∂π Thus when one Nahua called upon Cihuacoatl to enter his body to cure him, he continued to assert the liminal space of traditional Nahua ritual.∞∂∫ When another group of men offered incense to the gods in order to promote rain and then lowered their pants to expose their penises, they engaged in a fertility rite that accessed this same liminal space.∞∂Ω These cases signified the continuing transformation of the hu- man body, now the body of the commoner, inside of colonial rule. But, of course, colonialism had forever altered these rituals, and most Nahuas knew that the rites, if discovered by the relevant authorities, would be termed idolatry and would warrant punishment. Today in rural Tlaxcala, which is dominated by Nahuatl speakers, the tlahuelpuchi, male and female witches, have both indigenous deities and the European devil inhabit their bodies. They gain power from the can- nibalistic desires of the indigenous deities and the malevolent powers of the devil. In doing so, community members envision them as sucking the blood from bewitched people, penetrating the bodies of their victims just as the gods penetrated theirs. And often they engage in such activities in order to promote sexual seduction.∞∑≠ The bodies of commoners remain open to manipulation, and the witchcraft rituals continue to provide access to liminal space.

≤ 6 ≤

THE HOMOSEXUAL

Then if someone out of his torment cursed him as a cuiloni, he no longer had his pride when he said to him, ‘‘Titlacauan, great cuiloni, wretched cuiloni! You have had your pleasure with me! You have mocked me!’’ —Authors of the Florentine Codex

When you were drunk, did you fall into the frightening sin? That called cuiloyotl; that which is with your fellow man? —Bartolomé de Alva, Confessionario mayor, y menor en lengva mexi- cana

The cuiloni: the sodomite, the penetrated man, the homosex- ual, the passive, the third sex, the faggot, the queer. Cuiloyotl (or cuilonyotl): sodomy, homosexuality, the act without which the cuiloni could not exist.∞ The term cuiloni reveals much about sexuality and the many homosexualities present in early colonial discourse on the Nahuas. In this chapter, I argue that Nahua culture in the early colo- nial years provided male and female homosexualities a place in the tlazolli complex that exceeded the Catholic notion of sodo- mitical sin. Further, while we have little evidence of Nahua commoner homosexual practices, we do find some evidence that, while commoner views diverged from those of the nobles, 178 ≤ CHAPTER 6 they too did not understand homosexual activities as inherently sinful. Moreover, while categories to describe homosexualities existed both be- fore and after the conquest, by the end of the seventeenth century, the colonial experience significantly altered these Nahua concepts. Little scholarship exists on homosexuality among the Nahuas,≤ and those few works rely on problematic translations of Nahuatl documents or insufficient evidence to generate significant conclusions, or they focus primarily on Spanish interpretations of Nahua realities. This chapter analyzes the extant primary sources on the topic, focusing particularly on documents written in Nahuatl. Scholars must critically decipher the postconquest documents to un- cover the key factors at work here, which fall into three groups: (1) medi- eval and early modern European concepts of the relationship between sodomy and sin; (2) the tropes of conquest in which Spaniards often asserted the effeminacy of the conquered group; and (3) indigenous dis- courses that connected local homosexualities with a warrior motif funda- mentally hostile to the ‘‘passive’’ partner in male homosexual acts. As I have shown in previous chapters, as the colonial years progressed, the Nahuas integrated the Catholic concept of sin into their cultural matrix, but sin never displaced the tlazolli complex. Modern scholars hold conflicting views concerning homosexualities among the pre- and postconquest Nahuas. Some say it was outlawed or repressed, others that it was part of the structures of society, yet others that it was part of religious ritual. Alfredo López Austin argues that the preconquest Nahuas had an ‘‘extremely negative image’’ of homosex- uality. He states that the ‘‘death penalty was imposed on both female and male homosexuals, active or passive.’’≥ Similarly, Noemí Quezada argues that the Nahuas punished male and female homosexuality by death, as it violated the order of the ‘‘heterosexual couple’’ established by the creator gods.∂ Richard Trexler says that the preconquest Nahuas forcibly trans- vested certain men, often for life, and that they used those men as ‘‘pas- sives.’’ The Nahuas viewed these men with disdain and saw them as de- pendent and effeminate. Trexler believes that the ‘‘active’’ partner was not denigrated like the passive, and he contends that ‘‘no laws against sod- omy’’ existed.∑ Cecelia Klein argues that the Nahuas believed that, while the passive partner caused great misfortune, the active played a role ‘‘essentially consonant with his biological sex.’’∏ Geoffrey Kimball states that ‘‘there is no evidence [for the preconquest era] for any kind of sup- THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 179 pression of homosexuality such as occurred after the Spanish conquest.’’π Clark Taylor says that ‘‘homosexuality played an important part in much of the religious life in México, and was commonly accepted in private life,’’ but that the Mexica engaged in ‘‘heavy repression’’ of homosexual activity.∫ The contradictions in these modern interpretations stem in part from some misreadings of the texts, but primarily from too little effort at situating the context of the sources. In an article regarding what there I term ‘‘queer Nahuatl colonial discourse,’’ I engage in a close analysis of a specific Nahuatl text, part of book 10 of the Florentine Codex.Ω There I show the importance of understanding the influences, contemporary and historical, upon the production of the source, its narrative strategy, its political vision, and its treatment of the past. In this chapter I engage in a similar analysis of a series of texts, suggesting the ways in which colonial- ism intersects with the instantiation of homosexual identity formation. The first epigraph to this chapter, from the Florentine Codex, shows that Sahagún and his Nahua aides intricately wove the notion of homo- sexuality into a tapestry of concepts related to the gods, religion, mock- ery, and the edifice of sacrifice. Does the notion of sin and spectacle evident in such a quote emanate from the European frame, or does it signify something fundamental about Nahua treatments of sexual activity between men? The second epigraph is from Bartolomé de Alva’s 1634 Confessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana. The question in the epigraph (‘‘Did you fall into the frightening sin?’’) is an ideal; it was not necessarily used by any priest in any confession. Further, even if priests did ask the ques- tion, it is difficult to know what effect such a discursive maneuver would have on the Nahuas, assuming they even understood what was meant. The text signifies an attempt by the clergy to regulate sodomy by placing it in the context of abominable sin, however mistranslated into Nahuatl (the Spanish text says ‘‘abominable pecado’’). Thus the priests engaged in a conscious maneuver to move the cultural matrix of sodomy, the discourse that surrounded and gave meaning to the act, from the tla- zolli complex to Catholic sin. While Catholic priests in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century New Spain rarely considered sodomy a topic of great importance, the sexual behaviors of the Nahuas, as we have seen, played a vital role in the genre of the confessional manual. Still, this conscious act of colonial appropriation met with limited success. We 180 ≤ CHAPTER 6 already have seen that the changing language in the confessional manuals signified concerns among the priests that Nahuas had not learned to connect sodomy with sin. While preconquest Nahua concepts of homosexuality related to Na- hua cosmology, postconquest processes and mixtures altered the mean- ings and context of the colonial discourse related to sodomy. Nahua views of homosexualities changed somewhat, partly because of colonial appropriation, and partly because of the development of a mixed dis- course that incorporated both European and indigenous notions. The altered discourse gave birth to a Nahua cultural matrix in which the postconquest peoples related sacrifice, ritual, and Catholic ideas of sin to male homosexual acts.

The Theoretical Problem: Did Homosexuality Exist? A brief interlude is warranted here to discuss my use of the term ‘‘homo- sexuality.’’ Perhaps more controversial than my use of sexuality as an analytical lens, discussed in the introduction, is the suggestion that the Nahuas had discrete identity categories such as ‘‘the homosexual’’ and ‘‘the heterosexual.’’ I have titled this chapter with the anachronism ‘‘the homosexual’’ as a provocation. As the reader will note, I do not believe that a sexual identity equivalent to ‘‘the homosexual’’ could have existed in preconquest or early colonial Nahua society. Yet, the provocation of the impossible subject position allows me to explore Nahua divergences from modern identity categories. As I have argued elsewhere, while identity categories did exist in colo- nial times, they were used inconsistently in legislation and the courts, clerical discourse, and popular culture. Further, these discourses of iden- tity existed in a dynamic and ever-changing relationship in which peo- ple’s sexual behaviors and desires built upon and gave meaning to the narratives presented in the writings.∞≠ The social constructionist conundrum, as proffered in the works of Weeks, Foucault, Rubin, Chauncey, and others is this: homosexuality and heterosexuality did not exist before the modern period.∞∞ At the beginning of the modern period (placed sometime between the late eigh- teenth and the late nineteenth century), according to Foucault, scientists with various methodologies and agendas created a specific category of knowledge that would later come to be termed sexuality. In modern THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 181 society we believe that one has a sexuality, a thing internal to the self, within one’s body, screaming to be let out and expressed. Before the modern period, according to this view, there existed different ways of organizing erotics that did not fit into the discrete categories employed by modernity. Chauncey later argued that Foucault’s model ignored class and racial differences, but he too supported the social constructionist paradigm. This scholarly agenda, which has been critiqued from a variety of perspectives,∞≤ may be problematic for understanding Nahua homosex- ualities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For, as we shall see, the Nahuas expressed certain notions of homosexuality, radically dif- ferent indeed from modern homosexual identities. However, we should not forget the critical edge of social constructionist perspectives. Precon- quest notions of identity in the Nahua world were not based on a stable, internalized sexual identity. I have found no evidence to suggest that the Nahuas believed homosexualities came from within a perceived desiring self. Rather, Nahua culture appears to have derived meaning from the ‘‘passive’’ role in male homosexual acts based on that culture’s concep- tions of community need, structural stability, and cosmological concern. As the colonial period progressed, the relationship between sexuality and governmentality emerged, and the Hispanic puto came to the fore among more Hispanized Nahuas. Hence, homosexual identity as Foucault un- derstood it did not exist for the Nahuas, before or after the conquest. Still, an analysis of colonial power suggests that identity formation was more complex than Foucault imagined, and that the Nahuas believed that indi- viduals tended to have particular types of sexual characteristics.∞≥ Fur- ther, the colonial situation forged new types of sexual identities, even as it foreclosed others.

Chronicling Homosexualities When the Spaniards witnessed and fought the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and the other indigenous peoples in the basin of Mexico, they perceived a contradiction: a highly masculine group that engaged in extensive sodomy. This contradiction, certainly a contradiction only in Hispanic minds, perplexed some Spaniards.∞∂ Other Spanish, mestizo, and indige- nous commentators, particularly the great defender of indigenous socie- ties, the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, engaged in tortured 182 ≤ CHAPTER 6 mental gymnastics to contextualize the existence of ritualized sodomy among the indigenous peoples of New Spain.∞∑ I argue that the multiple constructions of homosexuality in these texts lead one to a colonial dis- course that presents an obscured view into the indigenous societies of early New Spain.∞∏ Most Spanish chroniclers, writing supportive accounts of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, associated Nahua sodomy with effeminacy, but they also asserted that Nahua men were very masculine.∞π The sodomitical discourse these chroniclers advanced complemented the Spanish justifi- cation of conquest, which used cannibalism, human sacrifice, and sod- omy as excuses for conquering various peoples and degrading their hu- manity.∞∫ However, as Trexler has warned, it would be folly to presume that, because of this discourse, we should pay no attention to Spanish views of indigenous homosexuality.∞Ω Moreover, Trexler notes, the over- whelming majority of references to sodomy ‘‘occur alone, with no link to those other, more serious ‘crimes.’ ’’≤≠ Finally, the statements of these authors fit with the seemingly ubiquitous presence of cross-dressing fig- ures in indigenous societies of the Americas, and of Mesoamerica in particular, from before the conquest through today.≤∞ In one of many examples of chroniclers discussing sodomy, Francisco López de Gómara, chaplain and confidante of Hernando Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, stated that the men of central Mexico ‘‘were very much inclined to carnal acts, both with men and women.’’≤≤ In Panuco, a Nahua area north of Veracruz, for example, there existed ‘‘houses of grand putos where thousands of men publicly congregated at night.’’≤≥ Gómara provides no analysis of the place of sodomy within Nahua dis- course, but simply uses the statement that Nahua men engaged in such activity as a way to critique their actions and justify the actions of Cortés. The Spanish apologists for the indigenous told a different story. Las Casas compared classical peoples to the indigenous peoples of the Amer- icas. The effeminate, cross-dressed sodomites became eunuchs, injured in some way, and thus unable to complete their roles as men in warrior societies.≤∂ Further, those Mexica youth who committed sodomy in the schools and temples did so with each other, not with older men.≤∑ Thus Las Casas placed the Nahuas and other indigenous peoples in the classi- cal tradition: they supported the positive characteristic of the ancients in which those who could not perform their proper roles as men remained a valued part of society. At the same time, the Mexica rejected what Las THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 183

Casas and the Catholic clergy considered a terrible sin of the Greeks, pederasty.≤∏ Las Casas seems to make a unique argument for his time: pederasty is truly evil, while sodomy between youth is not as problematic. Las Casas’s arguments show that discourse about sodomy related closely to one’s position on the conquest.≤π The Spanish writers believed that, if the Nahuas had a strong role for institutionalized sodomy, then they necessarily were less civilized than the Spaniards. Sodomy to the chroniclers was a trope related to their analysis of the conquest. Once a people was conquered, Spaniards rarely main- tained an interest in the homosexual behaviors of the conquered group. Still, when the Spaniards conquered more peoples of the Americas, even at a significantly later date, they almost invariably discussed sodomy, cross-dressing, and other behaviors that challenged European masculine norms.≤∫ The discourse of conquest, in which the writers associated homosex- ualities with abominable sin and effeminacy, first entered the hybridized indigenous narratives through mestizo and Nahua chroniclers.≤Ω Unlike in the Nahua discourse, here the writers promote a sexual ideology di- rectly influenced by the genre produced by the Spanish conquerors. Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, a Mexica chronicler, one probably less influenced than others by Hispanization,≥≠ has little to say about sod- omy. The late sixteenth-century writer of the Cronica mexicana, Tezozo- moc centered his attention on the history of Tenochtitlan. Deeply influ- enced by preconquest Nahuatl linguistic styles, we can see him as in many ways a traditional Nahua chronicler.≥∞ He states that the leader of Coyoacan forced messengers from Tenochtitlan to return home wearing women’s clothes as a penalty for the aggressive behavior of the Mexica, and to warn them against war.≥≤ This forced feminization speaks to a dis- course that connected war with masculinity. To tame the Mexica, the leader of Coyoacan needed to feminize their representatives. And in- deed, when the messengers returned to Tenochtitlan, the Mexica leader soothed their bruised egos by calling them brave and honorable.≥≥ The story of the feminized Mexica warriors points to the subversion of mas- culine power in which the leader of Coyoacan asserts his own masculinity and denigrates that of the leader of Tenochtitlan (through his representa- tives). Tezozomoc critiques this ritualistic subversion of Mexica mas- culinity and attempts to reclaim the masculine performance of Mexica warriors over their forced feminization.≥∂ 184 ≤ CHAPTER 6

Diego Muñoz Camargo, a late sixteenth-century mestizo historian of Tlaxcala, was more clearly influenced by the Spaniards, since he wrote exclusively in their language and used the word bardaje (berdache), a term derived from Arabic, to signify a cross-dressing, cross-gender fig- ure.≥∑ Of our indigenous and mestizo authors, Muñoz Camargo identifies the least with the Nahua world. He does not take on an indigenous iden- tity, and he focuses much more attention on the Spanish. Perhaps because his mother was not from the Tlaxcallan nobility, he does not identify as Tlaxcalteca, but he still writes from the vantage point of the community of Tlaxcala.≥∏ He states that, while the Tlaxcalans did not punish these peo- ple, they did denigrate the bardajes as effeminate: ‘‘They held the nefarious sin to be a great abomination, and sodomites were despised, thought to be lowly, and treated like women. They did not punish them, and they said to them . . . ‘You evil and miserable men, is there (perhaps) a lack of women in the world? And you who are bardajes, who would take the office of women, would it not be better to be men?’ ’’≥π The Tlaxcalans mock the bardaje in order to force him to remasculinize himself. Through his discursive critique of effeminacy, Muñoz Camargo attempts to reclaim Tlaxcalan masculinity. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a historian of Texcoco, a writer with a complex mestizo-indigenous identity, wrote significantly later than Tezozomoc and had much more Hispanic influence.≥∫ Ixtlilxochitl, how- ever, unlike Muñoz Camargo, identified closely with indigenous societies. He claims noble lineage from Texcoco, and he clearly remains proud of both his Texcocan heritage and Texcocan history.≥Ω According to Ixtlil- xochitl, both the Toltecs and the people of Texcoco outlawed sodomy with the punishment of death.∂≠

The pecado nefando was punished in two ways: from the one who functioned as a woman, who was tied to a post, they removed the entrails through the lower parts. And the young men of the city cov- ered him with ash, so that he came to be buried underneath it, after which they placed much firewood [on top] and set him on fire. As to the one who functioned as a man, they covered him alive with ash so that he would stay tied to a post until he died there.∂∞

Trexler correctly notes that several Franciscans influenced Ixtlilxochitl’s analysis.∂≤ In the seventeenth century, Ixtlilxochitl uses a particular sex- ual historiography to understand his contemporary realities. THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 185

The chronicles produced by Nahuas, mestizos, and Spaniards all form part of a particular genre in which the presence or lack of ritualized sodomy among the indigenous peoples related to a discourse of con- quest. Those who argued for the fundamental corruption of the in- digenous populations by endemic sodomy tended to mark the conquest as a valid enterprise. Those who argued that sodomy was rare and pun- ished tended to stress that the conquerors were too savage in their treat- ment of the indigenous populations. Still, we need to understand all of these elements not only in the context of the genre in which they were produced, but also in the context of the behaviors that the chroniclers observed. The figures that the chroniclers mention are people whom anthropol- ogists later will term berdache. These figures have become part of an enduring debate. The bulk of those who have studied the berdache have stated that this individual, an indigenous male who cross-dresses, was some type of ‘‘third gender.’’ Richard Trexler and Ramón Gutiérrez dis- agree with this assessment.∂≥ The evidence from the Spanish chronicles would not support any definitive conclusions. Thus we must turn now to a Nahua discourse on homosexualities of the period immediately preced- ing the conquest.

Nahua Homosexual Discourse I: Signifying Cosmology Unfortunately, the representations of preconquest homosexualities can only be found in postconquest documents. Before the conquest the Nahuatl-speaking peoples did not refer directly to homosexual activities in any writings that we have recognized at this time. While the conqueror Bernal Díaz del Castillo discusses idols representing men engaged in sodomy with other men,∂∂ no such images appear to have survived the conquest. Further, while Nahua mythology contains many gender ambi- guities and cross-gender activity, no direct references to homosexuality exist.∂∑ This contrasts with the situation in the Andes, where the ancient Moche peoples had a significant number of pieces of pottery that de- picted anal sex, some of which pictured homosexual acts.∂∏ Still, we have seen male priests becoming goddesses. The relationship between sacrifice, transvestism, and transsexuality would seem impor- tant here, as these remained central to the tlazolli complex. The priest who dresses in a woman’s skin becomes a goddess. The Huastec priests 186 ≤ CHAPTER 6 become feminized by their brooms. Perhaps more to the point, Tezcatli- poca in some of his manifestations has sex with men. How do these categories and practices relate to Nahua discourses of homosexuality?∂π Some of the postconquest documents that discuss religious ritual pro- vide significant information regarding an early colonial Nahua discourse on homosexualities. This discourse, while influenced by colonialism, contains a wide variety of elements that exceed Spanish notions of sod- omitical sin.∂∫ Thus, while we do not have and cannot recreate a purely preconquest indigenous notion of homosexuality, these non-European elements allow us to view an early colonial cultural formation that en- compasses homosexual acts within the tlazolli complex. The Codex Magliabechiano contains some discussion of various sex- ual and other ‘‘sins.’’ The tlacuilo places all the sexual acts in the context of divination, celebration, and/or sacrifice. Sodomy is mentioned once, in a Spanish-language text that describes a divination ritual, termed ‘‘dia- bolic medicine.’’ A healer brought an image of the god Quetzalcoatl and, on a cloth in front of the image, the curer threw twenty grains of maize:

If the grains left the middle empty, a sort of field where the grains were around it, it was a sign that [the patient] was going to be buried there, meaning that s/he would die of that disease. And if one grain fell on top of another, it was said that his/her illness came from sodomy. And if the grains of maize separated, half to one side, half to the other in such a way that a straight line could be placed in the middle without touching any grain, it was a sign that the patient would be cured of the disease.∂Ω

If sodomy caused disease and related to death, what did this tell the Nahuas? López Austin notes that all sexual activity related to disease and death. Nahuas did not see such a relationship as negative but as simply natural: sex led to both fertility and death, both creation and destruc- tion.∑≠ It also is unclear what the narrative means by sodomy here, as the Spanish-language text does not go into detail. Indeed, this could have signified the relationship between maize, the life-sustaining grain, and the human form.∑∞ If the grain of maize represented the human body, two grains on top of each other signified sexual activity, in this case sodomy. The image associated with this text (figure 38) shows a female curer throwing the grains onto a cloth in front of a rather diseased-looking man. Did the man signify sodomy? Note that the man is below Quetzal- THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 187

FIGURE 38 A curing ceremony. From The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (Codex Magliabechiano, facsimile), ed. Zelia Nuttall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1903), 156. coatl, sitting in a virtually identical position. The sick man may be created in the image of the powerful deity, but he now needs the female curer to make him better. Could the sodomy discussed signify a ritualized homosexual relation- ship between Quetzalcoatl and the man, only to be cured by another, this time heterosexual, ritualized relationship? While I find this suggestion intriguing, it does not fit with much of the evidence. In the Codex Tudela, grains of maize and beans are thrown on a petate, and if one grain of maize lands on top of another, sodomy caused the illness.∑≤ The Tudela specifies that the sick person goes to an ‘‘old sorceress.’’∑≥ The rather obscure ritual requires some context, provided only indi- rectly by the Florentine Codex. There, diseases are cured in a variety of ways, often including the worship of gods. A seventeenth-century Na- huatl ritual text shows that when a human engages in sexual activity with a god or goddess, this behavior cures some people, while it makes others ill.∑∂ This same text states that excess sex could cause disease and death in 188 ≤ CHAPTER 6 crops and livestock.∑∑ The Codices Magliabechiano and Tudela appear to refer to a dualistic relationship: sexual behavior can cause life or death, just as it can make one ill or cure a disease. The Codex Tudela also contains a text and image that refer specifically to cross-gender activity and its relationship with both sodomy and the steam baths:

Temazcal: bath of hot water where they committed offenses to Our Lord. . . . And in this bath there were many men and women. Thus there, with the heat, they illicitly used [each other]: men with women, women with men, and men with men. And in Mexico they had men dressed in women’s clothes, who were sodomites and performed the offices of women, such as spinning and sewing. And some lords had one or two [of them] for their vices.∑∏

Thus the Spanish saw the temazcal (see figure 1), a curing device, as a breeding ground for moral license, particularly sodomy.∑π The connec- tion between the temazcal and the cross-gender figures is unclear in this text. The Nahuas may have used the baths for a variety of sexual pur- poses, and the cross-gender figures could have been added here to em- phasize the nature of the acts performed. One notes the paradox: the baths, intended to cure ill people, inflicted them with the further ‘‘illness’’ of sinful sex. The translation from the Nahua moral framework, in which the sexual acts would not have signified vice and sin, to the Catholic framework, in which sexual sin abounded as the defining framework, caused this irony, this disjuncture in meaning. In contrast to López Austin’s argument, we find European discourses that related sodomy to disease. Guillermo de los Reyes points out that in seventeenth-century Puebla, several local leaders argued that tolerance of sodomy and effeminacy in men caused the diseases then rampant in the city. They related this concept to Sodom and Gomorrah, and engaged in public processions that involved self-flagellation.∑∫ This European dis- course likely had influenced Nahua views by the time the Codices Maglia- bechiano and Tudela were produced. In addition to connecting sodomy (and, in the case of the Tudela, cross-gender activity) to disease, the tlacuilos place the act in the context of sacrifice, punishment, and cannibalism. In the Tudela, the preceding folios relate to sacrifice and the punishment of criminals, and the subse- quent folios relate to sacrifice and cannibalism. In the Magliabechiano, THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 189 the various folios surrounding the text that mentions sodomy all focus on sacrifice. The Florentine Codex provides a prime example of an early colonial discourse related to homosexualities. The first epigraph to this chapter is part of an omen presented in the codex. In chapter 4, I discussed this omen, which applies to the day known as One Death. The omen, related to the day sign of the god Tezcatlipoca was also the day sign of the slaves. On this day, slaves were to be treated well and given pleasure. Anybody who mistreated a slave would receive a great penalty from Tezcatlipoca.

And thus Tezcatlipoca ridiculed him: he mocked him and thus made him fearful and cursed him. Perhaps somewhere he will be ceremoni- ally bathed and will die as a bathed sacrifice. And it was said, ‘‘He will be sacrificed, cooked, and eaten.’’ Because at one time the slave was beaten, [the slave’s] sins were transferred onto him. . . . Tezcatlipoca enriched one, and thus could inflict one with pain and affliction. Then if someone out of his torment cursed him as a cuiloni, he no longer had his pride when he said to him, ‘‘Titlacauan, great cuiloni, wretched cuiloni! You have had your pleasure with me! You have mocked me!’’ So also did he speak if someone let his captive flee: ‘‘Great cuiloni, Titlacauan! This has befallen you. Curses upon you for giving me a captive only so that you could mock me.’’∑Ω

While Trexler does not analyze this quote because he states that it is merely an insult, Kimball finds great meaning here: ‘‘There was some kind of relationship between homosexual men and the trickster persona of the god Tezcatlipoca.’’∏≠ Sahagún does at one point in the Spanish translation declare Tezcatlipoca a puto (faggot),∏∞ but this declaration has no parallel in the Nahuatl text and relates only to the declaration regard- ing Titlacauan (one of Tezcatlipoca’s identities, albeit an important one). Sahagún’s declaration seems to parallel the Spanish notation from the Codex Borbonicus about the puto priests—our phallic Huastecs.∏≤ More- over, Kimball ignores the fact that the text clearly uses the term cuiloni as a pejorative intended to gain control over the god and prevent the un- pleasant sacrificial fate of the human. The statement continues: ‘‘Thus he said this to him, which was merely his word of torment. Yet, what good was it? For it was said that he had been aroused. Those to whom this had befallen were foolish.’’∏≥ The person to be sacrificed in the stead of his captive or his slave unleashed an epithet. But this epithet has meaning, 190 ≤ CHAPTER 6 for the sacrificial moment closely related to ritualized homosexual ac- tivity. The images that accompany the text make this more clear as we see a seated man appearing to be sad, followed by a picture of his sacrifice by heart excision, followed by cannibalism, complete with the almost obliga- tory European trope of the person boiling in a pot.∏∂ Titlacauan, Tezcatli- poca’s alter ego, is mocked and insulted in his attempts to be a great warrior, to capture and sacrifice others. He is sodomized and feminized just as he is captured, sacrificed, and eaten. The forced feminization may remind us of Tezozomoc’s story of the forced transvesting of the Mexica messengers. The feminization here signifies the penetrated man, present in the acts of both sodomy and sacrifice. Was the connection between sacrifice, cannibalism, and sodomy based in the European mind of our Franciscan, the Europeanized minds of his aides, or the indigenous minds of the Nahua people at the time of the Spanish conquest? Las Casas states that he has heard that the sacrifice of beautified and effeminate young men pleased the gods. But, as is common with Las Casas, he combines hearsay from a variety of locations in his statements regarding the people of Mexico.∏∑ In the text from the Florentine Codex, though, dualities build upon each other in such a way as to suggest that the discourse relates quite closely to Mesoamerican traditions. Tezcatlipoca provides a person with riches, and therefore he also can punish that person. Tezcatlipoca and Titlacauan are parts of the same god, existing in a dualistic relationship with each other. Tezcatlipoca represents both a strong masculine figure and a feminized god.∏∏ A ritualized power inversion occurs: the person who beats the slave or loses the captive himself becomes a captive des- tined for sacrifice. The cuiloni, the one sodomized, becomes intricately connected with the one sacrificed and eaten. These dualisms and inver- sions stem from the relationship between sexualities and religious ritual. In the book of the Florentine Codex on the origins of the gods, one chapter discusses the purpose of Tezcatlipoca; it shows that this god engaged in curing, and the one needing a cure berated the god with an insult. Tezcatlipoca was the extremely powerful god that had made the person sick. Still, the sick person can only bring him- or herself to insult Tezcatlipoca’s somewhat less powerful alter ego, Titlacauan:

And when he placed [illnesses] upon people, it was when he was offended: that someone had not carried out his/her vows, that one had THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 191

damaged the fast, that a man had lain with a woman; a woman had lain with a man, or that otherwise the fast had been broken. . . . And the one who was ill and very weak, who could not be cured, who could no longer struggle, sometimes scolded [Titlacauan]. S/he said to him: ‘‘Titlacauan, great cuiloni. Now that you have taken your pleasure, slay me already.’’ Some [Titlacauan] then cured, not angered by this. Some died for this.∏π

The text evokes ritual inversion: the desperate patient, attempting to gain a cure, does everything s/he can to insult the god, perhaps even threaten- ing him with anal intercourse. At the same time, the term used for plea- sure suggests that the god already had engaged in sexual activity with the patient. Note that, unlike in the translations proffered by Anderson and Dibble and Kimball, the Nahuatl pronouns never marked the patient’s gender. Further, the examples given explaining the reasons for the pen- alty make it clear that the patient could be a man or a woman. And Kimball’s attempt at asserting a homosexual identity for Titlacauan (or Tezcatlipoca) fades further into the background as the god is represented as one who may penalize people for the insult. Here cuiloni is used in an attempt to denigrate a god and take control over him. The attempts to use it in regard to Tezcatlipoca suggest that the term served as an insult to both power and trickery, the two elements related most closely with this god.∏∫ Titlacauan’s persona is further revealed in his picture in the Florentine Codex (figure 39).∏Ω Here the tlacuilo presents the god in a form similar to many of the other gods but significantly less regally attired. Titlacauan wears only a loincloth, sandals, and an extensive knotted rope that ap- pears to ensnare him. He carries a flower and a smoking pipe, and he blows on a flute. The flower, as we have seen, signified fertility and eroti- cism. The snare, according to Klein, was connected with sexual trans- gressions and with the intestines, themselves associated with anal inter- course.π≠ And we have noted that the Nahuas associated the flute closely with the phallus. Neither Titlacauan nor Tezcatlipoca signified sodomy, but these texts show that there existed a close relationship between sacri- ficial rituals and a discourse on male homosexual acts. The intestines, or entrails, were important elements in Nahua sacrifi- cial rituals, and they also related closely to Nahua perceptions of anal intercourse. The removal of the entrails, one of a series of forms of 192 ≤ CHAPTER 6

FIGURE 39 Titlacauan, a representation of Tezcatlipoca. From Ber- nardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Florentine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 1, f. 34v. sacrifice, signified to the Nahuas a close relationship between anal ac- tivity, including penetration, and sacrificial action.π∞ We are still left with the question as to what was meant by cuiloni. Anderson and Dibble translate the term as ‘‘sodomite.’’ Kimball translates it alternately as ‘‘faggot’’ and ‘‘one who is fucked.’’ Trexler translates the term (probably partly through Sahagún’s Spanish) as both ‘‘queer’’ and ‘‘passive sodomite.’’ López Austin translates it as ‘‘sodomite, catamite.’’ Sahagún himself translated the term as ‘‘passive sodomite.’’π≤ In modern Nahuatl, the term has a pejorative sense, suggesting the most accurate translation as ‘‘faggot’’ or ‘‘queer,’’ but this tells us little about its sixteenth- century meaning. The most authoritative sixteenth-century Nahuatl- Spanish dictionary, produced by the Franciscan friar Alonso de Molina, translates puto as ‘‘cuiloni. chimouhqui. cucuxqui.’’ He translates ‘‘puto that does to another’’ as ‘‘tecuilontiani.’’π≥ In the Nahuatl-to-Spanish sec- tion of the dictionary, he adds ‘‘cuilonyotl,’’ translated as ‘‘nefarious sin, THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 193 one man with another,’’ and ‘‘cuilontia,’’ translated as ‘‘to commit the nefarious sin.’’π∂ He also includes ‘‘tecuilonti’’ and ‘‘tecuilontiani,’’ both translated as ‘‘he who does to another that which is against nature.’’π∑ While the term cuiloni is of uncertain origins, it may derive from cui, ‘‘to take.’’ The -oni ending signifies a passive form of the verb.π∏ Cuiloni also relates to the ‘‘rectum’’ (cuilchilli), ‘‘excrement’’ (cuitlatl), and ‘‘intestines’’ or ‘‘entrails’’ (cuitlaxcolli).ππ Cuiloni derives from ‘‘someone/something taken,’’ and is clearly related to the anus, thus one taken from behind. While the answer will have to remain speculative, the use of tecuilonti leads us to the conclusion that the term cuiloni referred to the ‘‘passive’’ position in sodomy. The te- is the indefinite personal prefix, while the -ti is likely a shortened form of -tia, a causative. This suggests that tecuilonti is to cause someone to do cuiloni, showing Molina’s Spanish translation to be correct. Tecuilonti thus refers to the ‘‘active,’’ cuiloni to the ‘‘pas- sive.’’ Recall, however, that none of these texts refers to a specific un- changing sexual identity. Rather, all the Nahuatl documents recorded up to this point suggest only that the acts themselves, not the people, de- serve denigration. These documents view homosexual acts in the period immediately preceding the conquest as related to the gods, sacrifice, and ritual. In the episodes related to Titlacauan, these acts directly connected with human sacrifice as the person sacrificed was the person sodomized. Sodomy here also showed the denigration of Titlacauan, as the threat of someone sodomizing him caused the god to act. Here preconquest sodomy related in various ways to Nahua cosmology, replicated in ritualistic discourse.

Nahua Homosexual Discourse II: Concerning Identity To better understand the complex Nahua notions of homosexual activ- ity among men, I turn next to the book of the Florentine Codex that discusses the everyday activities and identities of humans. Sahagún in- tended book 10 to give priests some ideas about what constituted proper and improper behaviors before the conquest, as well as to give them some concept of the social categorizations of various people. Too often schol- ars have assumed that this book unproblematically represents precon- quest notions of morality, and indeed Sahagún was interested in eth- nographic accuracy.π∫ Sahagún focused on the ability of the Catholic Church to alter the reality of the peoples with whom he came into con- 194 ≤ CHAPTER 6 tact, so he needed to study that reality.πΩ Still, I posit that, while the words and images reproduced in book 10 are thoroughly Europeanized, they signify the views of some sixteenth-century postconquest Nahuas.∫≠ The text of book 10 relates closely to the European genre of the en- cyclopedia.∫∞ It categorizes a wide variety of sociological entities, and establishes morality in a good-versus-evil binary division. Most of the texts shown below come from chapter 11, on the ‘‘vicious’’ and the ‘‘per- verse.’’ The binary between good and evil, important to Catholic theolo- gians,∫≤ was an attempt to understand Nahua behavior in the Catholic framework. This attempt connects with the confessional manuals, which worked to institute the morals demanded in the ostensibly ethnographic Florentine Codex. The suggestion made by Sahagún that the codex, and particularly book 10, simply recorded already existing values is, contrary to the author’s claim, actually a discourse that intentionally asserted a timeless value system on top of a reality of a changing colonial moral framework. Thus we find one entry:

Suchioa: The suchioa has women’s speech, women’s form of address, men’s speech, men’s form of address . . . ; s/he corrupts, confuses, and bewitches people . . . ; s/he makes people suchioas; s/he confuses and corrupts people.∫≥

Note that Nahuatl does not mark gender, and here I intentionally assert the ambiguity of the gendered markers. The term suchioa, or xochihua, refers to a person whose gender is unclear. Sahagún simply translates the term as ‘‘trickster’’ (embaucador). But Anderson and Dibble translate xochihua as ‘‘pervert,’’ and Kimball translates it as ‘‘homosexual.’’ Still, none of them provides evidence to support their translations.∫∂ The term literally translates as ‘‘possessor of flowers,’’ and appears, according to Lisa Sousa, to refer to some sort of transsexual figure.∫∑ Indeed, the refer- ence to two different forms of gendered speech may suggest the validity of Sousa’s conclusion. In this passage perhaps we have found a type of sorcerer who combines genders in him/herself and corrupts others. The next passage in book 10 refers to sodomy:

Cuiloni, chimouhqui, excrement, corruption, filth, filth sucker, little filth, corrupt, afflicted, frivolous, a joke, a mockery, annoying, makes people filthy, fills people’s noses with filth, effeminate; s/he passes THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 195

him/herself off as a woman; s/he deserves to be burned; s/he burns; s/he is scorched; s/he is burned; s/he is scorched; s/he talks like a woman; s/he passes him/herself off as a woman.∫∏

The image that accompanies these passages shows a person dressed as a man seated, talking to a person dressed as a woman, with a flower be- tween them (see figure 40).∫π The flower in Mesoamerican discourse relates to the broader theme of fertility, but in this case would have signified sexual excess, enticement, and seduction. The flower here rep- resents the sexual desire and perhaps the sexual acts taking place between the two figures. The xochihua possesses a flower, signifying that this person possesses sexual desire, perhaps excess sexual desire. The second text states that the cuiloni deserves death, and indeed, the second image in figure 40 shows a person executed by fire.∫∫ But we return to the question posed above: who and what was the cuiloni? The references refer to the male ‘‘passive’’ in sodomy, and Sahagún’s transla- tion is ‘‘sodometico paciente.’’ Molina also translates chimouhqui as a synonym for cuiloni.∫Ω The cuiloni is condemned here, much as in the discourse surrounding Titlacauan. But this discourse adds two other dimensions, relating it to both the Spanish concepts presented by those chroniclers listed above and the discourse of transsexualism to which Sousa refers. The cuiloni is condemned to die, just as Ixtlilxochitl had suggested. Further, passivity is condemned in no uncertain terms, just as Muñoz Camargo had told us. But one must note that these elements relate to a European discourse on sodomy that had existed in law and literature before Spanish contact with the Nahuas. The thirteenth-century Siete partidas defined sodomy as a sin against nature, and decided the penalty as death. In the late fifteenth century, these penalties were refined. In Portugal, sodomites were to be burned to death, while in Spain the pen- alty was either hanging or burning.Ω≠ Thus the penalty that Torquemada attributes to the Mexica is identical to that practiced by Spain, while the penalty Ixtlilxochitl attributes to the Texcocans is similar to that of Por- tugal. Book 10 supports these views. Were these attitudes the result of a convergence of similar concepts or were they postconquest inventions intended to suggest that the history of Nahua morality was the same as that of the Europeans? The Nahuas before the conquest did have a societally sanctioned, if 196 ≤ CHAPTER 6

FIGURE 40 The sodomite. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Florentine Co- dex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 10, f. 25v. denigrated, position for a transvested male. This individual appears in figure 40 as a woman on the other side of the flower talking to a man. The text that accompanies this image, the cuiloni text, refers specifically to male bodies as it says that the cuiloni and the chimouhqui pass them- selves off as women. Yet here the image shows a man and a woman. The conclusion must be that the woman actually is a transvested male. Whether this male was viewed as a woman, a man, a berdache, or a third gender, we cannot know. The pairing of the two images along with the text shows first that the transvested male was intended to signify the passive position in sodomy. Second, as Sousa notes, the flower between the two signified sexual activity, thus showing that the two had engaged in (or at least desired) sex. Third, the speech scrolls and the idea of talking like a woman both show that speech was a specifically gendered and sexualized act. Finally, while these first three concepts appear to signify Nahua views at the time of the conquest (as they do not have clear parallels in European thought and iconography), the image of the sod- omite burning may represent preconquest notions of what would happen to people caught in that position, although it more likely refers to images that the authors saw or heard about, images that emanated from the Spanish courts. The Nahuatl language presented in the text provides more information regarding this figure and allows us to make a connection with precon- quest notions of moderation and excess. One central descriptor of the cuiloni is filth. This figure is called tlahelli (filth), tlahelchichi (filth sucker), and tlahelpul (little filth). S/he is said to ‘‘make people filthy’’ (tetlahelti) and to ‘‘fill people’s noses with filth’’ (teiacapitztlahelti). These THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 197 descriptors refer to a concept that relates to Tlazolteotl, also called Tlael- quani, the ‘‘eater of filth.’’ This concept fits within the tlazolli complex. Indeed, this suggests that the figure represented in this postconquest text may not fit within the Spanish notion of the sodomitical sinner if it instead refers to the connection between sexual excess and the Nahua goddess. Thus perhaps the scenario our author describes derives partly from the notion of one who engages in excess, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, relates to excessively public sexual activity. If this is the case, and such a conclusion is admittedly conjectural, then the reference to cuiloni, like the reference above to cuiloni with regard to Titlacauan, would not reference an internalized sexual identity, but rather would specify a con- textual set of sexual characteristics based upon one’s actions at any given time, actions that presumably would require confession to Tlazolteotl, confession of the filth, which would then be eaten by Tlaelquani. Another text in book 10 promotes the connection between the con- cept of cuiloni and notions of excess. This text describes the proper use of chicle (gum). According to this document, young girls and unmarried women chewed chicle in public. Others chewed chicle only in private, to do away with bad breath. Except for the case of small girls, the pub- lic chewing of chicle was a sign of sexual availability. But the cuiloni/ chimouhqui chewed chicle in public: ‘‘The ill people called chimouhqui: their good prize is the chewing of chicle. It is as if it were their privilege, their fortune. Those who publicly chew chicle are men who are taken, those who are precisely the chimouhqui.’’Ω∞ The notion here of chimouh- qui comes the closest we have seen to an identity based on sexual acts. The chimouhqui is the man who is taken, the passive male partner in anal intercourse. The author of the passage connects his sexual role with his tonalli, his fortune, based at least partly on the day of his birth. This tonalli determines the fact that this man will both be chimouhqui, or passive, and a public chewer of chicle. So we can note both the sense of irony in the statement (his fortune is to play a passive role in anal sex and chew gum), and the notion of the public as excessive. He signifies excess because of his public persona. This notion suggests a complex construc- tion of sexual identity that would equal neither the sodomite nor the homosexual. Yet, if we understand tonalli as a stable form of identity, we fail to comprehend the complex nature of fate, luck, and similar conceptualiza- tions in the Nahua universe. Tonalli emanates from the radiance of the 198 ≤ CHAPTER 6 sun and relates to an individual’s birth on a particular day. Yet we find significant evidence that Nahuas manipulated the day of birth so that the individual would have a propitious future. Moreover, as the tonalli in modern Nahua communities relates to one’s shadow, we have found evidence from the colonial period that the tonalli was not so much a stable prediction device of an individual’s identity (sexual or otherwise), but rather was viewed as a manipulable guide or reflection of one’s poten- tial. As such, Nahuas related tonalli both to the sun and to the gods who signified duality—or the ability to alter one’s perceptions of the universe. A tonalli, further, required individual care and attention so that it did not become damaged or destroyed.Ω≤ The images and texts shown here represent a small portion of book 10, and they fit into the elements described as evil. Thus they are placed within a European binary that does not appear to relate well to Nahua concepts of good and evil. But the images exceed the meanings of the texts and in some senses expunge the European binary frame. Still, the texts have quite specific, if misunderstood, places within European cul- ture; the cuiloni text, for example, relates quite closely to Spanish laws. The Nahua aides, the trilinguals, also authored the cuiloni texts, and were likely as influenced by European genres as they were by the Nahua meta- phors that abound in both texts and images.Ω≥ The flower, the modes of address, the terms used, the public chewing of gum, the clothing, and the tonalli all relate to indigenous concepts.

Nahua Homosexual Discourse III: ? Early modern European discourse often shrouded female homosexuality in mystery. This European reticence makes it difficult, perhaps impos- sible, to discover much about female homosexuality in Nahua thought. If we analyze the place of female homosexuality in the confessional manuals, we find tremendous confusion. From the beginning, the friars used a Nahuatl term, patlachuia, that they had difficulty understanding or at least putting into writing. Molina asks in this regard: ‘‘Have you and some other woman done it together with each other [ammopatla- chuique]?’’Ω∂ The Spanish text is somewhat different: ‘‘Did you commit the sin against nature, with another woman like you?’’Ω∑ If patlachuia was defined as ‘‘for one woman to do it to another,’’ one can imagine tremendous confusion among the priests, at least those THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 199

fluent in Nahuatl, in asking this question. The reticence of the friars to define specifically the term patlachuia likely had to do with the confu- sion, uncertainty, and ambivalence that existed in Europe during early modern times related to female sexuality, and particularly to female sex- ual acts with each other. It appears that the authorities only intervened when one partner transvested herself or when one inserted an ‘‘unnatu- ral’’ object into the other.Ω∏ Thus patlachuia became, at least for the Catholic clergy, an utterly confused category. Was the ‘‘it’’ intended to refer to sexual acts? To which sexual acts might ‘‘it’’ have referred? One can have little doubt that the term had some specific meaning for Nahua women. It appears to come from patlachtic, ‘‘a wide thing.’’Ωπ The -uia suffix comes from -huia, an applicative ending to transitive nouns.Ω∫ Hence, patlachuia could emanate from ‘‘to use a wide thing.’’ΩΩ While the relationship between this verbal formation and the sexual acts intended in its use in the colonial documents is purely speculative, is it possible that the wide thing referred to could be a device (a hand, a dildo, or some other contraption) used by one woman to penetrate another? Whatever the answer to this question, the Nahuatl text does not mention a ‘‘sin against nature.’’ The rest of the confessional manuals that I have consulted through 1634 use similar language. After this point, all the manuals simply ignore the topic. In Europe at the time, while women’s homosexual activity was discussed and debated, clerics and judges were reticent to engage women in explicit discussion of homosexual behavior.∞≠≠ Patlachuia also appears in book 10 of the Florentine Codex. Sahagún translates patlache as ‘‘hermaphrodite.’’∞≠∞

Patlache: The patlache is a filthy woman, a woman with a penis, pos- sessor of an erect penis,∞≠≤ a penis, and testicles. S/he pairs up with a woman, makes him/herself a friend of a woman, provides him/herself with young women, and possesses young women. S/he has a man’s body; the top part of his/her body is that of a man. S/he talks like a man and passes him/herself off as a man. S/he has a beard, body hair, and hair. S/he does it to another woman (tepatlachuia). S/he makes a woman his/her friend. S/he never wants to marry. S/he detests and never looks at men. S/he is frightening.∞≠≥

Did the Nahuas conflate hermaphrodites and women who engaged in sex- ual acts with other women? Here the hermaphrodite and the woman who 200 ≤ CHAPTER 6 engaged in sexual activity with other women both were associated with the bodies of grown men. Anatomy in this case would not signify a deter- mination of ‘‘sex,’’ but rather would be associated with the ‘‘improper’’ gender role assigned. Could the writers have been discussing symbolic representations? Could they have been discussing particular elements of ritual discourse?∞≠∂ Were they relating a Nahua element of disgust toward hermaphrodites and women who had sex with other women? Were they attempting to translate Mesoamerican ideas of duality from one system of cultural meaning to another? Or were they simply telling the Franciscan friar what he wanted to hear? The text parallels early modern Europe’s fascination with the her- maphrodite as a monstrous figure.∞≠∑ In Europe, cases of hermaphrodites that came to the attention of the public often led to confusion, in which the hermaphrodite’s body became a contested site related to gender pre- rogatives.∞≠∏ Additionally, many intellectuals at the time studied Ovid’s Metamorphoses, including the story of the creation of Hermaphroditus as a mythical being.∞≠π Intellectuals, artists, and literary figures brought to Mexico from Spain a variety of Ovid’s motifs, which influenced the tri- linguals who wrote the texts and the illustrators who painted the images in the Florentine Codex.∞≠∫ And we must remember the image from chapter 3 (figure 15), where we saw that Sahagún in his own handwriting added, among other terms, patlachpul, to a list of social categories of people.∞≠Ω Nonetheless, to suggest that this text was a European creation would be problematic as it focuses on the misunderstood category, pat- lachuia. Sahagún’s attempt to understand the term leads to the notion of a hermaphrodite, similar to his own understanding of the monstrous European entity or even of Ovid’s Hermaphroditus. Sahagún’s imaginings are placed in the Nahuatl text, mixed forever with the imaginings of his aides and informants. But what did these Nahuas imagine? The most intriguing possibility relates to the tendency in the Floren- tine Codex and other similar documents for the Nahuas to speak/write in metaphor.∞∞≠ Could the penis have been a metaphorical representation of sexual desire between two women? Could it have signified a bodily trans- formation that made these sexual acts possible in a male-centered dis- course? The image accompanying this text (see figure 41)∞∞∞ suggests that the metaphorical interpretation is correct. We see a person with women’s breasts exposed but with his/her hand hiding the genitals. The person wears only a man’s cape. S/he stands and talks to another person, who is THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 201

FIGURE 41 The hermaphrodite. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino (Floren- tine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 10, f. 40v. dressed as a woman and seated. The standing person may be a figure of indeterminate gender. The image does not follow the text, at least not precisely, as the figure in the text has the chest of a man, the image the chest of a woman. Or perhaps I am looking at the wrong markers. Could the chest of a man in the text have referred to something other than the breasts, what we consider the secondary sexual characteristics? Could the concept ‘‘top part of the body of a man’’ have been seen as a meta- phor? The image does not fit European discourse and images related either to hermaphrodites or to women’s homosexual activities. But neither does the image fit into any genre of preconquest Nahua painting/writing.∞∞≤ Despite this lack of precedent, we may speculate that perhaps the text and image signify various preconquest metaphors related to sexual ac- tivity between women. If the patlache text refers to this category mis- understood by the Spaniards, and if the image too refers to an erotic pose that the European readers missed, then to suggest that this text is a simple representation of European morality clearly is wrong. In the sixteenth century, the Nahuas maintained traditions that con- nected homosexual acts to a broader cosmological framework rather than to specific internalized sexual identities. Nor could they have seen the 202 ≤ CHAPTER 6

figures represented as sinners in the traditional Catholic sense. While Nahuas may have seen the ‘‘passive’’ participant in male homosexual acts as both effeminate and excessive, they considered such sexual activity warranted within particular circumstances, including during religious rit- ual activity and warfare. Whether this would continue through the colo- nial years is the final question to which we shall turn.

The Puto The few criminal and Inquisition cases that exist show that the cross- dressing sodomite played a role in postconquest society.∞∞≥ As in Europe of the time, few sodomy cases involving sixteenth-century indigenous peoples exist in the archives. While occasionally we will see a charge of sodomy included with a long list of other charges, this particular issue is rarely substantiated with any evidence or testimony. The few cases that do exist where sodomy was the primary charge are instructive as well. In each instance, it appears that a political dispute of some sort led to the charge being filed. By the seventeenth century, we find a few more cases of sodomy, but now among a much more Hispanized population. Two ‘‘Indians’’ in Mo- relia were accused in 1601 of being known putos who committed the pecado nefando with other men.∞∞∂ They had committed various acts, including sodomy, inside a temazcal. The criminal trial strongly suggests that the ‘‘active’’ partner desired the passive, and states that he paid the passive partner for engaging in sexual activity with him. In fact, Zeb Tortorici finds evidence for an extensive amount of male same-sex sexual activity (a ‘‘sodomitical subculture’’) in this area in the late sixteenth century and the early seventeenth.∞∞∑ A 1658 case in Mexico City involves some cross-dressing Indians, but focuses on a major scandal—the discovery of a network of parties in which men had sex with other men.∞∞∏ In this case, several cross-dressers are present, and they are Indians, perhaps suggesting a continuation of the xochihua (suchioa) tradition, but more likely a Hispanization in which two similar traditions came together: the cross-dressing effemi- nate man within the Hispanic framework, and the indigenous xochihua figure described above. The Nahuatl annals of urban Nahuas in late seventeenth-century Puebla present evidence of two sodomy cases, both involving people of African THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 203 descent. In 1690, the annals state that a mulatto, described in Nahuatl as ‘‘very black’’ (huel tliliqui), was burned because he was a puto:

They burned a mulatto, who was very black, because he was a puto. His name was Domingo. . . . Don Francisco Alvarez brought him here. They burned him at Santiago Calyacac. And they dressed him in green wool; his cap was also green. Then there was a red cross on his fore- head [and another] also red, on his back. Two standards preceded him, one green, one red. And the trumpet was not blown as it is when one is hanged [but] only as when a feast day is celebrated. . . . [He] died at 9. All day Friday he burned. And they buried his ashes at [the church of] San Matías. Thus for the very first time a puto burned here in Puebla.∞∞π

Then, according to the same annals, another mulatto puto, this time ‘‘light-colored,’’ burned in 1691: ‘‘Another puto burned. He was also a mulatto, light colored. His name was Manuel. He gave people powders by means of which he took advantage of small children.’’∞∞∫ While the cases appear related more to the Hispanic system of justice, we see the process of cultural transformation taking place among indige- nous peoples in contact with people of African and Spanish descent. The Nahua annalist first connects skin color with puto identity. Second, he uses a Spanish loan word to describe that identity. Third, he connects the punishment of the puto with an elaborate spectacle. Next, he tells us that this is the first time that a puto was burned in Puebla. In the next case, he tells us that the other puto used powders in seduction, thus connecting him to witchcraft. Finally, he asserts that this puto engaged in sexual activity with small children, thus asserting the specter of the pederast. The assertion of Hispanic sexual and racial ideology is paramount in these cases. The notion that the mulatto would be suspect for witchcraft, sodomy, and pederasty is ever present. The mulatto man could be effemi- nate, although he could also be the seducer. He asserted himself through the notion of a man filled with excessive desires, a concept that would fit within both the Hispanic and the Nahua frames. Thus a different identity was born in the minds of the Hispanized Nahuas. Now a hybrid figure that combined the Hispanic puto, the seductive African man, and perhaps the Nahua cuiloni emanated from the fulcrum of the colonial enterprise. In 1692, Joseph Vidal de Figueroa, a leading member of Mexico City 204 ≤ CHAPTER 6 society, wrote to the king of Spain that the city was falling apart because of the pulquerias, bars catering to the indigenous population and other members of plebeian Mexico City, in which Indians, ‘‘dressed as women, sleep among the inebriated [patrons], and provoke them into the clumsy act’’ of sodomy.∞∞Ω The cross-dressed indigenous person, declared a sod- omite or a puto, had entered Hispanic society.

Colonialism and the Homosexual Like the writers of the Florentine Codex, Ixtlilxochitl and Muñoz Ca- margo presented early postconquest Nahua positions denigrating sod- omy and objecting particularly to the passive partner. But Nahuas and mestizos educated by Europeans at least a generation after the conquest made all of these assertions. Still, it seems unlikely that Europeans could have created the ensnared Titlacauan, degraded for having committed an act signified by the term cuiloni, yet promoted as a god. Further, the post- conquest Nahuas continued to connect sex with gods, disease, death, sac- rifice, cannibalism, mockery, the flower, the fertility of the earth, tonalli, and the rebirth of humanity. The concept of patlachuia will, for now, remain unknowable, but we can have little doubt that it, along with the other categories discussed in this chapter, belonged to the tlazolli com- plex. I have noted Tlazolteotl’s dominion over chimouhqui and cuiloni, and thus I speculate that the tlazolli complex held sway over the other concepts as well. Nahuas at the time of the conquest had a role for an individual male who dressed in women’s clothes and played the passive role in sexual acts with men. While the evidence does not allow for firm conclusions regarding this individual, he does not appear to signify a third gender. The texts describe him as a man, if effeminate and passive. The cos- mological discourse disavows a privileged role for a third gender individ- ual as it connects the acts designated by the term cuiloni not with a particular gender identity but rather with the sacrificial moment and the tlazolli complex. Does the penetrated man become symbolically fused with the sacrificed subject? We cannot be sure, but this chapter suggests the close connection between Nahua notions of sexual characteristics and ritual subjectification. Thus entered the priests, carrying with them bilingual confessional manuals. Preconquest concepts of confession, related to dirt, damage, THE HOMOSEXUAL ≤ 205 and disorder, may have become postconquest sin, but all were conflated in the imaginary and religious universes of the early colonial Nahuas. And we must not overestimate the power of the confessors, overworked indi- viduals often attending to indigenous communities only sporadically. The meanings invested in homosexual categories and acts are complex colonial phenomena, integrating European, African, and Nahua notions of the relationship between power, desire, and behavior. In our analyses of indigenous homosexualities, we must remain alert to complex conceptual hybridization, although not in the manner that previous treatments have stated such mixture took place. The Puebla annalist knew about the Hispanic puto, the African witch, and the other elements of such ideology, not because the priest taught him these things. All of these elements related to the daily mixtures that took place among various people in the society—not the teachings of the clerics. Most important, the Nahuas in the seventeenth century continued to perform sexual rituals, some of which undoubtedly included traditional invocations of homosexual acts. Nonetheless, the puto had entered the cultural matrix, and the homosexual was about to do so.

≤ 7 ≤

SEX

Do the Christians not have many women and get drunk? —Don Carlos Ometochtzin Chichimecatecuhtli, Proceso inquisitorial del cacique de Tetzcoco, 42

This chapter examines three tales of seduction that provide moral lessons for the Nahuas and for historians and theorists of sexuality. In the first, the Toltec leader, Huemac, in 994 ce seduces two women, but the seduction takes a wrong turn as he learns that the two women are the gods Tezcatlipoca and Yaotl. In the second, the women of Chalco in 1479, in a sign of their submission to the Mexica leader, seduce Axayacatl; in doing so, they continually make fun of his masculinity. In the third case, a Catholic priest, Bartolomé López, in 1589 attempts to seduce the wife of Miguel Hernández, and thus earns the attention of the Mexican Inquisition. Don Carlos’s question, in the epigraph to the chapter, which he asked in 1539, points to a suggestion made in chapter 2: many members of the indigenous population, including such active resisters of Catholic doctrine as don Carlos, understood Catholic concepts of sin and used those concepts to criticize Spaniards. Yet, for the most part, Spanish authorities found such criticisms lacking, primarily because of the nature of in- digenous testimony: Nahuas like don Carlos failed to distin- 208 ≤ CHAPTER 7 guish between relatively minor infractions like drinking and fornication, and more major ones like heresy, idolatry, and rebellion.∞ This disconnect between Nahua understandings of sin and Spanish responses stems from three related concepts. First, Nahuas received a complicated message about sin, a message that they used to formulate and maintain the tlazolli complex. Second, the distinctions between appropriate and inappropri- ate sexual seduction were different for the Nahuas than they were for the Spaniards. Finally, the colonial enterprise led some Spaniards, empow- ered by the social, economic, religious, and political institutions present in New Spain, to manipulate indigenous people. Nahua discourse distinguished moderation from excess, where mod- eration signified fertility and continuity, while excess signified disorder and destruction.≤ Still, the discourse on excess allowed for many excep- tions, signified by the tlazolli complex. In the colonial years, Catholic priests attempted to alter this discourse to mandate a connection be- tween sex and sin, but they failed to accomplish this change. Instead, the Nahuas adjusted their sexual performances to accommodate a changed discursive framework in which excess would lead to spiritual condem- nation, while moderation remained connected with fertility and fulfill- ment.≥ In addition, in this chapter we will encounter a Nahua discourse that connected with pleasure. This discourse supported bodily pleasures, practiced in moderation, and condemned excessive indulgence in such pleasures. This compared with a European discourse that distinguished bodily pleasure from romantic attachments, condemning the first while promoting the latter. As we shall see, Nahuas adapted to the European binary division, but such a division never encapsulated Nahua thoughts about pleasure.∂ The discourse distinguishing moderation from excess related closely to the act of seduction, an important element in Nahua treatments of sexuality in the late preconquest and early postconquest years. We have already witnessed the framework of the seduction tale. Xochiquetzal’s seduction of Yappan led both to Yappan’s downfall and to the mainte- nance of the social order. The curer’s seduction of the scorpion’s tail led to the cure of the individual stung by that scorpion. So, from this perspec- tive, Nahuas could view seduction as a positive element of society, and we shall see ways in which seduction, in a proper ritual context, maintained order. More commonly, though, we will find tales that critique seduction as excessive and disorderly. Hence, we turn to our first actor, Huemac. SEX ≤ 209

Seduction Tale I: Adultery and Women’s Buttocks In the year Nine Rabbit, 994 ce, a man named Huemac succeeded to the throne in Tollan, the legendary center of Toltec civilization.∑ Huemac was married to Coacueye, an elite woman from the allied Nonoualca.∏ (The writers of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan describe Coacueye as moci- huaquetzqui, a term we encountered in chapter 4, used for women who have died in childbirth.)π Huemac’s relationship with his wife appears strained: she had buttocks a hand-span wide (she was too thin for his taste). Worse, she lived with and received instructions from a god, proba- bly Tezcatlipoca.∫ Upon discovering his wife’s allegiances, Huemac requested a meet- ing with some of his closest allies, and he demanded that they provide him with women who had buttocks at least four hand-spans wide. The allies went back to their people and sent Huemac the requested women. Huemac then told the allies that the women were not fat enough, which caused a great dispute.Ω Several sorceresses made fun of Huemac for his inability to get women who were fat enough. Huemac then had sex with these sorceresses.∞≠ At this point, Tezcatlipoca and Yaotl heard about the disagreement. Both then turned themselves into women with buttocks four hand-spans wide, and they seduced Huemac.∞∞ Tezcatlipoca convinced the allies that Huemac had betrayed them, persuading them to go to war. Meanwhile, having been tricked, Huemac attempted to alleviate his transgression through confession. When this did not work, Huemac gave up his chil- dren, having them sacrificed to Xochiquetzal. In the end, the Toltecs were defeated and Huemac killed himself.∞≤ This story, reproduced from two postconquest texts, presents the Na- huas with a series of moral dilemmas. Huemac, a supreme leader, should, according to Nahua tradition, have access to as many wives and other concubines as he could support.∞≥ Additionally, he should be able to engage in sexual activity with the gods, since, as we have seen, such activity was allowed for priests and leaders of his level.∞∂ The fact that he engaged in such activity with male gods would not seem particularly problematic either, as those gods had turned themselves into women, thus proving Huemac the masculine leader, the active partner in the relationship. The nature of the text, however, criticizes Huemac for his excessive desires. He demanded women excessively fat and he engaged in adul- 210 ≤ CHAPTER 7 terous liaisons in an excessively public manner. Nahuas saw adultery as a serious violation of the paired bonding between husband and wife: each owed the other fidelity. Further, community norms demanded serial mo- nogamy among commoners and regulated polygyny among nobles, both to ensure inheritance patterns and to maintain family structures.∞∑ This discourse linked adultery closely and consistently with theft. The one who seduced another into adultery stole that individual from his or her partner. Hence, Tezcatlipoca, as the trickster god, witnessed in his mirror the problems with Huemac, then tricked him, causing his downfall. Huemac’s adultery was no simple affair, and while Nahua discourse condemned adulterous liaisons, the meaning of those liaisons varied in importance. The discourse condemns not the moral problems with adul- tery, but rather its excessive nature. Hence, if one committed such liai- sons occasionally and privately, presumably Nahuas would not have seen this as so problematic. We witness in figure 42 a prognostication related to adultery.∞∏ Here the wife pulls the adulterous husband, by the hair, back into the marriage. The pulling of his hair signifies her challenge to his masculinity, as his demeanor and position recall other images in the same document and related texts of captives destined for sacrifice.∞π The accouterments around him warn of the evils that will befall an adulterer. He will have to do extensive penance, including confession and bloodlet- ting. The connection here between the captured adulterer and the cap- tured warrior destined for sacrifice highlights the metaphorical connec- tion between adultery and a war against the community and the city: Nahuas viewed both adultery and war as potentially dangerous and trans- gressive. To defend marriage or community against transgression, one must sacrifice one’s own blood, or even one’s own life.∞∫ But is this the equivalent of a Christian moral discourse on adultery? Do the adulterers necessarily face such condemnation? In the Florentine Codex, Sahagún and his aides wrote that adultery, like theft, made you so dirty that no water could clean you.∞Ω Diego Durán agreed, arguing that adultery before the conquest was outlawed:

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Adultery and fornication were also condemned, to the point that if a man was caught in adultery a rope was thrown about his neck, he was stoned, and then dragged throughout the entire city. After this the body was cast out of the city to be eaten by wild beasts.≤≠ SEX ≤ 211

FIGURE 42 Prognostication related to adultery. From Codex Borgia (facsimile) (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1976), 59.

Yet the notion of adultery before the conquest was complex, and would remain so after. Nahua discourse, as we have seen, condemned adultery. As we noted in Huemac’s case, the seducer, Tezcatlipoca, gained control. Similarly, in Xochiquetzal’s case, when she seduced Yappan, she gained power. So the discourse does not appear to condemn seduction, but rather the response to that seduction. The theft of the partner, while condemned, places blame largely on the married individual and not on the seducer. This concept of theft, familiar to Spaniards, would place marriage within the realm of property rights. Of course, in practice, when humans seduced other humans, it seems unlikely to have been so simple. The Catholic confessional manuals display a strict value system in which God, through the priest, still could forgive one for such a trans- gression. Most of the manuals, however, avoid using the Nahuatl termi- nology for adultery, instead referring simply to engaging in sexual acts with one with whom you are not married. Thus the priests decided, in the confessional manuals, to avoid the most common term for adultery, likely because they did not know enough about the origins and moral implications of the term.≤∞ However, sermons related to adultery needed to use the correct Na- huatl term. We find in a treatise from the 1550s by the Franciscan friar 212 ≤ CHAPTER 7

Andrés de Olmos an extensive sermon on adultery in which he states as his central argument that ‘‘the adulterer takes from his or her spouse, his or her property and his or her body, and gives [these] to his or her concubine, separating from his or her spouse to be with some person, committing a very great sin with them.’’≤≤ Here Olmos uses language and discourse familiar to the Nahuas. First, the term for adultery he uses (tetlaximaliztli) was common in the language. Second, he uses terms related to robbery. The adulterer takes from his/her spouse, robs from him/her, and gives to the concubine. The cognates suggest a close rela- tionship between the theft of property and that of flesh. Finally, the term used for concubine (meca) translates literally as ‘‘to tie’’ and stems from a preconquest institution in which two unmarried people would live to- gether without a marriage ceremony.≤≥ Hence, they were ‘‘tied’’ together, but not ‘‘married.’’ Olmos thus preaches against an established precon- quest institution, and he uses traditional Nahua discourse to do so. After the conquest, the confessional manuals and criminal trials show that both husbands and wives continued to engage in preconquest pat- terns related to adultery (as well as concubinage).≤∂ The language through- out the colonial period remained consistent, asking husband and wife simply if they had sexual relations with a person other than their spouse. The archival sources, particularly the criminal trials, show that through- out the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both husband and wife strug- gled to maintain monogamous marriages, complaining when the spouse strayed. Normally the spouse had to be quite public and notorious in order to receive condemnation from the husband or wife.≤∑ All of these elements suggest that the Nahuas had similar attitudes toward adultery as the Spaniards. Religious discourse strictly prohibited adultery, but popular discourse allowed for its practice. Still, this analysis of adultery tells us little about the moral frameworks behind the Huemac story or even the reasons behind the condemnation of adultery. For such an analysis, we need to go to a text that makes the rationale of the division between moderation and excess more clear. In the late 1540s, before setting out to develop their main ethnogra- phy, and before Sahagún had received official permission to engage in such work, he and his aides interviewed a series of elder noblemen in an attempt to reproduce traditional Nahua moral discourse. They did so in the tradition of the huehuetlahtolli, ‘‘ancient words,’’ or a sort of ancient SEX ≤ 213 wisdom in Nahuatl high discourse. This discourse, while extraordinarily contrived, has the feel of old formal Nahuatl.≤∏ The huehuetlahtolli com- prises a series of speeches given by elders to their younger community members at various points during their lives.≤π The most relevant chapter for our purpose is chapter 21, when the nobleman talks to his son about sexual matters. Discussing the priests, the elder nobleman says: ‘‘Their way of life does not have tlazolli, dust, or filth. Thus they approach and stand before the lord of the near and the nigh. They offer him incense and pray to him for the city. And because of their goodness and their clean living, the ruler names them the priests of the gods.’’≤∫ While this discourse appears to promote a sense of chastity, we must remember that the lack of tlazolli in the priests’ daily lives allows them to control the tlazolli of the ritual performances. The lord of the near and the nigh, Tezcatlipoca, mandates that they perform their sacri- fices by promoting tlazolli in ritual discourse. They thus must maintain equilibrium: by keeping tlazolli out of their daily lives, they may manipu- late it in their ritual lives. The tlazolli complex rules their lives, both through the avoidance of tlazolli in their daily interactions, and in the maintenance and control of tlazolli in their ritual performances. The huehuetlahtolli confirms this sense of equilibrium and modera- tion when discussing what the youth should do to become like these priests. He should avoid the temptations, but not through abstinence. Rather, he should perform in moderation, lest he find himself spent: ‘‘You must not desire the dust and the tlazolli; you must not pleasure in de- filement and corruption or become excessive: you will be harmed, de- stroyed, killed.’’≤Ω The tlazolli complex becomes a signifier of excess, one that will kill the individual. As we have seen, such death—in a ritual context—also could lead to fertility and futurity, but that is not the point here, for the moral tale invokes a way of avoiding the tlazolli complex in daily life. But the discourse does not allow such morality to remain abstract. For, then we hear about the devouring of sex we already witnessed in chapter 2: ‘‘Do not lose yourself hastily. Do not devour earthliness as if you were a dog. . . . [If you do not act hastily], then, when you engage in earthliness, you will be rugged, strong, and swift.’’≥≠ Hence, as we noted, the morality tale intends not to tell us to avoid sex, but rather to make sure that we do not expend ourselves too quickly. If you engage in too much sex 214 ≤ CHAPTER 7 at a young age, you will become weak. Such morality did not fit well with clerical notions of absolutes and also suggests to us that Huemac’s wrongdoing did not relate to his desire to ‘‘cheat’’ on his wife, but rather to his unwise expenditure of sexual energy on his excessive desires. The word that I have translated as earthliness accentuates this point. Molina translates tlalticpacaiotl as ‘‘mundane or earthly matters,’’ and various cognates of the same term as ‘‘desire’’ and ‘‘lust.’’≥∞ While Molina and Sahagún leave little doubt that they understood tlalticpacaiotl as carnal activity, we can sense that the Nahuatl terminology had a some- what different tone. Tlalticpac, as the earth, was the central form upon which all life was lived. From the earth sprang all: plants, animals, hu- mans, and even deities, who had once lived on the earth. Thus the earth was in many senses the ultimate sign of fertility. The earth presented the community with the possibility of survival, both through the growth of crops and the performance of ritual. Still, the earth also signified promi- nently the tlazolli, as the dirt of the earth created all tlazolli and the deities most strongly linked with the earth were also among the ones deemed most dangerous for daily activity. Once again, though, we find that mod- eration is key: a moderate connection with the earth and earthliness would find one fertile for one’s life, whereas an excessive connection with the earth would deplete one’s energy. Thus the text provides a clear example of what happens when one en- gages in too much sexual activity: ‘‘You become like the maguey, and you will cease to produce liquid. Soon perhaps you will be unable to say any- thing or do anything with your spouse. She hates and detests you, as her desire arises and she wants the earthliness that you owe her. Already you are finished, so she will ignore and betray you. You have ruined yourself; you have consumed yourself.’’≥≤ The discourse concerns itself with the male production of semen and the proper role that men should play in engaging in sexual activities within marriage. The woman whom you marry will have sexual desires. If you engage in sex too soon or too often, you will become depleted of your semen, and thus you will not be able to please your wife. Indeed, we witness in Huemac’s case that he did not please his wife. She consorted with Tezcatlipoca, and she had the identity of the moci- huaquetzqui, the dangerous woman who may engage in a cannibalistic attack. In the discourse around Coacueye, the mocihuaquetzqui category SEX ≤ 215 serves as a symbol of her position as the unsatisfied wife, the one who has moved beyond her husband and who now resides in the land of the gods. She returns to the earth, to her husband, in order to perplex and destroy him. In the Huemac text the blame falls completely on the man, not on his wife. Similarly, in the huehuetlahtolli discourse, the elder noble con- tinually blames the younger when that younger man’s wife desires to have sex outside of marriage. The huehuetlahtolli text goes on to explain this phenomenon by dis- cussing the way that marital sexual relations should work. You must pre- vent yourself from engaging in an excess amount of sex, and practice moderation. Even within marriage, you should not engage in too much sexual activity: ‘‘Even though she is your spouse, your body, when you live with her, [you must do with her] as you do with food: do not eat hastily. That is, do not have a filthy life. Do not give yourself too much. Perform well. Otherwise perhaps you will not find pleasure when you give yourself too much pleasure: already you are killing yourself; you are endangering yourself.’’≥≥ This sense of moderation becomes the defining moment in the young man’s life. The older nobleman’s discourse suggests that he constantly must beware of the dangers of excess. For giving in to one’s own desires can lead to an excessive life that will lead to despair, destruc- tion, and death. The discourse continues comparing the young man to a maguey. When he gets older, if he excessively depletes his juices at a younger age, he will droop in his older age, he will not attain an erection. Then we hear a story about older women, charged with adultery, who tell their lord that their husbands can no longer have sex with them. They ask the lord what they can do: ‘‘You men are sluggish, depleted, and have ruined yourselves impetuously. It is all gone. There is nothing to be desired. But we women are not the sluggish ones. In us is a cave, a gorge, whose only function is to await that which is given.’’≥∂ In old age, women have greater sexual desires than the men who have engaged in excessive activity in their youth. Thus the men need to protect their abilities. The women who have committed adultery do not even seem blameworthy here (though the text does sug- gest that they will be punished). The man who has engaged in excess sex in his youth is at fault for all the adulterous liaisons that women have. Similarly, in the Huemac story, Coacueye does not receive blame for her actions. While she remains suspect throughout the story, Huemac is the 216 ≤ CHAPTER 7 one at fault for the downfall of Toltec society. His excessive desires for fat women make him a laughingstock. The discourse maintains that all people needed to avoid excess during their daily lives.≥∑ This discourse would in some ways seem familiar and reasonable to Sahagún, but the tale does not allow for the abstinence that the cleric seeks. For we hear about an old man: ‘‘A man was seized and imprisoned—a decrepit old man, white-headed—because he had com- mitted adultery. And he was asked why he still needed earthliness. He said that he desired earthliness because, when he was a child, a youth, he did not look upon a woman; he did not ever have earthliness. It was in this period of his virility, his old age, that he went seeking earthliness.’’≥∏ This tale serves as a caution: the young man should not engage in ex- cess sex, but neither should he be celibate. Instead, he must remain mod- erate in all of his pursuits. Any deviation from the moderate path, from the equilibrium, could lead to problems later in life.≥π If he became exces- sive in his youth, his wife would likely commit adultery. If he remained too celibate throughout his youthful years, he would likely later commit adultery. Of course, the text makes clear that the second option would be preferable, as the old man maintains his virility into old age. Still, as an imprisoned, decrepit man, he could hardly serve as a role model. Similarly, Huemac’s historical story could not serve as a model for the youth to follow. Huemac, despite the fact that he has maintained his viril- ity, has become a joke. He cannot control his wife, who not only cheats on him, but also endangers all of society. And Huemac’s desires have led to the downfall of the Toltecs. Finally, in Huemac’s story, we have the example of Tezcatlipoca. The huehuetlahtolli discourse presents Tezcatlipoca as a supreme being who reigns over both the tlazolli and the clean-living priests. In the tale, Tezcatlipoca turns himself into a woman and plays the ‘‘woman’s role’’ in sexual intercourse with Huemac. While Tezcatlipoca controls the situa- tion by becoming the seducer in the sexual act, Huemac plays the ‘‘active’’ role. Tezcatlipoca then turns Huemac’s life upside down. Tezcatlipoca’s rulership allows him to change at will, to perform any sexual act, in- cluding the ‘‘passive’’ role, to meet his goals, and thus to promote the tlazolli. The huehuetlahtolli discourse closes with a warning: ‘‘Do not live in filth on earth.’’≥∫ The tlazolli complex remains dangerous territory, and one who, when on earth, lives within its confines risks death. SEX ≤ 217

Seduction Tale II: What Are You Telling Me, Little Pleasure Woman? The second tale is of a seduction first encountered at the beginning of this book, an event that took place in 1479 in Tenochtitlan, as the voices and performances of the people of Chalco (ritually enacted as women) se- duced the emperor, Axayacatl. The song is reproduced in its entirety in the appendix, for, as the reader will note, the sexual seduction and the level of eroticism become most clear when one reads the whole song. This tale of seduction signified the sexual humor of the people of Chalco, in their attempt to ‘‘pleasure’’ the ruler of Tenochtitlan.≥Ω Moctezoma I had conquered Chalco in 1464. In 1479, after Axayacatl’s ascension about ten years earlier, the Chalca appear ready to renegotiate their obliga- tions.∂≠ Thus they arrive in Tenochtitlan, probably with the intent to entertain the king but also to warn him that Chalco had grown uneasy with his rule. We have already noted the relationship between sexual pleasure and fighting words, not to mention warfare. While the Chalca appear to chal- lenge the Mexica leader to act, we must understand the ritual nature of such a performance. The Chalca performed for the Mexica ruler, allowing him the superordinate position over them. According to the report we have of the encounter, the Chalca were nervous about Axayacatl’s re- sponse, and they became much more playful once he expressed his plea- sure with the performance.∂∞ Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin wrote his version of the 1479 event more than a hundred years after it took place. Chimalpa- hin, an indigenous historian, wrote his relación in Nahuatl, and he ex- pressed a close allegiance with the people of Chalco.∂≤ While he certainly used his imagination to recreate some of the events that took place in 1479, it seems likely that he had a strong oral history of the event. Camilla Townsend notes that Chimalpahin’s perceptions fit quite precisely what we know about the political divisions of this time period.∂≥ Chimalpahin says that the performance began while Axayacatl was still inside ‘‘the house of his women.’’ The performance began very poorly, though, and only became better when Quecholcohuatzin, a noble from Amecameca, began to sing. We must note that Chimalpahin came from Amecameca (a division of Chalco), and he championed that area.∂∂ Chi- malpahin describes Axayacatl’s response: 218 ≤ CHAPTER 7

As Axayacatl approached the place of the dance his feet began to follow the music and he was overcome with joy as he heard the song and so he too began to dance and spin round and round. When the dance was over, the lord Axayacatl spoke, saying, ‘‘Fools, you have brought this fumbler before me, who played and directed the song. Don’t let him do it again.’’ The people from Chalco answered him, saying, ‘‘It is as you wish, supreme lord.’’ And because Axayacatl had given this command, all the nobles of Chalco became terrified.∂∑

The nobles went on, afraid, as Axayacatl had returned to his palace, that he would perhaps kill Quecholcohuatzin and punish all of the people of Chalco. Axayacatl summoned the singer, but instead of killing him, he spoke to the women of the palace:

‘‘Arise my wives, come and meet this man, for he will remain by your side; here he will be your companion, as though he were a woman as well. Look on him and know that already I have proof enough, that with this, my women, your hearts will be filled with joy, because this man made me dance and sing, this Quecholcohuatzin. No one before has ever achieved such a thing, for me to come outside my house and dance. This man has done it. For this reason, he will be your compan- ion forever. I take him now to be my singer.’’∂∏

Chimalpahin writes with pride about his noble forefather, the singer Quecholcohuatzin. In this story, based of course on Chimalpahin’s own memory, the memories of other nobles from Amecameca, and Chimal- pahin’s desire to establish the political power and legitimacy of Ameca- meca, Chimalpahin has made the singer a member of the royal court of Tenochtitlan. His prowess at singing would prove his great talent and his ability to represent Amecameca and Chalco.∂π Yet here we still find the singer placed in a subordinate position, one that the song complains about in regard to the people of Chalco. In fact, Axayacatl furthers the analogy of the song by placing the singer in with the women, with Axayacatl’s secondary wives, and saying that he will be placed there ‘‘as though he were a woman.’’ This position, similar to that of the medieval eunuch in Europe, would seem to denigrate Quecholco- huatzin’s masculinity, particularly in the context of this song.∂∫ Still, Chimalpahin assures us of the nature of Quecholcohuatzin’s mas- culinity, even if he will become a subordinate to Axayacatl and an individ- SEX ≤ 219 ual living with the leader’s wives: ‘‘Axayacatl ordered that a cloak and a loincloth be given him from among those that bore the personal sign of the house of Axayacatl, and another cloak and another loincloth and sandals adorned with turquoise, and a headdress with quetzal plumes.’’∂Ω Sartorially, the singer would become an extremely masculine man, as his insignia signified a level of masculinity unachievable for the rest of the nobility of Chalco. Further, he would become wealthy with his rewards. Chimalpahin’s use of such a gendered and sexualized memory relates to his position in seventeenth-century society. He had become a patriot for the people of Amecameca, seeking to argue that they should receive privileges reserved most often for the people of Tenochtitlan, the leader of the empire, and Tlaxcala, the major Spanish ally during the wars of conquest.∑≠ In doing so, Chimalpahin needed to write a history that pro- moted the high-level connections of the people from Amecameca. Thus, Quecholcohuatzin’s presence performs a particular role for him, and Chimalpahin ably uses gender and sexuality to sustain that role. The song shows that the people of Chalco willingly challenged their Mexica lead- ers, but also that they would use sex to entertain them. The performance shows Chimalpahin the heroic role played by Quecholcohuatzin, and thus the importance of Amecameca in both the establishment of the empire and the protection of Chalco. In presenting Quecholcohuatzin in an ambiguously gendered role, Chimalpahin can use this memory to assert the authority of his predecessor’s connections. But why did Axayacatl like this song? The song clearly questions his masculinity, though in a teasing manner. I will analyze the six sections of the song, suggesting why such a teasing seduction, even one that goes as far as making fun of the Mexica leader’s penis, would signify not a subver- sion of his authority, but rather an admission of his importance.∑∞ First, we should note the gendered dynamics in the introduction. Axa- yacatl’s conquest of the Chalca, ‘‘as if they were just women,’’ links warfare with sexual conquest.∑≤ Importantly, before they engaged Chalco in a war of conquest, the Mexica fought them in the more ritualistic flower war, a war, as I have noted, aimed to weaken the enemy but not conquer it.∑≥ Thus, the first stanza of the song opens with a call for other women— other than the Chalca woman singing the song—to pick flowers (‘‘Stand up . . . my little sisters . . . in the flower garden of war’’). This metaphorical call for other city-states to go to war with the Chalca against the Mexica would seem quite a threat. Any such rebellion in the realm of warfare 220 ≤ CHAPTER 7 would have elicited a harsh response from Tenochtitlan.∑∂ Yet, here the internal organization of the song appears to alleviate the threat. For, in this first section, the woman comes to terms with her fate.∑∑

What in the world am I to think of what you say, My lover, Little Axayacatl? What if I were to pleasure it?

While she longs for the flowers and the songs, the poetry and good life, of her freedom in Chalco,∑∏ she will accept Axayacatl, and she will pleasure him. A short way into the second section, the Chalca woman questions Axayacatl’s masculinity.

Are you truly a man? Though you may be well known, Is it true you no longer cut firewood?

Here, by asking if he really no longer cuts firewood, the woman suggests that Axayacatl is still a boy, as only boys and servants would cut fire- wood.∑π She then begins to engage in the seduction.

Come give it to me, child. . . . You and I will lie together. You will be happy. . . . I will do it gently and peacefully.

They will lie together and she will put his penis inside of her. But he cannot keep it inside of ‘‘the feathered cavern house.’’ The sexual inter- course for the woman, painted beautifully for her lover, remains deeply dissatisfying. First, he becomes too aggressive, sticking his hand in her skirts before she wanted it. Then she tries to make the best of it, taking charge of the sexual situation. Finally, however, he cannot stay inside of her—perhaps he is too excited or perhaps not excited enough. Her la- ment returns to her training as a noble girl: she is properly trained to spin and weave; she was ready for marriage. But now, depressingly, she be- comes unhappy with the lover to whom she has been pledged.∑∫ Her hopes for marriage, here signified through the term noquichhuan, the state of ‘‘my having a man,’’ represent the woman’s ideal relationship. This suggests a sense of the proper role for a noble woman. In her case, SEX ≤ 221 marriage signified an equality of purpose: she would possess a man; he would possess a woman. This allusion to gender complementarity, sup- ported by other texts representative of ideal marital relationships,∑Ω how- ever, could only take one so far. As we search the criminal archives, we find marital relations in distress, and Nahua women during the colonial years struggling with husbands asserting many prerogatives over them.∏≠ With their sexual relationships thus strained, the man had more legal standing than the woman.∏∞ Still, our singer desires marriage to a nobleman, rather than concubi- nage with the Mexica ruler. As she begins the first stanza, the Chalca confronts the ruler with her unhappiness. She cannot ‘‘make the spindle dance.’’ The phallic reference relates their sexual relationship to the privi- leged female role, at least for noble women.∏≤ As a weaver, she provides fine outfits that we still can see in contemporary Mesoamerican huipils. Her re- lationship to her weaver’s stick is a highly ritualized affair, one in which she not only produces fine cloths, but she does so for the goddesses.∏≥ We have already seen the centrality of weaving in the identities of the goddesses. In this relationship, the woman cannot weave because Axayacatl will not give her the sexual attention she requires. Thus she threatens him, saying that she knows his enemies, and she knows her way in war. We have seen that the Nahuas signified their goddesses with shields, but they saw warfare almost exclusively as a masculine activity.∏∂ With this threat, she continues to insult him by calling him a little boy and demanding that she will leave him if his performance does not im- prove. Then she states:

I wish you had been a woman. Perhaps then you would not sample She who is like the blossom of the song of concubinage.

If Axayacatl had been a woman, he would understand her situation and not make her a concubine, but rather a primary wife. But, how did he get her into this relationship?

Perhaps you took me with sorcery, You spoke the right words. Behold now the drunkard, Maybe you are drunk. Is there obedience in our home? 222 ≤ CHAPTER 7

Did you buy me anywhere? Did you buy me for yourself, My child? Did my aunts and uncles come to trade? Yet you do it without restraint, And you get angry, Little boy.

She questions the voluntary nature of their relationship, using a critique of Nahua gender relations to demand a change in the relationship be- tween Tenochtitlan and Chalco.∏∑ In the fourth section, after discussing the songs that she and others had sung to support their warriors in Chalco, she expresses disappoint- ment with them. In order to fight against him, she will become a man like Axayacatl.∏∏ She immediately rejects this course, instead asking the Mex- ica ruler to hand her his penis (‘‘softened maize’’), which she will make into a tortilla:

Hand me my softened maize, King, Little Axayacatl. Let me just pat one out for you, My child, Pleasure it.

She will develop the gendered inversion and the threat of castration in a more metaphorical manner later in this stanza as she will become politi- cally defiant: she will get together all of the other subjugated women to rebel against their lover.∏π In the meantime, the singer provides a critique of two aspects of Mex- ica dominance: concubinage and rape. The song states that the women from various city-states do not want the Mexica to make them con- cubines. They do not want this because they believe that the Mexica will rape them. This concern, as the song makes clear, relates to the just completed conquest of Tlatelolco, in which Mexica men raped Tlatelolca women. Read and Rosenthal summarize the events of this war by stating that, in response to the sexual transgressions of the Tlatelolca leader, ‘‘some Mexica youth raped some Tlatilolcan [sic] women, an action that provoked open warfare. With Chalca help in 1473, Mexico put Tlatelolco SEX ≤ 223 down. In a last-ditch effort, Tlatelolco sent in a squadron of women warriors who attacked the Mexica by squirting breast milk on them.’’∏∫ This story makes clear the political importance of sexual relationships: they can cause warfare. Chimalpahin describes the tense situation that led to the war. Axa- yacatl’s brothers questioned his masculinity by arguing that he was not ‘‘manly’’ because he did not take enough captives in war. Despite these complaints, Axayacatl became ruler of Tenochtitlan, but Moquihuix, the Tlatelolca ruler, and the husband of his sister, almost immediately chal- lenged him: ‘‘Moquihuixtli despised his wife because she was quite weak, did not have a pretty face, and was quite thin, not fleshy; hence Mo- quihuixtli despised her. Any capes Chalchiuhnenetzin’s brother Axaya- catzin sent her as gifts, Moquihuixtli just took away from her. He never let her use them. He gave them all to the women who were his mis- tresses.’’∏Ω Chalchiuhnenetzin, a royal woman—the sister of the Mexica leader—dressed in rags and acted as a servant to Moquihuix. He refused to have sex with her, preferring his mistresses. She went to her brother to complain, and he waged war against Tlatelolco. Chimalpahin closes by stating, ‘‘Hence it is told and said that the Tlatelolca were no more be- cause of their concubines.’’π≠ Moquihuix had similar problems as Huemac. He insulted his primary wife, Axayacatl’s sister. His insult to Chalchiuhnenetzin, along with the rapes of Tlatelolcan women, led to war.π∞ And then the final insult of the breast milk linked the fertility of the women to the subjugation of the Tlatelolca men. Moquihuix thus erred in using sexuality to publicly and notoriously degrade both his own noble wife and the Mexica ruler. Such a public spectacle led to the other spectacles: rape and warfare. ‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song’’ says:

Peacefully take off your skirts and spread your legs for the Tlatelolca, You who stink.

Referring to the sexuality involved in the Tlatelolco war allowed the Chalca to insult both Axayacatl and the Tlatelolca. The reference to concubinage in the fifth section refers to the institu- tion of polygyny, in which high-level Nahua nobles could have secondary wives. While these wives did not play as major a role as the primary wives, they did have privileges within the household and their children were considered legitimate.π≤ The singer criticizes the ability of Axayacatl to 224 ≤ CHAPTER 7 make her go into concubinage, to move into the houses of other men, and perhaps to increase the number of people dependent on him. After the conquest, Spaniards tried to abolish this institution, which led to signifi- cant resistance on the part of noble men.π≥ In fact, evidence exists that nobles kept secondary wives in more informal ways throughout the early colonial period.π∂ The song, on the surface, critiques the institution of concubinage by suggesting that Nahua women hated it. Of course, the implied argument, that the Chalca woman should be the primary wife, comes to the fore- front. And one must remember the nature of the song: performed by a Nahua noble man, this song signifies something related to the views of the high-level noblemen in Chalco. They would not have critiqued the polygynous relationships, but rather would have recognized their in- equality. In essence, the song critiqued the inequality of the relationship between Chalco and Tenochtitlan. The last section closes the song and forecloses the rebellion:

I am an old pleasure woman. I am your mother. I become a rejected old woman, An old maiden.

The woman, unsatisfied, has come to terms with her fate. She critiques Axayacatl for making her into a pleasure woman and a maiden at the same time, for treating her like a prostitute, but never having sex with her. Still, in the end, they go hand in hand into old age together:

Go along holding my hand. Be content.

On your flowery reed mat, In your sitting place, little boy, Peacefully go to sleep. Relax, my child, King Axayacatl.

The relationship at the very end of the song, while signifying resignation, has a tinge of equality. The alhiuani, the pleasure woman, was a woman who provided sexual favors for some compensation.π∑ She came into Nahua discourse in vari- SEX ≤ 225 ous ways. One text from the Primeros memoriales represents a typical quarrel amongst commoner women. One woman says to another: ‘‘Are you my spouse? Are you my man? . . . What are you telling me, little pleasure woman? Are you my concubine?’’π∏ The pleasure woman and the concubine signify, in this case, the two major insults that one woman can say to another. The reference to the man, the pleasure woman, and the concubine appear all intended to suggest the less desirable sexual posi- tions for the woman: she should not be a man, a pleasure woman, or a concubine. The discourse leaves out the obvious position, the wife, be- cause that office is the preferred one. It appears in this discourse that women did not want to become concubines or pleasure women, and indeed the evidence suggests that Nahua discourse considered such roles less desirable than the role of primary wife.ππ In book 10 of the Florentine Codex, we find a picture of the pleasure woman (figure 43). Here she wears a flowery dress and carries flowers. The flowers, as signifiers of fertility, also play a prominent role in ‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song.’’ In the picture and the song, they appear to signify sexual availability. The woman in the image also has hair in dis- array, a sign in Nahua iconography of the dangers of femininity, and in European iconography of the ‘‘loose woman.’’π∫ The text of book 10 with regard to the pleasure woman makes this association more clear, and also adds many other elements. In particular the pleasure woman is ‘‘a fierce woman’’ (cioatlaueliloc) who ‘‘gets plea- sure from her body’’ (inacaio ic mauiltiani), and who ‘‘sells her body’’ (nacanamacac).πΩ This combination, selling one’s body for pleasure, re- lates back to the ‘‘pleasurable life’’ condemned in the clerical discourse. Of course both the image and the text appear to emanate squarely from European concepts, but perhaps also from the tlazolli complex. She is an ‘‘old woman with itchy buttocks, an old woman, a flabby old woman, a filthy one, a filthy dog.’’∫≠ She does work to pretty herself up, to make it clear that she seeks pleasure. Thus she not only bathes but also ‘‘paints her face. Her face is covered with rouge, her cheeks are colored, her teeth are darkened—rubbed with cochineal. [Part] of her hair falls loose, while an equal part is wrapped around her head. She arranges her hair like horns.’’∫∞ One can only wonder if the friars found this last aspect de- monic, but the point is that the alhuiani did not conform to the feminine norms of society. By beautifying herself in these ways, she became con- cerned only with pleasure. She became part of the tlazolli complex as she 226 ≤ CHAPTER 7

FIGURE 43 The alhuiani, a pleasure woman. From Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice floren- tino (Florentine Codex, facsimile) (Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana; Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1979), book 10, f. 39v.

‘‘lives in filth, in pleasure. [She is] of the dust and tlazolli.’’∫≤ As we have seen, the tlazolli does not simply signify trash, but rather emphasizes excess. Here the alhuiani becomes the individual steeped in excess, though perhaps in a ritualistic manner. For, as we have noted, the tlazolli com- plex could signify ritual discourse and performance. The alhuiani ob- viously did not have dirt on her body, as she bathed and took care of herself. Still, through her drug use (she is said to eat mushrooms), her drinking, and the placing of excess onto her body in the form of cochi- neal, she resembles the priests who wear extra skins and often also use drugs, and the warriors who wear animal skins to war. Thus, though the alhuiani appears condemned, she also may have some ritual stature. As we discuss the alhuiani, we must gain a greater understanding of what the Nahuas understood as pleasure. In ‘‘The Chalca Woman’s Song,’’ much as in Huemac’s story, we find a critique of particular acts, but also some support for living a pleasurable life. Huemac’s problem was not that SEX ≤ 227 he engaged in sexual activity with women not his wife—something ex- pected of a high-level noble who could have a series of wives—but rather that he flagrantly and publicly engaged in scandalous behavior, threaten- ing subject communities for not providing him with appropriate women, being seduced by the gods, and, perhaps most important, failing to please or derive pleasure from his primary wife. Thus the huehuetlahtolli pro- vides some context for Huemac’s actions, arguing that noble youth must act in moderation in order to preserve their abilities to seek pleasure late in life. The Chalca woman, too, as Axayacatl’s concubine, seeks pleasure. She makes fun of Axayacatl for his inability to please her. And, moreover, she wants pleasure as his primary wife, as his main partner, not as one of his concubines. She will happily pleasure him by ‘‘making his spindle dance,’’ but she cannot do so unless he also properly pleases her. This concept of pleasure supports William Reddy’s argument that only Western intellectuals have created a stringent separation between ro- mantic engagements and bodily pleasures.∫≥ Nahuas did not make such a clear distinction, and certainly did not condemn the ‘‘pleasurable life’’ as damaging to the soul. When Catholic clerics in the sixteenth century attempted to assert such a binary distinction, they had great difficulty following the logic used in Nahua thought, which promoted pleasure as a necessary part of life. Like the earth upon which such pleasure was based, pleasure could create and it could destroy. Still, as the Chalca woman becomes an old pleasure woman, she re- sents her fate, but she also uses the concept of the alhuiani to signify her acceptance of her role. She will go on hand in hand with Axayacatl, and she will develop a relationship with him. This end of the song forecloses any opportunity that she had for resistance. Her fate assured, she indeed seems to have little pleasure, serving her emperor forever. Looking at the song from another perspective, Axayacatl would have accepted this performance because it challenged his authority in a harm- less manner. Like the carnivalesque day One Death, the ritual of this per- formance allowed the people of Chalco to turn the world upside down, to make fun of their overlord. In the end, though, they accept his rulership. In the meantime, they successfully entertained the ruler. And Axayacatl, of course, enforced the foreclosure of the ritual by turning the key per- former into one of his women. We need to try to understand this song through not just its words but 228 ≤ CHAPTER 7 also its performance as music and theater. After all, Chimalpahin in his historical memory focuses not on the words that Axayacatl heard but rather on the nature of the performance. How are we to know if Axayacatl considered the words, or if he instead focused on the majesty of the ceremony and the sound of the music? While we cannot know for certain, recent studies of the relationship between music and the aesthetics of self-formation suggest certain comparisons with Chimalpahin’s notions. Steven Friedson, for example, has argued, regarding the Tumbuka of Malawi, that too often ethnographers have ignored the nature of the music: the rhythms of the drumming, the tone, the trance-like hypnotic state of the practitioners when they listen to the music, particularly when they become sleep-deprived. These factors play a major role in the trans- formations that people undergo in healing rituals and other ceremonies designed to alter an individual’s perception of body and self.∫∂ In the Nahua case, extensive drumming accompanied the perfor- mances of these songs, and we have seen in the case of other rituals and the report on this particular song, that the performers also danced.∫∑ We also have reports of the involvement of other musical instruments. The drums used were the teponaztli, a horizontal log drum beaten with mallets, and the huehuetl, a large standing drum beaten with one’s hands.∫∏ It seems likely that the notes between the stanzas are signs for the drummers to establish their cadences. The song thus begins: ‘‘Toco tico tocoti, toco tico tocoti, toco tico tocota.’’ The notes may follow two different drum rhythms, one set for the teponaztli, the other for the huehuetl. As Friedson notes, such drumming can cause acoustical illusions, leading to altered states of consciousness, or ‘‘loosening up perceptual boundaries.’’∫π Motolinia, in a warning to other priests, points to such trance states in the Nahua case as dangerous breeding grounds for idolatry.∫∫ So, if we bring this possible altered trance state to Axayacatl, we can perhaps begin to understand his perception of Quecholcohuatzin. This performer, the singer, accompanied by drummers and dancers, may have altered Axa- yacatl’s consciousness, and allowed his head to dance with visions of the gods. In that case, the tremendous, perhaps sleep-deprived, perhaps drug-induced, pleasure that Axayacatl would have received from such a performance would have led him to greatly desire the repeat perfor- mance by Quecholcohuatzin, and to thus both shower him with gifts and make him remain in the house of the Mexica ruler’s concubines.∫Ω Quecholcohuatzin, as the courtly singer living with the women, exist- SEX ≤ 229 ing only to pleasure the emperor, became the definition of the alhuiani, literally the one who makes alhuia, who makes pleasure, who, in other words, lives to pleasure another. And the song that he sought to perform had the characteristics of early pornography. Quecholcohuatzin used his erotic connection with the emperor to assert his political connections and to maintain some political power with regard to the ruler. Axayacatl used his performer to erotically entertain the audiences present in his court, perhaps even to control visiting foreign dignitaries, and to salve the feelings of the commoners from Tenochtitlan and the nobles from Chalco. In this way, the political uses of this erotic song paralleled the politics of pornography that existed at the same time in Europe.Ω≠

Seduction Tale III: The Priest’s Stick In chapter 2, I invoked the figure of Miguel Hernández. Here I provide the reader with a linguistic analysis of the petition he submitted, asking what has changed in the discourses of seduction from the two precon- quest examples to this final instance, embedded as it is in the struggles over colonial rule:

I, Miguel Hernández, resident of Chihuatzinco, place my petition be- fore you, my precious revered ruler, señor Dr. Alonso Ruiz, inspector, who is here in the town of Quamochtitlan. And now I kneel and bow down before you and kiss your lordly hand because our priest, Bartolomé López, when he was confessing my wife, did not confess her, but incited her to sin. He said to her, ‘‘My child, leave your husband in the afternoon.’’ Then my wife said to him, ‘‘My father, how am I to leave him? He is very fierce.’’ And he then said to her, ‘‘My child, do not fear that he will do something to you or dis- cover something about you. When I have sinned with you, I will give you money, huipils, and skirts. And if your husband beats and mis- treats you, I will leave you with friends of mine in Puebla. You will be very happy there.’’ Then my wife said to him, ‘‘My father, he will look for me, because my husband is very fierce.’’ [He said to her], ‘‘My child, don’t let it worry you. I will beat your husband. Don’t worry.’’ And my priestly ruler, if you don’t expel him, how will I live here next to him? If you don’t expel him from the town, how will I live here with my wife? Six years ago he began to incite her to sin with him. Two 230 ≤ CHAPTER 7

years ago, he whipped my wife because she would not consent. And, my priestly ruler, he spoke to her in a way that is not spoken.Ω∞ As he was taking confession beside the altar, he said to her ‘‘My child, come grasp my stick. Do not be afraid. Come grasp it because I am just like a commoner. Am I black? I do not have curly hair. I am just your friend.’’ This is all I put before you, great lord and ruler. Do justice, as he greatly mistreats the poor commoners. Take pity on us, for this is why you have come. You have come to help us. So before you I ask for justice. Miguel HernándezΩ≤

Stuart Schwartz has noted that ‘‘the Indies, with their mixed popu- lations, their greater distances, the presence of allegedly superstitious beliefs of Africans and Native Americans, and a relatively loose structure of inquisitorial control, offered tremendous opportunities for freedom of expression, for unrestrained sexual appetites of laity and clergy, and for the liberty to think skeptically.’’Ω≥ In fact, Schwartz says that complaints to the Inquisition about clerical sexual abuse in New Spain were triple what they were in Spain. This fact suggests the validity of the assertions of this petition, but also the ease with which one could fabricate such a complaint.Ω∂ In any case, my point in using this petition as the final document in this chapter is not to discover whether Bartolomé López sexually abused the wife of Miguel Hernández, but rather to show ways in which Nahuas used Hispanic authority to establish their own power. The complaint signifies several things about Nahua sexuality as well as Catholic ritual. First, as early as 1595, some Nahuas could distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior for a Catholic priest. The petitioner and/or the notary producing the petition understood that it was not acceptable for a priest to engage in the seduction of the peti- tioner’s wife. We cannot know if the petitioner understood this as a violation of the cleric’s vows, but he understood that it violated the sanc- tity of his own marriage and his and his wife’s comfort within the com- munity. The existence of the petition further suggests that the petitioner believed that the Inquisition would, or at least could, do something to rein in an errant priest. Second, the petition shows little if any reticence regarding writing about sexual matters. The petitioner knew that, if the community did not already know about the seduction, the petition would alert a wide array of SEX ≤ 231 community members to the problem.Ω∑ Yet Hernández not only willingly filed the petition, but also discussed the ‘‘embarrassing’’Ω∏ details of the seduction. This, combined with the presence of many similar, if mostly less explicit, Nahua anticlerical petitions filed with the Inquisition,Ωπ sug- gests that the Nahuas willingly discussed sexuality and even details of illicit sexual encounters in order to engage in what elsewhere I have called a ‘‘strategic inversion’’ of power dynamics against priests.Ω∫ Finally, the details of the document show several ways in which the Nahuas engaged in a broader colonial sexual debate. Just as they debated the limits of the sexual prerogatives that men had over their wives, the legitimacy of polygamy, and the importance of tlazolli and the ‘‘pleasur- able life,’’ they also discussed the limits of seduction.ΩΩ We need to think here about these limits of seduction against the backdrop of the first two cases of this chapter. In the first, as he made excessive demands upon his military allies, Huemac went beyond the boundaries of his legitimate rights as a ruler and, most important, he made a public spectacle of himself, thus allowing the gods to trick and seduce him. In the second, the people of Chalco stayed within the appropriate bounds of seduction only by foreclosing the ritual. And Axayacatl enforced this foreclosure by making the male singer his alhuiani. The seduction in the case of Bartolomé López appears to have no limits: the Nahuas have no way of controlling it in their system, so they must use a colonial institution to do so. Still, if we engage in a close linguistic analysis of the text, we find that, while the Nahuas used sex- uality as their colonizers represented it to them, they also preserved various aspects of Nahua notions of proper and improper sexual behavior and desire. First, the petitioner states that Hernández’s wife was ‘‘incited to sin,’’ rather than being ‘‘confessed.’’ The structure of this statement presents a binary opposition traditional to the Catholic Church: such a binary would have been familiar to any churchgoing Spaniard: your priest absolved your sins through confession.∞≠≠ The structure of the statement in Nahuatl accentuates the binary opposition: ‘‘amo quiyolcuiti auh ocan quitlatlacolcuitlahultia.’’ As Burkhart has shown and we witnessed in chapter 3, the friars developed tlatlacolli, ‘‘sin’’ from itlacoa, ‘‘to damage, spoil, harm.’’∞≠∞ The term used here for confession, quiyolcuiti, was de- rived from yolli, ‘‘heart,’’ and cuitia, ‘‘to declare or acknowledge,’’ repre- senting the unburdening of one’s guilt.∞≠≤ Nahua confession, intended to 232 ≤ CHAPTER 7 protect one from the damage inherent in tlatlacolli, signified a different concept from Christian confession. As the Nahuas confessed to Tlazol- teotl and Tezcatlipoca, a proposition for the continuation of yolcuitia would acknowledge the power of these gods.∞≠≥ Of course, in this case, the petitioner and notary both realized that the Catholic priests directed confession not at the Nahua deities, but rather at the Christian God and his intercessor.∞≠∂ By acknowledging guilt, the confessant, in Catholic ritual, unburdened her or himself from sin. Our Nahua petitioner, by 1595, appears to have understood this concept. The ritual as represented was ineffective because the binary opposition be- came inoperative: the priest failed to get rid of the penitent’s sins/damage but rather, incredibly, slipped over to the other side of the equation and incited her to further spoilage. But the petition moves on from its critique of the binaries involved in the ritual to argue about the illegitimacy of the seduction itself. In doing so, the petitioner inadvertently provides us with damaging information about the relationship between Hérnandez and his wife. Hernández de- clares his wife’s resistance to López’s advances as, he reports, she states emphatically, and later repeats, that her husband is ‘‘very fierce.’’ The term, tlahueliloc, signifies also that Miguel declares himself as ‘‘full of rage.’’ The term is a modified form of tlahuelli, ‘‘rage.’’ The implication, correctly interpreted (at least according to the petition) by the priest, is that Hernández would beat his wife if she engaged in sexual acts with the priest. The priest, after all, would not have believed that Hernández had threatened him, but rather that he engaged in violence toward his wife. This statement would have little significance (after all, we can interpret this as the wife attempting to protect herself by formulating any excuse that comes to mind) until we recall that Miguel Hernández, not his wife, submits the complaint. He seems unconcerned that the inquisitors and his community would have viewed him as a violent man, suggesting an acceptable level of violence within intimate, familial relations.∞≠∑ Hernández’s threat of violence fits some of the evidence we have about family relationships during the early colonial years. We find criminal trials of husbands accused of engaging in extreme levels of violence against their wives, sometimes with the support of the communities and the families.∞≠∏ Nonetheless, as the historians Susan Kellogg and Steve Stern both note, women and men negotiated acceptable levels of violence, with women at- SEX ≤ 233 tempting to limit the violence committed against them. The criminal cases show that women sometimes failed in their attempts at controlling the men.∞≠π Sexual violence thus became a problem in the early colonial years. While this likely also was the case for preconquest times, the evidence remains much more circumstantial. The song from Chalco alludes to the possibility of sexual violence: through the commission of rape and the involuntary relationship between Axayacatl and the Chalca woman. The image from the New Fire Ceremony of the warrior guarding the pregnant woman suggests the possibility that he will beat her, at least if she be- comes a mocihuaquetzqui. Of course, Bartolomé López, not Miguel Hernández, commits the violence present in this petition. The fact that the priest had whipped the wife two years before, and that only now did Hernández approach the Inquisition, suggests that he had tried to resolve this through the local authorities to no avail, and that the whipping had taken place, like so many other whippings of indigenous peoples, at a time when it was con- sidered appropriate for priests and other officials to engage in corporal punishment of their indigenous ‘‘children’’ when insubordination was al- leged.∞≠∫ In some contexts, Nahuas would have viewed such violence of a superior against a subordinate as legitimate. We have seen sacrificial rites in which appropriate violence took place: this violence sacrificed the individual in order to allow the state and society to continue and to prosper. And we can find other examples: a noble could beat a commoner or a slave if he had legitimate reasons to do so. It seems likely, from what we know of the system of polygyny, that one legitimate reason was if a secondary wife denied the husband sexual favors.∞≠Ω Given that Nahua priests, who were nobles, would have wives, and that one could perhaps see Miguel Hernández’s wife as a legitimate target for a high-level noble or priest (she married a commoner, and thus could have been a dependent of the noble—he would expect to have some sexual prerogatives over her), then what was the problem here? First, López was not a Nahua priest. The petitioner or notary knew that the Catholic priest had to remain celibate. Whether or not they believed that this was the norm for the priests of the time, the rule provided them with a legal outlet to resist this intrusion into Hernández’s family. Second, López did not perform his ritual activities in an appropriate manner. A Nahua priest 234 ≤ CHAPTER 7 who broke his ritual fasting would have been punished: as we witnessed in the case of Yappan. Third, López signified the outsider, the colonial power. While the colonial situation allowed for much continuity, López here interfered in the daily interactions between commoners and nobles in Chihuatzinco. Such interference required a reaction. But the petition also alleges that López understood a great deal about Nahua discourse. First, by offering Hernández’s wife huipils and skirts, he states that he will make her a woman.∞∞≠ These defining elements of womanhood, the elements that turn one from a girl into a woman, also signify a system of gift exchange: he will provide her with what she needs to become a proper woman, while she will provide him with sex.∞∞∞ The most provocative piece of the petition also reveals the most in relation to López’s knowledge of traditional Nahua discourse. We are told that the priest says that which is not said, suggesting a prudish approach to sexuality, obviously quite compatible with the Catholic Church’s pro- scriptions on talk about sexual desire. What is it specifically that is not said? López tells Hernández’s wife to grasp his stick, meaning, as we will see, his erect penis. The term that I have translated as ‘‘my stick,’’ noquauh, warrants com- mentary. While Molina does not translate quauh by itself, in his diction- ary he gives a long set of definitions of elements related to this term. The bulk of definitions relate to wood and trees.∞∞≤ The term derives from quauitl, defined by Molina as ‘‘tree, wood, or stick.’’∞∞≥ The most rele- vant definition Molina derives is for Quauhtilia. nitla, ‘‘to turn on or change the member.’’∞∞∂ Jesuit grammarian Horacio Carochi gives us a more complete definition of the term: ‘‘Let confessors note that from quahuitl, ‘timber,’ which is something hard, the Indians derive the verb nitlaquauhtilia, which in the first instance means to make something as hard as a stick, but it is now used for an immodest action: membrum virile erigere [to make the virile member become erect].’’∞∞∑ The terminology is important for several reasons. First, the metaphor is by no means an automatic one. Why did the Nahuas associate the erect penis with wood? Second, while such a concept is common in English today, we do not see the metaphor commonly used in sixteenth-century Spanish texts. Did the priest use these words or were they simply at- tributed to him at a later date by Hernández or by his wife? If these words were unspeakable, how did Hernández and his wife understand the meta- SEX ≤ 235 phor? Could the priest have said something else, which Hernández or his wife then translated into an acceptable Nahuatl euphemism? Finally, metaphors are very difficult to translate. The proposition that our priest knew the term, as did Molina before him and Carochi after, suggests an intimate knowledge of Nahua culture on the part of these three, and a willingness on the part of the Nahuas to impart intimate sexual knowl- edge to others. Most important, this fact goes back to the point made in chapter 3: as priests began to use Nahua discourse, they entered the realm of the tlazolli complex. For can one even wonder if the act of getting the penis to become erect, nitlaquauhtilia, remained part of the tlazolli com- plex in the 1590s? To turn to the other part of our priest’s unspeakable statement, the priest says that he is just like a Nahua, not a black man. We cannot necessarily attribute such racism to the Nahua petitioner,∞∞∏ but the atti- tude therein does represent an important component in which indige- nous peoples and Spaniards are equated as social equals in one sense, at least when opposed to people of African descent, and as patron and client in another sense. The text again proposes a binary opposition, this time between the commoner, macehualli, and the black, tlilti. The priest is ‘‘just like’’ a commoner and he can prove that he is not black, for he does not have ‘‘curly hair [cocolochtic].’’ The corporeal signification, showing that Spaniards and indigenous people have equivalent biological make- ups, and thus should copulate together, represents their social equiva- lence. The priest here attempts to assert the lack of social distance be- tween himself and Hernández’s wife, thus arguing that he can engage in such a seduction ritual. Yet, the priest will use his social power to assert his superiority over both Hernández and his wife. Hence, López whips the wife and threatens to beat Hernández. This conceptualization of race, particularly the separation of people of African descent from those of Hispanic and indigenous descent, allows us some entry into colonial Nahua mentalities regarding racialized vi- sions of the body. For here we can note that the Nahuas by 1595 would have extensive contact with people of African descent, and their views of sexuality would have been influenced by this contact. As the anthropolo- gist Laura Lewis has shown, witchcraft trials suggest extensive mixture between indigenous and African (combined with popular Spanish) views in New Spain.∞∞π As in the cases that Lewis cites, in this petition, we find 236 ≤ CHAPTER 7 that Spaniards and some Nahuas had great anxiety about the mixture between indigenous and African conceptualizations of the world, and this anxiety was represented in the sexual arena. The intricacies of power, race, and sexuality play themselves out in this petition. López continually asserts both his superiority to and his equiva- lency with Hernández’s wife in order to engage in both a seductive ritual whereby he attempts to convince her to ‘‘sin’’ with him and a ritual evoca- tive of his power in which he works to force her into a sexual relationship. These elements show the interaction between colonialism and tradition, as López, according to the petition, has learned a fair amount about Nahua sexuality, and he has used that knowledge in order to seduce a Nahua woman. His lack of success suggests both the limits of his power and the ability of Nahua men and women to defend themselves against aggressors. The historian Robert Haskett has shown that Bartolomé López was not alone. Complaints against ‘‘licentious’’ priests existed, for example, in the Cuernavaca region. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, Nahua parishioners petitioned various authorities to try to control the priests, who most often not only engaged in illicit sexual activity but also beat their parishioners, failed to perform their clerical duties, and de- pleted the local economy.∞∞∫ These priests had violated both the rules of the church and the moral economy of colonial Nahua society. As Schwartz has noted with regard to the Inquisition, people in New Spain ‘‘found innumerable ways to turn the tendency toward regimentation to their own purposes, subverting the state’s designs for institutional control.’’∞∞Ω In placing limits on the sexual advances of the priests, the petitioners attempted to invert the standard power relationships present in colonial rule. But we must return to a central topic in our discussion of this petition: who authored it? In many of the other anticlerical petitions, we find a collection of authors: notaries, town officials, the complainant, the witnesses. In this case, however, only the notary and the petitioner, a Nahua commoner, have authored and authorized the petition. We find no seal of approval from the town authorities, and we have the words of no witnesses. Even Miguel’s wife remains eerily silent, her name never mentioned, and her words recounted to us through Miguel’s interaction with the notary. This complicated authorship means that the voice of the petition is hardly clear: did the priest really describe his erect penis, or did the notary use this term to enhance the shock value of the petition? SEX ≤ 237

Did Miguel’s wife really say he was fierce, or did Miguel use this term as an act of masculine bravado? We cannot know the answers to these questions, but we can know that this petition has become part of an archive of sexual seduction gone wrong.∞≤≠

Trash and Seduction Don Carlos’s jealousy, evident in his complaint that the Christians have many women (see the epigraph to this chapter), suggests that he believed that the traditional privileges of the nobility, no longer accorded him, were transferred to the Spaniards. Of course, he could have used this complaint just to establish a political base for himself, and evidence exists that many of the traditional privileges of nobility survived into late colo- nial times. But that is not the point.∞≤∞ Certainly Christian authorities attempted to curtail the sexual rights of the Nahua noblemen, and just as certainly many Spanish noblemen failed to live up to these same stan- dards. According to Nahua notions from before the conquest, the leader of Texcoco should have access to many wives: one primary and several secondary. When the Inquisition denied him these privileges, don Carlos became shocked at the impudence of the new colonial overlords. After all, the Mexica, despite their military prowess, would not have denied him his appropriate sexual rights. And even the leaders of the conquered groups, like the Tlatelolca, had rights embedded in the polygynous sys- tem. Why could he not have the same privileges?∞≤≤ The colonial system had altered the traditional privileges of the high- level nobles in the Nahua world. While they eventually would adjust to the new situation by taking on mistresses and concubines that acted as secondary wives, some nobles, particularly in the early postconquest years, found the situation intolerable.∞≤≥ They not only launched com- plaints against their own mistreatment, but they also strenuously argued against the hypocrisy of Spaniards, clerics and secular leaders alike. These changes took place almost immediately after the Spanish con- quest and led to a new discourse in which Nahua nobles mounted a campaign against the sexual privileges of the colonial authorities. One can wonder, though, if these nobles had a twinge of déjà-vu. For com- moners and other nobles had engaged in such complaints against the Nahua nobility from long before the Spanish conquest. The complaints against Huemac, Axayacatl, Moquihuix, and the noble boys who were 238 ≤ CHAPTER 7 just thinking of engaging in excess sex ‘‘as if they were dogs,’’ signify the same types of complaints that we find in 1595 (and throughout the colo- nial period). Many different people used the sexual actions of those in power against their power. Their sexual seduction needed to fall within the realm of moderate activity. If it did not, then the people, nobles and commoners, would criticize them. The realm of excess, and the tlazolli complex in particular, played a ma- jor role in the sexual seductions of the preconquest and colonial years. While priests had to avoid tlazolli, the alhuiani promoted it. As we have noted, when we define the concept of the alhuiani, we find that term re- lates to ‘‘one who pleasures’’ another. Thus, the singer properly became an alhuiani when he pleasured Axayacatl, and Tezcatlipoca properly became an alhuiani when he pleasured Huemac. Bartolomé López requested that Miguel Hernández’s wife become an alhuiani to pleasure him. By engaging in seduction, Tezcatlipoca the alhuiani increased his power and received what he desired. By becoming an alhuiani, Quecholcohuatzin increased his own power and attempted to protect the community of Chalco from excessive demands of the Mexica. By promoting the memory of the alhuiani, Chimalpahin connected his community of Amecameca to the court of Tenochtitlan, and insulted members of other communities of Chalco for providing insufficient alhuia to Axayacatl. And, of course, if Miguel Hernández’s wife had accepted Bartolomé López’s offer and be- come an alhuiani, she would have received protection from her fierce husband, and she would have received gifts in exchange for her role. She, however, according to the petition, found such a situation intolerable. The Nahua concept of alhuia did not, before the conquest, adhere to a division between spirit and flesh. For the Nahuas, bodily pleasure in itself was a legitimate goal, and that bodily pleasure was expressed in a variety of relationships. Yappan, for example, became forced to submit to the will of the goddess and become a scorpion, not because he engaged in carnal pleasure with her, but because he failed in his vows. The Nahua noblemen and youth critiqued in this chapter, too, failed not when they engaged in pleasurable activities, but rather when they did not give their wives suffi- cient pleasure. These nobles could only keep their abilities to pleasure their wives intact by engaging in moderate amounts of pleasure, always avoiding excess. But the Nahuas before the conquest never equated this concept of moderation with chastity. After the conquest, the clerics in- troduced the concept of carnal sin, and the pleasurable life became con- SEX ≤ 239 demned. Yet, the story of this book is one of survival, and we find that Nahua notions of pleasure and moderation continued, though changed through the integration of some Spanish and African ideas, at least through the middle of the seventeenth century. As alhuia fits within tlazolli, all of these elements connect sexual se- duction with the tlazolli complex. These seductions, used to both main- tain and destroy society, when performed in a ritually appropriate man- ner, could lead not only to increased pleasure, but to support the proper role of tlazolli, always present in ritual seduction, always foreclosed at the end, when the old alhuiani takes Axayacatl’s hand, becoming his com- panion until the end of time.

≤ 8 ≤

MIRRORS

In pre-Columbian America, as in many other cultures, black mirrors were commonly used for divination, the art of knowing past and future events, and for necromancy, the art of communicating with the dead. The Aztecs directly associated obsidian with Tezcatlipoca, the deadly god of war, sorcery, and sexual transgression. Threatened by similar associations with sorcery and deviance, Pope John XXII banned the use of mirrors for any religious purpose in 1318. Yet centuries later, obsidian plates of all shapes and sizes would be introduced into Chris- tian altars across Spain and its colonies, eventually becoming the sur- face upon which artists . . . would paint saints and virgins. —Pedro Lasch, Black Mirror/Espejo Negro

Using the concept of the black mirror to think about colonial- ism in Mexico, Pedro Lasch, in the art installation ‘‘Black Mir- ror/Espejo Negro,’’ placed preconquest indigenous figures on pedestals; the figures faced panels of black translucent glass, behind which he hung reproductions of art by Spanish paint- ers.∞ The reflections in the glass presented us with an obscured view of the Spanish paintings as well as the indigenous statues, both also obscured by the images of ourselves looking into the abyss of the black mirror. Always reflecting the colonial and the contemporary, we stood witness to indigeneity. And while 242 ≤ CHAPTER 8 we seemingly desired an unobscured view of indigenous reality, instead we participated in its obfuscation. Similarly, as Lasch notes, Tezcatlipoca’s black, smoking obsidian mir- ror led to an obfuscated view into the sexual and ritualistic concepts of the Nahua people. Through this mirror, we have witnessed changes in Nahua sexuality from the early sixteenth through the mid-seventeenth century. To be sure, we have seen changes: a discourse of sin entered Nahua thought, and at least some people understood the connection between sin and the fertility rituals practiced at the time of the conquest. But this black mirror more often signified the continued presence of the tlazolli com- plex, a presence represented by divination and necromancy. Looking at the past and at the future, the tlacuilos, Sahagún’s trilinguals, the ritual practitioners involved in sacrifice, the nobles performing erotic songs, the commoners enacting curing rites or petitioning inquisitors, and even the Catholic priests and friars, produced tlazolli. By augmenting ostensibly historical narratives, whether those representing Xochiquetzal’s seduc- tion of Yappan or those presenting the sexual humor of the women of Chalco, the authors of our texts worked to both read and change the future. They read the future by showing that the individual stung by a scorpion would not die. They changed the future by linking tlazolli with sin. But in this process of change, the Nahua self remained fundamentally the same: Nahuas continued to both promote and control the tlazolli in order to assure the community would continue to exist. But did Nahuas gaze into the black mirror in such a way as to obscure colonial reality? Did they know that Europeans had their own experiences with this black mirror, experiences declared as heretical by the Catholic Church?≤ And did they conjoin, intentionally or not, their own experi- ences of necromancy and divination with their European parallels? Arnaud Maillet notes that Europeans in late medieval and early mod- ern times used the black mirror in acts of divination. Through the dark- ened or black convex mirror, the diviner would converse with dead an- cestors and demons in order to predict an individual’s future. In 1265, Alfonso X, king of Castile, outlawed on pain of death the practice of divi- nation in which the diviner applied a mixture of soot and oil to the palm of a prepubescent boy or virgin girl, commanding ‘‘the child to fix his or her eyes on this mirror improvised with thick ink in the hollow of the hand.’’ With the diviner’s help, the child would see in this ‘‘mirror’’ a variety of things and people, living and dead.≥ This sight, in Alfonso’s MIRRORS ≤ 243 view, could emanate only from the devil. In 1326, following his 1318 declaration, Pope John XXII issued a papal bull ‘‘declaring that the de- mon is particularly liable to hide in mirrors and excommunicating all those who attempt to practice . . . divination with mirrors.’’∂ It seems as if the black mirror had not only become a vector through which demons could appear, but also a space in which they could hide, waiting to come out into the human world. And Europeans found similar uses of such mirrors in Islamic civilization.∑ Such a transregional use of darkened or black mirrors for divination points to the interconnectedness of ritual practice around the world, but perhaps more saliently, to the differences between premodern notions of self-constitution compared to such concepts in the modern Western world. By peering into these mirrors, individuals believed that their com- munication with the dead would aid them in conjuring their futures. In other words, through such conjurings, these people became part of a structure in which ancestors (and gods?) determined the makeup of one’s own future. The ancestors became part of the makeup of the self, trans- formed through ritual into a being who could change his or her future. Some of the Nahuas using their mirrors and understanding the role of Tezcatlipoca after the Spanish conquest likely had heard about the Euro- pean notions connecting the mirror to divination. After all, we know from the Inquisition archives that Nahuas had extensive contact with people of African and Spanish descent who had been accused of witch- craft, heresy, and other transgressions.∏ Moreover, the Nahua mirror interested Spaniards and other Europeans, who appear to have found them attractive collector’s items, whether or not they understood their potential for use in divinatory practice.π The mirror too linked with rituals of sexuality in premodern Europe. In ancient Roman times, Seneca describes the black mirror as something used to inflame the sexual passions.∫ In medieval and early modern Eu- rope, as in the Nahua world, such a divinatory context linked directly with sexual concepts, and perhaps with fertility. Maillet points out that diviners most often did not use the black mirror in isolation. ‘‘There is almost always a prepubescent boy or a young virgin girl who serves as an eye, seeing in the place of the sorcerer and responding to his questions, so that because of the child’s youth, one ‘need not fear the nervous ram- blings produced by erotic reminiscences.’ ’’Ω This belief in the importance of using the sexually inexperienced 244 ≤ CHAPTER 8 youth to engage in divination and necromancy may recall for us the importance of the young maiden to the Ochpaniztli rite, in which the success of the harvest depended on her skin. She too, partly because of her sexual inexperience, signified the possibility for the priest to engage in an appropriate rite that would allow him to communicate with the dead (the gods) and to understand and manipulate the future. In Europe we also witness the presence of fertility rites perhaps linked with sexual activity. Carlo Ginzburg describes late sixteenth-century Friulian benandanti, fighting for abundance against witches promoting famine. As Ginzburg points out, this struggle between the benandanti and the witches emanates from an ‘‘older fertility rite in which two groups of youths, respectively impersonating demons favourable to fertility and the maleficent ones of destruction, symbolically flayed their loins with stalks of fennel and sorghum to stimulate their own reproductive capacity, and by analogy, the fertility of the fields of the community.’’∞≠ The Inquisition did not think highly of the benandanti struggle with witches, much less their connection between fertility and sexuality. Still, in much religion in Europe, it seems that Christian people made such a connection. Fertility rites in premodern Europe and preconquest Mesoamerica thus structured a sense of sexuality that went beyond what modern so- ciety determines as sexuality. The self in these societies became con- structed through rituals that maintained unbounded fertility but did not focus on activities that modern societies consider the actions that lead to reproduction. As the fertility rites become central to our ability to analyze sexuality in both premodern Europe and preconquest Mesoamerica, one wonders again about our ability to gaze upon these rituals, either through the mirror that Tezcatlipoca held or through the dark mirror present in European divination. For while these mirrors would seem to obscure our view, they provide a certain focus. ‘‘What counts above all is the shine of these dark mirrors, their capacity to produce a luster and thus to fix the gaze.’’∞∞ As the gaze becomes fixed upon an image through the shining black object, I maintain that we can only envision the fertility rites as reflected through this object. MIRRORS ≤ 245

The Black Mirror Stage As I traversed the ‘‘Black Mirror/Espejo Negro’’ exhibit, I thought about the importance of the mirror in psychoanalytic theory, and I wondered if the necromantic mirror might allow us to communicate with the dead, in particular with the sacrificed goddess. I connected this sense of necro- mancy with Lacan’s mirror stage because of his understanding of the function of the mirror as a suicidal appropriation of the real. The mirror stage for Lacan is the time at which the child, seeing his or her reflection in the mirror, begins to believe that his or her body exists as whole, a single unit, separated in some fashion from an outside world:

This development is experienced as a temporal dialectic that deci- sively projects the individual’s formation into history: the mirror stage is a drama whose internal pressure pushes precipitously from insuffi- ciency to anticipation—and, for the subject caught up in the lure of spatial identification, turns out fantasies that proceed from a frag- mented image of the body to what I will call an ‘‘orthopedic’’ form of its totality—and to the finally donned armor of an alienating identity that will mark his entire mental development with its rigid structure.∞≤

The child becomes in this Lacanian sense invested with a history—s/he becomes a subject created through this gaze (both the child looking at the mirror and the reflected child staring back at him or her). In this sense, the child experiences both a loss (‘‘alienating identity’’) and a gain (‘‘totality’’). But can one envision such a mirror stage in cultures other than West- ern ones and in time periods other than the late modern world of psycho- analysis? The importance of the mirror as a magical object across cultures and time periods would seem to suggest the plausibility of a multitude of mirror stages, perhaps with each one resolved in its own way. Would ritual practice have served as the Nahua mirror? Through the sacrificial rite, the priest who donned the skin of the goddess had wit- nessed the fact that his own skin did not give him sufficient power to achieve the ‘‘totality’’ that Lacan finds marked in the mirror stage. In- stead, by killing a woman and wearing her skin, the priest disassembled the woman but developed this totality and achieved sexual fulfillment through the successful dramatic production of the fertility rite. Perhaps then, by envisioning the self as an assemblage of different elements that 246 ≤ CHAPTER 8 could be bundled together in different manners under certain circum- stances, the Nahuas resolved the conundrum of their mirror stage. The totality imagined by the priest/goddess signified both an appro- priation of history and a communication with the dead, a necromancy in which the dead woman remained alive as the goddess and, in order to provide for the fertile earth, communicated her will to the people. But in this communication of her desire, the goddess needed to make sure that the community did not die, as she could not allow tlazolli to leak throughout the world. This ‘‘finally donned armor,’’ the skin of the god- dess, presented our goddess (the priest) with the power to control the whole world around her, just as she made the earth shake. This fleeting unity of the goddess (skin + priest = goddess) would have to end at the close of the ceremony. Diego Durán believed that the Nahuas here en- gaged in a fantasy, a mirror stage for the entire world.∞≥ Similarly, when the curer ‘‘finally donned armor’’ (the huipil, the figu- rative skin of Xochiquetzal), s/he and the ill person s/he was trying to cure (along with all the other potentially ill people in the community) remembered the sexual relationship that Xochiquetzal had with Yappan and the sexual relationship the curer would have with the phallic tail of the scorpion. Here, by allowing the scorpion to penetrate him/her, the curer, whether male or female, became the penetrated, and thus em- powered goddess; Xochiquetzal, by seducing, enacted the ‘‘orthopedic’’ power, in Lacanian terms, of the totality produced from anxieties about the ‘‘fragmented image of the body.’’ The Catholic priest entered the situation with his own armor designed to oppose the totality, to expose the fantasy (configured in his mind as demonic influence), and to reinscribe it with a new reality, that of Jesus’s body. But, as Durán reminds us, ‘‘Imagination may have served them well in this case, and the devil, always present, undoubtedly aided the imagi- nation.’’∞∂ The demonic influences defended themselves, and the black smoking mirror prevented the friars and priests from having the effects that they so desired. But the priests still envisioned themselves as individ- uals fighting, with God’s help, the influence of Satan, and, in so doing, they entered the fray by struggling with and within the tlazolli complex. Thus they promoted a different equation: Now tlazolli would equal sin, and the Nahua parishioners would participate in rituals designed to pro- mote the totalizing effects of the body of Christ, a representation of totality that could not signify the gender transformation of the priest/ MIRRORS ≤ 247

goddess.∞∑ Still, if we believe the Gnostics, certainly partially present in sixteenth-century Hispanic and African heretical discourse, the parish- ioners could see God as both mother and father, and perhaps even Jesus as a feminine being involved in sexual relationships.∞∏ Even in the eigh- teenth century, as William Taylor points out, we find remnants of the Toxcatl ceremony embedded in a Catholic festival.∞π If the framework signifying deities as mother and father existed, since we know that prac- titioners of Nahua religion had extensive contact with Hispanic and Afri- can ‘‘witches,’’ perhaps the Nahuas maintained, within ostensibly Cath- olic discourse, the totality that had existed in Nahua ritual practice.∞∫ The fantasy of totality presented to Lacan’s subjects in the mirror stage existed for both the preconquest and the early colonial Nahuas in the realm of ritual, controlled of course by Tezcatlipoca’s mirror, itself the privileged signifier of the ability of the god to turn into anything that he wanted, and thus to control all. Tezcatlipoca, Tlazolteotl, Xochiquetzal, Chicomecoatl, and the others presented the Nahuas with sexuality and fertility, witnessed through the mirror of ritual practice. Thus, when the goddess controlled the Ochpaniztli rites, we viewed her presence through Tezcatlipoca’s mirror, as represented by the tlacuilo’s quill. We imagine her desire to die, but we enter dangerous territory if we truly imagine that we can approximate the desires of the individual told that she had become the goddess and that she now should have sex with the Mexica ruler. We cannot effectively imagine what went through her head, particularly if she knew that the priests had come to slay her. Could she have wanted the priest to wear her skin? This seems so unlikely to us, but can we know that she did not desire this fate? Whether she did or not, the male discourse that comes to us through the documents of the tlacuilos celebrates the destruction and disarticulation of the female body, turned into the body of the goddess only through the priest wearing the skin.

Skin and the Self This donning of the skin suggests a Nahua theory of self-formation, a Nahua concept of self that moves beyond Turner’s notion of the liminal into a sense of self comprised of a bundle of attributes unbundled and rebundled during ritual activity. As one takes on and off skin, one creates a new self, even temporarily, before shedding skin to take on yet another 248 ≤ CHAPTER 8 self. The tlazolli involved in the ritual process made possible this recon- stitution of self. In the Ochpaniztli ceremony, for example, Nahua descriptions focus not on the sacrifice of the woman, nor on her death, but rather on the skin of the goddess and her construction of self. As the woman wears the accouterments of the goddess, she literally becomes the goddess. When she dies, the goddess’s self becomes transferred to the priest, who no longer has his own self. He has the powers of the goddess and becomes worshiped as the goddess; he becomes the goddess (albeit temporarily). Only through this ritual transformation, by placing the skin upon his body, can this individual both promote the tlazolli that will make the earth, animals, humans, and gods fertile, and also prevent the excess of tlazolli that could have led to destruction. We witnessed too what happened when the warrior placed upon his body the skin of an animal. Like Tezcatlipoca when he appeared in ani- mal skin, the warrior harnessed the animal’s attributes into the self such that these animals transformed the warrior into a powerful being. We noted that the most powerful warriors were the eagle and ocelotl war- riors. If we add to this the discussion of nahualli familiars, the magical practitioners who could turn into animals, we find that the human body and self extend beyond what the modern Western world considers hu- manity. Those declared as beings ensconced in powerful animals trans- formed themselves by altering the bundles of attributes that existed in/as the human. In each of these cases, the skin enacted a transformation of self, a movement into a self that one could no longer properly call human. Whether in the space of the warrior with an animal spirit or in the self- presentation of a fertility goddess, skin placed upon another skin became the most intimate of acts: the refashioning of self into another self that allowed for fertility, creation, and destruction. Only by placing that extra skin upon one’s own skin, only through that ritualistic transformation of the self, could one enact the tlazolli necessary to make everything fertile, and only by taking off that extra skin, by reasserting the human self, could one control the tlazolli and prevent destruction of the community. But the bundle of attributes that made up the self of course did not begin and end with the skin. Note that the woman who became the fertility goddess had to wear various things to transform her into that MIRRORS ≤ 249 goddess. Further, the warriors and other actors became transformed as they removed their warrior gear and took up their brooms. We witnessed this in the case of the phallic Huastecs, who held their paper phalluses but also carried brooms. Tlazolteotl, in seducing but also stopping the phallic figures, became both the goddess of sexual excess and the castrat- ing goddess. And in the end the Huastecs became transformed into those playing the proper feminine role, sweeping up after the ceremony, mak- ing sure that the tlazolli did not spill excessively into daily life. A study of the Nahua theory of the self would be incomplete if it did not envision a series of bundles of attributes, each one enveloping the other and transforming self through the production of ritual. Hence we think about the Chalca performer, Quecholcohuatzin. On one level he is a noble from Amecameca (and Chimalpahin uses him to produce a memory of the nobility of Amecameca). By donning the identity of the performer, however, Quecholcohuatzin ensconces himself in the mem- ory of Chalco, and thus becomes a citizen of Chalco, building upon his Amecameca citizenship. Becoming claimed by the Mexica ruler, he now dons a loincloth signifying his masculine membership in the court of Axayacatl. But at the same time he becomes the alhuiani, existing in a feminine universe only for the pleasure of his patron. These are bundles of attributes that form into particular bundles built one upon the other. And each notion of self needed marking, as we witnessed in the curer wearing the huipil: Xochiquetzal’s skin marked the self-transformation of the curer, changing him or her into the powerful fertility goddess, and then allowing the goddess to have sex with the scorpion in order to disempower it. Such ritual markings, such changes of self, allowed Nahuas to have a flexible vision of self-constitution before the conquest, and one that remained significantly flexible after.

The Colonial Seduction Pedro Lasch’s exhibit presented the indigenous statues with their backs turned to us. We had to contort our bodies into impossible positions to see the front sides of the statues; alternatively, we could have satisfied ourselves with viewing the statues through the presence of the black mirrors, always forced to face the Spanish paintings and our own reflec- tions interfering with our views. This unsatisfying result left us wanting 250 ≤ CHAPTER 8 more (this was the nature of Lasch’s seduction): we so much wanted to find the true indigenous subject, to unmask him or her, but we could never find anything but the obscured reflection in the mirror. Could we ever know the indigenous subject? In this book, we searched for Nahua sexuality and instead found dust, dirt, and trash. But only through the search for sexuality could we ever approximate the tlazolli complex. We have focused on the interactions between ritual and sexual subjectivity, and between the tlazolli complex and the Catholic matrix of sexual sin. We never could find the indige- nous, and we never could find sexuality, as neither exists as an authentic historical subject. To end, I return to one of the original questions of the introduction, somewhat revised. If we cannot find a true Nahua subject, and if sexuality remains such a problematic category, even after all of these pages of study, why frame the entire book around the concept of Nahua sexuality? I give three answers: First, by providing the modern anachronisms of the ‘‘indigenous sub- ject’’ and ‘‘sexuality,’’ we have developed some greater understanding of the process of coloniality in the creation of an indigenous sexual sub- ject. The interaction between the colonial institutions—we have seen the confessional, the ethnographic project, the Inquisition, the criminal courts, the idolatry investigations—and their indigenous counterparts created the ‘‘indigenous subject’’ of the sixteenth century and the seven- teenth. While our historical methods do not allow us to recover the in- digenous institutions except in interaction with the colonial ones, we can develop some understanding of such things as sacrifice, ritual, and tla- zolli. In the sixteenth century, we have seen a set of things that religious authorities determined sinful linked to particular local categories. Still, in that linkage of categories, we have found what I have termed ‘‘mutual monologues,’’ a set of discourses in which friars and priests, ensconced in the tlazolli complex, asserted a notion of sin, while some Nahua people asserted a notion linking fertility to ritual and moderation. It is worth noting once again that the friars and priests asserted a variety of different notions of sin, while the Nahuas asserted a variety of different relationships between fertility and other elements of society. Even so, the groups tended to speak past each other rather than to each other, and many misinterpretations resulted. But, by the seventeenth century, peo- MIRRORS ≤ 251 ple of Nahua, Spanish, and African descent each witnessed a different type of change in their respective sexual cosmologies: they became con- joined in acts that could be deemed heretical. Second, we have noted the great difference between this colonial sub- ject formation and the modern subject, in which race and sexuality have become defining characteristics. The ‘‘indigenous subject’’ formed in these institutions did not have a set of inherent, internalized sexual de- sires that formed identities. While some clerics debated the abilities that Nahuas had to avoid orgies and the like, they assumed that this related to demonic influence and occasionally to feeble minds. We see no evidence that anybody, much less any institution, believed that the Nahuas had sexually aggressive natures. In more modern times, such racial thinking has become manifest. Further, as noted in chapter 6, we have many rup- tures to come in terms of defining modern sexuality: we have no modern homosexual character in this time period; we have no modern heterosex- ual actor either; we do not see the chronic masturbator; nor do we find an obsession with childhood sex. Thus any attempt to find modern sexual identities among the sixteenth-century Nahuas is destined for failure. Instead, we see some initial moves that would eventually—probably in the nineteenth century—develop into modern categories of sexual iden- tity. Third, when we searched for sexual subjectivity, we found the tlazolli complex. We have witnessed tlazolli as a mixture that combined Nahua concepts of excess, the production of massive sacrificial rituals, the de- velopment of curing rites, and the undigested remainders left when the Catholic clerics attempted to swallow whole the Nahua moral world by categorizing sex as sin. All of these connect to each other through the discourses of dirt, dust, and trash. Swirling around on the earth, we found that the tlazolli complex maintained life and fertility through tlalticpaca- yotl, the earthliness that became, in translation, sexual activity. By show- ing tlazolli’s relationship with sexuality, I have argued that our current theories related to the history of sexuality could not uncover tlazolli. In the tlazolli complex, in other words, we do not find the categories that make up modern sexuality, and we cannot uncover the identities present in the waste of the earth. If instead we focus on that waste, seeking to uncover ways in which these undigested remainders fail to fit into the categories of sexuality, we have produced some approximation of tlazolli. 252 ≤ CHAPTER 8

Tlazolli Comes to Europe

What is this Almighty God?—besides earth, water, and air. . . . I believe that [men] are made of earth. . . . I believe that all water has been blessed by God, [and] if a layman knew the words they would be worth as much as [those] of the priest, because God has given this power equally to all and not to one more than another. —Menocchio, quoted in Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms

As noted in the introduction, I do not want to suggest that Europeans in the sixteenth century had a single religion. Religious thought and practice has always been contested territory, and what Carlo Ginzburg presents as the thoughts of a sixteenth-century miller, at least as expressed to the Inquisition, appears remarkably distinct from the concepts promoted by the Franciscans and other clerics. Ginzburg notes that Menocchio did not conceive of himself as a heretic, and Stuart Schwartz similarly has shown that many of the people who spread heterodox ideas throughout Spain, Portugal, and the Americas considered themselves good Catholics.∞Ω Still, what appears most remarkable to me is the relationship between Menocchio’s thought and that of the Nahuas: God has become earth, water, and air—all elements that Nahuas associated with their gods. Peo- ple have become earth, thus locating them within the tlazolli complex. And people understand the holy importance of water—whether in the Nahua temazcal or in Menocchio’s village, people could access the cleans- ing power of water without the intercession of the priests. Of course we can only take this analogy so far: Menocchio had no concept of Tlazol- teotl, and the Nahuas before the conquest did not envision Jesus, commu- nion, or other concepts present in Menocchio’s thought. While no evidence exists (and it seems unlikely) that the Friulian miller had any notion of Nahua tlazolli, the friars and priests who worked to instruct the Nahuas in Catholicism, the witches who engaged the Nahuas to help them produce magical rites, as well as some of the others in the Hispanic and African populations who had significant contact with the Nahuas, knew of and used tlazolli to their advantage. Sahagún and his aides maintained that tlazolli, while belonging to the province of Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl, could become subservient to God, whose ‘‘divine word contains precious words against dust and trash.’’≤≠ While Sahagún attempted to use the tlazolli complex to destroy MIRRORS ≤ 253 itself, to assert the Word of God as opposed to the words of Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl, the Nahua deities did not submit to the matrix of sin and instead continued to spread the tlazolli complex throughout the land. Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl in the 1620s, over one hundred years after the Spanish God had conquered them, gazed into their mirrors and viewed a new world that they had helped create, a world that con- nected communities from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The tlazolli complex, always morphing into something different, thrived in this new world.

APPENDIX

The Chalca Woman’s Song Chalcacihuacuicatl This is a composition of the Chalca, with Intlatlalil chalca ic quimopapaquiltilico which they came to entertain King in tlatohuani in Axayacatzin ca noço Axayacatl because he had conquered yehuatzin oquimopehuili in ma çan them as if they were just women.∞ cihuatzitzintin.

I. I. Toco tico tocoti, toco tico tocoti, toco tico tocota≤ Stand up . . . my little sisters. Xanmoquetzacan oo annicutzitzinhuan aye Let’s go, let’s go, tonhuian tonhuian We will look for flowers. tixochitemozque Let’s go, let’s go, he tonhuian tonhuian We will pick some flowers. tixochitehtequizque They were here, they were here, nican mania nican mania Scorched flowers, tlachinolxochitli oo Shield flowers. chimalli xochitli It is enticing, teihicoti It is enjoyable, huel tetlamachti In the flower garden of war. yaoxochitla o ohuiya.

The flowers are good. Yectliyan in xochitl ayehuaya Let them be my wreath. ma nocpacxochiuh Let me wrap myself ma ic ninapana nepapani 256 ≤ APPENDIX

In these, my flowers. noxochiuh aya I am a Chalca woman. nichalcatl nicihuatl ahuayyao ohuaya

I long for the flowers, Nicnehnequi xochitl I long for the songs. nicnehneco cuicatl aytzin In our spinning place, in totzahuaya In our customary place, in toyeyeya o ohuaye I am entoning the songs of the king, noconeheuhtica ycuic in tlatohuani Little Axayacatl. Axayacatzin I twirl them together like flowers, nicxochimalina I twist them forth as flowers. nicxochilacatazohua o ohuayao ohuiya

Their songs are like paintings, Aiuhquin tlacuilolli yectli ya They are good, incuic iuquin huelic Like fragrant flowers. xochitl ahuiaca My heart imbibes the sweet smell of the noyol quimati in tlpc ahuayyao ohuiya earth.

What in the world am I to think of what Tlemach ypan nicmati motlatoltzin you say, My lover, noyecoltzin Little Axayacatl? taxayacato tla What if I were to pleasure it?≥ noconahuilti aylili aylilililih ii olotzin ololo oyyaye ayyo Et.∂

I just sing Tocuilan style. Çan nitocuilehuilia I whistle to it. ça niquiquixhuia ho oo ye What if I were to pleasure it? tla noconahuilti Et.

II. II. Cotiti tototototo cotiti tototototo Boy, Xolo Little servant boy, Xolotzin King, titlahtohuani Little Axayacatl, taxayacaton ohuiya Are you truly a man? nel toquichtli Though you may be well known, izmaconel titlayhtlolli; Is it true you no longer cut firewood? cuix nel ahoc tiquahquahuittiuh ayye Ay, go stoke the pot and light a big fire. xoconquetzan nonexco ceca niman xocontoquio Come and bring it. Xiqualcui Come bring what is there. o xiqualcui yn ompa ca Come give it to me, child. o xinechualmaca o in contezintli Lay out the things, texontlahteca tohuan You and I will lie together. tonhuehuetztozque tzono THE CHALCA WOMAN’S SONG ≤ 257

You will be happy, tompaquiz Happy, happy. tompaquiz paquiz I will do it gently and peacefully. tzono nictlatlamachihuaz oo

Let it not be, Macamo maca o Please do not stick your hand in my macamo tla ximayahui skirts, Little boy, xolotzin King, titlatohuani Little Axayacatl. axayacato yya Perhaps I am painted, aço ninicuilo My little hand is itching, y cuecuetzoca ye nomaton o ayee ye Again and again nocuel ye nocuel You want to seize my breast, tictzitzquiznequi in nochichihualtzin Even my heart. ach in noyollotzin huiya

Now perhaps you will ruin my body In ye ahcaço monehuian ticmitlacalhuiz painting. nonehcuilol huiya You will lie watching tzono tiquitztoz The coming of the green quechol bird xiuhquecholxochitico ohuaye flower.

I will put you inside of me. nihtic nimitzonaquiz Your chin lies there.∑ onca motenchalohtzin I will rock you in my arms. nimitzmacochihuiz

It is a quetzal popcorn flower, In quetzalizquixochitl A flamingo raven flower. in ye tlauhquecholcacaloxochitl You lie on your flower-strewn mat. in ça moxochitquachpetlapan ti ya It lies there inside . . . no longer. onoc ye oncan ytic y yyoyyo aocmo huiyao aylili

You lie on your golden reed mat. Teocuitlapetlatl ipan ti ya It lies in the feathered cavern house, onoc quetzaloztocalco Inside the painted house . . . no longer. tlacuilocalitic yyoyyo aocmo huiyao aylili

This is its home. Anquiço ye ichan I am distraught, my mother, ye nontlayocoya tinonantzin Perhaps I can spin, ahço huel nitzahua Perhaps I even used to weave, ahço huel nihquitia But it was all for naught. ça neca ni conetl tzo As a noble girl, nicihuapilli ynic They spoke of my marriage.∏ nihtolo y noquichhuacan yao 258 ≤ APPENDIX

It is infuriating, Tetlatlahuelcauh It is heart-rending, teyollocococan Here on earth. in tlpc Sometimes I worry and fret. in quemano notlahtlyocoya I consume myself in rage. ninotlahuelnequi In my desperation, I suddenly say, onnexiuhtlatilco nichualihtoa Hey, child, I would as soon die. cue conetl, manoce nimiqui yia o

III. III. Toco tico tocoti toco tico tocoti toco tico tocota Hey mother, Ya cue nonantzin I am dying of sadness, nontlaocolmiqui o ye Here in my life with a man. nican ye noquichuacan I cannot make the spindle dance. ahuel niquitotia in malacatl I cannot throw my weaver’s stick. ahuel nocontlaça in notzotzopaz noca You cheat me, my child. timoqueloa noconetzin yao ohuiya

What in the world can I do? Auh que nel noconchihuaz Am I to go along sacrificing myself, just cuix yhui chimalli yca nemanalo as people are offered on their shields ixtlahuatl itic ninoma mantaz aayia in the fields? ooo noca You cheat me, my child. timoqueloa noconetzin ohuiya Little boy, Xolotzin My child, noconetzin King, titlahtohuani Little Axayacatl, taxayacaton You just ignore me. çan timonencahua You used to sacrifice yourself. nohuic timomahmanaya You consider yourself a man. tomoquichittohua o ohuaye Do I know my way in war? cuix nomati yaopan I know your enemies, niquimiximati ye moyaohua My child. noconetzin And you just ignore me. ça timonencahu nohuic ohuiya

I wish you had been a woman. Ma teh ticihuatini Perhaps then you would not sample ahço nel ahticyecoz in iuhqui chahuayotl She who is like the blossom of the song yn ixochitzin yn icuicatzin of concubinage, My child. noconetzin yiao Ah, manly noble, A oquichpilli My lord, noto King, titlatohuani Little Axayacatl. taxayacaton THE CHALCA WOMAN’S SONG ≤ 259

Instead you have taken off, onoço tonpeuh You are angry, little boy. ye no tiqualani xolotzin My child, I am about to go home. ye no niauh in nochan noconetzin

Perhaps you took me with sorcery, Anca ço ca nican tinechnahualan You spoke the right words. yectli ticchiuh ye motlatoltzin Behold now the drunkard, iz in axcan tlahuanquetl, Maybe you are drunk. maço the titlahuanquetl Is there obedience in our home? ahço no netlacamachon tochan yyao ohuiya

Did you buy me anywhere? Cuix noço tinechcouh Did you buy me for yourself, tinechmocohui My child? noconetzin Did my aunts and uncles come to trade? cuix tlapapatlaco nahuihuan Yet you do it without restraint, ye notlahua çaço tictlacanequi And you get angry, ye no tiqualani Little boy. xolotzin I am going home, ye noniauh in nochan My child. noconetzin yao ohuiya

IV. IV. Tocotico tititi tocotico tititi tocotico tititi My little sister, Tiniuctzin Priestess, ticihuatlamacazqui Please look. ma xontlachia Many songs were offered in Cohuatepec, yn omach moman cuicatl in cohuatepec At the wooden circling wall, in quauh tenampan Where they came down upon us at y topan moteca Panohuayan. Panohuaya ohuaya yiaho

I make myself a woman.π Ço nocihuayo ninaytia My heart suffers. noyollotzin mococohua I don’t know what in the world ach que nel I am to do. nocochihuaz I will become a man like him, yhuan noquichtiz o maçoc Howsoever it was that the skirts and cenca ye incueye ye in huipil blouses Of our men, our lovers, were many and in toquichhuan in toyecolhuan yyaho plentiful. ohuiya 260 ≤ APPENDIX

Hand me my softened maize, Xicualquixti notextamal King, in titlatohuani Little Axayacatl. Axayacato Let me just pat one out for you, tla ce nimitzmanili My child, neoc in noconeuh Pleasure it, xoconahuilti Sing to it Tocuilan style. xictocuilehuili olotzin ololo ayye ayyo

Do you call yourself an eagle, an ocelot, Aço tiquauhtli tocelotl in timittohua My child? noconetzin ohuiya Do you boast before your enemies? aço moyaohua inhuic ticuecuenoti My child, pleasure it. neoc in noconeuh xocoahuilti Et.

I, a woman, do not yet have a skirt, a Ayatle nocue ayatle nohuipil blouse. nicihuatzintli He came here to offer beautiful songs, yehua ya nica quimanaco yectli ye incuic He came here to offer shield flowers. nican quimanaco chimalli xochitl What is to become of us? quenmach tontlaca I am a Chalca woman, an Ayocuan. ye nichalcacihuatl nayoquan ohuiya

I crave my fellow women, Niquilmelehuia nocihuapohua The Acolhuaque. in acolhuaque I crave my fellow women, niquimelehuia y nocihuapohuan The Tepaneca. tepaneca What is to become of us? quenmach tontlaca I am a Chalca woman, an Ayocuan. ye nichalcacihuatl nayoqua Et.

They are ashamed to be made Ca pinauhticate in chahuahuilo concubines, My child. no conetzin yhuia Are you going to do to me what you did cuix no iuh tinechihuaz i no iuh to the poor little Cuauhtlatoa? toconchiuh in quauhtlatohuaton Peacefully take off your skirts and spread macaço yhuian a ximocuetomaca your legs for the Tlatelolca, ximomaxahuican Antlatilolca You who stink. in amiyaque aayayya Come take a look here in Chalco. xihuallachiacan nican chalco ahauyya ohuiya

Let me have my plumes, mother. Ma ninopotoni tinonantzin Paint me up. ma xinexahua oo What will my lover think of me? que nechittaz in noyecol You pass before them as you leave. ymixpanon tonquiçatiuh Won’t he be greedy, rapacious, ahcaço mihicoltiz In Huexotzinco, ye huexotzinco In Xayacamachan? xayacamahchan ohuiya THE CHALCA WOMAN’S SONG ≤ 261

How is the song sung? Quen ami in cuicatl How did people used to sing? ehualo in cuicoya o He is an eagle quecholli. in quauhquecholli Won’t he be greedy, rapacious, ancaço mihicoltiz In Huexotzinco, ye huexotzinco In Xayacamachan? xayacamachan ohuiya

In Tetzmolocan In tetzmolocan I, a woman, anoint my hands and feet nicihuatl ninomaoxihuia ninocxioxihuia with oil. noconcuico I came to get my skirt and my blouse, ye nochcue ye nochhuipil And I am going to use them. neccecetlamitaz aytzin ay aytzin

I desire the Xaltepetlapan Huexotzinca, Niquimelehui xaltepetlapan ye Their leather ropes, huexotzinca tzo incuetlaxtlamalin Their leather thongs, toz incuetlaxtetecuecuex I am going to use them. nicecentlamittaz aytzin ay aytzin yyao Et.

V. V. tocotico, tocotico, tocotico, tocotico, tocotico He jests a bit more, Yquen oc çan in tlamati He demands me, nechmitlania The child, in conetl The king, in tlatohuani Little Axayacatl. in Axayacaton What happens if he makes me live as a cue e tleon concubine, In the homes of others? in ma ici tepal nechahualtlalia oohuaye Because of me, you will have twice the noca titlaomepiaz kingdom to keep, noconetzin My child. aço iuh quinequi moyollo maçohui Maybe that is the way your heart huian mociahuan yyao ohuia wants it.

Is it not wholeheartedly, Cuix amoyollocopa My child, noconetzin That you bring in concubinage, ye toconcalaquia in chahuayotl For that is your home? ynic mochan ahay ayoho Maybe that is the way your heart wants ahço iuh quinequi moyollo Et. it. 262 ≤ APPENDIX

What in the world have you done to me, Quemach in tinechiuh my lover? no yecoltzin ayye Don’t adorn yourself thus any longer. maca oc ic ximochichihuan You really are a bad man. heul ahtitlacatl What disorder have you created? tlein tienenelo It is my heart. ye noyollotzin You flower twist your words. ticxochimalina ye motlatol yyao ohuia

In my spinning place, Notzahuayan I speak of you. nimitzittoa In my weaving place, in nihquitian I remember you. nimitzilnamiqui Little boy, what disorder have you xolotzin tlein ticnenelo created? It is my heart. ye no yollotzin

VI. VI. tocotico tocoti I am an old pleasure woman.∫ Nahuilylamoa I am your mother. namonan I become a rejected old woman, nicahualilama An old maiden. nichpochylama ypan nochihua I am a person from Chalca. nichalcotlacatl aha aili I have come to pleasure you, nimitzahuiltico My flower doll, noxochinenetzin My purple flower doll. no xochicamopalnenetzin yyaho ohuia

He also wants it, Ye no quelehuia The king, in tlatoani Little Axayacatl. in Axayacaton Come see my flowery painted hands, xiqualitta noxochitlacuilomaton Come see my flowery painted breasts. xiqualitta noxochitlacuilochichihualtzin oohuia

Don’t let your heart take a needless Maca ço can onnehuetziuh ye tumble somewhere, moyollotzin Little Axayacatl. taxayacaton Here is your hand. iz ca ye momatzin Go along holding my hand. ma nomatitech xinechonantiuh Be content. aayyahayiaho xonahuiaca Et.

On your flowery reed mat, Moxochipetlapan In your sitting place, little boy, moyeyeyan xolotzin Peacefully go to sleep. yhuian xoncocochi Relax, my child, xonyayamani noconetzin King Axayacatl.Ω titlatohuani taxayaca yao ohuaya ABBREVIATIONS

AC Anales de Cuauhtitlan AGI Archivo General de las Indias, Sevilla, Spain AGN Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, Mexico CB Codex Borgia CBOR Codex Borbonicus CC Codex Chimalpopoca CF Bernardino de Sahagún, Códice florentino CFM Codex Fejéváry Mayer CI Codex Ixtlilxochitl CL Codex Laud CM Codex Magliabechiano CME Codex Mendoza CT Codex Tudela CTA Codex Tonalamatl Aubin CTR Codex Telleriano-Remensis CVB Codex Vaticanus B HTC Historia Tolteca Chichimeca PM Primeros memoriales THS Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions

NOTES

Notes to Preface 1. On the use of such terminology, see Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Con- quest, 1. 2. See Gillespie, The Aztec Kings; Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico. 3. See Clendinnen, Aztecs. 4. See Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest.

Notes to Chapter 1: The Bath 1. See Duran, Book of the Gods and Rites, 271–72; ct, f. 62r. 2. For three poignant examples from different contexts, see Lochrie, Hetero- syncracies; Arondekar, For the Record; Boellstorff, The Gay Archipelago. 3. See particularly Gruzinski’s articles on the confessional. This Foucauldian dilemma affected many of the early participants in the Seminario de Historia de las Mentalidades, an endeavor designed to analyze the daily lives of the peo- ple of colonial Mexico, with a particular emphasis on gender, family, and sex- uality. See the Seminario’s collections: Familia y sexualidad en Nueva España; El placer de pecar y el afán de normar; Del dicho al hecho; and Vida cotidiana y cultura en el México virreinal. Also see Alberro, Seis ensayos sobre el discurso colonial relativo a la comunidad domestica. The Seminario advanced our thinking about sexuality in colonial Mexico, so much so that I would argue that the participants indeed opened up a new subfield. They developed new ways of thinking about the Inquisition, the confessional, and the various elements of indigenous and Hispanic daily life. They developed detailed studies of such sources as confessional manuals, and these studies showed us the ways in 266 ≤ NOTES

which the writers of the confessional manuals attempted to alter the lives of their parishioners. As I show in chapter 3, these attempts by the priests were destined for failure. For a similar treatment of confession in the Andes, see Harrison, ‘‘The Theology of Concupiscence.’’ For a historiographical treat- ment, see Sargiotto, ‘‘Matrimonio y sexualidad en hispanoamerica colonial.’’ 4. In the next few paragraphs I describe some elements of Nahua cosmology most important to my project in this book. For more general information on Nahua cosmology, see Barjau, Tezcatlipoca; González Torres, Diccionario de mitología y religión de Mesoamérica; Graulich, Myths of Ancient Mexico; León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture; López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalo- can; Matos Moteczuma, Life and Death in the Templo Mayor. 5. López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan. 6. Ibid., 12–28; Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 31–39. 7. Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 203–4; Gillespie, The Aztec Kings. 8. See Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God. 9. See Christian, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain. 10. See Brotherston, Feather Crown. 11. López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology and Tamoanchan, Tlalocan, 36–42. 12. The virtually constant reference to flowers in all discussions of the gods and the rituals at first amazed me. I suspected that Miguel León-Portilla’s analysis of the flower as a signifier of poetry and all that was beautiful in life had to be an oversimplification (See León-Portilla, Los antiguos mexicanos and ‘‘Cuicatl y tlahtolli’’). Otherwise, what could it mean to engage in a flower war (Hassig, Aztec Warfare; Carrasco, City of Sacrifice)? And how could flowers be linked to so many different elements? But what I found suggests that perhaps León Portilla was correct in so vehemently emphasizing the flower. 13. Léon-Portilla describes ‘‘flower and song’’ as a ‘‘metaphor’’ for the meaning of life on earth. See his Aztec Thought and Culture, 175, 183. 14. Kartunnen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl, 329. 15. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, f. 160r. 16. Noemí Quezada sees this, though her analysis, as I will note below, is some- what different from my own. Still, my work owes much to her research. As the first scholar to engage in an intellectually rigorous study of Nahua eroticism, Quezada in the 1970s encountered the relationship between cosmology, ritual, and the erotic. See her ‘‘Erotismo en la religion azteca.’’ 17. See appendix for the complete text in Nahuatl with English translation. In this text, I have followed the translation preferred by Camilla Townsend. I have, though, made a series of changes. For a detailed analysis of this text, see chapter 7. I take full responsibility for translations of all of the Nahuatl and Spanish texts in The Flower and the Scorpion. I have referred to previous translations, where available, but I have retranslated the texts on my own. In cases of Nahuatl texts where there is some doubt or discrepancy in the transla- NOTES ≤ 267

tion, I have so noted in the endnotes. In this particular case, we have a com- plex Nahuatl song, written down in the Cantares mexicanos. There exist diffi- cult turns of phrase, some of which present us with little or no context for translation. For four different translations of this song, see León-Portilla, ‘‘The Chalca Cihuacuicatl of Aquiauhtzin’’; Bierhorst, Cantares mexicanos, 385–91; Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song’’; Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?’’ 18. Chimalpahin, 7th Relación, ms Mexicain 74, Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris, ff. 174–76. 19. While I will provide an extensive analysis of the song and performance in chapter 7, here I will open a discussion of the relevance of this selection to the Nahua history of sexuality. 20. A huipil is a traditional indigenous blouse. 21. ths, 204–5. For a detailed analysis and the Nahuatl text, see chapter 5. 22. On the general characteristics of Nahua commoners, and of social differentia- tion in Nahua society, see Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule, 220–56; Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 94–140. 23. Gibson, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule, 100. 24. Bernardino de Sahagún discusses this in the introduction to book 2 of the Florentine Codex. See the analysis in Browne, Sahagún and the Transition to Modernity. 25. Before the crown exempted Indians from the Inquisition, Spaniards used sig- nificant force to violently suppress indigenous priests. See the documents in González Obregón, Procesos de indios idólatras y hechiceros. Even after this exemption, Catholic clerics had many resources to engage in such suppres- sion. See Klor de Alva, ‘‘Colonizing Souls’’; Gruzinski, Man-Gods in the Mexi- can Highlands and The Conquest of Mexico, 146–83; Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 62–73. 26. See Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 62–73. 27. León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture; Clendinnen, Aztecs; López Austin and López Lujan, Mexico’s Indigenous Past. 28. Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico, 184–200; Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 203–60; Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco; Cer- vantes, The Devil in the New World; Sousa, ‘‘The Devil and Deviance in Native Criminal Narratives from Early Mexico.’’ 29. Gruzinski, Man-Gods of the Mexican Highlands; López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan. 30. Aguirre Beltrán, Medicina y magia; Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 41–49. 31. While cures like these do not fit into official Catholic discourse, they relate to Hispanic popular culture, in which individuals would go to witches and other practitioners of sexual magic to get cured. See Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors; Graulich, ‘‘Las brujas de las peregrinaciones aztecas.’’ 268 ≤ NOTES

32. See Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors; Taylor, Magis- trates of the Sacred, 47–73. 33. In The Flower and the Scorpion, as I discuss below, I will focus on what I term the ‘‘sexual,’’ more so than on the ‘‘erotic.’’ I focus on the sexual because I wish to analyze concepts important to the history of sexuality, recognizing that both the ‘‘sexual’’ and ‘‘sexuality’’ are concepts embedded with a particular his- tory. Michel Foucault, in tracing this history to eighteenth- and nineteenth- century Western discourses, argues that we must delineate a sphere of ‘‘sexual science’’ that is distinct from the ‘‘erotic arts’’ of premodern and, presumably, non-Western societies. While Foucault’s distinction between the modern and the premodern seems to me too neatly drawn (the gradual changes in notions of activities linked with fertility, reproduction, sin, and erotic pleasure appear to begin long before the eighteenth century, and continue long after the nine- teenth), his point that we see a movement toward a discourse of control in which we develop new categories and link something we call sexuality to biopower seems to me an apt description of what begins to occur with colonial discourses related to ‘‘sexual’’ acts. Things that had been linked to sacrifice, death, dirt, destruction, and eventual renewal through fertility rites now came to be linked instead with the necessities of procreation separated from the evils of sexual sin. I wish to understand this process, and thus I focus on the sexual and sexuality. See Foucault, The History of Sexuality. 34. Notions of our own sexuality always filter our desires for particular kinds of indigenous sexuality. Thus we seem to fulfill our own preconceived notions of what indigenous sexuality is, often based on the desire to replicate ourselves in some sort of precultural past, in tune with nature. Still, here I suggest that we cannot do away with our own filters; rather, we must come to terms with the interaction taking place between our notions of sexuality and the related indigenous concepts. See Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa; Herren, La con- quista erótica de las Indias; Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away; Barbosa Sánchez, Sexo y conquista; Trexler, Sex and Conquest; Sigal, From Moon Goddesses to Virgins; Rodriguez-Shadow, ‘‘Género, sexo y erotismo entre los Aztecas’’; Marcos, Taken from the Lips. 35. The descriptions and translations of the song and the incantation point to the possibility that sexual intercourse took place. The song makes fun of the Mex- ica leader’s physical prowess and suggests, probably humorously, that he can- not keep his penis inside of the women. The incantation suggests a seduction of a man by a goddess. It then repeats that seduction, now by a curer with a patient and the poison from a scorpion sting. While we presume that the curer did not actually engage in sexual intercourse with the patient, we have no rea- son to be so sure. 36. Noemí Quezada similarly shows that Spanish concepts used in the Inquisition and that linked to inquisitorial discourses of sexuality failed to capture precon- quest Nahua concepts of love and eroticism. Quezada, Sexualidad, amor, y NOTES ≤ 269

erotismo. See also Alcina Franch, ‘‘Procreación, amor y sexo entre los Mexi- cas’’; Baez-Jorge, ‘‘Imágenes numinosas de la sexualidad femenina en Mesoamérica.’’ 37. Neither did the Spaniards have such a concept. See Carrasco, Inquisición y represión sexual en Valencia; Atondo Rodríguez, El amor venal y la condición feminina en el México colonial; Barbosa Sánchez, Sexo y conquista; Garza Car- vajal, Butterflies Will Burn; Sarrión Mora, Sexualidad y confesión; Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional; Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville; Trexler, Sex and Conquest; Bleys, The Geography of Perversion; Stern, The Secret History of Gender; Twinam, Public Lives, Private Secrets; Blackmore and Hutcheson, Queer Iberia. 38. See Lochrie, Heterosyncrasies, 24–25. For Lochrie, the concept of ‘‘hetero- syncracy’’ allows her to escape the notions of reproductive heterosexuality that modern societies have developed into ‘‘norms’’: ‘‘I have chosen the title of this book, Heterosyncrasies, to perform such a denaturalization of the presumption of heterosexual normativity for the Middle Ages. The word is my coinage wrought from the ‘hetero’ of heterosexual and ‘syncrasy’ of ‘idiosyncrasy,’ meaning a ‘mixing together.’ The word opposes a unified, monolithic, and pre- sumptive understanding of heterosexuality in favor of a more idiosyncratic, diversified, and even perverse take on heterosexuality. I will be using the word to include the diverse forms of desire, sexual acts, medical technologies, and attendant theologies represented in a variety of texts that are not contained in the procreative model of heterosexuality also found in medieval texts. It will also include those instances of same-sex desire that fall into the sprawling cat- egories of disorderly desire, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual by modern judgments’’ (Heterosyncrasies, xix). For other critiques of sexuality in late classic and medieval societies, see Brown, The Body and Society; Keufler, The Manly Eunuch. 39. Puff, Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland. For similar conclu- sions regarding early modern sexuality in other parts of Europe, see Gil, Before Intimacy; Rocke, Forbidden Friendships; Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World. 40. Puff, Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 109. 41. See the critique of ethnopornographic representations in Lyons and Lyons, Irregular Connections. 42. Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes. 43. Weismantel, ‘‘Moche Sex Pots.’’ 44. Arondekar, For the Record. 45. Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards, 133. 46. Several scholars have analyzed the fertility rituals and the ways in which they allowed the Nahuas to connect different realms of existence. See López Aus- tin, Hombre-dios; González Torres, El sacrificio humano entre los Mexicas; Limón Olvera, Las cuevas y el mito de origen; León-Portilla, Aztec Thought 270 ≤ NOTES

and Culture and The Aztec Image of Self and Society; Gruzinski, Man-Gods of the Mexican Highlands and La colonisation de l’imaginaire; Carrasco, City of Sacrifice; Clendinnen, Aztecs; Florescano, Memoria mexicana; Broda and Báez-Jorge, Cosmovisión, ritual e identidad de los pueblos indígenas de México. 47. David Carrasco makes this point in City of Sacrifice. While he provides too much of a functionalist explanation for rituals of violence, his point linking governance with fertility rites seems particularly apt, and supported by much of the evidence that I gather. 48. Note that while a previous generation of scholars believed that the flower wars were ritualistic attempts to gain captives for sacrifice, over the past generation, most scholars have argued that they were wars designed to weaken the enemy. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare. 49. Alfredo López Austin’s work largely informs my own and that of any scholar studying sexuality among the Nahuas. López Austin, along with Noemí Quezada, first put sexuality front and center in his analysis of Nahua culture. See particularly his Cuerpo humano e ideología and ‘‘La sexualidad entre los antiguos Nahuas.’’ Also see the more recent work by Silvia Marcos, Taken from the Lips. 50. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. 51. This book does not focus on quotidian aspects of sexuality. For such an analy- sis, one would need to engage in an extensive search of criminal trials and Inquisition documents. The methodological issues in such a search are daunt- ing. For one scholar working through these issues, see Tortorici, ‘‘Masturba- tion, Salvation, and Desire.’’ 52. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 28–31. 53. Your position in relation to the gods depended on such things as the date of your birth and the manner of your death. See Clendinnen, Aztecs, 141–52; López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan. 54. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 98–110, 181–83; Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualiza- tion and Acculturation.’’ 55. See Taggart, Nahuat Myth and Social Structure; Nutini, Bloodsucking Witchcraft. 56. See Pardo, Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 99–103. 57. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved, 128. 58. See Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests; Tedlock, ‘‘Torture in the Archives.’’ 59. Pardo, Origins of Mexican Catholicism. 60. Quezada, in Sexualidad, amor, y erotismo, describes some of this interaction in her evaluation of several Inquisition cases. Solange Alberro and Ruth Behar similarly argue for such an interaction. See Alberro, Inquisición y sociedad en México; Behar, ‘‘Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women’s Powers.’’ Laura Lewis, in Hall of Mirrors, notes the extensive interaction between African, indigenous, and Spanish traditions, forming an amalgam of hybrid notions by NOTES ≤ 271

the eighteenth century. Similarly, we find that African religious traditions interacted with their Luso and Hispanic counterparts in early Latin America. See Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico; Sweet, Recreating Africa. Lewis notes, in contrast with the other authors, that such hybridity was built into the structures of the hegemonic culture, and thus cannot be seen as resistance. See also Perry and Cruz, Cultural Encounters. 61. For a useful attempt at decoding such influences in the Maya region, see Hanks, Intertexts. 62. See Nowotny, Tlacuilolli; Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning. 63. Nowotny, Tlacuilolli, 6. 64. Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning. 65. ctr. 66. See León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún. 67. Tedlock, ‘‘Torture in the Archives.’’ 68. See Schroeder and Poole, Religion in New Spain. 69. Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. 70. Many scholars have asserted some version of the ‘‘moral dialogue’’ thesis, but it is most closely associated with Louise Burkhart in The Slippery Earth. Some have misinterpreted her work as arguing that a broad dialogue took place, but Burkhart is careful to argue that this dialogue occurred first between priests and a group of Nahua intellectuals and second between confessors and their confessants. As such, I see no contradiction between her work and my own, but I wish to ask about the broader cultural parameters of the sexual discourse she identifies. A wide variety of scholars, unlike Burkhart, appear to suggest that the confessional radically altered Nahua sexual morality. Several validate Foucault’s model in which the powerful priest requires the penitent to assert a sexual self. This self first comes to fruition in late medieval times (Foucault is unclear about a beginning date for this transformation, but he probably means to refer to the mandate of confession that takes place in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215), but only becomes ingrained and formed into a coherent self- identity in the eighteenth century. See Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowl- edge. For Latin Americanists who have used the confessionary model, see Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualization and Acculturation’’; ‘‘La ‘conquista de los cuerpos’ ’’; and ‘‘Confesión, alianza y sexualidad entre los indios de Nueva España’’; Klor de Alva, ‘‘Contar vidas.’’ For a nuanced account of confession in the somewhat different Andean context, see Harrison, ‘‘The Theology of Con- cupiscence.’’ All of these scholars have too closely followed Foucault’s view, most cogently expressed in volume 1 of The History of Sexuality. Foucault there largely places a modern understanding of the confessional (in which the priest encourages one to confess a sense of internal desires) onto a medieval model, in which confession, for the most part only practiced once a year by individuals, played much more of a role in attempting to maintain outward signs of standard bodily comportment and sexual morality (avoiding incest, 272 ≤ NOTES

adultery, etc.). For treatments of medieval and early modern confession, see Delumeau, Le péché et la peur; Sarrión Mora, Sexualidad y confesión, 21–39. 71. Gruzinski provides a useful analytical lens from which to study these changes. In Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands he asserts a progressive psychosis of the colonial Nahua mind. While he provides us with fascinating case studies, his analysis of the movement into psychosis is overstated. By the time he writes The Mestizo Mind, Gruzinski has discovered that, while we can try to understand the ways in which Nahua minds work, we must provide scholars with material evidence—images, writings, and so on—that allow us to com- prehend this. By providing more of a formalistic analysis of these works, we can translate changing minds and imaginations into a scholarly language, and more importantly, we can understand the development of cultural and psy- chological change during the colonial years. 72. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. Also see Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mex- ico; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors; Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. 73. Translation is of great interest to a wide variety of historians. See particularly Lawrence Venuti’s The Translation Studies Reader. See also Venuti’s The Scandals of Translation; Simon, Gender in Translation; Robinson, Becoming a Translator. Also see the classic essay by Walter Benjamin, ‘‘The Task of the Translator.’’ 74. Others have covered the politics of translation, but the important point is that the translator was an intermediary in the process, and never was a blank slate. Some translators worked to apply literal translations of all that was said, but in every case, the act of writing the text transformed meanings in a wide variety of ways. The words that came out of a testator’s mouth would be transformed into acceptable legal discourse. That legal discourse could then be retranslated into another discourse for another purpose. The politics of the act of transla- tion never end. Today we have disputes over translations that cannot be resolved because the original meaning is inaccessible. See my ‘‘The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin.’’ See also Burns, ‘‘Notaries, Truth, and Consequences.’’ 75. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 88. 76. The early sources are discussed throughout this book. For the modern scholars, see Léon-Portilla, Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World; López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology; Quezada, Sexualidad, amor, y erotismo; Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Wolf, Envisioning Power, 133–95. 77. The tlazolli complex may make one think of Mary Douglas’s point: ‘‘There is nothing fearful or unreasoning in our dirt-avoidance: it is a creative move- ment, an attempt to relate form to function, to make unity of experience.’’ Purity and Danger, 3. 78. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 88. 79. Ibid., 89. 80. Burkhart notes this point as well: ibid., 89–92. NOTES ≤ 273

81. Some of these rituals are collected in ths. Others are documented in chapter 5. 82. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, for many examples of the ways in which Sahagún and other clerics were influencing Nahua concepts of trash, dirt, and dust. We see other influences coming through local religious practices, such as witchcraft. See Graulich, ‘‘Las brujas de las peregrinaciones aztecas’’; Megged, Exporting the Catholic Reformation; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors; Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico. 83. Sahagún, Historia general, vol. 1, 24–29. 84. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 89. 85. Here I use excrement in its simple definition: as human waste. As such, I do not suggest that the Nahuas viewed tlazolli only as waste emanating from the human body (defined as cuitlatl), but with the body symbolizing all society (see Lopéz Austin, The Human Body and Ideology), Nahuas understood tlazolli metaphorically in some forms as excrement. This suggests to me that the place for theory emanates from, just as it creates, the human body, for as the Florentine Codex notes in its description of a herb used to cure damaged genitals or the unexplained expulsion of semen: ‘‘The ailment passes through his rectum; thus he is cured’’ (‘‘ic iciuhtca icujtlapampa qujca in colcolli, ic pati’’; cf, book 11, chap. 7 [para. 5, medicinal herb 135; the herb is called tlamacazqui ipapa (Lycopodium dichotomum)], ff. 173v–174r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex, book 11, 183–84). Tlazolli theory concerns itself with the construction of the remains of the human body. How do Nahuas link these remains to a complex upon which they build concepts of fertility and sacrifice? 86. See Klein, ‘‘Teocuitlatl, ‘Divine Excrement.’ ’’ 87. Inga Clendinnen argues that the grand ceremonies were a way of asserting a sense of self in a world in which danger was always present and predominant. In essence, she views the Nahua world as a world full of tlazolli, controlled only by ritual production. More broadly and in a different context, Victor Turner sees ritual as a method of moving people through the worlds of danger and disruption by causing an even more massive disruption, a moment in and out of time, and thus enacting ritual. For the Nahuas, we can conceive of this as the control of tlazolli by bringing in massive amounts of tlazolli in the form of ritual. In the end, of course, the ritual practitioners will clean the tlazolli and reestablish order and structure. See Clendinnen, Aztecs; Turner, The Ritual Process. 88. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina.’’ 89. Sigal, ‘‘Latin America and the Challenge of Globalizing the History of Sex- uality.’’ There I argue that preconquest indigenous notions of the sexual did not center on vaginal intercourse, but that the theoretical parameters of Euro- pean colonialism placed all indigenous acts that resembled their own notions of sexual sin within a matrix centered on vaginal intercourse as the privileged sexual act. 274 ≤ NOTES

90. Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa; López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology. 91. Others have shown similarly that the Nahuas performed liminality during such ceremonies. See Florescano, Memoria mexicana; Léon-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture and The Aztec Image of Self and Society; Clendinnen, Aztecs; López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology. 92. Turner, The Ritual Process, 95. 93. ‘‘We are presented, in such rites, with a moment ‘in and out of time,’ and in and out of secular social structure, which reveals, however fleetingly, some recognition (in symbol, if not always in language) of a generalized social bond that has ceased to be and has simultaneously yet to be fragmented into a mul- tiplicity of structural ties.’’ Ibid., 96. 94. Ibid., 95. 95. As I note in chapter 3, this dialogue should be seen more aptly as two mis- understood monologues. See also the dialogue proposed by Jaime Lara, who shows the ways that clerics attempted to use visual evidence in the process of Christian instruction. See Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs. 96. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, 137r. 97. Ibid., 118v. 98. Ibid. 99. On these animals, see González Torres, Animales y plantas en la cosmovisión mesoamericana. 100. We should note that the mythological and cosmological structure in which the Nahuas promoted gender inversion and destabilized masculine and feminine sexuality, only to foreclose that destabilization and inversion in quotidian life, is not unique. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty has shown that much mythology and folklore, particularly from south Asia, has engaged in such gender and sexual inversions on a regular basis. The societies use these perhaps carnival- esque inversions to reassert power: establishing particular kinds of relation- ships between priests, nobles, and commoners. See Doniger O’Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva´ ; Tales of Sex and Violence; and The Bedtrick. Also see Urban, Tantra. 101. Such a trope of authenticity would seem to beg the question of what an indige- nous subject could look like. Indeed, the search for authenticity attempts to unmask the indigenous subject, suggesting that such a subject is ever so close to nature, but such a project would only serve to continue colonialism and to provide a false impression of our attempt at arriving at truth through in- digeneity. See Chow, ‘‘Where Have All the Natives Gone?’’; Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason; Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs; Quijano, ‘‘Colonialidiad del poder.’’ 102. In such ritual the Nahuas performed the transformation of the human body into the body that incorporated elements of the cosmological and the natural. NOTES ≤ 275

In essence, then, my view of the human body is different from (although not necessarily contradictory with) the view of Alfredo López Austin, who finds the body to be representative of a broader world; that in some senses the world is located in the body. I suggest that the body must be ritually transformed to signify this totality. Nonetheless, López Austin sees this ritual transformation and argues that this comes within the realm of the standard human body. See López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology. See also his Hombre-Dios, in which his argument about ritual is more closely aligned with mine. I argue, as should be clear throughout this chapter, that ritual provides a liminal space in which the rules of mundane life do not apply. See Turner, The Ritual Process.

Notes to Chapter 2: Trash 1. agn (Inquisición), 146, 5. For the Nahuatl text and a detailed analysis, see chapter 7. 2. It became clear to the indigenous peoples that the Inquisition would not take seriously a priest’s simple fornication, but they would punish an individual for the violation of the confessional. There exists no underlying theological reason for this, as either act violates a sacrament, but it seems that the inquisitors saw the violation of the confessional as a serious breach of trust, while they viewed simple fornication and even concubinage as marginally acceptable behaviors. For the most important article to discuss this issue in regard to colonial Mex- ico, see Haskett, ‘‘ ‘Not a Pastor, but a Wolf.’ ’’ On the use of such a method to remove a priest, see Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional; Sarrión Mora, Sex- ualidad y confesión. For some Maya examples, see Sigal, From Moon God- desses to Virgins, 63–93. 3. See Gayatri Spivak, ‘‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’’ 4. See Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs. 5. cf, book 1, chap. 12, ff. 6v–9v. 6. For a similar analysis of indigenous responses to Christian teaching, see Terra- ciano, ‘‘The People of Two Hearts.’’ 7. The Inquisition was particularly interested in the utterances of people, espe- cially priests, so the focus on language in this petition seems to fit the institu- tional needs quite well. See Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. 8. Spivak, ‘‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’’ 9. Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, 205–7. 10. Ibid., 308–11. 11. Ibid., 205. 12. Tedlock goes on, ‘‘This convergence takes place within a monstrously asym- metrical dialogue, to be sure, but one in which there is nevertheless an exchange, with real violence traded for a narrative of violence.’’ Tedlock, ‘‘Tor- ture in the Archives,’’ 147. See also Tavárez, ‘‘Communal Defiance, Divided Allegiances.’’ 13. Hanks, Intertexts. 276 ≤ NOTES

14. See in particular Burns, Into the Archive, and Mallon, Peasant and Nation, for an extensive discussion of issues related to subaltern voice in Latin America. And see Arondekar, ‘‘Without a Trace,’’ for a discussion of sexuality and the archive in South Asia. 15. For an example of such a historical reading in a Western tradition, see Bersani and Dutoit, Caravaggio’s Secrets. 16. Seler, Collected Works in Mesoamerican Linguistics and Archaeology; Nowotny, Tlacuilolli; Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting; Brotherston, Painted Books from Mexico; Boone, Stories in Red and Black; Johansson, ‘‘La imagen en los códices nahuas.’’ 17. For two examples of such contextual reading, see Brotherston, Painted Books from Mexico; Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco. 18. For examples of interpretations from the Borgia group, along with the Mixtec codices, see Boone, The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico. 19. See particularly Eloise Quiñones Keber’s comments in her edition of ctr. 20. cb, 74. On Tlazolteotl and all of the other goddesses in the Codex Borgia, see Ojeda Díaz, Las diosas en los códices del grupo Borgia. On Tlazolteotl’s rela- tionship to the birthing process, see De La Torre, ‘‘El nacimiento en el mundo prehispanico.’’ 21. See Klein, ‘‘Wild Woman in Colonial Mexico.’’ 22. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina’’; Giasson, ‘‘Tlazolteotl, diedad del abono.’’ 23. This is based on a parallel with the Virgin Mary, who does not have a navel in medieval imagery. Such a conclusion is admittedly speculative, but would rep- resent a parallel that would have allowed for a movement toward hybridity, a movement that both the Nahuas and the Catholic clerics strongly resisted. 24. See Boon, Cycles of Time and Meaning. 25. cl, 29. 26. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina’’; Milbrath, ‘‘Birth Images in Mixteca-Puebla Art.’’ 27. See Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails.’’ 28. cfm, 4. 29. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina’’; Klein, ‘‘None of the Above.’’ 30. Klein, ‘‘None of the Above.’’ 31. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina.’’ 32. Here, of course, we are confronted with a linguistic conundrum. As Nahuatl does not have gendered pronouns, this problem would be resolved by writing this book in Nahuatl, but that is not a possibility. 33. The literature on gender complementarity is vast. See the summaries in Schroeder, Wood, and Haskett, Indian Women of Early Mexico. 34. I will return to this topic throughout much of the remainder of this book. This understanding of sex presented a fundamental ground for radical and tragic misunderstandings between Spaniards and indigenous peoples. NOTES ≤ 277

35. Nahua sexual discourse provided an extensive discussion of the distinction between moderation and excess. In essence, moderate sexual activity involved avoiding public scandal. One should not engage in adultery or too much pre- marital sexual activity. Noble women were expected to engage in serial monogamy. Noble men could be polygamous. All commoners were supposed to engage in serial monogamy. See chapter 7 for a more extensive discussion of the distinction between moderation and excess. 36. See Megged, Exporting the Catholic Reformation. 37. See also Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa entre los Aztecas and Sexualidad, amor, y erotismo; López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología; Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. 38. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. 39. ‘‘Amo timjciuhcapoloz, amo iuhquj tichichi, ticquativetziz, ticquetzontivetziz in tlalticpacaiotl. . . . vel itlan taqujz in motlalica, in motlalticpacaiouh, in motlalticpacaiouh, tizomoctic, titlapaltic, titzicujctic tiez.’’ cf, book 6, chap. 21, ff. 97r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 116–17. 40. Clearly this has similarities with Greek and Roman concepts of the sexual, but less so with Christian concepts. On the Greeks and Romans, see Dover, Greek Homosexuality; Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality; Keufler, The Manly Eunuch. 41. See ac, 8; htc, 68–70 (secs. 15–31). 42. See particularly Sahagún’s sermons in Newberry Library, Ayer ms 1485, and Alva’s Confessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana, but also the Domin- ican Doctrina of 1548 (Los Religiosos de la Orden de Santo Domingo, Doctrina Cristiana). The metaphor is still being used in the eighteenth century. See Pérez, Farol indiano. 43. It was also the province of Tezcatlipoca, the trickster god whom I will discuss below. The two formed a pair to which Nahuas directed confession. See cf, book 1, chap. 9. 44. Neyolmelahualiztli was one Nahuatl term used for confession. This is a com- pound term, deriving from the noun yolli, ‘‘heart,’’ and the verb melaua, ‘‘to straighten out’’ (the ne- is an indefinite reflexive prefix). Hence, confession was seen as ‘‘heart straightening,’’ a term perhaps linked with sacrifice. The other term Nahuas commonly used for confession is yolcuitia, from cuitia, ‘‘to declare,’’ hence, ‘‘to declare one’s heart.’’ 45. See cf, book 1, chap. 9. 46. See Klein, ‘‘Wild Woman in Colonial Mexico.’’ On Christian binarism as it was applied in early Mexico, see Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism. 47. On preconquest writing, see in particular Boone, Stories in Red and Black; Gutiérrez Solana, Códices de México. See also Glass, ‘‘A Survey of Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts’’; and Glass and Robertson, ‘‘A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts.’’ 48. See Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting, 27. 278 ≤ NOTES

49. ‘‘mimati iolteutl, tlaiolteuuiani, moiolnonotzani. . . . toltecati.’’ cf, book 10, chap. 8. 50. The bad tlacuilo is ‘‘dull, detestable, irritating—a fraud, a cheat. He paints without luster, ruins colors, blurs them, paints askew—acts impestuously, hastily, without reflection.’’ The tlacuilo thus reflected on events placed in front of him. He then creatively reconfigured those events to signify ritual vitality. cf, book 10, chap. 8. 51. cme, vol. 3, f. 70r. 52. We see a parallel with the Maya. The Maya term for the scribe is ah dzib, a term connected both with artistic ability and with rulership. They were associ- ated with powerful gods and rulers, but also could be seen as untrustworthy and scheming. See Coe and Kerr, The Art of the Maya Scribe. 53. See Durán, Book of the Gods and Rites, chap. 3, 90–98. For one account of these ceremonies, see Clendinnen, Aztecs. 54. For the position of Ochpaniztli in the Nahua system of festivals, see Broth- erston, Feather Crown and ‘‘The Year in the Mexican Codices.’’ 55. For two differing accounts of the Ochpaniztli ceremony, compare Durán’s view with that of Sahagún and his aides. See Durán, Book of the Gods and Rites, chap. 15, 229–37; pm, f. 251v; cf, book 2. Also see the accounts from the pictorial manuscripts, described in detail below. 56. These types of ritual performances were central to the cohesion of an imag- ined community in the Nahua world. Certainly, as in medieval Europe, there existed shared interests in which outsiders were viewed as encroaching upon the community. Still, the notion of a stable national interest existed, reinforced by the establishment of a relationship between the nobles and the commoners. Nobles proved their worth to the commoners largely by protecting them on a daily basis and by promoting the maintenance of large-scale rituals to prove their worth to community cohesion. In essence, they used these rituals as a sumptuous display of their wealth and their commitment to the maintenance of a perceived, imagined national interest. This obviously differs considerably from the imagination of a nation developed in the eighteenth century, as shown by Benedict Anderson. See Anderson, Imagined Communities. For cri- tiques of his position from a subaltern standpoint, see Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments; Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe. For one account of Mesoamerican rituals as maintaining community, see Carrasco, City of Sacri- fice. While Carrasco’s account overemphasizes the centrality of violence in the maintenance of community (and in the ceremonies themselves), the overall point about ceremony maintaining a sense of national cohesion is vital. 57. See Lockhart, Nahuas after the Conquest, 326–73. 58. While Lockhart correctly maintains that Nahuas quickly adapted such writing practices to their own purposes, his evidence shows that the vast bulk of writ- ten notarial documents were testaments and documents related to land ten- ure. All of these were intended to protect property in such a way that would be NOTES ≤ 279

enforceable in the Spanish legal system. Various analyses of these texts have shown their formulaic nature. Nonetheless, it is clear from looking at the names and occupational patterns of the sixteenth-century notaries, that they came from notarial families that existed before the conquest. 59. See Gruzinski, The Mestizo Mind. 60. See in particular Sahagún’s defense of his entire project in the introduction to book 1 of the Florentine Codex. Also see Quiñones Keber’s description of the production of the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, in ctr, 123–32. 61. See agn (Bienes Nacionales), 596; agi (México), 357, 882; Serna, Manual de ministros de indios, 1–72. See also agn (Templos), 75, 4; and the discussion by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón in thr. Some cases were kept in churches, pre- served for later use. 62. While almost all scholars had believed the Borbonicus emanated from Te- nochtitlan or Tlatetlolco, see the differing opinion proffered by H. B. Nichol- son, in ‘‘The Provenience of the Codex Borbonicus.’’ There, while Nicholson challenges the conventional wisdom, he notes that the text likely comes from the southern lake region. 63. See Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting, 86–93. 64. Quiñones Keber, ctr, 115–32. 65. cbor, 11. 66. See González Torres, ‘‘Algunos aspectos del culto a la luna en el México antiguo.’’ 67. Milbrath, ‘‘Birth Images in Mixteca-Puebla Art.’’ See also Graulich, ‘‘Atamalcualiztli.’’ 68. See Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails.’’ 69. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World. 70. Bruce Kapferer, Neil Whitehead, and others have shown that ritual inverts standard relationships such that violence is needed to maintain the life of the community. See Kapferer, Legends of People, Myths of State; Whitehead, Dark Shamans. 71. DiCesare, Sweeping the Way. 72. cbor, 28. 73. To view a color copy of this image, see a photograph available at the Founda- tion for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, www.famsi.org/research/ graz/borbonicus/imgepage28.html. 74. See Durán, Book of the Gods and Rites, 229–37. 75. See cf, book 2, chap. 20; Durán, Book of the Gods and Rites, 229–37. 76. cf, book 10, chap. 29; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book 10, 185. 77. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, 148; Book of the Gods and Rites, 236. 78. Butler, Gender Trouble, 24–25. 79. Ibid., 141. Butler expands on this point in Bodies That Matter. 280 ≤ NOTES

80. Here we must recall that the Spanish concept of the puto in early modern times was always as the effeminate man. He was the public face of male homosexual acts, and he was seen as such because of both his effeminacy and his role as the ‘‘passive’’ partner in sexual acts. Spaniards saw him as a spec- tacle, a public figure of degradation and desire. See my ‘‘(Homo)Sexual Desire and Masculine Power in Colonial Latin America,’’ in Infamous Desire. See also Carrasco, Inquisición y represión sexual; Trexler, Sex and Conquest; Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville; Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn. 81. On gender complementarity, see the pioneering work of Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches. See the application of this concept to Mesoamerica in Schroeder, Wood, and Haskett, Indian Women of Early Mexico. See also Joyce, Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. 82. Subject formation in medieval and early modern Spain mandated a strict gen- der binary. When that binary was violated, Spaniards attempted to reassert stability through the maintenance of the notion that the individual had crossed a line. Hence the insult ‘‘puto.’’ On early modern Spain and the estab- lishment of proper gender norms, see Blackmore and Hutcheson, Queer Iberia. 83. ctr, f. 17v. 84. See Galinier, La mitad del mundo, 69. 85. Susan Schroeder, in her introduction to Indian Women of Early Mexico, states: ‘‘In contrast to European patriarchal structures and paternal attitudes, we do not suppose a Native American égalité but rather emphasize the autonomous yet reciprocal nature of indigenous gender roles.’’ Schroeder, Wood, and Haskett, Indian Women of Early Mexico, 15. This statement serves as a defini- tion of gender complementarity. The roles of warrior and mother appear to assert this complementarity, as symbolized through the image of Tlazolteotl. 86. ctr, f. 3r. 87. ctr, ff. 3r, 12r, 17v. 88. These European prototypes can be found in a wide variety of late medieval and early modern sources. See particularly the recent collection edited by Oldridge, The Witchcraft Reader. 89. ctr, f. 23r. This image comes from a page in which Tezcatlipoca is partnered with Xochiquetzal. The page opposite Tlazolteotl is missing, but would have been similar. 90. This most prominently contradicts the views of Robert Ricard, in The Spiri- tual Conquest of Mexico. After the initial publication of the French version of this text in 1933, Ricard had great influence over the field. He was first chal- lenged in the 1950s by a variety of scholars in Mexico and the United States, but his influence continues to be profound. 91. Toci was linked so closely with Tlazolteotl that many art historians today argue that the two were the same goddess. Others point out some icono- NOTES ≤ 281

graphic differences between the two. The main difference is that Toci, also known as Teteo innan (‘‘Mother of the Gods’’) is seen as an older goddess than Tlazolteotl. Their provinces are similar, and both are linked very closely with fertility. There is no question that both before and after the conquest, icono- graphic representations showed the two to be almost identical. Perhaps Toci represented a mature Tlazolteotl. Even if she was an entirely different goddess, however, my point remains. Before the conquest, the two were connected through a fertility complex. After, the Spaniards and Hispanized indigenous people attempted to assert a clear separation, perhaps implicated in the divi- sion between the Virgin Mary Toci and the Eve Tlazolteotl. Similar attempts to divide can be found in other related gods and goddesses. 92. ct, f. 104r. 93. See ibid., f. 21r. 94. cm, f. 39r; See also ci, f. 99r. 95. See Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails.’’ 96. The flower in the Nahua framework signified many things, not just sexual excess. However, the combination of the flower and the goddess, whether we identify her as Tlazolteotl or Toci, was meant to evoke such a definition. 97. See Lacan, ‘‘The Phallic Phase and the Subjective Import of the Castration Complex.’’ 98. See Butler, Bodies That Matter; Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet; Silver- man, Male Subjectivity at the Margins. 99. See particularly the texts in ths. 100. For a treatment of colonialism and spectacle, see McClintock, Imperial Leather. 101. A brilliant treatment of this topic for the Andean region is Carolyn Dean’s Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ. See also Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism. 102. See ths. 103. There is no doubt that Nahuas saw the texts themselves as having ritualistic value that connected them with the gods. Thus storing the manuscript and bringing it to a ritual event was an act invested with significant spiritual power, entrusted to a respected community member, often one also involved with the Catholic Church. 104. Literally, ‘‘Come her hair is mist, her hair is smoke [the fire], my mother, Chalchiuhcueyeh [goddess of waters, hence, the water], white woman [the incense].’’ All were common metaphors. 105. ths, 136–37: ‘‘tla xihualhuia ayauhtli ytzon petli, tzon nonan chal chicueye istac cihuatl tlaxihualhia in antlaçolteteo . . . xinech itztimamaniqui yayauhqui tlaçolli iztac tlaçolli xoxouhqui tlaçolli onihualla nitlamacazqui . . . ma noca techuat.’’ 106. On the colors of the tlazolli, see Raby, ‘‘Mujer blanca y dolor verde.’’ 107. ths, 88, 97, 151. 282 ≤ NOTES

108. Ibid., 114–20. 109. See Lara, City, Temple, Stage; Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Mali- nalco. But also note that both Lara and Peterson present evidence of signifi- cant continuity of indigenous cosmology even in the structures of these churches. 110. See Taggart, Nahuat Myth and Social Structure, 87–97. 111. See Burns, Into the Archive. Robert Haskett makes similar points in his provocative article, ‘‘ ‘Not a Pastor, but a Wolf.’ ’’ 112. Note that, for the purposes of this book, I am not interested in priestly sex- uality, and thus I have not engaged in an extensive search for or analysis of all the relevant Inquisition sources. For more examples, see Chuchiak, ‘‘Secrets behind the Screen’’ and ‘‘The Sins of the Fathers.’’ 113. This training was passed down through generations as there is great consis- tency between sixteenth-century and eighteenth-century texts. On the train- ing of notaries, see Herzog, Mediación, archivos y ejercicio. 114. Even well into the eighteenth century, Nahua petitioners used some of these same tropes. See Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 247–50. 115. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualization and Accul- turation’’ and The Conquest of Mexico; Quezada, Sexualidad, amor, y erotismo. 116. Obviously this concept of ignoring colonial precepts owes much to Homi Bhabha’s concept of ambivalence toward colonial discourse. However, I would argue that the sources suggest little in the way of ambivalence. There exists quite a purposeful ignorance, at least in the earlier period. Perhaps this pre- dates the ambivalence that Bhabha dates to the nineteenth century. See Bhabha, ‘‘Of Mimicry and Man.’’ 117. Compare Lockhart, Nahuas after the Conquest, with Florescano, Memoria mexicana; Gruzinski, La colonisation de l’imaginaire; Alberro, Les Espagnols dans le Mexique colonial; and Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance.

Notes to Chapter 3: Sin 1. cf, book 1, chap. 12, f. 6v; Sahagún, Historia general, vol. 1, 24–25. 2. I call these texts ethnographic studies because they focus on developing a sense of the world of the people studied. While each friar has some interest in ethnographic ‘‘accuracy,’’ one should be wary of the many dubious claims made. These friars did not have a sense of ‘‘objectivity,’’ nor did they use mod- ern anthropological methods to understand the subjects of their study. See Browne, Sahagún and the Transition to Modernity. For several alternate views, see the essays in Klor de Alva, Nicholson, and Quiñones Keber, The Works of Bernardino de Sahagún. 3. See Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 65–78. See also Klaus, Uprooted Christianity; Díaz Balsera, The Pyramid under the Cross. NOTES ≤ 283

4. See, for example, Gante, Cartas de Pedro de Gante; ths; and Serna, Manual de ministros de indios. 5. Robert Ricard correctly notes this, but he ascribes far too much power to the Catholic priests. See his The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico. For a much more nuanced approach, see Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 239–342. 6. For colonial Mexico, Ricard is the classic example of such a one-sided approach. See his The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico. 7. The most prominent work is that of James Lockhart, particularly his The Nahuas after the Conquest. On religion, clearly Burkhart’s The Slippery Earth goes the farthest in correcting this imbalance. The recent book by William Hanks, Converting Words, argues that in the Maya case, though, scholars have already moved too far in the other direction, asserting too much agency and power on the part of the indigenous population. His cautions are worth not- ing, and one should certainly avoid the notion that indigenous commoners were able to simply resist the onslaught of Catholic ideology; but I argue here that, even when resistance proved impossible, Nahua sexual concepts con- tinued to exist, if in an altered framework. On gender and sexuality, see par- ticularly Sousa, ‘‘Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico’’; Schroeder, Wood, and Haskett, Indian Women of Colonial Mexico; Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices. Also see Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards; Cline, Colo- nial Culhuacan; Haskett, Indigenous Rulers; Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco; Wood, Transcending Conquest. For the similar situations in Guatemala, Oaxaca, and Yucatán, see Herrera, Natives, Europeans, and Africans; Terraciano, The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca; Restall, The Maya World. See the critique of this approach in Eric Van Young’s ‘‘The New Cul- tural History Comes to Old Mexico.’’ 8. See also the fascinating work being done in art history. Jaime Lara witnesses the tremendous influence of indigenous systems of worship on Christian ico- nography. Similarly, Jeanette Peterson sees the indigenous imagery in the church in Malinalco. See Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs, and City, Temple, Stage; Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco. 9. Brading, The First America, 104–6. On the thought of the spiritual Francis- cans, see Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans. 10. Brading, The First America, 108–9; Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 128–32. 11. Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 116; Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 35. 12. Brading, The First America, 109; Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico, 130. 13. See particularly Motolinia’s discussion in his Memoriales, 128–35. 14. Díaz Balsera also focuses on this topic. See her The Pyramid under the Cross. 15. D’Olwer, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, 4–12; León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 92–95. 284 ≤ NOTES

16. cf, book 1, prologo, f. 1r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Intro- duction and Indices, 45. 17. See, for example, his commentary on the songs as they begin, in cf, book 2, f. 137r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book 2, 58. 18. León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 37–43. 19. Sahagún also appealed to the Augustinian tradition, citing The City of God as a model for the Historia general. See cf, book 3, prologo, f. 199v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices, 59; Brading, The First America, 121. 20. Heyden and Horcasitas, ‘‘Fray Diego Durán,’’ 3–12. 21. Brading, The First America, 283–84. 22. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, 1. 23. Molina, Confesionario mayor, f. 8r: ‘‘Imaxca tlaxicmocaqti {notlaço piltze} caotinalla tinechpouilico ymmotlatlacol, ti moyolmelahuaco ynixpantzinco totecuiyo Dios yhuan in nixpan ynnehuatl nixiptla. Caticpaleuico ymmani- man, mictlampa ticmaquixtico: yhuan {moneyolmelahualiztica} tic mixnex- tilico yn cemicac yoliliztli, auh yntoteyocoxcatzin, yn totetlaocolilicatzin Dios, mitzmotlaocoliliznequi, mitzmocnoyttiliznequi, ynic amocemicac topolihuiz, yehica caa mo quimonequiltia ymmictla yazynaqui yyollocacopa moz calizne- qui, ynquicuepaznequi ynemtliz, ymmocennahuatia ynaoquic ceppa tlatlacoz.’’ 24. See Foucault, The History of Sexuality. See also his Archaeology of Knowledge. For an example of these concepts applied to Mexico, see Gruzinski, ‘‘Individu- alization and Acculturation.’’ 25. Foucault, The History of Sexuality. 26. Burkhart and Gruzinski of course had discovered this before I did. See Burk- hart, The Slippery Earth; Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualization and Acculturation.’’ 27. On these tropes and their relationship to European fantasies and indigenous realities, see Neil Whitehead’s introduction to Hans Staden’s True History. 28. Both Burkhart and Osvaldo Pardo discuss the in-between natures of the ear- liest clerics. It seems likely that, as time went on, the priests had less of the sense of ‘‘homelessness’’ we would need to describe them as liminal, but they still maintained some sense of identity with local religious frameworks. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism. See also Megged, Exporting the Catholic Reformation. For the later period, see Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. 29. See Sigal and Whitehead, ‘‘Ethnopornography.’’ On the language of the body, see Lipsett-Rivera, ‘‘Language of Body and Body as Language.’’ 30. See Sigal, ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 31. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 74. 32. Pardo, The Origins of Mexican Catholicism, 2–3. 33. He has his doubts, but further supports this position in his arguments with the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas. See Motolinia, Carta al emperador. NOTES ≤ 285

34. Brading, The First America, 102–4. 35. Ibid., 103. 36. For example, see Motolinia, Memoriales, 61–63. See also Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 14–15. 37. See Motolinia, Memoriales, 128; Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 121. 38. Motolinia, Memoriales, 310; Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 313–14. 39. Brading, The First America, 107. 40. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 67–73. 41. Brading, The First America, 105–6; Motolinia, Memoriales, 122–28. 42. Motolinia, Memoriales, 128–35. See also his Carta al emperador. 43. Motolinia, Memoriales, 146–52. 44. See Baudot, Utopía e historia en México, 95–102; Pardo, The Origins of Mexi- can Catholicism, 2–3. 45. Baudot, Utopía e historia en México. 46. Díaz Balsera, The Pyramid under the Cross. 47. The discussion of such imaginary frameworks should not imply that I argue that Motolinia in any way endorsed these institutions. The question for me has more to do with the methods that he used and the ways that Nahuas may have interpreted these methods. It is this framework that places the friars within the tlazolli complex. 48. Motolinia, Memoriales, 311–35. 49. See Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture. 50. Motolinia, Memoriales, 312–13. 51. Ibid., 313–14, 322. 52. Ibid., 314–15. 53. Ibid., 320. 54. Ibid., 321. 55. Ibid., 322. 56. See Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. On Motolinia and natural law, see All Can Be Saved, 134–35. 57. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 214. 58. Ibid., 214–19. 59. Motolinia, Memoriales, 146–52, 324–25. 60. Motolinia, Carta al emperador. 61. Motolinia, History of the Indians of New Spain, 127. 62. Ibid., 127–28. 63. Ibid., 128. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid. 66. As to why this is appropriate, see my ‘‘Sexuality in Maya and Nahuatl Sources.’’ 67. Motolinia, History of the Indians of New Spain, 124. 68. Ibid., 125. 286 ≤ NOTES

69. One can have little doubt that Motolinia intends this comment as a critique of religious ritual. Yet, one can also suggest in his tone the sense of the unnatural order in which the phallus is penetrated rather than penetrating. 70. See Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 66–71. 71. Motolinia, History of the Indians of New Spain, 128. 72. See particularly Motolinia, Memoriales, 309–10. On the men, see Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 73–84. 73. Motolinia, Memoriales, 258–61. 74. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 275. 75. Motolinia, Memoriales, 309–10. 76. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 275. 77. Ibid., 276. 78. There are many examples of this in early modern European historiography. See particularly Quaife, Wanton Wenches and Wayward Wives. For Mexico, see Klein, ‘‘Wild Woman in Colonial Mexico.’’ 79. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 276–77. 80. See Beltrán de Heredia, Los orígenes de la Universidad de Salamanca. 81. On Sahagún’s connection to Nebrija, see León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 38, 43–44. On Nebrija’s project, see Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance, 29–67. 82. Díaz Balsera, The Pyramid under the Cross. 83. Baudot, ‘‘Los precursores franciscanos de Sahagún’’; León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 71–103. 84. León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 92–95. 85. See SilverMoon, ‘‘The Imperial College of Tlatelolco.’’ 86. Anderson, ‘‘Sahagún in His Times’’; D’Olwer, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, 13–23; León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 95–99. 87. cf, book 10, prologo, f. 1v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Intro- duction and Indices, 77–81. 88. cf, book 10, prologo; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduc- tion and Indices, 82–85. 89. León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 144. 90. cf, book 2, prologo, ff. 1v–2r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices, 54–55. 91. cf, book 2, prologo, ff. 1v–2r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices, 53–54. 92. cf, book 2, prologo; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices, 53–56. 93. See Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance, 187–202. For an alternate view of Sahagún’s project, see Cañizares Esguerra, How to Write the History of the New World. 94. León-Portilla, in one biography (Bernardino de Sahagún), claims that this was a collaborative project, while D’Olwer, in another (Fray Bernardino de NOTES ≤ 287

Sahagún), argues that Sahagún’s views dominated, and SilverMoon, in ‘‘The Imperial College of Tlatelolco,’’ argues that the views of the Nahua aides, as emerging indigenous intellectuals, predominated. 95. pm, f. 82r. 96. These are not literal translations. For an extended discussion of these terms, see chapter 7. 97. pm, f. 82r; Sullivan, Primeros memoriales, 253. 98. cf, book 10, prologo; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Introduc- tion and Indices, 77–78. 99. cf, book 1, chap. 12, f. 6v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book One, 23. As in all cases like this, Anderson and Dibble translate the metaphors into modern sexual language: ‘‘lust,’’ ‘‘debauchery,’’ etc. I have chosen through- out, for obvious reasons, to provide more literal translations and then to dis- cuss the possible meanings of those literal translations. The original reads: ‘‘In tlaçulteutl: yoan itoca ixcujna, youan itoca tlaelquanj. Jnic motocaiotia tlaçulteutl, qujl ipampa, qujl iehoatl yiaxca, ytlatquj, ytech pouj, inteuhtli, in tlaçulli: in qujtoznequj, avilnemjliztli, qujl ipan tecuti, ypan tlatocati, yn aujlnemjlizçutl.’’ 100. cf, book 1, chap. 12, f. 7r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book One, 23: ‘‘Neiolmelaoaliztli: quklmach in tlaçulli, in teuhtli, in aujnemjliziotl: iehoatl qujtemaca, ic temotla, ic tehipitza in tlaçulteutl. Auh çan no iehoatl, qujtepolhuja . . . tepapaca, tehaltia.’’ 101. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 181–83. 102. Heyden and Horcasitas, ‘‘Fray Diego Durán,’’ 23–31. 103. See Ignacio Bernal’s introduction to Durán, The Aztecs, xxx. 104. Durán, The Aztecs, 293–95. 105. Brading, The First America, 124. 106. Durán, The Aztecs, 3–9. 107. Ibid., 3–9. 108. Durán, Book of the Gods, 53. 109. Ibid., 54. 110. Ibid., 55. 111. Ibid., 221. 112. Ibid., 222. 113. Ibid., 223. 114. Ibid. 115. Ibid., 223–28. 116. Ibid. 117. Ibid., 226. 118. Ibid., 227. 119. Ibid., 228. 120. And, unsurprisingly, his next chapter focuses on Toci, ‘‘the grandmother,’’ otherwise known as Teteo Innan, the mother of the gods, and Tlazolteotl. 288 ≤ NOTES

121. Durán, Book of the Gods, 263–67. 122. See my discussion in From Moon Goddesses to Virgins. 123. Often interchangeable with Quetzalcoatl. See Florescano, The Myth of Quetzalcoatl. 124. Durán, Book of the Gods, 263. 125. Ibid., 269. 126. Ibid., 272. 127. See Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional, 7–41. 128. Delumeau, Sin and Fear, 187–326. 129. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 165–66. 130. This was a pretext that hid larger political disputes. See William Taylor, Magis- trates of the Sacred, 345–69. 131. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 93. 132. cf, book 1, f. 1r. Anderson and Dibble, Florentine Codex: Introduction and Indices, 45. Emphasis added. 133. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 58–59. 134. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, 1, f. 10v. 135. López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology, vol. 1, 229–30. 136. Tezozomoc, Crónica mexicayotl, f. 12r: ‘‘in ixpolhuia in izquitzonxiquipilli in teyolia in teanimazhuan in quinhuicaya ompa Mictlan.’’ 137. The clerics used many other techniques—often emphasizing the visual—to get the Nahua population to understand basic and more complex Christian con- cepts. See Burkhart, Before Guadalupe; Sell, Burkhart, and Spira, Nahuatl Theater; Quezada, ‘‘Oraciones magicas en la colonia.’’ 138. Alva, Confessionario mayor, ff. 1r–v: ‘‘Ma Yehuatzin in çemanahuac ipalnemoaloni Dios, amechmomaquili in ilhuicac iteotlanetzin: in nican axcan oàhuallaque oàçenquizaco, in iteopanchantzinco inic anmaáltizque anmopa- pacazque in axcan ipan itlaçomahuiztlahiyohuilizcahuitzin in totlazotema- quixticatzin Iesu Christo: canel topampa quimonequiltia, quimotlapolhuiz in ilhuicac teoalhuaztli Santo Sacramento neyolcuitiliztli, in ye oncan quiza meya, molloni, in yectli, in chipahuac, in tlazotehuiltic, Atl, in iehuatl ic mopapaca ic mochipahua in itliliuhca in icatzahuaca in toyolia. Auh huel zenca monequi, in acachtopa axcan, tamechizcalizque, tamechixtlapozque in itechcopa in cantlehuatl in za ie noma tlaihuayan mextecomac, annemi, in huel ic anquintetzahuia in oc zequintin, amohuampohuan chrisianostin cax- tilteca, auh ca yehuatl inic amechytta in àmo, antaneltoquiliztlapaltique, in za ye noma axcan ayamo monelhuayotia ayamo motlaaquilotia in itech in amoyolo in teotlaneltoquiliztli.’’ 139. Alva, Confessionario mayor, f. 1v: ‘‘In ac tehuatl in ticnequi in ticelehuia, tic- chipahuaz in icatzahuaca, in itliliuhca in moyolia . . .’’ 140. See Delumeau, Sin and Fear, 187–326. 141. Alva, Confessionario mayor, f. 2r: ‘‘micampa motepotzco timocuepaz ticytaz NOTES ≤ 289

ticilnamiquiz in monemiliz: auh ticpoaz, ticzentocaz, in ixquich motlatlacol, inic itzinco icpactzinco otinen in moteotzin motlatocatzin Dios.’’ 142. cf, book 6, f. 27v; Anderson and Dibble, Florentine Codex: Book Six, 29: ‘‘auh injc onelle motlahelnelo.’’ 143. Los Religiosos, Doctrina Cristiana, f. 1r. ‘‘Neuatl nitlatlacoani ninoyolcuitia yixpantzinco yn Dios . . .’’ 144. On the idolatry investigations in the Andes, see particularly MacCormack, Religion in the Andes; Griffiths, The Cross and the Serpent; Mills, Idolatry and Its Enemies. 145. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 28. 146. Ibid., 28–31. 147. Jean Delumeau, Sin and Fear. 148. Gruzinski, ‘‘Individuation and Acculturation’’; Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 77–92. 149. See particularly Homza, ‘‘The European Link to Mexican Penance.’’ Also see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Sell, ‘‘Friars, Nahuas, and Books’’; Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualization and Acculturation.’’ On the similar texts used in the Andes, see Harrison, ‘‘The Theology of Concupiscence.’’ 150. Los Religiosos, Doctrina Christiana, f. 122v. 151. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 1, 117v. 152. Molina, Confesionario mayor en la lengua mexicana y castellana, f. 32v. 153. Alva, Confessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana, f. 22r. 154. Still, we cannot assume that, just because the Nahuas did not have a term for virgin, they did not prize virginity. After all, some sources tell us that when a new bride was found not to be a virgin, the food at the wedding banquet was served on broken plates, symbolizing the bride’s broken hymen. See López Austin, Cuerpo humano e ideología. Still, these sources are quite suspect and I would argue that such an attitude toward virginity, if it existed at all, was only present among the nobility. But the confessional manuals and sermons demanded that the Nahuas adhere to strict moral principles in which women and men remained virgins until marriage, and the changing language of the confessionals suggests that Nahua sexual morality indeed did change through time. 155. Los Religiosos, Doctrina cristiana en lengua española y mexicana, f. 84v; Olmos, Tratado sobre los siete pecados mortales, f. 345r, and Camino del cielo, ff. 82r–82v. They use the term aauilnemiz (‘‘pleasurable life’’), the same term used later by Olmos and de León as a translation for ‘‘lust.’’ Molina translates the term auilnemiliztli as ‘‘the carnal or lustful life.’’ Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, f. 9v. I discuss this term in chapter 7. 156. Baptista, Confessionario en lengua castellana y mexicana, f. 49r. 157. Molina, Confessionario breue: ‘‘Cuix aca ticcuilonti, anoce aca mitzcuilonti: aço tehuatl ticpenalti, ticcuitlauilty?’’ 290 ≤ NOTES

158. ‘‘Das tenido parte con algun varon, o el contigo: persuadistelo tu y prouo- castelo?’’ Molina, Confessionario breue, f. 11v. 159. Baptista, Confessionario en lengua castellana y mexicana, f. 49r. 160. Alva, Confessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana: ‘‘Cuix in iquac otitlahuan, cuix ó ipan tihuetz, in temamauhti tlatlacolli? In motenehua cuiloyotl? In aca oc ze in zan moquichpo o ytech taçic.’’ 161. ‘‘Por ventura, quando te embriagaste, perdiendo tus sentidos, caiste en el abominable pecado de la sodomia, teniendo que ver con otro.’’ Alva, Con- fessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana, f. 23v; Alva, A Guide to Con- fession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 106–7. 162. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, f. 1v. 163. Treviño, Arte de lengva mexicana; Pérez, Farol Indiano; Vasquez, Arte de lengva mexicana. 164. Aquino, Arte, vocabulario, y confessionario, 158–59. 165. Ibid., 160 : ‘‘Azo oticcuilonti ten zihuat, nozo ten oquixti ipan icuilchil?’’ 166. Ibid.: ‘‘Quizá has penetrado alguna muger ó algun varon en la parte posterior?’’ 167. Burkhart’s entire book (The Slippery Earth) speaks to this issue, but see par- ticularly 182. See also Gruzinski, ‘‘Individualization and Acculturation,’’ 104–5. 168. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 105–6. On dirt and filth, see 87–98. See also Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails.’’ 169. ‘‘Tla uel xicmoccaqujtica notlaçopilhoane, in axca namechcaqujtiznequj, ca in iehoatl in tlaielpaqujliztli, cenca ic moquallanaltia in totecujo dios, iehica cenca mjec tlamantli tetlazacujltiliztli oqujmuchiujlli in novian cemanaoac in jpa injn tlatlaculli, no yoa mjecca teutlatolpa icuiliuhtoc in jtlatoltzin, in jvicpa in qujtlaçotla in teuhtli in tlaçulli.’’ Sahagún, Apéndice a la postilla, 98. 170. That is, lust. Burkhart, using a slightly different translation, states: ‘‘Lust was typically called tlayelpaquiliztli ‘foul happiness.’ Tlayelli refers to ‘something foul’ or dysentery. It derives from the verb iyaya ‘to stink.’ ’’ Burkhart, The Slip- pery Earth, 105. 171. Sahagún, Apéndice a la postilla, 94–102. 172. On adultery as linked with ruining and spoiling things, see Molina’s definitions of terms related to tetlaximaz in Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, ff. 110r, 145r–146r. 173. Sahagún, Apéndice a la postilla, 102. 174. Olmos, Tratado de hechicerias, 393v: ‘‘Mati tlatlaco maticmahuilti yn teuhtli yn tlaçolli yn axixtli in cuitlatl.’’ 175. ‘‘Auh in tevatl in titliltic y ticatzavac in tlaelpaquiliztica ticpaquiltia monacayo, ipamapa y motlaelpaquiliz ticmoyolitlacalhuia in to auh y monamic ytech tic- chiva in achivaloni yva ticchivaltia in tliltic, i catzavac, tictlamatoq’lia yva tic- cuitlaviltia inic mitztlamatoq’liz, etc. ic titlatlacoa yva tlatllacolli ypan titlaça, ticmotelchivilia in dios y mitzcavaltia tlaelpaquiliztli in ipampa ca tlavelilo- cayotl.’’ Newberry Library, Ayer ms 1485, f. 18r–18v; quoted in Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 106. NOTES ≤ 291

176. Alva, Confessionario mayor y menor en lengva mexicana: ‘‘Ma Yehuatzin in çemanahuac ipalnemoaloni Dios, amechmomaquili in ilhuicac iteotlanetzin: in nican axcan oàhuallaque oàçenquizaco, in iteopanchantzinco inic anmaál- tizque anmopapacazque in axcan ipan itlaçomahuiztlahiyohuilizcahuitzin in totlazotemaquixticatzin Iesu Christo: canel topampa quimonequiltia, quimot- lapolhuiz in ilhuicac teoalhuaztli Santo Sacramento neyolcuitiliztli, in ye oncan quiza meya, molloni, in yectli, in chipahuac, in tlazotehuiltic, Atl, in iehuatl ic mopapaca ic mochipahua in itliliuhca in icatzahuaca in toyolia.’’

Notes to Chapter 4: The Warrior Goddess 1. For a more detailed treatment of the fertility goddesses, see my ‘‘Imagining Cihuacoatl.’’ 2. Ibid. 3. See Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 235–51; Cervantes, TheDevilin the New World. See also Díaz Balsera, The Pyramid under the Cross, 81–96. 4. Others have shown substantial connections. See particularly Clendinnen, Aztecs; Báez-Jorge, Oficios de las diosas. See also Klein, ‘‘Rethinking Cihuacoatl,’’ ‘‘The Shield Women,’’ and ‘‘Fighting with Femininity’’; Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Women.’’ 5. Clendinnen, Aztecs; Carrasco, City of Sacrifice; Hassig, Aztec Warfare. 6. Klein, in ‘‘The Devil and the Skirt,’’ 19–22, shows that Huitzilopochtli took on the attributes of the tzitzimime, supernatural figures associated with mystical powers ranging from the ability to help a midwife to the ability to kill children and adults who wander into their sight. 7. The connection with the life-sustaining grain, maize, is also vital to the con- nection between sexuality and the gods. Durán explains that Chicomecoatl, the goddess of maize, if angry, could do harm to the crops. Further, if happy, she would make the crops plentiful. This forced people to engage in human sacrifice to her, for otherwise she would not be happy (with, for example, the sacrifice of animals). See Durán, Book of the Gods, 221–28. 8. Many of the gods have highly sexual stories embedded in their mythological narratives. For a discussion of many of these myths, see Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa; Báez-Jorge, Oficios de las diosas. 9. While one must be careful not to identify Ruiz de Alarcón’s views with reality, he did collect a large number of texts from informants, often recording them verbatim. The texts appear, based on an internal analysis, to represent the views of the Nahua informants. As these informants were almost exclusively commoners from Guerrero, one can suggest that they signify something of the worldviews of these commoners. Still, one must remember the caveats that I developed in chapter 2: we do not hear unfiltered commoner voices; rather, we hear voices of interaction—the archive, the institution, the priest, the notaries, the shamans, and the commoners each form parts of a multivalent narrative that we can never completely unravel. 292 ≤ NOTES

10. ths, 244. 11. Ibid., 75. The use of the ‘‘older’’ sister is a common Nahuatl kinship usage reversing traditional orders in order to make the one addressed subservient to the speaker. See Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest. Ruiz mistakenly suggests that this is a taunt. However, Juan does not directly address his enemies. He instead asserts a changed reality in which he is the stronger one. Thus he asserts a gender binary in which men are stronger than women. He also transgenders his enemies by turning them into women. 12. ths, 77: ‘‘tetl ihuintiz quahuitl ihuintiz tlalli ithuintiz tonehua.’’ 13. Ibid.: ‘‘nehuatl nitlmacazqui, niyaotl.’’ 14. Ibid.: ‘‘ye quiquihualhuica in mohueltiuh in xochiquetzal quilhualhuica in ihiyo yez ini ichca tlahuitec ini icpateuh, inic nechaahuiltizque.’’ 15. Tonaca, ‘‘sustenance’’; metz, ‘‘thigh’’; and -tzin, an honorific. 16. See Quiñones-Keber, in ctr, 187–88; Báez-Jorge, Oficios de las diosas. 17. See Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina’’; Kellogg, Weaving the Past, 63–71. 18. See ths, 132–39, 204–8; agn (Bienes Nacionales), 596; agi (México), 357, 882; Serna, Manual de ministros de indios, 14–17, 58–59. 19. Note also that the land will allow Juan to defeat his enemies. Thus, by making the land, trees, and stones drunk, Juan permits nature to engage in excessive production, something that normally would not take place. Nahua moral dis- course prized moderation and condemned excess, often using metaphors associating such morality with the fertility of the land. See Burkhart, The Slip- pery Earth. 20. See chapter 5 for an extensive discussion of Ochpaniztli. 21. Much of the scholarship on Tezcatlipoca is summarized in Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses. See also Nicholson, ‘‘The Birth of the Smoking Mirror’’; Heyden, ‘‘Tezcatlipoca en el mundo náhuatl’’; Barjau, Tezcatlipoca. 22. Klein subsequently published the talk as ‘‘None of the Above.’’ Klein says, ‘‘Following the sacrifice of the male slave who had been chosen to represent Tezcatlipoca for the entire year preceding the ceremonies, the Nahuas sacri- ficed another youth who shared several of Tezcatlipoca’s other names. Al- though the Tezcatlipoca impersonator was ‘married’ to, and allowed to sleep with, four slave women for twenty days prior to his death, the other young man who was sacrificed is described . . . as ‘he who had lived together with Titla- cauan’ (that is, Tezcatlipoca). This suggests that up until his death the Tezcat- lipoca impersonator participated in both hetero- and homo-sexual relations— in other words, that he was bisexual.’’ Klein, ‘‘None of the Above,’’ 222. 23. Sigal, ‘‘The Perfumed Man.’’ 24. Klein, ‘‘None of the Above,’’ 225. 25. Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca’’: ‘‘For artists and ritual participants who communicate without the aid of words, especially, gender signs can be used to express qualities and states of being that have nothing to do with a NOTES ≤ 293

subject’s reproductive organs. It was by means of the male Tezcatlipoca imper- sonator’s feminine gender signs . . . that the Toxcatl ritual could signal that, at the time of his death and oneness with the god he represented, the imperson- ator succeeded in transcending the earthly binary of male versus female. Re- maining male in sexual terms, the impersonator’s physical perfections and symbolic castration referenced the feminine to render his gender ambiguous.’’ 26. On Western normativity, see Warner, The Trouble with Normal. 27. See Léon-Portilla, ‘‘Oraciones a Tezcatlipoca en las pestilencias, hambrunas y guerras.’’ 28. See Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses. Klein suggests that this failure to recognize gender and sexual ambiguities has to do with homophobia, but, while I agree that homophobia is part of the issue, I also am convinced that many ethnohistorians decline to discuss sexuality because they do not find it to be a properly historical topic. This problem is not limited, of course, to eth- nohistory, and it is a topic that I will explore more fully elsewhere. 29. cb, 17. 30. Byland, ‘‘Introduction and Commentary,’’ xx. 31. This image, from the Codex Borgia, is on the front of the dustjacket of Olivier’s book. 32. Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning, 78–80. 33. The tongue goes into his mouth. Note too that he wears a necklace of the same material. In the Codex Borgia, only women generally wore such necklaces. 34. Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning, 109–10. 35. cf, book 1, chap. 3, f. 1v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book One, 5: ‘‘Tezcatlipoca: ynin vel teutl ipan machoia, noujan ynemjian: mictla, tlalticpac, yhujcac. Jn jquac nemja tlalticpac, iehoatl qujolitiaja, in teuhtli tlaçolli: cococ teupouhquj, qujteittitiaia.’’ 36. cf, book 1, chap. 3, ff. 1v–2r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book One, 5: ‘‘Auh in quenman, qujtemacaia, in necujtonolli: in tlatqujtl, in oqujchiotl, in tiacauhuitl, in tecuiotl, in tlatocauitl, in pillotl, in mauizçotl.’’ 37. Let us leave aside for the moment the question of whether the Nahuas linked bravery so closely with manhood. This Nahuatl term relates to the Spanish term for man, varon. Often one will find in colonial Spanish texts the term varonilmente, which translates into English as ‘‘bravely.’’ 38. cf, book 3, chap. 2, f. 7v: ‘‘çan iuhqujn ioalli, i ehecatl in quemã aca qujnotzaia, çan iuhquj ceoalli tlatoaia.’’ 39. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; Báez-Jorge, Oficios de las diosas. 40. On changing identities, see Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses, 28–34. On changing genders, see Klein, ‘‘None of the Above.’’ 41. One Death is in many ways a day of the carnivalesque. While this notion of the carnivalesque has become commonplace in academic circles, one should still reference Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Le carnaval de Romans. 42. cf, book 4, chap. 9, ff. 22r–25r. 294 ≤ NOTES

43. See my explanation in ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ On the Spanish notion of the puto, see Carrasco, Inquisición y represión sexual. 44. The sexual construct ‘‘the cuiloni’’ signified a ‘‘passive partner’’ to the ‘‘active’’ tecuilonti. See Sigal, ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 45. For an alternative analysis, see Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca.’’ 46. cbor, 24. We see in the center a priest dressed as the goddess Cihuacoatl. 47. See Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca.’’ 48. Nahua discourse regularly asserts that one must pleasure the gods. The Flor- entine Codex, in a case that I will discuss in chapter 6, states that Titlacauan/ Tezcatlipoca has had his pleasure with the human mentioned. 49. Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca.’’ 50. Sigal, ‘‘The Perfumed Man.’’ 51. Ixiptla is a complex term used to refer to the position in between a human and a god, the person who becomes the god in sacrificial rituals. The ixiptla is most commonly translated as ‘‘impersonator.’’ But this individual’s position is quite complex, a liminal identity between the human and the divine. The two scholars who have studied this extensively both agree that the ixiptla was more than an impersonator. This person has an extensive amount of power, as s/he becomes a god. Yet in another manner this person is among the least powerful in Nahua society, for s/he is destined for human sacrifice, and there is no way s/he can avoid that fate. See López Austin, Hombre-dios; Gruzinski, Man- Gods in the Mexican Highlands. 52. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 30v. 53. On the psychoanalytic perception of divided subjectivity and modern attempts to place that subjectivity in the service of society, see Lacan, ‘‘The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis’’; Viego, Dead Subjects. 54. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 30v. 55. Book 6 of the Florentine Codex discusses this in detail. See chaps. 24–30. 56. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 30v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 64: ‘‘oqualittoc, in qualli ynacaio.’’ 57. I use the neologism ‘‘heteroformative’’ to stress that we must understand the way in which such ritual actually served to form sexuality. Thus the individ- ual’s sexual comportment conformed to particular notions of ritual formation, not to preordained or naturalized identities. 58. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 30r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 64: ‘‘ca yiaioca muchioa, in aqujn cenca quauhtic, qujlhuja in cioa: quauhtitin, quauhchachalan,citlalmaololo: yn aqujn pepenaloia, inteixiptla, atle yiaioca.’’ 59. Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca.’’ 60. See López Austin, Human Body and Ideology, vol. 1, 255–82. 61. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 31v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 65–66: ‘‘cenca vel necujtlaujloia, ynic vel njmatiz, ica tlatol, vellatoz, vel tenotza, vel tetlapaloz in vtlica, intla aca qujnamiquiz: ipampa ca cenca mauiz- NOTES ≤ 295

tililoia yn iquac oixnez, in ie teixiptla: ynic ixiptlati Titlacaoan, ca totecujo ipan machoia, netecuiotilo, tlatlaauhtilo, yac elciciooa, ixpan nepechteco, ixpan ontlalqua in meceoaltzintlei.’’ 62. See Heyden, ‘‘Dryness before the Rains.’’ 63. See also Marti, ‘‘Flautilla de la penitencia’’; Olivier, ‘‘The Hidden King and the Broken Flutes.’’ 64. cf, book 2, chap. 24. 65. Ibid., f. 32r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 66–67: ‘‘izqujxochitl in icpac contecatinemj, icpac xochiuh: yoan çan ieh no ieh in necoccampa ic mapanaia, yciiacacpa qujqujxtiaia: in moteneoa suchineapatli.’’ 66. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 32 r. Prostitutes wore these ‘‘flowery garments.’’ See Sigal, ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 67. On the relationship between bodily adornments and fertility, see Baquedano, ‘‘El oro azteca y sus conexiones.’’ 68. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 33r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 67: ‘‘çan cempoalilhujtl in incioacuchtinemi, yn onicioaoatinemj . . . y ce itoca xochiquetzal, ynjc vme xilone, ynjc ey Altatona, ynjc nauj, vixtocioatl.’’ 69. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 33r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 67: ‘‘moxima, mjxquatzontia, iuhqujnma iautequjoa, ontlalpia, ontlacuja.’’ 70. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 33r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 68. 71. Klein asks: ‘‘What did these broken flutes signify to the viewers of and partici- pants in this ritual? Ethnographic reports from Melanesia, as well as South America, have noted the association of flutes with the male sex, and in some places specifically with the phallus. This raises the possibility that a similar connotation existed in preconquest Central Mexico. There is, it turns out, evi- dence that this was the case. The Nahuatl root of the word for flute, tlapitzalli, also appears in an adjective used by Sahagún’s informants to describe the penis.’’ Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca,’’ 280–81. 72. cf, book 2, chap. 30, f. 72r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 115. 73. The warrior persona asserts his masculine self. See Clendinnen, Aztecs. 74. cf, book 2, chap., f. 30v. 75. I develop this argument more fully in ‘‘The Perfumed Man.’’ Clendinnen makes a related argument in Aztecs, although I maintain that her argument about masculine identity is incomplete. Particularly, she sees the captor as deriving some masculine identity through complicity with his captive. Instead, I argue that his penetration of this captive leads to an increase in the warrior’s masculine identity, but at the expense of the captive, who then is penetrated and feminized. 76. The text is somewhat unclear on this point. He is identified with three names of gods associated with Huitzilopochtli. 77. Klein, ‘‘The Aztec Sacrifice of Tezcatlipoca.’’ 296 ≤ NOTES

78. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 36v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 72: ‘‘Auh ynjc mjhtotia mococoloa, iehica aujc viujh, ixtlapal viuj, mjx- nanamiquj, in matitech maantiujh ynjc mjtotia.’’ 79. See Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Women.’’ 80. cf, book 2, chap. 24, f. 36 v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 72: ‘‘Auh no cequjntin cioa ichpopuchti, mjtotia innetol, momomochiito- tia: centzontecomatl ynjc tomaoac catca, ynmomochicozquj, yoan ymicpac contecatiuj, moxaoa, yoan in metztomaoaian aci, ynjc mopotonja.’’ 81. cf, book 2, chap. 24, ff. 36v–37r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 72: ‘‘auh intla aca itto, tecamanalhuja: njma tlalli ic qujujtequj, in teachcaoan, qujnujujlana, qujntitilicça, qujmiicça.’’ 82. Ibid., f. 37r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 73. 83. See Klein, ‘‘Wild Woman’’; Sousa, ‘‘Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico.’’ 84. Tezcatlipoca was reputed to be the highest-ranking god in Tetzcoco, the second-ranking partner in the Triple Alliance. As the Mexica were relative newcomers, in many ways Tezcatlipoca’s power and reputation as a warrior god exceeded even Huitzilopocthli’s. See Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses. 85. See cf, book 1, chap. 3. 86. Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses. 87. ctr, f. 23r. 88. See Báez-Jorge, Los disfraces del diablo. 89. Warriors wore animal skins both to protect themselves from wounds and to gain the powers associated with the particular animals. 90. As noted in chapter 2 and further discussed below, Tezcatlipoca often was seen as a partner of Tlazolteotl. But as Tezcatlipoca plays such a major role in the pantheon and in state religion, he was partnered with several gods and goddesses. Muñoz Camargo sees Xochiquetzal as Tezcatlipoca’s primary part- ner goddess, but he appears to be unique in this reading. See Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala. 91. ctr, f. 22v. 92. See Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails,’’ for a discussion of the eroticism of these animals. 93. Cihuateteo was the most commonly used term for such individuals, but could include other individual female goddesses. Another term mentioned is mocihuaquetzque. See cf, book 6, chap. 29, ff. 138v–143v. See also Johansson, ‘‘Mocihuaquetzqueh’’; Sullivan, ‘‘Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Deification of Women Who Died in Childbirth.’’ 94. Taggart, Nahuat Myth and Social Structure, 62. 95. Book 6 of the Florentine Codex dedicates a chapter to these women, and their relationship with warriors signifies their power: ‘‘And the midwives, the old women, assembled to accompany her [the dead woman]. They bore their shields. They went shouting, howling, yelling. It is said they went crying; they NOTES ≤ 297

gave war cries. Those called the youths, those whose task was yet warfare, went encountering them, went skirmishing against them. They skirmished with them as they wanted to seize the woman. It was not play fighting, nor plundering. When they fought, they truly made war. . . . If along the road they wrested the body of the mocihuaquetzqui [the dead woman] from the midwives, in their presence they cut off her middle finger. And if they could dig her up by night, they also cut off her finger and they clipped off, they took her hair from her. . . . When they went to war they inserted the hair or the finger in their shields in order to be valiant, in order to be brave warriors, in order that no one would con- tend against them, in order that no one would stand up against them, in order that they would act boldly in war, and in order that they would overpower and seize many of their enemies. It was said that the hair and finger of the mocihua- quetzqui furnished spirit. It was said that they paralyzed the feet of their ene- mies.’’ Thus this woman became a powerful warrior spirit. And she went not to the land of the dead (mictlan, the place most Nahuas went), but rather to the glo- rious house of the sun, where the gods and dead warriors resided. 96. cvb, 77, 78. 97. cvb, 79. See Klein, ‘‘Rethinking Cihuacoatl.’’ 98. Codex Tudela, f. 46r; Codex Magliabechiano, f. 76r. 99. Codex Magliabechiano, f. 75v. 100. Codex Tudela, f. 46r. 101. See Sigal, ‘‘Imagining Cihuacoatl.’’ 102. See Klein, ‘‘The Devil and the Skirt.’’ 103. See Sousa, ‘‘The Devil and Deviance in Native Criminal Narratives’’; Cer- vantes, The Devil in the New World. 104. Klein, ‘‘The Devil and the Skirt,’’ 1–2. 105. cbor, 17. 106. agn (Bienes Nacionales), 596; agi (México), 357, 882; Serna, Manual de mi- nistros de indios, 14–17, 58–59. 107. ths, 204–8. 108. ths, 93. 109. ths, 79: ‘‘inic naucan nic cuepaz, inic amo quimatiz nehuatl niyaotl, ninoque- queloatzin inic ye nic aahuiltiz, inic ye niquincuepaz niquin micacuepaz in niyaotl ninoquequeloatzin, inic ye niquinmacaz, inic ye huallahuanizq.’’ 110. I base much of this section on the analysis in Sigal, ‘‘Imagining Cihuacoatl.’’ 111. cbor, 3. 112. Quiñones Keber, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 170; Sullivan, ‘‘Tlazolteotl- Ixcuina.’’ 113. See cf, book 1, chap. 10. 114. Quiñones Keber, Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 171. 115. See cb, 65. Also see the parallel image on 67, where a masculine god appears in the same position as Chalchiuhtlicue. 116. cvb, 74. 298 ≤ NOTES

117. ths, 136. 118. Ibid. 119. Indeed, Klein (‘‘The Devil and the Skirt,’’ 10) notes, following Caso, that the skull and crossbones specifically signify the cihuateteo. 120. Here it may be worth recalling Lacan’s differentiation between phallus and penis: ‘‘It isn’t the penis, but the phallus, that is to say something whose sym- bolic usage is possible because it can be seen.’’ Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II, 272. 121. cl, 39. 122. See Scott, Gender and the Politics of History. 123. See Báez-Jorge, Las voces del agua. 124. See Lacan, ‘‘The Signification of the Phallus.’’ 125. In the standard image of a Nahua woman, she is represented by her skirt and often her huipil, but not by a loincloth, a prototypical male signifier. 126. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare; Clendinnen, Aztecs. 127. ths, 133: ‘‘Tezcatepec nenamicoyan nicihuanotza, nicihuacuica. Nonnent- lamati; nihualnentlamati. Ye noconhuica in nohueltiuh in Xochiquetzal. Ce Coatl ica mahpantihuiltz; Ce Coatl ica mocuitlapihtihuitz, motzonilpihtihuitz: Ye yalhua, ye huiptla, ica nichoca, ica nenentlamati.’’ 128. ths, 134: ‘‘Ahmo nelli niyaotl. Zan nicihuayotl.’’ 129. I am not providing a direct translation for cihuayotl because the sense of the incantation is clearly intended to be a playful notion in which the warrior becomes the seducer. Andrews and Hassig (in Ruiz de Alarcón, Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions, 353 n. 10) provide an extensive note on the term: ‘‘Molina lists ciuayotl... with the meaning ‘matrix where the woman con- ceives.’ The word Cihuayoh, however, means ‘a person who makes use of women.’ As the context makes clear, the ms is using the former word with the meaning of the latter, possibly under the pressure of the sound –otl at the end of Yaotl. The ms could be corrected to Cihuayoh, but we have decided to let it stand as written. There is a slight possibility that the word in the ms is an error for cihuayaotl... , but we have rejected this since (cihua)-tl, ‘woman,’ as an embed of compound nouns has such a strong gender-defining function that, even in this context, the reader would have to struggle against ‘Female-Yaotl’ rather than going easily to ‘Yaotl-of-women,’ i.e., ‘Enemy-of-women.’ More- over, the internal development argues against the notion of antagonism to women and argues for that of devotion to women.’’ While the antagonism that Andrews and Hassig maintain between war and sexual assertion is, I believe, incorrect, I agree that the term implies seduction, not enmity.

Notes to Chapter 5: The Phallus and the Broom 1. On the significance of the heart, see León-Portilla, ‘‘Significados del corazón en el México prehispánico.’’ On the hunger of the gods, see Graulich and Olivier, ‘‘¿Deidades insaciables?’’ NOTES ≤ 299

2. See Clendinnen, Aztecs. 3. Particularly by priests such as Motolinia, Sahagún, and Durán. 4. See Clendinnen, Aztecs. 5. On the rituals as maintaining the city-state, see Carrasco, City of Sacrifice; Clendinnen, Aztecs. For the ways in which the city-state was transformed dur- ing colonial times, see Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 14–47; Haskett, Indigenous Rulers. 6. See the evidence provided by ths; Serna, Manual de ministros de indios; agn (Bienes Nacionales), 596; agi (México), 357, 882. See also Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. 7. However, on the relationship between such fertility rites and Christian ritual, see Calloway, ‘‘Pre-Columbian and Colonial Mexican Images of the Cross.’’ 8. These rituals are particularly important in Ruiz de Alarcón’s work. They are also evident in various idolatry investigations throughout the region, cited below. Mexico has often been contrasted with the Andes, which witnessed a plethora of idolatry investigations in the early seventeenth century. While the panic that appears to have taken place in the Andes does not have a direct par- allel in Mexico, scholars are now finding more similarities than differences. For recent work on Mexico, see Gruzinski, The Conquest of Mexico, 146–83; Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 47–73; Chuchiak, ‘‘Toward a Regional Defi- nition of Idolatry.’’ On the Andean cases, see MacCormack, Religion in the Andes; Griffiths, The Cross and the Serpent; Mills, Idolatry and Its Enemies. 9. See particularly Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms; Sahlins, How ‘‘Natives’’ Think; Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes; Kapferer, The Feast of the Sorcerer; Whitehead, Dark Shamans; and Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit. 10. While, since Turner, many anthropologists have used liminality in a problem- atic way, the basic concept that the rules of mundane existence are suspended in ritual production is valid. Further, to understand the in-between space in which humans become gods in Nahua ritual, one needs first to realize that in their mundane existence, outside of ritual discourse, Nahuas viewed the gods as outside of their bodies. They could not become gods except during ritual or after death. See López Austin, Hombre-Dios. 11. Bruce Kapferer, personal communication. See also Kapferer, ‘‘Sorcery and the Beautiful’’; Sahlins, Culture in Practice. 12. Anderson and Dibble have translated ‘‘qujnmauhjztilaia’’ as ‘‘paid honor.’’ However, Molina (Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, f. 54r) translates ‘‘mauhtia’’ as ‘‘to be afraid,’’ and fear makes sense in this context. 13. cf, book 4, chap. 27, f. 53r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Four, 93: ‘‘ce calli, qujtoaia, njman amo qualli tonally, tlaçolli, teuhtli iiolian, ioan no ipan temoia in omoteneuhque cioateteo . . . in iehoan titici, oc cenca iehoan qujnmauhjztilaia . . . in aqujn ipan tlacatia, cenca qujtlaten- machiliaia, injc ohujcan qujçaz, aço iaomjqujz, axioaz, iapaniocan popo- liujz . . . aço oaoanaloz, oaoanoz, aco cacalioaz, aço quatlecueponjloz, aço 300 ≤ NOTES

tlepan tlaxoz, anoço qujmatlapatzcazque, quevitequjzque, anoço qujxi- canazque, qujxicteteoanazque.’’ 14. See Leeuwen-Van Koppen, ‘‘The Cihuateteo in a Dual Organization Context.’’ 15. Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 43–45. 16. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, 31–35. 17. cf, book 4, apendiz, f. 81r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Four, 143: ‘‘cesar el moujmjento de los cielos.’’ See Limón Olvera, ‘‘El dios del fuego y la regeneración del mundo.’’ For an interesting interpretation of one of the rarely discussed gods present in the New Fire Ceremony, see Olivier, ‘‘Tlantepuzilama.’’ 18. cf, book 4, apendiz, f. 81r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Four, 143–44. 19. cf, book 7, chaps. 9–12, ff. 16v–22r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Seven, 25–32. 20. On women as keepers of the fire of the hearth, see Burkhart, ‘‘Mexica Women on the Homefront.’’ 21. Having said this, I would add that I disagree with Clendinnen’s assessment of this ritual. Clendinnen believes that the New Fire Ceremony asserts the power of the priests of Tenochtitlan over the entire empire, thus empowering the center of the empire of the far-flung domains as well as empowering the male priests over women (Aztecs, 41–44). After describing the ceremonies, Clen- dinnen states: ‘‘All this was orchestrated by the priests: a nice model of depen- dence. While this was a traditional ceremony, and not exclusive to Tenochti- tlan, the new distance, physical and social, between the actors and watchers, the agent-mediators and recipients, lent it peculiar significance in the urban- imperial milieu’’ (42). While Clendinnen is correct to assert the power of the priesthood over such a ritual, this particular ceremony no more established empire than any other. The people outside of Tenochtitlan would have seen it as a traditional assertion of the priesthood from their own city. After all, they would be the ones controlling, extinguishing, and relighting the fires in their communities. While there may have been a general sense of subservience to the Mexica in the central ritual, it seems likely that such subservience simply was loaned to them, as it would be to any conquering power. There is nothing within the ritual itself that suggests Mexica dominance. On the contrary, the ritual suggests the universal power of the cosmos to control all human activity. 22. This concept, of the liminality of the priest’s body, in which he asserts a pres- ence that is neither male nor female, is more fully developed below. If we look at the texts in book 2 of the Florentine Codex, we see that the priest consis- tently is a figure in between male and female. This and similar texts emphasize the role of male priests, but we should note here that many priestesses existed as well. 23. See Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs, 147–51. 24. The priests carried with them excess and heat. Nahuas presumed these ele- NOTES ≤ 301

ments to signify danger, and they associated the need for the excess heat with the need to restart the fifty-two-year cycle. See ac, 59; Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs, 121. 25. The community was viewed as an extension of the household on a larger scale. See Burkhart, ‘‘Mexica Women on the Homefront.’’ 26. On the importance of heat in the Nahua framework, see López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology. 27. cf, book 6, chap. 29, ff. 138v–43v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 161–65. See Douglas, Purity and Danger, 119. 28. cf, book 7, chap. 9, f. 17r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Seven, 25: ‘‘achto vel nouiian ceceuia in tletl in cematonaoac, yoan in isquich pieloia techacha, in neteutiloia tequacuilti, in aço quauitl, anoço tetl tlaxintli, muchi atlan onmotepeoaia: No iehoatl in texolotl, in tenamaztli, yoan nouiian tlatlachpanoia, tlatetzcalolo, tlanaoac tlauico, aoctle uetztoia in techachan.’’ 29. cf, book 7, chap. 9, f. 17v (an image of this scene is on f. 19v); Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Seven, 25. 30. cf, book 7, chap. 9, f. 17v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Seven, 26. 31. The captured warrior was feminized through a process in which his captor began to view him as a potential being to be penetrated. The captor may bring him back for enslavement or for sacrifice. In either case, his independence as a warrior was challenged consistently from the time of his capture through his ultimate fate. See Clendinnen’s fruitful analysis throughout Aztecs, but par- ticularly in the last chapter on the Spanish conquest and the ultimate defeat of the Mexica. 32. The pregnant woman, envisioned as a warrior, consistently has symbols of masculinity rhetorically and literally displayed upon her body and self. Women who died in childbirth were called by the midwife quauhcihuatl, ‘‘eagle woman,’’ just as brave warriors were called eagle warriors. These women were said to have shields and were called warriors on a series of occasions. They went to the place of the sun, near the place where warriors went after death. Their bodies were arrayed with quetzal feathers, a symbol of masculine com- portment. See cf, book 6, chap. 29, ff. 138v–43v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 161–65. 33. cf, book 7, chap. 10. 34. Ibid., f. 18r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Seven, 27. 35. On the ‘‘inside the community, outside in the forest’’ dichotomy that was so strongly present in the Nahua world, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. 36. Ritual excess needed to be controlled. On ritual and excess in the Sri Lankan case, see Kapferer, ‘‘Sorcery and the Beautiful.’’ 37. Clendinnen, Aztecs, 146–49, 206. 38. Few women warriors exist in the documents, and Nahua polities for the most part prohibited women from engaging in warfare. As noted in chapter 4, 302 ≤ NOTES

Nahua cosmology viewed goddesses as warriors, but even within this cosmol- ogy, few goddesses participated in actual warfare. Nahuas correlated, meta- phorically, their sexual and reproductive activities with the activities of the warrior. See Klein, ‘‘Fighting with Femininity,’’ for one exception. 39. The connection between war and fertility is also manifest in the ritual cere- mony Tititl. See Johansson, ‘‘La redención sacrificial del envejecimiento en la fiesta de Tititl,’’ especially 81. Trexler makes a similar point regarding the Spaniards and all the indigenous populations of the Americas (particularly the Andeans and Nahuas) in his Sex and Conquest. 40. See Trejo, ‘‘La imagen del guerrero victorioso en Mesoamérica’’; Hassig, Aztec Warfare. Nahua leaders viewed war as an important ritual activity, and the Mex- ica saw themselves as perfecting this ritual activity. We should not take this to mean that the Mexica did not engage in wars of conquest. Rather, they viewed conquest as an effective ritual to promote the expansion of Tenochtitlan. 41. See the reference in pm, f. 251v; Sullivan, Primeros memoriales, 63. 42. See Sigal, ‘‘Imagining Cihuacoatl.’’ 43. The jaguar and many other animal skins were used to mark warrior rank. The Nahuas envisioned the animal spirits as entering into the bodies of the war- riors, thus allowing them greater powers. See cme, f. 31r. 44. cf, book 11, chap. 1; cme, f. 30v; ctr, f. 9v. 45. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare. 46. See, for example, Quetzalcoatl’s image in ctr, f. 8v; and Chalchiutlicue’s image in cb, 65 (the bottom image). 47. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 128–30. These wars often have been portrayed as efforts to gain captives for sacrifice—in other words, wars that had solely ritual purpose. In fact, all wars were seen as rituals, but all also were wars that would enable eventual conquest. The Flower Wars, xochiyaotl, were wars where nei- ther side believed it could easily conquer the other. 48. cme, ff. 19r–34r. 49. ctr, f. 39v. Note too the glyph below the warrior on the left. The mountain is the glyph used to mean altepetl (the Nahua city-state, literally ‘‘water- mountain’’). Within the mountain is the glyph for water, and sticking out of the water is a flag. Water and flag in Nahuatl are atl and pantli. Placed together, they would glyphically become apan. 50. Neil Whitehead describes a similar phenomenon in contemporary Amazonian societies. A sorcerer attempting to kill his enemy becomes a powerful animal capable of killing that enemy. He becomes that animal through the ingestion of the animal’s blood, not the donning of the animal’s skin. Nonetheless, he is feared as if he himself is that animal. See Whitehead, Dark Shamans, 88–97. 51. Eloise Quiñones Keber (ctr, 190) believes that these two gods may ‘‘have been consulted for rituals connected with the sacrificial death of a warrior.’’ 52. cb, 61 top; cta, 20; cbor, 18. See also ctr, ff. 23v–24r. 53. See Olivier, Mockeries and Metamorphoses, 71. NOTES ≤ 303

54. Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 68; Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, 44; Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 47. 55. The ixiptla thus represented the real god, signifying an expansion of the self, not, as Clendinnen argues, a rejection of the self. See Clendinnen, Aztecs, 146–49. 56. See Tortorici, ‘‘Contra Natura,’’ chap. 6. 57. See Clendinnen, Aztecs, 104–10. 58. Here I use excerpts from the version of the song from pm. I have reproduced the line breaks used by Thelma Sullivan. Unlike Sullivan, however, I have skipped the explanatory statements in the right column of the original manu- script. In the Nahuatl reproduced in note 60, I have included the untranslat- able sounds used to mark breaks in the song. I have placed those sounds in italics. 59. After Sullivan, Primeros memoriales, 135. The term teumechave appears to come from teotl (god), metzehuatl (thigh skin), and xayacatl (face). 60. pm, f. 275r–v; Sullivan, Primeros memoriales, 135–36. Teteuynã ycujc. Ahuiya coçavic xochitl a oya cueponca yeva tonan a teumechave moquiçicã tamoanchã, avayye, avayya, yyao, yya, yyeo, aye, aye, ayy, ayyaa.

Coçavic xochitl a oya moxocha yeva tonan a, teumechave, moquicicã tamoanchã, ovayye, avayya, yyao, yya, yyeo, aye, aye, ayya, ayyaa.

Ahvia iztac xochitl a, oya cueponca yeva tonan a teumechave moquiçica tamoanchã, ovayye, ayayya, yyao, yya, yyeo, aye, aye, ayya, ayyaa.

Ahuiya iztac xochitl a, oya moxoch a yeva tonan a teumechave moquicican tamoanchã ovayye, ayayya, yyao, yya, yyeo, aye aye, ayya, ayyaa

Ahuia ohoya teutl ca teucontlj pac a tona aya itzpapalotlj avayye, avayya yyao yya yyeo ayyaa.

Ao, ava ticyaitaca chicunavixtlavatl a maçatl yyollo, yca mozcaltizquj tonã tlaltecutlj. ayao, ayyao, ayyaa. 304 ≤ NOTES

Aho, ye yancuic tiçatl a ye yancuic yvitl a oya potoniloc yn avicacopa acatl xamantoc a

Aho maçatl mochiuhca teutlalipã mitz iya no ittac o yeva xiuhnell o yeva mimjch a. 61. This song suggests the Ochpaniztli ceremony. See particularly the description in Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, vol. 1, 143–49. 62. Thus connecting Teteoinnan with the fertility of the earth, as we will see with regard to her presence in Ochpaniztli. 63. See López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan, 84–120. Tamoanchan also was closely connected with fertility. See Muñoz Camargo, Descripción de la ciudad, ff. 152v–53r. 64. ctr, f. 18v. 65. See López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan, 15. 66. As shown in ct, f. 104r. 67. See Robert Draper, ‘‘Unburying the Aztec,’’ National Geographic, November 2010, at ngm.nationalgeographic.com/. See also Nicholson, ‘‘A Fragment of an Aztec Relief Carving of the Earth Monster.’’ 68. López Austin renders Tlaltecuhtli as ‘‘earth goddess’’ (Tamoanchan, Tlalocan, 241) but says elsewhere (230) that Tlaltecuhtli has both masculine and femi- nine components. I certainly agree with him that the deity had an ambiguous gender. However, the implications of the name, the images, and the partner- ships of Tlaltecuhtli all suggest an identity that I argue cannot be only female. Rather, Tlaltecuhtli signified a figure, a deity whose gender cannot be named. 69. See the corresponding story of the hunt in ac, 79–80; Bierhorst, History and Mythology of the Aztecs, 151–52. 70. For interpretations of Ochpaniztli, see Caso, Los calendarios prehispánicos; Brown, ‘‘Ochpaniztli in Historical Perspective’’; Grave Tirado, ‘‘Barriendo en lo ya barrido’’; Brotherston, Feather Crown. 71. See also León-Portilla, Ritos, sacerdotes, y atavios de los dioses. 72. On sexuality and Sahagún’s method, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ Also see León- Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún. 73. All of the following description is from cf, book 2, chap. 30, ff. 66r–72v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 110–17. 74. cf, book 2, chap. 30, f. 67r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 110–11: ‘‘moxeloaia, monepantlaxeloaia, izquj intlan mativi, in teteu innan, no izquj in qujnamjtivi, in qujtiiaiavtla, ic qujpopololtiaia in jtlaocul . . . auh in tlachocaz, qujlmach tlatetzaviz: qujl mejc iaumjqujz, in quauhtli ocelutl: anoço mjequjntin mocioaquetzazque in cioa in jmiti ic iazque.’’ 75. cf, book 2, chap. 30, f. 68r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 111: ‘‘Nochputzin, ca iequene axcã motetzinco aciz in tlatoanj Mote- cuçoma, ma ximopapactzino.’’ NOTES ≤ 305

76. cf, book 2, chap. 30, f. 68r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 112: ‘‘çan tecujtlapan in coteca, njma ic qujoalquechcotontivetzi . . . qujxi- peutiquiça. Auh in oqujxipeuhque: njma ic comaqujtivetzi ce tlacatl in jeoaio: itoca Tecizquacujli, cenca chicaoc, chichicactic, yoan cenca quauhtic.’’ 77. The text uses the term ‘‘Toci’’ to refer to the man who is donning the woman’s skin, and thus I use the term ‘‘Toci.’’ 78. In the ‘‘heart excision’’ form of sacrifice, the captive is laid down with his or her back upon a stone. The priest uses a stone knife to cut open the chest and then reaches inside the body to grasp and remove the heart. For a vivid description, see Motolinia, Historia de los indios de Nueva España, 43–45. 79. These tied-up loincloths were made from paper. They are the hyperextended phalluses shown in cbor, 29. The term comes from meca, ‘‘tied-up,’’ and max- tli, ‘‘loincloth.’’ Anderson and Dibble (113) have ‘‘twisted breech clouts.’’ Meca relates to sexuality in a variety of ways, as it also serves as a term for the tradi- tional cohabitation that took place before marriage. 80. This detail is missing from the description in the Florentine Codex. However, several other descriptions, from that of the Codex Borbonicus to that written by Motolinia and the descriptions in the Codex Tudela and Codex Maglia- bechiano, describe the details of the movement from weapons to brooms. See my discussion of Diego Durán’s description below. 81. On masking, see Klein, ‘‘Masking Empire.’’ 82. The ‘‘Huastec things’’ are perhaps the tied-up loincloths, although they could also be the caps presented in the Codex Borbonicus image (figure 8). See DiCesare, Sweeping the Way. 83. Note that the worship of Chicomecoatl continued well after the Spanish con- quest. See Olivera, ‘‘Huemitl de mayo en Citlala.’’ 84. David Carrasco reads this ritual as one in which the warrior takes Toci, the mother, into the new community, planting her thigh skin, just as the farmer would plant maize. See Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Women in the Florentine Codex.’’ 85. This point now seems obvious, but before Lévi-Strauss, many functionalist anthropologists saw ritual in a different manner. See his Tristes Tropiques. 86. I intentionally avoid use of the term ‘‘body’’ to describe the entity from which her skin was flayed. The body to the Nahuas certainly would have included the skin, and the remainder left after the flaying holds importance to tlazolli. Such a remainder may have been seen as the body, but the flayed skin enveloped the deified identity. Hence the priest wearing the skin added this identity to his own as he paraded through the streets. 87. Though I note here again that language fails us. The Nahuas did not conceive of this individual as human but rather as a liminal entity—as entirely betwixt and between. 88. Mauss develops the argument regarding the connection between a creation/ destruction complex that inevitably ends in recreation in A General Theory of Magic. 306 ≤ NOTES

89. As, indeed, I would suggest all Nahua ritual does. Women’s bodies were viewed as the central fertility markers. As rituals are intended to promote and manipulate fertility, they must find ways to harness the powers that Nahuas viewed as occurring in the bodies of women. 90. Of course what she would think of this is unclear in the text. Her views are unknowable to us, but one can imagine virtually anything from delight to ambivalence to revulsion. 91. DiCesare, Sweeping the Way, 100–101. 92. Jacques Galinier has made this point in his important article, ‘‘L’homme sans pied.’’ Also see the discussion in DiCesare, Sweeping the Way, 90–101. 93. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, vol. 1, 148. 94. Ibid., 148–49. 95. Ibid., 149. 96. Ibid., 276. 97. On the theological underpinnings of Durán and the other sixteenth-century friars, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 15–28. 98. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, vol. 1, 147. 99. Ibid., 147. 100. In Nahua thought, women were connected closely with rituals of sweeping. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 117–24. 101. While masculinity, of course, was not always associated with anticivility, Nahuas considered masculine excess as potentially destructive. Hence, mas- culinity often was associated with the outside, the forest, and the struggle with the enemy warrior. See cf, book 2, chaps. 24, 25, 35, 36; cme, ff. 63v–66r; Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 46–86; Clendinnen, Aztecs, 147–49. 102. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, vol. 1, 147. 103. See also DiCesare, Sweeping the Way, 50-67. 104. On gender complementarity, see Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches; Schroeder, Wood, and Haskett, Indian Women of Early Mexico. 105. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 119–28. 106. The truth of history here comes from an understanding of the role of the tlacuilo in the performance of ritual. He was viewed as producing a ‘‘truth’’ that signified a cosmologically correct construction of history. The rulers sup- ported this history. 107. Many of these cases can be found González Obregón, Procesos de indios idóla- tras y hechiceros. 108. See Lopes Don, ‘‘Franciscans, Indian Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in New Spain.’’ 109. González Obregón, Procesos de indios idólatras y hechiceros, 22–23. 110. Ibid., 53–78; Gruzinski, Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands, 31–62. 111. agn-I, 37, 2; González Obregón, Procesos de indioss idólatras y hechiceros, 99–108. NOTES ≤ 307

112. See López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan. 113. On the symbolism of the cave and the womb, see Báez-Jorge, Matos Mocte- zuma, and Galinier, El lugar de la captura; Limón Olvera, Las cuevas y el mito de origen; Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 38–39. 114. agn-i, 42, 18; González Obregón, Procesos de indios idólatras y hechiceros, 177–84. 115. Gruzinski, Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands; Cervantes, TheDevilinthe New World. However, see Klein, ‘‘The Devil and the Skirt,’’ to witness the tre- mendous remnants of liminality remaining in postconquest Nahua iconogra- phy related to the devil. 116. Cervantes, The Devil in the New World, 49. 117. agi (México), 357. 118. Serna, Manual de ministros de indios, 77–80. 119. See Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 257–59. 120. Here I must agree with William Taylor’s critique of syncretism. The process in which religious mixture took place was much more complex than a simple combination of discursive and ritual practices implied by the term ‘‘syncre- tism.’’ The process that took place was extraordinarily violent and often involved a rather haphazard mixture of elements that Nahuas learned through their daily contact with Hispanic and Hispanized peoples. See Taylor, Magis- trates of the Sacred, 53–62. 121. The primary published version of this text is the one translated and edited by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig. I have consulted this version and the original, located in the Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. As I have been unable to gain regular access to the original, all citations are to the Andrews and Hassig version. 122. Here I argue with Serge Gruzinski, who sees progressive loss, confusion, and alienation in the religious lives of the indigenous population after the conquest. See in particular his Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands. Later he appears to reassess this position to a certain extent, suggesting that the creation of a mes- tizo mind, a mestizo way of viewing the cultural sphere, ended up mixing a wide variety of indigenous and Hispanic elements in a way that the word ‘‘syncretism’’ does not properly encapsulate. See his The Mestizo Mind. 123. See Hanks, Intertexts. 124. Certainly, as James Lockhart points out, there was much indigenous survival among the nobles as well. However, in regard to religious rituals, the nobles, with few exceptions, practiced Catholicism, while many commoners contin- ued to practice traditional indigenous rituals, at least in the realms of curing and fertility. See Gibson, Aztecs under Spanish Rule, 98–135; Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 203–60. 125. The scorpion was closely associated not just with sexuality and seduction but also with ancestry. See Dessoudeix, ‘‘Los arácnidos en náhuatl.’’ 308 ≤ NOTES

126. ths, 204. 127. Elsewhere I analyze this text as an example of both masculine power and gen- der parallelism, comparing it to a Maya-language text from the same period. See my ‘‘Sexuality in Maya and Nahuatl Sources.’’ 128. The text in brackets was supplied by Ruiz de Alarcón in Spanish. 129. ths, 204–5. nooquichtiuh yappan onihualla nimohueltiuh nixochiquetzal nimitz tlapaloco nimitzciauhquetzaco.

otihuallauh nohueltiuhe xochiquetzale.

onihualla campa ye nitlecoz

xocchie ye ompa niauh. 130. The phrase ‘‘of chastity’’ is supplied by Andrews and Hassig. 131. ths, 205: amo tipinahua tlamacazqui yappan otitlatlaco in quexquich cahuitl timonemitiz in tlalticpac amo tle huel ticchihuaz intlalticpac am tle huel tictequipanoz mitztocayotizque in maçehualtin tocolotl ca nican nimitztocayotia nimitztocamati colotl xihualhuia yuhqui tiez.

oquiquechcoton, oquiquechpano itzontecon, yehuatl ica itoca tzonteconmama. 132. ths, 205. Emphasis added. 133. The man’s head, which Yaotl cuts off, is explicitly linked to the penis. Further, the scorpion is also called, as we have already seen, Pelxayaqueh, ‘‘bare-mask owner,’’ which is related to the castrated penis. ‘‘Bare-mask owner,’’ or the one who has no mask, is the one exposed, who fails to take on the mask necessary to participate in both ritual and warfare. ths, 208. See also Klein, ‘‘Masking Empire.’’ Implicit in both Maya and Nahua rituals, castration had important phallic connotations, but these connotations differed from the castration complex in modern Western psychoanalytic literature. 134. As I have noted, this concept of sin was a postconquest invention. See also Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 28–31. 135. She is not really his older sister. This is simply a respectful form of address. 136. ths, 206: ‘‘tlaxihualhuian, tlamacazqui yappan huizcol canin otitech min huel ompa tonecoyan ahmo ticpanahuiz in no quaxoch.’’ 137. Ruiz has told us that this is the name of a deer that had been Piltzintecuhtli, a fertility god. 138. ths, 206–7: Nomat ca nehuatl nitlamacazqui chicomexochitl tlaxihualhuia tlamacazqui yappan Huitzcol tle ica in teca ti mo cacayaua? cuix ah mo yetic mati ahmo yemo yollo quimati, in omitznecahualpoztequito nohueltiuh xochiquetzal NOTES ≤ 309

in ompa Tehuehueticpac in ompa ini ca otimo cacayauh ah mo tle tlein huel tic chihuaz ahmo tleinhuel tic tequipanoz nepalhueca teca ximo cacayahuati nepa hueca teca ximalhuiltiti. tla xihualhuianonan tlaltecutli çany huiyan xictla cahualti intlamacazqui yappan Pelxayaque, ma can ihuian quiça, macan ihuian mitztlalcahui, cuix quin moztla cuix huiptla yaz? ca niman aman intla camo quiçaz intla camo yaz caoc nehuatl nicmati yntle ipan nic chihuaz. 139. ths, 207: ‘‘No oquichtiuh pelxayaq, ah mo tipinihua tleica in teca timo cacayahua? tle ica in teca ti mahuiltia? Cuix am yeticmati ahmo qui ma tica yn moyollo in onimitz necahualpoztequito in ompa tehuehueticpac in ni xochi- quetzal in nompa nohuan oticoch, onihualla in nimohueltiuh ni xochiquetzal nimitz tlapaloco nimitz ciauhquetzaco çan yhuian xictlalcahui in no macehual tla nimitz huipil tepoya, tla nimitzhuipil lapacho tlanimitz huipil quimilco çan yhuian xicochi tla nimitz maco chiui tla ni mitz napalo tla nimitz nahuatequi.’’ 140. cl, 38. 141. See López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology, vol. 1, 270–76. 142. As an ironic construct, a symbolization of excess. 143. See cf, book 2, apendiz, ‘‘Song of Xochiquetzal,’’ f. 140v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Two, 210. In this song, Piltzintecuhtli also seeks out Xochiquetzal to engage in sex with her. See also Raby, ‘‘Xochiquetzal en el cuicacalli.’’ 144. The warrior castrating his enemy was, as we saw in the discussion of both Ochpaniztli and Toxcatl, a prime signifier of warfare, along with decapitation and sacrifice. 145. The huipil was a very common item in women’s wills. See Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 200. 146. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 69. 147. Commoners often reverted to engaging in cures by themselves. They also seem to have consulted people considered witches. 148. agn-i, 510, 112. 149. Antonio de Ribadeneyra reports on this practice in 1771 (John Carter Brown Library, Spanish Codex Collection 52, ff. 11–59). Cited in Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 73. Ribadeneyra argues that these ceremonies were extraor- dinarily common, always related to fertility, and most often ignored by the Catholic clerics. 150. Nutini and Roberts, Bloodsucking Witchcraft, 113.

Notes to Chapter 6: The Homosexual 1. These definitions are implicit in the primary and secondary sources listed in the detailed analysis I provide of the term cuiloni. I have published an earlier version of this chapter as Sigal, ‘‘The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin.’’ See also Balutet, Homosexualité et imaginaire sexuel chez les Aztèques. 310 ≤ NOTES

2. On the somewhat similar Maya homosexuality, see my ‘‘The Politicization of Pederasty among the Colonial Yucatecan Maya,’’ From Moon Goddesses to Virgins, 213–40, and ‘‘Gender, Male Homosexuality, and Power in Colonial Yucatan.’’ See also Joyce, ‘‘A Precolumbian Gaze.’’ 3. López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology, vol. 1, 305. 4. Quezada, Amor y magia amorosa, 139–40. 5. Trexler, Sex and Conquest and ‘‘Gender Subordination and Political Hierarchy in Pre-Hispanic America,’’ 80. 6. Klein, ‘‘None of the Above,’’ 192. 7. Kimball, ‘‘Aztec Homosexuality,’’ 20. 8. Taylor, ‘‘Legends, Syncretism, and Continuing Echoes of Homosexuality,’’ 86–87. 9. See my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 10. Sigal, ‘‘(Homo)Sexual Desire and Masculine Power in Colonial Latin America,’’ 4–8. 11. See Weeks, Coming Out; Foucault, The History of Sexuality; Rubin, ‘‘Thinking Sex’’; Chauncey, Gay New York. For an alternative view in relation to colonial Latin America, see Mott, Escravidão, homossexualidade e demonologia. 12. See particularly Spivak, ‘‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’’; Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet; Butler, Gender Trouble; Edelman, No Future. 13. This more performative notion of sexuality in certain senses overlaps that of Judith Butler as outlined in Gender Trouble. 14. See particularly López de Gómara, Historia general de las Indias; Díaz del Cas- tillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España. See also Fernández de Oviedo, Historia general y natural de las Indias. 15. Las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria; Torquemada, Monarquia indiana; Tezozomoc, Crónica mexicana, Codice Ramirez; Ixtlilxochitl, Obras históricas; Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala. 16. Richard Trexler recognizes this as he foregrounds the Spanish context of his documents. Here I present a detailed analysis of the relationship between the Spanish documents and the various sexual discourses present in the Nahuatl texts. Trexler refers to almost all of the texts used in this section of the chapter, and I have made great use of his scholarship. 17. Francisco López de Gómara, for example, based his condemnation of the Nahuas on the tropes of sodomy, cannibalism, and sacrifice that had been present in Oviedo’s comments on the Caribbean, extending these ideas to cen- tral Mexico. See Brading, The First America, 47; López de Gómara, Historia general de las Indias, vol. 1, 50, and vol. 2, 404–5. For another example, see Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España, chap. 208, 875 and chap. 46, 277–80. On the connection between sodomy and effeminacy in the discourse of the chroniclers, see Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn. On the perceived masculinity of the Mexica, see Clendinnen, Aztecs. NOTES ≤ 311

18. See Brading, The First America, 47. Brading also notes (41–42) that Oviedo blamed the demise of the Indians on God’s punishment for their ‘‘abominable sins,’’ a euphemism for sodomy that here was also used to include cannibalism and human sacrifice. See also Krippner-Martinez, Rereading the Conquest, 23–25. 19. Trexler, ‘‘Gender Subordination and Political Hierarchy,’’ 75. 20. Ibid., 74. 21. The literature on the topic is vast. See particularly Horswell, ‘‘Toward an Andean Theory of Ritual Same-Sex Sexuality and Third-Gender Subjectivity’’ and Decolonizing the Sodomite; Trexler, Sex and Conquest; Roscoe, Changing Ones. For different types of analysis, see Bacigalupo, ‘‘The Struggle for Ma- puche Shamans’ Masculinity’’; Looper, ‘‘Women-Men (and Men-Women).’’ On the modern cross-dresser in indigenous societies in Oaxaca, see Stephen, ‘‘Sexualities and Genders in Zapotec Oaxaca.’’ 22. López de Gómara, Historia general de las Indias, vol. 2, 404–5. 23. Ibid., vol. 1, 50. 24. Las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, vol. 2, 233. He references Galen and Hippocrates. 25. Ibid., 515. 26. Las Casas’s position on sodomy among the indigenous peoples of the Ameri- cas is complex and beyond the scope of this chapter. For more information, see Trexler, Sex and Conquest. See also Guerra, The Precolombian Mind. 27. See also the work of Juan de Torquemada, particularly Monarquía indiana, vol. 2, book 12, chap. 11, 392, and vol. 2, book 9, chap. 13, 186–88. 28. In the late seventeenth century, a priest wrote of a southern Peten Maya com- munity, that young men entered a house next to a temple in order to engage in ‘‘sodomitic copulations’’ with ‘‘ministers of the Demon wearing women’s skirts.’’ Quoted in Jones, The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom, 499 n. 45. 29. These chroniclers were strongly influenced by the Franciscan friars. See Brad- ing, The First America, 278, 281. 30. According to Lockhart, Tezozomoc reproduced the cellular organization of the Nahua city-state, understood the mythology of the origins of Tenochtitlan, and wrote in a style closely following ‘‘the turns of older Nahuatl rhetoric.’’ Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest, 24–25, 319. 31. Velasco, Visiones de Anáhuac, 197–268. 32. Tezozomoc, Crónica mexicana, 54. 33. Ibid. 54, 264–67. 34. Cecelia Klein notes that ‘‘in all documented instances in which Nahua men were forced to cross-dress as women, their tormentors’ intention seems to have been not just to mark but also to mock their victims’ loss of status and power’’ (‘‘None of the Above,’’ 194). 35. On the origins of the term, see Roscoe, Changing Ones; Trexler, Sex and Conquest. 312 ≤ NOTES

36. Velasco, Visiones de Anáhuac, 127–95. 37. Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, 138. Partially quoted in Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 164. 38. Brading, The First America, 273–75, 278; Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Con- quest, 25. Lockhart says that while Ixtlilxochitl ‘‘functioned as an ‘Indian’ [he] was as much Spanish as indigenous by descent and also wrote in Spanish using Spanish genres.’’ Ibid., 587 n. 6. 39. Velasco, Visiones de Anáhuac, 43–125. 40. Ixtlilxochitl, Obras historicas, 47–48, 324–25. 41. Ibid., 324–25. Quoted in Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 159. Trexler translates entrañas as ‘‘intestines.’’ While the term literally is ‘‘entrails,’’ Cecilia Klein argues persuasively that when the Nahuas were describing the entrails, they were referring specifically to the intestines. See Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails,’’ 81–103. While this text is in Spanish, it seems likely that it refers at least partly to the Nahua concept, however hybridized with Hispanic ideas. I have chosen the literal translation. 42. Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 160. 43. Of course others disagree as well, but Trexler and Gutiérrez are the most prominent. See Trexler, Sex and Conquest; Gutiérrez, ‘‘Must We Deracinate Indians to Find Gay Roots?’’ The most influential scholars on the other side of the debate are Will Roscoe and Walter Williams. See Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh; Roscoe, Changing Ones. See also Michael Horswell, Decolonizing the Sodomite and ‘‘Toward an Andean Theory of Ritual Same-Sex Sexuality and Third-Gender Subjectivity.’’ For an argument that all of these views fail to understand colonial discourse, see Lewis, ‘‘From Sodomy to Superstition.’’ 44. Díaz, Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España, 7–8. 45. Klein (‘‘None of the Above’’) discusses the gender ambiguities in preconquest documents, analyzing them in relation to some postconquest texts. She argues that a gender-ambiguous being was used to reestablish order at times when great danger was perceived (particularly at the beginning of the wet season, when a male taking on an ambiguously gendered role as a goddess or a femi- nized god was seen by the Nahuas as helping with the process of making the earth fertile). See also Joyce, Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica, 173–74; Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Women in the Florentine Codex,’’ 212–18. 46. See Arboleda, ‘‘Representaciones artísticas de actividades homoeróticas en la cerámica Moche’’; Horswell, ‘‘Toward an Andean Theory of Ritual Same-Sex Sexuality and Third-Gender Subjectivity,’’ 33–36; Bouget, Sex, Death and Sac- rifice in Moche Religion and Visual Culture. Mary Weismantl, in ‘‘Moche Sex Pots,’’ argues that the anal sex signified in this imagery is ‘‘reproductive.’’ Hence for the Moche, the presence of fluid exchange suggested fertility and reproduction, a notion in many ways congruent with Nahua notions of fertil- ity. See also Sigal, ‘‘Latin America and the Challenge of Globalizing the History of Sexuality.’’ NOTES ≤ 313

47. Klein, ‘‘None of the Above,’’ 201–11; Carrasco, ‘‘The Sacrifice of Women,’’ 212–18. 48. On Spanish notions, see Carrasco, Inquisición y represión sexual. 49. cm, f. 65v. 50. See López Austin, Tamoanchan, Tlalocan, 204–5. 51. The creation of maize was a great cosmological event, and it led maize to be connected to the maintenance of life and the human body. See Sandstrom, Corn Is Our Blood; León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 42. 52. ct, f. 49r. 53. Ibid. 54. ths. 55. Ibid., 134–36. See also Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition, 151. 56. ct, f. 62r. 57. For a case of sodomy in the temazcal in the early seventeenth century, see Tortorici, ‘‘Heran todos putos.’’ 58. De Los Reyes, ‘‘Sodomy and Society.’’ I thank Zeb Tortorici for pointing out this reference to me. 59. cf, book 4, chap. 9, f. 24r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Four, 35: ‘‘injc ica mocaiaoa Tezcatlipuca: injc qujquequeloa, injc ica maviltia, injc qujtelchoia, aço cana altiloz, tlaaltilmjqujz: ioan mjtoaia teumj- qujz, qujpaoacizque, qujquazque: ipampa ca ica omoquavitec, in tlacotzintli, ytech oqujcauh in jtlatlacol, injc qujmacacia. . . . Tezcatlipuca, tecujltonoa, ioan ic temotla in cococ, in teopouhquj. ic vncan in aca qujcujlonaoa, itoneuh- cacopa, aoc iatlamtian in quilhuja: Titlacaoane, cujlonpole, cujlontepole, oton- motlamachti, otonmoquequelo: no iuh qujtoaia, intla aca oqujchololti imal, cujlonpole, titlacaoane, ma ça njman iê iuh tienj, ma motelchioanj, in tine- chmaca malli, ca çan notech otonmoquequelo.’’ 60. Kimball, ‘‘Aztec Homosexuality,’’ 19. See, however, Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 103, 234 n. 9. 61. cf, book 4, chap. 9, f. 24r. For an extensive analysis of Sahagún’s reconfigura- tion of Tezcatlipoca in what can be described as a colonial appropriation, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 62. cbor, 28. 63. cf, book 4, chap. 9, f. 24v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Four, 35: ‘‘in iuh qujtoaia, y, ca ça itoneuhcatlatol, iê tle ça ne, ca ica oneaujlt- liloc, mjtoa: iehoan in iuh inpam mochioaia, y, in aquj mamatcaoaque.’’ 64. cf, book 4, chap. 9, f. 25r. 65. Las Casas, Apologética historia sumaria, vol. 2, 232. 66. See Klein, ‘‘None of the Above,’’ 219–28. 67. cf, book 3, chap. 2, ff. 7v–8v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Three, 11–12: ‘‘auh in jquac tetech qujtlaliaia, iquac in iolitlacoloia: yn aqujn amo qujneltilaia, yn jnetol, yn jtlacemitol: yoan in qujtlacoaia in 314 ≤ NOTES

necaoaliztli, yn ac ipan cioacuchi oqujchtli, yn ac ipan oqujchcuchi cioatl: yoan anoce monecaoalujltequj. . . . auh in cucuxquj cenca tlanauj, yn amo vel pati, yn aoc ontlaiecoa yn aoc vel i: in quenmanjan cahoaia: qujlhujaia. Titlacaoane, cujlonpole: ie tonmotlatlamachtia, manoço cuele xinechtllatlati: in cequjntin njman qujnpatiaia amo ic qualanja, y cequjntin tel njman ic miquja.’’ For a more detailed analysis of the Titlacauan quotations, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 68. cf, book 3, chap. 2, ff. 7v–8v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Three, 11–12. 69. cf, book 1, f. 34v. 70. Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails.’’ 71. See ibid.; López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology, vol. 1, 173–75. 72. cf, book 10, f. 25r. 73. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 1, f. 100v. 74. Ibid., vol. 2, f. 27r. 75. Ibid., f. 94r. 76. Carochi, Grammar of the Mexican Language, 178–79. Carochi uses the verb cui as one of his examples, although in a different sense from what we are dis- cussing here. He states that necuitlahuiloni is ‘‘worthy of being taken care of.’’ 77. See Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, ff. 27r, 28r; López Austin, Human Body and Ideology, vol. 2, 147–49; Klein, ‘‘Snares and Entrails,’’ 81. López Austin argues that cuilchilli should refer to ‘‘a projected and irritated rectum.’’ 78. See Klor de Alva, Nicholson, and Quiñones Keber, The Works of Bernardino de Sahagún. 79. Browne, Sahagún and the Transition to Modernity. Browne’s point about keeping the medieval context of Sahagún’s thinking in mind in our analyses of the Florentine Codex is important, even if he overstates his critique of other works. 80. For a more detailed analysis of book 10 of the Florentine Codex, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 81. See Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance, for examples of the ways in which European genres were reproduced in postconquest indigenous writings like the Florentine Codex. 82. See Cervantes, The Devil in the New World. 83. cf, book 10, chap. 11, f. 25r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 37–38: ‘‘Suchioa: in suchioa cioatlatole, cioanotzale, oquichtlatole, oquichnotzale, . . . teiollocuepani, teiolmalacachoani, tenanacauiani, . . . tesuchiuia, teixmalacachoa, teiolcuepa.’’ Sahagún translates xochihua as embaucador, ‘‘trickster’’ (Historia general, 36), but the argument proferred by Sousa that the xochihua signified a transsexual figure (and that the ‘‘trickster’’ identity related to tricking men) seems convincing. Sousa, ‘‘Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico,’’ 164. NOTES ≤ 315

84. Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 37; Kimball, ‘‘Aztec Homosexuality,’’ 13. 85. Sousa, ‘‘Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico,’’ 164. 86. cf, book 10, chap. 11, f. 25r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 37–38: ‘‘Cuiloni, chimouhqui, cuitzotl itlacauhqui, tlahelli, tlahelchichi, tlahelpul, tlacamiqui, teupoliuhqui auilli, camanalli, netopeoalli, tequalani, tetlahelti, teuiqueh, teiacapitztlahelti, cioaciuhqui, mocioanene- quini, tlatiloni, tlatlani, chichinoloni, tlatla, chichinolo, cihcioatlatoa, mocioanenequi.’’ 87. Note that emanating from the mouth of each person is a scroll intended to denote speech. Many of the people to whom I have shown this image in vari- ous presentations have noted the ‘‘phallic appearance’’ of the speech scrolls. This seems to me an entirely modern Western reading. 88. cf, book 10, f. 25v. 89. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 1, f. 100r. Kimball translates cuiloni as ‘‘he is one who is fucked,’’ and chimouhqui as ‘‘he is a homosexual man.’’ For an extended critique of the problems with both this translation and those proffered by Anderson and Dibble and López Austin, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 90. Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 45–46. 91. cf, book 10, chap. 24, f. 25r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 89–90: ‘‘In cocoxque in intoca chimouhque: uel innemac, in tzic- quaqualiztli, iuhquinma imaxca, iuhquinma intonal. Auh in aquin teixpã tzic- quaqua in toquichti cuitoiutl caci, chimouhcaiutl quineuiuilia.’’ 92. López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology, 204–29. 93. On the relationship between Sahagún and his indigenous aides, and how this relationship affected the presentation of sexualities within the Florentine Codex, see my ‘‘Queer Nahuatl.’’ 94. Molina, Confessionario breve, f. 12v: ‘‘Cuix aca occe ciuatl, amoneuan ammopatlachuique?’’ See Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexi- cana, vol. 2, f. 80r. There he defines paltachuia as ‘‘ hazerlo vna muger a otra,’’ by which he meant ‘‘for one woman to do it to another [woman].’’ Patlachui is the preterit form. 95. Molina, Confessionario breve, f. 12v: ‘‘Has cometido el pecado contra natura, con otra muger como tu?’’ 96. While female homosexual acts were mentioned, discussed, and debated in a variety of contexts during medieval and early modern times, there was certain confusion as to which acts warranted penalties and which did not. Further, the level at which women absorbed teachings condemning these sexual acts is unclear. See particularly Canadé Sautman and Sheingorn, Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages. See also Velasco, ‘‘Mapping Selva- gia’s Transmutable Sexuality in Montemayor’s Diana’’; Park, ‘‘The Rediscovery 316 ≤ NOTES

of the Clitoris’’; Velasco, The Lieutenant Nun, 13–43; Andreadis, Sappho in Early Modern England. 97. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, f. 80r. 98. Carochi, Grammar of the Mexican Language, 232–33. 99. López Austin defines patlache ‘‘literally’’ as ‘‘she who has something broad.’’ This definition, while partly correct, seems problematic to me, at least in a lit- eral sense. I find no reference in the term to an individual ‘‘she.’’ Nor is there any possessive marker. López Austin also says that the ‘‘correct meaning for patlache is ‘the lesbian.’ ’’ I find no reference to or even suggestion of a specific sexual identity in the term. If patlache includes a ‘‘wide thing,’’ then it seems to imply physiological characteristics, objects used, or a metaphor for sexual acts. See López Austin, The Human Body, vol. 2, 279 n. 70. 100. See Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville; Benkov, ‘‘The Erased Lesbian,’’ for the reticence to discuss these behaviors in the public sphere. Compare with Andreadis, Sappho in Early Modern England. 101. Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, 48. 102. While I believe that the implication is accurate, the specific translation that yields ‘‘erect penis’’ may be a stretch. Anderson and Dibble note that choneoa may come from çoneua, ‘‘erect.’’ 103. cf, book 10, chap. 15, f. 40v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 56: ‘‘Patlache: In patlache: ca tlahelcioatl, cioatl xipine tepule, choneoa, mioa, ateoa, mocioapotiani, mocioaicniuhtiani, mocicioapiltiani, cicioapile, oquichnacaio, oquichtlaque, ôoquichtlatoa, ôoquichnenemi, tetentzone, tomio, tzôtzoio, tepatlachuia, mocioaicniuhtia, aic monamictiznequi, cenca quincocolia aiel quimittaz in oquichti, tlatetzauia.’’ 104. Rosemary Joyce argues that figurines of ‘‘sexually neutral’’ individuals, when combined with evidence ‘‘of contemporary traditions of figural representation that explicitly depict sexual characteristics, . . . mark an alternative form of bodily materiality.’’ Joyce, ‘‘Performing the Body in Pre-Hispanic Central America,’’ 161. See also Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica, 191– 97. 105. On hermaphrodites and their connection with monsters in the late medieval and early modern periods in Europe, see particularly Daston, ‘‘Marvelous Facts and Miraculous Evidence in Early Modern Europe’’; Jones and Stallybrass, ‘‘Fetishizing Gender’’; Ricapito, ‘‘Monster, Demons and Iconography in Guz- mán de Alfarache’’; Daston and Park, ‘‘The Hermaphrodite and the Orders of Nature’’; Long, ‘‘Hermaphrodites Newly Discovered’’; Velasco, The Lieutenant Nun, 24–31. Other scholars see hermaphrodites as more liminal, rather than monstrous, figures. See Barbazza, ‘‘Un caso de subversión social’’; Nederman and True, ‘‘The Third Sex’’; Burshatin, ‘‘Written on the Body.’’ 106. Recent research has suggested that the case of Elena/Eleno de Céspedes in sixteenth-century Catalonia was a case in which the boundaries of gender were strongly contested and in which popular discourse defined the mon- NOTES ≤ 317

strous horrors of the in-between position of the hermaphrodite. These horrors were, however, placed in the realm of popular spectacle. See Vollendorf, ‘‘Sex- uality as Disruption in Early Modern Spain.’’ 107. Ovid, Metamorphoses, book 4, 111–15. 108. On Ovid’s influence on postconquest indigenous images in central Mexico, see Gruzinski, The Mestizo Mind. 109. pm, f. 82r. 110. See León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture, 69–85. 111. cf, book 10, f. 40v. 112. The tlacuilos clearly were influenced by European notions of space and picto- rial genres. See Quiñones Keber, ‘‘Painting Divination in the Florentine Codex.’’ On preconquest and colonial Nahua images, see particularly Boone, Stories in Red and Black. 113. Zeb Tortorici’s groundbreaking work has shown that there existed what he calls a ‘‘sodomitical subculture’’ in colonial Mexico. See Tortorici, ‘‘Heran todos putos.’’ 114. Archivo Histórico Municipal de Morelia, Michoacán 30, 2. 115. Tortorici, ‘‘Heran todos putos.’’ 116. agi (México), 38, 57. See Gruzinski, ‘‘Las cenizas del deseo’’; Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn. 117. Archivo Histórico, Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, ms. go 184, f. 28v. Thanks to Doris Namala, Camilla Townsend, and James Lockhart for alerting me to this and the next text, and aiding me in translation. ‘‘yn oquitlatique çe mulato huel tlilihqui ypampa puto ytoca ocatca domingo onpa . . . don franco albares onpa santiago calyecac yn oquitlatique auh ynic oquitlaquentique quiltic bayeta yn imontera no quiltic niman se crus chichiltic yxcuac ycuitlan no chichiltic ome estandarte oquiyecan çe quiltic çe chichiltic auh yn tlapitzalli amo yuh yn icuac pillolo yc quipitza çan yuhqui yn icuac tlalhuiquixtia . . . ypan chiucnahui ora huel semilhuitl yn otlatlac ypan tonali biernes auh yn oquitocaque ynexo onpa yn san matias ynic huel yancuic nican otlatlac puto yn cuitlaxcohuapan.’’ 118. Ibid., f. 29r: ‘‘yn oc çe otlatla puto sanno mulato chipahuac ytoca ocatca ma- nuel yn oquitemacaya polboz ynic ynca omocacayahua pipiltoton.’’ 119. agi (México), 333.

Notes to Chapter 7: Sex 1. While simple fornication was a mortal sin that the Inquisition considered in its proceedings, inquisitors were much more concerned with heretical state- ments about fornication than with the act itself. See Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. Also see Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred. 2. See also Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 130–33. 3. Ibid., 134–41. 4. My understanding of the European notions comes from conversations with 318 ≤ NOTES

William Reddy. Of course one could argue, correctly, that this binary did not encompass European views either, but the point here is that while this view was dominant in European intellectual history from the twelfth century onward, it did not become a dominant view among Nahuas, intellectuals or others, in early colonial times. 5. ac, 8; htc, 68–70, lines 14–31. 6. ac, 8, lines 43–45. 7. Ibid., line 43. 8. Ibid., line 45, has her living with a tlacatecolotl, a term that the clerics used for the devil. In htc, 68, line 16, we find that Tezcatlipoca is the key god in this part of the story, and often these texts refer to Tezcatlipoca as the great tlacatecolotl. 9. htc, 68–69, lines 16–23. 10. ac, 8, line 50. 11. Ibid., lines 52–54. 12. Ibid., line 55, and 9, line 7; htc, 69–70, lines 25–31. 13. See Joyce, Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica. 14. Here he was even called Quetzalcoatl, showing that he was seen symbolically as closely related to the gods. ac, 8, line 48. 15. See Gillespie, The Aztec Kings; Haskett, Indigenous Rulers. 16. cbor, 59. 17. See also Carrasco, City of Sacrifice. 18. See Clendinnen, Aztecs; Hassig, Aztec Warfare. 19. cf, book 6, chap. 43; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 257. 20. Durán, Book of the Gods, 96. 21. See, for example, Alva’s discussion in his Confessionario mayor. 22. Olmos, Tratado sobre los siete pecados mortales, 348r: ‘‘in tetlaxinqui quicuilia yn ynamic yn yaxca yn ynacayo inic quimaca yn ymecauh yn iquac quitlal- cauiya yn inamic ynic tetech açi, ic cenca uey tlatllaculli ypan uetzi.’’ 23. On concubinage, see Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture. 24. See ibid. 25. See ibid. The cases cited by Quezada also support this thesis; see her Amor y magia amorosa. 26. See Kartunnen and Lockhart, The Art of Nahuatl Speech; León-Portilla, Ber- nardino de Sahagún, 115–21. 27. Also see Marcos, Taken from the Lips, 93–106. 28. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 94r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 114: ‘‘in jnnemjliz atle neneliuhquj, atzoio, ateuhio, atlaçollo: yc ipampa in tech aci, in jixpan moquetza tloque, naoaque in qujpopuchvia, in qujtlatlauhtia, in qujtlatlauhtia in atl, in tepetl: auh in tlatoanj, qujntocaiotia yteuan in tlamacazque: ipampa in jnqualtiliz yn jchipaoacanemjliz.’’ NOTES ≤ 319

29. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 96v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book ix, 116: ‘‘amo tiqueleviz in teuhtli in tlaçulli: amo ticmaviltiz in teiçolo, in tecatzauh: in mjtoa tetlacaçoltili, in teitlaco, in tepolo, in mjcoanj.’’ 30. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 97r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 116–17. See chapter 2 for the Nahuatl text. 31. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, vol. 2, f. 124v. 32. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 97v–98r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 117: ‘‘Auh in mahan titlachictli, in mahan timetl: çan cuel in tim- ocaoaz timeia, aço qujn vel ica toqujchtli, in oc uel tonmotlamj, in aoc cuelle tiqujlvia, in aoc cuelle ticaitia monamjc, ie cuel mjtzhija, ie cuel mjtztlaelitta, ca nel noço ticapizmjtia: aço qujn ie ic itlati in qujnequj tlalticpacaiotl, injc timaceoalti in monamjc, ie te oc uel timocauh: muchimmopanti acaço y iatlamatia mopan iaz mjtzontlaximaz: ca nel noço otonmjciuhcapolo, ca otonomtolamj.’’ 33. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 98r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 117: ‘‘ma nel nonamjc, monacaio, in jtlan tinemiz, in jtlan tiaz: in mahan tlaqualli, amo tiqujciuhcaquaz, qujtoznequj, amo titlahelnemjz, amo ticmote- qujmacaz: çan ipan, çan ipan qualli in ticchioaz: ach anoço nen muchioa tipa- quj timomati, in ticmotequjmaca in paqujztli: ca ie timomjctia, ca timovitilia.’’ 34. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 99r–v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 118: ‘‘in amoqujchtzitzinti, ca amehoantin antlatzivi, ca amehoantin anmocaoanj in amo mjciuhcapoloque: ca ie ixqujch ca aoc tle amo necoca: auh injn in ticioa, ca amo titlatzivinj: ca oztotl, ca tepexitl in totech ca: ca çan tequjtl imacoca qujchia.’’ 35. See Burkhart, The Slippery Earth; López Austin, The Human Body and Ideology. 36. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 98v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 118: ‘‘Ce tlacatl anoc, ilpiloc vevenpul quaztapapul, ipampa tepan ia, tetlaxi: auh tlatlanjloc, in cujx noma qujnequj tlalticpacaiotl, qujto; ca qujn ieie itlati in qujnequj tlalticpacaiotl: ipampa in jpiltaian in jtelpuchtian, acan oqujttac cioatl, ano ic ocan tlalticpac tlama, ie ichicaoalizpan, ie ivevetilizpan, in qujn oqujttaco tlalticpacaiotl.’’ 37. We find a similar discourse on moderation and excess in other huehuetlahtolli texts. See particularly Kartunnen and Lockhart, The Art of Nahuatl Speech (The Bancroft Dialogues), a huehuetlahtolli series extracted in the early seventeenth-century by the Jesuit Horacio Carochi or one of his students. The dialogues were meant to aid priests in their language training. 38. cf, book 6, chap. 21, f. 99v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Six, 119: ‘‘ma titlahelen in tlalticpac.’’ 39. In an excellent article about this song, Camilla Townsend argues that it relates war to sexual pleasure. See Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?’’ 320 ≤ NOTES

40. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare, on the conquest of the Chalca and attempts at renegotiating Mexica rule. 41. Chimalpahin, 7o Relación, ms Mexicain 74, Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, ff. 174–76. 42. See Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. 43. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 351. Townsend further notes: ‘‘Chimalpahin’s original quotation contains over a page of additional information concerning Axayacatl’s relationship with the brilliant performer Quecholcohuatzin: Chimalpahin is unlikely to have been completely wrong about a key event in the life of an individual who was obviously a famous singer and historical personage in his world.’’ 44. Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. 45. Quoted in Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 349–50. 46. Quoted in León-Portilla, Chalca Cihuacuicatl of Aquiauhtzin, 241. 47. For more on Chimalpahin’s views of Chalco, Amecameca, and Tenochtitlan, see Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, and Annals of His Time. 48. See Keufler, The Manly Eunuch. 49. Quoted in León-Portilla, Chalca Cihuacuicatl of Aquiauhtzin, 242. 50. Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. On Tlaxcala’s privileges, see Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century. 51. Townsend and Read and Rosenthal each have a more extended treatment of this song, and I do not wish to reproduce their analyses here. Instead, as I wish to relate politics with sexuality, and both of their discussions had broader goals, I will focus on the specific erotic nature of the song, and allow readers to consult the other articles for a broader analysis. See Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?’’; Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song.’’ 52. See Trexler, Sex and Conquest. 53. Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 129–30. 54. See Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 17–20; Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song,’’ 332. 55. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 378. 56. See León-Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture. 57. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 383. 58. Ibid., 379, has her enraged and considering suicide. Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song,’’ 333–35, interpret this as having more to do with war, which certainly is correct, metaphorically speaking. 59. Kartunnen and Lockhart, The Art of Nahuatl Speech (the Bancroft Dialogues), f. 1v; cf, book 6, chap. 23, ff. 106r–14r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex, Book Six, 127–35. 60. See Stern, The Secret History of Gender. NOTES ≤ 321

61. See Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture. 62. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 383, discusses the importance of weaving. 63. See Kellogg, Weaving the Past. 64. See Klein, ‘‘Fighting with Femininity.’’ 65. While the singer obscures many aspects of these gender relations, she effec- tively critiques the forced servitude of women through slavery, concubinage, or later through their positions as pleasure women. 66. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 379, argues that her anger stems from polygyny, in which ‘‘the man has no motiva- tion to hear her concerns,’’ for he can always turn to another woman. While I agree that the song criticizes Axayacatl for his use of this woman, I am not convinced that it critiques polygyny as an institution. 67. Meaning that the Chalca will get together with all of the other conquered nations to fight against the Mexica. See Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 380; Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Wom- an’s Song,’’ 337–41. 68. Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song,’’ 340. See also Klein, ‘‘Fight- ing with Femininity.’’ 69. Chimalpahin, Codex Chimalpahin, vol. 1, 136–37: ‘‘ayoc tle ypan quittaya yn inamic moquihuixtli ypampa çan yayactzintli catca amo qualxayaque yhuan çan pitzahuactzintli catca amo nacayo auh ynic atle ypan quittaya moqui- huixtli yn quexquich tlamantli yn quachtli yn inemac yn chalchiuhnenetzin yn contitlaniliaya yuchtzin yn axayacatzin ça moch quicuiliaya yn moquihuixtli ayoc atle quittiaya ye moch quinmacaya yn imecahuan cihua.’’ 70. Ibid., 136–39. 71. Susan Evans correctly maintains that Moquihuix’s indiscretion was making his sexual issues public. Evans, ‘‘Sexual Politics in the Aztec Palace.’’ 72. Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 366–67; Evans, ‘‘Concubines and Cloth.’’ 73. See Lopes Don, ‘‘The 1539 Trial of Don Carlos of Texcoco in Early Mexico.’’ 74. Cline, The Book of Tributes, 53–54. 75. See also Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 371–73. 76. Sahagún, Primeros memoriales, f. 71r; Sullivan, Primeros memoriales, 297: ‘‘cuix tinonamic cuix tinoquichvi . . . ma ximotlalli tle tinechilhuia aviyanito.’’ 77. See Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices. 78. See Klein, ‘‘The Wild Woman.’’ 79. cf, book 10, chap. 15, f. 38v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 55. 80. cf, book 10, chap. 15, f. 40r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 55: ‘‘tzincuecuetzoc ilama, capaxilama, tlahelpol, tlahelchichipol.’’ 322 ≤ NOTES

81. cf, book 10, chap. 15, f. 39v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 55: ‘‘moxaxaoa, mixtlapaloatzaluia, mocacantlapaluia, motlamiaoa, motlannochezuia, itzon quiquequemi, mochicoaxtlaoa, motzotzoquaquauhtia.’’ 82. cf, book 10, chap. 15, f. 40r; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book Ten, 55: ‘‘tlaelnemi, auilnemi, teuhtica, tlaçoltica.’’ 83. William Reddy, personal communication. 84. See Friedson, Dancing Prophets. 85. See Stevenson, Music in Aztec and Inca Territory. 86. Bierhorst, Cantares mexicanos, 72. 87. Friedson, Dancing Prophets, 142. 88. Motolinia, Memoriales, chap. 26. 89. Of course one must remember that the songs have come to us only in written form, and thus we cannot fully comprehend their performative nature. While we have contemporary ‘‘Aztec drumming,’’ we do not know how much more modern conventions have influenced such performances. For an excellent study that analyzes these songs as musical performances rather than poetry, see Tomlinson, The Singing of the New World. 90. See Hunt, The Invention of Pornography. 91. Literally, ‘‘that which is not said, he said to her.’’ 92. agn-I, 146, 5. ni miguel hernández nocha chiyauhtzinco inispatzinco ni calaquia ynopeticion ytehuatzin tinotlaçmaquiztlatocatzin s. dor. Alon. Roiz visitador nica moyeztica ypan altepetl quamochtitlan auh yn axca mispatzinco nopechteca notlaquaquetzá nictenamiqui y motlatocamatzin yn ipanpa toteopiscauh Bartolomé López yniquac quiyolcuitiaya nonamic amo quiyolcuiti auh ocan quitlatlacolcuitlahultia onquilhui nopiltzin xiqualcauhtiuh y teotlac ymonamic auh nima oquilhui y nonamic notatzin quen niqualcauhtzac ca ceca tlahueliloc auh niman oquilhui nopiltzin macamo xiquimacaci tlemitzmaca tlemitztemolia ca oc achi nehuatl y tla motechonitlatlaco nimitzmacaz y tomines yhuan mohuipil yhuan mocue auh y yehuatl y monamic y tla miztmictiz y tla mitzoliniz nima nimitzacahuatiuh cuitlaxcoapa ynahuac nocnihua ca huel oca timotlamachtiz ynahuac ca nima oquilhui ynonamic totatzin can nechtemoz ca ceca tlahueliloc yno[namic oquilhui] nopiltzin amo mitztequipachoz ca nicmictiz y monamic amo ximotequipacho auh y tehuatzin tinoteopiscatlatocatzin y tla macamo xiquisti quen oc nica ynahuac nicnemitz y tlamacamo xicahualti ynaltepetl auh quen oc nica ynahuac nicnemitiz ynonamic ya chiquace xihuitl yn oquipehualti y yaquitlatlacolcuitlaquiltia ya oxihuitl yn oquimecahuitec ypanpa yn amo ceya ynonamic auh noteopiscatlatocatzinne camo ytoloni yn oquilhui opan yteyolcuitiyaya altaltitla oquilhui nopiltzin ma xiqualquitzqui ynoquauh NOTES ≤ 323

macamo ximomauhti tlaxiqualquitzqui ca ça noniuhqui ymacehuali cuix nitlilti camo niquacocolochtic ca ça namocniuh auh yni ça yehuatzin nimitznispatilia tlacatle tlatoanie ma xicomochihuili y mojusticiatzin ca ceca techtolinia ytlmacehualtzintzinti ma xitechmocnoyhtili ca yca tihualmohuicac titechmopalehilico c niquitlani justicia mispatzinco Miguel Hernández 93. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved, 129. 94. See Haliczer, Sexuality in the Confessional; Chuchiak, ‘‘Secrets behind the Screen’’ and ‘‘The Sins of the Fathers.’’ 95. On the public nature of such complaints, see Lavrin, ‘‘Sexuality in Colonial Mexico.’’ 96. Such a charge could put his wife’s faithfulness into doubt, thus challenging Hernández’s honor, at least in the Hispanic system of public honor. See Johnson and Lipsett-Rivera, The Faces of Honor. 97. See Haskett, ‘‘Not a Pastor, but a Wolf’’; Anderson, Berdan, and Lockhart, Beyond the Codices, 66–73. Many other examples exist in the Inquisition archives. See Tortorici, ‘‘Unnatural Sexuality.’’ 98. Sigal, From Moon Goddesses to Virgins. 99. On a husband’s prerogatives over wives, see Kellogg, Law and the Transfor- mation of Aztec Culture. On polygyny, see Lopes Don, ‘‘The 1539 Trial of Don Carlos of Texcoco in Early Mexico.’’ On tlazolli and the pleasurable life, see Burkhart, The Slippery Earth. 100. See Delumeau, Sin and Fear. See also Harrison, ‘‘The Theology of Concupiscence.’’ 101. Burkhart, The Slippery Earth, 28–29. 102. See also ibid., 181–82. 103. cf, book 1, chap. 12, ff. 7r–9v; Anderson and Dibble, The Florentine Codex: Book One, 23–27. 104. Delumeau, Sin and Fear. 105. And thus supporting Steve Stern’s thesis in The Secret History of Gender. 106. See agn (Criminal), 277, 2; 38, 16. 107. Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture; Stern, The Secret His- tory of Gender. 108. See Stern, Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of the Spanish Conquest. 109. Lopes Don, ‘‘The 1539 Trial of Don Carlos of Texcoco in Early Mexico.’’ 110. We witnessed the use of huipils and skirts in the song. See Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done to Me, My Lover?,’’ 387. 111. On gift exchange in the Nahua world, see Kellogg, Weaving the Past. 112. Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana, ff. 86v–88r. 113. Ibid., f. 88r. 114. Ibid., f. 87v. 115. Carochi, Grammar of the Mexican Language, 230–31. Translation by Lock- 324 ≤ NOTES

hart. I have changed Lockhart’s translation of the Latin virile, from ‘‘male’’ to ‘‘virile.’’ 116. Nor necessarily to the priest. The authorial subject in the petition is, as always, unclear, a point to which I return below. 117. Lewis, Hall of Mirrors. 118. Haskett, ‘‘Not a Pastor, but a Wolf.’’ Many other similar cases exist in the Inquisition section of the national archive. See, for example, agn (Inquisi- ción), 68, 1; 68, 3; 319, 7; 321, 1; 455, 3. 119. Schwartz, All Can Be Saved, 129. 120. Also see the petitions cited in Restall, Sousa, and Terraciano, Mesoamerican Voices. 121. Haskett, Indigenous Rulers. 122. This case is reviewed in Lopes Don, ‘‘The 1539 Trial of Don Carlos of Texcoco in Early Mexico.’’ 123. González Obregón, Procesos de indios idolatras y hechiceros.

Notes to Chapter 8: Mirrors 1. See Pedro Lasch, Black Mirrors/Espejo Negro. The installation ran at the Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, May 22, 2008–January 18, 2009. 2. On European experiences with the black mirror, see Maillet, The Claude Glass. 3. Ibid., 57. 4. Ibid., 49. 5. Ibid., 57–58. 6. See Lewis, Hall of Mirrors. On heretical and other transgressions, see Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. 7. Maillet, The Claude Glass, 51–53. 8. Ibid., 71. 9. Ibid., 55. 10. Ginzburg, The Night Battles, 24. 11. Maillet, The Claude Glass, 58–59. 12. Lacan, ‘‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function,’’ 78. 13. Durán, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España, vol. 1, 147. 14. Ibid. 15. See Escalante Gonzalbo, ‘‘Cristo, su sangre y los indios’’; Trexler, ‘‘Gendering Jesus Crucified.’’ 16. See Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent; Trexler, ‘‘Gendering Jesus Crucified.’’ 17. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred, 276–77. 18. See ibid., 69–72; Lewis, Hall of Mirrors, 132–66. 19. Ibid.; Schwartz, All Can Be Saved. 20. Sahagún, Apéndice a la postilla, 98: ‘‘in jtlatoltzin, in jvicpa in qujtlaçotla in teuhtli in tlaçulli.’’ NOTES ≤ 325

Notes to Appendix 1. I have followed the translation preferred by Camilla Townsend, who I believe has come closest to providing an accurate translation of this complex text. I have made minor changes without marking them, only referencing those changes that could affect our interpretation. See Townsend, ‘‘What in the World Have You Done To Me, My Lover?’’ For alternative translations of this song, see León-Portilla, ‘‘The Chalca Cihuacuicatl of Aquiauhtzin’’; Bierhorst, Cantares Mexicanos, 385–91; Read and Rosenthal, ‘‘The Chalcan Woman’s Song.’’ 2. In the transcription, the untranslated terms (rhythmic phrases intended as sty- listic devices, to separate stanzas, or to make sounds between terms, not to have other meaning) are in italics. 3. Townsend (‘‘What in the World Have You Done To to Me, My Lover?,’’ 383) has ‘‘what if I were to pleasure him.’’ As the third person object is unmarked, this is open to interpretation. I believe that, while in this stanza the third per- son could refer to the lover, Axayacatl, the remaining stanzas show that the singer intends to reference the penis. 4. Et. signifies the intent of the song writer to repeat certain phrases. 5. Townsend (‘‘What in the World Have You Done To to Me, My Lover?,’’ 384) does not translate tenchalohtli, but says that it is clearly a part of a man’s body. I have translated the term as ‘‘chin,’’ from tenchalli. While we may be unsure of the specific body part used in the metaphor, the sexual implication is clear. 6. Literally, ‘‘I was spoken of in connection with having a man.’’ The implication is that, as a dependent concubine for the Mexica ruler, she no longer can marry. 7. Townsend (‘‘What in the World Have You Done To to Me, My Lover?,’’ 386) has, ‘‘I make (live) my womanhood.’’ 8. Townsend (ibid., 389) has, ‘‘I am an old courtesan.’’ 9. Bierhorst, Cantares Mexicanos, ff. 72r–73v.

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Abstinence, 88, 169, 213, 216 ties for, 178, 202. See also Chimouhqui; Adultery: Catholic discourse and, 99, 101; Cuiloni; Sodomy; Tecuilonti Nahua condemnation of, 29, 71–73, Anderson, Arthur, 191–92, 194 209–16, 277 n. 35, 290 n. 72; Androgyny, 113–14 Tlazolteotl and, 51 Anguish, 110 Aesthetics: gender and, 113, 129, 136; the Animals, 3–4, 8, 12, 22–24, 35, 104, 108– gods and, 113, 126, 136; human bodies 9, 126, 140–41, 147, 166, 214, 302 n. 50; and, 115–20, 148, 158, 198–202; animal skin and, 38–39, 43, 50, 121, human sacrifice and, 155–65; identity 148, 151–55, 226, 248. See also individ- and, 28, 198–202; Nahua writing and, ual animals 42; ritual and, 136, 139–43, 155–65; Anthropology, 141, 185, 282 n. 2, 299 warfare and, 148 n. 10 Agency, 56–57, 63, 283 n. 7 Archives, 9, 11, 26, 31–33, 237 Agriculture, 9, 21–23, 30, 44–49, 56–57, Arondekar, Anjali, 11 140–41, 155–65, 168 Atenango, 168 Alfonso X, King, 242 Auilnemiliztli, 83–84, 225–27, 231, 238– Alhuiani, 84, 87, 155–56, 158–59, 217, 39, 289 n. 155 224–27, 229–31, 238–39, 249 Authenticity of indigenous voice, 25, 31– Altepetl, 4, 6, 12, 17, 27, 38, 41, 47, 55, 120, 33, 250, 274 n. 101 139–41, 210, 213, 219, 222, 302 n. 49 Axayacatl, 5–6, 207, 217–29, 231, 233, Alva, Bartolomé de, 94–102, 177, 179 237–39, 249, 255–62 Amecameca, 217–19, 238, 249 Azcapotzalco, 166 Anal intercourse, 12; ‘‘active’’ role in, 82, Aztec Empire, 121, 138 193, 209, 216, 294 n. 44; ‘‘passive’’ role in, 28, 82, 111, 177–78, 181, 191–97, Bakhtin, Mikhail, 44 202–5, 216, 280 n. 80, 294 n. 44; penal- Baptism, 20, 64, 70–71 354 ≤ INDEX

Bath. See Temazcal Carnality, 61, 83 Bautista, Juan, 99 Carnivalesque performance, 120 Bees, 127 Castration, 46–49, 160–65, 170–74, 222, 249 Benandanti, 244 Catholic priests, 29–33, 57–58, 61–102, Benavente, Toribio de. See Motolinia 229–37 Berdache, 182–85, 196 Centipedes, 24, 43, 121, 123, 126 Bigamy, 73 Chalca Woman’s Song, 5–6, 207, 217– Bisexuality, 22, 103–7, 292 n. 22 29, 231, 233, 237–39, 249, 255–62 Black Mirror/Espejo Negro exhibit, 241–53 Chalchiuhnenetzin, 223 Blackness: development of a racial cate- Chalchiuhtlicue, 3, 87, 91, 129–34, 137 gory and, 203, 235–36; as negative in Chalco, 5–6, 17, 207, 217–20, 222, 224, Christian thought, 94–95, 101–2; as 227, 229, 231, 233, 238, 242, 249. See part of the tlazolli complex, 172 also Chalca Woman’s Song Bloodletting, 12, 34, 55–56, 75, 89, 143, Chastity, 7, 71–72, 75–77, 169–70, 213, 167–68, 175, 210 238 Bodies: curing rites and, 8–9, 166–75; of Chauncey, George, 180–81 the gods, 107–11, 122–23, 128, 133–38; Chicle,197 liminality and, 27, 148, 151–53, 157– Chicomecoatl, 3, 7, 45, 87, 90, 156–59, 58, 166–69, 174; as manipulated in 247, 291 n. 7 Nahua ritual, 3–4, 8–9, 27, 44–48, 55, Childbirth, 7, 24–25, 27, 34–39, 43, 56, 87–90, 111–20, 139–40, 148–51, 155– 104, 108–9, 114, 116, 121–24, 128–29, 65; in pictographic writing, 33–34; 131, 134, 136–37, 145, 147, 153, 156, tlazolli and, 19–26 164, 209 Bones, 123, 133 Children, 7–8, 24, 70, 72, 98, 121, 142– Boone, Elizabeth Hill, 108–9 45, 203, 209, 223, 233. See also Brading, David, 70 Childbirth Bravery, 77, 110, 183, 293 n. 37 Chimalpahin, Don Domingo de Sán Breast milk, 223 Antón Muñón, 6, 17, 217–19, 223, 228, Breasts of women, 5, 123, 133, 200–201, 238, 249 223, 257, 262 Chimouhqui, 192, 194–97, 204. See also Brooms, 24, 35, 45–48, 50–51, 155–65, Anal intercourse; Cuiloni; Sodomy 186, 249 Churches, Catholic, 8, 57, 203, 282 n. 109 Burkhart, Louise, 13, 18–21, 23–24, 58, Cihuacoatl, 104, 125, 128, 167, 175 96, 101, 231, 271 n. 70 Cihuateteo, 4, 24–25, 121–25, 133, 136, Butler, Judith, 48–49 142–43, 145–46 Buttocks, 163, 209, 225 Cinteotl, 43, 121, 153, 156–59 Citlacueye, 170 Cannibalism, 68, 71, 85, 89, 145–47, 175, City-state, Nahua. See Altepetl 182, 188–90, 204, 214 Class. See Commoners; Nobles; Social Cantares Mexicanos, 4–6, 152–55, 159, hierarchy 217–29, 233, 242, 255–62 Cleanliness: Christian discourse and, 20, Capes, 46, 200, 223 68, 84, 210; Nahua discourse and, 1, 19, Captives, 12, 41, 53, 72, 139, 142–43, 146, 21, 25, 37, 40, 47, 49, 51, 55, 129, 145, 151, 156, 189–90, 210, 223 160–65, 213, 216, 252, 273 n. 87 INDEX ≤ 355

Clendinnen, Inga, 147, 273 n. 87, 295 Cosmology of Nahuas, 3–4, 33–40, 103– n. 75, 300 n. 21 38 Codex Borbonicus, 15–16, 34, 42–46, 52, Cotton, 34, 39, 43, 56, 106, 134, 140 111–12, 126–31, 144–46, 150–51, 164– Council of Trent, 13, 92 65, 189 Coyoacan, 161, 183 Codex Borgia, 15, 33–35, 108, 131, 149– Cuernavaca, 236 50, 211 Cuiloni, 99–100, 111, 177, 189–98, 203–4. Codex Fejéváry Mayer, 15, 51–52 See also Anal intercourse; Chimouh- Codex Laud, 15, 35–36, 134–35 qui; Homosexuality; Sodomy Codex Magliabechiano, 2, 16, 54, 123–24, Culhuacan, 167 186–88 Curing, 1–3, 7–9, 55–58, 131–32, 166– Codex Mendoza, 40–41 75, 186–89 Codex Telleriano-Remensis, 16, 19, 34, 42, 49, 53, 122, 148–49, 154 Damage: tlatlacolli and, 97, 231–32; Codex Tonalamatl Aubin, 15, 129–30 tlazolli complex and, 13, 24, 160, 198, Codex Tudela, 16, 54, 123, 187–88 204, 273 n. 85 Codex Vaticanus B, 15, 25, 124, 131–32 Dance, 38, 41, 76, 87–89, 119–20, 155– Colegio de Santa Cruz, 80–81 58, 218, 221, 227–28 Colonialism, 9, 20, 26, 28, 58–59, 123, Darkness, 22, 95, 110 141, 145, 179, 186, 204–5, 236, 241, 250 Death, 4, 14, 22–24, 35, 38, 43–44, 48, Commoners, 7–9, 17, 20–21, 24; evan- 89, 93, 108, 123–25, 142–43, 148, 153, gelization of, 63–64, 77, 80, 96; rituals 155, 158, 163, 178, 184, 186–88, 195, of, 7, 16, 104, 107, 115–16, 120–21, 204, 213, 215–16, 242, 248 126–28, 132–33, 136–38, 140–41, Deer, 40, 109, 152, 154–55, 173 166–75, 242; sexuality and, 11, 14, 29– Demons: black mirror and, 242–44; 59, 177, 210, 225, 229–38; voices of, Nahua death figures associated with, 17–18, 31–33 74–75, 77–78, 121, 124–25; Nahua Compassion, 66–67 gods associated with, 153, 164, 225, Concubinage, 73, 99, 209, 212, 221–25, 246, 251; Tezcatlipoca associated with, 227–28, 237, 258, 260–61, 275 n. 2 110; Tlazolteotl associated with, 17, 20, Confession, 3, 20, 71, 78, 92–102, 250; 23, 30, 39–40, 49, 52–53, 59 ‘‘individual’’ sinner and, 13, 29–33, Devil, 40, 51, 71, 90, 102, 106, 110, 120–21, 57–58, 67, 92–93, 96–101, 177–80, 125, 128, 153, 162, 164, 167, 175, 243, 211–12, 229–32, 236; Nahua concepts 246 of, 38–39, 55, 61, 84, 93–94, 96, 197– Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 185 200; tlazolli complex and, 101–2; Dibble, Charles, 191–92, 194 ‘‘truth’’ and, 61–62, 66–70, 84, 93, 265 DiCesare, Catherine, 45, 160 n. 3 Discourse: Catholic, 13, 61–102; Nahua Confessional manuals, 13, 17, 26, 61, 66– commoner, 7–9, 29–59; Nahua noble, 70, 92–102, 180, 194, 198–200, 211–12 4–6, 29–59, 185–202, 212–16 Corruption: of the Church, 64; as a con- Divination, 15, 34, 108, 186, 241–44 cept in Christianity, 78, 86; tlazolli Dominican friars, 16–17, 42–43, 47, 62– and, 185, 194, 213 63, 65–66, 84–91, 95–98, 121, 181 Cortés, Hernando, 64, 182 Douglas, Mary, 272 n. 74 356 ≤ INDEX

Drinking, 99, 127, 177, 207–8, 221–22, 226 Fiore, Joachim de, 71 Drugs, 226, 228 Fire, 19, 56, 71, 96, 132, 141–47, 149–51, Drumming, 89, 169, 171, 228 167, 174, 184, 195, 220, 233 Duality, as represented in Nahua cos- Fishing, 56, 140, 153 mology, 51, 105, 153, 188, 190, 198, 200 Flaying skin, 45, 89, 148, 156–59, 244 Durán, Diego de, 16, 47–48, 63, 65–66, Floods, 129–31, 137 84–91, 143, 160–65, 210–11, 246 Florentine Codex, 15–16, 46–48, 79–84, 110–20, 142–43, 145–47, 155–57, 160, Eagles, 153, 155–56, 248 164, 177–79, 187–202, 204, 210, 212– Earth: Nahua cosmology and, 3–4, 38– 16, 225–27 40; tlazolli complex and, 22–24. See Flowers, 3; as representations of fertility, also Tlalticpaccayotl 4–6; as signs of excess, 12, 34–35, 53, Earthliness. See Tlalticpaccayotl 108–9, 116, 196, 225–26; song and, 4– Ehecatl, 90, 134 6, 217–29, 255–62; war and, 12 Entrails, 142, 184, 191, 193 Flutes, 112–13, 116, 118, 191 Ethnography, 16, 26, 62–66, 70–92, 102, Fornication, 97–102, 208, 210 155, 212, 228, 250 Foucault, Michel, 3, 66–67, 93, 180–81, Ethnopornography, 69–70, 87, 229 268 n. 33, 271 n. 70 Eunuchs, 182, 218 Franciscan friars, 1, 5, 61–63, 65–69, 80– Evangelization, 61–102 102; early days of idealism and, 64, Eve, 51, 106, 121, 128 70–79; Saint Francis and, 64 Excess, 7, 12–13, 212–16; ritual and, 139– Freud, Sigmund, 135 75; tlazolli and, 19–22, 139–43; Friedson, Steven, 228 Tlazolteotl and, 34–40, 43–59 Excrement, 19, 21, 24, 101–2, 193–94, Gante, Pedro de, 63 273 n. 85 Gender: ambiguity, 35–38, 40, 53, 111, 122, 155–65, 194; complementarity, Family, 31, 72, 74, 126, 128, 210, 232–33 35–38, 155–65; in Franciscan dis- Famine, 38, 45, 244 course, 72–79; the gods and, 3–4, Farming, 9, 21, 23, 56–57, 140, 147, 164 128–36; in Nahua discourse, 46–48, Fasting, 8, 88, 171, 191, 233 217–29; performativity, 48–49; as a Fear, 24, 68, 80, 90, 102, 123, 125, 142, 146, social construct, 48, 129 163–64, 189, 229, 244 Ginzburg, Carlo, 244, 252 Fellatio, 10, 112–13 Glyphs, 34, 43, 50, 108–9, 134, 149, 151 Femininity: in Nahua cosmology, 3, 38– Gnostics, 247 40, 166–74; Nahua iconography and, God impersonator. See Ixiptla 24, 34–38, 53–55; in Nahua society, Gods and goddesses. See Fertility deities; 23, 72–79; warfare and, 103–38 Warrior deities Fertility: of the earth, 38–40; Nahua cos- Gómara, Francisco López de, 182 mology and, 1–3, 33–38, 103–38; rit- Gruzinski, Serge, 18, 58, 97, 272 n. 71 uals of, 3–5, 12–14, 43–48, 139–75; Guerrero, 7–8, 105, 137, 168 tlazolli and, 19–26 Guilt, 68, 231–32 Fertility deities, 103–38. See also individ- Gutiérrez, Ramón, 185 ual goddesses INDEX ≤ 357

Hair: of men, as sign of warrior status, Ichpochtli, 97–98, 101. See also Maidens 118, 148, 210, 225; of women, as sign of Identity, 3, 28, 38, 48–49, 64, 71–72, 107, sexual promiscuity, 120, 137 111, 151, 160, 177–205, 214, 245, 249, Hanks, William, 32 251 Harvest, 7, 21, 46, 89, 153–54, 158, 244 Idolatry, 7, 14–18, 32–33, 42–43, 52, 55– Haskett, Robert, 236 57, 65, 70, 74–76, 80–81, 83, 86, 91– Hearth, 21, 144–46 93, 96–97, 104, 106, 126, 162, 167–68, Heat, 145–47, 172, 174, 188 174–75, 208, 228, 250 Heavens: in Christianity, 64, 91, 94, 102; Impotence, 90 in Nahua cosmology, 3, 20, 110, 121, Incest, 73, 77, 105 143, 152–53, 167 Inquisition, 13, 15, 18, 29–33, 42, 57–58, Hegemony, 58, 63 73, 166–67, 207, 223, 229–37, 242–44, Hell, 66–67, 71, 93–94, 96, 98. See also 250, 252, 267 n. 25 Mictlan Itzpapalotl, 152–55 Herdt, Gilbert, 10 Itztapaltotec, 149–51 Heresy, 10–11, 18, 65, 167, 208, 242–43, Ixiptla, 113–20, 135, 149, 151, 158, 294 247, 251–52 n. 51 Hermaphrodites, 198–202 Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de Alva, 184, 195, Hernández, Miguel, 29, 31–33, 57–59, 204 207, 229–37 Heterodox thought, 73, 83, 252 Jacobita, Martín, 80 Heterosexuality, 106, 110, 118, 178, 180, Jaguar, 147–49, 168 187, 251 Jerusalem, 71 Homosexuality, 10, 28, 177–205, 251, 269 Jesus, 64–67, 94–95, 167, 246–47, 252 n. 38 Jews, compared to Nahuas, 66, 85 Honey, 127 John XXII, Pope, 241 Honor, 77, 94, 110–11, 116, 183 Household, 8, 12, 21, 23, 27–28, 41, 46, Kapferer, Bruce, 141 88–89, 143–45, 161–63, 182, 217–19, Kartunnen, Frances, 4 223–24, 228 Kellogg, Susan, 232 Huastecs, 46–47, 49, 156–57, 159–63, Kimball, Geoffrey, 178, 189, 191–92, 194 185, 189, 249 Klein, Cecelia, 107, 109, 113, 118–19, 125, Huehuetlahtolli, 212–16 178, 191, 295 n. 75 Huemac, 207, 209–16, 223, 226–27, 231, 237–38 Lacan, Jacques, 55, 135, 245–47 Huipils, 7, 43, 123, 170, 172, 174, 221, 229, Landa, Diego de, 13–14 234, 246, 249 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 181–83, 190 Huitzilopochtli, 93, 104, 119–20, 148, 151, Lasch, Pedro, 241–42, 249–50 156, 160 Latin, 80–81 Humanism, 64–65 León-Portilla, Miguel, 4, 19 Human sacrifice. See Sacrifice, human Lesbianism, 198–202. See also Hybridity, 13, 16, 34, 49, 52, 68, 85, 100, Patlachuia 121, 183, 203, 205 Lewis, Laura, 235 Liminality, 20, 22–24, 27, 69, 71, 141, 143, 358 ≤ INDEX

Liminality (cont.) 12–13, 196, 208, 212–16, 227, 238–39, 148, 151–53, 157–58, 166–69, 174–76, 250; ritual and, 139–75; tlazolli and, 247 19–23, 38–40, 43, 139–43 Liver, 123 Molina, Alonso de, 5, 19, 23, 67, 93–100, Lizards, 109–10 192–93, 195, 198, 214, 234–35 Lochrie, Karma, 10, 269 n. 38 Monogamy, 57, 78, 210, 212, 277 n. 35 Loincloths, 24, 35, 37, 46, 108–9, 113, Moon, 22, 39, 43, 50, 111, 149, 151 117–18, 123, 131, 133–35, 151, 153, Moquehqueloatzin, 127 156–57, 159, 191, 219, 249 Moquihuix, 223, 237 López Austin, Alfredo, 18–19, 22, 93, 178, Morality, 26, 28, 62, 165, 188, 193–95, 186, 188, 192 201, 207, 209–13, 251; Catholicism López, Bartolomé, 29, 31–33, 57–59, and, 46, 50, 52, 67–68, 74, 84, 86–88, 207, 229–37 90–91, 128; moral dialogue and, 17– Los Reyes, Guillermo de, 188 20, 58, 271 n. 70 Love, 65, 72, 78, 137, 220, 222 Motecuçoma, 156, 217 Lust, 30, 61, 83, 92, 98, 102, 214 Motherhood, 7, 22, 27, 34, 39, 43, 52–54, Lutherans, 65 56, 63, 72, 90, 103, 136, 147, 152–55, 159, 168, 171, 173, 184, 224, 247 Magic, 39, 107, 245, 248, 252 Motolinia (Toribio de Benavente), 16, 63, Maidens, 77, 87–88, 90, 101, 155, 158–59, 70–79, 85, 143, 228 224, 244. See also Ichpochtli Mouths, 24, 37, 108–9, 116, 123, 126 Maillet, Arnaud, 242–43 Mulattoes, 203 Maize, 12, 20–21, 43, 45, 56–57, 88, 106, Muñoz Camargo, Diego, 184, 195, 204 118, 120–21, 156–57, 159, 172, 186–87, Music, 41, 218, 228 222 Mutual monologues, 18, 59, 250 Marriage, 58, 71–73, 76–78, 107, 110, 118, Mythology, 3, 7, 9, 14, 39, 122, 145, 168– 197, 209–15, 220–21, 230, 233 69, 171, 185, 200 Masculinity: in Nahua cosmology, 3, 27, 49, 51, 103–11; in Nahua life, 6, 77–78, Nahualli, 151, 248 207–39; ritual and, 46–47, 143–51; Nahua priests, 21–22, 34, 111–20, 142– warfare and, 6, 27, 111–20, 143–51 65, 233 Masturbation, 76, 83, 251 Natural law, 79 Maya, 13–14, 32, 58 Nebrija, Antonio de, 79 Medicine. See Curing New Fire Ceremony, 141–47 Memory, 27, 39, 86, 103–4, 107, 137, 155, Nobles, 6–8, 12, 14, 40–43, 77, 111–20, 218–19, 228, 238, 249 143–65 Menocchio, 252 Normativity, 10, 107, 110, 137 Mestizos, 85, 94, 181, 183–85, 204 Notaries, 16–18, 29–31, 41–43, 57–58, Mictlan, 20, 94, 125 230, 232–33, 236. See also Tlacuilos Mirrors, 43, 113, 128, 137, 210, 241–53 Nowotny, Karl, 15 Mixtec, 58, 90 Nuns, 74 Moche, 185 Moderation: daily life and, 43–59, 71, 92, Oaxaca, 15 98; as a Nahua organizing principle, Obsidian knives, 143, 149, 151, 153–54, 156 INDEX ≤ 359

Ocelotl, 156, 248 Race, 202–3, 251; racism and, 235–36 Ochpaniztli, 38, 44–48, 155–65 Rape, 128, 222–23, 233 Olmos, Andrés de, 17, 102, 212 Read, Kay, 222 Omens, 156 Reddy, William, 227 Ometochtzin Chichimectecuhtli, don Religion: Christian evangelization and, Carlos, 207, 237 61–72, 79–82, 84–86, 92–96, 101–2; Oral sex. See Fellatio Nahua conceptualization of, 4, 14, 32, Orgies, 92, 139, 251 37, 103–5, 139–40 Ovid, 200 Ritual, 1; disassembly and reassembly of the human body in, 139–41, 147–51, Patlachuia, 82, 198–202, 204 158–65, 245–49; liminality and, 141– Pederasty, 183, 203 43, 152–55; renewal and, 45, 143–47; Penis, 6, 37, 75, 112, 129, 131, 133–35, 146, tlazolli and, 19–26, 155–65 175, 199–200, 219–20, 222, 234–36 Robbery, 105–6, 210–12 Penitence, 90, 92, 94–95, 99, 101, 232 Romans, 243 Rosenthal, Jane, 222 Performance: ceremonial, 139–75, 217– Rubin, Gayle, 180 29; tlazolli and, 19, 23–26, 139–41, Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando de, 7, 63, 105, 245–47; writing and, 40–43 126, 132, 168–71. See also Treatise on Philology, 63, 64, 79 Heathen Superstitions Piltzintecuhtli, 173 Pleasure, 11–12, 23, 39, 83–84, 102–6, 111, 126–28, 177, 189, 191, 208, 213, 215, Sacraments, 3, 13, 20, 62, 71, 73, 76, 79, 217, 220, 222, 224–29, 238–39, 249. 92, 94–95, 97, 102. See also individual sacraments See also Auilnemiliztli Sacrifice: animal, 12, 43–48; gladiatorial, Pleasure women. See Alhuiani 142, 148–49; human, 12, 43–52, 87– Polygyny, 71–73, 76–78, 117, 210, 223– 91, 111–20, 142–52, 155–65 24, 231, 233, 237 Sahagún, Bernardino de, 16–17, 19–20, Pornography. See Ethnopornography 61, 63–65, 79–85, 92–93, 96, 101–2, Pregnant women, 145–46, 233 110, 155, 179, 189, 192–96, 199–200, Priests. See Catholic priests; Nahua 210, 212, 214, 216, 242, 252. See also priests Florentine Codex Primeros Memoriales, 81–83, 225 Sahlins, Marshall, 141 Promiscuity, 20, 120 Saints, Catholic, 56, 64, 76, 104, 241 Prostitution. See Alhuiani Sanbuenaventura, Pedro de, 80 Psychoanalysis, 113, 245 Schwartz, Stuart, 13, 73, 230, 236, 252 Puebla, 29, 42, 188, 202–3, 205, 229 Scorpions, 3, 7–9, 14, 24, 140–41, 166– Puff, Helmut, 10 75, 208, 238, 242, 244, 249 Pulquerias, 204 Self: as an assemblage or bundle of parts, Putos, 49, 111, 181–82, 189, 192, 202–5 135–38, 246–49; as created through the confessional, 67–70, 92–96; Quecholcohuatzin, 217–19, 228–29, 238, 249 Nahua concepts of, 25, 117–18, 151 Quetzalcoatl, 186–87 Seneca, 243 Quezada, Noemí, 18–19, 22, 178, 266 n. 16 Sermons, 17, 26, 30, 61, 67, 79, 101–2, Quiñones-Keber, Eloise, 129 211–12 360 ≤ INDEX

Serna, Jacinto de la, 63, 168 Tamoanchan. See Heavens, in Nahua Sexual activity, Nahua term for. See cosmology Tlalticpaccayotl Taylor, Clark, 179 Sexuality: Catholic precepts and, 72–76, Taylor, William, 174, 247 79–84; conceptualizing the history of, Tecuilonti, 82, 100, 192–93. See also Anal 9–11; identity and, 193–205; modern intercourse; sodomy Western society and, 12; Nahua cos- Tedlock, Dennis, 16, 32 mology and, 34, 105–20, 131–36, 171– Temazcal, 1–3, 19, 84, 91, 94–95, 129, 73; Nahua thought and, 11–14, 30–31, 132–33, 161, 188–89, 202, 225–26, 252 207–39; normativity and, 10; seduc- Temptress, 51, 77, 169 tion and, 6, 207–39; sexual inter- Tenochtitlan, 6, 7, 15, 42, 45, 47–48, 81, course and, 6, 207–39; violation of 113, 139, 141, 144, 146, 148, 153, 155–58, sexual vows and, 7, 210–16 162–63, 181, 183, 217–29 Shame, 7, 47, 170–71 Tepepolco, 81, 155 Shields, 47, 50–51, 53, 113–14, 122, 147, Teteo Innan, 3, 147, 152–56, 158–59 156–57, 160, 162, 221 Texcoco, 4, 65, 84, 120, 184, 207, 237 Sin, 11, 61–102; the confessional and, 92– Tezcatlipoca: colonization and, 241–43, 101 247–48, 252–53; confession and, 96, Sixth Commandment, 100 232; the devil as, 51–52, 120–22; fight- Skin: sacrifice and, 25, 43, 47–48, 50, 53, ing and, 104–6; gender ambiguity of, 89, 106, 121, 143, 148–49, 151–53, 156– 106–11, 209–10, 216, 238; homosex- 64, 244; the self and, 158–64, 168, 172, uality and, 189–93; introducing mis- 174, 185, 245, 247–49 ery, 110, 189; ritual and, 3, 43–44, 105– Skirts, 24, 35, 37, 49, 123, 125, 131, 133– 6, 111–20, 125–28 36, 156 Tezozomoc, Fernando Alvarado, 93–94, Skulls, 43, 50, 53, 120, 131, 148, 157 183–84, 190 Slavery, 38, 72 Titlacauan, 111–20, 127, 177, 189–93 Snakes, 35, 37, 43, 46, 121, 123, 126, 135 Tlacuilos, 1, 40–45, 48–50, 53, 107–9, Snares, 102, 191 111–13, 118, 121, 126, 129, 131, 133, 159, Social hierarchy, 38, 120 168–69, 186, 191. See also Notaries Sodom and Gomorrah, 188 Tlaltecuhtli, 3, 54, 152–54, 167–68, 171, Sodomy, 10, 68–69, 71, 82–83, 99–101, 173 177–85, 202–5. See also Anal Tlalticpaccayotl, 20, 38–40, 214 intercourse Soul, 66–70, 92–96 Tlatelolco, 80–81, 155, 222–23, 237 Sousa, Lisa, 194 Tlatlacolli, 97, 101, 170, 231–32. See also Spanish Conquest, 6–7, 23, 30, 55, 59, 71, Sin 120, 162, 166, 179, 182, 237, 243 Tlaxcala, 15, 175 Speech, 194 Tlazolli: clerical discourse and, 20–21, Spivak, Gayatri, 31 23–24, 30, 62, 69, 83–84, 87, 92, 94– Stern, Steve, 232 96, 101–2; commoners and, 21–22, Subaltern voice. See Commoners: voices of 56–58, 136–38, 174–75; daily activity Suicide, 245 and, 13, 21–22, 177–79, 185–86, 197, Sweeping, 12, 46–55, 155–65 204, 208, 213–16, 225–27, 235, 238– Syncretism, 64, 86, 90, 110, 307 n. 120 39, 252–53; disease and, 56–58; fertil- INDEX ≤ 361

ity and, 22–26; meaning of, 2, 18–22; Tumbuka, 228 Nahua cosmology and, 103, 109–11, Turner, Victor, 22–23, 273 n. 87 121, 125, 128–38; ritual and, 139–43, Tzitzimime, 4, 123–26 145–46, 155–65, 242, 252–53; theory, 19–26, 273 n. 85; Tlazolteotl and, 20, Underworld. See Mictlan 34–40, 43–48, 253; trash and, 13, 21– 22 Vaginal intercourse, 12, 22, 273 n. 89 Tlazolteotl: gender ambiguity and, 128– Valeriano, Antonio, 80 38; Nahua commoners and, 30–31, Vegerano, Alonso, 80 33–38, 43–48, 55–59; Nahua pictorial Vernal, Juan, 105, 126 manuscripts and, 33–38, 43–48; as Virginity, 74, 88, 97–98, 101, 242–43 representative of cleanliness, 1–3, 59, Virgin Mary, 53, 74, 76, 90, 98, 168 61, 103; ritual performance and, 43– Virility, 39, 216 48, 155–65; as a sign of excess, 30–31, 34–38, 43–48; Spanish reconceptual- Warfare, 3, 12, 105–6, 111–20, 148, 219 ization of, 49–55, 61–62, 66, 83–84, Warrior deities, 3, 103–39 96; tlazolli and, 20, 34–40, 43–48, Weeks, Jeffrey, 180 128–38, 247, 249, 252–53 Weismantel, Mary, 10–11 Toci, 3, 52–54, 155–65 Wind, 90, 110, 134–35 Toltecs, 28, 84, 184, 207, 209, 216 Witchcraft, 65, 167, 175 Tonalli, 197–98, 204 Wolf, Eric, 19 Tongue, 109, 123, 160 Tortorici, Zeb, 202 Xantico, 167 Townsend, Camilla, 217 Xiuhtecuhtli, 149–51 Toxcatl, 111–20 Xochihua, 194–98 Transsexuality, 162, 185, 194–95 Xochiquetzal, 3, 7–9, 105–7, 118, 121–22, Transvestism, 89, 194–97; in ritual per- 125–28, 136–37, 169–74, 209, 246–47 formance, 49, 157–58, 162–65, 172– Xochitlan, 167 73. See also Berdache Trash and dust. See Tlazolli Yaotl, 105–6, 126–27, 137, 169–74, 207, Treatise on Heathen Superstitions, 7–9, 209 55–58, 105–6, 126–28, 131–32, 166– Yappan, 169–74 75, 186–89 Trexler, Richard, 178–79, 182, 184–85, 189, 192 Pete Sigal is an associate professor of history at Duke University. He is the author of From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual Desire (2000) and editor of Infamous Desire: Male Homosexuality in Colonial Latin America (2003).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sigal, Peter Herman, 1964– The flower and the scorpion : sexuality and ritual in early Nahua culture / Pete Sigal. p. cm.—(Latin America otherwise) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8223-5138-2 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 978-0-8223-5151-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Nahuas—Social life and customs—16th century. 2. Nahuas—Rites and ceremonies. 3. Nahuas—Sexual behavior. I. Title. II. Series: Latin America otherwise. f1221.n3s524 2012 305.897%452—dc23 2011027556