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Nahua Moral Philosophy http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/nahua-moral-philosophy March 17, 2013 Nahua Moral Philosophy We are greatly indebted to Louise Burkhart, Professor of Anthropology at The University at Albany, State University of New York (USA), for this wise, profound and insightful introduction to the moral codes and teachings of the Mexica (Aztec) people, written specially for Mexicolore. xxx Early colonial documents about Nahua civilization preserve much information about moral philosophy: what Nahuas considered good and bad behavior, how people should live, and the results of moral or immoral acts. These issues were extremely important in the dialogue between Nahuas and the Roman Catholic friars who sought to convert them to Christianity. Christian moral philosophy centered around rules such as the Ten Commandments, ideas about sin and its punishment, and belief in heaven and hell. Although Nahuas and European Christians agreed in many ways about what constituted bad Pic 1: The “virtuous daughter” is a diligent weaver. Florentine behavior—from disobedience and laziness to Codex Book 10, f. 2r. (Click on image to enlarge) adultery and murder—their reasons for avoiding these acts were quite different. Nahuas acted morally not to show love and respect for God, or to avoid being punished in the afterlife, but to follow the models set by their ancestors, to maintain a good reputation, and to ensure the health and well-being of themselves and their loved ones during their lives on earth. The Nahuas had a concept of sin, tlatlacolli, which the Catholic missionaries adopted when they wanted to translate their own terms, Spanish pecado or Latin peccatum. Tlatlacolli comes from a verb meaning “to damage” or “to break” things. It referred to mistakes and misdeeds but did not have the sense of personal moral responsibility, an affront to God that induces guilt in the offender, that the Christian idea carried. Tlatlacolli was closely related to the idea of tlazolli, or “filth”: both damage and dirt undermined the maintenance of social and cosmic order. When people did bad, disorderly, dirty things, they were, in a sense, asking for trouble. They were inviting dangerous cosmic forces into their homes and even their bodies, leading to further loss of order. They or Pic 2: Sweeping, to clear away ‘tlazolli’, or “filth,” was family members might become ill; they might lose their home an act of religious devotion as well as housekeeping. and become destitute, raggedy wanderers; they might commit Primeros Memoriales, f. 255v. (Click on image to a serious crime and be executed or sold into slavery. enlarge) The pre-Columbian gods did not set down moral commandments that people had to obey, nor did they serve as moral paragons [models of perfection] whom people should try to imitate. However, they were involved in the moral system. There were gods associated with morally problematic behaviors, such as the 400 rabbit gods, most prominently Two Rabbit (Ome Tochtli), who governed drunkenness. The Cihuateteo, the deified women who died in their first childbirth and resided in the western sky, carried an air of sexual immorality, as such deaths were thought to result from excessive sexual intercourse during pregnancy. The sun god and the rain gods liked morally pure people to join them in their respective paradises, and could, for that reason, engineer such persons’ untimely deaths. The sun claimed new companions by causing them to die in battle. The rain gods would cause their favored ones to drown, be struck by lightning, or die from a disease believed to be related to water, such as leprosy or gout. A less exemplary person would live a longer life, then pass on to the ordinary underworld, Mictlan, which was rather bleak and boring but was not a place of punishment. Pic 3: Men drink pulque from the “Two Wily Tezcatlipoca, Rabbit” bowl. Two Rabbit was a major one of the most pulque deity. Birth on the day sign Two important deities, Rabbit predisposed a person to was particularly drunkenness. Florentine Codex Book 4, f. involved in human 13v (Click on image to enlarge) morality. His female counterpart in the moral domain was Tlazolteotl, “Filth Deity,” who carried a broom for sweeping away dirt. These gods could incite people to commit moral misdeeds, and then inflict diseases or other misfortunes on them as punishment. Nahuas often blamed illnesses on the displeasure of some deity. But Tezcatlipoca and Tlazolteotl also offered a purification ritual that somewhat resembled the Roman Catholic sacrament of confession. In front of a priest of Tlazolteotl, the penitent would tell Tezcatlipoca all of his or her tlatlacolli. Then, dressed only in a paper skirt decorated with Tlazolteotl’s characteristic Pic 4: A penitent confesses his sins, or ‘tlatlacolli’, to unspun cotton design, the person went in the night to do penance a priest of Tlazolteotl. Depicting confessed sins as at a crossroads shrine of the Cihuateteo. At the end of the ritual, toads and other creatures is a European motif. the person returned home naked, leaving the skirt—and by Florentine Codex Book 6, f. 21v (Click on image to extension his or her moral impurities—at the crossroads. Unlike enlarge) the Catholic rite, this ritual could be performed only once in a person’s lifeitme. A person’s birth date in the 260-day calendar influenced his or her character and fate, predisposing some people to virtue and others to vice. However, this does not mean Nahuas thought they had no self-control or free will. The effects of a poor day sign, such as One Jaguar, could be counteracted by a diligent and penitential lifestyle: making lots of offerings, getting up at night to worship the gods, fasting, working hard, and upholding strict standards of cleanliness and order. Indeed, such a style of life benefitted even those blessed with auspicious day signs. In general, to live properly on earth involved a delicate balancing act. The earth was seen as a “slippery” place, and everyone had to be careful not to slip and fall into bad behavior or ill fortune. However, life on earth was its own reward, not preparation for an afterlife, and people sought fulfillment in in their friendships, love and family lives, and enjoyment of food, music, and other sensory Pic 5: A person born on the day sign One Jaguar would turn out immoral and unlucky, but could counteract this fate by leading a very virtuous, penitential life. Florentine Codex Book 4, f. 6v. (Click on image to enlarge) pleasures. When Nahuatl texts mention bad behaviors, the three offenses most typically named are theft, drunkenness, and adultery. All three were punishable by death. Thieves went about at night, invading people’s homes and transgressing boundaries of class if they violated the sumptuary laws that restricted luxury goods to members of the nobility. Some were sorcerers, casting a magical sleep that rendered people helpless while their homes were ransacked. Consumption of pulque, the alcoholic beverage, was Pic 6: A drunk young woman, a thief, and a pair of required during certain rituals but otherwise was off-limits adulterers are shown executed for their immoral acts. to all except the elderly—whose maturity protected them Codex Mendoza, f. 71r. (Click on image to enlarge) from its ill effects while the drinking offered some relief from their aches and pains. Sexual morality in general was not as strict as what Catholic priests sought to impose, with moderation, rather than abstinence, being the ideal. However, the marital bond was sacrosanct. Marital infidelity invited forces of filth and disorder into the home—manifested, for example, in mice gnawing on adulterers’ clothing and sleeping mats, or turkey chicks dropping dead from exposure to their tlazolli (filth). Pic 7: A mother prickes her daughter with a maguey thorn to punish disobedience. Codex Mendoza, f. 59r (Click on image to enlarge) Nahua parents put a lot of effort into raising children who would be industrious and respectful. From the time they were four years old, children were expected to help around the house and start learning the tasks appropriate to their gender and future economic activities. For girls, this meant learning how to prepare food and how to make cloth. For boys, it meant fetching water and firewood and, eventually, learning their father’s trade. To punish lazy or disobedient children, parents would prick them with thorns, hit them with sticks, or make them inhale the smoke from burning chile peppers. This may seem abusive, but it shows how important Nahuas thought proper behavior was. They didn’t want their children to be at risk of becoming immoral people. Bad habits in childhood would lead to even worse results in adulthood. A boy who spent too much time playing games was likely to become a thief or a vagabond. More than thorns or sticks, Nahua parents relied on the power of their tongues. As soon as a baby was born, parents and other elders started talking to her or him, making speeches about the precarious nature of life on earth, the best way to live, and the consequences of bad actions. Young people sat through such speeches at various points in their lives until they were themselves married with children of their own to bring up—and make speeches to. Rulers also made speeches to their subjects. This style of talking, called huehuetlatolli or “old man talk,” made a positive impression on Europeans who learned enough Nahuatl to appreciate it. Andrés de Olmos and Bernardino de Sahagún, Franciscan friars who studied Nahua culture, collected these speeches as early as the 1530s and 1540s. Olmos’s collection was published by Pic 8: A midwife makes a speech to a newborn baby while Fray Juan Bautista in 1600, while Sahagún’s became the the mother watches.
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