ColonialLatin American Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2000 Naming the Trinity:From Ideologies of Translation to Dialecticsof Receptionin Colonial Nahua Texts,1547– 1771* DavidTava ´rez University of Chicago Introduction After morethan 60 years ofwell-deserved prominence, Robert Ricard’ s seduc- tive characterization ofCentral Mexicanevangelization projects as a“spiritual conquest”has graduallygiven way to anumberof detailed ethnohistorical and linguistic studies in whichthe dialectical natureof evangelization attempts and the considerablevariety ofmissionary results andnative responses erodethe certitude ofsuch a triumphantmetaphor (Aramoni 1992; Aguirre Beltra ´n1963; Booneand Mignolo 1994; Burkhart 1989, 1992, 1996; Farriss 1984;Gruzinski 1988,1993; Lockhart 1992). Instead ofdepicting colonial evangelizationas a single eventin whichChristian meaningsand behaviors were implanted on native populations,these studies present variousfacets ofwhat may be seen as asocial, ideological andlinguistic experimentof colossal proportions.As both object andmedium of evangelization campaigns, native languagesplayed a leadingrole in this experiment.In fact, byopening the doorto evangelization andlitigation in indigenouslanguages in NewSpain during the 1520sand 1530s, Spanishecclesiastical andcivil authorities set in motionan unmasterable series oftranslation projects whosedialectics, stakes andoutcome may have become comprehensibleto all parties involvedonly after several generationsof indige- nousconverts took stock ofthese translations andincorporated them in their devotionalpractices. Throughoutthe sixteenth century,a handfulof missionaries to NewSpain faceda formidabletask. Notonly were they burdened with the indoctrinationof millions ofnatives, butthey faced a threefoldchallenge: breakingthrough multiple languagebarriers, understandingindigenous cultural categories, and producingviable descriptions ofindigenous languages through the transcription andgrammatical practices affordedthem bythe intellectual repertoire ofearly Renaissance Europe.This momentouscollision betweennative cultural cate- gories andearly Renaissance intellectual culture was negotiatedby the early missionaries througheducational projects that requireda degreeof compromise andtransformation fromboth instructors andpupils. Jacob of Tastera, aFrench missionary whoin 1529abandoned a covetedteaching position in Seville to participate in the evangelizationof Mexico, characterized the hardshipsof this 1060-9164print/ 1466-1802online/ 00/010021-27 Ó 2000Taylor & FrancisLtd on behalf of CLAR DAVID TAVA´ REZ process with twoevocative metaphors. In a 1533letter to Charles Vafter a Franciscan conclavethat tookplace in Huexotzinco,Tastera fustigated those whocriticized the uncertainearly results ofthe Franciscan educationalenterprise with the followingwords: …becausesuch a doorwas notopened for themto come in and look at these people’s secrets[… ], [because]they would not take the trouble of learning theirlanguage, and did not have the zeal to break that wall to enter their souls andsearch with candles for thewonders that God works in their hearts; since theyhave not leddown their own teeth to speak the language of theIndians, maythey now be silentand seal their mouths with bricks and mud. (Cartas de Indias1877, 62– 66) Indescribingthe linguistic barrier betweenevangelizers andIndians as awall to bebored through, and through his description ofFranciscan efforts to learn Nahuatlas apainstakingprocess that resulted in permanentphysical mutation, 1 Tastera presciently providedus with twovivid characterizations. Duringthe remainderof the sixteenth century,missionaries wouldestablish apassage throughthe conceptualabyss that separated Christian terms andNahua cate- gories onlythrough great effort anddetermination, and this laborwould leave a permanentmark on newly coined Nahuatl terms. Therelative abundanceof Nahuatl doctrinal texts fromthe mid-sixteenth centuryonwards renders the studyof their translation dynamicsa promising research topic whichmay yield insights applicable to othernative languageswith amorelimited presencein the historical record.The multiple possibilities ofthis typeof research are richly illustrated bythe workof Burkhart (1989, 1992, 1996),who has producedthe most comprehensiveanalysis to date ofthe recasting ofNahuamoral conceptsinto aChristian moldduring the secondhalf ofthe sixteenth century.However, these issues havenot been explored solely in the realm ofNahuatl evangelization. Hanks (1986, 1987) has developeda numberof exactingreadings of colonial Yucatectextual genreswhich contextu- alize the rhetorical elements usedby Yucatec native elites, andtrace the constructionof Yucatec doctrinal neologisms byFranciscan missionaries. As a contributionto this line ofresearch,this essay will analyzethe variousmission- aryattempts to renderinto Nahuatla fundamentalChristian notion—the Holy Trinity—from about 1550 to the rst decadeof the seventeenthcentury, 2 as well as some evidenceregarding the Nahuareception of these translations duringthe seventeenthand the eighteenthcenturies. Instead ofcircumscribing this analysis to epistemic ortheological hypotheses aboutthe dynamicsof doctrinal translation, this essay will investigate througha longitudinalcase studyspeci c instances ofthe Nahualinguistic andpragmatic receptionof missionary efforts to translate the notionof the Trinity.A reviewof the linguistic proceduresused by missionaries to translate Christian concepts suchas “sin”, “God”and “ Eucharist”in the sixteenth centurywill befollowed byastudyof the difculties in providingan unambiguous Nahuatl translation for the conceptof the Trinity,as attested byaline ofevidencestretching fromPeter of Ghent’s DoctrinaChristiana (1547)to Nahuatl-languagewills fromthe 1760s. 22 NAMING THE TRINITY It shouldbe noted that the translation efforts onbehalf of a cornerstoneof Renaissance Christianity constitute anissue that has beenlargely overlookedby scholars ofNahuatl or students ofSpanish colonial evangelization. 3 My decision to focuson a term as troublesomeas the Trinity respondsto bothempirical and conceptualconcerns. In empirical terms, there exists aline ofevidenceshowing that the authorsof doctrinal worksin Nahuatlwere deeply concerned with producingan adept and unambiguous translation ofthis Christian notion.In theoretical terms, the studyof the linguistic productionof a conceptcompletely alien to Nahuacosmology illustrates in detail alinguistic andconceptual boundarywhere ambitious missionary evangelizationprojects gaveway to a dialectical process ofproduction and reception in whichneither colonial nor indigenouscultural categories hadenough linguistic orcultural purchaseto maintain the upperhand. This case studyshould provide evidence not only about the cultural dialectics ofrooting an alien conceptin anative language,but also aboutthe dialectics ofreference and naming, which all butensured the ambivalent natureof any results obtainedby the missionaries. ATranslated Christianity Three Generationsof NahuatlLexicographers, 1520s-1610s Fromthe 1520sto the 1540s,in orderto proceedwith their evangelization projects in NewSpain, Franciscan andDominican missionaries deviseda numberof verbal and nominal constructions in indigenouslanguages for key conceptsin Christian doctrinal discourses, suchas “God”, “shame”, “Trinity”, “sin”, and“ savior”. Theresulting lexical terms emergedin the earliest extant printeddoctrinal texts in Nahuatl. 4 Intheir attempt to rendersuch concepts into Nahuatl,Christian missionaries created aspecial register oflanguage—hereafter, “doctrinal Nahuatl”— whichmay have seemed redundantfor Nahuatl speakers in early colonial times (Burkhart1989, 191). The irony, of course, was that this register oflanguage strongly in uenced other Nahua textual genres—letters, petitions, wills—in early colonial times, andwhat were originally neologisms wereeventually absorbed into these genres. Forthe purposesof this essay, onecould group the variousmissionaries who producedNahuatl texts in the sixteenth centuryinto broadcohorts. The most prominentauthors of the rst generation,who were active in 1520–1550, were the Franciscans Peter ofGhent, Andre ´sdeOlmos, Alonso de Escalona, Fran- cisco Xime´nez,Juan de Ribas, Juande Romanones, Jean Focherand Arnold Basace.5 Duringthe secondgeneration (roughly 1550 to 1590)the productionof Nahuatlmissionary texts andthe rangeof genres they comprised— catechisms, sermons,moral treatises, historical narratives, translations ofdevotional works, rewordingsof pre-Hispanic songs— reached its apexthrough the worksof variousAugustinians, Franciscans andDominicans: Domingode la Anunciacio´n, Juande la Anunciacio´n,Alonso de Escalona, Juan de Gaona, Jero ´nimode Mendieta,Alonso de Molina, Bernardino de Sahagu ´n,Alonso de Truxillo, Miguel deZa ´rate, andan anonymous group of Dominicans (Bautista Viseo 1606;Clavijero 1945).The third generation(1590s– 1620s) never reached the 23 DAVID TAVA´ REZ productionlevel set bytheir predecessors; however,they revised the Nahuatl translations ofearlier generations,and inherited— particularly in Bautista’s case—anumber of doctrinal writings whichwere polished and modi ed before their publication.Among these authors,Pedro de Arenas, Juan Bautista Viseo, Mart´õ ndeLeo ´n,Juan de Mijangos, and Antonio del Rinco´nproducedsome of the most salient works. 6 FromDivine Wordsto NahuatlNouns Seekingto anchornative understandingsof alien Christian conceptsin Nahuatl, the missionaries ofthe rst andsecond generations attempted to refer