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 inthe 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 Ž 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 tolearn 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 todate 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 torender into Nahuatla fundamentalChristian notion—the Holy Trinity—from about 1550 to the Žrst 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 studyspeciŽ c instances ofthe Nahualinguistic andpragmatic receptionof missionary efforts totranslate 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 difŽculties in providingan unambiguous Nahuatl translation for the conceptof the Trinity,as attested byaline ofevidencestretching fromPeter of Ghent’s DoctrinaChristiana (1547)to Nahuatl-language wills 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 order to 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 Žrst generation,who were active in1520– 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 modiŽ 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 Žrst andsecond generations attempted to refer to Christian conceptsthrough pre-existing Nahuastems orlexical items through twoprocesses oflexical inventionwhich could be called recruitment and neologismformation .Lexical items that couldnot— or would not— be rendered intoNahuatl, were substituted bySpanishor Latin lexical items. Aparadigmatic case ofthe recruitment ofa pre-existing rootto express anovelconcept in Nahuatloccurred when missionaries attempted to renderthe conceptof “ sin” into doctrinal Nahuatl.The nominal root -[i] htlaco¯a,whichoriginally meant “to spoil ordamage” , was recruited as early as 1548by the Dominicanauthors of the Nahuatl Doctrina in orderto buildthe followingterms (Burkhart1989, 33): 1. ø tla htlaco¯a;tla htlaco¯—l—li 7 Originalsense: he/shesomething damages; something damage -d New sense: “He/she sins”; “sin” Althoughthe writings ofSahagu´n(1961)and Molina ([1569]1984) suggest that this rootmaintained awiderange of meaningsthroughout the sixteenth century, the aboveneologisms wereadopted by Sahagu ´nandother authors as the receivedtranslations for“ sin”. Occasionally,previously existing roots werecombined to formneologisms that conveyedsome ofthe semantic contentof a newterm throughNahua morphemes.For example, by the late sixteenth century,the term “Eucharist”was translated with the neologism teo¯tlaxcalli .8 This term combinedthe commonroot teo¯-,meaning“ divine”, with tlaxcalli, the Nahuatlword for the at, unleavened breadnow known as “tortilla”. This neologismdid not come into use until the secondhalf ofthe sixteenth century,for in a1559anonymous collection of sermons inNahuatl we Ž ndthe Eucharist describedsimply as “white tortilla”: 2.yn iquac missa mitoua cayeuatzin nelli dios Whenduring mass itis said: “ IndeedHe isthe true God” macivi Iztactlaxcaltzintli yc nec¸i: although[as a] littlewhite tortilla it appears ca amo tlaxcalli cainacayotzin tt.o i. x.o Indeedit is not a tortilla, indeedit is the  eshof Our Lord Jesus Christ 9 Asamatter offact, the recruitment ofthe particle teo¯- requiredan acceptance ofacertain degreeof ambiguityon the part ofthe Franciscan lexicographers.In pre-Hispanictimes, teo¯tl couldrefer notonly to adeity,but also to anobject of 24 NAMING THE TRINITY cult transformedthrough ritual action,to adeity impersonatorparticipating in a publicstate ritual, 10 orto adeiŽed ancestor. This multiplicity ofreferents is exempliŽed by a historical narrative that Sahagu´nelicited froman old informant duringthe 1560s: Thusthe old men said: he/ shewho died, teo¯t-ed;it was said:“ Trulyhe/ she teo¯t-ed”; itmeans, truly he/ shedied. And thus they confused themselves, perhapsso that the lords were obeyed:many were takenas te tl when they died.Some represented the sun; others represented the moon. 11 This lucid passage bringsinto focus the variouspossibilities that existed for the root teo¯- in pre-HispanicNahua speech: it couldbe used to formverbs, and it didnot necessarily refer to the established divinities ofthe Mexica pantheon. Inspite ofthis ambiguity,the Franciscans appropriatedthis rootto refer tothe Christian God(as in the sentence in ice¯lhuelnelli teo¯tl Dios,“the onetrue teo¯tl God),and to formthe pervasivemodiŽ er teo¯yot¯õ ca (whichcould be glossed as “in adivineway” , “ina divinestate” ), whichgave a Christian imprimatur to the Nahuanouns or verbsit qualiŽed. However, some missionaries whowere aware ofthe ambivalenceattached to this rootreferred to the Christian deity by inserting its Spanishname into Nahua clauses, as illustrated byPeter ofGhent’ s 1547doctrine (Ghent 1547, 42v): 3.yehica ca c ¸aniceltzin in totecuyo dios ince[n]quizca qualli Becausetruly he alone, Our Lord God,[is]perfectly good

ASurveyof Translations ofthe Trinity intoNahuatl, 1548– 1611 Renderingthe Trinity intoNahuatl, 1548– 1583 Althoughthe needto refer tothe dogmaof the HolyTrinity inNahuatl posed adelicate problemfor missionary authors,it shouldbe noted that this concept playeda rather minorrole in everydaynative Christian practices. Therewere two primarysites ofChristian practice whichrequired indigenous peoples to under- stand andmake use ofthis concept:the everydayexercise ofcrossing oneself (persignumcrucis ),andthe momentousoccasion of opening one’ s testament with aninvocation of the Trinity.These two sites ofdevotional practice afford us adiachronicinsight into missionary attempts toground this conceptin Nahuatl.12 The DoctrinaChristiana enLengua Espan ˜olay Mexicana (1548)was essen- tially atranslation ofthe Spanish-languagedoctrine written bythe Dominican Pedrode Co´rdobabefore 1521, with the additionof some sections forthe beneŽt ofnewly baptized Christians. Inthis text—presented as the collective workof Nahuatl-speakingDominicans— the conceptof the Trinity was introducedin a fairly literal fashionbefore the persignumcrucis throughenumeration and description (Dominicans1548, 132r): 4. in dios te¯ta[h]tzin in dios te¯piltzinihua ¯n diosSpiritu Sancto Godthe Father Godthe Child and Godthe Holy Spirit ye¯intin personas-meh zan ce¯ huel nelli dios threepersons, only one true God 25 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

For his 1553 DoctrinaChristiana enlengua Mexicana ,Peter ofGhent expandedthe doctrinal texts hehad published in his 1547 Doctrina, and added vespers,matins andshort doctrinal dialogues.In this text, the conceptof the Trinity was introducedat the beginningof a summaryof the doctrineby using the Dominicanformula with slight modiŽcations anda reiterative ending:

5. in dios te¯ta[h]tzin ihua¯n dios te¯piltzinihua ¯n diosSpiritu Sancto Godthe Father andGod the child and God the Holy Spirit

ye¯intin persona-mehzan huel ce ¯nelliteo ¯tlahmo ¯o¯meahmo ¯e¯y 13 threepersons, onlyreally one true god, not two not three

In his Doctrinabreve ycompendiosa (1565)the DominicanDomingo de la Anunciacio´nwas the Žrst to use apeculiar morphologicalfeature ofNahuatl— gross numberplural— in his translation (Anunciacio´n1565,7v):

6. Auh in im-e¯ix-tin-tzin personas-mehzan ce ¯huelnelli dios And they-are-three-Honored-ones persons onlyone true God

This strategic use ofthe gross numberplural— by deŽnition, a constructionthat refers to anundivided group— instead ofaplural nounwould recur again in the doctrinal writings ofthe Franciscan JuanBautista Viseo inthe early seventeenth century.It will beargued below that this grammatical solution constituted a radically different approachtoward the translation ofthe Trinity fromthe enumerativeapproaches that werefavored by sixteenth-century missionary lexicographers. Infact, it is fair tosay that most Žrst- andsecond-generation missionary lexicographersrarely concernedthemselves witha detailed Nahuatldescription ofthe HolyTrinity, except for the AugustinianJuan de la Anunciacio´n(1575, 12),who wrote the followingin his Doctrinachristiana muycumplida :

7. Ye¯ceh in e¯y persona-tin in zan ¯õ techpa[n]tzincomoetzticateh Although thethree persons only located in exist

ince ¯teo¯yo¯liztli in¯õ c persona-tin huelmoxeloticateh inone divine being as persons theytruly are divided

This phrasecould be glossed as “Althoughthe three personsexist in onedivine being,as personsthey truly are divided.”This is oneof the morecomplex descriptions inNahuatl of the HolyTrinity producedin the late sixteenth century,for it stresses boththe unityof the Trinity as aboundedsubject andthe separate existence ofthe personswho compose it. 14 Wisely, neither ofthe twopre-eminent Nahuatl linguists ofthe second generation—Alonso de Molina andBernardino de Sahagu ´n—addressed in detail the notionof the Trinity throughtheir translations. It is likely that prudenceand adesire to renderChristianity in simple andfamiliar terms forthe Nahua motivated this translation choice.In the 1569Nahuatl ConfesionarioMayor written byMolina— probably the most widelycirculated Nahuatldoctrinal text duringthe latter half ofthe sixteenth century 15—weŽ nda simple list ofthe 26 NAMING THE TRINITY names ofthe three Trinity componentswhich mirrors the 1548Dominican solution.Thus, Molina (1569,3r) opens his confessional with the words:

8. ¯õ ca in ¯õ to¯ca¯tzin SantisimaTrinidad ,te¯ta[h]tzin te¯piltzin Inthe name of the Holy Trinity, someone’ s fathersomeone’ s child ihua¯[n] Spiritusancto and theHoly Spirit

Inlieu ofmakingan explicit referenceto the Trinity as anencompassing entity orattempting toexplain its compositionin Nahuatl, Molina quietly borrowedthe Spanishterm. His template fordrafting a will—which was diligently usedby manygenerations of Nahuaspeakers, as well as byspeakers ofotherindigenous languages16—beganwith the aboveformula, minus the Spanishborrowing SantisimaTrinidad (Molina 1569,61r). In his discussion ofthe spiritual preparationsrequired for taking communion, Molina onceagain used the above enumerationand the Spanishborrowing in orderto refer to the Trinity ( ibid., 73v). In his 1583 PsalmodiaChristiana —the onlydoctrinal text publishedin his lifetime—Sahagu ´nexercised asimilar precaution:in his introductionof the persignumcrucis ,heused the same enumerationfound in the examplecited above.Unlike the Dominicanauthors of 1548 and 1565, Sahagu ´ndidnot translate intoNahuatl the commonphrase “ three persons,only one God” . For Sahagu´n,the persignum was notthe most suitable opportunityfor addressing a central mystery ofthe newfaith, buta daily practice that wouldhave to be explainedin native terms. Thus,Sahagu ´n([1583]1993, 19– 20) added the followingappreciation after givingthe Nahuatlformula for crossing oneself:

9.Inin quetzallalpiloni, mumuztlae ic muchichiua in ipilhoa sancta Iglesia Thechildren of the Holy Church make this quetzal-feathered headband [forthemselves] everyday

This prudenttranslation policyis carried outthroughout the rest ofthe Psalmo- dia.Instead ofcoining neologisms orrecruiting Nahuatlterms forthe convey- anceof Christian notions,Sahagu ´ninserted morethan 180 Spanish and Latin borrowingsin his Nahuatltext. Theonly signiŽ cant exceptionsto this approach werethe use of mictla¯n (underworld)for “ hell”and tla¯catecolo¯tl (shape-chang- ingsorcerer) for“ devil”( ibid .,xxxiv).The same prudenceregarding the Trinity was exercised in Coloquiosy DoctrinaCristiana ,amanuscript that purportedly describes amoral dialoguebetween some Mexica priests andthe Žrst 12 Franciscan missionaries to Mexico,which Sahagu ´ndraftedand edited inthe 1560s(Sahagu ´n1986).In this text, while Godthe Father andGod the Sonwere mentioned,there wereno explicit references to the HolySpirit orto the Trinity. Asonewill see below,it appearsthat the third generationof authorsof Nahuatl doctrinal works,caught up as theywere in the animus ofecclesiastical and doctrinal reformof the Councilof Trent,found the prudentapproach of Molina andSahagu ´ninsufŽcient at best andambiguous at worst. 27 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

Counter-ReformationPolicies andthe Productionof Doctrinal Texts Therelative diversity ofFranciscan, Dominican and Augustinian approaches to the problemof rendering the Trinity in Nahuatlfrom the 1550sto the 1580s reects the considerabledegree of pedagogical, doctrinal andlinguistic exper- imentation whichcharacterized evangelizationprojects inCentral Mexicountil the conclusionof the Councilof Trentin Romeand the ThirdMexican Council. It maybe argued that this experimentationstage was comingto an end by the close ofthe sixteenth century.In fact, duringPedro de Moyay Contreras’tenure as archbishopof Mexico(1573– 1591), a numberof institutional andecclesiasti- cal factors—such as the consolidationof the HolyOfŽ ce Tribunalof New Spain, the proliferation ofsecular ministers anda resulting tension betweenthem and the mendicants,and the early application ofdirectives issued fromthe councils ofTrentand Mexico 17—resulted in greater ecclesiastical andpolitical restrictions forongoing educational and doctrinal projects. Since doctrinal workscirculated inboth printed and manuscript form,the developmentof institutional andjudicial means ofcontrol over their production andcirculation inthe secondpart ofthe sixteenth centurystrengthened and formalized areviewmechanism ofdoctrinal texts written in native languages. Theprinting and selling ofbooks in NewSpain was closely regulatedby inquisitorial andsecular authorities, whodiligently soughtout copies ofbooks forbiddenby the inquisitorial indices, as well as anybooks not bearing the authorizationof an ecclesiastical authoritywith properjurisdiction (the licencia del ordinario ).After the First MexicanCouncil (1555), manuscript copies of translations ofdoctrinal worksin indigenous languages were the focusof intense regulation: it was stipulated that all doctrinal worksin native languagesin circulation beremoved from native hands,that anynew translations bearthe approvalof anecclesiastical languageexpert, and that anysuch works be signed with the author’s name. 18 The1585 Third Council enforced this directive by threateningto excommunicate anybody involved in the circulation ofdoctrinal workstranslated into native languageswhich had not been authorized by the ordinario (Lorenzana1769b, 14). This measure was intendedto regulate all non-clandestineattempts at translating doctrinal texts intonative languages througha series ofecclesiastical andlinguistic reviews.

JuanBautista Viseo andthe Native Intellectual Milieu ofTlatelolco, 1598–1607 Paradoxically,it was in this rather limiting Counter-Reformationenvironment that the Franciscan JuanBautista Viseo compiled,edited andauthored— with the assistance ofanetworkof formerstudents fromthe Franciscan Colegiode Santa Cruzde Tlatelolco 19—at least 18manuscript andprinted doctrinal worksin Nahuatland Spanish, of whichabout nine have survived into the present.In his 1606 Sermonarioen lengua Mexicana ,Bautista lists 17printed works that he authored,edited orcompiled. 20 Tothis list, oneshould add an incomplete translation intoNahuatl of Thomas a `Kempis’ Deimitatione Christi . This work—also knownin Bautista’ s time as DeContemptu Mundi —was the result ofa collaborationbetween Bautista, the Franciscan Luis Rodr ´õ guez,and Fran- 28 NAMING THE TRINITY cisco Bautista deContreras, Nahua governor of Xochimilco and an alumnus of the Colegiode Santa Cruz. 21 As authorand educator, Bautista appropriatedand published some ofthe doctrinal materials released in manuscript formby members ofthe productive secondgeneration of Franciscan authors,and thus ensuredtheir circulation as approvedimprints. Bornaround 1555 in NewSpain, Bautista tookthe habit of Saint Francis in 1571in MexicoCity, andtrained as ascholar ofNahuatlunder the commandingŽ guresof Miguel deZa ´rate andJero ´nimode Mendieta. His activities as authorand compiler weresupported in institutional terms byhis distinguished career in the SantoEvangelio Franciscan province.By 1597, he hadbeen named Guardian of the conventof Texcoco, and he servedas Guardian ofthe conventof Tlatelolco between1598 and 1603, rising to the positionof DeŽ nidor in1603– 1605. In 1605–1607, he servedas Guardianof the conventof Tacuba,and by 1607 he was backagain in Tlatelolco as Readerin Theology. Bautista probablydied between 1607— the date ofhis last knowncollaborative work, the Comediade los Reyes —and1613— the date ofcompletionof Torque- mada’s Monarqu´õa Indiana ([1615]1969), which mentions Bautista’s death. 22 Bautista’s years inTlatelolco (roughly1599– 1607) corresponded to the height ofhis activity as author,compiler andeditor. This was nota casual connection, forBautista oftensought the adviceand assistance ofseveral Nahuaelite members educatedat the Colegiode Santa Cruzwho had kept close ties with that institution. Inhis 1606 Sermonario,Bautista mentions agroupof eight Nahuawriters, copyists andteachers whomay have provided him with hard-won insights aboutthe difŽculties oftranslating Christian terms intoNahuatl: Her- nandode Ribas (whoalso assisted Molina andGaona), Don Juan Bernardo, Don DiegoAdriano, Don Francisco Baptista deContreras (Nahuagovernor of Xochimilco),Esteban Bravo, Don Antonio Valeriano (Nahua governor of Mexicoand a renownedLatinist), Pedrode Gante and Agust ´õ ndela Fuente (Nahuateachers at the Colegiode Santa Cruz).With the exceptionof Don Juan Bernardo,all ofthem weregraduates of Santa Cruz.This fact suggests that Bautista’s intendedaudience included not only Nahuatl-speaking priests, butalso asmall numberof literate Nahuasliving in the Valley ofMexico whose doctrinal educationcould be improved by reading not only simple iterations ofthe doctrine,but also Nahuatltranslations ofpopular devotional texts suchas the Imitatio Christi .

AmbiguousNahuatl Renderings of the Trinity: Bautista’s Arguments In his 1600 Advertencias paralos confesores delos naturales ,Bautista outlined whathe regarded as twoerrors madein their translations ofthe Trinity bythe twoearlier generationsof Nahuatl-speaking missionaries. TheŽ rst onewas an errorabout the intrinsic unityof the Trinity,and the secondone was aboutthe separate character ofthe three divinepersons (Bautista Viseo 1600,51v). AlthoughRicard relegated this concernto amere aside (Ricard 1966,279– 80), wewill nowread over Bautista’ s shoulder,so to speak,in orderto examinethese twotranslation issues. Usingcontemporary terms, the Žrst problemcould be 29 DAVID TAVA´ REZ deŽned as oneof scope ambiguity, and the secondone as asemantic confusion betweenpossessing three names andbeing three entities. Eversince the beginningof Franciscan doctrinal educationin the 1520s,the missionaries useda question-and-answermethod in orderto ascertain that Indianshad grasped a particular Christian teaching.This methodderived from a set ofpiercing questions whichwere translated intonative languagesin orderto allow ministers withminimal linguistic skills to performconfessions, and to impress the astoundingdiversity ofChristian categories ofsin inthe minds of native Christians (Gruzinski1989). Bautista notedthat, whenNahuatl speakers wereasked, “ Howmany persons are there in ourLord God?” they responded with the conventionalanswer, “ OurLord is indeedthree persons.”However, whenthey were asked the followingquestion, which made a distinction between adeity inthe singular andin the plural,

10. In¯õ n persona-s-meh ø quezquintin te¯teoh ? Theseperson-s [are] howmany (plural) deities? Bautista notedthat some Nahuasresponded in the plural bysaying, “ Theyare three deities” (e¯yinte ¯teoh ),apalpableheresy, since it declaredthe Trinity tobe three separate deities, instead ofone uniŽ ed God. On the otherhand, Bautista observedthat the followinganswer— derived from translations givenin the 1548 Dominicandoctrine and in Ghent’s doctrine—was thoughtby many to bean appropriateresponse:

11. e¯y personas,zance ¯,huelnelli teo ¯tl Dios tlahto¯ani Threepersons, only one true deityGod ruler Bautista remarkedthat, as it stood,this Nahuasentence hadtwo possible senses, onelegitimate, andone which he called “amphibological”— aterm used in Bautista’s time forsentences that hadtwo senses notbecause of the words involved,but because of their placement.The Ž rst sense wouldbe “ Three persons,but only one true Godaltogether” and is the oneBautista intendedto reproduce.The second sense was notintended by the Franciscan missionaries: “Threepersons, only one ofthem beinga true god.”To translate this problem into acontemporaryframework, one could say that the Nahuanumeral quantiŽ er ce¯,“one”, has twopossible scopes in this sentence: awideone— which refers to the entire precedingnoun phrase as awhole( ey personas)—anda narrow one—which may refer to only one ofthese “three persons.”23 In any case, Bautista arguedthat some Nahuaneophytes gave this sentence anarrowscope, andthus believedthat onlyone of the three personswas the true God. 24 Bautista noticeda problemof adifferent sort with anotherdoctrinal term. He observedthat manypriests believedthe followingterm to bea translation of “trine”into Nahuatl:

12.m -e¯-te¯-ihto¯-t- ¯õ ca Selfthree someone call thus Theliteral meaningof the term was “he/she is called inthree different ways”. Thebelief in the correctness ofthis term must havebeen widespread, since 30 NAMING THE TRINITY

Molina’s 1571Nahuatl– Spanish Vocabulario deŽned a related term as “it is trine in persons”(Molina 1571,28r). 13.e ¯-iht[o¯]-ti- t- ¯õ ca Three call cause thusly Literally, this secondterm meant “he/she is causedto becalled in three ways”. Inthis case, the problemwith the term stemmed fromthe fact that it was an incomplete Nahuatldescription ofthe HolyTrinity. Bautista regardedthe use of this term as aheresy,since it established the differencebetween the three personsof the Trinity onthe basis ofnameand not of essence, andbecause this term couldbe understood by Nahuas as meaning“ onedivine person with three names”.

TheTrinity as aDescription: Bautista’s Solutions Bautista proposedtwo solutions tothe problemof namingthe Trinity inNahuatl whichmade use ofdescription andreduplication in orderto solve problemsof referenceand scope. He proposedthat Nahuasrespond to question10 above by saying: 14. In Dios, ca Te¯ta[h]tzin, Te¯piltzin, Spiritu sancto, e¯ypersonas God [is] truly Father, child, Holy Spirit, three persons zan ce¯huel nelli teo¯tl Dios in huel im-e¯ix-tin-tzitzin only one true deity god indeed they-are-three-Very- Honored-Ones Anidiomatic Englishtranslation couldbe “ Godindeed is Father,Son, Holy Spirit, three persons,only one true God,indeed they are three veryhonored ones.”Noting his satisfaction with the appropriatenessof this formula,Bautista added,“ with this reduplication,all doubtsare removed”(Bautista Viseo 1600, 52v).Bautista’ s reiterative translation ofthe HolyTrinity as ime¯ix-tin-tzitzin (“Theyare three VeryHonored Ones” ) madeuse ofexactly the same gross numberplural Žrst proposedby the DominicanDomingo de la Anunciacio´nin 1565.According to J.RichardAndrews, a contemporarygrammarian of Classi- cal Nahuatl,gross numberplurals are usedin Nahuatlfor total, full orinclusive enumerations,and are usually appliedto humanreferents whenthe speaker wants toemphasize the totality orinclusiveness oftheir number(Andrews 1975, 183–85). With this formula,Bautista aimed to neutralize the latent scope ambiguityof the phrase zance ¯huelnelli teo¯tl Dios (“onlyone [is] true god”) with aNahuatlgross numberplural that wouldunambiguously indicate that, since the entity in questionwas aplural (“three veryhonored ones” ), the numeral “one”referred to the entire entity rather thanto oneof its components. Bautista advocateda Žnal alternative description toŽ xthe referent ofthe Trinity in Nahuatl.As aresponseto atricky questionthat deployedthe troublesometerm me¯te¯ihto¯t ¯õca (“he/she is called in three ways”), Bautista instructed priests toteach their Nahuacharges the followinganswer: 15. Ca niman ahmo¯me¯te¯ihto¯t ¯õ ca in õ¯to¯ca¯tzin: yeh¯õ ca ca e¯y persona-s-meh Truly not at all its name is called in three ways because truly three persons ce¯cecni qu¯õ z-ti-cate-h in ce¯-ce-meh persona-s separately they are coming out each one person [sic] 31 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

This formulamay be translated idiomatically as “Indeedits honoredname is notat all called in three ways,because truly the three personsare eachcoming outseparately.” The choice made by Bautista requiredan elaborate description throughaccumulation of terms andredundancy: it was stressed that the groupof divinepersons divided into three separate entities (Bautista Viseo 1600,53v– 54r).

TheTrinity as aNahuatlName: The Dominican Solution While Bautista preferredto use adescription in orderto renderthe notionof the Trinity in Nahuatl,other linguistic reformers proposedthe adoptionof a new Nahuatlname. In his 1611manual for priests called Caminodel Cielo enLengua Mexicana,the DominicanMart ´õ ndeLeo ´npublisheda weightyformalized opinion (parecer)whichproposed the substitution ofall existing Nahuatl designations ofthe HolyTrinity with aneologismin the tradition of“ divine tortilla” (teo¯tlaxcalli ).The12 signatories— which included the Prior andthe Superiorof the Dominicanconvent in Mexico—proposed that “HolyTrinity” shouldbe rendered in Nahuatlas follows (Leo´n1611,vi r):

16.teo ¯-tla¯catl divinehuman being

Inwhat could have been a Dominicanmaneuver against Franciscan attempts toestablish anofŽ cial term forthe Trinity in doctrinal Nahuatl, aclosely reasonedtext accompaniedthis proposal.First ofall, in whatcould beregarded as asemantic policyof sorts, the Dominicansargued that any names—and especially divineones— must establish aconcretereference rather thanan abstract one.Then, the Dominicanreformers arguedthat the neologism teo¯tla¯catl was the most appropriatetranslation ofthe term “Holy Trinity”based on two criteria: Žrst, it was nottied to anyother possible meaningin Nahuatl, and second, it was anunambiguous rendering of the term “divineperson” . 25 As weshall see below,this opinionappears to havebeen embracedby some Nahuaspeakers inthe Valley ofMexico by the early eighteenthcentury. This distinction betweendescription onthe onehand (Bautista’s proposal)and naming on the other(the Dominicanproposal) is a crucial onefrom the viewpointof contemporary semantic theories ofreference, andI will comeback to the consequencesof this distinction inthe conclusion to this essay.

TheTrinity as aNeologism:A SecularSolution Neither the Franciscan description northe Dominicanneologism was persuasive enoughfor some authorsof Nahuatl doctrinal texts. Forexample, Joseph Pe ´rez dela Fuentey Quixada,a rather obscureCreole authorof doctrinal texts, devotionalsongs and plays in Nahuatlfrom Amecameca, decided to coina neologismthat was closer in its morphologicalconstruction to the Latin term 32 NAMING THE TRINITY

Trinitas.Ina Nahuatltranslation ofa Latin antiphondedicated to the Holy Trinity circa 1714,he refers tothe Trinity as 17. In cen teo¯-chipa¯uhca-tzintliYe ¯i-til-yo¯tl( SSmaTrinidad ) Thewholly divinely-pure-Honored three-ity (HolyTrinity ) This neologismmirrors the morphologicalstructure of Trinitas. Just as the Latin wordis composedof a nominalroot derived from “ three”( trini -) and a commonending for abstract nouns(- tas),Pe´rez dela Fuenteemployed two comparableNahuatl elements: the rootfor the numeralthree ( ye¯i-) and a commonabstract nounending (- yo¯tl).Theywere joined together by ararely used irregular connectiveparticle, (- til-).26 This neologismis probablythe most literal translation ofthe word“ Trinity”into Nahuatlon record, but it couldalso have beenone of the least meaningfulones for a native reader.In fact, its veryauthor seemed compelledto adda Spanishgloss to it in orderto renderit recognizable forthe reader.Since this neologismdoes not recur in anyother Nahuatl doctrinal text, it appearsthat this term was notadopted by either priests orparishioners.

TheNahua Reception of the Translations ofthe Trinity The Comediade los Reyes Thevarious translation approachesformulated by Juan Bautista Viseo were grossly contradictedby a well-knownNahuatl play from the early seventeenth centuryin whicha misapprehensionof the notionof the Trinity was evident.In the famous Comediade los Reyes ,aNahuatlplay about the visit ofthe Magi to babyJesus fromthe Žrst decadeof the seventeenthcentury— dedicated to its compiler,Juan Bautista Viseo—the followingexchange is recordedbetween the VirginMary and one of the Magi: “Ithankyou, Baltasar, onbehalf of my preciouschild: his precioushonored father the HolyTrinity has sent youhere” (Horcasitas 1975,314; Lockhart 1992, 402). In this utterance,the Nahuatl- speakingauthor employs the name“ HolyTrinity” as if it hada single referent in the singular—God the Father.While this playmay possibly be associated with the writings ofthe Nahuaauthor Agust ´õ ndela Fuente,the extant copyof this text was producedby a less knowledgeableNahua writer whomwe may still regardas anonymous.Indeed, it is rather unlikelythat Agust õ´n de la Fuentehimself was the perpetratorof this particular error,for Bautista himself reports that dela Fuente,a native ofTlatelolco, was ateacher at the Franciscan college ofTlatelolco, anda respected copyist andtype composer who collabo- rated notonly with Bautista, butalso with Sahagu´nandOroz (Bautista Viseo 1606,v– ix r).

Namingthe Trinity inNahua Testaments, 1694–1763 While the aboveexample from the Comediade los Reyes providesanecdotal evidenceabout the wayin which a single Nahuawriter handledthe conceptof the Trinity,there exists afragmentarybut signiŽ cant line ofevidence in a colonial Nahuatextual genrethat was practiced bymany Nahua property owners:the testament. Almost everytestament draftedin Spanishor in an 33 DAVID TAVA´ REZ indigenouslanguage in colonial times openedwith areferenceto the Trinity. Somewills draftedin Nahua,Zapotec, and other native languageswent on to ascertain that their authorshad learned the Christian doctrineand kept the Church’s commandmentsduring their lifetime. 27 Evenif Nahuatestaments were moreformulaic thanthose draftedby other native subjects, andeven if inuential doctrinal texts suchas Molina’s ConfesionarioMayor providednative scribes with aset template fornaming the Trinity in Nahuatl,a sampling of individualNahua wills reveals that there existed several substantial differences in the Nahuatlrendering of the notionof the Trinity.These differences may allow usto discern ameasure ofthe Nahuareception of the vehementlinguistic argumentsand the translation solutions advocatedby at least three generations ofdoctrinal authors. Since the universeof extant colonial Nahuatl-languagewills is infact rather large andunwieldy, a circumscribed regionalapproach will beusedhere in order toarrive at apreliminary estimate ofthe Nahuareception during the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries ofthe variousdoctrinal solutions fornaming the Trinity in Nahuatl.Due to arecent reorganizationof the Historical Archiveof the Archdiocesis ofMexico (AHAM), a signiŽcant cacheof Nahuatl-language testaments fromthe TolucaValley regionhas becomeavailable toresearchers. Inorder to proŽt fromthese underutilizedsources, as well as fromreadily available sources,this section will focuson a sampling of25Nahua wills from adistinct socio-political region—the doctrinal jurisdiction ofthe city ofToluca, located about60 kilometers west ofMexicoCity— which will becontrasted with samples drawnfrom the Chalco-Amecamecaregion (southeast ofMexicoCity), the Tulancingoregion (northeast ofMexico City), andfrom Mexico City itself. Itshouldbe notedthat, while these samples donot constitute anexhaustive study ofthe Nahuareception of the namingof the Trinity incolonial wills, theyare substantial enoughto exemplifymajor trends in the draftingof colonial Nahua wills. The25 testaments fromthe Valley ofToluca discussed herewere drafted by Nahuascribes betweenthe years 1694and 1737. A majority ofthese wills demonstrate apreferencefor Molina’ s 1569testament template, whichgives no explicit referencein Nahuatlto the Trinity as anentity, consisting onlyof an enumerationof three sacred names:

18.Ma ¯mocenqu ¯õ sca¯-ye¯cte¯ne¯hualoyn ¯õ tla[h]zomahuizto¯ca¯tzin Mayit perfectly bepraised his dear precious honored name

yn Dios te¯ta[h]tzinyhua ¯n Dios te¯piltzinyhua ¯n DiosEspiritu Santo 28 Godthe Father andGod the child and God the Holy Spirit

Theonly improvement that the scribes in this majority groupof 18 wills made onMolina’ s formulawas the additionof the phrase mamocenquiscayectene- hualo,whichwas meant to translate the expression“ Mayit beblessed.” Onthe otherhand, only four wills fromthis groupinclude the enumeration listed aboveplus the Spanishname Sant´õsima Trinidad .Aneven smaller number—only two testaments— include an overt description ofthe Trinity in 34 NAMING THE TRINITY

TABLE 1.Naming the Trinity in Nahua wills from theToluca Valley, 1694– 1737

Trinitytranslation Number Author’s solutions of wills Townsof origin Datesgender

Listingthe names of 18 San Antonio, San Cristo ´bal,Santa 1694– 1737 11 M, 7F thethree Trinity ClaraCozcatlan, Santa Ba ´rbara persons Xolalpa,San Sebastia ´n,Santiago, SanJuan Bautista, San Miguel Aticpac,San Juan Evangelista, San Bartolome´Tlatilolco,San Felipe y SantiagoTlamimilolpa [12] Useof Spanish name 4 SanJuan Bautista, San Pedro 1735–1737 4 M Tototepec[2] Descriptionin Nahuatl 2 SanBartolome ´Tlatilolco, 1715,1737 2 M unknownlocation [2] Nomention of Trinity1 SanMiguel [1] 1736 1 M

Nahuatl,which happens to beprecisely the oneBautista haddenounced as ambiguousin 1600: 19. y[n] Dios te¯ta[h]tzi[n]yhua ¯[n] Dios te¯piltzi[n]yhua ¯[n] DiosEspirito Sa [n]to Godthe Father and Godthe child and Godthe Holy Spirit

ye¯ytzintzin yn personas y[n]sa[n] c ¸e¯huelne[l]li teo ¯tl Dios29 threehonorable persons onlyone true God Finally, onlyone testament fromthe TolucaValley sample omits anymention ofthe HolyTrinity altogether,an unaccountable absence which may be due to scribe oversight.The data drawnfrom this testament sample are summarized in Table 1. Onthe otherhand, in otherNahua communities located in the Valley of Mexicoand its hinterland,the Dominicanneologism teo¯tla¯catl advocatedby Mart´õ ndeLeo ´nwas usedas anamein conjunctionwith agross numberplural inthe openingsection ofindigenoustestaments. Lockhartnoted that this manner ofnaming the Trinity was reproducedwith little variation ina sampling of testaments fromsome regionswest andeast ofthe Valley ofMexico. 30 Forexample, a 1712will fromMexico City hadthis form: 20.yn ye ¯intintzitzin teo¯-tla¯ca -tzi-tzin-tin personas, Threemost honored, most honored divinepersons persons Ina1730will fromthe Tlalmanalco area,and in a 1768will fromTulancingo (nowin Hidalgo State), weread the form: 21.ye ¯intzitzin teo¯-tla¯ca -tzi-tzin-tin, threemost honored most honored divinepersons Ina1763will fromthe Chalcoarea, we Žndaformthat combines,in a single 35 DAVID TAVA´ REZ clause, the gross numberplural introducedby Anunciacio ´nandBautista with Leo´n’s neologism: 22.ime ¯ixtintzin i[n] teo¯-tla¯ca -tzi-tzin-tin in personas Theyare three honorable, most honorable divinepersons persons TheseNahua testament writers useda numeraland a neologismin orderto forma propername for the Trinity.The Ž rst part ofthe propername consists of anumeral,which could be a simple ora gross numberplural; the secondpart is the Dominicanneologism “ DivinePersons” . Accordingto Leo´n’s 1611 proposal, teo¯-tla¯ca-tl was asingular nounthat carried the absolutive singular sufŽ x -tl.However,these three attestations werein fact plural forms ofthe Dominicanneologism, as indicated bythe plural sufŽx - tin.Infact, the Nahua wills quotedabove reinterpreted the Dominicanneologism, rendering it in the plural inorder to maintain numberagreement in the clause, whichwould read “theyare three most honorabledivine person- s”rather than“ theyare three most honorabledivine person” . Althoughthese data are butthe beginningof an analysis ofthe receptionof these translations byNahua writers andauthors, the contrast betweentestament data fromthe TolucaValley andfrom areas east ofMexico City maybe tentatively explainedby educational factors. Theuse ofLeo ´n’sneologismto refer to the Trinity inNahuatl in the townsof Chalco, Tlalmanalco and Amecamecamay be due to the direct inuence of Dominican teachings in this region.After all, the Dominicanskept a conventand a schoolin Amecameca, andtheir educationalin uence may have persuaded the authorsof the testaments quotedabove to favorLeo ´n’s neologism.One should note that, althoughthe Franciscans also hada base inTlalmanalco, the Tlalmanalco sample quoted aboveembraced the Dominicansolution. TheFranciscans wieldedconsiderable educational and social inuence in manyNahua towns located in the TolucaValley, as attested bythe frequent request byNahua testament authorsto havetheir corpses tied upwith areplica ofthe cordand knot that Franciscans usedaround their waists. 31 Unlike Juan Bautista, parish priests andFranciscans in this regionseem to havehad little interest in correctingor improving the wayin whichtheir parishioners referred to the Trinity in Nahuatl.Judging from the most popularformula used by both menand women, the simple enumerationof the names ofthe three Trinity personswas regardedas sufŽcient proofthat Nahuatestament writers understood this Christian dogma.

Distant Receptions:Some Unorthodox Nahua Ways of Namingthe Trinity While it is true that Nahuatestaments providethe most complete line of evidenceabout the variousways in whichfairly educatedNahuas responded to the missionary translations ofthe Trinity,there exist afewtraces ofevidence that some Nahuasappropriated the notionof the Trinity in waysthat were neither expectednor tolerated bytheir educators.One of the most fascinating pieces ofevidenceabout unorthodox Nahua appropriations of the Trinity comes froma sentence handedout on 23 July 1727by Juan Ignacio de Castorena y 36 NAMING THE TRINITY

Ursu´a, Provisor andVicar Generalfor Indians and Asians in the Archbishopric ofMexico.The person convicted by this sentence was oneBartolome ´Mart ´õ n, a Nahuaranch hand who worked at the estate ofSan Antonio— located nearthe townof Metepec— and who had been turned in to the local ecclesiastical judge bythe ranchowner, Juan Antonio de Aramburo. 32 Accordingto local rumors,Bartolome ´Mart ´õ nwas knownas asorcerer becausehe cast spells against hail, acommonritual specialist occupationin townslocated nearthe variousmountain ranges of the Valley ofMexico which was knownin Nahuatlas teciuhtlazqui. 33 Whenconfronted in jail with those accusations, rather thandenying them, he embraced them usinga most peculiar theological justiŽcation:

He declaredthat it was truethat he was calleda sorcerer,although he was notone. In fact, although he cast spells against hail, that was afavorthat had beengiven him by the three Persons, Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, for one daythere was arainstormwhile he was lookingafter some oxen, and a boltof lighting had fallen on him, wounding him from haunchto foot on hisleft side and leaving a burntarea. When he came to his senses, three angelsappeared before him. They gave him strength, and told him they were envoysfrom theHoly Trinity, and that they were bringinghim the grace ofcasting spells against hail; then, they went back to Heaven. These people hadtold him he should cast his spells in the name of the said three Persons; assoon as he cast his spell, the clouds went away, and he did the same in thename of the Christ of Chalma, and Our Ladyof Guadalupe of Los Remedios.34

Dueto this creative wayof employing the nameof the Trinity,Bartolome ´Mart ´õ n was paradedin an auto de fe at his ownparish, given 100 lashes inpublic on 10November 1727, and sentenced to two years ofsemi-indentured labor on a local ranch. However,not all Nahuatlspeakers treated the Nahuatlnames ofthe Trinity with the respect encodedin the use ofhonoriŽ c sufŽxes ortraditional ritual practices. Accordingto the oidor Antoniode Rivadeneira y Barrientos—who wrotea detailed responseto the languageand evangelization policies issued by the 1771Fourth Mexican Church Council— missionaries also hadto be awareof certain irreverent modiŽcations to the Nahuatlterms forthe Trinity whichNahua parishioners occasionally used:

Toexplain the Mystery [of theTrinity], when the good Mexicans are asked, “Whois the Holy Trinity?” they respond: YehuatzinDios Tetatzin Dios Ypilton,yhitum [sic] DiosEspiritu Santo .“Godthe Father, God the Son and Godthe Holy Spirit.” Instead of calling the Second Person DiosYpilton , the evilMexicans say Diostepiltu ,whichrefers toan obscene thing among the Indians,35 andthus God becomes indignant. Others say DiosTepitzi , which means“ God,the Little One,” which goes against the undivided immensity of thethree Divine Persons. All of this does not depend on the language, but on theTeacher, and if theIndian says those things, it isbecausethat was whathe was taughtto say. (JCB, Codex Ind. 52, 240v– 241r) 37 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

Conclusions FromIndigenous Responses to the Dialectics of Reference Evenif missionary translation proceduresin the sixteenth centurygave way to afracturedNahua reception of the Trinity in the eighteenthcentury, the case studydeveloped in this essay cannotsupport the argumentthat apoortranslation orfailed educationalefforts onbehalf of this Christian dogmacrippled Francis- canand Dominican missionary efforts in NewSpain. Failures in translation did notdefeat doctrinal projects, promoteindigenous rebellion, or encourageacts of native resistance. However,one need not be a theologianto realize that, in matters ofdoctrinal translation, the devil oftenwas in the details. Evenif the instances oftranslation exploredin this essay are marginal in terms oftheir importanceto the ensemble ofevangelization projects insixteenth- andseven- teenth-centuryNew Spain, this case studyshould serve as anillustration ofthe linguistic andcultural boundariesthat ambitious missionary projects eventually reachedafter decadesof expansion and experimentation. Inits emphasis onthe linguistic complexityand uncertain results ofthe dialectics ofreception which such projects triggered,this essay has avoided romanticizing oroverstating anyevidence of native resistance to colonial evangelizationprojects. Takinga different approach,some theorists havechosen translation issues in colonial indoctrinationprocesses as alaunchingground for sweepingtheoretical assertions. Acase in pointis Rafael’s (1988)compelling butuneven review of the problemsattending the translation ofChristian doctrine intoTagalog in the colonial Philippines. Inthis work,Rafael depictedSpanish translation projects as ahegemonicoutgrowth of Nebrija’ s insistence onthe regulationof voices throughorthography. Following a well-worntheoretical path,Rafael interprets Nebrija’s orthographicproject as anenforcement of the logocentricrapport between voice and letter that, accordingto Derrida’s (1967) (in)famousthesis, has permeatedWestern thoughtsince Plato. 36 Sucha project elicited, inRafael’ s view,an equally widespread resistance fromthe Tagalogs; accordingto Rafael, the untranslatability ofcertain terms was actively reformu- lated byTagalalogs so that theycould read into Christianity “asurplus of referents with whichto reserve foroneself aposition fromwhich to face those at the topof the hierarchy”(Rafael 1988,121). Rafael’s analysis is constrainedby three analytical postures that havebeen avoidedin this essay. First ofall, hechoosesto depict the project oftranslating Christianity into Tagalogas amomentousepistemological battle between alternative waysof representing “ voices”; Ipreferto beginwith adetailed considerationof such a project within its linguistic andsocial contextof productionbefore moving on towards a characterization ofits dialectics of productionand reception. Secondly, the disjunction hesees as epistemological is better characterized as acultural dividebetween Renaissance linguistics and indigenouswriting systems. 37 Thirdly,his argumentfor a continuousTagalog resistance todoctrinal discourses throughreferent accumulationappears to rest ontheoretical preoccupationsrather thanon asubstantial numberof documented instances ofTagalog linguistic engagementwith doctrinal translations. Howmay one avoid such a Manicheanepistemic viewof colonial hegemony 38 NAMING THE TRINITY andindigenous resistance in ananalysis ofcolonial doctrinal translations? In detailing the dialectical formationof translation solutions to namingthe Trinity in Nahuatl—and in surveyingthe receptionof these solutions bya small but representative numberof Nahua wills— Ihave attempted to showthat the problemof rendering this notionin a native languagewas notone of untrans- latability, butone of ambivalence. As shownby their frequentusage in wills, spells, andword games, Nahuas were able toapprehend and deploy their own particuar notionsabout the Trinity,and often applied the solutions advocatedby their Franciscan andDominican educators. Except in the case ofwillful manipu- lation forsatirical effect recordedby Rivadeneiray Barrientos (JCB, CodexInd. 52,240v), any “ surplus ofreferents”to the notionof the Trinity derivednot from Nahuaattitudes, butfrom the dialectics ofreception of a series oftranslation attempts inwhich the implied referent was anythingbut stable. Until now,I havefocused my attention onwhat one may term the external dialectics ofthe translation process: the protractedlinguistic experimentationand reformation,the ecclesiastical arguments,and the actual usageand appropriation ofthese solutions byvarious generations of Nahua recipients. However,the internal dialectics ofthe modesof translation mayhave hinged, as shownby the argumentsof Bautista andLeo ´n,on the referential properties ofparticular translation solutions. Inthe followingsection, this typeof dialectics will be dissected fromthe standpointof contemporary analytical philosophyto show whythe differences in the Dominicanand the Franciscan waysof naming the Trinity werenot only a matter oftheological driveand political might,but also oneof referential propriety.

Namingthe Trinity inNahuatl: From Description toProper Name Inorder to shedlight onthe referential boundariesthat constrainedthe transla- tion ofthe Trinity intoNahuatl, I will nowdiscuss the relevanceof the distinction betweenreferring to the HolyTrinity as aNahuatl description — Bautista’s solution—and referring to it as aNahuatl proper name—the solution advocatedby Ghent, Molina andLeo ´n.My discussion will buildupon a lucid analysis ofnaming and designation outlined by the analytical philosopherSaul Kripke in Namingand Necessity (1980). Inthis work,Kripke established acrucial distinction betweenrigid and non-rigiddesignators. He deŽned a rigid designatoras somethingthat designates the same object in all possible worlds,and proceeded to posit propernames as rigid designators—for example, the propername “ Nixon”(Kripke 1980, 48). He madethe distinction betweena rigid designator like “Nixon”and a description suchas “the President ofthe U.S.in 1970”on the basis oftheir referential properties.The proper name “ Nixon”is in andof itself arigid designator,for it designates oneand only one referent underany utterance conditionsand in any possible worlds.On the otherhand, the descriptive clause “the President ofthe U.S.in 1970”could possibly applyto morethan one referent. First ofall, under different historical circumstances, someoneelse couldhave been the President of the U.S.in 1970.Furthermore, such a description couldhave been proffered by 39 DAVID TAVA´ REZ somebodywho believed Johnson was the President in 1970;thus, that person’s referent wouldnot match the historical referent.Therefore, according to Kripke, this description is nota rigid designatorfor the historical character whomwe knowas “RichardNixon” . Kripke’s discussion ofrigid designators illuminates the peculiar problemsthat resulted froma Franciscan attempt totranslate the term “HolyTrinity” into doctrinal Nahuatl.Bautista noticedthat agivendescription ofessential qualities inNahuatl did not necessarily pickthe onereferent that was meant tobe chosen: “Threepersons, only one [of them] true God”carried ascopeambiguity; “He/she is called three ways”referred to separate propernames andnot to separate persons.In other words, the conditionsunder which these descriptions pickedthe intendedreferent dependednot only on truth conditions,but also on howthe necessary properties ofthe Trinity weretranslated in doctrinal Nahuatl. Inthe process oftranslating the essential qualities ofthe Trinity into Nahuatlin orderto Žxoneand only one referent, the questionof whether or not the essential qualities ofthe Trinity wereaccurately andexhaustively translated into Nahuatland understood as essential becamean empirical problemthat was tobe addressedfrom the viewpointof Nahua speakers. To echoKripke, “ whetheran object has the same propertyin all possible worldsdepends not just onthe object itself, buton howit is described ” (ibid., 41). Thesuccess ofa rigid designator—such as the propernames “Nixon”or “HolyTrinity” — depends,according to Kripke, on an initial act ofreference whichis successful onlyif acommunityof speakers shares the same association betweenproper name and referent. This is whatKripke calls a“baptismal act” (ibid.,35).The naming of the Trinity throughthe properNahuatl names ofits three components—Father, Son and Holy Ghost— in the Dominican1548 doc- trine andMolina’ s 1565confessional was meant to bea baptismal act. Further- more,Leo ´n’s 1611 parecer proclaiming teo¯tlacatl the Nahuatlproper name for the Trinity andPe ´rez dela Fuente’s usageof Ye¯itilyo¯tl as apropername were meant tobe new baptismal acts that wouldreplace the earlier Franciscan christenings. However,Kripke noted that namingdoes not occur in avacuum,and that the linkagebetween proper name and description is always socially andculturally mediated.The Nahuatl reception of Molina’ s, Bautista’s andLeo ´n’s solutions suggests that there was acertain preferencefor proper names— which are, after all, semantically emptycomponents that must begiven meaning through a social contract ofsorts. This preferencewas motivated bythe fact that boththe proper names ofthe componentsof the Trinity andthe Dominicanneologism acted as rigid designators ofthe Trinity inNahuatl. On the otherhand, Bautista’ s descriptions, whichwere not a rigid formof designation, were not adopted by othermissionaries orNahuaauthors. According to my sample of29Nahuawills from1694 to 1763, Nahua scribes rejected Bautista’s descriptive solution. Twenty-twoof them preferredan enumeration of the propernames ofthe Trinity persons,with orwithout a mentionof the Spanishproper name. On the other hand,four of them preferredthe Dominicanneologism. A small minority—only twoscribes— embraced a descriptive solution,and even in this case theyreverted to the relatively simple descriptive translation usedby Ghent and in the 1548 40 NAMING THE TRINITY

Dominicandoctrine, and appeared to be blissfully unawareof Bautista’ s criti- cisms. Inother words, what Tastera visualized as asingle conceptualbarrier proved to bea doubleboundary, for doctrinal authorsnot only faced the challengeof Žndinga suitable translation ofthe Trinity intoNahuatl, but also hadto confront the consequencesof choosing between a rigid anda non-rigidform of desig- nation.Even when they made the most ambitious choice—as was the case for Bautista—they faced the challengeof producinga description that couldin fact Žxasingle referent forNahuatl speakers. Paradoxically, the pathof least resistance—the namingof the Trinity throughproper names— was as successful in terms ofacceptance as it was potentially troublesomefrom a theological standpoint: it mayhave succeeded in Žxinga uniquereferent, but at the cost of enumeratingthe names ofthe Trinity personswithout further explanation, or of coiningan awkward neologism— “Divine Human Being” — whichreferred to the Trinity as if it werea humanentity. Fromthe notarial andjudicial evidencereviewed in this essay, it is clear that the missionaries succeededin evoking a referent throughone or more Nahuatl names.However, in their attempt to renderthe notionof the Trinity intoNahuatl wordsand into functional Nahua cultural categories, the Žrst three generations ofmissionaries inNew Spain had in fact tosettle— except for Bautista andJuan dela Anunciacio´n—for a distant linguistic echoof the Trinity.This diffuse and deeplyambiguous reception allowed for the coexistence ofNahua naming and devotionalpractices that didnot contradict eachother in their heterodoxy.While some certiŽably devote Nahuas invoked on their dyingday three wondrous names—whom they could still haveregarded as three separate deities—Nahua ritual specialists attempted tomaster natural phenomenathrough the utterance of the same three holynames. In the end,Tastera’ s metaphorsproved to bealmost prophetic:as theyfollowed St. Jerome’s exampleof Ž lingone’ s ownteeth to master adifŽcult language,missionaries discoveredthat the adaptationof Christian conceptsto Nahua linguistic forms requireddrastic modiŽcations whichwere as deŽnite andirrevocable as adeliberate act ofmutilation.

Notes *Researchfor this essay was funded with grants from the John Carter Brown Library, the ResearchInstitute for the Study of Man,and the Hewlett Foundation. Earlier and much abridged versionsof this work were presented at the 1997 Chicago Linguistics Society (Tava ´rez1997) andat the 1998 Atlantic History Seminar at Harvard University. I wouldlike to acknowledge thefeedback I receivedfrom both organizers and participants at these events, as well as the detailedsuggestions made by Louise Burkhart, Serge Gruzinski, and Kenneth Mills. 1 Accordingto the editors of Cartas de Indias (1877), the image of Ž lingdown one’ s teethis a referenceto St. Jerome, who, according to tradition, Ž leddown his teeth in order to improve hispronunciation of Hebrew. 2 Thiswas a crucialperiod for doctrinal education projects. The middle of the sixteenth century ismarked by thepublication of four early Nahuatl doctrinal texts (1539– 1548). The Ž rstdecade ofthe seventeenth century is characterized by a risein the number of secular clergy, and by theirparticipation in idolatry campaigns (Tava ´rez1999). 3 Besidesthe passing mention of translations of the Trinity in Ricard (1966) and Pury Toumi (1992),I knowof no analysis of the issue besides my own work. 41 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

4 Zuma´rraga’s 1539 Breve… DoctrinaChristiana en Lengua Mexicana y Castellana , Molina’s 1546 Doctrinachristiana breve traducida en lenguaMexicana ,Peterof Ghent’s 1547 Doctrina christianaen lengua mexicana ,andthe Dominicans’ 1548 Doctrinachristiana en le [n]gua Espan˜olay Mexicana . 5 However,there exist surviving Nahuatl texts only from Escalona, Ghent and Olmos. 6 Fora reviewof the careers of these and other doctrinal authors, see Leo ´n-Portilla(1988) and Zulaicay Ga´rate(1991). 7 Authorsof Classical Nahuatl texts did not systematically transcribe two salient phonological Nahuafeatures— vowel length and glottal stops— that make a differencein the sense of aword. Inthis essay, although many quoted Nahuatl texts will not be regularized, I willtranscribe Nahuatlwords in detail when discussing speciŽ c translationexamples. Following Andrews (1975)and Karttunen (1983), long vowels will be indicated with macrons (a ¯)andglottal stops withthe letter h. Alltranslations from the Nahuatl are my own. 8 Thewisdom of calling something so sacred a “divinetortilla” was eventually questioned. After the1771 Fourth Mexican Church Council, Rivadeneira y Barrientosdefended teo¯tlaxcalli as a propertranslation into Nahuatl which could not be improvedby inserting the Spanish term into Nahuatlas a lexicalborrowing (JCB, Codex Ind. 52, 241r). 9 FondsMexicain 367, Sermonesen Mexicano ,276r.This anonymous collection of texts could havebeen authored by Nahua members of theFranciscan Colegio de SantaCruz de Tlatelolco. 10 IntheFlorentine Codex, it is saidthat the bones of war captives that had been dressed up during afeastof the 260-day ritual calendar were called malteo¯tl,or“ captive’s teo¯tl”.Furthermore, duringanother feast, the Mexica ruler addressed one of the participant deity impersonators as “my dear teo¯tl”.SeeHvidtfeldt (1958). 11 Sahagu´n1961,192. The original text reads, “ Icquitoque in vevetque: in aqujn oonmjc oteut, qujtoaia:ca onteut,q,n, ca oonmjc. auh injc motlapololtique, in ac ¸oictlacamachozque in tlatoquecatca: mochintin mo teotocaque,in jquacmjcque. Cequjntin qujnmjxiptlatique tonatiuh: cequjintinmetztli.” 12 Giventhe dearth of surviving doctrinal texts by Ž rst-generationauthors, this case study will focuson translation examples taken from second- and third-generation sources. 13 Ghent1553, 69v. This formula is repeated almost verbatim within a prayerto the Holy Cross in 101r. 14 Anunciacio´n’s Spanishgloss is “ Demanera q[ue] las tres personas que estan en una deydad y ese[n]ciadiuina, en qua[n]to son personas bien se distinguen.” One should note here the role ofthe locative construction ¯õtechpantzinco .Althoughit could be translated as “ inregard to” (Burkhart1999, personal communication), Anunciacio ´nusesan idiosyncratic locative term composedof three deictic elements ( ¯õtech-,“nextto, on, attached to” ; - pan-, “on”; -co “in, among”) totranslate the Spanish locative construction estar en (“tobe located in” ). Another exampleof this usage is found earlier in the same paragraph (Anunciacio ´n1575,12): Dios tepiltzinyn cemicac ytechpatzinco moquixtitzinoticayn Dios tetatzin; “ …DiosHijo el qual eternamente esta yprocedede Dios Padre … ”. 15 SergeGruzinski, personal communication, 1998. The Ž rstedition of Molina’ s Confesionario appearedin 1565;there also was a second(1569) and a thirdedition (1578), which was unusual foran early native doctrinal text. 16 Forexample, an eighteenth-century text in Quiche ´Mayafound by German scholar Leon Reinischcontains a Quiche´translationof Molina’s doctrinalformula for joining Indian couples inmatrimony (Fonds Mexicain 405, 19r– 20v). 17 Fora detaileddiscussion of these factors, see Alberro (1988) and Lebroc (1969). 18 Lorenzana1769a, 143– 44. An example of this shift in attitudeis foundin thecensorship of Fray MaturinoGilberti’ s moraldialogues, written in Tarascan and intended for a nativeaudience. In 1559,Gilberti’ s workwas seized by orders of the bishop of Michoaca ´n,and the censors appointedby himargued that there existed substantial differences between the Tarascan and the Spanishtext, as well as “ thingsimpertinent and ill-sounding to ourears” (AGN Inquisicio´n,vol. 43,no. 6, 197r– 230v). 19 Fora concisehistorical review of the Colegio de SantaCruz de Tlatelolco,see Burkhart (1996). 20 BautistaViseo 1606, xii r– v. This list includes only eight extant imprints: Confesionarioen lenguamexicana y castellana (1599), Huehuehtlahtolli (1600),the two volumes of Advertencias 42 NAMING THE TRINITY

paralos confesores de indios (1600), Librode lamiseria y brevedadde la vida del hombre … (1604), Viday milagrosdel bienaventurado Sanct Antonio de Padua (1605),and the two volumesof the Sermonario (1606).There remain no originals of the other nine works. 21 BothMendieta and Vetancourt describe the collaboration of Rodr ´õ guezwith Bautista, and Bautistahimself mentions receiving assistance from Baptista de Contreras in his 1606 Sermonario.However,the sole surviving manuscript copy of their version of the Imitatio Christi (CodexInd. 23, John Carter Brown Library) is a truncatedversion, for it endsabruptly inChapter XII, BookThree. Bautista’ s Imitatio wasin fact a secondattempt to renderthis work intoNahuatl. There exists an earlier illuminated version (Manuscript d.IV.7, Real Biblioteca de El Escorial),which was brought to Spain as a giftfor Juan de Ovandoby Mendieta circa 1570. Thisversion was probably prepared by Alonso de Molina (Campos y Ferna´ndezde Sevilla 1993,59– 66). 22 Thesebiographical data are taken from Zulaica y Ga´rate(1991, 217– 21), and from Bautista’ s introductionsto the Confesionario , the Librode la Miseria , and the Sermonario. 23 Thesyntactical frames in whichquantiŽ ers have a wideor a narrowscope differ from language tolanguage. A fulleranalysis of this issue should include a surveyof restrictions on quantiŽ er scopein doctrinal Nahuatl. However, such an analysis goes well beyond the purpose of this essay. 24 Insteadof widening the scope of ce¯ witha syntacticalmodiŽ cation, Bautista resorted to a commonplacefor frustrated colonial grammarians. Taking Latin grammar as grid, he blamed thisambiguity on the absence of gender marking in Nahuatl, and noted that there was no ambiguityin the Latin due to gender sufŽ xes (Bautista Viseo 1600, 52r). 25 TheDominicans were somewhat misled on both counts. First of all, while teo¯tla¯catl is indeeda neologism,the etymologically related term Tla¯cateo¯tzin (“HonorableHuman Deity” ) wasthe proper name of the second ruler of Tlatelolco and the son of Quaquapitzahuac, accordingto Nahua chronicler Chimalpahin (Schroeder 1997, 59, 111– 15). Secondly, teo¯tla¯catl literallymeans “ divinehuman being” , not“ divineperson” , afactthat leads the Dominican proposalaway from any direct connection with the Christian rhetorical use of the term “person”. 26 FondsMexicain 303, 74v, 75r. It isunclear why Perez de la Fuente chose the connective - til-; otherfeasible, more regular options were Ye¯i-ti-yo¯tl or Ye¯i-ca-yo¯tl. 27 Anearly appreciation of the linguistic data contained in Nahuawills is foundin Karttunenand Lockhart(1976), and the social data found in these sources are judiciously employed in Cline andLeo ´n-Portilla(1984) and in Lockhart 1992. Two recentpublications that showcase the richnessof the linguistic, social and economic data found in Mesoamerican and Andean colonialindigenous wills are Restall and Kellogg (1998) and Rojas et al. (1999). 28 AHAM, Box1, No.1, 1r:Testament of Juan Criso ´stomofrom Santa Ba ´rbaraXolalpa, 14 May 1701. 29 AHAM, Box23, No. 343: Testament of Ambrosio Lorenzo from San Bartolome ´Tlatilolco, October23, 1715. AHAM, Box24, no. 359, Testament of FranciscoPedro, 8 May1737, omits theclause “ threehonorable Persons” . 30 Thefollowing examples from eighteenth-century wills are taken from Lockhart (1992, 553). 31 Theusual phrasing is y[n] notlalnacayoyhuan yc ninolpitias yn i cordontzinynotlac ¸otatzin San Francisco,“ Iwillhave my corpse tied with the cord of my dear father Saint Francis.” For an example,see AHAM, Box1, no. 1. 32 Fora summaryof the legal mechanisms involved in the prosecution of idolaters in Central Mexico,see Greenleaf (1965; 1985) and Tava ´rez(1999). 33 Molina1571, 92 v. There is also the variant teciuhtlazani . 34 AHAM, Box15, no. 215, 1r– v. 35 Te¯-pil-ton means“ somebody’s littlechild” ; itsminimal pair tepil-ton means“ smallvagina” (Molina1571, 103r). 36 Derrida’s theoryabout the radical difference between orality and the written sign rests on a Heideggeriansurvey of the properties of writing which spans from Plato’ s Phaedrus to Rousseau’s Essaisur l’ Origine des Langues (Derrida1967). However, one of his crucial assumptions—the absence of linguistic signs prior to the emergence of alphabetic writing— is basedon aGreco-Latinnotion of writing which excludes, in both historical and epistemic terms, 43 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

Mesoamericanwriting systems. An incipient “ Mesoamericanist”critique of Derrida’ s thesis appearedin Mignolo (1996). 37 Rafael(1988, 44– 54) argues that the Spanish rejection of the Tagalog pre-colonial writing system (baybayin)wasmotivated by anepistemic drive to controlthe production of the“ voice” throughan alphabet, an argument rooted in Derrida’ s notionof logocentrism rather than in an exhaustivesurvey of textualand linguistic evidence. An alternative hypothesis would be thatthe baybayin infact re ected Tagalog phonological categories, and that the Spanish grammarians, constrainedas they were by Latin grammatical and phonological categories, could not discern thelogic of the Tagalog writing system and preferred to replace it. Tagalog in fact seems to havewhat linguists call “ naturalclasses” : thatis, one or more vowels in a givenword may changeif they are preceded or followed by a wordcontaining vowels from the same “ natural class”. Sincethe Tagalog script assumed a nativespeaker’ s knowledgeof these phonological changes,it did not bother to make them explicit— afeature that troubled Spanish grammarians tono end.This explanation would in factdissolve “ therift between a writtenword and its vocal reproduction”which existed, according to Rafael (1988, 53), in the baybayin script.It should benoted that one cannot dismiss the common linguistic analytical terms “ phonological category”and “ naturalclass” as mere manifestations of the omnipresence of Greco-Roman logocentricthought without entering into a circularargument whose drive leads exactly nowehere.

Bibliography Manuscriptprimary sources Bibliothe`queNationale, Paris (BNP) FondsMexicain 303: Obrasy copiasdiversas de Jose´Pe´rezde laFuentey Quixada,1666– 1731. Copiesof doctrinal plays, texts and devotional songs in Nahuatl by a Creole authorfrom Amecameca. 126 ff. FondsMexicain 367: Sermonesen mexicano. Collectionof Nahuatl Sunday Sermons for the year, doctrinal texts, and a Nahuatltranslation of a Latintreatise on government. 594 pp. FondsMexicain 405: Notassobre la lengua na ´huatl. Noteson Nahuatl grammar by Leon Reinisch,and 3 ff.of assortedeighteenth-century doctrinal texts in Quiche ´. 20 ff.

JohnCarter Brown Library,Brown University(JCB) CodexInd. 52: Recomendacionessobre el IV ConcilioMexicano .Acommentby Judge Jose´deRivadeneira y Barrientoson the doctrinal and language policies recommendedby the1771 Fourth Mexican Church Council. A copyof this textis kept in Madrid’ s Bibliotecadel Palacio Real as MS 1462.265 ff.

Archiveof the Archbishopric of Mexico (AHAM) Nahuatldocument box, no. 4a: Testament in Nahuatl by Juan Rafael, from San Antonio, 21 October1732. 1 f. Nahuatldocument box, no. 4b: Testament in Nahuatlby Agust õ´nPedro,from San Cristo ´bal(near Toluca),11 November 1732. 1 f. Nahuatldocument box, no. 6: Testament in Nahuatl by Pedro Pablo, from Santa Clara, 3 February1694. 1 f. Box 1, no. 1: Testamentin Nahuatl by Juan Criso ´stomo,from Santa Ba ´rbara Xolalpa,14 May 1701, translated into Spanish. 1 f. 44 NAMING THE TRINITY

Box2, no. 14: Testamentin Nahuatl by Pascual de los Reyes, from San Sebas- tia´n,26 July 1703. 1 f. Box4, no. 49: Testamentin Nahuatl by Maria Estrada Morales, from Santiago, 10May 1707. 1 f. ]Box5, no. 55: Testamentin Nahuatl by Pascual Francisco, from San Juan Baptista,21 December 1710. 1 f. Box18, no. 267: Testamentin Nahuatl by Isabel Mar ´õ a,widow of Marcos Fran- cisco,from Santa Clara Cozcatlan, 3 November1731. 1 f. Box20, no. 299: Testamentin Nahuatl by Luis Francisco, from Santa Clara, 7 August1731. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Sebastia ´ndeSantiago, from San Juan Bautista,31 October 1731. 1 f. Box20, no. 301: Testamentin Nahuatl by Adria ´nJoseph,from San Miguel Atic- pac,5 March1733. 1 f. Box21, no. 321: Testamentin Nahuatl by Mar ´õ adela Encarnacio ´n,widow of Mateode laCruz,from San Juan Evangelista, 3 November1733. 1 f. Box22, no. 239: Testamentin Nahuatl by Joaqu ´õ nJoseph,from San Juan Baptista, 8May1736. 1 1736,1 f. Box23, no. 343: Testamentin Nahuatlby AmbrosioLorenzo, from San Bartolome ´ Tlatilolco,23 October 1715. 2 ff. Testamentin Nahuatl by Pascualde la Cruz,from San Miguel, 17 February1736. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Francisco de la Cruz, from San Pedro Tototepec,3 March1735. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Gregorio Juan, from San Bartolome ´ Tlatilolco,14 July 1731. 1 f. Box24, no. 359: Testamentin Nahuatlby Melchora Maria, widow of JuanValeri- ano,from San Bartolome ´Tlatilolco,1 September1737. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Francisco Pedro, from an unknown Tolucasubject, 8 May1737. 1 f. Box25, no. 376: Testamentin Nahuatlby Bernardinode Santiago, from the barrio ofSan Pedro Tototepec, 22 August 1737. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Mar ´õ aHerna´ndes,from San Miguel Aticpac,20 November 1737. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Elena de la Cruz, from San Miguel Aticpac,19 August 1711. 2 ff. Testamentin Nahuatl by Mar ´õ aJosepha,from San Miguel Atic- pac,15 August 1737. 1 f. Testamentin Nahuatl by Pedro Pablo, from the barrio of San JuanBautista, 16 March 1737. 1 f. Box25, no. 384: Testamentin Nahuatl by Felipe Bartolome ´,fromthe barrio of SanFelipe y SantiagoTlamimilolpa, 22 June 1662. 1 f. 45 DAVID TAVA´ REZ

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