Places of Power and Memory in Mesoamerica's Past and Present
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Daniel Graña-Behrens (ed.) Places of Power and Memory in Mesoamerica’s Past and Present How Sites, Toponyms and Landscapes Shape History and Remembrance ESTUDIOS INDIANA 9 Places of Power and Memory in Mesoamerica’s Past and Present How Sites, Toponyms and Landscapes Shape History and Remembrance Daniel Graña-Behrens (ed.) Gebr. Mann Verlag • Berlin 2016 Estudios Indiana e monographs and essay collections in the Estudios Indiana series present the results of research on multiethnic, indigenous, and Afro-American societies and cultures in Latin America, both contemporary and historical. It publishes original contributions from all areas within the study of the Americas, including archaeology, ethnohistory, sociocultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology. e volumes are published in print form and online with free and open access. En la serie Estudios Indiana se publican monografías y compilaciones que representan los resultados de investigaciones sobre las sociedades y culturas multiétnicas, indígenas y afro-americanas de América Latina y el Caribe tanto en el presente como en el pasado. Reúne contribuciones originales de todas las áreas de los estudios americanistas, incluyendo la arqueología, la etnohistoria, la antropología socio-cultural y la antropología lingüística. Los volúmenes se publican en versión impresa y online con acceso abierto y gratuito. Editado por: Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – Preußischer Kulturbesitz Potsdamer Straße 37 D-10785 Berlin, Alemania e-mail: [email protected] http://www.iai.spk-berlin.de Consejo editorial: Andrew Canessa (University of Essex), Michael Dürr (Zentral- und Landes - bibliothek Berlin), Wolfgang Gabbert (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover), Barbara Göbel (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut), Ernst Halbmayer (Philipps-Universität Mar burg), Maarten Jansen (Universiteit Leiden), Ingrid Kummels (Freie Uni versität Berlin), Karoline Noack (Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität Bonn), Heiko Prümers (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut), Bettina Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David), Gordon Whittaker (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen). Jefa de redacción: Iken Paap (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut) Tipografía: Patricia Schulze, Iken Paap (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut) Información bibliográca de la Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: La Deutsche Nationalbibliothek recoge esta publicación en la Deutsche Na- tionalbibliograe. Los datos biliográcos están disponibles en la dirección de Internet http://www.dnb.de. Pedidos de la versión impresa: Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berliner Str. 53, D-10713 Berlin http://www.reimer-mann-verlag.de Versión digital, acceso libre: http://www.iai.spk-berlin.de/es/publicaciones/estudios-indiana.html Impresión: H. Heenemann GmbH & Co. KG, Bessemerstraße 83-91, D-12103 Berlin Impreso en Alemania ISBN 978-3-7861-2766-6 Copyright © 2016 Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut – Preußischer Kulturbesitz Todos los derechos reservados Contents Places of Power and Memory in Mesoamerica’s Past and Present. How Sites, Toponyms and Landscapes Shape History and Remembrance Daniel Graña-Behrens 7 Where Snakes Abound: Supernatural Places of Origin and Founding Myths in the Titles of Classic Maya Kings Christophe Helmke and Felix Kupprat 33 The Linguistics of Toponymy in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing Sven Gronemeyer 85 Emblem Glyphs in Classic Maya Inscriptions: From Single to Double Ones as a Means of Place of Origin, Memory and Diaspora Péter Bíró 123 Myth and Model. The Pattern of Migration, Settlement, and Reclamation of Land in Central Mexico and Oaxaca Viola König 159 Searching for the Sanctuary of Lady 9 Reed: Huajuapan, Ring of Stones Angel Iván Rivera Guzmán, Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen and Gabina Aurora Pérez Jiménez 199 The Ascension of Mount Coatepetl by Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huitznahua: A Temple Made of Words Patrick Johansson 233 History, Tradition, Myth and Territory in a Nahua Village (Guerrero, Mexico) Ethelia Ruiz Medrano 255 Materiality and Community in the Mixteca John Monaghan 275 Authors 291 Places of Power and Memory in Mesoamerica’s Past and Present. How Sites, Toponyms and Landscapes Shape History and Remembrance Daniel Graña-Behrens Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany [email protected] Introduction is volume shares the insights of well-known Mesoamerican scholars from Europe, Mexico and the U.S. who analyze how power and memory are conceived through places, toponyms and landscapes in pre-Hispanic as well as in Colonial and modern Meso- america. ey address the question of how places, toponyms and landscapes gained importance for people, and how politics and remembrance shaped them in the long term by addressing the underlying histories, myths and rituals and strategies in responding to new circumstances. Still today, the people of Mesoamerica, which includes Mexico and part of Central America, show a continued preference for places, towns or urban centers to distinguish themselves individually and as a collectivity, although they constantly reshape and transform those according to their political, religious or economic needs. Mesoamerica’s archaeology and history reveal that people inhabited a vast region of what is today Mexico and Central America from the Paleo-Indian period onwards (for at least 10,000 years), with the initial domestication of plants having taken place around 7,000 BC and the establishment of agricultural villages evident all over Mesoamerica by 1,500 BC (Adams 2000: 10). Important cultures like the Olmecs at the coast of the Gulf of Mexico or the Zapotecs in the Highlands of Central Mexico, just to name two examples, had by then established settlements with mounds, pyramids, temples and palaces as seats of power and memory that reected their political and religious organization. From the common substrate of Mesoamerican ideas, beliefs and customs, it is the urban center, the community, town or village that since the pre-Hispanic period have served as markers of distinction regarding foundation myths, the enactment of rituals, the submission to particular authorities and ultimately the shaping of history and remembrance (Megged 2010: 6). e prototypes for such place-oriented modes of distinction, however, were natural places like mountains, volcanoes or caves, which among other topographical features were considered the dwelling places of gods and sites for renewing rain or corn. e occupation of land and the creation of a landscape was thus a ritual endeavor (Arnold 2001). Hence, single places or multiple places that 8 Daniel Graña-Behrens were ritually plotted and connected in a larger area gained importance for the people. e Spanish Conquest did not change this substantially (Lockhart 1982: 369). Local entities retained their importance because of their history and identity, modied only by the new rules and circumstances. If natives were forced by the Spanish authority to settle at a new place – within the so called repúblicas de indios or pueblos de indios (Indian town- ships) – the history of that place was largely invented and a kind of ‘false’ memory pro- moted by the elite with the intention to recreate their micro-identity (Florescano 1996: 268; Leibsohn 1994: 161). Landscapes were kept in memory, and rituals still performed in caves or at mountains. Even today, anthropologists can observe how communities in Mesoamerica shape people’s identity (Carmack 1995; Monaghan 1995; Redeld 1930). However, this does not mean that the inhabitants of a community see their entity as a coherent one to which they should feel a deep loyalty (Sandstrom 1991: 140). Nor should a place be considered static or a form of ‘closed-corporate community’. Rather, it always “emerges out of particular relations and interactions” (Monaghan 1995: 14). From the viewpoint of seats of power and memory, pre-Hispanic and early Colonial places are mostly the product of the local elite, but do also have an impact on the collec- tive consciousness of the inhabitants, just as their religious and agricultural experience and kinship. Mirroring the eects of modernity and capitalism in the contemporary world, urban centers and cities are today places of diversity – culturally, sociologically, economically, ecologically etc. – and they have become the focus of anthropologists and sociologists since the mid-1980s. It was even predicted that anthropological studies would be undertaken mostly in urban and complex societies in the future (Basham & DeGroot 1977: 415). Such urban centers are now associated with dierent metaphors expressing what these places mean, ranging from the ethnic city to the global city or the traditional city, among others (Low 1996). Metropolises like Mexico City or Guatemala City are examples of Mesoamerican mega-cities that have a geopolitical impact on the countries in which they are located. ey absorb a signicant part of the national population and all kinds of resources (water, electricity, food etc.), oftentimes to the disadvantage of other regions and in the brutal form of endo-colonialism. At the same time, they are constantly in ux, shifting their territorial limits (Azuara Monter, Huschmid & Cerda García 2011: 11). In other areas, like modern China, the ongoing building of dozens of giant, partially deserted cities entirely from scratch and the occasional copying of complete towns or house blocks from other cultural areas, although not quite a new phenomenon, also calls to mind the function of power and memory. With cities either already inhabited or in the process of becoming so and constantly adding new heterogeneous