Indian Women of Early Mexico

Susan Schroeder, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett have edited an important and timely volume that breaks new ground in analyzing the diversity and complexity of the lives of indigenous women in colonial Mexico. By utilizing a wide variety of both Spanish and indigenous language sources, the contributors to this volume are for the most part successful in documenting the roles of Indian women in early Mexican society. In so doing, the authors challenge long-held stereotypes, while tying their findings to larger questions about gender and ethnic relations of power in colonial Mexico.

Louise Burkhart examines the religious significance of the domestic work of Mexica women in Aztec Mexico. She convincingly argues that Mexica cultural practices held that female activities such as sweeping and making offerings were vital to men’s success in warfare. The late Arthur J. O. Anderson used colonial Nahua accounts to explore the institution of marriage and discuss whether the norms for the expected behavior of Aztec wives in indigenous communities changed with conquest. In his contribution, Pedro Carrasco focuses on interethnic marriages and argues that the Indian men and women who married Spaniards came from the most hispanicized sectors of indigenous communities.

In order to outline the gendered social activities of Nahuatl men and women, Rebecca Horn examines naming patterns that she extracted from baptismal records in Coyoacán. Horn suggests that, in contrast to female second names, the more prestigious and varied Nahua male second names is indicative of men’s political status and their public roles in community life. Susan Kellogg traces the active involvement of Mexica women in property cases litigated in Mexico City. She demonstrates how in the short term the status of indigenous women increased in colonial society, given the particular characteristics of sixteenth-century life, as well as the nature of prehispanic gender roles that gave women certain rights to property and positions of authority. By the seventeenth century, however, the legal identity of women had become increasingly tied to that of their husbands and, as a result, Indian women no longer played such a central part in litigation.

In his essay, Robert Haskett focuses on the implications of a 1712 court case involving doña Josefa María, a Nahua “political activist” from Tepoztlán, to rethink the political participation of women in community life. Haskett uses the details of court proceedings against doña Josefa María, who was accused of an “unchaste friendship” by her political enemies, to reveal aspects of her direct influence on the town government, which, he suggests, indicate “an overt, public political role of Nahua women in colonial Mexico” (p. 147). Stephanie Wood uses Nahuatl wills from the valley of Toluca to challenge stereotypes that have characterized rural native women as submissive and unquestioning participants in larger patriarchal and religious structures. By analyzing gendered patterns of bequeathing land, religious images, and moveable goods, Wood demonstrates the wide range of economic and religious experiences that characterized the lives of indigenous women in the countryside.

In his essay, Ronald Spores offers readers a detailed analysis of the activities of three Mixteca cacicas (indigenous noblewomen) and their participation in various lawsuits designed to protect their rights and holdings. He uses these cases to examine the gendered and economic activities of elite indigenous women in Oaxaca. Lisa Mary Sousa uses criminal records from Oaxaca to show that the court system provided a forum in which both indigenous women and men could participate in a public dialogue about community relations. Kevin Gosner explores the spiritual leadership of María López in the 1712 Tzeltal revolt, which he places within the context of economic and political stresses on indigenous communities in Chiapas. By analyzing the implications of María López’s ecstatic vision of the Virgin Mary and her public position as community leader, Gosner poses larger questions about Maya traditions regarding the politico-religious role of male and female ritual specialists in community life.

Marta Espejo-Ponce Hunt and Matthew Restall examine the place of urban and rural Yucatec Maya women in community life. While Maya women who lived and worked in Spanish towns could increase their status through strategic ties to Spaniards, there was, according to the authors, a much greater continuity from precolonial life in the status and roles of rural indigenous women living in the interior of the Yucatán peninsula. Leslie Offut, in her study of the indigenous frontier town of San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala, suggests that women played an active part in defending community resources from encroachment by a neighboring Spanish settlement. Susan Deeds, in her contribution, assesses the transformations in gender roles among five indigenous groups in Nueva Vizcaya, transformations that resulted from the interplay between the Jesuit mission regime and women’s strategies of accommodation and resistance. Finally, Frances Karttunen offers a fascinating reconstruction of the life of the woman known as Malinche, historicizing her as an important actor in the conquest of Mexico.

A major strength of this volume is that, despite the difficult job of archival sleuthing and historical interpretation needed to bring to light the varied experiences of indigenous women, the essays, including the informative introduction and conclusion, show the value of future research into the activities of indigenous women in early Mexico. This important collection of essays should attract a wide variety of readers interested in the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and identity in colonial Latin America.