Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition, Revised Edition

One The Sources: From Storybook to Encyclopedia

One The Sources: From Storybook to Encyclopedia QUETZALCOATL IN THE PRIMARY SOURCES Text and Context These religious documents are at the same time historical documents ; they are an integral part of different cultural contexts. Mireea Eliade The historian of religions working with primary sources representing Mesoamerican religions is faced with a distinctly complex relationship between the texts and their contexts. Not only is he faced with the problem of understanding the usual idiosyncratic influences of indigenous cultural and historical realities upon the origin, contents, and purposes of these sources, but also with the problem of understanding the influences of a foreign, conquering culture upon the bulk of the primary evidence. The documents that record events under the dynasties of the Aztecs, their neighbors, and precursors reflect not only the world views, beliefs, and artistic styles of ancient Mexican society, but also the world views, beliefs, and millennial dreams of the dynamic conquest culture of New Spain. To use Mircea Eliade's phrase in a way he did not intend, the religious documents from Mesoamerica are a part of at least two different cultural contexts, the pre-Columbian and the colonial world of New Spain.! It is not that authentic pre-Columbian material is unavailable to the scholar because of the oppressive strategies of conquering Spaniards. But the student of pre-Columbian cultures needs to practice a special form of the "hermeneutics of suspicion" when addressing and using those documents classified as primary sources. "Hermeneutics of suspicion" means 11 12 The Sources: From Storybook to Encyclopedia that before we display a "willingness to listen" and try to make something meaningful out of the material available, we must ask penetrating questions about the nature, reliability, and intentions of the material itself.2 Reading the evidence shows that the impact of Spanish colonial processes generated a heated, pressurized, dangerous social atmosphere which penetrated the sixteenth-century transmission of indigenous historical and religious traditions to the extent that almost all of the available documents contain alterations in the picture of pre-Columbian life. This does not eliminate the possibility of interpreting creatively, if cautiously, the evidence about Quetzalcoati and the pre-Columbian city, but it does require that we postpone interpretation until we have examined the historical and hermeneutical circumstances that affected the transmission of information about pre-Columbian life. We find ourselves faced with a perplexing situation . On the one hand, it is clear that a thick Spanish, colonial, Christian gloss has been brushed across the ideas, beliefs, symbols, and dramas of ancient Mexican culture. At times, the evidence seems distorted, confused, and inconsistent. Our attempt to understand and interpret pre-Hispanic religion is thwarted by what one scholar calls "an acute consciousness of what may have been lost.'" On the other hand, it appears that significant segments of authentic pre-Hispanic culture can be discerned and understood in an illuminating fashion. Through the gloss, indigenous images and patterns show themselves in an engaging manner. A close look at the primary sources reveals that during the sixteenth century there were important changes in the types of documents that carried the evidence about ancient Mexico. The scholar is faced with a broad spectrum of sources; at one end we have the preColumbian storybook, which consists of elaborately painted scenes depicting Indian genealogies, calendars, wars, rituals, and creation myths. At the other end we have the same material presented in European style prose histories (in one instance in encyclopedic form), often with Christian polemics and interpretations inserted. These changes reflect, to some degree, the social dynamiCS of the colonial culture. Social, religious, and political developments in New Spain altered the style and content of those documents that are today classified as primary sources. This dynamic literary situation demands our attention and caution so that we can realistically assess the degree of European manipulation and the persistence of authentic pre-Columbian beliefs. In the short section that follows, I briefly summarize the influences the conquest had on the transmission and destruction of the pre-Columbian world view in the sixteenth century. Then we shall look at the specific documents that carry important evidence about the Toltec tradition and Quetzalcoatl. Thus, our account of the The Sources: From Storybook to Encyclopedia 13 textual meanings of Quetzakoatl and city begins by using what Robert Mce. Adams calls a contextual approach, which formulates "a series of structured summaries or syntheses, rather than confining analyses to fragmentary, isolated...