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

Preface

Preface to the Revised Edition The return of Quetzalcoatl and the Irony ofEmpire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition follows the pattern of the Plumed Serpent in Mesoamerican history, who returned time and again to renew the cosmos and the imaginations of various peoples. Since this book was first published in 1982 and again in 1992, the religiOUS and political significance of the Quetzalcoatl myths - particularly the myth of his return and its disputed role in the conquest of Tenochtitlan- have received increased attention , interpretation, and controversy. A series of important publications and widely seen educational television programs have addressed, in part, the controversy surrounding the "return" of Quetzalcoatl and explored the question of whether Quetzalcoatl's flight from Tollan and propheSied return played an influential role in the conquest of Tenochtitlan. Once again this question has becomean intriguing problem in Mesoamericanstudies. There are a number of reasons for this latest return of Quetzalcoatl. On the one hand, impressive archaeological discoveries at the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan stimulated new interpretations of Quetzalcoatl's significance and place in the orientation and power of Mesoamerican cities long before the invasion of Europeans . This appreciation of indigenous views of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is enhanced by the imminent publication of H. B. Nicholson's monumental Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lordofthe Toltecs, the most thorough analysis of surviving pre- and post-conquest documents about the Quetzalcoatl tradition. On the other hand, postcolonial studies have insisted that scholars and the general public pay more attention to the complex political and hermeneutical exchanges that took place between natives, Europeans, and Africans in the contact zones ix x Preface to the RevisedEdition and conflict zones where European colonialism spread its powers, biases , and institutions. One place where these colonial exchanges have been re-examined is Mesoamerica, where both Quetzaicoatl and Cortes remain powerful and complex symbols of cultural identity and political legitimacy. Four scholars in particular have revived the Quetzaicoatl controversy in persuasively writtenworks. Miguel Le6n-Portilla's bestselling classic Broken Spears: The Aztec Account ofthe Conquest ofMexico was republished in 1992, bringing Quetzaicoatl's confusion with Cortes back to life. Tzvetan Todorov's celebration of Cortes's superior semiotics in The ConquestofAmerica was republished, unfortunately without revision, in 1999. Inga Clendinnen's perceptive Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty: Cortes and the Conquest ofMexico, published in 1991, continues to influence the idea of European control over the Quetzaicoatl and Cortes controversy. The most helpful recent work, in terms ofsource presentation and analysis , has been James Lockhart's We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts ofthe Conquest of Mexico, which presents, in part, a new translation of the Nahuatl version of SahagUn's Book 12 of the Florentine Codex. In my view, all our sources and studies participate in a"dynamics of concealment." Working as a historian of religions, I see this dynamics of concealment present and undermining our abilities to understand on two levels. First, some of these works give too much prestige to the interpretive strategies of Europeans, without acknowledging how much they attempted to conceal and erase the indigenous views of the"conquest." Secondly, even when we turn our attention and regard to indigenous religions, we are limited in gaining access to indigenous understandings of myths, rituals, and cosmologies that provided the framework and lens through which native peoples read, interpreted, and remembered the encounters in Tenochtitlan. As the new chapter in this book shows, much more attention and regard needs to be given to the pre- and post-conquest cosmologies and interpretations of cosmic and social changes (which I call the "strangers coming to town" theme) made by indigenous Yoices, stories, and symbols. These voices, stories, and symbols are partof a Mesoamericanreligious tradition that combines meanings and practices of both pre-Hispanic peoples and the religions developed after the conquest through the transculturation of native and Christian beliefs. While it may be true that the Spanish conquered the apex of the social hierarchies of Mesoamerica, they did not conquer the minds and memories of many indigenous peoples who continued to remember and imagine their historical and mythic pasts and apply those memories and imaginations of Tollan, Topiltzin Quetzaicoatl (and his powers of critique and renewal) to their exchanges with each other and the Europeans and their stories, saints, and symbols. My revision of Quetzalcoatl and the Irony ofEmpire is, in part, an interpretation of the applications of those memories by various natives, mestizos, and Europeans who found them- [3.144.10.14] Project MUSE (2024...