Reassessing the Nahua Autos: A Propos of Jerry M. Williams's El teatro del México colonial: Época misionera

In sixteenth-century Mexico, the Nahuas of the central highlands possessed two remarkable theaters. One was indigenous, rich in pre-Columbian characteristics. The other, introduced and encouraged mainly by the Franciscan friars, consisted largely of religious autos, pageants, processions, singing, and dancing. The theater blended indigenous and Hispanic features and became an important manifestation of Nahua Christianity. This paper summarizes Jerry M. Williams's overview of both theaters. It then explores the extent and diversity of the Nahuatl autos, as well as some of the problems that arise in the study of the extant playscripts and relevant historical documents. The bulk of the essay considers several Spanish contributions to the autos, with special attention to the feast of Corpus Christi and the Christmas and Epiphany celebrations. Apparently, the popularity of the autos was due in part to the long recognized effectiveness of visual imagery in religious instruction. Yet the autos also satisfied the Nahuas' spiritual yearning at a time when indigenous approaches to the sacred were no longer permitted. We still need to clarify, however, the extent of Hispanic influence on the autos before we can describe how the Nahuas accommodated these foreign materials to their own culture. The frequency and the scope of the Nahua autos suggest that the Franciscan friars were acquainted with a far richer theatrical tradition in early sixteenth-century Spain than the extant Iberian evidence shows.