The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City by Barbara E. Mundy (review)

As her title suggests, art historian Barbara Mundy explores the death of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, conquered by Hernan Cortés’s soldiers and indigenous allies in 1521, and the emergence of what would become Mexico City. Contesting historical representations of the destruction of Tenochtitlan in the writings of the conquistador and other Spanish chroniclers, she uncovers the essential elements of the pre-Cortesian city and their persistence, despite foreign domination, plagues, and ecological challenges, in the decades immediately following the conquest. Through the interpretation of period maps, works of art, and indigenous codices, Mundy makes a strong case for “the endurance of the indigenous city once known as Tenochtitlan within the space of Mexico City” (3).

In her introduction to The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City, Mundy argues that the likening of a city to a living organism, which is born and dies, is inadequate to explain the trajectory of an urban area like Tenochtitlan. In her conceptualization of the city, she relies on the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, who envisioned cities not only as their representations on maps but also as daily social practice, and Michel de Certeau, who, in his essay “Walking in the City,” contrasted representations of cities with cities as experienced by pedestrians on their streets. Mundy is also interested in Lefebvre’s notion of “representational spaces,” the “actual spaces in or features of the urban fabric (a church, a market, a graveyard),” which cannot be separated from social practice (11).

Chapters 2, “Water and the Sacred City,” and 3, “The Tlatoani in Tenochtitlan,” deal with the centrality of water for the life of the Aztec capital and religion. Indigenous engineers mastered techniques to control the levels of fresh and brackish water in the lakes and marshes of their city for drinking, transportation, and agricultural uses. This control of nature helped sustain a large population and strengthened the power of the Mexica rulers over their city and empire. The Spaniards were accustomed to arid landscapes and had limited experience in dealing with or interest in maintaining the aquatic areas surrounding the city. In addition to the diseases that accompanied them to the New World, which decimated the indigenous populations, their inability to manage water systems contributed to the eventual death of Lake Texcoco.

Mundy breaks with scholarship that has focused on the Spanish rulers and their enclave in the city after the conquest. In chapter 4, “The City in the Conquest’s Wake,” she concentrates instead on the leaders, the markets and buildings of the indigenous areas of the city. Although the conquerors envisioned the creation of a New Spain, Mundy demonstrates that the vanquished had considerable say in the nature of their city. In chapter 5, “Huanitzin Reenters the City,” Mundy discusses the accomplishments of Huanitzin, one of the indigenous leaders of the post-Conquest period who, through his influence within the native population and his credibility among the Spaniards, was able to successfully negotiate the political and religious impositions of the conquerors to maintain and improve conditions in the indigenous parts of the city.

In chapter 6, “Forgetting Tenochtitlan,” Mundy addresses the efforts of the Franciscans to erase the memory of the indigenous city of the past and their desire to build a new Rome, a city that, despite its pagan past, became the center of Christianity. Despite these efforts, the indigenous influence continued to be strong throughout the first decades following the conquest. In chapter 7, “Place-Names in Mexico-Tenochtitlan,” Mundy explains, through her reading of how place-names developed and were used in the writings of the period, the political changes that occurred during this time, and the indigenous leaders’ eventual loss of influence. In chapter 8, “Axes in the City,” she examines how the native inhabitants of the city maintained their rituals by incorporating them into the Spanish religious celebrations and processions.

In chapter 9, “Water and...