Cuauhtemoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico by Paul Gillingham (review)

The Latin Americanist, June 2013 Burgos González. Other chapters would likewise benefit from more perspectives and more willingness to dig into the messier issues of power at play within these movements. In a lesser concern I question some of the author’s choices of terminology. I find the use of “primitive” in the title to be ineffective in describing the innovative movements he describes. I object to his repeated references to the “absence of the rule of law” at the local level because I think it oversimplifies the complex negotiation of law he depicts at the local level. The criticisms above do not detract from the overall value of the book. Its interdisciplinary approach will invite anthropologists of Mexico and its attention to transnational aspects of these religions, especially Mormonism , may make this book appealing to some scholars of U.S. religions. Its primary audience will be historians of Mexican religion and history generally , who will find interest in the religious manifestations themselves as well as what they convey about negotiations of power and the agency of citizens attempting to rebuild in the aftermath of the revolution. The book leads the way for future studies in alternative religion and continued research into local interpretations of the Mexican Revolution inclusive of religious perspectives. Lia T. Schraeder Assistant Professor of History Georgia Gwinnett College CUAUHTEMOC’S BONES: FORGING NATIONAL IDENTITY IN MODERN MEXICO. By Paul Gillingham. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2011, p. 352, $29.95. Paul Gillingham’s Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico is a thoughtful and thorough account of the history of a forged burial site of Cuauhtémoc, the last Mexica emperor, and the ensuing scandal that accompanied the discovery of Cuauhtémoc’s alleged bones. In the early months of 1949, in the town of Ixcateopan in northern Guerrero, the local priest revealed to his parish that the remains of Cuauhtémoc lay beneath the church altar. Pulling together periodicals, archive material from Mexican anthropological institutions, and forged documents added to the gravesite, Gillingham explores the multitude of reactions that occurred following the announcement of the grave. He traces the unearthing of the grave by an untrained archaeologist, Eulalia Guzmán, and the euphoric fervor that gripped the regional and national governments in the months that followed. Along with this attention came local suspicion of outsiders interested in recovering the body of Cuauhtémoc. After discussing the excavation, Gillingham then turns attention to the mounting allegations of fraud, confirmed by two different reports issued as early as February of 1951. The archaeologists’ rejection of Guzmán’s 136 Book Reviews conclusions cemented her dismissal from the scientific community. Guzmán was disgraced, but Gillingham takes great pains to describe how the aura of Cuauhtémoc remained strong. The gravesite in Ixcateopan became a wellspring of political, cultural, and economic advantage, whether the evidence was real or imaginary. Presidents and politicians from Mexico City along with other notables came to visit the site, in an attempt to commune with a version of Mexico’s pre-Columbian past. Gillingham uses the exhumation of the Ixcateopan gravesite to study the falsification of Mexican history. The Ixcateopan gravesite was a rather patchwork example of nineteenth and twentieth century attempts to deceive historians and archaeologists. Gillingham points to Florentino Juarez, a local from Ixcateopan, as the creator of the elaborate hoax. Juarez was a man of some wealth, owning large amounts of land, though the land’s agricultural suitability was squarely second-rate. Though the motivation of Juarez to create a false gravesite may have come from materialist ambition , Gillingham argues that there was much more than personal considerations at stake. Juarez forged documents and bodily remains for the purpose of returning the town to regional prominence – the town was part of a constant struggle with others to be a local municipio, a local subdivision of the Mexican state of Guerrero. However, Gillingham shows how Juarez’ descendents used the phony gravesite and documents to advance their personal station in society. Salvador Rodriguez Juarez, the grandson of Florentino Juarez, took up the art of forgery, claiming to possess documents that were not originally revealed. Using fabricated papers...