The Fifteenth Month: Aztec History in the Rituals of Panquetzaliztli by John F. Schwaller (review)

If we were to choose the pivotal moment in the ritual, social, and political life of the vibrant imperial city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, it would definitely be Panquetzaliztli, “The Raising of Banners.” This celebration has finally found its place in the area of critical studies of the Aztec past with John Frederick Schwaller’s book.

The author scrutinizes available sixteenth-century sources in Nahuatl and Spanish, tracing the presence and characteristics of Panquetzaliztli both outside and inside imperial Tenochtitlan. Carefully dealing with discrepancies in extant sources and with great attention to detail, Schwaller reconstructs the complex ritual trajectory leading to the culmination of the final day of Panquetzaliztli, enriching his analysis of textual accounts with pictorial sources. He convincingly shows that this extremely complex celebration depended on the choreography of thousands of social actors from the society’s different groups. They were engaged in a huge number of ritual preparations and acts leading, in an orderly and integrated manner, to the apogee of the ritual: the celebration of the Mexica patron deity Huitzilopochtli.

In previous studies, the image of Panquetzaliztli has been largely limited to the final celebration recreating the birth and the victory of Huitzilopochtli over his enemies, who faced inevitable death on the sacrificial stone; Schwaller, however, uncovers its complexity as reflected in “hundreds if not thousands of symbolic acts” that were not performed in a vacuum or in isolation from each other. One of the merits of his approach is the meticulous inclusion of numerous pieces of relevant information, endeavoring to explain the role of each component in the ritual celebration’s broader sequence, involving different social actors and distinct audiences. This careful analysis also makes it clear, as Schwaller himself states, that despite the variety of available sources, it is often impossible for modern scholars to understand all the nuances and symbolic messages that lie behind the plethora of ritual activities, gestures, attributes, and paraphernalia.

The unquestionable value of Schwaller’s method, however, is in its application of what I would call ‘thick description in ethnohistorical research.’ In other words, the book evokes Geertz’s influential proposal of “thick description” in anthropology (1973), building upon an analytical approach that begins by distinguishing all individuals and examples of shaped behavior manifest in the course of ritual actions, and culminates in “sorting out the structures of signification.” Schwaller’s thick description of the Panquetzaliztli month allows readers to witness a multilayered past reality, with its multiplicity of acts and conceptual structures, deeply interwoven with the social tissue of the heterogeneous Aztec society. In doing so, the study engages with an inquiry into ‘a microhistory of a ritual.’ It highlights not only the daily activities of collective groups, but also the individual actors and their actions on the ritual scene, situating their agency within ritual duties as well as the broader structures of social hierarchies.

I consider the book’s thematic focus to be especially apt for uncovering and explaining the complex interplay of relationships and meanings in the indigenous world. Religious celebrations in contemporary Nahua culture, also falling on precise moments of the temporal cycle, with all of their prescribed and complete ritual sequences, constitute the pivot and points of convergence for culturally relevant behaviors and for maintaining human-divine relationships. It is in this context that not only individual and collective actions, but also sacred plants, objects, and the environment acquire their full meaning and become efficient in assuring the community’s continuity and well-being (as shown in the work of Eduardo de la Cruz, Cenyahtoc cintli tonacayo, 2017).

Schwaller’s approach does not focus solely on the religious foundation of Panquetzaliztli. It also determines the celebration’s social and political ground and shows how memories and visions of the past formed part of the present. By examining the dynamics of historical processes, the book probes the development of this pivotal Aztec celebration and how it resonated with key moments...