Death and Dying in Colonial Spanish America

1. Noble Nahuas, Faith, and Death: How the Indigenous Elite of the Colonial Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley Prepared to Perish

28 1 Noble Nahuas, Faith, and Death How the Indigenous Elite of the Colonial Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley Prepared to Perish erika hosselkus Precontact Indigenous Death: A Microcosm Many decades prior to the arrival of Spanish soldiers to Mesoamerica , the disgruntled indigenous nobles of Ocotelulco-Tlaxcala beat their despised ruler, Acatentehua, to death.1 Considered one of the most violent and corrupt lords in Tlaxcala’s history, Acatentehua had ruled with an iron fist, subjugating and exploiting his subjects for more than fifty years.2 During his reign, he appropriated most of Ocotelulco’s land and resources and distributed them among his supporters, condemning his detractors to poverty. Finally, unwilling to tolerate Acatentehua’s despotism any longer, the tyrant’s enemies killed him in his own home and then sought out and murdered “his children and cousins, and all of his relatives within five generations” in order that his blood line would never again hold sway in Ocotelulco .3 Despite Acatentehua’s dramatic fall from grace, however, Nahuas, Faith, and Death 29 the residents of Ocotelulco observed and carried out the traditional obsequies accorded to a nobleman upon their ruler’s death. Servants situated the deceased lord’s body on a wooden platform in a seated position, his hair carefully combed and his face hidden by ornaments of gold and precious stone. Chanters sang songs of death, and everyone wept as women and noblemen placed offerings of food, flowers, and tobacco before the body of the ruler. Then the noblemen of the altepetl, or ethnic state, approached the platform, lifted their leader’s ornamented body above their heads and ceremoniously set it afire before statues of the local gods. Blessings and speeches followed the ceremony, and the slaves, hunchbacks, and dwarves who served in the ruler’s household were sacrificed, hearts torn from their chests, so that they might accompany and attend their lord in the afterlife. At the end of the ceremony, servants collected Acatentehua’s ashes Tenochtitlan Tlatelolco Texcoco Culhuacan Xochimilco T o l u c a V a l l e y Tlaxcala Huexotzinco Calpan Cholula Quauhtinchan P u e b l a - T l a x c a l a V a l l e y T u l a T u l a n c i n g o V a l l e y o f M e x i c o N S E W Figure 1.1 Central Mesoamerica, selected settlements, circa 1519 30 erika hosselkus and preserved them in an urn, and ritual fasting and additional ceremony followed at intervals in Ocotelulco.4 Despite Acatentehua’s iniquitous life, Nahua subjects entrusted their noble ruler to the afterlife through elaborate and orchestrated ceremony, attesting to the cosmological importance of death—or, more precisely, human responses to death—among the Nahuas of precontact Mesoamerica. In particular, the deaths of great rulers and nobles demanded scripted, meaning-laden responses from survivors . Material gifts, including slaves, articles of clothing, jewelry and Acapetlahuacan Quauhquechollan Cholula Calpan Huexotzinco Texmelucan Quauhtinchan Tlaxcala de los Angeles Texcoco / Mexico Tecamachalco Matlacueyatl / M alinche I z t a c c i h u a t l Puebla Atoyac River System Popocatepetl N S E W Figure 1.2 Colonial Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley, selected settlements Nahuas, Faith, and Death 31 adornments, weaponry, and food were functional; they sustained and protected individuals as they endured the four-year, obstacle-filled journey through the nine levels of mictlan—the shadowy Nahua underworld. The miccacuicatl—songs of the dead—recited at the funeral, and miccatlatlatlauhtiliztli—prayers for the dead—were the standardized and necessary acknowledgment of the earthly void created by a ruler’s or noble’s passing, as well as commendation to the afterlife. Survivors also invoked and honored their gods through dedication of sacrificial hearts, blood, and fine gifts. Such overtures to the deities protected not only the dead, but also those who remained on the slippery, slick, summit of the earth, where misfortune struck anyone who disregarded or defiled tradition.5 Finally, scribes and priests memorialized a ruler or noble’s death in the painted and oral histories that preserved cultural memory and transmitted it to future generations. In short, precontact Nahuas approached death—the intersection between the ordered upper world and the disordered underworld—cautiously, treated it with scripted ritual, and commemorated it orally and in writing, according to tradition. Tradition changed beginning in September of 1520, when the smallpox...