Painted Language in Central Mexico

The native central Mexican2 system of pictorial communication, when used to create orderly and sequential discourses, was essentially semasiographic; that is, its basic iconic units or graphs expressed ideas without being necessarily bound to linguistic structures. Nearly all of these visual signs were motivated (representational). Pictures of people, animals, plants, and things were preferred over arbitrary (abstract) signs. This system suited the plurilingual society of this region, just as in today’s globalized society the icons of digital graphic user interfaces and road signs convey meaning over linguistic frontiers. Painted, engraved, sculpted, or modeled “texts” could be interpreted verbally in any of the languages spoken by the peoples that participated in a shared culture during the late pre-Hispanic and early colonial periods. This visual language, however, lent itself on occasion to glottography, in which motivated signs were used as rebus writing: depictions of people, animals, and things were used to express linguistic structures—words, morphemes, syllables, and phonemes—through homophonic or quasi-homophonic association.3 Examples of glottography, invariably combined with semasiographic and iconic signs, have been identified in pre-Hispanic paintings and sculptures created by speakers of Nahuatl and Mixtec, as well as early colonial manuscripts produced by speakers of several languages, including Otomi (Wright-Carr, 2005a, Vol. 1, pp. 277–573; 2009c; 2019).

The Western categories of “iconography” and “writing” are inadequate to conceptualize central Mexican visual language from the late pre-Hispanic era. In colonial dictionaries that describe Mesoamerican languages, we often find the same native words glossed as both “writing” and “painting.” This semantic unity is found in the two main languages of the central highlands of Mexico. In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, the word tlahcuiloa meant both “write” and “paint” (Karttunen, 1992, pp. 97, 261; Molina, 1571a, ff. 58r, 96r; 1571b, f. 26v). In Otomi, the same semantic category was expressed by the word ofo (Urbano, 1990, ff. 195v–197v, 337v).4 In addition to these words there is a metaphorical couplet—in tlīlli, in tlapalli (Nahuatl) and mayati nekuhu (Otomi)—with three levels of meaning. Literally, these calqued phrases express the materials used in painting: “the black ink, the colored paint.” On a metaphorical level, they evoke the images created by applying these materials to a surface. On a deeper metonymic level, they refer to the content of the paintings, expressing ancestral culture and wisdom (Wright-Carr, 2011). In the Florentine Codex, an alphabetic and pictorial manuscript, we find a variant of this couplet in a Nahuatl text:

Īntlīl, īntlapal in huēhuetqueh: inīn tlahtōlli, ītechpa mihtoāya: in īntlamanitiliz in huēhuetqueh, in tlein ōquitlālītēhuaqueh nemiliztli, zan īpan nemohua, ahcanozomō īpan nemohua: īc mihtoāya. Mācamō polihuiz in īntlīl, in īntlapal in huēhuetqueh: quihtōznequi: in tlamanitiliztli: ahnōzo. Tle īca in anquipoloa in nemiliztli, in īntlīl, in īntlapal tocōlhuān, huēhuetqueh?

[The black ink, the colored paint of the ancient ones. With this saying it was said: the law of the ancient ones, that which they laid down and took up, the way of life. One either lives by it or not; thus it was said. May the black ink, the colored paint of the ancient ones not disappear; it means the law; or: Why do you people destroy the way of life, the black ink, the colored paint, of our ancestors, the ancient ones?]. (Sahagún, 1979, Vol. 2, ff. 217v–218r)5

The performative dimension of pre-Hispanic central Mexican manuscripts is often overlooked.6 This, of course, depended on the genre. The “reading” of a tribute list or a receipt for goods and services was necessarily different from the public declamation of a historical document, which was sometimes accompanied by song, the playing of musical instruments, and dance. Dominican Friar Diego Durán (1967), writing in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, refers to the multimodal performance of oral declamation, music, and dance in indigenous central Mexican culture:

Preciábanse mucho los mozos de saber bien bailar y cantar y de ser guías de los demás en los bailes. Preciábanse de llevar los pies a son y de acudir a tiempo con el cuerpo a los meneos que ellos usan, y con la voz a su tiempo. Porque el baile de éstos no solamente se rige por el son, empero también por los altos y bajos, que el canto hace cantando y bailando conjuntamente. Para los cuales cantares había entre ellos poetas que los componían, dando a cada canto y baile diferente sonada, como nosotros usamos con nuestros cantos, dando al soneto y a la octava rima y al terceto sus diferentes sonadas para cantarlos

[The young men highly valued knowing how to dance and sing well, and how to lead others in dance. They valued moving their feet to the music, and in coming in on time with the bodily swaying that they do, and with the voice in its time, because their dance is not only governed by the music, but also by the high and low notes of the song, singing and dancing together. There were poets among them that composed these songs, giving a different sound to each song and dance, as we do in our songs, giving rhyme to the sonnet and the octave, and different tones to the tercet for their singing, and thus to the rest]. (Vol. 1, p. 192)

Durán links the declamation of historical and religious narrative to song and dance:

Muy ordinario era el bailar en los templos, pero era en las solemnidades, y mucho más ordinario era en las casas reales y de los señores, pues todos ellos tenían sus cantores que les componían cantares de las grandezas de sus antepasados y suyas. Especialmente a Moteuczoma, que es el señor de quien más noticia se tiene y de Nezahualpiltzintli de Tezcoco, les tenían compuestos en sus reinos cantares de sus grandezas y de sus victorias y vencimientos, y linajes, y de sus extrañas riquezas. Los cuales cantares he oído yo muchas veces cantar en bailes públicos, que aunque era conmemoración de sus señores, me dio mucho contento de oír tantas alabanzas y grandezas . . . Había otros cantores que componían cantares divinos de las grandezas y alabanzas de los dioses, y éstos estaban en los templos; los cuales, así los unos como los otros, tenían sus salarios, y a los cuales llamaban cuicapique, que quiere decir “componedores de cantos”

[It was usual for them to dance in the temples, but it was on solemn occasions, and much more often in the royal and lordly houses, since they all had their singers that composed songs about the greatness of their ancestors and of themselves. Especially for Moteuczoma, the lord about whom there is more news, and for Nezahualpiltzintli of Texcoco, they had composed in their kingdoms songs about their greatness, their victories and defeats, their lineages, and their extraordinary riches. I have heard the singing of these songs many times in public dances, and although this was done in commemoration of their lords, it gave me great pleasure to hear so many praises and great deeds. . . . There were other singers that composed sacred songs of the greatness and in praise of the gods, and these were in the temples; these singers, the former and the latter, had their salaries and were called cuīcapiqueh, which means “composers of songs”]. (Vol. 1, p. 195)

The lyrics of songs in Nahuatl are preserved in a few manuscripts from the sixteenth century. Some, although written in Nahuatl, are said to be otoncuīcatl, “songs of the Otomi.” This suggests that both language groups participated in the same performative tradition (Cantares Mexicanos, 1994, ff. 2r, 3r, 4v). The following verse expresses the multimodal interdependence of painted writing, song, and instrumental music:

Nicuīcanitl tihuēhuehtqueh āc yehhuātl ye compōhuaz ītlahtōl īcēlteōtl in īāmox in ītlahcuilōl in cuīcatl huēhuētl teponāztl āyacachtli tetzilacatl āyōtl ye chicāhuaztli cuepōnqui cozahuic xōchitl cāhuilia xōchitl tl[āltic]p[a]c cān tonyāz cān tahciz cān tinemiz

[I am the singer; we are the old ones. Who will still read the words of the one God, his book, his painted writing, his song, his skin-covered drum, his two-tongued drum, his rattle, his copper bell, his turtle shell, even his rattle stick? The yellow flowers open their corollas. He brings flowers for the face of the Earth. Where will you go? How far will you go? Where will you live?]. (f. 15r–v)

In another example from the same source, a “book of song” is mentioned and the verbalization of visual language is emphasized. The phrase “flower water” appears to be a reference to the role of flowers—among other plant, animal, and mineral sources—in the preparation of pigments and binders.7 The use of flowers in the painted writing of the Mesoamericans is today only partly understood. Beyond their chromatic and adhesive properties, flowers were part of a symbolic system that emerged from a millennial tradition of human interaction with the world of plants.8

In noncuīcaāmoxtlapal ya noconyazozouhtinemi nixōchiālotzin nontlatetohticah in tlahcuilōlcalihtic ca. In quēnman onnemiz niquittoa in nontlatlatetohticah in tlahcuilōlcalihtic a

[As always, I extend my colors in the book of song. I am the one who is perfumed with flower water. I am talking a lot in the house of painted writing, ca! That which I say will someday live. I am talking a very lot in the house of painted writing, ah!]. (f. 51v)9

Another verse, again from the Cantares Mexicanos manuscript, evokes the image of a patio where a painted book and a drum are essential elements in the creative act of composing a song:

Niyanoquetzacoya xōchithuallaihtic ayahue āmoxtlin cuepōni ye nohuēhuēuh huiya cuīcatl notlahtōl aya xōchitl in notlayōcol in noconyachīhua i noconyachiya nicān yehhuan Dios aya auh nōhuiyān chiyālōn tlālticpac ye nicān ohuaya ohuaya

[I come, ya, to stand, ya, in the flowery patio, ayawe. The book is still blooming. My skin-covered drum, wiya, the song, my flowery words, aya. I compose, ya, my creation. I wait for God, ya, here and everywhere on the face of the Earth. He is still awaited here, owaya owaya]. (f. 19v)

As we have seen, colonial sources provide tantalizing hints of how the contents of central Mexican pictorial manuscripts were performed. Further research is needed to understand the social significance and the aesthetic dimension of these painted books, the visual language of which transcends the mere codification of verbal discourse.

European presence in central Mexico affected the production of indigenous manuscripts. The Mesoamerican tradition of visual language was gradually eclipsed by the European traditions of painting and writing. Manuscripts painted by natives during the colonial era exhibit a blend of styles, reflecting the interaction of indigenous peoples with European immigrants. This blending is manifest in supports and pigments, format and composition, pictorial styles, the introduction of the Latin alphabet, discursive content, and the ways in which texts were read or performed (Glass, 1964; Glass & Robertson, 1975).

The Huamantla Map

Available evidence, both historical and intrinsic, points to an origin of the Huamantla Map in the last third of the sixteenth century, in the eponymous Otomi town, next to the eastern slope of the volcano called today La Malinche. Huamantla was located on the eastern border of the territory controlled by the Tlaxcalan confederacy before the arrival of Hernán Cortés. After the transition to Spanish rule it was under the jurisdiction of the native town council of Tlaxcala. This extraordinary pictorial manuscript was painted when Huamantla was consolidating its status as a regional capital, eclipsing local power centers such as Tecoac, which had dominated eastern Tlaxcala before its defeat by Cortés. Huamantla’s emergence was due, in part, to the founding there of a Franciscan convent, following official approval in 1567 (Gibson, 1967; Wright-Carr, 2005a, Vol. 1, pp. 17–275, 431–573; 2010).

The Huamantla Map was painted on a large rectangle of paper made from the inner bark of ficus trees (Huerta Carrillo & Berthier Villaseñor, 2001; Wiedemann & Boller, 1996). When painted it measured approximately 7.0 by 1.9 meters and was made by joining several smaller pieces. Today nine fragments survive, seven in Mexico City and two in Berlin (Huamantla Map, ca. 1567–1598a–i).10 On this surface, without the white ground found on many pre-Hispanic codices, native visual language was employed to depict a portion of the central highlands of Mexico extending from the mountains northwest of Mexico City to the region east of La Malinche volcano in the modern states of Tlaxcala and Puebla. Within this cartographic structure, outstanding events from the historical memory of the Otomi nobility of Huamantla were inserted. Geographic space is the dominant organizing principle, with events placed at or near the places they occurred. This produces some apparently anachronistic juxtapositions, as depictions of events from different periods coexist in specific cartographic settings.11 While the primary form of expression in this document is a regional variety of native central Mexican visual language, complementary verbal information in Nahuatl is provided in the thirty-two surviving alphabetic glosses distributed throughout the manuscript.12

To experience directly the bodily affordances provided by the Huamantla Map,13 I constructed a full-scale facsimile, gluing photographic reproductions published in book format by Aguilera (1984) to large sheets of bark paper manufactured by Otomi paper makers in the mountain town of San Pablito Pahuatlán, Puebla. When this cartographic and historical document is laid out on a floor, the viewer can see clearly that not all the painted signs have the same orientation. There is something to be seen right-side-up from each of its four sides. Most of the main sign complexes, however, may be contemplated with their proper orientation from a vantage point on the northwestern edge of the manuscript, where the story begins with the emergence of ancestors from a sacred cave (figure 6.1).14

A narrative sequence is superimposed on the cartographic space by paths of painted footprints, indicating movement through the landscape and through time. These paths lead from the primordial cave to Teotihuacan—identified by two grey temple platforms, the color indicating their ruinous condition—where the first rising of the Fifth Sun, following the self-sacrifice of Nanahuatzin in a sacred bonfire, is depicted (figure 6.2).15 From here, a path leads into more recent historical time. The Valley of Mexico is left behind as the footprints enter the territory controlled by the Tlaxcalan confederacy, whose rulers during the last century of the pre-Hispanic era successfully fended off the imperial armies of the Aztec Triple Alliance of Mexico: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan.

The hostile border between the territories controlled by the Triple Alliance and the Tlaxcalan confederacy is represented by intertwined bands of water and cultivated fields in flames, a visual expression of the couplet teōātl tlahchinōlli, a Nahuatl phrase meaning literally “the divine water, the burning fields,” a metaphor for war; similar phrases exist in Otomi (Wright-Carr, 2012b). Warriors on opposite sides of these martial sign clusters do battle, armed with bows, arrows, shields, and war sticks edged with razor-sharp obsidian blades (figure 6.3). The southeastern half of the Huamantla Map represents the territory of the Tlaxcalan confederacy. The portion depicting its political core, where the dominant kingdoms of Tlaxcala were concentrated, is now lost.16 This is unfortunate, as Huamantla formed part of the colonial period province of Tlaxcala, and it would have been interesting, to say the least, to see how they depicted this important native polity.

The remaining fragments depict Huamantla at the center of a large rectangular space, expressing the prominence of this Otomi town in the late sixteenth century. In this portion of the document, emphasis is placed on warfare, the taking of captives for human sacrifice, and political structures, combining information concerning both late pre-Hispanic and colonial periods.17 Two sixteenth-century historical events are prominently featured: the defeat of the Otomi warriors of Tecoac by the Spanish forces led by Cortés in 1519, when the Spaniards first marched from Veracruz to Mexico Tenochtitlan, and the founding of a Franciscan convent in Huamantla. In the portion representing the Valley of Mexico,18 a depiction of a man with European clothing was painted next to an architectural representation, probably a government palace, showing that the former Aztec capital of Mexico Tenochtitlan had become Mexico City, the seat of Spanish imperial power (figure 6.4).19

Expressions of Mesoamerican Culture

Having examined the nature of the central Mexican system of visual communication, taking native-language sources into account, and having provided a brief description of the Huamantla Map, we may now look for evidence of cultural persistence and appropriation in this pictorial manuscript.

The composition of graphic signs in a coherently structured visual narrative reflects native tradition, although the lack of surviving cartographic manuscripts painted before the arrival of the Spanish colonists complicates the task of separating European and Mesoamerican traditions.20 Surviving maps, produced by native painters in New Spain, share conventions with the Huamantla Map, including signs for rivers, mountains, and paths, many of which have parallels in pre-Hispanic documents in the historical genre. In early colonial cartographic manuscripts we find several instances of the compositional device by which a featured kingdom is placed at the center of a rectangular space delimited with secondary place signs, thus depicting a territorial jurisdiction.21 A careful study of this document reveals a narrative intent, superimposing a story of primordial origins and migration, indicated by paths of footprints as discussed above, from an ancestral homeland to the Otomi town of Huamantla, beginning in the mountains to the northwest, crossing the northern Valley of Mexico and northern Tlaxcala. This establishes a northwest to southeast axis running the length of the manuscript. Another pattern of movement through cartographic space is defined by meandering trails of red brushstrokes, representing blood, leading from the battle zones—marked by “divine water, burning fields” sign clusters—and extending in several directions. These trails of blood culminate in scenes of warriors grasping pale (drained of blood) captives by the hair, depictions of the presentation of these captives to native authorities or priests, and in one case a representation of human sacrifice by heart extraction. None of these features show borrowing from the European cartographic or pictorial traditions. Similar signs are found in pre-Hispanic painting and sculpture (Leibsohn, 1995, 2000; Mundy, 1996; Russo, 2005).

Most painted signs in the Huamantla Map are clearly derived from the pre-Hispanic tradition. These may be assigned to the following categories: cultural, representing manufactured objects (233 signs); anthropomorphic (152); phytomorphic (84); architectonic (63); anthroponymic, including calendrical signs, as people were named for their birth dates in the 260-day mantic cycle (49); toponymic (38); metaphoric (32); zoomorphic (30); geographic (14); deimorphic (7); and astral (1); plus one sign that could not be identified, for a total of 704 signs. Of these, 686 were classified as motivated (representational); 10 were classified as “intermediate,” due to their high degree of stylization; only one was classified as arbitrary (abstract); and 7 were left unclassified, due to doubts about their significance. Regarding the possible association of these signs with linguistic structures, 689 of them—97.87 percent—are clearly semasiographic and could be verbalized in Otomi, Nahuatl, or any other language spoken in central Mexico. None was securely identified as glottographic, but fifteen were left unclassified, eight of these because it was impossible to determine what they represented, and seven because there are reasonable hypotheses regarding their possible links to verbal elements in either Otomi or Nahuatl.22 These figures are consistent with other native pictorial manuscripts, as this graphic communication system was essentially semasiographic and highly motivated, while lending itself to an occasional glottographic sign, as noted above.

The formal aspects of the painted signs in this manuscript are also firmly within the central Mexican pictorial tradition. The most notorious deviations from the pre-Hispanic canon are probably the consequence of the slackening of the high technical standards found in the few surviving pre-Hispanic manuscripts. This reflects social changes resulting from the imposition of Spanish rule, including the dismantling of schools associated with indigenous temples and priests, in the context of the suppression of native religion and ideology by ecclesiastical authorities. Despite the origin of this manuscript two generations after the destruction of Mexico Tenochtitlan, stylistic influences from the European pictorial tradition are extremely rare, thus revealing the cultural tenacity of the Otomi nobles of Huamantla.

The historical narrative expressed in the painted signs of the Huamantla Map reflects pre-Hispanic tradition. The story is grounded in a primordial past, with episodes including the emergence of ancestors from a sacred cave at the beginning of time and the birth of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan, a powerful metropolis that had collapsed nearly a millennium before the arrival of the Spaniards. A migratory path ties these events to the more recent history of the lords of Huamantla, inserting political and dynastic history into a wider symbolic and mythical system based on a shared Mesoamerican worldview, legitimizing the power of the ruling class and emphasizing bonds with neighboring peoples (Boone, 2000, pp. 18–20, 238–245; Florescano, 1999; Marcus, 1992, pp. 142–152). This narrative was extended to encompass the events following the arrival of conquistadors and friars, and these events were integrated seamlessly into the pre-Hispanic narrative.

The representation of pre-Hispanic deities and scenes of human sacrifice is unusual in manuscripts painted during the late sixteenth century, since the production and possession of such images was punishable by public humiliation, flagellation, banishment, incarceration, or death.23 In other manuscripts of this period we find representations of native deities and depictions of rituals and sacrifices, but most of these were painted as “ethnographic” texts, used as instruments in the campaign to suppress native religion and to convert the population to the Catholic faith. With this in mind, the religious content of the Huamantla Map is noteworthy, since this manuscript clearly had a very different function, which was to serve as a visual manifestation of native history legitimizing the emergence of Huamantla as a regional capital and reaffirming native identity through the continued use of traditional signs and symbols. This is not an isolated case; there are other examples of ideological resistance reflected in paintings and sculptures intended for public display among the Otomi of central Mexico.24

At the northwestern edge of the map, deities in human form occupy the primordial cave: a telluric goddess, holding a shield, faces an igneous male deity holding a projectile and a flower (figure 6.1). Together, they represent Old Mother and Old Father, cosmic progenitors and sacred ancestors. Another male deity operates a fire drill, setting the calendar in motion with a New Fire ritual. A fourth deity, with vertical red and yellow bands painted on his face, holds a military banner.25 In another scene, depicting the origin of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan, the sore-covered numen called Nanahuatzin [revered pustulant one], is shown roasting in the fire pit into which he has thrown himself (figure 6.2). An offering of precious feathers and bloodied self-sacrificial spines is depicted, while a nearby solar disk with a human face shows the transformation of Nanahuatzin into the Sun. Here visual discourse evokes more elaborate oral narratives, versions of which survive in alphabetic manuscripts from the early colonial period.26

On another fragment, originally the south central portion of the map, we find a pictorial representation of the Valley of Mexico. The southern part of the valley lies beyond the edge of the manuscript, while the western portion was probably included in a section of the map that is no longer extant. Pictorial elements refer to places in the central and northern Valley of Mexico: (1) Teotihuacan, with a scene of the emergence of the Fifth Sun from the sacred bonfire; (2) the Acolhuacan region, governed by the kingdom of Texcoco, a member of the Triple Alliance, identified by a curved water sign and an architectural structure with a nobleman sitting on a bench and holding a flower, identified by an anthroponymic sign (probably a lineage founder); and (3) a circular water sign, almost closed, depicting an island with an opuntia cactus and a deity with facial paint whose identity is not clear due to the paucity of iconographic attributes, seated on a bench and holding a magic looking device called tlachiyalōni, an instrument associated with certain gods and the people that personified them (figure 6.4). This sign complex represents Mexico Tenochtitlan, the dominant kingdom of the valley of Mexico. This name is adapted from the Nahuatl toponym Mēxxihco Tenōchtitlan [in the navel of the Moon, next to the stone prickly-pears] (Wright-Carr, 2016a, pp. 117–118).

Near the western border of the territory controlled by Tlaxcala, a rattlesnake with cloud scrolls is depicted, a woman’s head emerging from its open mouth (figure 6.5). This represents Cihuacoatl, “snake woman,” a pre-Hispanic maternal goddess,27 associated here with a scene of human sacrifice performed by tying a man to a wooden frame and shooting arrows at him to spill his blood upon the Earth.

One of the defining elements of Mesoamerican culture is the 260-day mantic calendar, combining twenty named days with the numbers one to thirteen. This cycle intermeshed with others, such as the series of nine lords of the night, thirteen lords of the day, and thirteen flying creatures (twelve birds and one butterfly), all of these associated with omens. This complex chronological system charged each day with positive and negative potential, determining the destiny of events and people. The study of calendrical terms in pictorial manuscripts, and in alphabetic documents written in Nahuatl and Otomi, reveals that the speakers of both languages shared what was essentially the same calendar and thought about time in the same symbolic terms (Wright-Carr, 2009a). Two pictorial codices from central Mexico express the 260-day calendar in a similar graphic format, with twenty pages representing thirteen-day periods: the Codex Borbonicus (Anders, Jansen, & Reyes, 1991), apparently painted by Nahuatl-speakers in the Valley of Mexico during the early sixteenth century, and the Aubin Tonalamatl (2018), whose origin can be traced, on historical and stylistic grounds, to the Otomi of Huamantla during the late sixteenth century.28 The creation of a pictorial expression of the 260-day calendar, complete with pre-Hispanic deities, shows that at least some of the Otomi of the eastern province of Tlaxcala were actively conserving and practicing their ancestral religion decades after the fall of Mexico Tenochtitlan, in spite of the intense campaign of cultural imposition carried out by the Spanish government and the Catholic Church.29 The phenomenon called “the conquest” in traditional historiography was more of an intent than an event, a process that continues today as indigenous peoples defend their territories, lifestyles, languages, and ethnic identity.30

In the Huamantla Map there are 49 anthroponymic signs. Twenty-one of these apparently represent named days in the 20-day cycle, and 13 of the 20 possible day names are present. Twenty-six represent alternative forms of naming people. Given names were used, in addition to calendrical names, in pre-Hispanic and early colonial central Mexico, including names designating animals, plants, architecture, and cultural objects. Two signs remain unidentified. In only one case do we find a pictorial anthroponym composed of a numeral together with one of the 20 day signs: the number three, represented by three circles, painted under the head of a mammal, either a rabbit or a dog (both animals had their places among the 20 day signs of the mantic calendar). The use of day signs without numerals may indicate an early stage in the transformation of naming practices among the Otomi.

The Huamantla Map may thus be seen as a visual statement of political legitimacy, indigenous identity, and ideological resistance, in response to attempts by the Spanish government and the Catholic Church to impose European culture throughout their newly acquired domains. We do not have written accounts describing the use of this manuscript in specific social contexts. It is likely that it was displayed on formal occasions, when native governors met to negotiate matters like territorial rights, the administration of tribute, and strategic alliances through matrimony, since the manuscript includes historical, territorial, and dynastic content, presenting the Huamantla nobility in a broader geographic and temporal context. It may have been displayed in the presence of Spaniards, but the depictions of ancestral deities and human sacrifice would have made this risky, both for the document and the people associated with it. At some moment it was buried in a box in the ruins of a chapel in Huamantla, according to Lorenzo Boturini, a nobleman from Milan who acquired it around 1740 (Boturini Benaduci, 1746/1999, Pt. 2, pp. 38–39).31

Boturini’s collection of indigenous manuscripts was confiscated by colonial authorities in 1743 and kept in various institutions in Mexico City, suffering gradual losses as documents passed into private collections. By this time native resistance had assumed new forms, adapting to an evolving social context, and the Huamantla Map came to be seen as an object of antiquarian curiosity.32 Baron Alexander von Humboldt acquired two fragments of this manuscript in 1803 in Mexico City; today these are held by the State Library of Berlin. The remaining fragments are conserved in the National Library of Anthropology and History in Mexico City (Wright-Carr, 2005a, Vol. 1, pp. 369, 437–446).

Reflections of European Culture

As seen in the preceding section, the Huamantla Map expresses traditional central Mexican culture and worldview through its materials, composition, formal aspects, and content. This is significant, considering that it was painted during the final third of the sixteenth century, several decades after the fall of Mexico Tenochtitlan. There are, as should be expected, reflections of the new social order, although these are outshone by the native traits that permeate the manuscript.

European alphabetic script, which permits the relatively precise representation of oral discourse on material surfaces, was introduced by Spanish colonists. It was taught to the children of the indigenous ruling class by friars, who shut down native schools and indoctrinated these children in schools within the cloisters, forming a new generation of bicultural, plurilingual, Christianized natives to govern their towns. The transition from the traditional ruling dynasties to town councils based on the Spanish ayuntamiento [town council] system took place gradually, during the first century of colonial rule. Alphabetic writing spread with Spanish control. This novel form of graphic communication was adopted throughout New Spain and was used, together with traditional Mesoamerican pictorial language, as a tool in the negotiation of power between indigenous town councils and Spanish authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical (Wright-Carr, 2009b).

Most of the alphabetic glosses in the Huamantla Map were executed with an extremely fine pen in light brown ink. They are barely visible, even when viewing the original manuscript. One lone gloss, painted under the scene depicting the victory of Cortés, stands out for its large size and the use of brush rather than pen. Thirty-two glosses are visible today. Of these, ten are legible, fifteen partially legible, and seven illegible. They were added after the pictorial signs and before the acquisition of the manuscript by Boturini. The calligraphy suggests they were written in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries. Boturini transcribed eighteen toponymic glosses and published them in 1746; of these, ten are still legible (Wright-Carr, 2005a, Vol. 1, pp. 450–453; Vol. 2, pp. 245–251; 2016a, pp. 385–396).

One gloss identifies an anthroponymic painted sign as a beetle, called pīnāhuiztli in Nahuatl, that was interpreted as an omen (Wright-Carr, 2016a, p. 388).33 Two glosses name the secondary deities represented within the primordial cave described above: “Xuchiltonal” [day Flower, flowery day, flowery summer, flowery Sun, or flowery solar heat]; and “Chicuey Ytzcuintli” [Eight Dog], a day in the 260-day mantic calendar (Wright-Carr, 2016a, p. 393).

Two longer glosses explain the meaning of the sign complexes, found throughout the map, depicting men seated on benches and holding flowers in front of architectural signs: “Auh nicah zacateotlah yn toconcol yntocah ocenllotli” [And here is Zacateotlan (Place of the Grass God); the name of our ancestor is Ocelotl (Jaguar/Ocelot)] and “Nica yahualyohca yntoca cuitli [?] yn toconcol” [Here is Yahualyocan (round place); the name of our ancestor is Cuixtli (Hawk)] (Wright-Carr, 2016a, pp. 394–396). These glosses suggest that certain architectural forms, depicted throughout the map, represent administrative buildings, and that the figures seated in front of them depict lineage founders.

Two additional glosses provide clues for the interpretation of the manuscript’s content. Within the primordial cave we find the words “Nicah toquizyahnoztoc” [Here, inside the cave, the place (or time) of our emergence]. The large gloss painted with a brush under the scene of the victory of Cortés is important because it provides a terminus ante quem, a latest possible date, for the painting of the manuscript. It states that the Marquis (Cortés) arrived over seventy years ago; the illegible ending of the number gives us a possible range of seventy-one to seventy-nine years. The arrival of Cortés in the eastern province of Tlaxcala occurred in 1519, so the latest possible date for the gloss, which is evidently later than the pictorial signs, is between 1590 and 1598. The terminus post quem [earliest possible date] is indicated by the depiction of the Franciscan convent of Huamantla; its founding was authorized in 1567, three years after a formal request submitted to the Franciscans; construction began two years later (Gibson, 1967, p. 48; Wright-Carr, 2014, 2016a, pp. 391–392).

These glosses probably aided—and continue to aid—in the identification of the painted signs, most of which do not directly codify spoken language. Rather, the pictorial language provides a general framework over which a verbal discourse could be constructed, probably enhanced with music and dance, on formal occasions when the history of the lords of Huamantla was performed. The Huamantla Map could have been performed in Otomi, Nahuatl, or any other language spoken in central Mexico.34 The use of Nahuatl in the glosses suggests the negotiation of power between the Otomi lords of Huamantla and the Nahuatl-speaking nobles of the central nucleus of the province, where the city of Tlaxcala was founded. Nahuatl also served as a lingua franca for communicating with Spanish officials and clergy, with or without the mediation of translators.35

As mentioned above, the most obvious reflections of European culture found in the Huamantla Map are representations of Spaniards, inserted into the cartographic space near the places where their deeds were enacted. This occurs in three instances: a massacre of natives by Spanish horsemen, a depiction of what are probably meant to be interpreted as a Spanish governor and his palace in Mexico City, and the representation of a friar and a convent in Huamantla.

A large area in the north central portion of this map is dedicated to a scene depicting the military victory of Cortés over the Otomi warriors from Tecoac that put the Spaniards to the test on their initial march from Veracruz to Mexico Tenochtitlan (Wright, 2020, p. 288, figure 5). Cortés is depicted in fine clothing, standing atop a mountain sign including a decapitated native within its contour. Seven additional decapitated Indians are represented to the sides of the mountain, while two mounted conquistadors behead natives with their pikes. Four indigenous women present Cortés with vessels of water, while five men offer turkeys, bales of forage, and strings of jade beads. Above this scene more presents are depicted: turkeys, another bale of forage, and containers with white oval-shaped objects, perhaps turkey eggs or tortillas. This pictorial representation corresponds closely to verbal histories found in sixteenth-century chronicles written by Spanish and indigenous authors. The correspondence between the pictorial and verbal narratives is particularly evident in the native account of the Spanish invasion in book 12 of the Florentine Codex (Sahagún, 1979, Vol. 3, ff. 421v–422v [12.10]).36

The second section in which a Spaniard is represented is next to the sign cluster representing Mexico Tenochtitlan, discussed above. Here is depicted a man in European clothing, hand extended, standing in front of an architectural structure (figure 6.4). The man and the building are painted in black ink, without the colors found in most signs of this manuscript. By analogy with the the building-man-bench-flower sign clusters, the European probably represents Hernán Cortés or a viceroy, and the building is likely the palace erected by Cortés and his viceregal successors over the rubble of the palace of Moteuczoma Xocoyotzin, the Mexica king that ruled when Cortés first arrived at Mexico Tenochtitlan. Thus the Spanish capital of Mexico City is depicted adjacent to the sign cluster representing the Aztec capital, pictorially representing two successive centers of power at the same location.

The center of the southeastern portion of the Huamantla Map is visually dominated by a large compound toponymic sign, representing a stylized mountain with three trees on its summit and two agave cacti, a deer, and a snake in its interior. This sign cluster stands for Huamantla, a Castilian loanword from the Nahuatl toponym Cuauhmāntlān, “near the forest.” An alphabetic gloss spells out the Nahuatl name, in the rustic variant used by the author of the glosses, who probably spoke Otomi as a first language: “quamantla.” Several elements complete the depiction of the town of Huamantla: architectural structures with men on benches holding flowers, probably representing second-rank sociopolitical structures called calpōlli in Nahuatl, andanguetsofo in Otomi, and barrios in Castilian (Wright-Carr, 2008b), with their lineage founders; a cultivated field with a farmer; regional flora and fauna; and an abbreviated depiction of the Franciscan convent of San Luis at Huamantla: a religious building with a cross framed by an arch, probably representing the open-air chapel that served as a church in the last decades of the sixteenth century, prior to the completion of the church; another structure representing the cloister; and a barefoot friar with a grey habit and waist cord, standing between the chapel and the cloister with extended hands. It is possible, as noted by Carmen Aguilera, that the latter depiction represents Friar Pedro Meléndez, who directed the construction of the convent beginning in 1569 (Aguilera, 1984, pp. 15–16; see also Gibson, 1967, p. 48). The use of grey bands that only partially fill the black outlines, leaving parallel bands showing the light color of the bark paper, may be seen in the cultivated field and in the friar’s habit. These may be timid attempts at imitating the shading that characterized European art of the late Gothic and Renaissance periods, a stylistic trait that was absent from pre-Hispanic manuscripts. In general the pictorial style of this map is extremely conservative, considering the date of its production.

Through the depictions of Cortés and his horsemen, the Spanish governor in Mexico City, and the Franciscan friar and convent in Huamantla, care was taken to acknowledge the new political and religious order. Thus, the history of the lords of Huamantla was traced back to the primordial origins of the cosmos, continuing through the late pre-Hispanic era, and including the early colonial period, when Huamantla emerged as a regional capital.

Conclusion

The extraordinary scale of this map afforded the experience of looking out over a vast landscape, as if from a mountain top. There is a primary observation point on the northwestern edge of the map, from which the viewer looks into the primordial cave and beyond, across the Valley of Mexico and the province of Tlaxcala, with Huamantla and its surrounding landscape in the distance. This indicates a starting point for interaction with the manuscript. The fact that some signs clusters have distinct orientations strongly suggests movement around the map’s perimeter by painters, during execution, and performers, during performances. We have seen how song, instrumental music, and dance often accompanied the “reading” of central Mexican historical manuscripts. It is not difficult to imagine such a scenario when the Huamantla Map was laid out and people gathered around to see and hear performances of the history of this Otomi town.

The production of the Huamantla Map in the context of the repression of native culture by European colonists is itself a noteworthy act of ideological resistance and cultural tenacity, as well as a statement of political power. By the time the manuscript was painted, aspects of European culture had penetrated the indigenous towns of central Mexico. Nonetheless, one can observe how the authors of this pictorial manuscript expressed and preserved noteworthy features of their ancestral culture, while acknowledging the presence and authority of the Spanish government and the Catholic Church. The Otomi lords of Huamantla pictorially asserted their privileged status, tracing their lineage back to the beginning of time. They laid claim to the territory their forefathers had defended with arms before the coming of the Europeans. The defeat of Tecoac by Cortés, prominently displayed, opened up the possibility of a shift in the dynamics of regional politics. The authors proclaimed Huamantla’s status as a regional capital, highlighting the presence of a Franciscan convent in their town. Traditional visual language continued to serve the needs of the native community in a changing social, political, and religious environment.

Notes

References