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When Iberians invaded the American mainland in 1519, they encountered an empire that rivaled their own. This empire—led by the Nahuatl-speaking Mexica—covered an impressive landscape across the Valley of Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast. What threaded these diverse communities together was a state religion, developed and maintained by the Mexica, and at its head were religious leaders known as tlamacazqueh, or “the givers of things.” These figures animated the Mexica world with the works they made for state ceremonies, but sixteenth-century Iberian authors obscured them in fear of their non-Christian ways, while later scholars, as a result, attended to better-documented state artisans outside the religious sphere. Through an analysis of Mexica art and architecture, the Nahuatl language, and early colonial Nahuatl texts, this dissertation reclaims the role of making in Nahua religion and re-centers the tlamacazqueh as skilled makers with artistic knowledge.The tlamacazqueh mastered techniques to create sacred artworks that drew on the bodily senses and thus animated Nahua religion. These skills, I argue, were part of a Nahua concept of artistry called tōltēcayōtl. In individual chapters, I explore the spaces where these religious leaders learned (īxtlamachtiā) their skills; how they cut (tequi) materials and created new forms with flint knives; how they molded doughs and folded fig bark to place (tlāliā) and present sacred energies; and how they wrapped (quimiloā, ilpiā) sacred art with smoke and woven fibers to create surfaces that could perceive. Therein, I explore the relationships between these Nahua makers and their made things to complicate Euro-American frameworks of animacy and personhood, explore Indigenous concepts of relationality, and center the artistic, ecological, and imperial knowledge and networks that constellated around these individuals.Since religious leaders and their practices did not suddenly vanish once the Mexica Empire fell to

Mayahuel’s Mysterious Maguey: The Divine Mesoamerican Mother’s Sacred Story of Transformation explores the narrative of Mayahuel as told in the Histoyre du Mechique, the extant French translation (via a lost Spanish translation) of the lost or destroyed original Nahua sacred narrative. This visual text adapts glyphs and iconography from the Indigenous-authored Codex Yohualli Ehecatl (Borgia), Codex Mictlan (Laud), Codex Tonalpohualli (Vaticanus B), and Codex Mendoza (as well as including Jordan Collver’s original artwork) to bring the story of Mayahuel’s transformation into maguey to contemporary readers. Embedded within this visual narrative are Indigenous, specifically Nahua, Aztec, and Mexica, ideologies related to motherhood, death, interconnectedness, nature, and teotl, a Nahuatl term not easily defined. Inspired by Felicia Rhapsody Lopez’s article, "Case Study for the Development of a Visual Grammar: Mayahuel and Maguey as Teotl in the Directional Tree Pages of the Codex Borgia," published in rEvista: A Multi-media, Multi-genre e-Journal for Social Justice, vol. 5, no. 2, 2017

This dissertation is an art historical study with a broad bibliographic and historiographic analysis of the 1565 Pintura del gobernador, alcaldes y regidores de México (Pintura) and its three facsimiles. This project argues that the Pintura was a colonial object that Spain and Mexico colonized and re-colonized multiple times over centuries. Nahua tlacuiloque (artist-scribes) and Spanish translators and scribes created the Pintura for the 1564 visita (inspection) by Gerónimo de Valderrama. Indigenous people made testimonies pertaining to exploitation by elites in and around Mexico City. The manuscript is comprised of thirty-nine folios with combinations of Nahuatl and Spanish text, with precolonial glyphic and early modern European-style images. By referencing Mesoamerican concepts, the Nahua tlacuiloque made choices to express their new colonial realities and the histories of their communities under Spanish rule. In 1878, Spanish scholars created a facsimile of the Pintura after the original manuscript was discovered in the Biblioteca Nacional in the recently-acquired collection of the Twelfth Duke of Osuna. The Mexican Instituto Indigenista Interamericano published another facsimile in Mexico in 1947. An extensive two-volume facsimile was created in the 1970s to correspond with the restoration of the sixteenth-century Pintura by the BNE. To further promote its colonial and imperial past, the BNE digitized the Pintura and placed it online in the 2000s. The facsimiles have influenced scholarship and the treatment of the Pintura for centuries. By analyzing the context of each facsimiles’ productions, this dissertation demonstrates the national agendas that they fulfilled.

Aquest article presenta un estudi exploratori sobre la presència i l’ús de la llengua nahua en l’espai de treball i el valor que té aquest ús dins del mercat laboral local. Es va realitzar un estudi de cas entrevistant quaranta-nou titulats de la Universitat Veracruzana Intercultural (Mèxic). Entre els principals resultats es destaca que, malgrat els fenòmens de discriminació i desplaçament, els treballadors estudiats van manifestar fer un ús oral i escrit del nahua en la seva activitat laboral, i la seva condició de parlants va ser considerada pels seus ocupadors com a necessària i important per a l’acompliment de les seves funcions. Això suposa que una formació professional pertinent i el desenvolupament de la funció laboral del nahua actuen de manera positiva en la seva revaloració. Aquest estudi també mostra les possibilitats d’investigar les llengües minoritzades de Mèxic des de la dimensió laboral de cara a una planificació lingüística integral.Paraules clau: mercat de treball, llengua indígena, educació intercultural, nahua, Mèxic., in the workplace, and about the value of that use within the local labor market. A case study was conducted by interviewing 49 graduates of the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (Mexico). In spite of the phenomena of linguistic discrimination and displacement, however, the studied workers stated that they speak and write Nahuatl in their work activity. Even their status as Nahuatl speakers was judged important and necessary for good job performance by employers. This means that relevant vocational training and the development of the work function of Nahuatl have a positive impact on its appraisal. This study also highlights the possibilities for investigating the minority languages of Mexico from the labor-related standpoint for an integral language planning policy.Keywords: labor market, indigenous language, intercultural education, Nahuatl, Mexico., Aquest article presenta un estudi de cas amb treballadors qualificats parlants de la llengua náhuatl de l'estat de Veracruz que evidencia que als seus espais laborals s'utilitza aquest llengua tant per a la comunicació amb els usuaris com amb l'equip de treball. Aquesta dada és rellevant perquè generalment es considera que les llengües nacionals es troben excloses dels espais laborals qualificats per no considerar-se compatibles amb l'estatus professional i per la desactualització que pateixen aquestes llengües. Tot i així, malgrat els fenòmens de discriminació i desplaçament, els treballadors estudiats van manifestar fer ús oral i escrit del náhuatl a la seva activitat laboral, i la seva condició de parlants va ser considerada pels seus ocupadors com a necessària i important per a l'acompliment de les seves funcions. Perquè es doni aquest situació contribueix que els esmentats parlants tinguin una actitud positiva cap a la seva llengua, existeixin ofertes de treball que requereixin aquesta habilitat com a part d'un perfil professional, i hagin equips de treball que incloguin aquestes llengües a les converses de treball, transformant aquest capital lingüístic en un capital humà i en competència estratègica.Aquest article presenta un estudi de cas amb treballadors qualificats parlants de la llengua náhuatl de l'estat de Veracruz que evidencia que als seus espais laborals s'utilitza aquest llengua tant per a la comunicació amb els usuaris com amb l'equip de treball. Aquesta dada és rellevant perquè generalment es considera que les llengües nacionals es troben excloses dels espais laborals qualificats per no considerar-se compatibles amb l'estatus professional i per la desactualització que pateixen aquestes llengües. Tot i així, malgrat els fenòmens de discrimi

This dissertation evaluates Spanish and Nahuatl (an indigenous language spoken by the Nahuas of Mexico) sources to probe tiçiyotl (Nahua healing knowledge) in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Central Mexico. My study covers a 150-mile area surrounding Mexico City and begins in 1538, when Juan de Zumárraga, the bishop of Mexico, oversaw the first trial against titiçih (healing ritual specialists). The temporal scope of my dissertation ends in 1656, when Jacinto de la Serna (rector of the University of Mexico) wrote a manual for priests who ministered to indigenous people, which was the last source to use the term tiçitl (sing. titiçih). Other notable sources and contributions include the investigation of ecclesiastical trials against titiçih in Central Mexico. These trials include biographical information, and in-depth information on ritual practices that add humanness to the abstract descriptions included in European treatises, manuals, and encyclopedias. By unpacking the history of Nahua healing knowledge in a colonial context, this study not only explores Nahua people, it also examines how Europeans processed and interpreted indigenous knowledge, materials, and practitioners. Starting in the late sixteenth-century, the Catholic Church systematically attacked Nahua healers in Central Mexico, particularly women, while Spanish physicians absorbed indigenous knowledge and discarded ritual practices and its practitioners. This has made women invisible in academic discussions of tiçiyotl. By employing non-European sources this study includes the perspectives and views of the “colonized,” that is, the indigenous peoples of Central Mexico. Lastly, this dissertation demonstrates that women were integral to the preservation of healing practices and ritual customs among Nahua people in the seventeenth century, and that women led the resistance against Spanish colonialism, and bore the brunt of its wrath.

This dissertation explores the active roles of ritual music known as xochitl sones (flower-musical pieces) or sones de costumbre (musical pieces of the tradition), in the context of la costumbre Nahua religion of eastern Mexico. This multi-sited research is based on twelve months of ethnomusicological research conducted in 2010-2011 among several Nahua towns in the municipality of Chicontepec, Veracruz. The main focus of research is the town of Ixcacuatitla located at the foothill of the Postectli Mountain, an active ceremonial center for Nahua, Otomi, and Tepehua ethnic groups. By primarily looking at conceptualizations concerning the chicomexochitl ceremony offered to mountains, this study shows how ritual music articulates participation and emotional engagement in order to bring the rainfall that is essential for agricultural production. The musical repertoire consists of about 150 musical pieces that are arranged according to the events, actions, and deities represented in the ceremony. The characteristics of the musical elements and the large structure of pieces paralleling the events configures the engagement of the participating audiences in the performance of the ceremony. Over a period of days, congregations and dedicated ritual specialists gather to prepare and present large amounts of offerings including food and animal sacrifices. While all engage in the different activities, dancing together to the rhythm of the violin, jarana and huapanguera is one of the most representative aspects of participation, where emotions such as weeping and joy are offered to the Chicomexochitl deity. This dissertation argues that the relevance of music and dance in articulating such emotional involvement directly corresponds to the value attributed to participation in the system of communal reciprocity, which is a basic principle of socialization in these Nahua towns and further enables an interaction with the sacred landscape.

Pasado y presente se mezclan en la literatura nahua contemporánea. La mitología prehispánica está presente en muchos de los cuentos nahuas que relata Doña Luz Jiménez. Son resultado de la fusión entre tradición prehispánica y colonial, donde se recogen valores y creencias ancestrales todavía en uso en las regiones actuales. Los ritos más íntimamente ligados a la vida y a los campesinos sobrevivieron, fueron reinterpretados simbólicamente después de la conquista y se han articulado con la religión católica dominante de diversas maneras, mostrando una extraordinaria riqueza de prácticas y creencias prehispánicas en los relatos de Doña Luz y hasta el día de hoy., Past and present mingle in contempor ary nahua literature. The pre-Hispanic mythology is present in many of the nahua tales recounts Doña Luz Jiménez. They are the result of the merger of pre-Hispanic and colonial tradition where ancestral values and beliefs are reflected still in use in the current regions. The rituals more closely related to life and peasants survived, were reinterpreted symbolically after the conquest and were articulated with the dominant Catholic religion in various ways, showing an extraordinary wealth of practical and prehispanic beliefs in the stories of Doña Luz and up today.

La historia de México registra entre sus varios protagonistas a personajes célebres por los hechos gloriosos o vergonzosos en que participaron. Mi intención en este artículo es mostrar a través del trabajo de Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, lo que parece incuestionable: la función del traductor en la construcción de la historia, la identidad y la cultura de un pueblo. En el caso que tratamos aquí se trata de la trascendencia que la obra de Sahagún ha tenido para un mejor conocimiento de la cultura nahua.

It had been believed that Nahuatl recordkeeping, the focus of a whole movement of central Mexican ethnohistory, had halted by 1800. The author then discovered a large cache of Nahuatl testaments from communities in the Metepec area in the first decades of the nineteenth century, the independence period. The present study, based on those materials, brings native-language ethnohistory a full generation forward in time and is the first to look at indigenous communities in the independence years from the inside. The continued production of Nahuatl testaments itself shows a cultural persistence; the content of the testaments shows most features of local life still operating much as before. The greatest surprise was that in the corpus women testators and property owners outnumber men, making up almost two-thirds of the total, thus reversing the traditional proportions. In chapters on writing, religious practices, the household complex, and non-household land, interrelated blocks of local sociocultural life are portrayed and analyzed against the background of Nahua life in previous centuries. Women are abundantly studied, and the role of the genders receives much attention through statistical comparisons and analysis of cases. Again the results are a surprise, for though women show evidence of a new prominence in matters of funeral rites, for the rest their role seems much as it had always been, and through their bequests they were well on the way to handing males their traditional predominance in property holding. The corpus contains collections from three communities that show micro-local distinctions, featured in each of the chapters. Some of the testaments are in Spanish, which became predominant before 1830, but the texts are so dependent on Nahuatl phrases that they can be studied as part of the whole and show that the language transition at first had small effects on local culture.

This dissertation examines the political and spiritual implications of the Franciscan presence in sixteenth-century Cholollan, renamed San Pedro Cholula by the Spaniards, reading the friars' evangelizing project in light of the Order's foundational missionary mandate, its millenarian tendencies, its 1517 Reform, and its desire to replenish the numbers of faithful leaving the Church with the advent of Protestantism. Based on printed Franciscan chronicles and materials from municipal, judicial, notarial, state, and national archives in Mexico and Spain, this project provides the first detailed study of the Franciscan appropriation of this Mesoamerican sacred site. Because the Sons of St. Francis were the only Order in colonial Cholula, their efforts resulted in a very particular Franciscan charism more than a general early modern Mediterranean Catholicism. The Franciscan establishment in Cholollan officially began in late 1528 or early 1529 with the arrival of guardian fray Alonso Xu�rez. Given its centuries-old sacred legacy, its identity as a site of spiritual and thus political legitimation, and its numerous teocalli, or indigenous temples, the polity would prove irresistible to the Franciscans. Because of the elaborate daily and seasonal rituals performed by the native Cholulteca, as well as the similarities between certain Nahua rites and Catholic sacraments, the friars believed they had discovered a people perfectly poised to receive and internalize Christianity. Re-naming the altepetl San Pedro Cholula after St. Peter, the first Pope, the mendicants harkened back to Rome and the days of the Primitive Church, when Christianity existed in its purest form. Indeed, the friars believed that Cholula would become a "new Rome" in New Spain, a spiritual center across the Atlantic from which they would launch their evangelization of central Mexico. Ironically, Franciscan efforts to re-imagine Cholula's past into a Catholic present ensured the continuity of its centurie

The conditions for the circulation of persons between Mexico and the United States have changed drastically in the last decade. The ways people return must be analyzed taking into consideration the specificity of the regions involved. The dynamic of departure and return in the so-called "historic" region of migration to the United States is conceived of in this article as an "ideal type", useful for comparing other experiences in areas where recent, comparatively late migratory flows accelerated in the 1990s. This article analyzes the return from North Carolina of indigenous and mestiza women to the municipality of Pahuatlán, Puebla., Las condiciones que enmarcan la circulación de personas entre México y Estados Unidos han cambiado drásticamente en la última década: las modalidades de retorno deben analizarse considerando la especificidad de las regiones involucradas en este proceso. La dinámica de salida y retorno en la llamada región histórica de la migración a Estados Unidos se concibe en este trabajo como un "tipo ideal", útil para contrastarla con otras experiencias en zonas donde flujos migratorios recientes, comparativamente tardíos, se aceleraron en los años noventa. Se analiza el retorno de mujeres indígenas y mestizas del municipio de Pahuatlán, Puebla, procedentes de Carolina del Norte.

Alonso de Molina’s Vocabulary is the main historical source followed by the author of this article in order to understand the Nahua agriculture at the end of the XVI century. There are also other historical sources utilized by Alba González to compare the information about types of soils, climate, vegetation, agricultural technicques and the technology associated with it and about irrigation. The article has a broad information about agricultural managements and the uses of plants -mainly corn- utilized in the agricultural labour, which was basic in the life of the Nahuas in Central Mexico. It has several tables with the data obtained from the historical sources which permit to understand the richness of this economic activity. This article is important for agricultural, ecological and historical studies and the information it presents is valuable., Alonso de Molina’s Vocabulary is the main historical source followed by the author of this article in order to understand the Nahua agriculture at the end of the XVI century. There are also other historical sources utilized by Alba González to compare the information about types of soils, climate, vegetation, agricultural technicques and the technology associated with it and about irrigation. The article has a broad information about agricultural managements and the uses of plants -mainly corn- utilized in the agricultural labour, which was basic in the life of the Nahuas in Central Mexico. It has several tables with the data obtained from the historical sources which permit to understand the richness of this economic activity. This article is important for agricultural, ecological and historical studies and the information it presents is valuable.

Le présent article s’attache aux processus de constitution des patrimoines graphiques ethniques, en partant de l’exemple des créations picturales sur papier d’écorce appelées « amates » réalisées par les peintres nahuaphones du sud-ouest du Mexique. Après mes travaux doctoraux réalisés sur ce sujet il y a 20 ans dans une perspective émique, je m’intéresse aujourd’hui à la rencontre entre des acteurs réseau (artistes indigènes) et des amateurs, collectionneurs, anthropologues et institutions transnationales qui ont permis la reconnaissance et la patrimonialisation de ces peintures. On se centrera ici notamment sur « l’extériorité légitimante » du Musée national d’art mexicain de Chicago. Cette institution muséale a permis de requalifier dans son propre espace d’action le statut des peintures et de leurs créateurs, créant ainsi un espace de traduction propre à la participation de la communauté hispanique à Chicago et à la réception dans les espaces sociaux caractéristiques du multiculturalisme aux États-Unis., Bottom-up construction of a Mexican native graphic heritage in a transnational situation (Mexico-USA)This article focuses on how an ethnic graphic heritage is established. It is based on a study of paintings made on bark paper (amates) by Nahuatl speakers in South-west Mexico. In my Ph. D. dissertation two decades ago, I adopted an emic perspective. I now take a transnational actor-network approach to examine the interactions between native artists and art lovers, collectors, anthropologists and others. All these social categories contribute to the public recognition of these artworks as part of a cultural legacy. I pay particular attention to the role of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago as an external expert conferring legitimacy on this process. This museum made it possible to reclassify in its own space of action the status of paintings and painters. It thus created a specific space for translation, allowing the participation of the Hispanic community in Chicago and reception in the social spaces characteristic of the United States’ multiculturalism.

White manta panel with five sections of blue hand-embroidered star and geometric swirl motifs; edge finished with blue blanket stitch embroidery around a machine sewn hem., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; purchased by C. Frances Bristol in the market at Cuetzalan, Puebla, Mexico in 1990.

Wool belt woven in warp-faced rib weave, with alternating navy and black stripes. This belt was woven on a ring loom. The warp has not been cut making the belt a continuous circle as it would have been when it came off the loom., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; gifted to C. Frances Bristol by Ann Forsyth, 1968.

White manta panel with sections of red hand-embroidered chicken and bird motifs to be used as a blouse yoke and as sleeve decorations; donor later added the red rickrack boarder and the embroidered label., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; purchased by C. Frances Bristol from a fiesta in Huauchinango, Puebla in 1974.

White quechquemitl composed of two rectangular panels joined by stripes of randa, a type of needle woven lace; panel fabric is composed of alternating sections of fine honeycomb and seersucker weave; one hemmed edge, the rest are selvedges., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; acquired by C. Frances Bristol from Ernesto Cervantes' shop in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1959.

Large black, handwoven wool rebozo heavily embroidered in cross stitch embroidery with a variety of colorful motifs at each end; motifs including animals, geometric designs, and flowers in pink, purple, red orange, yellow, blue, and green. Looped warp fringe has been knotted and embroidered over with and flowers and ends in tassels., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; acquired by C. Frances Bristol from Anita Jones in 1958 (Anita Jones 'got it 'Sur Place').

Small, white quechquemitl woven in bands of leno weave and weft patterning, creating an open, lace-like fabric; pink ribbon lines the neck and forms circular "rosettes" on the chest and central back of the garment; a narrow line of multicolored embroidery joins the of two panels; bottom corners also have embroidery, small tassels, and sequins., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; purchased by C. Frances Bristol from the weaver in 1990.

Shirt, handwoven from black wool and heavily embroidered with burgundy and navy linear and zig zag patterns along the square neckline, shoulders, cuffs, and hem; large cross-stitch motif surrounded by four animals in center on both front and back; underarms and bottom portion of side seam left open; entire garment hand sewn., Donated by C. Frances Bristol, 2006; Acquired by C. Frances Bristol/Marcia C. Moffett from a linguist, Mrs. de Vrise, in 1954.