special issue on environmental governace / numéro spécial sur la gouvernance environnementale ||...

University of Calgary PressCanadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

REVISING HISTORY: AMERINDIAN VOICES IN COLONIAL TEXTSTitu Cusi: A 16th-Century Account of the Conquest by Nicole Delia Legnani; Frank Salomon;Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin byJames Lockhart; Susan Schroeder; Doris Namala; Testaments of Toluca by Caterina Pizzigoni;Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, andGuatemala by Matthew Restall; Lisa Sousa; Kevin TerracianoReview by: RAÚL MARRERO-FENTECanadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des étudeslatino-américaines et caraïbes, Vol. 34, No. 68, Special Issue on Environmental Governace /Numéro spécial sur la gouvernance environnementale (2009), pp. 209-215Published by: University of Calgary Press on behalf of Canadian Association of Latin American andCaribbean StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41800474 .

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REVISING HISTORY: AMERINDIAN

VOICES IN COLONIAL TEXTS

RAÚL MARRERO-FENTE

University of Minnesota

Nicole Delia Legnani, introduction, Spanish modernization, English translation, and notes Titu Cusi: A 16th-Century Account of the Conquest With a prologue by Frank Salomon

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006, xvii + 218 pp.

James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, editors and translators Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón

Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, 329 pp.

Caterina Pizzigoni, editor, annotator, and translator Testaments of Toluca Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006, xv + 250 pp.

Matthew Restali, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano, editors Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, xiii + 243 pp.

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Vol. 34, No. 68 (2009): 209-215

209



210 CJLACS / RCELAC 34/68 2009

These four reference works share a focus on the Amerindian experi- ence and viewpoint as it was described in native-language historical records written under Spanish imperial domination. Individually and

together they constitute a valuable addition to the growing corpus of native texts that has made possible the task of revising colonial Latin American history. By making neglected Amerindian manuscripts available to scholars and to readers in general, these four works give overdue attention to the cultural production of native authors in the region at a particular historical moment. They portray the colonial realities confronted by indigenous societies in the Americas while also offering a unique insight into Amerindian texts and traditions as interpretative responses to European colonialism. Their respec- tive editors and translators do a superb job of examining the ways in which these texts provide a detailed and at times first-hand account of contemporary events from a native point of view.

Titu Cusi: A 16th-Century Account of the Conquest, translated and annotated by Nicole Delia Legnani, is a critical edition based on her senior thesis in Latin American Studies at Harvard University in 2003. It attests to recent interest among scholars in Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Inca ruler of Vilcabamba from 1558 until his death in 1571. The prologue by Frank Salomon and the foreword by José Antonio Mazzotti ex-

pertly frame this edition by placing it in the context of colonial Latin American historiography.

Legnani's edition is the first English translation and the first modernized Spanish version of the 1 570 Instruction of the Inqa Don Diego de Castro Titu Kusi Yupanki for his Most Illustrious Lord Licentiate

Lope Garcia de Castro. Legnani's detailed account of Titu Cusi's life and work provides elements that are key to understanding Inca society and the Andean region during the Spanish conquest and colonization. The book consists of an introduction, the modernized Spanish version of the text, and the English translation. The edition includes as well 34 endnotes on textual criticism.

The introduction reviews the prior editions of Titu Cusi's Instruc- tion in both Spanish (1916, 1973, 1985, 1992) and German (1985). Here, Legnani provides an in-depth analysis of two key issues in Titu Cusi's account of the conquest: first, the narration of events as a means to empower the new Inca centre founded in Vilcabamba, and second, the narrative's relation to legal writing and the rituals of



Marrero-Fente / Revising History: Amerindian Voices in Colonial Texts 211

Inca society. A section titled "A Necessary Contextualization" offers historical background that will be very helpful for a non-specialized audience. Also included in the introduction is an informative discussion about the role of the translator in the text, the appropriation by Titu Cusi of rhetorical elements of the Spanish legal genre, and the connection between performance, reading, and the Inca's cultural

practices. The main section of the book is Legnani 's English translation and

annotated edition of Titu Cusi's Instruction, with 112 detailed historical, literary, and cultural endnotes and a bibliography that illuminates the historical context and cultural production of the period. Legnani 's edition is an excellent example of the rich interdisciplinary orientation that prevails in the field of Colonial Latin American Studies, providing fertile ground for in-depth analyses on Inca resistance to Spanish conquest and colonization as it was shaped in the years that followed Titu Cusi's original writing.

Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimal-

pahin Quauhtlehuanitzin as translated and edited by James Lockhart, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala is a critical edition of the tran-

scription of the Annals penned in Nahuatl by the Franciscan-educated

Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin in the early seventeenth century. The book consists of the introduction to the text, transcription, translation, glossary, and bibliography.

In the introduction, Lockhart, Schroeder, and Namala assemble a coherent set of three essays examining the changing perspectives that have emerged in the study of the Nahuatl annals genre as a whole. They also provide a detailed account of the manuscript and its history. While the most obvious purpose in the introduction is to summarize existing knowledge of Chimalpahin's text, the editors do in fact break new ground by bringing together fresh research on the

analysis of language and content in the annals. The introduction suc-

cessfully frames the work in the context of previous critical editions. Lockhart, Schroeder, and Namala offer a comprehensive overview of the cultural production of the colonial period, the importance of the annals genre, and how annals have been interpreted by scholars in recent times. The detailed historical annals by Chimalpahin in

particular, transcribed and translated into English by the editors, constitute a valuable ethnohistorical source that is essential for a




deeper understanding of the pressures and demands indigenous societies faced. In many ways, Chimalpahin represents the emergence of the Amerindian writer, a figure who played an active role in both

narrating and interpreting from the colonized native perspective the drama of the cultures Spain was subjugating. As an indigenous historian living under Spanish domination, he provides the reader with a first-hand testimony on the political, cultural, and religious life of the population of Mexico City between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Chimalpahin's historical vignettes offer vital information about the complex political and ecclesiastical life of the colonial capital, and

they make available to the reader a wealth of information regarding the actions taken by indigenous governors and high-ranking Span- ish civil and religious figures. The Nahuatl historian depicts several

important events in his annals, and also examines the role played by Christianity in the transformation of the Amerindian societies.

In this first English translation of Chimalpahin's work the Nahuatl

transcription appears on the left-hand page and the English translation en face on the right. Footnotes are included for each entry. A valuable research tool in this edition is a list of major texts that provide additional information on important events that took place in Mexico

City from 1604 to 1614, among them the flood of 1604, the flooding and excavation of 1607, the arrival of Japanese merchants in Mexico in 1610, the eclipse and earthquake in 1611, and the suspected rebel- lion of Afro-descendants in 1612. Other important research tools are the glossary of 54 terms and a series of useful indexes. The edition

additionally includes a detailed map of Mexico City as it was in Chi-

malpahin's time, a reproduction of the first page of the manuscript as it appears on display at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and a

reproduction of the Annals entry for the beginning of 1614 from the same manuscript.

The high standards of Lockhart, Schroeder, and Namala's edition have surpassed the demanding requirements of a reference tool such that it constitutes a model of scholarship for future research on the

study of Nahuatl social and cultural vocabulary. Testaments of Toluca is a critical edition by Caterina Pizzigoni

of the transcription and an English translation of Nahuatl-language wills by indigenous people of central Mexico from 1650 to 1789. The




book includes an introduction, transcription, translation, commentary, glossary, and bibliography. The volume examines 98 testaments from 61 notaries from the towns of Toluca, Tepemaxalco, and Calimaya. The documents chosen by Pizzigoni have been taken mainly from the Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México, the Archivo General de la Nación, and the Newberry Library in Chicago. Every testament is accompanied with a commentary by Pizzigoni, a Nahuatl transcription, and an English translation. The text includes footnotes for each

entry. In the introduction, Pizzigoni explains her methodology and

analyzes the ways in which the wills that she presents describe the

everyday life of indigenous people in Mexico during the colonial administration. She examines the characteristics of the corpus, details a chronology, and offers a discussion about regional distribution, so-

ciopolitical organization, gender, the wills themselves, and the kind of information such documents provide. The documents include information about personal names, marital status, funeral arrangements (including the mass, shroud, and burial), the Jerusalem fund, bells, and cofradías (Catholic associations). There are also references to

kinship terms, the order of heirs, inheritance patterns, perorations, houses and saints, land, animals, debts, the final section of the testa-

ment, executors, witnesses, officials, language, Toluca Valley Nahuatl

orthography, and phonology. Names of the notaries in the Toluca area and in the Calimaya/Tepemaxalxo region are also identified.

The work is divided into two sections. In the first part, Pizzigoni establishes the relationship between the testaments examined in her

study and the corpus of Mexican wills that have been previously published. In this section, entitled "The Wills and What They Tell Us," the author offers a very sound assessment of the significance of the data presented, including a thorough examination of testament lan-

guage. She dedicates an entire chapter to the role played by notaries in the drawing up of Mexican wills. The second section deals in its

entirety with the corpus of the testaments. Here the author provides a

presentation and brief summary of each will, including the names of the testator and the notary. The section concludes with an explanation of the relevance of native testaments.

Pizzigoni's edition is an important contribution to the study of the corpus of Nahuatl-language wills, and it suggests new directions




for the future study of Nahuatl language and culture. The author's contribution is fundamental to what has been until today a neglected research topic in Nahuatl studies. The result is a specialized reference tool that will help to redefine socio-historical studies on the Nahuatl

language and culture by guiding the research toward issues of material culture in Mexican colonial society.

Mesoamerican Voices : Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala , edited by Matthew Re-

stall, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano, is a collection of indigenous- language writings from Mexico and Guatemala from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The edition consists of the English translation of 60 documents written originally in the Maya, Mixtee, Spanish, and Za-

potee languages. Each document is accompanied by a commentary that provides a detailed account of the historical context, language, and culture from the location where the documents originated. Other valuable tools in this work are its map, a glossary of Spanish, Nahuatl, Mixtee, and Maya words, lists of references and suggested readings, and an index.

The editors provide excellent English translations of various

documentary genres, including annals, petitions, testaments, primor- dial titles, letters, elders' speeches, and land and tribute records. The volume incorporates translations of many previously unpublished manuscripts covering the years 1540 through 1812. The majority of the documents were written by eyewitnesses of and participants in events that took place under Spanish rule. The manuscripts of translated records offer relevant insights into several aspects of the lives of colonial indigenous communities, providing us with an overview of the social, political, and religious structure of Amerindian societies

post-conquest. Several indigenous practices investigated by the Inqui- sition such as animal and child sacrifices offered to native gods are described in detail. In addition, these historical writings also explain how indigenous church assistants contributed to the preservation of certain pre-conquest practices and customs.

The introductory essays focus on the study of Amerindian texts as

interpretative responses to Spanish colonialism and analyze how these

indigenous writings narrate the drama of the conquest and colonization from the native viewpoint. In the first essay Restali, Sousa, and Terraciano examine the social status of Mesoamericans and Spaniards




during the sixteenth century by focusing on Mesoamerican diversity and on the Spanish invasion and colonization of the region. The second essay, on Literacy in Colonial Mesoamerica, is devoted to the

study of pre-conquest precedents, post-conquest literacy, genres of

writing, distribution and timing of writing, multilingualism, and the

implications of indigenous literacy. Restali, Sousa, and Terraciano's presentation attests both to the

fact that scholarship in Mesoamerican studies has expanded signifi- cantly in recent years and to the new vigor and innovation with which these studies have been undertaken. This critical edition represents an important contribution to the interdisciplinary approach prevail- ing in the field, which has resulted in a deeper understanding of the

complexities of colonial discourse. These four books are an invaluable research tool not only to Latin

Americanists specializing in the literature and history of the region but also to specialists in other disciplines. By giving due consideration to the cultural production of Amerindian writers, these works offer a more complex and complete picture of the colonial enterprise in Latin America. The group of indigenous writers featured in these publica- tions carried out a revisionist task by rewriting the conquest from an Amerindian perspective, and as such they offer a unique perspective on the dimensions of that particular historical moment. In their documents, they in fact reconstruct the processes of cultural transfer and

exchange that took place between Europeans and Amerindians in colonial society.

Recent scholarship in Colonial Latin American Studies has been characterized by the incorporation of new objects of study. This

broadening of the range of objects of study in the field has embraced Amerindian writers. Indigenous authors of the colonial period are now being studied more in depth, but much still remains to be done in this area. These informative sources provide fertile soil for future research in the field of Colonial Latin American Studies, representing as they do an attempt to move the discipline forward and attesting to the new vitality of interdisciplinary research in the field.



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