coldhearted scientist وداد

It will be St. John’s Eve this weekend, so it is fitting to discuss bonfires. Here is a description of a book I would really like to read.

After an introduction which explains the significance of bonfires and lays out the sources for the book, the narrative begins in Iberia with a brief history of the Spanish version of the Inquisition. In this chapter, Don introduces readers to Bishop Fray Juan de Zumárraga. Zumárraga was born in 1468 in the Basque country of northern Spain and came of age at roughly the same time the Spanish Inquisition was established. Don points out that the Inquisition worked differently when deployed against different ethnic minorities in Spain, and that these communities responded differently to its accusations. For example, conversos (or converted Jews, some of whom were alleged Crypto-Jews) faced particularly rough treatment, while in areas that contained Muslim agricultural laborers, local leaders forced the Inquisition to tread somewhat more lightly. So when Spanish civil and religious authority came to the Valley of Mexico, with pretensions to a small number of Christians ruling a large number of Nahuatl-speaking altepetl, it follows that after an initial period of rage and statue smashing, some sort of accommodation would have to be reached. Franciscans began to arrive in numbers after the conquest, and were dismayed to find that Native religious practice persevered throughout the valley. Zumárraga wrote to Spain and eventually to Rome to secure a Mexican Inquisition which would allow him to stamp out various heresies. He was eventually granted limited powers, which he promptly overrode.

The first of the four case studies concerns Martín Ocelotl. Ocelotl was a nahualli—a Native spiritual leader with supernatural powers. Ocelotl, who was probably an outsider that used the upheavals of the conquest to move into the central valley and profit from his spiritual powers, was put on trial in 1536 and 1537 for heresy, idolatry, and concubinage. He adroitly combined the pre-conquest role of the nahualli with some Christian influences. At one point, he claimed to have confronted Motecuhzoma himself, saying that though the leader could “kill him and tear him into pieces, he would not die nor could he die” (p. 66). According to the trial testimony, Motecuhzoma promptly had him killed and ground his bones, only to have Ocelotl return to life before his eyes. As Don drily puts it, “the facts of Ocelotl’s biography tend to contradict this story” (p. 67). Ocelotl was eventually banished to Spain, but his trial also brought to light that the Native political leaders (tlahtoqueh in plural, tlahtoani in singular) had not fully abandoned their connections to prior belief systems, even if they had been baptized and renounced polygamy and other practices the Spanish abhorred. Don’s treatment of the Ocelotl trial also demonstrates the fluidity and regional variation of Nahua religion.

Andrés Mixcoatl was accused of sorcery by a high-ranking tlahtoani, Don Juan of Xicotepec, who subsequently hunted him down and brought him to Mexico City for trial. Like Ocelotl before him, Mixcoatl took advantage of the disruption of conquest to grow his own following. He also benefited from geography. Between the initial shock of conquest and the consolidation of Spanish rule in the sierra region, leaders in the sierra towns were free of Texcocan and Spanish interference. Some turned to Mixcoatl to help with weather and crop troubles. Mixcoatl’s teachings also featured a strong anti-Christian, millenarian streak and promoted the use of hallucinogenics. As he rose in power, he claimed to be a representation of the god Tezcatlipoca. Mixcoatl was arrested and punished, but the Franciscans failed to learn the lessons in his movement: that Native spirituality was flexible, and in the absence of an immediate Spanish threat, the wholesale adoption of Christianity would be impossible.

Next comes Zumárraga’s quixotic quest through the valley for huitztipochtlis, sacred bundles used in pre-conquest rites. Some accounts had these being smuggled out of Tenochtitlan on the orders of the captive Motecuhzoma, who recognized that he was not long for the world. In any event, this case study provides readers with the most detailed analysis of religious practice before the advent of the Spanish. Though the Inquisition never managed to locate the bundles, they began to play a crucial role in the way indigenous Mexicans would remember the aftermath of the conquest, since they could stand in for something particular to the people that the Spanish could never take away. As Don interprets them, the bundles had less to do with “some long-ago dream of resistance” (p. 144) than the ability of Native leaders to carve out their own space in the developing colonial system.

The final case study of the book focuses on the trial and eventual execution of Don Carlos of Texcoco. The most salient feature here is that the Franciscans, in their overarching drive to win their kind of converts ran the risk of alienating indigenous leaders so profoundly that the very colonial project was nearly thrown into disarray. The Don Carlos trial also showcases Zumárraga beyond the limits of his official power. In the aftermath of the trial, the Council of the Indies reprimanded the bishop, and the Inquisition more or less ground to a halt. In a finely crafted epilogue that might work well as a standalone piece for advanced undergraduates or graduate students, Don approaches the legacy of the Inquisition in Mexico from three perspectives: that of the indigenous leadership, the Spanish, and the Franciscans.

Axé.