suggestions for Indigenismo to nonindigenous audience

[Mark David Morris]

The accompanying passages for the Florentine Codex citations R. Joe
Campbell notes in his messages are: Book 11 Earthly Things Chapter 7

English Translation

Xonacatl
It is slender like reeeds.  It glistens.  The bottoms are white.  It has a
beard.  It stinks; it burns.  It aids the digestion; it throws off, rids
one, of a cough.

Tepexonacatl
Where it grows is not very well known.  It probably belongs among the
herbs.  They say it is some kind of onion.  It burns much.  (i.e. ask my
wife if you want an accurate answer [ed. note]).

Maxten
It resembles the onion.  It is stalky, blooming.  It is a little like the
onion, a little acrid smelling.  Its roots are cookable in an olla.  The
roots of this are well diffused; there are many.  Thus it is said of him
who engenders many, whose many children live, "He has offspring like the
maxten."


The accompanying illustration includes all three in one portrait,
emphasizing the greens.  Tepexonacatl has the largest bulbs, while the
Xonacatl seems a true onion with one solid bulb.

Below is a message Campbell posted last October, that I hope he will not
mind being reposted.  They are not exactly proverbs, but the
metaphors capture something of the Nahua moral vision.  Mark Morris


Bread and Butter Metaphors


amo quitlazohtla in itzontecon in ielchiquiuh
                        he does not shrink from the enemy

ixtli yollotl                   character??
tlantli iztitl                  ??
nimotlan nimozti                ??
macuilli mahtlactli             few
atoyatl tepexitl                danger

atl tepetl                      city
in atl in tepetl                city
in atl in tepetl                city
ixtli nacaztli                  mediator
atlapalli cuitlapilli           common folk
cuitlapilli atlapalli           common people
in mitl in chimalli             war
in atl in tlachinolli           war
teoatl tlachinolli              war
tocochca toneuhca               sustenance
in ihuani in cualoni            sustenance
huictli mecapalli               misery, affliction
in petlatl in icpalli           authority
in ahuehuetl in pochotl         authority, protection
in petlatl in icpalli           authority
zacatl tlacotl                  wasteland
cueitl huipilli                 woman
in ayahuitl in poctli           fame
poctli ayahuitl                 fame
ihiyotl tlahtolli               discourse
itlahtol ihiyo                  his discourse
in chalchihuitl in quetzalli    beauty, richness
nomah nocxi                     my body
itzon iizti                     his offspring
nonan notah                     my support
topco petlacalco                secretly
xochitl cuicatl                 poetry
in xochitl in cuicatl           poem