Translation of Tzompantli (gourd tree)

Fri Jan 21 08:10:58 UTC 2005

I wonder if someone can help me with names of books or articles relating to
Los Dias 
de los Muertos and how it came to be okay with Catholics to observe the
festival 
around the time of All Saints/All Souls, even though the altares with
skulls might have 
reminded them of tzompantli and the festival is also around the same time
of year as 
the Jewish Sukkot/Tabernacles, which involves building small booths of
foliage, often 
decorated with fruit and often looking like altares without the skulls. 

In the triptych Im studying (El Jardín de las Delicias/The Garden of
Earthly Delights, 
which I would rather call La Bariedad del Mundo following an older
inventory), which I 
think is all about Tabernacles, there seem to be images connected with
tzompantli 
(skull and pantli) and also translating the book of Jonah (Jonah 4:6-11).
The picture of 
a gourd tree seems to be part of both discussions. Theres nothing like a
gourd tree 
in the Latin Vulgate only because Saint Jerome didn't want to include a
plant name 
that people wouldn't recognize. I think the reason its a monstrous image
in The 
Garden of Earthly Delights/El Jardín de las Delicias/La Bariedad del Mundo,
and its 
white, is that Martin Luther had published a commentary on the book of
Jonah in 
1526, Der Prophet Jona ausgelegt, where he arbitrarily suggested vitis alba
(a white 
vine) or Wilderüben (some kind of wild radish or beet). In the 1534 Luther
Bible it was 
a Kürbis (gourd) and then at some point in later editions it became a
Staude (shrub or 
bush). I suppose it wasn't so much that making it a white vine was
heretical, but more 
that overall Luthers commentary on Jonah was extremely heretical. 

(This might solve my problem of how to persuade art historians who don't
want to 
read Nahuatl hieroglyphics that the drawing is post-Luther, since even
though in the 
drawing the gourd tree isn't white, pre-Luther there doesn't seem to be a
reason for it 
to be a monstrosity.)

I think another of the several sources of the bizarre-looking image is a
description by 
Peter Martyr in one of the Decades of a tree-house he said the Indians
called the 
domus aurea/casa de oro, a way of saying the local cacique was like Nero.
Peter 
Martyr was also always making a note of when an Indian temple had a
stairway 
leading up to the top, something prohibited in the Bible, and I think that
is why the 
Tree-man has a ladder. 

The painting makes the confusion look like a horrible mess, but its
interesting that at 
some point the Church apparently decided it was all okay and altares and
ofrendas 
could continue. On the other Cortés et al. were certainly horrified by the
tzompantli 
when they saw all the skulls. So I wonder if all these pieces fit together.
It looks as 
though at least at one point (around 1528) the discussion of the word
tzompantli and 
the variant Bible translations were familiar to some of the same people,
who had also 
heard all about the tzompantli in Tenochtitlán. Or maybe its just because
Jewish 
translators were involved in both discussions that the painting seems to
equate the 
issues of evaluating what Indians were doing and identifying Biblical
plants.

Ive copied part of the St. Jerome-St. Augustine correspondence below. I
don't know 
how often translations of Nahuatl words might have been affected by topics
in Bible 
translation.
Susan Gilchrist

(excerpt) From Bible Research  Internet Resources for Students of
Scripture, .bible-
researcher.com, Contents copyright © 2001-2005 by Michael D. Marlowe. 
Correspondence of Augustine and Jerome concerning the Latin Translation of
the 
Bible. An interesting episode in the history of Bible translation was the
exchange of 
letters between Augustine (Bishop of Hippo) and Jerome, concerning Jerome's
new 
Latin translation of the Old Testament. Up to that time all Latin versions
had been 
based upon the Greek version (called the translation of "the Seventy" or
the 
Septuagint). But Augustine had learned that Jerome was now making a
translation 
from the Hebrew, which differed in many places from the Septuagint. (Jerome
had 
previously translated from the Septuagint, but after 390 he began to
translate direct 
from the Hebrew. See the history of Jerome's work in the article by S.
Angus on this 
site). Augustine calls upon Jerome to justify this departure from the
customary text, 
tells of a disturbance which has arisen on this account, and urges him to
reconsider. 
Jerome replies with characteristic vigor. The English translations below
are excerpted 
from the Letters of Augustine (No. 28, 71, 82) and the Letters of Jerome
(No. 112) in A 
Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church,
Translated 
into English with Prolegomena and Explanatory Notes under the Editorial 
Supervision of Henry Wace and Philip Schaff. (Oxford: Parker; New York:
Christian 
Literature Co., 1890-1900).---- Jerome to Augustine. Written A.D. 404.----
... You tell 
me that I have given a wrong translation of some word in Jonah, and that a
worthy 
bishop narrowly escaped losing his charge through the clamorous tumult of
his 
people, which was caused by the different rendering of this one word. At
the same 
time, you withhold from me what the word was which I have mistranslated;
thus taking 
away the possibility of my saying anything in my own vindication, lest my
reply should 
be fatal to your objection. Perhaps it is the old dispute about the gourd
which has 
been revived, after slumbering for many long years since the illustrious
man, who in 
that day combined in his own person the ancestral honours of the Cornelii
and of 
Asinius Pollio, brought against me the charge of giving in my translation
the word "ivy" 
instead of "gourd." I have already given a sufficient answer to this in my
commentary 
on Jonah. At present, I deem it enough to say that in that passage, where
the 
Septuagint has "gourd," and Aquila and the others have rendered the word
"ivy" 
(kissos), the Hebrew MS. has "ciceion," which is in the Syriac tongue, as
now spoken, 
"ciceia." It is a kind of shrub having large leaves like a vine, and when
planted it 
quickly springs up to the size of a small tree, standing upright by its own
stem, without 
requiring any support of canes or poles, as both gourds and ivy do. If,
therefore, in 
translating word for word, I had put the word "ciceia," no one would know
what it 
meant; if I had used the word "gourd," I would have said what is not found
in the 
Hebrew. I therefore put down "ivy," that I might not differ from all other
translators. But 
if your Jews said, either through malice or ignorance, as you yourself
suggest, that the 
word is in the Hebrew text which is found in the Greek and Latin versions,
it is evident 
that they were either unacquainted with Hebrew, or have been pleased to say
what 
was not true, in order to make sport of the gourd-planters.// In closing
this letter, I 
beseech you to have some consideration for a soldier who is now old and has
long 
retired from active service, and not to force him to take the field and
again expose his 
life to the chances of war. Do you, who are young, and who have been
appointed to 
the conspicuous seat of pontifical dignity, give yourself to teaching the
people, and 
enrich Rome with new stores from fertile Africa. I am contented to make but
little noise 
in an obscure corner of a monastery, with one to hear me or read to me.----
Augustine 
to Jerome. Written A.D. 405----  ... I beg of you ... to send us your
translation of the 
Septuagint, which I did not know that you had published ... in order that
we may be 
delivered, so far as is possible, from the consequences of the notable
incompetency 
of those who, whether qualified or not, have attempted a Latin translation;
and in 
order that those who think that I look with jealousy on your useful
labours, may at 
length, if it be possible, perceive that my only reason for objecting to
the public 
reading of your translation from the Hebrew in our churches was, lest,
bringing 
forward anything which was, as it were, new and opposed to the authority of
the 
Septuagint version, we should trouble by serious cause of offense the
flocks of Christ, 
whose ears and hearts have become accustomed to listen to that version to
which the 
seal of approbation was given by the apostles themselves. Wherefore, as to
that 
shrub in the book of Jonah, if in the Hebrew it is neither "gourd" nor
"ivy," but 
something else which stands erect, supported by its own stem without other
props, I 
would prefer to call it "gourd" as in all our Latin versions; for I do not
think that the 
Seventy would have rendered it thus at random, had they not known that the
plant 
was something like a gourd ...

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Archaeology Institute institute at CSUMB.EDU
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 10:08:59 -0800
To: NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: Translation of Tzompantli

Nahua language and culture discussion <NAHUAT-L at LISTS.UMN.EDU> writes:
>At 12:20 AM +0100 1/13/05, Raul macuil martinez wrote:
>
>>Saludos...
>
>>
>
>>  Yo soy de Tlaxcala y efectivamente mucha gente que lleva por último
>
>>apellido el de Tzompantzi, principalmente el municipio que se llama Santa
>
>>Ana Chiauhtempan y en el poblado llamado Contla de Juan Cuamatzi. Pero mi
>
>>pregunta es la siguiente:
>
>>
>
>>A que se refieren exactamente al decir : Wonder what these guys did
>
>>for a living...  One man in Tlaxcala was running for a local
>
>>municipal election. Would you vote for a Tzompantzin?.
>
>>
>
>>Podrían ser un poco más especifícos?.
>
>>
>
>>  Miec tlaçocamati.
>
>>
>
>
>
>Raul, and anyone else,
>
>
>I am sorry if this was misunderstood. This was
>
>simply my sense of humor kicking in. There have
>
>been local politicians named Tzompantzi running
>
>for office there in Tlaxcala, and having someone
>
>like the "Keeper of the Skullrack" as your local
>
>Alcalde or whatever might be a bit daunting.
>
>Monsieur le Guillotine?  Heads will roll...
>
>But in some sense, I do have a serious question
>
>here. In pre-Hispanic times, if someone had the
>
>TITLE of Tzompantzin, what would have been his
>
>function? Would he have been the official or
>
>priest who was in charge of the tzompantli? There
>
>would be a lot to know about who constructed
>
>these things... maintained them... put the heads
>
>on them... etc. I was both wondering about some
>
>of those details AND asking about the origin of
>
>the name Tzompantzi. And yes, I agree, I have
>
>seen the family name around west and northwest
>
>side of the Malintzi in Tlaxcala.
>
>
>Any ideas about the etymology of this apellido?
>
>
>John
>
>--
>

Dear Colleagues,

        In the aforementioned study of the tzompantli and its cosmological
and 
iconographic associations (Mendoza 2004) which led to my original question
on the 
etymology of the term "tzompantli", I found that the Mexica in fact
maintained ritual
specialists whose function it was to decapitate, flay, and skewer human
heads on the 
Huey-tzompantli of Mexico Tenochtitlan.  In addition, the association of
the tonal or 
tonalli with scalps, and hair, and solar radiation or light, underlies the
Mexica practice of retaining scalps or hair (atop the skewered "scalp
pots") of those 
human skulls impaled on the Huey-tzompantli.  The Huey-tzompantli was in
effect an 
instrument for capturing, and thereby, offering, the tonalli of countless
Ixiptla deity impersonators identified with such festivals as the
Panquetzaliztli.  In fact, 
during the course of my research, I found a very direct association between
the Huey-
tzompantli of Tenochtitlan and the "First Fruits" harvest festivals of
the Panquetzaliztli, and the ritual reenactment of the sacrifice of some
400 or 
innumerable "Star-Men" (ala Nicholson, 1971) Ixiptla deity impersonators
known as 
the Centzon Huitznahua.  My argument is that the Huey-tzompantli was in
effect
identified with the First Fruits harvest, Mixcoatl and or Coyolxauqui in
his or her guise 
as the Milky Way, and the efforts of the Mexica to capture the primordial
essence, and 
those centripetal forces centered on the cosmological and supernatural
Serpent Mountain today identified with the Huey teocalli or Templo Mayor. 
The Huey-
tzompantli was in effect the Divine Gourd Tree whose associations with the 
underworld portal or "Chasm of Creation" (identified with ballcourts ) in
turn links it to
the Dark Road that bifurcates the Milky Way, and serves as the repository
for the 
tzontecomatl scalp pots or Star Men or Warriors dispatched in the
primordial battle 
between Huitzilopochtli, Coyolxauqui, and the Centzon Huitznahua star
warriors of
the First Creation.  My argument is that the Gulf Lowland identification of
the ballcourt 
and tzompantli with such groups as the Quiche and Huasteca serves as the 
archetype for the mythological construct in question.  PS: Because my paper
on this
topic is currently under review by Arthur Demarest and others on the
editorial panel 
for Rick Chacon and David Dye's forthcoming book (i.e., "The Divine Gourd
Tree: 
Tzompantli Skull Racks, Decapitation Rituals, and Human Trophies in Ancient
Mesoamerica. In The Taking and Displaying of Human Trophies by Amerindians, 
Edited by Richard Chacon and David Dye. New York: Plenum Press [Under
Review]), 
I am not presently at liberty to circulate the paper in this venue.

Best Regards,
>

Ruben G. Mendoza, Ph.D., Director
Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization
Social and Behavioral Sciences
California State University Monterey Bay
100 Campus Center
Seaside, California 93955-8001

Email: archaeology_institute at csumb..edu
Voice: 831-582-3760
Fax: 831-582-3566
http://archaeology.csumb.edu
http://archaeology.csumb.edu/wireless/

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