Aztecs and all that

Michel Oudijk oudyk at hotmail.com
Sat Feb 28 13:27:58 UTC 2009


Hey Magnus,

 

I think your message is very useful in this discussion. It seems we agree on the necessity of a term for Central Mexican elite culture (although Smith's use of the term Aztec is much broader than just elite culture), but I doubt that 'Aztec' is the right term for it. One can agree with either stand taken here on the historical issue, but it's clear that the term 'Aztec' is meaningful. It's meaning may have changed over time, as was shown by Gordon, myself and Maria, but it is and has been meaningful. The fact that Michael is constantly criticized for his use of the term, indicates it's a historically and emotionally charged term -maybe not so much in the US or Europe but certainly here in Mexico. Taken that it's charged, it makes the term not very useful because there will always be a large part of the community -academic and laymen- that will reject it. That is the reason why 'Nahuas' works so well. It's an invented term with no historical or emotional charge and indicates perfectly what it means. Therefore, it would be much more practical, I think, to suggest a new 'invented' term instead of using 'Aztec' or 'Anahuac'.

 

Un abrazo,

 

Michel
 


Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:49:48 -0300
From: magnuspharao at gmail.com
To: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Aztecs and all that


Having followed the discussion up to now I think there is an important point missing - namely a discussion about ethnicity an how ethnic classification works. 
 
Basically ethnic classification can be done by two points of view "theirs" an "ours" : 
An ethnic group can be an ethnic group simply because dominant outsiders lump groups of otherwise unrelated people together in a single category, or they can be an ethnic group because they feel some kind of solidarity and common origin.  That is they can be externally or internally defined. (Handelman 1977 established a system with several intermediary degrees of ethnic solidarity, but in the following i shall only use the to extremes, referred to by him as "ethnic category" (externally dfined) and "ethnic community" (internally defined))
 
So: When we apply the term Aztec to define an ethnic group we can try to do it in a way that reflects the usage of the people who would have identified with the group in ancient mesoamerica, or we can define it in a way that constructs a group that is clearly distinguishable by traits that we as scholars or as westerners have chosen to call "aztec". Usually social anthropologists would opt for the first kind of classification, in order to best describe actual grouping and feelings of solidarity among groups of people, and in order not to offend anyone - but in this case this isn't really necessary since the people who might be offended by being included in the group against their will no longer exist. This means that both options are feasible, and can be defended by sound arguments. What is not feasible is to use the term aztec without defining it properly or defining it in a way that is better described by some other term e.g. using it only for the Tenochca-Mexica. Because if we want to talk strictly about the Tenochca-Mexica we have the luxury of being able to use a term that satisfies both the internal and the external criteria for ethnic classification. 
 
It is fairly well established that in ancient Mesoamerica the citystate was the source of the primary ethnic identity of its peoples, which would mean that probablty nobody would self identify primarily as "aztec" - then if we opt for the "solidarity based model" - we would probably end up having to throw the term Aztec in the garbage bin, or somehow define in which way the altepetl groups who have claimed descent from aztlan harboured feelings of mutual solidarity. If however we opt for the second model we could set up an externally defined category of "aztecs" based on whichever features we find most diagnostic for being "aztec".  ME SMith defines Aztecs as those that partake in "Aztec Elite Culture". Others define it as those who speak the Aztec language and in this sense Aztec is synonymous with Nahua which is also an externally defined category since it is improbable that there were ever, in the precolumbian, colonial or modern period, any sense of strong ethnic solidarity between all nahuatl speakers.
 
However, ethnic identity is not exclusive nor does it rest on a single diagnostic trait, and one can be a member of ethnic categories on several levels (I for example might identify with danish, nordic or even western ethnicity in different social contexts). While altepetl relations may be the main source of ethnic identity in mesoamerica, that doesn't mean that it was the only one. For example among the nahuatl speaking altepetl groups higher level groupings like Tepanec, Acolhua, Tlahuica, Tlaxcaltec etc existed, each containing several distinct altepetl groups whose elites felt they had common origins (and who sometimes had a somewhat unified political system).  This means that there may have been a kind of macroethnic solidarity among a group that referred to themselves as Aztec and envisioned a common origin in Aztlan, but who still maintained their separate altepetl based ethnicities as their main category of selfidentification. As we have already seen different sources include different altepetl groups in the "aztlan emigrant" group and trying to establish a closed group of altepetl groups who selfdefined as aztlan migrats seems to me to be a futile job, because it is much more likely that sometimes some groups identified as aztlan migrants when in order to further their political interests they wanted to invoke common origins with other altepetl groups, and that sometimes when they wanted to stress their differences to other altepetl groups they did not identify as such. 
 
Exactly for this reason ME Smiths definition seems to me to be the best argued and the most applicable. It sets up a group which did have shared cultural traits and some degree of solidarity at least on the elite level, it allows for the group to be inclusive instead of exclusive, and because it doesn't claim to have been a main source of ethnic idenityity for its members it allows for for the Altepetl groups that partook in Aztec Elite Culture to maintain their unique altepetl ethnicities. Furthermore it divorces the term Aztec from the Nahuan languages, which I think is excellent and much needed in face of the growing evidence for multilingualism within many altepetl city states. This allows the Tepanecs to be Aztecs even though they might have been mostly Matlatzinca speakers, and it allows Netzahualcoyotl to be Aztec even though his mother tongue may have been Otomi (This is what Ylanda Lastra argues in her book about Otomi cultural history).
 
I was recently made aware  of the publication of "Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica" edited by Frances Berdan (et al.), I haven't had the chance to read it yet, but I assume that it discusses some of these issues and I am much looking forward to reading it. I also touched the subject of Nahua ethnicity in my blog at www.ethnolang.blogspot.com. 
 
Saludos, Abrazos and Greetings. 
 
Magnus Pharao Hansen
_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/nahuat-l/attachments/20090228/deaa1346/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl


More information about the Nahuat-l mailing list