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<p class=MsoNormal>Dear listeros,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A couple weeks ago, Professor Offner mentioned my article on
Nezahualcoyotl published in Estudios de cultura nahuatl and presented it as
lacking in scholarship because I didn’t consult French scholars such as
Professor Patrick Lesbre. I apologize for the delay, but I would just like to
respond briefly. First, even though my article was recently published, I
finished this piece in 2001. It is true that at that time I was unaware of
Professor Lesbre’s work. To a large extent this is a problem related to
limitations of institutional resources and the dissemination of work published
outside the US and in other languages. However, since that time, I have come
across Professor Lesbre’s work, and I have cited him in a subsequent
publication. Even after reading Professor Lesbre’s work, however, I don't
feel that my article in Estudios de cultura nahuatl should be considered
inferior or superfluous as Professor Offner suggests. Lesbre’s work has a
different focus, is based on different sources, and is informed by a different
point of view. I believe that any prudent reader will easily see that professor
Lesbre and I approach Nezahualcoyotl and Texcoco in different ways and
thus enrich the understanding of this important topic in different ways. I
would urge those interested to read the respective arguments and make their own
decisions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Best,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Jongsoo Lee<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<div>
<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
nahuatl-bounces@lists.famsi.org [mailto:nahuatl-bounces@lists.famsi.org] <b>On
Behalf Of </b>Jerry Offner<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Saturday, February 28, 2009 2:03 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Aztlan; Nahuat-L<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Nahuat-l] Calling attention to the French and how they help in
one's research<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Recent
comments on the list provide an opportunity to point out again the excellence
and utility of the body of work assembled by French researchers on things Nahua
or Aztec or whatever. For present purposes to avoid further
controversy, let's call them "residents of what is now called part of
Mexico before the Spanish invasion"--that's got a great commercial ring to
it! I only wish we saw such energy invested in line by line
understanding of the written sources and their relationships, and more
importantly the written sources' relationships to the pictorial material.
Instead, until recent times, we have seen so many resources, decade after
decade, directed towards reclassifying Nahua culture and history to fit Western
ideologies and related grand theoretical schemes. The results have proven
better at exposing the explanatory inadequacy of these themes than in
understanding the Nahua. The French, in the meantime, have been paying!
attention to the facts on the ground and trying to understand Nahua
culture in its own terms and the results show it. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>There is no
question that the work of the French is little regarded and little known.
A recent article in Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl by Jongsoo Lee purports to
provide a new and proper understanding at last of Texcoco and
Nezahualcoyotl. It does not cite or discuss at all the work of Patrick
Lesbre, available in both French and Spanish. Lesbre had covered this
same ground years earlier, better, far more accurately and with far more
insight, experience, appropriate restraint and subtlety. Had the
author been aware of or read Lesbre's work, the publication might have been
abandoned as inferior and superfluous. Neither is the work of Marc
Thouvenot productively utilized, especially his lifetime of work on the Codex
Xolotl. The lack of evidence presented from and evident lack of knowledge
of the content of the Codex Xolotl invalidates the author's
"telescoped history" attempts to discuss Tenochcan, Texcocan (and
Azcapotzalcan) ! history and their interrelationships. A hundred years of
history comes across as flat as a printed page. You can't write about
Aztecs and in particular you can't write about Texcoco without knowing the
work of the French researchers over the past three decades. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Recently,
Lacandena published on Nahua writing, appearing to scold many, and I think
quite inappropriately, for their perceived inadequacies in linguistic
formalities and presentation methods without making more than a passing
reference to Thouvenot's work--only his dissertation and not the body of
programs--in French, Spanish and also usually English easily found on-line at:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-size:7.0pt;
font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";color:black'><a
href="http://www.sup-infor.com/index.htm"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>http://www.sup-infor.com/index.htm</span></a></span></span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>(At least one list member of these lists is a contributor.
It is still fashionable in some shrinking enclaves to deride or dismiss on-line
material but this, as is often the case, is of the highest quality
and is in many ways better than printed material. A major DVD of the
resources on line and new material is in press for those who prefer a
material token or talisman for legitimacy). </span></span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>Marc's work is easily searched to form and investigate hypotheses
on glyphs and their readings. For example, Lacandena does a good job of
showing a particular kind of bird glyph can be read as huilo- as well as or
instead of toto- (uh-oh, I hope I am not scolded for my presentation method in
this instance, I took off those pesky -tl's but left the rest in lower case and
did not use the canonic form, and did not indicate vowel length, but I think
they're all long anyway...). A quick use of the program CEN from
Thouvenot and his group!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'> automatically provides just over a dozen examples of glyphs
with the huilo- element, easily allowing the user to pop up pictures of
the glyphs and providing exact references as to their location.
Experienced people working on glyphs in a document are going to be
using Marc's program to investigate all types of birds that appear as
candidates, although you can usually quickly rule in or out owls and other
birds with distinctive appearances. For example, if you are trying to
match toponymic glyphs in a pictorial document with colonial and
modern lists of place names or with names on maps, you are going to
investigate any possibility that comes to mind--and most of the time you still
won't get a "hit" or you'll get too many--e.g. Coatepec, Huehuetepec,
etc.. You will also be more efficient time if you are not using
canonic forms. The same is true of types of trees and snakes.
Lacadena's work does contain the pro!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'> mise of a deeper grammatical understanding of glyphic texts,
exce<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>pt that there aren't any, other than a few strings in the Codex
Xolotl that Dibble has published on years ago. Still, Lacandena does a
good job of showing that the Codex de Xicotepec has strong relationships
to the Texcocan school of tlacuilome. Perhaps some sort of
non-prescriptive-laden bridge can be built between the two efforts of Lacandena
and Thouvenot. </span></span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>Regarding the website mentioned above, can anyone cite instances
of references to this on-line body of work in recent, non-French,
non-Mexican published work? (There are some among the Mexican
researchers that Marc has patiently trained, but any from the US? Getting
a list of those works would very likely prove an efficient roadmap to good
recent work). </span></span><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>Other resources on the website produced by Marc and his
collaborators include an on-line Nahuatl dictionary and a veritable Nahua
encyclopedia placing individual glyphs in a natural science context or in a
cultural context via references to Sahagun and other sources. All
resources are linked, so that if your are investigating snakes, you might
recognize, as Sybille de Pury did, at a glance, that the apparent Coatepec
glyph in Section 5 of the Codex de Xicotepec is very likely not Coatepec
but instead is more likely related to th!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'> e snake </span></span><span class=apple-style-span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>teuctlacozauhqui. If
you enter "TECUTLACOZAUHQUI" into the GDN program (yes, they know about
teuc- and tecu- so let's skip all that...), you find:</span></span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='color:black'>TECUTLACOZAUHQUI
: "La amarilla gobernante" </span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p><span style='color:black'>(Tecutlacoçauhquj) </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p><span style='color:black'>Ay en esta tierra una culebra que se llama
tecutlacoçauhquj. Dizen: es el principe, o princesa de todas las culebras, es
gruessa, y larga: tiene eslabones en la cola, como vibora: tiene grande cabeça,
y gran boca tiene dientes; y la lengua orcaxada: tiene escamas gruessas, es de
color amarillo de la color de la flor de la calabaça: tiene unas manchas negras
como las del tigre: los eslabones tienen pardillos, y duros: silva esta
serpiente. Come conejos y liebres, y aves; come cualesqujer aves /o anjmales: y
aunque tiene dientes no los masca, sino tragalos, y alla dentro los dixiere, o
desmuele. Si alguna ave topa tragasela entera, y si estan encima de algun arbol
arrojelos la ponçoña con que los haze cayer muertos. Lib. 11, fol. 77, p. 229
r. y v. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p><span style='color:black'>Esta serpiente siempre anda, acompañada, con su
hembra; y la hembra con su macho: aunque siempre andan el uno apartado del otro
y quando se qujeren juntar silva el uno, y luego viene el otro. y si alguno
mata al uno dellos el otro persigue al que le mato hasta que le mata. En los
eslabones se parece, si esta serpiente es de muchos años: porque cada año
produce un eslabon esta culebra /o serpiente no puede andar por tierra rasa mas
va por encima del heno y de las matas como volando, sino le hazen mal no hazen
mal. Lib. 11, fol. 78, p. 230 r. y v. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p><span style='color:black'>Ay otra culebra que se llama cincoatl, o cencoatl;
es mediana, no tiene cascabeles, nj muerde es amarilla, y colorada, y parda
escura, qujere parecer a la culebra que se llama tecutlacoçauhquj. Lib. 11,
fol. 87, p. 239 v.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>You then go back
and look more closely at the Codex de Xicotepec glyph and you see it is
composed of two facing yellow snakes with spots, forked tongues and (small)
rattles. One of the most obvious Coatepec glyphs of all times then
becomes most likely not a Coatepec glyph at all. And you
broaden your search of place names well beyond Coatepec. </span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>Marc is extremely generous with his time and a researcher ignores
his work at their peril. For example, his efforts, along with
Sybille de Pury have helped me identify the second town in the Codex de
Xicotepec as Cuauhchinanco and have helped me rule out any appearance of
Nezahualcoyotl in that codex until Section 16 (rather than Section 9 as the
author of the ECN article, uncritically following Stresser-Pean,
supposes). And it was of course Lesbre in his review of
Stresser-Pean's book long ago that initially suggested that St!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'> resser-Pean's reading of the Nezahualcoyotl glyph in Section
9 was incorrect and that he appeared instead in the later section--where his
glyph is quite clear but was misread by Stresser-Pean. And of course, the
French Guy and Claude Stresser-Pean were the ones sufficiently
trusted by the people of the small village of Cuaxicala to allow them to being
their codex to the public. </span></span><span style='font-family:
"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'>The French education system has had a way of producing people
with finely tuned sensitivities to texts, pictorial as well as
alphabetic--every detail is considered important, and Marc's, and his
collaborators' and Patrick's work all show it. And leaving aside facility
in reading French, which is often just a few sound changes away from Spanish and
can be managed with a good (on-line or paper) dictionary, the French have been
diligent in their efforts to publish in Spanish and they are enthusiastic in
their efforts to communicate by e-mail!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=apple-style-span><span style='font-family:"Lucida Grande","serif";
color:black'> in English or Spanish, finding French not sufficiently challenging).
Why, then, their low profile in the US? Perhaps their empirical
rather than ideological approach has kept them isolated? Although
academic resources may be at an all-time low, albeit with some hope
of improvement on the horizon, it would be good to get Thouvenot and his group
and Lesbre over to the US to raise our game some. </span></span><span
style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Jerry Offner<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'><a
href="mailto:ixtlil@earthlink.net">ixtlil@earthlink.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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