Nuevos hallazgos sobre chontales

Wed Apr 14 17:23:24 UTC 1999

>
>Puede ser de interes para nuestros colegas de H-Mexico el siguiente
>articulo.
>
>--Lon Pearson
>Department of Modern Languages
>Professor of Spanish
>University of Nebraska at Kearney
>Book  Review  Editor  for   _Chasqui:   Journal  of  Latin  American
>Literature_
>              <http://www.unk.edu/departments/languages/faculty.htm#a3>
>
>
>Se encuentra en la siguiente direccion (URL):
>
><http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/psu-wsm031999.html>
>EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 27 MARCH 1999 AT 09:00:00 ET US
>
>     Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
>     aem1 at psu.edu
>     814-865-9481
>     Penn State Univ.
>
>     War Stories May Be Fish Tales
>
>     Chicago, Ill. -- To the victor go the spoils of war and usually the
>bragging rights, but how does one determine if claims made by winners
>are accurate?
>	Jay Silverstein, graduate student in anthropology at Penn State, may
>have proof that Aztec reports of annihilation of the Chontal were
>grossly exaggerated.
>	"Aztec narratives claim that the Chontal, a group living in the buffer
>area between the Aztec and Tarascan Empires, were annihilated in 1487,"
>Silverstein told attendees today (March 26) at the annual meeting of the
>Society of American Archaeology in Chicago. "However, regional documents
>suggest the Chontal always had their own ruler, even under Aztec
>authority, and were present when the Spanish came."
>	Silverstein, who conducted archaeological survey about 100 miles
>southwest of Mexico City, is trying to reconstruct the Aztec/Tarascan
>frontier from a time just before European contact. Using 16th-century
>documents and archaeological evidence, he identified a frontier site
>that was probably the Chontal fortress of Oztuma. Confusion exists,
>however, because a site identified in the 1940s as Oztuma is an Aztec
>site.
>	The documents agree that the Aztec incorporated the Chontal city-state
>of Oztuma into their empire between 1469 and 1480. Also, at this time,
>the Aztecs entered into a war with their western neighbor, the Tarascan
>empire. The Aztec crowned a new king in 1487, in Mexico City, but
>representatives of the Chontal did not attend the coronation. Aztec
>scouts reported the Chontal city-states of Oztuma, Teloloapan and
>Alahuiztlan in rebellion. The Chontal lost the subsequent Aztec/Chontal
>War.
>	"Both sets of documents indicate the Chontal lost, but the central core
>documents say the Aztec destroyed the cities and Aztec citizens replaced
>the Chontal, while the periphery documents tell a different story," says
>Silverstein.
>	The Aztec documents are narrative histories written after the Spanish
>conquered Mexico City. The frontier documents are parts of the
>Relaciones Geograficas, a series of documents developed in the sixteenth
>century from answers to standardized questions asked of subject towns in
>New Spain. The Relaciones show the governor of the Oztuma area as Diego
>Osorio, son of the man who was king when the Spanish conquered Mexico in
>1521.
>	"The Relaciones also say that the Chontal always had a king they
>respected, implying a Chontal king," says Silverstein. "However, a giant
>Aztec fortress, discovered and mapped in the 1940s, exists and a town
>below is said to be the location of Oztuma after the Spanish came."
>	Silverstein found the Aztec fortress and town, but, as most previous
>archaeologists discovered, the geographic information from the 16th
>century does not work if this town is the Oztuma of the Relaciones.
>Something is wrong.
>	"We heard a rumor that other documents existed in San Simon Oztuma, but
>the town was abandoned," says Silverstein. "We found the documents in
>the near by town of Ixtepec."
>	A document dated to 1585 carries Don Diego Osorio's signature, proving
>he was a real person and strongly suggesting that the Chontal survived
>the Aztec.
>	Above Ixtepec is an old fortress. "I believe that this fortress is the
>original Chontal Fortress of Oztuma," says Silverstein. "We found only a
>very little Aztec pottery there. Most of the pottery sherds were Chontal
>Red on Buff."
>	It appears that when the Spanish came, they moved the Chontal from
>their mountain stronghold at Ixtepec to the valley of San Simon Oztuma
>and that the Aztecs who had built their Fortress of Oztuma six miles
>southeast of the Chontal fort, moved down to the town of Acapetlahuaya.
>So the Aztec did come to the area to build a
>fortress.
>	However, the original Chontal Oztuma fortress remained and, with an
>Aztec fortress named Oztuma, and a town called San Simon Oztuma things
>became very confused.
>	"If Chontal Oztuma is used as the head town in the Relacion
>Geographica, the directions make sense," says Silverstein of Penn State.
>"We found a line of fortresses, including Chontal and Aztec sites, built
>to protect the Aztec empire from the Tarascans."
>	Other interesting sites located during the survey include a wall
>running about a mile and three quarters that cuts off a bend in a river.
>The wall is in the no-man's land between the two empires.
>	"Locals say that in the 1940s the wall was about 5-feet high," says
>Silverstein. "The foundation style indicates it predates the Spanish."
>	At one end of the wall there is evidence of a battle. The area is
>strewn with sling shot balls, projectile points and other obsidian
>debris.
>	"My guess is that it was a fortress built by the Chontal to try and
>hold the river valley from the Tarascans and their allies," says the
>Penn State researcher. "The Chontal were probably forced to abandon this
>forward defense within the first decades of the war."
>	The Chontal were caught between two great pre-Hispanic empires.
>Usually, people in this situation are written out of history, but the
>archaeological remains show that the Chontal played an integral role in
>the defense of the Aztec empire and maintained their identity even after
>the Spanish came. After the fall of the Aztec empire to Hernan Cortes in
>1521, the Tarascan force that had been besieging the Aztec fortress
>retreated and the Chontal, using Spanish law, reasserted their political
>dominance over the isolated Aztec garrison.
>
>                                    ###
>
>     EDITORS: Mr. Silverstein is at 814-466-3461 or jes20 at psu.edu by
>email.
>
>
>--
>Antonio Ibarra, moderador
>ibarrara at servidor.unam.mx
>Isabel Avella, editora asociada
>===============================
>
>
John Frederick Schwaller                             schwallr at selway.umt.edu
Associate Provost                                        406-243-4722
The University of Montana                           FAX 406-243-5937
                          http://www.umt.edu/history/NAHUATL/