AZ: Malinalli

[Kay A. Read]

At 12:53 PM 8/16/99 -0600, you wrote:

I believe David Carrasco might be getting his interpretation of malinalli
from Alfredo Lopez Austin (and incorporating an s into the word simply
because he's adapting it to English and a very lay audience unfamiliar with
Nahuatl).  I have no idea what he thinks of Bierhorst, but I know he
admires Lopez Austin.

Lopez Austin, I'm fairly sure (at least as sure as my memory serves me on
some very past conversations with him) is getting the spinning idea from
Frances' second etymological source (from malina) and some other
mythological link, which I can't remember anymore.  Alfredo believes Nahua
theology said that powers spin up trees from the underworld to the
upperworld and power the sun's journey across the daytime sky; and that
nahualtin also draw power from spinning motions inherent in things like
whirlpools and duststorms.  His sources are a combination of linguistic
analysis, pictorial codices, and both ancient and contemporary mythological
sources.  He's usually pretty good at listing his sources, although
sometimes fails on a point or two.  My experience with him is that he
always can tell you where he's getting stuff if you ask him.  His books
"The Human Body," and "Myths of the Opossum" expand a bit on some of this.

There are, I think, many good sources from which to argue the ideas of
spinning and otherwise moving powers, whether this sounds New Age or not.
The idea of spinning and moving powers also is not strange to other Native
American traditions.  Just because some adherents to New Age traditions
borrow some of these ideas from other traditions (usually changing them in
the process), does not mean that the traditions from which they are
borrowing them from didn't think of them all by themselves (albeit in a
different form).

Kay Read

>
>>   However, I have found a similar description in a passage in David
>>Carrasco's _Religions of Mesoamerica_ where he states "Each of the
>>realms...were permeated with supernatural powers circulating up and down the
>>cosmic levels through spiral-shaped passages called 'malinallis'."
>>I am sceptical because he does not quote any sources, and because he adds
>>the english "s" to indicate plural.
>>My question to those on the list more familiar with literary sources than I,
>>is this:
>>Are there any preconquest or colonial literary sources to suggest that the
>>Mexica subscribed to this kind of "esoteric" beliefs?
>>
>
>
>
>I think there may be two sources for this idea as expressed by David Carrasco.
>
>First is Bierhorst's controversial translation of the Cantares mexicanos
>(Cantares Mexicanos:  Songs of the Aztecs Translated froM the Nahuatl with
>an Introduction and Commentary.  Stanford University Press, 1985), where
>Bierhorst makes a great to-do about ghosts and songs whirling up and down.
>Bierhorst's interpretation of the Cantare seems to derive uncomfortably
>from the whole, much-later Ghost Dance religion of North America, and B.
>himself says there is precious little documentation for a similar tradition
>in Mesoamerica.  But he takes the very fact that the friar evangelists
>missed it to be a sign that it was there and very, very covert.
>
>Bierhorst's translation and interpretation has been critically evaluated by
>both Miguel Leon-Portilla and James Lockhart, and their critiques are worth
>having a look at, since they are intelligently done from a wealth of
>background knowledge.
>
>If Carrasco accepts Bierhorst's interpretation of the Cantares, he needs to
>tell his readers where he gets the whirling pathways ideas and why he
>accepts them.
>
>Source 2 is etymological.
>
>The noun malinalli refers to a twisted bunch of grass, and it is one of the
>calendrical signs associated with the south in the 260-day tonalpohualli
>(count of the days).  As a calendrical sign, it is always associated with a
>number from 1-13.
>
>The noun is derived from the transitive verb malina 'to twist or wind
>something."  When malina is used reflexively, it  means for something to
>twist itself, to wind, to spiral.
>
>Another transitive/reflexive verb also meaning 'to revolve or spin
>something, to twist' is malacachoa, with the associated noun malacatl
>'spindle, bobbin, or spiral'.
>
>Malacaehecatl 'spiral wind' is one Nahuatl word for a whirlwind or dust devil.
>
>Since malinalli and malacatl both refer to inanimate objects, they would
>not ordinarily have distinct plural forms.
>
>I hope this is helpful.
>
>Fran
>
>