Bierhorst Bashing -- was Looking for a poem...

[Bernard Ortiz de Montellano]

>Nocnihuan,
>    As Fritz has pointed out, John Bierhorst is a member of a very small
>set of scholars who hold his point of view about a Nahua Ghost Dance.  I
>don't know enough to comment on the merits of his point of view or that of
>his critics, but I am continually distressed at one of the biggest results
>of the issue -- it distracts attention from **all the rest of the value**
>in his two-volume work on the Cantares.
>    I just consulted a Nahuatl scholar (whose opinion I respect and
>sometimes agree with) <8-< and my question "Do you ever check Bierhorst?"
>elicited the answer "Of course!!"  Further, "Does it ever help you?" got
>the same answer.  Since I agreed with the reaction, naturally, my respect
>for my colleague grew a notch.
>    My humble opinion is that the community of Nahuatl scholars would gain
>a lot by getting past the knee-jerk reaction to John's work on the basis
>of one point of disagreement and take an extended look at the valuable
>resource that he provided us with through what was a long period of
>careful labor (preparation of the text and making that humongous
>vocabulary!). Yotlan.
>
>Saludos,
>
>Joe
>
>
>>
>>  Bierhorst holds that the poems in the Cantares Mexicanos were part of a
>>  Nahua "Ghost Dance" ritual destined to revivify the essence of fallen
>>  warriors in a crypto-rebellion against the Spanish.  No other scholar who
>  > has studied the song cycle has been able to discover such a theme.
>  >

Joe it is not just the Ghost Dance idea but the distortions in the
Nahuatl he proposes to fit the Procrustean bed. For example,
translating words like xochitl and chalchihuitl as "returning souls".
It the Aztecs had really believed that this was so these worlds would
have plural endings as in citlalme. Have you seen my review in
*Tlalocan*?