Interpreting the Mappe Quinatzin, leaf 2 and leaf 3

Tue Apr 21 11:55:49 UTC 2009

Dear Dr. Lee:

Thank you for your very informative message. I now get the picture. And 
I plan to get your book this week.

These last couple of weeks of nahuat-l has driven home the fact for me 
that we find here in this on-line discussion group crackpot "scholars" 
such as the "Ometeotl" guy and the guy he channels, the 
smoke-and-mirror types (Tezcatlipoca!) who take issue with minor 
details but avoid the substantive issues, and the honest types, among 
whom I count you. Best wishes in your future work. I look forward to 
seeing it.

Michael

Quoting "Lee, Jongsoo" <joslee at unt.edu>:

> Dear listeros,
>
> I am aware that many listeros see this debate as bothersome, but I
> feel obligated to respond to Offner's message. I apologize for the
> long message below. I will begin my response with the background
> behind this debate.
>
> Some of you may already know that Offner and I have different points
> of view regarding Nezahualcoyotl and his Texcoco. Many scholars,
> including Offner, argue that Texcoco maintained a highly civilized
> political and legal system quite different from that of Mexico
> Tenochtitlan. My article published in Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl
> proposes a different view of Nezahualcoyotl and Texcoco by
> demonstrating that Nezahualcoyotl's Texcoco was actually very similar
> to Mexico Tenochtitlan. I divided my article into four sections each
> of which deals with a different aspect of Nezahualcoyotl's close
> relationship to the Mexica: politics, conquests, tribute, and finally
> the legal system. In making this argument, I am essentially
> disagreeing with scholars such as Offner, and his comments must be
> understood in the broader context of this dispute.
>
> With regard to the substance of Offner's critique, in one of his
> earlier messages, he says that I erroneously included Xicotepec as
> one of Nezahuacloytl's conquests, because I blindly followed the
> interpretation of the editor, Guy Stresser-Pean, and did not consult
> Lesbre's review. I cited this conquest as part of the evidence that
> demonstrates that Nezahualcoyotl was not a peaceful king, which is
> one of the established views that I challenge in my article. I argue
> that Nezahualcoyotl conducted many conquests both with the Mexica
> kings as well as by himself. It is true that in this text the
> identification of the figure in question as Nezahualcoyotl is
> debatable. But I also present similar evidence from other texts in
> which the identity of Nezahualcoyotl is not contested. Regardless of
> whether or not Lesbre is correct about the identity of the individual
> responsible for the conquest of Xicotepec in this particular source,
> it does not undermine my larger argument, because there are so many
> other examples presented in the article to demonstrate Nezahualcoyotl
> as a great warrior king.
>
> Offner also indicates that I miscalculated Nezahualcoyotl's tributary
> cities in Mapa Quinatzin. My article mentions 13 while Offner refers
> to 26. But I am not referring to all of the cities listed on the map
> but rather only those that appear in the Texcocan courtyard. Even
> there, I did miscalculate: there are 14 rather than 13. This was an
> honest mistake that I corrected in my book, The Allure of
> Nezahualcoyotl (University of New Mexico Press, 2008, p.115). My
> discussion focuses on the major tributary cities described inside the
> Texcocan courtyard, not including those cities depicted outside the
> courtyard. Again, I would point to the third section of my article in
> which I mention those cities in order to examine Nezahualcoyotl's
> tribute system. Alva Ixtlilxochitl and some modern scholars after him
> believe that Texcoco maintained the best ruling system, which
> included tribute collection, and that Tenochtitlan emulated it. I
> argue to the contrary that Texcoco during Nezahualcoyotl's reign
> (having been crowned, by the way, by his Mexica uncle) did not have
> as many tributaries as Tenochtitlan. Thus, the Texcocan tribute
> system that Ixtlixlochitl eulogizes didn't have much impact on that
> of Tenochtitlan but rather depended on its larger tributary system.
> To support my argument, I demonstrate that most of the major Texcocan
> tributary cities depicted inside the courtyard also paid tribute to
> Tenochtitlan. In this context, I didn't need to focus on the
> secondary Texcocan tributaries depicted outside the courtyard. This
> is certainly something that can be disputed. I think the evidence
> supports my interpretation more than the traditional one to which
> Offner ascribes.
>
> Again, I would urge anyone interested to read my article together
> with Offner's critique.
>
> I would also refer back to the beginning of this debate. Some
> listeros initiated a discussion about how scholars in the
> English-speaking world need to pay more attention to the works of
> scholars from other countries who may publish in other languages. In
> this context, Offner began to mention some works including mine as
> lacking in scholarship, because I didn't cite the French scholar
> Lesbre's works. I would just point out that Lesbre didn't cite major
> works in English about Texcoco in his works either. For example,
> Offner's major work, Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco, and others
> were not even mentioned there. Offner does not seem to consider
> Lesbre's works useless due to the lack of English references as he
> does research that fails to cite French references. I'm not sure what
> the difference is here, except that he agrees with Lesbre, and he
> disagrees with me. This is not meant as a critique of Lesbre's work,
> but rather merely to point out the personal nature of Offner's
> critique, which focuses primarily on debatable points of
> interpretation without addressing my larger arguments.
>
> Let me say that I welcome critique and scholarly dialogue, and I am
> always happy to reassess my views. I suspect that Offner's problem
> with my work has more to do with the fact that I disagree with him
> than it does with real substantive issues. Offner is attempting to
> dismiss my work by emphasizing a relatively minor issue and by
> claiming that I am creating my own facts. You will notice that at no
> point has he addressed the substance of my actual argument. His most
> general and sweeping criticism is that my article cannot be relied
> upon for an accurate description of the "scale and structure of the
> Texcocan political entity." The implication of this statement is that
> my article sets out to describe the "scale and structure of the
> Texcocan political entity," but this is not the case. That was not
> the purpose nor the focus of my article. My article is not about the
> scale and structure of the Texcocan political entity but rather about
> its qualitative nature. And nothing he has said refutes this argument.
>
> Finally, Offner claims that I do not understand the relationship
> between Mapa Quinatzin and alphabetic sources. Actually, the
> relationship between pictographic sources and alphabetic texts from
> the colonial period is part of the problem. The colonial sources are
> not always faithful to the original texts; they exhibit a European
> and Christian influence derived from the colonial context. As in
> other areas, the Spaniards were looking for some kind of precursor to
> Christianity, some link between the indigenous tradition and their
> own. They fabricated this link in Nezahualcoyotl, and the Texcocans
> were more than happy to facilitate a misinterpretation of the
> historical record in order to gain the prestige associated with a
> Mesoamerican precursor to Christianity. Most modern scholars have
> perpetuated this misinterpretation by doing precisely that of which
> Offner is accusing me: they do not understand the relationship
> between the original pictographic source and the colonial texts that
> misinterpret them. Here again, this is a debatable point of
> interpretation, but to refute it you have to engage with the
> substance of my argument rather than a few of the isolated details.
>
> Offner promised that he would send another message regarding Mapa
> Quinatzin, leaf 3. If the previous message is any indication, he will
> emphasize some part of my interpretation without addressing the
> larger argument. In the section of my article dealing with this
> source, I argue that it actually reveals that Nezahualcoyotl was not
> an enlightened legislator and that his legal practices were very
> similar to those of Tenochtitlan. Here again, this goes directly
> against arguments that Offner has put forward in his own work. Of
> course, some of the details of the interpretation of the texts upon
> which my argument is based are debatable. Again, I would urge
> listeros interested in the topic to read all the relevant research,
> including Offner's very valuable work, and make their own judgments
> based on all of the evidence and whose interpretation they find more
> compelling.
>
> I don't plan on responding to Offner's next message. I doubt there is
> much else that I could add other than what I have written here. Any
> listeros who are no automatically deleting these messages, should
> read Offners next critique it in light of my explanation.
>
> Best,
>
> Jongsoo
>
>
> From: nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org
> [mailto:nahuatl-bounces at lists.famsi.org] On Behalf Of Jerry Offner
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:46 PM
> To: Nahuat-L
> Subject: [Nahuat-l] Interpreting the Mappe Quinatzin, leaf 2 and leaf 3
>
> Recently, I said I would point out basic and serious errors in just
> two paragraphs of Jongsoo Lee's recent article in Estudios de Cultura
> Nahuatl.
>
> Note:  Here is one of several links to an on-line image of the Mappe
> Quinatzin, leaf 2, discussed below-
>
> http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/uploadimages/ans_24_03_2.jpg
>
>
> Here are errors in the paragraph on page 243 reporting on the content
> of the Mappe Quinatzin.
>
> 1.  Lee states:  "According to the Mapa Quinatzin, there are thirteen
> cities assigned to maintain the Texcocan court, which suggests that
> they were under the control of Nezahualcoyotl."  Everyone else who
> has examined this document, including the antiquated source that Lee
> cites (1886:354-355) and other sources he cites (Carrasco 1999 and
> Offner 1983) analyze the document correctly to show that it deals
> with 26 cities involved with tribute and service obligations to
> Texcoco.  See also Lesbre in the latest ECN.  Many writers, beginning
> with the 1886 article, have in fact used this document to attempt to
> reconcile the various reports of the! tribute and service system of
> Texcoco that involved more than 26 towns.
>
> 2. Lee tells us:  "Below Nezahualcoyotl and Nezahualpilli on leaf 2
> appear the rulers of thirteen cities that Nezahualcoyotl
> established."   Everyone else who has examined this document,
> including the antiquated source that Lee cites and other sources he
> cites (Carrasco 1999 and Offner 1983) report fourteen rulers.  Lee
> omits the ruler of Teotihuacan even though his 1886 source (358-59)
> carefully lists and comments on each ruler, including the ruler of
> Teotihuacan.
>
> To a Texcocan specialist, these errors in interpreting leaf 2 are as
> evident and important as someone writing about "the eleven apostles"
> and betray a substandard investigation of this document and its
> relationship to the alphabetic sources--which relationship was
> expertly discussed as early as 1956 by Charles Gibson and repeatedly
> by others, including sources Lee cites, prior to and after 2001.
> Lee's investigation, understanding and reporting of the scale and
> structure of the Texcocan political entity is deficient.  We
> therefore cannot rely on Lee's description of the content of the
> Mappe Quinatzin, leaf 2 or its relationship to the alphabetic sources
> or on Lee's reporting on more than a century of later, better
> investigations.
>
> Lee is not entitled to his own set of "facts."  He has set the clock
> back on interpretation of this document more than a century and
> presents a diminished and misshapen portrait of Texcocan political
> structure.
>
> Errors in the other paragraph, which concern Mappe Quinatzin, leaf 3
> will be pointed out in a subsequent post.
>
>
>
> Jerry Offner
> ixtlil at earthlink.net<mailto:ixtlil at earthlink.net>
>
>
>

_______________________________________________
Nahuatl mailing list
Nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
http://www.famsi.org/mailman/listinfo/nahuatl