Volume 10 - Issue 1, February 15, 2008 - Lake Chapala Review

Page 18 Lake Chapala Review
February 2008
Early Chronicles and
Histories
by Ronald A. Barnett Mexico and Guatemala
In the last article we looked at the Aztec document,
the Codex en Cruz. These pre-Hispanic chronicles or
annals contained dated events recorded in chronological
order. The priest or scribe familiar with the symbols in
the pictorial manuscript would then use it as a kind of
prompt book or mnemonic guide that could be turned
into a continuous historical narrative. This way of
recording history passed continued into the post-Hispanic
period. For example, the Anales de Cuauhtitlan (in Nahuatl)
follows the annalistic format but also contains long
narrative passages interspersed with mere lists of dates
in chronological order.
The early chroniclers and historians of Mexico and
Guatemala included both secular and religious writers,
although the distinction is often blurred. The basic
purpose or mission of the former was to send reports
back to Spain, as Cortes did in his letters to the emperor,
the latter to instruct other friars in the conversion of the
natives. The Cartas de Relación of Hernando Cortes and
the Historia de la Conquista de la Nueva España of Bernal
Diáz del Castillo were essentially justifications of the
Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. However, some
religious writers, such as Andres de Olmos (d. 1571)
and Las Casas (1474-1566), wrote works dealing directly
with the indigenous language and culture. Much of our
knowledge of the language spoken by the Aztecs at the
time of the Conquest comes from colonial grammars and
vocabularies written by Franciscan missionaries. Indian
and mestizo writers on the other hand were anxious to
record their own native history.
Our main early historical source for the history of the
Maya of Yucatan is the Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan of
friar Diego de Landa (1524-1579), who came to Yucatan in
1549 and became bishop of Merida. Although classified
among the religious writers for his over-zealousness in
destroying Maya codices, his work covers every phase of
the social anthropology of the Maya from pre-Conquest
times to about 1630. Of even greater importance for the
native view of Yucatecan history and the Conquest are
the various Books of Chilam Balam (Books of the Jaguar
Priest), Chumayel, Tizimin, and others. Other early
written sources of Maya history include the Annals of the
Cakchiquels (in Cakchiquel, a Mayan language) and the
Popol Vuh and other documents in Quiche Maya.
All written history of course dates from the time of
the Conquest when the Spanish missionaries taught the
Indians how to write in Roman transcription. There is
therefore the possibility of Christian influence even in
historical writing by mestizos and Indians. The problem
then is to separate the genuine pre-Hispanic record from
the biases of the Spanish missionary-historians. For
example, the Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España and
the Memoriales of the Franciscan Benevente, Toribio de
“Motolinia” (1482-1568), contain a wealth of information
on pre-Hispanic Aztec religion but, among other things,
he translates tlamacazque, the title of Aztec temple
priests, as “the Devil’s Officials,” indicating the extreme
hostility of the Spanish missionaries towards native
religion. Even Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590),
considered the greatest of the Spanish ethnographers in
New Spain, refused to translate the twenty Aztec hymns
he collected because he considered them the work of
the Devil (presumably the Christian Devil, the Aztecs
didn’t have one until the Spaniards arrived). Still, the
Spanish version of the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva
España, the Nahuatl text of the Florentine Codex, and the
earlier Primeros Memoriales still provide a comprehensive
coverage of Aztec life and culture.
The Monarquia Indiana of Juan de Torquemada
(1564-1624) poses the problem of early plagiarism. We
have few data on his life. Nevertheless he used native
sources and his major work is therefore an important
source of information on the origin and wars of western
Indians as well as the themes of discovery, conquest,
and conversions. His aims, if not his methods, were
admirable enough: to give a true picture of the early state
of the Indians, to describe and assess the influence of the
Spaniards and the Franciscan missionaries in New Spain;
and to evaluate the acculturation process that began with
the arrival of the Spaniards.
It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the Spanish
missionaries did not come to New Spain to learn about
Aztec religion or Maya hieroglyphs but rather to destroy
the native religion and, in effect, commit cultural
genocide on an entire people. This becomes most clear
in such works as the Historia eclesiastica of Jeronimo de
Mendieta (1528-1604). Like other Spanish missionaries
Mendieta’s mission in life was to convert the Indians
of New Spain to Christianity. In the Prologue to Book
II he tells us that the Indians were somewhat less than
human. However much we may abhor the Aztec practice
of human sacrifice or denigrate Mesoamerican religious
beliefs as mere superstition they pale into insignificance
besides the atrocities committed by the Spaniards against
the Indians.