azteccannibalism

8/3/2019 Azteccannibalism

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AZTEC CANNIBALISM:

Nahua versus Spanish and mestizo accounts in the Valley of Mexico

Barry L. Isaac

Department of Anthropology, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, 481 Braunstein Hall, PO

Box 210380, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0380, USA

Correspondence:

E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]

Anthropologists have largely neglected the subject of Aztec cannibalism for the past 20 years,

for two apparent reasons. First, the ecological model of Aztec cannibalism boldly advanced by

Michael Harner (1977) and Marvin Harris (1977:147168), anthropology's only major attempt todate to theorize the subject, was swiftly and thoroughly destroyed by area specialists

(summarized in Petrinovich 2000). Second, William Arens's widely influential The Man-EatingMyth (1979) called into question all previous reports of cannibalism, largely bottling up thesubject until fresh evidence could be marshaled (Arens 1998; Barker et al . 1998; Brady 1982;

Goldman 1999; Petrinovich 2000; Pickering 1999).

Recent research has vigorously challenged Arens's stance, especially for Melanesia (Goldman1999) and the U.S. Southwest (Turner and Turner 1999; cf. Kanter 1999). There are also two

fresh developments regarding Aztec cannibalism, both ethnohistorical studies. First, Christy

Turner and Jacqueline Turner (1999:464ff) have attempted to demonstrate that cannibalismdiffused to the prehistoric U.S. Southwest from central Mexico, the Aztec heartland. Second, I

have shown that indigenous belief in pre-Hispanic cannibalism is reported in 40 (38%) of the

105 surviving 15771586Relaciones Geogrficas for central Mexico (Isaac 2002).

This article engages the cannibalism debate through the analysis of three stories of cannibalism

by trickery in the Valley of Mexicoone each in Xochimilco, Chalco, and Tenochtitlanbecause they point up sharp contrasts among the major Nahua (indigenous Nahuatl speaker),

Spanish, and mestizo (NahuaSpanish) writers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth

centuries. To anticipate, these stories of cannibalism by trickery intended to provoke or humiliate

political enemies are practically the only form in which cannibalism appears in the writings ofthe Valley of Mexico's two prominent early Nahua scholars, Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc

(1980, 1998) and Francisco de San Antn Mun Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (1965, 1983,

1991, 1997). In fact, apart from these three stories, there are only three terse, passing mentions of

cannibalism in their entire oeuvre (Chimalpahin 1991:89, 1997:1:146147, 2:97; also inTezozomoc 1998:132); as we shall eventually see, one of these latter instances is clearly

mythological, while the other two allege that Aztec conquest of a particular town put an end tocannibalism there. The contemporaneous Spanish writers, in contrast, recount versions of two of

the three stories of cannibalism by trickery but also liberally lace their narratives with allegations

of institutionalized (customary, enjoined) cannibalism in connection with a great many religious

and political events (Durn 1971:79, 92, 133, 176, 191, 199, 212, 216, 227, 259, 386, 428, 432,444, 463, 1994:10, 78, 105, 139, 141, 192, 193, 233, 250, 272, 276, 407, 435, 474, 542;
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Motolina 1971:33, 51, 53, 62, 65, 79; Sahagn 19701981:Book 1:42, Book 2:3, 24, 4849, 54,

184, 193, Book 4:35, Book 9:64, 67). Of the Valley of Mexico's two prominent mestizo authors,

one (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977) is even more reticent than the Nahua writers, while the other(Pomar 1986) alleges cannibalism but on a very minor scale compared with the Spanish writers.

These NahuaSpanishmestizo differences raise important questions for the evaluation of

ethnohistorical sources on the subject. Furthermore, the Nahua accounts shed important light onthe ideological context of Aztec cannibalism, regardless of whether we conclude that the

accounts of it represent actual customary practice or a post-Conquest reinterpretation of the past.

A caveat is in order: This article concerns cannibalism allegedly carried out by humans, not by

gods. The latter is alleged in two of the Nahua sources used here, both of which state that

Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica patron deity, and his sister ate human hearts and even ate their

mother and uncles (Chimalpahin 1997:1:83; Tezozomoc 1980:225, 229, 1998:35). These

allegations of godly cannibalism in mythological time strike me as being in a different class from

the allegations of cannibalism by humans in historical time and thus require a separate analysis.

THREE STORIES OF CANNIBALISM BY TRICKERY

Story 1: Human Stew for the Rulers of Xochimilco

Both of the major sixteenth-century narrators of the Aztec empire's development from theviewpoint of its capital of TenochtitlanDiego Durn and Tezozomocrelate versions of the

first story. Durn, born in Spain circa 1537 but reared in Tetzcoco, the erstwhile Aztec empire's

second-ranking city, was a Dominican friar who completed his Historia de las Indias de Nueva

Espaa in 1581 (Durn 1994). Tezozomoc was a Nahua historian descended from Tenochcakings (Mariscal 1994:xxixxxi). Born circa 1520 in Tenochtitlan, he was the maternal grandson

of Moctezuma II (r. 15021520), under whom his father was a provincial governor, and the

patrilineal great-grandson of King Axayacatl (r. 14681481). He completed his major historicalwork, Crnica mexicana, in 1598 (Tezozomoc 1980). Both Durn and Tezozomoc apparently

drew on a now lost manuscript referred to by moderns as the Crnica X(Barlow 1945; Bernal

1994).

The events of interest here purportedly occurred circa 1430, following the successful 14281430

rebellion of the Tenochca (the people of Tenochtitlan) against the Tepaneca empire (Isaac1983 b). The Tenochca then began to assemble the Aztec empire, bringing themselves into

conflict with the other major city-states of the Valley of Mexico lakes, including Xochimilco,

whose leaders decided to resist absorption rather than capitulate. Hiding their intentions, the

Xochimilca continued to allow free access to the Tenochca, including their market women. In the

meantime, the leaders planned a dinner, at which they would decide strategy. Tezozomoc(1980:272) tells the story of the banquet this way:

Within a few days, the Mexica [Tenochca] women went to the Xochimilco marketplace

to sell things reaped from the lake, and ducks of all types. The Xochimilca Indian

women washed very well the izcahuitle [red water worm, a delicacy] and stewed the verywell-washed ducks and cleanly carried it [the stew] to the Government Palace for the

principal men to eat, and when they began to eat, it was very tasty and, continuing with
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their meal, they then found in their bowls heads like those of children, [and] human hands

and feet, and [human] guts. Shocked and frightened, the Xochimilcas began to shout,

saying, I have told you, Lords, how bad and perverse these Mexicas [Tenochca] are, that

with these very things and others they subdued the Azcapotzalca Tepanecas and

Coyoacan, with these lies and tricks. Let us do our best against them: Prepare and equipyourselves, Lords of Xochimilco, as the time has come.

Note that it was the women of Xochimilco, not those of Tenochtitlan, who did the careful

washing of the food. If the latter had done it, we could infer that the washing of the izcahuitle

and ducks was performed punctiliously to disguise the ritual washing of human meat (Sahagn19701981:Book 2:141, 162168, Book 9:45, 6166) secretly placed in the pots. That not being

the case, we are left with the more prosaic interpretation that the careful washing of the banquet

ingredients was merely a narrative element intended to indicate that everything had beenthoroughly inspected and nothing found amiss during the preparation of the meal. Thus,

Tezozomoc's narrative provides no explicit mechanism for the insertion of the human parts into

the stew, although we could reasonably speculate that he intended the reader to infer sorcery

(Durn 1994:214222; Sahagn 197081:Book 4:101106).

Durn's version omits both the careful cleansing of the food before cooking and the suspenseful

element of the diners' finding the human parts in the bottom of their bowls after having enjoyed

the tasty stew. Rather, Durn has the delicacies in the dishes mystically turning themselves

into human body parts as soon as the diners are seated, before they have eaten anything. Thus,

the diners are terrified by the mysterious transubstantiation of their dinner into a pottage of

recognizable human parts, not by having eaten the broth of a human stew, as implied by

Tezozomoc. Overall, the surreal and picaresque in Tezozomoc's account becomes explicitly

supernatural in Durn's (1994:105):

In their terrorfor nothing like this had ever been seen or heardthe Xochimilcas calledtheir soothsayers and asked what this meant. The soothsayers answered that it was an ill

omen for it meant the destruction of the city and the death of many. The lords ofXochimilco, appalled at this, cried out, Ah, friends, we are lost! There is no remedy for

us. People of Xochimilco, prepare to die, because the glory of our city will perish as did

that of Azcapotzalco and [neighboring] Coyoacan!

It is important to note that neither version of this story says that the Xochimilca ate human fleshas such. In Tezozomoc's version, the Xochimilca ate its brothwhich, he notes sardonically,

was very tastybut stopped eating, shocked and frightened, when they encountered the

human parts in the bottom of their bowls. In Durn's version, the would-be diners ate nothing at

all, as they were terrified by the transubstantiation that occurred before them as soon as theywere served. Accordingly, we are left to wonder about the true basis of the Xochimilca's shock

and fear. Was it the discovery of human body parts in their bowls (Tezozomoc) or the

transubstantiation of soup components (Durn)? In other words, was their reaction simply theequivalent of our own upon discovering, say, a mouse in our soup (or, worse, of seeing a lump of

floating tofu turn into a mouse's head)? Or were they shocked and frightened (Tezozomoc) or

terrified (Durn) that human flesh per se had been served (or made to appear) as foodthat is, by the very possibility of cannibalism? For however tempting it is to privilege this latter
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possibility, we have no empirical basis for doing so. What we can say is that cannibalism occurs

in Tezozomoc's version of this story, in which the Xochimilca enjoyed the very tasty broth

before discovering that it had been derived, in part, from the juices of human meat.

Another important matter left unspecified is the provenience of the body parts in Tezozomoc's

version. (In Durn's version, they originated by supernatural action.) Were they Xochimilca?Tenochca? Of unknown persons? Was provenience (in-group vs. out-group) even an issue here

in producing the shock and terror? We cannot say.

Before moving on, we should note that the foregoing story of cannibalism by trickery from

Tezozomoc's Crnica mexicana is one of only two references to human (versus godly)

cannibalism in his oeuvre. It is, in fact, the only instance if we accept that the other work

historically attributed to Tezozomoc, the Crnica mexicyotl, was instead written byChimalpahin (Schroeder 1997). Durn, in contrast, seems obsessed with cannibalism.

Story 2: Ambassador Stew for King Moquihuix

Story 2 comes to us from the indigenous historian Domingo Francisco de San Antn MunChimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (born 1579), a descendant of the fringe nobility of Chalco at the

south end of the Valley of Mexico. Chimalpahin, as he is usually known, wrote his extensive

histories over the years 16081631. Although acquainted with the other major Nahua and

Spanish/mestizo scholars of his day in the Mexico City area, Chimalpahin drew on some singularsource materials, such as the Chalco histories collected by his grandfather and other Chalca

elders who had lived in pre-Hispanic times (Lockhart 1992:387388; Schroeder 1991:1421). He

was also exceptional in his day because he wrote for an indigenous, not a Spanish, audience(Schroeder 1997:10, note 20).

The incident of interest purportedly occurred in 1469 or 1473 and stemmed from an attempted

coup against the Aztec King Axayacatl of Tenochtitlan by Moquihuix, ruler (tlatoani, king) ofTlatelolco, Tenochtitlan's next-door sister city (Garduo 1997:110119; Isaac 1986:338341).

Hoping to enlist allies, Moquihuix sent emissaries to various cities both within and beyond the

Valley of Mexico. He had reason to think that Chalco would join him, as the Aztecs hadconquered it only in 1465 after a 20-year war (Isaac 1983 b:123124). The Chalca wanted no part

of it, however, and Moquihuix's four ambassadors were taken prisoner (Chimalpahin 1965:207):

Neither of them [the guards] wanted to give aid to Moquihuix to try to conquer the

Tenochcas. Rather, they arrested the Tlatelolco ambassadors on the spot, tied their hands,

put them face down in a canoe, stuck a roll of reeds in their mouths, and all night went to

and fro in their canoes. The following day , the Chalcas took them before King

Axayacatzin [in Tenochtitlan]. They were hanged with a rope around their necks, in frontof this ruler , the same day they were presented to him. Once they were dead, they

were bathed in order to boil them in a pot, and they were taken to Chalco to cook them

there; Moquihuix and various other Tlatelolcas [dignitaries] were invited to a banquet so

that they would come and eat their own ambassadors, not knowing that they had beenkilled by the Tenochcas. This incident determined that, during [the next] five years, the

Tenochcas and Tlatelolcas made war.
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In a humorous retelling elsewhere, Chimalpahin (1997:2:4749) set the banquet in Tenochtitlan

and had King Axayacatl asking the Tlatelolca the next morning, Our friends, have you eaten?

When they replied, We have eaten, ruler, Axayacatl informed them that they had eaten theirown men. The Tlatelolca fled and then arrayed themselves for battle.

It is important to note that the executed messengers were bathed in order to boil them(emphasis mine). In other words, they were given the ritual cleansing that was preparatory to

certain human sacrifices that Spanish sources say were followed by the eating of the bathed

victim (e.g., Sahagn 19701981:Book 2:141, 162168, Book 9:45, 6167).

Two other aspects of this story are important to note. First, it is one of only three instances of

human (versus godly) cannibalism in Chimalpahin's published writings; the other two, as we

shall see, likewise fail to portray cannibalism as an institutionalized (customary, enjoined)practice. Second, I am unable to find this particular story in any other author's work. Tlatelolco's

rebellion against Tenochtitlan is widely reported in the literature, but only Chimalpahin includes

the cannibalism element, which must have been unique to the elders whom he or his grandfather

consulted in Chalco.

Story 3: Genital Soup for Captain Tlahuicole

Story 3 is set in Tenochtitlan, and both Durn (1994:448) and Tezozomoc (1980:643645) relate

versions of it, but the only account that contains the element of cannibalism comes to us fromTlaxcala. Although the pre-Hispanic Tlaxcalteca shared most cultural features, including the

Nahuatl language, with the Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico, Tlaxcala was never conquered by the

Aztec empire, which adjoined it on all sides. In other words, unlike Stories 1 and 2, which werenarrated by Valley of Mexico (Aztec) sources, Story 3 as a tale of cannibalism by trickery

originates in territory that was still outside the Aztec empire when the Spaniards arrived in 1519.

If they had arrived perhaps only 1 or 2 years later, however, Story 3 would be seen as an Aztec

story, because the Aztec empire was clearly on the verge of conquering the whole Tlaxcalaregion in 1519 (Isaac 1983 a). Furthermore, the story is set in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan

and attributes cannibalism by trickery to the Tenochca, not to the Tlaxcalteca.

The cannibalistic version of this story was written down by the sixteenth-century historian Diego

Muoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo (Spanish father, Tlaxcalan-Nahua mother) who self-

identified as a Spaniard (Acua 1984:13). He included the story in the Tlaxcala CityRelacin

Geogrfica (Acua 1984), completed in 1584. Much later, it was published in abridged form

known asHistoria de Tlaxcala (Muoz Camargo 1892), the source more often consulted today.

The story concerns Tlahuicole, a famed Tlaxcala war captain in the second decade of the

sixteenth century. He was a heroic man of terrible and great strengths, who realized feats anddeeds that seem incredible and superhuman (Muoz Camargo 1892:125). At last, he wascaptured by the army of neighboring Huexotzingo, at that moment the enemy of Tlaxcala (Isaac

1983 a:423425). Wishing to ingratiate themselves with the Aztecshistorically their dire

enemies but momentarily (ca. 15171518) their alliesthe Huexotzinca caged Tlahuicole and

took him to Tenochtitlan, where they presented him to King Moctezuma as a great trophy(Muoz Camargo 1892:126). The expected fate of a captured enemy soldier at the hands of the

Aztecs (or of the Tlaxcalteca or Huejotzinca, for that matter) was ritual sacrifice, but Moctezuma
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so admired Tlahuicole that he offered him command of a large segment of the Aztec army.

Tlahuicole accepted and distinguished himself greatly in a six-month war against the Tarascan

empire to the west (i.e., in the opposite direction from Tlaxcala), in the present state ofMichoacan (Muoz Camargo 1892:126127). At the end of this war, Moctezuma gave

Tlahuicole the choice of remaining an Aztec army officer or returning to Tlaxcala, but

Tlahuicole felt he could exercise neither option: the former would mean betrayal of his nation,because it would eventually bring him into combat against Tlaxcala; the latter would bring

disgrace, not only because he had escaped heroic sacrificial death, but also because he had

served already in the (enemy) Aztec army. Accordingly, he asked to be sacrificed. MuozCamargo (1892:127128) continues the story thus:

When Moctheuzoma [sic] saw that he [Tlahuicole] wanted only to die, he ordered thatthis wish be fulfilled, and so a week before he was to die they made for him great

festivities, dances, and banquets, according to their ancient rites, and in these banquets

they made for him, it is said that they fed hima shameful thing that is seldom toldhis

wife's genitals [natura] cooked in a soup; because, as he had lived more than 3 years inTenochtitlan, his favorite wife went to see him to make her life with him, or die with her

husband, and thus the two of them died in captivity.

Muoz Camargo leaves us wondering about the cause of the shame: the eating of human flesh

per se? The eating of one's wife? The eating of women's genitalia? The eating of the flesh of

one's in-group? Alternatively, was Tlahuicole's eating of his wife's genitals shameful to the pre-

Hispanic Nahua peoples or only to the Hispanicized Muoz Camargo and his post-Conquestaudience?

We receive no help with these matters from the Tenochtitlan versions of Tlahuicole's captivityand death by Durn (1994:448) and Tezozomoc (1980:643645). As their accounts are very

similar, I shall report mainly from Tezozomoc, whose difficult work will be less accessible to

most readers. Tezozomoc says that Tlahuicole was captured by Tenochca (not Huexotzinca)troops on direct orders of King Moctezuma and that, when Tlahuicole was presented to him,

King Moctezuma offered him consoling words and finerybut not the military command

reported by Muoz Camargo (1892:126127). In captivity, Tlahuicole cried every day upon

remembering his wives, saying, Is it possible, my women, that you shall never again see myeyes? (Tezozomoc 1980:645). Moctezuma was so disgusted by his trophy captive's sentimental

whimpering that he sent him this message (Tezozomoc 1980:645):

Tell him that he has given great affront to illustrious [Aztec] blood, and that Moctezuma

says so, and that I say that he should go to his land [Tlaxcala], that such is my will, that

his fear of dying gives offense to all the principal Mexica men of this court, [and] that he

should go to see the ones he cries for night and day.

Tlahuicole stopped crying, even stopped talking, but he was not offered an honorable death.

Instead, he was released under a general ban against feeding him. In vain, he begged from houseto house. Finally, desperate to recover his honor, he hurled himself to his death off the main

temple pyramid in Tlatelolco, tumbling down the steep steps in the fashion of a sacrificial victim.

In death, he was honored by the Tlatelolca, who sacrificed him (Tezozomoc 1980:646).
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7/20

The Tenochtitlan sources (Durn and Tezozomoc) corroborate both the existence and the live

capture of Tlahuicole, as well as the esteem in which his enemies held him, as narrated in the

Tlaxcalan source (Muoz Camargo 1892). However, they present a radically different version ofthe famed Tlaxcalteca's captivity and death. Most important, neither Durn (1994) nor

Tezozomoc (1980) offers any hint of either feasts or cannibalism. Did none occur? Or were these

events simply not recorded in the now disappeared Crnica Xupon which Durn and Tezozomocboth drew heavily (Barlow 1945; Bernal 1994)?

Recently, Michel Graulich (2000) attempted a symbolic analysis that gives a positiveinterpretation to the cannibalism element in the Tlahuicole story. He interprets Muoz Camargo's

version as an iteration of the myth of the gods who, at the beginning of the Fifth Sun (the Aztec

epoch), voluntarily sacrificed themselves to become companions of the sun. In this framework,

Tlahuicole was fated to nourish eternally the masculine morning sun, while his wife was tonourish the feminine afternoon sun. His wife is sacrificed and thus is a heroic woman. Her

husband, before dying, participates in her death and eats her feminine essence. He acts as if he

had conquered-sacrificed her himself (Graulich 2000:9394). But what about the Tenochtitlan

versions (Durn, Tezozomoc), which do not contain the cannibalistic element? Unfazed,Graulich changes gears to concentrate on their inclusion of Tlahuicole's suicide in Tlatelolco

(Tenochtitlan's subordinate sister city) and his longing for his wives (an element denotingcowardice or lack of manliness). By pining for his favorite wife, the cowardly Tlahuicole let

himself be absorbed symbolically by his wife, but the brave [Tlahuicole], to the contrary, ate lanatura [the genitals] of his wife (Graulich 2000:96), thereby absorbing her. In this symbolic

sense, the cowardly Tlahuicole of the Tenochtitlan versions is likened to Tlatelolco's Moquihuix(of Story 2), who was given to inserting his forearm into his wife's vagina, thusly allowing

himself to be partially swallowed by her (Graulich 2000:9596). Tlahuicole's suicide ties him to

the mythologized Toltec man-god Huemac, who also killed himself after his defeat and exile.That Tlahuicole ended his life in Tlateloco, which was subordinate to Tenochtitlan, ties him to

the moon rather than the sun, to the feminine rather than the masculineand, by implication, to

the weak or cowardly rather than the strong or brave. Death in Tlatelolco also ties Tlahuicolewith Moquihuix (of Story 2), a king given to women as was Tlahuicole and as was Huemac of

Tollan [Toltec Tula] a king [Moquihuix] who made war against Mexico [Tenochtitlan], was

defeated and [like Tlahuicole] killed himself by throwing himself off the great pyramid ofTlatelolco (Graulich 2000:95; cf. Chimalpahin 1997:1:139, 2:51; Durn 1994:260; Tezozomoc

1980:393).

After all this zigzagging from one symbolic or temporal context to the next in an effort to wrapboth versions of the Tlahuicole story into one or another of central Mexico's mythological

shroudsand, especially, to link symbolic feminine absorption ofa man (Tenochtitlan version)

with cannibalistic feminine absorption by a man (Tlaxcalan version)Graulich (2000:97) posesthe question, Which of the two versions corresponds to the facts? Astonishingly enough, he

opts for the Tlaxcalan version (by Muoz Camargo), finding it less improbable because it was

less reshaped [menos remodelada] by mythological thinking (Graulich 2000:97).

The Three Stories Compared

The three storiesthe only such Nahua narratives of which I am awareshare several basic

elements. First, they involve cannibalism by trickery. Second, the trickery is originated by the
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