Reterritorializing Indigenous Knowledges: Reading and Writing Post-Conquest Tlaxcalan Annals

Lecture by Kelly McDonough

During the first two centuries of the Colonial Period in Mexico, native speakers of the Nahuatl language transferred their pre-Hispanic tradition of recording historical memory in the xiuhpohualli(year-count codexes) to the practice of writing alphabetic historical annals in Nahuatl and Spanish. My presentation focuses on the writings of one of the later protagonists in the Nahua annals tradition, Tlaxcalan statesman Don Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza. Through these rich sources of indigenous experience during the Colonial Period, I analyze discourses of pre- and post-conquest Tlaxcalan legitimacy, authority, rights, and recognition as these were being affirmed, contested, and modified. Finally, I discuss the potential of these texts in present-day Nahua language and culture revitalization projects.

This lecture is part of our Colonial Lecture Series 2011-2012.