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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 February 2018
This article addresses the perennial debate over the origins and nature of female power by examining the significance of ‘Women of Discord’ in Aztec (more properly, Mexica) culture. Influential, but often troublesome, these formidable figures embody the complex significance of female power, rooted in women's privileged access to the awesome earth forces through childbirth. This chaotic energy lent cosmological and dynastic significance to the mytho-historical Women of Discord, but also led to a persistent female association with disorder which had tangible (and often overlooked) consequences for the lives of ‘real’ women in Aztec culture. This article explores the ways in which beliefs about the female capacity for disruption both reflected and shaped reality, ensnaring all women in a cycle of myth and history which made femininity a source of both authority and apprehension. Importantly, in Tenochtitlan ideas about ‘disorderly women’ did not lead inevitably to their practical subordination or suppression; women held practical markers of influence and esteem in Aztec culture. Thus, the Women of Discord challenge our assumptions about gender by offering a distinctive perspective on the ways in which femininity and fertility may be seen as disruptive, without necessarily debasing women or depriving them of individual agency.
I am indebted to Miriam Dobson, Karen Harvey, James Pennock, Roey Sweet, Emily Umberger, Phil Withington, and the anonymous referees for their comments on this article.
1 I recognize the difficulties and possible anachronisms of the term ‘Aztec’, but use it as the most familiar name for a non-specialist audience.
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4 Some of the recent issues in this broad debate are exemplified by Nelson, Karen, ed., Attending to early modern women: conflict and concord (Newark, DE, 2013)Google Scholar.
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12 For trenchant discussion of the normalization of Euro/American ideas of gender in historical scholarship, see Oyewumi, Oyeronke, ‘Conceptualising gender: Eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies’, in African gender scholarship: concepts, methodologies and paradigms (Dakar, 2004), pp. 1–8Google Scholar.
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14 Pennock, Bonds of blood, p. 90.
15 The term ‘mythical history’ reflects the impossibility of extricating myth and ‘fact’ in this complex cyclical tradition: Gillespie, Susan D., The Aztec kings: the construction of rulership in Mexica history (Tucson, AZ, 1989), pp. xi–xxviiGoogle Scholar.
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17 Constraints of space make detailed deconstruction of every text's origins impossible, so I have tried to provide guidance in the footnotes for colleagues who wish to follow up on these issues. For anglophone readers’ convenience, I have referenced English translations of sources where they exist unless there is specific a reason to cite the original.
18 León-Portilla, Miguel, Bernardino de Sahagún: first anthropologist (Norman, OK, 2002)Google Scholar; de Sahagún, Bernardino, Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España, ed. Ángel María Garibay K. (Mexico City, 1999), p. 33Google Scholar.
19 Florentine codex, 1: 6: 11. Toci and Teteo innan were usually positive and benevolent figures in this complex, while Tlazolteotl (the ‘Filth Deity’) was almost wholly negative: DiCesare, Catherine R., Sweeping the way: divine transformation in the Aztec festival of Ochpaniztli (Boulder, CO, 2009)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 103–22.
20 See, for example, Chedgzoy, K., ‘Impudent women: gender and carnival in early modern culture’, Glasgow Review, 1 (1993), pp. 9–22Google Scholar; and Poska, Allyson M., Women and authority in early modern Spain: the peasants of Galicia (Oxford, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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25 Achitometl's daughter is named by just one source, which I follow for convenience: Christensen, Alex, ed., ‘History of the Mexicans as told by their paintings’, ed. and trans. Phillips, Henry Jr, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 21 (1883), p. 631Google Scholar, www.famsi.org/research/christensen/pinturas/index.html (accessed 29 May 2013).
26 Durán, History, pp. 36–9.
27 Codex Chimalpahin, society and politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Culhuacan, and other Nahua altepetl in Central Mexico: the Nahuatl and Spanish annals and accounts collected and recorded by don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, ed. and trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder (2 vols., Norman, OK, 1997), i, pp. 95–9; Crónica Mexicayotl, in Knab, T. J. and Sullivan, Thelma D. (trans.), A scattering of jades: stories, poems, and prayers of the Aztecs (New York, NY, 1994), pp. 94–7Google Scholar.
28 Bernardino de Sahagún is usually cited (Primeros memoriales (Norman, OK, 1993), fo. 251v), but none of the sources actually translate Yaocihuatl directly as ‘Woman of Discord’.
29 Elzey, ‘A hill on a land surrounded by water’, pp. 138–45.
30 Gillespie, Aztec kings, especially pp. 3–120. Figures with the same names/roles as ‘founding queens’ appear at other key moments, emphasizing their symbolic importance; e.g. the mother of Tenochtitlan's first ruler was also named Atototztli.
31 Ibid., p. 24.
32 Many alternative versions of this myth exist, including: Florentine codex, 3: 1: 1–5; Durán, History, pp. 26–8; Codex Chimalpahin, i, p. 83 (Coyolxauhqui appears here as Huitzilopochtli's mother); Tezozómoc, Crónica Mexicana, pp. 228–9; and Crónica Mexicayotl, pp. 86–7.
33 Durán, History, pp. 26–8. Durán identified this incident as the root of the practice of human sacrifice by the removal of the heart.
34 Some scholars identify Coyolxauhqui directly with Malinalxoch but it is clearer to read them as variants of a similar tradition.
35 The best introductions to this Nahuatl source are Susan Schroeder's prefaces to the 1997 editions: Codex Chimalpahin, i, pp. 3–13, ii, pp. 3–11.
36 Ibid., i, pp. 77–9.
37 Durán, History, pp. 24–5, 31–6.
38 Ibid., pp. 24–5.
39 See, for example, Codex Chimalpahin, i, pp. 77–89; Tezozomoc, Crónica Mexicana, pp. 227–9; Crónica Mexicayotl, pp. 86–93.
40 Codex Chimalpahin, i, p. 87.
41 Gillespie, Aztec kings, p. 86.
42 This interpretation is popular, but there is no conclusive evidence for Coyolxauhqui's lunar identification, although she does share traits with the lunar deity Xochiquetzal. See Milbrath, Susan, ‘Decapitated lunar goddesses in Aztec art, myth, and ritual’, Ancient Mesoamerica, 8 (1997), pp. 185–206Google Scholar. Emily Umberger convincingly squares this circle by suggesting that Coyolxauhqui, although not a lunar goddess, could represent the moon in this allegory by virtue of the fact that ‘as a loser in battle, she would have been compared to the moon by the Mexica’: ‘Events commemorated by date plaques at the Templo Mayor: further thoughts on the solar metaphor’, in Boone, Elizabeth Hill, ed., The Aztec Templo Mayor: a symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 8th and 9th October 1983 (Washington, DC, 1987), p. 428Google Scholar.
43 Cecelia Klein disagrees, seeing such concepts as ‘part of a discursive strategy that bolstered, not just the sovereignty of the state itself, but concomitantly the power and authority of men’: ‘Fighting with femininity: gender and war in Aztec Mexico’, Estudios de Culturá Náhuatl, 24 (1994), p. 245Google Scholar.
44 Schroeder, Susan, Chimalpahin and the kingdoms of Chalco (Tucson, AZ, 1991), pp. 183–5Google Scholar; Pennock, Bonds of blood, pp. 57–9.
45 Diel, Lori Boornazian, ‘Till death do us part: unconventional marriages as Aztec political strategy’, Ancient Mesoamerica, 18 (2007), p. 259CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46 Codex Xolotl, Bibibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Map 6, Amoxcalli http://amoxcalli.org.mx/laminas.php?id=001-010&act=sig&ord_lamina=001-010_15 (accessed 6 Dec. 2016); Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Obras historicas, ed. Edmundo O'Gorman (2 vols., Mexico City, 1997), i, pp. 326–7.
47 Diel, ‘Till death’, pp. 260–2.
48 Diel, Lori Boornazian, ‘Women and political power: the inclusion and exclusion of noblewomen in Aztec pictorial histories’, Res, 47 (2005), pp. 89–90Google Scholar; Diel, ‘Till death’, pp. 262–6.
49 Codex en Cruz, Amoxcalli proyecto, http://amoxcalli.org.mx/codice.php?id=015-017 (accessed 6 Dec. 2016); Ixtlilxochitl, Obras historicas, ii, pp. 135–6; Diel, ‘Till death’, pp. 266–8.
50 Pennock, Bonds of blood, pp. 124–32.
51 Codex Chimalpahin, i, pp. 137–9, ii, pp. 43–51; Durán, History, pp. 249–62; Bierhorst, John, trans. and ed., History and mythology of the Aztecs: the codex Chimalpopoca (Tucson, AZ, 1992), p. 113Google Scholar; Tezozomoc, Crónica Mexicana, pp. 387–97.
52 I am grateful to Emily Umberger for suggesting that there are ‘two types’ of Women of Discord (personal communication, 2014).
53 Codex Telleriano-Remensis (Loubat, 1901), http://www.famsi.org/research/loubat/Telleriano-Remensis/page_25r.jpg (accessed 6 Dec. 2016); Cecelia Klein, ‘Rethinking Cihuacoatl: Aztec political imagery of the conquered woman’, in Josserand and Dakin, eds., Smoke and mist, Part i, pp. 239–41. It is possible the Huitzilopochtli/Malinalxoch narrative legitimated Tenochtitlan's conquest of Malinalco by characterizing their royal line (supposedly Malinalxoch's descendants) as a ‘potential threat and challenger to the basin Aztecs’: Emily Umberger, ‘Further thoughts on the Toltec Hypothesis’ (unpublished draft, 2014).
54 Umberger, Emily, ‘The metaphorical underpinnings of Aztec history: the case of the 1473 civil war’, Ancient Mesoamerica, 18 (2007), pp. 11–29Google Scholar.
55 The Coyolxauhqui Stone is just one of several striking examples of female dismemberment and decapitation in Aztec art and archaeology. See Boone, Elizabeth H., ‘The “Coatlicues” at the Templo Mayor’, Ancient Mesoamerica, 10 (1999), pp. 189–206Google Scholar.
56 Florentine codex, 2: 30: 118–24; Brown, Betty Ann, ‘Ochpaniztli in historical perspective’, in Boone, Elizabeth Hill, ed., Ritual human sacrifice in Mesoamerica (Washington, DC, 1984), pp. 195–210Google Scholar; DiCesare, Sweeping the way.
57 Sahagún, Primeros memoriales, Part 2C, p. 62.
58 Dodds, Caroline, ‘Female dismemberment and decapitation: gendered understandings of power in Aztec ritual violence’, in Carroll, Stuart, ed., Cultures of violence: interpersonal violence in historical perspective (Basingstoke, 2007), pp. 47–63Google Scholar.
59 Florentine codex, 2: 27: 96–107.
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61 Carrasco, Davíd, City of sacrifice: the Aztec empire and the role of violence in civilization (Boston, MA, 1999), p. 83Google Scholar. Both men and women acted as ixiptla, a term usually translated as ‘impersonator’ but which actually relates to ‘skin’ or ‘covering’, presumably in reference to the deity attire. Bassett, Molly, The fate of earthly things: Aztec gods and god-bodies (Austin, TX, 2015)Google Scholar, passim.
62 Read, ‘More than earth’.
63 Florentine codex, 6: 29: 162.
64 Ibid., 10: 1: 1.
65 Ibid., 10: 1: 1–2.
66 Ibid., 10: 1: 5.
67 Codex Chimalpahin, i, pp. 77–9; Durán, History, pp. 26–8.
68 Florentine codex, 10: 5: 19–22. Only once is a nobleman criticized as ‘a sower of discord’ and this is in the context of spreading trouble by boasting of his exploits.
69 Ibid., 10: 13: 45–50.
70 For more on using huehuetlahtolli to access personal interactions, see Pennock, Caroline Dodds, ‘Insights from the ancient word: the use of colonial sources in the study of Aztec society’, in Roque, Ricardo and Wagner, Kim, eds., Engaging colonial knowledge: imperial archives in world history (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 115–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On their origins see also León-Portilla, Miguel and Galeana, Librado Silva, Huehuetlahtolli: testimonios de la antigua palabra (Mexico City, 1991), pp. 7–45Google Scholar.
71 Huehuetlahtolli were ritual discourses delivered on significant personal and public occasions. George Baudot argues that Sahagún's transcriptions are highly accurate: Utopia and history in Mexico (Niwot, CO, 1995), p. 232Google Scholar.
72 Florentine codex, 6: 19: 100.
73 Ibid., 6: 22: 122.
74 Hassig, Ross, Aztec warfare: imperial expansion and political control (Norman, OK, 1988), pp. 36–7Google Scholar.
75 Florentine codex, 6: 18: 93.
76 León-Portilla, Miguel, Aztec thought and culture (Norman, OK, 1990), pp. 124–30Google Scholar.
77 The Aztec calendar was based on a series of overlapping cycles which possessed different functions. The 260-day tonalpohualli (‘counting of days’) was used for divination. The ‘day signs’ under which an individual was born and named were believed to shape their fate and personality.
78 Florentine codex, 4: 33: 107.
79 Ibid., 4: 33: 108.
80 Clendinnen, Inga, Aztecs: an interpretation (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 149–52Google Scholar.
81 Florentine codex, 4: 33: 108–9.
82 Ibid., 2: 23: 64.
83 Malintzin's complex life and legacy, as well as the intricacies of sixteenth-century sources for women's lives, are beautifully unpicked by Townsend, Camilla, Malintzin's choices: an Indian woman in the conquest of Mexico (Albuquerque, NM, 2006)Google Scholar.
84 Lockhart, James, trans. and ed., We people here: Nahuatl accounts of the conquest of Mexico (Berkeley, CA, 1993), p. 86Google Scholar; Cypess, Sandra Messinger, La Malinche in Mexican literature: from history to myth (Austin, TX, 1991)Google Scholar.
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86 Townsend suggests ‘Malintzin could easily have been understood to be a ceremonial god impersonator for the Spaniards’ obviously powerful deity’, Townsend, Malintzin's choices, p. 78.
87 Florentine codex, 6: 19: 101.
