XINACHTLI: Inevitably

XINACHTLI

An Indigenous Peoples Studies Educational  Program

of Cultural Empowerment and Competency

Tupac Enrique Acosta 1991

“Inevitably, cultural self-government and cultural self-determination must precede their political and economic counterparts if these latter areas are to have any substance and significance.”

The Nations Within – The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty by, Vine Deloria  Jr. and Clifford Lytle, ©1964 

CONTEXT

The destruction of the thousands of AMOXTIN that existed in the Mesoamerican centers of learning during the first phase of Spanish invasion of Abya Yala [the Americas] may perhaps never be accurately evaluated in terms of the effect on the heirs of these sources of knowledge; the autos-de-fe by Archbishop Zumarraga of the libraries of Texcoco are the most well known but were doubtless countless others that escaped notation in the colonial histories.  What is known is that every commercial and cultural center had its AMOXCALLI  and that the art of writing – TLACUILOA – was extensively instructed in the TELPOCHCALLI and CALMECAC, the two major educational institutions of the Nahuatlacah. As script, a form of writing- the complex system combined text, image, and color in a phonetic representation that required the talent of the artist and el conocimiento del sabio for it’s expressions.    To read (not interpret) the Nahuatl written language was however most nearly universal in the urban centers where public education was obligatory.    It is well to remember that the meso-american culture was predominantly urban where the centers of population followed the spiritual tradition of being ceremonial centers, each a dynamic focus of space and time.  The primordial orientation of the culture, reflected in the name of the language itself, NAHUATL, in harmony with the forces of creation.   This entailed above the balance at all levels of the cosmic duality that represented the highest level of the highest of Nahuatl philosophy – OMETEOTL.

Of the thousands of Nahuatl codices, there survive today fourteen that are given the recognition of being representatives of the traditional writing system.   Of the fourteen, only one, the Codice Borbonious, is generally accepted as being of Pre-Hispanic origin.   Coincidentally this codice is also the only one that is attributed specifically to the MEXICA or AZTECA pueblo.  The rest are for the most part documents solicited by the Spanish authorities, both civil and ecclesiastic, for the purpose of gathering more information on the culture they were subjugating.  One of the most extensive sources of the writing tradition comes from the mandate of the Spanish Crown for maps of the dominions in the Vice-Royalty of New Spain. 

It fell to the TLACUILO to supply the maps and they did so using, the surviving tradition of the ALTEPEAMATL, el libro del pueblo as well as name-portraits of the founders and the TEKW’UTLI in authority.  Under the law of La Reforme Agraria in Mexico, these ALTEPEAMATL have been recognized as valid legal documents securing land title for indigenous pueblos, with the condition that they be readable.   

Besides the codices, there are other examples of the writing tradition that take their names from the media on which they are presented, such as lienzos, rollos, tableau, etc.  Finally, there are murals, sculptures, ceramics, and the inscriptions on stone.

The negation of the existence of a written convention for Nahuatl began with the first arriving Spaniards.  Although the initial accounts of their encounter with the Meso- American civilization were full admiration, however, the Spaniards quickly reversed themselves and began to negate all positive aspects of the culture.  It became necessary in order to impose the colonial superstructure to diminish the civilization, culture, and language of the indigena to a savage and unenlightened status.   

The denial of the science and art of the Nahuatl script as an instrument of human literature served the immediate purpose of forcing all official, legal transaction to be conducted in the European scheme, with Latin Characters.  This demeaning approach within of the Euro-centric schools of anthropology and linguistics has preserved the bias at the highest levels of academia.  It has taught that the criteria for recognizing a written language is that the symbolic elements cannot have a representation outside of the phonetic, a definition that suits the Indo-European languages and relegates all others to an inferior status.  As a direct consequence, the history, systems of knowledge, and languages or indigenous Mexico are referenced as dialects only.

Furthermore, this prejudice has shielded the continued colonization of the continent from impartial intellectual evaluation, denying in precept the existence of the surviving indigenous civilization except, in terms of the nation states currently enjoying international recognition.

Nearly five hundred years after the invasion by Spain, the Indigenous Peoples of Anahuac Mexico still suffer the imposition of a European-American Psychology of domination upon the national identity. 

Spain imposed a Spanish Only policy in the Vice-Royalty of New Spain, which resulted in the suppression of the continuity of development, in intellectual terms, of the indigenous cultures. The criminalization and stigmatization of  a Peoples’ aboriginal form of expression as a deliberate policy results in the psychological genocide of the succeeding generations.  The success of the policy is reinforced by the other levels of genocide: physical, cultural, and political -  but  the pogrom of psychological genocide is the most pervasive of sciences and necessarily so.

South of the Rio Bravo, the European allegiances  (Hispanic, Latino, Portuguese, etc,)  are a numerical minority and to retain control over the predominantly indigenous population of Mexico overt colonization is not viable.  Instead, the concept is to control the Mexican allegiance by ursurping the symbolism and nationality of the ancient indigenous political confederacies of Mexico (Aguila y Nopal, Piedra y Agua, TENOCHTITLAN) thereby subverting the liberation of the Nican Tlacah, Indigenous Peoples of Mexico Profundo in an age of DECOLONIZATION.

Yet MEXICAYOTL has endured.  Within la Republica Mexicana the Mexican language is the mother tongue of over two million and in AZTLAN a new generation –el XICANO – has revived the consciousness of our ancient indigenous identity.  This consciencia is not a romantic idealization, but a process born of the relationship and historical struggle for liberation with the surviving indigenous nations that form the family of Uto-Aztecan languages in the territory.

However, to escape the parameters of the European intellect and participate in the regeneration of our indigenous destiny, the path to communication and thus confederacy with the other nations of Aztlan is through the language.  More profoundly, in an indigenous context not limited to anthroprocentric conceptions of society, communication processes of harmonization of the people with the powers of nature and the cosmos requires the ceremonial and non-verbal  (movement-imagery) aspects of the culture.  These ceremonials and their caretakers are the remaining bases of resistance to the total psychological conquest of the people.  Their survival over 500 years of European-American domination is a testament to the enduring values of the Nahuatl culture.

“WE AS INDIGENOUS PEOPLES KNOW THAT THE DEFENSE OF OUR TRADITIONS, BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE ARE A CENTRAL PART OF THE STRUGGLE FOR OUT DEFINITE SOCIAL LIBERATION AS A PEOPLE.  UNFORTUNATELY , THOSE THAT OPPRESS AND EXPLOIT US, IN WHICHEVER COUNTRY WE ARE, ALSO KNOW THIS.  IN THAT SENSE, AND ENORMOUS INSTITUTIONAL BUREAUCRACY HAS BEEN CREATED THAT SEEKS TO SUPPRESS OUR VALUES IN ORDER TO SUBSTITUTE THEM WITH OTHERS THAT CORRESPOND TO EACH GOVERNMENT.

IN GENERAL OUR CULTURE IS RESPECTFUL OF THE EARTH AND OF NATURE. WE FEEL WE ARE A PART OF THE EARTH AND IN HARMONY WITH HER.  BASED ON THIS FUNDAMENTAL BELIEF, WE HAVE DEVLOPED A COSMOVISION, WHICH EMPHASIZES THE HARMONIOUS AND COMMUNAL EXISTENCE BETWEEN MAN AND OUR NATURAL SURROUNDINGS.  OUR INDIVIDUAL DESTINIES ARE IN UNION WITH ALL LIFE, INCLUDING ELEMENTS THAT ARE CONSIDERED INERT BY WESTERN CULTURE. THAT IS WHY WE SHOULD NOT ABRUPTLY BREAK FROM OUR ENVIRONMENT AND THE CREATION OF OUR SYMBOLS, WHICH WE REGARD WITH REVERANCE AS THEY ENRICH OUR DAILY LIVES.  THIS IS OUR TRUE SPIRITUALITY, WHICH IS AT THE BASE OF OUR CULTURE. . . . . .”

From a report written for the 1990 Continental

Conference on the 500 Years of Indian Resistance attended

By 120 representatives of Indigenous Nations from

Throughout the hemisphere –Commission of Culture,

Religion and Education.  Quito, Ecuador - July, 1990

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