Mexicolore logoMexicolore name

Article suitable for older students

Find out more

Zelia Nuttall (1)

29th Jul 2024

Zelia Nuttall (1)

Zelia Nuttall

Leading American archaeologist and anthropologist Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall was born in 1857 to a Mexican mother, Maria Magdalena ‘Mamie’ Parrott (b. 1834 Mazatlan, Mexico, d. 1911 Tunbridge Wells, England) and an Irish father Robert Kennedy Nuttall, a physician born in San Francisco. Her grandfather – John Parrott, one of San Francisco’s richest bankers - was US consul in Mazatlan. Aged 8, Zelia’s family moved to Europe, living in England, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. With the help of private tutors, Zelia added French, Italian and German to her fluent Spanish and English. (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

It would have been at this time (late 1860s, early 1870s), according to Alfred Tozzer (1933: 475), that Zelia ‘when a child, was presented by her mother, who was born in Mexico, with a copy of Lord Kingsborough’s great work on Mexican antiquities. These volumes immediately awakened her interest, and this interest developed into a life-long quest for information on Mexico, its archaeology and its early history’. Grindle (2023: 50) suggests she was given them in the early 1880s and that ‘they travelled with her for much of her life. She was intrigued by Indigenous stories and the Nahuatl and Spanish transcriptions and explanations in their margins’.
David Szewczyk (Philadelphia Rare Books and Manuscripts) suggests the Kingsborough set may have been bought at Maggs Bros (founded 1853) or Bernard Quaritch (founded 1847), in London, writing: ‘I seriously doubt that any US bookstore would’ve stocked Kingsborough at that time. It is much more likely that the family requested a US bookstore to acquire a copy from one of the English firms. Most likely if they had it was acquired by way of Henry Stevens [a US citizen, but headquartered most of his life in London, employed inter alia by the British Museum] - he specialized in finding books such as a Kingsborough for the Lennox collection, John Carter Brown, etc. etc.’ (personal communication, 2023).

She was later to be the inspiration for D H Lawrence’s character Mrs. Norris in The Plumed Serpent. He was a regular visitor to her home, Casa Alvarado in Coyoacán, Mexico City. ‘While other children read fairy tales, Nuttall studied the exotic symbols painted in red and black inks, the strange creatures and pre-Columbian gods rendered in greens and black, headdresses topped by yellow feathers, ceramic pots lifted to the heavens and clearly filled with smoke, frothed chocolate… and other rich imagery’ (Adams 2010: 67-68).
During her second visit to Mexico between December 1884 and April 1885 with her mother, younger brother George, and daughter Nadine, and now in her mid-twenties, Zelia worked for five months in Mexico’s National Museum, and undertook her first serious archaeological study, at Teotihuacan. Her research, published in 1886, was received enthusiastically in academic circles.

That same year, Frederic W. Putnam, a leading American anthropologist, made Nuttall – who was by now married to (but then quickly separated and later divorced from) French ethnologist Alphonse Pinart - an honorary special assistant in Mexican archaeology at Harvard’s Peabody Museum - a position she accepted and maintained until she died, 47 years later (McNeill, 2018). In his annual report for 1886, Museum Curator Putnam wrote: ‘It is with pleasure that I am able to state that Mrs. Zelia Nuttall has become one of the collaborators of the Museum, with special reference to Mexican archaeology, a field in which, by family association and long residence in the country, she is able to perform thorough and important work. Familiar with the Nahuatl language, having intimate and influential friends among the Mexicans, and with an exceptional talent for linguistics and archaeology, as well as being thoroughly informed in all the early native and Spanish writings relating to Mexico and its people, Mrs. Nuttall enters the study with a preparation as remarkable as it is exceptional.’

Her career blossomed: ‘Recognition by the Peabody and the [Archaeological] Institute [of America] and… election to membership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science had paved the way for the twenty-nine-year-old Zelia Nuttall’s way to fame and acceptance in an era when women archaeologists were almost unheard of’ (Parmenter 1966: 87). She went on to become a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association, a member of the American Philosophical Society and one of the first women to represent the USA in the International Congress of Americanists (Lurie 1966: 40).

In 1885 the Women’s Anthropological Society was founded; its philosophy was the belief that as a woman an anthropologist could obtain particularly complete information (ibid: 58). This was a key date in the advance of women’s participation in early American anthropology.
Zelia played a leading role alongside Erminnie Smith, Alice Fletcher, Frances Densmore, Elsie Clews Parsons and Matilda Stevenson, thanks to whose efforts the WAS was founded (Lurie 1966: 31) It was an exciting time – ‘militant feminism [was] on the march doing battle for women’s rights in science’ (ibid: 32).

The earliest recorded anthropological paper by a woman (Erminnie Smith) before a ‘learned society’ in the USA was given at the 1879 meeting of the AAAS. In 1898 the ASW welcomed in members of the WAS and in January 1899 49 women joined. Women were also active in the American Ethnological Society.
In 1893 a joint meeting was held between the WAS and the Anthropological Society of Washington, which by 1888 had 264 members, including ‘a roster of brilliant leaders in many fields’ (Hallowell, 1960: 95), among which were numbered ‘almost every foreign anthropologist of importance, among whom were… Thomas Huxley, Major-General A. H. Pitt-Rivers, Edward B. Tylor, Alfred Chavero, Daniel Brinton, Frederic Ward Putnam…’ (ibid: 96).

First only men but within a decade women were also elected members of the ASW. ‘The popular lectures and the regular meetings of the Society attracted fairly large audiences’ (ibid: 97). At the 1893 joint WAS/ASW meeting Zelia delivered the principal address, on ‘The Mexican Calendar System’. She was introduced by Alice Fletcher, president of the women’s group (Lurie 1966: 38).

In 1886, Zelia travelled with her brother to Europe, living in Dresden, Germany. She spent the next twelve or more years searching libraries and museums throughout Europe for information on the history of Mexico.
As a result of her extensive travels, she pursued the idea of worldwide connections between civilisations. Fuelled in part by her love of Kingsborough’s Antiquities, her fascination with ancient Mexican codices lead to two of her best known legacies: the recovery – and publication of the first studies –

of the Codex Zouche-Nuttall in England and of the Codex Magliabechiano in Italy (Antonio Magliabechi was a C17 Florentine, and an insatiable book hunter, amassing 30,000 books). She visited other libraries in Paris and Madrid, finding some of the originals of the codices reproduced by Lord Kingsborough (Grindle 2023: 57). Zelia ‘brought the Codex Magliabechiano to the attention of the scholarly world in 1891 and is generally credited with discovering it the year before’ (Hill Boone, 1983: 11).
‘Frederic Putnam’s prominence as an anthropologist and museum director grew more pronounced when he was asked to lead the field as part of the World’s Columbian Exposition, to be held in Chicago in the summer of 1893.

‘As he put together the team he needed to create a proper exhibit of anthropological science for this world’s fair, he knew Zelia would be a valuable assistant. By 1892, he had known her for eight years and deeply respected her work, her determination, and her capacity to discriminate among artifacts and discern their quality and provenance. He asked her to be responsible for exhibits on ancient Mexican civilisations… In addition, he asked her to be one of five women judges of the exhibits to award medals for pathbreaking ethnological displays’ (Grindle 2023: 104).

His letter dated 29th March 1892 reads:-
’I herewith have the pleasure of appointing you as Honorary Assistant in charge of the Mexican division of the Archaeological section of Department M, of the World’s Columbian Exposition… I am relying very much on your knowledge and assistance on the whole Mexican matter’ (Correspondence Putnam to Zelia - held in Harvard University archives). Zelia Nuttall was one of six assistants ‘who worked for the department without expense to it’ (Putnam, 1897: 317).
In the 1890s she met the celebrated anthropologist Franz Boas. The two became friends at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (Adams 2010: 72) – an event which will prove pivotal to our unfolding story…

Boas and Nuttall both contributed to Department M, devoted to ethnology, archaeology, physical anthropology, history and natural history (Parmenter 1966: 88). Whilst Boas was there as an arranger of the exhibits and as a collector, ‘Nuttall was an exhibitor’ (Adams 2010: 72) and displayed ‘a colourful spread of copied ornate codex pages’ (ibid) - ‘facsimile pages of the Codex Magliabechiano, her reproduction of the de la Cruz map, charts showing her restoration of the Mexican calendar system and paintings of Mexican featherwork shields. They won her an American gold medal to set beside her Spanish one [at the Historical Exposition in Madrid in 1892]’ (Parmenter, 1966: 91; she went on to win a third gold at the Buffalo Exposition in 1901).

Beyond her codex-hunting successes, Zelia at this time had completed pioneering research on ancient Mesoamerican calendar systems. As she explained in grandiose terms in a letter to Putnam (Aug 8th 1892): ‘After repeated failures and renewed attempts I have attained the grandest result – no less than the whole search calendar system of the Ancient Grecians and Mayas etc. – it is a marvellous system based on lunar periods… the system is difficult to describe but I have made charts that make it clear as day.
’It is the only piece of work I have ever made that I am absolutely satisfied with for it proves itself right – no-one can doubt the system once having examined it… it is a permanent light and the calendar system of the Ancient Mexicans will ever be considered one of the marvels of human ingenuity.

‘No other system can be compared with it for simplicity and perfection… I can assure you that an entirely new light is thrown upon the Mexican and Maya civilisations by this discovery. I am keeping my discovery a secret until the Congress or its publication by the Museum, whichever comes first’ (Harvard Archives correspondence; emphasis added).
Putnam granted her free entry at WCE ‘for the season’; she stayed in 5031 Madison Ave., Chicago ‘5 blocks from the exposition’.

The highlight for Zelia – and a turning point in her career - was her presentation on the Mexican Calendar System at the International Congress of Anthropology, which took place at the WCE in Chicago, from Aug 28 to Sept 2nd 1893. Its meetings were all held ‘on the grounds of the World’s Columbian Exposition, so as to be within reach of the Anthropological and Ethnological collections in the Anthropological Building’ (Memoirs… 1894: vii). The Anthropological Building measured 415 by 225 feet. Over the main entrance was the inscription ‘Man and his Works’ (Putnam, 1897: 316). It was designed to be ‘the climax of the ethnological and archaeological exhibits, containing the most valuable scientific and historical collections ever brought together at a similar exposition’ (‘Document C’, p. 93).

Though the Anthropology building was some distance from the centre, ‘the outside exhibits nestled alongside it were designed to draw visitors – and then to educate them about the history of human life’ (Grindle, 2023: 112). The US consul in Merida, a Mr. Thompson, secured papier maché moulds of the Portal of Labna, and portions of the ruins of Uxmal, in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico (pic 16).
The list of over two hundred Registered Members of the ICA - 43% of whom appear to be ‘ordinary citizens who had some kind of interest in the meetings’ (Wilcox, 2016: 111) - included:-
Franz Boas, Daniel Garrison Brinton, Mrs. Stewart Culin, Frank Hamilton Cushing, Alice C. Fletcher, W.H. Holmes, Carl Lumholtz, Mrs. H. W. Magie, Otis T. Mason, Zelia Nuttall (Dresden), F. W. Putnam, Mrs. F. W. Putnam... (ibid).

Zelia’s success can be felt in the letter she subsequently wrote to her mother, the day after the Congress ended: ‘My whole week has been entirely taken up with the Congress and a splendid, interesting one it has been. … Can you believe it? I actually read my paper on the calendar myself and made an extemporary address about Mexican antiquities the same afternoon. … The paper created a great sensation. I have been besieged by reporters…’ (Harvard University Archives).
Zelia was very much the centre of interest, able to speak all the major European languages, but fascinating to those gathered about her for her ‘majestic presence, her wit, and her knowledge’ (Lurie 1966: 65).

The visual materials she presented – their whereabouts to this day unknown (Merilee Grindle thinks all her papers, drawings etc. ‘went up in smoke when her things were cleared out of Casa Alvarado in the 1930s and ‘40s’ [personal communication 18/4/24]) – were clearly hugely impressive. ‘At the international congress, Zelia Nuttall’s star shone bright. She presented her work on the Mexican calendar stone, and it was received with acclaim…’ The charts that she showed – ‘4 large and 10 small analytical tables of the Mexican Calendar System, that accompany my presentation’ (Nuttall, 1894: 4) ‘managed to make an incredibly complicated system clear’ (Grindle quotes Holmes). Daniel Brinton, congress president, called this new work ‘“epoch-making in the progress of such studies in the field of American anthropology”’ (Grindle 2023: 108).

Nearly 250 archaeologists, ethnologists, folklorists, anthropologists, antiquarians, and linguists attended the Congress over the best part of a week (ibid: 117). ‘Over sixty US newspapers reported on Zelia’s discovery and Brinton’s praise. The New York Times lauded her work, and even readers of papers in small towns… were able to learn about her breakthrough in decoding Aztec time’ (ibid: 108).
Commenting on her paper, William Holmes wrote: ‘Without the admirable and ingenious tables and diagrams presented by Mrs. Nuttall, the explanation given by her of so highly complicated a system cannot, however simple, be made plain. The paper was commented on by the president as epoch-making in the progress of such studies in the field of American anthropology…’ (ibid: 124).

Read Part Two...

Comments (0)

Zelia Nuttall (1)

Zelia Nuttall

More Aztec Inspiration