‘Manuscript of a Dogging’

Modern viewers cannot help but be shocked at the graphic image of violence depicted in this painting, which accordingly has been published multiple times to illustrate the cruelties of the Spanish conquest. Nevertheless, despite its frequent publication, little is known about this event or painting. Why would Cortés have carried out so brutal an execution? And why, years after the events depicted must have happened, was this particular record created? On the one hand, the answers to these questions reveal the violence of the immediate post-conquest years, as the Spaniards struggled to impose control, often in violent terms, over their newly conquered territories. On the other hand, they reveal the ambivalent role of indigenous peoples in the complex negotiations of the early colonial period, as they struggled, sometimes against their own countrymen, to assert their own positions of power under Spanish domination.

Pic 2: Spanish torture; bronze sculpture, National History Museum, Chapultepec, Mexico City

Nevertheless, other details within the work indicate that the men originally were from Cholula. The alphabetic annotations along the right side of the piece associate the first two men with a place called San Andrés, the next three men with San Pablo, and the last with Santa Maria, which were all towns contained within the Cholula city-state. A map of Cholula painted in the 1580s as a part of the city’s Relación Geográfica shows these same three cities along the right margin (pic 4). The inclusion of the Spanish conquistador, Andrés de Tapia, at the bottom of the painting provides yet another link to Cholula as Tapia held Cholula in encomienda, or as a land grant, immediately after the conquest, from 1522 until 1524.

Pic 4: The Map of Cholula

Moreover, Cholula itself was considered a highly sacred city, as suggested by its full name of Tollan-Chololan. Toward the upper right of the Cholula map, we see the place sign for Cholula, here written “Tollan Cholula” and pictured as a group of reeds growing out of swirling waters (pic 6). The word tollan means “Place of Reeds” and was a symbolic term for great and sacred cities throughout Mesoamerica. Also, Cholula had a multitude of temples and was famed as a sacred pilgrimage center. Some Spanish chroniclers even compared Cholula to ancient Rome and Mecca. It was also home to the largest pyramid built in Mesoamerica, which today has only been partially excavated and is topped by a Spanish church built during the colonial period (pic 7). Further enhancing its sacred prestige, Cholula was the key city in the cult of Quetzalcoatl, one of the most important deities in Late Post-Classic Central Mexico.

Pic 6: Glyph for the city of Cholula. Map of Cholula (detail)

The excessive brutality of this execution was also meaningful. The executions took place in Coyoacan, where many Spaniards and indigenous lords were gathered immediately after the conquest. Thus, the spectacle of a dog attacking a key religious leader would have been a dramatic enactment of Cortés’s power. Moreover, the choice of a dog as executioner would have added another level of terror, especially for the native witnesses who were highly fearful of the Spanish mastiffs, as their experience with dogs were with the small and relatively harmless Mexican dog varieties. For Spaniards, the choice of a dog to exact such a harsh punishment would also have been meaningful. The act of throwing criminals to the beasts had precedents in ancient Roman society, and Spanish legal codes were built on Roman precedents.

Pic 8: Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, folio 21r

An alphabetic annotation at the bottom of the painting provides more information on this event and its aftermath. The annotation is written in Nahuatl, and translated, it reads, “When the seven tlatoque died, then Tapia installed Temetzin as ruler. After only 160 days, Tapia came to hang him. And then don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli was made ruler, he was a citizen of Cholula. The Marques came forty-one years ago, four years later the tlatoque died.” The last sentence in the quote above provides key dates for the events depicted and for the painting of the Manuscrito. First, it tells us that Cortés arrived “forty-one years ago.” As Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519, the annotation had to have been written in 1560. The painting was surely created around the same time; the style of the work, with its use of European illusionistic devices, is typical of the mid-sixteenth century. The annotation goes on to say that the dog attacks happened four years after Cortés’s arrival, or in 1523. This explains Andrés de Tapia’s inclusion in the work, as he held Cholula in encomienda between 1522 and 1524.

Pic 10: The annotation in Náhuatl at the foot of the Map of Cholula (detail)

Ultimately, this lengthy annotation explains why don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli was made the ruler of Cholula, and I suspect that the entire painting, with its horrific image of the brutal dog attack, was different than the Codex Kingsborough in that it was not made as an indictment against the Spaniards (both Tapia and Cortés) for their brutalities, but instead for a more mundane reason, to explain how it came to be that don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli became Cholula’s ruler. Indeed, a more nuanced reading of the pictorial imagery in the painting reveals an interesting contrast between don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli and his countrymen, the victims of the brutal dog attacks.

Visual cues within the work communicate that don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli was a legitimate Christian ruler, while his countrymen were pagan rebels. For example, the indigenous regalia of the victims link them more to the pagan past than the Christian present. The men wear native sandals, decorated loincloths, and rosette neckpieces, whereas the two rulers of Cholula shown below wear plain loincloths modestly covered by long mantles.

Pic 12: Don Rodrigo Xochitototzintli and some of his countrymen. ‘Manuscript of a Dogging’ (detail)

Ultimately, the visual record communicates that the Cholulteca noblemen refused to submit to the Spaniards and their religion and, as punishment, were executed. Don Rodrigo, in contrast, had accepted the Spaniards and their religion and was appointed Cholula’s ruler by its encomendero Andrés de Tapia. Thus, don Rodrigo would have stood the most to gain through a record of these events because they established the legitimacy of his rule in a Spanish context. Moreover, the visual record suggests the culpability of the native victims, for the implication is that their deaths were instigated by their refusal to accept Christianity. Though shocking to us today, Cortés’s actions were justified according to Spanish law. The Spanish Crown and its missionaries debated the appropriate use of force in the evangelization process, and a general consensus emerged that if the indigenes refused to submit to Christianity, they could be forcibly subjugated. This legal justification is contained in the requerimiento, a document that was to be publicly read by Spanish conquerors such as Cortés to the indigenous peoples. The requerimiento demanded the indigenes hear the gospel and warned that if they refused, just war could be waged against them. Of course, the requerimiento was read in Spanish, which the natives could not have understood at this early date. Indeed, Bartolomé de Las Casas famously lamented that he did not know whether to laugh or cry at its absurdity. Nevertheless, in a Spanish legal context, the refusal of these indigenous lords to submit to evangelization would have legitimated Cortés’s attack against them, essentially marking them as rebels against the Christian faith.

Pic 14: Facade of the Casa de Montejo, Mérida, Yucatan