2nd London Study Day and Workshop on Nahuatl

‘Brilliance’ was a title carefully chosen by Professor Whittaker to underline his aim of demonstrating the power, resilience, versatility, breadth of expression, eloquence and sheer creativity of the ‘Aztec’ writing system - a far cry from the image it has suffered under for generations of being nothing more than simple ‘picture-writing’. There are often, he showed us most vividly, several subtle layers of meaning to be discovered within it, and plenty of fun to be had exploring it. Through his witty and infectious sense of humour we were given a hint of the capacity of the Mexica tlacuilo (scribe) to indulge in light-hearted amusement while tackling serious subject matter...

Pic 1: Gordon Whittaker explains a traditional ‘flowery’ Nahuatl expression of friendship

In the precious few Mexica manuscripts that still survive, it’s common to find lists of Aztec names - of people and places. From these we know that Nahua names were commonly written as sentences, such as Tepalecoc (‘He got there with somebody’s help’!) - echoed in the way we name a flower ‘Forget-me-not’. Incidentally, this hints at the possibility - even if we don’t have extant examples - that the Mexica wrote many things down in sentence form, not just names. But how ARE they written? Using (hiero)glyphs, typically ‘attached’ to the named individual via a short black string/line (pic 3). ‘Thanks’ (some are dodgy!) to the Spanish glosses added to the Codex Mendoza (a veritable Rosetta Stone for Aztec books) we’re given the reading of these names. Yet even in ‘simple’ examples - such as the name of one of the ten Mexica leaders who founded Tenochtitlan, Xiuhcaque (‘Person Shod with Turquoise-Coloured Sandals’ or ‘Blue Shoes’ for short - pic 3), we’re presented with a vivid example of how crucial colour is in the Aztec writing system: without it, half of the meaning is immediately lost!

Pic 3: Xiuhcaque, one of the founders of Tenochtitlan; Codex Mendoza, fol. 2r (detail)

Professor Whittaker continued with a detailed and fascinating look at a single page from the Tetzcocan Codex Xolotl, part of a set of manuscripts dating probably from the 1540s that was studied by the often maligned 16th-century scholar Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl. His interpretations were included in the earliest known versions of his works (some of which are in his own hand) - important primary sources that were part of a collection that for many years was held by the (British & Foreign) Bible Society here in England and which ALMOST ended up being sold at auction last spring. Thankfully these valuable works were bought by the Mexican government, last summer, to rightful acclaim. Thankfully, too, Whittaker was able to make an extensive study of the documents before they were threatened with being sold off to the highest bidder. We all now benefit from his expert research...

Pic 5: Studying page 3 of the Codex Xolotl

After a quick sprint over the road during lunch to see the Mexico Gallery in the British Museum, we were thrown into the thick of it, tasked with coming up with English renditions of a set of Nahuatl poems from Momozco Malacachtepec in the Milpa Alta district of greater Mexico City. Despite being given handy vocabularies and plenty of generous guidance from GW, it was, if we’re honest, a bit of a struggle, but a pleasurable one at that. We gained valuable insights into the structure and tradition of Nahuatl itself - to give just one example, ‘a Nahuatl verb is a sentence in itself’, and the key element to look for in coaxing out the meaning of any Nahuatl passage.
The poetic force (maybe we should call this ‘flower power’?) of Nahuatl imagery came across not least in GW’s anecdotal illustration of traditional Nahuatl greetings: passable but perhaps least authentic might be Cualli tonalli (a copy of Buenos días); almost equally unoriginal could be Quen tica (‘how are you?’); tapping a little more into mexicayotl (‘mexicanness’) would be Quen(in) timotlathuilti (‘how has it dawned for you?’). But by far the most elaborately eloquent, and creatively courteous, would be something like Moquetzalizquixochitzetzeloa in icniuhyotl (see pic 1) - ‘Friendship is like a gentle rain of beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers’). Hardly street lingo, but highly cultured. Cool!

Pic 7: Gordon guides Graciela to her roots in the Codex Xolotl...