The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City

In this book, Barbara E. Mundy does a masterful job of tracing the history and development of Tenochtitlan/Mexico City from the times of the Mexica well into the Spanish colonial period, with significant insights into the current era. The book includes nearly one hundred black-and-white and, where appropriate, color images. This is a rich work that is filled with insights and significant conclusions. Quite simply, it is a tour de force.Generally speaking, the book is organized chronologically. The first three chapters focus on the Mexica occupation of the city, with the next six chapters being more closely rooted in the colonial period. The final chapter recapitulates and provides additional insights and conclusions. Yet, this facile division belies the deep complexity of the work wherein each chapter is also dense with reflections of other periods. As a result, it cannot—should not—be read in snippets, taking a chapter out of context.The book needs to be considered as a tightly integrated whole in spite of its seemingly chronological arc. Indeed, Mundy develops a theoretical basis for her study from the works of Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre. As she explains, a dichotomy exists between the city as seen from high up or depicted on a map and the lived city as experienced close up within one’s own personal space. Yet, that lived environment also is just one piece of the whole, because the experiences and the lives of those individuals also represent the city. Thus, Mundy attempts to bring the reader into a dialogue not just with the mapped city, or the city seen as lived in its streets and canals, but also with the more intangible life and emotions that run through the city. The idea of the death of Tenochtitlan is real and documented, as seen in works such as the Codex Mendoza or the Codex Aubin, where native scribes assiduously noted the passing of an era. Cortés himself wrote of the total destruction of the Mexica city only to later use it as a capital. By the end of the sixteenth century, the old moniker of Tenochtitlan, or even Mexico-Tenochtitlan, had largely disappeared. The death was complete; new life sprang from the mud, rubble, and the people who lived there.While Mundy places great emphasis on the role of water in the life of Tenochtitlan, commerce becomes more of the lifeblood of the city with the arrival of Spaniards. The natives helped to rebuild their city and continued to maintain a degree of self-governance. Moreover, they became allied with the Franciscans, who were the first missionaries to arrive in the colony, to create a new dynamic. As the Spanish directed the construction and government of the city for themselves, they nonetheless tacitly accepted many of the native place-names within the city and the region. Thus the underlying native lived presence continued under new overlords. Natives also continued to live in the city and celebrate the city. Under the watchful eye of the friars, natives continued their dances and other nonsanguine rituals, tracing and recreating the ritual life of old Tenochtitlan. Thus, nearing the century’s end, the name Tenochtitlan seldom appeared in documents. However, because of the lived experience in the city and the continuity of native presence going through their daily needs and rituals, the lived city continued. Mundy notes that while the Spaniards increasingly saw a European-styled city, with glories and wonders that rivaled Rome, the lived city of the indigenous peoples remained. Place-names continued and acted like buoys, floating on top but anchored in the environment, which itself was reclaimed from the water.This work is a wonderful example of the power of images as explained and explored by a scholar who deeply understands the cultures that created them. Mundy has taken the time to learn Nahuatl. Her early work on the relaciones geográficas has prepared her well for the explication of the use of hybrid images: executed by native tlacuilos, or scribes, but for a Spanish imperial purpose. But this is not a simple description of pretty images. Mundy has engaged in a cultural dialogue with the materials to come to a deeper understanding of their impact both on the audiences who first viewed them and on us, as modern readers, looking back at distant cultures

Archaeology · Geography · Sociology · Demography · History · Latin American history and culture

• The Codex Mendoza and Lienzo de Tlaxcala, two examples of codigophagy

  Open Access•Federico Navarrete•Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics•2023

  Add to list