Insignia of Rank in the Nahua World

From the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century

Bibliographic Data

ID2819459
AuthorsSusan Kellogg (corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume95
Issue3
Pages509-511
Publication date2015-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-3088668
OpenAlexW2770358182
LanguageEN
Citations received16

Justyna Olko, an associate professor of Artes Liberales at the University of Warsaw, has written the definitive work on dress, jewelry, and all other accompanying symbols of rank in the late pre-Hispanic and early colonial Nahua eras. Building upon her earlier book, Turquoise Diadems and Staffs of Office: Elite Costume and Insignia of Power in Aztec and Early Colonial Mexico (2005), she examines a wide array of insignia of rank, by which she means “all components of elite dress and certain portable items ... such as seats, mats, staffs, and weapons” (p. 2). Olko covers a lengthy period of time and a broad swath of central Mexico that included multiple ethnic and linguistic groups (beyond those who spoke Nahuatl) but that roughly coincided with the Triple Alliance or Aztec empire.Analyzing an exhaustive array of sources that moves beyond those used by earlier scholars working on themes of Nahua clothing and accoutrements of rank, including Eduard Seler, Patricia Anawalt, and Carmen Aguilera, Olko uses textual, pictorial, and material evidence, with a heavy emphasis on Nahuatl-language codices from all over the region studied, some of these being relatively unknown. Her assembling and analyzing of such a vast array of sources is impressive. The interpretations that arise out of Olko's painstaking reconstruction of the pre- and postconquest elite apparel and descriptions and images of rank, featured in the second and third chapters of the book, are then developed into arguments about the purposes to which costuming was put and the meanings attached to the vast array of insignia used by rulers, nobles, soldiers, and bureaucratic functionaries, covered in the fourth and fifth chapters.Among the most significant arguments and historiographical contributions that Olko makes are the following. First, she shows that Mexica regal insignia have a deep connection to symbols of power dating back not just to Tula and the Tolteca but to Teotihuacan and the Classic period Maya. Second, she convincingly demonstrates varieties of dynastic ornamentation among the rulerships of a variety of places, showing how the rulers of Texcoco and the ruling houses of Tlaxcala sought to differentiate their sources and images of power from those of the Mexica. An important way that these dynasties did this was by stressing their Chichimeca origins, a third major point. Scholars typically explain the ethnic and cultural history of the late Postclassic period in central Mexico as the result of the coming together of remnant Tolteca peoples and less sophisticated hunting-and-gathering migrants, Chichimeca, from the northern reaches of Mesoamerica, whom later Postclassic Nahua groups disparaged. But Olko demonstrates that visual imagery associated with Chichimeca identity could indicate the highest levels of prestige. This phenomenon is represented especially in Texcoco- and Tlaxcala-associated codices and suggests that the binary opposition that ethnohistorians draw between civilized and uncivilized, sedentary and nomad — also questioned by earlier scholars such as Rudolph Van Zantwijk and Nigel Davies — is too simplistic and does not fully capture how Nahuas thought about ethnic identity, power, and prestige.A fourth point that Olko emphasizes is that while it is difficult to reconstruct local iconographic traditions beyond those of Texcoco and Tlaxcala for representing rank given the increasing influence of Mexica styles as the Triple Alliance domain of economic and political influence spread, it is indeed possible to find such localized visual representations. These emanate especially from areas east and south of Tenochtitlan, where political imagery illustrates forms of sociopolitical organization within the altepetl (kingdoms) of that area that differ from Tenochtitlan and regions to the west. Because evidence of the persistence of local repertoires of insignia of rank often comes from manuscripts produced in the colonial period, the fifth of Olko's arguments about the persistence of such symbolism into the colonial era finds strong support. Emblems of rulership, dynastic identity, and even military achievement continued to appear in visual representations of colonial officials and to be used in celebrations such as viceroys' entries or oaths to the king.The book concludes with a brief chapter summarizing the author's main arguments, focusing particularly on the political implications of the construction and uses of costume imagery. It will remain for other scholars to tease out the economic implications of the amounts and types of production as well as trade and tribute patterns required to produce, transport, and distribute this vast array of goods. However, the actual ending to the book is its appendix, the “Dictionary of Insignia and Accouterments,” which provides names of all items discussed, a brief description of each item's use, and a quotation about the item from a primary source. At once a reference work and analytical study, Olko's book as a whole could only be useful in highly specialized classes covering Mesoamerican themes, particularly those relating to Nahua peoples and cultures. But it will serve as the standard work on items and imagery of rank and nobility for decades to come, and both the author and the University Press of Colorado deserve plaudits for its publication

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Clothing · Colonialism · Elite · Empire · Fifteenth · Nahuatl · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Visual arts · Archaeology and Natural History · Classics · History · Latin American history and culture · Law

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