Zompist Bboard Again

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:37 pm Just to nitpick a little further, Spanish chronicles of the Conquest have rivals of the Mexica use 'Colhua' more or less interchangably with 'Colhua' (admittedly, I don't think the Spaniards were very sensitive to nuance).

Um… aren’t those ‘interchangable’ words supposed to be different to each other? You’ve written ‘Colhua’ twice.

The tzitzimime are cosmic horrors depicted as skeletal women. They're also compared to spiders, because they sort of hang in the night sky, upside down, waiting for a chance to fall to Earth, head first, and devour all of mankind. This could happen at the end of the year, or at the end of a 52-year period, or during solar eclipses. It was also believed that at those times, they could possess pregnant women and unborn children -- more on this later, but the Mexica viewed childbirth with perhaps a little too much religious awe.

Lovely image. (Mind you, I didn’t know there were any spiders in Mexico; I thought all the nasty ones had emigrated here.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 8:34 pm Um… aren’t those ‘interchangable’ words supposed to be different to each other? You’ve written ‘Colhua’ twice

Ah, sorry about the typo. I fixed my post.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Sep 05, 2020 2:37 pmJust to nitpick a little further, Spanish chronicles of the Conquest have rivals of the Mexica use 'Colhua' more or less interchangeably with 'Mexica' (admittedly, I don't think the Spaniards were very sensitive to nuance).

Oh right, I forgot about that.

So, Mesoamericans seem to have known very little about politics beyond their home polity and its close neighbors. The Mexica thought that Tlaxcala was a unitary kingdom ruled by a "King of Tlaxcala", when in reality Tlaxcala was a group of four kingdoms, each with its own king; conversely, the Tlaxcalans thought the Mexica were Tepanecs. And people on the edges of the empire and beyond seem to have thought that the capital was Colhuacan instead of Tenochtitlan, or that Colhuacan and Tenochtitlan were the same place. So when the conquistadors first arrived, they heard the name "Culhua" or "Culhuacan" before they heard "Tenochtitlan".

Here it is in the Annals of the Kaqchikels:

Then the lord named Lajuj No'j became ruler; he was the first son of the lord Kab'lajuj Tijax. The lords Jun Iq' and Lajuj No'j received the Yaki' [Nahuas], the people of Culuvacan, as guests. On 1 Toj the Yaki' arrived, the ambassadors of the lord Modeczumatzin, the lord of the people of Mexihcu. And this truly we saw, when, indeed, the Yaki', the people of Culuvacan, arrived. There were many Yaki' who arrived long ago, my sons, while our grandfathers Jun Iq' and Lajuj No'j were ruling.

'Mexitin' is mostly used in mythology, I believe?

"Mexitin" was their name before Mexico was founded, and is sometimes used after its founding as well.

vlad wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 3:40 am Here it is in the Annals of the Kaqchikels:

Cool! I suppose yaki' is cognate to Yaqui?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 4:36 am

vlad wrote: ↑Sun Sep 06, 2020 3:40 am Here it is in the Annals of the Kaqchikels:

Cool! I suppose yaki' is cognate to [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui]Yaqui]/url]?

I think it's probably a coincidence. But who knows.

Institutions and society.

Kings and other lofty figures
The Mexica state was headed by the (huey) tlatoani, the (Great) Speaker. Myself, I like to translate it as 'king' (because that's what he was), but he's often called a 'Speaker' or 'Revered Speaker', or 'emperor', or simply 'tlatoani'.

For amateurs of American languages, tlatoani or rather tlahtoāni is a verb form, the third person singular habitual of ihtoā, 'say'. An excessively literal translation would be 'he habitually says things'. In other words, he's the one giving the orders.

His second-in-command was called the cihuacoatl ([siwa:ˈko.waːt͡ɬ]), literally, 'Female Snake', named after the goddess Cihuacoatl. The cihuacoatl was a kind of co-ruler, a very powerful figure substituting for the king when he was otherwise engaged; he tended to focus more on internal affairs whereas the king focused on foreign policy.
The office of cihuacoatl was either a Mexica innovation, or a very minor position in other cities. The first cihuacoatl of the Mexica (the first we know about, in any case) was Tlacaelel, the half-brother of Moctezuma I (not the one you know about, but his illustrious grandfather). A formidable figure, the creator of many institutions, he lived to approximately 90 and served three successive kings.

Immediately below were the tlacochcalcatl 'the man from the house of darts', tlaccatecatl ('commander of warriors') and two other officials. Those four high-ranking officials were basically general officers. They served as general staff, and a bit more than that: candidate to the royal succession had to hold one of these four offices.

The king was advised by his regular staff, and also by the Tlatocan ('speaking place'), the royal council to which belonged the most prominent officials including the high priests. Initally elected, council members were either co-opted or named by the king. The Tlatocan had to be consulted before all important decisions, and could veto royal decisions up to three times. (If a proposal was rejected a fourth time, the king could do as he pleased.)

(In Texcoco, by contrast, the king was assisted by four councils: the War Council, the Law Council, the Treasury Council and the Music Council)

Succession

Kingship was hereditary, but it didn't necessarily pass from father to son. In fact, often enough, the heir was a brother or nephew.
The king was, in fact, elected (for life) within the descendants of former kings. As kings practiced polygamy, there was no shortage of candidates: to take just one example, Moctezuma II's father, Axayacatl, had some fifty children by wives and concubines, and he was only 31 when he died.

Kings were elected by what I'd call the stakeholders in the empire: the highest officials, the cihuacoatl, the kings of Texcoco and Tlacopan, high-ranking priests, representatives for the military and city districts. (Supposedly the process was more democratic in earlier times, when kings were elected by the entire military.)
The future king had to be on the four-members 'general staff' so in effect, the king designated his heir by granting him the title of tlacochcalcatl or tlaccatecatl.
So the election was for show, pretty much, although the cihuacoatl Tlacaelel and Nezahualcoyotl, king of Texcoco and half-legendary figure were instrumental in choosing the Mexica king during their lifetime.

We have an idea of what was expected of the king: to act in a noble and humble fashion, to protect the poor and the weak, to be a competent poet, and, of course, to be strong militarily and expand the alliance. More pragmatically, he had to be old enough to have distinguished himself in battle, but not so old that his reign would risk being cut short.
Before and after the election, he spent much time in prayer, fasted, and offered his blood in sacrifice to the gods. Insigns of royalty included a turquoise diadem and a jade labret piercing. Finally, the succession wasn't quite complete until the new king had won a military campaign. (Moctezuma suppressed rebellions in the Oaxaca valley).

As we've seen, the king was held in a high standard. We don't quite know what happened to Tizoc, the one king to fall short of these standards, but he was probably assassinated. (A high priest asked the god Tezcatlipoca to make him die, citing his drunkenness, stupidity, and his refusal to take advice. It should be noted Tizoc was the only king not to make any significant conquests).

The same principle of succession within a dynasty applied to the cihuacoatl: they were chosen among the descendants of Tlacaelel.

The nobility
As was common in Mesoamerica, the Mexica enforced a sharp distinction between the nobles and the commoners. The nobles, or pipiltin (sing pilli < 'children').
They had quite a few privileges, such having their children educated in a calmecac (a religious college), entering the imperial palace, having two-story houses, owning property. They were entitled to a share of the tribute. They, themselves had to pay tribute to the emperor (a fact that took centuries to discover: when asked about customs by their new Spanish rulers, they had naturally insisted that they had never paid taxes).
Until Moctezuma II, there was an element of meritocracy in Mexica society, as commoners could be elevated to the nobility, or serve as imperial officials. Moctezuma II eliminated most of his predecessors' civil servants, and decreed that only nobles could serve as officials from then on.

The military
The military included, in theory, most of the male population. The ideal Mexica, much like the ideal Roman, was a farmer and a soldier. It's not very clear (to me, at least) how many actually served; it's likely the Mexica never mobilized the entire population once they became an imperial power.
Young soldiers grew a long lock of hair, which would be cut off when they caught their first prisoner. Catching a set number of prisoners allowed entry in one of the military orders. Eagles and Jaguars were honorary nobles, at least until Moctezuma II abolished the orders (or restricted them to the hereditary nobility).
In any case, the family of a mobilized soldier, while waiting for his safe return, abstained from washing, fasted and drew their own blood. Dying on the battlefield earned a soldier a choice spot in the afterlife, accompanying the morning sun, and spending the rest of the time as hummingbirds (or may reincarnated as hummingbirds after four years; accounts differ). The dead were mourned by their widows and families for eighty days, with fasting and mortification.

There's a lesson for conworlders here, I think: the faceless mook of the Evil Empire and the Proud Warrior Race Guy (to use TV Tropes, erm, tropes) probably has a tidy little farm back home, where he grows the flowers he loves so much. His loved ones are anxiously awaiting his return, and will long mourn him if he doesn't come back. Maybe he aspires to become a carefree hummingbird, feeding from the nectar of pretty flowers.

Traders
The pochteca were long distance traders, a very lucrative profession. Pochteca were allowed to get extremely rich, on the condition that they do not flout their wealth: it would have been unseemly to have mere merchants appear wealthy: riches and glory had to be gained on the battlefield. There was a fine line between a trading expedition and a military expedition: that sort of long distance trade was extremely dangerous. Besides, pochteca practiced a kind of shadow diplomacy, they were key to the empire's 'soft power', and often served as spies. Attacking a Mexica trading expedition was grounds for war and indeed, one of the most commonly used pretexts.
Kings, naturally, sought good relations with the pochteca. Moctezuma II, unyielding, strict, and an annoying killjoy in most respects scolded them for flouting their wealth too much, but coated the reprimand with reassurances that he loved them, and that they were his brothers.
Much of their wealth was spent in incredible banquets, where successful traders spared no expense in impressing their fellows and sometimes a pochtecatl had to sell himself to slavery after hosting too lavish a party.
In other words, they held potlatches. (Generally speaking, holding a potlatch was what a Mexica did when he met with success.)

These parties were held discreetly behind closed doors, of course, but nobles, officials, even the king weren't above attending them.

The pochteca had to pay tribute, but were otherwise exempt from military and corvée labor duty. Pocheteca inherited their position from their fathers.

Craftsmen

Craftsmen, at least those in the most prestigious trades, were called Tolteca, 'Toltecs', the name of an earlier culture, which we could translate as 'civilized'. There were somehow apart from the rest of Mexica society; many of them came from other cities, and several 'corporations' were headquarted at the Toltec city of Cholula, others were associated with Xochimilco. The feather workers believed themselves to be the oldest inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico.

Commoners
The commoners or macehualtin had to pay tribute and to provide corvee labor on public works; and as we've seen they also owed military services. In exchange, they would receive gifts from lords and kings on special occasion, and the king would distribute food in bad years.

Tlalmai

The tlalmai 'earth-hands' (that is to say, farm hands) were commoners owing duty to a noble, not unlike serfs. Their origin is obscure.

Slaves

The tlatlacotin were slaves, or indentured servants. They were, on the whole, better treated than in other pre-modern civilizations. You see, the most powerful and most unpredictable god Tezcatlipoca sometimes liked to side with the underdog for shits and giggles. So Tezcatlipoca was the protector of slaves, his 'beloved sons'. And you don't want to anger Tezcatlipoca.
Only disobedient slaves could be sold; after being resold three times they could be bought for human sacrifices.
People became slaves as a punishment, others sold themselves or their children into slavery. The children of slaves were born free.

Priests

The Mexica certainly had no shortage of priests: by the time of the Conquest, one Tenocha male out of five was a priest. In spite of this, Tenochtitlan was not a theocracy. The king and military were firmly in charge, and the priests were civil servants. (They had a role in electing the emperor, and there's of course that strange business with Tizoc).
In the remote countryside, the priesthood was somehow confused with sorcerers, healers, nanahualtin (shapeshifters who can transform into dogs, jaguars or, for the unlucky ones, turkeys) and other occultists. In the city, there was a hierarchy of 'parish priests' (often working part-time), novices and priests. The most common title was tlamacazqui 'giver, someone who offers'. They were often called papahuaque 'hairy ones' on account of their long hair. The conquistadors understood this as 'papas', 'Popes'.
The top ranking priests were the Quetzalcoatl Totec tlamacazqui, 'Feathered Serpent priest of Our Lord', the high priest of Huitzilopochtli and the Quetzalcoatl Tlaloc tlamacazqui, 'Feathered Serpend priest of Tlaloc' the high priest of Tlaloc They lived an ascetic life, with frequent fasts, mortifications and penances. The clergy was celibate (and breaking that rule carried the death penalty) except for the 'part time priests', who marely had to fast and abstain from sex while they were serving, and perhaps the high priests. They could leave the priesthood at any time to marry.
There were priestesses, too, who took on, pretty much, the role of nuns. Usually, they took up the priesthood while waiting for marriage.

Their appearance was quite disturbing, part-horrific, part-emo, to the point that I have to swear solemnly that I am not making this up. Due to the frequent fasts and penances, they were skeletal in appearance, with long dirty hair, covered in blood (not always their own), generally dirty (penances meant they almost never could get a bath), and "painted" themselves black, with dirt or with rubber. A tongue piercing was part of their attire.
(*sigh* I'd never get away with anything so caricatural for my own conworld)
Anyone could become a priest, it was perhaps the only profession judged on aptitude alone (For the lowest ranks, I mean. I suppose the high priests had political connections). Among their duties, they also taught in the calmecac.

That was a bit longer than expected, and I'm not done yet.
Next time, I'll talk about education (spoilers: it was pretty nasty). Other horrors to come: the Mexica weren't just cannibals, they were also socialists and believed in common ownership of the means of production. Did their pagan lawlessness know no limits?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:56 am We have an idea of what was expected of the king: to act in a noble and humble fashion, to protect the poor and the weak, to be a competent poet, and, of course, to be strong militarily and expand the alliance. More pragmatically, he had to be old enough to have distinguished himself in battle, but not so old that his reign would risk being cut short.

I find it really interesting that you say this, because I’ve read at least one article about the Aztec which claims the exact opposite. To quote from http://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/ ... ought.html (which in turn quotes the Florentine Codex):

Xavier Marquez wrote:

Those early and anxious exhortations to benevolent behaviour [after the election of the tlatoani] were necessary, ‘for it was said when we replaced one, when we selected someone … he was already our lord, our executioner and our enemy.’

It’s an arresting thought: “he was already our lord, our executioner, and our enemy.” (Clendinnen comments on the “desolate cadence” of these words). The ruler is not understood by the Mexica as normally benevolent though potentially dangerous; he is the enemy, and yet as the enemy he is indispensable. There is something profoundly alien in this thought, with its unsettling understanding of “legitimacy,” something I do not find anywhere in the classical Western tradition of political thought.

…

The entire address to the ruler in this section of the Florentine Codex does contain a number of admonitions to behave well, yet it insists that nothing the ruler does will be sufficient to escape Tezcatlipoca’s malice; good behavior is no guarantee of divine favour:

Perhaps thou canst for a time support the governed … [But] [t]hou wilt become as smut, and he [Tezcatlipoca] will send you into the vegetation, into the forest. And he will cast thee, push thee, as is said, into the excrement, into the refuse … In thy time there will be disunity, quarreling in thy city. No more wilt thou be esteemed; no more wilt thou be regarded. … And soon it is all for thee; the lord of the near, of the nigh, will destroy thee, will hide thee, will trample thee underfoot.

This seems somewhat contradictory to what you say: if the tlatoani is conceived as a malicious enemy, then why do you say that there was an expectation that he would behave kindly and humbly towards his citizens? (Or, on the other hand, is the blog post simply wrong?)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:56 am His second-in-command was called the cihuacoatl ([siwa:ˈko.waːt͡ɬ]), literally, 'Female Snake', named after the goddess Cihuacoatl.

An orthographical question: does ⟨c⟩ correspond to /k/ or /s/? (If the orthography is standardised at all, that is.)

(Oh, and by the way, I really appreciate the IPA transcription; it’s much easier to read these posts when I know how I’m supposed to say these words!)

(If a proposal was rejected a fourth time, the king could do as he pleased.)

How often did this happen?

(In Texcoco, by contrast, the king was assisted by four councils: the War Council, the Law Council, the Treasury Council and the Music Council)

The first three of those are expected — but what on Earth would a Music Council do?

(Actually, now that I think about it, what did Mesoamerican music sound like anyway?)

Eagles and Jaguars

What are these? I don’t believe you’ve covered them yet.

Next time, I'll talk about education (spoilers: it was pretty nasty).

But has premodern education ever been anything other than nasty?

Other horrors to come: the Mexica weren't just cannibals, they were also socialists and believed in common ownership of the means of production. Did their pagan lawlessness know no limits?

*gasp* Oh, the horror!!!!!

Xavier Marquez wrote:

Those early and anxious exhortations to benevolent behaviour [after the election of the tlatoani] were necessary, ‘for it was said when we replaced one, when we selected someone … he was already our lord, our executioner and our enemy.’

It’s an arresting thought: “he was already our lord, our executioner, and our enemy.” (Clendinnen comments on the “desolate cadence” of these words). The ruler is not understood by the Mexica as normally benevolent though potentially dangerous; he is the enemy, and yet as the enemy he is indispensable. There is something profoundly alien in this thought, with its unsettling understanding of “legitimacy,” something I do not find anywhere in the classical Western tradition of political thought.

Has Marquez looked at, say, any actual Western monarchy?

Whether it's the various rulers in Herodotus, or the Roman Emperors, or the civil wars and religious persecutions of the English kings, kings were sociopaths, and expected to act as such. They had the power of execution, sometimes the sole such power, and recognized no power greater than their own. The gods, maybe, but no king was held back by religion from what they really wanted to do; more realistically, the gods were always claimed to support and underline the kings' absolute power.

The othering attitude here bothers me. This is not "profoundly alien" to Western monarchy; it's the same thing, just more honestly expressed.

Now, you can compare monarchies, to some extent-- Trigger has a chapter on this. E.g. he concludes that the Akkadian rulers were the least absolute of the rulers in his book, notably because they didn't claim that their kings were literally gods. (Usually. A few did.) And Western monarchies are arguably influenced by Middle Eastern models, so that seems reasonable to us. But the difference between "the king can do as he likes because he is a god" and "the king can do as he likes because he is the chosen one of the god" is, in practice, not very big.

(The Bible has some very pointed criticisms of monarchy. But it was written by exiles whose kings were gone and had completely failed. And anyway, the impact on the behavior of Christian kings was minimal, if present at all.)

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 10:21 pm The othering attitude here bothers me. This is not "profoundly alien" to Western monarchy; it's the same thing, just more honestly expressed.

I think the ‘honestly expressed’ thing is really the most important part of Marquez’s argument here. Yes, Western subjects have never really expected their kings to behave well. But in Western political thought, there has always been some pretence that the king has a right to be there and has a duty to behave well towards his subjects, even if the king really is a paranoid schemer who cares only for himself (and his family, if they’re lucky). The Mexica by contrast don’t seem to need such a pretence: they’re perfectly fine with admitting that the king will always be their enemy.

Or, to put it another way: in Western thought, the realisation that ‘the king is our enemy’ is always followed up by ‘in that case, he’s not doing his job, so we don’t need him, so we should get rid of him’. In Mexica thought, ‘the king is our enemy’ is followed by ‘of course he is, that’s exactly what we’d expect of him’.

(Note: I have no idea whether this argument is right or wrong; I’m just summarising Marquez’s argument as I understand it.)

Now, you can compare monarchies, to some extent-- Trigger has a chapter on this. E.g. he concludes that the Akkadian rulers were the least absolute of the rulers in his book, notably because they didn't claim that their kings were literally gods. (Usually. A few did.) And Western monarchies are arguably influenced by Middle Eastern models, so that seems reasonable to us. But the difference between "the king can do as he likes because he is a god" and "the king can do as he likes because he is the chosen one of the god" is, in practice, not very big.

Um, maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not quite sure how this is relevant?

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 12:08 am But in Western political thought, there has always been some pretence that the king has a right to be there and has a duty to behave well towards his subjects, even if the king really is a paranoid schemer who cares only for himself (and his family, if they’re lucky).

What I'm objecting to is the facile comparison of Western and Mexica values, with the implication that the latter are "profoundly alien". I'm sure no one including Marquez is trying to be colonialist, but we need to try hard not to be. Making other cultures seem weird is not a good attitude.

Absolute monarchy is one form of Western political thought, but not even a consensus. Just in Western Europe, republics were found in Netherlands in 1581 and England in 1649. Rome and Greece both had republican traditions. The idea that a king could be a tyrant was not at all alien to Europeans; arguably it was a lot clearer when absolute monarchy was common. And again, Christians of any era could have read 1 Samuel 8, which is about as strong a condemnation of monarchy as this Mexica dude's.

On the Mexica side, Ares Land has already expressed the idea that they did expect kings to be benevolent (at least, as much as anyone expects kings to be).

(I also note, it's fine I think to gawk a bit at some of the oddities of Mesoamerican culture... did you catch the parts about tongue mutilation? That's kind of weird! But I think we always have to remember that Western culture has very weird things too. Self-mortification has a big skin-crawling history in Europe too.)

Now, you can compare monarchies, to some extent-- Trigger has a chapter on this. E.g. he concludes that the Akkadian rulers were the least absolute of the rulers in his book, notably because they didn't claim that their kings were literally gods. (Usually. A few did.) And Western monarchies are arguably influenced by Middle Eastern models, so that seems reasonable to us. But the difference between "the king can do as he likes because he is a god" and "the king can do as he likes because he is the chosen one of the god" is, in practice, not very big.

Um, maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not quite sure how this is relevant?

Well, looking at history, you might well conclude AKAB (all kings are bastards). Monarchy tends to be horrible all over in very predictable ways. But I wanted to emphasize that we can compare monarchies, and even look for reasons why kings' power may be limited by various factors.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:53 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 12:08 am But in Western political thought, there has always been some pretence that the king has a right to be there and has a duty to behave well towards his subjects, even if the king really is a paranoid schemer who cares only for himself (and his family, if they’re lucky).

What I'm objecting to is the facile comparison of Western and Mexica values, with the implication that the latter are "profoundly alien". I'm sure no one including Marquez is trying to be colonialist, but we need to try hard not to be. Making other cultures seem weird is not a good attitude.

I don’t see this as ‘making other cultures seem weird’ at all. Indeed, I’d take an even more emphatic point of view: most cultures have at least one thing about them which is ‘profoundly alien’ from the perspective of one’s native culture, and we shouldn’t attempt to minimise that at all. Rather we should accept the differences, and attempt to understand them from their perspective rather than ours (which is exactly what this thread is attempting to do).

Absolute monarchy is one form of Western political thought, but not even a consensus. Just in Western Europe, republics were found in Netherlands in 1581 and England in 1649. Rome and Greece both had republican traditions. The idea that a king could be a tyrant was not at all alien to Europeans; arguably it was a lot clearer when absolute monarchy was common. And again, Christians of any era could have read 1 Samuel 8, which is about as strong a condemnation of monarchy as this Mexica dude's.

Let me repeat what I said before: as far as I’m aware, that quote from the Florentine Codex isn’t meant as a ‘condemnation of monarchy’ at all! It certainly isn’t weird for the Mexica to think that ‘the king is our enemy’… what is weird is to see this as monarchy just doing its job, rather than as a condemnation of the whole institution. (By contrast, in Europe, the same attitude is indeed a condemnation of the monarchy, as shown by the repeated attempts at republics etc.)

On the Mexica side, Ares Land has already expressed the idea that they did expect kings to be benevolent (at least, as much as anyone expects kings to be).

And, going back to my original question, this is exactly what confused me! Ares Land is saying one thing, but this blog post seems to be saying nearly the opposite — so one of them has to be wrong. (I have a hunch that it’s the blog post that’s wrong, but I can’t see any flaws in their argument.)

(I also note, it's fine I think to gawk a bit at some of the oddities of Mesoamerican culture... did you catch the parts about tongue mutilation? That's kind of weird! But I think we always have to remember that Western culture has very weird things too. Self-mortification has a big skin-crawling history in Europe too.)

Oh, yes, I quite agree with that. Pre-Christian Europe (and, as you say, quite a bit of post-Christian Europe as well) is nearly as weird as the Mexica.

Now, you can compare monarchies, to some extent-- Trigger has a chapter on this. E.g. he concludes that the Akkadian rulers were the least absolute of the rulers in his book, notably because they didn't claim that their kings were literally gods. (Usually. A few did.) And Western monarchies are arguably influenced by Middle Eastern models, so that seems reasonable to us. But the difference between "the king can do as he likes because he is a god" and "the king can do as he likes because he is the chosen one of the god" is, in practice, not very big.

Um, maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not quite sure how this is relevant?

Well, looking at history, you might well conclude AKAB (all kings are bastards). Monarchy tends to be horrible all over in very predictable ways. But I wanted to emphasize that we can compare monarchies, and even look for reasons why kings' power may be limited by various factors.

Yes, of course we can compare monarchies — I never suggested that we couldn’t! In fact, the starting point of Marquez’s discussion was a comparison of Western and Mexica monarchies with regards to legitimacy (Western monarchs justified themselves by appealing to their obligation to manage their countries wisely, whereas the Mexica… didn’t really justify it at all).

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:34 pm An orthographical question: does ⟨c⟩ correspond to /k/ or /s/? (If the orthography is standardised at all, that is.)

(Oh, and by the way, I really appreciate the IPA transcription; it’s much easier to read these posts when I know how I’m supposed to say these words!)

I'll add a pronunciation guide to the first post, I really should've thought of that!
But to answer your question, Nahuatl is read as if it were Spanish. (with a few caveats, though. It's actually written as if it was 16th century Spanish).
So (c) is /s/ before (i,e), k elsewhere. uc and cuh are /kʷ/. /k/ (qu) before a front vowel. (Confusingly, /kʷ/ is never written (qu)). /s/ is also written (z).

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:34 pm

(If a proposal was rejected a fourth time, the king could do as he pleased.)

How often did this happen?

No idea. I'm not even sure anyone knows.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 07, 2020 6:34 pm

(In Texcoco, by contrast, the king was assisted by four councils: the War Council, the Law Council, the Treasury Council and the Music Council)

The first three of those are expected — but what on Earth would a Music Council do?

Oh, there was plenty of work. Music was serious business! The poetry contests alone gave them plenty of work. Song and dance were an integral part of religious ceremonies (I'm fairly convinced, in fact, that they were more important than the sacrifices) so the Music Council handled religious matters. They also had judiciary attributions: they tried cases of sorcery, for instance.

(Actually, now that I think about it, what did Mesoamerican music sound like anyway?)

Plenty of wind instruments (conchs and flutes), rattles (including wrist and ankle bracelets made of shells), but the conquistadors mostly noticed the drums.

What are these? I don’t believe you’ve covered them yet.

Eagle and jaguars were orders of elite soldiers, or special forces; they were promoted from the ranks after taking a set number of captives. Whereas most of the army where conscripts, they were professionals. I forgot to mention, by the way, that they also did police work.

The usual translation is Eagle Warriors and Jaguar Warriors. But that translation is pretty silly and misleading I think. In Nahuatl, they're just "eagles" and "jaguars", and I don't get why everyone insists on the word 'warrior'.

Re: Kings.

I'm very dubious of this blog post (though I'm very glad of the book recommendation!)

Marquéz makes a very bold claim here. What if I tested it?
I'll go check the Florentine Codex or rather the General History of the Things of New Spain (the Florentine codex, proper, is the actual manuscript, kept in a library in Florence.), if only to try my hand at Nahuatl

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:54 am Re: Kings.

I'm very dubious of this blog post (though I'm very glad of the book recommendation!)

Marquéz makes a very bold claim here. What if I tested it?
I'll go check the Florentine Codex or rather the General History of the Things of New Spain (the Florentine codex, proper, is the actual manuscript, kept in a library in Florence.), if only to try my hand at Nahuatl

Yes, by all means please test it! It’s a fascinating post, and I’d love to know whether it’s true or not.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 3:04 am(Confusingly, /kʷ/ is never written (qu)).

/kʷ/ is frequently written qu in actual manuscripts. It's just that moderns change it to cu to match modern Spanish.

Back to enemy kings!

Just to give some context, the Florentine Codex, or General History of the Things of New Spain, is a kind of Nahua encyclopedia compiled by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún; the Nahuatl text was written by students of Sahagún; Sahagún himself later translated it into Spanish later on.

I gather the Spanish version is more of an adaptation than a translation. Unfortunately, I don't have access to Dibble and Anderson's translation. However, scans of the manuscript are available online, as are the Spanish text. (I used a French translation too)

For my own amusement, I tried translating that sentence (and a little bit following it). Unsurprisingly, the results are most likely entertainingly wrong -- I actually don't know Nahuatl, and I'm not very good at reading old manuscripts either.
I'm still sharing the results, because I believe they give an idea of what Nahuatl is like. (Punctuation, spacing and errors are mine)

iquac ticcaoa quac aca tiquiana iquac (illegible) ca ie totecuyo, ca totequacauh auh ie toiaouh
when we-him-leave then someone we-him-take, truly already our-lord, truly our-lord-??, and he-our-enemy
ipampa in ne(illegible) mach ontlatlatlami tlatolli inic tlapalolo inic tlatlauhtilo.
that-for ART that.one(?) reportedly there-indef.pl.-cover speech as salute-PASS as pray-PASS

My own free translation would be something like this: 'When we replace him (the king) with someone, that one is already our Lord, our Lord (??) and our Enemy. For that reason, he (the one advising the new king) covers his speech in reverence and supplication.

I have absolutely no idea what totequacauh means. The totequ- bit could be 'our lord', but I just give up on the rest.

Here's the Spanish translation:
cuando recien electo, toma el poder sobre todos, tiene libertad de matar a quien qui siere, porque ya es superior, y por esta causa cuando recien electo decimosle todo lo que
ha menester para hacer bien su oficio, esto con mucha reverencia y humildad
When newly elected, he takes power over everyone, he is free to kill whoever he wants, because he is already superior, and for this reason when newly elected we tell him everything
he needs to reign well, it is done with great reverence and humility

So Sahagún just gave up on the 'ie totecuyo, ca totequacauh auh ie toiaouh' bit. In fact he completely rephrased it! He probably knew what he was doing too; he was fluent in Classical Nahuatl in a way no one can hope to match. So, I'd guess we're dealing with an untranslatable idiom.

OK, let's tackle the "Enemy king" debate now!

(1) What the text means is not that the king has to be admonished because he's 'the Enemy'; it actually says is that such things had to be said with reverence and humility, because the newly elected king was already powerful. The whole paragraph actually says the speech had to be given by a skilled orator: someone who could admonish the king while still showing proper reverence.

Well, that's kind of... not alien at all. We do the exact same thing with our democratically elected presidents! Or even CEOs, for that matter.

(2) On the "desolate cadence" of these three words. I'm a little surprised an historian familiar with native sources would comment on this: it's just the way Nahuatl worked (or to be specific, it was the hallmark of an educated speaker), and it often shows through in translation, with a very distinctive effect.

(3) Okay, the 'our enemy' bit is still kind of strange. But in Mexica thought, the king is Tezcatlipoca's lieutenant, his representative, basically sitting on the throne because the god is too busy to govern men Himself. 'Our Lord' is a common form of adress to Tezcatlipoca. 'The Enemy' is one of his names, and the bit I couldn't translate ('executioner', I suppose) could well be another epithet.

In other words, the anonymous Mexica informant is telling us: 'once he's elected, the king is basically God, so we have to be cautious when we tell him things'.

Some further thoughts: Marquez and Clendinnen are fascinated by Tezcatlipoca, and rightly so! The Smoking Mirror is a fascinating god.
But there's nothing terribly alien in having the king 'channel' a god. We Europeans had the Kings' Two Bodies and the divine right of kings.

I'm again, surprised, at seeing people surprised at the idea that the gods can revoke their bounty at any time, or appear cruel, or unjust. Our own culture shares the very same idea: what about 'the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away', the story of Job or "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport. "

It looks like Marquez and Clendinnen assume that the Mexica worshipped evil gods. Actually the half-man, half-mirror sociopathic cosmic abomination that eats flesh and drinks blood is not evil.(*) Merely unpredictable. Again, there's nothing alien in this. Marquez himself invokes the fickle Fortuna!
Worshipping Tezcatlipoca is quite natural, in a way: the Smoking Mirror accounts for the way the universe works a lot better than the omnibenevolent Christian God does.
(* By the way, I don't think I ever said anything so counter-intuitive in my life.)

Regarding the question of legitimacy: the Mexica kings ruled, like most king in human history, by divine right. When I say he was expected to be humble, just and benevolent: in fact, the preceding paragraphs in the General History are my primary sources for this.
Choice bits: the deceased kings was (supposedly, of course) mourned by the entire city, which he left "in quiet and in peace". Kingship is a burden, and the king bears the city on his shoulders. The king should act like a mother to his people, feeding them and rocking them to sleep.
The king has to abase himself before the deity, and do much penance, he's like excrement compared to him; he can only hope for Tezcatlipoca's guidance in serving the people and working with zeal and righteousness.

Oh, just for clarification, because I didn't say it clearly: the Mexica king wasn't considered a god. Much like a European king, he was merely an inadequate representative. Saying of a king that he claimed to be a god was considered vicious slander. So when our Mexica informant tells us he's 'Our Lord, Our Enemy', it's not meant literally.

OK, sorry for such a long and rambling post. Again, I'm just an amateur at this and you should trust only your own research. But in my humble opinion, Marques and Clendinnen are completely wrong.
Mexica culture was full of strange notions, but their kings behaved and were regarded pretty much as we'd expect.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:53 am (I also note, it's fine I think to gawk a bit at some of the oddities of Mesoamerican culture... did you catch the parts about tongue mutilation? That's kind of weird! But I think we always have to remember that Western culture has very weird things too. Self-mortification has a big skin-crawling history in Europe too.)

Oh, yes. And more on that later: I have prepared quite an interesting list of parallels between Mexica religion and Catholicism...

Thank you for that in-depth explanation! So, as I really should have expected all along, the original post was based on a misunderstanding of the text, plus a lack of knowledge of Mexica rhetoric and culture.

Oh, and not only that, Marquez also misunderstands what Clendinnen said! I managed to get access to her book, and the full context of that quote is:

Clendinnen wrote: [In the palace the new tlatoani] was subjected to a sequence of discourses on his duties, very much in the ‘custodian of the people and guardian of traditions’ mode, by senior lords and priests. He responded with proper humility, and then addressed an exhortation to the assembled people. … The ruler’s submission to the instruction offered by lords and elders, and his own address to the people, established him as the superior earthly repository of accumulated traditional wisdom, much of the rhetoric of rulership being thick with metaphors of the ruler as father, custodian and guide to his people: the head to the commoners’ wings and tail of the great bird of state, the spreading tree giving protection and shade to lesser men, and (even more insistently) the parent tenderly bearing the burden of his children in his arms. But a very different theme ran in counterpoint to the ‘father of the people’ emphasis. … Of Tezcatlipoca it was said: ‘He only mocketh. Of no-one can he be a friend, to no-one true.’ One of his many soubriquets was the ‘Enemy on Both Sides’. It was this principle of subversion, of wanton, casual, antisocial power which was peculiarly implicated in Mexica notions of rule, and was embodies (at least on occasion) in the Mexica ruler. … For most of the time the tlatoani functioned in the mundane world, his authority deriving from his exalted lineage, his conquests, and his position … But that was merely a human authority, which could be displaced by Tezcatlipoca’s overwhelming presence … The place of royal judgement was called ‘the slippery place’, because beyond it lay total destruction. If his careful judges reflected on the niceties of their judgements, there were no judicious metaphors in the ruler’s punishment: only obliterating sacred power.

From the moment of the first formal address to the newly chosen ruler, the transformation in his person and his being was recognized and acknowledged:

Although thou art human, as we are, although thou art our friend, although thou art our son, our younger brother, our older brother, no more art thou human, as we are; we do not look on thee as human… Thou callest out to, thou speakest in a strange tongue to the god, the Lord of the Near, of the Nigh. And within thee he calleth out to thee; he is within thee; he speaketh forth from thy mouth. Thou art his lip, thou art his jaw, thou art his tongue.

‘He is within thee.’ The ruler was also called the ‘flute’ of Tezcatlipoca; the ‘Great Speaker’ sometimes spoke in the voice of the god. The ambivalence of his power was well understood. Those early and anxious exhortations to benevolent behaviour were necessary, ‘for it was said when we replaced one, when we selected someone … he was already our lord, our executioner, and our enemy’.

‘Our lord, our executioner, and our enemy’: a desolate cadence. The transformation was manifest … If the Mexica ruler went into battle in the warrior garb of the Mexica deity Huitzilopochtli, he ruled as subject and vehicle of Tezcatlipoca.

So the ‘lord and executioner’ bit is merely an acknowledgement of the ruler’s absolute power as received through Tezcatlipoca, and the ruler was indeed expected to behave well towards his people. The ‘enemy’ bit is definitely a bit weird, but that’s no reason for Marquez to blow that one word all out of proportion and insist that that word alone is how the Mexica conceived of their tlatoani.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:15 pm It looks like Marquez and Clendinnen assume that the Mexica worshipped evil gods. Actually the half-man, half-mirror sociopathic cosmic abomination that eats flesh and drinks blood is not evil.(*) Merely unpredictable. Again, there's nothing alien in this. Marquez himself invokes the fickle Fortuna!
Worshipping Tezcatlipoca is quite natural, in a way: the Smoking Mirror accounts for the way the universe works a lot better than the omnibenevolent Christian God does.
(* By the way, I don't think I ever said anything so counter-intuitive in my life.)

This feels weird… I think I’ve gotten just about used enough to Mexica thought that it doesn’t seem strange at all that the ‘half-man, half-mirror sociopathic cosmic abomination that eats flesh and drinks blood’ isn’t supposed to be evil.

(Oh, and the ‘evil gods’ bit is another misinterpretation of Clendinnen… I omitted most of Clendinnen’s lengthy description of Tezcatlipoca from my quote above, but she certainly doesn’t see him as ‘evil’. Certainly, she sees him as being less than beneficial towards humans, but I don’t get the impression she sees him as actually evil per se. As she says: ‘Tezcatlipoca in the Mexica imagining of him was the epitome of the great lord: superb; indifferent to homage, with its implication of legitimate dependence; all bounty in his hand; and altogether too often not in the giving vein.’ Which sounds surprisingly similar to European kings anyway!)

[the king] can only hope for Tezcatlipoca's guidance in serving the people and working with zeal and righteousness.

But this bit is really strange to me: sure, the cosmic abomination may help the people, but who would think of such a thing as a role model‽

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:53 am (I also note, it's fine I think to gawk a bit at some of the oddities of Mesoamerican culture... did you catch the parts about tongue mutilation? That's kind of weird! But I think we always have to remember that Western culture has very weird things too. Self-mortification has a big skin-crawling history in Europe too.)

Oh, yes. And more on that later: I have prepared quite an interesting list of parallels between Mexica religion and Catholicism...

I can already see some of them! From what I can see, Mexica religion sounds somewhat like what the Spanish Inquisition would have done if they had half-a-dozen gods to satisfy instead of one, all of whom thought human sacrifice was great.

The wealth of altepeme

Mexica economics should be most interesting to conservatives. You'll get to say: you know who else were socialists?

OK, seriously, though. The Mexica, of course, weren't socialists, or anything so anochronistic. But their society demonstrates that private ownership of land -- and in an agricultural society, it does mean 'private ownership of the means of production' -- isn't particularly self-evident.

As a general rule -- there are significant exceptions -- land belonged to the calpoltin, singular calpolli (you can also find it written calpulli)

A calpolli [kɑl'poːlli] ('big house') wasn't exactly a clan; it was both a parish and a commune. In rural settings, it could be a village, in urban context, a neighbourhood. Its headman was elected for life, by the calpolli citizens and always in the same family, and he was charged with maintaining land registers, and assigning plots to citizens. Every citizen (or rather, every family) had a right to a plot of calpolli land; usually it passed from father to son, but untended land reverted to the calpolli. The calpolli likewise maintained communal land, which would serve to feed the headman, or as a kind of reserve for future land distribution.
This was true even in such a large city as Tenochtitlan: many Tenochas were farmers, on "garden plots" or on neighbouring chinampas.

Another calpolli officer was the teachcauhtli (tēāchcāuhtli [te:.a:t͡ʃ.'ka:w.t͡ɬi] 'elder brother') a military man in charge of law, order and education. The headman was assisted by the elders of the community. (Among their privileges and duties, the elders made sanctimonious speeches on important occasions: pregnancy, birth, marriage,... and could get as drunk as they wished -- the Nahua were very concerned about drunkenness and alcohol consumption was strictly regulated)
The calpolli designated its own tax collectors and organizers of corvée labour. Finally, and here comes the 'parish' analogy, the calpolli had its own patron god and its own temple.

The calpolli was centered around a few families, with a good share of endogamy (not within a same family; but about half the time, marriage took place between members of the same calpolli).
The general rule was that a calpolli grouped people from different walks of life: commoners, nobles, traders, craftsmen. Some crafts, however, resided within specific calpoltin which also worked as guilds of a sort. Not unfrequently, the calpoltin regrouped people with the same origins (there was, for instance, a Mexica calpolli at Texcoco).

The commoners were farmer, or small-scale craftsmen, or both. They would sell their products in the marketplaces (the largest of which was in Tenochtitlan's twin city, Tlatelolco) though again, there's no trace of a free market here: the price of commodities was strictly regulated.

I'm not sure of where the local lord, or teuctli ([ˈteːkʷ.t͡ɬi]) and his land (teccalli) factored into this. I think we may assume that most of time, the calpolli lord was the calpolli headman, and his land communal land set aside and farmed by commoners, but there's quite a bit of variation between sources, possibly because of local variations.

Besides the calpolli system, there was privately owned land. Most of it belonged to the nobility, for obvious reasons. It often originated as a gift from the king following military conquest, and unlike calpolli land could be bought and sold. Most of the time, though, lords -- in Mexica society, that was members of the nobility occupying an official state function -- didn't actually own their land. Land belonged to the calpolli or to the state -- in other words, to the king -- and the king was often reluctant to make such a gift; rather lords had grants of land, attached to a specific function, which were part of their 'salary', so to speak.
Important temples were supported by similar grants of land.

For those reasons, personal fortune were often held not in land, but in luxury goods: gold, jewelry, precious feathers, cloth...

Ares Land wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 9:50 am A calpolli [kɑl'poːlli] ('big house') wasn't exactly a clan; it was both a parish and a commune. In rural settings, it could be a village, in urban context, a neighbourhood. Its headman was elected for life, by the calpolli citizens and always in the same family, and he was charged with maintaining land registers, and assigning plots to citizens. Every citizen (or rather, every family) had a right to a plot of calpolli land; usually it passed from father to son, but untended land reverted to the calpolli. The calpolli likewise maintained communal land, which would serve to feed the headman, or as a kind of reserve for future land distribution.

That seems a pretty widespread system.

Richard W wrote: ↑Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:39 am That seems a pretty widespread system.

Yes, holding some land communally is fairly common -- though I believe having most of the land communally owned was rare, if not unheard of in Europe. China's a bit different Bruce Trigger tells us in Shang times, land was held by patrilinear clans and I believe that system has endured in some shape for quite some time. In any case, private ownership of land by individuals seems to have been a later innovation.
I believe having most land owned by 'communes' which aren't really clans is common in the Americas (I think the Incas, for instance, had a similar system), but i don't know if it's attested elsewhere.