College Essay on NAHUA
The Nahua, the indigenous communities of Central Mexico, were basically seven
tribes, who were speaking the same language Nahuatl. These seven tribes or
communities were Acolhua, Chalca, Tepaneca, Tlalhuica, Tlaxcalteca, Xochimilca,
Mexica or Aztecs. For centuries these tribes fought with each other and in the
sometime in the 12th century the Aztecs embarked on a period of wandering and by
the 13th century settled in the central basin of Mexico. In 15th and early 16th
century, they were the dominant political force of the Central and southern
Mexico. The Aztecs were fearless warriors and pragmatic builders, and their
empire was surpassed in size in the Americas only by that of the Incas in Peru.
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In early 16th century the Aztec Empire was on its zenith and its total area was
about 207,200 square km while the number of its inhabitants was from 5,000,000
to 6,000,000. The empire stretched from the valley of Mexico in central Mexico
east to the Gulf of Mexico and south to Guatemala. Their capital, Tenochtitlan
had been built on islands and reclaimed marshy land and was located on the
present day Mexico City. It had an area of about 13 square km and a population
of about 140,000 people. It was a bustling city at its peak and it the time of
the Spanish invasion it was one of the biggest cities of the world. The reasons
of glory of this great empire were its remarkable agriculture system with
excellent supply of irrigation water.
It was in 1519, when Emperor Montezuma II was ruling the Aztec Empire, the
Spanish explorers appeared in Mexico. Hernan Cortes led the expedition against
the Aztec Mexico, alongwith his more than 500 soldiers. (Aztec Empire, Encarta)
Hernan Cortes, with the help of his native American mistress, Malinche, entered
with an alliance with, the Tlaxcalans, one of the arch rivals of the Aztec, and
besieged Tenochtitlan, the capital. After a bloody fighting of three months
Tenochtitlan surrendered in August 1521. The fall of Tenochtitlan signaled the
end of the Native American civilization at the hands of the imperialist
Spaniards. During the colonial period, Mexico was called " New Spain" and it
remained under occupation of the Spaniards for about three centuries from 13th
of August, 1521 until 1821, when Mexico got independence.
The Spanish rule in the Mexican territory brought a new pattern of social,
political, economic, cultural and religious traditions. The political, economic
and cultural system of the natives was totally different from that of the
invaders. These traditions were all new and alien for native population and they
were thus initially reluctant to adopt it. However, the traditional colonial
practices forced them to adapt those practices. The historical evidences reveals
that the natives responded in their own way to these practices and the
intercourse of two different cultures gave birth to a strange ethnic set up. The
colonial rulers laid a great emphasis on the Christianization of their subjects.
During their rule, the Spanish started their efforts to Christianize the native
Nahua people. “A major element of Aztec life was religion. A polytheistic
people, they often practiced human sacrifice to please their gods. According to
legend, the god Quetzalcoatl, characterized by light skin, red hair, and light
eyes, was supposed to return to earth. This appearance is remarkably similar to
European appearance, and may be why the Aztecs originally greeted the Spaniards
with food, gold, and women.
The Spaniards, however, approached the Aztecs with an entirely different
attitude. They had a strong sense of supremacy and intended to convert the
natives to Christianity. But their ministering methods were radical. The
Spaniards gathered the natives together and shouted the essentials of the
Gospel, oblivious to the fact that the Aztecs did not understand their language.
If the natives refused to fall to their knees and repent, the Spaniards assumed
they were rejecting the word of God and killed or enslaved them.” (Viva La Raza!)
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Franciscan missionaries were initially assigned the task to preach the
fundamentals of Christian religion to the local Nahuatl people. These
missionaries adopted various methods of teachings, the most popular was the
Christian plays that were shown in the native language theater. This exercise
started in mid 16th century and continued throughout the colonial rule. The
missionaries translated Bible in to Nahuatl and used it as conversion tool for
the natives. For Nahuas, religion was a social phenomenon and thus required the
entire community to participate in the rituals and confirmation of their faith
in the Supernatural. As Burkhart writes, “contact with the sacred was
established through ritual and the collective carrying out of certain actions at
prescribed moments in a calendrical sequence or life cycle”. (Burkhart, 361) She
further explains the rituals as, “Ritual acts produced, in the here and now,
fleeting but authentic manifestations of the sacred forces upon which all life
depended. Through rituals, men and women laid themselves open to the power of
the gods; the frame of the ritual worked to channel and limit this dangerous
contact by directing the sacred force into persons, images, or other objects
invested with a god's regalia, which served as conduits for the sacred
manifestations”. (Burkhart, 361)
The Nahuas altered the Christian religion and molded it according to their own
traditions and beliefs. The characters of Jesus and Mary as depicted in Nahuatl
Christian plays were more Nahuan than Christian or Spanish. They were portrayed
as models of Nahua nobility and represented the Nahuan society. Both figures
were so ‘Nahualized’ that they did not appear to be Christian or Spanish. The
coming of 18th century witnessed the independence of Nahua Christian theatre
form the influences of missionaries and clergy. The plays were then produced by
the Nahuans without any interference of the Spanish clergy. Those plays used
distorted and contradictory biblical themes, misspelled biblical names, Nahuan
phrases and were critical of the colonial rule. The Nahuans also altered Judas.
The characters within the stories were replaced by local heroes and the
situations were substituted by the prevailing circumstances. The authors of
those plays always inserted the elements of their society and traditions. In
short, the plays revealed Jesus as local Nahua hero. The plays also showed the
trail of Jesus in a court that was ruled by the Spanish colonial laws and
customs and was sentenced to death according to that. This was how the Christian
faith preached by the missionaries mixed with the native beliefs and an
amalgamated form of religion emerged. According to Burkhart the religious
practices of the native Christians were altogether separate and different from
the Spanish. The natives though adopted the Christian faith but they kept a
well-defined distance between themselves and their colonial rulers. The kind of
Christianity evolved exhibited the spiritual inferiority of the natives mainly
because of their social, economic and political circumstances. The conversion of
the Nahua people to Christianity is described as “The Nahuas' formal conversion
to Christianity, characterized by mass baptisms and other enthusiastic displays,
quickly became legendary as a "spiritual conquest." The chronicles of the
friars, on which this legend depends, predictably glorify the achievements of
the evangelizers while representing the native people as passive and childlike
recipients of the Word. However, if we invert the rhetorical flow of their
propaganda so as to grant agency to the native people, we can see that the Nahua,
by selectively responding to the devotional practices presented to them by the
friars, exerted considerable control over the creation of their church”.
(Burkhart, 362).
She further adds that Christian concepts explained in Nahuatl terms failed in
any systematic and persuasive way to challenge native conceptions and precluded
any deeply felt spiritual crisis. Burkhart analysis and conclusion reveals that
the native Mexicans, despite of the harsh and inconsiderate practices of their
Spanish rulers, were able to avoid the influences of the alien religion. The
little they adopted was also besieged under their own polytheistic faith. Thus
the blend that surfaced cannot be referred to as a pure form of European
Christian faith.
Works Cited
Aztec Empire, Encarta Encyclopedia 2002. 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation
Burkhart, Louise, M. “Pious Performances: Christian Pageantry and Native
Identity in Early Colonial Mexico”. Native Traditions in the Post-conquest
World. Eds.Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom Cummins. Washington,D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection.
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