Colonial indian maps of Mexico

The President and Fellows of Harvard CollegePeabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

Colonial Indian Maps in Sixteenth-Century Mexico: An Essay in Mixed CartographyAuthor(s): Serge GruzinskiSource: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 13 (Spring, 1987), pp. 46-61Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and EthnologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20166763 .

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46 RES 13 SPRING 87

Figure 6. Coatlinchan, Texcoco (State of Mexico), no. 1678. 1578.



Colonial Indian maps in sixteenth-century Mexico

An essay in mixed cartography

SERGE GRUZINSKI

The acculturation of Mexican Indians has generally been studied through the eyes of the Spanish chroniclers or mestizo and Indian historians. The

famous so-called "vision of the Vanquished" is

opposed to that of the conquerors. There is no doubt

that these written sources offer an exceptional living

testimony to the confrontation between such distinct

cultures and societies. But we must not forget that

many other expressions, such as images, paintings,

objects, art in general, that are not reducible to words

or glosses are also likely to highlight the vicissitudes of

the contact. Perhaps they can offer rather different

insights since Indian written documents, while of

primary importance, are in themselves manifestations

of the profound influence of Western literacy and

discursive logics (just think of the impact of

alphabetical writing according to J. Goody).1 But there

is another good reason for analyzing figurative testimonies.

As we know, the majority of Mesoamerican cultures

relied on an oral and pictographic transmission of

knowledge. In spite of some tendency toward

phonetization, the pictographic systems of Central

Mexico have proven to be based primarily on the

image. Far from being reducible to some sort of

rudimentary writing, their specificity seems to be

closely connected to their degree of iconicity. In other

words, any transcription into words of Indian pinturas could provide only a partial and approximate version of

their substance and content, for they would exclude

many features that are essential and meaningful: combinations of colours and forms, organization of

space, relations between figures and background, contrasts of light and tonality, selection or rejection of

geometrical laws and principles, use of symmetry or

asymmetry, and so on. In other words, many Mesoamerican cultures used the image as the specific mode of expression of their thought. That is why it is

important to know not only what the Indians said and

wrote about the Conquest, but also how they painted it.

In other respects, one of the most important (and most neglected) consequences of the Spanish conquest was the rapid adoption of alphabetical writing by the

Indian nobilities and the progressive shift?at least

among them ? from a pictographic to an alphabetic mode of expression. Many Colonial Indian codices or

pinturas ? a word commonly used by Spaniards and

Indians in the sixteenth century ? allow us to document

that history by showing the evolution of a pictorial

thinking that tried to explore, until the beginning of the

nineteenth century, the many possibilities offered by its

coexistence with a European and written expression of

thought. On the pages of the pinturas appear innovations that express the choices, borrowings,

misinterpretations, and sometimes the hesitations and

remorse of the Indian painters. Less directly, these

works also illustrate the aspirations and contradictions

of the social groups and classes to which these Indians

generally belonged, that is, the old Indian nobilities. At

the same time, and in a more general way, they

highlight the degree of irreducibility or permeability

existing between cultures that had evolved

independently for thousands of years. Nevertheless, Indian paintings are much more than the mere

reflection or projection of political, social, or economic

processes. They constitute a specific sphere that must

be considered and studied as an autonomous field, with

its own logic and deficiencies, as well as a material and

visual expression of cultural change in a Colonial

context. But it is rather difficult to describe with

accuracy changes in Indian paintings and plastic arts, for all too often we have insufficient information about

their origin, date, and context. This is not the case,

however, with the hundreds of Indian maps that are

kept in the Archivo General de la Naci?n in Mexico

City.2

I wish to thank Dr. Eileen Corrigan and Rose Hauer for their

corrections and invaluable linguistic assistance.

1. Jack Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind,

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977.

2. See my doctoral thesis, Le Filet D?chir?, Soci?t?s indig?nes, occidentalisation et domination coloniale dans le Mexique central,

XVIe-XVIIIe si?cles, Paris, Universit? de Paris I, 1985, |Premi?re

Partie, La Peinture et l'Ecriturel. These maps are kept in the Ramo



48 RES 13 SPRING 87

Insofar as we can speak of a pre-Hispanic Nahua

cartography, we must acknowledge that pre-Hispanic

"maps" were much more than mere geographical instruments, even more than a symbolic appropriation

of space. They maintained a mythical, social, political, and economic memory of the past. In many respects

they were sacred objects to be displayed in ritual contexts. It is not necessary to emphasize that our usual set of categories and divisions?social, economic,

religious?is quite inappropriate to describe the

polysemies of Amerindian objects and that we still need a new approach to these worlds, less dependent upon our old interpretations and d?coupages of the real.

Pre-Hispanic Nahua cartography followed very

specific principles. It seems to have been based mainly on a representation of space that ordered place-signs in

a regular, geometrical way that recalls, as D. Robertson

has proposed, some of our own railway and subway maps. These "maps" looked like diagrams that

conformed to the size and shape?often rectangular? of the sheet on which they were painted instead of

reflecting the peculiarity of local topography and nature. In other words, these maps displayed the

sequence of toponyms without referring to the physical distance that separated them.3

Besides this "railroad" type?well exemplified by the Map MPEAI from Cuauhtinchan in the Puebla

Valley (fig. 1)4 ? another style, somehow distinct, may

have appeared in the Texcoco region, northeast of

M?xico-Tenochtitl?n.5 It seems that this second type took into consideration many topographical

peculiarities as well as their respective positions. In

other words (and not to enter into a debate that still

remains open), one could say that pre-Hispanic Nahua were familiar with at least three types of "maps":6

1. an extremely stylized and conventional

representation of space ("railroad style" maps) 2. the rendering

? although quite approximate

? of orientation and distances between places (Texcocan

style) 3. an intermediate style combining the other two,

according to which the central part would have

reflected topographical distribution while information on the margins remained much more schematized

(Cuauhtinchan style)7

It must be stressed that such a typology is still quite

hypothetical, for while the "railway station" style is

unquestionably pre-Hispanic, the Texcocan prototype

might have been of more recent origin, that is, from

early Colonial times. The same must be adduced

regarding pre-Cortesian city maps, whose existence can

only be inferred from Colonial paintings. It is therefore

not easy to properly evaluate the changes introduced

under Spanish rule: if we admit the diffusion of a

Texcocan prototype already characterized by a more

"realistic" approach to geography, then these changes are less pronounced than if we equate pre-Hispanic

cartography with "railway station" style. In any case, decisive changes did occur, although the fate of Indian

Tierras of the Archivo General de la Naci?n (AGN) in Mexico City;

they are presented in the Cat?logos de ilustraciones, vols. 2, 3, 4, and 5, published by the AGN Mexico City, 1979. The map numeration refers to these catalogues. Note that in spite of their great

usefulness, these guides sometimes provide some topographic indications and dates that need to be criticized and corrected. Our

analysis concerns the 1530-1619 period, that is, 858 maps, 39 of

which were painted before 1570. The production climbs from 147

maps (1570-1579) to 296 (1580-1589), then it falls from 254 items

(1590-1599) to 97 (1600-1609), climbs again to 125 for the 1610

1619 period, before collapsing after 1620: 23 (1620-1629), 3 (1630

1639), and so on. Maps of Indian origin represent more than one

third of the whole production (306/858). This relation did not change until the end of the seventeenth century (17/59), but it falls in the

eighteenth century (14 Indian maps versus 969 Spanish maps). It must

be recorded that these data are subject to discussion, for it is

sometimes difficult to identify categorically the cultural origin of the

painter?Indian painters have been able to draw Spanish-style maps since the sixteenth century. In spite of that, I hope this survey can

provide information about profound and long-term tendencies.

3. Donald Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period, The Metropolitan Schools, New Haven, Yale

University Press, 1959, pp. 179-180.

4. The MPEAI ("Mapa pintado en papel europeo y aforrado en el

indiano, seg?n Boturini, 1746," also called Mapa de los linderos de

Cuauhtinchan y Totomihuacan) is part of the Historia tolteca

chichimeca (John B. Glass and D. Robertson, "A Census of Native

Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts," Handbook of Middle

American Indians, vol. 14, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1975,

pp. 220-222). This map was painted by 1532, before the writing of

the Historia (1547-1560) (see Luis Reyes, Cuauhtinchan del siglo XII

al XVI. Formaci?n y desarrollo hist?rico de un se?or?o prehisp?nico, Tesis presentada en la Escuela Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia,

Mexico, 1974, pp. 28-32).

5. Keiko Yoneda, Los mapas de Cuauhtinchan y la historia

cartogr?fica prehisp?nica, Mexico, AGN, 1981, p. 91.

6. It is also necessary to mention the "circular maps," among which is that of Teozacoalco drawn in the Colonial period

(Robertson, Mexican Manuscript Painting, 1959, p. 180).

7. Yoneda, Los mapas, 1981, p. 97. For an example of "urban"

cartography, see the Plano en papel maguey (Robertson, Mexican

Manuscript Painting, 1959, pp. 77-83, 182).



Gruzinski: Colonial Indian maps in sixteenth-century Mexico 49

#

?4 vrtf m

Ptt

Figure 1. Map of the boundaries of Cuauhtinchan and Totomihuacan (MPFA). Biblioth?que Nationale, Paris. Following the diagrammatic style as defined by Robertson. Cf. AGN 1, VI, 1.

Except for figure 1, all the maps in this article are from the Archivo General de la Naci?n (AGN), Mexico

City, Ramo Tierras. They are given the catalogue numbers that appear in the Cat?logos de ilustraciones del

AGN, 2, 3, 4, Mexico City, AGN, 1979.

maps was somehow different from that of other

pictographic documents.8

Apart from a clandestine production that was

severely repressed by the church, mainly related to

calendrical and ritual matters, Colonial Indian pinturas were openly produced and reproduced in order to keep some memory of the past?sometimes at the request of

the Spanish authorities?or as a familiar, traditional, and customary way to provide information about

lawsuits and tribute. Clandestine or licit painted

production?the cleavage was never clear between

what was "idolatrous" and what was not?remained

limited to Indian spheres. On the other hand, the

drawing and use of Indian maps frequently overlapped their boundaries to become an instrument of

domination in the hands of the Spanish bureaucracy. These maps played an important, even decisive, role

when they were used to support the Spanish

appropriation of Indian land in the second part of the

sixteenth century.9 It is revealing to note that in this

area, perhaps because Spanish cartographers were very

few, the Colonial administration relied mainly on the

collaboration of Indian painters to produce the maps

they needed. Far from being indifferent to their skill and

8. Robertson (Mexican Manuscript Painting, 1959, pp. 181-182)

stresses the precision of the cartographic representation of the lakes of

the valley of Mexico on the Codex Xolotl (before 1542), noting the

early influence of European-style landscape. For the Codex Xolotl, see

Glass, "A Census," Handbook, vol. 14, 1975, p. 241. On the Mapa de Santa Cruz (painted between 1555 and 1562), the valley of

Mexico became a mere landscape full of sc?nes de genre and drawn

by "a landscapist of genius" (Robertson, p. 183). See also Glass, pp. 194-195.

9. Guadalupe Rivera Mar?n de Iturbe, La propiedad territorial en

M?xico 1301-1810, Mexico, Siglo XXI Editores, S.A., 1983.



50 RES 13 SPRING 87

knowledge of the country, it seems that the viceroys and their officers recognized the efficiency and

accuracy of the sophisticated system of conventions

provided by the Indian glyphs. For these reasons,

during the decades corresponding to the elaboration of

the Relaciones geogr?ficas?an encyclopaedic

investigation and description of the Spanish new world ?to the forced concentrations of Indian populations

and to the massive grants of land to the Spaniards, that

is, mainly from 1570 to 1600, Indian painters were

requested to draw hundreds of maps by the new

authorities.10 Most of these painters were the heirs of

the pre-Hispanic nobility and clergy; the oldest among them had been trained before the Spanish Conquest.

In addition to serving as historical and economic

pinturas, Colonial Indian maps proved quite capable of

describing the society and reality that was emerging. While they still retained many of the old symbols?

such as those related to rivers, springs,11 mountains,12

paths, habitat?they were inundated by new signs made necessary by the Colonial presence and

exploitation. More specifically, Indian painters created new glyphs to design new things: churches with their

parvis (square) and bells,13 plans en damier of Indian

pueblos, new Spanish estates such as estanciasu and

haciendas, corrals, water mills,15 covered carts drawn

by teams of oxen (fig. 2),16 and so on. Although their content was completely original?for they

corresponded to animals, buildings, and types of

Hw?k ? MM'? ta ;

Figure 2. Amat/an et Zacatepec (Morelos), no. 2018. 1600. Chariots on the Camino Real, royal road; two

rivers, and trees in European style. Cf. 1, VI, 2, 3.

10. See the order of the viceroy constantly repeated: "Har?is

pintar el asiento del pueblo en cuyos t?rminos cayere (la merced) y las dem?s estancias y tierras que en ellos estubieren prove?das. ..."

11. N?1822, Tenango (State of Mexico) 11587].

12. N?1088, Coatepec and Ayahualulco Ixtapaluca (Chalco, State

of Mexico) II574].

13. NT1679, Coatlinchan (Texcoco, State of Mexico) [1579].

14. N?1678, ibid.

15. N?2133, Tecualoya and Santa Ana (Malinalco, State of

Mexico) 11594].

16. N?2018, Amatl?n and Zacatepec (State of Morelos) [16001;

N?2362, Zempoala, San Miguel y Suchiguacan (State of Hidalgo)

[1589].




farming and transportation introduced by the

Conquerors?these signs retained the customary canons of Indian iconography. The estancia, for

instance, was an extension of the glyph "house," created by adding a steep roof to the usual sign; the

church was drawn in a stylized and two-dimensional

way, sometimes adorned with autochthonous

decorative features.17 It is hardly necessary to stress, once again, the extraordinary plasticity of pictographic

expression that definitely does not mesh with its being a

limited, fixed, and petrified form of writing. Nevertheless, this temporary enrichment of glyph

repertories cannot be disassociated from the slow

degradation of forms that also occurred. Rapid changes and skillful adaptation went hand in hand with an

indisputable exhaustion of this mode of expression.

Although at the end of the sixteenth century we still

find "classical" glyphs painted with accuracy, more

often the drawing had lost its strength, elegance, and

consistency; the line was no longer precise, continuous, and thick as it had been before the Spanish conquest. In the last two decades of the century the

glyph for river was pictured simply by two wavy lines

(fig. 3) or reduced to a roughly sketched spiral (fig. 4), or even to a mere line.18 At the same time the sign mountain was deprived of its stylized basis and became

just an irregular protuberance (Cerro de Tecuyucan)

(fig. 4).19 Hastily drawn, the footprints?used to signify tracks and traveling?became spots hardly

recognizable (fig. 4). The glyph house became

transformed into a sort of graffiti that is sometimes

difficult to identify (fig. 4).20 In other words, even the most common signs ended in losing their specificity and identity.

Colours vanished at the same time as glyph drawing

Figure 3. Ahuehuezinco and Chietla (Puebla), no. 1626. 1579. The map is sketched; the spring (fountain head), the

pointed roofs, the faces, break out of the ancient conventions.

lost its neatness and regularity (fig. 5). Whenever it can

still be observed, it appears that the chromatic range was made up of more than ten different tonalities. In some maps of the 1570s (fig. 6), blue-green and blue

grey indicated rivers and springs; yellow ochre was

used to paint hills and fallow lands; mauve, brown, and pink coloured houses and churches while Spanish estancias were green and paths were brown.21 As we

know, Indian chromatism had been a basic component of pictographic expression, although in general its

meaning and functions remain obscure.22 It may be

17. N?867, Mistepec, Chicaguastla, and Coquila (State of Oaxaca)

[1595]. See also Coatlinchan (n. 13, 14).

18. N?1678 (n. 14): the glyph is figured a kind of spiral surrounded by wavelets and painted in turquoise. N?1626,

Ahuehuezinco and Chietla, (State of Puebla) [1579]; N?2126,

Cihutepeque, Cepayahutla, and Maxtleca (Malinalco, State of

Mexico) [1581]. N?2131, San Crist?val Ecatepeque, Santa ?gueda, and Santo Tom?s (Cuautitl?n, State of Mexico), [1590]. N?2133

(n. 15).

19. N?2152, Cempoala and Santa Clara (State of Hidalgo) [1590]; N?2177 (Tlalmanalco, State of Mexico) [1599]; N?1611,

Cinacantepeque (Ixtlahuaca, State of Mexico) (1619]. N?2206, San

Lucas Iztapalapa and Cuitlahuac (Distrito Federal) [1589]; N?2131 (n.

18); N?1269, San Nicol?s Oztotipac (Otumba, State of Mexico)

[1616]. 20. N?2015, Temascaltepeque and Iztapa (State of Mexico)

[1631].

21. N?1240, Tezontepec (Pachuca, State of Hidalgo) 11571];

N?1678and 1679 (n. 13, 14).

22. Bernardino de Sahag?n, Historia general de las cosas de la

Nueva Espa?a, Tome III, Mexico City, Editorial Porr?a, 1977, pp. 341-344 (Livre XI, Chapitre XI).



52 RES 13 SPRING 87

Figure 4. San Cristobal Ecatepec, Cuautitlan (State of Mexico), no. 2131. 1590. The sketch follows the ancient conventions (houses, river or lake, roads), reducing them

to their bare essentials. Cf. 1, VI, 2, 3.

assumed that far from simply representing the quality and use of the lands that were painted, chromatism was

used to define each space according to a sensitive and

sacred scale by marking oppositions, continuities, and

boundaries, noting realities that remained irrelevant and

invisible to a Spanish eye. We must not forget, for

instance, that the colour and design used by Indian

painters to indicate water had been one of the attributes

of Chalchiuhtlicue, water goddess and lady of the

running waters. In spite of that, in the second half of

the sixteenth century Indian chromatism kept on being eroded. There remain few entirely painted maps in the

archives. When it has not wholly vanished (fig. 5), colour is limited to a few glyphs, or merely serves to

suggest landscape in a Western way, as if Indian

painters had exchanged their traditional perception of

the environment for a more acculturated approach. For

instance, a river that was painted as a blue ribbon in

1599 ? a representation that is already quite familiar to

us?some thirty years later ran between two roughly sketched and muddy-brown-coloured banks. How to

explain such loss? No doubt there are simultaneous and

complementary explanations. We can adduce that the

sudden or gradual loss of knowledge of colours was

due to complete (or partial) cultural amnesia, and/or the

impossibility or simply the difficulty of getting colours

and dyes in societies and economies disorganized by the colonization. Finally and above all, to my mind, we

must not exclude the likelihood that Indian painters

quickly responded and adapted themselves to a

European demand that found coloured signals and

codes irrelevant, as can be inferred from Spanish maps drawn in the same context. It is obvious that depending on the time and place these factors might well play a

different role.

Regarding their global structure, Colonial Indian maps had not had to fit the format and pagination of a

European book, unlike the historical, economic, and even ritual (idolatrous) pinturas that were recomposed

?

that is, deeply and insidiously altered ? in accordance

with these exotic norms. But it is fundamental to stress

that most of these maps were adapted to a Western

vision of space. If we except some documents that recall

pre-Hispanic diagram maps (fig. 7),23 the usual painting and drawing of topographical elements was meant

to reflect?if only approximately?their physical

23. N?1818, Cuezcomatepec, Tlacoyocan, Temacac, and

Xocoyoltepec (Otumba, State of Mexico) [1593]; N?1813,

Xocoyoltepec, Tezayuca de Otumba (State of Mexico) (15931;

N?2163, Cerros Chimalpan, Tlacoyo and Teyoca (Otumba, State of

Mexico) [1599]. On the San Diego llamatl?n map (N?591 [1599]),

south of Huejutla (State of Veracruz), the signs indicating the sujetos




distribution. As stated earlier, this evolution may be

viewed as the Colonial culmination of a pre-Hispanic

prototype or as the successful introduction of some

degree of Westernization, influenced by Spanish models.24 But it might also have been a response to the

urgent need to provide the Spanish with instruments

that could be easily read and used. In any case, it

can be assumed that pre-Cortesian precedents, as

well as Western imported modelsand Colonial imperatives, combined to modify the traditional stylized and

geometrical ways of painting. This new conception and organization of space

integrated a number of innovations and changes that

increased the Westernization of Indian maps, as, for

instance, the orientation of space indicated by churches. Christian churches that are painted on Indian

maps to represent the pueblo, open toward the west, in

conformity with Christian tradition that generally sets

the choir eastward (fig. 8).25 Since they are always

represented facing the reader, churches tend to impose on the map their own orientation. Less commonly, a

sun drawn on the top of the page indicated the east in a wholly Spanish manner (fig. 8).26 In other respects, distances clearly indicated on the maps (in feet or

leagues) (fig. 3) prefigured our modern scale.27 This means that space not only was oriented, it was also

measured. While it is true that alphabetical and

numerical indications of distance and orientation were

generally drawn by a Spanish hand, one must assume

that this intervention was always programmed and

made possible by the Indian painter, who prepared an

empty space with the purpose of receiving and putting this new information together.

It would be a mistake to reduce the Westernization

of space to the mere imposition of some arithmetical

and materialistic concept of space. The introduction of

landscape?often pictured by mountainous lines

covered with trees that call to mind, oddly, some D?rer

gouaches (fig. 6)?or just the hint of remote, blue, and

shaded skylines reveal the influence of Spanish (and

European) painting and engraving as well as the many frescoes adorning recently built churches and convents

Figure 5. San Lucas Iztapalapa and Cuitlahuac (Federal District), no. 2206. 1589. Fields, with an indication of the

villages to which they belong, mountains, and a quarry. Cf. 1,

VI, 2, 3.

are connected by a line that figures a rectangle, the centre of which is

occupied by the cabecera of the district. We can observe the same

formalization imposed by the size and space of the sheet on the San

Bartolo Malila map (Molango, State of Hidalgo) (N?593 [1599]): the

estancias (hamlets) figure three vertical columns, and their succession

along the roads is obviously more important than their respective

position in the region. The diagrammatic scheme survived until the

end of the Spanish rule according to the Coyotepec map (N?969),

close to Tepej? de La Seda (State of Puebla), produced in 1794 by the

local caciques: toponymie glyphs are still figured on the four sides of

a quadrilateral. Although it is probably the copy of an ancient model, this conservatism carried over profound continuities regarding

perception and reproduction of space. 24. The Atlatlaucan map (State of Morelos), drawn for the

Receptor de la Real Audiencia, Antonio de Turcios, in 1539 (N?546),

figures the bend of paths and rivers, situates the irregularity of the

ground, and indicates hamlets and villages by painting a chapel.

Although the hand is an Indian one?as suggested by the style of

churches?this map is already (some twenty years after the conquest)

strongly Westernized, showing the precocity of Indian adaptation to

European request and criteria.

25. N?1685, Santiago and Coatepec (Guatepeque, State of

Veracruz) [1583]; N?1088 (n. 12).

26. N?566, Coatinchan (Texcoco, State of Mexico) [1584].

27. See, for the number of feet, maps N?1088, 1540, 1822, 1829;

for indication of leagues, maps N?1705, 1867/1868, 1882, 2064,

2091, 2216.



54 RES 13 SPRING 87

Figure 7. Coyotepec and Zoyamazalco, Tepeji de la Seda (Puebla), no. 969. From a 1794 copy. A map in diagrammatic style, with glyphs glossed in

Spanish and Chocho: 'Thee chago quo yoii, ?sta es el ydolo de caras

dos . . ." and so on.

(fig. 8). This is an innovation that can be observed in

other pictographic documents painted toward the

1570s. While it could be combined with the old

chromatism and conventions, it often seems that

European-style landscape was frequently used in a quite traditional way, rather than simply to give a more

"realistic" view of the surroundings. Thus a new sign or

a neoglyph would mark the boundaries and reaffirm a

symbolic and lasting relation to mountains and woods

that the Nahua considered as "sacred" places through which contact with other and divine worlds was made

possible. The frequent integration of mountain glyphs in

a landscape (fig. 8) corroborates that hypothesis. Once

more, insofar as it is difficult to go beyond form and

appearance, historians must not mistake a formal

substitution for a decisive change. Another tendency appeared, however, one that

seems to have been much more destructive. As we

have seen, Indian maps gradually lost colour and

stylization. Their polished curves and carefully drawn

contours disappeared, to be replaced by a rough and

quick sketching, not to speak of a clumsy drawing.28 These maps were not drafts for more sophisticated

paintings. They were Indian versions (fig. 9) of Spanish

maps drawn in the same period that looked like

sketches hastily done: some sort of hazy frothing was

supposed to indicate a relief, the hasty zigzag of a pen intended to mark a stream, some quick hatching was

the signal for a pueblo (fig. 10),29 and so on. Obviously

irregular lines, rudimentary schematism, and ?

28. N?1692-1, Gueguetoca (Huehuetoca) (Cuautitl?n, State of

Mexico) [1590]; N?2126 (n. 18); N?2015 (n. 20).

29. N?1682, Apaseo and Villa de Celaya, Guanajuato [1579];

N?1758, Rio Atoyac and Arroyo de Apapastle, Huejotzingo, Puebla

[1589]; N?1564, Tepeaca, Puebla [1583]; N?1275, Santa Maria

Sultepec, Tejupilco, and Tepuztepec (Sultepec, State of Mexico)

11568]; N?1276, San Lorenzo Zayula (Tulancingo, State of Hidalgo)

[1617]; N?1286, Atotonilco and Valle de Santa Catalina

Chichimequillas (San Luis, State of Quer?taro) [16091;-N?2116, San

Matheo Hueychiapan (Xilotepeque, State of Hidalgo) (1583]. We

must confess that a better knowledge of Spanish cartography would




Figure 8. Coatlinchan, Texcoco (State of Mexico), no. 566. 1584. The church faces the west, the fish in the lake are probably inspired by European engravings; at the top right, two glyphs are

inscribed in a mountain.

whenever colour was used ? smearing had little in

common with the sophisticated calligraphy of pre

Hispanic paintings. But they made the Indian painters familiar with Spanish sketching.

No doubt, Spanish sketchings were also more

personal and subjective (fig. 10). They carried

information that was more condensed, restricted, and

univocal. They constituted a form of abstraction of the

real that relied on a range of conventions less

systematically standardized and much less easily identifiable than those used on Indian maps. The

selection of significant features could vary, ranging from

global configurations to tiny segments. Spanish

sketching mixed elements that were immediately

comprehensible with others that depended more on the

context or on the specific manner of the sketcher. In

other words, it corresponded to a somewhat less

imperative code that emphasized personal intervention to the point that on occasion Spanish drawing could be

hard to understand without the accompaniment of a

written commentary. It is obviously impossible in these few pages to deal

with another element that played a considerable part in

the Westernization of Indian paintings: the introduction

of alphabetical writing among Indian nobilities.

Nevertheless, one must remember that Spanish

sketching and alphabetical writing can hardly be

dissociated: they were nothing but two different

modulations of the same stroke of the pen. Moreover, in some cases legend and drawing mingled, to the

point of producing "written maps" in which legends drawn in cartouches filled the places they were

supposed to describe (fig. 11). These legends invaded

the whole space of these Spanish maps and determined

their stylistic composition to such an extent that

be absolutely indispensable to complete this analysis. See, for

instance, Bruno-Henry Vaissi?re, "Des cartes en Espagne," in Cartes

et figures de la terre, Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, 1980,

pp. 167-177.



56 RES 13 SPRING 87

sometimes alphabetical writing was wholly substituted

for drawing.30 Spanish "written maps" (fig. 12)?as an

extreme variant of sketching?constituted the European

counterpart of the most traditional Indian maps (fig. 13). Instead of arranging glyphs according to the format of

the sheet, "written maps" set out alphabetical

inscriptions in accordance with geometrical axes or

quadrilaterals.31 Other things being equal, both Spanish and Indian maps manifested a high degree of

abstraction. It is worth emphasizing that in these cases, as well as in many others, it would be misleading for us

to systematically associate Westernization and a more

"realistic" vision of the environment and of space. On

the contrary, convention and formal ization were

operating on both sides; that did not, however, make

the shift from one system to another an easy task. For

one thing, it must be noted that sketching involves both

a perfect mastery of alphabetical writing and the

assimilation of drawing conventions and patterns, both

empirical and implicit, that combine constantly with

improvisation and subjectivity. Sketching proceeded from a sixteenth-century European literate society that

tolerated, to a certain degree, the individual alteration

of social and cultural codes, while Indian societies seem to have imposed canons and conventions with a

more rigid uniformity. In line with this hypothesis, the

learning and practice of sketching by Indian painters is

likely to reflect a corresponding change in the direction

of individualization. It would be instructive to relate

this hypothesized evolution to the contemporaneous

changes we have observed in the Indian representation of the human body, which shifted gradually from a

composite representation to the (for us) more familiar

drawing of a unified silhouette. On a more general note, access to alphabetical writing and sketching and

to private property and money, as well as the adoption

Figure 9. Temascaltepec and Iztapa (State of Mexico), no. 2015. 1631.

30. N?2159-1, Ocuituco (State of Morelos) [1575]; N?2110,

Ac?mbaro, (State of Guanajuato) [1594]. N?2194, Nacatepeque

(Huejotzingo, State of Puebla) [1591]; a long commentary figures a

rectangular space: "Eso es el sitio del ganado menor. . ."; on the top of the sheet a sun indicates west; on the right and left margins, written texts are placed parallel to each other: "Tierras de Francisco

de Montealegre [ . . . ] Tierras de Juan Ser?n Carbajal." 31. Compare N?2163 (n. 23) and N?2194 (n. 30).




Figure 10. San Matheo Hueychiapan, Xilotepeque (Hidalgo), no. 2116. 1583. In the middle: 'lands that are being requested"; from bottom to top: "road that goes from Hueychiapan to Chapantongo."

of confession, Christian matrimony, and belief in

personal salvation, might well have been some of the

many manifestations of the long and complex process of acculturation of the individual to be found in the

Indian nobilities.

Nevertheless, acculturated Indian painters encountered still another obstacle. For the Spanish,

writing and sketching were intended to pinpoint the

essential, to the detriment of any complementary, more

subordinate issue?whether it be religious, social,

ecological, or even aesthetic. Spanish sketching was

extremely restrained, spare, and unadorned. It served a

limited, well-defined purpose: to localize an estate, a

grant of lands on a territory. On the other hand, Indian

maps in rather a contradictory and complementary way, seemed more concerned with the soil itself

(terroir) or the area as a whole. Indian maps carried

much more information and generally reflected a

profound knowledge of all the places painted. Moreover, pictographic expression was systematically

polys?mie: for instance the glyph that was used to

signify (and to show) Coatepec (i.e., a snake on the top of a mountain) or Citlaltepec (a star on the same

mountain) not only identified places but also referred to

what was known of the so-called mythical origins of the

pueblo, or even to a complex cosmology.32 In contrast, the Spanish sun (a circle surrounded with rays) that

indicated the map orientation was simply a convention

limited strictly to cartographic use and, somewhat more

purposefully, to some ornamental end. Reality was

different for Spaniards and Indians. They did not relate to the world in the same way, even though they could

understand and communicate with one another to some

degree. In other respects, such as the mode of expression,

Indian glyphs may be seen as autonomous entities. That

is, they had meaning in themselves, while Spanish

drawing often needed written comments to keep it from

being ambiguous or hard to interpret. To indicate a

mountain, the drawing of a slightly curved line was not

enough ? it had to be complemented by the label

serran?as?while the single Indian mountain glyph was

more immediately understandable, even for a Spaniard.

32. N?1088 (n. 12); N?1822 (n. 11); see the Christianisation of

both sign and soil figured by the drawing of a cross on the top of the

snake mountain: N?1269 (n. 19). On the contrary, some maps maintain the memory of old shrines until the end of the century. Cf.

N?2154, San Juan del Rio (State of Quer?taro) 11590]; a Spanish hand

indicates: "estos son cues." N?2091, Citlaltepeque (Zumpango, State

of Mexico) 11606].



58 RES 13 SPRING 87

Figure 11. Ocuytuco (Morelos), no. 2159-1. 1575. At the top: "The pueblo of Ocuytuco"; in the middle "merced de tierras son dos cavallerias" ("allotment of land is two caballer?as").

In short, the gap that separated these two

cartographic approaches not only was the product of

completely distinct personalities, categories, and

objectives, but it also involves distinct ways of

combining modes of expression. I would adduce that

Indian painters who learned and assimilated Spanish

sketching must have adopted a new approach to

themselves and their environment, as well as a

complete mastery of alphabetical writing. Clearly, it was not at all easy to add up and articulate together all these features without at the same time being deeply acculturated. When assimilation remained partial,

Spanish sketching seems to have transformed the Indian manner and practice in a more superficial and

pernicious way, by merely introducing an alteration of

Figure 12. Nacatepeque, Huejotzingo (Puebla), no. 2194. 1591. Cf. 1, VI, 2, 3.

line and stroke, by imposing a quicker and more

chaotic style. In addition, it rejected all the elements of

the glyphs that appeared to be superfluous?such as

colour?or excessively complex.33 I believe that more

than the introduction of landscape, the adoption?or better, the evolution toward Spanish sketching? contributed greatly to the disintegration of the Indian

tradition by depriving it of so much of its specificity. In any case, one must not imagine a gradual,

straightforward evolution of the expressive modes that

would make it possible for us to date with precision the

rejection of an Indian process or the diffusion of a new

33. Some maps (NT1762, 1765) suggest the modalities of this

influence when we observe a Spanish hand writing and sketching on

a background drawn by an Indian painter.




European technique. From a rich, albeit limited and

incomplete, documentation, it is quite clear that

modifications and alterations in composition of space,

range of conventions, and other relevant features

evolved quite differently in accordance with the

different places, times, and painters. Until the

beginning of the seventeenth century, we discover some continuity in the traditional manner of map

drawing. In an Indian map drawn in 1601 in Tepeji del

Rio (in the modern state of Hidalgo, north of the valley of Mexico), the accuracy of line, lack of landscape, and use of colours and "classical" conventions remained

essential elements in its composition.34 Three years

later, in the region of Puebla, another map looks like a

rudimentary pochade, lacking old signs and permeated

by a landscape adorned with hills and woods.35

Nevertheless, some twenty years earlier, close to

Malinalco (south of the valley of Mexico), the map was

already sketched and the hills covered with trees.36

Instead of suggesting a strict and precise chronology, such variants draw our attention to the coexistence of

distinct modes of cartographic representation, some of

which could have been more traditional and others

more Westernized. It is important to note that these

modes may be found coexisting at the same time in the same region and sometimes in neighboring pueblos.37

Moreover, they can even be found on the same map, when glyphs mix with watersheds or when churches are represented both two- and three-dimensionally,

using a form of perspective (fig. 14).38 The interplay of these two modes was not a balanced

one, however; Westernization of space tended to be a

definitive borrowing, while the traditional manner

became more and more distorted and mutilated, to the

point that pictographies disappeared on most of the

maps drawn after 1620, at least?it must be specified ? on those made at the request of Spanish authorities.

As a manifestation of the decline of both a technique

?* J(?** F*Q HUMP*n lO . JMBB^Mrfft(E*^?F: \_

Figure 13. Cerros Chimalpan, Tlacoyo and Tecoyo, Otumba (State of

Mexico), no. 2163. 1599. Cf. 1, VI, 2, 3.

34. N?2016.

35. N?2019, San Juan Ixtaquimaxtitl?n (Tlatlauquitepec, State of

Puebla) [1604). 36. N?2126(n. 18).

37. Compare two maps from the region of Texcatepec (State of

Hidalgo), painted in 1599. On the Tornacuxtla map (N?590) style is

indigenous, with the usual range of autochthonous conventions:

toponymie glyphs, footmarks, streams. Colonial glyphs are painted in

the old-fashioned style, and the map is still based on a system of

signs placed on a rigid rectangular frame. Contrarily, on the

Tlicuauhtla map (N?589), Colonial conventions and images are

multiplied: the plan en damier of the pueblo, cattle grazing on a

meadow, a roughly sketched habitat, a wooden and uneven

landscape on the first and back stage. Cf. the two Tlalmanalco maps

(N?1829)and N?2177 [1599].

38. N?2049, Nopaluca and Santa Maria (Tecamachalco, State of

Puebla) [1595]. See also N?2126 (n. 18).



60 RES 13 SPRING 87

Figure 14. Nopaluca and Santa Maria, Tecamachalco (Puebla), no. 2049. 1595. The juxtaposition of two

styles: the two-dimensional church of Nopaluca with its indigenous lookouts facing the church of Santa Maria.

and a form of knowledge, this process of dissolution

must be studied and emphasized. It must not, however, be overestimated, for an Indian cartography did survive, or better, evolve, until the end of Colonial times by

combining compromises, borrowings, and adaptations devised and experimented with in the last decades of

the sixteenth century. These maps used a reduced

pictographic repertory, often displaying glyphs scattered

and lost in the landscape: they resorted to a

rudimentary perspective while still keeping some

tendencies toward geometric formalization. Some of

them?those drawn within and rather exclusively for

Indian communities?may show the return or the

persistence of an autochthonous structuring of space.

Indeed, it must be stressed that their apparent fixity and

conservatism during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are due more to the fact that repeated copies

were made by successive painters than to any lack of

creativity or some long and irreversible lethargy. But

this is another story.39

These sixteenth-century maps deserve a much

longer, more detailed study. As the product of a

colonial and cross-cultural situation, they demonstrate

materially and visually a form of temporary collaboration between the leading Indian groups and

the Spanish bureaucracy. Like Japanese mamban, African fetiches, and Mexican ?dolos and santos, these

pinturas are new objects, born from the interaction of

the Western world with other cultures and societies.

This is why they are such excellent documents for

studying the process of Colonial domination and

Westernization in sixteenth-century Mexico. However, these objects (which are at the same time images) are

also complex, ambiguous, and changing. While on the

one hand sixteenth-century Indian maps became

pragmatic instruments for foreign colonization, on the

other they sometimes continued to convey through

glyph and colour symbolism traces of the old relation to

39. N?1155 Santa Catalina, San Pedro Cuitlahuac, San Francisco Tetlalpa (Chalco, Distrito Federal) [1656]. N?629, San Juan Cuiluco et

Huaquechula (State of Puebla) [1694].




space and environment. It is interesting to note that in

spite of being converted into mere material auxiliaries

of the Spanish colonization, many of these maps could

still retain and manifest a cultural identity that could

not have been expressed at that time either in words or

in writing. They reveal on a plastic and iconic level a

persistence of beliefs, canons, and mental structures

that was strong enough to permit in the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries the resurgence of a more

traditional expression of space (and use of maps) such as we find, for instance, in the false Indian land titles called t?tulos primordiales.

But, indeed, is it appropriate to speak of "tradition"

and "resurgence"? Or of "alteration" and "decay"? We

are constantly tempted to equate pre-Hispanic cultures

with tradition, fixity, "classicism," and authenticity, while equating Colonial rule with syncretism,

decadence, and chaos. Unquestionably, historians

should view critically their concepts of tradition and

syncretism and revise them, instead of remaining

prisoners of these old conceptual dyads, which are

themselves often based on implicit moral or aesthetic

postulates. In actuality, the capacity for assimilation

and creation that Indian painters displayed underwent

recurrent processes of innovation and rejection that

evolved constantly and followed simultaneous,

divergent paths. This dynamic reality should not be

reduced to a struggle between two protagonists. Pre

Hispanic "tradition" was in fact simply the Colonial

remembrance and reinterpretation of more or less

idealized norms, while European influence was a

composite whole filtered through Indian minds that were already partly Christianized and acculturated. This

complexity, revealed in maps and other documents,

explains why instead of disappearing or arriving at a

complete phonetization, pictographic expression could

have inspired the new and multiple expressive forms that flourished in the second half of the seventeenth

century. Nor need we minimize the well-known

demographic, social, economic, and religious crisis that

struck Indian populations during the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century. What we wish to emphasize here is the extreme complexity of Indian cultural trends:

they cannot be reduced either to some cataclysmic annihilation or to some underground pre-Hispanic

perpetuation. Sixteenth-century Mexican Indian maps, I

believe, afford many opportunities that can help us to

revise this romanticist and stereotyped vision of the

Indian past and to greatly enrich the testimony that our

written sources provide.40

40. Remo Guidieri, L'abondance des pauvres, Paris, Seuil, 1984.



Documents

Colonial indian maps of Mexico