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Adopted Saints: Christian Images In Nahua Testaments Of Late Colonial Toluca

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Stephanie Wood
Stephanie Wood*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
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Extract

The European occupation of Mesoamerica, set in motion by Columbus' voyages now almost five centuries ago, proved both enduring and pervasive. Not content simply to trade with the indigenous peoples from distant coastal forts or entirely new towns, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico moved right into Indian cities and, increasingly over time, Indian towns, villages, and their hinterlands. The conquerors' intention behind living in such close proximity was to better extract the local peoples' services and tributes and to convert them more effectively to every aspect of Hispanic culture. From the moment of their arrival Hernando Cortés and his followers sought to introduce a new king, a new god, and a new way of life into the land they called New Spain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , January 1991 , pp. 259 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1991

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References

1 See, for example, Nutini, Hugo, “Syncretism and Acculturation: The Historical Development of the Cult of the Patron Saint in Tlaxcala, Mexico (1519–1670),” Ethnology 15:3 (July 1976), 301–321, and his discussion of “guided syncretism.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, Gruzinski, Serge, “La segunda aculturación: el estado ilustrado y la religiosidad indígena en Nueva España, 1771–1800,” Estudios de Historia Novohispana 9 (1985), 175–201.Google Scholar

3 Burkhart, Louise, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1989)Google Scholar and de Alva, J. Jorge Klor, “Spiritual Conflict and Accommodation in New Spain: Toward a Typology of Aztec Responses to Christianity,” in Collier, George A., Rosaldo, Renato I., and Wirth, John D., eds., The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History (New York: Academic Press, 1982).Google Scholar

4 James Lockhart is best known for working with these documents and training a cadre of graduate students to do the same. His greatest effort in this vein is being realized in a forthcoming volume entitled The Nahuas, to be published by Stanford University Press.

5 Gibson, Charles, The Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964).Google Scholar

6 Cline, S.L.. Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986).Google Scholar

7 Cline, S. L. and León-Portilla, Miguel, The Testaments of Culhuacan (Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, Nahuatl Studies Series, 1, 1984).Google Scholar

8 The temporal framework for this study is also partly a product of serendipity, for sixteenth-century testaments are rare. The earliest Toluca Valley will in Nahuatl examined here stems from 1623 and the latest from 1801, but most are concentrated in the hundred years between 1675 and 1775, and half date from after 1750. Within the entire span, there are two notable peaks associated with epidemics. Twenty testaments (twelve percent) date from 1737 and forty-five (twenty-six percent) come from 1759–62, years that saw the loss of numerous individuals in the prime of their lives.

9 Most of these wills are found in the collections of Tierras and Civil in the Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico. Pulled out of personal caches for litigation purposes, the origin and context for the majority of testaments is cloudy. Some were apparently written on the testator’s deathbed, for a note from the priest will occasionally indicate that a mass was said for the deceased on a date that follows shortly after the will’s composition. Others were made possibly months in advance. Most do not indicate. Haste would obviously bear upon a testament’s contents as will be noted below.

10 There are numerous Nahuatl testaments in the Calimaya parish archives, but the Calimayan wills discussed here come from the national archives. The Calimaya parish holdings were brought to public attention thanks to the work of Loera, Margarita y Chávez, , Calimaya y Tepemaxalco; tenencia y transmisión hereditaria de la tierra en dos comunidades indígenas (época colonial) (Mexico: Departamento de Investigaciones Históricas del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1977),Google Scholar but access is difficult.

11 Nahuatl speakers first came to dominate the valley with the Aztec conquest of the 1470s, but the region is also known for its Matlatzinca, Mazahua, Otomi, and Ocuilteca peoples. See Gerhard, Peter, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1972)Google Scholar and Ramírez, María Noemí Quezada, Los matlatzincas; época prehispánica y época colonial hasta 1650 (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Investigaciones, 22, 1972), p. 9.Google Scholar

12 Of course, anyone familiar with Cline’s work would not have these misconceptions.

13 Men without the title may still have had some status. The title don had become watered-down over the colonial period, making it more accessible to prominent individuals who were not direct descendants of prehispanic nobles. On the other hand, there were also prominent local families in most communities at any given time which, for various reasons, were not using the title. While the main purpose here is to point out some social differentiation, much more could be done with these sources to explore status. Titled relatives are sometimes mentioned even when the testator has no title. A few testaments list an impressive number of prominent witnesses. Some testators’ properties tend to border more often on those of people with titles and/or known wealth. Indications of wealth and career patterns are sometimes evident, too.

14 Saloman’s, Frank study, “Indian Women of Early Colonial Quito as Seen through Their Testaments,” the Americas 44 (1988), 325–341,Google Scholar helps compensate for the dearth of research on native women in the colonial period and provides for some telling comparisons with rural life. Even those testatrices he describes as living in poverty, for instance, were well-to-do compared to most Indian villagers or towns women considered here.

15 Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, p. 14.Google Scholar

16 Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, pp. 15ff.Google Scholar

17 The notaries for these wills exhibited varying degrees of skill. Some seem to have been beginners, others were retirees of high church office.

18 Unfortunately, I do not know what the charge was for having a will drawn up, nor if there were less or more expensive models available.

19 Purgatory is occasionally mentioned (by loanword) in these testaments. See, for example, AGN Tierras 2300:3:9r-l lv (Tepezoyuca, 1737).

20 The particular popularity of invoking saints in Calimaya may also be a distortion stemming from the fact that one-third of the wills studied here came from the Calimaya/Tepemaxalco area.

21 AGN Tierras 2391:l:26r–v (1694), 27r–30 (1780), and 59r–v (1788?).

22 AGN Tierras 2298:3:7r–9r (1762) and 2547:2:7r–8r (1746).

23 AGN Civil 986:2:8r–9v (1762) and lOr–v (1737); 1071:15:4r–7r (1738); 1083;12:lr–4r (1732) and 8r–10v (1772); Tierras 2303;4:26r–30v (1762); and, 2538:6:lr–2r (1737) and 13r–14r (1775).

24 AGN Tierras 2533:2:31r–v (1696). This seems like a large quantity, but it would depend on the number of candles that could be made from a pound. Each candle cost one real in Zinacantepec in the mid-eighteenth century; BNM/FR (Biblioteca Nacional de México, Fondo Reservado or Caja Fuerte), Fondo Franciscano 108:1491, 9:64r. Four candles per pound of wax was a ratio known in colonial Michoacán; see Torre Villar, Ernesto de la, “Algunos aspectos acerca de las cofradías y la propiedad territorial en Michoacán,” Jahrbuch fur Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschafi und Gesellschaft Lateina-merikas, 4(1967), 428.Google Scholar Thus, a pound could have fallen within the norm of one to four reales.

25 AGN Civil 664:2:55r (Santa María Nativitas, 1737).

26 AGN Tierras 2615:l:lr–3v (1762), 10r–12v (1726), 7:lr–v, 3r–4v (1727), 5r–6r, 2r–v (1727), and, 12r–v, 14r–v (1726).

27 AGN Civil 986:2:8r-9v (1762) and 10r-v (1737); 1071:15:4r-7r (1738); 1083:12:lr-4r (1732) and 8r-10v (1772); Tierras 2303:4:26r-30v (1762); and, 2538:6:lr-2r (1737) and 13r-14r (1775).

28 AGN Tierras 2535:4: lr-2v. The ubiquitous half real for Jerusalem should not necessarily be taken as a pious bequest; it was built into the charge for burial in, for example, San Mateo Ateneo in 1721 (MNAH/AH [Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Archivo Histórico)], Fondo Franciscano 51:4r).

29 On the prevalence of sales in sixteenth-century testaments see Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, pp. 26,Google Scholar 84.

30 AGN Tierras 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691). A chirimía is a loud quacking instrument with a single reed.

31 Of the twenty-nine wills that include gifts, eighteen date from before 1750 and eleven from 1750 or later, showing a decline of twenty-four percent.

32 That the Enlightened Church was redirecting their energies is another possible explanation. See Gruzinski, Serge, Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands: Indian Power and Colonial Society, 1520–1800 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), pp. 112–113.Google Scholar I have some doubts, however, that the clergy could curb the people’s enthusiasm for established forms of saint worship so easily.

33 Chance, John K. and Taylor, William B., “Cofradías and Cargos: An Historical Perspective on the Mesoamerican Civil-Religious Hierarchy,” American Ethnologist 12 (1985), 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar James Lockhart, in a personal communication, pointed out the apparently greater number of cofradías on the periphery of the central areas.

34 Cofradías by this name are found in: MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:21r (Metepec), 180:4r (Calimaya), 51:3v (Ateneo), and 144:42v (Zinacantepec). The four wills not mentioned above (with those from Texcaliacac) that left offerings for the Santísimo Sacramento are in: AGN Civil 1003:4:23r-24r, 28r-v (Tianguistengo, 1737?) and 30r-32v (Tianguistengo, 1761); Tierras 2300:18:19r-20v (Tepemaxalco, 1714); and, 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691).

35 AGN Civil 1495:10:2r-5v (1762); Tierras 2298:5:21r-22v (1755); and, 2533:5:lr-4r (1691). The cofradía of this name is seen in MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:2Ir.

36 AGN Civil 664:2:68r-v (1759) and NL/A (Newberry Library, Ayer Collection) 1477 B (2) (1739). At least, this was not one of the cofradías of Calimaya as of 1721 (MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:21r). (S. L. Cline generously provided me with transcriptions of the Newberry Library testaments. I subsequently made my own transcriptions, so any errors are also my own.)

37 Santo Entierro is seen as a cofradía of Zinacantepec in MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 144:42v. Another example is found in Ricard, Robert, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Aposto-late and Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain: 1532–1572 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), p. 182.Google Scholar

38 Cline (Colonial Culhuacan, p. 24) discusses the European tradition of church burial among the wealthy.

39 The three dons arc found in AGN Civil 1495:10:2r-5v (Calimaya, 1762); Tierras 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691); and, 2539:12;5r-8r (San Bartolomé Aticpac, 1632). The other twenty wills requesting special burial locations are: NL/A 1477 B (2) (Calimaya, 1739); AGN Civil 664:2:52r-v (Calimaya, 1759), 34r-35r (Calimaya, 1763), 40r (Calimaya area, 1760), 55r-55Wi.v (Calimaya, 1758), and 68r-v (Calimaya, 1759); 1643:18:6r-7r (Capulhuac, 1756?); Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:1:1 r-3v (Toluca, 1717) and 13:2Ir (Toluca, 1671); Tierras 1501:3:15r. 16r-v (Tepemaxalco, 1693); 2232:13:12r-v (James Lockhart’s transcription) (Ateneo, 1738); 2298:5:21r-22v (Calimaya, 1755); 2303:1 :lOr-1 lv (Tepemaxalco, 1762); 2345:l6:l2r-l3r (Capulhuac, 1762) and 18:4r-5v (Capulhuac, 1762); 2391:l:27r-30r (Ateneo, 1780) and 59r-v (Ateneo, 1788?); 2535:2:3r-4r (Xalatlaco, 1762); 2541:21:24r-26v (Capulhuac?, 1746); and, 2616:10:8r, 5r (Xalatlaco, 1750).

40 The two women’s wills arc in AGN Tierras 2300:18:17r-18v (Tepemaxalco, 1654) and 2303:1 : lOr-1 lv (Tepemaxalco, 1762). The other thirteen (men’s) wills are located in: NL/A 1477 B (1) (Calimaya, 1773); AGN Civil 664:2:46r-47v (Tepemaxalco, 1762); 1120:7:7r-8v (Tepemaxalco, 1737); 1495:10:2r-5v (Calimaya, 1762); Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:13:21r (Toluca, 1671); Tierras 2298:5:17r-20r (Calimaya, 1734), 21r-22v (Calimaya, 1755), and 32r-37v (Calimaya, 1712); 2303:l:42r-43r (Tepemaxalco, 1695); 2345:6:23r-25v (Tenango del Valle, 1723); 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691); 2536:7:lr (Capulhuac, 1692); and, 2547:14:5r-6r (Tenango del Valle, 1740).

41 The ten testaments mentioning the Carmelite shroud are found in: NL/A 1477 B (2) (Calimaya, 1739) and (4) (Calimaya, 1751); AGN Civil 664:2:34r-35r (Calimaya, 1763), 37r-v (Calimaya, 1760), 45r-v (Calimaya, 1759), 52r-v (Calimaya, 1759), 54r (Calimaya, 1758), and 55r-55bis.v (Calimaya, 1758); Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:l:lr-3v (Toluca, 1717); and, Tierras 1501:3:3r-4v (Tepemaxalco, 1710). Six of these Calimaya women made their wills during the epidemic of the late 1750s and early ’60s, which may or may not have been a coincidence.

42 Franciscan cord requests are located in: NL/A 1477 B (1) (Calimaya, 1773) and (2) (Calimaya, 1739); AGN Civil 664:2:34r-35r (Calimaya, 1763), 40r (Calimaya, 1760), and 52r-v (Calimaya, 1759); 1207:ll:4r-7v (San Miguel Totocuitlapilco, 1652); 1495:10:2r-5v (Calimaya, 1762); Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:l:lr-3v (Toluca, 1717) and 13:21r (Toluca, 1671); Tierras 1501:3:3r-4v (Tepemaxalco, 1710); 2298:5:17r-20r (Calimaya, 1734), 21r-22v (Calimaya, 1755), and 32r-37v (Calimaya, 1712); 2300:18:17r-18v (Tepemaxalco, 1654); 2303:l:10r-l lv (Tepemaxalco, 1762) and 42r-43v (Tepemaxalco, 1695); 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691); and, 2536:7:lr (Capulhuac, 1692). Two men of seemingly humble means asked only for a cord.

43 AGN Tierras 2298:3:7r-9r (Teotenango, 1762) and 2303:l:10r-l lv (Tepemaxalco, 1762).

44 AGN Tierras 2298:3:7r-9r (Teotenango, 1762) and 5:32r-37r (Calimaya, 1712); 2391:l:27r-30v (Ateneo, 1780); and, 2616:3:2r-v, 4r-v (Tianguistengo?, 1718).

45 James Lockhart suggests, in his forthcoming book, that crosses may have played a transitional role in the developing cult of the saints. He also cites William A. Christian, Jr.’s discussion of the “Christo-centric nature of late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish devotion.” See Christian’s, Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 190.Google Scholar

46 See, for example, AGN Civil 664:2:52r-v (Calimaya, 1759) and Tierras 2536:7:lr (Capulhuac, 1692).

47 Espinosa, José E., Saints in the Valleys: Christian Sacred Images in the History, Life and Folk Art of Spanish New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1967),Google Scholar chapter 3. In Tlaxcala, according to Nutini, Hugo in Todos Santos in Rural Tlaxcala: A Syncretic, Expressive, and Symbolic Analysis of the Cult of the Dead (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 179,Google Scholar most “religious oils and polychrome statues were commissioned by the Indians or bought directly from several santeros [saint makers] in the city.” Among the Sierra Otomi today, saints’ images are thought to have been bought in church shops during pilgrimages or were ordered from woodcarvers. Dow, James, The Shaman’s Touch: Otomi Indian Symbolic Healing (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986), p. 25.Google Scholar

48 NL/A 1477 B (2) (Calimaya, 1739). Six reales was also the price for a painting of Christ made by an Indian as seen in Gruzinski, , Man-Gods, p. 106.Google Scholar

49 Wood, Stephanie, “Corporate Adjustments in Colonial Mexican Indian Towns: Toluca Region, 1550–1810,” (Los Angeles: Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, 1984), p. 247.Google Scholar

50 See, for example, AGN Civil 1643:18:lr-2v (Capulhuac, 1727) and Tierras 2547:14:5r-6r (Tenango del Valle, 1740).

51 Sixteen men (three dons) and eight women testators mention these images. Two of these references date from the seventeenth century (the earliest from 1632), but most arc from the 1730s or later. No particular geographical pattern is apparent. See Table 1.

52 Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, p. 28.Google Scholar The crucifixes, again, may have been transitional in the development of a passion for saints’ images. In the sixteenth-century wills Cline also found Christian texts and rosaries, items that do not appear in these Toluca Valley wills. The differences between the two groups of testaments may also be regional, although there are no certain indicators of this yet.

53 Fifty-nine wills dating from before 1750 mention owning religious objects, while forty-two do the same after 1750. Thirty-six testaments dating from after 1750 do not mention owning any images, while twenty-six other wills fit this category before that year.

54 The range was zero to fourteen religious objects per testament, with high numbers not corresponding to any particular periods in time.

55 AGN Tierras 2301:4: lr-4v (1737) and 28r-29r (1728).

56 AGN Civil 1083:12:lr-4r (1732) and 8r-10v (1772); and. Tierras 2538:6:13r-14r (1775). A cofradía dedicated to Jesús Nazareno, .or The Man of Sorrows, is known for Calimaya (MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:21r); there may have been one, too, in Texcaliacac.

57 AGN Tierras 1501:3:3r-4v (Tepemaxalco, 1710) and 15r, 16r-v (Tepemaxalco, 1693); 2391:l:59r-V (Ateneo, 1788?); and, 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691).

58 See, for example, Fergusson, Ema, Fiesta in Mexico (New York, 1934), pp. 47–67,Google Scholar and Ricard, , The Spiritual Conquest, pp. 192, 193, 269–70.Google Scholar A fuller description of the cult up through the modern day can be found in Giménez, Gilberto, Cultura popular y religión en el Anahuae (Mexico: Centro de Estudios Ecuménicos, 1978).Google Scholar

59 AGN Tierras 2298:5:32r-37v.

60 AGN Tierras 2547:7:4r-6v.

61 AGN Tierras 2303:4:26r-30v.

62 Ricard, , The Spiritual Conquest, p. 193.Google Scholar Giménez, (Cultura popular, pp. 87ff) elaborates on a modern pilgrimage to Chalma from San Pedro Atlapulco.Google Scholar

63 In Taylor’s, William B. “The Virgin of Guadalupe in New Spain: An Inquiry into the Social History of Marian Devotion,” American Ethnologist 14 (1987), 9–33,CrossRefGoogle Scholar questions are raised about the timing, degree, and geographical distribution of Indian devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe during the colonial period. Information provided here in Table 1 reveals the value of indigenous testaments for helping answer such questions.

64 Gibson, , The Aztecs, p. 111.Google Scholar

65 Due to the nature of the data base, the number of wills was easier to count than the absolute number of individuals. Wills are not totalled, either, because there was some overlap, with a father leaving images to both sons and daughters, for example.

66 Wills with images of Mary Magdalene: AGN Civil 1108:7:16r-17v (Metepec, 1767), and Tierras 2298:5:17r-20v (Calimaya, 1734) and 21r-22v (Calimaya, 1755). St. Ann: AGN Tierras 2300:18:19r-20v (Tepemaxalco?, 1714); 2539:5:17r-19v (Almoloya, 1762); and, 2544:12, cuad 2:lr-2v, 5r-6v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1736).

67 These eleven are: Santo Cristo, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Nicolás, San Diego, San Juan, San Miguel, San Pedro, San Mateo, San Josef, and San Lucas. In the sacred precincts of Tlaxcalan Indian homes today, Nutini, Hugo (Todos Santos, p. 193)Google Scholar notes that “male saints by far outnumber female saints but this imbalance is somewhat compensated for by the large number of manifestations of the Virgin Mary.”

68 I have yet actually to quantify the testators’ daughters’ names, but among the female testators themselves, twenty-nine (fifty-six percent) of the fifty-two women had Maria as a first or second name.

69 AGN Tierras 2301:13:lr-4r (1755).

70 AGN Tierras 2533:5:lr-4r.

71 AGN Tierras 2298:3:7r-9r.

72 AGN Civil 1003:4:30r-32v (Tianguistengo, 1761); 1083:12:lr-4r (Texcaliacac, 1732) and 8r-10v (Texcaliacac, 1772); Tierras 2298:3:7r-9r (Teotenango, 1762); 2298:5:32r-37v (Calimaya, 1712); 23O0:3:9r-llv (Tepezoyuca, 1737); 2301:13:lr-4r (Tenango del Valle, 1767); 2303:4:26r-30v (Texcaliacac?, 1762); 2533:5: lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691) and 5v, 7r-v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1703); 2538:9:11 (Atizapan?, 1755); 2539:12:5r-8r (San Bartolomé Aticpac, 1632) 2541:9:33r-34v (Tepemaxalco, 1735); 2544:12, cuad 2:lr-2v, 5r-6v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1736); 2547:7:lr-2v (Atizapan, 1762) and4r-6v (Atizapan, 1724); and, 2615:1:lr-lv, 3r-v (San Pedro Techuchulco?, 1762) and 4:6r-7r (Xon-acatlan, 1705).

73 AGN Tierras 2533:5:lr-4r (Tepemaxalco).

74 AGN Tierras 2615:4:6r-7r.

75 AGN Tierras 2298:5:32r-37v (1712).

76 The document, originally published by Fray Francisco Ximénez is quoted in both Hill, Robert M. II, “Manteniendo el culto a los santos: aspectos financieros de la instituciones religiosas en el altiplano colonial maya,” Mesoamerica, 2 (1986), 67,Google Scholar and Early, John D., “Some Ethnographic Implications of an Ethnohistorical Perspective of the Civil-Religious Hierarchy among the Highland Maya,” Ethnohis-tory, 30 (1983), 193.Google Scholar

77 Quotes are verbatim, with the orthographical idiosyncracies intact. AGN Tierras 2301:10: lOr (Xo-chiaca, 1772).

78 On the existence of altars in Indian homes, see Durán, Fray Diego, Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), p. 235.Google Scholar

79 AGN Tierras 2298:5:21r-22v (Calimaya, 1755).

80 AGN Tierras 2539:12:5r-8r (San Bartolomé Aticpac, 1632).

81 AGN Tierras 2616:3:2r-v (Tianguistengo, 1718).

82 AGN Tierras 2303:4:26r-3Ov (Texcaliacac, 1762).

83 Quoted by Ricard, , The Spiritual Conquest, p. 269,Google Scholar

84 See, for example, AGN Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:l:lr-3v (Toluca, 1717); Tierras 2301:4:lr-4v (Xonacatlan, 1737); 2539:12:5r-8r (San Bartolomé Aticpac, 1632); 2540:5:3r-4r (Tenango del Valle, 1732); and, 2541:12:lr-3v (Tenango del Valle, 1737). Modern Sierra Otomi oratories are called nguja, the indigenous word meaning “god-house.” See Dow, , The Shaman’s Touch, p. 25.Google Scholar

85 AGN Hospital de Jesús, leg. 326:13:21r,

86 Service with candles: AGN Civil 664:2:61r-61fci5.r (Santa María Asunción, 1762); 66r-66bis.r (Calimaya, 1692); 1003:4:23r-24r (Tianguistengo, 1737?); 1083:12:lr-4r (Texcaliacac, 1732); Tierras 2232:13:12r-v (James Lockhart transcription) (Ateneo, 1738); 2298:5:32r-37v (Calimaya, ,1712); 2300:2:lr-2v (Xilocingo, 1683); 2301:4:lr-4v (Xonacatlan, 1737) and 28r-29r (Xonacatlan, 1728); 2303:l:10r-llv (Tepemaxalco, 1762); 2391:l:lr-2v (Ateneo, 1694), 27r-30r (Ateneo, 1780), and 59r-v (Ateneo, 1788?); 2535:16:5r-v (Mexicaltzingo, 1774); 2538:8:lr-2v (Chapultepec, 1773); 2539:5:17r-19v (Almoloya, 1762); 2541:9:33r-34r (Tepemaxalco, 1735); 2544:12, cuad 2:lr-2v, 5r-6v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1736); 2546:8:lr-2v (Xilocingo, 1763), 16:8r-10v (Xonacatlan, 1720) and 22r-v (Xonacatlan, 1733); 2547:3:3r-7r (Tianguistengo, 1737), 7:lr-2v (Atizapan, 1762), 4r-6v (Atizapan, 1724), and llr-v, 13r-v (Atizapan, 1716); 2615:4:lr-3v (Xonacatlan, 1693), 6r-7r (Xonacatlan, 1705), and 5:lr-3r (Chapultepec, 1782); and, 2616:7:9r-10v (Calimaya, 1724). Service with flowers are the same as the citations for candles, excepting: AGN Tierras 2298:5:32r-37v (Calimaya, 1712); 2300:2:lr-2v (Xilocingo, 1683); 2391:l:lr-2v (Ateneo, 1694); and, 2546:16:22r-v (Xonacatlan, 1733). Service with incense are the same as the citations for candles, adding AGN Tierras 2541:9:35r-36r (Tepemaxalco?, 1736) and excepting: AGN Civil 664:2:61r-61Ws.r (Santa María Asunción, 1762); 66r-66bis.r (Calimaya, 1692); Tierras 2232:13:12r-v (Lockhart transcription) (Ateneo, 1738); 2303:l:10r-llv (Tepemaxalco, 1762); 2391:l:lr-2v (Ateneo, 1694); 2535:16:5r-v (Mexicaltzingo, 1774); 2539:5:17r-19v (Almoloya, 1762); 2541:9:33r-34r (Tepemaxalco, 1735); 2544:12, cuad 2:lr-2v, 5r-6v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1736); and, 2547:7:4r-6v.

87 Durán, , Book of the Gods, p. 235.Google Scholar

88 See, for example, Reina, Rubén E., The Law of the Saints (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), pp. 102, 106.Google Scholar

89 See Christian, , Local Religion, p. 157.Google Scholar James Lockhart mentions this in his forthcoming book.

90 Sweeping service: AGN Civil 1003:4:23r-24r (Tianguistengo, 1737?); 2301:4:lr-4v (Xonacatlan, 1737) and 28r-29r (Xonacatlan, 1728); 2391:l:lr-2v (Ateneo, 1694), 27r-30r (Ateneo, 1780), and 59r-v (Ateneo, 1788?); 2535:16:5r-v (Mexicaltzingo, 1774); 2541:9:35r-36r (Tepemaxalco?, 1736); 2546:16:8r-10v (Xonacatlan, 1720); 2615:4:lr-3v (Xonacatlan, 1693), 6r-7r (Xonacatlan, 1705), and 5:lr-3r (Chapultepec, 1782).

91 AGN Tierras 2615:4:6r (Xonacatlan, 1705) and 2391:l:27r-30r, (San Mateo Ateneo, 1780).

92 AGN Civil 664:2:61r-61te.r (Santa María Asunción, 1762).

93 AGN Tierras 2539:5:17r-19v (Almoloya, 1762).

94 AGN Tierras 2298:5:32r-37r (Calimaya, 1712).

95 Lockhart, James and Schwartz, Stuart B., Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 15.Google Scholar

96 An example of tlacohualli, something purchased, is seen in AGN Civil 1495:10:2r-5v (Calimaya, 1762).

97 AGN Tierras 1501:3:3r-4v. The evidence is slim so far, but it may prove that women held a slight edge over men as cultivators of the maguey, particularly those plants on the solar.

98 AGN Tierras 2544:12, cuad 2:2v (Santiago Cuaxustenco, 1736).

99 AGN Tierras 2232:13:12r-v (transcription by James Lockhart).

100 AGN Tierras 2544:12, cuad 2:lr-4v.

101 AGN Tierras 2300:3:9r-l lv (Santa Maria Tepezoyuca, 1737).

102 AGN Tierras 2615:l:10r (San Pedro Techuchulco, 1726).

103 AGN Civil 1495:10:2r-5v.

104 Gibson, , The Aztecs, p. 129.Google Scholar

105 AGN Criminal 230:476r-477r (Ixtlahuaca, 1639).

106 AGN Tierras 2533:5: lr-4r (Tepemaxalco, 1691). The cofradía of St. Anthony is the one mentioned above that is known to have still existed in 1721 (MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:2Ir).

107 I have seen a mayordomo designated in an Indian testament that is in Spanish (AGN Tierras 2541:9:8r-v, Tepemaxalco?, 1779), and there are likely others awaiting discovery.

108 Gibson, , The Aztecs, p. 130.Google Scholar

109 Early examples of what may have been saints’ land or its antecedent appear in the Culhuacan testaments. The land left to Santa María Magdalena by Juana Martina ( Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, p. 144)Google Scholar is highly reminiscent of eighteenth-century bequests to saints. No cofradía is presumed to be behind this divinity, although Cline does assume that the land was deeded to the church.

110 Early, , “Some Ethnographic Implications,” 193–194 Google Scholar, and Hill, , “Manteniendo el culto,” 67–68.Google Scholar Both quote the eighteenth-century Ximénez document, but Hill retains the original Spanish.

111 Hill, , “Manteniendo el culto,” 62–69.Google Scholar

112 An annual procession is the only element in Hill’s description of guachibal responsibilities that these Nahuatl testaments do not include in discussions of service to the saints. This omission would seem to further distance this kind of individual service from cofradías and, by extension, colonial forms of the cargo system. Still, the individual’s underwriting of public masses (and possibly processions) may be an early or parallel expression of the cargo holder’s sponsorship of fiestas, and may warrant further study.

113 Ricard, , The Spiritual Conquest, p. 182.Google Scholar I have a will of an Indian noblewoman from Toluca dating from 1589 that mentions membership in a cofradía (AGN Hospital de Jesús, vol. 15:1:143-144). James Lockhart, in his forthcoming book, The Nahuas, states that cofradía membership was well over half female. In colonial Guatemala, female cofradía members were called “texeles,” according to a description of Catholic liturgy by a Franciscan friar quoted in Early, “Some Ethnographic Implications,” 190. van Oss, Adriaan C., “Rural Sodalities in Colonial Guatemala,” in Meyers, Albert and Hopkins, Diane Elizabeth, eds., Manipulating the Saints: Religious Brotherhoods and Social Integration in Postconquest Latin America (Hamburg: Wayasbah, 1988),Google Scholar defines texeles as “mothers” and also describes their role. For colonial Michoacán, Ernesto de la Torre’s list of cofradía functionaries includes a great many roles for women; “Algunos aspectos acerca de las cofradías,” p. 425. Similarly, in modern Guatemala women continue to hold cofradía offices. See Reina, , The Law of the Saints, p. 101.Google Scholar

114 MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano, 51:8r.

115 MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 51:8r-9v.

116 MNAH/AH Fondo Franciscano 48:24v-25r.

117 Loera, y Chavez, , Calimaya y Tepemaxalco, p. 85.Google Scholar Of the four wills in my sample dating from post 1785, I have one that mentions serving the saints with land. AGN Tierras 2540:9: lr-v (Santiago Tilapa, 1801).

118 Some might see these developments, again, as a result of changes in church policy that came with the Enlightenment, as Gruzinski (Man-Gods, pp. 112–113) describes, but I doubt it. In the same vein, I do not like to credit the clergy with the greatest responsibility for creating a cult of the saints among the Indians in the first place. If anyone encouraged it, it was probably the indigenous assistants to friars (or perhaps to the more lenient secular priests) who interpreted the saints and their worship in such a way that made them appealing to other Indians. I owe a debt for some of these ideas to Lockhart’s forthcoming book.

119 See Wood, , “Corporate Adjustments,” and Loera, y Chávez, , Calimaya y Tepemaxalco and her Economía campesina indígena en la colonia: un caso en el Valle de Toluca (Mexico: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, Investigaciones Sociales. 8, 1981).Google Scholar

120 Chance, and Taylor, , “Cofradías and Cargos,” 10.Google Scholar

121 Personal information of James Lockhart.

122 This is not to say that there were not other religious drains on community resources in the form of the provisioning of bells, altarpieces, fiestas, and native labor for church construction, among other expenses, as Ronald Spores outlines for colonial Oaxaca in The Mixtees in Ancient and Colonial Times (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), pp. 154–160. The major donations of land to the Church by caciques that he describes was a practice also known in the Toluca Valley. See, for example, the will of doña Ana Cortés Acaxochitl in AGN, Hospital de Jesús, vol. 15:l:143r-144r (the Spanish translation).

123 Cline, , Colonial Culhuacan, p. 34.Google Scholar

124 See, for example, Spores, , The Mixtees, p. 142.Google Scholar Of course, these were also features of Catholicism that were favored by Spaniards. See Ingham, John M., Mary, Michael, and Lucifer: Folk Catholicism in Central Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Institute of Latin American Studies, Latin American Monographs, 69, 1986), p. 34.Google Scholar

125 Quoted in Ricard, , The Spiritual Conquest, p. 103.Google Scholar

126 Gibson, , The Aztecs, p. 100.Google Scholar

127 Durán, , Book of Gods, pp. 71, 216, and 225.Google Scholar

128 Spores, , The Mixtees, p. 152.Google Scholar

129 Andrews, J. Richard and Hassig, Ross, eds. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984), p. 49.Google Scholar

130 Whitecotton, Joseph W., The Zapotees: Princes, Priests, and Peasants (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977), p. 213.Google Scholar For a similar pairing of gods with Christian divinities, see Ingham, , Mary, Michael and Lucifer, pp. 34–35, 183–184.Google Scholar

131 Nutini, Hugo G. and Bell, Betty, Ritual Kinship: The Structure and Historical Development of the Compadrazgo System in Rural Tlaxcala, Volume 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 292–299.Google Scholar

132 Nutini, , Todos Santos, pp. 178–182.Google Scholar

133 Dow, , The Shaman’s Touch, p. 25.Google Scholar

134 Personal information of Father Ignacio Peña, Mexicaltzingo.