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The Emperor of Ixcateopan: Fraud, Nationalism and Memory in Modern Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2005

PAUL GILLINGHAM
PAUL GILLINGHAM
Affiliation:
St Antony's College, University of Oxford.
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Abstract

This article analyses the forgery and discovery of the purported tomb of Cuauhtémoc, the last Mexica emperor. An eclectic collection of contemporary sources outlines a subtle interplay between elites, cultural managers and peasants, who alternately collaborated and competed in manipulating the would-be invention. Groups traditionally undervalued in studies of nationalism, namely villagers and petty bureaucrats, went far beyond the mimesis of elites to significantly reshape parts of the national narrative. Their entrepreneurial success in manipulating nationalist symbols demonstrates that the instrumentalist use of the past is a cross-class activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , August 2005 , pp. 561 - 584
Copyright
2005 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The author thanks the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the Leverhulme Foundation, the Scouloudi Foundation and The Queen's College, Oxford, for their generous support. Salvador Rueda, José Ortiz Monasterio, Alan Knight, Lyman Johnson, John Cole and the journal's referees were among those who provided valuable comments.