Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T02:10:26.846Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Egalitarian Ideology and Political Power in Prehispanic Central Mexico: The Case of Tlaxcallan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Lane F. Fargher ,
Richard E. Blanton  and
Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza
Lane F. Fargher
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ecología Humana, Centra de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN-Unidad Mérida, km 6 carretera antigua a Progreso, Col. Cordemex, Mérida, YUC, C.P. 97310, Mexico ([email protected])
Richard E. Blanton
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, Stone Hall, 700 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907 ([email protected])
Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza
Affiliation:
Centra de Estudios Arqueológicos, El Colegio de Michoacán, A.C., Cerro de Nahuatzen 85, Frac. Jardines del Cerro Grande, 59379, La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

During the central Mexican late Postclassic period, the Aztec Triple Alliance became the largest and most powerful empire in Mesoamerica. Yet ancient Tlaxcallan (now Tlaxcala, Mexico) resisted incorporation into the empire despite being entirely surrounded by it and despite numerous Aztec military campaigns aimed at the defeat of the Tlaxcaltecas. How did it happen that a relatively small (1,400 km²) polity was able to resist a more powerful foe while its neighbors succumbed? We propose a resolution to this historical enigma that, we suggest, has implications for the broader study of social and cultural change, particularly in relation to theories of state formation and collective action. We find it particularly interesting that the Tlaxcaltecas abandoned a key tenet of traditional Nahua political structure in which kingship was vested in members of the nobility, substituting for it government by a council whose members could be recruited from the ranks of commoners. To achieve such a significant deviation from typical Nahua authority structure, the Tlaxcaltecas drew selectively from those aspects of Nahua mythic history and religion that were consistent with a comparatively egalitarian and collective political regime.

Resumen

Resumen

Durante el Posclásico Tardío en el Altiplano Central de México la Triple Alianza Azteca llegó a ser el imperio más grande y poderoso de Mesoamérica. Sin embargo, el antiguo Tlaxcallan (el actual Tlaxcala, México) resistío la incorporación al imperio aunque estaba completamente rodeado por el mismo y a pesar de las muchas campañas militares aztecas para conquistarlos. ¿Cómo fue posible que este pequeño Estado (1,400 km²) pudiera resistir a su enemigo más poderoso mientras que sus vecinos sucumbieron? Proponemos una solución a este enigma histórico y sugerimos que ésta tiene implicaciones generales para el estudio de cambios sociales y culturales, específicamente en las teorías sobre la formación del Estado y la acción colectiva. Es de particular interés que los tlaxcaltecas abandonaron un elemento fundamental de la estructura política nahua, en el cual la monarquía se daba entre los miembros de la nobleza, y lo sustituyeron por un gobierno a través de un consejo cuyos miembros podían ser reclutados de entre la gente común (macehualtin). Para llevar a cabo este cambio significativo con respecto a la estructura de autoridad nahua, los tlaxcaltecas seleccionaron aquellos aspectos de la historia mítica nahua y de su religión que eran consistentes con el régimen de igualdad y colectividad política.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 227 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Aguilera, Carmen 1984 Códice de Humantla. First facsimile edition. Institute Tlaxcalteca de la Cultura, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Aguilera, Carmen 1986 Lienzos y Códice de Tepetícpac. Institute Tlaxcalteca de la Cultura, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Aguilera, Carmen 1991a Los Otomíes Defensores de Fronteras: El Caso de Tlaxcala. In Tlaxcala: Textos de su Historia, Tomo 4: Los Orígenes: Antropología e Historia, edited by Carmen Aguilera and Angélica Ríos, pp. 472–485. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala. Google Scholar
Aguilera, Carmen 1991b Tlaxcala: Textos de su Historia, Tomo 5: Los Orígenes: Antropología e Historia. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de 1991 Historia de la Nación Chichimeca. In Tlaxcala: Textos de su historia, Tomo 6: Siglo XVI, edited by Carlos Sempat Assadourian and Andrea Martínez Baracs, pp. 57–63. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala. Google Scholar
Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de 2000 Historia de la Nación Chichimeca. Edited by Germán Vázquez Chamorro. Dastin, Madrid.Google Scholar
Anguiano, Marina, and Chapa, Matilde 1976 Estratificación Social en Tlaxcala durante el Siglo XVI. In Estratificación Social en la Mesoamérica Pre-hispánica, edited by Pedro Carrasco and Johann Broda, pp. 118–156. Centro de Investigaciones Superiores, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. Google Scholar
Anonymous Conqueror 1961 Relación de Algunas Cosas de la Nueva España y de la Gran Ciudad de Temestitán, México. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2008 Corporate Power Strategies in the Late Formative to Early Classic Tequila Valleys of Central Jalisco. Latin American Antiquity 19:414–434.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berdan, Frances 2008 Concepts of Ethnicity and Class in Aztec-Period Mexico. In Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica: The View from Archaeology, Art History, and Contemporary Ethnography, by Frances Berdan, John Chance, Alan Sandstrom, Barbara Stark, James Taggart, and Emily Umberger, pp. 105–132. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances, Blanton, Richard E., Boone, Elizabeth Hill, Hodge, Mary G., Smith, Michael E., and Umberger, Emily 1996 Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Bernal-García, María E. 2007 The Dance of Time, the Procession of Space at Mexico-Tenochtitlan’s Desert Garden. In Sacred Gardens and Landscapes: Ritual and Agency, edited by Michel Conan, pp. 69–112. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Bierhorst, John 1992 History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanton, Richard E. 1998 Beyond Centralization: Steps Toward a Theory of Egalitarian Behavior in Archaic States. In Archaic States, edited by Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, pp. 135–172. School of American Research Press, Santa Fe. Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., and Fargher, Lane F. 2008 Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., Fargher, Lane F., and Heredia Espinoza, Verenice Y. 2005 The Mesoamerican World of Goods and Its Transformations. In Settlement, Subsistence, and Social Complexity: Essays Honoring the Legacy of Jeffrey R. Parsons, edited by Richard E. Blanton, pp. 260–294. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles. Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., Feinman, Gary M., Kowalewski, Stephen A., and Peregrine, Peter N. 1996 A Dual-Processual Theory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization. Current Anthropology 37:1–14, 65–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boone, Elizabeth Hill 1991 Migration Histories as Ritual Performance. In Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes, edited by David Carrasco, pp. 121–151. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Google Scholar
Boone, Elizabeth Hill 2000 Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Boone, Elizabeth Hill 2007 Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Boots of Fate. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braniff, Beatriz, and Hers, Marie-Areti 1998 Herencias Chichimecas. Arqueología: Revista de la Coordinación Nacional de Arqueología del lnstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Segunda Epoca 19:55–80.Google Scholar
Broda, Johann 1991 The Sacred Landscape of Aztec Calendar Festivals: Myth, Nature, and Society. In Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes, edited by David Carrasco, pp. 74–120. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1983 Aztec State Making: Ecology, Structure, and the Origin of the State. American Anthropologist 85:261–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carneiro, Robert 1970 A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169:733–738.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carrasco, David 1982 Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1966 Documentos Sobre el Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas Tramontanos. Tlalocan 5:133–160.Google Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1976 Los Linajes Nobles de México Antiguo. In Estratificación en la Mesoamérica Prehispánica, edited by Pedro Carrasco and Johann Broda, pp. 19–36. Centro de Investigaciones Superiores, Institute Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. Google Scholar
Caso, Alfonso 1927 Las Ruinas de Tizatlán, Tlaxcala. Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos 1:139–172.Google Scholar
Castillo Farreras, Víctor M. 1972 Estructura Económica de la Sociedad Mexicana Según las Fuentes Documentales. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Institute de Investigaciones Históricas, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Cervantes de Salazar, Fransico 1991 Crónica de la Nueva España. In Tlaxcala: Textos de su Historia, Tomo 6: Siglo XVI, edited by Carlos Sempat Assadourian and Andrea Martínez Baracs, pp. 30–36, 50–53,60–64,85–86,88–95,98–102,107–108,110–113. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Chance, John 1996 The Barrios of Colonial Tecali: Patronage, Kinship, and Territorial Relations in a Central Mexican Community. Ethnology 35:107–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chance, John 2000 The Noble House in Colonial Puebla, Mexico: Descent, Inheritance, and the Nahua Tradition. American Anthropologist 102:485–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapa, Matilde 1987 Análisis Histórico-Sociológico de los Topónimos de los Padrones de Tlaxcala del Siglo XVI. In Padrones de Tlaxcala del Siglo XVI y Padrón de Nobles de Ocotelolco, edited by Teresa Rojas Rabiela, pp. 19–23. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico City. Google Scholar
Quauhtlehuanitzin, Chimalpahin, Muñón, Don Francisco de San Antón 1965 Relaciones Originates de Chalco Amequemecan. Edited and translated by Sylvia Rendón. Fondo de Culture Económica, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Códice Chimalpopoca 1975 Códice Chimalpopoca: Anales de Cuauhtitlan y Leyenda de los Soles. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Cohen, Ronald, and Service, Elman R. 1978 Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Contreras, José E. 1992 Excavaciones Arqueológicas en Ocotelulco. Boletín del Consejo de Arqueología 1991:50–55.Google Scholar
Cortés, Hernán 1963 Cartas y documentos. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Cortés, Hernán 1986 Letters from Mexico. Translated by Anthony Pagden. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Cortés, Hernán 2007 Cartas de Relatión. Grupo Editorial Exodo, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Cosentino, Delia A. 2007 Nahua Pictorial Genealogies. In Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethno-history. Provisional Version, edited by James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood. University of Oregon, Eugene.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1997 State and Society in Teotihuacan, Mexico. Annual Review of Anthropology 8:129–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Nigel 1973 The Aztecs: A History. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Davies, Nigel 1980 The Toltec Heritage: From the Fall of Tula to the Rise of Tenochtitlán. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Davies, Nigel 1987 The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
de Aguilar, Francisco 2002 Relatión Breve de la Conquista de la Nueva España. In La Conquista de Tenochtitlan, edited by Germán Vázquez Chamorro, pp. 155–198. Dastin, Madrid. Google Scholar
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 1956 The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Edited by Genaro García. Translated by Alfred P. Maudslay. Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy, New York.Google Scholar
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 1988 Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España. 2 vols. Editorial del Valle de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Dibble, Charles E. (editor) 1951 Códice Xolotl. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 1971 Book of the Cods and Rites. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 1984 Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme. 2 vols. Edited by Angle Ma. Garibay. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 1994 The History of the Indies of New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 2006a Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme. Edited by Angel Ma. Garibay K. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 2006b Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de la Tierra Firme, Tomo Primero: I. Libra de los Ritos y Ceremonias en Las Fiestas de los Dioses y Celebratión de ellas y II. El Calendario Antiguo. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Fargher, Lane R., and Blanton, Richard E. 2007 Revenue, Voice, and Public Goods in Three Pre-Modern States. Comparative Studies in Society and History 49:848–882.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feinman, Gary M. 1995 The Emergence of Inequality: A Focus on Strategies and Processes. In Foundations of Social Inequality, edited by T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, pp. 255–280. Plenum Press, New York. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1972 The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations. Annual Review of Ecology and Sytematics 3:399–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, John W., Cook, Garret W., Chase, Arlen F., and Chase, Diane Z. 1996 Questions of Political and Economic Integration: Segmentary Versus Centralized States Among the Ancient Maya. Current Anthropology 37:795–801.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fried, Morton H. 1967 The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
García Cook, Angel 1981 The Historical Importance of Tlaxcala in the Cultural Development of Central Highlands. In Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 1, edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff, pp. 244–276. University of Texas Press, Austin. Google Scholar
García Cook, Angel, and Merino Carrión, Beatriz L. 1991 Tlaxcala: Textos de su Historia, Tomo 3: Los Origenes: Arqueología. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Gerhard, Peter 1993 A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Gibson, Charles 1952 Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Gillespie, Susan D. 1989 The Aztec Kings: The Construction of Rulership in Mexica History. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan 1982 The Evolution of the Prehistoric State. Columbia University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hernández Sánchez, Gilda 2005 Vasijaspara Ceremonia: Iconografía de la Cerámica Tipo Códice del Estilo Mixteca-Puebla. CNWS Publications Leiden: Research School of Asian, African, and Amerindian Studies, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden.Google Scholar
Herrera, y Tordesillas, Antonio de 1934 Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierrafirme del Mar Océano. Tipografía de Archivos, Madrid.Google Scholar
Heyden, Doris 1991 Dryness Before the Rain: Toxcatl and Tezcatlipoca. In Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes, edited by David Carrasco, pp. 188–204. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederic 2009 Land and Succession in the Indigenous Noble Houses of Sixteenth-Century Tlaxcala. Ethnohistory 56:569–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 1983 The Aztec “Flowery War”: A Geopolitical Explanation. Journal of Anthropological Research 39:415–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Arthur A., Bustamante, Laura A., and Levine, Marc N. 2001 Commoner Power: A Case Study from the Classic Period Collapse on the Oaxaca Coast. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 8:343–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kowalewski, Stephen 2006 Coalescent Societies. In Light on the Path: The Anthropology and History of the Southeastern Indians, edited by Thomas Pluckhahn and Robbie Ethridge, pp. 94–122. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret 1988 Of Rule and Revenue. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Lichbach, Mark I. 1996 The Cooperator’s Dilemma. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lienzo de Tlaxcala 1979 Edited by Alfredo Chavero. Editorial Cosmos, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Lind, Michael D. 1994 Cholula and Mixteca Polychromes: Two Mixteca-Puebla Regional Sub-Styles. In Mixteca-Puebla: Discoveries and Research in Mesoamerican Art and Archaeology, edited by Harold B. Nicholson and Eloise Quiñones Keber, pp. 79–99. Labyrinthos, Lancaster, California. Google Scholar
Lockhart, James 1992 The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford University Press, Stanford.Google Scholar
Lockhart, James, Berdan, Frances, and Anderson, Arthur (editors) 1986 The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala (1545–1627). University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
López de Gómara, Francisco 1943 Historia de la Conquista de México. 2 vols. Edited by Joachín Ramírez Cabañas. Editorial Pedro Robredo, Mexico City.Google Scholar
McAlister, Lyle N. 1984 Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
McIntosh, Susan K. 1999 Pathways to Complexity: An African Perspective. In Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, edited by Susan K. McIntosh, pp. 1–30. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millon, Rene 1992 Teotihuacan Studies: From 1950 to 1990 and Beyond. In Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, edited Janet C. Berlo, pp. 551–567. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Mónaco, Emanuela 1998 Quetzalcoatl de Tollan. Arqueología: Revista de la Coordinatión National de Arqueología del Instituto National de Antropología e Historia, Segunda Epoca 19:119–155.Google Scholar
Morse, Richard 1984 The Urban Development of Colonial Spanish America. In The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 2: Colonial Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell, pp. 67–104. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Google Scholar
Motolinía, Torbio 1950 History of the Indians of New Spain. Cortés Society, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Motolinía, Torbio 1971 Memoriales o Libro de las Cosas de la Nueva España y de los Naturales de Ella. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Muñoz Camargo, Diego 1947 Historia de Tlaxcala. 2nd edition. Ateneo Nacional de Ciencias y Artes de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Muñoz Camargo, Diego 1986 Historia de Tlaxcala. Historia 16. Información y Revistas, Madrid.Google Scholar
Muñoz Camargo, Diego 1998 Historia de Tlaxcala. Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala and Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala/Mexico City.Google Scholar
Muñoz Camargo, Diego 1999 Relaciones Geográficas de Tlaxcala (Descriptión de la Ciudady Provincia de Tlaxcala de las Indias y del Mar). Edited by René Acuña. El Colegio de San Luis, San Luis Potosí; and Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Nava Rodríguez, Luis 1966 Tlaxcala en la Historia. Progreso, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Nicholson, Harold B. 1971 Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico. In Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 10, edited by Robert Wauchope, Gordon F. Ekholm, and Igancio Bernal, pp. 395–146. University of Texas Press, Austin. Google Scholar
Nicholson, Harold B. 2001 Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Noguera, Eduardo 1929 Los Altares de Sacrificio de Tizatlan, Tlaxcala. In Ruinasde Tizatlan, Tlaxcala, pp. 24–64. Publicaciones de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, Vol. 15. Talleres Gráficos de la Natión, Mexico City. Google Scholar
North, Douglas C. 1981 Structure and Change in Economic History. 1st edition. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Odena Güemes, Lina 1990 La Compositión Etnica en el Posclásico y la Cuestión Chichimeca. In Mesoamérica y el Norte de México (siglos IX–X1I): Seminario de Arqueología Wigberto Jiménez Moreno, 2, edited by Fedrica Sodi Miranda, pp. 451–458. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Museo Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City. Google Scholar
Offner, Jerome A. 1983 Law and Politics in Aztec Texcoco. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Olivier, Guihelm 2003 Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca, “Lord of the Smoking Mirror.” University of Colorado Press, Boulder.Google Scholar
Olson, Moncur 1965 The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1997 Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Peperstraete, Sylvie 2006 Los Murales de Ocotelulco y el Problema de la Procedencia del Códice Borgia. Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 37:12–32.Google Scholar
Pohl, John M. D. 1998 Themes of Drunkenness, Violence, and Factionalism in Tlaxcalan Altar Paintings. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 33:184–207.Google Scholar
Pohl, John M. D. 2003a Royal Marriage and Confederacy Building Among the Eastern Nahuas, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs. In The Post-classic Mesoamerican World, edited by Michael E. Smith and Frances Berdan, pp. 243–248. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Pohl, John M. D. 2003b Creation Stories, Hero Cults, and Alliance Building: Confederacies of Central and Southern Mexico. In The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Michael E. Smith and Frances Berdan, pp. 61–66. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Pohl, John M. D. 2003c Ritual Iconographic Variability in Mixteca-Puebla Polychrome Pottery. In The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Michael E. Smith “and Frances Berdan, pp. 201–206. University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Pohl, John M. D. 2003d Ritual Ideology and Commerce in the Southern Mexican Highlands. In The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, edited by Michael E. Smith and Frances Berdan, pp. 172–177. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
Rappaport, Roy 1979 Ecology, Meaning, and Ritual. North Atlantic Books, Richmond, California.Google Scholar
Rojas, Gabriel de 1979a Descripción de Cholula. Gobierno del Estado de Puebla, Puebla.Google Scholar
Rojas, Gabriel de 1979b Las Relaciones de Cholula, Culhuacan, Teotzacualco y Ameltepeque. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Rojas, Teresa, Anguiano, Marina, Chapa, Matilde, and Camacho, Amelia 1987 Padrones de Tlaxcala del Siglo XVI y Padrón de Nobles de Ocotelolco. Ediciones de la Casa Chata, Colección Documentos. Centra de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 1950–1982 General History of the Things of New Spain: Florentine Codex. School of American Research, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 2005 Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España. 4 vols. Edited by Angel Ma. Garibay K. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Saldaúa Oropesa, Roman 1950 Historia de Tlaxcala: Documentos Desconocidos. Editorial Xicotli, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., Parsons, Jeffery R., and Logan, Michael 1976 Summary and Conclusions. In The Valley of Mexico: Studies in Pre-Hispanic Ecology and Society, edited by Eric R. Wolf, pp. 161–178. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., Parsons, Jeffery R., and Santley, Robert S. 1979 The Basin of Mexico: Ecological Processes in the Evolution of a Civilization. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Seler, Eduard 1963 Códice Borgia. Buenos Aires[EAG2], Mexico City.Google Scholar
Sempat Assadourian, Carlos, and Baracs, Andrea Martínez (editors) 1991 Tlaxcala: Textos de su Historia, Tomo 6: Siglo XVI. Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes y Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala.Google Scholar
Service, Elman R. 1975 Origins of the State and Civilization: The Process of Cultural Evolution. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E., and Berdan, Frances 1996 Introduction to Part II. The Outer Provinces. In Aztec Imperial Strategies, by Frances Berdan, Richard E. Blanton, Elizabeth Hill Boone, Mary G. Hodge, Michael E. Smith, and Emily Umberger, pp. 109–113. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E., and Berdan, Frances (editors) 2003 The Postclassic Mesoamerican World. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Soustelle, Jacques 1970 Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest. Stanford University Press, Stanford.Google Scholar
Southall, Aidan 1988 Segmentary State in Africa and Asia. Comparative Studies in Society and History 30:52–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tapia, Andrés de 2002 Relatión de Algunas Cosas de las que Acaecieron al Muy Ilustre Señor Don Hernando Cortés, Marqués del Valle, Desde que Determinó ir a Descubrir Tierra en la Tierra Firme del Mar Océano. In La Conquista de Tenochtitlan, edited by Germán Vázquez Chamorro, pp. 65–118. Dastin, Madrid. Google Scholar
Torquemada, Fray Juan de 1975 Monarquía Indiana. 3 vols. Editorial Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Umberger, Emily 1996 Art and Imperial Strategy in Tenochtitlan. In Aztec Imperial Strategies, by Frances Berdan, Richard E. Blanton, Elizabeth Hill Boone, Mary G. Hodge, Michael E. Smith, and Emily Umberger, pp. 85–106. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Umberger, Emily 2008 Ethnicity and Other Identities in the Sculptures of Tenochtitlan. In Ethnic Identity in Nahua Mesoamerica: The View from Archaeology, Art History, Ethnohistory, and Contemporary Ethnography, by Frances Berdan, John Chance, Alan Sandstrom, Barbara Stark, James Taggart, and Emily Umberger, pp. 64–104. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
van Zantwijk, Rudolf A. M. 1985 The Aztec Arrangement: The Social History of Pre-Spanish Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Vitkin, Mikhail 1981 Marx and Weber on the Primary State. In The Study of the State, edited by Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalník, pp. 443–54. Mouton, The Hague. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Max 1978 Economy and Society. Edited by Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Wittfogel, Karl A. 1957 Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1999 Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zorita, Alonso de 1963 The Lords of New Spain: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain. Phoenix, London.Google Scholar
Zorita, Alonso de 1994 Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar