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Cultural Extremists
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Cultural Extremists
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The Myth of the Vanishing Race
The Mestizo Concept: A Product of European Imperialism
El concepto de indio en América
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HOW COLUMBUS CREATED THE CANNIBALS
Christopher Columbus - on trial
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On Human Sacrifice
Sacrificios Humanos entre los Mexicas, Realidad o Fantasia?
Sacrificios Humanos
Death Be Not Strange
Jack D. Forbes: Eurocentric Concepts Harm Native People and What Do We Mean By America and American
Contra la deformación histórica-cultural
Nuestra Cultura Indígena
On the Spanish Catholic Inquisition
Myths of the Spaniards and Puritans
On the behavior of the Europeans toward the Native Americans
The Role of Disease in 'Conquest'
Germs, Plagues, Famine, Invasion, Friars, And Native Allies!
"Religious Aspects of the Conquest of Mexico"
There is no word for 'Devil' in the Nahuatl Language
Origins of First Americans Research
Links to Further research On the Origins of the First Americans
The Finding and Founding of Tenochtitlan
Attack on the Copernican Theory
Of the basis which the Indians have for worshipping the sun
ADDENDUM II: The Florentine Codex
Rabinal Achi: Act Four--Inside the Fortress
Cultural Visibility and the Cora
Los Voladores and the Return of the Ancestors
War Songs of the Tenochka
Cantares Mexicanos
Viva Mi General Francisco Villa!
In Spirit of Agustin Lorenzo
Corridos y Canciones del Pueblo
Teotecpillatolli
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Second Chapter, Which Telleth of the Moon
Men Who Became Gods!
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Teotecpillatolli: Noble Sacred Speech
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In Blood and Fire!!
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Truth and Falsehood in War-Time
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Sun Tzu: Arte de Guerra
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We Believe and Profess
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Sixth Chapter, which telleth of the men, the valiant men
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CALIFORNIA SENATE BILL No. 670
Jose Ortega Y Gasset: On Plato's 'Republic' and On Forms of Government
Thomas Paine (17371809). Common Sense. 1776 [Excerpts]
Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality
Introduction to Deloria's "We Talk, You Listen"
My Tayta Jose Maria and the Indian aspect of the Peruvian Revolution
TO THE SUNDANCE NATIONS OF THE GREAT PLAINS
Philip Deere, Longest Walk speech
Bacbi'awak: 'Made To Die'
Born Gods!
Prologue: "The Stars We Know: Crow Indian Astronomy and Life-ways"
Black Elk Speaks: Visions of the Other World
Miantinomo, Acuera, and Tecumseh, Hatuey Speaks
Chief Seattle Speaks
Chief Red Cloud Speaks
Hopi: A Message for All People
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"LET'S MAKE A SLAVE" by Willie Lynch
On Slavery
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Frida Kahlo is Not Our Hero!
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Cultural Extremists
Chapter 7
Taken from:

Judith Friedlander: Being Indian in Hueyapan: A Study of Forced Identity in Contemporary Mexico. (1975)

 
Read Also,

Guillermo de la PeÑa: Citizenship and Ethnic Diversity in Mexico.

Cultural Extremists
Chapter 7
 
 
We are now ready to turn to the last group of non-Indians who have come to Huayapan to teach the villagers about their Indian-ness.  Over the last twenty-five years, members of an urban based, primarily middle-class organization have been visiting Hueyapan and a number of other so-called indigenous communities in Central Mexico to encourage the Indians to take pride in their indigenous heritage and to preserve it.  These individuals want the Indians to continue to practice their indigenous customs not simply as a tribute to Mexico’s Indian past, but as a model for Mexico’s “autochthonous” future.  Representing what I call the cultural extremist element of post-Revolutionary Mexico, these people have been campaigning to rid Mexico of all Spanish and other foreign influences and to revive indigenous traditions, so that the country might reemerge as the great cultural and political nation it had been in pre-Hispanic  times. 
 
 
Although the Mestizo-oriented government considers the views of the extremists absurd, it has not been able to ignore them.  First, much to the government’s consternation, its own interest in glorifying Mexico’s indigenous heritage has at times been confused with the position of the extremists.(1)   Furthermore,  there have been moments when the extremists managed, with varying degrees of success, to put the government on the defensive by promoting the idea that the nation was being ruled by people who were anti-Indian and consequently anti-Mexican. 
 
 
Perhaps the most celebrated controversy between the government and the extremists took place in 1949-1950.  A historian by the name of Eulalia Guzman announced to the press that she had discovered the bones of Cuauhtemoc in Ichcateopan, Guerrero.  (2)   When government anthropologists examined the find, however, they concluded that Guzman had unearthed the remains of at least five different skeletons including those of women and children.  Yet since the cultural extremists had already aroused considerable patriotic fervor over the Guzman discovery, many people were unwilling to accept the official report.  Hostile feelings against the anthropologists were so pronounced, in fact, that a few newspapers even suggested that these men be shot in the back like traitors.  (3)
 
 
Even during my field stay in Mexico, twenty years after the Guzman incident, government representatives were concerned enough about the cultural extremists to feel compelled to defend  the official view against them.  Early in his campaign for the presidency Luis Echeverria condemned the idea that Mexicans should reject their Spanish heritage and reasserted the traditional post-Revolutionary position that the concept of the Mestizo, not the Indian alone, integrated Mexico’s national identity.  A few days after Echeverria spoke on the subject, a reporter interviewed Alfonso Caso, Director of the National Indigenist Institute (INI), to ask this government anthropologist what he thought of Echeverria’s statement.  The interview appeared in one of Mexico’s most important newspapers, ‘El Dia’, and received a two-column spread.  The headline read: :Showcase Indigenismo--To Reject the Spanish, One of the Two Sources of Our Nationalism, Would Be a Painful Mutilation: Caso.”  Agreeing with Echeverria, and calling the extremists “raving indigenists” (Indigenistas delirantes), the anthropologist presented the situation in the following way:
 
 
“These indigenists whom I would call raving claim, for example, that we should abandon Spanish and speak Nahuatl.  Isn’t that unbelievable?  And why Nahuatl, I ask?  Why not Maya, or one of other sixty or so languages that still exist in our country?  These, let us call them for the time being--raving indigenists, do not understand that Spanish is the national language, that is to say, a means of communication among all Mexicans.
 
 
“Look, I have dedicated my life--as you know--to the study of ancient Mexican cultures and what we modern Mexican anthropologists have shown the world has succeeded in gaining admiration for the products of the ancient indigenous cultures.  On the other hand, we must not forget that Spain brought to Mexico European culture, which is the descendant of the Mediterranean culture that flourished from Egypt and Chaldea, passing through Palestine, Greece and Rome and which culminated with the great thinkers and artists of the Renaissance.  Thus as inheritors of both cultures, we must affirm our personality and continue drinking at their fountains in order to conserve our own style, in order to be each time even more ourselves.”  (4)
 
 
Defending the indigenous policy of the Mestizo-oriented government, Caso explained that Mexicans had two obligation vis-vis the Indians: to admire the Indian of the past and to help raise the standard of living of the Indian of the present.  In order to meet both of these responsibilities, he continued, the government organized “two distinct but intimately related institutions: the Institute of Anthropology and History . . . Which is concerned with the study of the Indian of the past and present and the National Indigenist Institute which is concerned with . . . Taking the improvements of modern civilization to the Indians.”  (5) 
 
 
Committed as they are to the idea that the Indians are racially and culturally superior to non-Indians, the extremists rejected the national acculturation program.  Also, they take issue with the concept of a Mestizo Mexico, because as far as they are concerned, there never has been a blending of cultures at any level of society and there never will be.  The Spaniards, as well as other Europeans, simply imposed their ways on the Indigenous peoples, the extremists maintain, and thereby interfered with the “natural evolution” of the True Mexicans.  Conceding that there are mixed-bloods in the country, the extremists explain that the hybrids are the descendants of raped Indian women, that they have been robbed of their indigenous cultural heritage and that they consequently have no choice but to imitate the traditions of the White man.  Given the fact that the Spaniards and other foreign influences have been oppressing the Indians and depriving the mixed-bloods of their superior race and culture, there is only one solution: expel the foreigners and educate the Mexicans in their own culture so that they might return the nation to its former grandeur.
 
 
Despite the heated disputes and the ostensibly different points of view, the Mestizo-oriented government and the cultural extremists actually have a good deal in common.  First, the members of both groups belong primarily to the middle and upper classes and come from urban environments.  Second, both groups consider a certain segment of the rural poor to be culturally distinct, and they identify these lower-class people as the descendants of the original inhabitants of Mexico.  Third, the government and the cultural extremists are both eager to demonstrate their own pride in Mexico’s indigenous heritage, and in their efforts to pay tribute, both groups--in varying degrees--have called upon the contemporary Indians to participate in these acts of veneration by glamorizing their Indian-ness.  Finally, both groups claim to want to save the present-day Indians, the government by making Mestizos out of the Indians and the extremists by making Indians out of the Mestizos. 
 
 
I am particularly interested in the ideas and programs of the cultural extremists because their “raving” campaign offers an intriguing sequel to the long history of non-Indian attempts to define and resolve Mexico’s Indian problem.  Since the early colonial period, when Catholic priests and Spanish landowners first began to fit the Indians into the European cultural system, Hispanic political factions have been creating the image of the Indian to meet the social, economic and ideological interests of non-Indians.  First the Spaniards arrived with very definite ideas about civilization--ideas that they imposed on the Indians.  Indigenous ways were denigrated, and the Indians were taught new traditions so that they could be integrated into the non-Indian society.  Then, throughout the colonial period and the first one hundred years of independence, champions of the Indian cause emerged from time to time among disputing Hispanic factions.  Usually these non-Indians were concerned about defending the Indians from exploitation of other non-Indians rather than about fighting to revive indigenous traditions.  And even on the few occasions when non-Indians fought to restore indigenous customs, this almost always meant to re-institute practices taught to the Indians by representatives of the sympathetic factions.  (6)  After the Mexican Revolution the new Hispanic elite claimed to be the protector of the Indians and the admirer of indigenous cultures.  However, as we have already seen, the government has shown itself to be interested primarily in glorifying Mexico’s indigenous past, while continuing the program, first introduced in colonial times, of integrating the so-called Indians into a non-Indian Mexico.  Finally, disagreements among members of the post-Revolutionary elite have given rise to another champion of the Indian cause--a group of people who do not merely want to pay tribute to Mexico’s indigenous past, but who aspire to recreate this past in the present.  Yet the group’s vision of an Indian Mexico has been distorted by the beliefs and values of the dominant Hispanic cultural system.  Cultural extremists are so dependent on European cultural standards that in order to justify their plan for turning Mexico back to the Indians, some of them have even felt compelled to show the world that European culture is just a bastardization of Indian culture, that the cradle of Western Civilization is actually in Mexico.  Thus we have come full circle: first the Spaniards destroyed indigenous traditions in the name of giving the Indians “culture,” and now a Hispanic group wants to make the Indians the founders of the very civilization that scorned them.
 
 
Since Hueyapan is a Nahuatl-speaking community, the villagers have encountered only those cultural extremists interested in reconstructing the pre-Hispanic culture of Nahuatl-speaking Indians.  Elsewhere in Mexico, however, where other indigenous languages are still spoken, extremists have based their ideology on the restoration of other pre-Hispanic traditions.  Groups of this sort have been particularly active in Yucatan, where Mayan is spoken.  (7)  As Caso’s statement indicates, the Nahuatl cultural extremists have received the greatest publicity and have caused the greatest trouble for the national government.
 
 
As I mentioned in the Introduction to this book, I had the opportunity to work in Mexico City with the Movimiento (The Confederated Movement for the Restoration of Anahuak), one of the most important organizations in Nahuatl cultural extremist circles today.  For about three months I participated in the Movimiento’s weekend reunions and in their very occasional midweek activities.  However, as I became increasingly disillusioned with the Movimiento and more involved with my research in Hueyapan, I stopped attending the group’s meetings.
 
 
Although my decision to go to Hueyapan was made independently of the Movimiento, upon my arrival in the village several Hueyapanos assumed that I either was from the Movimiento or would at least be interested in the group’s activities.  The fact that I was an anthropologist who wanted to learn Nahuatl suggested to many villagers that I too was a cultural extremist.  Thus, without my even asking them about it, a number of Hueyapanos volunteered information about the Movimiento’s influence in the pueblo.  Before looking in detail at the villagers’ experiences with cultural extremists, however, let us acquaint ourselves briefly with the history, ideology and program of the Movimiento. 
 
 
 

The Movimiento in Mexico City
 

Rodolfo F. Nieva, a lawyer living in Mexico City, founded the Movimiento in 1950s.  Previously Nieva and other members of his group had belonged to the Indigenous Confederation of Mexico that was under the direction of the self styled linguist Juan Luna Cardena.  (8)  According to Hueyapano farmer who had been quite active in the Indigenous Confederation, this earlier group had been in existence since the 1930s. 
 
 
Since Movimiento members in Mexico City were unwilling to talk about conflicts they had had with other cultural extremists, I am not entirely clear on the issues that caused the Indigenous Confederation to split.  One explanation which seems plausible, however, suggested to me by the Hueyapano Don Juan Maya.  Having participated in the activities of both groups, Don Juan says that Juan Luna and Rodolfo Nieva wanted to emphasize different things; the former was interested in practicing Aztec religion, while the latter was devoted only to the study of pre-Hispanic history.  Although members of the Movimiento in Mexico City told me that they too had adopted the Aztec religion, the ceremonies I had the opportunity to witness bear out Don Juan’s observations, for they were never dedicated to specific pre-Hispanic deities, but to Aztec military heroes and generalized “cosmological” concepts.  Such rites were quite different from the ones Juan Luna’s group had previously organized to pay tribute to Huitzilopochtli, Texcatlipocatl and a number of other gods.  I never saw any ceremonies sponsored by the Indigenous Confederation, for that group had disbanded before I came to Mexico.  What I know about it I learned from Don Juan and another Hueyapeno whose name is Don Eliseo Cortes.
 
 
Under Nieva’s direction the Movimiento organized a political party (El Partido de la Mexicanidad), a newspaper (Izkalotl), a school for teaching Nahuatl (Mexikatlahtolkall), as well as innumerable political, cultural and commemorative gatherings.  The Movimiento was so successful, in fact, that it managed to add to its list of members such illustrious figures as the controversial Eulalia Guzman and the former president of Mexico, Miguel Aleman. (9)  Furthermore, by 1964 the group’s campaign to promote Nahuatl had been effective enough to prompt a major American newspaper to publish an article entitled “Nahuatl Language Gaining in Mexico.”  Although the report did not identify the Movimiento by name, it told about the First Congress of the Nahuatl Language that the group sponsored and it mentioned the authors of the Nahuatl grammar “Izkalotl,” (10) one of whom happens to be Maria del Carmen Nieva, Rodolfo’s sister.  According to the article, this book was being used in the schools of an “Indian community” located on the outskirts of Mexico City.
 
 
In September 1968 Rodolfo Nieva died and the Movimiento went into a decline almost immediately thereafter.  Clearly the problem was one of having no adequate successor for the charismatic founder.  The leadership was left to Rodolfo’s brother Jorge, also a lawyer, and to his sister Maria del Carmen, who until recently had been an inspector in the federal school system.  Jorge has shown little interest in the Movimiento and has left Maria del Carmen exclusively in charge.  Since the latter feels that she has no aptitude for political matters and since she has always been responsible for the Movimiento’s cultural activities, Maria del Carmen has continued to carry out her original duties and has allowed the political aspects of the group’s program to disintegrate.
 
 
Thus by the time I met the group in July 1969 all that was left of the organization’s activities were occasional group outings, a few cultural ceremonies and regular Saturday afternoon Nahualt classes at Maria del Carmen’s home. 
 
 
Despite their lack of organization, a number of Movimiento members did try to keep Rodolfo Nieva’s political campaign alive.  Speeches made at cultural gatherings continued to use Nieva’s rhetoric.  Also, although the newspaper “Izkalotl” was no longer published monthly, when it did appear the articles reflected the militant tone associated with Nieva.  Finally, the founder’s philosophy and style have been preserved in the book “Mexicakayotl”, which his sister, Maria del Carmen, wrote after he died. 
 
 
In 1969 I was told that the Movimiento had between 400 and 800 members in Mexico City and thousands in the countryside.  Perhaps such had been the case when Rodolfo was alive and organizing congresses; however, things had changed.  During my brief contact with the group I never attended a gathering where there were more than twenty-five members, and many of these were children.  With the exception of one young girl who was the daughter of Maria del Carmen’s maid, all the youngsters came from middle-or upper-class home.
 
 
Among the thirteen or fourteen regular adult members, over half of them were teenagers or in their early twenties.  These young people also came from middle- and upper-class homes.  The president of the student group, for example, who was supposed to have been communicating with preparatory schools throughout the city, was the son of a wealthy agrarian engineer.  This young man, whose name was Cuauhtemoc (11), had just finished preparatory school and was about to enter the National School of Agriculturein Chapingo, State of Mexico.  Then there was several young women who made up the dancing group.  Two were still in preparatory school and one was teaching primary school.  The other two or three teenagers who attended were friends and/or relatives of the above-mentioned young people. 
 
 
Of the members who were over thirty, three were school teachers (including Maria del Carmen), one was Maria del Carmen maid, two owned factories, one was an engineer and one rented fields to farmers.  This last gentleman, Senor Castillo, was the most picturesque member--the “pet Indian” in the group.  He had grown up in a Nahuatl-speaking community in the State of Mexico and spoke a bit of the language himself.  Much to everybody’s approval, Senor Castillo used to come to every meeting dressed in ‘charro’.  (12)  Finally, with very few exceptions, the members were all light complected; Maria del Carmen even dyed her hair a flaming red color. 
 
 
The Movimiento calls upon history to justify its campaign for the restoration of “Nahuatl Culture” in Mexico.  According to the group’s creation myth, (13) the inhabitants of North, Central and South America originated in these lands and did not come over from other continents, as the Europeans would have us believe.  The Western Hemisphere was called Ixachillan (Immensidad, or Vastnest), and those who lived in it belonged to the Ixachilankatl race.  (14)  One of the subgroups of this race was the Nahuatl people, and their domain known as Anauak, included all of North America, extending as far south as Nicaragua. (15)
 
 
The history of Nahuatl people, the myth tells us, is divided into a number of epochs: Olmekatl, Maya, Teotihuakatl, Toltekatl, and Mexikatl.  The most important of these various stages is the Mayan period, for it was during that time that the Nahuatl people traveled around the world and profoundly influenced the subsequent cultural evolution of Western Civilization.  Although no other dates were given, we learn that about 2500 years ago the Mayas already recognized the fact that the world was round and explorers set out from the Atlantic coast to circle it.  Passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, the Mayan explorers arrived in Egypt, built pyramids and taught the Egyptians the essence of the Nahuatl religion: the concept of Teotl.  (16)
 
 
From Egypt the Nahuatl people, who were known as Atlantes, (17) moved on to Greece, influencing Solon and later Plato.  The writings of Plato in particular capture the spirit of Nahuatl culture, Nieva claims, and in the “Republic” the Greek philosopher introduced the Kalpull--the Anauak kinship and land-tenure traditions--to the people of the Mediterranean.  (18)  After Greece, Nahuatl culture was passed on to Rome and finally formed the basis of Christian theology, albeit in an adulterated form.  The Christians, we learn, took from Roman culture the ideas of the Nahuah, which they then “dressed over with all the religiosity and mysticism of the Jewish people.”  Specifically, the Chrisitians adopted the concept of Teotl--creation.   That the Christian god evolved through the Nahuah and not through the Jews is indicated by the fact that the Christians used the Latinized version of Teotl--Deus--instead of the Hebrew one--Jehovah.  (19)
 
 
As the Roman Empire dissolved and distinct European countries emerged, the name “Deus” underwent the following phonetic transformations in the languages of the various nations: “Dieu” in French, “Dio” in Italian and “Dios” in Spanish,
 
 
  “Which is the way it [Teotl] returned to us, suffering in this fashion the fate of all the raw materials which we have produced and continue producing and which we export so that the foreigner might embellish and return it to us at a higher price.  And what a price we Mexicans have paid for the concept of Teotl transformed into the Dios of the Christians!  That price consists in having almost lost the instinctive Mexican nature, in having suffered the great crimes that the dominators of our country committed against our ancestors in order to force on them the Catholic religion.”  (20)
 
 
According to Nieva, on August 12, 1521, one day before Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan, the Ueyi Tlahtohkan, (21) ruler of the Great Confederation of Anauak (a higher official than Moctezuma), ordered the Nahuatl people to preserve their culture secretly, passing it down by word of mouth from one generation to the next until such a time as Mexico might be freed from foreign domination.  (22)  This decree was obeyed, the Movimiento maintains, and now the group would like to prepare the Mexican people so that they will be able to rise up, expel the foreigners and reinstate the nation’s legitimate culture.  As to how and when the Revolution will occur, the group says nothing; nor does it explain--except in the vaguest terms--what the political, social and cultural organization of the country will be.
 
 
All that I was able to determine about the future state is that Mexico’s national language will be Nahuatl and that the political organization will be based on the “Nahuatl family,” the Kalpull.  Inspired by the generative and creative force of Teotl, the Movimiento members describe themselves as “cosmological socialists,” and they criticize Marx for having limited himself to a philosophy of material socialism.  Maria del Carmen, incidentally, points out in her book that Marx’s theory is a poor imitation of the original doctrine of the Nahuah: the German philosopher, she says, learned about the Kalpull from Plato.  (23)
 
 
Thus, while the group awaits the expulsion of the foreigners, it has been trying to develop a following by educating the Mexican people emotionally, politically and culturally.  In the newspaper Izkalotl (“resurgimiento”, reappearance), slogans like the following are printed in bold type: “The Superior Anauak World of Our Ancestors”; “Spanish Colonization, Mother of all Our Troubles and Miseries”; “The Nahuatl Language Will Unite the Mexicans;” and “We must insist that they teach us our True History.” (24)  the articles themselves report on Movimiento cultural activities and on archeological finds; Aztec calendar stones are particularly popular.  There are also Nahuatl language lessons and Nahuatl crossword puzzles. 
 
 
Featured in each issue of Izkalotl are several articles dealing with the interpretation of history.  Most of these pieces criticize the way Mexicans have been taught about their own past.  The dramatization of the atrocities committed by the Spaniards during Colonial and post-colonial times is a popular subject.  Another favorite theme of these articles is the unfortunate consequence of Columbus’ error of thinking that he was in Indian: for centuries the people of Mexico have been forced to bear the name “Indian” even though they are not from India.  Rghting this wrong, the newspaper refers to the Indigenous people of Mexico as Mexicanos, Mexikah, Nahuah or Autoctonos; (25) and those Mexicans who collaborated with foreigners are derogatorily associated with Cortes’ indigenous mistress Malinche and are called Malinchistas.
 
 
In an effort to encourage the Mexican people to pay tribute to the great moments in their "autochthonous" history, the Movimiento organized a ceremony on July 6, 1969, in commemoration of the night Moctezuma's brother Cuitlahuac defeated the Spaniards in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City).  Known in the Spanish chronicles as the Sad Night, the occasion was renamed the Victorious Night by the Movimiento.  The ceremony took place, appropriately, at the impressive monument erected by the Mexican government in Cuitlahuac's honor, located on the busy Mexico City Avenida de la Reforma.  Since the emperor Moctezuma II had already been made a prisoner of the Spaniards, it was Cuitlahuac who led the Aztecs into battle on July 6, 1519.  Not until two years later were the Spaniards able to reconquer the city.
 
 
Although it was reported in Izkalotl that a large crown had gathered to participate in the 1969 ceremony (26), actually the turnout was poor.  At most twenty people were there.  Despite the small group, the members maintained their good spirits and the ritual was performed as planned.  First a floral arrangement in the shape of the Movimiento symbol (the Nahui Ollin symbol, plus Cuauhtemoc's emblem in the middle of the Ollin, plus the letters P and M)was placed at the foot of the statue of Cuitlahuac, high above the people who were standing at the base of the statue's pyramidal platform.  Next a young man climbed up to where the flowers were and blew a conch shell, while at the base of the monument another young boy beat a Plains Indian tom-tom and a young girl solemnly walked back and forth before the monument waving copal incense.  Afterwards several Movimiento members made short speeches calling to all Mexicans to recognize their true heritage, and with that the ceremony came to a close.  The entire program did not take more than thirty minutes.
 
 
Since the Movimiento is not only interested in venerating the past, it also participates in presentations concerned with promoting the indigenous present and future.  On October 21, 1969, for example, I had the opportunity to attend a performance sponsored jointly by the Movimiento and an organization of hair stylist known as the Mexican Beauty Group.  The theme of the evening was hot to be "chic" and "autochthonous" too.  The program took place in the fashionable Teatro del Bosque, which is located in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park.  First the Movimiento performed a "Nahuatl Ceremony".  Maria del Carmen, listed in the program as Maestra Izchalotzin of the Institute of Mexican Culture, gave a little talk about the significance of the "ceremony".  Dressed in a floor-length Spanish lace gown, the woman explained that we would see "an act of veneration to our race."  Then, describing briefly the cosmological concepts of the Movimiento--its ideas about the creative forces of the "Natural" Mexican--she told us that the dance to be performed would be a "philosophy without words." 
 
 
First a maiden of the Anauakxochitl (Flower of Anahuak) dance group appeared on stage.  She blew a conch shell and then lit some copal incense.  Next the entire corps of eleven dancers, all women and young girls, came out and performed the "Autochthonous Dance of Happiness."  Maria del Carmen accompanied the dancers on a drum, and the women moved around in a circle doing a slow hopping step.  Several days later I asked one of the dancers about the choreography, and she told me that Maria del Carmen had made it up and that the Maestra claimed that every step had a meaning.
 
 
The dancers wore a two-piece off-white linen costumes.  Their blouses were decorated with large colorful representations of the Movimiento's symbol, and the skirts, which were mid-calf length, had colorful stripes on the bottom halves.  In addition, the maidens wore wreaths of red flowers in their hair, and dried bunches of the "coyoli" fruit were tied around their ankles, creating rattling sounds as they danced.
 
 
After the Movimiento finished performing--they were on stage for about twenty minutes--ten female models came on.  One woman was dressed in what was supposed to be a traditional costume of the Yalalteca Indians of Oaxaca and her hair was combed in the rather distinct Yalalteca style.  The other nine models were dressed in modern clothes, and each one was wearing a variation of the Yalalteca hairdo.  For those in the audience who were interested in trying the basic modern variation of the Yalalteca style, the theater program offered diagrams that illustrated how to set the hair correctly.  Furthermore, there were photographs of several of the models showing some of the alternatives to the basic set. 
 
 
The private gatherings at Maria del Carmen's home are much more informal than the public ceremonies.  The ritual blowing of the conch shell and the lighting of the incense are not observed; nor does the Maestra often discuss the underlying philosophy of the Movimiento.  These get-togethers are primarily social affairs which might touch casually on Movimiento themes.  However, on December 22, 1969, the Nahuatl New Year, there was more of an attempt to keep the spirit of the Movimiento's philosophy and concerns alive.  The dancers put on a little performance, and the guest were invited to play a game similar to bingo, using symbols of the Aztec calendar (27).  The evening ended with a slide show of calendar stones and other archeaological finds that members of the Movimiento had recently come across during their travels around the country.
 
 
Finally, on Saturday afternoons young children and teenage members of the group are expected to attend a Nahuatl class at Maria del Carmen's home.  These lessons are based on the Maestra's published grammar Izkalotl.  Maria del Carmen's teaching method consists of giving her students a list of vocabulary words to learn.  Since the Movimiento is particularly interested in etymological studies, Maria del Carmen concentrates on presenting her students with the derivation of such words as "Mexico" and "Tenochtitlan".  She also teaches the pupils the Nahuatl words for such modern devices as the automobile and the train.  No attempt is made to teach the group grammar, even at the most elementary level, and the pupils are never even asked to try to make sentences. 
 
 

Cultural Extremist and Hueyapenos
 
 
For the villagers, the cultural extremists represent one more group of urban Mexicans who have come to the pueblo to teach the Hueyapenos about their Indian-ness.  Once again the villagers have been told that they are culturally deprived, but that with the help of outsiders they will soon acquire the “culture” that they presently lack.  What they are missing this time, however, is their own so-called original culture.  In other words, no matter what the criteria, the villagers never seem to meet the standards set by outsiders and are always told that they need the latter’s assistance in order to change accordingly.  First religious and government missionaries came to the pueblo to save the Hueyapenos from being too Indian, and now the cultural extremists have appeared to save them from not being Indian enough.
 
 
Actually, the cultural extremists have succeeded in converting only a handful of Hueyapenos to their Movement.  Most villagers are more eager to lose their indigenous identity through the Mestizo-oriented government acculturation program than they are to emphasize it.  Nevertheless, the extremists cannot be dismissed, primarily because many Hueyapenos have associated--some might say confused--the work of the cultural extremists with what the villagers see to be a general trend among middle- and upper-class Mexicans.  Whenever a group of well-dressed outsiders drives up in a private car, the villagers assume that the visitors are looking for Indian culture and will be disappointed if they do not find what they expect.  Thus, tourists, anthropologists and government workers--when the latter are performing acts of veneration to Mexico’s Indigenous past--are all classified with the cultural extremists.  As far as the Hueyapenos are concerned, all these people want the villagers to conform to the outsider’s glamorous image of the Indian.
 
 
Accustomed as they are to accommodating the wishes of the elite, the villagers usually comply, as we have seen, and “play” Indian for their honored guests.  Still, most Hueyapenos remain much more interested in exchanging this Indian identity for a Mestizo one.  As Indians the villagers might provide a bit of regional charm, but as Mestizos they will enjoy the socio-economic advantages of a higher status.
 
 
The Person in the village who has had the longest and most intimate contact with the cultural extremists is Don Eliseo Cortes.  In 1939 he attended a Nahuatl Congress in Milpa Alta.  Then in 1945 he met Juan Luna Cardenas, and the two men became good friends.  The circumstances surrounding this encounter are rather significant, for they suggest that cultural extremists and government representatives are frequently the same people.  Not only did Maria del Carmen serve as a school inspector and do several Movimiento members have teaching positions, but Juan Luna himself had been head of the linguistic division of the Department of Indigenous Affairs, and it was in this capacity that the linguist introduced Don Eliseo to cultural extremism. 
 
 
It seems that a school teacher in Hueyapan had suggested to Don Eliseo that he go to the Department of Indigenous Affairs in Mexico City to see whether the government office might provide one of Eliseo’s sons with a scholarship to continue his education.  At the Department, Don Eliseo met Juan Luna.  Although the Hueyapeno did not succeed in securing the money for his son, Don Eliseo returned to the village with several Nahuatl grammars that had been given to him by Juan Luna and by another member of the Department.
 
 
Several years later, in the early 1950s, Don Eliseo, Don Juan and two other villagers went to Mexico City to study Classical Nahuatl at Juan Luna’s school, in Uey Tlatekpanaliztli (The Great Society of Aztec Fellows).  Regular Nahuatl classes were conducted by Juan Luna’s brother and another gentleman, Juan Chavez Orozco, gave a course on calendar stones.  Chavez was a painter associated with the Bellas Artes in Mexico City, and had studied with Diego Rivera, Don Juan told me.
 
 
Don Juan said that Juan Chavez often took students to see calendar stones on Calle Moneda in Mexico City and interpreted extensively from them.  These calendar stones explained world history in such detail, the teacher claimed, that even the story of the founding of Hueyapan was included.  Thus Don Juan learned that the Xochimilcas were not the first settlers of Hueyapan, as the villagers were told in school; instead a group of people known as the Metzintin were the original inhabitants.  Not only the age of Petl, after the First Flood, did the Xochimilcas finally arrived.
 
 
Since the cultural extremists did not provide the Hueyapenos with lodging and food, the villagers finally had to give up their studies with the group.  Of the four, only Don Eliseo had been invited to teach Nahuatl at the school, and even he was offered such a low salary that it was financially impossible for him to remain.  As  Don Juan described things, the other students were lawyers, engineers and school teachers who lived in Mexico City and had high-paying jobs.  The Hueyapenos, however, were poor and their only means of making a living was on the land.  Thus after a few months the villagers returned home, but the initial contact had been made and Don Eliseo in particular came back with great aspirations to revive Nahuatl culture in Hueyapan.
 
 
In 1956, with the help of Juan Luna, Don Eliseo opened a school in the village to teach “pure” Nahuatl, uncorrupted by Spanish interference.  During that year the Mexico City linguist visited Hueyapan quite frequently, giving classes in the school and organizing meetings in Don Eliseo’s home to practice the Aztec religion.  Furthermore, Juan Luna offered Hueyapenos the free services of his group to arbitrate local land disputes.
 
 
While Juan Luna was working in the school about fifty villagers sent their children to classes.  However, once he left the school soon folded.  Today only a handful of villagers continue to take an informal interest in studying “pure” Nahuatl.
 
 
Another villager who had been active with Juan Luna and then later with Rodolfo Nieva was Lino Balderas, a former singer at the Bellas Artes.  This Hueyapeno was among the first group of villagers who studied Nahuatl in Mexico City, and afterwards he entered the world of music.  In addition to singing in the Ballet Folklorico chorus, Lino Balderas made a recording of a Nahuatl translation of the traditional Mexican birthday song, “las Mananitas.”
 
 
Although I met this famous Hueyapeno, I was unable to interview him, since a few years before I arrived in the village he had been in a terrible car accident and had suffered severe brain damage and crippling.  What I know about the man I learned from other villagers.  Apparently the singer never made very much money either at the Bellas Artes or from his record, and consequently left Mexico City a very bitter man, complaining that he had been taken advantage of.
 
 
Lino Balderas was also responsible for making a Spanish translation of a Nahuatl poem that the Mexico City teacher Juan Chavez had taken from the Ozomatl (tiger) glyph of the calendar stone.  The villager wrote a Nahuatl song himself about a man wooing a beautiful maiden with blond hair, and he served as a Nahuatl informant for the well-known scholar of ancient Mexico Miguel Leon-Portilla. 
 
 
Accepting the fanciful account of the Hueyapeno cultural extremist, Leon-Portilla actually published a prayer that the singer claimed his “old mother” used to recite to the pre-Hispanic rain god Tlaloc.  (28)  Unlike the prayers published by Miguel Barrios, this one is written in “pure Nahuatl”, so “pure” in fact, that when Elvira Hernandez went over the text with me she pointed out several expressions which Hueyapenos probably never used.  Furthermore, aside from Don Eliseo, Lino Balderas and a few other cultural extremists, nobody in Hueyapan prayed to pre-Hispanic deities.  Even the Pueblo’s mushroom-eating rain-makers called on the Christian god and the saints in their rituals.
 
 
That the Hueyapeno singer was able to make a name for himself in Mexico City by capitalizing on his Indian-ness has impressed a number of villagers.  But the fact the he returned to the pueblo a dejected and penniless man has affected them even more.  The story of this singer represents for many villagers the classic case of what happens to a poor, ignorant Indian who tries to get ahead and stay Indian at the same time.
 
 
Another Hueyapeno experience with cultural extremists is the story of Don Adelaido Amarro.  In 1965 Don Adelaido was selling fruit in the Manzanares market in Mexico City and there he met an acquaintance of his who was from the lowland community of Jumiltepec. The friend told Don Adelaido about the Movimiento and took the Hueyapeno to a meeting held at Nieva’s office.  Don Adelaido told me that Nieva received him warmly, and was delighted to have somebody with whom he could speak Nahuatl. The two men chatted in Nahuatl for a while--Nieva spoke very poorly.  Don Adelado recalled--and the lawyer invited the villager to join the group.  Nieva also wanted Don Adelaido to represent the Movimiento in Hueyapan and to see that Nahuatl was taught in school there.  Don Adelaido asked the lawyer to send him a formal document authorizing th Hueyapeno to act in the name of the Movimiento, for otherwise the villagers would assume that Don Adelaido had made the whole matter up while wandering about the streets of Mexico City drunk.
 
 
Rodolfo Nieva complied with Don Adelaido’s wish and sent a formal letter to Hueyapan announcing that Don Adelaido was authorized to act in the name of the Movimiento.  Don Adelaido informed Maestro Rafael, who was at this time the director of the village primary school, of the Movimiento’s wishes.  Although Maestro Rafael expressed an interest in the project, nothing was ever done about initiating classes in Nahuatl.
 
 
In 1966 Nieva sent Don Adelaido an announcement inviting him to attend a Movimiento congress that was going to be held in Morelos.  However, by the time the notice arrived the congress had already taken place.  Greatly disappointed, Don Adelaido, with the help of Maestro Rafael, wrote a letter to Nieva asking the lawyer to send any information available about how the Hueyapenos might participate in later congresses.  The letter also told Nieva that Maestro Rafael was now in charge of organizing the Nahuatl school.  This letter was the last communication between Hueyapan and the Movimiento.  A year and a half later Rodolfo Nieva died.
 
 
Don Adelaido was intrigued by, but never committed to, the Movimiento.  He told me that the people he met at the Mexico City meetings were all rich professionals.  They had time to indulge themselves.  He, however, had a large family to care for and could not remain in Mexico City with a group that did not even offer him a meal, let alone a job or a place to stay.  Nevertheless, the idea that his Indian-ness was attractive to the wealthy did make a deep impression on him, and he has put it to some use at home.
 
 
Capitalizing on his wife’s exceptional weaving skills, Don Adelaido has cultivated an acquaintance with the head of the Cuernavaca branch of the Burlington Textile Mills, who is a fancier of Indigenous textiles.  Known in the Pueblo as the Ingeniero (engineer), Juan Dubernard has been employing Hueyapeno men to work in his factory since 1953 and has been visiting Hueyapan to purchase woven goods since 1960.
 
 
The combination of his wife’s talents and his own promotion campaign has paid off for Don Adelaido, for as far as Dubernard is concerned, Dona Epifania is the best weaver in the village (29) and the Ingeniero does almost all his business with her.  Thus whenever Dona Epifania has a couple of extra pieces of cloth Don Adelaido takes his wife into Cuernavaca to see the Ingeniero, and on these special occasions he always insists that she wear her “increate”--although she almost never wears the traditional skirt at home--for the Hueyapeno has learned that he and Dona Epifania are received more enthusiastically when his wife arrives at the factory dressed like an Indian.
 
 
A bit of cultural extremist himself, Dubernard told me that he was distressed to learn that the Cultural Missions were trying to modernize the indigenous weaving technology.  As he put it, “they are ruining things.”  In Hueyapan Dubernard has even tried to make the weaving more authentic than he found it originally by teaching Dona Epifania about the pre-Hispanic dyes.  As far back as Dona Epifania can remember--she was about 45 in 1969--Hueyapenos have always used commercial dyes.  Dona Zeferina, who is twenty years older than Dona Epifania, also cannot remember a time before commercial dyes.  
 
 
[Notes: omitted]

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