Nomadic Charters: Mimicry and Heterotopia in the Nahua Festival of Quecholli

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Anthropological discourse has placed concerted attention on the role of “axis mundis” in configuring Mesoamerican socio-cosmology. However, in this paper, I highlight the emphasis that many Central Mexican creation-foundation narratives placed on alterity rather than centrality in rendering the boundaries of altepetl “communities.” Nahua cartographic histories, in their delineation of place, often root identity in negative rather than positive terms, circumscribing a community’s imaginary in terms of its ethnic Others, namely Chichimec nomadic wanders. This rhetoric of alterity was not only transcribed in cartography, but was also performed. I highlight the Nahua festival of Quecholli as an important example of how the symbols and pedagogy of creation-foundation narratives were annually mediated. Additionally, I differentiate the festival’s performance of alterity into two heuristic categories. The first is the transgression of liminal spaces or “heterotopias,” such as the boundless desert wilds associated with Chichimecs. The second is the personification and confrontation of Chichimecs themselves through mimicry. In turn, I suggest that scholars should not take for granted the stability of solidarity, and that the center, both spatially and ideologically, is the perpetual consequence of negotiated boundary.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32972