Violence against Women in Mexica-Tenochca Rituals: Gulf Coast Connections?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Understanding the Mexican Gulf Coast Postclassic" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

A recent exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art of nine sculptures from the Huasteca depicted women dressed as warriors, ball players and governors from Classic and Postclassic sites along the Gulf Coast, suggesting that women held positions of power and prestige there. Other sculptures from the region illustrate decapitations and dismemberment suggesting that violence against women’s bodies must also have served an important function. Accounts of powerful women are present at postclassic sites in the Valley of Mexico, as are illustrations of violence including decapitated and dismembered stone sculptures of Coatlicue and Coyolxauhqui at the base of the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan.

Nahua ethnographic accounts indicate a pattern of purposeful acquisition of female power on the part of Nahua altepemeh by marriage into local dynasties, but also through violent acts against elite women from what appear to be Huastec communities. This study explores connections between archaeological, pictorial, geographical, and archival sources commemorating evidence of female rulers and warriors in combination with evidence of violence against female bodies from Cacaxtla and Tamtoc to Tenochtitlan and Tepeyac. The presence of the female divinities Xochiquetzal and Toci in Nahua practice is especially significant in this examination.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Understanding the Mexican Gulf Coast Postclassic

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50424