a reincarnation of ocial history as far as history textbooks are concerned. Japanese schools teach students what rather than why. They cram students heads with a xed course of history Japanese history, world history, whatever without much attempt to have students recognize that there are diering viewpoints. Forty-two Japanese prefectures out of 47 have compiled their own prefectural histories some of which have been compiled two or three times over the last 120 years and there is hardly a city, town, or village anywhere in Japan that has not done likewise. These local histories are premised on the traditional historiographical notion that there is a historical truth that is embodied in authoritative narratives. Korea also continued to chronicle an ocial history and this tradition is alive in present-day South Korea. The 25-volume History of the Republic of Korea, whose publication was completed in 1979 by the National History Compilation Committee (established in 1948), is a state-produced history of the homeland. Since the late nineteenth century, the practice of history has undergone professionalization and specialization on a worldwide scale, and East Asia too has been drawn into this whirlpool. Since then the style of historiographical practice in East Asia has, in most respects, been the same as that in Western countries. The work of the historian, as an individual, is to write many research papers and books. However, many historians, as far as historians working on their national history are concerned, are also at the same time involved in publicly sponsored historiography; countless university-based Japanese historians, for example, serve on the editorial boards of local and prefectural history projects. We can thus observe the continuing coexistence rather than conict of the two diering traditions of historical study. To put it another way, East Asian historians simultaneously inhabit two worlds of historiography, one a world of Rankean (or traditional East Asian) factual objectivity and another world of post-Rankean interpretations varied and opposing voices. See also: Area and International Studies: Development in Southeast Asia; China: Sociocultural Aspects; East Asia, Religions of; East Asian Studies: Politics; East Asian Studies: Society; Japan: Sociocultural Aspects; Korea: Sociocultural Aspects; South Asia: Sociocultural Aspects
Han Yu-shan 1955 Elements of Chinese Historiography. W H Hewley, Hollywood, California Ku Chieh-kang (Gu Jiegang) 1931 The Autobiography of a Chinese Historian. Trans. Hummel A W, E J Brill ltd., Leyden Maruyama M 1974 Studies in the Intellectural History in Tokugawa Japan. Tokyo University Press, Tokyo Nivison D S 1966 The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-cheng. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA Schneider L 1971 A Ku Chieh-kang and Chinas New History. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA Watson B 1958 Ssu-ma Chien: Grand Historian of China. Columbia University Press, New York
M. Sato
2. America Bibliography
Beasley W G, Pulleyblank E G (eds.) 1961 Historians of China and Japan. Oxford University Press, London de Bary W T, Wing-tsit Chan, Watson B (eds.) 1960 Sources of Chinese Tradition. Columbia University Press, New York
The only people of pre-colonial America to develop a fully functioning writing system were the Lowland Maya. They used the written records to maintain knowledge of a wide thematic range and thus stored and conserved an enormous amount of cultural
6782
Historiography and Historical Thought: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas information from which they formed their own distinctive historical concept. Rather incomplete writing systems (picture-writing) were characteristic of their northern and western neighborsthat is in historical order the Epi-Olmecs, the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, and the Aztecs. Taken together, these cultures form the core of the cultural area Mesoamerica, characterized by similar, and in many respects uniform, conceptions of history, and therefore can be treated to all purposes of this article as a unit. On their rst contacts with indigenous peoples of the Americas, the European conquerors came across various forms of picture writing that was used to note down historical events. This even occurred in some areas of North America, predominantly in the eastern woodlands and on the plains and prairies west of the Mississippi. South America was in this respect quite the reverse, even though pictorial representations in painting (Moche, Nasca), weaving (Paracas, Nasca), and rock engraving (Nasca) were highly elaborated. The description in Sect. 3 is mainly restricted to Mesoamerica, which is distinguished from all other cultural areas by its emergent writing systems. of it, but never presented a geometrical model of the worlds system corresponding to the Ptolemaic and Copernican models.
4. Historical Topics
By means of chronology Mesoamerican people created histories (theogonies and myths) of anthropomorphic and theriomorphic deities. This is conveyed in detail particularly for the Aztecs through the Legend of the Suns (Lehmann 1938) and the famous calendar stone. Mesoamerican people believed in the existence of four or ve successive world ages, each with duration of a few thousand years. Each age is quite distinct with dierent creatures inhabiting a world, which is then destroyed in cataclysm by water, re, and air (wind) the reader may note the analogy to the ancient Greek theory of the elements. A new creation marks the beginning of each world age. Not even the contemporary world age of the Aztecs around 1500 was considered to be of unlimited duration. Within the chronological framework of this age man appears relatively late, and more detailed chronological units (years, year bundles of 52 years) apply to his history. Yet Mesoamerican people connect themselves occasionally, and in a speculative way with the world of their deities anteceding the human epoch. This holds especially true for the ruling dynasties of the Maya who very often consider themselves to be descendants of the gods of preceding world ages (Palenque). Such a Mayan world age lasts exactly 1,872,000 days, which is about 5000 years. The duration of the world ages in Central Mexico is not exactly known, since their chronology is technically less developed. The interrelation of the people with their pantheon becomes, furthermore, apparent in the tutelary deities of each tribal group. These are commonly organized in citystates during Postclassic times: Quetzalcoatl for the Toltecs (capital: Tollan) around AD 9001100 and for the Chololtecs (capital: Cholula) around AD 1000 1500, Tohil for the Quiche! (capital: Utatla! n) around AD 10001500, and Huitzilopochtli for the Aztecs (capital: Mexico) around AD 13501500. In this manner origin-related, trans-historical interrelations take form in a similar way as they are known for the civilizations in the Old World (Sumer, Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Jewish culture of the Old Testament). Tribes with their leaders, the ruling dynasties arising from them during the process of getting sedentary and their tutelary deities are the main actors of Mesoamerican history. Rulers are described with their most important rites de passage (birth, inauguration, marriage, procreation of ospring, death), martial triumphs, andto a lesser extentcivilizing deeds (introduction of cultivated plants or technical skills). There exists the idea among Mesoamerican tribes that they originated from a distinct place, which is the tree 6783
Historiography and Historical Thought: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas of Apoala for the Mixtecs, the Seven Caves or the island of Aztlan in the center of a lake for the Central Mexicans and the Totonacs; and this origin is placed in an apparently rather historical not very remote time; according to the Aztec main tradition this happened in the year AD 1064. In some areas, the version of an origin in an even more historical setting, namely the city of Tollan can be encountered (Cakchiquel). This Tollan was the capital of the famous Toltecs, who were actually a historical people, admired for their skills and accomplishments. Migration myths, apart from being descriptions of historical events, which are to a certain extent factualas far as can be concluded from language history and geographyseem to have functioned as a means of political legitimization. The successfully migrating and thus surviving tribal group legitimizes its right to rule over the traversed territories and the cities within, or at least to exert indirect political control in case the areas in question are too distant for factual dominance. After settling down, topics such as marriage alliances, conspiracies, insidious martial acts, and heroic selfsacrice appear in the form of historical episodes. It is in these later times, when major wars between the dierent Mesoamerican polities become a subject of history. In Central Mexico it is learned that the Mexicans throw o the yoke of Tepanec rule by Azcapotzalco and gain completely independent status, prestige and property of lands. In the Southern Maya Lowlands the city-states of Calakmul and Tikal are at war with each other for hegemony of the region; and the Guatemalan Highlands are the scene of frequent warfare between the Mam, Quiche! , and Cakchiquel. Since the range of historical accounts rarely transgresses the own polity and is immediate neighbors and never exceeds the limits of the Mesoamerican core area, world history from the precolonial Indian perspective is very limited. Nevertheless this compares, albeit on a more narrow basis, with antique and medieval concepts of the world in Near Eastern and European cultures. No statements revealing knowledge or speculation about countries and peoples beyond this horizon can be found, even though archaeological investigations indicate external contacts in the form of trade relations with peoples far outside Mesoamerica, namely with the North American Southwest, with Panama, and with Ecuador. This seemingly odd and willful limitation of the historical horizon is characteristic for many early states and for most chiefdoms worldwide. It is men who predominate the historical records as well as the actual political scene, and these are generally members of the nobility as all Mesoamerican societies were ranked. The historical records give special emphasis to particularly successful individuals: such as to ruler 8 Deer Tiger Claw among the Mixtecs or to the rulers Pakal of Palenque and Kakupakal of Chiche! n Itza! among the Lowland Maya. In addition to politically active members of the ruling nobility, 6784 historical records of the Maya and the Aztec convey a few names of artists (painters, sculptors, poets, and performing artists), thus demonstrating to some extent interest in cultural and art history. Taking into account that political history is predominantly the subject of men, the readers attention must be drawn to the occasional signicance of women among the Lowland Maya, especially in the city-states of Palenque and Yaxchila! n around AD 600\700. These women presumably never equaled men in rank, but gained prominence in their patrilineal societies only in order to substitute for a male heir and to uphold dynastic continuity. It remains unclear whether this role involved real implementation of power or whether it was conned to representational duties, althoughin keeping with ethnological theory of gender studiesa rather representative and symbolic function is suggested. Apart from this, noble women appear as objects in marriage alliances that serve to enlarge the ruling territory and become instruments of political provocation (loot, rape, and sacricial death).
Historiography and Historical Thought: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas considered to be hard and fateful (like in Old Jewish faith), controlled by deities, and improvement can only be gained by religious manipulation. Consolatory is hence the Aztec concept of the otherworld, where sweet paradise awaits those who endure dangerous labor and hardship on earth, favoring warriors and childbearing women. Yet we lack a theologically dierentiated comprehension of the Aztec idea of an afterlife, since this is not further described in the historical accounts. The Lowland Maya left more written and pictorial documents regarding this topic, although these have not been systematically analyzed thus far. Rarely, reections on antecedent cultures can be found among the descriptive historical traditions of the Central Mexican Aztecs. The major city Teotihuacan, which had been abandoned prior to Aztec times, is taken by myth as the place of origin of the gods. Earlier cultures are remembered by conserving their artifacts and imitating their products. The idealization of such a past culturethe Toltecshas been mentioned earlier. Mexican (Codex Huitzilopochtli) and Mixtec (Codex Nuttall) origin. Christian missionaries introduced the writing with the Latin alphabet in the early colonial times (AD 15201650). Written documents of this type are especially numerous in Central Mexico. Basically European in form, and to some extent even in content, the object of these written sources is almost completely related to the colonial situation (lawsuits dealing with inheritances, properties, and privileges). The writings obviously connect pre-Spanish traditions of picture writing with oral traditions and form a new integrated genre. In the Guatemalan highlands (Popol Vuh, Annals of the Cakchiquels), as well as with the Yucatec Maya (Books of Chilam Balam) these sources are not only less numerous but show less European inuence. From other Mesoamerican regions only a few historical documents have been preserved, written in the Spanish language by Spaniards who drew on remembered information and interviews. Thus Gonzalo Ferna! ndez de Oviedo y Valde! s reported on the Nicarao who lived at the southern periphery of Mesoamerica; the Franciscan missionary Juan de Torquemada conveyed comparable traditions of the Pipil; and the accounts of the Mixtecs by Francisco de Burgoa were comprehensive but a little concise. A major European element in sources, which have been written in the indigenous languages but with Latin letters, is the synthesis regarding world history and natural history. This synthesis can be noted, for instance, in a general chronology drawn from the uncoordinated lists recording royal succession in individual Indian city-states as presented by the Annals of Quauhtitlan and the works of Domingo Chimalpahin. As suggested by its subdivision into 12 books, the topics, and the illustrations, the Historia General ! n obof the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagu viously resembles medieval European natural history and its antique origins (Pliny the Elder).
7. Problems of Research
Without explanations from the creators themselves, it remains dicult to understand form and symbolism of the great range of historical objects and sources, even though researchers have presented seemingly comprehensive and highly sophisticated interpretations (in particular Eduard Seler around 19245). Hieroglyphic captions of Mayan vase paintings, which have been subject to serious research since the 1980s, are although seemingly well understoodoverly standardized (e.g., this is the beaker for cacao belonging to X) and, therefore, still meager in cultural content and fuzzy in context. Most inscriptions that designate singular objects like earring or [sack full of ] beans are short and do neither contribute to a dierentiated understanding of the depicted scene, since they only name the object, nor do they help much in a broader 6785
Historiography and Historical Thought: Indigenous Cultures in the Americas comprehension of local history, since they only mention the owner or receiver of said object. Although theoretically achievable, the decipherment of pictorial and hieroglyphic writing systems (Zapotecs, Epi-Olmecs, Maya, Mixtecs, Aztecs, Tetzcocans) has not been completed yet and not all documents have been thoroughly studied. The research strategy regarding these documents assumes a uniform paradigm underlying all dierent regional forms of pictorial and syllabic writing (Maya, Mixtec, Aztec, Tetzcocan, etc.). Nevertheless, painstaking and detailed analysis of each document, as well as methodological reasoning in decipherment and interpretation are required. Investigation should strategically begin with thematical complexes that are especially revealing because their cultural contexts are well understood, such as burials at major archaeological sites containing inscribed goods. Texts from early colonial times (until about 1650) that have been written down in the indigenous languages by means of the Latin alphabet are easier to approach, although they are still not very well understood either. Most of these documents originated with the Aztecs, some of them with the Yucatec and Highland Maya, while there are only very few from other language groups and regions. Whereas the more technical problems of translation can be met by increasing language competence, the main problem of ethnohistory (the technical term for the discipline of history that analyses sources in the writing-systems and languages of the people studied) is to grasp concepts and metaphors, etc. from the Weltbild of the Indians. These are then interpreted in terms of European historical thinking, and their authenticity elucidated with regard to events that have actually come to pass. Devoting more time to research of chronological problems is most likely rewarding, since Mesoamerican chronology is not only of high accuracy but also omnipresent in historical records. For the time of the Maya Classic from AD 300900 there is not a single year without several exactly datable historical accounts. Not close by region but by time, Central Mexican historiography from approximately AD 600 until the Spanish conquest is structured with about the same amount of dates. However, due to the calendrical system, Central Mexican dates are chronologically ambiguous, since they recur every 52 years. The interrelations of dates in the dierent calendar systems (of Mixtec and Aztec and between Aztec and Lowland Maya), and the comparison of dates with chronological reconstructions in archaeology, and the absolute dating by way of historical astronomy, making use of permanent celestial phenomena, some day will render it possible to compile a wide-ranging historical chronological chart for the Mesoamerican core area. Because of Mesoamericas high civilizing and political complexity as well as its dynamics, the analysis of overarching political systems and their changes is a 6786 very important eld of research. A great amount of eort has already gone into acquiring knowledge on the Post-classic times in Central Mexico, Oaxaca, and Northern-Yucatan; the Lowland Maya Classic is currently subject to politico-historical analysis (Nikolai Grube and Simon Martin). No historical events can be reconstructed for the Formative Period, in which the later Mesoamerican states emerged, since it lacks sizable written records. Yet the abundant archaeological ndings of this period, including monumental sculpture and buildings, serve for assessing general theories on the emergence of the state. Such theories have made use of the respective Indian cultures, mostly Aztec an Inca, since Adolph Bandelier (1880) classied the Aztecs within the scope of an evolutionary scheme, followed over 100 years later by Stefan Breuers (1990) more sophisticated analysis. American cultures are particularly relevant for this kind of research because it is assumed that they developed independently of Old World civilizations.
Historiography and Historical Thought: Islamic Tradition In conception and structure similar to the Mesoamerican historical tradition are the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century historical traditions of the Lenape (Algonkin language family) and the Indians of the Great Plains in North America. The Lenape (Walam Olum, the authenticity is controversial) and other related groups, e.g., Creek, cultivated an oral and possibly picture-written tradition of the tribes migrations led by certain chiefs; while the Plains Indians depicted individual events from the groups daily life following the years seasons (Winter Count). See also: Central America: Sociocultural Aspects
Taylor G 1999 Ritos y tradiciones de Huarochiri. (Tra aux de llnstitut Franc m ais dEtudes Andines, 116). Paris Voegelin C (ed.) 1954 Walam Olum or Red Score. Indianapolis
Bibliography
Adorno R 1989 Die visuelle Vermittlung zwischen Oralita $ t und Literalita $ t in einer Anden-Chronik. In: Birgit Scharlau (ed.) Bild-Wort-Schrift. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tu $ bingen, Germany, pp. 117 ! n S 1948 El libro de los libros Barrera V, Rendon A, Rendo ! mica, Me! xico de Chilam Balam. Fondo de Cultura Econo [abridged in later editions] Breuer S 1990 Der archaische Staat. Zur Soziologie charismatischer Herrschaft. D. Reimer Verlag, Berlin Brinton D G (ed.) 1885 The Annals of the Cakchiquels. (Brintons Library of Aboriginal American Literature, 6). Philadelphia 1885 [reprinted: AMS Press, New York] ! nica M 2000 Quellenwerke zur alten Geschichte Amerikas, 14. Cro Gebru $ der. Mann Verlag, Berlin Eschmann A 1976 Das religio W se Geschichtsbild der Azteken. (Indiana, Beiheft 4). Gebru $ der Mann Verlag, Berlin Ethnohistory 19725 In: Handbook of Middle American Indians. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, Vols. 1215 Guaman P de A F 1936 [1615] Nue a CoroT nica y Buen Gobiemo. (Codex peT ru ien illustreT ). (Tra aux et meT moirs de llnstitut dEthnologie, 23). [reprinted: 1968] Institut dEthnologie, Paris Lehmann W (ed.) 1938 Die Geschichte der Ko W nigreiche on Colhuacan und Mexico. (Quellenwerke zur alten Geschichte Amerikas, 1). W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart [rev. edn. by Gerdt Kutscher 1974] Marcus J 1992 Mesoamerican Writing Systems. Propaganda, Myth, and History in Four Ancient Ci ilizations. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Middendorf E W (ed.) 1890 Ollanta. Ein Drama der Keshuasprache. Leipzig, Germany Prem H J 1989 Geschichte Alt-Amerikas. (Oldenbourg Grundriss der Geschichte, 23). R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, Germany [English edition in preparation] Riese B 1997 Zeitstrukturen in Mesoamerika. In: Mu $ ller K E, Ru $ sen J (eds.) Historische Sinnbildung. Rowohlt, Reinbeck bei Hamburg, pp. 24050 Scharlau B, Mu W ndliche Kultur und Schrift$ nzel M Qellqay. Mu tradition bei Indianern Lateinamerikas. Campus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Schultze J L (ed.) 1944 Popol Vuh. (Quellenwerke zur alten Geschichte Amerikas, 2). W. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart & Berlin, Germany [reprinted: 1975] Seler E 19245 Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur amerikanischen Altertums- und Sprachenkunde. 5 Ba $ nde. Berlin [reprinted with additional Index-volume: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 19607]
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7