Ancient Mesoamerica, 16 (2005), 110 Copyright 2005 Cambridge University Press. Printed in the U.S.A. DOI: 10.

1017/S0956536105050030

AZTEC CANNIBALISM Nahua versus Spanish and mestizo accounts in the Valley of Mexico

Barry L. Isaac
Department of Anthropology, McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, 481 Braunstein Hall, PO Box 210380, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0380, USA

Abstract
This article engages the debate about Aztec cannibalism principally through the analysis of three accounts of cannibalism by trickery set in the Valley of Mexico. These three tales are practically the only form in which cannibalism appears in the major Nahua (indigenous Nahuatl-speaking) writings of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The stories portray cannibalism as shocking, even abhorrent, to Aztecsrather than as customaryand as a stratagem for humiliating an enemy or provoking a community to war. The contemporaneous Spanish writings, in contrast, are replete with allegations of customary cannibalism, while the major mestizo (Nahua mother and Spanish father) authors are divided in their treatment of the subject. The three-way critical comparison (Nahua, mestizo, Spanish) raises the possibility that the idea of customary cannibalism originated in Spanish culture and was then transmitted to the indigenous population during post-Conquest religious conversion and Hispanicization.

Anthropologists have largely neglected the subject of Aztec cannibalism for the past 20 years, for two apparent reasons. First, the ecological model of Aztec cannibalism boldly advanced by Michael Harner (1977) and Marvin Harris (1977:147168), anthropologys only major attempt to date to theorize the subject, was swiftly and thoroughly destroyed by area specialists (summarized in Petrinovich 2000). Second, William Arenss widely influential The Man-Eating Myth (1979) called into question all previous reports of cannibalism, largely bottling up the subject until fresh evidence could be marshaled (Arens 1998; Barker et al. 1998; Brady 1982; Goldman 1999; Petrinovich 2000; Pickering 1999). Recent research has vigorously challenged Arenss stance, especially for Melanesia (Goldman 1999) and the U.S. Southwest (Turner and Turner 1999; cf. Kanter 1999). There are also two fresh developments regarding Aztec cannibalism, both ethnohistorical studies. First, Christy Turner and Jacqueline Turner (1999: 464 ff ) have attempted to demonstrate that cannibalism diffused to the prehistoric U.S. Southwest from central Mexico, the Aztec heartland. Second, I have shown that indigenous belief in preHispanic cannibalism is reported in 40 (38%) of the 105 surviving 15771586 Relaciones Geogrficas for central Mexico (Isaac 2002). This article engages the cannibalism debate through the analysis of three stories of cannibalism by trickery in the Valley of Mexicoone each in Xochimilco, Chalco, and Tenochtitlan because they point up sharp contrasts among the major Nahua (indigenous Nahuatl speaker), Spanish, and mestizo (Nahua

E-mail correspondence to: barry.isaac@uc.edu

Spanish) writers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. To anticipate, these stories of cannibalism by trickery intended to provoke or humiliate political enemies are practically the only form in which cannibalism appears in the writings of the Valley of Mexicos two prominent early Nahua scholars, Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc (1980, 1998) and Francisco de San Antn Mun Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (1965, 1983, 1991, 1997). In fact, apart from these three stories, there are only three terse, passing mentions of cannibalism in their entire oeuvre (Chimalpahin 1991: 89, 1997:1:146147, 2:97; also in Tezozomoc 1998:132); as we shall eventually see, one of these latter instances is clearly mythological, while the other two allege that Aztec conquest of a particular town put an end to cannibalism there. The contemporaneous Spanish writers, in contrast, recount versions of two of the three stories of cannibalism by trickery but also liberally lace their narratives with allegations of institutionalized (customary, enjoined) cannibalism in connection with a great many religious and political events (Durn 1971:79, 92, 133, 176, 191, 199, 212, 216, 227, 259, 386, 428, 432, 444, 463, 1994:10, 78, 105, 139, 141, 192, 193, 233, 250, 272, 276, 407, 435, 474, 542; Motolina 1971:33, 51, 53, 62, 65, 79; Sahagn 19701981:Book 1:42, Book 2:3, 24, 48 49, 54, 184, 193, Book 4:35, Book 9:64, 67). Of the Valley of Mexicos two prominent mestizo authors, one (Ixtlilxochitl 1975 1977) is even more reticent than the Nahua writers, while the other (Pomar 1986) alleges cannibalism but on a very minor scale compared with the Spanish writers. These NahuaSpanish mestizo differences raise important questions for the evaluation of ethnohistorical sources on the subject. Furthermore, the Nahua accounts shed important light on the ideological context of Aztec cannibalism, regardless of whether we conclude that the accounts 1

2 of it represent actual customary practice or a post-Conquest reinterpretation of the past. A caveat is in order: This article concerns cannibalism allegedly carried out by humans, not by gods. The latter is alleged in two of the Nahua sources used here, both of which state that Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica patron deity, and his sister ate human hearts and even ate their mother and uncles (Chimalpahin 1997: 1:83; Tezozomoc 1980:225, 229, 1998:35). These allegations of godly cannibalism in mythological time strike me as being in a different class from the allegations of cannibalism by humans in historical time and thus require a separate analysis. THREE STORIES OF CANNIBALISM BY TRICKERY Story 1: Human Stew for the Rulers of Xochimilco Both of the major sixteenth-century narrators of the Aztec empires development from the viewpoint of its capital of Tenochtitlan Diego Durn and Tezozomocrelate versions of the first story. Durn, born in Spain circa 1537 but reared in Tetzcoco, the erstwhile Aztec empires second-ranking city, was a Dominican friar who completed his Historia de las Indias de Nueva Espaa in 1581 (Durn 1994). Tezozomoc was a Nahua historian descended from Tenochca kings (Mariscal 1994:xxixxxi). Born circa 1520 in Tenochtitlan, he was the maternal grandson of Moctezuma II (r. 1502 1520), under whom his father was a provincial governor, and the patrilineal great-grandson of King Axayacatl (r. 14681481). He completed his major historical work, Crnica mexicana, in 1598 (Tezozomoc 1980). Both Durn and Tezozomoc apparently drew on a now lost manuscript referred to by moderns as the Crnica X (Barlow 1945; Bernal 1994). The events of interest here purportedly occurred circa 1430, following the successful 14281430 rebellion of the Tenochca (the people of Tenochtitlan) against the Tepaneca empire (Isaac 1983b). The Tenochca then began to assemble the Aztec empire, bringing themselves into conflict with the other major city-states of the Valley of Mexico lakes, including Xochimilco, whose leaders decided to resist absorption rather than capitulate. Hiding their intentions, the Xochimilca continued to allow free access to the Tenochca, including their market women. In the meantime, the leaders planned a dinner, at which they would decide strategy. Tezozomoc (1980:272) tells the story of the banquet this way:
Within a few days, the Mexica [Tenochca] women went to the Xochimilco marketplace to sell . . . things reaped from the lake, and ducks of all types. The Xochimilca Indian women washed very well the izcahuitle [red water worm, a delicacy] and stewed the very well-washed ducks and cleanly carried it [the stew] to the Government Palace for the principal men to eat, and when they began to eat, it was very tasty and, continuing with their meal, they then found in their bowls heads like those of children, [and] human hands and feet, and [human] guts. Shocked and frightened, the Xochimilcas began to shout, saying, I have told you, Lords, how bad and perverse these Mexicas [Tenochca] are, that with these very things and others they subdued the Azcapotzalca Tepanecas and Coyoacan, with these lies and tricks. Let us do our best against them: Prepare and equip yourselves, Lords of Xochimilco, as the time has come.

Isaac meat (Sahagn 19701981:Book 2:141, 162168, Book 9:45, 61 66) secretly placed in the pots. That not being the case, we are left with the more prosaic interpretation that the careful washing of the banquet ingredients was merely a narrative element intended to indicate that everything had been thoroughly inspected and nothing found amiss during the preparation of the meal. Thus, Tezozomocs narrative provides no explicit mechanism for the insertion of the human parts into the stew, although we could reasonably speculate that he intended the reader to infer sorcery (Durn 1994:214222; Sahagn 197081:Book 4:101106). Durns version omits both the careful cleansing of the food before cooking and the suspenseful element of the diners finding the human parts in the bottom of their bowls after having enjoyed the tasty stew. Rather, Durn has the delicacies in the dishes mystically turning themselves into human body parts as soon as the diners are seated, before they have eaten anything. Thus, the diners are terrified by the mysterious transubstantiation of their dinner into a pottage of recognizable human parts, not by having eaten the broth of a human stew, as implied by Tezozomoc. Overall, the surreal and picaresque in Tezozomocs account becomes explicitly supernatural in Durns (1994:105):
In their terrorfor nothing like this had ever been seen or heardthe Xochimilcas called their soothsayers and asked what this meant. The soothsayers answered that it was an ill omen for it meant the destruction of the city and the death of many. The lords of Xochimilco, appalled at this, cried out, Ah, friends, we are lost! There is no remedy for us. People of Xochimilco, prepare to die, because the glory of our city will perish as did that of Azcapotzalco and [neighboring] Coyoacan!

Note that it was the women of Xochimilco, not those of Tenochtitlan, who did the careful washing of the food. If the latter had done it, we could infer that the washing of the izcahuitle and ducks was performed punctiliously to disguise the ritual washing of human

It is important to note that neither version of this story says that the Xochimilca ate human flesh as such. In Tezozomocs version, the Xochimilca ate its brothwhich, he notes sardonically, was very tastybut stopped eating, shocked and frightened, when they encountered the human parts in the bottom of their bowls. In Durns version, the would-be diners ate nothing at all, as they were terrified by the transubstantiation that occurred before them as soon as they were served. Accordingly, we are left to wonder about the true basis of the Xochimilcas shock and fear. Was it the discovery of human body parts in their bowls (Tezozomoc) or the transubstantiation of soup components (Durn)? In other words, was their reaction simply the equivalent of our own upon discovering, say, a mouse in our soup (or, worse, of seeing a lump of floating tofu turn into a mouses head)? Or were they shocked and frightened (Tezozomoc) or terrified (Durn) that human flesh per se had been served (or made to appear) as foodthat is, by the very possibility of cannibalism? For however tempting it is to privilege this latter possibility, we have no empirical basis for doing so. What we can say is that cannibalism occurs in Tezozomocs version of this story, in which the Xochimilca enjoyed the very tasty broth before discovering that it had been derived, in part, from the juices of human meat. Another important matter left unspecified is the provenience of the body parts in Tezozomocs version. (In Durns version, they originated by supernatural action.) Were they Xochimilca? Tenochca? Of unknown persons? Was provenience (in-group vs. out-group) even an issue here in producing the shock and terror? We cannot say. Before moving on, we should note that the foregoing story of cannibalism by trickery from Tezozomocs Crnica mexicana is

Aztec cannibalism one of only two references to human (versus godly) cannibalism in his oeuvre. It is, in fact, the only instance if we accept that the other work historically attributed to Tezozomoc, the Crnica mexicyotl, was instead written by Chimalpahin (Schroeder 1997). Durn, in contrast, seems obsessed with cannibalism. Story 2: Ambassador Stew for King Moquihuix Story 2 comes to us from the indigenous historian Domingo Francisco de San Antn Mun Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (born 1579), a descendant of the fringe nobility of Chalco at the south end of the Valley of Mexico. Chimalpahin, as he is usually known, wrote his extensive histories over the years 16081631. Although acquainted with the other major Nahua and Spanish/mestizo scholars of his day in the Mexico City area, Chimalpahin drew on some singular source materials, such as the Chalco histories collected by his grandfather and other Chalca elders who had lived in preHispanic times (Lockhart 1992:387388; Schroeder 1991:14 21). He was also exceptional in his day because he wrote for an indigenous, not a Spanish, audience (Schroeder 1997:10, note 20). The incident of interest purportedly occurred in 1469 or 1473 and stemmed from an attempted coup against the Aztec King Axayacatl of Tenochtitlan by Moquihuix, ruler ( tlatoani, king) of Tlatelolco, Tenochtitlans next-door sister city (Garduo 1997: 110 119; Isaac 1986:338341). Hoping to enlist allies, Moquihuix sent emissaries to various cities both within and beyond the Valley of Mexico. He had reason to think that Chalco would join him, as the Aztecs had conquered it only in 1465 after a 20-year war (Isaac 1983b:123124). The Chalca wanted no part of it, however, and Moquihuixs four ambassadors were taken prisoner (Chimalpahin 1965:207):
Neither of them [the guards] wanted to give aid to Moquihuix to try to conquer the Tenochcas. Rather, they arrested the Tlatelolco ambassadors on the spot, tied their hands, put them face down in a canoe, stuck a roll of reeds in their mouths, and all night went to and fro in their canoes. The following day . . ., the Chalcas took them before King Axayacatzin [in Tenochtitlan]. They were hanged with a rope around their necks, in front of this ruler . . ., the same day they were presented to him. Once they were dead, they were bathed in order to boil them in a pot, and they were taken to Chalco to cook them there; Moquihuix and various other Tlatelolcas [dignitaries] were invited to a banquet so that they would come and eat their own ambassadors, not knowing that they had been killed by the Tenochcas. . . . This incident determined that, during [the next] five years, the Tenochcas and Tlatelolcas made war.

3 Chimalpahins published writings; the other two, as we shall see, likewise fail to portray cannibalism as an institutionalized (customary, enjoined) practice. Second, I am unable to find this particular story in any other authors work. Tlatelolcos rebellion against Tenochtitlan is widely reported in the literature, but only Chimalpahin includes the cannibalism element, which must have been unique to the elders whom he or his grandfather consulted in Chalco. Story 3: Genital Soup for Captain Tlahuicole Story 3 is set in Tenochtitlan, and both Durn (1994:448) and Tezozomoc (1980:643 645) relate versions of it, but the only account that contains the element of cannibalism comes to us from Tlaxcala. Although the pre-Hispanic Tlaxcalteca shared most cultural features, including the Nahuatl language, with the Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico, Tlaxcala was never conquered by the Aztec empire, which adjoined it on all sides. In other words, unlike Stories 1 and 2, which were narrated by Valley of Mexico (Aztec) sources, Story 3 as a tale of cannibalism by trickery originates in territory that was still outside the Aztec empire when the Spaniards arrived in 1519. If they had arrived perhaps only 1 or 2 years later, however, Story 3 would be seen as an Aztec story, because the Aztec empire was clearly on the verge of conquering the whole Tlaxcala region in 1519 (Isaac 1983a). Furthermore, the story is set in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and attributes cannibalism by trickery to the Tenochca, not to the Tlaxcalteca. The cannibalistic version of this story was written down by the sixteenth-century historian Diego Muoz Camargo, a Tlaxcalan mestizo (Spanish father, Tlaxcalan-Nahua mother) who selfidentified as a Spaniard (Acua 1984:13). He included the story in the Tlaxcala City Relacin Geogrfica (Acua 1984), completed in 1584. Much later, it was published in abridged form known as Historia de Tlaxcala (Muoz Camargo 1892), the source more often consulted today. The story concerns Tlahuicole, a famed Tlaxcala war captain in the second decade of the sixteenth century. He was a heroic man of terrible and great strengths, who realized feats and deeds that seem incredible and superhuman (Muoz Camargo 1892: 125). At last, he was captured by the army of neighboring Huexotzingo, at that moment the enemy of Tlaxcala (Isaac 1983a:423 425). Wishing to ingratiate themselves with the Aztecshistorically their dire enemies but momentarily (ca. 15171518) their allies the Huexotzinca caged Tlahuicole and took him to Tenochtitlan, where they presented him to King Moctezuma as a great trophy (Muoz Camargo 1892:126). The expected fate of a captured enemy soldier at the hands of the Aztecs (or of the Tlaxcalteca or Huejotzinca, for that matter) was ritual sacrifice, but Moctezuma so admired Tlahuicole that he offered him command of a large segment of the Aztec army. Tlahuicole accepted and distinguished himself greatly in a six-month war against the Tarascan empire to the west (i.e., in the opposite direction from Tlaxcala), in the present state of Michoacan (Muoz Camargo 1892:126127). At the end of this war, Moctezuma gave Tlahuicole the choice of remaining an Aztec army officer or returning to Tlaxcala, but Tlahuicole felt he could exercise neither option: the former would mean betrayal of his nation, because it would eventually bring him into combat against Tlaxcala; the latter would bring disgrace, not only because he had escaped heroic sacrificial death, but also because he had served already in the (enemy) Aztec army. Accordingly, he asked to be sacrificed. Muoz Camargo (1892:127128) continues the story thus:

In a humorous retelling elsewhere, Chimalpahin (1997:2:47 49) set the banquet in Tenochtitlan and had King Axayacatl asking the Tlatelolca the next morning, Our friends, have you eaten? When they replied, We have eaten, ruler, Axayacatl informed them that they had eaten their own men. The Tlatelolca fled and then arrayed themselves for battle. It is important to note that the executed messengers were bathed in order to boil them (emphasis mine). In other words, they were given the ritual cleansing that was preparatory to certain human sacrifices that Spanish sources say were followed by the eating of the bathed victim (e.g., Sahagn 19701981:Book 2:141, 162 168, Book 9:45, 61 67). Two other aspects of this story are important to note. First, it is one of only three instances of human (versus godly) cannibalism in

4
When Moctheuzoma [ sic ] saw that he [Tlahuicole] wanted only to die, he ordered that this wish be fulfilled, and so a week before he was to die they made for him great festivities, dances, and banquets, according to their ancient rites, and in these banquets they made for him, it is said that they fed hima shameful thing that is seldom toldhis wifes genitals [ natura ] cooked in a soup; because, as he had lived more than 3 years in Tenochtitlan, his favorite wife went to see him to make her life with him, or die with her husband, and thus the two of them died in captivity.

Isaac become companions of the sun. In this framework, Tlahuicole was fated to nourish eternally the masculine morning sun, while his wife was to nourish the feminine afternoon sun. His wife is sacrificed and thus is a heroic woman. . . . Her husband, before dying, participates in her death and eats her feminine essence. . . . He acts as if he had conquered-sacrificed her himself (Graulich 2000:9394). But what about the Tenochtitlan versions (Durn, Tezozomoc), which do not contain the cannibalistic element? Unfazed, Graulich changes gears to concentrate on their inclusion of Tlahuicoles suicide in Tlatelolco (Tenochtitlans subordinate sister city) and his longing for his wives (an element denoting cowardice or lack of manliness). By pining for his favorite wife, the cowardly Tlahuicole . . . let himself be absorbed symbolically by his wife, but the brave [Tlahuicole], to the contrary, ate la natura [the genitals] of his wife (Graulich 2000:96), thereby absorbing her. In this symbolic sense, the cowardly Tlahuicole of the Tenochtitlan versions is likened to Tlatelolcos Moquihuix (of Story 2), who was given to inserting his forearm into his wifes vagina, thusly allowing himself to be partially swallowed by her (Graulich 2000:9596). Tlahuicoles suicide ties him to the mythologized Toltec man-god Huemac, who also killed himself after his defeat and exile. That Tlahuicole ended his life in Tlateloco, which was subordinate to Tenochtitlan, ties him to the moon rather than the sun, to the feminine rather than the masculineand, by implication, to the weak or cowardly rather than the strong or brave. Death in Tlatelolco also ties Tlahuicole with Moquihuix (of Story 2), a king given to women as was Tlahuicole and as was Huemac of Tollan [Toltec Tula] . . . a king [Moquihuix] who made war against Mexico [Tenochtitlan], was defeated and [like Tlahuicole] killed himself by throwing himself off the great pyramid of Tlatelolco (Graulich 2000:95; cf. Chimalpahin 1997:1:139, 2:51; Durn 1994: 260; Tezozomoc 1980:393). After all this zigzagging from one symbolic or temporal context to the next in an effort to wrap both versions of the Tlahuicole story into one or another of central Mexicos mythological shroudsand, especially, to link symbolic feminine absorption of a man (Tenochtitlan version) with cannibalistic feminine absorption by a man (Tlaxcalan version)Graulich (2000:97) poses the question, Which of the two versions corresponds to the facts? Astonishingly enough, he opts for the Tlaxcalan version (by Muoz Camargo), finding it less improbable because it was less reshaped [ menos remodelada ] by mythological thinking (Graulich 2000:97). The Three Stories Compared The three storiesthe only such Nahua narratives of which I am awareshare several basic elements. First, they involve cannibalism by trickery. Second, the trickery is originated by the Tenochca rulership against their political enemies. Third, the purpose of the trickery is humiliation and/or provocation of the enemy. Fourth, the stories seem intended to shock or amuse their audience by posing the consumption of human flesh as horrifying or incongruous. In other words, the clearly institutionalized custom portrayed in these stories is political trickery, not cannibalism. The political content of all three stories deserves emphasis, because Aztec cannibalism is usually presented almost entirely in terms of its religious meanings (Carrasco 1999). In Story 1, the Xochimilca elders were goaded into armed resistanceLet us do our best against them: Prepare and equip yourselves, Lords of Xochimilco, as the time has come (Tezozomoc 1980:272)

Muoz Camargo leaves us wondering about the cause of the shame: the eating of human flesh per se? The eating of ones wife? The eating of womens genitalia? The eating of the flesh of ones ingroup? Alternatively, was Tlahuicoles eating of his wifes genitals shameful to the pre-Hispanic Nahua peoples or only to the Hispanicized Muoz Camargo and his post-Conquest audience? We receive no help with these matters from the Tenochtitlan versions of Tlahuicoles captivity and death by Durn (1994:448) and Tezozomoc (1980:643 645). As their accounts are very similar, I shall report mainly from Tezozomoc, whose difficult work will be less accessible to most readers. Tezozomoc says that Tlahuicole was captured by Tenochca (not Huexotzinca) troops on direct orders of King Moctezuma and that, when Tlahuicole was presented to him, King Moctezuma offered him consoling words and finerybut not the military command reported by Muoz Camargo (1892:126127). In captivity, Tlahuicole cried every day upon remembering his wives, saying, Is it possible, my women, that you shall never again see my eyes? (Tezozomoc 1980:645). Moctezuma was so disgusted by his trophy captives sentimental whimpering that he sent him this message (Tezozomoc 1980:645):
Tell him that he has given great affront to illustrious [Aztec] blood, and that Moctezuma says so, and that I say that he should go to his land [Tlaxcala], that such is my will, that his fear of dying gives offense to all the principal Mexica men of this court, [and] that he should go to see the ones he cries for night and day.

Tlahuicole stopped crying, even stopped talking, but he was not offered an honorable death. Instead, he was released under a general ban against feeding him. In vain, he begged from house to house. Finally, desperate to recover his honor, he hurled himself to his death off the main temple pyramid in Tlatelolco, tumbling down the steep steps in the fashion of a sacrificial victim. In death, he was honored by the Tlatelolca, who sacrificed him (Tezozomoc 1980:646). The Tenochtitlan sources (Durn and Tezozomoc) corroborate both the existence and the live capture of Tlahuicole, as well as the esteem in which his enemies held him, as narrated in the Tlaxcalan source (Muoz Camargo 1892). However, they present a radically different version of the famed Tlaxcaltecas captivity and death. Most important, neither Durn (1994) nor Tezozomoc (1980) offers any hint of either feasts or cannibalism. Did none occur? Or were these events simply not recorded in the now disappeared Crnica X upon which Durn and Tezozomoc both drew heavily (Barlow 1945; Bernal 1994)? Recently, Michel Graulich (2000) attempted a symbolic analysis that gives a positive interpretation to the cannibalism element in the Tlahuicole story. He interprets Muoz Camargos version as an iteration of the myth of the gods who, at the beginning of the Fifth Sun (the Aztec epoch), voluntarily sacrificed themselves to

Aztec cannibalism rather than allowed the chance to incorporate peaceably into the new Aztec empire, as was sometimes done (Smith 1986). Defeating and subduing a bellicose Xochimilco justified the Tenochca expropriation and distribution among their own nobles of large amounts of that city-states highly productive chinampas, or raised fields (Durn 1994:112115; Monjars-Ruiz 1980:117118, 134 138, 144, 156; Tezozomoc 1980:276). In Story 2, cannibalism by trickery brought into the open the smoldering Tlatelolca plot, forcing the Tlatelolca to begin the uprising prematurely (and disastrously for them). Finally, the enveloping political context of Story 3 is the long and costly flowery war between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcala area (Isaac 1983a). Their similarities notwithstanding, the three stories also display important differences that complicate their interpretation in terms of the larger and controversial subject of the empirical existence or nature of Aztec cannibalism. For instance, if we had only Story 2 and Story 3, we could conclude that the horrifying or incongruous element was simply the eating of the flesh of persons of the in-group. In Story 2, the Tlatelolca were tricked into eating their own ambassadors; in Story 3, Tlahuicole was tricked into eating his own wifes genitals. Story 1, however, is problematical for that interpretation, as the provenience of the human parts in the stew at the banquet in Xochimilco is left unspecified. Nevertheless, those human parts almost certainly were not derived from sacrificed captive Xochimilca, because the eventual war between Xochimilco and Tenochtitlan had not yet begun. Similarly, if we had only Story 2 (Moquihuix) and Story 3 (Tlahuicole), we might conclude at first blush that they would be shocking or incongruous only to a post-Conquest audience, as neither of those two accounts reports shocked reactions by the alleged victims of the trick. Furthermore, as we have seen, Graulich (2000) has argued that Tlahuicoles eating his wifes genitals in the Tlaxcalan version of Story 3 was a positive element in the pre-Hispanic context. However, a close reading of Story 2 reveals that shock or humiliation is implied, because the victims of the trick were moved to declare war: [t]his incident determined that, during [the next] 5 years, the Tenochcas and Tlatelolcas made war (Chimalpahin 1965: 207). In both versions of Story 1 (Xochimilca rulers), in contrast, the shock of the victims is explicitly related; also, Tezozomocs version has this incident provoking the Xochimilca to initiate war: [p]repare and equip yourselves, Lords of Xochimilco, as the time has come (Tezozomoc 1980:272). Turning to another dimension, if we had only Story 1 (Xochimilca rulers) and Story 3 (Tlahuicole), we could conclude that the trickerys shock value lay in the lack of ritual preparation of the human flesh for consumption. Although Tezozomocs version of Story One includes the punctilious washing of the banquet ingredients purchased from the Tenochca market women, we have seen that we cannot reasonably construe that element as signifying the ritual bathing of human flesh. In Muoz Camargos version of Story 3 (Tlahuicole), we are told that the great festivities, dances, and banquets preceding Tlahuicoles death were performed according to their ancient rites (Muoz Camargo 1892:127), but these rites are not explicitly connected with the preparation of his dead wifes genitalia for inclusion in the banquet soup. In Story 2 (Moquihuix), however, the ritual preparation of the human flesh is explicit: [o]nce they were dead, they were bathed in order to boil them in a pot (Chimalpahin 1965:207). In other words, even though the flesh was to be eaten unknowingly by a man the Aztec king wished to humiliate, the bodies from which the flesh was to be cut were ritually bathed (Sahagn 197081:Book 2:141, 162168, Book 9:45, 61 67).

5 This is an extremely important passage, as it means that the tricks shocking or repulsive character did not reside in the victims eating unconsecrated human flesh. Rather, the crux of the matter would seem to be that he ate the flesh of his in-group or even of his own kinsmen or courtiers. Finally, these stories enable us to say unambiguously that, under some circumstances, the eating of human flesh was unacceptable. It was this quality that enabled the Aztecs to humiliate their enemies and even goad them into launching war by tricking them into eating human flesh (or its broth, as in Story 1). Of special interest is that even ritual preparation (as in Story 2) did not always remove the stigma from the eating of human flesh. Also, the eating of the flesh of the in-groupor, at least, of known associateswas apparently repulsive (as in Story 2 and perhaps in Story 3), even if it had been ritually washed. Furthermore, simply the unexpected appearance of human flesh (as in Story 1) in an alimentary context could be shocking and frightening. This last aspect, especially, should put to rest any notion that the Aztecs were gustatory cannibals who lusted for human flesh as a delicacy (Durn 1994:141, 233, 272, 407, 474; cf. Muoz Camargo 1892:141142). THE NAHUA AUTHORS Present-day assertions about cannibalism as an institutionalized (customary, enjoined) practice in the Aztec core area derive almost exclusively from the famous sixteenth-century Spanish ethnographies by Durn (1971, 1994), Motolina (1971), and Sahagn (19701981), which are liberally sprinkled with allegations of the practice. Modern scholars typically set aside the contemporaneous Nahua writings in this regard, for they do not offer up these titillating allegations. In fact, the Nahua authors have very little to say about cannibalisman eloquent reticence, in my viewand what they do offer often does not corroborate the Spanish writings. For example, Tezozomocs lengthy Aztec history, Crnica mexicana, which covers 478 pages measuring 9 inches 6.5 inches in the 1980 edition used here, includes only one account of human (vs. godly) cannibalismStory 1, which reports cannibalism by trickery to provoke a war. The absence of allegations of customary cannibalism in Tezozomocs Crnica is surprising when we compare it with Durns parallel Historia, which contains some fifteen passages alleging customary cannibalism, including some of the most sensationalistic in all of the ethnohistorical literature (Isaac 2002:208 ff ). What makes this comparison especially apposite is that these two authors city/empire histories are so similar in structure and overall content that modern scholars have long held that they both used a now lost Crnica X as their primary document (Barlow 1945; Bernal 1994). In the other treatise traditionally attributed to Tezozomoc, Crnica mexicyotl, only one line alludes to human (vs. godly) cannibalism, and it is included in a story that covers a single paragraph in its entirety. The context is the appointment by the Aztec King Axayacatl of a Tenochca named Huitzillatzin as the first ruler ( tlatoani ) of Huitzilopochco, a city near Chalco. As the Nahuatl text is identical in both the version attributed to Tezozomoc (1998:132) and that recently attributed to Chimalpahin, I will cite the English translation provided for the latter (Chimalpahin 1997:1:146147):
[Huitzillatzin] went to rule in Huitzilopochco, now San Mateo [Churubusco]. He began the rulership there; Axayacatzin, ruler of Tenochtitlan, installed him as ruler there. It is said, it is

6
thought, that at first [before then] no one was ruler there; they only existed; and the Huitzilopochca were people-roasters.

Isaac date to the period 16001640 and consist of histories of his city, polity, and people, totaling some 560 pages in their modern edition (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977). His style is comparable to that of Tezozomoc and Durnthat is, prolix and given to storytelling. Yet his work includes only a single mention of cannibalism (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977:1:290), in which he attributes the custom to barbarous northerners:
There are many kinds of Chichimecas [northerners], some more barbarous than others, and some indomitable who wander like gypsies and who have neither king nor lord except that the most capable is their captain and lord; and others, who eat one another. The likes of them [ estos tales ] are not of the lineage of those of this land [Tetzcoco].

Chimalpahin (1997:2:97) retells this terse story in another document, with this slightly different wording, providing additional insight: [i]t is said that at first [earlier] there was no ruler there; they were still cooking people in Huitzilopochco. But later, in Axayacatzins time, rulership began there. To my thinking, the clear implication of the story is that the custom of cooking people, which the Huitzilopochca were still doing up to Aztec King Axayacatls time, ended when (But later . . .) Axayacatl installed a Tenochca-Mexica ruler there. In short, as I read the story, it says that the Aztecs ended cannibalism in Huitzilopochco by imposing good government. In fact, Chimalpahins oeuvre is highly similar to Tezozomocs regarding the subject of cannibalism, although the two authors employed very different styles. Tezozmocs (1980) chronicle of the Aztec empire is a loose narrative that facilitates storytelling, whereas Chimalpahins (1965) main history of Chalco is structured in the succinct annals format. Nevertheless, Chimalpahin managed to insert Story 2, in which the Aztec (Tenochca) King Axayacatl ordered the Chalca nobles to trick Moquihuix of Tlatelolco into eating his own ambassadors. Interestingly enough, Story 2 is one of only three inclusions of human (vs. godly) cannibalism in Chimalpahins prolific writings on Chalco and its close neighbors (Chimalpahin 1965, 1983, 1991, 1997). The second instance consists of a single, disapproving sentence about the Olmeca-Xicalanca of Chalchiuhmomozco (later, Amaquemecan, Second Chalco), whose sorcerers directed their powerful nahuals (supernatural counterparts), which could travel unseen inside the clouds, to eat the people of [Old] Chalco in the year 1258 (Chimalpahin 1991:89). We have already covered the third instance, which is the terse reference to cannibalism in nearby Huitzilopochco in a twice-repeated story (Chimalpahin 1997:1:146 147, 1997:2:97) that I interpret as saying that the Aztecs ended the practice there by installing their own governor over the city. Also of interest are two famous early annals, written in Nahuatl using Latin script, of whose authors we know only that they were Spanish-educated Nahuas. The Anales de Tlatelolco (1980), written circa 1530, contain no mention of cannibalism, even though they include some fifteen passages on human sacrifice, one of which is about dismemberment (to bury the head in one place, the heart in another, and the other remains elsewhere) ( Anales de Tlatelolco 1980:35), and one about cutting the ears off captives ( Anales de Tlatelolco 1980:41). The more prolix and gossipy Anales de Cuauhtitlan (1975), written circa 1570 and covering the history of Cuauhtitlan, barely outside the Valley of Mexico (to the northwest), mention cannibalism only onceto attribute it to the ancient Chichimeca, who ate their captives back in the days when they were so primitive that they still lacked temples ( Anales de Cuauhtitlan 1975:30). THE MESTIZO AUTHORS The Valley of Mexicos best-known late-sixteenth- and earlyseventeenth-century mestizo historian is Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, born circa 1578. Ixtlilxochitl, as he is usually called to emphasize his indigenous and noble descent, had a Spanish father and maternal grandfather but was a direct descendant of the famous Tetzcoco (Acolhua) kings Ixtlilxochitl (d. 1418), Nezahualcoyotl (d. 1472), and Nezahualpilli (d. 1515). His known writings

Juan Bautista de Pomar (b. ca. 1582) was also from Tetzcoco and also claimed descent from Nezahualcoyotl and Nezahualpilli, although his father was Spanish (Acua 1986:3536). Pomars Relacin de Texcoco was composed circa 1582 as a component of the 15771586 Relaciones Geogrficas of New Spain. His coverage of cannibalism is restricted to the annual festivals of the gods Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe in Tetzcoco. Of the first two, Pomar (1986:62) wrote that, after the human sacrifice, the body
was then given to the owner, who was the one who had captured him. And, in this way, they sacrificed all that there were [available] for sacrifice on that day. Once finished, the other priests gathered up all the hearts, and after cooking them, they ate them; so that this very important member of the human entrails was assigned to those priests, servants of the Devil. . . . And the bodies, after being taken away by their owners, were cut into pieces and cooked in great pots and were sent throughout the city and to all the neighboring towns, until nothing of it [the body] remained, in very small pieces, each less than a half-ounce, as gifts to the chiefs, lords and principal men, and majordomos and merchants, to all manner of rich men from whom they [captors] wished to elicit something, without there remaining anything of the body for them [captors] to eat, because it was prohibited to them except for the bones, which they kept as trophies and a sign of their strength and courage, putting them in their house, in the part where everyone entering could see them. Those to whom a piece of this meat was presented gave them capes, shirts, skirts, rich feathers, precious stones, slaves, maize, gold lip- and ear-plugs, shields, [and] war vestments and appurtenances, each as he wanted to or was able, not so much because those pieces of meat had any value, since many [recipients] did not eat it, as by way of reward for bravery, so that they [captors] became rich and prosperous.

Of the Xipe festival, Pomar (1986:65) wrote only, And the body was carried away to do with it what I have said earlier, except that it was skinned, and a poor Indian dressed in the skin, turned insideout, and went about begging with it . . . [for] twenty days. In summary, the first of the two mestizo authors, Ixtlilxochitl, is very like the major Nahua authors Chimalpahin and Tezozomoc with respect to the topic of cannibalism: he barely mentions it. He is also like the Nahua authors of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan (1975: 30), whose sole mention of the practice was designed to relegate it to the distant past, thereby severing any connection between it and their own ethnic or political group (cf. Anales de Cuauhtitlan 1975:30). The other mestizo author, Pomar, is more like the Spanish writers, alleging customary cannibalism in connection with cer-

Aztec cannibalism tain religious rites. It is worth noting that Pomars Relacin was clearly influenced by the manuscripts of the Spanish friar Diego Durn (Acua 1986:35, 38), who seems obsessed with cannibalism. Durn (1994:233, 272, 474) alleged gustatory cannibalism that sometimes involved the massive consumption of thousands of human offerings at a time (Durn 1994:407), to the point at which the bellies of the lords were gorged with that human flesh (Durn 1994:474) or they were satiated with human flesh (Durn 1994: 41)an extremist view among his contemporaries (Isaac 2002). In comparison, Pomar was quite restrained, even claiming that many of the recipients of the small piece of human sacrificial flesh did not eat it (Pomar 1986:62). Pomar is also much more measured than Tlaxcalas famous mestizo writer, Diego Muoz Camargo, referred to in Story 3 (Isaac 2002:207 ff ). Like Muoz Camargo, though, Pomar clearly self-identified as Spanish; both men employed the phrase a nuestro modo [in our manner] to refer to Spanish culture (Acua 1986:36). EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES The three sets of authors covered in this article show clear differences in their treatment of cannibalism. The Spanish authors make frequent allegations of customary cannibalism. The Nahua authors, in contrast, make very little mention of human cannibalism and never as an institutionalized practice; to the contrary, they present it as repugnant, frightening, or hostile. The mestizo authors are divided, one being like the Spaniards, although much more tempered, and the other, like the Nahua authors. Explaining these differences at the historical distance of over four centuries is not easy, and we should avoid the temptation to lapse into either posthumous mind reading or literary deconstruction that amounts to filling in the spaces between the lines of their oeuvre. Nevertheless, we can reasonably explore some aspects of the colonial, bicultural context of their writings. Although we can, at best, only narrow down the range of possible explanations, the exercise is worthwhile because it helps avoid facile solutions. In the first place, the Spanish authors were Catholic friars devoted to instituting Catholicism in New Spain. Doing so required the destruction of indigenous Nahua religious beliefs and practices, which they regarded as the work of the Devil, a conviction that grew stronger during the sixteenth century (Cervantes 1994: 1516, passim). Furthermore, the Spaniards had entered the New World expecting the unusual and the fantastic to be the norm in remote corners of the world, and they tended to see exactly those very things they had gone out to find: giants and wild men, pygmies, cannibals and Amazons, women whose bodies never aged and cities paved with gold (Cervantes 1994:6). The early friars also justified their own roles by attributing the worst motives and practices to the Indians, including cannibalism. The Nahua authors, in contrast, did not fully share this cultural background and institutional forces. At the same time, the fact that the Spanish writers were Catholic friars should not lead us to exaggerate the religious distance between them and the Nahua and mestizo authors. All of them were practicing Catholics. Chimalpahin was employed for 30 years or more as a copyist and, probably, a fiscal at the church of San Antonio Abad in Mexico City (Schroeder 1997:5). Tezozomoc was interpreter for the viceregal court (Audiencia Real) in Mexico City (Mariscal 1994), a position that would have required a strong Christian identity. The same requirement would have obtained in the case of the mestizo author Ixtlilxochitl, who held some of the

7 highest colonial positions open to Indians or mestizos: governor of Tetzcoco (16121613), then judge-governor of Tetzcoco (1612 1614), of Tlalmanalco (16161618), and of Chalco (16191622). He later served as interpreter for the Indian Court (Juzgado de Indios) in Mexico City for at least a decade before his death in 1650 (OGorman 1975:1736). Furthermore, both Tezozomoc and Ixtlilxochitl unambiguously expressed their Catholic religious convictionsand condemnation of indigenous religionin their books. Tezozomoc (1980:629) referred to Aztec priests as ministers of the great Lucifer, king of hell; he also pointedly condemned human sacrifice (Tezozomoc 1980:451, 488, 503) and routinely referred to pre-Hispanic deities as demonios (demons, devils). Ixtlilxochitl called the Toltecs, the revered cultural ancestors of the Tenochca-Mexica (Aztec) nobility, this blind and perverse idolatrous people (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977:1:278) and labeled Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli, the principal Mexica deities, false gods (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977:1:273). He claimed that his own illustrious ancestor, Acolhua (Tetzcoco) King Nezahualcoyotl, many times said that Huitzilopochtli, god of the Mexica, and the [their] idols were demons that had them fooled (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977:1:405) and that Nezahualcoyotl and his successor son, Nezahualpilli, spoke out against human sacrifice to the Tenochca-Mexicas false gods, calling them mute stones and sticks that had no power whatsoever (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977: 2:124125, 181, 185). Furthermore, he purported that Nezahualcoyotl regarded as false all the gods adored by the people of this land, saying that they were nothing but statues of demons that were enemies of humankind (Ixtlilxochitl 19751977:2:136). If Tezozomoc and Ixtlilxochitl had believed that the Aztecs practiced customary cannibalism, would they not have condemned it, too? I believe they would have, whether out of deeply held religious conviction or in furtherance of their high (but necessarily insecure) standing in Colonial government. Perhaps a more important cultural difference between the Spanish and the Nahua/mestizo authors is their respective standing in relation to the Nahua community and its pre-Hispanic culture. Two possible lines of inquiry leap out of this circumstance: (1) self-censorship; and (2) a deeper understanding of Nahua religion. The motive for self-censorshipin the form of omission (Tezozomoc, Chimalpahin, Ixtlilxochitl) or a tempered inclusion (Pomar) of customary cannibalism in their reportswould have been to avoid portraying their indigenous ancestors, and those of fellow Nahua, in a negative light. We have already implied the main argument against this explanation: all of these men had to be overtly enthusiastic Christians to maintain their prominent Colonial positions, which would have been buttressed by their subscription to the idea of pre-Hispanic customary cannibalism. Furthermore, as we have seen, Tezozomoc and Ixtlilxochitl made a point of criticizing pre-Hispanic religious practices but omitted any reference whatsoever to customary cannibalism. Chimalpahin is of interest in this regard, as well. He made his living by working for the Catholic church, which would have been pleased if he had alleged pre-Hispanic customary cannibalism, but he did not. In short, selfcensorship by the Nahua/mestizo authors does not strike me as a strong explanation of the differences between them and the Spanish authors. The second possibilitythat the Nahua and mestizo authors had a superior understanding of pre-Hispanic religionis more promising. Even the mestizo authors would have had a maternal Nahua enculturation not available to the Spanish authors. Also, the mestizo and Nahua authors were from eminent indigenous

8 families who remained prominent after the Conquest, giving them easier access than the Spaniards to indigenous oral and written traditions. Indeed, we know from their writings that all four were able to conduct extensive interviews with Nahua elders and to examine historical documents (both pre- and post-Conquest) in these elders possession. Their easy access to such materials was extremely important, because some 60 to 80 years had passed between the Spanish Conquest, which spelled the end of purely Nahua religious practice, and the writing of their accounts of preHispanic society. What I am building up to is the possibility that their deeper and more nuanced understanding of pre-Hispanic Nahua religion led them to question the Spaniards assumed linkage between human sacrifice and cannibalism. This linkage is deeply entrenched in Western thought and seems to have been unquestioned among the sixteenth-century Spanish friars. It is also reported for a minority of Nahua communities late in that century. Of the 105 communities of central Mexico for which the 1577 1586 Relaciones Geogrficas reports still exist, thirty-two (30.5%) made the linkage between cannibalism and human sacrifice, eight (7.6%) alleged cannibalism in the absence of human sacrifice, twenty-nine (27.6%) reported human sacrifice but not cannibalism, and thirty-six (34.3%) reported neither practice (Isaac 2002: 206). The reasons for this variability are unclear, but it is important to keep in mind that Catholic friars had heavily missionized the Nahuas for two generations by the time the Relaciones Geogrficas were compiled (Isaac 2002:218; Starr 1990:266). CONCLUSION Aztec cannibalism is a controversial topic because we cannot yet answer the question: do the early Colonial-period reports of it reflect actual behavior or merely a post-Conquest reinterpretation of tradition? Ethnohistorical documents will never settle that question (Isaac 2002:220221). Rather, the answer must await the application of the type of advanced (but still controversial) technical methods now beginning to be employed in the U.S. Southwest (Billman et al. 2000:166167; Dongoske et al. 2000:184 185; Lambert et al. 2000:402 404). Only ethnohistorical analysis, however, can reveal the extent to which the practiceif its presence is convincingly demonstratedwas institutionalized and who ate whom and why, where, when, and how. To date, the question of cannibalism in Mesoamerica has been clouded by sloppy and sensationalist analysis in both archaeology and ethnohistory. In archaeology, cannibalism is often asserted when other explanations are equally plausible. By way of illustration, butchering marks on human bone can result from the extraction of trophy bones rather than the removal of flesh for cooking; human bone that appears cooked may instead be the residue of an incomplete cremation; skeletal disarticulation may reflect secondary burial rather than the remains of a meal; human bones can find their way into midden deposits through such prosaic processes as urban ex-

Isaac pansion and renewal or the casual disposal of unknown previous occupants remains; and so forth (Bullock 1991, 1992; Cid Beziez and Torres Sanders 1995; Guilliem Arroyo 1998; Kanter 1999; Romn Berrelleza 1990:4550; cf. Turner and Turner 1999:1054). At the same time, ethnohistorical analyses often suffer from incomplete or selective use of documentary resources. Either the search ends when one or more resources are located that support the conclusion (cannibalism!) the researcher was predisposed to draw, or only a few sources (typically the Spaniards Durn and Sahagn) are employed to the exclusion of others. This article has shown that a very different picture of Aztec cannibalism emerges when we employ the Nahua and mestizo resources, which are typically overlooked entirely, alongside the more familiar works. The broad-scale comparison employed here allows us to see that Aztec cannibalismif it indeed existed empiricallywas a polysemous practice, with meanings not restricted to the institutionalized ritual contexts alleged almost exclusively by the Spanish sources. Most important, it was disapproved and frightening, even repulsive, to Aztecs under certain conditions. Accordingly, as trickery it was as a political stratagem against ones enemies, especially to goad them into war. Interestingly enough, the sources show one instance in which Aztec rule apparently ended the practice of cannibalism. At a more general level, the absence of accounts of institutionalized Aztec cannibalism in the major Nahua writingseven in the case of Tezozomoc, who used the same basic source as Durn to write a treatise of similar length on the same subject but without any of Durns assertions of cannibalism should make us cautious about siding with the Spaniards (and some mestizos) in assuming widespread customary Aztec cannibalism. Indeed, NahuaSpanish source comparisons open the possibility that the Spanish allegations stem from Spanish, not Aztec, culture and were then transmitted to the indigenous population in the course of Christianization and Hispanicization, as suggested by Starr (1990; Barker et al. 1998; Pickering 1999). It is important to remember in this last regard that no eyewitness accounts of Aztec cannibalism exist. Although there is a famous passage in Bernal Daz del Castillo (1956:436 437, 1977:2:39 40) that is often cited as an eyewitness report of cannibalism, the physical circumstances of the moment rule it out. At best, he could have seen the sacrifices, followed by the tumbling of the bodies down the pyramid steps and, perhaps, their dismemberment at the base of the pyramid, a routine practice for the eventual extraction of trophy bones (Durn 1994:162; Sahagn 19701981:Book 2:59 60, Book 8:75). Even his statement about the butchering was probably just an inference based on subsequent information or background knowledge, however, as Daz del Castillo was standing several hundred yards away. His view of the Tlatelolco pyramids base, the butchering site, would have been impeded not only by distance but also by an urban landscape and the military action that had caused the Spaniards to retreat to a position near to our quarters before the sacrificial event began.

RESUMEN
Conocemos la antropofagia azteca principalmente por medio de la obra de los frailes espaoles (especialmente Durn, Motolina, y Sahagn), quienes no tenan la ms mnima duda de que fuese el consumo de la carne humana parte integral de la cultura azteca. Muy al contrario, los escritores nahuas del Valle de Mxico del siglo XVI y principios del XVII (especialmente Tezozomoc y Chimalpahin) apenas mencionan el canibalismo, y cuando s aparece el tema en la obra de ellos toma la forma casi exclusiva de unos relatos del canibalismo por engao. En cada caso, el engao fue perpetrado por la nobleza tenochca contra sus enemigos polticos para humillarles y/o incitarles a la guerra. Lejos de ensear el canibalismo como costumbre aprobada e institucionalizada, estos cuentos lo presenta como un comportamiento asqueroso o horroroso. En otras palabras, no es el canibalismo sino el engao poltico lo que presentan los autores nahuas como costumbre institucionalizada, es decir, normal y aprobada. Los dos

Aztec cannibalism
famosos historiadores mestizos del Valle de Mexico ocupan una posicin intermedia respecto al tema de la antropofagia, parecindose o a los escritores nahuas (Ixtlilxochitl) o a los espaoles (Pomar). No es nada facil explicar las diferencias entre los tres tipos de autores (nahuas, mestizos, espaoles). El hecho de ser frailes los autores espaoles poco les diferencia de los autores nahuas y mestizos, los cuales tambin eran catlicos muy aferrados. Por ejemplo, Chimalpahin serva de copista y muy probablemente de fiscal de la iglesia de San Antonio Abad por ms de treinta aos. Tezozomoc e Ixtlilxochitl eran funcionarios coloniales en puestos pblicos que les habra exigido una fuerte identidad catlica, y los dos denunciaron la religin indgena en sus obras escritas. Tezozomoc les llam demonios a los dioses aztecas y denunci a los sacerdotes aztecas como ministros del gran Lucifer rey del infierno; tambin se proclam contundamente en contra del sacrificio humano. Ixtlilxochitl, por su parte, llam a los toltecas esta gente ciega y perversa idlatra y a Huitzilo-

9
pochtli y Tezcatlipoca falsos dioses y demonios que les traan engaados, y a sus dolos piedras y palos mudos que no tenan poder ninguno y demonios enemigos de la vida humana. Igual a Tezozomoc, Ixtlilxochitl conden contundamente el sacrificio humano. No obstante todas estas denuncias a la religin azteca y las proclamaciones de su propia fe catlica, ninguno de los tres autores (Chimalpahin, Ixtlilxochitl, Tezozomoc) les atribuy nunca a los aztecas el canibalismo institucionalizado (es decir, aprobado). El presente artculo plantea que esta omisin se explica tanto por la gran profundidad de su entendimiento de la religin indgenade manera que no se engaaron por la metfora y el simbolismo aztecascomo por su cuestionamiento de la mentalidad europea que insista en que la costumbre del sacrificio humano necesariamente implicaba la antropofagia. Es esta misma suposicin la que les lleva a los arquelogos e historiadores modernos a plantear el canibalismo a preferencia de las explicaciones alternativas y hasta ms factibles.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the University of Cincinnati for granting me the sabbatical leave (winterspring 2001) during which most of the research for this article was completed. The final product was greatly improved by the careful critiques of John F. Schwaller and Christy G. Turner II. William R. Fowler and James H. McDonald also made helpful criticisms. As always, Hugo G. Nutini offered encouragement and suggestions for improvement.

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