Aztec Kings and the Codex Durán: The Metaphorical Underpinnings of Rulership1

Emily Umberger

The Aztec Empire fell with the destruction of its imperial capital, Tenochtitlan, in 1521. This capital also incorporated Tlatelolco, once a city in its own right equal in power and influence, but a mere section of Tenochtitlan at the time of the Spanish Conquest. The Spanish built Mexico City, the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, on the ruins of both.

A related project of colonization was the reconception of Aztec history, rendered comprehensible to Western and Westernized audiences. The featured players in the new histories were pre-Conquest rulers with European style personalities and motivations. In pre-Conquest times these rulers were called tlatoani and huei tlatoani in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, terms that translate as "speaker" and "great speaker." The former was ruler of a city or a section of a city, while the latter was a paramount ruler or emperor. The first lengthy biographies were the creation of an early colonial native tradition, now referred to as the Crónica X tradition, which used them to structure a narrative history of Tenochtitlan's rise and fall. The earliest known written manuscript of this tradition was created in Nahuatl before 1579 by a native author of unknown name. Although now lost, the contents of this chronicle survive in the Codex Durán, which was displayed in the Royal Academy exhibition, Aztecs.

The Codex Durán was named for its creator, the Dominican Friar Diego Durán, who, in addition to translating the lost native history into Spanish, included with it two other treatises on the calendar and ritual--apparently of his own creation--and employed several unnamed native artists to illustrate the entire work (Couch 1987). 2 In the historical section, Durán, like the native author before him, presented Tenochtitlan's rulers as comparable to European kings and emperors and left out the symbolic components of pre-Conquest historiography--the metaphors and allegorical narratives that had structured the choreography of events as well as their reporting.3 Remnants of these elements survive in both text and illustrations, usually rendered literally, but still serving as clues to the symbolic thought activated on particular occasions.

The present paper focuses on the Codex Durán's account of a series of events that was central to Aztec history. This was the 1473 Civil War between the pre-Conquest rulers of Aztec Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, when the former conquered the latter 46 years before Spanish arrival. The Civil War was a last ditch effort by the Tlatelolca-Mexica, as they called themselves, and their allies in the Valley of Mexico to challenge the power of the Tenochca-Mexica, who had recently risen to political dominance over the Valley and the Empire.4 The main protagonists were Axayacatl of Tenochtitlan, who won the war, and Moquihuix of Tlatelolco, who lost the war and his life. It is especially in the written and pictured images of the loser and his actions that we learn much about the symbolic underpinnings of Aztec rulership.

What distinguish the Codex Durán from the other existing members of the Crónica X group are the native illustrations. The most notable and competent of the artists who made these has been dubbed Artist A by Christopher Couch (1987: 303-305). An important example of his work (Figure 1) pictures Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina, known popularly in modern times as Montezuma I or Moctezuma I, seated on a throne as if he were both ordering and posing for the portrait that his sculptors are carving on the living rock of the hill of Chapultepec (as the text tells us). In the distance, Montezuma appears again, walking and discussing the sculpture with his brother and "prime minister" Tlacaelel. The artistic portrayals of such genre subjects, the king posing for a sculpture and his stroll through the background, were of European origin, but the use of individual vignettes for different actions and times was common to both European and pre-Conquest native practices. Durán's artist used perspective, modelling, landscape, and a frame as in European art, while retaining relatively empty areas between vignettes and depicting some authentic forms of Aztec material culture.5

Artist A also rendered the illustrations of the Civil War (Figure 2) and (Figure 3) , and, from the latter, his lack of knowledge about pre-Columbian architecture is apparent. Some pre-Conquest forms were known to Durán and his artist, for instance at least two sculptures at Chapultepec that were still visible in colonial times (León y Gama 1832: 80), facsimiles of ruler costumes that were worn in colonial ceremonies (Umberger 1996b), and thrones that may have continued in use (Codex Osuna 1993: folio 38r) as well as being commonly illustrated in manuscripts documenting pre-Conquest times. In contrast, Aztec architectural structures were apparently unknown to Artist A, actual pyramids having long since been destroyed in the environs of Mexico City.6 Durán's text can be characterized as like the illustrations in that the format is generally European, it converges in ways with native narrative structures, and it includes genuine bits of native historical data, inserted knowledge of still-existing forms, and inventions of European origin necessitated by ignorance of pre-Columbian forms. Obviously, the analysis of both text and illustrations is made more complex by the collaborative efforts involved in their creation; native and European contributions and motivations are mixed in ways that cannot be untangled at present.7

Axayacatl came to the throne in 1469 upon the death of Montezuma I, who was his grandfather. Axayacatl's mother was Montezuma's daughter and his father was a descendant of an earlier ruler. Scholars like Susan Gillespie (1989: 98-106), William Barnes (work in progress), and Lori Boornasian-Diel (n.d.) have investigated the passing of Tenochca rule to this grandson through a female. Whatever their individual stances on the circumstances, all would acknowledge that the power of royal women in Aztec society had to have been a matter of contemporary debate. I suggest that reactions to this genealogical irregularity may be seen behind the large number of references to women in accounts of the Civil War.

However, this was only one of a number of factors that increased political tensions in the Valley of Mexico. Montezuma was a long-lived ruler who had led Tenochtitlan to primacy in an Empire that had begun as an alliance of several powers. For this reason, other Valley rulers were predisposed to challenge the throne's new occupant, whatever the circumstances of his accession. One of these challengers was Axayacatl's brother-in-law, Moquihuix, the ambitious ruler of Tenochtitlan's rich and still powerful twin city, Tlatelolco. Moquihuix had come to the throne probably two years earlier, and he reportedly was involved in the rebuilding of key religious structures in his city-the skull rack, the temple for conquered gods, and the Great Temple, that is, his own Templo Mayor. A painting from Sahagún's Primeros Memoriales visualizes the layout of a typical Aztec ceremonial center (Figure 4) . From top to bottom (east to west) it features a Great Temple, two sacrificial stones on platforms, a skull rack, and a ball court. All of these had the same meaning in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco: they were symbols of similar structures at a mythic landscape called Coatepetl, "Serpent Mountain." So both Great Temples was simultaneously images of Coatepetl and seats of power of the Mexica tribal god, Huitzilopochtli, "Hummingbird, Left." The right half of each double temple was the side of the tribal god specifically, and the other shrine was dedicated to the ancient Mexican rain god, Tlaloc. Moquihuix's Great Temple and other new buildings seem to have been close imitations of those in Tenochtitlan, built to irritate and mock the people of that city, as they moved towards war.8

The allegorical events at Coatepetl are told in an early section of the Codex Durán (1967, 2: 32-34; 1994: 26-28). The story takes place at a time when the Tenochca and Tlatelolca were members of a single migrating Mexica tribe, which had just entered the Valley of Mexico. At Coatepetl, which was near the ancient Toltec city of Tula/Tollan (now the archaeological site near Tula, Hidalgo), Durán says that they built a settlement around a crude version of the ceremonial center described above. A fight broke out between political factions, one following the tribal god Huitzilopochtli, and the other questioning the decisions of the god. One dissident leader was named Coyolxauh(qui), "Bells, Painted," and the other was Huitznahua(tl), a name/title of disputed meaning. In a major variant of the story, which is told in Bernardino de Sahagún's Florentine Codex (1950-1982, Book 3: 1-5), these events are presented as involving not human participants, but rather the gods, who symbolize cosmic bodies (Figure 5) . Coatepetl is the earth in general, conceived as a mountain, and Huitzilopochtli's rise to dominance is described as his "birth" from a mother called Coatlicue, "Serpents, Her Skirt," another image of the earth.

Soon after this birth, Huitzilopochtli attacks the rebel army, whose members, the Centzonhuitznahua, "Innumerable Huitznahua," are called his siblings, and their leader, Coyolxauhqui, who is termed a sister. He drives away these enemies and throws the body of Coyolxauhqui off Coatepetl. It lands at the bottom dismembered. In this allegory Huitzilopochtli is the sun rising from the earth in the morning and chasing away the moon (Coyolxauhqui) and stars (the Centzonhuitznahua), who all sink into the Underworld in the West (Seler 1960-1961, 3: 327-328; 4: 157-167; Matos 1981; 1990). Significantly, while Sahagún's text speaks of the rival leader as a sister, the pictured Coyolxauhqui is very much like the other enemies, wearing a male loincloth and revealing no female traits (Gillespie 1989: 65, caption to figure 3.2). The gender of this personage is differentiated from the others only in the text. As I have argued elsewhere, it is defeat that makes this character the moon (Umberger 1987: 412, 424-428).9 I would add that it is defeat that makes him/her a female (Umberger, work in process).

In Durán's version of the story the loser's ignominious descent from the mountain is not mentioned; rather the Coyolxauh(qui) character and her ally Huitznahua(tl) are described as murdered by Huitzilopochtli on the ball court. The archaeological evidence in Tenochtitlan from this period, to be presented below, indicates that in respect to the fate of the goddess, the Sahagún version, wherein she falls to death from the mountain, is closer to the story that must have been activated at the time of the Civil War. The fact that Durán does not note the similarity of the warfare events to those at Coatepetl is not surprising, given that he inherited a version of the myth that emphasized another locus of death. In addition, his history of the war does not make clear that the Great Temples of Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan were rival Serpent Mountains. Nor are the rulers characterized or pictured as rival Huitzilopochtlis, each one intent on turning his enemy into the defeated female Coyolxauhqui. In fact, Coyolxauhqui is not mentioned at all, and Huitzilopochtli appears only as a temple image. Yet it is obvious even in Durán's literal rendition of the events that the war was staged to follow a version of the myth that was both fuller than and different from these two surviving versions.

The war featured two battles, both of which were pictured by Durán's Artist A. The text makes it clear that the first battle (se Figure 2) was a Tlatelolca attack on Tenochtitlan (Durán 1994: 255-256). The two battling rulers stand on the border between their cities, and their armies are depicted behind them. A change in ground color from red to yellow may delineate the border between their cities; hieroglyphic symbols above are the "prickly pear cactus" of Tenochtitlan and the stylized "sand hill" of Tlatelolco. The text indicates that the armies are on Tenochca territory. Subsequent events reveal that the Tlatelolca were probably attempting to reach and occupy the enemy's Great Temple, but they were driven back by the Tenochca.

In contrast, during the second battle (see Figure 3). , the Tenochca invaded Tlatelolco, and the Tlatelolca were pushed back first to their market and then to their temple. The two rulers are repeated in almost the same poses in the center of the picture, with the same hieroglyphs in the sky, but the right background has been elaborated in ways that are explicated somewhat by the text. Behind Moquihuix and a figure who must be his lieutenant, Teconal, is the Great Temple of the Tlatelolca, where reappearances of the main characters represent later points in the narrative. Axayacatl ascends the steps leading to Tlatelolca Huitzilopochtli's shrine on top. In a third depiction he and his lieutenant, whose name is not given, are presented attacking their enemy counterparts on top of the shrine. The dead bodies of Moquihuix and Teconal appear at the base of the pyramid, where they were thrown by the triumphant Tenochca (Durán 1994: 259-260). Since the pyramid represented Coatepetl, this action was done in imitation of Huitzilopochtli's defeat of Coyolxauhqui and her allies.10

Since Artist A did not know what the principle pyramid of Tlatelolco looked like, he mistakenly represented the murder of the two Tlatelolca leaders on the roof rather than inside the temple, and he depicted the temple of Tlaloc as a separate building without a pyramid base. On the roof of this building are five nude women with staffs like weapons. In the lower right corner of the illustration at the base of the Huitzilopochtli pyramid two other nude women express milk from their breasts. These puzzling details involving women, called a diversionary tactic in the text, probably did occur, but they must have had metaphorical and historical dimensions that are not mentioned. Durán's text says that a squadron of nude women, accompanied by boys with blackened faces and feathered heads,11 attacked the Tenochca, "some slapping their bellies, while others squirted milk at the soldiers" (Durán 1967, 2: 263; 1994: 260). Alvarado Tezozomoc (1980: 392) adds further details. The nude Tlatelolca women also had the red lips of prostitutes, and some carried shields and macanas (wooden swords with obsidian blades). Other women bared and displayed their buttocks to the Tenochca, and slapped their private parts. Some climbed to the top of the pyramid and from there threw brooms, weaving implements, filth, and chewed bread on the Tenochca below.12

To a certain extent, these events recall the mockeries made during preparations for battle, wherein warriors could be called women, a taunt questioning their ability to win the contest and probably foreshadowing future humiliations through arraignment in women's clothing. Alvarado Tezozomoc makes it clear that these women were ridiculing the Tenochca, accusing them of great cowardice. The boys, in turn, can be seen as another mockery of the adult male warriors of the Tenochca army. The feathers on their heads are not described but may have been like those presented to the enemy ruler at the outset of hostilities. Both groups of women in the illustration recall the idea of Coyolxauhqui: those on top of the structure seem to be female warriors, while the women below recall in other ways the imagery of the Coyolxauhqui Stone found at the foot of the Tenochtitlan Great Temple in 1978 (Figure 6) . The creases on this sculpted Coyolxauhqui's belly indicate a woman who has recently given birth, as do the enlarged breasts.

Although the women recall these mockeries, other evidence may suggest a more historically specific explanation of the post-partem state of some. Together with the boys, they might represent mothers and sons, in a pointed reference to Axayacatl's relationship to his mother and his inheritance of the throne through her. The allusions to prostitution and immorality are also inherent in the Coyolxauhqui Stone's imagery (Umberger, work in process).

Durán's and other accounts of the Civil War provide a broad spectrum of threats not seen elsewhere. A sequence of scenes from the Codex Mendoza gives a generic view of Aztec militarism (Berdan and Anawalt 1992: folio 66r, text on folio 65v), without a sense of the variety of imagery used on specific occasions. In the second register from the top (Figure 7) , Aztec warriors decorate an enemy ruler with a shield, funerary feathers, and unguent, indicating that he was to expect war, defeat, and death. In the top register, the threat is realized when, upon defeat, the same warriors, now dressed as officials, execute the defeated ruler. The Codex Durán describes a similar visit by an ambassador, who decorated Moquihuix with the attributes of death before the war. Were the decorations the accoutrements of Coyolxauhqui, as seen on the Coyolxauhqui Stone at the Tenochtitlan Great Temple (see Figure 7)? The verbal description is too vague to identify the paraphernalia presented specifically, just as it is in the case of the feathered heads of the little boys. Still, since the fall of the defeated leader was meant to be compared to the goddess's fall, I believe that the leaders of both sides might have been called Coyolxauhqui before the battle decided their respective fates.

The Codex Durán was a document intended to justify Tenochca actions, as has been noted often. For this reason, a few Tenochca aggressive and symbolic gestures are given, but the Tlatelolca taunts are dwelt on in both text and images as irritants demanding Tenochca responses. Before the war, Moquihuix sent his inexperienced young warriors onto the lake to hunt flying ducks and other waterfowl with their atlatls, in preparation for hunting the Tenochca.13 Tenochca spies wandering through the Tlatelolca market were threatened with the words, "What merchandise have you brought to sell? So you want to sell your intestines, your liver, or your heart?" (Durán 1994: 253) At different points, the Tlatelolca threatened to bloody the Tenochcas' temple with their leader's own blood and then desecrate and abandon it. According to Alvarado Tezozomoc (1980: 392), during the second battle a Tlatelolca warrior danced on a sacrificial stone on the pyramid platform, shouting to the Tenochca' below, no doubt with further threats of mutilation and sacrifice. Throughout this period Tlatelolca women and children taunted Axayacatl and his soldiers, not just during the final battle.

After the war, all these threats were visited upon the losing Tlatelolca, usually in the form of a Tenochca response. One complex of threats involved the bodily mutilation and sacrifice of the conquered warriors, and thus the temple of the Tlatelolca was bloodied with the blood of their own leaders, and, no doubt, the sacrificial stones of the Tenochca were smeared with Tlatelolca blood too. Another complex involved contrasting animal analogies. The losers were made to quack like waterfowl, apparently a subject of future jokes that characterized the Tlatelolca as 'quackers' and imitators of other water fowl" (Durán 1994: 261). In addition to being a response to an original Tlatelolca threat this probably had as a symbolic underpinning the comparison between low-flying water birds and the high-flying, hummingbird avatar of Huitzilopochtli. Since another group of humiliations involved women, including Coyolxauhqui, the losing Tlatelolca were treated like women, being confined to their houses for instance, and their leader was memorialized in the Coyolxauhqui Stone at the Tenochtitlan temple as like a defeated woman (Umberger, work in process). A final group of humiliations surrounded the fate of the Tlatelolca temple, the image of Huitzilopochtli from the temple, the living losers themselves, the remains of the dead, and the offspring of both. All of these metaphorical elaborations were coordinated around the events of the Coatepetl story. (Even the water birds, for instance, were mentioned as inhabitants of the lake at Coatepetl.)

The fall of the king in imitation of the goddess involved an additional complex of metaphors about successful and failed rulership, which were also operating behind the myth. The most obvious of these is the well-known astronomical interpretation mentioned above. In the case of Moquihuix and Teconal, the former was like Coyolxauhqui, a political moon, while the latter was like the enemy brothers, the Centzonhuitznahua who were political stars, and more specifically the individual Huitznahua(tl) in Durán's version of the myth. It is not surprising then that this lieutenant's title was Huitznahuatl (Alvarado Tezozomoc 1980: 383). The Codex Cozcatzin (1993: folio 15r, Spanish translation 104) makes it clear that the cosmological model was operating behind the battle as well as the myth. When Axayacatl had definitively won the battle he looked towards the sun, which appeared only upon his victory.

Metaphors involving the mountain/pyramid/seat of rulership that are less well known are illustrated and verbalized in other sources. The ruler's rightful place was the "high place." 14 The place of triumph was conceived metaphorically also as a mat woven from live serpents, the coapetlatl, rather than pieces of reed (Sahagún 1950-1982, Book 11: 80-81; 1979, 3: folio 84r-v). Sahagún's first illustration is the mat itself. In his second illustration the ruler sits on the serpent mat, and the crown and the skull in front of him indicate, according to the Nahuatl text, that if he maintains his place on the mat, the reward is rulership, and if he loses control, the result is death. Sahagún also pictures what happens when things go wrong. The third illustration in the series shows the disentangled serpents going in different directions; in other words, the ruler has lost control of the mat. I believe then that the serpents represented the different strands of society that only a powerful ruler could control.15 Another one who fails is the drunkard who falls from the precipice (Sahagún 1950-1982, Book 4: 15-17; 1979, 1: folio 13r-v Nahuatl text). Sahagún does not call the unsuccessful ruler a drunkard, but other evidence connected with the Civil War (Umberger, work in process) indicates that a ruler who fell from the high place would be considered a drunkard metaphorically.16 The successful ruler maintained his control of the high place and the serpent mat, both ideas incorporated in the concept of the Great Temple as "Serpent Mountain."

The 1978 discovery of the monumental image of the defeated enemy goddess, the Coyolxauhqui Stone, led to the excavation of the Great Temple of the triumphant city of Tenochtitlan in the same year. The archaeological remains found on the level corresponding to the period in question confirm that the Civil War was conceived in the mythic terms described above. Eduardo Matos, the director of the excavations, has dated the installation of the monument to the approximate period of the Civil War by means of a plaque on the side of the VIb platform (Matos 1981). Representing the date 3 House it corresponded, no doubt, to the year 1469, the year of Axayacatl's succession and the beginning of hostilities. The exact date of the sculpture's creation is unknown. It could have been installed before the war as part of the preparations, or during the war as a taunt directed against the enemy, or at the end of the war, when the outcome had become clear. (I believe it was created before or during the war.) Whatever the case, like Moquihuix's imitative buildings, this monument was intended to be an inflammatory and insulting image that initiated and/or answered a series of insults thrown back and forth between the two cities.

When found, the sculpture was still in place directly in front of the staircase leading to the temple of Huitzilopochtli, confirming what had been established even before the excavation: that the temple of Tenochtitlan represented the Serpent Mountain of myth, with Coyolxauhqui corresponding to those losing to the Aztecs, lying at its base as in Sahagún's version of the myth. The image of the triumphant god, Huitzilopochtli, was of course, in the shrine above. I thus follow Cecelia Klein (1994) in connecting the great Coyolxauhqui Stone with the Civil War (see also Lévine 1997). However, my suggestion that the image was seen as corresponding to Moquihuix himself and the historical situation in several ways is more specific. In addition, I argue that Moquihuix was buried beside it. We know from existing accounts that, upon throwing Moquihuix from his own temple, the Tenochcas trashed and defiled this false Serpent Mountain and took the image of his god from it for exile in Tenochtitlan (Durán 1994: 261-262). At the same time, they must have taken the body of the hapless ruler to be cremated and buried at the foot of the Tenochca Great Temple.

His cremated remains, I believe, are in one of two archaizing Toltec urns found together archaeologically to the north of the great Coyolxauhqui Stone (Figure 8) (Matos 1983). Each vessel bears a figure on its front, and the two were placed in their holes in such a fashion that the figures faced each other, an arrangement characteristically used in representations of rulers. According to Ximena Chavez (Leonardo López Lujan, personal communication 2003), scientific testing of the remains indicated separate individuals in the two urns, so each figure seemingly corresponded to the personage contained.17 Their archaizing form and location at a Great Temple indicate that these were important people. However, both burials were also in a humiliating position, as Matos has noted, being at the base of the temple, and thus contrasted with the burials of successful Tenochca rulers at the top near the image of the triumphant god. Because the remains were cremated and because both the urns and the monument next to them lack hieroglyphs, it is difficult to know who they were.

A circumstantial case can be constructed identifying the remains in both as those of losers in the Civil War, the vessel in the primary position on the left18 being Moquihuix's and the one on the right being either Teconal's or Xiloman's. The latter was tlatoani of Culhuacan and Moquihuix's strongest ally outside Tlatelolco (Torquemada 1969, 1: 180). Because Moquihuix and Teconal fell together from the pyramid, the second vessel probably contained Teconal rather than a foreign tlatoani. Inside the primary urn on the left were a group of obsidian duck heads that formed a necklace (Matos and Solís 2002: no. 279). Among its many meanings, the duck was a symbol of the water that was crossed on the way to the underworld. Similar duck head pendants were found elsewhere in funerary contexts at the Tenochtitlan Great Temple, even in tlatoani burials on top, as Luján has observed (1994: 223-240, and personal communication 2003; see also Luján et al., 2000: 226). Still, the necklace had to have been read by the Tenochcas who buried it as the realization of the death threat highlighted in the Croníca X accounts. It is comparable to the forcing of the defeated Tlatelolca to behave like ducks.19 Reportedly, the initiators of the humiliation were Tlatelolca, but in the end, the Tenochca turned it back against its instigators.

Returning to the Codex Durán, it should be obvious by now that the authors of this colonial view of Aztec history removed as much as possible the Aztec allegorical underpinnings from their accounts of the events. They relegated the allegories to an early, distant period and history to a later, recent period--the effect being a separation of myth from the type of history that was acceptable to their Westernized readers.20 In actuality, myth and history were merged in complex ways throughout both early and late parts of Aztec accounts of the past. Despite the distortions of the colonial sources, the narrative course and details of the historical events would not make sense to us without them. Still, the data of such accounts and archaeological remains must be reintegrated for a more enlightened understanding. We need to put the mythic, allegorical, and metaphorical elements back into the historical accounts, and the historical elements back into our understanding of the archaeological remains, even those without obvious historical references. In addition, when considering colonial texts like the Codex Durán and illustrations like those by Artist A, we must consider the number of parties involved in their creation and the consequent confusions and inconsistencies. To what extent are we looking at a Tenochca view of Tlatelolca actions, and to what extent did colonial agendas and misunderstandings of both natives and Spaniards shape the result?

1 This paper was delivered at the British Museum as part of the symposium entitled "Aztec Art and Culture: An International Symposium" which took place on Sunday March 23, 2003, in connection with the exhibition Aztecs at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Its original title was "Aztec Kings and the Codex Durán."

2 The Codex Durán was completed between 1579 and 1581. It is on European paper and in European book form. After its discovery in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid in the nineteenth century, it was published in Mexico in two volumes as the Historia de las Indias de Nueva España y Islas de Tierra Firme (Durán 1867-1880). Since then it has served as the primary source of Aztec history. The best-published Spanish version was prepared by Angel Maria Garibay (Durán 1967). The most recent and comprehensive English translation is Doris Heyden's (Durán 1994). The closest cognate of its text is Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc's Crónica mexicana of about 1598 (Alvarado Tezozomoc 1980). For discussion of the various members of the Crónica X group, see Barlow (1945), Dykerhoff (1970), Colston (1973), Tovar (1976), Milne (1984), Couch (1987), and Heyden (Durán 1994: xxv-xxxvi).

3 Some obvious metaphors remain--those that could be comprehended easily by a Western audience without damage to Euro-Christian ideas--for instance the comparison of the ruler to the sun. Late modern scholars refer to the allegorical narratives of the Aztecs and other non-European people as myths. I use myth to mean allegorical story, without implying other, negative connotations of the term's modern usage. Questions of belief and historical truth, for instance, involve different issues and need to be treated separately from those of allegorical function (see Umberger 2002: note 6; Hvidtfeldt 1958).

4 For a recent and exhaustive account of the Civil War, see Garduño (1996). For an earlier view, see Barlow's collected essays on the subject (1987). Important primary texts on the war are found in Durán (1967, 2, and 1994: chapters 32-34); Alvarado Tezozomoc (1980: chapters 41-46); Anales de Tlatelolco (1980: 5-7, 59); Codex Cozcatzin (1993: folios 14v-15r, Spanish translation, 101-104); and Torquemada (1969, 1: 173-180).

5 For an enlightening discussion of another native artist's adaptation of European perspective to express traditional ideas, see Navarrete's (2000) analysis of the Codex Azcatitlan. The classic studies of the Aztec and colonial painting styles are by Boone (1982) and Robertson (1994).

6 See Couch's (1987: 306) attribution to another artist of more correct versions of the Tenochtitlan double temple elsewhere in the manuscript.

7 The complexities of the situation of production become evident, for instance, when the scene of the ruler's portrait is compared to its European precedents and to the archaeological monument that was still visible in Durán's time (for the latter, see Nicholson 1961; Umberger 1981: 147-151). Knowledge of the monument is revealed by comparison of the images. However, alterations in the apparel worn by the sculpted king in the Durán illustration were made, seemingly, for expressive and ideological reasons (Patrick Hajovsky, work in progress), and its identity as Montezuma I's portrait rather than Montezuma II's is the type of mistake seen in other parts of the Codex Durán, where the friar linked textual references to monuments with actual monuments visible in the mid-sixteenth century. The errors in the text appear to be Durán's, so perhaps he was responsible for these characteristics of the image. See Escalante (1997) for different aspects of this illustration and others by native artists.

8 Evidences that suggest this point of view are found in the Anales de Tlatelolco (1980:59) and Torquemada (1969, 1: 173). Arguments are contained in Brundage (1972: 174, 180, 308-309) and Umberger (1996a: 96-97).

9 In the Codex Matritense of the Primeros Memoriales, Sahagún (1950-1982, Book 1, 2nd ed., Addendum 2: 81-84) emphasizes the political metaphors inherent in this cosmological model.

10 The scene of Moquihuix's fall is depicted in many codices and described in others, and he is the only leader whose defeat is characterized this way. He falls alone or with his second in command; he is pushed by the enemy ruler or self-propelled; and all participants wear a variety of costumes, most not intended to reproduce what they wore on the actual occasion. Pictorial variants of the scene are found in: Codex Azcatitlan (Boone 2000: figure 136), Codex Mendoza (Berdan and Anawalt 1992: folio 10r), Codex Mexicanus (Boone 2000: figure 150), Codex Cozcatzin (1994: folios 14v-15r), Codex Saville (Boone 2000: Figure 28), and perhaps in Codex en Cruz (Boone 2000: figure 152).

11 They are called niños, which could mean children rather than boys, but Heyden translates the term to mean boys.

12 See Klein's (1994) discussion of these warrior women in relation to Aztec attitudes and battle imagery (also Klein 1993).

13 It is no accident that the weapons used to hunt water birds were also the symbols of Aztec nobility.

14 Metaphors about the high place of rulership were recorded by Andrés de Olmos (Maxwell and Hanson 1992: 176, 177, 182, and 183). The high place is a precipice or mountain/pyramid, which in turn is like a seat or throne, an idea visualized in several ceramic figurines, where powerful personages sit on pyramid thrones (Umberger 1984).

15 Support for this idea is found in Lockhart (1992: 345, 431), who gives the word for native rotary labor, which involved teams of workers, as Coatequitl, "Serpent Labor." I am guessing that this term remains from a broader metaphor about the different strands of society that a ruler coordinated.

16 Moquihuix's name means "Drunken One"; to what extent it was altered after the war is unknown. See Pohl (1998) on the socio-political purpose and implications of excessive drinking during noble feasting.

17 For these complex images, see Nicholson and Quiñones Keber 1983: 94-97).

18 Another adage in Sahagún (1950-1982, Book 6: 259; 1979, 2: folio 214v) indicates that the one on the left in such arrangements has priority, with the other being his representative.

19 This humiliation of the Tlatelolca was mentioned in the Codex Cozcatzin too--a source from another tradition.

20 Instead European allegorical thought was inserted in the form of Euro-Christian ideas of behaviour. For general thoughts of the allegorical bases of late modern Western concepts of history, see White's classic work (1973).

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