Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico

by Andrew Laird

In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism ― the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research ― were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders.

While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus' ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop's fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

Genres: History

488 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2023

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This attractively produced volume is not only pleasingly aesthetic in itself but also a model of erudite scholarship. It is probably not for the general reader, partly because of its eye watering price but also because it is in places quite dense and demanding. The chapter entitled “Between Babel and Utopia”, for example, is a detailed discussion of Amerindian grammar. I am sure there are those whose blood will be be set racing by such things, but most will find this rather dry.

Nevertheless there is plenty of fascinating material here. The Spanish educated aristocratic native youths not to train them for the priesthood but to enable them to play key roles in the Spanish administration of Mexico. They were conscious of the depth and history of Aztec culture: Bishop Garces of Tlaxcala claimed they were not an illiterate people because they had used a pictographic proto-alphabet in the manner of the ancient Phoenicians. The bishop was awed by the skill at Latin that some of his youthful protegés acquired: this proved they could not be savages.

In 1561 the native principals of Azcapotzalco sent a remarkable Latin letter to Philip II requesting a number of privileges for their town. Although they stress their “worthlessness” before His Majesty, this is clearly a rhetorical device: the text is not only supremely polished, but also larded with all manner of classical allusions (the Vulgate, the Aeneid, etc) and shows a close familiarity with Renaissance humanism and its key texts. Only a tiny elite in Europe would have been able to produce such a text. This is testimony not only to the excellence of the instruction provided by the Spanish priests and friars, but also to the high intellectual quality of the native aristocrats themselves.

There are some remarkable cultural and linguistic fusions described here, such as one Antonio Huitzimengari. He was a native aristocrat, a Prince of Michoacan, whose father had been executed by the Spanish. Yet he himself became Governor of Michoacan and bequeathed an extraordinary library to his son when he died. Huitzimengari was clearly a brilliant polymath, and of considerable value as an administrator and an asset to the Spanish administration. One wonders how he felt about his father being judicially murdered on trumped up charges. This is a perfect illustration of the strange cross connections between the colonisers and the colonised.

The author’s careful analysis convinced me that the infuence of Erasmus’s Humanism on 16th century Mexico has been under rated. But this book is far more wide ranging than that. This brief review by a non specialist cannot do it justice. Professor Laird’s achievement, written also with elegance and insight, is remarkable. It is also something of a relief that he seems to have turned away from the sub pornographic pot boilers he has previously turned out, set out in a more contemporary Mexico, with dubious titles such as “Her Back Was Against the Wall” (see this and others by the same author here on Goodreads).

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book about the classics in early colonial Mexico, AND about native reception and use of those traditions, and Nahuatl's status as kind of the "Latin of Mesoamerica" . . .