Relics and Reliquaries in Colonial Mexico

The cult of saints, through their relics in colonial Mexico, is related to the importation of relics from the great centers of pilgrimage in Europe and the Holy Land. Reliquaries were artifacts made to preserve the relics, avoid their fragmentation, and expose them to the faithful. Since the Middle Ages, different types were created with different forms whose function was to protect and exhibit the content. These designs passed to American territories, where it is still possible to admire some European reliquaries as well as some of local manufacture. The circulation of relics began in 1521, after the consolidation of the evangelization and the inauguration of the new viceroyalty government. The circulation and donation of relics should be understood as a long process. They were imported objects that were difficult to acquire, as their sale was prohibited by law. Typically, it was necessary to have contacts in the high clergy abroad. Acquiring relics also required a significant investment of funds to cover both the relic’s purchase and the costs of its transfer from abroad. Despite these difficulties, little by little, the relics of various saints and martyrs made their way to the Americas, some in carton boxes, others in gold urns or even in small paper envelopes. Reliquaries were soon manufactured to house these relics. Their design generally depended on two factors: the quantity of the relics obtained, and the shape of the relics. The collections of reliquaries with their respective relics were displayed both in the cathedral headquarters and in the temples of the religious orders. Because they were incorporated at different times, they were made in different styles using different materials, and so it is possible to find a great variety in their manufacture. Various types of reliquaries can be classified from this time, from the reliquary chapels to the altarpiece reliquaries, anthropomorphic reliquaries, and medallion reliquaries, and they stand as a testament to the cult of saints in colonial Mexico.

A City of Promenades

Studying old maps showing the transformation of Mexico City can unveil possible footprints of historic facilities and utilities that have disappeared in the process of urban modernization. The objective of this exercise is to uncover the location of old structures of Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Mexico City as a basis for creating a new footprint of urban memory and identity. A city of promenades proposes the remembrance and use of public space, such as the recuperation of lost cultural and geographic landscapes. It takes the routes and paths, the aqueducts, the roads, the moats, the ramparts, the gates of the historic city and its connections to other villages, which now conform this great metropolitan area and it revives them in order to bring communities together. Inhabitants experience a sense of belonging to a meaningful place, while looking back to the past of a growing city. These paths will serve as initiators of projects and actions which will improve patterns of use and sense of identity, offering landmarks, establishing linear parks as connectors of different scales of existing parks and, through modern design, creating a rediscovered footprint of monuments, landscapes and infrastructures long gone. This proposal is an integral project for the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. It begins at the neighbourhood level and forms part of an urban park system; connecting the surrounding natural landscapes and woodlands, the urban parks, sports clubs, neighbourhood parks, squares, bridges, central reservations, sidewalks, tree and flower beds, chapels, rights of way, unused railways, roads, avenues, greenhouses, agricultural trails, cemeteries, brooks and waterways, ravines, canals, terraces, balconies, cloisters and convent patios, archeological sites and unbuilt urban block cores. The city of paths and strolls, of boulevards, of old roads to haciendas and convents, of dikes, gateways, old custom house gates, water fountains and springs, canals, causeways, watermills and aqueducts is an academic exercise with students and teachers to find a meaningful representation of the layers of history that builds a city and creates identity.

Sobre William B. Taylor. Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico

Reseña sobre William B. Taylor, Fugitive Freedom: The Improbable Lives of Two Impostors in Late Colonial Mexico. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021.

Zoopoética y codigofagia en dos fábulas de Esopo en náhuatl. Alejandro Viveros

RESUMEN: Este texto busca desplegar dos modelos conceptuales, la zoopoética y la codigofagia, en las traducciones en náhuatl de las fábulas de Esopo realizadas en el México colonial. Abordaremos este asunto en tres secciones correlativas. La primera contextualiza el sentido de ambos conceptos como perspectivas de interpretación. La segunda refiere a la figura de Esopo y su recepción en el México colonial, especialmente en el Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. La tercera sección desarrolla un enfoque comparativo y hermenéutico que analiza la traducción cultural en dos fábulas de Esopo en náhuatl: “El coyote y el león” (“Coyotl yuan tequani miztli”) y “La hormiga y la huilota” (“Azcatl ihuan huilotl”). Ulteriormente, buscamos reconocer en la zoopoética y la codigofagia dos perspectivas útiles para la interpretación de las traducciones de Esopo al náhuatl, no solamente como evidencia de la interacción entre horizontes culturales, sino que como ejemplo de la creación de uno nuevo, acuñado por los propios indígenas. ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on two conceptual models, zoopoetics and codiphagia, in the translations of Aesop's fables made in colonial Mexico. I will address this issue in three correlative sections. The first contextualizes the meaning of both concepts as perspectives of interpretation. The second refers to the figure of Aesop and his reception in colonial Mexico, especially at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. The third section develops a comparative and hermeneutical approach that analyzes the cultural translation in two of Aesop's fables: “The Coyote and the Lion” (“Coyotl yuan tequani miztli”) and “The Ant and the Huilota” (“Azcatl ihuan huilotl”). I seek to recognize, in zoopoetics and codiphagia, two useful conceptual models for the interpretation of these Aesop's translations into Nahuatl, not only as evidence of the interaction between cultural horizons but as an example of the creation of a new one, built by the Indigenous people themselves.

Admixture dynamics in colonial Mexico and the genetic legacy of the Manila Galleon

Mexico has considerable population substructure due to pre-Columbian diversity and subsequent variation in admixture levels from trans-oceanic migrations, primarily from Europe and Africa, but also, to a lesser extent, from Asia. Detailed analyses exploring sub-continental structure remain limited and post-Columbian demographic dynamics within Mexico have not been inferred with genomic data. We analyze the distribution of ancestry tracts to infer the timing and number of pulses of admixture in ten regions across Mexico, observing older admixture timings in the first colonial cities and more recent timings moving outward into southern and southeastern Mexico. We characterize the specific origin of the heterogeneous Native American ancestry in Mexico: a widespread western-central Native Mesoamerican component in northern Aridoamerican states and a central-eastern Nahua contribution in Guerrero (southern Mexico) and Veracruz to its north. Yucatan shows lowland Mayan ancestry, while Sonora exhibits a unique northwestern native Mexican ancestry matching no sampled reference, each consistent with localized indigenous cultures. Finally, in Acapulco, Guerrero a notable proportion of East Asian ancestry was observed, an understudied heritage in Mexico. We identified the source of this ancestry within Southeast Asia--specifically western Indonesian and non-Negrito Filipino--and dated its arrival to approximately thirteen generations ago (1620 CE). This points to a genetic legacy from the 17th century Manila Galleon trade between the colonial Spanish Philippines and the Pacific port of Acapulco in Spanish Mexico. Although this piece of the colonial Spanish trade route from China to Europe appears in historical records, it has been largely ignored as a source of genetic ancestry in Mexico, neglected due to slavery, assimilation as "Indios" and incomplete historical records.

How infectious diseases arrived in the colonial Americas

Analysis of viral DNA from human remains suggests that the transatlantic slave trade may have introduced new pathogens that contributed to the devastating disease outbreaks in colonial Mexico.

Justice as Checks and Balances

ABSTRACT The centralization of conflict resolution and the administration of justice, two crucial elements of state formation, are often ignored by the state-building literature. This article studies the monopolization of justice administration, using the historical example of the General Indian Court (gic) of colonial Mexico. The author argues that this court’s development and decision-making process can show us how the rule of law develops in highly authoritarian contexts. Centralized courts could be used strategically to solve an agency problem, limiting local elites’ power and monitoring state agents. To curb these actors’ power, the Spanish Crown allowed the indigenous population to raise claims and access property rights. But this access remained limited and subject to the Crown’s strategic considerations. The author’s theory predicts that a favorable ruling for the indigenous population was more likely in cases that threatened to increase local elites’ power. This article shows the conditions under which the rule of law can emerge in a context where a powerful ruler is interested in imposing limits on local powers—and on their potential predation of the general population. It also highlights the endogenous factors behind the creation of colonial institutions and the importance of judicial systems in colonial governance.