Toward a New Interpretation of Prehispanic Discourses: Reconstructing the Huehuetlatolli in the Prehispanic Context

Abstract

Most current studies of Prehispanic Mexico have examined the indigenous discourse, huehuetlatolli (ancient words or words of the old men), not only as an indigenous oral tradition similar to European classical rhetorical speech but also as the symbolic representation of indigenous moral and religious philosophy. These studies, however, have overlooked possible colonial influence on the collection and evaluation process of huehuetlatolli, which the two Spanish priests, Andrés de Olmos and Bernardino de Sahagún, conducted in the sixteenth century. After the conquest, indigenous traditions were evaluated, modified, and even destroyed according to the colonizers’ ideological purposes, and the current form of huehuetlatolli has survived after going through such colonial transformation. This essay tries to provide a new interpretation of huehuetlatolli through three steps: 1) by demonstrating how Olmos, Sahagún, and their fellow Spanish priests started to compare the huehuetlatolli to European classical and biblical rhetoric and moral philosophy; 2) by reconstructing how the indigenous old men and women as keepers of the Prehispanic discursive traditions practiced, transmitted, and preserved the huehuetlatolli at school and home; and 3) by proposing that the huehuetlatolli should be understood not only as a rhetorical oral discourse that promoted specific moral behaviors, but rather as the two main discourses, both oral and pictorial, with which the indigenous people used to record any cultural, historical, political, and religious aspect of indigenous society before the conquest.