The picture below is of Xipe Totc, the "earth god" of the Mexica. This image comes from the Codex Borbonicus, fol 14. Max Harris presents it in his publication, Aztecs, Moors and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Spain and New Mexico.
In his fascinating book about the
"puzzling and enduring passion" of both Mexicans and Spaniards for the festivals
of moros y christianos (Moors versus Christians), Max Harris begins by
invoking James Scott's distinction between "public transcripts" and "hidden
transcripts" (21). Harris uses Scott's metaphor of the "hidden transcript" in
order to suggest how the emergence of Spanish-style military theatre in post-conquest
Mexico was actually understood, by the indigenous peoples, as a prophecy of
the eventual reconquest of Mexico by the Aztecs.In assessing the tumultuous clash of European and Native American values, performance traditions, institutions and technologies, Harris creates his own metaphor for the analytical processes that he engages. The metaphor through which he describes his project to look beyond the surface-level meaningsof the mock battles between "Moors" and "Christians" in central Mexico isthat of "reading the mask" (23). In Harris' own words, "Reading the maskembraces two different interpretive acts. First, and more narrowly, thereis the process of identifying and decoding those particular details of aperformance tradition that reveal a reading at odds with the explanationusually offered to clergy, government agents, anthropologists, and otheroutsiders" (23). Secondly, however, "reading the mask" also signifies "thebroader interpretive task of reading a whole performance and its festivecontext so as to discern the hidden transcript that the event contains andwhich gives it discreet public expression" (23).
On the one hand, I agree with Harris' basic methodology. He begins by tracing the roots of the moros y christianos tradition in medieval Spain.Next, he demonstrates how this tradition came to be "superimposed" on thescripted and unscripted mock battles that had been an essential part of pre-conquest Nahua calendar rituals. By acknowledging the diverse indigenous traditions of mock battle that existed in central Mexico prior to 1521, Harris avoids Richard Trexler's relatively more simple argument about how the Spaniards came along and forced these "new" modes of performance down the native peoples' throats. Of course, the Spaniards did impose several revisions upon the indigenous traditions of "mock battle" that they encountered upon contact with the Nahuas. For example, the Nahuas' basic purpose of using ceremonial warfarein order to capture human victims for religious sacrifice was essentiallyeliminated. Nevertheless, Harris presents a solid argument for the subversivepossibilities that the Spanish-derived battles of moros y christianos presentedto the indigenous populations after the conquest.
He explains that the Mexicans' "puzzling and enduring passion for the 'dances of the Moors and Christians'... should not puzzle us too much, for the tradition was susceptible to indigenous readings" (67). More precisely, Spanish colonists might have thought they were celebrating the victory of light-skinned Christians over dark-skinned "heathens," linking the defeat of the Moors in 1492 tothe defeat of the Aztecs in 1521. Nevertheless, "the theme cut both waysin Mexico, for the history being dramatized was not of conquest but of reconquest"(67).
Harris elaborates on the significance of what the theme of "reconquest" prevalent in the moros y christianos tradition might have meant to its indigenous spectators and participants. Needless to say, this Spanish tradition of mock battles celebrates the historical fact that Spanish Christians had driven Moorish invaders out of Spain. Thus, for the recently conquered Nahuas, "It was this image of liberation rather than the Spanish victory that attracted indigenous Mexicans to the imported tradition. In colonial festivals of Moors and Christians, a public transcript of Catholic triumph masked a hidden transcript of native resistance" (67).
In trying to summarize my thoughts about this rich and complex text, I would like to say a couple of things. First, I agree with Harris that there issubstantial evidence of indigenous resistance in the Spanish chronicles thatremain of the moros y christianos performances involving Spaniardsand indigenous peoples. Secondly, I agree with his insightful, comparativemethodology--his careful overview of both Spanish and Mexica traditionsof "mock battles,"and of how these two, disticnt traditions eventually cameinto contact withone another. Thirdly, I acknowledge the value of the twodifferent interpretive acts that he describes in talking about what "readingthe mask" entails.
However, I am not convinced that today's Latin American and Performance Studies scholars should attempt to "read" embodied performances in the same waysas we read books or transcripts. In short, Harris' literary metaphors of"hidden transcripts" and "reading the mask" bother me. If we want to thinkseriously about how performance 'remains,' or about how embodied knowledgegets transmitted across generations through performance, then we must alsolearn to think about both the body and performance as something otherthan texts. A text can be identified as written in a certain language,and then decoded or translated based on an interpreter's knowledge of thatlanguage. But the 'langauge' of resistance embodied in indigenous performancesof mock battle after the 1521 conquest seems far more complex that any simpleact of translation might first suggest.
Yet even as Harris continuously employs Scott's notions of the "public transcript" and "hidden transcript," as well as his own theory of "reading the mask," I ultimately believe that he does take embodied behavior seriously. Despite his problematic metaphors, his fundamental approach to indigenous performance does not reduce embodied behavior to writing.