Potter's
article begins with the interesting premise that "religious drama" is one of
the least expected and least examined aspects of the brutal Spanish conquest
of the Aztec empire. I find this prefatory statement fascinating because it
acknowledges theatrical performance as central to the politics and poetics of
change in central Mexico. It is one thing to say that advanced military technology,
cunning, and sheer brutality were the crucial factors involved in the Spaniards'
defeat of the Mexicas. But it is quite another to avow the central role played
by theatre in colonizing the indigenous peoples. Many contemporary scholars (Burkhart and Harris are just the short list) disagree with the view that Spanish frairs "controlled" the indigenous peoples and their pre-conquest practices through the medium of drama. I also dispute the "absolutism" of the power that Spaniards wielded over the native populations with the help of this political tool. Nevertheless, the following article illuminates some of the strategies through which Spanish friars did manage to represent a new understanding of "religion" to the conquered Mexicas. Potter's basic premise is that the first missionaries to reach Mexico "quickly saw that the conversion process must be built upon what was already present in the culture" (307).
The obvious question to ask at this point is this: what particular features of religiosity does Potter identify as having "already been present" in the indigenous cultures of central Mexico? In line with Louise M. Burkhart's definition of Nahua ceremonialism, Potter contends that "theatrical spectacle, music, and dance were not merely essential components of sacrifices, but pervasive features of Aztec culture" (307). Consciously or not, Potter also draws attention to the Euro-centric tendency to equate indigenous ceremonialism/performance with distinctly Western, Aristotelian notions of "theatre." He observes that "Cortes himself noted the presence of 'places like theatres' adjacent to temples, where the young were instructed in dancing and singing" (307).
Unfortunately, Potter does not question the Euro-centrism implicit in Cortes' assumption that the Mexicas had "places of theatre" adjacent to their temples. Rather, he takes up this Western sense of 'theatre'--along with its connotations of mimetic representation-- and concludes the first part of his essay in the following way: "Thus there was a flourishing of religious ritual drama in Mexico long before the first European contact" (307). I agree that there was a flourishing of religion and ritual in Mexico long before the first European contact, but I am not convinced about the long-lived traditions of "drama," per se, that existed in Mexico before the Spaniards came along.
Nevertheless, Potter does make some astute observations in his subsequent analysis of the "Impact of the Spaniards" on Mexica religious practices. He underscores that the Spaniards who forbade the indigenous practice of human sacrifice were "motivated not merely by economic and military goals, but also by a zealous fervour to convert the native population to Christianity" (307). This real, impassioned desire to convert the natives to Spanish models of Christianity is easy to overlook in assessing the larger scheme of things: the economic motives behind the brutality and subjugation that the Spaniards wrought upon Mexico's indigenous populations.
Linked to the zealous, often highly paranoid objectives of the Spanish friars, there are some rather startling omissions from the Christian religious dramas that the friars asked indigenous populations to enact. The drama on which Potter focuses is "The Sacrifice of Abraham," based on the Old Testament account. The fascinating thing about this drama, as performed by the Tlaxcalans in 1539 for the feast of Corpus Christi, is how it reflects the unique social circumstances of its composition.
Potter explains that, "In terms of its plot, the author (quite possibly Motolinia himself) departs radically from the Spanish analogue by focusing in the household sequence on the figures of Hagar and Ishmael" (310). In the Old Testament version of the story, Hagar and Ishmael represent Abraham's other family--his concubine and illegitimate child. However, the author of this Nahuatl play "presents them instead as grumbling servants" (310).
Potter points out that the "suppression of any family connection between Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael may be traced to the missionaries' desire not to sanction polygamy (which was endemic in the Mexican ruling classes, and which they were attempting to stamp out)" (310). Moreover, this Nahuatl version of an Old Testament story about human sacrifice takes painstaking measures to obliterate any references to spilled blood or human sacrifice. This may seem odd to present-day readers trying to familiarize themselves with the political climate of performance in New Spain. Nevertheless, the strategic omissions of polygamy and of human sacrifice from the play text indeed reflect the Spanish friars' acute anxieties about particular indigenous practices.