1. "No quedó indio en el pueblo que no le fuese a ver, chico ni grande, y todos estaban abobados mirándole." Antonio de Ciudad Real, Tratado curioso y docto de las grandezas de la Nueva España, Tomo II (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1993) 88. All of the quotations from the Tratado curioso are my translations of the original Spanish, as it has not been translated into English.
2. Silviano Santiago, "Why and For What Purpose Does the European Travel?" trans. Tom Burns and Lúcia Gazzola, The Space In-Between: Essays in Latin American Culture, ed. Ana Lúcia Gazzola (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001) 23. Santiago's solution to this problem is to deconstruct the idea of the copy, focusing on how every copy contains a creative difference that functions as a supplement to and commentary upon the original. While his analysis is very insightful, it seems problematic to me because it depends on a textual model of writing as difference, which means that he has difficulty justifying its relevance in a country where the reading public is a small percentage of the population. It also leaves untouched the question of the differences among the various "Others."
3. Enrique Dussel, The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of "the Other" and the Myth of Modernity, trans. Michael D. Barber (New York: Continuum, 1995) 39. Dussel proposes reaffirming the radical alterity of the "Other" as a corrective to Eurocentric modernity. My problem with this is that for Dussel, the colonial periphery, blacks, the indigenous, and women all constitute a single "Other," which makes it impossible for him to see identity as relational and means that the elites of the colonial periphery and the black and indigenous people they oppress are seen as equally "Other."
4. Of course there are other ways that one could go about deconstructing this dichotomy, such as focusing on the fiction of the European "self." Here I am more interested in the interactions between different groups defined as "Other" by the conquering power.
5. Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003) 30.
6. The province of Michoacán at this time included what are now the states of Michoacán and Xalisco. Ciudad Real is very specific about the identities of the indigenous groups with whom they come into contact; most of them described in this paper were Purépecha Indians (called Tarascans by the Spanish), although others were groups speaking Pinutl or Tecual. The performances of Chichimecas and black men occurred among all of these groups, although all of the scenes described at length in this paper involved the Purépecha.
7. "…entre chichimecas y gente de guerra, y así para ir a ellos y morar en ellos se padece mucho trabajo y peligro," Ciudad Real 64. "Chichimeca" was often used as a general term to refer to the many nomadic groups of indigenous people in the north of Mexico. It was a Náhuatl word that became a synonym of "barbaric" or "savage."
8. "…no hay mucha seguridad por causa de los chichimecas, que suelen llegar al río, y aun algunas veces lo pasan," Ciudad Real 69.
9. Ciudad Real 78.
10. There are actually two places in which actual Christian Chichimecas present themselves to Alonso Ponce, in one case making a great show of their subservience and in the other requesting that the prelate send friars to help them maintain their Christian practices. These "non-performative" scenes seem to have the function of lending truth value to the Chichimeca performances. See pages 114 and 119 of Ciudad Real.
11. Richard Trexler, "We Think, They Act: Clerical Readings of Missionary Theatre in 16th Century New Spain," Understanding Popular Culture: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, ed. Steven L. Kaplan (Berlin: Mouton, 1984) 190.
12. "…porque había allí chichimecas, venía él con sus compañeros a asegurarle el paso y guardarle," Ciudad Real, 82.
13. Trexler 200-01.
14. "…todos juntos hicieron un baile y bailaron a su modo un rato al son de un teponastle," Ciudad Real 83.
15. Max Harris, "The Dramatic Testimony of Antonio de Ciudad Real: Indigenous Theatre in Sixteenth-Century New Spain," Colonial Latin American Review 5 (1996): 247.
16. Trexler 197.
17. "…salió un indio en figura de la muerte, y con él otro en figura y traje de negro diciendo muchas gracias, así a los frailes como a los indios y a la misma muerte, con la cual fue un rato jugando al quince con unos naipes viejos, y cuando no jugaba tañía una guitarra y decía donaires, hablando como un negro bozal," Ciudad Real 78.
18. "The Final Judgment," Early Colonial Religious Drama in Mexico: From Tzompantli to Golgotha, ed. Marilyn Ekdahl Ravicz (Washington, D.C.: Catholic U. of America P., Inc. 1970) 146-7. The play was written and performed in Náhuatl, so I cannot be sure of what it says in the original, but the Spanish translation is the same: "Los pecados les han ennegrecido los corazones y las almas." "El juicio final," El teatro náhuatl: Épocas novohispana y moderna, ed. Fernando Horacasitas (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 1974) 573. It should be noted that this reference may also relate to the fact that priests and warriors among various groups in pre-Conquest Mexico also painted their bodies black and that the color had a particular cosmic significance.
19. Herman L. Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana U.P., 2003) 53.
20. Bennett 31.
21. The full title is Relación de las ceremonias y ritos y población y gobernación de los indios de la provincia de Mechuacán, hecha al ilustrismo señor don Antonio de Mendoza, virrey y gobernador desta Nueva Españz por Su Majestad. It has been translated into English as The Chronicles of Michoacán, trans. Eugene R. Craine and Reginald C. Reindorp (Norman: U. of Oklahoma P., 1970).
22. For general information about relations between Indians and blacks in Mexico, including legal restrictions and reports of violence, see Colin A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P., 1976) 60-63.
23. María Guadalupe Chávez Carbajal, Propietarios y esclavos negros en Valladolid de Michoacán, 1600-1650 (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1994) 92-3. Although Chávez Carbajal's focus is the period of rapid expansion of slavery in Michoacán that began around 1600, she mentions several cases from the latter half of the 16th century. Some involve disputes over land while others are cases of robbery and homicide. Of course it is difficult to know to what extent these records reflect reality, since the Spanish generally portrayed blacks as violent and sinful influences from whom the indigenous needed protection.
24. Harris 240.
25. A passage in the English translation explains this ritual of blackening, known as Viriquareni: "The lords all had the custom, as explained earlier, of blackening themselves with soot for love of their God Curicaveri, and they held it to be a great honor to go about thus blackened," Chronicle of Michoacán 159. The translation is slightly misleading, since the original Spanish version uses the verb "tiznarse" (to cover in soot) rather than "blackened," although it does make clear that the black is significant as the color of the god Curicaveri. For references to this ritual in the original, see pages 102 and 104 of the Relación de Michoacán.
26. This is in accord with Diana Taylor's comments in her forthcoming article "Scenes of Cognition: Performance and Conquest." She argues against seeing pre-Conquest performances in terms of the Western concept of mimesis, because "intended to do something, make something happen, these acts were not metaphorical; they lacked the as if quality of representation."
27. I realize that reading the past in the present always entails a risk, since it is probable that these traditions have changed substantially over the past several centuries. Nevertheless, in this case it provides valuable if tenuous information, given the complete lack of the indigenous perspective in Ciudad Real's account. I will avoid going into detail about the specific content of these contemporary rituals such as characters and focus instead on the context in which they are performed, since in this respect they show clear indications of ties to pre-Conquest modes of performance.
28. Janet Brody Esser, "Those Who Are Not From Here: Blackman Dances of Michoacán," Behind the Mask in Mexico, ed. Janet Brody Esser (Santa Fe, New Mexico: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1988) 140.
29. Diana Taylor discusses this idea of pre-Conquest rituals as forms of debt payment in her forthcoming article "Scenes of Cognition," as does Inga Clendinnen in relation to the Aztecs in Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1991).
30. While it would require a whole other paper to delve more fully into this topic, I want to specify here that I am talking specifically about cultural "resistance," which may not even be an appropriate term (although at the moment I have no better suggestion for what it might be called). I see problems with analyses that conflate these cultural actions with more direct forms of political resistance, since I think that they serve very different functions and work in different ways.