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  some peculiarly difficult forms of payment. Stil , the Tenochca elders would trump

  the Tepaneca as well as Tlatelolco by acquiring a ruler of supreme status in Mesoa-

  merica, a ruler of Toltec descent through the Culhuacan monarch of that lineage,

  which thus connected the Mexica with the great Tol an of ancient memory and

  its own original king Quetzalcoatl. The Mexica elders, playing the paradigmatic

  native part of kingmakers, created a polity of imported Toltec rulers of indigenous

  Chichimec subjects, thus reproducing a recurrent Mesoamerican tradition of

  kingship—one might even say, the normative form of Mesoamerican kingship.11

  11. The Mexica assumption of Toltec kingship, by contrast to the Tepanec “lord of

  the Chichimecs,” also involved an element of a second form of schismogenesis:

  a competition by invidious differentiation of the kind that Bateson called

  THE STRANGER-KINGSHIP OF THE MEXICA

  239

  Al the same, the historiography of the Mexica kingship has been vexed by

  the multiple versions of the lineage of the dynasty’s ancestor, Acamapichtli. While

  some of the alternatives are clearly outliers inspired by the chroniclers’ own civic

  loyalties, the more credible texts offer two contradictory versions which, by the

  prevailing norms of patrilineal descent and succession, would make Acamapichtli

  either the Toltec king of the Mexica or the Mexica king of complementary Toltec

  filiation. As related notably by Motolinia (1951: 77–78), the strong Toltec version

  includes another classic feature of stranger-king traditions: the founder of the dy-

  nasty is a prince of a great land who fails to succeed his father and instead migrates

  to a country where his royal virtues are recognized by the native people, who there-

  upon instal him as their ruler. In this text, Acamapichtli’s father, the thirteenth in

  the main line of the Toltec kings of Culhuacan, was assassinated by a rebel who

  then usurped his throne, forcing the young prince to flee the city and take refuge

  in Tenochtitlan. In the contrasting version, however, Acamapichtli’s father was a

  true Mexica notable who had remained in Culhuacan from the time his people

  sojourned there in the course of their migrations; and there he married a daughter

  of the Culhua king, the mother of Acamapichtli. Although this version may be

  the less plausible—as by its implication of the existence of a high Mexica nobility

  before the letter—it has to be considered historical y relevant, not least because it is

  the more popular of the two. Indeed there is good reason to suppose both were cur-

  rent at the time of the Conquest, since they have valid if different political values

  and would be functionally appropriate in different contexts. Each has its place.12

  Basically, the Toltec identity of Mexica kings looks outward, making a claim

  of higher pedigree against rival potentates; this is kingship in its foreign-en-

  compassing aspect. Whereas a dominantly Mexica identity looks inward, at the

  “complementary schismogenesis”—of which another, striking example will be

  discussed below in connection with Texcoco.

  12. I say the paternal Culhuacan ancestry of Acamapichtli is the “strong Toltec

  version,” not only because nobility among the Mexica would have to be patrilineal y

  determined—given the maternal descent of Acamapictli’s children rather from

  calpul i elders—but for incidents such as are described in Duran (1994: 68), where

  Tezozomoc fails to prevent certain Tepanec nobles from seeking the death of his

  daughter’s son, the Mexica ruler Chimalpopoca, they arguing “that even though

  Chimalpopoca came from the lineage of the Tepaneca, this relationship was through

  a woman, that because on his father’s side he was the son of an Aztec, he would

  always be inclined towards his father’s people and not his mother’s.” In Sahagún’s

  discussion of kinship relations, “one’s father” is described as ”the source of lineage, the

  beginning of lineage” (1953–82, 10.1); but there is no such valorization of maternity.

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  ON KINGS

  preeminence they achieved by the aid of their particular tutelary god, Huitzilo-

  pochtli; this is kingship in its indigenous-exclusive aspect. Giving the Mexica

  rulers a purely Toltec genealogy clearly makes them different from and superior

  to their “Chichimec” subjects, not only in Tenochtitlan but in the whole region

  of Mesoamerica inhabited by peoples of that description. It gives the greatest

  legitimacy to the Mexica’s representations of themselves and their empire as

  “Culhua,” and to the title of their king as “Lord of Culhua”—notably by op-

  position to the Tepanec ruler, who styled himself “Lord of the Chichimecs.” On

  the other hand, the Mexica paternity of the kingship remained relevant, insofar

  as it directly connected the rulers to the divine source of their sovereign power,

  their patron god Huitzilopochtli. The distinctive guardian of their fortunes from

  the time of their Chichimec origins in the barren north, Huitzilopochtli was

  also identified with the sun. In the latter capacity he was a central figure in the

  human sacrificial rites that at once sustained that celestial body and testified

  to the sovereign’s earthly domination. In short, the Mexica paternity of King

  Acamapichtli, thus linking him to Huitzilopochtli, was as critical for legitimacy

  of his royal descendants as his Toltec paternity. Indeed, as the source of Mexica

  rulers’ power, the affiliation with Huitzlopochtli was the condition of the pos-

  sibility of their Toltec hegemony. It follows that both genealogies remained his-

  torically relevant so long as the Mexica remained politically dominant—much

  to the consternation of the later professional scholars who need to know which

  one is “true.” If in fact one were true and the other not, it would only confirm

  Nigel Davies’ astute observation (1977: 71) that Mexica history can consist in

  the reenactment of legendary events that never took place—as in the return of

  Quetzalcoatl or Lono (Captain Cook), for example.

  Indeed, to believe the Codex Chimalpahin (Chimalpahin 1997: 69–71), the

  dual genealogy of Acamapichtli reenacts the ambiguous origins of earlier rulers,

  sometimes described as “captains-general,” who presided over the last stages of

  the migration of the Mexica from the Chichimec homeland. Here again were

  stranger-kings who may also have claimed affiliation with the Toltecs: for as the

  first of them, Huehue Huitzilihuitl descended from the ruler of Xaltocan; and

  Xaltocan by some accounts was founded by migrants from Tollan following the

  fall of that city (Bierhorst 1992: 41; Davies 1980: 91).13 Deemed “the very first

  13. However, Xaltocan is most commonly identified as an Otomi city (Davies 1980;

  E. de J. Douglas 2010); albeit there are suggestions its rulers had more exalted

  genealogical connections, including Culhaucan (Davies 1980: 91, et passim).

  THE STRANGER-KINGSHIP OF THE MEXICA

  241

  ruler of the Mexica” in the Chimalpahin text, Huehue Huitzilipochtli was by

  one version the son of a Xaltocan prince and a daughter accorded him as wife

  by the Mexica, among whom he had lived.14 By the symmetrical and inverse

/>   version, Huehue Hutzilihuitl was the offspring of a daughter of the Xaltocan

  ruler and a Mexica man, hence Toltec in the maternal rather than the paternal

  line. Still, as the Codex indicates, one way or another “the very first ruler of

  the Mexica” was a grandson of a foreign king, and thereby set over the native

  priests and elders who were erstwhile leaders of the migration from Aztlan. Se-

  rial stranger-kingship.

  Returning to the kingship of Acamapichtli, this Toltec-minted ruler inau-

  gurated a new order of society, dominated by a newly formed aristocracy. As in

  stranger-kingdoms in general, the contractual foundation was again the union

  of the foreign prince with daughters of the native leaders. The “elders” of Teno-

  chtitlan, as many as twenty calpulli heads (according to the version), voluntarily

  provided wives for Acamapichtli: out of sympathy, it is commonly said, for his

  principal wife, a Culhuacan princess, was barren. The effect would be a kingship

  that integrated in the royal persons the two fundamental components of the

  society, native and foreign, Chichimec and Toltec. Descended from a common

  ancestor, the offspring of these alliances of Acamapichtli with Mexica wom-

  en would form a kinship-integrated, Toltec-affiliated nobility ( pipiltin)—one

  might even speak of a royal lineage—spread over a set of discrete groups of

  Chichimec origins, each such group being the maternal kin of some subset of

  the nobility. (There are dozens of African stranger-kingdoms of the same de-

  scription.) If in the early period of Tenochtitlan these nobles, without lands of

  their own, went to live with their native maternal kin, this may account for the

  presence of persons of high rank in the several calpulli of the kingdom.

  But then, some of the native leaders who were involved in the establishment

  of Acamapichtli’s kingship themselves became “lords” under the new regime. As

  we have seen, this, too, is a normal feature of stranger-king formations: the be-

  stowal of offices of state on indigenous leaders, notably as the councilors of kings

  and major priests of the realm. Just so, the Codex Ramirez (Ramirez 1903: 38)

  14. Huehue Huitzilihuitl was killed at Chapultepec by the Culhuaque in1299, to

  be succeeded by Tenoch, who led the Mexica to Tenochtitlan. Tenoch was the

  predecessor of Acamapichtli, first of the new tlatoani regime. (Huehue Huitzilihuitli

  [I] is not to be confused with Acamapichtli’s son and successor as tlatoani, likewise

  Huitzilihuitl [II].) Davies (1980: 202) considers that a Mexica nobility had surely

  existed for long before the dynasty inaugurated by Acamapichtli.

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  ON KINGS

  relates that at the time of Acamapichtli’s kingship there were “still some of the

  old men who had made the pilgrimage from the distant country to Mexico, old

  men who became the elders, the lords, charged with grand offices and the con-

  duct of the nation” (ibid.: 36). At least through the succession of Acamapichtli’s

  son Huitzilopochtli, the native notables continued to act as kingmakers, operat-

  ing as an “electoral college of priests, elders and calpulli officials” (Davies 1977:

  198). And they continued to be a major force in the government until the victo-

  ry over the Tepanecs in 1427 ushered in the imperial era, at once enriching the

  nobility by the distribution of booty and patrimonial estates, and empowering

  them by military and political office. “Although Acamapichtli’s sons and grand-

  sons appear to have collaborated closely with traditional leaders until 1426,”

  writes Edward Calnek, “they were evidently not permitted to make or execute

  important decisions until first obtaining consent of a strong popular assembly in

  which traditional leaders retained a dominant voice” (1982: 53). Following the

  defeat of the Tepaneca at Azcapotzalco, the tlatoani Itzcoatl bestowed titles on

  the nobility—and also burned the books so the common people would not need

  to know what did not concern them. Even so, “Until the end of Ahuitzotl’s reign

  (1502), commoners continued to hold powerful positions within the imperial

  court, and in some instances must have outranked hereditary noblemen by vir-

  tue of their offices” (Calnek 1974: 203; cf. P. Carrasco 1971). Moctezuma II

  abolished all that in a famous reform that restricted official service in the palace,

  the city, and the provinces to noblemen of unimpeachable pedigree, excluding

  persons born of “a lowly woman”; for “he considered that anyone born of a lowly

  woman or a slave might take after his mother and be, therefore, ineligible for his

  service” (Duran 1994: 395). What is here repudiated is the original formation

  of polity through the marriage of the stranger-king with the daughters of the

  native leaders, thereby constituting a nobility of indigenous maternity. Still, the

  fundamental duality of the stranger-kingdom, consisting of foreign newcomers

  and indigenous owners of complementary natures and functions, remains evi-

  dent in many aspects of the culture—as witness the enduring notion of a world

  basically composed of Chichimecs and Toltecs.15

  More generally than the native leaders’ political powers, the chronicles speak

  of their presence in many parts of Mexico in terms that indicate their antiquity,

  their priestly functions, their kinship seniority, and especially their privileged

  15. “There are two types of people in this land, that still exist today, according to various

  histories, Chichimec is the first, and Toltec the second . . .” (Davies 1980: 79).

  THE STRANGER-KINGSHIP OF THE MEXICA

  243

  relations to the land. Having given rise to the chiefly children through their

  daughters, they may be described as “grandfathers” of the rulers and the realm,

  the “elders” or “fathers” relative to the parvenu aristocracy, or the “original lead-

  ers” or “founder chiefs.” All these are again common attributes of the underly-

  ing autochthonous peoples in stranger-kingdoms, but most significant in this

  regard is the association of the native people with the land, by contrast to the

  foreign-cum-celestial aristocracy. I alluded earlier to the entry in the Codex Chi-

  malpopoca referring to certain Chichimecs as the “landowners” as well as the

  “founders” of the country. Another entry rehearses the opposition between for-

  eign rulers and indigenous landholders in a Chalco town:

  This was the year [7 Rabbit, 1486] a dynasty began in Chalco Tlacochcalco,

  starting with Itzcahuatzin, who was made lord [apparently by the Mexica] at

  this time. Those who tolerated him there, since they had no ambitions of being

  princes themselves, were the landholding Tlatecacayohuaque Chalca. (Bierhorst

  1992: 117)

  Analogously in practice if not also in name, the native calpulli of Tenochtitlan

  were the main landowners. Apparently the nobility were not a landed class until

  they acquired estates as spoils of Mexica conquests (e.g., Tezozomoc 1853, 1:

  40–41). The distribution of conquered lands by Itzcoatl to the noble captains of

  the early wars of Mexica expansion is described by Tezozomoc (ibid., 1: 40–41,

  69–70) as an act of charity, given the impoverished conditions of these promi-
r />   nent men and the necessity to provide for their families and descendants. As

  opposed to the estates—together with their inhabitants—awarded to the king

  and the warrior nobility, the booty of the Mexica commoners consisted only of

  common lands for the upkeep of the calpulli temples (Duran 1994: 81–82).16

  Moreover, the opposition between an indigenous population associated with

  the land and a conquering aristocracy of foreign derivation was replicated by the

  two main gods, Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, and their respective priests, in the

  principal temple of Tenochtitlan. In contrast to the solar deity of the upstart

  16. In Ixtlilxóchitl’s (1840, 1: 242–43) discussion of tenure referring to the same period,

  the calpulli lands constituted the greater part of the territory of the city or village,

  and while held by ordinary people and inherited by their children or relatives, the

  same were also described as lands of the king and nobility—meaning governed

  by them? Ixtlilxóchitl also refers to a category of land held by the “old nobility” or

  “former nobility,” a symptom of stranger-kingship.

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  ON KINGS

  Mixteca, Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc was the chief among the old gods of the land,

  and indeed associated with earthly, agricultural fertility. “Their double presence

  at the head of the religious world,” comments Jacques Soustelle (1964: 58),

  “consecrated the union of the two basic ideologies of Mexica, which the Mexica

  had brought together when they became the ruling nation.” And more particu-

  larly, as Edward de J. Douglas observed:

  Tlaloc’s half of the temple, like Huitzilopochtli’s, represented a mountain, Tona-

  catepetl, “Mountain of our Sustenance,” the counterpart to Coatepetl, [“Serpent

  Mountain,” Huitzilopochtli’s birthplace and site of his initial conquest—of his

  sister and brothers]. A diphrastic metaphor, the building’s complementary op-

  posites—Coatepetl and Tonacatepetl, south and north, sky and earth, sun and

  rain, fire and water, young and old, foreign and native, Mexica/Chichimec and

  pan Mesoamerican/Toltec—evoke the fundamental quality of being and, more

  specifically . . . war, the creative force of existence. (2010: 100)

  Most striking is the way the basic dualism of the stranger-kingship polity is