Mesoamerica and the Southwest: A New History for an Ancient Land

Narrative of Activities

Unit I: Greater Mesoamerica

Participants will arrive in Mexico City on Saturday, June 19, 2004 for check in and a welcome dinner on Sunday June 20 at the Hotel Majestic, located on the Zocalo in the heart of Mexico City's historic district, across from the National Palace, the Cathedral, and the excavations of the Aztec Templo Mayor. The first visiting scholar, David Carrasco, who has written extensively on the religions of Mesoamerica and with whom we have worked on past projects, will conduct seminars focusing on the ceremonial centers of Teotihuacan, Tula and Tenochtitlan, the Aztec city underlying Mexico City (June 21-23), with a field trip to the Templo Mayor on the afternoon of June 23. Anthony Aveni, whose name is synonymous with archaeoastronomy, will present a seminar on ancient Mexican astronomical systems (June 24), and then Carrasco and Aveni will conduct two field trips, to Teotihuacan (June 25) and Tula (June 26), demonstrating on-site how ideology and cosmovision are incorporated in the design and iconography of those important sites.

With these studies, we will also begin the exploration of comparative study of Mesoamerican iconography with the iconography of the ancient Puebloan cultures of the Southwest, the topic of the following seminars with Karl Taube on June 28, 29 and 30, including a study visit on June 30 to the Museum of Anthropology. We will offer an optional full day field trip (July 1) to the much lesser known site of Tetzcotzingo, the former capital of Nezhualcoyotl of Texcoco (one of the neighboring cities in the Aztec "Triple Alliance") which gives an excellent opportunity to study a Mesoamerican ceremonial center in relation to its surrounding landscape.

On July 2 and 3 Louise Burkhart will  speak on indigenous and Christian solar mythology, on Nahua Christian drama, and the figure of Guadalupe and other Mesoamerican Virgin representations. Project co-director George Scheper will join her on the second day with an art historical slide lecture on the Virgin of Guadalupe, from medieval antecedents to Chicana reclamations. The group will visit the Basilica of Guadalupe and its museum on the afternoon of July 3. The next day, July 4, we will offer an optional field trip with Prof. Burkhart to the outlying site of Malinalco, for a chance to see an intact Aztec temple complex. The visit to Malinalco also offers the opportunity to study an important colonial church, famous for its murals, and to visit the active Catholic shrine at Chalma, which will be a good follow up to the seminar presentations by Prof. Burkhart, who has specialized in Nahua culture under the influence of Christianization.

Two final seminar days in Mexico City (July 5 and 6) with Tim Knab, an authority on the indigenous cultures of central Mexico, will focus on contemporary Nahua culture, including shamanism, which will also provide a good transition to the next phase of our project, in the northern state of Chihuahua.

Unit II. Casas Grandes: Juncture of Mesoamerica and the Southwest

July 7 is a day left free for packing and preparation. On July 8 we fly to El Paso, where we will meet our next scholars, F. Kent Reilly, and Curtis Schaafsma and Polly Schaafsma. On July 9, Prof. Reilly, an authority on Mississippian mound cultures and the Southeastern ceremonial complex, will offer an overview seminar on the scholarship and archaeology of the north of Mexico and of the far south of Arizona and New Mexico, the border area that has been called both part of Greater Mesoamerica and part of the Greater Southwest. That afternoon we will make a study visit of the petroglyphs at Hueco Tanks with Polly Schaafsma. July 10 and 11 we spend on an overnight field study with Curtis Schaafsma and Polly Schaafsma in the Casas Grandes region, focusing on the ceremonial and trading center of Paquime and nearby rock art, with special attention to comparisons with Mesoamerican and ancient Puebloan parallels. This is the archaeological zone that has been so intensively debated in the last decades and which has become the fulcrum of arguments over the interconnectedness of Mesoamerica and the Southwest.

On July 12, we  depart and stop for a visit and lecture at Ysleta Mission (1682) and Tigua Pueblo, an upper Rio Grande pueblo relocated after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. That night the group checks into the dorms at the College of Santa Fe for a two-week residence.

Unit III. The Greater Southwest

Tuesday, July 13 will be a free day to settle into Santa Fe. We then spend three days (July 14, 15 and 16) with scholar J. J. Brody, a foremost authority on the ancient pottery of the Southwest, as well as of other Indian and Spanish art forms of the early contact period. On July 14, Brody will offer a seminar on Mimbres and other pottery traditions, and on July 15 a seminar on ancient kiva mural paintings. Then on July 16, Prof. Brody will conduct behind the scenes study visits in Santa Fe to School of American Research/Indian Art Research Center, and to MOIAC, the Museum of Indian Art and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology. The next day, July 17, will be a field trip with Fran Levine to Pecos Pueblo (subject of a monograph by Prof. Levine), and to Cristo Rey Church and the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, of which she is director. Sunday, July 18, is a free day, but with an optional day trip to the old missions of Abo and Quarai with National Park Service archaeologist James "Jake" Ivey, author of a recent study of the building of kivas within the compounds of mission churches.

July 19 and 20 will be devoted to seminars by Ramon Gutierrez on early Pueblo culture on the eve of contact with the Spanish, and on the dynamics of the cultural encounter between the various indigenous groups and the Europeans. The parallels with the earlier encounter between the Spanish and the Aztecs in Mexico were self-dramatized in the 1598 entrada of Juan de Onate (himself married to a woman who could trace her ancestry both to Cortes and Moctezuma), accompanied by twelve Franciscan friars, numerous Tlaxcalan Indian allies, and an Indian woman interpreter named Dona Inez (called the "second Malinche"). On July 21, Rolena Adorno will present two seminars (morning and afternoon) on literature of the early Spanish encounter period: Cabeza de Vaca's memoir (subject of a recent definitive study by Prof. Adorno), and Villegra's Historia de Nuevo Mexico, a poetic history of New Mexico published in Santa Fe in 1610.

On July 22 Rina Swentzell, a member of Santa Clara Pueblo, will speak on Pueblo cosmology and on the symbolic design of Pueblo houses, plazas and kivas. The next day, July 23, Rina Swentzell will escort the group on a study visit to the upper Rio Grande pueblos, including a tour of the Martinez Hacienda (with its important collection of Penitente artifacts) and Taos Pueblo, and visits on the return to Santa Clara and San Idelfonso Pueblos. Saturday and Sunday, July 24 and 25, are free days in Santa Fe. Then, complementing the focus on Native American and early New Mexican Spanish traditions, Amalia Mesa-Bains will present slide lectures on July 26 and 27, on the Chicano/a movement and on art reflecting the Aztlan motif.

The Institute concludes with a six-day, five-overnight field trip to archaeological sites and indigenous communities in the Four-Corners region, from July 28 through August 2, escorted by J. J. Brody. The first day the group will visit Bernalillo and Coronado State Park to study the remains of the painted murals of Kuaua Pueblo, and then visit Zia Pueblo and mission church, Giusewa State Monument, and the important site of Aztec Ruins. After overnighting near Aztec, the next day will be devoted to a study tour of Chaco Culture National Historical Park (A.D. 850-1150), where we will reconsider the cultural connections to Mesoamerica and Casas Grandes. Our next overnight will be at Window Rock, where, after visiting the Navajo Cultural Center, we will continue on to Tsaille for a stop at Dine College (formerly Navajo Community College) and a lecture in the museum by Harry Walters, head of the Dine Studies Program at the College.

That evening the group tours the north rim of Canyon de Chelly, focusing on the reminders of the ancient Puebloan and current Navajo presences in the canyon, and of the 19th century depredations against the Navajo by the Spanish and the Americans. After overnighting at Chinle, the group spends the next day touring Canyon de Chelly by jeep and on foot, led by Navajo guides. The next day of the study tour takes the group to Zuni Pueblo, for a lecture, a visit to the ancient Zuni site of Hawikuh, and a slide lecture by Alex Seohtewa on his mural project for Zuni church. The last visit of the day is to the historical and archaeological site of El Morro, where Inscription Rock includes the inscribed marks of Indian, Spanish and Anglo presence. After overnighting at Grants, the final day of the study tour will include guided visits to Acoma and Laguna Pueblos.

The group returns for a final overnight and for a farewell dinner at a hotel near the airport in Albuquerque. The Institute concludes and participants depart Albuquerque on August 3.