Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T01:21:40.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

SO THAT THE BABY NOT BE FORMED LIKE A POTTERY RATTLE: AZTEC RATTLE FIGURINES AND HOUSEHOLD SOCIAL REPRODUCTIVE PRACTICES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2012

Lisa Overholtzer
Lisa Overholtzer*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Avenue, Evanston, Illinois, 60208
*
E-mail correspondence to: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the materiality—or the mutually constitutive relationships between people and things—of Aztec rattle figurines in order to shed light on household ritual life in Postclassic central Mexico. By examining iconographic, archaeological, and ethnohistoric evidence, I argue that these figurines were actively used in household healing rituals concerning successful biological and social reproduction, comprised of the work, relationships, and attitudes that perpetuate human life. I then consider the physical experience of that ritual use by exploring the visual, tactile, auditory, and physiological aspects of these figurines. I contend that their visibility in workshops, markets, and the home presented an image of the female body that reinforced women's important roles in the production and reproduction of the household and society. Finally, the material qualities of these figurines reveal ancient discourses on the human body and experimentation with bodily representation in terms of scale, form, and material.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , Spring 2012 , pp. 69 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alva, Bartolomé de 1999 A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634. Edited by Sell, B.D. and Schwaller, J.F., with Homza, Lu Ann. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Álvarez, Laurencia 1980 Curing Practices in Hueyapan, Morelos, Mexico. Mexicon 2:10–12.Google Scholar
Anawalt, Patricia Rieff 1981 Indian Clothing before Cortes: Mesoamerican Costumes from the Codices. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Arvey, Margaret C. 1988 Women of Ill-Repute in the Florentine Codex. In The Role of Gender in Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture, edited by Miller, Virginia, pp. 179–204. University Press of America, Lanham, MD.Google Scholar
Baer, Gerhard (editor) 1996 Ancient Mexican Ceramics from the Lukas Vischer Collection, Ethnographic Museum Basel. Friedrich Reinhardt Publishers, Basel, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Bailey, Douglass W. 2005 Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Barbour, Warren 1975 The Figurines and Figurine Chronology of Ancient Teotihuacán, Mexico. Reprinted. University of Rochester, New York.Google Scholar
Barlow, Robert, and Lehmann, Henri 1956 Statuettes—Grelot Azteques de la Vallée de Mexico. Tribus 4/ 5:157–176.Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances, and Anawalt, Patricia Rieff 1992 The Essential Codex Mendoza. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, Mary 1982 Decoration as Social Symbol: A Theoretical Proposal and an Ethnographic Study in Southern Sudan. In Symbolic and Structural Anthropology, edited by Hodder, Ian, pp. 80–88. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1996 Figurines and the Aztec State: Testing the Effectiveness of Ideological Domination. In Gender and Archaeology, edited by Wright, Rita P., pp. 144–166. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 1998 Huitzilopochtli's Conquest: Aztec Ideology in the Archaeological Record. Cambridge Archaeological urnal 8(1):3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. 2005 Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia and University of Pittsburgh, Mexico City and Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth M., and Overholtzer, Lisa 2009 Alien Bodies, Everyday People, and Internal Spaces: Embodiment, Figurines and Social Discourse in Postclassic Mexico. In Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indexes of Large-Scale Phenomena, edited by Halperin, Christina T., Faust, Katherine A., Taube, Rhonda, and Giguet, Aurore, pp. 297–326. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camargo Valverde, Lourdes, and Bush, Virgilio Partida 1998 Algunos aspectos demográficos de cuatro poblaciones prehispánicas de México. In Perfiles demográficos de poblaciones antiguas de México, edited by Morfín, Loures Márquez and León, José Gómez de, pp. 77–94. Colección Obra Diversa, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Charlton, Thomas H., Nichols, Deborah L., and Charlton, Cynthia Otis 1991 Aztec Craft Production and Specialization: Archaeological Evidence from the City-State of Otumba Mexico. World Archaeology 23:98–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charlton, Thomas H., Charlton, Cynthia Otis, Neff, Hector, and Nichols, Deborah L. 2008 Aztec Otumba: AD 1200–1600: Patterns of Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Pottery. In Pottery Economics in Mesoamerica: Integrated Approaches, edited by Pool, Christopher and Bey, George III, pp. 237–266. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Clark, Sharri R. 2009 Material Matters: Representation and Materiality of the Harappan Body. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16:231–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clendinnen, Inga 1995 Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Codex Ríos (Vaticanus A or Vaticanus 3738) 1964 Facsimile edition. In Antigüedades de México, Vol. 3, edited by Corona Núñez, J., pp. 7–313. Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Cook, Carmen 1950 Figurillas de barro de Santiago Tlatelolco. Memorias de la Academia Mexicana de la Historia 9:93–100.Google Scholar
Cyphers Guillén, Ann 1993 Women, Rituals, and Social Dynamics at Ancient Chalcatzingo. Latin American Antiquity 4:209–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Long, Alton J. 1981 Phenomoenological Space-Time: Toward an Experiential Relativity. Science 213:681–682.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Long, Alton J. 1983 Spatial Scale, Temporal Experience and Information Processing: An Empirical Examination of Experiential Reality. Man-Environment Systems 13:77–86.Google Scholar
De Lucia, Kristin 2010 A Child's House: Social Memory, Identity, and the Construction of Childhood in Early Postclassic Mexican Households. American Anthropologist 112:607–624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Donley, Linda W. 1982 House Power: Swahili Space and Symbolic Markers. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Hodder, Ian, pp. 63–73Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durán, Fray Diego 1971 Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Translated and edited by Horcasitas, Fernando and Heyden, Doris. University of Oklahoma, Norman.Google Scholar
Durán, Fray Diego 1994 History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated and edited by Heyden, Doris. University of Oklahoma, Norman.Google Scholar
Evans, Susan T. 1990 Household Ritual in Aztec Life. Paper presented at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Las Vegas.Google Scholar
Evans, Susan T. 2001 Aztec Noble Courts: Men, Women, and Children of the Palace. In Royal Courts of the Ancient Maya, Vol. 1, edited by Inomata, Takeshi and Houston, Stephen D., pp. 237–273. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.Google Scholar
Follensbee, Billie J.A. 2000 Sex and Gender in Olmec Art and Archaeology. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, College Park. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Follensbee, Billie J.A. 2009 Formative Period Gulf Coast Ceramic Figurines: The Key to Identifying Sex, Gender, and Age Groups in Gulf Coast Olmec Imagery. In Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena, edited by Halperin, Christina T., Faust, Katherine A., Taube, Rhonda, and Giguet, Aurore, pp. 77–118. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Faye D., and Rapp, Rayna 1995 Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Halperin, Christina T., Faust, Katherine A., Taube, Rhonda, and Giguet, Aurore (editors) 2009 Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indexes of Large-Scale Phenomena. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyden, Doris 1981 Caves, Gods, and Myths: World-View and Planning in Teotihuacan. In Mesoamerican Sites and World-Views, edited by Benson, Elizabeth P., pp. 1–39. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederic 1994 Xaltocan under Mexica Domination, 1435–1520. In Caciques and Their People: A Volume in Honor of Ronald Spores, edited by Marcus, Joyce and Zeitlin, Judith Francis, pp. 67–85. Anthropological Papers No. 89, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1984 Burials, Houses, Women and Men in the European Neolithic. In Ideology, Power and Prehistory, edited by Miller, Daniel and Tilley, Christopher, pp. 51–68. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1986 Reading the Past. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hugh-Jones, Christine 1979 From the Milk River: Spatial and Temporal Processes in Northwest Amazonia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A. 2000 Girling the Girl and Boying the Boy: The Production of Adulthood in Ancient Mesomerica. World Archaeology 31:473–483.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A. 2003 Making Something of Herself: Embodiment of Life and Death at Playa de los Muertos, Honduras. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13:248–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A. 2008 When the Flesh is Solid but the Person is Hollow Inside: Formal Variation in Hand-modeled Figurines from Formative Mesoamerica. In Past Bodies, edited by Boric, Dusan and Robb, John, pp. 37–45. Oxbow Books, Oxford.Google Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A., and Meskell, Lynn 2003 Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Flora 1958 The Post-Classic Figurines of Central Mexico. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Flora 2006 The Post-Classic Figurines of Central Mexico. Occasional Papers, Vol. 11. Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Klein, Cecilia F., and Lona, Naoli Victoria 2009 Sex in the City: A Comparison of Aztec Ceramic Figurines to Copal Figurines from the Templo Mayor. In Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indexes of Large-Scale Phenomena, edited by Halperin, Christina T., Faust, Katherine A., Taube, Rhonda, and Giguet, Aurore, pp. 327–377. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.Google Scholar
Knodel, John, and Kintner, Hallie 1977 The Impact of Breastfeeding Patterns on the Biometric Analysis of Infant Mortality. Demography 14:391–409.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lamaze, Fernand 1956 Painless Childbirth: Psychoprophylactic Method. H. Regnery, Chicago.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1966 The Savage Mind. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
López-Austin, Alfredo 1988 The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient Nahuas. 2 vols. Translated by de Montellano, Thelma Ortiz and de Montellano, Bernard Ortiz. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
McCafferty, Geoffrey G., and McCafferty, Sharisse D. 1999 The Metamorphosis of Xochiquetzal: A Window on Womanhood in Pre- and Post-Conquest Mexico. In Manifesting Power: Gender and the Interpretation of Power in Archaeology, edited by Sweely, Tracy L., pp. 103–125. Routledge, New York.Google Scholar
MacGregor, Gavin 1999 Making Sense of the Past in the Present: A Sensory Analysis of Carved Stone Balls. World Archaeology 31:258–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meskell, Lynn 2007 Refiguring the Corpus at Catalhoyuk. In Image and Imagination: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation, edited by Renfrew, Colin and Morley, Iain, pp. 137–150. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Milbrath, Susan 1988 Birth Images in Mixteca–Puebla Art. In The Role of Gender in Precolumbian Art and Architecture, edited by Miller, Virginia E., pp. 153–177. University Press of America, Lanham, MD.Google Scholar
Millian, Alva C. 1981 The Iconography of Aztec Ceramic Figurines. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York.Google Scholar
Monaghan, John 2001 Physiology, Production, and Gendered Difference: The Evidence from Mixtec and Other Mesoamerican Societies. In Gender in Pre-Hispanic America, edited by Klein, Cecilia F., pp. 285–304. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Mongan, Marie F. 2005 Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method. A Natural Approach to a Safe, Easier, More Comfortable Birthing. HCI, Deerfield Beach, FL.Google Scholar
Morss, Noel 1952 Cradled Infant Figurines from Tennessee and Mexico. American Antiquity 18:164–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motolinía, Toribio 1969 Historia de los indios de la Nueva España. Porrúa, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Nakamura, Carolyn, and Meskell, Lynn 2009 Articulate Bodies: Forms and Figures at Çatalhöyük. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 16:205–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nanoglou, Stratos 2005 Subjectivity and Material Culture in Thessaly, Greece the Case of Neolithic Anthropomorphic Imagery. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15:141–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Needham, Rodney 1967 Percussion and transition. Man NS 2:606–614.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholson, Henry B. 1971 Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico. In Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica, Part I, edited by Ekholm, Gordon and Bernal, Ignacio, pp. 395–446. Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. 10, Robert Wauchope, general editor. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Okely, Judith 1975 Gypsy Women: Models in Conflict. In Perceiving Women, edited by Ardener, Shirley, pp. 55–86. Malaby Press, London.Google Scholar
Olson, Jan 2007 A Socioeconomic Interpretation of Figurine Assemblages from Late Postclassic Morelos, Mexico. In Commoner Ritual and Ideology in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Gonlin, Nancy and Lohse, Jon C., pp. 251–279. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Otis Charlton, Cynthia 1994 Plebians and Patricians: Contrasting Patterns of Production and Distribution in the Aztec Figurine and Lapidary Industries. In Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, edited by Hodge, Mary G. and Smith, Michael E., pp. 195–219. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Otis Charlton, Cynthia 2001 Hollow Rattle Figurines of the Otumba Area, Mexico. In The New World Figurine Project, Vol. 2, edited by Stocker, Terry and Charlton, Cynthia Otis, pp. 25–53. Research Press, Provo.Google Scholar
Otis Charlton, Cynthia, Charlton, Thomas H., and Nichols, Deborah L. 1993 Aztec Household-Based Craft Production: Archaeological Evidence from the City-State of Otumba, Mexico. In Prehispanic Domestic Units in Western Mesoamerica: Studies of the Household, Compound, and Residence, edited by Santley, Robert S. and Hirth, Kenneth G., pp. 147–171. CRC Press, Boca Raton.Google Scholar
Ouzman, Sven 2001 Seeing is Deceiving: Rock Art and the Non-Visual. World Archaeology 33:237–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overholtzer, Lisa, and Stoner, Wesley D. 2011 Merging the Social and the Material: Life Histories of Ancient Mementos from Central Mexico. Journal of Social Archaeology 11:171–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, Mary Hrones 1972 Aztec Figurines from the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico. In Miscellaneous Studies in Mexican Prehistory, edited by Spence, Michael W., Parsons, Jeffrey, and Parsons, Mary Hrones, pp. 81–170. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Anthropological Papers, No. 45, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernadino de 1950–1982 Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. 13 vols. Edited and translated by Dibble, Charles E. and Anderson, Arthur J.D.. University of Utah and School of American Research, Salt Lake City and Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Sanders, William T., and Santley, Robert S. 1983 A Tale of Three Cities: Energetics and Urbanization in Pre-hispanic Central Mexico. In Prehistoric Settlement Patterns: Essays in Honor of Gordon R. Willey, edited by Vogt, Evon Z. and Levanthal, Richard M., pp. 243–291. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Shōnagon, Sei 2006 The Pillow Book. Translated with notes by McKinney, Meredith. Penguin Books, London.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 1992 Archaeological Research at Aztec-Period Rural Sites in Morelos, Mexico, Volume 1: Excavations and Architecture. University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology, No. 4. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 2002 Domestic Ritual at Aztec Provincial Sites in Morelos. In Domestic Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Plunket, Patricia, pp. 93–114. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Monograph No. 46. University of California, Los Angeles.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 2005 Aztec-Style Ceramic Figurines from Yautepec, Morelos. Mexicon 27:45–55.Google Scholar
Stephens, Sharon 1995 Physical and Cultural Reproduction in a Post-Chernobyl Norwegian Sami Community. In Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction, edited by Ginsburg, Faye D. and Rapp, Rayna, pp. 270–287. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Stewart, Susan 1993 On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Duke University Press, Durham.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Thelma D. 1982 Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina: The Great Spinner and Weaver. In The Art and Iconography of Late Post-Classic Central Mexico, edited by Boone, Elizabeth H., pp. 7–35. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Tway, Maria B. Derilo 2004 Gender, Context, and Figurine Use: Ceramic Images form the Formative Period San Andrés Site, Tabasco, Mexico. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University, Tallahassee.Google Scholar