Chicago, Ill. -- To the victor go the spoils of war and usually the bragging rights, but how does one determine if claims made by winners are accurate?
Jay Silverstein, graduate student in anthropology at Penn State, may have proof that Aztec reports of annihilation of the Chontal were grossly exaggerated.
"Aztec narratives claim that the Chontal, a group living in the buffer area between the Aztec and Tarascan Empires, were annihilated in 1487," Silverstein told attendees today (March 26) at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archaeology in Chicago. "However, regional documents suggest the Chontal always had their own ruler, even under Aztec authority, and were present when the Spanish came."
Silverstein, who conducted archaeological survey about 100 miles southwest of Mexico City, is trying to reconstruct the Aztec/Tarascan frontier from a time just before European contact. Using 16th-century documents and archaeological evidence, he identified a frontier site that was probably the Chontal fortress of Oztuma. Confusion exists, however, because a site identified in the 1940s as Oztuma is an Aztec site.
The documents agree that the Aztec incorporated the Chontal city-state of Oztuma into their empire between 1469 and 1480. Also, at this time, the Aztecs entered into a war with their western neighbor, the Tarascan empire. The Aztec crowned a new king in 1487, in Mexico City, but representatives of the Chontal did not attend the coronation. Aztec scouts reported the Chontal city-states of Oztuma, Teloloapan and Alahuiztlan in rebellion. The Chontal lost the subsequent Aztec/Chontal War.
"Both sets of documents indicate the Chontal lost, but the central core documents say the Aztec destroyed the cities and Aztec citizens replaced the Chontal, while the periphery documents tell a different story," says Silverstein.
The Aztec documents are narrative histories written after the Spanish conquered Mexico City. The frontier documents are parts of the Relaciones Geograficas, a series of documents developed in the sixteenth century from answers to standardized questions asked of subject towns in New Spain. The Relaciones show the governor of the Oztuma area as Diego Osorio, son of the man who was king when the Spanish conquered Mexico in 1521.
"The Relaciones also say that the Chontal always had a king they respected, implying a Chontal king," says Silverstein. "However, a giant Aztec fortress, discovered and mapped in the 1940s, exists and a town below is said to be the location of Oztuma after the Spanish came."
Silverstein found the Aztec fortress and town, but, as most previous archaeologists discovered, the geographic information from the 16th century does not work if this town is the Oztuma of the Relaciones. Something is wrong.
"We heard a rumor that other documents existed in San Simon Oztuma, but the town was abandoned," says Silverstein. "We found the documents in the near by town of Ixtepec."
A document dated to 1585 carries Don Diego Osorio's signature, proving he was a real person and strongly suggesting that the Chontal survived the Aztec. Above Ixtepec is an old fortress.
"I believe that this fortress is the original Chontal Fortress of Oztuma," says Silverstein. "We found only a very little Aztec pottery there. Most of the pottery sherds were Chontal Red on Buff."
It appears that when the Spanish came, they moved the Chontal from their mountain stronghold at Ixtepec to the valley of San Simon Oztuma and that the Aztecs who had built their Fortress of Oztuma six miles southeast of the Chontal fort, moved down to the town of Acapetlahuaya. So the Aztec did come to the area to build a fortress. However, the original Chontal Oztuma fortress remained and, with an Aztec fortress named Oztuma, and a town called San Simon Oztuma things became very confused.
"If Chontal Oztuma is used as the head town in the Relacion Geographica, the directions make sense," says Silverstein of Penn State. "We found a line of fortresses, including Chontal and Aztec sites, built to protect the Aztec empire from the Tarascans."
Other interesting sites located during the survey include a wall running about a mile and three quarters that cuts off a bend in a river. The wall is in the no-man's land between the two empires.
"Locals say that in the 1940s the wall was about 5-feet high," says Silverstein. "The foundation style indicates it predates the Spanish."
At one end of the wall there is evidence of a battle. The area is strewn with sling shot balls, projectile points and other obsidian debris.
"My guess is that it was a fortress built by the Chontal to try and hold the river valley from the Tarascans and their allies," says the Penn State researcher. "The Chontal were probably forced to abandon this forward defense within the first decades of the war."
The Chontal were caught between two great pre-Hispanic empires. Usually, people in this situation are written out of history, but the archaeological remains show that the Chontal played an integral role in the defense of the Aztec empire and maintained their identity even after the Spanish came. After the fall of the Aztec empire to Hernan Cortez in 1521, the Tarascan force that had been besieging the Aztec fortress retreated and the Chontal, using Spanish law, reasserted their political dominance over the isolated Aztec garrison.
EDITORS: Mr. Silverstein is at 814-466-3461 or jes20@psu.edu by email.