onkings
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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.
240
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-
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