Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems: A Theoretical Approach

Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems challenges the adequacy of Western academic views on what writing is and explores how they can be expanded by analyzing the sophisticated graphic communication systems found in Central Mesoamerica and Andean South America.
 
By examining case studies from across the Americas, the authors pursue an enhanced understanding of Native American graphic communication systems and how the study of graphic expression can provide insight into ancient cultures and societies, expressed in indigenous words. Focusing on examples from Central Mexico and the Andes, the authors explore the overlap among writing, graphic expression, and orality in indigenous societies, inviting reevaluation of the Western notion that writing exists only to record language (the spoken chain of speech) as well as accepted beliefs of Western alphabetized societies about the accuracy, durability, and unambiguous nature of their own alphabetized texts. The volume also addresses the rapidly growing field of semasiography and relocates it more productively as one of several underlying operating principles in graphic communication systems.
 
Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems reports new results and insights into the meaning of the rich and varied content of indigenous American graphic expression and culture as well as into the societies and cultures that produce them. It will be of great interest to Mesoamericanists, students, and scholars of anthropology, archaeology, art history, ancient writing systems, and comparative world history.
 
The research for and publication of this book have been supported in part by the National Science Centre of Poland (decision no. NCN-KR-0011/122/13) and the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Contributors:
Angélica Baena Ramírez, Christiane Clados, Danièle Dehouve, Stanisław Iwaniszewski, Michel R. Oudijk, Katarzyna Szoblik, Loïc Vauzelle, Gordon Whittaker, Janusz Z. Wołoszyn, David Charles Wright-Carr

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Release date: Jan 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781607329350

Book preview

Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems

A Theoretical Approach

Edited by

Katarzyna Mikulska and Jerome A. Offner

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO

Louisville

© 2019 by University Press of Colorado

Published by University Press of Colorado

245 Century Circle, Suite 202

Louisville, Colorado 80027

All rights reserved

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of the Association of University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

ISBN: 978-1-60732-876-6 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-60732-935-0 (ebook)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5876/9781607329350

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Offner, Jerome A., editor. | Mikulska, Katarzyna, editor.

Title: Indigenous graphic communication systems : a theoretical approach / edited by Katarzyna Mikulska, Jerome A. Offner.

Description: Louisville : University Press of Colorado, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019018476 | ISBN 9781607328766 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607329350 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Indians of Mexico—Languages—Writing. | Indians of Central America—Languages—Writing. | Indians of South America—Andes Region—Languages—Writing. | Picture-writing—Mexico. | Picture-writing—Central America. | Picture-writing—Andes Region. | Visual communication—Mexico. | Visual communication—Central America. | Visual communication—Andes Region.

Classification: LCC F1219.3.W94 I54 2018 | DDC 972/.01—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018476

The University Press of Colorado gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Houston Museum of Natural Science toward the publication of this book.

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS. TOP RIGHT: Fonds mexicain 2, Bibliothèque nationale de France; UPPER CENTER (LEFT TO RIGHT): Museo Larco, Lima–Perú, ML000639, ML000230, ML001347, ML000214, ML002041; LOWER CENTER: Codex Borgia (Codex Borg. Mess. 1), planche 42. © 2019 Biblioteca Apostólica Vaticana; BOTTOM LEFT: RJM 60305, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Kőln, Germany; photograph by Marion Mennicken; BOTTOM RIGHT: Northern crest, photograph by W. B. Murray.

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems: A Theoretical Approach

Katarzyna Mikulska

Section 1: On Semasiographs and Semasiography

On the Classification of Graphs in Central Mexican Pictorial Writing

David Charles Wright-Carr

The System of Graphic Communication in the Central Mexican Divinatory Codices from the Functional Perspective

Katarzyna Mikulska

Section 2: Metaphor, Orality, and Space

The Law of the Series: A Proposal for the Decipherment of Aztec Ritual Language

Danièle Dehouve

Sacrifice in the Codex Borgia: Examples from an Inventory of Phrases

Angélica Baena Ramírez

Clothes with Metaphorical Names and the Representation of Metaphors in the Costumes of the Aztec Gods

Loïc Vauzelle

What Lies Beneath: Generating Mesoamerican Media Surfaces

Jerome A. Offner

Traces of Orality in the Codex Xolotl

Katarzyna Szoblik

Section 3: Reconnoitering the Periphery

On the Iconic Nature of Tocapus and Other Framed Motif Units

Christiane Clados

Geometric Motifs in Rock Art as a System of Visual Communication

Stanisław Iwaniszewski

Status Markers in Moche Iconography

Janusz Z. Wołoszyn

Section 4: Going into Detail

Hieroglyphs of Virtue and Vice: On the Interplay of Writing and Iconography

Gordon Whittaker

An Approach to Anthroponymic Glyphs in Nahuatl Writing Contained in El Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan or the Codex Valeriano

Juan José Batalla Rosado and Miguel Ángel Ruz Barrio

The Making of Academic Myth

Michel R. Oudijk

Afterword

Jerome A. Offner

About the Authors

Index

Figures

1.1. Semasiograph in the Tizoc Stone

1.2. Possible glottograph in the Tizoc Stone

1.3. Semasiographs in the Huichapan Codex

1.4. Possible glottograph in the Huichapan Codex

2.1. Example of a simple list in the Codex Borgia: Nine Deities of the Night (Codex Borgia 14)

2.2. Fragment of the tonalpohualli in extenso (Codex Borgia 5–6)

2.3. Possible glottographic register of the names of the goddess Chalchihuitlicue (Codex Cospi 7) and the tree ahuehuetl (Codex Borgia 38)

2.4. Signs of war: in the form of arrow, shield (Codex Borgia 60) and as a multigraphism of "shield, arrows, atlatl, spiny stem, and signs of preciousness" (jewels and flowers) (Codex Borgia 70.

2.5. Sign of war in the form of atl-tlachinolli, water, scorched earth: Codex Borbonicus 18; Tonalamatl de Aubin 28; and Codex Borgia 5)

2.6. Different forms of representation of the sign authority: as in petlatl in icpalli, the mat, the seat (Codex Mendoza fol. 68r); as the seat, the skin (Codex Borgia 54); and as the seat, the skin, the mat (Codex Vaticanus B 83)

2.7. Fragment of Rock Crystal Chant (Akwanele Igar)

2.8. The series of five tlazolteteo (Codex Borgia 47–48)

2.9. Visual parallelisms in the framework-gods in Codex Borgia 29–3)

2.10. The creation of five macuiltonaleque (Codex Borgia 42)

2.11. The story related in Codex Borgia 41 and partly in 4)

3.1. The fire drill (Codex Laud [1996, page 8])

3.2. The flower of the series Warrior prowess. (Gift of tobacco and flower, Sahagún 1979, IX, fig. 28)

3.3. The flower of the series Rejoicing with music. (The Trecena 1-Flower, Codex Borbonicus 1899, page 4)

4.1. The sacrificed victim in the region of the dead (Codex Borgia 18)

4.2. The birth of Tezcatlipoca from a sacrifice (Codex Borgia 32)

4.3. The world of the dead and the phrase series of dangerous places (Codex Borgia 42)

4.4. Arm with sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 1)

4.5. Arm with head and sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 4)

4.6. Arm with sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 4)

4.7. Arm with axe and heart (Codex Borgia 5)

4.8. Arm with sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 6)

4.9. Arm with sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 6)

4.10. Arm with sacrificial objects (Codex Borgia 7)

5.1. The water skirt of Chalchiuhtlicue (Primeros Memoriales 263v); the water glyph (Codex Borbonicus 7); possibly a water skirt (Codex Borgia 16)

5.2. Detail of a water goddess of Teotihuacan, National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico, Mexico City

5.3. Chalchiuhtlicue wearing a skirt with the water glyph (Codex Telleriano-Remensis 11v)

5.4. The jade glyph (Matrícula de Tributos 11r); Chalchiuhtlicue’s skirt with an embedded jade glyph composed of only two graphic elements (green and white surfaces) (Codex Borbonicus 5)

5.5. Tlaloc’s tunic (Codex Ixtlilxochitl fol. 110v); Xicolli, found as part of "Ofrenda 102)

5.6. A mountain (Codex Borbonicus 25) and a turtle (Codex Borgia 53)

5.7. Coatlicue and Tlaltecuhtli’s waistband, both from National Museum of Anthropology of Mexico, Mexico City

5.8. Tlaloc’s mask as a day sign (Codex Borgia 67)

5.9. The circle motif painted on Tlaloc’s tunic, the water glyph (Codex Magliabechiano 7v), the rain glyph (Codex Telleriano-Remensis 41r)

5.10. Gauze fabric; Xicolli found as part of Ofrenda 102 from Templo Mayor

5.11. The mist glyph (FC XI, fig. 376); Diego Ayahuitl (Matrícula de Huexotzinco 614r)

5.12. Black dots on Tlaloc’s cloth (Codex Borbonicus 24)

5.13. A sapote skirt worn by the god Xipe Totec (Codex Borbonicus 14)

5.14. The star skirt worn by Ilamatecuhtli (Codex Borbonicus 27)

5.15. Citlalinicue as the 13th Day Lord, wearing a skirt decorated with white shells and round stars (Codex Borbonicus 6); a representation of the night sky (Codex Borbonicus 10)

5.16. The 13th Day Lord whose hair is adorned with stellar eyes (Tonalamatl Aubin 11 and 20).

6.1. Seating for political officials, Codex Xolotl: Coyohuatzin, X.030.I.21; Ocotoch, X.030.A.15; ruler of Tollantzinco, X.030.A.10; Xolotl, X.030.F.03)

6.2. Depictions of married couples in the Codex Xolotl: successive ruler couples at Colhuacan, X.030.H and I; Xolotl and Tomiyauh, X.010.H; Tlatepantzin and Azcaxochitzin, X.030.C.53 and C.56; Tochinteuctli and Tomiyauh at Huexotla, X.030.B.22 and B.2)

6.3. The family of Huetzin and Atotzin of Acolhuacan (later Coatlichan), Codex Xolotl: X.030.C

6.4. The tlacamecayotl on X.020 of Codex Xolotl; detail of the tlacuilo of Tlalmanalco

6.5. The death of Cihuacuecuenotzin at Otompan, Codex Xolotl: X.070.A.

6.6. Nezahualcoyotl, soon to be ruler of Texcoco, reminded of the deaths of his father and Cihuacuecuenotzin eleven years earlier, discusses and decides the fate of disloyal kinsman, Codex Xolotl: X.101.H

7.1. Codex Xolotl, leaf 2

7.2. Codex Xolotl, leaf 5

7.3. Codex Xolotl, leaf 8

7.4. Codex Xolotl, leaf 8 (detail)

7.5. Rivers in the Codex Xolotl: leaf 1b and leaf 3

7.6. Lake Texcoco in the Codex Xolotl: leaf 1 and leaf 3

7.7. Images of agricultural activity in the Codex Xolotl: fields (leaf 3) and chinampas (leaf 3)

7.8. Xolotecuhtli and the wild beast (Codex Xolotl, leaf 10)

8.1. Tocapus on textiles, wood, and metal: waistband tunic, Colonial Period, VA 4577, Ethnological Museum Berlin, Germany; wooden beaker (keru), Colonial Period, RJM 60305, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Kőln, Germany; Bronze Axe, Late Horizon, MAM 7026, Museo de América Madrid, Spain

8.2. Tocapu distribution on textiles and ceramics: Inca key checkerboard tunic 1167. 771, fragment, Linden Museum Stuttgart, Germany; corn beer vessel (aryballo) with APD, Late Horizon, Kemper Collection

8.3. Tocapu distribution on textiles and ceramics: all-toqapu-tunic, fragment, Late Horizon or Colonial Period, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima; effigy vessel showing musician dressed in a tunic with scattered arrangement, Middle Horizon, Chakipampa A Style, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

8.4. Miniature uncu: Barthel number five all-toqapu-tunic 518.PT, Late Horizon, Bliss Collection at Dumbarton Oaks

8.5. Jaguar pelt: tocapu composed of almond-like elements forming an all-over pattern all-toqapu-tunic, fragment, Late Horizon or Colonial Period, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima; corn beer vessel (aryballo) with elements in a diamond-like arrangement, Ica Valley, Provincial Inca, Late Horizon, R. H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; jaguar with diamond-shaped spots, wooden beaker (keru), Colonial Period

8.6. Tocapus composed of rows of camelids: all-toqapu-tunic B/1500, Colonial Period, American Museum of Natural History; all-toqapu-tunic B-518.PT, Late Horizon, Bliss Collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC; fragment of all-toqapu-tunic, Late Horizon, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima

8.7. Jaguar pelt: framed motif unit featuring black dots and half-circles; effigy vessel in form of a foot, Middle Horizon, ML018890, Museo Larco, Lima; high-ranked person wearing tunic with jaguar figures, face neck jar, Middle Horizon, Río Ocoña, Museo Nacional, Lima

8.8. Feathered: framed motif unit filled with the pattern consisting of wavy lines, bowl, Tiwanaku IV, V A 64578, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin; wavy lines indicating feathers, effigy vessel in form of a swimming water bird, Tiwanaku IV, V A 64460, Scott Collection 1938, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin

8.9. Base or beginning portion of rays: angular signs, from central figure of the Gateway of the Sun and Ponce Stela, Tiwanaku; meander-like portion or base of rays of staff gods with rayed faces, Gateway of the Sun and Chunchukala Stela, Tiwanaku, Tiwanaku IV

8.10. Encircling framed motif units: feathered, Tiwanaku IV, V A 64437, Scott Collection 1938. Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, Germany; base of rays, Tiwanaku IV, V A 10860, Hettner Collection, Ethnologisches Museum Berlin, Germany; register composed of black-and-white wavy bands, Tiwanaku IV, V A 10573, Hettner Collection 1890. Ethnologisches Museum Berlin; jaguar with tail marked by wavy bands, effigy incense burner, Tiwanaku IV, private collection

8.11. Nasca framed motif units placed in vertical panels: nested boxes, bottle, Nasca 5 Phase, C-60353, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima; bowl, Nasca 5 Phase, Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Germany; checkerboard pattern diagonally arranged, cup bowl, Nasca 5 Phase, C-31592, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima. Rollout by Christiane Clados.

8.12. Soil/water: three framed motif units consisting of parallel lines, vase, Nasca 5 Phase, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima; two men grabbing each other’s hair superimposed on surface structured by identical pattern, bottle, Nasca 5 Phase, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima

8.13. Sacrificial victims: Twins placed at the side of a corn beer vessel out of which a man is taking liquid, double-spout-and-bridge bottle, Nasca 5 Phase, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología y Historia, Lima; beheaded sacrificial victim surrounded by spears and exposed to foxes, cup bowl, Nasca 5 Phase, C-33508, closeup, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología y Historia, Lima

8.14. Fish net: framed motif unit with grid-like pattern framing a composite condor being, cup bowl, Nasca 5 Phase, C-13152, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia, Lima; fish net filled with a fish, cup bowl, Nasca 5 Phase, Parke-Bernet-Galleries

9.1. Northern crest. A configuration consisting of 207 pecked dots

9.2. Northern crest. Rock panel composed of three scores of the lunar synodic period; above them another lunar count is within the crescent symbol (the moon?)

9.3. Pintada Cave in the Arroyo de San Pablo, the Sierra de San Francisco (after Gutiérrez Martínez 2013, 28, fig. 1–4 bottom)

9.4. Typology of headdresses (after Gutiérrez Martínez 2013, 315, table 7.1)

10.1. French grenadier and voltigeur of 180)

10.2. Deer hunting scene (Donnan 1978, 179, fig. 262)

10.3. Ritual dance scene (Donnan and McClelland 1999, 101, fig. 4.49)

10.4. Portrait vessel representing a Moche priest; his headgear is made of only a few pieces of fabric (Inv. No. ML000230; courtesy of Larco Museum, Lima, Peru)

10.5. Foreign salesman with a feline in his hands; the man wears a headgear of animal skin, a necklace made of elongated beads, and pendant crescent earrings; his hair is arranged in a form of a ponytail (Inv. No. VA 48046; courtesy of Ethnological Museum, Berlin, Germany; Peru)

10.6. Hairstyle typical of women. Type F-IV-c (according to Wołoszyn 2008a, 126; Inv. No. VA 18059 courtesy of Ethnological Museum, Berlin, Germany; Peru)

10.7. Hairstyle (type F-V-a according to Wołoszyn 2008a, 126) and facial hair typical of Recuay men (Inv. No. ML000214; courtesy of Larco Museum, Lima, Peru)

10.8. Mutilated group C pri352est (Inv. No. ML001415; courtesy of Larco Museum, Lima, Peru)

10.9. Mutilated character with decorated (probably tattooed) face skin (Inv. No. ML000413; courtesy of Larco Museum, Lima, Peru)

10.10. Deck figure of a tattooed captive with a typical hairstyle and clearly marked traces of missing ear ornaments (Inv. No. ML002041; courtesy of Larco Museum, Lima, Peru)

10.11. Warriors with circular nose ornaments leading naked and tattooed captives from the battlefield (Donnan and McClelland 1999, 130, fig. 4.100)

10.12. Recuay hunters wearing loincloths (Donnan and McClelland 1999, figure 12.20 122, fig. 4.88)

10.13. Depiction of a Recuay woman using ticpis pins (Inv. No. ML001347)

10.14. Member of the Moche elite with a tamed feline (Inv. No. ML000639)

11.1. The seducer (1.a) and the pimp (FC X(11), fol. 24v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 24)

11.2. The king and his secretary (Codex Telleriano-Remensis fol. 30r)

11.3. The seducer and the passive homosexual (FC X(11), fol. 25v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 25)

11.4. The slayer (FC X(11), fol. 25v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 25)

11.5. Discord being sown among people (FC X(11), fol. 25v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 25)

11.6. The bad noblewoman (FC X(13), fol. 35v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 35)

11.7. The spirited woman (FC X(14), fol. 35v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 35)

11.8. The honest woman (FC X(14), fol. 36r). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 36)

11.9. The whore (FC X(15), fol. 39v). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 39)

11.10. The scandalous woman (FC X(15), fol. 40r). Florence, The Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, ms. Med. Palat. 220, f. 40)

12.1. Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 1)

12.2. Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 9)

12.3. María Ticapan and Lucía Xoco (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 21v)

12.4. Andrés (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 14r)

12.5. Beatriz (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 24v)

12.6. Diego Pascual (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 15r)

12.7. Ana Diez (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 21r)

12.8. Francisco (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 5r)

12.9. García (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 4v)

12.10. García (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 11r)

12.11. Juan Nahueca (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 6r)

12.12. Lorenzo (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 4r)

12.13. Lucía (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 22v)

12.14. Pablo Cohual (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 22v)

12.15. Pedro (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 25v)

12.16. Pedro (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 14r)

12.17. Conitl (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 9r)

12.18. Cuicaxochitl (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 15r)

12.19. Ycnoxochitl (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 4r)

12.20. Mitztepetl (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fols. 9v and 22r)

12.21. Techan (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 5v)

12.22. Tenoch (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 20v)

12.23. Tlahuiz (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 11r)

12.24. Tota (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 6r)

12.25. Tozcohuatl (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 7v)

12.26. Xiuhtoztli (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 19v)

12.27. Zolli (Libro de los Tributos de San Pablo Teocaltitlan, fol. 21v)

13.1. First trecena of the Codex Borgia (61)

13.2. The first sign, Alligator (Codex Borgia 9)

13.3. The fifteenth trecena of the Codex Borgia (66)

13.4. The fourth trecena of the Codex Borgia (64)

13.5. Atl-tlachinolli according to López Austin (1994, fig. II-6)

13.6. The Flower Tree from the Codex Borgia (66)

13.7. The Flower Tree from the Codex Borbonicus (15)

13.8. From Chicnauhnepaniuhcan to atl-tlachinollan according to López Austin

Tables

1.1. Types of graphs, according to Geoffrey Sampson (2015, 18–39)

3.1. Intertwining among three metonymic series

3.2. The creation of second-level series by intertwining among six first-level series

4.1. Graphic inventory of phrase series (Codex Borgia 18)

4.2. Graphic inventory of phrase series (Codex Borgia 32)

4.3. Graphic inventory of phrase series (Codex Borgia 42)

4.4. The executor arm of sacrifice

Preface and Acknowledgments

Patrick Lesbre, the great historian of Acolhuacan, was careful to introduce us at the 2009 International Congress of Americanists (ICA) in Mexico City. We soon found out that our interests appeared quite divergent, with Mikulska fascinated by the Codex Borgia, conventionally categorized as a divinatory or religious book, and Offner by the Codex Xolotl, regarded as a work of history. The areas of common interest, indigenous graphic expression and writing, along with their perennially faulty integration into the worldwide conversations on writing and literacy, eventually came to the fore; and Offner acquainted Gordon Whittaker, the expert on Nahuatl writing and an authority on worldwide writing systems, with Mikulska at the ICA in Vienna in 2012. Over the next few years, Mikulska facilitated Offner’s participation in a welcoming and collaborative network of Americanists in Europe and Mexico, many of whom are contributors to this volume.

The traditional Western categories of religious versus historical works soon yielded to a realization that both types of works were, of course, the product of the same or closely related cultures; and we intensified our investigations into indigenous graphic expression and theory of writing, leaving hieroglyphs per se in the capable hands of Whittaker. Based on her research into the relationship between orality and graphic expression in the Codex Borgia and with an introduction to the Codex Xolotl by Offner, Mikulska identified techniques embedded in that manuscript’s intricate graphic compositions that were also reflected in the Codex Xolotl. Her related observations and hypotheses on the use of the Codex Borgia in everyday life led to a broadened appreciation of the Codex Xolotl as something more than a source of historical information. It was thus possible to expand insight into the many purposes of the Codex Xolotl in Nahua culture and into the narrative devices, structures, and processes within it.

This initial collaboration was one of several streams of research and collaboration that led to the symposium Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems: A Theoretical Approach, organized by Mikulska in March 2015 in Warsaw. The collaboration among Offner, Whittaker, and Mikulska also led to the formation of the Codex (now Corpus) Xolotl Project, a voluntary association of scholars from more than a half dozen nations intent on understanding this best expression of Nahua historiographic process and thought.

Another unanticipated benefit of the 2015 symposium itself has been a continuing series of symposia and workshops held in Warsaw with an expanding worldwide circle of specialists, called Sign and Symbol, organized by three symposium participants—the ancient Egyptian specialist Daniel V. Tacacs, Whittaker, and Mikulska. During the 2015 symposium they had discovered how fruitful a combined approach to the puzzthe theory and methodology of research on non-Old-World scripts.

Transportation technology has far outpaced academic funding in facilitating transatlantic communication, and Mesoamerican studies in recent decades have taken different trajectories on each side of the pond (el charco). New York is approximately 2,400 air miles from Los Angeles and 2,100 miles from Mexico City. New York to Madrid or Paris is about 3,600 miles, and it is 4,200 miles to Warsaw. The extra miles to Europe, although a few hours in terms of modern transportation, remain significant barriers to international collaboration. Granting agencies in the United States and Europe are reluctant to fund travel expenses—air fares, hotels, and per diem expenses—between the two regions. Such costs, non-trivial in the academic economy, motivate those who do travel to remain for additional tourism, further increasing the cost and reducing the frequency of interregional travel. Beginning in 2006, Offner, not in the academic economy and following a business model, began making trips to Europe, staying in most cases for the minimum number of days required for meeting participation. While this made his participation in the network of people in this volume possible, we do encourage granting agencies in both regions to follow the example of the Polish granting agency, the National Science Centre, in funding at least some travel expenses. This reduced the cost for the participants in the symposium from which these chapters are drawn.

We believe the present volume constitutes ample proof of this concept. It shows the possibilities and results of in-person transatlantic exchange of thought among specialists sharing a special focus on theoretical issues in indigenous writing systems and graphic expression in both North and South America. The symposium, titled Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems: A Theoretical Approach, took place in March 2015 in Warsaw, a part of the execution of the project The graphic communication system of pre-Hispanic Central Mexico as utilized in calendar-religious books and compared with codices on other subjects: A theoretical approach, run by Mikulska, and funded by the National Science Centre of Poland (Narodowe Centrum Nauki, decision no. NCN-KR-0011/122/13). Thanks to the active cooperation of all of the participants in the Warsaw symposium—Angélica Baena, Juan José Batalla Rosado, María Castañeda de la Paz, Christiane Clados, Danièle Dehouve, Stanisław Iwaniszewski, Katarzyna Mikulska, Jerome Offner, Michel Oudijk, Miguel Angel Ruz Barrio, Carlo Severi, Katarzyna Szoblik, Daniel Viktor Takacs, Loïc Vauzelle, Gordon Whittaker, Janusz Wołoszyn, David Wright-Carr—the existing results of this originally individual project were greatly enhanced and surpassed, demonstrating again that academic work is always best a collective endeavor. Although not all the participants of this symposium contributed to this volume, their fruitful and engaged discussions during and after the symposium sessions ensured that a broad range of theoretical issues on indigenous writing—or graphic communication—systems was brought forth and deliberated, including the valuable insights provided by the Kuna system.

The conference that gave rise to this volume was in Offner’s opinion the most collaborative and productive academic meeting in which he has participated. The emphasis was on cooperation and creation of results rather than on secrecy, exclusionary competition, and discord for career or political advantage. Transatlantic collaboration has a rich future if it can receive the encouragement to flourish.

Nahua studies in the United States in recent decades have largely evolved into investigations into increasingly obscure colonial-era Nahuatl alphabetic texts, with analysis of indigenous graphic expression largely left in the hands of art historians, notably and fortunately Elizabeth Boone. In Europe, with twice the population of the United States, Offner found a large and thriving community of polyglot scholars of diverse disciplines centrally concerned with the analysis and comprehension of indigenous graphic expression. Many of this community have migrated to Mexico where they continue this tradition’s excellent work, and in this vein, the American scholar David Wright-Carr, long in Guanajuato, should also be mentioned.

This volume is an effort to bring these too often separate sides of the Atlantic in closer contact with one another. Some authors appear in English for the first time or one of their first times. While multilingualism is common in Europe, across the Atlantic in America, reliance on English and lack of investigation into non-English research remain frequent, problematic, and avoidable. This volume, although entirely in English, as required by US academic presses, is also meant to encourage American participation in non-English research emanating from Europe and Mexico.

We both have many acknowledgments to make for this volume with its many contributors—to the contributors themselves, as well as to all the participants of the symposium previously mentioned. Katarzyna Mikulska wishes to acknowledge the National Science Centre of Poland for the above-mentioned grant that was the beginning of this and related projects, and Jerome Offner wishes to acknowledge the generous payment of a significant subvention by the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which allowed us to enrich this volume with additional illustrations and contributors. We both acknowledge the anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful observations helped improve the content of this volume, as well as the University Press of Colorado, especially Jessica d’Arbonne who first encouraged the publication of this volume and Charlotte Steinhardt who has seen it through to completion. Laura Furney, assistant director and managing editor, and Cheryl Carnahan, our copyeditor, guided us through the final editing and production steps. Mikulska also wants to acknowledge Offner’s help in negotiating the US publication process and his translation of the introduction and four chapters originally written in Spanish, so the results presented in this volume can be more easily accessed by the international English-speaking community.

One final editorial matter: Nahuatl has been studied in many countries for many years, and differing conventions have arisen for handling two of its features not found in Spanish, French, or English: vowel length and glottal stop. Two of our authors are always concerned to mark long vowel length with a macron (e.g., David Wright, Pānquetzaliztli; Gordon Whittaker, xōchiyōtl), but most do not indicate vowel length. Some authors do not indicate glottal stops, while some indicate them with an h and others with an accent grave in the middle of a word and a circumflex in position final (e.g., David Wright, Motēuczōmah; Loïc Vauzelle, tlacuàcuallô; Gordon Whittaker, mocihuānènequini and xōchihuâ). We have chosen not to interfere with the conventions employed by the authors who employ them. Indeed, they are often integrally related to the arguments they make.

Although we continue with a variety of differing research interests, both of us look forward to future efforts to contextualize further religious, divinatory, and historical genres into the surviving ethnographic detail for Mesoamerican precontact cultures so we can better understand their content and use in everyday social process. In a broader context, we also look forward to the rich possibilities for productively entering the many indigenous graphic communications systems of the Americas into the ongoing conversations on comparative worldwide writing and literacy.

Introduction

Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems

A Theoretical Approach

Katarzyna Mikulska

INSTITUTE FOR IBERIAN AND IBEROAMERICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW

Translation by Jerome A. Offner

HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE

If a reader interested in the topic of the theory of writing systems picks up one of the classic books of the second half of the twentieth century, he or she will be left with the impression that prior to contact with Europeans, a few pre-writing systems existed in the Americas not worthy of being considered among the true writing systems known from the Old World (cf. Whittaker 2009, 47–48).¹ One of these classics, the 1952 monograph A Study of Writing by Ignace Gelb (1963 [1952])—a reference work still in use among Mesoamericanists—will inform the reader that not even the Maya had true writing, obviously because in 1952 Yuri Knorosov had not yet achieved his breakthrough in the decipherment of this system. To make matters worse, to learn anything of other Mesoamerican systems outside the Maya area, the reader will receive notice of only three documents, only one of which is truly indigenous: the Codex Boturini, an Aztec document created in the early colonial period. Regarding the other two examples provided, one is a kind of catechism in images created to convey prayers and principles of Christian religion to Indians through a non-alphabetic system. In this case, it is a catechism in the Mixtec language, quite late, having been published in 1839 (Seler 1902, in Gelb 1963 [1952], 57), which Gelb took from the monumental work of Eduard Seler. The other example is the so-called Codex Hammaburgensis, a document purchased in 1925 in Mexico for the Ethnographic Museum of Hamburg and kept there until the present day (Danzel 1926, 5). This manuscript was prepared as a collage of glyphs and images from several indigenous codices (Danzel 1926), among them the colonial Codex Mendoza and the Codex Borbonicus. Regarding matters in the Andean area, our reader will find nothing at all, as is the case in another highly regarded work by David Diringer (1972 [1948]). In general, prior to Gelb’s book, in one of his re-editions Diringer had mentioned two early essays of Knorosov, noting that the Russian academic’s results were not accepted by eminent scholars of the subject (Diringer 1972 [1948], 132). Regarding Aztec documents, he includes the same illustrations as Gelb, consisting of short excerpts from the Codex Boturini along with the same catechism in the Mixtec language (above) plus three toponymic glyphs from the Codex Mendoza (fols. 5v, 42r, 7v)² and a fragment of leaf 36 of the Mixtec Codex Bodley (which he identifies as Aztec; Diringer 1972 [1948], 133).³

Regarding the content of the Aztec manuscripts (among which Diringer includes Mixtec, Zapotec, Chinantec, Mazatec, and other documents), he considers that the majority of the codices are devoted to divination, rituals, and astrology, while a few are concerned primarily with genealogies and sequences of political events, being in fact a kind of history (Diringer 1948, 127). Although Diringer uses the word writing, he says it is essentially more similar to secondary mnemonic characters, which must be complemented by a description, than to proper writing (1972 [1948], 134–135), although he allows that in some respects, this writing can already be considered analytical because some signs have phonetic value and it was partly based on the rebus principle, as with cuneiform, hieroglyphic, and Chinese scripts (1972 [1948], 135).

The theme changes a bit in Harald Haarmann’s 1991 book. By this time, the author describes Maya writing in greater detail as well as Aztec writing, although he understands as such all of the non-Maya scripts, for which reason he places the Mixtec Codex Nuttall among Aztec texts (Haarmann 2001 [1991], 47–50). Other errors again concern details from the Codex Boturini (Haarmann 2001 [1991], 51), but most important is the author’s mistake as to the date of the appearance of logo- and phonographic signs (referred to by Haarmann [2001 (1991), 52, 219–221] as ideographs, syllabic and alphabetic signs) in the Aztec system, which he considers to have been introduced as a result of European influence.⁴ In any event, also for this author, everything not registered as glottographic names are images and a mnemonic resource in the hands of the priestly caste (Haarmann 2001 [1991], 45). Likewise, he concludes by characterizing the purpose of the Andean khipu—but the important thing is that unlike previous authors, he includes information about this system in his work—as a mnemonic procedure in the most characteristic sense of the word (Haarmann 2001 [1991], 63). Overall, he dismisses the idea that a system that records information through a complex numerical system could register more than chronological or statistical data and stresses that its effectiveness depends to a high degree on the knowledge of a living oral tradition (Haarmann 2001 [1991], 60–63). These findings are not consistent with the complexity of information that can be transmitted through other graphic communication systems that are not based on language (algebraic, decimal, or binary systems used in information and computer science, the system used in chemistry, and so on) or with what Gary Urton (2005, 161–162, original emphasis) says about khipu:

A rosary is a series of beads on a string. A message stick is a series of incisions on a stick. A khipu is an arrangement of cotton wool and/or strings—some or all of which may be dyed in astonishingly complex arrays of colors—which have been either Z-spun/s-plied or S-spun/Z-plied and attached recto or verso to a common (primary) string, and bear knots that may be (but [are] not necessarily) tied in to hierarchical, decimal-place fashion using three different types of knots that are tied with their primary axes either in an S- or Z-direction . . . In short, neither a rosary nor a message stick is even remotely similar to a khipu. Thus, whatever a rosary or a message stick was used for cannot be assumed to have the least bit of relevance or precedential value whatsoever for suggesting, much less determining, what a khipu was used for or how it might have been used.

Indeed, in the work of Haarmann (2001 [1991], 55–60) and in the later work of Florian Coulmas (2003, 19–20) or the more general work of Andrew Robinson (1995, 54–55), the khipu is mentioned after a discussion of counting sticks from the Paleolithic era. Nothing remains beyond emphasizing that in the view of many non-experts on the subject, indigenous American systems, not being based on a language, deserve the adjective mnemonic or mnemotechnical, which, as Urton has well noted, classified them in the same drawer as counting sticks and rosaries or, for that matter, rock art, unless you take into account the high degree of complexity of their codes or the possibilities of transmitting information they offer. As a result, in various subsequent works, such as Geoffrey Sampson (1985), indigenous American systems are not mentioned, or information is limited to only the Maya script (DeFrancis 1989, 121–127; Calvet 2001, 175–192) or to explanations of recording names in Aztec writing (Cardona 1999 [1981], 137–140).

Elizabeth Hill Boone and Gary Urton (2012), in their edited volume Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America, have attempted to fill this significant gap in our knowledge of native graphic communication systems in the Americas. Similarly, The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process (Houston 2008 [2004]) includes important contributions by Stephen Houston (2008 [2004]) and Elizabeth Boone (2008 [2004]). Another edited volume, Image et conception du monde dans les écritures figuratives (Beaux, Pottier, and Grimal 2008), includes significant articles by Marc Thouvenot (2008a, 2008b) presenting Mesoamerican graphic communication systems and placing them among different world writing systems. Yet much remains to be done to present American systems to the world outside the disciplines of Mesoamericanists and Andeanists so that they occupy an appropriate place in works on the theory of writing and so that these same Mesoamericanists and Andeanists analyzing these systems make use of the latest advances in this area and enter into the worldwide theoretical discussion. Although it cannot be said they are not doing this at all, important gaps need to be filled in. We therefore present this book as a follow-up to Boone and Urton’s 2012 volume, with a similar aim of presenting to the reader the graphic communication systems native to the Americas but with additional emphasis on theoretical and methodological considerations. We are interested, however, not so much in systems that without a doubt and by any definition are referred to as writing, that is, those which are glottal systems (Harris 1999 [1995]) or glottographic (which represent forms of some particular spoken language; Sampson 1985, 21), such as the Maya, Zapotec, Aztec, and Mixtec scripts used in recording different types of names, as above all in the system—or systems—applied to convey the huge mass of information contained in the Mesoamerican divinatory and historical books, the ceramics and fabrics of the Andean region, and also in rock art.

The Mesoamerican codices in particular—leaving aside the Mayan codices that contain texts organized in lines, along with the toponyms, anthroponyms, gentilic names, and office titles in the codices of Central Mexico and Oaxaca—continue to be a bone of contention among researchers. The problem is that in explaining the mode of operation of the graphic communication system used beyond name recording, a researcher is immediately confronted with the involved and passionate issue of what constitutes writing. And the answer or even the very discussion of whether the Mesoamerican system or systems of graphic communication should or could be attached to this category carries great emotional weight, as Michel Oudijk, one of the contributors to this volume, has well noted (personal communication, 2010). Immediately when this theme arises, everyone assumes their defensive posture to shield themselves, and it is difficult to move them from their positions, since this stance is characteristic of supporters of either of the two views. In any event, the bone of contention is not usually the nature of the graphic signs themselves—the majority of the researchers distinguish among which of them convey only sounds, which of them only meaning, and which of them sound and meaning—but instead the very definition of writing and therefore the system itself. For those who accept the traditional and restricted definition of writing, it is obvious that only those parts of a graphic system based on the glottographic principle, that is, whose overall function is or rather seems to represent language, can be considered as such. Therefore, in Mesoamerica to the west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, writing so defined would be, as mentioned, basically used in registration of proper names (of places, names of people, ethnic groups, or office titles), and there the matter ends. The problem starts when defining the system employed in other parts of codices with economic, genealogical, or historical themes as well as in divinatory codices, organized on calendrical cycles. In this case it is spoken of with terms ranging from mnemonic support (Kircher, in Eco 1998 [1993], 139; Gelb 1963 [1952], 36–51; Diringer 1972 [1948], 134–135, above) to iconography (Batalla Rosado 1995a, 625, 1995b, 77; Whittaker 2011, 935), complex iconography (Marcus 1992, 17), narrative pictography (Prem and Riese 1983, 170), pictographic language (lenguaje pictográfico; Escalante Gonzalbo 2010), paintings and glyphs (pinturas y glifos; León-Portilla 2003, 42), pictography or pictographic documents (pictografía or documentos pictográficos) as a form of writing itself (Jansen 1988, 2012, 77; Doesburg 2008, 11; Oudijk 2008, among others), mixed system of writing and iconography, script signs, and pictographies (Urton 2011, 3; Boone 2011, 380) up to writing (Boone 2011, 379) and semasiography (Boone 2007, 30–31).

It would certainly be difficult to call this system writing if we apply the traditional definition of this concept, forged in the European context and in reference to the alphabetical system. Its origin can be found in Aristotle (2015, 2), who said written words are symbols of words spoken (cf. Coulmas 2003 [1997], 2; Hyman 2006, 240). Jean-Jacques Rousseau then followed with the statement languages are made to be spoken, writing serves only as a supplement to speech (apud Derrida 2008 [1967], 382; cf. Olson 2010 [1994], 123). Later came Ferdinand de Saussure (1915, 23), according to whom language and writing are two distinct systems of signs; the second exists for the sole purpose of representing the first,⁵ and Leonard Bloomfield (1933, 283–285), who defined writing as a form of writing down language. Nevertheless, it is more than evident that in their genesis, the world’s writing systems do not arise to represent language (Olson 2010 [1994], 42–43, 138–139; cf. Mikulska 2015, 243–244), and it is more than well-known that no writing reflects speech fully—or perfectly well (cf. Harris 1999 [1995], 135–141; Cardona 1999 [1981], 44; Battestini 2000 [1997], 30; Coulmas 2003 [1997], 199; Baines 2008 [2004], 177; Mikulska 2015, 199–210, among others). However, as Roy Harris (1999 [1995], 135) emphasizes, given that the aim of linguists of the twentieth century was a concern for phonological systems, whose analysis constituted the basis of their discipline from the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were interested in systems that provided information about the way in which the language studied is—or could have been—pronounced; hence the great success enjoyed by this linguistic definition (cf. Basso 1974, 425).

On the other hand, taking into account that theorists of writing do not have, in my opinion, sufficient data about how the original system of central Mesoamerica (understood as the region west of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec) operates in its entirety and what possibilities of transmitting information it offers, this is the first issue that must be remedied. Still more serious is the case of the systems that were used for communication across time and space in the Andean area. Although the intermediate and temporary solution I have used so far in calling the problematic American systems graphic communication systems (GCS) could be used, obviously, for non-glottographic Moche iconography or the tocapu system (see Clados, this volume), unfortunately it will not work with the khipu because of the epithet graphic and despite its profound degree of complexity. Certainly, this is the same objection that can be raised when labeling the Braille system, which is undeniably a glottographic system. This last comparison shows that possibly, on the one hand, no all-encompassing label will suffice and that, on the other hand, all absolute distinctions are fundamentally mistaken.

In my opinion, it is relevant to make comparisons with other problematic systems—that is, those that do not have the objective of reflecting language—that exist in the world, some of them sufficiently well described to make it possible to establish their formal characteristics and the possibilities of communication they offer. There is no doubt that only by having more data about graphic systems used outside the Western world, within which the definition of writing was formed, can the accuracy of this definition be discussed. It was with a similar objective, I believe, that Boone (1994, 9) proposed some years ago: An expanded epistemological view would, and should, allow all notational systems to be encompassed. If the indigenous American phenomena are to be considered objectively, a broader view is required. Later, she suggested that writing should be recognized and studied as a graphic communication system rather than as a speech-recording system (Boone 2008, 315). Similarly, Urton (2005, 28), speaking of the Andean khipu, proposed that we ought to drop the label ‘true writing’ and maintain a straightforward distinction between glottographic (both phonologically and nonphonologically based) and semasiographic (non-language-utterance-based) sign system[s] [ . . . ] The point on which differentiation between different types of signing/recording system[s] would turn (according to the perspective proposed here) is that of need, rather than intelligence.

I reiterate that in my opinion the focus of the discussion between researchers is not the nature of the graphic signs themselves, whether we are dealing with a single system or a mix of different systems and whether it–or they—can be included in the category of writing. And in this case, it is obvious that by accepting different definitions, the result will be different (cf. Mikulska 2008, 20–30, 43; Prem and Riese 1983, 167). On the other hand, certainly, all the writing systems of the world are in fact mixed systems (see Whittaker, this volume), or they are a