Recataloged to 17-379a-c

Museum number:

3-583

Permalink:

ark:/21549/hm21030000583

Alternate number:

17-379a-c (museum number (recataloged to))

Accession number:

Acc.59

Description:

Verso of original: Facsimile painting of a codex (the Genealogy of Quauhquechollan Macuilxochitepec). Signed in lower right corner, " Copeo/ Genaro Blacio/1902/Puebla Mexico

Donor:

Phoebe Apperson Hearst

Collection place:

Puebla city, Puebla, Mexico

Maker or artist:

Genaro Blacio

Collector:

Zelia Nuttall

Collection date:

unknown

Object type:

ethnography

Object class:

Placeholder record (no associated object)

Production date:

1902

Accession date:

1902

Department:

Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean area

Dimensions:

whole— height 86 centimeters and whole— width 83.5 centimeters

Title:

Genealogy of Quauhquechollan Macuilxochitepec (Title)

Comment:

Summary by Jessica Stair, 04/26/16 This copy, along with a copy of a large-scale lienzo (3-582, recataloged to 17-379a-c), was made by artist Genaro Blacio in Puebla in 1902. The original genealogy and lienzo were created in the 16th century and are currently held in the Museo Casa de Alfeñique. The recto (3-584) and verso (3-583) sides are painted on two different pieces of canvas. The copies were commissioned by Zelia Nuttall for the Museum in Berkeley. Another copy of the genealogy was made at the time. It was painted on two separate pieces of hide and now resides in the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Glass (1964) states that the museum purchased it from Nuttall in 1904. There are two other copies of the genealogy at the Bibliotéca Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. One copy is painted on both sides of a deer skin and measures 82 x 79 cm. The artist and date are unknown. It was donated to the Museum by Ignacio Gorozpe in 1940. The other copy is now lost, but the inventory of 1934 lists a Códice de Cuaquechollan, on paper with the dimensions of 85 x 87 cm. It is labeled as number 17 in the inventory. It is possible that this copy is the one that the artist Luis Garcés made of a manuscript of Cuauhquechollan in 1892 that was not sent to the exhibition of Madrid. Another copy was made by Rodolfo Barthez in 1933, but it is now lost. Information about the original genealogy: Other names for it include the Códice Huaquechula and the Códice de Guaquechula. The substrate of the original is deer skin, and it is painted on both sides. The size of the original is 83 x 80 cm. In 1892, the genealogy along with the Lienzo de Quahquechollan was in the collection of the Academia de Pintura de Puebla. We do not know where they were before this time, although it is possible that the genealogy was in the collection of José Manso around 1848. Both the lienzo and genealogy were later moved to the Casa de Alfeñique. Description of the Content (summarized from Asselbergs, pp. 49–55) The verso side depicts a map. It was painted later because the style shows three-dimensionality. The upper part shows the river Huitzilac with a mountainous area behind it with trees. One large mountain in the center is glossed Cuauhquechollan. A pole extending from its slope identifies the hill as the Macuilxochitepetl/Cerro San Miguel (which today still has a pole). The pole was and still is used by voladores (dancers attached to the pole with a rope while flying through the air). Voladores still perform on this mountain during a regional festival known as the Atlixcayotl. The area above the river on the map can be identified as Acapetlahuacan. Below the river are boundary markers (most of which are trees) along the edge of the document. One boundary is a hill with a tree and another is a rock with a face on it. This may be the “Piedra Mascara,” which is a large stone that has a face carved on it. It is situated southeast of the modern Quauhquechollan and it 7.8 m from a modern concrete boundary marker. These boundaries likely represented those of the new Quauhquechollan. The genealogy was likely composed to establish rights and authority of the dynasty and to legitimize its makers’ position on the basis of their descent from a founder of the altepetl. The document may have been copied from a pre-Hispanic manuscript. It likely originally served within the indigenous sphere but may have also been used in a Spanish context.

Images:

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