A construção de uma tradição mexica : o passado pré-hispânico e o presente colonial na crônica de Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc na virada para o século XVII

Abstract

The Crónica Mexicana by Fernando Alvarado Tezozómoc, written at the end of the 16th century, narrates the departure of the mexicas from Aztlan - their city of origin - and the centuries they traveled until they settled in Tenochtitlán. The formation of the Triple Alliance between the cities of Tenochtitlán, Texcoco, and Tlacopan and the development of the Mexicas as a political and military power in the Central Valley region of Mexico and Mesoamerica. The author in his chronicle also addresses the beginnings of Spanish colonization in present-day Mexico. It is important to situate our reader that the chronicle revolves around a central character, the Mexican elite and nobility, and it is from this social place that Tezozómoc belongs. Bearing this in mind, it is worth noting the disruption that indigenous societies suffered with the colonization process, this disruption affected all aspects of these people's lives and daily lives, as well as their forms of government. Therefore, we believe that Tezozómoc, when narrating his chronicle emphasizing a specific layer of society and being himself belonging to that layer, and considering the loss of privileges of indigenous nobles over the years that followed the colonizing action, he does so with the intention of to legitimize their social place in this scenario. The present work seeks to analyze how Tezozómoc in his Crónica Mexicana builds a mexica tradition from his narrative, observing in his report the marks of his presence that could help us to reflect and respond to the proposed problem. The analysis is based on the notion of a tradition employed by the Anthropologist Gérard Lenclud (2013), where tradition starts and is shaped according to the needs of the present. To answer the problem, readings and analyzes of the chronicle were carried out together with the theoretical reflection about the mentioned concept of tradition, analyzing the chronicle and the selected excerpts specifically at each stage of the process. From this, it is possible to see the marks of the author's presence in his narrative and how he uses this to build a tradition that was by his social and political place at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century.