Cempoala, the significant map of the Relaciones Geograficas
The Relaciones Geograficas is a series of maps that were drawn between “1578 to 1586”1 in response to “a questionnaire issued by the king of Spain in 1577 to survey the territories of the Spanish American in colonies.”2 Information that the Spanish crown asked for the local climate, geography, history, economy, and religion.”3 Relaciones Geograficas, or in short, RGs are being kept in different places. The map I have decided to work on, Cempoala, is kept in the University of Texas.
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Figure one: Map of Cempoala
This map depicts a region in the northeast of Mexico City. It is drawn on 67x81.5 cm paper and represents an area of about 600 square miles.
Figure 2: Map of approximate location of where located is Cemepoala nowadays
By looking closer at the map, you can see that it is drawn on 4 large sheets and 2 narrow ones, which were glued to each other.
Figure 3: Joint of glues sheets
“Native paper was unsized and flexible”5 and artists were using them in the size they wanted. Though, this map is drawn on “imported European papers”6 and is known for its smooth surface. One question that came to my mind is, they have received standard size sheets from Europe, why this artist had decided to use the European sheets and yet glue them together and make a bigger size? Was the area he had to cover extremely enormous? Was the painter using a previous map instead of making a new one? Or was he trying to disobey the newcomers and show his dissatisfaction to them? (in this case, by newcomer I mean Spanish people who had concurred their land) Talking about paper, I would like to compare the texture of this map, with the map from Culhuacan, which was drawn on locally made paper.
Figure 4: Map of Culhuacan Texture of the local paper7Map of Cempoala Texture of European Paper8
The map is rich in “indigenous iconography marking places, people, and topography.”9 The green conical shape with a head on top of it is a symbol of hill. “Pictographs on the map also represent the complexity of Cempoala’s colonial social and political order.”10 This map “offers little to show relationships to neighboring communities.”11 In my opinion it might have two reasons. Either the purpose of the map was to show the most critical points in the city or due to the importance of hierarchy in the colonial system of the government, the painter was ordered to overlook the features that are related to the ordinary people. Unlike many of RGs, you can not see any roads in the map. Red lines had “divided the map into neat rectangles of differing proportions. The lines seem to mark the divisions between the lands held by Cempoala’s fifteen calpol and four altepetl.”12 There are 3 types of people, based on their clothing and appearance, and there are two heads. One in the river and one on the top of the hill. Among all these people, there is only one person with a completely different look and appearance, who is “the Spanish official”13 and seated in a chair. One group of people is “local Nahua rulers in noble cloaks”14, and the other group seems to be "Otomi natives"15 who are easily distinguishable based on their clothing. By looking closer at the last two groups, you can deduce by their appearances that they are native to this ares. My questions about these people are, are they in random places (like personajes that nowadays are drawn on architectural documents)? Or the painter just showed a ballpark place of the people that he saw? Who is that person in the river? Is he swimming or sinking? Had the painter saved him? Was his job related to the water, like maybe he was a fisherman? Or maybe like the head on the top of the hill, this was a symbol of something that is not discovered yet. The other head on top of the hill is a head of a Totonac, an indigenous group native to Cempoala.
Figure 5:
Figure 6: The only nobleman on the map (the one who is in purple) and an example of a religious authority8
Figure 7: An indigenous person drawn on the map8
I didn’t rotate the last 3 photos on purpose, as it is the next point I am going to talk about. The map is not drawn like the maps that are drawn nowadays. Like, google Maps, which is like a planned view of the city. It is like someone had stood in the middle of the place, and drawn whatever she or he had seen. There are 3 different directions, you need to look at the direction of buildings to understand what I mean.
Figure 8: One of the two heads in the map8
Figure 9: Different directions of buildings shown on the map
1. “Relaciones Geograficas”. Ut austin.maps.arcgis https://utaustin.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=b43ddf4e011646a58 404162d4cddc1c8
2. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History – UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020. https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
3. Mundy, Barbara. “Mapping Babel: A Sixteenth Century Indigenous Map from Mexico”. The Appendix, October 01, 2013. Page 10. https://archive.org/details/TheAppendix OffTheMap 1 4/page/n11/mode/2up
4. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020. https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
5. Mundy, Barbara. “Mapping Babel: A Sixteenth Century Indigenous Map from Mexico”. The Appendix, October 01, 2013. Page 12. https://archive.org/details/TheAppendix OffTheMap 1 4/page/n11/mode/2up
6. Mundy, Barbara. “Mapping Babel: A Sixteenth Century Indigenous Map from Mexico”. The Appendix, October 01, 2013. Page 12. https://archive.org/details/TheAppendix OffTheMap 1 4/page/n11/mode/2up
7. "Pintura de Culhuacan Collections". University of Texas Libraries Collections. https://collections.lib.utexas.edu/catalog/utblac:d5ddf214 248e 462f acdc 81d27463226f
8. “Pintura De Cempoala.” University of Texas Libraries Collections. https://collections.lib.utexas.edu/catalog/utblac:b35a74c8 358b 4192 8c61 9668332985dd
9. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020. https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
10. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020.
https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
11. Mundy, Barbara E. “The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones geográficas”. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Page 177.
12. Mundy, Barbara E. “The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones geográficas”. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Page 128.
13. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020.
https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
14. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020.
https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas
15. “The ‘Relaciones Geograficas’”. Mapping Mexican History UT Libraries Exhibits, October 01, 2020.
https://exhibits.lib.utexas.edu/spotlight/mapping mexican history/feature/the relaciones geograficas