The Mexican Codex as Conceptual Model Jessamyn Miller | Midterm Paper | Conceptual Models | March 3, 2010
Huexotzinco Codex, 1531.
Two folding pages of Nuttall Codex, Mixtec, Postclassic. British Museum. Michel Wal
T
he native Indians of central Mexico once produced a type of document, today called the codex, which was a long folding paper screen with detailed painted images on both sides. They created these graphical documents to communicate history and genealogy, well before the presence of European colonizers. These histories were initially used for political and ideological establishment among the conflicting Mexican indigenous groups of the day. Later, after the Spanish arrived, the documents were used as a way of maintaining Indian identity in negotiations with the colonizers. By the 1500s, codices recorded Indian census data and kept accounts of taxes (known as tributes) paid to Spanish colonial administrators. I will explore these Mexican codices as conceptual models as viewed through the lens of Horst Rittel, Werner Kunz, and Donald Grant in order to appreciate their role as documents of political and rhetorical purpose. Some codices even travelled to Europe and were the critical voice of the Indians in the Spanish colonial system. In contrast with many North American Indians, who had no writings of their own and relied
on English accounts to record their history, the Mesoamerican Indians were able to communicate details about their language and society that reinforced their position within the New World. I have researched three codices from central Mexico of similar origin: The Huexotzinco Census, the Huexotzinco Codex, and the Nuttall Codex. In class discussions, we have defined conceptual models as being vehicles for purposeful communication, displaying an organized way of thinking and developed for common understanding. Conceptual models are quantitative visual designs that facilitate the sharing of knowledge and exemplify the relationship between the parts of a larger whole entity. Using these criteria, I propose that the Mexican codex is a genre of conceptual model and merits the attention of the design community. From their non-linear physical structure to their pictorial techniques, codices were intended for sharing and explaining information across time in the visual language of their people. The codex was a political tool, authored with a subjective hand. PreConquest depictions reinforced the divine ancestry of
Indian leaders while post-Conquest ones asserted the legitimacy of Indian society, precisely recording names, occupations and goods produced. The Nuttall Codex is a pre-Conquest document whose exact age is not known. (Nuttall, x). Unlike the Huexotzinco Census and Codex, it shows no traces of Spanish clothing, image styles such as shading or three dimensional objects, and was authored by the Mixtec people of central Mexico, (xi). The document is also a screen fold, with 47 double-sided pages. Reading begins in the lower right hand corner and moves up and down across the page, guided by red vertical lines.
and social function. Realistic icons, abstract symbols and even phonetic images are combined to cement an association between these powerful men and their gods, creating an indisputable historical and mythical past for the culture (xii). To explain ancient events, the Nuttall Codex uses systematic sequences of familiar images and symbols, (xv). Names of rulers are recorded using the calendar, where dots represent days and animal faces represent months, thus creating the birthdate and given name of the individual, (xvi). Realistic depictions of animal and human sacrifice, religious ritual and detailed clothing and ornamentation convey larger stories of family genealogy and important historical events.
The document portrays the genealogy and history of Mixtec rulers from about one thousand years ago, (xv). A stylized, explanatory mode of drawing shows human figures in two dimension, without specific facial features, using costume and accessories to indicate rank
Echoing this idea of using the familiar to communicate the unfamiliar, Werner Kunz and Horst Rittel outline their criteria for effective information systems in “How to Know What is Known: Designing Crutches for Communication.” “Information is a change of
Huexotzinco Codex, 1531. Plaintiff testimony and pictographs of the products and services provided as tribute. American Treasures of the Library of Congress
somebody’s knowledge,” and so information systems must begin by tapping into what the individual already knows, (Kunz and Rittel, 51). Systems should respect and employ a person’s existing body of knowledge so they can accept new information. The ideal information system is a “mirror of one’s understanding,” (58). These recognizable images provide the “confirmation system,” which “reinforce the ego,” or identity, of the viewer (57). Establishing and codifying the origins of the past culture in terms of the symbols of the present, the Codex allows the literate viewer to be “reminded of what is forgotten” over centuries of change, (58). The Huexotzinco Codex was authored by the Nahua Indians in 1531, as a claim against the heavy tributes they paid under corrupt Spanish administrators, (Library of Congress).The Codex is an eight sheet, illustrated depiction of precise counts of corn, turkeys, chili peppers, beans, bricks, lumber, limestone, and woven cloth. A Nahuatl (the language of the Nahua) numbering system is used to indicate amounts from 20 to 8,000 items paid as tax. The Codex was used as evidence in a legal case of the Nahua Indians together with Hernán Cortés against the administrators, accusing them of levying excessive tax. The Indians were Cortés’ political allies against the Aztec and were part of his estate. The case was tried in Mexico, then in Spain, where King Charles of Spain ruled in favor of the Cortés and the Indians, who were awarded partial compensation of their tributes in 1538. Now, let’s take a look at a relevant theory of design to help us see this codex as a conceptual model of its time. In his discussion of the “Issue-Based Information System (IBIS),” Donald Grant identifies the philosophy behind this decision-making tool. “The best world is one in which nobody plans for, in behalf of, or at anybody else,” (Grant, 212). IBIS meticulously documents the origin and resolution of problems from multiple points of view, (203). Each controversial issue has explicit positions, arguments in support of those positions and references to support the arguments, (204). The system seeks to thoroughly record the argument in hopes of avoiding “specious logic” and artful persuasion in favor of logical decision-making, (206). The Huexotzinco Codex is an example of this calculated, rational approach to presenting contentious information. The Codex traced thousands of individual items with such clarity and precision, that the Nahuatl document could be read across cultures, in a Spanish court of law, (Library of Congress). The Indians authored
the codex as a tangible representation of their argument against oppressive tributary. They relied on the accurate documentation of their payments, in a debate where they could not compete with social status or verbal persuasion. This account represented a larger story of an Indian battle against colonial corruption, sending a message to the Spanish that the Indians were shrewdly keeping track of their new government. The Huexotzinco Census of 1560 was a much larger, 562page codex, created as a comprehensive head-count of the native population of Huexotzinco and surrounding areas. The Spanish were again encountering trouble collecting tributes, and sought to standardize the system as it had been in the past--under the defeated Aztec ruler Montezuma, who also collected tributes from his conquered subjects. This census was later used as a dictionary for historians translating Nahuatl and Spanish documents, as the codex is largely bilingual, including traditional iconography, Spanish script, and Nahuatl language in Latin script. The National Library of Anthropology and History in Mexico City calls this codex, “a gold mine of information on [Nahua] economics, social organization, linguistics, lineage, genealogy, history and art history,” (Aguilera, 531). The census was successful in stabilizing the amount of tax collected in the area to a pre-existing Aztec system, and was even used to prevent future attempts to raise taxes in the region, thus protecting the Indians from further exploitation. To analyze design as a statement of advocacy, Horst Rittel discusses the process of modeling and decision making that determine the outcome of a designer’s work in “The Reasoning of Designers.” Rittel says that designers start with a plan, which is born of the constraints imposed by society, politics and the designer herself (Rittel, 1). “The designer’s reasoning appears as a process of argumentation,” where competing interests must be answered or rejected by the designer’s choices (3). The Huexotzinco census is an illustration of this struggle to satisfy multiple points of view, as the scribes who created it identified and defined their own people using traditional communication, yet simultaneously sealed their indebtedness to their Spanish conquerors (Aguilera, 530). The Census was a political compromise, and was designed to reflect and revive the preConquest tribute amounts while documenting the social structure of the Nahua people. Rittel argues against the notion that designers can ever be neutral. “Design
A page from the Huexotzinco Census A couple presides over two rows of individuals. Again we find the nameglyphs in front of the heads and the occupation in the back: a block for a stone cutter and sandals for a sandal maker, for example. The stone cutter has a glyph in front that says “chamil,” or field of flowers.The kind of bonnet appearing on the heads of some men indicates that they are landowners and so able to pay more taxes than a simple farmhand. Apparently the only colonial glyph on this page is the trumpet in the second row of the left column; the European metal instrument has been substituted for the native wooden or clay one. “The Matricula de Huexotzinco: A Pictorial Census from New Spain,” Aguilera (540). is subjective…designers are actors in the application of power,” (Rittel, 6). In this comprehensive account of the population, the Indians are arguing for their own place in the colonial system, with its responsibilities and protections. Without this document to assert their tributary customs, they could have been even more vulnerable to the whims of the abusive administrators. Mexican Codices could be thought of as early infographics, combining the preservation and transfer of knowledge, accounts of economic data, and assertions of social power. Always political in nature, these designs were complex, painstaking works that reflected distinct points of view in Indian society and were intended for communal understanding. Modern design theory can help us identify these rhetorical elements, tracing our roots as designers even further into the past.
Bibliography Aguilera, Carmen. “The Matricula de Huexotzinco: A Pictorial Census from New Spain.” Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 4 (1996), pp. 529-541. Class Discussion. Department of Design, S11-51383. Conceptual Models. Carnegie Mellon University. Fall 2011. Grant, Donald P. “Issue-Based Information System (IBIS),” Chapter 6, in Group Planning and Problem-Solving Methods in Engineering Management, Shirley A. Olsen, 203-246. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1982. Kunz, Werner and Rittel, Horst. “How to Know What is Known: Designing Crutches for Communication” (paper presented at the Proceedings of the Fifth International Research Forum in Information Science (IRFIS 5), Heidelberg, F.R.G., September 5-7, 1983. Library of Congress. “Huexotzinco Codex, 1531.” Last modified July 27, 2010. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/ trt045.html Nuttall, Zelia, editor, The Codex Nuttall: A Picture Manuscript from Ancient Mexico. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1975. Rittel, Horst W.J. “The Reasoning of Designers.” Arbeitspapier zum International Congress on Planning and Design Theory in Boston, August 1987. Stuttgart: Institut für Grundlagen der Planung, Universität Stuttgart, 1988. Wal, Michel. “Codex Zouche-Nuttall 01.jpg” (photograph) Wikipedia. http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Codex_ Zouche-Nuttall_01.jpg Wikipedia. “Nahuatl.” Last modified February 22, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahuatl