Tribal Art magazine - issue 95 - Aztec Shields at the Landesmuseum Württemberg

OBJECT history

By Agathe Torres

Xicalcoliuhqui chimalli, Feather Shields

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AZTEC SHIELDS

The term “feather shield” might seem self-contradictory. The shield, an object used for defense, necessitates rigidity and resistance, while feathers are known for their lightness and fragility. One might not think they would coexist, but they do in the case of chimalli, the Nahuatl word that designates such Aztec objects, of which only four are known. Two of them are held by the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart and are now the cornerstones for the presentation there of a comprehensive exhibition on Mexica culture.1

FIGS. 1 and 2 (left and below): Shields. Aztec; Mexico. C. 1520.

Wood, reeds, cotton fiber, rawhide, bird feathers. D: 71 and 75.5 cm.

Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, inv. KK orange 6, E 1402a–b. © Landesmuseum Württemberg.

Photos: Hendrik Zwietasch.

Their history, production, and uses are examined in the following paragraphs.

CONTEXT Aztec society was one of orders of warriors. This was heavily emphasized in the centuries that followed the Conquest, and the Mexica people were long represented as bloodthirsty and violent. In truth, the Aztecs had a highly structured military and social hierarchy reflecting a host of precisely established criteria expressed in a codified iconographic system. Each class of warrior had a specific type

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of uniform, the tlahuiztli,2 made up of cotton armor, a helmet or headpiece, and a shield bearing insignia. This light and colorful uniform was a ceremonial costume that was worn at political and religious events. The chimalli feather shields under discussion here were part of this outfit.

The hierarchical structure of warrior classes was mirrored in other aspects of Aztec society. Like warriors, craftsmen were structured by specialty.

Those who did the featherwork, including the creation of these shields, which are among the most beautiful and refined works produced by the ancient Mexica Empire, were called amanteca, and they were among the highest ranking of craftsmen. We know little about the workshops in which these pieces were produced, but the few examples that have survived clearly display a very high level of technical mastery on the part of the highly qualified artisans who created them. The specialized skills for producing such objects were transmitted across generations from father to son. From an iconographic point of view, all known feather shields, whether figurative or abstract, evince elaborate decorative designs. The two shields in Stuttgart are distinctive for their geometric designs that have a modern look to our eyes, though they are readily identifiable as characteristically Aztec. The composition, the vivacity of the colors, the opposition between the angles, and the roundness of the armature combine with the iridescence of the feathers to give these objects a unique quality.

These two shields are xicalcoliuhqui chimalli, or “step-fret� examples and are notably similar to those illustrated in the Codex Mendoza.

TECHNIQUE The two Stuttgart shields are each about 70 centimeters in diameter and each is so light that it can be held up supported by just a single finger.

This is remarkable for an object of such complex manufacture. In-depth study of the shields has made it possible to identify nine phases of production that resulted in the feather mosaic that adorns them.3 First, a support structure was made with maguey leaves and pasted cotton fibers. Then, beginning by drawing the design onto the support with pigment, the more common bird feathers were colored to get a first layer, the hues of which would correspond to

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those of the final layer. Rare bird feathers were selected on the basis of their color, texture, and iridescence. They were cut to fit into the design, pasted on, and adjusted as needed. On the back, the shield itself consisted of two layers of cordage reinforced by a rawhide strip and four crosspieces of reed. The combination of these different techniques gives these objects both the utility and the beauty of their design, along with the textural variety and the nuances of color that characterize their surfaces.

The colors of the feathers are an essential part of the shields’ iconographic symbolism. Texture, color, luminosity, and iridescence play a fundamental part in the composition of designs, and the Mexica workshops used the feathers of more than twenty different kinds of birds. Many of

finding and preserving feathers, which are so delicate and easily damaged, added to the prestige of the creations for which they were used. Nearly 26,500 feathers were needed to produce a single shield. When one takes into account the technical sophistication, the amount and rarity of raw materials needed, and the distances at which these were sourced, along with the technical mastery of the artists who produced them, one can begin to comprehend the context of nobility that surrounded the manufacture of these shields.

the feathers that were used came from species that inhabited areas far from the workshops of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Thanks to a highly developed trade network, known as the pochteca, the Aztec ruler was able to import such materials from the most tropical regions of the empire. Some birds were even brought back alive and kept in captivity in workshops or in the royal zoo as a source for raw materials for the craftsmen. Naturally, the difficulties involved in

ria de México, and another is at the Weltkulturen Museum in Vienna (fig. 5). In their original states, these shields must have been stunningly beautiful, and that fact was not lost on the conquistadors. Featherwork objects fascinated the Europeans because they had an exotic quality and no equivalent on their own continent.4 The feather quickly became an iconographic symbol for the representation of the Americas. It is thought that nearly 150 shields of this kind could have been

FIG. 3 (left): Figure of the deity Quetzalcoatl. Aztec; Mexico. Early 16th century.

Greenstone, coral or spondylus.

H: 22.8 cm.

Landesmuseum Württemberg Stuttgart, inv. E 1403. © Landesmuseum Württemberg.

Photo: Hendrik Zwietasch.

A FRAGMENTED HISTORY It is interesting to note that four of the six Aztec feather objects that are known to have survived to the present day are shields. One is still in its land of origin at the Museo Nacional de Histo-

FIG. 4 (above): Drawing for the procession of Duke Friedrich I of Württemberg (r. 1593–1608) at the tournament of 1599. Leaf 6: Friedrich I in the costume of the “Queen of the Americas,” 1602.

Stiftung Weimar, Museen, inv. KK 207. © Hannes Bertram.

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OBJECT HISTORY FIG. 5 (right): Feather shield with a representation of a coyote.

Aztec; Mexico. C. 1500.

Feathers, reeds, gold, leather. H: 78 cm.

KHM-Museumsverband, Weltmuseum Wien, inv. 43.380. © KHM-Museumsverband.

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brought to Europe. Unfortunately, their fragility made it impossible for them to survive what must have been in most cases deplorable storage and conservation conditions. Although it is difficult to date them precisely, it can be surmised that the two Stuttgart shields were manufactured in the decades that immediately preceded the conquest of Mexico in 1521.5 We do not know exactly what path they followed from one shore of the Atlantic to the other. However, we do know that they were used in a kind of carnival parade, the “Queen of the Americas,” put on by Frederick I, the Duke of Württemberg, in 1599. There is a 1602 representation of this parade, in which the two shields are clearly identifiable (fig. 4). They are believed to have been in the collection of the landsknecht Nicolas Ochsenbach of Castle Hohentübingen at the time.

It is difficult to follow their trajectory through time due to repeated inaccuracies and gaps in various inventories. Nonetheless, mention is made in 1642 of a “circular indigenous shield” in the inventory of the kunstkammer (curiosity cabinet) in Stuttgart. After a brief stay in the city’s numismatic collections around 1870, they wound up in the collections of the Württemberg Association for Commercial Geography, the predecessor of the Linden Museum.

In 1911, they would be cornerstones for the founding of the museum before being definitively returned to Württemberg. In short, their story is one of so many comings and goings that it is nearly miraculous that they have been handed down to us in such a remarkable state of preservation.

NOTES 1. The term “Mexica” was used to designate those people who were later called “Aztec,” an approximation of the term they used to refer to themselves. In this article, both terms are used interchangeably to designate the population of the empire in Central Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

2. There are representations of these uniforms in the manuscript sources. One of particular note shows a warrior carrying a shield and appears in the Codex Mendoza, which was written in 1541.

3. According to Laura Filloy Nadal and Marìa Olvido Moreno Guzmán in an article titled “Precious Feathers and Fancy Fifteenth-Century Feathered Shields,” published in 2017.

4. The Europeans were, moreover, fascinated by the techniques, since they copied and used them to create religious retables made of feathers. A few of these quintessentially syncretic pieces have survived—for example, the Mass of Saint Gregory of 1539 at the Musée des Jacobins in Auch.

5. It is impossible to definitively rule out the possibility of post-colonial production.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Filloy Nadal, Laura and Marìa Olvido Moreno Guzmán, “Precious Feathers and Fancy Fifteenth-Century Feathered Shields,” in Deborah L. Nichols, Frances F. Berdan, and Michael E. Smith (eds.), Rethinking the Aztec Economy, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2017.

Kurella, Doris; Martin Berger; and Inés Castro (eds.), Azteken, exhibition catalog, in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), Mexico, Hirmer, 2019.

Méchin, Colette (ed.), De la plume et de ses usages, Journée d’étude de la société d’ethnozootechnie, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, May 22, 2014.

Russo, Alessandra; Gerhard Wolf; and Diana Fane, Images Take Flight: Feather Art in Mexico and Europe, 1400– 1700, Hirmer, 2015.

AZTEKEN Azteken (Aztecs), an exhibition at the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, is on view until May 3, 2020. It is a comprehensive show of hitherto unseen scope produced in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia de Mexico, the goal of which is to offer the most complete possible overview of Aztec society through artistic and utilitarian objects by exploring the cultural context in which they were created. The two shields are among the many important works in the show, along with a remarkable greenstone statuette, each a beautiful example of the highly developed Aztec iconographic canon. The exhibition, which is accompanied by an eponymous catalog, covers all aspects of Mexica society—political, economic, social, and religious—and puts special emphasis on recent discoveries and scientific research, as well as on the archaeological digs done at the Templo Mayor in Mexico.

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