axes in The ciTy • 185more territory and more such tribute into Tenochtitlan;
thus they were intimately associated with the relentless
cycle of Mexica military expansion. 77 In fact, the particular
costumes shown in the Tlatelolco Codex, that of a colored
eagle and an ocelot, were even more strongly linked to
pre-Hispanic military prowess, as eagle and ocelot knights
were the two most elite castes of warriors. 78
Two of the dancers in the Tlatelolco Codex wear similar
ocelot costumes over their heads and bodies, but they are
different in that they are not full bodysuits, but are more
like hooded (or headed) capes, draped over the shoul-
ders. It is worth recalling that feathered suits were among
the few seamed garments created by the pre-Hispanic
Nahua, for in general, indigenous clothing was made of
uncut cloth because cutting and seaming fabric weakens
its overall structure. In these dance costumes, armholes
with sleeves, the part of a garment most likely to wear out,
do not appear, and instead, feather “wings” cover the seam
where the armholes may have once been.
This scene in the Tlatelolco Codex, then, offers us valu-
able insight into the hybrid performance culture of Mexico
City; on the surface, it renders the oath celebration with
the pairing of two visually equivalent orders: above, the
royal and church officials are seated on the raised platform,
as they swear on the open book held by the archbishop,
with turquoise speech scrolls marking the oaths emerging
from their mouths; below, the indigenous gobernadores are
seated on their individual tepotzoicpalli, but they are not
shown taking the translated oath in Nahuatl, as no speech
scrolls emerge. Instead, they are linked to the performers
of the mitote that appear below. But here the conceptual
alignment between the Spanish celebration and the indig-
enous one is pulled off axis by the timeworn associations
of the mitote and the necessary feathered costumes. In the
mitote, it was indigenous rulership being performed, with
its overtones of potency and military prowess. Taking place
in the Plaza Mayor, the 1557 mitote reasserted indigenous
presence in this ancient sacred space.
eLiTes veRsus commoneRs
in mexico-TenochTiTLan
The Tlatelolco Codex shows us the mitote being used in a
particularly indigenous interpretation of the oath of alle-
giance, a continuance of one of the ways, in addition to
public feasting and gifting, that rulers in the pre-Hispanic
period made a public spectacle of their rule. And just like
a public feast, the mitotes became a flashpoint for the ten-
sions between commoners in the city and the indigenous
nobility. Such conflicts surface in the available record at
moments when the Crown government called for some
kind of investigation, as when Viceroy don Luis de Velasco
sent the indigenous judge don Esteban de Guzmán to the
tecpan in 1553 or 1554 to investigate reports of abuse by
Tehuetzquititzin, as seen in chapter 7. When, nine or ten
years later, in 1563, the Crown dispatched Gerónimo de
Valderrama to serve as general inspector, his visit blew the
top off the volcanic caldron of valley politics. All sectors
of the city, from the most powerful encomendero down to
humble Nahua bakers, vented their grievances; eventu-
ally his presence led to riot and insurrection. By 1564, the
year after his arrival, a group of native commoners were
in active pursuit of a lawsuit against the native officers of
their cabildo, claiming that the alcaldes and regidores had
abused their offices for self-enrichment and were leading
lives of vice. Notably, two of the nineteen complaints they
presented in 1564 had to do with mitotes:VII. Item, the seventh [charge] is that when the afore-
named alcaldes and regidores perform their mitotes, they
are accustomed to dress themselves in the suits and accou-
terments that their ancestors used to customarily wear
and dress themselves when they performed idolatry and
human sacrifice, and this cannot be permitted given the
office they hold . . .
XIII. Item, the thirteenth is that those aforenamed
alcaldes and regidores demand during the [festival] season
that a certain amount of money be collected from each
craftsman in each of the parcialidades, so that they can
make feathered costumes and other objects of feathers to
be used in their mitotes. And each [feather] piece costs fifty
or sixty pesos. And when the mitote is to be performed,
they give or rent out these feathered [costumes] to single
young men so that they might appear in the mitote and
impress the women who come to see the dance, and those
that rent [the costumes] give the alcaldes and regidores
money and Castilian wine for the feast day, and they in
turn distribute the money that they had collected from the
commoners and the artisans. 79The charges were calculated ones, as are any in a lawsuit,
specifically crafted to draw on actual events that would
appeal to the sympathies and prejudices of the presid-
ing judge. Item seven reveals two features of the mitote