CHAPTER 13 THE INDIAN VOICE IN RECENT MESOAMERICAN LITERATURE 499The Sierra Nahuatl of Central Mexico
The text excerpt that is presented next comes from one of the first major Nahuatl
language testimonies transcribed in the twentieth century. The source is Fernando
Horcasitas’s transcription and translation of an oral historical account of the time of
the Mexican Revolution. Dictated by a virtuoso narrator, Doña Luz Jiménez, the en-
tire large text from which the extract is taken (Life and Death in Milpa Alta: A Nahu-
atl Chronicle of Díaz and Zapata,originally published in Nahuatl and Spanish in 1968)
illustrates the extraordinary value of listening to historical accounts of key events
from diverse points of view.
The eyewitness perspective of the Mexican Revolution from the point of view of
a small Nahua village will make any “authentic” version of this event seem just that:
official history. In particular, Doña Luz Jiménez’s account reveals that President Por-
firio Díaz (on Díaz, see Box 7.6 in Chapter 7), known to most of the revolutionaries
(and to most modern Mexicans) as a ruthless dictator and hated symbol of the old
order, was in fact well respected in her village. Furthermore, Emiliano Zapata, the
great revolutionary leader of central and southern Mexico (see Chapter 8), emerges
from Doña Luz’s chronicle with mixed reviews: handsome and well-spoken, but nev-
ertheless responsible for actions and policies that she finds reprehensible.
Here begins her account of how the first events related to the Revolution came
to Milpa Alta, located in the mountains just south of Mexico City:
The heavens did not thunder to warn us that the tempest was coming. We knew nothing
about the storms nor about the owlish wickedness of men.
One day gunfire was heard between the hills of Teuhtla and Cuauhtzin. We were
told that it was the Federals fighting against the men of Morelos. There was a lot of shoot-
ing. It was the first time we had heard such a thing, and all of Milpa Alta trembled.
The men of Morelos kept passing through the village and it was said they were on
their way to Xochimilco. I do not know why they were against Porfirio Díaz.
These men from Cuernavaca and Tepoztlan spoke our language. They were only
peasants, and we did not know why the Federals were afraid of them.
This was the first thing we heard of the Revolution. One day a great man by the name
of Zapata arrived from Morelos. He wore good clothes—a fine broad hat and spats. He
was the first great man to speak to us in Nahuatl. All his men were dressed in white—
white shirts, white pants, and they all wore sandals. All these men spoke Nahuatl more or
less as we spoke it. Señor Zapata also spoke Nahuatl. When all these men entered Milpa
Alta, we understood what they said. Each of the Zapatistas carried pinned to his hat a pic-
ture of his favorite saint, so that the saint would protect him. Each bore a saint in his hat.
Zapata stood at the head of his men and addressed the people of Milpa Alta in the
following way: “Come join me! I have risen in arms, and I have brought my countrymen“What did you come for, my children?” they ask. “You have come so far, why did you
travel so far?” They answer, “We came to visit you so that we will know all, so that we will
have life.” “All right,” they say, “it is well,” and they bless them. And there they remain but
ten minutes, a very few minutes, to speak with Our Father, Our Grandfather, with all of them
there. And then the Mother gives them the blessing and they leave. (Reprinted from Barbara
G. Myerhoff, Peyote Hunt. Copyright 1974 by Cornell University. Used with permission of the
publisher, Cornell University Press.