160 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
Genaro García 30 can also be related to a culture of cer-
emonial feasting. The last pages of the document show
the products that the painters and sculptors were making:
elaborate painted cups and vessels (figures 7.9 and 7.10).
One of the vessel types that both painters and sculptors
participated in making is in the form of a bird, specifically
a duck, a water bird common in the valley. The rendering
of these vessels on the manuscript page bears similarity
to a ceramic vessel, probably from the Valley of Mexico,
now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New
York (figure 7.13). While the ceramic bird may represent a
native turkey or vulture, based on the shape of its beak, its
adornments are those of the water deities, and they include
a goggle-eyed mask like the one that Tlaloc wears, a paper
fan above its forehead (the amacuexpalli), and large rect-
angular earrings. This work, with its innovative form and
careful ceramic work and slip technique, gives us an idea of
the elegant objects that these feasts required and allows us
to surmise the social bonds that their gifting cemented, as
well as the latent water iconography.
We can pair Genaro García 30’s tantalizing visual evi-
dence of the elaborate elite feasting culture that Tehue-
tzquititzin maintained with other accounts, particularly a
lawsuit brought by the native community of commoners
who complained that they were unfairly taxed over the
years, both by their own lords and by Spanish officials. 52
Most of their complaints concerned the delivery of fod-
der or building materials, but they also claimed around
1555 that they were forced to pay extra monies so the lords
could celebrate the feast of San Pedro and San Pablo, the
feast day of Tehuetzquititzin’s parcialidad; the government
countered years later by saying that such payments were
entirely voluntary. 53 These payments show us the value of
the symbolic economy that the feasting culture gave rise to,
as well as the ways that elite celebrations were piggybacked
upon a new cycle of Catholic ritual. And following our dis-
cussion of “competitive generosity” in chapter 5, we can see
that feasts, whose traces we see in the Genaro García 30,
were important venues for Tehuetzquititzin to consolidate
the imperiled elite classes in the city, as well as build alli-
ances with indigenous elites outside the city, thereby keep-
ing up an expansive network of possible marriage partners
of similar status. 54 The outcome of his efforts at social
consolidation appears in a letter written May 2, 1556, two
years after his death. 55 In it, the leaders of the main valley
towns, from Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, Tlacopan, Tlatelolco,
Coyoacan, Ixtapalapa, and Ecatepec, came together in
Tlacopan to ask the king to protect them from the agravios
e molestias (aggravation and abuses) they received from the
valley’s resident Spaniards, and to appoint a protector to
live full-time in the city and keep the king apprised of their
situation. They went as far as suggesting the Dominican
firebrand Bartolomé de las Casas for the position. Such
elite alliances were not created overnight, and in this letter
we find evidence that Tehuetzquititzin’s feasting strategy
succeeded in consolidating alliances between the often-
quarrelsome leading families of the valley. The mainte-
nance of this feasting culture was crucial for the social
adherence of the city’s native elite, at the same time that it
was increasingly taxing to the shrinking tributary base.esTeban de guzmán and The TecPan
Tehuetzquititzin is the last ruler for whom we have any
record of consecration in the old style. With the departure
of Viceroy Antonio Mendoza in 1550, Tehuetzquititzin
lost the man with whom he had embarked on an internal
conquest, most likely a key ally and protector. The appoint-
ment of Viceroy Luis de Velasco, who arrived in the city
in 1550, brought a new era, and Tehuetzquititzin did not
survive long. Velasco energetically took up the cause of
tribute reform, and although his goal was often to protect
indigenous charges against excessive exploitation by Span-
ish encomenderos, in the case of Mexico City, he also inter-
ceded between the city’s population and their native lord.
He made the extraordinary appointment of don Esteban
de Guzmán, an indigenous man who had previously served
the viceroy as a judge for indigenous affairs, to conduct the
residencia investigation of the governorship of Tehuetz-
quititzin in 1553 or 1554. While Genaro García 30 was part
of this inquiry, no final report ever seems to have been
filed because this (relatively) long-seated ruler died dur-
ing it. Velasco quickly named Guzmán as interim ruler in
June of 1554, giving him the title “juez-gobernador.” 56 But
unlike earlier gobernadores, Guzmán had no connection to
the Mexica ruling line or even with the city itself, instead
coming from Xochimilco, a town some twelve miles to the
south of Tenochtitlan. This appointment was a significant
event in the valley, and its importance led it to be recorded
in a number of native pictorial histories of the era. 57
If we used the featherwork The Mass of Saint Gregory
to give us an image of how Huanitzin, the city’s first gober-
nador, imagined the city under his reign, we can derive a
wholly different picture by looking at a manuscript about