axes in The ciTy • 171instance, in 1588, the gobernador of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
tried to compel Ixtacalco, an outlying town that was one of
Mexico-Tenochtitlan’s dependents off the island, to come
and march in the Holy Thursday procession, an implicit
reaffirmation of their dependent status. 12
Mendieta continues with descriptions of the three pro-
cessions that emerged from San José on Holy Thursday, on
Good Friday, and then on Easter morning, the most sacred
days of the Christian calendar:
On Holy Thursday, the procession of [the cofradía of ]
Veracruz was held, with more than two hundred thou-
sand Indians as well as three thousand penitents, with
two hundred twenty nine insignias of Christ and of His
Passion. On Good Friday, the procession of [the cofradía
of the Virgin of ] Soledad was held, with more than seven
thousand seven hundred adherents, by count, with insig-
nias of the [Virgin of ] Soledad. On the morning of the
Resurrection, the procession of [the cofradía of ] San José
was held with two hundred and thirty beautiful golden
platforms [andas] carrying images of Our Lord and Our
Lady and other saints. Joining in the procession were all
the members of both the cofradías mentioned above of
Veracruz and Soledad (which is a great number) in great
order and with wax candles in their hands; in addition
to them, on all sides, innumerable numbers of men and
women, almost all carrying wax candles. 13In the first part of the description, we find abundant evi-
dence of what Mendieta is asking us to find: the unstinting
embrace of Catholic practice by New Spain’s indigenous
peoples. The procession, with its multitude of sacred stat-
ues and images borne aloft above the slowly moving crowd,
would have been familiar to any Spanish reader who had
witnessed the urban festivals of Holy Week in Seville or
Madrid. In fact, at another point in the narrative, Mendieta
says that at the worship within one of the chapels of San
José, this one devoted to San Diego, the traffic of devotees
equaled that to his shrine in Alcalá, Spain. 14
But the images in the Holy Week procession of Mexico-
Tenochtitlan were of a different order. Some of them
would certainly have been statues and likely ones made out
of an interior armature of reed and finished with a papier-
mâché-like exterior; Mendieta praises the work indigenous
artisans did after encountering images from Flanders and
Italy: “There was not a single retablo or image, as excellent
that it might be, that they did not imitate or copy [retraten
y contrahagan]; whether it be in the round, of wood or of
bone, they worked it so carefully and skillfully, and being
so remarkable, they were sent to Spain, just as they sent the
hollow crucifixes made of reed, that although are the size
of a large man, even a child could carry one.” 15 Also seen in
New Spain, but likely not to be found in many European
processions, were images made of feathers or clothed in
feathers, whose gleaming, iridescent surfaces suggested
their sacred quality. In his earlier account of Corpus Christi
in the city of Tlaxcala, the Franciscan Motolinia offers this
description: “The Most Holy Sacrament was processed,
along with many crosses and platforms bearing the statues
of saints. The drapes on the crosses and the decorations
of the platforms were all of gold and feather-work, upon
them many images fashioned of feathers and gold, which
would be more highly prized in Spain than brocade. There
were many banners of the Saints, and the Twelve Apostles
dressed with in their insignia.” 16 Some of these banners
would have been made out of feathers, an art form praised
by Mendieta. 17 Other sources testify to the public use of
feathers in religious processions: in 1565 in Mexico City,
the merchants’ guild placed a great quetzalapanecayotl, or
standard made of the gleaming feathers of the quetzal bird,
over the supporting platform upon which a statue of San
Francisco was carried. 18 Banners and images were also
made of flowers, also noted with admiration by Mendieta:
“And it is worth noting that just as these artisans make
works of feathers, they also make other images, which are
common and not so greatly esteemed, out of roses and
flowers of diverse colors, and they do no more or less than
create images of saints, and coats-of-arms, and placards,
or anything that they want, fixing the petals of flowers
and grasses with paste on a reed mat . . . and after they
have been used in the churches for which they are made
for use on holy days, Spaniards request them to place in
their homes, as they are perfect and devout images.” 19
Because the materials were so ephemeral and their use was
constant, only a few sixteenth-century works of feathers
survive from New Spain (none of flowers do); a work like
the featherwork The Mass of Saint Gregory, discussed in
chapter 5, was likely preserved because it left the country.
Maize-paste crucifixes have fared better.
One featherwork banner survives in a Mexican collec-
tion (the Museo Nacional del Virreinato), and while its
good state of preservation argues against its heavy pro-
cessional use, it nonetheless gives us a sense of what was
witnessed in these processions (figure 8.1). At 42 inches