210 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
the farther people were from the centers of Spanish power, the greater the extent to
which these indigenous names were maintained.
The historian James Lockhart has found that when native people did take on
Spanish surnames, their usage tended to correlate with social status. High-ranking
noble families sometimes adopted a name associated with the Spanish nobility, such
as Mendoza, Velasco, or Pimentel. Nobles also made frequent use of the Spanish
title “don” (or “doña” for women), prefixing this to their name: For example, don
Diego de Mendoza was the native ruler of Tlatelolco from 1549 to 1562. Somewhat
less prestigious were Spanish surnames derived from the Catholic religion, such as
de la Cruz (“of the Cross”) or San Miguel. And people of humbler status, or even no-
bles in smaller towns (such as the cabildomembers discussed in Box 5.2), might have
as their second name a typical saint’s name (without the San or Santa), such that in
effect they had two first names: Ana Juana, Pedro Martín. Last names of this sort
were less likely to be passed along as family surnames.
One European institution that proved enormously popular with native
Mesoamericans was the Catholic custom of godparenthood. In standard Church
practice, a child is sponsored at baptism by a couple who then share the parents’ re-
sponsibility for the child’s religious education and, if necessary, material needs. As
this institution was adapted by Mesoamericans, these ritual kinship ties came to focus
less on the relationship between child and godparents and more on the relationship
between the two adult couples. The practice is therefore called compadrazgo,or “co-
parenthood.” Adults linked in this manner call each other compadres,“coparents” or
“cofathers,” and comadres,“comothers.”
We can easily understand why this institution proved useful to the native people. The
recurrent epidemics left many people widowed or orphaned. Men were often away from
home for long periods because of repartimientoobligations or wage labor; some died or
became disabled while working at dangerous tasks such as mining. Compadrazgogave fam-
ilies a mechanism for helping to ensure their mutual survival. Parents knew that if one
or both of them died, they could rely on their coparents to look after the children. It
also gave people more economic security: If the whole family should fall into need,
their coparents could be relied on to share whatever resources they might have. Co-
parents also helped to pay the costs of the children’s courtship and wedding.
It was to a family’s advantage to have many coparents and to have close ties with
them. A pattern developed by which, instead of a child’s having only the godparents
who sponsored her or him at baptism, additional sponsors would be chosen at other
important rituals in the child’s life, especially confirmation and marriage. Parents
could manipulate the system in various ways, choosing to intensify ties with a small
circle of ritual kin (for example, by having the same couple sponsor a number of
their children), or to develop more extensive ties by involving as many other couples
as possible. They could also choose whether to seek alliances with people of their own
socioeconomic status, thus promoting solidarity among equals, or to invite people of
higher rank, such as local nobles or wealthy non-Indians, into their circle. This prac-
tice had economic advantages, for one could then approach this wealthier couple if
in need of a loan, and they might help their sponsored child to find a job. For the
higher-ranking couple, to be sought out in this way was a source of prestige.