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Dissertation Information for Doris Mathilde Namala

NAME:
- Doris Mathilde Namala

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2002)

ADVISORS:
- Kevin Terraciano
- James Lockhart

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Jose Carlos Moya
- Paul V. Kroskrity

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Chimalpahin in his time: An analysis of the writings of a Nahua annalist of seventeenth-century Mexico concerning his own lifetime

Abstract: This dissertation is an intellectual and cultural history of Nahua attitudes and concepts in the urban centers of central Mexico in the mature colonial period. It is one of the first attempts to open up the historical genre of Nahua annals for the study of the Nahuas of postconquest times. The objective is first to approach closer to the Nahuas' view of themselves and others as seen in social categories, and second to follow the implications of the annalists' choice of subject matter and their attitudes toward their topics. An attempt is thus made to reconstruct something of the Nahua worldview in a time centered on the seventeenth century, largely on the basis of a close analysis of the use of the Nahuatl language in the annals corpus.

The dissertation analyzes above all the contemporary annals of the great Nahua annalist, don Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin. Part One is the more technical and strictly philological part, closely studying in three substantive chapters Chimalpahin's vocabulary as regards categories of indigenous people, non-indigenous people, and gender. Part Two, broadening the source material to include three more central Mexican Nahua annalists for perspective, shifts the focus to a more general discussion of annals topics. In five substantive chapters, Part Two explores annalists' treatments of Nahua politics and culture, natural phenomena and epidemic disease, public spectacles and scandals, postconquest Nahua religion and identity, and the ancient past.

Among the central themes that emerge is the authors' continued micropatriotism. Chimalpahin's language also suggests that there is a marked difference between Nahua categories of perception of self and of others, as Nahuatl terminology prevails in reference to indigenous groups while Spanish loanwords are used freely in reference to non-indigenous others. The analysis of annals topics further reveals the vitality of Nahua culture and the persistence of Nahua structures, values, and genres at the centers of Nahua-Spanish contact throughout the mature colonial period. Secondly, it suggests an expansion of the concept of the Nahua altepetl as it enters into closer contact with the Spanish city and begins to accept people and things Spanish as part of its own.

MPACT Scores for Doris Mathilde Namala

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-08-13 16:38:40

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Students under Doris Mathilde Namala

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None