ANALYSIS OF TIME IN “SISTER STORIES”

About the time in “Sister Stories” I have decided to work in the period of time of the Aztecs because the story talk about this ancient culture, talk about a family of cents of years ago in an Aztec city in Mexico. This is to say that this story is situated before the s. XIV.

Aztecs were a wandering Native American tribe who came to Mexico during the 13th century. There they built a great civilization including cities, pyramids, and temples. In 1519 Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico and defeated the Aztecs.

Aztec History begins with the Aztecs legendary home called Aztlan. The general consent is that Aztlan lies somewhere to the north of the Valley of Mexico. But there are also Aztec history experts that claim that Aztlan is simply a mythical place where the Aztec tribes came from. The reason that some Aztec historians think so lies in the fact that Aztlan can also be translated as "the place of the origin". According to Aztec history there were seven Aztec Tribes that lived under opression in Aztlan. They all eventually fled from Aztlan to the south.

Aztec history legend goes that years later (1323) Mexica tribe saw a vision from their Aztec Gods that made them move again. The vision was of an eagle perched on cactus, clutching a snake. This vision showed the Mexica tribe where they should build their new city. So the tribe of Mexicas actually moved to a small island in Lake Texcoco (where the story took place) and started building a new home - the city of Tenochtitlan. Later in 1376 they elected their first ruler (their word for king was Huey Tlatoani) Acamapichtli.

The center of the Aztec civilization was the Valley of Mexico, a huge, oval basin about 7,500 feet above sea level. The Aztec empire included many cities and towns, especially in the Valley of Mexico. The largest city in the empire was the capital, Tenochtitlan. The early settlers built log rafts, then covered them with mud and planted seeds to create roots and develop more solid land for building homes in this marshy land. Canals were also cut out through the marsh so that a typical Aztec home had its back to a canal with a canoe tied at the door.

There were several Aztecs in several places, but we have to focus in the Aztecs of Mexico:

The Aztecs/Mexicas were the native American people who dominated northern México at the time of the Spanish conquest led by Hernan CORTES in the early 16th century. According to their own legends, they originated from a place called Aztlan, somewhere in north or northwest Mexico. At that time the Aztecs (who referred to themselves as the Mexica or Tenochca) were a small, nomadic, Nahuatl-speaking aggregation of tribal peoples living on the margins of civilized Mesoamerica. Sometime in the 12th century they embarked on a period of wandering and in the 13th century settled in the central basin of México. Continually dislodged by the small city-states that fought one another in shifting alliances, the Aztecs finally found refuge on small islands in Lake Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded the town of TENOCHTITLAN (modern-day Mexico City). The term Aztec, originally associated with the migrant Mexica, is today a collective term, applied to all the peoples linked by trade, custom, religion, and language to these founders.

History of Aztecs (available in “Sister Stories):

The construction of 'histories' for the Aztec has been one of the major topics of modern scholarship of late pre-European Mexico. Taking literally accounts that are infused with mythical symbolism, scholars like Nigel Davies arrived at a consensus history:

AD 1111 The Mexica leave Aztlan, their mythical homeland,
the last of seven peoples to begin wandering

AD 1163 They celebrate the New Fire ceremony at Coatepec,
marking the end of a 52 year Calendar Round on their journey

AD 1215 They celebrate the New Fire ceremony at Apaxco

AD 1267 They celebrate the New Fire ceremony at Tecpayocan

AD 1299 The Mexica arrive at Chapultepec in the Valley of Mexico
AD 1319 The Mexica are expelled from Chapultepec
AD 1343 The Mexica sacrifice a princess of Culhuacan and flee
from the service of Culhuacan into the lake marshes

AD 1345 Tenochtitlan is founded, where the Mexica see an eagle
perched on a cactus, the omen predicted by their god
ca. AD 1367 The Mexica serve as mercenaries for Tezozomoc
of the Tepanec city, Atzcapotzalco

AD 1428 Conquest of Atzcapotzalco by Mexica and Texcocans
AD 1431 "Triple Alliance" formed by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan,
the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, and the Acolhua of Texcoco
AD 1473 The Mexica conquer the neighboring city, Tlatelolco

AD 1500 The Mexica establish dominance over the Triple Alliance
by making Tlacopan a dependency

AD 1515 The Mexica install a puppet ruler in Texcoco
AD 1519 Hernan Cortes arrives at Tenochtitlan
AD 1521 Tenochtitlan surrenders to the armies of Cortes

This is the history of the Aztecs that appear in “Sister Stories”, this is the “time” in which the family is situated.

Another thing that can be treated about the time and that could be interesting is the “Aztec time”, or, the special Aztec calendar (the story talk about it too):

The Calendar Round is the term anthropologists use for the larger cycle of time in pre-hispanic Mexico. Like most people throughout human history, the Mexica did not have a single linear calendar with a fixed beginning date to time all events. Instead, they supported multiple calendars: counts of the phases of the moon and the planet venus, a solar calendar that also served to mark the seasons and time the agricultural year, and a ritual calendar used for divination, notably at birth, whose length may have been an approximation of the period of human pregnancy.

All of these calendrical counts proceeded at the same time. Absolute dating could be achieved by characterizing a particular time period and counting from that: for example, events could be placed in the reign of a particular ruler. But for most of Mesoamerican history, a combination of the solar and divinatory calendars was used to create a 52-year-long calendar.

The solar calendar, fixed by the number of days that elapsed between the same point in the sun's movement on the horizon, was of course set at 365 days. The divinatory calendar was 260 days long. When the two calendars started on the same day, it took 52 years for them again to reach their beginning dates on the same day to start a new cycle.

Well, here I have put some history of the Aztec period in which “Sister Stories” is based, now, I’m going to put some interesting links related with this culture and with this story, I think are very useful, click here!

elmalo@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press

Creada: 05/12/2008 Última Actualización: 09/12/2008