Abstract

This study attends to the historical dimensions of the Mexica (or “Aztec”) festival known as the New Fire Ceremony, a ritual that took place every fifty-two years in pre-Columbian central Mexico. The New Fire Ceremony is most often discussed in terms of cosmic renewal and calendrical cycles. This article seeks to situate its cyclically recurring rites within the web of Mexican history, as represented in early colonial Mexican historical sources, both pictorial and textual. Specifically, it looks to historical genres to examine the cultural memory of the location chosen for the final New Fire Ceremony of 1507, considering the ways in which the Mexica yoked ancient rituals of renewal to contemporary political concerns. That territory had been the site of Mexica military defeat and subjugation during their earlier migration period. Celebrating the New Fire Ceremony here centuries later, at the height of their power, may have functioned as a reversal of that early humiliation. Thus, the Mexica king, as agent of the sun god, embarked on a pilgrimage back through time and space to affirm their contemporary political dominion.

摘要

这项研究关注被称为新火仪式的墨西哥（或“阿兹特克”）节日的历史维度，该仪式每五十二年在前哥伦布时期的墨西哥中部举行一次。新火仪式最常被讨论为宇宙更新和历法周期。本文试图将其周期性重复的仪式置于墨西哥历史网络中，如早期墨西哥殖民时期的历史资料（包括图片和文字）所代表的那样。具体来说，它着眼于历史流派，以研究为 1507 年最后一次新火仪式选择的地点的文化记忆，考虑到墨西哥人将古老的更新仪式与当代政治问题结合在一起的方式。在他们早期的迁移期间，该领土是墨西哥军事失败和征服的地点。几个世纪后在这里庆祝新火仪式，在他们权力的顶峰，可能起到了扭转早期屈辱的作用。于是，墨西卡国王作为太阳神的代理人，踏上了穿越时空的朝圣之旅，以肯定他们当代的政治统治。