Editor’s note: This content is archival.
Nahua Newsletter
May 1989, Number 7 
The Nahua Newsletter
With support from the Department of Anthropology
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Alan R. Sandstrom, Editor
A Publication of the Indiana University
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Brad R. Huber, Editor
Contents
In this issue
Welcome to the seventh issue of the Nahua Newsletter. This issue was sent to
seventy-five specialists in Nahua physical anthropology, prehistory, linguistics,
ethnohistory, and contemporary culture, as well as to forty institutions. Subscriptions
to the Newsletter are still free. Those who wish to start their subscription should
fill out the form at the end of this issue. Those who wish to update their entry in the
directory are also encouraged to do so. The next issue is scheduled to come out in
October 1989. This issue contains news of recent publications, ongoing research, a call
for papers, and requests for/offers of assistance. Many new and previous subscribers
also took an opportunity to list or update their addresses, primary interests, and
scholarly activities. The editor has not been notified of any upcoming conference or
symposium organized by a subscriber.
However, Alan Sandstrom (Indiana-Purdue University) would like to report that, at
the suggestion of James Taggart, he will contact the American Anthropological
Association program chair to schedule a meeting of the Nahua Group at the next annual
conference in Washington, D.C. Everyone with an interest in Nahua studies is urged to
attend. Topics to be discussed include the future of the Nahua Group, suggestions
concerning the Nahua Newsletter, possible joint symposia or publications, etc. The time
and place will be announced in the next Nahua Newsletter and in the conference program.
Please plan to attend and help decide where we might go from here. The directory in
this issue is meant to update and supplement the more comprehensive directories of
Issues 5 and 6. A limited number of Issues 1-6 are still available. Requests
accompanied by self-addressed, stamped envelopes are appreciated. They may be sent to
the editor’s new address (beginning July 1989): Dept. of Sociology/ Anthropology,
College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424. The editor wishes to thank Alan Sandstrom,
Indiana-Purdue University, and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. They made the typing,
copying, and mailing of this issue possible.
Items of interest
1. Elizabeth Boone (Dumbarton Oaks) indicates that Incarnations of the Aztec
Supernatural: The Image of Huitzilopochtli in Mexico and Europe (Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society) will be available in early 1989.
2. John Carlson (Center for Archaeoastronomy) writes “I am interested in
[corresponding with people] working on the so-called Mixteca-Puebla style of the Post
Classic in art and iconography. I am also looking for samples, of verified source and
variety, of native bark paper.” 3. Harold Haley writes that: “The Mapa Metlatoyuca,
published by Adela Breton in 1927, is being re-examined. The lienzo has no glosses or
Spanish symbols. It is not genealogical; has 79 people–most with personal names, some
with calendar names. There is a complex date. Several distinct place signs have not
been identified. My current research strongly suggests Northern Oaxaca as the site of
origin. I am now searching for information on the following topics:
a. Early records of churches (Dominican) and other contact data for San Mateo Tlapiltepec, Tepelmeme de Morelos, and Ihuitlan Plumas.
b. Any data or information on interaction between Aztec and Mixtec/Chocho groups in the Coixtlahuaca Valley.
c. Any contact history or people familiar with Chocho (Cuchona) people and/or their language.
4. Jane M. Hill (University of Arizona) asks “Is anybody working on weeping? If so
I’d be interested in what they are learning. I have in mind discussions of weeping in
FC, and in Spanish chronicles about Aztec weeping, and weeping in modern contexts such
as taking vows between ritual kin, etc. This seems to have been an important component
of certain speech events and has been little attended to.”
5. Terrence Kaufman (University of Pittsburgh) writes that he is interested in
exchanging data on Nahua ethnobotany, ethnozoology, and ethnomedicine.
6. James Lockhart (UCLA) suggests that “Since `Charles Gibson and the Ethnohistory
of Postconquest Central Mexico’ (La Trobe University Latin American Studies Occasional
Paper No. 9, 1988), by James Lockhart, is difficult to obtain, the author will send a
xerox free to anyone who requests one.”
7. Eileen Mulhare (Wayne State University) states that “graduate students interested
in pursuing ethnographic research or archival research in a rapidly changing rural
community (Totimehuacan, Puebla) may want to contact me. I can provide letters of
introduction to key community members, orientation, and other non-financial
assistance.”
8. Michael E. Smith (Loyola University) would “like to hear from anyone with
ethnographic information on the age or use-life of adobe houses in central Mexico. I am
collecting comparative ethnographic data on adobe houses for application to
archaeological examples of such structures in Aztec-period Morelos.”
9. Brian Swann (The Cooper Union) expresses his interest in editing a Collection of
Essays on the Translation of Native American Literatures. “After having edited two
successful volumes of general essays on Native American literature (Smoothing the
Ground, and Recovering the Word, the latter with Arnold Krupat, both from the
University of California Press), I think the time is ripe for an interdisciplinary
volume that concentrates on one topic, to my mind the most important: translation,
throughout the Americas–North, Central, South. I would like scholars to send me for
consideration an original essay, or essay and translation, on any aspect of the subject
which interests them.
“The University of Nebraska Press (which published I Tell You Now: Autobiographical
Essays by Native American Writers, co-edited with Arnold Krupat) has expressed strong
interest in this collection, and wishes to read it first.
“While the book is not intended primarily for the general reader, I would prefer the
essays not to be esoteric and overly `specialized.’ I would be happy if, in addition to
scholars in Native American Studies and related fields, college teachers, at an upper
undergraduate and graduate level, were able to use the book.
“The deadline will be Christmas, 1989. Contributions should be of a reasonable
length (preferably not over 30 pages), double-spaced, and conforming to the MLA style.
After each essay include a Suggested Reading List, or a bibliographical note.” Those
interested may write to: Brian Swann, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, The
Cooper Union, Cooper Square, New York, New York, 10003.
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