Poder e adaptações culturais nas crônicas de Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl: a legitimação social e política das elites indígenas de Texcoco (final do século XVI e início do XVII)

Abstract

The objective of this investigation is to analyze how the chronicler, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1578-1580), elaborated his writings on the social and political power of his ancestors, the indigenous elites (the acolhuas of Texcoco), in order to protect their rights and privileges during the late 16th and early 17th centuries in New Spain. We consider that the texts written by Ixtlilxochitl present the histories of the indigenous elites of Texcoco follow some models of European writing, as a chronology based on the Christian thoughts. Scholars assert that Ixtlilxochitl describes members of the indigenous elites of Texcoco as having the most exceptional characteristics – according to the vision of European culture – in comparison with other local ethnic groups. In his writings, Ixtlilxochitl emphasizes the social and political power that these indigenous elites of Texcoco had in pre-Hispanic times especially. Ixtlilxochitl highlights the social and political differentiations that existed between the indigenous elites and the common members of the “altepeme”. However, the traditional forms of social and political differentiation were undergoing changes in the historical context lived by the chronicler, when several administrative changes occurred in New Spain, for example, that would diminish the privileges of the indigenous elites, for allowing the common members of society to have access to positions and privileges that were once occupied only by such elites. Therefore, the texts developed by Ixtlilxochitl narrate the trajectory of the indigenous elites of Texcoco and preserve fundamental information for the proof and protection of the rights that the indigenous elites had held since the pre-Columbian era, as in the case of the Ixtlilxochitl family itself, which had privileges due to access to the position of “San Juan Teotihuacan Cacicazgo”.