It is believed that Cuauhtémoc, the last Emperor (Tlatoani) of the Aztec (Mexica), delivered his final speech to his Governing Council on August 12, 1521. The next day he would surrender to the Spanish and their Indigenous allies. In the 20th century, what is believed to be Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc's final speech was recorded. In 2006, Mexico City erected a marker with his final speech in Náhuatl and Spanish. Click here to see the marker and read Cuauhtémoc's final speech in Náhuatl, Spanish, and English.
Below you will find an analysis of the first four lines of Cuauhtémoc's final speech by David Bowles - Mexican-American author, translator, and University of Texas professor. If you're having trouble seeing the below tweet threads you can also see them here: 1, 2, 3, 4.
The words were not written down. The Mexica and their Nahua cousins had no alphabet or syllabary.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
But they had long memories. And his words echoed in their hearts.
When their children learned Spanish, they took those alien letters and used them to record his promise.
Here. 2/
Ah, but that line. So much implicit.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
"To-" is the possessive prefix that means "our." It's attached to a stem, tōnal: the full word (with the absolutive suffix used for free-standing nouns) is tōnalli.
An unusual way to refer to the sun, normally called Tōnatiuh. Why?
4/
So Cuauhtemoc, with one word, signals not just the sun that shone down upon the Mexica ...
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
Their soul has gone into hiding. Their fate. Their day, their era.
Everything that made them who they were. Gone.
Hidden? Oh, more than that.
6/
The ō- signals action completed in the past.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
Hidden, murdered before Cuauhtemoc began to speak, when the first booted alien foot sank into the sand of Mexico's coast.
Ye is a flick of an adverb. A sigh. Already. Nothing to be done about it.
Destiny. Already slain.
8/8
I realized that others might benefit from seeing my thoughts--linguistic, cultural, personal--and could learn some essentials of (Classical) Nahuatl grammar if they followed along.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
I hope you come back on February 22. Titottazqueh. See you then.
Addendum. Folks want to hear the lines. Here's the first, slow and somber. pic.twitter.com/WRYp0MkQwm
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 15, 2019
Must admit that there's some controversy about the historicity of this speech. During the Mexicanidad movement of the mid-20th century (attempt by some Mexican mestizos to reassert their country’s indigenous heritage), different versions of this “commission” were recorded.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
2/
(among other new-agey foolishness). But this speech strikes me as tonally & ideologically in agreement w/ documented statements by philosophers.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
This is nowhere clearer than in Chapter VII of the Coloquios y doctrina cristiana, a debate between Catholic & indigenous priests. 4/
But the government of Mexico City has enshrined these words in a marker, and they are beautiful, a powerful summary of the beliefs of the indigenous folks of the Triple Alliance. They echo Conquest-era documents. Feel real.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
Okay, on to the heart-breaking & Nahuatl-teaching! 6/
The verb “polihui” means “to perish” or “to fade from existence.” Here it has been compounded with “īxtli,” meaning “face” or “eyes.”
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
Now, "īxtli" was used in a compelling difrasismo (dual metaphor): "in īxtli in yōllohtli." The eyes, the heart. One’s personality.
8/
-- "the common folk were wiped out" -- in describing smallpox in Tenochtitlan.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
But Cuauhtemoc adds that prefix mo-, not to say that the sun has effaced itself, but doubling down on the lack of agency, using the reflexive as a quasi-passive on an already intransitive word.
10/
Short base 2 usually just drops a final vowel. The participial suffix (/k/, /ki/, or /ka/) is often invisible except in the plural.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
So "cochi" (sleeps) becomes "coch" (slept) & "cochqueh" (they slept).
"Polihui" /po li wi/ becomes "poliuh" /po li w/. Odd spelling, yes.
12/
Pronunciation. Slow. pic.twitter.com/mEy8MbdNpo
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) February 22, 2019
Today, line 3. The huēyi tlahtoāni then said, "īhuān zan tlayohuayān ōtēchcāuh."
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 1, 2019
And in darkness he abandoned us.
2/
"Tlayohuayān" is a locative derived from the verb "tlayohua" (for night or darkness to fall). So this is "time when/place where darkness has fallen." The particle "zan" (meaning "just" or "only") simply intensifies the locative.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 1, 2019
Now there's another possible reading.
4/
The last word is ōtēchcāuh.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 1, 2019
As I've mentioned before, the ō- is a particle used with past-tense verbs to show completion. The object prefix "tēch-" means "us." And "cāuh" is the past tense of the verb "cāhua," meaning "to abandon."
So "he [our sun] abandoned us."
6/
It's communal darkness.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 1, 2019
He has left us TOGETHER in the darkness.
That solidarity matters. Cuauhtemoc wants his people to understand.
We suffer. But we suffer among those we love.
You can survive the night in another's arms, can't you?
Huddled together, full of hope.
8/8
Ah, forgot the pronunciation. pic.twitter.com/WlT8WKxir8
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 4, 2019
Those who published it in the mid-20th century claimed it had been preserved orally for hundreds of years. Yet the Nahuatl versions seem strange, corrupted in syntax and lexicon.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019
But the message is powerful, and echoes other texts, like chapter 10 of the Florentine Codex.
2/
Though these supposed words of Cuauhtemoc may not be textually what he ever said, their impact & message (to my mind) probably echo something he said toward the end of things.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019
So I am creating a "corrected" (grammatically accurate) text & translating it, one line at a time.
4/
Some versions use "mach" over & over for "but." However, that's not what the word means / meant in Nahuatl. "Mach" before a verb would be "it seems that." Instead, the conjunction "auh" was most likely intended (in the hypothetical original). A break with the previous gloom.
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019
6/
Instead of the ungrammatical "man" I use "ca in" (or "that indeed", introducing a clause).
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019
"Oc ceppa" is literally "more once," so "once more."
8/
The "normal" verb for "come" is "huītz" (also irregular). But it doesn't have a future form, so one must use "huāllāz" (the future of "huāllāuh").
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019
In context, this creates an interesting nuance: the sun will come back TO THEM, to His people, the Anahuaca, the "Aztecs."
10/
PS. If you want to dig into the controversy surrounding this speech, I recommend reading the below analysis by Kurly Tlapoyawa and Magnus Pharao Hansen. https://t.co/lY1bWUlI6s
— David Bowles (hiatus: Toltec/Texcoca books) 🏳️🌈 (@DavidOBowles) March 8, 2019