The altepetl, in Pre-Columbian and Spanish conquest-era Aztec society, was the local, ethnically based political entity. The word is a combination of the Nahuatl words ā-tl, meaning water, and tepē-tl, meaning mountain.
Nahuatl scholars Lisa Sousa, Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart have stated:
A characteristic Nahua mode was to imagine the totality of the people of a region or of the world as a collection of altepetl units and to speak of them on those terms.[1]
They prefer the Nahuatl term over any English-language approximation. They argue that in many of the documents pertaining to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the word āltepētl is often used as a translation of the Spanish Ciudad de México (Mexico City), a translation that has colored the interpretation of the texts and conceptions of Nahua society.
See also
- Cah (Maya)
- Ñuu (Mixtec)
Notes
- ^ Sousa et al. 1998, p.36
References
- García Martínez, Bernardo (2001). "Community Kingdoms: Central Mexico (Nahua)". in David Carrasco (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America. vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 238–239. ISBN 0-19-510815-9. OCLC 44019111.
- Gibson, Charles (1983) [1964]. The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0912-2. OCLC 9359010.
- Lockhart, James (1996) [1992]. The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2317-6. OCLC 24283718.
- Noguez, Xavier (2001). "Altepetl". in David Carrasco (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America. vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 0-19-510815-9. OCLC 44019111.
- Sousa, Lisa; Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart (trans. and eds.) (1998). The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuiçoltica of 1649. UCLA Latin American studies, vol. 84; Nahuatl studies series, no. 5. Stanford & Los Angeles, CA: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications. ISBN 0-8047-3482-8. OCLC 39455844.
 |
This article related to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
