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Down the Rabbit Hole and into the Moon: Nahua Perspectives in Mardonio Carballo’s Tlajpiajketl (2014)

2017; eScholarship Publishing, University of California; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5070/t471034114

2154-1353

Adam W. Coon,

Latin American history and culture

In this essay, I analyze Nahua artist Mardonio Carballo's Tlajpiajketl (2014) and how this work breaks with a limited Western notion of what constitutes a text.This bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish book/website/CD collection questions traditional conceptualizations of what constitutes "Indigenous literature" by incorporating figures such as Alice from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.Carballo's Tlajpiajketl tells the story of a young tlajpiajketl (guardian of the maize field) and his quest to compose the "maize song."This journey takes him from the wooden platform overlooking his field down a Wonderlandesque rabbit hole into a world replete with plays on perspective, language, and time.One of the most impressive moments from the book is a scene in which the boy's defense against a bird attack on his crop combines with movements against sixteenthcentury colonizers and present-day NAFTA.I argue that this work points to new horizons in Nahua cultural production that fight visual and acoustic colonialism through a diverse array of media.For my analysis, I employ Mapuche literary critic Luis Cárcamo Huechante's concept acoustic and visual colonialism and the Nahua perspectives ixtlamatilistli (knowledge with the face), tlaixpan (that which is in front), and yoltlajlamikilistli (knowledge with the heart).Acoustic and visual colonialism identifies pervasive settings within mainstream media where only voices of a dominant elite in the State-sanctioned national language are heard.In contrast, the Nahua perspectives mentioned displace media colonialism.Carballo employs these concepts within Tlajpiajketl to highlight the contemporary Nahua artistic and knowledge production that acoustic and visual colonialism attempts to silence and relegate to prehistory.