Guillermo Castillo-Feliú (editor) - Xicoténcatl: An anonymous historical novel about the events leading up to the conquest of the Aztec empire (Texas Pan American Series)

Texas Pan American Series

Xicotncatl

An anonymous
historical novel
about the events
leading up to
the conquest of
the Aztec Empire

Translated by
Guillermo I. Castillo-Feli

University of Texas Press
Austin

Copyright 1999 by the University of Texas Press
All rights reserved
First edition, 1999

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Varela, Flix, 17881853.

[Jicotncal. English]
Xicotncatl : an anonymous historical novel about the events leading up to the conquest of the Aztec Empire / translated by Guillermo I. Castillo-Feli.
p. cm. (Texas Pan American series)

ISBN: 978-0-292-71214-0

1. Corts, Hernn, 14851547Fiction. I. Castillo-Feli, Guillermo I. II. Title. III. Series.
PQ7389.V38J5313 1999
863dc21 98-37127

ISBN 978-0-292-75325-9 (library e-book)
ISBN 978-0-292-78987-6 (individual e-book)

DOI 10.7560/712133

Contents

Translators Note

Translators are always aware that they face an impossible dilemma in any attempt to perfectly and exactly transpose words, thoughts, and culturethat is, all of the signifiers that make one particular language a unique mode of expression. The degree of difficulty, or impossibility, if I may be permitted to sound Borgian, is proportional to the distance that separates the two languages in question. In spite of the unique characteristics of, for example, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, the translator will find the task of translating between these Romance languages, with their abundant similarities, to be less daunting than the distance to be bridged between any of them and English, a language with essentially Germanic roots, despite the influence of Norman French.

The creative act is an intensely private and subjective one; the author of an original work of literature does not set out to write with the intention of making the work very accessible to the future and potential translator. Still, the translator who is able to work with the author does have the opportunity to collaborate in the enterprise, with especially good results if the author of the original is also acquainted with the language of the translation. When this is not a possibility, translators, out of sheer necessity, perform their craft and act as interpreters as well. Xicotncatl was published in 1826. Aside from the difficulties already inherent in the process of translating the Spanish into English, the modern translator faces an insurmountable challenge posed by the chronological gap that renders impossible any collaboration between author and translator. The fact of the novels anonymous author would probably have made such collaboration unlikely even if both author and translator had been contemporaries.

I rejoice in the rewarding exercise that was the act of translating itself. The process, in spite of its accompanying difficulties, has once again demonstrated to me the obvious beauty of both languages, and even though the finished product might be, of necessity, an approximation, it does serve the purpose of making the original work accessible to those readers who are unable to enjoy it in the language of Cervantes.

In my desire to update the language of this early nineteenth-century work for the modern reader, I have at times taken some linguistic liberties whenever they do not detract from the serious speech of the major characters. At the same time, to retain the flavor of this late neoclassic narrative, I have endeavored to remain faithful to the elevated oratory of the characters. Thus, my translation does not purport to be an interpretation but rather a scrupulous transmutation, as much as that is possible, and with the caveats already mentioned. To have done otherwise would have been a disservice to the original intent of the author, who obviously wished to ennoble the original inhabitants of the New World even as he clearly denigrated most of the usurpers from the Old.

Introduction

Xicotncatl was first published in Spanish in 1826, under the title Jicotncatl , by the William Stavely Publishing House of Philadelphia. During the beginning of the nineteenth century, as Spains American colonies began to move toward independence, several cities, both in Europe and North America, became centers of political propaganda, pushing for separation of the Spanish possessions from the mother country. Prominent among these were, first, London and then Philadelphia and New York. Spanish Americans and Spaniards circulated in the Pennsylvania city, and funds were gathered and collected for the coming campaigns for separation. The Mexican novelist and critic Martin Luis Guzman has stated that, in 1811, Philadelphia was a paradise for conspirators. So the appearance of the novel in that city is not surprising, given the prevalence there of fermenting aspirations for independence. The fact that it was published anonymously serves to further explain the selection of this American city, for 1826 was not an ideal time for such a novel to have seen the light of day in Mexico or even in Spain.

There has always been a great deal of controversy regarding Xicotncatl s authorship. The well-known Mexican critic Luis Leal provides the best research into the subject, detailing several critics arguments for and against authorship by various writers who lived during the period of the works publication.

The critics who have generally believed the author to be Mexican are Pedro Henrquez Urea, Ralph Warner, and Jos Rojas Garcidueas. Of these, Henrquez Urea appears to lean most decidedly toward assigning authorship to a Mexican. Warner is not as strong in this belief but generally accepts its viability. Rojas Garcidueas echoes Henrquez Ureas belief somewhat, stating that the author certainly was Spanish American. The great majority of critics who have delved into the novels provenance have, to one degree or another, supported the theory that it was the work of a Spanish American. Only Argentine critic and writer Enrique Anderson Imbert and Spanish critic Vicente Llorns Castillo have discussed the possibility that the author might have been a Spaniard.

Luis Leal rejects the likelihood that the novels author might have been the poet Jos Mara Heredia. This Cubans careful and correct style seems to be completely different from that of Xicotncatl s author, which at times is incorrect and imitative of the French style often seen in Hispanic writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For Leal, the evidence seems to point rather convincingly to the strong possibility that the Cuban priest Flix Varela could be the author of Xicotncatl. Father Varela lived in Philadelphia for some months during 1824, shortly afterward moving to New York. There he wrote the first three issues of a newspaper in Spanish, El Habanero , published by the same press that, in 1826, published Xicotncatl. Leal makes a detailed comparison of Varelas language and style, as seen in his own acknowledged publication and in the novel. Aside from the fact that there are similarities in orthography, Leal is more impressed by the resemblance in lexicon. The examples provided by Leal of the novels language and Varelas as seen in the latters review of Heredias Poesas (Poems), which appeared in New York in 1825 in the newspaper New York American , are almost astonishing in their parallelism. The one seems, most often, to be a paraphrasing of the other. And not only are lexicon and style similar; the ideology presented in one mirrors that of the other: attitudes toward the American native, liberty, tyranny, and faith. After providing evidence for the elimination of other purported authors, Leal, while welcoming continued research into the novels authorship, proposes Father Flix Varela as the possible author of Xicotncatl.