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| Methodological Issues: Use of Primary Sources |
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Milton R. Hunter and Thomas S. Ferguson introduced the Mormon audience to the works of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl and Ixtlilxochitl has been a mainstay of Book of Mormon apologetics ever since.(1) The rationale for using Ixtlilxochitl is excellent. Ixtlilxochitl was a descendant of Nahua royalty, understood Nahuatl, and had access to numerous indigenous documents. He should be an excellent source. Nevertheless, Ixtlilxochitl is a problematic author. James Lockhart describes Ixtlilxochitl's deficiencies in the more purely historical sections of Ixtlilxochitl's work: As to Tetzcoco, its principal historian, Ixtlilxochitl, came relatively late in time, was far less well informed than Chimalpahin and Tezozomoc, and obscured things further by writing in Spanish... Ixtlilxochitl paid little attention to and even perhaps had little grasp of the polity-specific nature of central Mexican rulership or of the importance of a fixed complex of constituent parts. ( Lockhart, 1992, 25.) While Lockhart made those comments in connection with the nature of Nahua political units, comparisons of Ixtlilxochitl's material on Quetzalcoatl and creation mythology with the rest of the Nahua corpus indicate similar caution in using Ixtlilxochitl as a source. Ixtlilxochitl's works are filled with blatant Christian elements which have no support in other sources. For instance, in describing the end of the third sun, Ixtlilxochitl writes: ...and then was destroyed the memorable and sumptuous tower of the city of Cholula, which was like a second tower of Babel, that those people built for almost the same purposes. ( Ixtlilxochitl, 1952, 1:19.) The Christian influence on this text is obvious. Not only does he refer to the stepped temple in Cholula as another tower of Babel, but interjects that it was built for the same reasons as the tower of Babel. Ixtlilxochitl's command of Biblical allusions was significant. This method of describing native history and themes in terms of a European category is usually found in the writings of the Spanish, not native historians. In both style and content, Ixtlilxochitl is closer to the European model than the native. This is not to say that Ixtlilxochitl's works have no value. They do, and at times provide important corroboration for certain themes. I have personally found that I must use Ixtlilxochitl only after I understand other more reliable sources first. Only then can I hope to extract the native material from its heavily Christianized and distorted presentation. For the purposes of providing Mesoamerican contexts for the Book of Mormon, using Ixtlilxochitl as a source risks making a case on a passage that Ixtlilxochitl himself reworked to make it appear more palatable to Christians. 1. Milton R. Hunter and Thomas Stuart Ferguson , Ancient American and the Book of Mormon, (Oakland: Kolob Book Company, 1950). This work makes extensive use of Ixtlilxochitl, translating large sections into English, and comparing them with the Book of Mormon. See also: Ferguson, 1962, 145, 166; Warren and Ferguson, 1987, 21; Cheesman, 1984, 41; Joseph L. Allen Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, (Orem: Brigham Young University Print Services, 1989), 159; Wirth, 1986, 135. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
As indicated at
the beginning of this paper, the important primary sources are relatively few. The problem lies in their inter-source
contradictions and variations. These cannot be resolved by simply selecting those which match a preferred hypothesis.
Not only do LDS authors neglect to deal with the entire corpus of Quetzalcoatl material, the primary sources are
usually taken at face value. The very heavy reliance on the works of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl is an example
of such uncritical acceptance a source.
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