The Centrality of Nepantla in Conquest

The concept of nepantla plays a fundamental role in Nahua metaphysics’ descriptive account of the nature of reality and of the human condition. Nahua metaphysics holds the ultimate nature and structure of reality to be an ever-continuing nepantla-process. Reality itself consists of an ongoing process of intersecting, transacting, commingling, and interweaving polar opposites.

The starting point of Nahua metaphysics is the ontological thesis that there exists a single, dynamic, vivifying, eternally self-generating and self-regenerating, sacred power or force. The Nahuas referred to this power by the term, teotl. Teotl is ultimate reality. Teotl is non-personal, non-minded, non-agentive, and non-intentional. Teotl is not a deity, person, or subject who possesses power in the manner of a king or tyrant. Rather, teotl is power: an always active, actualized and actualizing, ever-flowing energy-in-motion. As the single, all-encompassing life-power of the cosmos, teotl creates the cosmos and everything that happens in the cosmos out of itself.22

Process, motion, change, metamorphosis, and transformation define teotl -- and hence the cosmos and all its contents. Teotl is ever-flowing and ever-changing, energy-in-motion -- not an immutable, static, substantial entity or thing. Because essentially processive and dynamic, teotl is properly understood as neither being nor not-being but as becoming. Teotl neither is nor is not; teotl becomes. As a consequence, reality – and hence the cosmos and its inhabitants – are ultimately unstable, evanescent, and transitory. They are also devoid of static states of being and order as well as any permanent structure.

And thus we get our first glimpse of teotl (and hence reality) as nepantla-process. Qua becoming and nepantla-process, teotl dialectically and middlingly oscillates betwixtly and betweenly being and non-being. It is abundant with mutual or reciprocal being and non-being, with the intersecting, interweaving, transacting, commingling and confluencing of being and non-being. It is at bottom ontologically ambiguous since neither being nor non-being yet simultaneously both being and non-being. In short, teotl is a nepantla-process that exhibits nepantla -balancing or –middling.

Teotl's ceaseless changing and becoming, its ceaseless generating-and-regenerating of the cosmos, is one of ceaseless self-transforming. The cosmos and all its contents are teotl's processual self-presentation. Teotl’s becoming therefore represents a particular kind of becoming: transformative becoming. And its moving and processing are also self-transformative moving and processing. In sum, teotl’s power is transformative power.

Nahua metaphysics is guided by several fundamental intuitions. First, that which is real is that which becomes, changes, and moves – contra the lion’s share of Western metaphysics starting with Plato which claims that that which is real is that which is immutable, stable, static, everlasting, and unmoving. Reality is thus characterized by Becoming – not by Being or “isness” as such. To exist (to be) is to become, to move, and to change. Second, that which is real is that which makes things happen. Reality consists of the power to move, transform, influence, act upon, or effect change in things. To exist is to be (causally) effective. Nahua metaphysics is committed to the mutual equation of existence, power, energy, motion, becoming, causing, and transforming (both of self and others). Third, that which is real is that which is mixed and contradictory – contra much of Western metaphysics which claims that that which is real is that which is pure, unmixed, uncontradictory, and unadulterated. In sum, Nahua metaphysics appears to embrace what Western philosophers call a “process philosophy.” Processes -- rather than perduring objects or substances -- are ontologically fundamental. “[T]emporality, activity and change – of alteration, striving, passage, and novelty-emergence – are the cardinal factors for … understanding of the real.”23

What’s more, teotl is properly understood as neither ordered (e.g. determined or governed top-down by laws or principles) nor disordered (anarchic, chaotic) but rather as unordered. As with being and not-being, order and disorder are two, mutually arising and mutually inter-related, complementary polarities. Teotl captures a tertium quid: unorderliness, i.e. a dynamic condition of being simultaneously neither ordered nor disordered yet at the same time both ordered and disordered. Since the cosmos is identical with teotl, it follows that the cosmos is essentially dynamic and devoid of any permanent or lasting order. All things pass, including the Age of the Fifth Sun.

Although essentially processive and devoid of permanent structure or order, teotl’s ceaseless becoming and self-presenting are nevertheless contingently characterized by an overarching rhythm, pattern, and regularity. This rhythm and pattern is simultaneously expressed in two interrelated ways or aspects: as duality, and as the two calendars (the tonalpohualli or 260-day count, and the xiuhmolpilli or 360+5-day count). As Kay Read writes, “Things do not simply change. They embody time …” (Read 1998: 88). And things are also placed, of course. Indeed, place and time form a seamless unity: what I call time-place.24

Teotl’s self-presentation, in other words, is characterized by ollin, i.e., “orderly or structured ‘Motion’ or ‘Movement’” (Elzey 1976: 319, 325). Ollin is crucial to understanding teotl and hence reality since it helps us see why teotl’s self-presenting changes are transformational rather than random. As Elzey points out, ollin is not just any kind of motion. It is motion that is “distinguished into an orderly succession of well-defined elements.” Ollin “classes and categorizes” (Elzey 1976: 325).25 Ollin, the regular and patterned moving of teotl, is mapped by the two calendars.

The idea of duality merits closer examination. Teotl presents itself in multiple aspects, preeminent among which is duality. This duality takes the form of the cyclical alternation, non-Zoroastrian dialectical tug-of-war (or agon), and mutual interaction of contrary yet mutually interdependent, mutually arising, and mutually complementary paired-opposites or polarities (inamic’s). These dualities include (among others) being and not-being, order and disorder, life and death, light and darkness, masculine and feminine, dry and wet, hot and cold, and active and passive. Life and death, for example, are mutually arising, interdependent, and complementary aspects of one and the same process. The ceaseless, cyclical alternation and dominance of these dualities produces the diversity and momentary arrangement of the cosmos.26 Finally, although each moment in a cycle consists of the dominance of one or other paired opposite, in the long run a cycle manifests an overarching, diachronic and dynamic balance. Short-term imbalances are thus woven together to form long-term balance.

But what kind of cyclical alternating and balancing is this, and what sort of process produces it?27 Simply put, it is the kind of balancing produced by a nepantla-process. It is nepantla -balancing or -middling. It is the kind of balancing or middling produced by the rhythmic oscillating and reciprocal transacting, intersecting, interweaving, and commingling of two things. It is the kind of balancing manifested by a human activity central to Nahua philosophy: walking down a path or ohtlatoca (“following a path”).

Walking is a process, not an event. It is diachronic, not static. Walking requires being able to achieve an overarching, diachronic balance between a repeating series of momentary imbalances. Starting from a standing position, one extends one’s left leg forward, shifts one’s weight left-forwardly, and in so doing puts oneself off-balance. But before falling leftwards too far and crashing to the ground, one quickly extends one’s right leg and shifts one’s weight rightwards. This, of course, creates a right-leaning imbalance that counterbalances the first, left-leaning imbalance. However, before falling rightwards too far and tumbling to the ground, one quickly extends one’s left leg, thereby shifting one’s weight leftwards. The process of walking involves repeating these imbalancing and counter-balancing actions over and over again. One does not try to strike a static middle or mean point but rather passes through such a point in the constant “to and fro” of walking. Indeed, one cannot walk without embracing alternating momentary imbalances. One walks straightforwardly by walking crookedly. One walks in balance by walking imbalancedly. One walks in balance by walking middlingly -- not by walking in the middle. What’s more, walking is ambiguous since it consists of moving betwixt and between. It is neither left nor right yet both left and right. Balance is attained dialectically, diachronically and dynamically. Individual acts of short-term imbalance are woven together to form a diachronic process of long-term balancing. Viewed kinesiologically, walking is thus a nepantla-process exemplifying nepantla-balancing. In sum, what I propose we glean from this example is the following, more general claim: a process of nepantla-balancing consists of – and is achieved by -- a rhythmic series of mutually interdependent and reciprocally influencing individual acts of imbalance.28

Ollin, the regular, dialectical oscillation of complementary dualities, is one aspect or self-presentation of the nepantla-process of teotl, and hence of teotl’s nepantla-balancing. Dialectical polarities are moments in a process involving endless, reciprocal middling. Teotl’s nepantla-balancing therefore underlies as well as explains the dialectical and cyclical moving – i.e. transforming, changing, and becoming -- of the cosmos.

Consider several other examples of teotl-as-nepantla-process. Consider life and death. Life and death are mutually arising, interdependent, and complementary aspects of one and the same process. Life contains the seed of death; death, the fertile, energizing seed of life. They are two sides of the same reality. As Read (1988) and Arnold (1999) stress, in order to live things must eat other things, and eating them causes them to die. Death is thus both positive and negative, as is life. Death makes possible life, and therefore has a positive aspect. Life, on the other hand, feeds off the death of other living things, and so has a negative aspect.29 Teotl-as-nepantla-process underlies the dialectic of life and death, and as such, falls betwixt and between, and cuts across life and death. It is abundant with both life and death. It is ontologically ambiguous: neither alive nor dead and yet at the same time both alive and dead.

More abstractly, consider order and disorder. As we’ve seen, the cosmos is characterized by the dialectical tug-of-war and reciprocal transaction of order and disorder. Order and disorder are contrary yet mutually interdependent, mutually arising, and mutually complementary paired-opposites (inamic’s). Their dialectical interplay is a self-presentation of teotl’s nepantla-balancing between the two endpoints, order and disorder. However, teotl itself is neither orderly (e.g. nomic or governed top-down by laws or principles) nor disorderly (anomic, anarchic, chaotic), but rather unorderly. And as unorderly, teotl falls betwixt and between order and disorder. Teotl is also ontologically ambiguous: neither orderly nor disorderly yet simultaneously both orderly and disorderly. Teotl-as-nepantla-process is abundant with reciprocal order and disorder (i.e. with intersecting, commingling, or interweaving order and disorder).30

From teotl’s tireless nepantla-middling between polar dualities (such as life/death, male/female, being/non-being, hot/cold, and order/disorder) emerges teotl’s creative and transformative power or energy. The created cosmos itself emerges from polar dualities bound together in mutual, nepantla-tension. As López Austin observes, paired-opposites interlocked in x-shaped, criss-crossing nepantla-processes are “crucial element[s] in creation miracles” (López Austin 1997: 108). Indeed, López Austin argues that Tamoanchan itself is a “process of the marvelous crossing” of polar dualities. As such it is also “the place of creation” (López Austin 1997: 112). From teotl’s ceaseless nepantla-middling between polar dualities also emerges its artistic power or energy. The Nahuas accordingly referred to the cosmos as teotl’s “flower and song” and teotl’s “house of paintings” (León-Portilla 1992, 2001).

In the final analysis, however, teotl is essentially an undifferentiated, unstructured, and unordered seamless totality. As a nepantla-process, teotl falls betwixt and between the dualities of being/non-being, order/disorder, life/death, male/female, etc. And because it cuts across conventional categories, teotl is ill-defined in terms of such categories. It is neither this nor that, yet both; neither something nor nothing, yet both. Moreover, given that time-place (as defined, mapped and counted by the two calendars) is yet another self-presentation of teotl, it would appear that teotl is ultimately untimed and unplaced. It is neither here nor there, yet both; neither now nor then, yet both. Like the crossroads and the nemontemi, teotl stands outside of time-place. It is “no-place” and “no-time.”31

The non-autochthonous concept that most closely resembles nepantla would seem to be liminality. Indeed, many scholars invoke the notion of liminality when explicating nepantla.32 Victor Turner defines the liminal as “a no-man’s-land betwixt and between the structural past and the structural future” (Turner 1986: 41), and as “that which is neither this nor that, and yet is both” (Turner 1979: 236). The liminal is “transitional,” “neutral,” and “ambiguous.” “Logically antithetical” processes such as death and growth are represented by ambiguous symbols such as serpents since serpents “are neither living nor dead from one aspect, and both living and dead from another” (Turner 1979: 236). Consequently, the liminal cannot be defined statically: “We are not dealing with structural contradictions … but with the essentially unstructured (which is at once destructed and prestructured” (Turner 1979: 236). The liminal is “interstructural.” Turner writes, “This coincidence of opposite processes and notions in a single representation characterizes the peculiar unity of the liminal: that which is neither this nor that, and yet is both” (Turner 1979: 237). Liminality is also “a gestational process, a fetation of modes appropriate to postliminal existence” (Turner 1986:42). Finally, Turner suggests the liminal be understood in terms of “the subjunctive mood of culture, the mood of maybe, might be, as if, hypothesis, fantasy, conjecture, desire,” whereas the ordinary is understood in terms of “the indicative mood, where we expect the invariant operation of cause and effect, of rationality and commonsense” (Turner 1986: 42).

Their similarities notwithstanding, I suggest that the Nahuas’ notion of nepantla flips Turner’s notion of liminality on its head. Turner’s liminality is temporary and exceptional. It occurs only temporarily in interstitial transitions from one established state of being or permanent structure to another. Structure, order, being, and “isness” are the norm, while liminality is the exception. In short, Turner’s liminality presupposes a Platonic-style metaphysics of being. Nepantla, by contrast, is neither temporary nor exceptional but rather the permanent condition of the cosmos, human existence, and indeed reality itself (teotl). Nepantla is ordinary -- not extraordinary. Unorder is the norm -- not order. Becoming and transition are the norm -- not being and stasis. Androgyny is the norm -- not male or female. What’s more, being and non-being, order and disorder, life and death, etc., are never entirely pure because always mixed with and conditioned by their contraries. They are always in transition, always swinging back towards and becoming their contraries. Furthermore, nepantla is not merely a social, conventional, performative, or ritually-induced condition. And finally, nepantla is not usefully understood in terms of “the subjunctive mood” of “fantasy,” “maybe,” or “as if.” Nepantla is a metaphysical condition: one that defines the nature of teotl and hence the nature of reality, the cosmos and human existence. Nepantla is indeed gestational and fetative, but not of some post-liminal existence, for there is no post-liminal existence according to Nahua metaphysics. There is only continuing nepantla.

The Centrality of Nepantla in Conquest-Era Nahua Philosophy

by James Maffie

Part I: Nepantla examined

Part II: Nepantla as a fundamental descriptive category of Nahua metaphysics

Part III: Nepantla as descriptive of the human condition

22 This discussion draws upon the following: Elizabeth Hill Boone, The Aztec World (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1994); Eva Hunt, The Transformation of the Hummingbird: Cultural Roots of a Zinacatecan Mythical Poem (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977); Arild Hvidtfeldt, Teotl and *Ixiptatli: Some Religious Conceptions in Ancient Mexico (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1958); J. Jorge Klor de Alva, "Christianity and the Aztecs," San Jose Studies 5 (1979), pp. 7-21; Miguel León-Portilla, Fifteen Poets of the Aztec World (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992); John D. Monaghan, The Covenants with Earth and Rain: Exchange, Sacrifice and Revelation in Mixtec Sociality (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), and "Theology and History in the Study of Mesoamerican Religions," in John D. Monaghan (ed.), Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), vol. 6, pp. 24-49; Read (1998); Richard F. Townsend, State and Cosmos in the Art of Tenochtitlan (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1979); Alan R. Sandstrom, Corn Is Our Blood: Culture and Ethnic Identity in a Contemporary Aztec Indian Village (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); and James Maffie, (2002a, 2005), and "'We Eat of the Earth, then the Earth Eats Us': The Concept of Nature in Pre-Hispanic Nahua Thought," Ludis Vitalis vol. X no. 17, (2002b): 5-20..

23 Nicholas Rescher, “Process Philosophy,” in Jaegwon Kim and Ernest Sosa (eds.), A Companion to Metaphysics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 417. Process philosophy reverses the classical principle, operari sequitar esse (or “functioning follows being”), with the principle, esse sequitar operari (or “being follows from operation”) (Ibid.). For further discussion, see Maffie (forthcoming)

24 Read (1998) makes a similar claim. For further discussion of the Nahua conception of place and time, see Read (1998); Elizabeth Hill Boone, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007); Alfredo López Austin (1997) and The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient Nahuas, 2 vols., trans. by Thelma Ortiz de Montellano and Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988); León-Portilla (2001); and Anthony F. Aveni, Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico (Austin: University of Texas, 2001).

25 See also Read (1998) and Monaghan (1998): 137-146. While indebted to Elzey’s study of ollin, I also find it potentially misleading. I prefer to say that ollin consists of regular or patterned motion rather than “structured and orderly motion.” Why? First, I worry that terms such as “order” and “structure” incorrectly imply that teotl is to be understood as having a static, permanent structure (such as Platonic-style Forms, abstract essences, or laws of nature). Second, I worry that characterizing ollin in terms of “order” and “structure” falsely implies that teotl’s motion is to be understood as consisting of static states of being, structures, or conditions. As I understand it, ollin is neither lawful nor causally deterministic (in the Western scientific sense of causal laws of nature). We also need to be careful not to interpret Elzey’s talk of “well-defined elements” as referring to static, unambiguous states of pure being. As we will see below, all existing things are dimorphous, ambiguous, and not entirely one thing or the other. Elzey’s talk of “well-defined elements” obscures this fact. Elzey’s characterization of ollin also fits poorly with my claim that the teotl is essentially processive and my claim that the since teotl’s cyclical processing oscillates between order and disorder, and structure and chaos, etc., teotl is essentially “betwixt and between” order and disorder, etc. I suggest we understand ollin instead as patterned or regular moving between what I call paired-opposites or dual polarities.

26 Strikingly absent from these dualities (from a Western perspective) is the moral construct: good vs. evil. Agon serves as second organizing metaphor of Nahua (and Mesoamerican) philosophy. For further discussion, see Gary H. Gossen, “Mesoamerican Ideas as a Foundation for Regional Synthesis,” in Gary H. Gossen (ed.), Symbol and Meaning beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas (Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, Albany: SUNY Press), pp. 1-8. For discussion of the concept of duality in Nahua (and Mesoamerican) thought, see: Nigel Davies, “Dualism as a Universal Concept: Its Relevance to Mesoamerica,” in Mesoamerican Dualism/Dualismo Mesoamericano, R. van Zantwijk, R de Ridder, and E. Braahuis (eds.) (Utrecht: RUU-ISOR, 1990), pp. 8-14; López Austin (1988, 1997) and The Rabbit on the Face of the Moon, Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano (trans.) (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1996); Monaghan (1998); Barbara Tedlock, Time and the Highland Maya, revised ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992); Dennis Tedlock, “Introduction,” in Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of the Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life and the Glories of Gods and Kings, intro., trans., and commentary by Dennis Tedlock (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), pp. 23-66, and “Creation in the Popol Vuh: A Hermeneutical Approach,” in Symbol and Meaning Beyond the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas, Gary H. Gossen (ed.) (1986), pp. 77-82; and Maffie (2002b, 2005).

27 In answering this question, we need to remember that balance (equilibrium) and imbalance (disequilibrium) are not among the polar dualities embraced by Nahua dualism. They are not defined as mutually arising or interdependent; they are not engaged in dialectical and cyclical alternation in the way that hot and cold, and order and disorder are, for example.

28 The example of walking is not perfect for several reasons. First, left and right are not complementary dual polarities (or inamic’s) by Nahua lights. Second, the Nahuatl word for walking, nehnemi, is not derived or constructed from the root, nepan. This notwithstanding, I nevertheless find the example illustrative.

29 Philip P. Arnold, Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1999). The artists of Tenochtitlan portrayed the nepantla-balance of life and death by fashioning stone sculptures with split-faced faces, one half fleshed and alive, the other half, fleshless, skeletal, and dead (e.g., see Plates 89 and 90, Sandro Landucci Lerdo de Tejada, et al. [eds.], The Aztec Empire [New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2004], p. 91). These figures are ontologically ambiguous. Skulls simultaneously symbolize death and life. Flesh simultaneously symbolizes life and death, since death arises from the flesh of the living. I suggest we understand these faces as neither alive nor dead yet at the same time both alive and dead. On the one hand, they are neither alive nor dead where life and death are conceived as mutually exclusive, contradictory properties. They are neither completely alive (fleshed) nor completely dead (skeletal). On the other hand, they are both alive and dead since they manifest both life and death conceived as interdependent, mutually arising complementary polarities. They thus supersede the binary, life/death.

The artist-scribes of the Codex Borgia likewise portrayed the concept of nepantla. Plates 56 and 73 show the dual deities, Quetzalcoatl (the god of life) and Mictlantecuhtli (the god of death), sharing one and the same spine. Like the masks above, the images express the unified duality of life and death, and more generally, the creative-destructive polarity of the cosmos. For further discussion, see Esther Pasztory, Aztec Art (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983), p.88.

30 For additional discussion, see: Burkhart (1989); López Austin (1988, 1996, 1997); Linda A. Curcio-Nagy "Faith and Morals in Colonial Mexico," in The Oxford History of Mexico, Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezly (eds.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 151-182; Maffie (2005); and Read (1998).

31 The Nahuas embraced two time counts: the tonalpohualli or count of the 260-day cycle, and the xiuhmolpilli or 360 + 5 day solar calendar. The two cycles and time counts ran simultaneously. The ends of their cycles coincided every 52 years (forming a bundle of years or “century”) at which time a new 52-year cycle would (hopefully) begin anew. The Nahua divided the xiuhmolpilli into eighteen “months,” each “month” consisting of twenty days. This totaled 360 days. But what about the remaining five days? Even though they included the remaining five days in their mathematical calculations (and the count of the tonalpohualli continued), the Nahua refused to count the five days for ritual purposes. "Nothing was their number,” reports Sahagún (Sahagún 1952-1983, Book II: 172). The Nahua referred to the five days as nemontemi, which Sahagún tells us, means “barren days” (Sahagún 1952-1983, Book II: 35). They regarded the five days as loaded with extreme danger. Because they occurred between the end of an old and beginning of a new cycle, the Nahuas considered the five days to be a period of “no-time” or “time out of time,” as John Monaghan puts it (John Monaghan, “The Person, Destiny, and the Construction of Difference in Mesoamerica,” RES 33 [Spring, 1998], p. 140). Motolinía characterizes the five days as “sin año” (quoted in Monaghan 1998: 140). Elzey (1976) characterizes the nemontemi in terms of nepantla. I suspect this is mistaken. Although they do occur between solar cycles, the nemontemi do not represent a nepantla-middling since the solar cycles are not interwoven by a nepantla-process.

32 See, for example, Burkhart (1989), Elzey (1976), and Viviana Díaz Balsera, The Pyramid under the Cross (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005). The classic discussion of liminality is, of course, Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal period in Rites of Passage,” reproduced in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, William A. Lessa and Evon Z. Vogt (eds.), 4rth ed. (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1979), pp. 234-243. See also Turner’s “Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama: An Essay in the Anthropology of Experience,” in Victor Turner and Edward Bruner (eds.), The Anthropology of Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), pp. 33-44.