Abstract

DECLERCQ, Stan. Necoc Yaotl ‘The Enemy of Both Sides’: Anti-expansionist Aztec warfare. Trace (Méx. DF) [online]. 2022, n.82, pp.84-112.  Epub Dec 02, 2022. ISSN 2007-2392.  https://doi.org/10.22134/trace.82.2022.829.

In the present work, the social relations between the Nahua enemies of the Late Postclassic period are analyzed. While traditionally the act of capture in war has been interpreted as a way of producing «identical subjects», here it is understood as a mechanism that generates social differentiation, based on a «dualism in perpetual imbalance» (Lévi-Strauss 1992, 297). Based on the concept of «constitutive alterity» (Erikson 1986), border rites and the role of the enemy are explored in the process of formation as a person of the noble warrior and how, in turn, the latter goes through a process of «enemization» (Vilaça 2010). An (old) discussion between Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Clastres about the Amerindian war is also taken up, which leads us to place the Aztec flowery war in a more general debate on exchange. From a relational approach between the adversaries, this artitle defines this war as a pact based on a predatory relationship.

Keywords : identity; alterity; Aztecs; warfare; relational anthropology.

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