Conquest by Semiotics! From his hard-nosed book dedication “ . . . to the memory of a Mayan woman devoured by dogs,” to his epilogue statement that in America “the other remains to be discovered” (p. 247), Todorov challenges the reader to engage in a sophisticated semiotic interpretation of the conquest of Mesoamerica. He claims that by focusing on the complex problems of human communication in the New World between the voyages of Columbus and the production of Bernardino de Sahagún’s Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, we will arrive at a new understanding of how a relatively small group of Spaniards conquered the vast and sophisticated Aztec empire of Moctezuma II, and by understanding this, we will understand the West. Todorov concentrates his impressive interpretive skills on the conquest of America because it is the foundation experience of our present identity. This exemplary encounter of radical otherness between Europeans and Indians is representative of a universal problem which Todorov has written about elsewhere, the “discovery ‘self’ makes of the ‘other’” (p. 3).
Todorov recreates the process of discovery and conquest in the New World through an examination of various symbolic behaviors recorded in historical accounts, diaries, letters, encyclopedias, and other ethnographic data. He skillfully reconstructs the hermeneutics of conquest that characterizes the European approach to otherness in America. His study begins with a chapter, “Discovery,” which shows that the “semiotic conduct” of Columbus was controlled by a “finalist strategy.” In other words, Columbus knew “in advance what he [would] find; the concrete experience is there to illustrate a truth already possessed” (p. 17). The result was that Columbus “discovered America but not the Americans” because in his “hermeneutics human beings have no particular place” (p. 33).
The heart of this aggressively bright study is the chapter “Conquest,” where Todorov argues that Cortes and Moctezuma Xocoyotzin represented two major and distinct forms of communication which contributed substantially to the Spanish conquest. While Cortes’s perceptions of messages, political events, and symbolic behavior emphasized human to human communication, Moctezuma made decisions on the basis of communication between humans and nature, humans and supernatural beings, and humans and humans. While Moctezuma, who possessed “a fatal broadmindedness,” sweated out calendrical patterns, omens, and dream messages, Cortes established a superior military and political information network which he manipulated to ensure conquest. The result, writes Todorov, was that “by his mastery of signs, Cortes ensure[d] his control over the ancient Mexican empire” (p. 119). While Todorov admits the importance of superior Spanish weapons and the impact of disease and Indian rebellions against Moctezuma in the conquest, it is through the semiotic skills of Cortes that the Aztec capital is subdued and transformed. Conquest by semiotics!
The source of this devastating distinction in understanding is “an evolution in the technology of symbols; this evolution can be reduced for simplicity’s sake to the advent of writing. Now, the presence of writing favors improvisation over ritual, just as it makes for a linear conception of time, or furthers the perception of the other” (p. 252). The Spanish improvise the conquest while the Aztecs ritualize it.
The final two chapters “Love” and “Knowledge” illustrate the sustained improvisational techniques of writers like Diego Durán, Sepúlveda, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Sahagún. In each case, we are presented with well-selected passages from their works and new understandings of their purposes.
One of the important aspects of the book is its arguability. Todorov provides us with controversial positions in a very firm voice punctuated with a record number of exclamation points! For instance, he insists that “if the word genocide has ever been applied to a situation accurately, then here is the case” (p. 133). But the atrocious reduction in human population during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was largely due to diseases and not to the systematic, planned attempt to annihilate the Indians. More importantly, Todorov’s central argument, that writing results in improvisation while oral cultures are inhibited by ritual and over-organization, suggests that he has failed to study carefully the “others” in Mesoamerica. Mesoamerican history, seen from its own horizons, is marked by improvisations, innovations, and adaptation in systems of economics, technology, and communication. The Aztecs, who transformed the art, architecture, and religious traditions of central Mesoamerica in innovative and traditional ways, can be considered an improvisational people.
But the boldness of conception and language with which Todorov tells this story is a very significant contribution to historians, linguists, anthropologists, and historians of religions. Only time will tell if Todorov’s semiotic approach is a reflection of the intellectual fashion of the ’80s or a profound insight into a much older puzzle. My hunch is that Todorov will be carefully read for some time to come.
