Around 1591, a Nahuatl writer translated a play about the passion of Christ and the Virgin Mary’s role in it for performance before native audiences in Mexico. This play, termed “Holy Wednesday” in the translation, had been written less than a decade earlier by a bookseller in Valencia, Spain. In her impressive study, Louise M. Burkhart examines the significant modifications and additions that the translator made in the text to render it more comprehensible to the native audience. But, as Burkhart well knows, he did so without simplifying the concepts or subtleties found in the original work. He even added four new speeches at the end, two for Mary and two for Christ. The translation is in high classical Nahuatl.
In this, the earliest known play in an indigenous language, Mary has more authority and knowledge than in the original Spanish. Likewise, Christ is presented as a dutiful and obedient son, lacking the drive to disobey his parents and ancestors, which undercuts the crucial Christian concept of free will. In accord with Nahua culture, the translator downplayed the individual’s moral decisions to emphasize the salvation of the larger community and the person’s duty to be an obedient member. Furthermore, time repeats itself in the new version, as Christ’s passion parallels or fulfills parts of the Old Testament, instead of moving inexorably forward to the Last Judgment called for in Christian doctrine.
Christianity, as presented, is made ancient and predictable in indigenous cultural terms. The natives sought to reconcile Christianity to their cultural beliefs, thus giving their own history and culture continued meaning and elevating their moral standing, though still within a colonial framework. While the Spaniards and their regime may have remained foreign and imposed, the natives saw the Church and Christianity as arriving separately and naturally to redeem them and their societies.
Burkhart affords a full history of the composition and provenance of this translation. She also presents the play as an example of a dramatic genre within both Spain and Mexico. The author demonstrates her sophisticated knowledge of Christian thought and of the history of drama, besides her command of Nahuatl culture and linguistics.
After slightly more than ioo pages of such history and commentary, Burkhart provides a side-by-side English translation of the Spanish and Nahuatl versions of “Holy Wednesday” encompassing some 50 pages. Her impressive annotations to these two versions take up another 90 pages. A useful appendix offers five selections from other sixteenth-century Nahuatl texts on the same themes treated in the play. On the final page of the book, the University of Pennsylvania Press advertises that an electronic version of both the original Spanish and Nahuatl play is available for sale separately.
