Cuiloni
is the closest equivalent to the term “homosexual” in classical
Nahuatl. As similar terms that were used in European languages prior to
the 18th and 19th century, cuiloni refers basically
to an individual performing the act, and not to the person’s identity.
It would therefore be misleading to translate the term with “gay” in a
contemporary sense when encountered in classical texts. If the term would
have acquired such a meaning today is an open question, although it is
possible of course. We will later in this series discuss different Nahuatl
terms, which might be used as equivalents to the English “gay” in a
contemporary sense. It
is regrettable that most of the Nahuatl vocabulary relating to these
topics seems to have gone out of active usage. It is our impression that
even in communities where Nahuatl still is actively spoken, Spanish terms
have totally replaced the native vocabulary relating to gay issues (to the
extent that gay issues are part of daily discourse at all…) If any of
our readers have different experiences, we would be delighted to hear from
you. It would be more than interesting to learn how contemporary Nahuas
address such issues in their own language. While modern Mexican Spanish,
especially perhaps the slang used in the gay subcultures, depends heavily
on English influence, classical Nahuatl provides a rich and overwhelmingly
nuanced native vocabulary perfectly suited to express any aspect of human
sexuality and relationships. In
“vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana” by Alonso de
Molino printed in Mexico City in 1571, we find the following entries: cuilonyotl. pecado
nefando, de hombre con hombre. cuilontia cometer
pecado nefando. Molina’s
referral to cuilonyotl as pecado nefando, the nefarious sin, is of course
the usage, which might be expected of a Spanish friar of his time. This is
the most common way of referring to homosexual acts in 16th
century ecclesiastical Spanish, but it does not indicate which meanings
were attached to cuilonyotl in Nahua thought. Fortunately we have a rich
corpus of early colonial texts in Nahuatl giving us the opportunity to see
how the term was used in daily discourse, indicating some of the meanings
the Nahuas themselves attributed to it: In
the Florentine Codex Book 10, we can read for instance that:
The
chewing of chicle [is] the real privilege of the addicts termed
“effeminates”. [It is] as if it were their privilege, their
birthright. And the men who publicly chew chicle achieve the status of
sodomites; they equal the effeminates. (Sahagún 1961: 10, 89 - 90.) In
those days, it was thus not very macho to use chewing gum in
public… We can further read
that chicle was used by both men and women to clean their teeth and
prevent bad smell from the mouth, but men did this mostly in secret, with
the exception of course, of the “effeminates” addicted to chewing gum.
Such passages in the texts indicate that men who had sex with other men
obviously could be categorised as effeminate in some contexts, but
it does not necessarily indicate to which extent such stereotypes were
current in the pre-conquest society, or to which extent Spanish popular
ideas already had influenced Sahagún’s informants and their way of
thinking at the time the corpus was compiled. We will discuss this
interesting question in a later article. Next
week:
Patlachhuiliztli
– sex between women LIOWLB/University of Frankfurt |
