ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to give freer reign to constructive uncanniness than it has until now had by moving with certain Aztec songs along the chief axes of postcolonial historiography. Postcolonial historiography is characterized by a dialogue of complementary comprehension and mystification, of knowledge at once full and thwarted. The legacy of Aztec song is fragmentary, alienated, and alienating. It takes many forms: depictions of singing and instrumental accompaniment in both precontact and colonial picture-codices; preserved instruments sitting mute in museum collections; and a substantial number of song texts transmitted in various manuscripts in alphabetized Nahuatl. The genesis of the manuscript is obscure, the dating of its contents warmly debated by Mexicanists. Some of its cantares clearly date from after the Spanish conquest; others may in some form antedate it; all probably reflect, if in ways difficult to gauge, traditions that reach back to prehispanic times.
