The Color of Chant. Parallelism in Teotihuacan Painting

Abstract

The relationship between imagery and oral enunciation is a debated theme in Mesoamerican studies, where most of the discussion has centered on Postclassic and colonial codices. To expand the chronological depth of this kind of studies, the present article discusses some Teotihuacan paintings in order to identify possible structural correspondences between images and linguistic enunciations. After briefly reviewing the scholarly debate carried out so far, the article will discuss a Teotihuacan “graphic compound of meaning” (as defined by Mikulska) known as four element group, apparently an antecedent of similar Postclassic graphic compounds which correspond to well-known diphrasisms in indigenous languages such as Nahuatl. The second study case discussed herein is a detail of a mural painting form Tepantitla (Teotihuacan) which shows a strict thematic and structural analogy with part of a Nahuatl chant recorded in Bernardino de Sahagún’s Psalmodia Christiana. The two examples suggest that Teotihuacan visual expressions can be conceived as antecedents of parallelistic expressions –both visual and oral– which enjoyed a wide diffusion in later epochs of Mesoamerican history.