MEXICO .- They are perfectly clear about their lineage. The house they come from, the genealogical tree that supports them as descendants of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, the ninth emperor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan (1300 – 1520), the antepenultimate Aztec tlatoani who had to receive the Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés in the city that he snatched.
The Moctezuma are clear. They have never lost their blood trail and they know where they are going. At least in one of the lineages of the four Moctezuma houses.
“We want to dignify the legacy of our original Mexico,” Ituriel Moctezuma said in an interview with this newspaper where he makes it clear that honor begins with language: it was not conquest, but invasion, he says. They were not human sacrifices, but “honorable deaths” regulated as the death penalty in some US states.
Ituriel, an electrical engineer by profession, is one of the governors of the country appointed in assemblies according to customs and uses. He represents Mexico City in the Mexican National Council of Native Peoples and Indigenous Communities that has established a simile of constitutionally elected state leaders.
“Now I have a government position in the city of Moctezuma,” he said.
The Huey Tlatoani had 20 children with different marriages, according to the conclusion reached by historians. From them, 16 died in battles against the people of Cortés and survived him four: the first-born Teresa Francisca, daughter of his first wife who died in childbirth; María Leonor, Pedro and Isabel (Tecuichpotzin).
There is documentation of their descent in the General Archive of the Nation, where the researcher Arnold Labeuf, from the Jagiellonian University of Krakow, to create one of the most complete genealogical trees on the Moctezuma.
It was Labeuf who delved into the study of those royal families of the pre-Hispanic Triple Alliance that ruled Tenochtitlán who fled from it after their defeat to the Guerrero municipality of Chilapa, currently one of the poorest and impacted by organized crime violence.
Los Moctezumas descendants of Teresa Francisca say that they are the only s that, in the first generation, they kept pure Mexica blood because of all the surviving children, only she did not mix with Spaniards: she married Diego Huanitzin Alvarado (son of Cuitláhuac) and his son Pedro Cortés de Tlacopan was recognized by Carlos V as the emperor of Tenochtitlan after the death of Cuauhtémoc, who had no descendants.
“The true succession of the crown of Moctezuma was not through Isabel and her marriages with Spaniards, but it was through Teresa who married the son of Cuitláhuac”, highlights Ituriel.
Later Pedro Cortés de Tlacopan renounced the New Spanish life of Mexico City and went to Guerrero in search of rearming or reorganizing the reconquest of Tenochtitlan. There he fell in love and did not return. He married Ana (a descendant of Nezahualcóyotl and the lords of Xochimilco) and from that union the first Moctezuma of Chilapa was born: Joseph Moctezuma.
Joseph asked the Spanish crown to be let him use “Moctezuma” as a surname because the word was, rather, a reference to a Mexican noble title for wise people. Ituriel says that, the Chilapa, was interested in the lineage, tradition, the inheritance of Tenochtitlan.
“Having the surname was very important. ”
The historian of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Jesús Hernández Jaimes, observed something else: “The children of Moctezuma maintained, like a large part of the indigenous nobility, constant litigation before the royal crown for obtain as many privileges as possible “, he documented.
” To the lineage of Pedro, King Felipe IV granted the title of Count of Tultenco in 1536 to a great-grandson of the tlatoani; to the descendants of Isabel (Tecuichpo), the titles of Count of Miravalle and a monetary pension of 1. 480 grams gold up to 1933 ”. The current Mexican ambassador to the United States, Esteban Moctezuma, is descended from this branch.
Chilapa’s children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-grandchildren gave the chiefdom and the majority of Chilapa, according to the historian’s research.
The descendants were Joseph in Chilapa multiplied over decades and decades throughout the region. Already in the 21st century, it is estimated that there are some 300 living descendants, among them, Andrés Moctezuma, Ituriel’s grandfather, who has 40 people more than yours.
The Last time they met was the 27 of January of 2019, shortly before the pandemic, when Andrés met 100, no longer chiefdoms far from it. He is only a collaborator of historians who is aware of transmitting the “blood duties” of the Moctezuma to their 102 years. And it’s still standing.
Whats Next?
The Moctezuma descendants of Teresa Francisca currently have missions together and parallel. Among them there are various types of professions and trades, from peasants, artisans, economists, lawyers, doctors, businessmen, designers; people who are still in Guerrero or emigrated to the surroundings, to Morelos, Mexico City and even the United States.
“We are quite normal, the difference in our family is that we know Where we come from and that makes us aware and responsible to be purposeful and active in society, somehow we have roots ”, highlights Ituriel, the most political of this current lineage.
—What is the family mission? – He is asked.
– First Instead, dignify the legacy of our original Mexico, through the good image and work of the family towards society, preach by example. The other thing is to help the community to regain its identity and its way of life. It implies from the cultural, the nutritional, and the form of government, we are working with the Mexican Indigenous National Council and with many political, social and cultural groups to establish an autochthonous government.
– Would they be parallel governments?
– Rather, it is about harmonizing the administrative work of the Mexican State with the traditional government of the indigenous so that all decisions that are Regarding the economic, social, political, go through the vote of a council of indigenous peoples as a counterbalance mechanism.
– Like the role of the queen in the British crown where the prime ministers must consult her decisions?
– That’s right. The English crown has not lost its identity; We want to recover it.
The family wants for the country some forms of ancestral life that are still conserved in the territories of the native peoples, from the local area, the herbs, the calendar Mexica or the science of corn, among many other crops that use sowing and harvesting calendars based on pre-Hispanic knowledge.
That is why the Moctezumas supported the promotion of a law that has already been approved in the Chamber of Deputies, so that ancestral Mexican knowledge is recognized as scientific knowledge with the support of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).
“They are knowledge that has been transmitted from generation to generation for centuries among our ancestors who experienced life on earth and its physical phenomena before us and we have ignored them ”, said deputy María Eugenia Hernández, aut ora of the initiative.
“They will help us solve problems related to sustainable issues, water care and public health.”
Specific battles
The local struggles for the harmony of the original communities are also an Achilles heel for the Moctezuma. Leticia Fabián, another of Andrés’ granddaughters and Ituriel’s cousin, is currently leading a battle against the passage of the Mexicable collective transport system in Santa Isabel Tola.
The population located in the mayor’s office Gustavo A. Madero is one of the last rural communities in Mexico City where Nahuatl is still spoken, however, the urban stain is about to eat it up. The construction of cable cars that would pass over their heads is considered a total affront to the country life they intended to preserve.
Leticia Fabián Moctezuma (Photo: courtesy Gardenia Mendoza). “We have our traditions, our Church of Santa Isabel de Portugal with more than 500 years, identity as original people, the Aqueduct of Guadalupe dating from Tenochtitlán and now they want to invade us with bridges and modern constructions that do not go with the tranquility of the community ”, says Leticia Fabián, an economist by profession.
“ That is transgressing historical conservation ”.
Leticia Fabián leads marches, calls meetings , hangs informational posters throughout the town, but the authorities do not give her many es peranzas: the builders have already put the structure, the rods and dug deeply since the tender was made without consulting the population.
Although in Santa Isabel Tolá the Most of the inhabitants are of indigenous origin, it is not officially recognized as a community of indigenous peoples and, therefore, is not obliged by the International Labor Organization agreement to consult about the work, in addition to the fact that the government is not used to asking questions.
Along with this community activism, Leticia Fabián has a personal matter related to the lineage: only He has a daughter and wants her to bear the surname Moctezuma, which she does not have. She has the support of her husband, who has no problems with Flores being lost in favor of the house of tlatoani Xocoyotzin.
“The problem is in the Civil Registry”, details.
In 2020 the Mexican Congress authorized the parents to decide the order of the children’s surnames , as appropriate. But in the times when she was born (1976 ) that was not allowed and that is why his last name is Fabián and not Moctezuma; therefore, his daughter may be Fabián Flores, but not Moctezuma Flores. “The process will not be easy.”
Raúl Moctezuma, from 57 years, no surname problems. Rather, to the seventh son of Andrés he adds causes of another type. Lawyer, master in public administration, he is the current legal director of the National Medical Arbitration Commission, a job that absorbs him and keeps him away from the issue of lineage.
“I compensate it informing me of the family’s history ”, he says.
The rest of the time he attends and resolves controversies of medical complaints. That is, any patient who goes to a medical process and disagrees with any provider of medical services, be it from a public or private hospital.
It is not a minor matter. According to the National Human Rights Commission, the main complaints against institutions are headed by those related to health such as Social Security (IMSS) or ISSSTE, in addition to regional and private clinics. “It is a very absorbing job that does not allow more.”
The past in the present
There are two topics from the Era of Emperor Moctezuma that in modern times have greater relevance for his descendants: the return of the Plume to Mexico and the review of the story told by the Spanish.
Leticia has a particular interest in the Penacho de Moctezuma and to catapult it she makes a team moral with the president’s wife Andrés Manuel López Obrador , Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller , who last October unsuccessfully demanded from the Austrian government the return of the tlatoani crown. The Europeans argued that “it is very fragile” and that the trip back it could damage it.
The descendant of the tlatoani says that she recently started talks with Xoconochtletl Gomora, historical head of the original peoples of Campeche, so that as a representative he demands the return by way of the original peoples. “It was our diadem of power, we cannot abandon it, it is a symbol.”
Another symbol that they intend to question is human sacrifice as reflected in the writings of the Spanish. Ituriel says that Bernal Díaz del Castillo only spoke about what he heard but that he never witnessed any beating heart extracted from a chest in the Templo Mayor because they were not made there.
” To begin with, the word sacrifice did not exist in Nahuatl, they called those rites
‘ honorable deaths’ because they were carried out under very strict laws against those who deserved capital punishment: thieves, rapists, traitors to the state, people of the worst or repeat criminals. ”
In a reinterpretation Similarly, the Moctezuma of Chilapa want a revision of the role of Isabel, even if it comes from another lineage, because they consider that it was used by the Spanish to sign documents to appropriate land and titles. I had 15 years, they could manipulate her and they married her four times to get power out of her.
“A historical revisionism is very necessary,” concludes Ituriel.
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