Dante's heritage: questioning the multi-layered model of the Mesoamerican universe.

Dante's heritage: questioning the multi-layered model of the Mesoamerican universe. Introduction A recurring methodological discussion in Mesoamerican research hascentred on the extant use of ethnohistorical and ethnographic analogies(Trigger 1981; Quilter 1996). Although we find this approach bothinevitable and productive, the present study will emphasise howimportant it is to investigate and trace the development of any culturalelement in time and space with extreme care. In the present study wewill suggest that a generalisation has taken place regarding the idea ofa multi-layered Mesoamerican universe, showing that this cosmicstructure has been inferred primarily from post-Columbian centralMexican sources and not from pre-Columbian evidence such as hieroglyphictexts or iconography. Secondly, and more importantly, we put forward thehypothesis that the notion of a multi-layered universe is not genuinelyan autochthonous Mesoamerican concept, and that it was only introducedinto the area in the sixteenth century, and ultimately derives fromEuropean visions of the cosmos. A main objective of our research hasbeen to examine under which circumstances and by whom, sixteenth-centurysources on Mesoamerican religion and cosmography were composed. Layers or regions: the topography of the otherworld The early Colonial K'iche' Maya manuscript known as thePopol Wuj describes how the Hero Twins have to face particular ordealsin six houses in the underworld of Xib'alb'a (Christenson2003: 160-74). Each house is named according to the particular ordeal itpresents to the protagonists. For instance, the second house is called'Blade House' and is filled with sharp cutting blades. In thedescription of the setting, it appears that all houses are arranged onthe same level, as though chambers in the cavernous Xib'alb'a.The geography of the Popol Wuj underworld in many ways resembles thelayout of the Aztec underworld according to the Codex VaticanusA (c.1566-89, Glass & Robertson 1975: 186; Miller & Taube 1993:177-8) (Figure 1). In the Vaticanus A, the first realm beneath the earthis called 'Water Passage', while the second is named'Where the Hills Clash Together' (Nicholson 1971: 406-8). Inthe Popol Wuj the Hero Twins begin their journey to Xib'alb'aby passing through great river canyons, that is, narrow spaces where therocks come together, and they cross the big rivers called Pus and Blood.The realms named 'Obsidian Knife Hill' and 'Where SomeoneIs Shot with Arrows' in the Vaticanus A can be compared to the'Blade House' in the K'iche' epic, in the sense thatthey are places where blades inflict pain on humans. The Aztecs calledthe eighth realm of the underworld 'Where Someone's Heart IsEaten' and illustrated this place by a carnivore devouring a humanheart. The obvious K'iche' parallel is the 'House ofJaguars'. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] But while the K'iche' highland Maya of the mid-sixteenthcentury presents an underworld horizontally divided into a number ofdepartments or regions, the contemporaneous Aztec Vaticanus A placesthese departments on top of each other, forming a vertically arrangedunderworld of multiple layers. Is this simply an example of twoalternative Mesoamerican concepts? Or can the difference best beexplained by other historical developments and cultural mechanisms? Asindicated, it cannot be verified that the vertical multi-layeredstructure is an indigenous pre-Columbian model of the cosmos. Thus, allknown sources that make references to such a multi-layered cosmologicalstructure are of post-Columbian origin. We therefore suggest that theconcept of a multi-layered universe was introduced by the Spanishintruders, and more specifically the Franciscans and their Danteanworld-view with its nine layers in both heaven and underworld. Yettoday, the existence of a pre-Columbian multi-layered cosmos is takenfor granted. Common knowledge and where it came from The majority of textbooks available describe how the ancient Mayaand Aztecs divided the heavens and the underworld into a number oflayers (e.g. Evans 2004), most often 9 layers in the underworld and 13layers in the heavens. Miller and Taube (1993: 177-8) refer to CodexVaticanus A as the source 'where the 9-13 scheme receives its mostexplicit and ample representation'. They add, however, that:"The Maya certainly perceived layers of both Underworld and upperworld but the notion of nine levels of the Underworld is not specific oruniversal for the Maya, nor is it for either the Mixtecs or theZapotecs'. This note of caution is important, as it turns out thatit is almost exclusively Codex Vaticanus A that is referred to, if anysource is mentioned at all, in the broad syntheses of Mesoamericanmulti-layered cosmography. Seler was the first to present a lengthy discussion of centralMexican cosmography, including the notion of stratified layers in theheavens and in the underworld. However, he also noted that: "In thesame way as the earth, this flat, two-dimensional shield [of theunderworld] was cut up into nine regions corresponding to the fourcardinal directions. Thus, the underworld was divided into nineregions' (Seler [1923] 1996: 9), and emphasised that there are avariety of ways to perceive the layout of the underworld (Seler [1923]1996: 3-23). Despite Seler's nuanced analysis, the Vaticanus Ascheme intime has become the standard for understanding ancient centralMexican cosmography. In 1961, Krickeberg's synthesis of thecosmology of the Postclassic cultures further established what wouldbecome the unquestioned fact that the Aztecs believed in a cosmicstructure arranged vertically in layers of 9 and 13 (Krickeberg et al.[1961] 1968: 39-40; see also Lopez Austin 1997: 16-17, 106-8). From the Maya area we have no early commentators who depict ordescribe the universe in a way similar to that of the Codex Vaticanus A.For example, Landa in his Relacion (c. 1566) does not mention layers(Tozzer 1941). It would seem that the idea of a 9-13 layer model amongthe Classic Maya was first advanced by J. Eric S. Thompson. In 1934 hesuggested that: 'it is possible that the various groups of Mayadirection gods [...] were considered to be on different celestial orterrestrial planes' (Thompson 1934: 216, emphasis added). Thus,directional gods were transferred to vertical layers on a hypotheticalbasis. Twenty years later he was more certain: "They appear to havebelieved that the sky was divided into thirteen compartments, in whichof each certain gods resided. These may have been thought to be arrangedas that number of horizontal layers one above the other' (Thompson1954: 225-6, emphasis added). Finally, in Maya History and Religion(1970) Thompson left no room for doubt: 'there are thirteen layersof the skies [...] just as there are nine layers of the underworld'(1970: 280, emphasis added). Eventually, the idea of a multi-layeredcosmos became so deeply embedded in Mesoamerican research that it wasautomatically accepted as a genuine pre-Columbian concept (e.g. VillaRojas in Leon-Portilla 1988: 135). The cosmic model soon influencedinterpretations of Mesoamerican architecture. Thus, Klein (1975),drawing on Krickeberg's research, and Van Zantwijk (1981) publishedinterpretations of temple pyramids based on the references to layeredcosmologies documented in Colonial sources. The assumed nine layers ofthe underworld are also alleged to be represented in the architecture ofcertain Maya sites (Carlson 1981: 154). We must stress that we do notper se reject the association between the underworld, the number nineand architecture. Thus, the so-called Twin Pyramid groups of Tikal,which are thought to be architectural cosmograms, include nine-doorwayedbuildings on their south side (Ashmore 1991), and are perhaps emulatingthe series of horizontally arranged houses of the underworld known fromthe Popol Wuj. Mesoamerican visions of the universe In the Mesoamerican data, it readily becomes apparent that afour-part image of the universe is by far the dominant scheme. Thishorizontal structure, based on a central middle point and the four worlddirections, can be traced further back into pre-Columbian Mesoamerica,from the Postclassic and as far back as to the Preclassic (Nicholson1971: 403-6; Freidel et al. 1993:71-3, 128-31; Miller & Taube 1993:77-8, 186-7). A well-known representation of this horizontally dividedcosmos is found on the first page of the Mixtec Codex Fejervary Mayer(Figure 2), where the god of fire is shown standing at the centre of theearth, while two gods are associated with each cardinal direction, thusamounting to nine gods (see also the Maya Codex Madrid, pp. 75-6). Thegods and trees of the four directions are framed by a cross pattee withthe arms of the cross oriented toward the four cardinal directions, butcounting the intercardinal loops and the centre the number nine isrendered once more (Boone 2007: 114-7). Thus, we have nine horizontaldivisions of the cosmos. In contrast, pre-Columbian iconography and inscriptions do not makeany unequivocal references to a layered universe. Deities, supernaturalbeings and places, in particular among the Classic Maya, often appearwith numerals 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 13 prefixed, but there is currently noevidence that any of these numerals, and more specifically 7, 9 and 13,can be associated with vertical layers rather than horizontal regions ofthe cosmos. As already mentioned, the depiction of the Mesoamericancosmos most commonly referred to is the illustration of the layereduniverse in the Vaticanus A (folios 1v-2r). However, if we compare theVaticanus A representation with the Franciscan friar Bernardino deSahagun's detailed description of the Aztec underworld we find somenotable discrepancies. Thus, the latter has no reference to layers, andthe text rather provides us with the impression of moving through acontinuous horizontal landscape. If we consult the appendix of Book 3 ofthe Florentine Codex (or Historia General), we read that: "all whodied went to [one of] three places when they died. The first place wasthere in the place of the dead [Mictlan]'. A prayer accompanied thedeceased and the goods placed in the grave: 'Here is wherewith thou will pass where the mountains cometogether. And here is wherewith thou will pass by the road which theserpent watcheth. And here is wherewith thou will pass by the bluelizard, the xochitonal. And here is wherewith thou will travel the eightdeserts. And here is wherewith thou will cross the eight hills. Here iswherewith thou will pass the place of the obsidian-bladed winds [...].And also they caused him to take with him a little dog, a yellow one[...]. It was said that it would take [the dead one] across the place ofthe nine rivers in the place of the dead. And [...] there was arrivalwith Mictlan tecutli [...]. And there in the nine places of the dead, inthat place there was complete disappearance'. (Anderson &Dibble 1978: 41-4) [FIGURE 2 OMITTED] In this description there is no reference to layers or to adownward movement from one place to another. The journey of the dead totheir final destination, described as the ninth place, could equallywell--or perhaps better--be interpreted as a journey through regionssituated on the same level, and terminating at a central location. Thosewho did not arrive in Mictlan came to Tlalocan or 'to the home ofthe sun, in heaven' (Anderson & Dibble 1978: 47-9). Again wefind no indication of a multitude of layers, but a rather basic contrastbetween 'down' and 'up'. Another of Sahagun's texts, the Primeros Memoriales contains areference to 'chicunavatenco', 'the ninthunderworld', but this location is not explicitly described as beingsituated below other underworlds (Sahagun 1997: 177-8; see also Anderson1988: 156-9). A much later source, Ruiz de Alarcon's Treatise onthe Heathen Superstitions (1629), also provides important information.Summarising some of Ruiz de Alarcon's observations, Andrews andHassig conclude that: 'The native view of the supernatural worMpersisted in the concepts of a celestial realm and an underworld. Thecelestial realm Topan ("Above-us"), also called ChiucnauhTopan ("Nine-Topan") and Chiucnauhtlanepaniuhcan("Nine-layering-place"), has nine levels, although these arenot discussed separately, nor are internal distinctions drawn'(Andrews & Hassig 1984: 21). The key terra isChiucnauhtlanepaniuhcan, and Ruiz de Alarcon originally translated thisas 'a las nuevejuntas o emparejamientos' (1984: 224). Andrewsand Hassig consider this a misinterpretation, hence their translation'Nine-layering-place'. However, no part of the word can betranslated as 'layering' or 'layer'.'Nepaniuh' is a form of the verb 'nepanoa', meaning'juntarse una cosa con otra' (Karttunen 1992: 169). Thus, theterm simply designates a place where nine entities are united or fittedtogether (Una Canger, pers. comm. 2007), and Ruiz de Alarcon'soriginal translation is not erroneous. On the contrary, Andrews andHassig's interpretation of the term may be coloured by theexpectations generated by 'common knowledge', andChiucnauhtlanepaniuhcan could equally well refer to a horizontaldivision of the heavens. As mentioned, none of the early Colonial sources on the Maya makereference to layers, whereas the importance of the four cardinaldirections and the centre is referred to in several instances (Tozzer1941: 135-9; Christenson 2003: 65). Only in much later Yukatek Mayasources do we find references to a layered structure of the cosmos. Inthe Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel we encounter the '9-God'and the '13-God', and they appear in the context of thethirteen tas or 'layers' of the heavens. The same sourcementions the 'the seventh stratum of the earth' and 'thefour layers of stars' (Roys 1933: 31-2, 99-101). It would thus seemthat the link between the 9 and 13 gods and cosmic layers derive fromthe Chumayel manuscript, and that modern scholars have assumed that asimilar belief existed in pre-Columbian rimes. However, it is importantto stress that by the time the Chilam Balam of Chumayel was written inthe late eighteenth century, Yukatek Maya culture had long beeninfluenced by Euro-Christian concepts and genres, as is evidentthroughout large parts of the book (Mignolo 1995: 204-7; Graham inpress). An influence from European cosmology is also apparent in theBook of Chilam Balam of Kaua, which includes a European geocentric,spherical model of the universe (Bricker & Miram 2002: 92).According to Bricker and Miram the Maya terms for 'layers':'tas and yal refer not only to the "layers' of the sky inthese Books of Chilam Balam but also to the celestial spheres of theEuropean universe in the Kaua' (Bricker & Miram 2002: 36). Altar 3 from the Late Classic Maya site of Altar de los Reyes(Campeche, Mexico) bears a hieroglyphic text referring to the'divine lands, the 13 lands' in combination with 13 EmblemGlyphs of Maya polities, strongly suggesting that the Maya of thisregion acknowledged 13 subdivisions or regions of the earth (Grube2003). It is possible that the geography of the underworld mirrored asimilar horizontal structure coupled with the number 13. Knab'saccount of the geography of the underworld from San Miguel Tzinacapan (aNahua-speaking community in Puebla, Mexico) supports this hypothesis(Knab 1991, 1993). According to the shamans of the village, theunderworld (called 'Talocan') in many ways mirrors the earthlylevel and its organisation. The underworld is organised according to thefour cardinal directions, and one of Knab's informants relates thatinside the underworld there 'are fourteen of everything [...].Thirteen outside the center for us, and one of everything inside for theLords' (Knab 1993: 63). In Sahagun's Primeros Memoriales thenumbers associated with geography of the underworld were 8 and 9, whileamong the San Miguel Tzinacapan shamans it is the number 14 that hasgained importance in the division of the underworldly terrain, and wehear of 14 rivers, lakes, hills, fields, roads, county seats etc. in theunderworld (Knab 1991: 47). References to layers, however, are absent.The above-mentioned groups of 9 and 13 deities may thus originally haveresided over horizontally arranged regions rather than layers. To summarise: the relatively few sources describing a multi-layereduniverse are all of post-Columbian origin, and are almost certainlyinfluenced by Euro-Christian concepts regarding the structure of thecosmos. Far more common, in both pre- and post-Columbian sources, is anemphasis on the cardinal directions, the centre and a basic three-tieredcosmos. This is surprising if the multi-layered cosmos was indeed partof a common and widespread pre-Columbian world-view, which would havefurther facilitated a merging with the Euro-Christian cosmology. Dante's universe At the time of the conquest, the European view of the universe waspredominantely that of the Franciscan and Dominican friars and equatedto a Dantean cosmology. Although Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) did notbelong to either the Franciscan or the Dominican order himself, he wasstrongly influenced by both. During his youth Dante attendedphilosophical and theological schools and became familiar with thecentral Franciscan and Dominican teachings (Hawkins 2007). Dante wrotehis masterpiece, the so-called Divine Comedy, from 1308-1321, i.e. some200 years before the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica. Nevertheless, hisdescription of the geography of Heaven and Hell was widespread in latefifteenth and early sixteenth-century Europe, where the Franciscans wereactive in both translating and commenting on the Comedy (Iriarte 1984:131). During this period the Comedy had tremendous influence on Spanishtheological poetry (Friederich 1949: 45-7), and reached the status of aquasi-biblical text, based on its own claim to have been inspired by avision. In the Comedy, Dante travels through the three realms of the dead(Inferno, Purgatory and Heaven). The Inferno consists of nine stackedcircles, resembling an inverted pyramid. In each of the nine circles,the dead suffer according to a gradual increase in wickedness,culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan resides. While thisunderworld is placed below the holy city of Jerusalem, Purgatory isfound on the exact opposite side of the world. The earthly Purgatoryconsists of a mountain with seven terraces, each corresponding to one ofthe deadly sins, but including the Antepurgatory and the TerrestrialParadise it has nine layers, thus corresponding to the nine circles ofHell, and the nine spheres of Paradise. After climbing the seventerraces, Dante reaches the Garden of Eden, and can now approach theheavenly spheres and the residence of God (Figure 3). Dante'sheaven represents the medieval equivalent of Aristotle's nineheavenly spheres, and adopting this model, Dante formulated atheological-astronomical geography of the cosmos, consisting of ninelayers of the underworld, seven or nine layers on earth, and nine layersof the heavens. We know that Dante's work did reach Mexico in the earlyColonial period. The inventories of the library of the school inTlatelolco of 1572, 1574 and 1582 do not mention the Comedy (Mathes1982) but a detailed invoice from a shipment of books from Sevilla toSan Juan de Ulua, Veracruz, in 1600 refers to two copies of Dante inItalian (Green & Leonard 1941: 12). Furthermore, a sixteenth-centurycopy of the Comedy is held in the National Library in Mexico City andmay well originally have belonged to one of the convent libraries (PabloEscalante Gonzalbo, pers. comm. 2008). [FIGURE 3 OMITTED] What is crucial to our argument, however, is not whether theFranciscan friars in Mexico had one or several copies of Dante'sComedy in their possession, but that they were familiar with the Danteanmulti-layered cosmology, and that this world-view was a natural point ofreference in the interpretation of the local accounts of the geographyof the cosmos. In 1579 the book Rhetarica Christiana was printed in Perugia,Italy, written by the Mexican-born Franciscan Diego de Valades(1533-82?), son of a Spanish conquistador and possibly a nativeTlaxcalan woman (Edgerton 2001:114). 'While Valades's mainsubject was to explain in detail the art of literary rhetoric--howlanguage can mast effectively serve the teaching of Christiandoctrine--he [...] believed that the same techniques and intention wereequally applicable to the visual arts' (Edgerton 2001: 116). One ofthe illustrations in the Rhetorica shows Valades' mentor FriarPedro de Gante (c. 1480-1572) preaching to the Indians by means ofpictures. A text accompanying the same illustration states:'Because the Indians lack letters, it was necessary to teach themby means of some illustrations' (cited after Edgerton 2001: 116).According to Ricard, another friar, one Luis Caldera who did not knowthe language of the Indians he was evangelising, was using identicalvisual means of persuasion: 'Carrying large pictures representingthe sacraments, the catechism, heaven, hell, and purgatory, be went fromvillage to village' (Ricard 1966: 104). Some of the pictures used for teaching the catechism were alsorepresented in the Valades' Rhetorica. Thus, three full-page sizedimages are showing heaven, earth and hell as divided into layers, muchlike the Dantean layout of cosmos. One of these illustrations shows God(with Jesus reclining in his lap) sitting on his throne inside a cloudat the uppermost layer, while the devil being worshipped by sinners isplaced at the bottom of the page (Figure 4). The layout of this illustration and the utilisation of it by thefriars sum up one of the crucial points of this article. It seems quiteprobable that the multi-layered world-view was taught and referred to inthe religious schools of New Spain, and thus reached the native literatithat were working for the friars or independently. Painting the universe--but whose universe? We can now approach the question of how and why the verticalstructure was adopted in New Spain. To provide an answer, we need toexamine the early Colonial context in which documents such as the CodexVaticanus A were produced. First, it is important to recognise thebiases of the Europeans who recorded their impressions of the New World.The friars primarily worked from a preconceived model of the pagan'alternative' to Christianity, based on Greco-Roman religion.Todorov points to a series of equivalences between the Aztec and Romangods in Sahagun's description of the Aztec deities, and refers toone example where the goddess Chicomecoatl is called another Ceres(Todorov 1984: 231-3; see also Keen 1971). However, images like thecosmogram of the Vaticanus A should not be seen as a result ofFranciscan attempts to conceptualise the Mesoamerican cosmographyaccording to a Euro-Pagan tradition. Rather, we suggest that such imagesare a result of the appropriation of Euro-Christian ideas bywell-educated Nahuas. Many of the documents produced in the earlyColonial period were not only the work of the Franciscans themselves.Indian scribes and informants that had been taught by the friars atschools such as the Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, central Mexico,contributed considerably to the manuscripts, and not least to theproduction of images (e.g. Ricard 1966; Kobayashi 1985; Bremer 2003).The Tlatelolco-school opened in 1536, and here the sons of the Indiannobility, the colegiales, were taught grammar, geometry, astronomy andelemental theology. Some colegiales were also trained in the arts suchas: 'the figural styles and iconographic system of late Gothic andRenaissance Europe' (Boone 2003: 145). Bremer describes thestudents of the Franciscan schools as hybrids with a biculturaleducation, being 'neither natives nor Europeans' (2003: 20),and he points out how Sahagun's Historia General was the work notonly of Sahagun himself, but also of 'the hybrid colegiales,Indians by birth and quasi-Europeans by education and training:Escalante Gonzalbo provides abundant examples of how native artistscopied images or altered images from the Bible or from books on naturalhistory, and also noted the strong European influence in theillustrations of the Historia General (Escalante Gonzalbo 2003; see alsoPeterson 1988). Clearly, the Franciscan schools provided an intellectualenvironment in which an almost inevitable blending of old and new wasthe norm. It was in this bi-cultural setting that many of our primarysources on the nature of the Mesoamerican cosmic structure were formed,in text and image. [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] [FIGURE 5 OMITTED] The cosmological model of the Vaticanus A fits into the pattern ofproduction of syncretic religious images in the early Colonial periodthat we have outlined above. The original cosmogram runs over two pages(1v-2r) and shows the Aztec creator god Tonacatecuhtli seated in thethirteenth and uppermost layer, Omeyocan (Figure 1). Below, in layer 2,we find the moon, just above the earth, Tlalticpac, which constitutesthe first layer of the heavens as well as of the underworld. The ninthand final realm of the underworld is Mictlan, the ultimate station ofthe dead. Another representation of the heavenly layers can be found inthe Selden Roll, a sixteenth-century Mixtec manuscript (Burland 1955)(Figure 5). The first part of the codex shows nine layers, with the sunand moon occupying the first, lower level. A path, marked by footprints, penetrates the sequence of layers marked with stars. In theninth and uppermost layer the culture hero Lord 9 Wind is seated betweena man and a woman both named 1 Deer. The couple is equivalent to theAztec ancestral couple, the gods of creation and procreation Ometecuhtliand Omecihuatl. The primordial pair was said to reside in Omeyocan, amythical place of duality, birth and descent (Miller & Taube 1993:40-41, 127-8, 154). Interestingly, in pre-Columbian times primordialcouples found in most of Mesoamerica, were associated with caves and theearth rather than the heavens (Nielsen & Brady 2006). In contrast tothe Vaticanus A scene we do not find a corresponding image of theunderworld in the Selden Roll. Instead, a row of footprints enters theopen maw of the earth monster and reaches Chicomoztoc ('SevenCaves'). Thus, the Selden Roll does not present the underworld as amirror image of the layers of the sky, but couples the latter with anAztec mythic place name associated with the number seven. The sevencaves are situated within a mountain and are arranged at the same level,much like the houses or caves of the Popol Wuj. In fact, themulti-layered heaven of the Selden Roll represent an anomaly in acomposition and arrangement that in many other respects reflectpre-Columbian concepts and conventions. [FIGURE 6 OMITTED] The placement of the creator couple in the upper layer also seemsto be heavily inspired by Euro-Christian and Dantean imagery. The Aztecancestral couple constitutes a near perfect parallel to Adam and Eve asthey are standing in the Garden of Eden at the summit of Mount Purgatoryin the famous fresco The Comedy Illuminating Florence by di Michelino(1417-1491) (Figure 4). Dating to 1465 the fresco shows Dante holdingthe Divine Comedy. Behind Dante the terraces of Purgatory with Adam andEve at the top and the heavenly layers can be discerned. Anotherdepiction of the Euro-Christian cosmos comes from Oresme's Book ofthe Heaven and the WorM from 1377, which shows god seated in theuppermost of nine layers of stars, with the moon occupying the lowestlevel (Figure 6). Both the Vaticanus A and the Selden Roll thusevidently merge pre-Columbian elements and deities with European andChristian concepts, and parallels seem to have been sought: nativecreator gods and ancestral couples replace Adam and Eve or the Almighty;Omeyocan, the mystical abode of the first two humans is likened toParadise, and the original division of heaven and underworld in a numberof horizontal regions are transformed into a vertical structure akin tothe illustrations the native artists and colegiales would have seenduring teachings and sermons and copied from volumes in the Franciscanlibraries. None of the two cosmological layouts discussed here aretherefore exact copies, but rather reinterpretations, of the Danteancosmology. The illustrations of the Vaticanus A and the Selden Roll are'neither native nor European' to use Bremer's phrase(2003: 20); they both reflect a Colonial period syncretism of a nativecentral Mexican concept of the universe with the Euro-Christian Danteancosmology. Conclusions Reviewing the evidence bearing on the Mesoamerican structure of thecosmos, we have argued that the long-assumed multi-layered model cannotbe maintained. Rather, our examination has revealed that a basicthree-tiered model combined with a strong emphasis on the horizontaldivisions of each layer is more likely to have been the dominant schemebefore the Spanish invasion and the introduction of Euro-Christian ideasrelating to the cosmos. We have also shown how the two crucial imagesfrom the Codex Vaticanus A and the Selden Roll can be explained as theproduct of culturally hybrid native artists. We do not reject the possibility of a vertically structureduniverse (beyond the three basic layers) in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.What we argue is that all evidence pointing to a belief in amulti-layered universe is post-Columbian and produced in a context whereEuro-Christian ideas were deliberately imported, taught and adopted. Themulti-layered Mesoamerican universe is thus almost certainly a hybrid oforiginal pre-Columbian and imported Euro-Christian visions of thecosmos. Our conclusions exemplify how at times 'commonknowledge' and generalised terms and concepts need to be reviewed.Many arguments, scientific narratives and 'truths' clearly andunsurprisingly consist of several layers of preconceived assumptions andgeneralisations. Acknowledgements We would like to express our thanks to a number of colleagues whohave been helpful during the process of researching and writing thisarticle. This includes Una Canger, Pablo Escalante Gonzalbo, MetteliseFritz Hansen, Elizabeth Graham, Christophe Helmke, Stephen Houston,Bodil Liljefors Persson, Jorgen Nybo Rasmussen, Karl Taube and twoanonymous referees. Any errors and misinterpretations, however, remainour sole responsibility. References ANDERSON, A.J.O. 1988. Sahagun's informants on the nature ofTlalocan, in J.J. Klor de Alva, H.B. Nicholson & E. Quinones Keber(ed.) The work of Bernardino de Sahagun-pioneer ethnographer ofsixteenth-century Aztec Mexico: 151-60. New York (NY) & Austin (TX):Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany, StateUniversity of New York & University of Texas Press. ANDERSON, A.J.O. & C.E. DIBBLE (transl.). 1978. FlorentineCodex--general history of the things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino deSahagun. Book 3: the origin of the gods. Santa Fe (NM): School ofAmerican Research & University of Utah Press. ANDREWS, J.R. & R. HASSIG. 1984. 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Received: 14 May 2008; Revised: 18 June 2008; Accepted: 3 September2008 Jesper Nielsen (1) & Toke Sellner Reunert (2) (1) Department of American Indian Languages and Cultures, Instituteof Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen,Artillerivej 86, 2300 Copenhagen S., Denmark (Email: jnielsen@hum.ku.dk) (2) Gronnehoj 35 st. tv., 2720 Vanlose, Denmark (Email:toke@reunert.dk)