When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away

Many of these critics point out significant weaknesses in Gutierrez’ work: especially his use of sources and his attempt to define a “common worldview” for the Pueblo. However, the critics also seem to misunderstand Gutiérrez’ description of the cultural “dialogue” between Spanish and Indians, mischaracterizing Gutiérrez as pro-colonial. And several of Gutiérrez’ Pueblo critics simply dismiss his work outright because he is not Pueblo, which raises the crucial question of epistemological privilege: do community “insiders” or “outsiders” have superior knowledge? And do certain communities have a right to “own” their history? These questions contain ramifications for history far beyond the debate over Gutiérrez’ When Jesus Came.

Gutiérrez’ work contains some errors that needed to be identified. The critics – even those doubting the virtue of American historians – rather helpfully point these out, joining the scholarly review process that should improve our sense of the past. Gutiérrez’ placement of the original Comanches in Illinois is perhaps the clearest (albeit most trivial) mistake uncovered, but there are others. His representation of the Spanish as gods (katsina) in the minds of the Pueblo also misleads, and his manner of referring to Pueblo Indians as one group is confusing. As Evelina Zuni Lucero writes, “use of a single creation story [from Acoma Pueblo], a case example from Zuni here, an example from Hopi there . . . do not constitute representative data.” Taos Pueblo’s snowy winters might similarly call into question Gutiérrez’ description of naked “Pueblo” Indians.

Factual sloppiness did not inspire the outrage over When Jesus Came, however. Gutiérrez’ critics are more concerned by the implication that his reconstruction of a unified Pueblo worldview is definitive. Gutiérrez could certainly have demonstrated more humility in his approach – claiming to give “vision to the blind” and “voice to the mute” sounds a little too lofty. But many of his critics fault him not just for his tone but for the boldness of his argument and the prominent and explicit place he gives to sex. And some attack Gutiérrez personally. “He is obsessed with sexuality,” one critic writes, “and places that personal obsession on the Pueblo people.”

Yet underlying this personal tone is an important criticism. Historians must respect historical actors and their understandings of their own actions. As the Haitian historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot puts it, “a strike is a strike only if the workers think they are striking.” Given Gutiérrez’ belief that “every society is a system of inequality,” it is no surprise that When Jesus Came finds this rather modern concept in the past. One wonders whether sixteenth-century Pueblo Indians would have acknowledged the “contestation between the sexes” that Gutiérrez sees. Did Pueblo men really see the berdache (men who dressed and acted like women) as a way of asserting “that they controlled all aspects of human life”? To cite another example, Gutiérrez offers as evidence of Franciscan infidelity the fact that “the mystical marriage and union with God the friars so desired were likened to human intercourse.” Granted, Franciscans often failed to meet their own ideals. To argue that the Franciscans were all sexually conflicted because of their ideals, however, does violence to them as historical actors. Gutiérrez’ critics rightfully complain of this tendency.
But the critics’ other complaints often ring hollow. They repeatedly characterize Gutiérrez’ views as “pro-colonial.” Gutiérrez’ concept of conquest as a cultural dialogue, according to Simon Ortiz, surreptitiously perpetuates the lie of Spanish superiority. Ortiz even accuses Gutiérrez of admiring the “virile conquistadors” for their sexual exploits. Others interpret Gutiérrez’ description of Pueblo sexuality as “humiliating” slander.

This is a gross misrepresentation. If anything, When Jesus Came does precisely the opposite, glorifying Pueblo sexual freedom in stark contrast to the morose inner conflicts of the Franciscans and the oppressive hierarchy of other Spaniards. Likewise, the point of Gutiérrez’ “cultural dialogue” is not to justify the conquistadors, but to emphasize the mixing of cultures during conquest. Whatever one thinks about the argument’s validity, it is disingenuous at best to portray Gutiérrez as an apologist for Spanish cruelty and oppression.

“Any information on Pueblo community life,” writes Penny Bird in a statement that crystallizes the complaint of many critics, “should come from those people who are from the Pueblo communities themselves.” In light of the oppression and misrepresentation of certain groups in academia and popular culture alike, calls for a “cultural patent” on history are understandable. Black and feminist historians in the late 1960s similarly staked their claim to epistemological privilege by attacking the objectivity of white male historians: only women could write the history of women, and only African-Americans the history of African-Americans. The historical profession may thank them for revealing the limitations (and prejudices) of supposedly detached, “outsider” knowledge. But improving our historical understanding is still a worthy goal, and “insider” knowledge, by itself, is not up to this task either. Whether or not I agree with Gutiérrez’ interpretations of Pueblo history, I will defend on principle his right to interpret. We need both insiders and outsiders to make our stories as close to true as they can be.

Like the anguished and ineffectual discussions of nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia over the “serf problem,” today’s academic history often fails to connect with so-called ordinary people. The fact that Gutiérrez and his non-academic critics actually faced one another – even if their debate was acrimonious and emotional at times – points hopefully toward the possibility of better cooperation between the academy and the public. And this is a goal worthy of our pursuit.

NOTES
Ramón Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA: 1991).
Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, “Commentaries: When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sex, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846” (American Indian Culture and Research Journal no. 17 vol. 3, 1993), 161.
Alison Freese, “Commentaries,” 147.
“Commentaries,” 176.
Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 18; Glenabah Martinez, “Commentaries,” 171-2.
“Commentaries,” 165.
Gutiérrez,When Jesus Came, xvii.
It is interesting to note that whereas the title of the book reads Marriage, Sexuality, and Power, the title of the “Commentaries” lists it as Marriage, Sex, and Power.
Rina Swentzell, “Commentaries,” 167.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 24.
Gutiérrez,When Jesus Came, xviii.
Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 33
Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 123.
Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, “Commentaries,” 158, 159.
Simon J. Ortiz, “Commentaries,” 151.
Diana M. Ortiz, “Commentaries,” 174.
See, for example, his portrayal of Franciscan martyrdoms as “supreme acts of aggression.” Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, 130.
Penny Bird, “Commentaries,” 169.
Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 478