1195: Zelia Nuttall
One of the First and Most Important Mexican Archaeologists
Born: 6 September 1857, San Francisco, California, United States of America
Died: 12 April 1933, Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
Zelia’s entire career was founded on the fact that she wanted to dispel the narrative that Mexico’s indigenous past was nothing more than “bloodthirsty savages” only interested in killing one another as the popular narrative hailed at the time.
Zelia was born into a fairly well-to-do family. She was the second of six children and was well educated. Her mother was from Mexico and her father had Irish heritage. As a child, Zelia and her family moved to Europe, where she lived in various countries and became fluent in German and Spanish, and also became fairly well versed in Italian and French (and English, of course!). Later in life she also became fluent in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.
Zelia and her family returned to San Francisco in 1876, and four years later she married a French explorer and anthropologist. Originally, the couple traveled extensively to facilitate her husband’s research, but by 1882 Zelia was pregnant with their second daughter Nadine, and also no longer happy with their marriage (a first daughter had died soon after birth earlier on in the marriage). The couple separated in 1884 and finished the divorce in 1888. Zelia’s husband had seemingly married her for her family’s money, and by the time Zelia sued for divorce, her inheritance was gone, and her husband didn’t contest the proceedings. She retained custody of their daughter and also reclaimed her maiden name, Nuttall—both facts (and the fact that she got divorced!) were all astounding and nearly unheard of for her time period.*
In 1884, Zelia traveled to Mexico for the first time with family and officially began her career as an archaeologist. While she had never received a formal education at a university (and was therefor looked down upon by her male peers, both for being a woman and uneducated), Zelia made the most of her career and made a huge impact on the study of Mexican and indigenous archaeology as a whole.
One of the biggest debates happening in Mexican archaeological was at the forefront when Zelia first began her career. The Mexican people, and the world at large, were unsure if the indigenous citizens of Mexico were direct descendants of the Aztec people or not. Zelia set out to prove that, not only were the Mexican people the direct descendants of the Aztecs, but that the indigenous people of Mexico should be proud of that heritage. Instead of looking down on their Aztec past as being something savage and dirty, Zelia wanted the Mexican people to look back and realize the great heights they had achieved, and that they could do it again.
In 1886, Zelia published her first paper in an accredited archaeological journal. The paper, entitled “The Terracotta Heads of Teotihuacan” was a study of her first dig that she had completed two years previously. As Smithsonian Magazine writes, “The study was original, thorough, and demonstrated an authoritative knowledge of Mexico’s history—as evidenced by the glowing responses of the archaeological community.”
Later that same year, Zelia was given an honorary special assistant position at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. She maintained this prestigious post until she died. A famed anthropologist (and the man who gave Zelia the position) described her thusly:
“[Zelia is] familiar with the Nahuatl language, having intimate and influential friends among the Mexicans, and with an exceptional talent for linguistics and archaeology…As well as being thoroughly informed in all the early native and Spanish writings relating to Mexico and its people, Mrs. Nuttall enters the study with a preparation as remarkable as it is exceptional.”
Zelia also became a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Later in life, in 1908, she was named an honorary professor to the National Museum of Mexico (a position she later resigned after the museum cut her funding, tried to tell her what she could and could not do, and allowed some men to take credit for one of her discoveries. Yikes!).
Between 1886 and 1899, Zelia lived in Germany but traveled across Europe and California, doing more research in various libraries. During this time, she also began to be sponsored by Phoebe Hurst, who paid for her travel and research. Because Zelia was not formally attached to any one institution, as most archaeologists were, she was allowed to travel wherever she wanted, and research whatever she wanted, which gave her a serious advantage on the archaeological stage.
After her thirteen years of travel, Zelia began to publish multiple works, sharing with the world everything she had discovered. One of her most important finds had been Aztec and other indigenous works that Europeans had taken back to the Old World. Zelia not only found these lost works, but she also translated them and shared them with their country of origin for the first time in centuries. Zelia’s discovery was the most complete set of pre-Columbian writings found (a record that holds to this day!). She also managed to find some lost manuscripts from the explorer Sir Francis Drake. Zelia even discovered the site on the Isla de Sacrificios where human sacrifices were carried out (although, befitting her time period, some men tried to take the credit of discovering it!).
Zelia was the first person to decode the Aztec calendar. She also helped identify various weapons and other adornments of the Aztec people to provide explanations for how mysterious items were used. Zelia was able to transcribe and translate ancient songs, uncover how various commercial trade routes were used, and so much more. By the time she died, Zelia had published over seventy-five articles and three books.
In 1905, Zelia moved to Mexico City, making the country she had fallen in love with her home as well as the center of her research. Zelia took up botany and enjoyed growing indigenous plants from ancient seeds in the sprawling gardens of her new home. She used the plants to try and revive some ancient forms of medical healing. A woman ahead of her time!
Despite how progressive she may sound to modern audiences, Zelia was not necessarily a “woman of the people.” She left Mexico for seven years during the Revolution, only returning home after the violence had mostly ended. Zelia did not agree with the new revolutionary ideals of the winners. She did not believe everyone should be on equal footing; Zelia was a firm believer in classes, hierarchy, and other pieces of civilization that had been seen throughout various societies of the past. While she longed to be popular in the new-Mexico she found herself in, Zelia couldn’t shake her past or the things she found comforting, including the estate she lived in. Her home, Casa Alvarado, made her stand out from the common people of Mexico, and she became less and less popular among the other Mexican citizens. One guest who visited her estate was horrified to note that Zelia’s servants wore white gloves while serving tea and working for their patron.
Despite all of that, in 1928, nearing the end of her life, Zelia began pushing even harder for the revival of Aztec and other indigenous cultural celebrations that had been wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors. That year, for the first time since 1519, Mexico City celebrated the Aztec New Year, much like how Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Asian cultures celebrate their own New Year celebrations in February as well as the internationally accepted new year.
One of Zelia’s indigenous proteges, Manuel Gamio, would go on to become one of Mexico’s most prominent archaeologists (after Zelia fought for his education).
Not all of Zelia’s theories and postulations turned out to be correct, but many were. While Zelia proposed that seafaring Phoenicians traveled to Mexico and kickstarted the culture there, modern archaeologists have largely discounted this idea. But hey, you can’t be 100% right all the time, right?
While much is known of Zelia’s professional life, little is known of her private life. When she died, her daughter was living in Cambridge, England, and doesn’t seem to have returned to Mexico to clean up her mother’s estate. According to Smithsonian Magazine, the new owners of Zelia’s home burned her private documents that they found in her home’s basement. Earlier documents from Zelia’s life also disappeared during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. She was a woman ahead of her time, but also clearly cemented in it as well.
*While Zelia’s divorce and retaining custody of her daughter may seem like quite the feminist statement today, and was best for her and her career, it also had its downsides. Zelia’s daughter Nadine would state of her childhood and relationship (or lack thereof) with her father thusly:
“From the time before I can remember, he was taboo to me…I was frightened by the violent scoldings I got for mentioning his name. Later, I compromised with myself and when asked about him quietly said, ‘I never knew him!’ I realized that people thought he was dead and were sorry for me and said no more. In those days it was a disgrace to have a divorced mother.”
(Nadine wrote the above to a New York Times editor in 1961).
Badges Earned:
Rejected Princess
Located In My Personal Library:
Tough Mothers: Amazing Tales of History's Mightiest Moms by Jason Porath
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zelia-Maria-Magdalena-Nuttall
https://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/zelia-nuttall/