Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert
Associate Professor, History and Classical Studies, McGill University
daviken.studnicki-gizbert@mcgill.ca
Paper Abstract:
“Genealogies of the swidden kings: The Rey Montezumas of nineteenth and twentieth-century Panama”
The surname Montezuma is common to an extended group of indigenous Ngäbé families in the environs of Peña Blanca in the highlands of western Panamá. It is also the name of a lineage of kings active in the same area during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Who were the Montezumas of the Isthmus and what, if any, relation did they have to the Mexica tlatoani of the same name? A range of interpretations have been forwarded: the Reyes Montezumas were stranger-kings (Graeber and Sahlins), a transposed and resurgent line of the Mexica ruling dynasty; or they were a colonial transposition, the name being carried into Ngäbé society through the theatrical catechism of a group of Franciscan friars.
This essay is an first-sketch attempt to piece together what is known about the Reyes Montezumas and the presence of “Mexican” speakers in western Panamá. It draws from archival and published sources as well as a body of oral histories recounted by contemporary Ngäbé and Buglé elders. The paper re-orients the question of descent to consider the place of lineage and inter-generational affiliation within the political culture of this swidden society.