Vienna's Treasure, Mexico's Wound: The Fight Over 'moctezuma's Headdress' - Beritaja

VIENNA — On their 30th wedding anniversary, the mates from Mexico were wished to fulfill a long-deferred aspiration: a sojourn to this storied erstwhile Hapsburg capital. And they didn’t travel conscionable to drawback an opera and savor the Sachertorte.

“We ever wanted to spot el penacho de Moctezuma,” said Gema Vargas, referring to the feathered headdress wide attributed to the legendary Aztec emperor. “It’s overmuch much beautiful than we imagined.”

But, she added: “It should beryllium successful Mexico.”

For much than a century, Mexican officials person called the penacho a taste touchstone and sought its return from Austria — contempt nary grounds that Moctezuma really wore it. Austrian officials insist the brittle entity is excessively delicate to move from its perch successful Vienna’s renowned Weltmuseum.

Despite its lore and beauty, the penacho suffers from a lawsuit of contested identity: In Austria, it is simply a treasured possession of the state. In Mexico, it remains a marker of nationalist identity.

“One has to deliberation of el penacho successful 2 different ways,” said Miruna Achim, professor astatine the Autonomous Metropolitan University successful Mexico City. “It’s a humanities artifact. But it’s besides a awesome — a highly politicized symbol.”

From its show lawsuit successful the museum’s “Stories from Mesoamerica” hall, the iridescent plumage shimmers for illustration a rainbow encased successful glass, a tropical interloper to these bluish climes.

The depository gift shop does a brisk waste successful penacho-themed books, postcards, pillboxes, scarves and the like.

The penacho’s general title — “Quetzal Feather Headdress” — understates the grandeur of a one-of-a-kind portion pinch a backmost communicative stretching backmost much than half a millennium.

Visitors grounds Instagram moments successful beforehand of the almost 6-by-4-foot palette of dazzling hues — the merchandise of hundreds of feathers from the long-tailed quetzal bird, interwoven pinch plumes from different type and golden ornaments. The anonymous artisans painstakingly sewed the feathers onto a nett grid, stabilized pinch bladed woody rods.

The intricate ensemble, weighing successful astatine little than 4 pounds, someway survived the Spanish conquest, a perilous water crossing and 2 hundreds of years of musty anonymity successful a Tirolean castle.

The first recorded mention of the “Quetzal Feather Headdress” was successful a precocious 16th period text.

(Félix Márquez / For The Times)

The penacho, experts say, about apt dates from the early 16th century, about the clip erstwhile overmuch of current-day Spain became portion of the Hapsburg empire. But location is nary grounds of who made it and, supra all, really and erstwhile it ended up successful Austria.

Its first recorded mention, according to an authorized history, appears successful a 1596 inventory of the “Chamber of Art and Wonders” of Archduke Ferdinand astatine the Ambras Castle successful Innsbruck. The ledger notes “a Moorish chapeau of long, beautiful, gleaming, sparkling greenish and aureate feathers … dressed up pinch aureate rosettes and discs, [and] connected the forehead a coagulated golden beak.”

Later appraisals adduced that the enigmatic portion was an apron, a garment aliases a subject banner, earlier analysts successful 20th period Vienna agreed: It was a headdress. By then, however, the aureate beak had agelong vanished and its original, three-dimensional style had folded into its existent fan-like form.

The penacho, experts say, was apt among the Mexican booty that the conquering Spanish dispatched backmost crossed the Atlantic. It was an era erstwhile “curiosities” from the recently “discovered” Americas transfixed Europe. The splendor of the pieces stunned moreover worldly observers for illustration Albrecht Durer, the Renaissance master.

In his 2021 book, “Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest,” Fernando Cervantes, a British-based Mexican historian, cites Durer’s 1520 diary introduction aft viewing a wealth horde dispatched to Carlos V from Hernán Cortés. The Spaniard’s forces would overthrow Tenochitán, superior of the Moctezuma’s Aztec empire.

“All the days of my life I person seen thing that rejoiced my bosom truthful overmuch arsenic these things,” the German creator wrote of Cortés’ plunder. “For I saw among them awesome useful of art, and I marveled astatine the subtle Ingenia of men successful overseas lands.”

To this day, Cortés and Moctezuma stay figures of some adulation and disdain, recalled successful operas, plays, books and films and TV series.

With the transition of centuries, the Eurocentric accounts that depicted Cortés arsenic a heroic “white savior” and Moctezuma arsenic a cowardly heathen person been eclipsed. These days, Mexican leaders and galore others explanation Cortés arsenic barbarous — moreover genocidal — while Moctezuma often gets a walk arsenic a righteous leader caught successful the headwinds of history.

Ultimately, it was Cortés’ ruthlessness — his forces took Moctezuma captive and held him arsenic a hostage — that helped punishment Tenochitlán. Moctezuma died successful custody nether circumstances that stay disputed.

“There’s nary mobility that Cortés played his cards very well,” said Cervantes, an subordinate professor astatine the University of Bristol successful England. “He knew cipher was going to do thing to him if it wasn’t ordered by Moctezuma.”

Dancers execute an offering during the “Veintena de Teotleco,” an Aztec ceremonial held successful Mexico City’s Zócalo, connected Tuesday. The ritual celebrates the symbolic return of the deities to the halfway of the universe.

(Félix Márquez / For The Times)

In the Mesoamerican world, feather activity was highly esteemed, not only adorning headpieces but besides clothing, weapons and different accessories typically associated pinch rulers, gods and warriors. Certain feathers, it is said, had much worth than gold.

Of typical request was the sparkling plumage of the quetzal, a lustrous animal autochthonal to confederate Mexico and Central America. This denizen of the unreality forests shares pedigree pinch a fabled deity: Quetzalcoatl, the “Feathered Serpent.”

Today, the penacho connected show successful Vienna is the only surviving feathered headdress among the multitudes that erstwhile proliferated successful the region.

For galore of the increasing number of Mexican visitors to the Weltmuseum — much than 25,000 person travel this year, a grounds — viewing the penacho becomes thing of a belief experience. It is overmuch much profound, galore say, than seeing the replica astatine the National Anthropological Museum successful Mexico City.

“To guidelines successful beforehand of an entity that carries specified humanities value made maine consciousness a profound relationship to my roots,” said Samantha Lara, 31, a Mexican physiotherapist who was visiting pinch her family. “It was a reminder of the grandeur of our civilization and the pridefulness of being Mexican.”

The allure of the penacho has agelong resonated among Mexico’s governmental elite. Some launched quixotic campaigns to get it.

A reproduction of the mural “Encounter Between Moctezuma and Cortes” by Juan Correa, depicting the first gathering betwixt the Aztec ruler and Spanish conquistadors, is displayed Tuesday successful Mexico City.

(Félix Márquez / For The Times)

The first was nary different than Maximilian, the ill-fated Hapsburg royal, who, pinch French subject backing, was installed arsenic “emperor” of Mexico successful 1864. In Maximilian’s view, the penacho “would person afforded him the badges of rulership and presented him arsenic an heir to the Aztec emperors successful the eyes of his subjects,” Achim wrote in West 86th, a taste journal.

But Maximilian’s older sibling, Franz Joseph I, the Austrian emperor, balked astatine relinquishing the headdress.

Ultimately, Maximilian ne'er shed the stigma of being a overseas interloper. In 1867, arsenic Paris withdrew support and Washington backed the nationalist cause, Maximilian drew his last activity earlier a Mexican firing squad.

Taking up the penacho origin successful the 21st period was erstwhile President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an avid amateur historian.

The then-president dispatched his woman — an world of German ancestry — to Vienna connected what he acknowledged was a “mission impossible”: to seduce Austria’s leaders to lend the headdress to Mexico for a one-year accumulation successful 2021 marking the 500th day of the autumn of Tenochtitlán.

In return, Mexico offered to vessel to Austria various objects from Maximilian’s ill-fated reign, including a gilded carriage successful which he and his wife, Carlota, tooled about the capital.

Predictably, Vienna said no. The Mexican leader lashed retired astatine his Austrian counterpart arsenic being “arrogant” and “bossy.” López Obrador’s successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has besides called for the return of the penacho, but successful low-key fashion.

The prolonged contention about wherever the headdress belongs highlights a world statement about taste appropriation. Curators successful Europe and the United States look pressures to repatriate items to Latin America, Africa and elsewhere. Many illustrious institutions, among them the Getty successful Los Angeles, person returned useful acquired nether questionable circumstances.

“We are not against restitution,” Claudia Banz, head of Vienna’s Weltmuseum, said successful an interview. “We person to look the truth that large parts of collections of ethnological museums person been, let’s say, looted. … But, connected the different hand, restitution is really complex. ... It’s not conscionable about giving the objects backmost and past it’s done.”

A visitant observes a reproduction of the Huei Tzompantli astatine the Templo Mayor Museum successful Mexico City.

(Félix Márquez / For The Times)

In 2012, a committee of Austrian and Mexican experts completed an extended restoration of the heavy damaged penacho, ravaged by time, insect depredation and different factors. The binational encephalon trust’s conclusion? El penacho was excessively vulnerable to beryllium moved.

Mexican activists impeach Austria of concealing its existent motive — profit — and statement that the penacho is among the Weltmuseum’s about celebrated attractions. Critics request that Mexican lawmakers beryllium much proactive successful pushing for the return of the “crown” — the title promoted by Xokonoschtletl Gómora, a septuagenarian Mexican dancer, writer and teacher who has agelong been the look of the bring-back-el-penacho movement.

“The crown gives a immense magnitude of prestige to the museum, draws a batch of visitors and makes a batch of money,” said the indefatigable Gómora, who has spent much than 40 years organizing penacho rallies successful Austria and Mexico. “Saying it can’t beryllium transported is conscionable an excuse. If mummies from ancient Egypt could beryllium moved crossed continents, why not this?”

Gómora’s passion has inspired a caller procreation of penacho militants. In 2022, a group of activists — including Mexicans and Europeans — hacked the Weltmuseum’s hand-held audio guides and inserted a fiery harangue from Gómora.

Ricardo Ozelotzin, center, performs pinch chap dancers during the “Veintena de Teotleco.”

(Félix Márquez / For The Times)

“For the Europeans, el penacho is beautiful, ancient and, principally, exotic,” Gómora’s recorded connection informed museum-goers, successful a stark departure from anodyne guide-speak. “But for us, the Aztecs, this crown carries the force, powerfulness and knowledge of the sovereign Moctezuma. ... It intends a batch much than history narrated by an invader.”

Among the hack’s organizers was Sebastián Arrechedera, a Venezuelan Mexican filmmaker who has produced and directed a documentary about the hack episode. Organizers are readying a Dec. 12 opening successful Los Angeles earlier the movie hits the show circuit.

The penacho, said Arrechedera, “has a definite magic, an energy, a vibe that you could feel.”

Last month, Gómora and friends returned to the Weltmuseum, this clip to unveil a high-tech instrumentality crafted by a German vibration engineer. The crate could safely carrier the headdress, the activists asserted.

Museum authorities dismissed the instrumentality creation arsenic flawed.

“It’s a difficult and analyzable matter — and, supra all, an ethical one,” said Banz, the Weltmuseum director. “It requires a governmental resolution.”

That could beryllium a agelong clip coming, moreover arsenic visitors proceed to wonderment astatine the resplendent feathered headdress, a marvel from an era shrouded successful the mists of time.

Times typical correspondents Liliana Nieto del Rio successful Vienna and Cecilia Sanchez Vidal successful Mexico City contributed to this report.