Serpent's Plumes

The Serpent's Plumes analyzes contemporary Nahua cultural production, principally bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish xochitlajtoli, or 'poetry,' written from the 1980s to the present. Adam W. Coon draws on Nahua perspectives as a decolonizing theoretical framework to argue that Nahua writers deploy unique worldviews-namely, ixtlamatilistli ('knowledge with the face,' which highlights the value of personal experiences); yoltlajlamikilistli ('knowledge with the heart,' which underscores the importance of affective intelligence); and tlaixpan ('that which is in front,' which presents the past as lying ahead of a subject rather than behind). The views of ixtlamatilistli, yoltlajlamikilistli, and tlaixpan are key in Nahua struggles and effectively challenge those who attempt to marginalize Native knowledge production.