Artist - xicakatwitztli
The name given to me at birth is Bryant, but I never truly resonated with this name. Ever since I was a chamaco, I always felt like I didn't fit just right into society’s expectations. I always felt a divided by the stereotype of what it meant to be a mixed Indigenous person.
The media paints us as Xolos, all themachismo leftover as a scare from colonization.I found my liberation in the words of Malcom Little aka Malcom X, Huey P, Martin Luther King Jr., and many other people of the civil rights era. Because of this, I began my long pilgrimage of finding out just who I was and where I came from. I always felt lost and likea phantom or number in this U.S. colonial system. I admired Malcolm so much while on my decolonizing
journey that I wanted to pay tribute to him and his legacy - in a strange way, I felt connected to him andhis feelings of being lost, without a name, and a proper sense of grounding. I began to study the language of my ancestors Nahuatl. Now I admit that during my decolonization, I did not know that I had Huichol, Coca, and possibly Chichimeca running though my veins. For this reason, I chose to dive into Mexica collective identity.
I learned Nahuatl and chose the word ‘Ichtaca’ as my name, which means
“hidden, secret, nothing.” I decided to add a ‘x’ instead of the ‘ch’ to pay my homage. Over time I was given the name ‘Yaotl’ by an elder, which now formed ‘Ixtaka Yaotl’. I learned about Cuitlahuac and his incredible feats during the retaking of Tenochtitlan, so I added him to my name - creating ‘Ixotlahuac,’
ultimately meaning “hidden warrior who has been commissioned to lead.” Continuing with my path, I was scrutinized by both family and friends. I felt more like an outcast than ever before. I did not believe in Christianity as a child which caused me to be ostracized and unaccepted by not just my own mother and father but by my own community - my own people. I found validation through fellow indigenous
people I met growing up. I’ve always felt a strong, family-like relationship with all North American indigenous people. Even at a younger age before knowing the significance of my people's history, the indigenous often felt like distant kin to me. I still recall the first time I was introduced to indigenous art. I was 4 or 5 years old while watching my eldest brother airbrush incredible works of art in his room. I was amazed by his work, and I remember him having two specific sculptures, an Olmec head and a calendar. He told me that we are descendants of these people. In complete awe of the complex designs that were etched into stone and how they made the rock look like soft flesh, I - then and there - wanted to
become what the famous Ce Acatl Topiltzin Quetzalcóatl would call a Toltecayotl, meaning “a refined
artisan of many trades”, a master Artist if you will. Ever since then, I have been striving to emulate the way my ancestors lived, spoke, moved, dressed, and saw things. I feel like it is my responsibility, to not just my child but to my family, to decolonize and reclaim our true indigenous roots. As a result, I decided to render the day signs of the tonalpohualli as the way I see them, all the while still honouring the traditional art style of our ancestors’ way of visual fluid expression. Through understanding the calendar and its rich multilayered story, one can find their spirit animal, their day sign, and even receive their own name.
They will understand their destiny, the direction in which they were born, their house, who put the tonalli into our bodies, who gave us the breath of life, and much more. Using these means, I found my name under the calendar. So with this, I greet you with my calendar name and thank you in my language. Thank you for your help in supporting not just me and my work, but my child and her future too. In a way, you are a part of my family by choosing to purchase these pieces of art. From the bottom of my yollot, my tonalli, tlazokamati.