Propagating Pulque Narratives: The Sentimental Genesis of Pulque in 19th Century Mexico

The fermented beverage known as pulque holds a contentious role in Mexican identity formation. Amidst nationalist initiatives of the 19th century, Mexican painter, José María Obregón (1832-1902) imagined pulque’s birth in The Discovery of Pulque. Unlike his contemporaries concerned with the drink’s effects on the social order, Obregón depicted a romantic narrative of Toltec mythology, seeking to appropriate the drink's history as a metaphor for the rebirth of the newly established nation. Such depictions worked to propagate sentimental narratives concerned with historical foundations and national progress. Here, sentimentality is understood as the manipulation of personal emotions into collective ones. More distinctly, I will demonstrate how the state’s “well-being,” represented in images of pulque, asserts the reproduction of collective sentiments and ideologies of nationhood.

The Discovery of Pulque sought to alter the beverage’s relevance within society, from a drink that caused inebriation and defiance to one that sustained indigenized cultures through sentimental portrayals. This is achieved through the sentimental depictions that situate the virtues of the nation onto women’s bodies; the nation’s (mal)nourishing was predicated on the bodies of indigenized women across time. Specifically, I interrogate the reclamation of Mesoamerican narratives of pulque production into renewed conditions of pride in Mestizaje. For instance, Obregón crafted a sentimental narrative of pulque as an idealized and foundational aspect of national history and identity by anchoring its origin within a union of a Mesoamerican past and a Mestizo future.