CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Portraying the Here it is told and put forth how the ancient ones, those called and named Teochichimeca, people of Aztlan, Mexitin, Chicomoz- Aztec Past toca, as they sought and merited the land here, arrived and came into the great , the altepetl of , the place of renown, the sign, the site of the rock tuna cactus, in the midst of the waters; the place where the eagle rests, where the eagle screeches, where the eagle stretches, where the eagle eats; where the serpent hisses, where the fish fly, where the blue and yellow waters mingle—where the waters burn; where suffering came to be known among the sedges and reeds; the place of encountering and awaiting the various peoples of the four quarters; where the thirteen Teochichimeca arrived and settled, where in misery they settled when they arrived. Behold, here begins, here is to be seen, here lies written, the most excel- lent, most edifying account—the account of [Mexico’s] renown, pride, history, roots, basis, as what is known as the great altepetl began, as it commenced: the city of Mexico Tenochtitlan in the midst of the waters, among the sedges, among the reeds, also called and known as the place where sedges whisper, where reeds whisper. It was becoming the mother, the father, the head of all, of every altepetl everywhere in , as those who were the ancient ones, men and women, our grandmothers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, great-great-grandparents, great- grandmothers, our forefathers, told and established in their accounts and exemplified for us on paper what was done in their accounts, what they left for us who now live, who have issued from them.1

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The passage above, drawn from the writings of a While the Tenochca occupied Tenochtitlan, Nahua noble named don Fernando Alvarado Tezozo- later capital of the Mexica Empire, the dissidents moc, reflects an early seventeenth-century perspec- (Tlatelolca Mexica) established on the tive on the purposes of recording Mexica migration northern part of the island. history.2 As he summarizes, the migration story Taken as a whole, the Mexica migration narratives existed as a record produced by the ancestors for offered a vision of Mexica identity that set this group their descendants. It provided them with an under- apart from all others. The Mexica were the only standing of who they were and where they came from people that claimed Aztlan as a homeland. While (“those called and named Teochichimeca, people of the makers of Mixtec and Puebla-area manuscripts Aztlan, Mexitin, Chicomoztoca”). It recorded a phys- emphasized longevity in a certain region, the tlacuilo- ical journey wherein the Mexica earned their right to que (artist-scribes; singular tlacuilo) that produced the land (“as they sought and merited the land here”) manuscripts in the Basin of Mexico chose the con- and the process of transition from a period of suffer- cept of a migration to represent where their people ing (“where suffering came to be known . . . where in came from and how they got to their new homeland. misery they settled when they arrived”) to greatness In histories this journey was referenced only (“It was becoming the mother, the father, the head of through a record of the arrival of Chichimecs in the all, of every altepetl everywhere in New Spain”). Basin of Mexico.4 In Mexica histories, however, it was The Mexica migration history, sometimes the journey itself that forged their identity. As the last described as a rags-to-riches tale, is recorded in sev- of several groups to enter the Basin of Mexico region, eral sixteenth-century central Mexican indigenous the Mexica used migration history to emphasize that manuscripts that take alphabetic, pictorial, and they had earned their right to the land. This history hybrid forms. In this history the , of Chichimec helped to legitimate the Mexica political position in ancestry, depart from their homeland of Aztlan, in the Basin of Mexico by recording the early battles, the twelfth century.3 They leave this island city at the alliances, and claims to land. At the end of the migra- behest of their god , who will lead tion history, the foundation of Mexico Tenochtitlan them through a 200-year journey. Upon landing at (and Tlatelolco) marked the point at which the or Teocolhuacan, a place that is some- Mexica came into their own. These histories, often times conflated with Chicomoztoc and Quinehuayan, coupled with ruler genealogies and accounts of early they meet up with other tribes. Huitzilopochtli causes conquest events, provided an ideal platform for dif- the Aztecs to separate from the others and offers ferent altepeme (city-states; singular altepetl, literally, them a new identity, renaming them the Mexica and “water-hill”) to establish their claims to the land, the providing them with the things that they need to sur- legitimacy of their ruling dynasties, and their identity vive the peregrination. In exchange for this support, as distinctive peoples with unique histories. he requires sacrifice. After a long and dangerous jour- Before the arrival of the Spanish, Mexican his- ney punctuated by many lengthy stops, they arrive at tories like the one described here would have been in the Basin of Mexico region. Despite recorded using a pictographic (iconographic) writing continuing hardships, they manage to intermarry system. The glyphic images presented information with the Acolhua people of Colhuacan, a group that through pictorial representation (images that bear a claimed prestigious ancestry. Eventually the resemblance to what they depict), ideograms (images Mexica see the eagle on the nopal cactus and sacred that convey ideas or abstract concepts), and pho- springs, which indicate that they have reached the netic referents (language-based or rebus writing). promised land (an island in that was At times the glyphs carried multiple meanings and located at the center of present-day ). functioned in more than one capacity. Thetlacuilo - Soon after settling on this site, the Mexica quarreled. que were generally men and often passed down their

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skills from father to son. They produced painted In the aftermath of the conquest, Cortés destroyed manuscripts in temples and palaces and used them in the religious structures of the former city as he a variety of circumstances and settings. The manu- rebuilt on its ruins, ordering that “the temples be scripts were not bound books (codices in the true demolished, the idols broken, the city razed, and the sense of the word) but were painted on hide, paper, canals filled in.”6 Although the role of the tlacuiloque and cloth. They frequently took the form of a screen- probably continued in areas outside the city center, fold or accordion-style document. Thetlacuiloque the social structure that supported the artist-scribes were often the primary users of the books that they in Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco had been irrevocably painted, interpreting them for audiences that desired altered. access to the historical, calendric, economic, social, Few manuscripts could have survived the whole- and religious information contained therein. Painted sale destruction that the Spaniards visited upon the histories of the Mexica migration were not created capital of the Mexica Empire, and those that did as static, unchanging records but as visual anchors would have been subjected to a new force of opposi- that partnered with a vibrant oral history tradition. tion in the persons of the arriving mendicant friars. Later alphabetic records of these oral accounts sug- The first friars, including Pedro de Gante, arrived in gest that trained orators honored the crucial thrust Mexico in 1523. A group of twelve Franciscan friars of the narrative but adapted it to suit their audience. arrived in 1524, followed by the Dominicans in 1525, They could, for example, emphasize or expand cer- and the Augustinians in 1533. Like Diego de Landa tain aspects of the history or delight their audience in Yucatan, Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of by inventing dialogic exchanges between long-dead Mexico, sought to destroy indigenous manuscripts. ancestors. Even some Nahua participated in the destruction Though some pre-Hispanic manuscripts still of the emblems of their former cosmology as they seemed to be circulating in the sixteenth century, embraced Christianity. As Durán writes, “The Chris- many were destroyed during the Spanish conquest tian religion began to grow and the Indians took to it (1519–1521). As Dominican friar Diego Durán with love and willingness. After the Christian fathers described in his historical account, the Spanish had preached to them, they began to abandon their conquest of Mexico ended in 1521 with a long and idols. They broke them, mocked them, stepped on drawn-out battle fought against the fiercely resistant them, and demolished the cúes [temples] where these inhabitants of the city and their ruler Cuauhtemoc. images had been.” Religious opposition, coupled with Although Hernando Cortés ordered the Spanish con- the pestilence and poverty that ensued after the con- quistadors and their allies to release all captives after quest, severely undermined the surviving tlacuiloque.7 his victory, the city had been devastated. As Durán Nonetheless, oral histories continued to be reports: recounted, tlacuiloque continued to produce painted manuscripts, and cultural narratives like the Mexica The dead on that day were over forty thousand migration story continued to circulate among Nahua men and women, who, rather than fall into the intellectuals in central Mexico. Although Spanish hands of the Spaniards, knowing of the cruel death Christian hostility toward native manuscripts per- they could meet at the hands of those men and sisted to greater and lesser degrees throughout the their Indian allies, threw themselves and their sixteenth century, indigenous and mestizo tlacuilo- children into the canals. The stench of corpses was que still found value in the pre-Hispanic pictorial so great that, even though bodies were continually writing system and used it to reach their audiences disposed of outside the city, many were left and and record information about indigenous culture. the evil smell was unbearable for a long time.5 While some manuscripts were produced for Spanish political and religious officials, others (like Codex

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Boturini, Codex Azcatitlan, and Codex Aubin, the manuscripts also offer the longest and most complete three manuscripts at the heart of this study) were accounts of the origin, migration, and foundation of made by and for indigenous populations. As with the the Mexica. Their itineraries are closely aligned in migration account described in the epigraph above, comparison to other manuscripts (table 1.1). the tlacuiloque who created these three manuscripts The itineraries of Codex Boturini and Codex sought to celebrate and preserve a shared history. For Aubin are essentially identical up to the point where the Mexica descendants who resided in Tenochtitlan Codex Boturini breaks off due to damage. Codex and Tlatelolco before and after the conquest, the tale Azcatitlan includes most of the stops listed in Codex of their ancestors was a source of “renown, pride, Boturini and Codex Aubin and adds some additional history, roots, basis” that forged a sense of communal locations. In some cases the discrepancies are due identity. to varying levels of pictorial detail in the account. As the ruins of Tenochtitlan were razed and For example, the Place of the Broken Tree, found in rebuilt to create Mexico, the capital of what would Codex Boturini and Codex Aubin, may very well be become New Spain’s viceroyalty, European centers of located at Colhuacan, a site that Codex Azcatitlan education were established. Younger Nahua began to does include. Codex Boturini visually conveys that learn new communicative strategies in the monas- Cuextecatlichocayan was a site they passed through tery schools established by the friars. As early as 1523 but that they did not set up an establishment until or 1524 Franciscan friar Pedro de Gante established they arrived at Coatlicamac. Codex Azcatitlan does a school in Tetxcoco. A few years later he moved to not depict this intermediate location, but it does San Francisco, the main Franciscan monastery in record Coatlicamac. Codex Azcatitlan includes Mexico City, where he established the Colegio de Chicomoztoc, a site that does not appear in Codex San José de Belén de los Naturales.8 In this school, Boturini and Codex Aubin, but Chicomoztoc is fre- which catered primarily to the children of indigenous quently conflated in scripted accounts with Colhua- elites, students learned Spanish, Latin, and how to can, Quinehuayan, and even Aztlan. Although major read and write alphabetic script.9 By 1536 Juan de discrepancies in dating and minor discrepancies Zumárraga had established the first school of higher in itinerary indicate that the tlacuiloque drew on at education. Students who excelled in their early edu- least one other source, Codex Azcatitlan’s migration cation came to study at the Colegio de Santa Cruz in account is in large part consistent with the accounts Tlatelolco, where they received a humanist education found in Codex Boturini and Codex Aubin. with a focus on theology and the liberal arts. Over These three manuscripts also differ from other the course of the sixteenth century European-style pictorial accounts of Mexica migration in their images circulated ever more widely in books, wood- formats and in the way that they organize time. In cut prints, and church decor. Tlacuiloque in the post- contrast to the Tira de Tepechpan and Codex Mexi- conquest period accessed new methods of recording canus, which utilize a continuous stream of year signs and consuming knowledge and often combined these that run horizontally through the middle of the page, with older pre-Hispanic central Mexican graphic sys- these three group the date signs into blocks, plac- tems in inventive and strategic ways. ing the compositional emphasis on events rather Codex Boturini, Codex Azcatitlan, and Codex than the unbroken flow of time.10 Codex Mendoza Aubin differ from other pictorial accounts of Mexica depicts only the foundation of the Mexica. The Mapa migration produced in central Mexico after the con- Sigüenza does not use date cartouches and takes a quest. In contrast to the others, these three manu- cartographic approach. Codex Telleriano-Remensis scripts list the same migrating groups in the same and Codex Vaticanus A mix elements of Mexica order and the same four god-bearers, although Codex migration history with Chichimec sources from Azcatitlan includes additional leaders as well. These Puebla.11

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Rajagopalan_5408_BK.indd 4 7/23/18 2:29 PM Table 1.1. Comparison of the Mexica Migration Itineraries in Codex Azcatitlan, Codex Boturini, and Codex Aubin

Codex Azcatitlan Codex Boturini Codex Aubin

Aztlan [–1 Flint (1168)] Aztlan [–1 Flint] Aztlan [–1 Flint] Quinehuayan [–] Colhuacan [–] Colhuacan [–] Colhuacan [–] Broken Tree [–] Broken Tree [–] Cuextecatlichocayan [–] Cuextecatlichocayan [2 House–2 House] Tepemaxalco [2 House (1169)– 3 Rabbit (1170)] Chicomoztoc [4 Reed (1171)– 11 Rabbit (1178)] Coatlicamac [12 Reed (1179)– Coatlicamac [2 House–3 Flint] Coatlicamac [2 House–2 Reed] 13 Flint (1180)] Huacaltepec [1 House (1181)– 2 Rabbit (1182)] Huixachtitlan [3 Reed (1183)– Huixachtitlan [8 Flint–11 Reed] Huixachtitlan [8 Flint–11 Reed] 5 House (1185) Coatepec [6 Rabbit (1186)–1 Rabbit (1194)] Tezcatepec [2 Reed (1195)–6 Reed (1199)] Xiuhcocan [7 Flint (1200)–3 House (1209)] [4 Rabbit (1210)–10 House Tula [4 House–9 Reed] Tula [3 Flint–9 Reed] (1229)] Atlitlalacyan [10 Flint–6 House] Atlitlalacyan [10 Flint–7 Rabbit] Huehuetocan [–] Tlemaco [11 Rabbit (1230)–12 Flint Tlemaco [7 Rabbit–11 Rabbit] Tlemaco [8 Reed–12 Reed] (1244)] Atotonilco [12 Reed–3 Reed] Atotonilco [13 Flint–3 Reed] Apazco [13 House (1245)–3 Flint Apazco [4 Flint–2 Reed] Apazco [4 Flint–2 Reed] (1248)] Tzompanco [4 House (1249)–6 Reed Tzompanco [3 Flint–6 Reed] Tzompanco [3 Flint–6 Reed] (1251)] [7 Flint (1252)–1 Reed Xaltocan [7 Flint–10 Reed] Xaltocan [7 Flint–10 Reed] (1259)]

Rajagopalan_5408_BK.indd 5 7/23/18 2:29 PM Table 1.1. cont.

Codex Azcatitlan Codex Boturini Codex Aubin

Acalhuacan [2 Flint (1260)–6 Flint Acalhuacan [11 Flint–1 Reed] Acalhuacan [11 Flint–1 Reed] (1264)] Ehecatepec [–] Ehecatepec [2 Flint–5 Reed] Ehecatepec [2 Flint–5 Reed] Tolpetlac [7 House (1265)– Tolpetlac [6 Flint– 13 Reed] Tolpetlac [6 Flint– 13 Reed] 12 Rabbit (1270)] Cohuatitlan* [13 Reed (1271)– Cohuatitlan [1 Flint–7 Reed] Cohuatitlan [1 Flint–7 Flint] 8 Flint (1292)] Huixachtitlan* [–] Huixachtitlan [8 Flint–11 Reed] Huixachtitlan [8 Flint–11 Reed] Tecpayocan [9 House (1293)–2 Reed Tecpayocan [12 Flint–2 Reed] Tecpayocan [12 Flint–2 Reed] (1299)] Pantitlan [3 Flint (1300)–5 Rabbit Pantitlan [3 Flint–6 Reed] Pantitlan [3 Flint–6 Reed] (1302)] Amallinalpan, border of Amallinalpan, border of Azcapotzalco [7 Flint–1 Reed] [7 Flint–1 Reed] Pantitlan [2 Flint–5 Reed] Pantitlan [2 Flint–5 Reed] Acolnahuac [6 Flint–9 Reed] Acolnahuac [6 Flint–9 Reed] Popotlan [10 Flint–13 Reed] Popotlan [10 Flint–13 Reed] Techcatitlan [1 Flint–4 Reed] Techcatitlan [1 Flint–4 Reed] ** Atlacuihuayan (Tacubaya) Atlacuihuayan (Tacubaya) [5 Flint–8 Reed] [5 Flint–8 Reed] Chapultepec [6 Reed (1303)–8 Reed Chapultepec [9 Flint–2 Reed] Chapultepec [9 Flint–2 Reed] (1331)] Acocolco [–] Acocolco [–] Acocolco [–] Contitlan, Colhuacan, Acatzintitlan, Contitlan [3 Flint–6 Reed], Contitlan, border of Tizaapan– border of Tizaapan–Colhuacan Colhuacan Colhuacan/Tizaapan, border of [9 Flint (1332)–12 Reed (1335)] Colhuacan; Acatzintitlan [3 Flint–6 Reed] Mexicatzinco [–] Mexicatzinco [7 Flint–7 Flint] Nexticpac [–] Nexticpac [8 House–11 Flint] Iztacalco [–] Iztacalco [12 House–13 Rabbit] Mixiuhcan/Temazcaltitlan [–] Zoquipan/Temazcaltitlan [1 Reed–1 Reed] Mexico Tenochtitlan [5 Rabbit Mexico Tenochtitlan [2 Flint–] (1354)–6 House (1381)]

Note: Italics indicate locations that appear at another point in the itinerary. Shaded areas are nearby or closely related. * There is a glyph that relates to this site, but it is not glossed. ** The sites of Tepetzinco and are depicted, but the glosses do not indicate that the Mexica stayed there and there are no associated date blocks.

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Although Codex Boturini, Codex Azcatitlan, and for presenting elite Mexica history. My study has Codex Aubin all use pictographic images and glyphic benefited from work with the original manuscripts. signs to record narratives based on shared source Throughout this study I make extensive use of material, they differ substantially in execution. In each sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources and case, the tlacuiloque who created these manuscripts archival documents. The book is organized as three used different formats, styles, and communicative case studies. Each manuscript is taken in turn, draw- strategies. Codex Boturini is damaged and breaks off ing links and connections among the manuscripts just before the arrival at Tenochtitlan. Codex Azca- throughout. titlan and Codex Aubin go on to include imperial history as well as conquest and postconquest events. Codex Boturini While these manuscripts have been incorporated in studies that explore Mesoamerican history, politics, Codex Boturini is referred to at times as the Tira del and visual traditions, this book focuses in particular Museo or Tira de la Peregrinación de los Mexica. on the role of the artist-scribe. Through an analysis Named after eighteenth-century collector Lorenzo of the materials, stylistic traits, facture, and narrative Boturini Benaduci, it is the oldest of the three manu- qualities of these manuscripts, I examine how indi- scripts and currently resides in the Museo Nacional vidual tlacuiloque produced their histories and how de Antropología in Mexico City. This screenfold man- their decisions to present or recontextualize a shared uscript consists of a long strip of native paper, 19.8 cm Mexica migration history reflect shifting cultural high and 549 cm long, pleated to create an “accor- identities. dion-style” document with folios of roughly equal My point of entry in approaching these manu- size.12 The twenty-one and a half leaves each measure scripts has been to attend first to their materiality approximately 25.4 cm in width. A tlacuilo versed in and facture. My premise is that the physical state of pre-Hispanic pictorial traditions created the manu- the manuscript (its paper, its binding, how the artist script. Consistency in the representation of figures applied paint to its surface) can provide clues as to and forms throughout the manuscript indicates that how these artists worked and, in some cases, shed the tlacuilo worked alone. The only alphabetic writing light on who these artists were. The studies presented consists of a few largely illegible glosses in here contribute to our understanding of their makers sepia that label and explain some of the glyphs in the and their circumstances of production. For example, manuscript; they are not integrated with the compo- chapter 6 connects the Codex Aubin tlacuilo to the sition and appear to have been added at a later date. Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco and provides Chapter 2 examines the compositional techniques evidence that he bound his manuscript there in 1576. and erasures of the Codex Boturini tlacuilo to eluci- I am also interested in how the narrative qualities date how his decisions enact subtle shifts in mean- of the migration history are presented and manipu- ing. Examination of the lines and erasures reveals lated. Codex Boturini presents a Mexica migration that the tlacuilo started from his source (perhaps an history that offers a shared vision of cultural identity oral account or a pictographic model) and created that stood to unite differentaltepeme subject to the an original composition, carefully considering how Mexica Empire. Codex Aubin offers a vision of how to communicate his history in precise visual terms. this narrative of Mexica identity might be contextu- Based on this understanding of his working methods, alized in a Spanish Christian environment. Codex I compare the Codex Boturini’s opening pages to Azcatitlan draws out the implied Tlatelolca presence those of Codex Aubin, analyzing apparent discrep- in this narrative and makes it explicit. It also uses the ancies between the two and arguing that the Codex Mexica migration history as a conceptual framework Aubin tlacuilo probably copied Codex Boturini

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directly. Analysis of the material qualities of Codex the manuscript ends deliberately in 1527, shortly after Boturini and its manufacture suggests that we can- recording the death of Cuauhtemoc, the last huey tla- not rule out a pre-Hispanic or conquest-era produc- toani (great ruler) of Tenochtitlan. Analysis of Codex tion. Additionally, this chapter examines evidence Azcatitlan is complicated by its unfinished state. that the manuscript is unfinished. The second half Draft lines, empty spaces in the composition, and the of this chapter considers the narrative arc of Codex sporadic use of color indicate that Codex Azcatitlan’s Boturini, articulated in spare and neatly rendered fig- tlacuiloque did not finish their project. The par- ures, and how it charts the vision of Mexica identity tial compositions, however, often provide valuable proffered by thetlacuilo . I point to ways in which the insights into their working processes. tlacuiloque working later in the century used this nar- Chapter 3 examines how the two tlacuiloque who rative as a paradigm, modifying and modulating this produced this manuscript worked and interacted. vision of Mexica identity to fit their social exigencies Close study of the stylistic qualities of these two (a subject explored at greater length in the ensuing hands indicates that the manuscript was made in a chapters). hierarchical workshop environment. The greatest interaction between these two artists occurs in the migration segment of the manuscript. The master Codex Azcatitlan artist takes on the more important narrative content Chapters 3 through 5 address Codex Azcatitlan. This at the beginning and end of the migration, gradu- manuscript is archived in the Bibliothèque Nationale ally allowing the apprentice to take over painting the de France. Named for a gloss that appears on folio various stops that form the bulk of the peregrination. 1v, the manuscript currently consists of twenty-five Both tlacuiloque adapt and expand the Codex Botu- leaves of European paper painted front and back and rini narrative to experiment with introduced Euro- bound together like a book. It is unclear whether pean stylistic techniques, to record details visually the sheets of European paper were painted first and that might have once been shared orally, and to pro- then bound or vice versa. Inconsistencies in the nar- mote Tlatelolca identity. Close reading of the master rative content indicate that a few leaves have been tlacuilo’s opening and closing scenes shows that he lost. The leaves measure 21 cm high and 28 cm wide. emphasized that the Mexica legacy belonged to both The images flow across the facing pages, adapting the Tenochca and the Tlatelolca. Scholars like María the continuous content of a pre-Hispanic accordion Castañeda de la Paz and Federico Navarrete have pre- or screenfold document to the two-page spread of a viously commented on the Tlatelolca presence but bound book. The path that guides the protagonists characterized it as a secondary or “hidden” narrative in the migration segment drops off on one page and subsumed within a Mexica Tenochca document.14 appears in the same spot when the page is turned. This study recasts our understanding of the Tlate- The manuscript conveys a cohesive narrative content, lolca presence, arguing that it is not hidden but forth- linking the Mexica migration to subsequent historical right and explicitly there from the very beginning of events. The first half of the manuscript replicates and the manuscript. A reading of the pages depicting Aca- expands the migration history of Codex Boturini. mapichtli’s reign indicates that Tlatelolco’s The second half records a ruler history, conquest his- ancestry continues to figure prominently in the tory, and postconquest history. While it is hard to pin imperial history. While this chapter focuses on those down a production date, historian María Castañeda parts of the narrative that are most informed by well- de la Paz has proposed that it was made in the second established paradigms, it also provides an overview of half of the seventeenth century.13 New analysis in the master artist’s structure and compositional shifts. chapter 5 indicates that the chronology recorded in Because the narrative content of Codex Azcatitlan’s

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second half has received limited scholarly attention, rulers serves as the end of the migration history and the following two chapters present a new reading a hinge to the elite Mexica history adumbrated in of conquest and postconquest content, enabling an the second half of the manuscript. This second great examination of how the Mexica migration history cycle then ends shortly after the death of Cuauhte- functions in the larger context of the manuscript. moc, a ruler of both Tenochca and Tlatelolca ances- Chapter 4 addresses the conquest history and try. Taken as a whole, Codex Azcatitlan is a Mexica identifies the important role of Ecatl, an indigenous narrative that posits the Tlatelolca as equals to the Tlatelolca warrior who is sometimes referred to by Tenochca and documents their intertwined narra- his Christian name, don Martín, or in honorific form tive from its cosmic origins to the new era that begins as Ecatzin. This section of the manuscript consists of after the Spanish conquest. four two-page compositions executed by the master tlacuilo. Comparison of the events recorded in these Codex Aubin images to their representation in other sixteenth- century historical accounts indicates that the tlacuilo Codex Aubin, named after a nineteenth-century celebrated indigenous victory and presented indige- French collector, now resides in the British Museum. nous defeat as the inevitable result of cosmic destiny. Codex Aubin is a small manuscript painted on Euro- In this brief account of the conquest the tlacuilo casts pean paper and bound as a book. This annals history Ecatl as a cosmic hero, defending the Fifth World (or includes accounts of the twelfth-century migration Sun) that the Mexica believed themselves to be living of the Mexica people from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan, a in from destruction. Though the images read as one history of Mexica rulers, and a record of significant unified European-style “scene,” compositional and events that marked the first half-century following stylistic analysis indicates that the tlacuilo compresses Spanish hegemony. While the narrative content of or overlays discrete temporal moments. the Mexica migration history is identical to that of Chapter 5 provides a reading of the final post- Codex Boturini, the tlacuilo used both indigenous conquest pages of the manuscript, which have pictographic images and alphabetic Nahuatl text to heretofore been opaque and poorly understood. record his histories, effectively creating a “bilingual” This chapter argues that the mastertlacuilo adapts or hybrid work that could communicate to individu- his history to a cosmic template that reflects cycli- als versed in traditional pre-Hispanic writing systems cal conceptions of time. This new reading indicates or to Nahuatl speakers who had learned to read and that the postconquest history addresses major events write alphabetic script in their native language. The of the years 1521 to 1527. As in the previous parts of colonial segment records events related to San Juan the manuscript, the tlacuilo presents an indigenous Moyotlan, indicating that the manuscript was likely perspective and does not adjust or modify narrative made for local use. and pictorial content to cater to a Spanish audience. Chapter 6 argues that the tlacuilo who produced Furthermore, this chapter argues that the tlacuilo uses Codex Aubin emulated compositional and struc- the narrative and cosmic thrust of the migration story tural elements of early printed books as a way to as a template to enhance the meaning and import of lend authority to the pre-Hispanic history that he his annals in the second half of the manuscript. As presented. This chapter offers the first close study recorded in Codex Azcatitlan, the Mexica migration of Codex Aubin’s binding, which includes recycled records a great cycle from the departure from Aztlan endpapers from an early sixteenth-century Latin to the foundation of the twin cities of Tenochtitlan edition of Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. Com- and Tlatelolco. The separation of the Tlatelolca from parison between the printed book and the painted the Tenochca and the enthronement of their first manuscript highlights the break from the format of

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traditional pre-Hispanic annals. While the tlacuilo much of the original Codex Aubin) and does not reproduces Codex Boturini’s narrative faithfully, reflect Dibble’s paragraph breakdowns, which were he carefully alters the format of the document and provided to facilitate reading and allow for line-by- makes strategic choices about how and when to line comparison with the original Nahuatl. lodge his content in script or glyph. In changing these This book does not and cannot address all aspects aspects, he mediates the reception of this history. It is of these manuscripts. It sheds light on the materiality presented from the point of view of a Christian: the and facture of these manuscripts and contributes to powerful deity Huitzilopochtli is cast as a “devil,” and our understanding of the identity of their makers and Mexica origins are perhaps framed as akin to Europe’s on some of the strategies used to create and portray classical pagan past. This study offers a more nuanced their histories. Such a study contributes to the body understanding of the Codex Aubin’s dates of produc- of literature that examines how these manuscripts tion, proposing that the document was begun in the function and how pre-Hispanic history is visualized, late 1550s or early 1560s and bound in 1576. Chapter recorded, and thought about in the colonial period. 6 also places the manuscript in historical context by As Dana Leibsohn suggests, the particularities of his- examining how the tlacuilo’s choices reflect sixteenth- torical enterprise can lead to a broader purchase on century educational practices, epidemic disease the fashioning of pre-Hispanic history.15 outbreaks, and the climate of censorship created This book builds on and contributes to a broad by Spanish Catholicism and Inquisition practices. literature on early colonial Mesoamerican manu- While the Codex Aubin tlacuilo records his history scripts, both painted and scripted. In the last thirty in Nahuatl, for a Nahua audience, he couches his years scholars like Elizabeth Hill Boone and others history in a format and conceptual framework that have directed scholarly attention to Mesoamerican would have been familiar to the Spanish, arguably to painted manuscripts of the pre-Hispanic and colo- ensure the preservation of his cultural legacy. nial periods as a crucial source for understanding In a brief concluding chapter I use the findings of indigenous history and agency. Their work has led to this study to consider how these objects might have a better understanding of how these visual systems circulated among Nahua intellectuals in the post- work, how we might categorize them, how they conquest period. While these manuscripts are linked communicate, and how they intersect with spoken by their shared narratives and probably intersected language and performance. While digitized editions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we know of Mesoamerican manuscripts are increasingly avail- for certain that their lives as objects came together able, that has not always been the case. Monographic in the eighteenth century in the hands of Lorenzo studies with facsimile reproductions like those of Boturini Benaduci. The epilogue to this book charts Frances Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, Walter the early movements of these three manuscripts, Lehmann and Gerdt Kutscher, Eloise Quiñones from their first appearance in Boturini’s inventories Keber, and Robert Barlow and Michel Graulich have to the museum and library collections where they are been tremendously valuable during the course of this currently located. The two appendices facilitate the study.16 Though Robert Barlow originally wrote his arguments in this study and may serve as a resource comments on Codex Azcatitlan in the mid-twentieth for scholars interested in these manuscripts and in century, they are still an important starting point. My Mesoamerican history more generally. Appendix 1 work has much in common with recent studies of offers an English translation of the Nahuatl glosses early colonial painted manuscripts, such as those by in Codex Azcatitlan. Appendix 2 contains an English Lori Boornazian Diel and Eduardo de J. Douglas.17 translation of the Nahuatl text in Codex Aubin. This Like the latter, I consider some of the narratives in translation shows continuous blocks of text (like my study to be literary, even poetic, works as well as

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historical documents. The works of Angélica Jimena While these centuries-old manuscripts may seem Afanador-Pujol, Dana Leibsohn, and Alessandra obscure and arcane to those outside the world of Russo have informed my thinking about the pro- Mesoamerican manuscripts, their narrative contents cesses of making these manuscripts and the individ- and iconographic elements continue to be an impor- ual choices that the tlacuiloque make when navigating tant locus for Mexican identity today. The eagle on between different communicative systems and audi- the nopal cactus, a symbol of the foundation of Mex- ences.18 I rely on Federico Navarrete and especially ico-Tenochtitlan, is perhaps the most famous image María Castañeda de la Paz, two scholars who have from the Mexica migration narrative and appears on addressed these three codices at length.19 My material the Mexican flag. Codex Boturini’s narrative is etched analyses are inspired by the work of Diana Magaloni into the courtyard façade of the Museo Nacional de Kerpel, and I have found the work of Barbara Mundy Antropología, Mexico’s largest and most compre- especially helpful in conceptualizing how the events hensive museum. The following chapters chart some recorded in Codex Azcatitlan’s conquest and post- of the decisions and working methods of tlacuiloque conquest history correspond to the actual physical whose manuscripts respond to the question of what space of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco during and after it means to be Mexica, what it means to be Mexica- the conquest.20 Since the narratives and histories of Tlatelolca, and what it means to be Mexica in a Span- Codex Boturini, Codex Azcatitlan, and Codex Aubin ish Christian context. are frequently recorded in other Nahuatl scripts, I refer regularly to the work of Nahuatl scholars like Arthur J. O. Anderson, Susanne Klaus, James Lock- hart, Susan Schroeder, Kevin Terraciano, and Camilla Townsend.21

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