Post-Conquest Aztecs

Introduction

Following the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, the Aztec people, more appropriately known as the Nahua, continued to be the dominant culture of the region. Throughout the next several centuries, the Spanish sought to replace the Nahua culture with a Christian, Spanish culture, to greater or lesser effect. In the 20th century, scholars began to look at the history of the native peoples of Mexico as they existed under Spanish domination. The earliest of these studies drew heavily upon archival documents written in Spanish and housed both in Mexico and in Spain. Yet since the 1970s, scholars have discovered large numbers of documents written in the Aztec language (Nahuatl). Studies have come to rely more and more, and to a greater or lesser degree, on Nahuatl language documentation. The focus of scholarly attention has dealt with the ways in which the Nahua people have adopted European ways while still maintaining vestiges of their old culture. Studies of individual native communities and how they have changed over time have become increasingly important in the scholarship. Scholars also have sought increasingly to compare many aspects of the pre-Hispanic and post-conquest periods. The theme of the evangelization of the Nahua has also been a major focus of research. More specialized studies have looked at native leadership, the grafting of Spanish legal systems on the native ones, and they have focused on sexuality and sexual identity. Needless to say, the Nahuatl language has become central to understanding the historical development of the Nahua after the conquest. As a result, considerable scholarship has focused on the language and on texts written in it as well as on texts written in Spanish by people of native origin. These texts run the gamut from civil registers to doctrinal works aimed at native peoples to chronicles and histories. Lastly, the means whereby Nahua people adopted European artistic traditions, while remaining rooted in their own culture has grown to become an active area of research. These studies have looked at colonial documents illustrated in a modified pre-Hispanic style as well as in artistic expression in painting and sculpture.

General Studies

General studies focusing on the Aztecs after the conquest have gone through a clear evolution. The field reached its apogee with the publication of Gibson 1991 (originally published in 1964), a critical study, based on meticulous research in Mexico and Spain. Yet Gibson consulted only Spanish-language documents. Recognizing that only part of the story was told using Spanish documents, the author of Lockhart 1992 took the same topic as found in Gibson 1991, yet based his work on Nahuatl documentation. Lockhart recognized that many essential elements discovered by Gibson were validated, yet many concepts identified by Gibson reflected a bias rooted in the Spanish-language documentation, such as the reported drunkenness of the natives. Lockhart 1991 explores these ideas in a series of short essays focusing on specific topics, pieces that ultimately did not fit into the author’s larger 1992 work. The author of Keen 1971 reflects another tradition in that he traced the development of how the Aztecs were perceived in the West after the conquest. The slow process of acculturation, whereby the cultures of the Nahua and the Spanish merged, is the theme of Gruzinski 1993. Lockhart, et al. 2007 brings together many scholars to develop an important guide to the analysis of a wide range of colonial document types. It is an essential point of departure for further study in the field. Liza Bakewell and Byron Hamann have developed an extremely useful website (Mesolore: A Research and Teaching Tool on Mesaomerica) in which both students and researchers can find valuable resources for the study of both the Nahua and the Mixtec, a people who lived in the mountainous region to the south and east of the core Nahua region.

Gibson, Charles. Aztecs under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
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Gibson offered the first major study of the colonial history of the Aztecs. It was groundbreaking for its time, but suffered from being based solely on Spanish-language documentation. Nonetheless, many of the essential principles developed by Gibson are still valid in the light of more recent scholarship. Originally published in 1964.
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Gruzinski, Serge. The Conquest of Mexico: The Incorporation of Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th–18th Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1993.
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This work broke new ground in looking at the encounter between the Spanish and the Nahua using the native point of view. He looks at the changes that occurred as the native consciousness was colonized by alphabetic texts, which displaced the pictographic.
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Keen, Benjamin. The Aztec Image in Western Thought. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971.
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Keen traces the changing perception of the Aztecs in the Western world. From the time of the first accounts of the conquest through the present, Western culture has seen the Aztecs largely through a European lens, reflecting issues of interest to each generation of authors.
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Lockhart, James. Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
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Although Lockhart 1992 is extensive, several topics were ultimately not included. This collection of essays reflects many of the minor themes that, for one reason or another, did not fit well in the larger work.
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Lockhart, James. The Nahuas after the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992.
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Lockhart’s work has become the touchstone for all further research on the post-conquest Aztecs. Lockhart drew heavily on both Nahuatl- and Spanish-language documentation to provide a nuanced view of the Aztecs. Especially important is his division of language change into three distinct periods.
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Lockhart, James, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, eds. Sources and Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory: Provisional Version. Eugene: Wired Humanities Project, University of Oregon, 2007.
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Many of the leading scholars of the field of post-conquest ethnohistory have contributed essays to this collection. The studies focus on the analysis of many types of documents, ranging from testaments and tributes to legal documents and colonial pictorial documents.
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Mesolore: A Research and Teaching Tool on Mesoamerica.
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An extremely useful resource for scholars and students, this website offers materials focused on both the Nahua and the Mixtec, including pictorial manuscripts and colonial-era dictionaries and glossaries. Included also are lesson plans, syllabi, and tutorials.
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Collections of Mixed Essays

Because scholars who work on the post-conquest Aztecs tend to come from a wide range of disciplines, from archaeology to linguistics to history, a tradition has developed of collecting conference papers on broad topics and publishing them as a collection of essays. By their very nature, these collections tend to be broad-ranging, not necessarily focusing even on one particular theme. One of the earliest of these (Harvey and Prem 1984) established the study of the colonial Nahua as an important field within ethnohistory. Quiñones Keber 1994 is an important, edited collection compiled as a festschrift for the translators of Sahagún’s Florentine Codex, Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble.

Harvey, H. R., and Hanns J. Prem, eds. Explorations in Ethnohistory: Indians of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
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A wide range of topics are covered, including landholding, agricultural practices, intercultural relations between the Spanish and the Mexica, and household organization.
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Quiñones Keber, Eloise, ed. Chipping Away on Earth: Studies in Prehispanic and Colonial Mexico in Honor of Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Lancaster, CA: Labyrinthos, 1994.
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These essays deal with a wide range of issues from Sahagún studies and include those of other authors writing in Nahuatl and on Texcoco before and after the conquest. While a few essays deal with preconquest topics, the vast majority focus on the post-conquest era.
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Social History and Community Studies

The most important state-level entity within the colonial Nahua political system was the altepetl, perhaps best translated as an ethnic state or city-state. Major cities controlled the activities of the smaller towns and villages in their hinterlands. As a result, must research has tended to focus on these city-states. Beginning with Gibson 1952, a study of Tlaxcala, many historians of the Nahua have focused on individual cities and villages. This is perhaps parallel to the work of ethnographers, who also tend to focus on a specific community. Additionally, in the 1980s many graduate students who did graduate work with James Lockhart chose to study the history of a single community. Works by these authors include Cline 1986, Horn 1997, and Schroeder 1991, although Schroeder accomplished her work by simultaneously looking at the works of the native author Chimalpahin (see also Chronicles and Chroniclers (Natives and Persons of Mixed Ethnic Heritage). Scholars in Mexico have also pursued a similar course in looking at a variety of native towns and cities, such as Tecali (Olvera 1978), Toluca, (Menegus Bornemann 1994), and Tlaxcala (Martínez Baracs 2008). A very recent addition to this tradition is Amith 2005, which focuses on a set of communities in the Balsas River Basin of south central Mexico.

Amith, Johnathan D. The Möbius Strip: A Spatial History of Colonial Society in Guerrero, Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
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Amith analyzes the Nahua-speaking communities of the Balsas River Valley from a multidisciplinary perspective to analyze changes over time and space. It is a complex study that explores a wide range of different perspectives on the communities during the colonial period.
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Cline, S. L. Colonial Culhuacan, 1580–1600: A Social History of an Aztec Town. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
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Nahuatl documentation forms the heart of this study of Culhuacan, a city in the Valley of Mexico, during the last two decades of the 16th century. This micro history is one of the earliest to focus on the lives of subaltern peoples in colonial Mexico.
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Gibson, Charles. Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1952.
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Gibson began the modern tradition of community studies of a native polity in the period following the conquest. It began a tradition that Gibson himself continued in his landmark study of the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico.
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Horn, Rebecca. Postconquest Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central Mexico, 1519–1650. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
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Coyoacan was an independent altepetl in pre-Hispanic times that became the first seat of Spanish power following the Spanish conquest. This book looks at the interplay of the Spanish and Nahua in the century and a half following the conquest, drawing upon both Nahuatl and Spanish documentation.
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Martínez Baracs, Andres. Un gobierno de indios: Tlaxcala, 1519–1750. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2008.
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The development of the native state of Tlaxcala from the time of the conquest into the early 18th century lies at the core of this study. The region remained largely self-governing by the native elite in the face of pressures both from the Spanish and the native commoners.
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Menegus Bornemann, Margarita. Del señorío indígena a la república de indios: El caso de Toluca, 1500–1600. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994.
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Toluca, a city to the west of Mexico City, was part of the vast estates controlled by the conqueror Hernando Cortés. Drawing largely on Spanish language documents, the author analyzes the complex political relations between the Cortés estate, the local native communities, and the Spanish city of Toluca.
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Olvera, Mercedes. Pillis y macehuales: Las formaciones sociales y los modos de producción de Tecali del siglo XII al XVI. Mexico City: Ediciones de la Casa Chata, 1978.
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A wide variety of documents, from testaments to vital statistics to censuses and economic records provide the basis for Olvera’s study, which provides a broad look at the relationship between means of production and the social structure of Tecali from classic times up through the conquest.
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Schroeder, Susan. Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.
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Based on the writings of the native historian, Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quautlehuanitzin, Schroeder’s study is tightly focused on the native population centers of the southeastern corner of the Valley of Mexico.
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Specialized Studies

Many studies have dealt with the details of the life and culture of the post-conquest Aztecs. Since the 1980s, trends examining the agency of native peoples and the importance of transculturation in considering colonial societies have created an exciting literature focusing on the Nahua. The underlying theme of these studies is that native peoples were not helpless bystanders subjected to Spanish domination. Rather, they continually responded to that domination through negotiation. In many instances, they adopted and adapted Spanish culture to their own purposes, such as through the use of coats of arms (Castañeda de la Paz 2009), land titles (Haskett 2005), and music (Truitt 2010). They confronted the loss of their community lands by means of a unique and clever utilization of Spanish and Mexican law (Ruiz Medrano 2010). At the same time, several authors trace the changes that occurred between the pre-Hispanic and post-conquest periods. Members of the Aztec nobility married conquerors, founding important colonial families (Chipman 2005), while the conquest also brought about new trade patterns for the natives (Hassig 1985). Many of these studies draw heavily on native documentation (Haskett 2005, Ruiz Medrano 2010, Wood 2003), demonstrating the privileged position given by literacy in an early modern world.

Castañeda de la Paz, María. “Central Mexican Indigenous Coats of Arms and the Conquest of Mesoamerica.” Ethnohistory 56 (2009): 125–161.
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2008-038Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Through the study of coats of arms granted to native cities, Castañeda traces the continued use of native iconographic traditions in what was essentially a European medium. In so doing, she helps to document the development of the incorporation of Spanish cultural elements into native culture. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Chipman, Donald E. Montezuma’s Children: Aztec Royalty under Spanish Rule, 1520–1700. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
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Chipman traces the descendants of the last huey tlahtoani (emperor), Montezuma, in order to see how members of the Aztec nobility negotiated the new political and cultural landscape after the conquest.
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Haskett, Robert. Visions of Paradise: Primordial Titles and Mesoamerican History in Cuernavaca. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.
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Using native language “primordial titles,” Haskett studies how the native leaders of the Cuernavaca, Morelos, region sought to establish their political and economic importance in the 17th-century colonial state.
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Hassig, Ross. Trade, Tribute, and Transportation: The Sixteenth Century Political Economy of the Valley of Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.
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Located in a lake surrounded by high peaks on all sides, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan faced significant issues related to transportation cost, influencing the political economy of the Aztec state and the imposition of tribute. These constraints applied equally to Mexico City, founded on the ruins of the Aztec capital.
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Ruiz Medrano, Ethelia. Mexico’s Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500–2010. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010.
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In this wide-ranging work, Ruiz Medrano considers the tragic history of the loss of territory of native communities and the many ways in which these communities have responded to maintain and reclaim their lands.
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Truitt, Jonathan. “Adopted Pedagogies: Nahua Incorporation of European Music and Theater in Colonial Mexico City.” The Americas 66 (2010): 311–330.
DOI: 10.1353/tam.0.0209Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Music and theater were important tools in the evangelization of the Nahua by the Christian missionaries. This article examines how they functioned in colonial Mexico City.
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Wood, Stephanie. Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
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Looking at disputes recorded in mid-colonial documents, Wood studies how the native peoples used documentation both to depict their reaction to the conquest and to maximize their position under the new colonial state.
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Spiritual Conquest

The term spiritual conquest was coined in Ricard 1982 (originally published in English in 1966). It is not entirely accurate since the evangelization of Mexico did not initially include a direct military component. It did, however, follow immediately on the heels of the conquest and, thus, it carried with it an implied threat of force. From Ricard 1982 onward, scholars have recognized the importance of the religious orders in the evangelization of Mexico. The Franciscans were the first religious order to arrive. The patterns that they established provided the framework for later efforts (Baudot 1995). A major shift in the way scholars study the evangelization occurred with Burkhart 1989, a work in which the author began to see the missionary effort as a negotiation of understanding between the friars and the natives. The missionaries who sought to express Christian concepts in Nahuatl had to rely heavily on Nahuatl speakers to assist them. In fact, the major distinction between the older and the newer scholarship is the utilization of Nahuatl-language documentation. Díaz Balsera 2005 also looks to the Franciscans and their missionary efforts in seeking to identify the emergence of a uniquely Mexican Catholicism, as does Pardo 2004, which analyzes the negotiation of religious thoughts and rituals between the Nahua and the Spanish. Both Osowski 2010 and Gruzinski 1989 study the selective adoption by native groups of certain aspects of Christianity to further their own political and social power.

Baudot, Georges. Utopia and History: The First Chronicles of Mexican Civilization, 1520–1569. Translated by Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano and Thelma Ortiz de Montellano. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1995.
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The first Franciscan missionaries were also the first Europeans to systematically study the language and culture of the Nahua. This work looks specifically at their contributions, focusing on the work of Fr. Andrés de Olmos.
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Burkhart, Louise M. The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989.
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When the Spanish missionaries confronted the reality of needing to preach the Gospels to the Nahua, they recognized the difficulty of expressing Christian theology in a non-European language. Their effort to use Nahuatl as a medium for evangelization lies at the heart of this important book.
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Díaz Balsera, Viviana. The Pyramid under the Cross: Franciscan Discourses of Evangelization and the Nahua Christian Subject in Sixteenth-century Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005.
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Focusing on the writings of the Franciscans regarding the evangelization, Díaz Balsera also deals with the cultural negotiation that occurred between the missionaries and the Nahua.
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Gruzinski, Serge. Man-Gods in the Mexican Highlands: Indian Power and Colonial Society, 1520–1800. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
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In the colonial period in Mexico a handful of individuals claimed to be “man-gods,” influenced by native and European traditions. Gruzinski looks at the changing notions of power among native communities and how these ideas were reflected in the manifestations of the “man-gods.”
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Osowski, Edward W. Indigenous Miracles: Nahua Authority in Colonial Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010.
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The native nobility embraced the concept of “Christ the King” as a vehicle to secure their own authority in the late colonial state.
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Pardo, Osvaldo F. The Origins of Mexican Catholicism: Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
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Pardo considers the cultural negotiation inherent in the conversion of the Nahua to Christianity by focusing on issues of ritual. Through ritual, the missionaries were able to better communicate with the natives, who, in turn, were better able to understand underlying theological principles.
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Ricard, Robert. Spiritual Conquest of Mexico: An Essay on the Apostolate and the Evangelizing Methods of the Mendicant Orders in New Spain, 1523–1572. Translated by Lesley Byrd Simpson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
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The single most important work on the evangelization of the Nahua by the Spanish, it marks the beginning point for everything written subsequently. First published in French in 1933. First published in English in 1966.
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Extirpation of Idolatry

In the first few decades after the conquest, the missionaries concentrated on the conversion of the natives, particularly targeting the native nobility. Once large numbers of natives had converted to Christianity, the missionaries then sought to assure the orthodoxy of Christian practice and belief. They did so by convening of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, an institution charged with monitoring both Spaniards and natives. As a result, several native leaders were prosecuted for idolatry and apostasy, with the execution of at least one noble. This early Inquisition was first studied in Greenleaf 1961. More recently, Don 2010 takes a fresh look at the early Inquisition and finds that it responded to internal political pressures as well as purely doctrinal issues. Early on, missionaries believed that the native religions were the work of the devil. Nonetheless, with the passage of time, most Spanish priests began to discount the persistence of diabolic action in favor of recognizing an incomplete conversion (Cervantes 1994). This realization spurred efforts on the part of the Spanish to eradicate the last vestiges of native beliefs and practices, a process known as the extirpation.

Cervantes, Fernando. The Devil in the New World: The Impact of Diabolism in New Spain. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.
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For the Europeans, native religions seemed to be a work of the devil. Yet, the natives viewed their own religion as something far different. This work traces the effects of this dialogue in the colonial period.
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Don, Patricia Lopes. Bonfires of Culture: Franciscans, Indigenous Leaders, and the Inquisition in Early Mexico, 1524–1540. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
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In the early colonial period, native peoples were subject to the Inquisition, which sought to maintain the homogeneity of religious thought. Looking at four important trials, Don sees a far more complex situation in which politics and social struggles also played an important role.
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Greenleaf, Richard E. Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition, 1536–1543. Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1961.
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Looking at the earliest Inquisition trials of natives for having rejected Christian teachings, Greenleaf laid the groundwork for all further studies.
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Politics and Law

Under the Spanish colonial regime, the native peoples constituted a self-governing entity, called the república de indios, subject to supervision by the Spanish colonial authorities. As a result, the native communities had a right to self-government. This right was evident particularly in the larger cities of the colony where native rulers continued to govern. Recent studies have focused on the negotiations of power that resulted from this complex layering of authority (Connell 2011). Justice and the role of the natives in the Spanish legal system have been important topics of study for many years. As part of the colonial government, the Spanish Crown promised to provide justice and protection for the native peoples, in keeping with medieval European notions that the monarch was the individual ultimately responsible for the protection of minors, orphans, widows, and those marginalized by society. As a result, to provide for a legal system to address native needs, the Crown instituted a tax on all native heads of household, which would provide the funding for the Indian Court system (Borah 1983). The natives then used this legal system as best they could to improve their own position in society and, in so doing, they created a hybrid sense of law and justice (Owensby 2008).

Borah, Woodrow W. Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
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The Spanish Crown established itself as the guarantor of justice to native peoples in the Americas. To make this a reality in New Spain, native peoples paid a small annual fee that entitled them to gain access to special courts established to hear their cases.
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Connell, William F. After Montezuma: Indigenous Politics and Self-Government in Mexico City, 1524–1730. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011.
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The native population of Mexico City remained a self-governing entity. In the course of the colonial period the leadership changed from the pre-Hispanic nobility to new groups of natives who successfully negotiated the colonial system. This book looks at the process of the shift in power and authority.
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Owensby, Brian P. Empire of Law and Indian Justice in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008.
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Owensby critically studies the judicial environment of early colonial Mexico through the examination of lawsuits and legal treatises. He concludes that native peoples took advantage of the legal system to press issues of interest to them and, in so doing, created a new cross-cultural sense of the law.
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Women, Sexuality, and Gender

One of the most exciting areas of new research has focused on sexuality and gender and the changes that came about as a result of the conquest. In the earliest studies of post-conquest Nahua, women were largely overlooked. Since the 1990s, however, several scholars have sought to correct that oversight. Kellogg 1995 traces the changes that occurred among the Nahua in the shift from their traditional legal system to one mediated by the Spanish. Among the clear losers in this process were women, whose power and authority was more fully recognized and supported by traditional law than by the colonial legal system. Sexuality changed dramatically as a result of the new cultural paradigm brought by the Spanish. Sigal 2011 offers a critical view of the changing notions of sexuality in contrasting pre-Hispanic and colonial times. Schroeder, et al. 1997 is an important collection that focuses on the topic of women in the crucible of the conquest. Although it deals more broadly with many native groups, the Nahua account for the largest single group.

Kellogg, Susan. Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
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Kellogg traces the changes that occurred among the Nahua as a result of the shift from indigenous law systems to Spanish legal codes. The decline in the power of native women and shifts in property rights proved especially important,.
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Schroeder, Susan, Stephanie Wood, and Robert Haskett, eds. Indian Women of Early Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.
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More than half of the essays in this collection deal with Aztec women following the conquest in looking at issues such as social and political rights, naming patterns, and wills and testaments.
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Sigal, Pete. The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
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In a unique and challenging analysis, Sigal looks at sexuality in Aztec times attempting to extract information from texts and documents that were influenced by Catholic missionaries in the 16th century.
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Language

From the moment of contact, Spaniards and other Europeans were interested in learning the Aztec language, Nahuatl, in order to communicate with these newly found people. Much of what we known about the preconquest Aztecs we owe to those early efforts. By the 17th century, several missionaries had developed sophisticated grammars of Nahuatl, the most important of which was composed by a Florentine Jesuit (Carochi 2001). The great breakthrough in scholarship regarding the Nahua occurred in 1974 when Arthur J. O. Anderson, Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart published the landmark book Beyond the Codices (Anderson, et al. 1976). For the first time, mainstream historians became aware of the wealth of documentation available in Nahuatl. This changed the course of study of the post-conquest Aztecs forever. No longer could scholars ignore native-language documentation. The publication of Karttunen and Lockhart 1976 followed immediately, a work in which the authors study the changes that occurred in written Nahuatl as it continued to develop as a result of contact with Spanish. The role of Nahuatl literacy was quickly recognized as setting the post-conquest Aztecs apart. Their use of preconquest literacy allowed them to transition into a colonial society where written documentation stood at the heart of most proceedings (Karttunen 1982). Most recently, the extent to which Nahuatl came to serve as a lingua franca for all of colonial Mexico forms the theme of Schwaller 2012. Textbooks and readers are now being produced that allow modern scholars to acquire a reading knowledge of colonial Nahuatl (Lockhart 2001).

Anderson, Arthur J. O., Frances Berdan, and James Lockhart, eds. Beyond the Codices: The Nahua View of Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
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This book began what can only be described as a new era in the study of the Nahua. The authors advocate strongly for looking at the Nahua people not simply from the perspective of Spanish documents but from the writings of the peoples themselves.
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Carochi, Horacio. Grammar of the Mexican Language: With an Explanation of Its Adverbs, 1645. Translated and edited by James Lockhart. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
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Although published nearly four hundred years ago, Carochi’s grammar of Nahuatl stands as the best analysis we have for the language that was spoken closest to the time of the conquest.
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Karttunen, Frances. “Nahuatl Literacy.” In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800: Anthropology and History. Edited by George A. Colier, Renato I. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth, 396–417. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
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Karttunen traces the development of colonial Nahuatl based on the rules she observes in the written documentation. This essay and that of the study of Nahuatl in the middle years form the basis for the “new philology” expounded by Lockhart in his book The Nahuas after the Conquest.
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Karttunen, Frances, and James Lockhart. Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language Contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
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The authors posit that Nahuatl underwent a systematic change when confronted with Spanish. By studying the changes that occurred one can better place documents in their historical context.
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Lockhart, James. Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.
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On the basis of classroom experience, Lockhart developed this book as a handy textbook to allow students to begin to learn to read colonial Nahuatl documents. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the Carochi grammar.
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Schwaller, Robert C., ed. Special Issue: Nahuatl as a Lingua Franca. Ethnohistory 59.4 (2012): 675–690.
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The essays in this special issue all relate to the use of Nahuatl as a common native language in the colonial period, by the courts, by the Church, and by the native peoples themselves.
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Literature

Long before scholars became aware of the importance of quotidian documentation in Nahuatl, they knew of the rich poetic and literary tradition. Nahuatl language poetry had been collected and preserved from the earliest days of the colony. Two important collections are the Romances de los señores de la Nueva España (Bierhorst 2009) and the Cantares mexicanos (Bierhorst 1985). Although many of the poems included date from the pre-Hispanic period, the collections themselves date from the 16th century. Garibay 1971 constitutes the first comprehensive history of Nahuatl literature and Garibay 1964–1968 is the first standard anthology of Nahua poetry. Many of the poems contained came from the Romances and Cantares, but they are formatted and translated as small poems rather than the longer poetic portraits of the originals. The missionary friars also recognized the similarities between some aspects of Aztec ritual and Christian ritual celebrations. They quickly realized that theater might be an effective tool for converting the natives to Christianity. Horcasitas 2004 marks the first publication that launched this rich colonial theatrical tradition. The author’s untimely death halted his project to publish all known plays in the Nahuatl language. His mantle was taken up most recently by the authors of Sell and Burkhart 2004–2009 in their four-volume work on Nahuatl theater, and in Burkhart 1996. The friars were also fascinated by the aphorisms and highly stylized forms of speech of the Nahua, which were collected in the early colonial period (Maxwell and Hanson 1992).

Bierhorst, John, ed. and trans. Cantares mexicanos: Songs of the Aztecs. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985.
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Bierhorst transcribes, translates, and comments on this collection of Nahuatl poetry. His interpretation likens these songs to the “ghost dance” tradition of the Plains Indians of the United States, a point contradicted by most other scholars.
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Bierhorst, John, ed. and trans. Ballads of the Lords of New Spain: The Codex Romances de los señores de la Nueva España. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2009.
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A transcription, translation, and edition of one of the two most famous collections of Nahuatl poetry, it is flawed only by a unique interpretation, which Bierhorst applies to all Nahuatl poetry.
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Burkhart, Louise M. Holy Wednesday: A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
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Burkhart began the modern, systematic study of theatrical pieces from the colonial period. It is a detailed translation and analysis and formed part of the background for Sell and Burkhart 2004–2009.
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Garibay, Angel María. Historia de la literatura Nahuatl. 2 vols. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1971.
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This wide-ranging study established the criteria by which Nahuatl literature would continue to be studied. It is the first and still most comprehensive work.
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Garibay, Angel María, ed. and trans. Poesía Náhuatl. 3 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1964–1968.
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Angel María Garibay was responsible for the recovery of many colonial Nahuatl texts, which he included in these volumes. His translations provide the basis for much of modern scholarship.
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Horcasitas, Fernando. Teatro Náhuatl: Épocas novohispana y moderna. 2d ed. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004.
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Horcasistas sought to collect all of Nahuatl theater from the colonial to the modern period, but he died before completing that effort. This volume focuses principally on the colonial period.
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Maxwell, Judith M., and Craig A. Hanson. Of the Manners of Speaking That the Old Ones Had: The Metaphors of Andrés de Olmos in the TULAL Manuscript. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992.
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Maxwell and Hanson present a translation and analysis of the Nahuatl metaphors compiled by Andres de Olmos in his 1547 handbook for learning Nahuatl.
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Sell, Barry, and Louise M. Burkhart, eds. Nahuatl Theater. 4 vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004–2009.
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These volumes pick up many of the threads initiated in Horcasitas 2004. They contain most colonial period works in the original Nahuatl along with English translations and studies of the pieces included.
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Colonial Texts

In the wake of Anderson, et al. 1976 (cited under Language), scholars began to discover vast collections of documents in the Nahuatl language. Many of these important documents have been transcribed, translated, analyzed, and published for broader use. The texts fall into several broad categories beyond the literary items already seen (see also Language, Literature, and Chronicles and Chroniclers (Natives and Persons of Mixed Ethnic Heritage)). The first to be created were texts that assisted the missionaries in the process of evangelization. Many civil documents were also composed in Nahuatl, including large collections of wills and testaments. In keeping with pre-Hispanic traditions, native peoples also continued their practice of writing historical annals, year-by-year accounts of events, in Nahuatl. Native peoples, persons of mixed ethnic heritage, and Spaniards wrote histories and chronicles of the pre-Hispanic and post-conquest past focusing on the native peoples of Mexico. The most important figure in the generation of texts in Nahuatl in the early colonial period was the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, who, among other works, composed a multivolume encyclopedia of Aztec history, culture, and traditions. Lastly, several score pictorial manuscripts from the colonial period also document the era.

Religious Texts

The first books published in the New World were written in Nahuatl and tended to be doctrinal works written to convert the natives to Christianity. As time passed those early statements of Christian doctrine were replaced by confessional guides: books written to help priests conduct confession with their native parishioners (Alva 1999). One of the most famous missionaries was the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. In addition to composing an encyclopedia of Aztec culture and history, he composed several doctrinal works. The only one published in his lifetime was a collection of songs for all of the major feast days of the Christian calendar, composed in Nahuatl but set to tunes common before the conquest (Sahagún 1993). Sahagún also wrote a dialogue that supposedly captured the debates held at the time of the arrival of the first Franciscans in 1524 with the religious leaders of the Aztecs (Klor de Alva 1980). Native peoples embraced many of the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church, but none so fervently as religious sodalities, also known as confraternities. Because of the native participation in these civil societies, a need arose to compose the constitutions and other documents of the sodalities in Nahuatl (Sell 2002). One of the major components of the devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe is the recounting of the legend of her miraculous origins, composed originally in Nahuatl (Sousa, et al. 1998). By the early 17th century, many missionaries felt that it was essential to eradicate the last vestiges of the old native religions. The period known as the extirpation began during these years. Several handbooks were composed to assist parish priests in rooting out idolatry (Ruiz de Alarcon 1984).

Alva, Bartolomé de. A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634. Edited by Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999.
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Many confessional guides were published in the colonial period. This work was written by a priest who was himself descended from the native nobility of the city of Texcoco. He had a unique perspective on the conversion of the natives.
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Klor de Alva, J. Jorge. “The Aztec–Spanish Dialogues of 1524.” Alcheringa/Ethnopoetics 4 (1980): 52–193.
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This work is the English–Nahuatl version of a dialogue written by Sahagún that depicts the dialogue between the Franciscan missionaries and the Nahua religious leaders when they first met in 1524. It is essential to gain an understanding of some of the underlying theology related to the conversion to Christianity.
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Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando. Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629. Translated and edited by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984.
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Ruiz de Alarcón was the brother of a famous Spanish playwright. This work is a handbook to assist parish priests to detect rituals and beliefs and was written as part of the effort to extirpate the last vestiges of native religious belief.
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Sahagún, Bernardino de. Bernardino de Sahagún’s Psalmodia Cristiana (Christian Psalmody). Translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993.
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Drawing on a rich tradition of religious song from before the conquest, Sahagún recast many of the older songs using Christian feasts and festivals as the new themes. This was the only one of his works to be published during his lifetime.
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Sell, Barry M., ed. and trans. Nahua Confraternities in Early Colonial Mexico: The 1552 Nahuatl Ordinances of Fray Alonso de Molina, OFM. Berkeley, CA: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2002.
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Religious sodalities were an important social institution for the native peoples. In taking control of their own social network, the native peoples also wrote constitutions for these organizations in their own language.
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Sousa, Lisa, Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart, eds. and trans. The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega’s Huei tlamahuiçoltica of 1649. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
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One of the essential parts of the creation of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the Nahuatl version of the miraculous appearance, first published in 1649. The authors both translate the work and provide a careful analysis of it.
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Wills and Testaments

As a literate society, the natives of central Mexico adopted the Spanish practice of writing wills to distribute their personal possessions upon death. Hundreds if not thousands of such wills are extant in Nahuatl in Mexico. The Testaments of Culhuacan; Pizzigoni 2007; and Rojas Rabiela, et al. 1999–2005 all present collections of wills largely written in Nahuatl executed by natives of central Mexico. These works have also proven to be of great value for ethnohistorians who seek to reconstruct native society from the colonial period (see also Social History and Community Studies).

Cline, S. L., and Miguel León-Portilla, eds. and trans. The Testaments of Culhuacan. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center.
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The authors study and translate a rich corpus of wills and testaments from the colonial city of Culhuacan, now a neighborhood of Mexico City. These documents helped to form the basis of Cline’s study of Culhuacan.
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Pizzigoni, Caterina, ed. and trans. Testaments of Toluca. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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This collection of wills comes from the region to the west of Mexico City and dates largely from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Rojas Rabiela, Teresa, Elsa Leticia Rea López, and Constantino Medina Lima, eds. Vidas y bienes olvidados: Testamentos indígenas novohispanos. 5 vols. Mexico City: CIESAS, 1999–2005.
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This largest collection of wills, in Nahuatl and Spanish, comes mainly from Mexico City and the regions immediately surrounding it and date from the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Civil Documents

Civil documentation in Nahuatl tends to fall into three broad categories. Several municipal councils of native communities kept their records in Nahuatl. These include the minutes of the municipal council sessions (Lockhart, et al. 1986 and Solís, et al. 1984). Other more general documents, such as land titles and contracts, were also recorded in Nahuatl (Reyes García, et al. 1996). Finally, several efforts were made to conduct censuses among the natives of central Mexico. Several of these were written in Nahuatl (Cline 1993). Sullivan 1987 presents many different type of Nahuatl civil documents, including civil and criminal cases and wills and testaments, all from the 16th century.

Cline, S. L., ed. and trans. The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth Century Nahuatl Censuses from Morelos. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center, 1993.
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In the 1540s, Spanish official compiled several censuses, particularly in the region near Cuernavaca. These censuses tell us a great deal about the family structure of natives immediately after the conquest.
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Lockhart, James, Frances Berdan, and Arthur J. O. Anderson, eds. and trans. The Tlaxcalan Actas: A Compendium of the Records of the Cabildo of Tlaxcala, 1545–1627. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986.
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The native municipal council of the city of Tlaxcala kept its internal records in Nahuatl. This is a study of those records, with some material transcribed and translated into English.
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Reyes García, Luis, Eustaquio Celestino Solís, Armando Valencia Ríos, Constantino Medina Lima, and Gregorio Guerrero Díaz, eds. Documentos nahuas de la ciudad de México del siglo XVI. Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1996.
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Drawing heavily on the resources of the Archivo General de la Nación, the authors provide a broad selection of civil documentation in Nahuatl and Spanish translation.
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Solís, Eustaquio Celestino, Armando Valencia R., and Constantino Medina Lima, eds. Actas de cabildo de Tlaxcala, 1547–1567. Mexico City: Archivo General de la Nación, 1984.
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This work is a Spanish-Nahuatl version of the municipal council records, studied by Lockhart, Berdan, and Anderson.
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Sullivan, Thelma. Documentos Tlaxcaltecas del siglo XVI en lengua náhuatl. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1987.
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Sullivan, a noted scholar of Nahuatl, edited this collection of various types of colonial documents written in Nahuatl from the region of Tlaxcala, all dating from the 16th century.
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Chronicles and Chroniclers (Natives and Persons of Mixed Ethnic Heritage)

The Nahua had a written historical tradition before the arrival of the Spanish. This took the form of annals in which years were remembered for the specific events that occurred in them. These histories were recorded using pictographic writing in which the event was depicted using mnemonic glyphs, for example a burning temple associated with a place-name glyph to show the conquest of a specific town or city. This tradition was then continued in the post-conquest era frequently in a hybrid manner with the pictographs supplemented by writing in European characters. Other authors chose to continue the tradition, writing in Nahuatl in European characters, such as Chimalpahin (Lockhart, et al. 2006) and writers whose records have been translated and analyzed in Townsend 2010. Other persons of mixed ethnic heritage also wrote both European-style histories and some annals. In particular, these historians were active in the late 16th century and early 17th century. Their works include Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin 1997, a volume principally about the city of Amecameca and its environs, Alva Ixtlilxóchitl 1975–1977, a work based on the perspective of the city of Texcoco, and Tezozómoc 1992, a text about Mexico City and Azcapotzalco. Recent scholarship has indicated that the work attributed to Tezozomoc was probably also a product of the pen of Chimalpahin. In response to official queries about the history and geography of the Spanish realms, several historical chronicles were written by persons of native descent. These include Múñoz Camargo 1984 and Múñoz Camargo 1998 for Tlaxcala and Pomar 1891 for Texcoco.

Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando de. Obras históricas. Edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. 2 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1975–1977.
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Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, the brother of Bartolomé de Alva (see Alva 1999, cited under Religious Texts), was a mestizo and royal court interpreter. He composed several works dealing with the pre-Hispanic history of central Mexico and his home city of Texcoco.
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Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, Domingo de San Antón Muñón. Codex Chimalpahin. 2 vols. Edited and translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.
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Chimalpahin was a native speaker of Nahuatl who wrote a multivolume history of central Mexico and his home region of Amecameca.
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Lockhart, James, Susan Schroeder, and Doris Namala, eds. and trans. Annals of His Time: Don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006.
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Chimalpahin also wrote a year-by-year account of contemporary events, 1577–1615, in Nahuatl.
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Múñoz Camargo, Diego. “Descripción de la ciudad y provincial de Tlaxcala.” In Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Tlaxcala. Vol. 1, Guatemala. Edited by René Acuña. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1984.
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Múñoz Camargo, a mestizo from Tlaxcala, compiled this history of his home region as part of a large empire-wide request by the Spanish Crown for information about territories and their history.
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Múñoz Camargo, Diego. Historia de Tlaxcala: Ms. 210 de la Biblioteca Nacional de París. Edited by Luis Reyes García. Tlaxcala, Mexico: Gobierno del Estado de Tlaxcala, 1998.
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This is a second version of the history of Tlaxcala written by Múñoz Camargo.
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Pomar, Juan Bautista. “Relación de Tezcoco.” In Nueva colección de documentos para la historia de México. Vol. 3. Edited by Joaquín García Icazbalceta, 1–70. Mexico City: F. D. de León, 1891.
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Pomar, a mestizo from Texcoco, was responsible for compiling the history of his home city for the reply to the empire-wide request.
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Tezozómoc, Fernando Alvarado. Crónica mexicáyotl. 2d ed. Edited and translated by Adrián León. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1992.
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A contemporary of Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Tezozómoc wrote a history of pre-Hispanic Mexico in Nahuatl, largely from the perspective of Mexico and Atzcapotzalco, his family’s ancestral home, although doubt exists as to the true authorship of this work.
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Townsend, Camilla, ed. and trans. Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.
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In many regions the pre-Hispanic tradition of maintaining annals of events continued after the conquest. Townsend translates and analyzes some of those records from the Puebla-Tlaxcala region.
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Colonial Chronicles of the Pre-Hispanic Period (Spaniards)

Spaniards, both missionaries and secular officials, devoted a great deal of time and effort to capturing the history and customs of the preconquest Nahua. The earliest of these studies was by Fr. Toribio de Benavente, who took the native name of Motolinia (see Motolinia 1971). The Dominican friar Diego Durán composed two works focusing on the pre-Hispanic past. One was a study of the calendar and rituals of the Nahua (Durán 1971) while the other was a history of the natives of central Mexico (Durán 1994). The most famous of all the Spanish chroniclers was the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún (see also Sahagún Studies). Sahagún compiled a twelve-volume encyclopedia of Nahua history and customs written in Nahuatl and Spanish, which has come to be known as the Florentine Codex (Sahagún 1955–1982). A revised version of this work, written only in Spanish, is also an important sources for scholars (Sahagún 1956). The layman and high court judge Alonso de Zorita composed a well-respected treatise on the preconquest Nahua (Zorita 1994).

Durán, Diego. Book of the Gods and Rites of the Ancient Calendar. Edited and translated by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971.
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Durán, a Dominican friar, was raised in Mexico. As a young child he learned Nahuatl and much about native culture. This book is one of the most complete accounts of the ritual calendar.
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Durán, Diego. The History of the Indies of New Spain. Edited and translated by Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
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Durán also wrote a history of the native peoples of central Mexico from earliest times up until shortly after the conquest.
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Motolinia, Toribio de Benavente. Memoriales o Libro de las cosas de la Nueva España y de los naturales de ella. Edited by Edmundo O’Gorman. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1971.
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The Franciscan friar Toribio de Benavente became known as Motolinia, a Nahuatl word meaning “he goes around being poor.” Benavente wrote a comprehensive history and study regarding the Nahua peoples of central Mexico early in the colonial period.
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Sahagún, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex. 12 vols. Edited and translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles Dibble. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1955–1982.
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Sahagún, a Franciscan friar, spent nearly twenty years interviewing native elders about all aspects of Nahua culture. With the aid of several native scholars, he compiled this twelve-volume encyclopedia of Nahua culture and history in Nahuatl and Spanish.
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Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia general de las cosas de la Nueva España. Edited by Angel María Garibay. Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1956.
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This is the Spanish version of the Florentine Codex, which differs in some significant ways from the Nahuatl-Spanish version, from which it derived.
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Zorita, Alonso de. Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain. Translated by Benjamin Keen. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
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Zorita, a Spanish judge on the high court of Mexico City, wrote this history of the natives of central Mexico based on his many years of experience in the region.
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Sahagún Studies

Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún was easily the most prolific of the missionary friars working in Mexico who studied the Nahua. The crowning achievement of his method was the document known as the Florentine Codex, a twelve-volume compendium of information about Nahua culture and history (see also Colonial Chronicles of the Pre-Hispanic Period (Spaniards)). His stature has led scholars to study both his methods and his works in order to better understand the colonial Nahua. The first comprehensive modern biography of the friar is Nicolau d’Olwer 1987. More recently, León Portilla 2002 is a new biography that portrays Sahagún as the first ethnographer who used methods that would become common only in the 20th century. Bustamante García 1990 is the result of an exhaustive study by the author of the chronology of Sahagún’s works and the methods he used to both collect data and then write the works. Browne 2000 differs slightly from León Portilla 2002 in seeing Sahagún as standing at a critical moment between the decline of medieval scholasticism and the dawn of the modern era. Edmunson 1974; Klor de Alva, et al. 1988; and Schwaller 2003 present collections of essays that analyze the works of Sahagún from a wide variety of perspectives by a wide variety of important scholars. They represent three snapshots of the status of Sahagún studies since the 1970s.

Browne, Walden. Sahagún and the Transition to Modernity. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
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Browne takes a new and unique look at Sahagún as a person bridging not just the cultural gap between the Nahua and the Spanish, but also between medieval and modern ways of thinking.
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Bustamante García, Jesús. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: Una revision crítica de los manuscritos y de su proceso de composición. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, 1990.
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In a work that required meticulous research methodology, Bustamante García critically analyzes all of Sahagún’s writings and attempts to trace their composition. Examining each work, he determines the research method and precisely how Sahagún developed the work.
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Edmunson, Munro S., ed. Sixteenth-Century Mexico: The Work of Sahagún. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1974.
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In this early effort to come to grips with the corpus of Sahagún works, Edmunson presents a valuable collection of essays that looks at Sahagún’s work and the themes he covered and proposes areas for further research.
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Klor de Alva, J. Jorge, H. B. Nicholson, and Eloise Quiñones Keber, eds. The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico. Albany, NY: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, 1988.
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In anticipation of the four-hundredth anniversary of the death of Sahagún (Sahagún 1993, cited under Religious Texts) this collection summarizes much of the modern research on the friar and his work, looking at the linguistic, ethnographic, and artistic contributions he made.
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León Portilla, Miguel. Bernardino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist. Translated by Mauricio J. Mixco. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
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The dean of Mexican Nahuatl studies posits that Sahagún represents the first modern ethnographic anthropologist: one who bases his study of a native group on field experiences.
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Nicolau d’Olwer, Luis. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, 1499–1590. Translated by Mauricio J. Mixco. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.
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The first complete biography of Sahagún and the point of departure for all subsequent studies.
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Schwaller, John F., ed. Sahagún at 500: Essays on the Quincentenary of the Birth of Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún. Berkeley, CA: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2003.
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Written to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of his birth, this collection of essays explores various aspects of the life and work of Sahagún, focusing especially in illustrations, Sahagún’s role as ethnographer, the theology behind some of his works, and speculations on a lost work.
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Pictorial Manuscripts

While very few pre-Hispanic painted manuscripts still remain, pictographic manuscripts in the colonial period were produced in abundance. The vast majority of these were created by native communities in an effort to seek recognition of their accomplishments during the conquest, to regain lands lost in the conquest and colonial period, or to assert traditional power and control. The author of Boone 2000 analyzes a large corpus of pictorial manuscripts from the Nahua and the Mixtecs to demonstrate how the natives used these documents for political and social purposes. Studies of specific manuscripts of this genre include Asselbergs 2004, Carrasco and Sessions 2007, Cortés Alonso 1973, Diel 2008, and Liebsohn 2009. Rabasa 2011 looks at the genre of colonial pictographic documentation to conclude that native peoples quickly realized the importance of written documentation and historical records in making claims with the Spanish regarding ancestral privileges and authority. The Codex Mendoza (Berdan and Anawalt 1992) is an important document in that its creation was ordered by the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, don Antonio de Mendoza, to collect information about the tribute that native communities paid to the Aztecs before the conquest. It also contains important ethnographic information.

Asselbergs, Florine. Conquered Conquistadores: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan: A Nahua Vision of the Conquest of Guatemala. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2004.
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Asselbergs presents an analysis of a pictorial manuscript from Guatemala produced by Nahua auxiliaries to the conquering Spaniards.
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Berdan, Frances F., and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. Codex Mendoza. 4 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
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Berdan and Anawalt have provided the definitive study of this important document. The codex was created at the request of the first viceroy of Mexico, don Antonio de Mendoza, to learn about pre-Hispanic tribute payments and native culture.
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Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
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The tradition of record-keeping and storytelling in pictorial manuscript form continued after the conquest. Boone examines five pre-Hispanic and 150 colonial pictorials from the Nahua and the Mixtecs to better understand the changing function.
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Carrasco, David, and Scott Sessions, eds. Cave, City, and Eagle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
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A massive undertaking that looks at this colonial document from a wide variety of perspectives, including art history, geography, ethnography, and others.
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Cortés Alonso, Vicenta, ed. Pintura del gobernador, alcaldes y regidores de México: “Codice Osuna.” Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 1973.
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This manuscript, in pictures and Nahuatl text, documents the complaints of exploitation made by the natives of Mexico City against their Spanish governors.
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Diel, Lori Boornazian. The Tira de Tepechpan: Negotiating Place under Aztec and Spanish Rule. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.
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The tira, a long narrow pictographic document, traces the history of this small city from 1298 until 1596 using native pictographs, with a parallel set of pictures tracing events in the capital, Tenochtitlan-Mexico. A few events also carry written narratives.
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Liebsohn, Dana. Script and Glyph: Pre-Hispanic History, Colonial Bookmaking, and the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2009.
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The Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca was composed using both native pictographs and by Nahuatl using European characters. This work studies the interplay between these two systems of communication and its impact on the overall narrative.
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Rabasa, José. Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You: Elsewheres and Ethnosuicide in the Colonial Mesoamerican World. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011.
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Focusing on the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, Rabasa studies how it reflects the indigenous response to the Spanish conquest, placing it in the larger context of cultural change and conflict.
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Guides to Books and Manuscripts

The corpus of documents from native hands and in Nahuatl is significant. Since 1974, scholars have increasingly understood the importance of this documentation in understanding the post-conquest Nahua. At present, no exhaustive guide or index to all of the Nahuatl language documents is available since hundreds, if not thousands, are housed in various archives, public and private, in Mexico. Schwaller 2001 is a short guide to the Nahuatl language manuscripts housed in major collections in the United States. León Portilla 1988 is an exhaustive look at all printed material in Nahuatl from the beginnings of the printing press in Mexico in 1536 until the mid-1980s. Robertson 1994 and Robertson 1975 look at both the early colonial painted manuscripts, which imitate the preconquest style, and the more crudely drawn manuscripts of the mid-colonial period known as Techialoyan.

León Portilla, Asención H. de. Tepuztlahcuilloli: Impresos en Nahuatl. 2 vols. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1988.
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León Portilla created the definitive catalogue and a highly useful study of works published in Nahuatl from earliest colonial times until the 1980s.
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Robertson, Donald. “Techialoyan Manuscripts and Paintings, with a Catalog.” In Handbook of Middle American Indians. Vol. 14, Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. Edited by Robert Wauchope, 253–280. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975.
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In recent years, greater attention has been placed on techiloyan manuscripts. These works, from the middle and late colonial period, were made to look as if they were pre-Hispanic or from the early colonial period in order to secure rights and privileges for native leaders and their communities.
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Robertson, Donald. Mexican Manuscript Painting of the Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan Schools. 2d ed. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
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Robertson looks especially at how styles changed from pre-Hispanic times in this definitive study of Mexican painted manuscripts from the 16th century.
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Schwaller, John F. A Guide to Nahuatl Manuscripts Held in United States Repositories. Berkeley, CA: Academy of American Franciscan History, 2001.
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As a result of historical and cultural events over the centuries, many important Nahuatl language manuscripts have come to be held in the United States, which Schwaller has catalogues and analyzed.
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Art and Architecture

Recent scholarship has come to recognize the not insignificant native contribution to colonial art and architecture. For decades, if not centuries, scholars have known that native artisans were responsible for much of the construction of colonial buildings and their decoration. Only since the 1960s have scholars begun to analyze the native contribution to art and architecture and also the role that art and architecture played in the ongoing Hispanization of the natives. Lara 2004, Lara 2008, and Edgerton 2001 constitute studies of both the churches and the liturgies performed in them undertaken to better understand what role they played in the larger missionary effort. The author of Wake 2010 also pursues this line of research, seeing the interplay of the guiding principles provided by the Spanish, yet with details executed by natives. The author of Peterson 1993 studies the use of native themes in a larger work conceived by Spaniards as she looks at the paradise murals of the convent of Malinalco. Lastly, native artisans played a major role in the creation of maps in response to official queries about the history and geography of the regions and provinces of Mexico (Mundy 1996).

Edgerton, Samuel Y. Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
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Colonial churches were designed and built to heighten the theatricality of the rituals so as to promote conversions. Native artisans who worked on the projects also adapted European motifs to their own ends.
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Lara, Jaime. City, Temple, Stage: Eschatological Architecture and Liturgical Theatrics in New Spain. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.
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Lara sees the construction of the 16th-century monastery churches as manifesting some of the missionary friars’ beliefs about the coming of the end of the world. The structures also served as theatrical sets against which fears of the end of the world were also played out.
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Lara, Jaime. Christian Texts for Aztecs: Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
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The texts and illustrations created by the Spanish missionary friars also helped to bridge the cultural gap between European Christianity and native belief systems.
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Mundy, Barbara. E. The Mapping of New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps of the Relaciones Geográficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
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The maps prepared for the imperial history survey form a large percentage of all native manuscripts from the early colonial period. These works manifest the combination of native pictorial traditions and the demands of European map making.
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Peterson, Jeanette Favrot. The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco: Utopia and Empire in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.
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The missionary friars called upon native artisans to decorate the interior spaces of their monasteries. In so doing, they also allowed the natives to draw upon their own cultural vernacular in creating the images. The result was a combination of European messages and images executed in a native vernacular.
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Wake, Eleanor. Framing the Sacred: The Indian Churches of Early Colonial Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
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The colonial churches were designed by Europeans, but they were built by natives. While the friars often placed them in conjunction with native holy places, the natives incorporated their own imagery into the decoration, leading to a complex vision of native spirituality in a Christian format.
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Modern Nahua Peoples

Study of the Nahua by ethnographers and cultural anthropologists is ongoing. Broda and Báez-Jorge 2001 is a good example. The studies in this volume look at the status of the Nahua in the modern world and trace elements of continuity from the time of the conquest. Stresser-Péan 2009 focuses on the continuing encounter of Christianity with native peoples of Mexico, in particular both the Nahua and Totonac peoples of the northern part of the state of Puebla.

Broda, Johanna, and Félix Báez-Jorge, eds. Cosmovisión, ritual e identidad de los pueblos indígenas de México. Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2001.
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This collection of essays covers the issue of ethnic identity and the worldview of native peoples of Mexico from colonial times to the present, principally among Nahuatl. It focuses on communities from the southern state of Guerrero, the Valley of Mexico, and the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala.
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Stresser-Péan, Guy. The Sun God and the Savior: The Christianization of the Nahua and Totonac in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2009.
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Stresser-Péan spent many decades undertaking research among the Nahua and Totonac of the state of Puebla to bring forth this monumental study. It covers the entire four hundred years since Christianity was introduced in this region.
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