Tag: Mexico

Tlaquimilolli (Sacred Bundle)

Line Drawing of Teomamaque carrying sacred bundles after Codex Boturini, 2. Drawing by Molly Bassett.

The tlaquimilolli, or sacred bundle, is an extraordinary form of the quimilli or “bundle,” an object used in many Native American cultures, including the Mexica and Maya of Mesoamerica.

Creators: Mexica-Aztec priests

Date of Creation: c. 1325-1521

Place of origin: Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco

Physical measurements: Unknown

Materials: Textiles, pelts, bones, and other media

Process by which it was made: Collection and wrapping

Current location: There are no extant tlaquimilolli. Images of sacred bundles can be found in Contact-era codices, including the Florentine Codex.

Further Reading

Bassett, Molly H. The Fate of Earthly Things: Aztec Gods and God-Bodies. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2015.

Dean, Carolyn, and Dana Leibsohn. “Hybridity and Its Discontents:  Considering Visual Culture in Colonial Spanish America.” Colonial Latin American Review 12, no. 1 (2003): 5-35.

Durán, Diego. Historia De Las Indias De Nueva-España Y Islas De Tierra Firme. Vol. 1, Mèxico D.F.: Imp. de J.M. Andrade y F. Escalante, 1867-1880.

Grecco Pacheco, Daniel. “Ontologias envolvidas: conceitos e práticas sobre os envoltórios de tecido entre os maias.” Antipoda: Revista Antropología y Arqueología. 2019, n.37, pp.119-135. ISSN 1900-5407. http://dx.doi.org/10.7440/antipoda37.2019.06.

Guernsey, Julia, and F. Kent Reilly. 2006. Sacred bundles: ritual acts of wrapping and binding in Mesoamerica. Barnardsville, N.C.: Boundary End Archaeology Research Center.

Houston, Stephen, David Stuart, and Karl Taube. The Memory of Bones:  Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya. Joe R. And Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.

Karttunen, Frances. An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl. Norman, OK: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

Lockhart, James. Nahuatl as Written:  Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts. Nahuatl Studies Series. Edited by James Lockhart and Rebecca Horn. Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 2001.

Magaloni Kerpel, Diana. “Powerful Words and Eloquent Images.” Chap. 10 In The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, edited by Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano, 152-64. Texas: The University of Texas Press, 2019.

Martínez, José Luis. “Gerónimo De Mendieta.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, no. 14 (1980): 131-95.

Mendieta, Gerónimo de. Historia Eclesiástica Indiana. México: Antigua Libreria, 1870.

Olivier, Guilhem. “The Sacred Bundles and the Coronation of the Aztec King in Mexico-Tenochtitlan.” In Sacred Bundles: Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica, edited by Julia Guernsey and F. Kent Reilly, 199-225. Barnardsville, NC: Boundary End Archaeology Research Center, 2006.

Olko, Justyna. Insignia of Rank in the Nahua World: From the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century. Boulder, US: University Press of Colorado, 2014.

Online Nahuatl Dictionary. 2020-2022

Sahagún, Bernardino de. Book 6: Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy. Translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 6, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1969.

———. Book 7: The Sun, the Moon and the Stars and the Binding of the Years. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 7, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1953.———. Book 11: Earthly Things. Translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson. General History of the Things of New Spain. 12 vols. Vol. 11, Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research and the University of Utah, 1963.

Information contributed by Molly Bassett.

Arte de la lengua Mexicana y Castellana

Courtesy of the General Archive of the Indies, Sevilla, Spain.

The first printed grammar for facilitating Nahua-Spanish communication and a reference for beginner Nahuatl-learners in the 1500s.

Creators: Alonso de Molina

Date of Creation: 1571

Place of origin: Mexico City/Tenochtitlan (in Pedro Ocharte’s printing press).

Physical measurements: 117 leaves + 10 manuscript inserted pages at back, 14 cm in length

Materials: Paper

Process by which it was made: Woodcut title illustration (Saint Francis receiving the stigmata), woodcut initials throughout, and moveable type. Inserts include use of vermillion, a cochineal lake, and a gypsum-based pigment.

Current location: Library of Congress

Information contributed by Marlena Petra Cravens.

“Admonitions for Confessors of Natives”

A trilingual (Nahuatl-Spanish-Latin) handbook for missionaries in Mexico.

Creators: Juan Bautista de Viseo

Date of Creation: 1600

Place of origin: Tlatelolco, Mexico

Materials: Vellum covers, rag paper, string, recycled materials.

Process by which it was made: Printed by Melchor Ocharte.

Current location: Special Collections, Mary Couts Burnett Library, Texas Christian University.

Information contributed by Alex Hidalgo.

Compendio de la Historia de los Estados Unidos

Photograph by Jessica Linker.

Georg Sünder’s personal copy of a Spanish-language translation of Emma Willard’s History of the United States.

Creators: Emma Willard, Miguel Terube Tolón.

Date of Creation: 1852

Place of origin: New York City

Physical measurements: 400 pages

Materials: Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt-stamped flag, leather spine.

Process by which it was made: Print, hand-written annotations.

Current location: Owned by Jessica Linker.

Further Reading

Homestead, Melissa J. “‘When I Can Read My Title Clear’: Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Stowe v. Thomas Copyright Infringement Case.” Prospects 27 (October 2002): 201–45. 

Kanellos, Nicolás, and Helvetia Martell. Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press, 2000.

Kelley, Mary. Learning to Stand and Speak: Women, Education, and Public Life in America’s Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.

Lazo, Rodrigo. Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. Envisioning Cuba. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Information contributed by Jessica Linker.

Catálogo de Tipos, Orlas y Rayas

Courtesy of Biblioteca Nacional de México.

A catalogue of the printing type at Mexico’s government printing office, created by its workers in 1913.

Creators: Talleres de Imprenta y Fototipía de la Secretaría de Fomento.

Date of Creation: 1913

Place of origin: Mexico City

Physical measurements: 33cm, 106 pages.

Materials: Paper and ink

Process by which it was made: Printed

Current location: Biblioteca Nacional de México

Information contributed by Corinna Zeltsman.

Codex Mexicanus

Painted by Native artists in the late sixteenth century, it includes information on the Christian and Aztec calendars, European medical astrology, and a history of pre-conquest and early colonial Mexico City.

Creators: Anonymous Nahua Scribes

Date of Creation: ca. 1578, updated over time

Place of origin: Mexico City

Physical measurements: 51 leaves, 102 pages, 10 cm x 20 cm

Materials: Paint on Native bark paper

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: Bibliothèque National de France.

Further Reading

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mexica. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.

Delbrugge, Laura. Reportorio de los tiempos. London: Tamesis, 1999.

Diel, Lori Boornazian. The Codex Mexicanus: A Guide to Life in Late Sixteenth-Century New Spain. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018.

Information contributed by Lori Boornazian Diel.

Codex Huejotzinco

Manuscript Division; Huexotzinco Codex, Harkness Collection, 1525-1651, Harkness MSS 1531.

Created in the sixteenth century by indigenous scribes in the community of Huejotzingo, Mexico, its eight sheets offer a tally of goods delivered to their new Spanish overlords.

Creators: Unknown (Nahua)

Date of Creation: ca. 1530

Place of origin: Huejotzingo, Mexico

Physical measurements: 8 sheets of various dimensions: p.1, 45 cm wide x 44 cm. high; p. 2, 42 cm wide x 27 cm high; p. 3, 20 cm wide x 52 cm high; p. 4, 44 cm wide x 23 cm wide; p. 5, 52.5 cm wide x 41.5 cm high; p. 6, 42 cm wide x 43.5 cm high; p. 7, 24 cm wide x 45.5 cm high; p. 8, 40 cm wide x 26 cm high.

Materials: Amatl paper, agave paper, pigments

Process by which it was made: Painting

Current location: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Information contributed by Barbara E. Mundy.

Further Reading 

Boone, Elizabeth Hill. Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.

Mundy, Barbara E. “The Emergence of Alphabetic Writing:  Tlahcuiloh and  Escribano in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.” The Americas 77, no. 3 (July 2020): 361–407.

Wolf, Gerhard, Joseph Connors, and Louis Alexander Waldman, eds. Colors between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagún. Florence; Cambridge, MA: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut : Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; Worldwide distribution by Harvard University Press, 2011.