Original Pictorial Manuscripts / Codices
The Latin American Library is the repository of ten original Mexican pictorial manuscripts dating from the early colonial period. All but one of the ten original manuscripts below have been dated to the sixteenth century. The Latin American Library's holdings of original pictorial manuscripts and comprehensive collection of codex facsimiles make Tulane University's collection of Mexican codices in the native tradition the most important in the United States.
Cuernavaca Region, Morelos. Native paper, 1 leaf, 43 x 24.5 cm., Native black ink, Spanish text in European brown ink at top, 1549.
Location: Latin American Library Rare
Call Number: 972.02 (333.2) A862
Painting of disputed property and tribute from the pueblo of Atatepec (HMAI 183); related to similar documents in the litigation between Martín Cortés and Indians of the Marquesado del Valle over restitution of lands and rents. (HMAI 160). [LAL (rare) 972.02 (333.2) A862]
Morelos. Codex, European paper, 6 leaves, 31.5 x 21.5 cm., Native black ink & color, mid-16th century.
Call Number: F1219.C42
Latin American Library Rare
Codex of San Francisco Xonacatlán
State of Mexico. Codex in Nahuatl on rough-quality native paper, 15 f. (of which 6 are text), 32.5 x 25 cm., color, late 17th or early 18th century.
Ex-Frederick Starr Collection.
Location: Latin American Library Rare
Call Number: F1219.C78
One of the most complete of the Techialoyan corpus of manuscripts and paintings in terms of content. Pre-Columbian and early Colonial history of Xonacatlán and account of lands granted the town in 1528 by the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza (who did not arrive in New Spain until 1535), and boundaries of village lands described in detail. (HMAI 723).
Acatlán, Southern Puebla. Vertical rolled tira on animal hides, 373.5 x ca. 22 cm., painted in color on one side, Mixtec glosses (front & back), mid-1550's. Ex-Samuel Daza of Tlaxiaco, Felix Muro, and Alfred Onken Collections.
Call Number: F1219.C778
Latin American Library Rare
Náhuatl Fiscal Document
Native paper, both sides of 2 leaves, 43 x 21 cm., Native black ink, late 16th century. In Nahuatl.
Location: Latin American Library Rare Oversize
Call Number: PM4068.M3
Borderline pictorial manuscript. A record of money given every Sunday to a list of people.
3 leaves (2 of 6 sides blank), Native paper, 28 x 36 cm., some color, Náhuatl text, Late sixteenth century.
Ex-William E. Gates Collection.
Location: Latin American Library Rare
Call Number: F1219.C42
Testerian Manuscript
Codex, European paper, Native black ink, red & beige washes, 14 folios (small octavo), 10 x 7.5 cm., late 16th century.
Fragmented catechism used by friars for Indian conversion in New Spain. Contains distorted versions of Pre-Columbian pictographic writing possibly based on an earlier Nahuatl version and other symbols that could be phonetic or rebus in nature. (HMAI 827).
Mizquiahuala, Hidalgo, Mexico.
Fragment of a vertical tira, Native paper, 39 x 19 cm., color, 1569. Ex-Lorenzo Boturini Collection.
Call Number: F1219.T5
Latin American Library Rare
Oversize
Tribute of zacate (green corn stalks used as fodder for horses) paid to the Corregidor of Mizquiahuala; Spanish text on reverse. (HMAI 221)
Tribute Documents for Ohuapan and Tecuiciapan
Guerrero, Mexico. Codices, European paper, 4 leaves (2 double f. ea.), 31.4 x 22 cm., Native-style drawings in black and red on folio. 2v. of ea., Spanish texts in European brown ink, signed & dated by the Viceroy Luis de Velasco, June 18, 1557.
Decrees issued in Mexico City establishing tribute to be paid by the Indians of these two towns on the Río Balsas. With a similar document, the Codex of Teteltzcinco (HMAI 326), they form part of a larger manuscript now lost.
Abbreviations
HMAI = Handbook of Middle American Indians Census. (John B. Glass in collaboration with Donald Robertson, "A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts," Article 23, & article 24 on Techialoyan mss. (Robertson) & 25 on Testerians (Glass) in v. 14, & 27B on prose mss. (Charles Gibson & Glass) in v. 15, continue the HMAI Census numbering system referred to as HMAI [no.] on this page.
MNA = Museo Nacional de Antropología, México.
Bibliography
Mexican Indian Manuscript Painting : a Catalog of the Latin American Library Collection, Tulane University
Martha Barton Robertson. [New Orleans, La.] : The Library, [1991]
F 1219.5.T85 1991
Latin American Library Reference
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