Codex Tulane (Codex of Huamelulpan, Códice de Huamelulpan)
Location: Latin American Library Rare
Call Number: F1219.C778
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-1550s. Ex-Samuel Daza of Tlaxiaco, Felix Muro, and Alfred Onken Collections.
Two contemporaneous Mixteca-Baja genealogies are presented in the only extant pictorial manuscript from the Mixtec-speaking region of Southern Puebla. Reading from bottom to top, a mythological-origin scene precedes fifteen generations of the Native rulers of place whose sign is a body of water with enthroned ruler and eagle, possibly Chila. The remainder of the codex is devoted to the dynasty of Acatlán, whose sign is a hill containing a jewel. This segment begins with a scene of a fire flanked by 15 generations of the town's rulers (on the right), accompanied by the parents of the women who marry them (on the left).
Inscriptions at the beginning of the roll are a "written map," giving the Mixtec names of the boundaries of San Juan Ñumí, a town in Northern Oaxaca about 100 kilometers south of Acatlán; Ñumí presented the codex as a mapa in land litigation in 1802. (HMAI 370)
Due to the fragile nature of this rare manuscript, researchers should consult the following facsimile editions:
The Codex Tulane / Mary Elizabeth Smith and Ross Parmenter
New Orleans : Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1991
x, 142 p. : ill., maps ; 32 cm. + 14 plates
F1421.T95 no.61 (Latin American Library Rare)
The Codex Tulane / Mary Elizabeth Smith and Ross Parmenter
Graz, Austria : Akademische Druck- u. Verlaganstalt ; New Orleans : Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 1991.
x, 142 p. : ill., maps ; 32 cm. + 1 canister.
F1421.T95 no.61b ( Latin American Library Rare Oversize)
