Language, culture, and writing: reflections on the interpretation of pictorial manuscripts in the native central Mexican tradition (original) (raw)
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Ucla Historical Journal, 1992
Ma quimatican Yn quexquichtin quitasque yhuan quipohuasque Ynin esCritura de Benta ticchihua Yn tehuantin... Let those know who should see and read this instrument of sale made by us... cin ualic u >ibtabal in testamento tu tanil in yum Batab y_ Justicias... I state my will for it to be written down before the batab and magistrates... yodzanacahui tutu yaha dzaha nudzahui... Let this document in the "Mixtec" language be read...Πntroduction to Indigenous Writing Soon after the arrival of Europeans in the land that they called New Spain, Franciscan and Dominican friars taught the art of alphabetic writing to members of the indigenous elite. As a result, indigenous peoples during the colonial Mexican period produced (mostly legal) documentation in their own languages using the Roman alphabet. The first group to do this were the Nahuas (sometimes called "Aztecs") of central Mexico; material in Nahuatl has survived in greater quantities than sources from other Indigenous Writing and Literacy 9 language-groups and has been studied far more by scholars. dditional work has also been published on Yucatec Maya and Cakchiquel sources and, more recently, on Mixtec documentation. There are also sources, known of but unstudied by scholars, in Zapotec, Chocho, Quiche, Otomi, Tarascan and no doubt other Mesoamerican languages.-^Smaller bodies of documents that have not surfaced or survived may have been written in lesser-spoken languages (see Figure 1: Map of Mesoamerican Languages). This chapter makes general remarks about indigenous-language documentation of colonial Mexico, but our specific comments refer only to the sources with which we are familiar-those in Nahuatl, Mixtec and (Yucatec) Maya. Our concern is to draw attention to the existence of these sources, to the ethnohistorical work in which they have been utilized, and to the potential this material holds for future study. In discussing the characteristics of indigenous sources in three different languages, we are hereby contributing a comparative framework that has yet to receive adequate attention, as well as working towards the disintegration of the term "Indian"~found by ethnohistorians to be increasingly inaccurate and unhelpful, save in its reflection of the Spaniards' racial per
Fuentes MesoAmericanas, Vol. 7, Verlag Anton Saurwein, 2020
Order at: https://mexicon.de/product/fuentes-mesoamericanas-7-2020/ The Codex Telleriano-Remensis is one of the most beautiful Aztec manuscripts from the early colonial period of Mexico. The first half of this codex relates to the Aztecan calendar system, whereas the second one is a detailed account of Aztec history, spanning a time from the beginning of the mythical migration of the Mexica in the eleventh century to the early colonial period in the mid-sixteenth century, including such far-reaching events as the foundation of Tenochtitlan, the war against Tlatelolco, and the conquest of Tenochtitlan led by Hernán Cortés in the years 1519–1521. This eventful history was recorded in a native writing system that can be described as a sophisticated composition of iconography, calendar notation, and such signs that are linked to the language of the Aztecs: Nahuatl. Even though the original Nahuatl text is accompanied by Spanish annotations written in Latin letters, many of the Nahuatl writing signs hitherto remained undeciphered. The first part of the present volume addresses the principles of this exceptional writing system. The second part is a meticulous study of the historical section, presenting numerous new decipherment proposals for yet uninterpreted or misinterpreted signs. The study is topped off with three catalogs, each printed in color: a catalog of the Nahuatl writing signs appearing in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis including their proposed reading, and two catalogs of the deciphered place signsa and the name signs of the depicted historical figures, respectively.
On the classification of graphs in Central Mexican pictorial writing
Indigenous graphic communication systems: a theoretical approach, 2019
The visual language manifested in the pictorial writing of Central Mexico lies on the blurry border between the European semantic categories of “visual arts” and “writing.” Since the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, scholars have argued about the relationship between this system of visual communication and the semantic or phonetic structures used by native artist-scribes. This discussion continues today, without a clear consensus, although progress has been made in recent decades. In this study I present a theoretical framework for classifying Central Mexican graphic signs, or graphs, building on the foundations provided by Geoffrey Sampson thirty years ago. Sampson’s ideas, concepts and terms are ideally suited for determining the nature of this system of pictorial writing, particularly its possible relation to the verbal languages used by the diverse peoples that participated in the relatively homogenous culture that existed in this region around the time of the Spanish conquest. This plurilingual context, including languages belonging to distinct families, was an important factor in the emergence and development of this pictorial and graphic system. In previous studies I have applied Sampson’s system of classification to the toponymic graphs found in two pre-Hispanic sculptures from the Nahuatl-speaking polity of Mexico Tenochtitlan and to all the pictorial signs in the early colonial period Huichapan Codex, painted in an Otomi-speaking town in the Mezquital Valley, north of the Valley of Mexico. Here four examples of graphs from these native pictorial texts have been selected to illustrate how these pictorial signs may be classified.
Anthropology 1170: Mesoamerican Writing Systems
This seminar explores the role of writing broadly defined in the social, political, and religious fabric of ancient civilizations of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. The region, known as Mesoamerica, is characterized by an amazing variety of indigenous writing systems, from phonetic ones like Maya hieroglyphs, to largely pictographic notations such as Mixtec records. The course offers a survey of Mesoamerican writing systems that centers on the basic properties of the scripts and their uses. It highlights how specific features of Mesoamerican writing systems reflect broader regional traditions with respect to the role of writing in social, political, and religious life of ancient societies. The history of the study of writing systems in Mesoamerica is also brought into view with a particular emphasis on current discussions and recent advancements in our understanding of the indigenous scripts. The course combines lectures with seminar-style discussions, as well as some hands-on exploration of Pre-Columbian and Early Colonial texts on different media from the collections of the Peabody Museum and Harvard libraries.
Writing, Images, and Time-Space in Aztec Monuments and Books
Navarrete Linares, Federico, “Writing, Images, and Time-Space in Aztec Monuments and Books”, en Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America, E. Boone & G. Urton, eds., Cambridge, Dumbarton Oaks- Harvard University Press, 2011, pp. 175-196.
Cognitive dissonance in early Colonial pictorial manuscripts from Central Mexico
2005
This thesis examines the relationship between the imagery and glosses displayed on folios from the Codex Telleriano-Remensis, the Codex Magliabechiano, and the Codex Ixtlilxochitl through the application of Leon Festinger's concept of cognitive dissonance in order to introduce an alternative approach to the study of codices as points of culture contact. The work analyzes the ways in which this psychological condition manifested itself in post-contact codex production as a result of sixteenth century political and social circumstances. Festinger (1957:14) identifies the existence of "cultural mores" as a source of potential dissonance between culturally specific consonant elements. According to this idea, a culture may dictate the acceptance of certain actions, ideas, or beliefs and the rejection of others. Thus, at places of cultural confrontation, dissonance may result as each group relies upon authorized referents to deal with the introduction of new information. Among surviving post-contact manuscripts, these three codices contain folios with both pictorial and textual descriptions of annual Nahua pre-contact festivals and their corresponding deities. This particular group of codices allows comparisons and cross-references to be made among three different interpretations of the same feasts. Each manuscript presents a unique visual and alphabetic explanation of each festival's deities
Ritualized Discourse in the Mesoamerican Codices: An Inquiry into Epigraphic Practice
2016
Master's Thesis, University of Leiden Supervisor: Dr. Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen Despite the fact that the PostClassic Mesoamerican codices display a striking amount of similarity, academic studies of the discipline typically separate the Central Mexican and Mixtec manuscripts from those of the Maya, with the Maya receiving an epigraphic approach and the Mexican and Mixtec receiving an art historical approach. Many of these studies implicitly privilege phonetic writing systems, taking an evolutionary view of writing which devalues the pictographic. This privileging of the phonetic speaks to the more extensive devaluation of indigenous beliefs and practices on a wider scale. This thesis seeks to bridge the gap between the art historical and epigraphic by understanding the codices as products of the communities in which they were created, and thus fulfilling culturally-specific needs. Ritualized Discourse in the Mesoamerican Codices: An Inquiry into Epigraphic Practice accomplishes this through two case studies, one of which is based on the representation of the same subject matter, bloodletting, and one of which is based on the representation of the same linguistic practice, difrasismo. The results of the analysis indicate that while on a visual level the codices appear very different, on a phonological level there are many similarities in how they represent linguistic and phonetic elements. The Central Mexican and Maya codices in particular display a high degree of overlap, speaking to their shared scribal traditions. Approaching the codices as inventions designed to fulfill a purpose, interpretations of iconographic and phonetic elements are reached which speak to a pan-Mesoamerican experience of writing and highlight the benefits of alternative traditions of knowledge.
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