A Christian prayer in Aztec hieroglyphs: An epigraphic analysis (original) (raw)
Related papers
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.
Oral Tradition, 25/2 (2010): 325-363, 2010
The purpose of this paper is to analyze a particular linguistic register of the Nahua (Aztec) people that has been classified as “magical-religious” because it was used for communication with the sacred realm. A hypothesis is developed that in the Mesoamerican pictographic calendar-religious manuscripts, which treat matters strictly linked to the supernatural world, a similar register should be evident. Far from considering the information presented in these resources as resulting from the direct transcription of oral language, the idea is that the graphic form represents elements emblematic of orality, although adapted to this particular context and mode for expression.
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.
Jaime Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs/ Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico (2008) -- a review
Daft review of Jaime Lara, Christian Texts for Aztecs: Art and Liturgy in Colonial Mexico. Notre Dame, (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008). Everything about the Spanish/Aztec encounters in sixteenth century Mexico has been called into question, beginning with the term "encounters" (Spanish encuentros), adopted as a temporizing locution during the promotion of the Columbian Quincentennial in 1992, a kind of euphemism intended to avoid such starker choices as ethnic holocaust, colonial invasion, spiritual conquest, or hispanization. The story of these 16th century interactions and arrangements between Spanish conquistadors, colonists, and missionaries on the one hand, and the various indigenous populations of the land that would become known first as New Spain and then as Mexico, on the other, is so richly complex precisely because we have such an abundance of primary sources and textual evidence upon which to draw for analysis and interpretation-especially when we use the term text, as Lara does, to mean not only written documentation, but monumental architecture, material artifacts, artworks, public and private spaces, and activities such as processionals, ceremonies, and rituals. Lara persuasively argues these diverse sources and texts do not neatly separate into two polarized discourses, one Spanish and the other Native or Amerindian-because the locus of enunciation is so variegated. From the side of what is often loosely referred to as the Spanish perspective (actually itself a significant mix of various other European and also African elements), what we actually have are the varied, distinctive and often divergent perspectives and discourses of such groups as adventurers, conquistadors, and foot soldiers; encomenderos (settlers, with specific rights and obligations, as mandated by the Crown, in relation to Native populations); Franciscans, and members of other missionary orders; bishops, parish priests and other secular clergy; government officials.
Isabel Laack, 2019
Because of copyright reasons, only a preview is available for download here. In her groundbreaking investigation from the perspective of the aesthetics of religion, Isabel Laack explores the religion and art of writing of the pre-Hispanic Aztecs of Mexico. Inspired by postcolonial approaches, she reveals Eurocentric biases in academic representations of Aztec cosmovision, ontology, epistemology, ritual, aesthetics, and the writing system to provide a powerful interpretation of the Nahua sense of reality. Laack transcends the concept of “sacred scripture” traditionally employed in religions studies in order to reconstruct the Indigenous semiotic theory and to reveal how Aztec pictography can express complex aspects of embodied meaning. Her study offers an innovative approach to nonphonographic semiotic systems, as created in many world cultures, and expands our understanding of human recorded visual communication. This book will be essential reading for scholars and readers interested in the history of religions, Mesoamerican studies, and the ancient civilizations of the Americas. "This excellent book, written with intellectual courage and critical self-awareness, is a brilliant, multilayered thought experiment into the images and stories that made up the Nahua sense of reality as woven into their sensational ritual performances and colorful symbolic writing system." Davíd Carrasco, Harvard University