Rare Copies of Unknown, Lost or Damaged Pictorial Manuscripts
The Latin American Library is the repository of nine rare copies of unknown, lost or damaged Mexican pictorial manuscripts dating from the colonial period.
Codex of Coacalco
(Cohualcalco), State of Mexico. Codex, European paper, 10 f., 29 x 21 cm., Náhuatl text, 18th-c. copy.
Loose f., renumbered, possibly incorrectly; f. 1r and 3r-10v are copies of a lost Techialoyan ms. (or parts of 2); f.
1r is reminiscent of f. 1v of the Techialoyan of Zempoala (HMAI 705), while f. 3r-10v are similar to the Techialoyan of Tepotzotlán (HMAI 718). Folios 1v, 2r and 2v are not Techialoyan; f. 1v and 2v are mainly heads derivative of 16th-c. mss., one passage even suggesting the Mapa Sigüenza (HMAI 290), and f. 2r is a symmetrically ordered composition drawn on paper ruled for 8 lines of music. (HMAI 743).
Lienzo Meixueiro
(Lienzo A), Coixtlahuaca Region, Western Oaxaca. Tracing by Nicolás León on architects' drafting linen, 360 x 380 cm., probably made 1890-1892, of a 16th-c. cloth lienzo. Ex-Paul Wilkinson and William E. Gates colls.
Cartographic and historical; clearly related to Coixtlahuaca Basin group of lienzos, particularly Lienzo de Coixtlahuaca no. 1 (HMAI 70); see next entry. Exact location of main pueblo in center of lienzo and whereabouts of original, even its present existence, are now unknown. (HMAI 195). [Rolled in a tube; shelved with the Rubbings collection.]
Lienzo de Coixtlahuaca no. 1
(Codex Ixtlán) (Lienzo B), Coixtlahuaca, ex-District of Coixtlahuaca, Western Oaxaca. Tracing by Nicolás León on architects' drafting linen, 425 x 300 cm., probably made ca. 1890-1892 of a 16th-c. cloth lienzo. Ex-Paul Wilkinson and William E. Gates colls.
Cartographic and historical; two large place glyphs and figures of Indians in center with numerous place signs, dates, Indians, and Spaniards on horseback around borders. The original Lienzo was rediscovered in 1940 and moved from the village, first to the Museum in Oaxaca and then about 1942 to MNA (35-113). The León tracing is of value because the original lienzo has many holes and tears that obliterate either partly or completely some details of glyphs, etc. (HMAI, 70). [Rolled in a tube; shelved with the Rubbings collection.]
Lienzo de Noxtepec
Guerrero. Tracing by William Spratling on architects' drafting linen in 2 pts., colored from the back: upper pt., 86.5 x 211.4 cm., Spanish glosses. Made August 15, [1929], of a 16th-c. cloth lienzo somewhere in Guerrero.
Cartographic and historical; glossed place glyphs, Native rulers, and streams and tributaries of the Río Balsas are shown. Another tracing of this lienzo by Spratling dated 1929 is in the Ayuntamiento of Taxco. (HMAI 238).
Lienzo de Tlaxcala
Tlaxcala, State of Tlaxcala. 19th-c. French (?) watercolor copy on European paper; 38 scenes, 24 x 28-30.5 cm. each, and explanatory inscription, 20.7 x 60.5 cm., of the final 49 scenes in lines 7 to 13 of the 1773 cloth copy by Juan Manuel Yllañes (MNA 35-45/48).
The Yllañes copy is believed to be from one of the three so-called lost "originals" of the Lienzo, painted ca. 1550 on cloth(?) or Native paper(?) and formerly in the Ayuntamiento of Tlaxcala. A large scene at the top is followed by 87 smaller scenes arranged in 13 horizontal rows. It depicts Spanish conquistadors arriving among the Tlaxclaans and their joint campaign of conquest to overthrow México-Tenochtitlán. The history of the Lienzo's lost "originals" and 11 known copies is extremely complex. The Tulane University copy is possibly part of one reported by Alfredo Chavero in 1892 to have been exhibited at an Exposition in Paris or one made for the French Scientific Commission; the whereabouts of both of these copies are unknown. (HMAI 350).
Mapa de Cuauhtlantzinco
(Codex Campos), San Juan Cuauhtlantzinco, Puebla. 19th-c. watercolor copy on European paper; 26 scenes with 29 Náhuatl texts, ca. 30.5 x 83 cm. & 37.5 x 42.5), probably made about 1855 from the late-17th- early 18th-c. lienzo in the village. Ex-José Fernando Ramírez, Quaritch, and William E. Gates colls.
The Mapa tells the story of an Indian cacique named Tepoztecatzin and his experiences during the Conquest of Mexico including the introduction of Christianity to his village. The original Mapa, consisting of 44 oil paintings of European paper, each 30 x 40 cm., was discovered in 1836 by the Padre D. José Vicente Campos. In 1855 he had them pasted on cotton sheeting and mounted in two woooden frames to save them from decay. Adolph F. Bandelier saw them briefly in 1881, and Frederick Starr, who visited the pueblo in 1895, photogoraphed each frame. Returning in 1898 to take better pictures Starr found that part of one frame had unfortunately been destroyed by fireworks. Starr described one of the stretchers as having 27 painted scenes (with 29 numbered Náhuatl texts) in 3 horizontal rows; the second had 17 paintings (111 of which were variants of ones in the first frame) in 2 horizontal rows with the odd one set crosswise at the right-hand end. A Spanish translation by Padre Campos assisted by townspeople in 1855-1856 was written on the border of the pictures on paper pasted on the canvas. When displayed, a semi-boustrophedon feeling in the arrangement, similarity of some of the subject matter, and stylistic parallels with Techialoyan painters should be noted. Another copy on a "tira" of paper but without the Náhuatl texts was made in 1892 and exhibited in Madrid for the Junta Colombina; it is now MNA (35-102). (HMAI 101).
Mapa de Santa Fe o de Patzcuaro
Santa Fe de la Laguna, District of Patzcuaro, Michoacán, Mexico, 1552. Watercolor on paper, 131 x 82.5 cm., torn condition.
Deals with a land litigation between the Indian settlements of Santa Fe and San Miguel Cuçaro and shows fields, trees, cemeteries, churches and other buildings, roads, and a boundary line marked by crosses on stones; Spanish inscription signed by Rodrigo Maldonado at the bottom. Another watercolor copy on smooth cardboard (MNA 35-105) was made in 1892 from the parchment original in the pueblo and was exhibited at the Junta Colombina in Madrid. The Tulane University-held copy was probably made at the same time. (HMAI 281).
Map of the Province of Maní
Yucatan, Mexico. Circular map on European paper, 41 x 31 cm., European brown ink, copy of 1596; f. 9 of the Crónica de Maní (49 ms. f. in Lowland Maya & Spanish, 1557-1813). Ex-General Vicente Riva Palacio Collection.
The oldest document in the world known to be written in a Maya language in alphabetic script, the Crónica de Maní contains a 1596 copy in Native black ink (f. 1-5) and 17th-c. Spanish translation of the now lost 1557 Land Treaty of Maní; the map gives boundaries of the Tutul Xiu Province of Maní as of that Treaty. The Crónica also includes other documents in Maya and Spanish from 1642 through 1813 and two 17th- or 18th-c. colored maps of Calkini. (HMAI 192).
Map of the Proxince of Sotuta
Yucatan, Mexico. ( "Mapa antiguo del partido de Yaxcaba según existía en 1600" ). Old copy of circular map, European paper, 33 x 44 cm. Bound in at the end of Yerbas y hechicerías del Yucatán, Ms. in Spanish attributed to Ricardo Ossado, "alias el Judío," 401 p. & separate 26-f. ms.; probably the most complete known work on Maya medicine.
Highly conventionalized map of district around Tabí and Tibolon with written place names arranged radially within a circle; Yaxcaba, Yaxhaa and other places appear in the center. Related to Nachi Cocom survey of 1545 known through the Documentos de Tierras de Sotuta (HMAI 1167) copies in Codex Pérez (HMAI 1152). A letter from Nicolás Cen to Juan Pío Pérez dated October 5, 1844, is inside fron cover. (HMAI 293).
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.
Text adapted from M.B. Robertson, Mexican Indian Manuscript Painting, 1991.
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