Codex Osuna
Codex Osuna is an
The seven separate documents were created in early 1565 to present evidence against the government of Viceroy
The codex was originally solely pictorial in nature. Nahuatl text was then entered onto the documents during its review by Spanish authorities, and a Spanish translation of the Nahuatl was added. The Nahuatl text was translated by Ignacio M. Castillo and the Spanish paleography rendered into modern Spanish by María del Carmen Camacho.[5] The pictorial of folio 471v (p. 198 of the Mexican edition) shows the Viceroy Don Luís de Velasco, with indigenous lords in colonial attire for their rank, as well as a nahuatlato or Nahuatl translator in Spanish attire. The illustration is the cover for Charles Gibson (historian)'s classic publication, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule.[6] Other important pictorial elements include depictions of Spaniards punishing indigenous (folio 474v, page 204), lists of encomienda holders, including ones reverting to the Spanish crown (folios 496v - 498r; pages 250-253); cultivation of cacti for the production of the red dye cochineal (folio 500v, p. 258), and indigenous men laboring in a textile workshop or obraje (folio 500v, p. 258). The last pictorial is of indigenous men laboring to extract and transport stone for the construction of a church (folio 501 v., p. 342), with a written complaint that they had not been paid.
The 1947 Mexican edition is augmented by documentation in Spanish found by Luis Chávez Orozco in the Archivo General de la Nación, giving contextual information for the pictorial Codex Osuna, and is perhaps the "lost portion." The Spanish documentation includes the review of an indigenous official's tenure, or residencia, and is typical of Spanish official documentation of the era.[7]
References
- ISBN 0-292-70154-3
- Hispanic American Historical Reviewvol. xx, 580-81.
- ^ Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes, y Regidores de México. Códice en geroglíficos mexicanos y en lenguas castellana y azteca, existente en la biblioteca del Exmo. Señor Duque de Osuna. Publicase por vez primera con la autorización competente. Madrid, Imprenta de Manuel G. Hernández, 1878
- ^ Codice Osuna, Reproducción facsimilar de la obra del mismo título, editada en Madrid, 1878. Acompañada de 158 páginas ineditas encontradas en el Archivo General de la Nación (Mexico) por el Prof. Luis Chávez Orozco. Ediciones del Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, Mexico, DF 1947
- ^ Cline, review of Codex Osuna in Hispanic American Historical Review vol. xx, 580-81.
- ^ Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule. Stanford University Press, 1964
- ^ AGN Ramo Civil, tomo 644 noted in Cline, review of Codex Osuna in Hispanic American Historical Review vol. xx, 580-81.