Reading Between the Lines: An Indigenous Account of Conquest on the Missing Folios of Codex Azcatitlan

• In Event: Indigenous Cultural Innovation in New Spain

Abstract

Sometime between 1565 and 1743, three folios were removed from the painted manuscript known as Codex Azcatitlan. Painted by indigenous artists of Tlatelolca descent, Codex Azcatitlan’s twenty-five extant folios record an account of Mexica migration history from Aztlan to Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco, an imperial history, an account of the conquest, and a record of post-conquest events that occurred between 1521 and 1527-1528. In each case, the missing folios had images on the recto and verso sides that completed paintings meant to be read originally across a two-page spread. One folio has been removed from the migration history between the extant folios 4v and 5r. Two of the missing folios occur in the conquest section of the manuscript, leaving the four extant images on folios 22v, 23r, 23v, and 24r incomplete. Through comparison with other indigenous Tlatololca accounts of the conquest that correlate with the extant pictorial content in Codex Azcatitlan, such as those found in the Florentine Codex Book 12 and the Annals of Tlatelolco, this study indicates that the missing folios recorded significant sacrificial events and acts of violence against the Spaniards that were of great importance to the indigenous authors and their intended indigenous audience.

Author

• Angela Rajagopalan, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte)