MC2- A Pictorial Manuscript

The following data is extracted from the Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. XIV, Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1975. "A Survey of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts," by John B. Glass.

This information is given for two reasons: (1) provide a description of Mexican pictorial manuscripts, and (2) point out comparisons and/or contradictions to our present study.

Pictorial Manuscripts of Mesoamerica

The use of books, together with the related arts of hieroglyphic writing or other conventional means of painting, with a standardized production of manuscripts, is a distinctive trait of the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica... Picture writing on manuscripts of paper or animal skin is of unknown antiquity in Mesoamerica...

The survival of a significant corpus of manuscript drawings from both ancient and colonial Mesoamerica provides archaeologists and ethnohistorians with what is almost a unique body of materials in New World sources. The surviving pictorial manuscripts include calendars and religious books that are of incalculable importance in interpreting ancient practices and monuments. The historical manuscripts, which contain both preconquest and colonial annals, are of interest to both the archaeologist and historian...

Since the late 19th century archaeologists and other students of Mesoamerica have used the word "codex" or "codice" to designate any pictorial (or written) manuscript in the native tradition... It has been used without reference to the form of the manuscript and has thus been applied indiscriminately to preconquest screenfolds, to large painting on cloth, to manuscripts in the form of a European book, and to isolated pages. The word "mapa" and "pintura" were similarly used by both Indians and Spaniards throughout the colonial period...

Pictorial manuscripts of Mesoamerica, include "preconquest survivals" which "embrace manuscripts whose content is primarily concerned with indigenous institutions and customs."

Only a few pictorial manuscripts of preconquest date have survived the ravages of conquest, neglect, time and the political upheavals so devastating to the archives of all nations. Others were no doubt destroyed by, or hidden from, the systematic extripation of native idolatry pursued during the 16th century by the authorities of the Inquisition.

With mention of a study by Robertson (1959), it states that he "...devotes some attention to two of the maps in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, from Cuauhtinchan, Puebla, here classified under the cartographic-historical type. In this document, as in the related Mapas de Cuauhtinchan, No. 1-3, the arrangement of place glyphs sometimes accommodates historical narrative perhaps more than it reflects the distribution of places in space."

Lienzo. The lienzo is a sheet of cloth, frequently of considerable size. In Spanish art-historical usage the word is similar to the English word "canvas". The lienzo is usually made of narrow strips of cloth sewn together; they may be of cotton, maguey fiber, or other material. No preconquest lienzo survives, but there is no doubt that it was also a preconquest form.

Cartographic-Historical Manuscripts.

As cartographic-historical we have classified those manuscripts that in a single-panel format combine cartographic and historical or genealogical information. These documents are one of the more interesting realizations of the pictorial manuscript art of Mexico...

Many cartographic-historical manuscripts are lienzos and conform to a general pattern...

Mapas de Cuauhtinchan

The four maps from Cuauhtinchan, Puebla,... form an important and related corpus of historical and cartographic sources. Further maps of the same series are contained in the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, from the same provenience. Cartographically, the area represented by the maps includes Cholula, Puebla, Totomihuacan, Tecali, Tecamachalco, Acatzinco, Nopalucan, Mont Matlacueyetl, and part of the Atoyac River. Some of the maps depict a somewhat larger or smaller region.

The existence of the first three (which includes MC2) was first communicated by E. Orozco (1982) when they were still in Cuauhtinchan. They were copied in that year for the Exposición Histórico-Americana of Madrid (Paso y Troncoso, 1892-93).

General references: E. Orozco, 1892; Paso y Troncoso, 1892-93; Simons, 1968; Velasco, 1903.

Map of Cuauhtinchan No. II (Peregrinación de los Totomihuacas. Obregón Santacilia Collection. Cartographic-Historical. Cuauhtinchan, Puebla. Sixteenth century. Native paper. 109 X204 cm., aprox.

Chicomoztoc, legendary point of departure of Nahua migrations, appears in the upper left (northwest) corner. A meandering road marks two itineraries from there to Cholula. Along the road are paintings of place glyphs, day signs, and historical episodes. Part of the content of this half of the map is also presented in the text of the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca, according to which some of the events shown occurred in A.D. 1173. The right half of the document is a map of the Cuauhtinchan-Tecali-Tepeaca region with historical scenes, surrounded by a twisting road that leads to and from Chlula.

Published photographs of the original in color (Martínez Marin, 1963) and in b/w (Quintana, 1960) are of poor quality. The MNA copy is reproduced by Glass (1964) and was first published by Miyar (1928). According to E. Spinden (1933), the original was formerly in the Regional Museum of Puebla.