Kevin Terraciano

Mesoamerican voices : native-language writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala

Part I: 1. Mesoamericans and Spaniards in the sixteenth century 2. Literacy in colonial Mesoamerica Part II: 3. Views of the conquest 4. Political life 5. Household and land 6. Society and gender 7. Crime and punishment 8. Religious life 9. Rhetoric and moral philosophy.

Crime and culture in colonial Mexico : The case of the Mixtec murder note

In 1684 a Mixtec man from Oaxaca, Mexico, murdered his spouse and left a letter, written in his native language, on the victims body. The murder note attempted to justify his violent crime by accusing her of committing adultery. This article translates and analyzes the original murder note and examines the trial and similar criminal records for evidence of cultural attitudes toward crime and punishment, adultery and domestic violence, and sexuality and sin. This unique case also raises issues concerning native writing and language, ethnic identity, and cultural change in colonial Mexico.

Three Texts in One: Book XII of the Florentine Codex

A sixteenth-century manuscript known as the Florentine Codex is an outstanding example of graphic pluralism in early colonial Mexico. The codex consists of twelve books on many aspects of Nahua culture and language, presented in parallel columns of Nahuatl- and Castilian-language alphabetic text, including many illustrations drawn by Nahua artists. The twelfth and final book treats the Spanish-led war on Mexico Tenochtitlan. This book is by far the most extensive indigenous account of that war, or any other war between Native American and European peoples, for that matter. This essay considers the manuscript as three separate texts, examines differences among the three, and offers new insights into Nahua memories of the conquest of Mexico.