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Codex Boturini

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First page of the Boturini Codex

Codex Boturini, also known as the Tira de la Peregrinación de los Mexica (Tale of the Mexica Migration), is an Aztec codex. The codex depicts the migration of the Azteca, later Mexica, people from Aztlán. Its date of manufacture is unknown, but likely to have occurred before or just after the Conquest of the Aztec Empire. At least two other Aztec codices have been influenced by the content and style of the Boturini Codex.

The codex is currently located in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.

Name

This codex is referred to either as Codex Boturini or as the Tira de la Peregrinación de los Mexica. The former name comes from the 18th century Italian scholar and collector of Aztec manuscripts, Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci.[1]

Characteristics

The codex consists of a single 549 cm (216 in) long and 19.8 cm (7.8 in), folded like an accordion into 21.5 sheets 25.4 cm (10.0 in) wide on average.[1] The paper used in the codex is amate.[2]

The tlacuilo [es] who fashioned the Boturini Codex was familiar with the Aztec writing system. The style consistency of the images suggested that the codex had a single author. The alphabetic writing in the codex, also in Nahuatl, appears to have been added later.[1]

The codex appears to be unfinished, as it was never painted with more than the red ink used to link the date blocks.[a] These colors, derived from natural pigments, would have been widely available to tlaquiloque of the pre-Conquest and early Colonial period, per the Florentine Codex. Those two colors were also of great importance to pre-Conquest tlacuiloque, as noted by period sources.[4]

The lines of red ink connect the date glyphs to the locations the Mexica arrive at. Erasures present in the codex on folios 8 to 11 show that the tlacuilo first tried to connect places and dates by connecting the date of arrival to the location and then to the date of arrival at the next destination.[5] Instead, he used footprints in black ink to carry the Mexica from one destination to the next.[6]

The codex has 24 alphabetical Nahuatl glosses of a faded sepia-colored ink, added after its manufacture. Analyzing and translating the still legible glosses, scholar Patrick Johansson Keraudren found them to be place names or short phrases of a 16th century quality.[7]

Manufacture

The sheets of amate were glued together sheet-by-sheet on the obverse, with reinforcing strips along the fold-lines on the back. The glue, according to paper scholar Hans Lenz, was made from the roots of Orchidaceae plants and guanacaste sap. Next, the tlacuilo applied a gesso to fill the paper's pores and make the surface more even, but only on the obverse side.[8][b] The tlacuilo then drafted the entirety of the codex in pale black ink, then tied the glyphs and date blocks together with a draft line of red ink. Once he had made corrections, the tlacuilo applied a heavy black ink over the drafting black ink, but it is still visible in places.The red draft lines were never painted over. Some of the erasures the tlacuilo made are still evident.[9] Angela Herren Rajagopalan, a scholar of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican art, believes that the tlacuilo worked all at once rather than folio-by-folio.[10]

The tlacuilo may have intended to only paint one side, as the reinforcing strips disrupt the paintings on the reverse.[8]

The red draft ink used in the codex is likely diluted cochineal extract or a clay-based pigment.[11]

History

The collectors and scholars who possessed and examined the Boturini Codex in the 18th and 19th centuries assumed it to be of pre-Conquest make because of its style.[12] One of the first scholars to contest this assessment was Donald Robertson. He argued that the dating glyphs, grouped and "edited", made it of Colonial make, as pre-Conquest dating glyphs would be in a continuous horizontal stream, like that of the Codex Mexicanus. Historian Pablo Escalante also suggested a post-Colonial manufacture, citing the lack of color and simpleness of the humans in the codex. These choices in style indicate, but do not prove, that the Boturini Codex was produced during or just after the Conquest.[13] Its material and stylistic composition closely match Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's descriptions of the first codices that arrived from the New World.[14]

Scholar Arthur Miller, studying the pre-Conquest Nuttall Codex, described a manufacture very similar to that of the Boturini Codex.[15]

Early European descriptions of the Boturini Codex describe it as being made of agave paper, but later studies found the codex's paper to be amate. Both are pre-Conquest, the latter being common before the establishment of European paper mills.[2]

The codex is currently located in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.[1] It became part of the National Museum of Anthropology's digital archive in 2015.[16]

Content

The codex begins with a priest leading Chimalma, fabled ancestor of the Azteca, from Aztlán via a boat. At a cave near Colhuacan, Huitzilopochtli speaks to the Azteca.[17] There they also encounter eight tribes that desire to accompany the Aztecs.[c] The Azteca agree and the nine tribes set out under the leadership of the four god-bearers, Chimalma, Apanecatl, Cuauhcoatl, and Tezcacoatl, each carrying a tlaquimilolli.[19]

Over folios 3 and 4, the Azteca are transformed into the Mexica when Huitzilopochtli chooses them to be his people and teaches them to sacrifice blood to him.[20] He also instigates the split of the Mexica from the other eight tribes as foreshadowed on folio 3 with the broken tree and another image of Huitzilopochtli. Next, five men eat together from one basket, then six men sit together, talking and weeping. Above the six figures, an Aztec (left) carries out Huitzilopochtli's instruction to break from the other eight tribes in a nighttime discussion.[21] On folio 4, the Mexica make their first human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli, carried by who is Tezcacoatl. The people to be sacrificed are identified as not being Mexica by their animal fur clothes. The figure who broke with the other eight tribes is the executor of the sacrifices.[22] Huitzilopochtli and a Mexica man again appears above the victims as an eagle to bring him a bow, arrow, and woven basket.[23]

Codex Boturini displays the invention of pulque on folio 13, the atlatl on folio 18, and the New Fire ceremony that occurred every 52 years in the Mexica culture.[24]

  • Folio 1. The Colhuacan glyph, on the right, has an uncovered draft line on its left side.[25]
    Folio 1. The Colhuacan glyph, on the right, has an uncovered draft line on its left side.[25]
  • Folio 2
    Folio 2
  • Folio 3
    Folio 3
  • Folio 4
    Folio 4
  • Folio 5. At the bottom portion of the glyph for Coatlicamac is a draft line running from the glyph's left to its right.[11]
    Folio 5. At the bottom portion of the glyph for Coatlicamac is a draft line running from the glyph's left to its right.[11]
  • Folio 6
    Folio 6
  • Folio 7
    Folio 7
  • Folio 8. The second glyph from the top in the left-side column is an example of excessive erasure by the tlacuilo.[25]
    Folio 8. The second glyph from the top in the left-side column is an example of excessive erasure by the tlacuilo.[25]
  • Folio 9. Beneath and below the glyph for Apaxco are the ghostly remains of two more date glyphs.[11]
    Folio 9. Beneath and below the glyph for Apaxco are the ghostly remains of two more date glyphs.[11]
  • Folio 10. The tlacuilo has here erased a red draft line from 3 Flint to the glyph for Tzompanco.[26]
    Folio 10. The tlacuilo has here erased a red draft line from 3 Flint to the glyph for Tzompanco.[26]
  • Folio 11
    Folio 11
  • Folio 12
    Folio 12
  • Folio 13
    Folio 13
  • Folio 14
    Folio 14
  • Folio 15
    Folio 15
  • Folio 16. The ant glyph in the bottom left corner is another example of excessive erasure by the tlacuilo.[25]
    Folio 16. The ant glyph in the bottom left corner is another example of excessive erasure by the tlacuilo.[25]
  • Folio 17
    Folio 17
  • Folio 18
    Folio 18
  • Folio 19
    Folio 19
  • Folio 20
    Folio 20
  • Folio 21
    Folio 21
  • Folio 22
    Folio 22

Similarity to other codices

The content of the Boturini Codex has much in common with the later Aubin Codex, which records nearly the exact itinerary as the Boturini Codex.[27] The exception are discrepancies in dates for the first six sites of the migration, and at the end of the Aubin Codex. The latter codex emphasizes dates of arrival rather than of departure.[28] The Aubin Codex also does not, in the depiction of the first sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli, have the victims appear differently to the Mexica.[29]

Codex Mexicanus, a palimpsest manuscript, also has strong resemblances to the Boturini Codex. The footprints are reproduced, as are the red lines linking date glyphs, and dates of departure are emphasized, as in Codex Boturini.[30] The tlacuiloque only used black ink for the footprints.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The lack of quality color prints of Codex Boturini have led many scholars to erroneously believe that the codex was only painted in black ink.[3]
  2. ^ The chemical makeup of the gesso on Codex Boturini is unknown as the codex has, as of 2019, not undergone chemical analysis. Analyses of the pre-Conquest Codex Colombino and post-Conquest Codex Selden suggest that Codex Boturini's gesso is a mixture of calcium sulphate and calcium carbonate.[8]
  3. ^ Those eight tribes travelling with the Azteca from Colhuacan are the Huexotzinca, Chalca, Xochimilca, Cuitlihuaca, Malinalca, Chichimeca, Tepaneca, and the Matlatzinca.[18]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Rajagopalan 2019, p. 7.
  2. ^ a b Rajagopalan 2019, p. 15.
  3. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 16.
  4. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 13, 16.
  5. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 19.
  6. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 19–20.
  7. ^ a b Rajagopalan 2019, p. 26.
  8. ^ a b c Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 15–16.
  9. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 16–17.
  10. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 17, 18.
  11. ^ a b c Rajagopalan 2019, p. 18.
  12. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 13–14.
  13. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 14.
  14. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 14–15.
  15. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 18–19.
  16. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 13.
  17. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 27.
  18. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 28.
  19. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 28–29.
  20. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 29.
  21. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 30.
  22. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 31.
  23. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 30, 32.
  24. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 37.
  25. ^ a b c Rajagopalan 2019, p. 17.
  26. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 20.
  27. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 21.
  28. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 22, 24.
  29. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, p. 34.
  30. ^ Rajagopalan 2019, pp. 24–25.

References

  • Rajagopalan, Angela Herren (2019). Portraying the Aztec Past: The Codices Boturini, Azcatitlan, and Aubin. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477316078. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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