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MEXICAN HISTORY - PERSPECTIVES
Primary Sources
By Ronald A. Barnett. ©2005 R. A. Barnett
His Bio -The Maya, Aztecs, and other peoples of ancient Mexico had a very strong sense of their own history, which they went to great lengths to preserve. But in some ways, their concept of history differed radically from that of the invading Spaniards and later historians who wrote the history of Mexico from the European viewpoint. If we wish to understand the Mesoamerican concept of history, we must set aside many of our cultural preconceptions of what history should be and try to think our way back into the historical consciousness of the native peoples themselves.
Language is one of the main keys to understanding another culture. Ideally one would study the primary sources of Mesoamerican history in the original languages, Nahuatl, Maya, Mixtec, etc., whenever possible. The sheer effort involved in learning an Amerindian language with a completely different linguistic structure from English and other Indo-European languages would in itself help to restructure one's thought patterns. This would allow the researcher a deeper insight into the target culture. However, we do have enough accessible primary source materials to allow us to reconstruct, at least to some extent, the pre-Hispanic view of history.
The Mesoamerican historical record includes pre-Hispanic and Colonial codices, non-codical sources, such as inscriptions on stone monuments and ceramics, post-Conquest and Colonial written texts, including written sources in the native historical tradition. Only a handful of pre-Hispanic codices escaped the holocaust of the Spanish Conquest, and these are mostly from the Oaxaca area. However, hundreds of native and mixed-style codices and manuscripts were produced during the Colonial Period and even into modern times. Many of these documents are based on pre-existing hieroglyphic manuscripts, and so provide a vital key to the form and content of the painted historical and religious books of Mesoamerica.
Pictorial or hieroglyphic manuscripts, sometimes amplified by written text, from the Valley of Mexico and the Oaxaca area are an especially important source of information on the native view of history. In Yucatan only four Maya codices survived the fiery wrath of Bishop Landa and his ilk, but they are mainly calendrical-ritualistic in content rather than historical. Undoubtedly many native historical documents were lost. From central Mexico only a couple of pre-Hispanic Aztec codices have survived. However, many Colonial codices in the Aztec or mixed Mixtec-Aztec style of the Borgia Codex, a major source for Mesoamerican religion, are also pre-Hispanic in content. From northern and western Oaxaca we have at least eight historical-genealogical codices in the pre-Hispanic style that give detailed accounts of Mixtec kings and queens and the deeds of famous warriors and rulers.
The term codex is something of a misnomer but it has become standard usage. Strictly speaking, a codex is a book or manuscript in European-style format. The typical Mesoamerican painted book is a screenfold of skin or bark paper (amate) covered with a thin coat of lime and then painted with pictographs, glyphic signs, etc. Folded, it looked like a book, spread out it was a long scroll-like affair. Some codices, such as the Codex Mendoza, were in typical book format and therefore are true codices. The contents of these documents include government, history, calendrical systems, religious beliefs, and cosmological views. However, in order to understand and interpret these documents we must take into account two very different points of view: the western or European historical tradition and the Mesoamerican concept of history . . .
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