Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONSERVADOS EN
1 Many of the most important pieces were included in an exhibition in the lí-
brary, and detailed in Julie Greer Johnson, The Book in the Americas: The Role
312 JOHN FREDERICK SCHWALLER
manuscript and Tovar Calendar are held by the John Carter Brown.
There are also copies of Olmo's Huehuetlatolli, Chimalphin's Historia
de la conquista, and Ruiz de Alarcón's Tratado. The Olmos and
Ruiz de Alarcón were copies made for José Fernando Ramírez. In addi-
tion to these, there are three famous Testerian catechisms held by the
Library.2
Several of the pieces (see the Codices Ind. 7, 16, and 23) were ac-
quired at the sale of the library of Dr. Nicolás León, 1896. The Catalo-
gue for the sale is entitled: Biblioteca Mexicana. Catálogo para la venta
de la porción más escogida de la biblioteca del Dr. Nicolás León, Ex~
Director del Museo Michoacano y reorganizador del Museo Oaxaqueño.
Sección J'!' Filología mexicana. Impresos mexicanos del siglo XVI y
libros ejemplares únicos conocidos (México, Imprenta de "El Tiempo",
Cerca de Sto. Domingo, 4, 1896). He offered the best price on Mexican
imprints, and promised e second section soon. "Je me charge de procurer
a le plus bon marche, des livres anciens au modernes publies a Mexico."
Dr. León, a native of Michoacan, was a practicing physician who beca-
me interested in the pre-Columbian past oí his country. Econornic
conditions forced him to leave his native Mordia for Oaxaca, and
later in 1892 for Mexico City. Finally in 1900, President Porfirio
Díaz named him to the Mexico Bibliographic Institute, from which he
wcnt on to the National Museum of Mexico. The sale of rare books
and manuscripts clearly helped to augment his income. Other pieces
in the collection of the John Carter Brown were acquired from the
Phillips collection, the famous English baronet who began the practice
of coHecting old manuscripts, and who eventually held several thousand,
including some in NahuatP
Perhaps the most fascinating of the Nahuatl manuscripts held in
the John Carter Brown Library is the one entitled "The Dogmas of the
Church and the Gospels and Epistles in Aztec", attributed to Fr. Ber-
nardino de Sahagún. Dr. Louise Burkhart has studied aH of the available
Sahagún manuscripts and has concluded that this piece is not one of
the friar's works. A more complete discussion of this can be found
01 Books and Printing in the Development 01 Culture and Society in Colonial Latin
America. Catalogue 01 an Exhibition (Providence: The John Carter Brown Library,
1988, especially p. 5-48.
2 Handbook 01 Middle America Indians, vol 15, p. 456-57.
3 Damian van den Eynde, "Calendar of Spanish Docurnents in the John Carter
Brown Library", Hispanic American Historical Review, 16 ('36), 564-607: Codices
Sp. 4, 5, and 6 which have no Nahuatl.
GUíAS DE MANUSCRITOS EN NÁHUATL 313
in the catalogue. Here 1 would like to study what the manuscript does
include.
Dr. Burkhart in her analysis found that the piece actually pertained
to the religious sodality dedicated to the rosary, the cofradía del rosario.
The last section, esp. ff. 108v-115v lists indulgences and special licenses
granted to the cofradia by popes and prelates, seemingly copied from
a source printed by Pedro Ocharte in 1572: "Mayuch mochiua/Con
licencia en casa de Pedro Ocharte MDLXXIl ano [?]ia dorido [trado-
cido] por el reverendo padre fray alonso de molina y visto por el R. p.
fray andres de moguer presentado / tli yhuan ynque ni haulmohuicaz
haulmotemohuiz yn too auh inquac ... "
Burkhart in her analysis concludes that this refers to an as yet unk-
nown publication from the Ocharte press. Ocharte did not print bet-
ween 1571 and 1574 due to the fact that he was variously under indict-
ment or imprisoned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. The papers
of his trial have been published by both José Toribio Medina and Fran-
cisco Fernández del Castillo.4 Ocharte was imprisoned in February,
1572, and absolved in 1574, after having undergone judicial torture.
He became a target of the Inquisition because of the activities of an
artisan who worked in his shop, Juan Ortiz, an artist who specialized
in drawing religious images, an imaginero. That a piece dealing with
the indulgences granted to the sodality oí the rosary carne out oí the
Ocharte shop in 1572 seems quite possible given what is known through
the Inquisition records, and the other activities of the shop.
Between 1568 and 1571 Ocharte published several pieces for various
religious socalities, including the rules and constitution of the Cofradía
de los Juramentos in 1567 as well as one summary of indulgences for
the Cofradía del Santísimo Sacramento in 1568. In 1571, Ocharte print-
ed an engraved image, estampa, of the Virgen of the Rosary, drawn
by Ortiz. (See Plate 1) It was this very image which caused both men's
problems with the Holy Office. The estampa by Ortiz ran into trouble
with the Inquisition because of verses printed on it:
The board of censors of the Holy Offíce found that the verse con-
sisted of two principIes: one in the first two lines, the other in the last
two. The first principIe was simply erroneous and not in accord with
what was usually taught by the Church. As to the second half, the ex-
perts found it to be heretical, depending upon what exactly it meant
to sayo If it implied that by simpIy praying the Rosary one couId enter
into a state of grace, it would be heretical. There are two precondi-
tions to that state, one is true contrition the other is the specific aid of
God. 5 If on the other hand it meant that by praying the rosary God
wouId be disposed to allow the person to enter ¡nto grace, then it was
not heretical.
During the questioning, the Inquisitors paid much attentíon to the
exact meaning oí the verses. Ortiz, oí course, was not able to keep up
with the theological gymnastics of the Inquisitor, Pedro Moya de Con-
treras, in the process. When asked about the eficacy oí praying the ro-
sary, Ortiz said he understood that there were severa! indulgences
which went along with praying the rosary. Askedhow he knew this,
he replied that he had seen a papal bull in the Dominican church and
because he was working on the publication of a rosary in Ocharte's
shOp.6 He also stated that Fr. Bartolomé de Ledesma had seen the
verse and found it appropriate.
Three of the 29 charges brought up against him had to do with
the image. Neither the Rosario "estampa" nor a summary oí indul-
gences was included among books confiscated by the Inquisition in
1573-74, although a "Doctrina" by Zumárraga and the Molina Voca-
bulario of 1571 were. N evertheIess, further documents certify that a
summary of indulgences was published along with the image. In a letter
to his wife, Maria de Sanzoric, Ocharte wrote that among other things to
do during his imprisonment, his employees were to print "los suma-
5 "Para que nunca al pecador le falte gracia, son menester dos cosas, la una
es que se ponga en gracia, lo cual se hace por la contición, en orden al sacramento
de la penitencia, y para conservarse en ella, es menester auxilio particular de Dios."
Fernández del Castillo, Libros. p. 172.
6 "Que por una bula que ha visto en Sacta Domingo y por un Rosario que
se estaba imprimiendo en casa de Pedro Ocharte." ¡bid. p. 179.
GUíAS DE MANUSCRITOS EN NÁHUATL 315
rios de nuestra Sra. del Rosario en lengua mexicana", which was phy-
sically on the press. 7 Ocharte also testified to the Inquisitors that during
the previous Lent he had taken three hundred copies of the image
of the Virgen of the Rosary, along with the summaries of indulgences
to the monastery of Santo Domingo in nearby Azcapotzalco. B
All of this leads one to the conclusion that Ocharte did in fact pu-
blish a summary of papal indulgences granted to the Cofradía del Ro-
sario. It was published in 1572, and written in Nahuatl. Unfortunately
no copies of the work have survived. Neither GarcÍa Icazbalceta nor
Medina include such a work in their bibliographies of Mexican im-
prints. Medina does note that the work probably did exist.9 There were
two similar works which have survived. One appeared in 1576, the
Domingo de Salazar edition of Jerónimo Taix's Instrucción, modo de
rezar, y milagros con indulgencias del Rosario, published by Pedro Balli.
Later, in the early seventeenth century there appeared Alonso de Mo-
lina's Rosario o Psalterio, published by López Dávalos in 1605. Medina
implies that this is the second edition of the work, leaving the possibi-
lity that the first edition was the "last" edition of 1572.10 GarcÍa Icaz-
balceta suggests that the Salazar - Taix work was first published in
1559 and again in 1574, making it a likely candidate for the "lost"
1572 work.l1 The section of the reputed Sahagún manuscript, then, is
undoubtedly a transcription of the work published in 1572, and pro-
bably the only copy, manuscript or otherwise, of that work.
Two more important pieces in the J ohn Carter Brown collection
carne from the pen of Fr. Agustín de Vetancurt. Vetancurt is well
known for his four volume history of the development of the church
and Spanish society in New Spain, the Teatro mexicano. But in addi-
tion to this, he was a talented scholar of Nahuatl. A native of Mexico
City, he entered the Franciscan order in Puebla, but spent most of his
adult life back in Mexico City in the parish of San José de los naturales.
He is also well known for his Arte para aprender la lengua mexicana
(México: Rodríguez Lupercio, 1673). To him is attributed a series of
prayers to be said during the re-enactment of the stations of the cross,
also in Nahuatl, Luz para saber andar las Estaciones de la Vía Sacra.
7Ibid., p. 99.
BIbid., p. 104.
9 Medina, Imprenta en México, vol. 1, 397-98.
10 Ibid., vol. 2, item 225.
11 Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Bibliografía mexicana del siglo XVI, México,
Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1954, p. 278-79, 490
316 JOHN FREDERICK SCHWALLER
Codex
Ind. 1 Coyoacan Codex - Pictorial Codex in the Nahuatl
Language
[Mexico, c. 1700 to before 1743]
13 1.
Codex
Ind. 2 Tovar, Juan de
Historia de la benida de los yndios ...
[México c. 1580s]
[81 leaves, plus 32 leaves of paintings]
12 See: Johnson, The Book in the Americas. p. 36, item 25, figs. 43 and 35.
GuíAS DE MANUSCRITOS EN NÁHUATL 317
Codex
Ind. 7 [Sahagun, Bernardino de] d .1590
[The Dogmas of the Church and the Gospels and Epistles in
Aztec.]
[Mexico, second half of the 16th century]
125 leaves, 15 cm, in case 15.5 cm 80.
Accession 06395, 1896?
11 X 15 cm
The last section, esp. ff. 108v-115v lists indulgences and special
licenses granted to the cofradia by popes and prelates, perhaps copied
from a source printed by Pedro Ocharte in 1572. For a fuller treat-
ment, see the introductory essay of this guide.
The library holds a rather detailed anaIysis of this manuscript made
by Dr. Louise Burkhart in the spring of 1988. Burkhart has studied all
of the known Sahagún manuscripts in the United States and concluded
that this example is not part of the corpus of Sahagún materials. She
notes that the piece contains neither Sahagún's signature nor any exam-
pIes of his handwriting. Further she concludes it cannot be attributed
to any of his famous school, since the level of Latin scholarship is far
less developed than that achieved by his Indian students. Moreover,
the claim that the second haH of the text contained Tarascan material
is likewise incorrecto The whole piece is Nahuatl, with some passages in
Latin.
Burkhart further notes that the contents of the manuscript indicate
that it was a devotional manual having to do with the religious sodality
of the confratemity of the Rosary, cofradía del rosario. The manus-
GuíAS DE MANUSCRITOS EN NÁHUATL 319
Intlahtocayotl melahuac
Caye yninel tococatzÍn
In Teotl Toteyocorcatzin
Tlahtoani cemanahuac. a
The piece was acquired from Leon, catalog number 148. Bound in
vellum with "De Contenptus Mundi" on the spine. Other writing is too
faint to make out.
Both pieces bear the autograph of Vetancurt, f. 165 and 295v. The
final page bears the following after Vetancurt's signature: "Ynin teoa-
mostli ytlato [?] nonantzin cibapili dona francisca de Mendoza p[?]
nico." In a different hand thant the resto The two pieces are in two dif-
ferent scribal hands. Both are "gothic", the first a bit freer, the second
more like type. .
In the Contempu mundi the text is in Nahuatl, written in black
ink. The headings are in Latín in red ink and there are also scripturaI
quotations in the text in Latín, aIso in red ink. Later marginali~ ~re prin-
cipally in Spanish although sorne are clearly corrections or additions to
the text in NahuatI. In the second half of the work, the Latin text is
aIso in bIack ink, introduced by a. capital C in red ink. The Iettering
is somewhat larger than the surrounding texto Headings in Latin are still
in red ink. When the pages were cut following the binding, sorne smalI
parts of the marginalia and headings were lost.
The piece begins: "Inín amoxtli yuh quimmateocuitlayo inicenca
qualli ynictleyo, inicmauizco amozan quenin tetechmonequi ul yehuatl
ycnemiliztoco tote[cuy]o ]esucristu oncan mitouaniquenin huel telchiua-
loz tlalticpaccayotI."
The work consists of two books. The first is divided into 25 chapters,
the second has 12.
It is curious that such a work, although religious, somewhat scholar-
ly and not for a popular audience, might be translated into Nahuatl.
What was the intended audience?
In the collection of sermons, the entire piece is in the same hand
and style and only uses bIack ink. There are no intrusions of text and
very Iimited marginalia.
The work begins: "Oncan pehua yntemachtiIi yntlachiaIoni ynie
velmozcaIizque teotlatoltiea ynixquichtin yntlaxcaIteca yvan ynquimati
ynin tlatoI: Oncan ycuiliuhtoc yneeceyaca ynilhuitzin yndios ynitoca
GUíAS DE MANUSCRITOS EN NÁHUATL 323
9 For a fine recent study of Nahua beliefs using Christian didactic works as
a point of departure, see, Louise Burkhart, The Slippery Earth: Nahua-Charistin
Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth CentuTy Mexico, Tucson, AZ, University of Arizona
Press, 1989.
10 Woodrow Borah, Justice by lnsurance, Berkeley, University of California
Press, 1983.
NAHUATL MANUSCRIPTS 329
were kept in Nahuatl. Thus, many oí these materials can now be íound
in United States repositories. The Benson Collection, as will be seen,
holds part oí an account book írom the municipal council oí the ludian
community oí Mexico City, Tenochtitlan.
In recent years a great deal oí interest has been given to this last
category oí documentation. It was launched and promoted by James
Lockhart and others who sought to go beyond the codices and open up
colonial Nahuatl materials to historians. l l Subsequent to his efforts
there have been major studies oí collections oí wills and testaments, land
ownership, and municipal council records, all írom Nahuatl sourcesY
The Nahuatl manuscript holdings oí the Benson Latin American
Collection include several pieces of tremendous importance. Perhaps the
mast important oí all is the piece entitled the "Romances de los señores
de la Nueva España." This is a collection of Aztec poetry, copied in
about 1582 and included as part oí the Relación geográfica íor the city
oí Texcoco by Juan Bautista Pomar. Along with the "Cantares me-
xicanos", "held in the Biblioteca Nacional in Mexico, this is one of
the íew surviving examples oí pre-Columbian poetry, in xochitl in cuí-
catl. Within recent years there has been a tremendous growth oí interest
in these works.
Angel María Garibay originated the modern study oí Nahuatl poe-
try in two important works, his three volume Poesía Náhuatl. where he
presented the cream oí Aztec poetry, in the original Nahuatl and Spa-
nish glosses, and his Historia de la literatura Nahuatl/ 3 a general study
oí Azteca letters in two volumes. The íirst volume oí his collection oí
poetry contains the "Romances", the second and third the "Cantares".
His study oí Nahuatl literature, however, íocuses attention principally
on the "Cantares" manuscript. Nevertheless, continuing scholarship has
demonstrated the close connection between the "Romances" and the
"Cantares". The general structure oí the works and the similarities bet-
ween them has been studied admirably by James Lockhart and Frances
Karttunen.H Furthermore, Miguel León-Portilla, a student oí Garibay
15 Among others see: Miguel Le6n-PortilIa, Filosofía Náhuatl, 3rd. ed., México,
Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de México, 1966; Trece poetas del mundo azteca,
México, Universidad Nacional Aut6noma de México, 1967.
111 John Bierhorst, Cantares Me:t:ieanos: Songs 01 the Aztees, Stanford, CA,
Stanford University Press, 1985.
17 Garibay, Poesía Náhuatl, vol. 1, p. 70.
NAHUATL MANUSCRIPTS 331
J
NAHUATL MANUSCRIPTS 333
According to the full title of the work tbis devotional guide was
written in 1756 while Cortes Coronel was the curate of Zongolica. At
the time this version was copied he had become curate of Chiautla de
334 JOHN FREDERICK SCHWALLER
la Sal. The prayers are thos~ associated with the stations of the cross,
with the respective preparatory and concluding acts. One curious aspect
of the Nahuatl of this piece is the author's use of /th/ for /t/: "No-
theotzine" rather than "Noteotzine."
The manuscript was first owned by J osef Vicente Cortez.
The second section has no introductory material but starts right off
with a sermon on the Old Testament story of King Acab, Jezebel, and
others. The next sermon was. written, in part, on a half-clean piece
of paper which had been addressed to Lic. don Rafael Sandoval, lan-
guage professor at the Jesuit College of Tepozotlan, perhaps the author
of the sermons. This next sermon was obviously still in the polishing
stages as evidenced by numerous corrections. 11. had as its purpose the
promotion of missions.
The collection holds two more sermons: one on the Trinity and
the Virgin, also heavily revised; the last, a clean copy, conceming the
Crucifixion.
room was left at the end of each letter's entry for placing additional
words and glosses. The Spanish words are in general alphabetical order
within each letter heading, but not absolutely.