Mendoza codex

The Codex Mendoza , also known under the name of Mendocino Codex, is a indigenous codex of central Mexico. It is about a colonial work carried out towards 1541 - 1542, i.e. a score of years after the Spanish conquest. It holds its name of the viceroy of the News-Spain, Antonio de Mendoza, which was the silent partner. With its images drawn by an indigenous specialist, then annotated in Spanish, it is about a key document for the comprehension of the culture and the Aztec company, not only because of the scarcity of such a work, but also because the images were produced specifically by a native, probably Francisco Gualpuyogualcal. It is to be noticed that the text mentions the fact that the indigenous advisers were not agreement between them on the interpretation of certain images.

The work was intended for Charles Quint. Its history is extraordinarily animated. The ship which transported it to Spain, was captured by French pirates. The work was then bought by the French cosmographer André Thévet, which sold it to an English historian. It belongs to the collections of Bodleian Library (Oxford) since 1654.

Description of the work

Realized on European paper, it is composed of 72 pages of images in indigenous style, accompanied by a Spanish text. Its format is of 32,7 X 22, cm. It is divided into three parts:

part I, 16 pages, is a history of the Aztèques of 1325 to 1521 - supposed foundation of Tenochtitlan until its conquest by the Cortes. It mentions the reign of each sovereign like his conquests.
part II, 39 pages, provides a list of the cities conquered by the Aztec Triple alliance and the tributes that those were to provide.
part III, 16 pages, is devoted to the daily life of the Aztec ones.

By its richness symbolic system, the first page of the Codex deserves a detailed description. This page, which describes the mythical foundation of Tenochtitlan, constitutes a true program of the manuscript. The glyphes representing the years of the reign of the mythical sovereign Tenoch (from “2 House” (1325) with “13 Reed” (1375) form the framework of the page (which does not appear on the image opposite). The center of the composition is occupied by an eagle perched on a cactus nopal in flower which spouts out of a stone. This image refers to a famous Aztec legend: whereas those wandered in the search of a ground, an eagle (which represents their tribal god Huitzilopochtli) would have indicated the place thus to them where to fix itself on a small island in the middle of the Lac Texcoco. On later representations, the eagle holds a snake in its nozzle and this image still forms part of the Mexican national flag. The image is literally saturated with symbolism. The red fruit of the cactus nopal, the prickly pear, represents the heart of the sacrificed victims. In addition, the stone from where the cactus spouts out itself is associated with a legend in connection with the foundation of Tenochtitlan: during a battle which would have taken place with Chapultepec, an enemy chief called Copil would have been killed by the Aztec ones which threw its heart in the lake Texcoco. Transformed into stone, it would indicate the place where Tenochtitlan would be drawn up (nahuatl “tetl” (stone) and “nochtli” (fruit of the cactus nopal). The eagle is in the center of a formed square of a band undulated, which represents the lake Texcoco, with the intersection of two bands in the form of crosses of Saint-Andrew, which delimit four quadrants, which represent the four districts of Tenochtitlan. This provision, which was often compared with the first page of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, watch persistence at the time colonial of a fundamental concept of the religions mésoaméricaines: the division of the world in four districts with a central axis. The image affirms that Tenochtitlan, symbolized by the eagle, is the center of the world. Directed west-east the top to the bottom, it shows the direction of the migration of the Aztec ones. The shield of war which is under the eagle is a symbol of conquest. On the right of the eagle is a Tzompantli, him also highly symbolic system: the purpose of the Aztec conquests are to provide the victims whose blood ensures the good walk of the world. The image also represents ten characters, among whom one distinguishes immediately on the left from the eagle the sovereign éponyme Tenoch, recognizable at the same time with his glyphe “stone-cactus” and his attributes, his seat and the volute which escapes from its mouth. It is the tlatoani , “that which speaks”, i.e. the sovereign. The bottom of the page (nonvisible on the image above) represents the first two conquests of Aztec, Colhuacan and Tenayuca. If it is necessary to believe about it of other codices (the Codex Aubin and the Annales of Aztlan, the Aztec ones would have been demolished later on by these two cities. One is probably face here with one of this handling of the history whose Aztec ones are contumiers. In a more general way, one can say that there does not exist “Indian point of view”. The purpose of the authors of the codices are of quoted glorifier them . In the Mendoza Codex, it is the point of view of tenochca/mexica, that of Tenochtitlan-Mexico City. To include/understand it, it is necessary to stop one moment on the policy of the viceroy of News-Spain, Antonio de Mendoza. This one does not scorn to be based on the old Aztec aristocracy. It will return inter alia the government of the Indians of Mexico City to the family of Moctezuma II with the title of tlatoani. One can see in the Mendoza codex a concession with the antique pride of this aristocracy.

The first two parts of the manuscript fall under a dialectical center-periphery. The first part of the work is not strictly speaking a history of Aztec, but an enumeration of the cities conquered by each sovereign, represented by temples reversed in flames. If one excludes the reign of Tizoc, a manifestly weak sovereign, the number of conquests increases with each reign. With this territorial dilation in the second part a movement Centripète corresponds: the flow of the tributes of the periphery towards the center.

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