Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas
Also known as: History of the Mexicans as Told by Their Paintings, Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas
A concise colonial-era Nahua mytho-historical account derived from painted codices, narrating cosmic origins, the Five Suns, divine deeds, and the Mexica migration and founding of Tenochtitlan.
Description
This short Spanish prose work synthesizes pre-Hispanic pictorial histories and priestly lore into a continuous narrative of the Nahua cosmos. It recounts primordial dual creation, the succession of world-ages (Five Suns), the deeds of major gods, the origin of humankind and maize, and ritual foundations of time and kingship. The latter sections trace the Mexica migration from Aztlan, sacred omens, and the establishment of Tenochtitlan’s supremacy. As an early post-conquest compilation, it preserves Indigenous structure and imagery—quincunx cosmology, sacred bundles, calendrics—through a Christianized lens, offering a vital window onto Mexica theology and state ideology.
Historiography
The text survives as an anonymous mid-sixteenth-century Spanish compilation based on Indigenous pinturas (pictorial codices). It is closely related to other early colonial Nahua sources, including the Leyenda de los Soles and the Codex Ramírez tradition, and overlaps with materials later systematized by Sahagún in the Florentine Codex. Scholars debate precise authorship (often situating it in a Franciscan context) and its dependence on now-lost pictorial exemplars. Reception centers on its value for reconstructing Mexica cosmogony, ritual time, and migration narratives despite colonial redaction.
Date Notes
Early colonial Spanish prose compiled from Indigenous pictorial manuscripts and informants, likely within the Franciscan intellectual milieu in New Spain.
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Ometecuhtli
- Omecihuatl
- Quetzalcoatl
- Tezcatlipoca
- Huitzilopochtli
- Tlaloc
Myths
- The Five Suns
- Creation of Humans from Ancestral Bones
- Journeys through Mictlan
- Origins of Festivals and Deities
Facts
- Anonymous Spanish-language prose compiled in New Spain in the mid-16th century.
- Derives its authority from Indigenous pictorial manuscripts (pinturas) and oral priestly lore.
- Presents a full Five Suns cosmogony alongside migration and founding narratives.
- Shares motifs and passages with Leyenda de los Soles and Codex Ramírez traditions.
- Records Quetzalcoatl’s descent to Mictlan to recover bones for human creation.
- Attributes Mexica imperial destiny to omens and patronage of Huitzilopochtli.
- Preserves quincunx cosmology and directional color symbolism.
- Functions as both mythic theogony/cosmogony and Mexica state ideology.
- Shows colonial redaction while conserving pre-Hispanic calendrical concepts.
- Key for reconstructing early post-conquest transmission of Nahua sacred history.