Codex Mendoza (16th c.) Why I Taught the Source In Mexico City,
towards the middle of the 16th century, Nahuatl-speaking
painters created the Codex Mendoza, one of the most lavish
indigenous accounts of history and moral behavior known today.
Across pages of expensive, imported paper, the painters of the
C. Mendoza describe the conquests of Mexica (Aztec) rulers and
note the tribute they collected from their subordinates:
precious feathered warrior shields and strings of turquoise,
bundles of cotton blankets and bins of beans. Perhaps the most
famous image from the C. Mendoza depicts the founding of
Tenochtitlan, the Mexican capital. Yet other scenes show boys
and girls being raised by elders. In these scenes, the C.
Mendoza articulates ideals of personhood in the Aztec empire as
they were imagined, and remembered, in the first decades after
the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan. And it is these scenes
that capture my students' interest most insistently, that spark
the most intense discussion. I teach the C. M