Customer Reviews

Anonimo Mexicano

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Not written until about 1600, after the Spanish conquest of Mexico by the defeat of the Aztecs, this text in the Nahuatl language of the Tlaxcalteca people covering a large part of Mexico north of the Aztec lands in central Mexico has the style and content of an ancient tribal document, like Middle East creation myths. The Tlaxcalteca allied with Cortes to help conquer the Aztecs, their longtime enemies who never conquered them. Myths, history, heroes, royalty, wanderings, wars, and settlements are all mixed together. Though it is rich and significant in content, "Anomino Mexicano" is not too long. This first English translation of the full text at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris is three columns per page from pages 7 to 65 in the original, classical, Nahuatl, modern Nahuatl, and English with illustrations taking up some of these pages. Notes run from pages 66 to 101, with a one-page Bibliography of about 30 references before the Index. The complete "Anonimo Mexicano" is a welcome addition to world literature as another vibrant epic on the origins, history, and lore of an ancient people.

I'd like to add a note or two to the remarks by the previous reviewer: this exemplary work
A) reproduces the original Tlaxcalteca Nahuatl text, in modern typescript but following the manuscript as closely as possible,
B) provides a transcription of that text (rather than a modern Nahuatl version) with vowel length and saltillo indicated (the latter by the roman letter "h", following the scholars Lockhart and Karttunen), and
C) an English translation.
Most of the extensive notes deal with manuscript issues (scribal errors, etc), but some of them address linguistic issues as such.
All aside from its great value for anyone interested in the Spanish invasion of the Valley of Mexico and the lore of the cultures of that region (in this case from a perspective a bit different than the usual material descending from Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) itself), this work provides learners of Nahuatl with a very accessible annotated text for productive study.