The Aztec Fascination with Birds: Deciphering 16th-Century Sources in N疉uatl (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780999075982)

The Aztec empire was established in the Valley of Mexico in the 14th century, eventually dominating a vast region from a base on their island capital city, Tenochtitl疣. Hern疣 Cort駸 sacked Tenochtitl疣 for Spain in 1521. Missionary friars arrived soon after to begin the Christianization of the Mesoamerican population. To facilitate their conversion, Franciscan scholars trained the descendants of the Aztec nobility in alphabetic writing. Indigenous students/colleagues soon mastered written Latin and learned to write their native N疉uatl. Fray Bernardino de Sahag佖 organized a complex ethnographic enterprise employing Indigenous colleagues to compile an encyclopedia of Indigenous Aztec knowledge. This work survived in Spanish translation as the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espa and was subsequently published with parallel N疉uatl and English texts as the Florentine Codex. Book 11 of the Codex is devoted to "Earthly Things" of which the "Second Chapter, ...telleth of all the different kinds of birds." Over 130 are named and described and illustrated in varying detail. However, establishing the correspondence of these birds with our contemporary ornithological inventory of Mexican birds has been a challenge. The Mexican biologist Mart匤 del Campo published an analysis based on the Spanish version in 1940, and his suggested identifications have been treated as definitive. I have reviewed the evidence in light of contemporary knowledge and offer here a refined analysis of the probable identities of the birds named in the Codex with a detailed rationale. This material offers rich insights into a Mesoamerican traditional natural history.

Author: Eugene S. Hunn
ISBN-10: 0999075985
ISBN-13: 9780999075982
Publisher: Society of Ethnobiology
Language: English
Published: 05/25/2023
Pages: 176
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.96lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 0.46d