This website features transcriptions and translations of manuscripts in Nahuatl from the Princeton University Library’s Garrett-Gates, Garrett, and Mesoamerican Collection. The collections include pictorial manuscripts, maps, histories, catechisms, and land documents written in Mesoamerican languages (such as Mayan languages, Otomí, and Nahuatl), Spanish, and Latin and it is one of the most important repositories in the US that documents the Indigenous heritage and colonial culture of Mexico and Central America. The majority of the documents were collected by William Gates and Robert Garrett who dedicated their lives to compile this rich corpus in order to further scholarship about linguistic and cultural aspects of Indigenous peoples from Latin America. The purpose of this site is to make the collection legible to those who might not know Indigenous languages, to promote the study of Mesoamerican cultures, and to provide contextual and linguistic information of the most prominent manuscripts in Nahuatl from the collection.
The work of translating these manuscripts is a process that is continuously being reviewed and amended. However, I want to acknowledge the great work done by Humberto Iglesias Tepec, who provided the initial version of all the Spanish translations and some of the English ones. Alanna Radlo-Dzur has also made significant contributions with her English translations. Similarly, Catalina Cruz de la Cruz completed the initial version of most of the transcriptions. Daniel Dominguez and Alex Hue also collaborated on the transcriptions of several legal documents for the project.
-Nadia Cervantes Pérez
Manuscript copy of the drawings and the Nahuatl text of the "Codex Aubin," a Mexican Indian pictorial chronicle of Aztec history from the Valley of Mexico, composed at different dates and by different authors, with drawings and Nahuatl text.
A later copy (18th or 19th century) of a historical map dealing with a migration of the Mexica, or Aztec, from Tollan to Tenochtitlan.
Consists of 25 legal documents, including wills and bills of sale. Places mentioned include San Andres Ahuashuatepec and San Salvador Tzompantepec, both in Tlaxcala.
Bound volume of 15 land documents concerning the ownership of land and property at the address "Casa no. 13 del Callejon de las Cedaceras" in Mexico City. The volume begins with a notarial document of 1602 in Nahuatl accompanied by a required Indian pictorial land map. The later documents are in Spanish.
Consists of legal documents in Nahuatl and Spanish concerning lands and rents. Leaves 1-4 in Nahuatl. Leaves 5-9 contain Spanish translation of the Nahuatl.
Includes the last will and testament in Nahuatl of Toribio Feliciano, 1571 (2 fols.); legal statement in Nahuatl concerning a will followed by a certification in Spanish by Fray Juan de la Torre, Guardian of the Convent of Tula that the masses specified in the will have been said 1604 (2 fols.); last will and testament in Nahuatl of Maria Hernandez, an Indian of Tula. 1617 (2 fols.).
Legal statements, wills, and deeds in Nahuatl and Spanish. Some of the Spanish is a translation of the Nahuatl.
A collection of approximately 200 notarial and other documents, in Spanish and Nahuatl, regarding the formation of the Hacienda de Santa Barbara (Tlaxcala, Mexico) estate.
The lienzo is a map of a region around San Pedro Ixcatlan in the ex-district of Tuxtepec in the Mazatec Indian area of northern Oaxaca, Mexico. At the center is an historical scene and a Nahuatl text that describe the arrival of the Spanish conquistador, Juan Marques, in 1521, the baptism of an Indian lord who took the name of Juan de Mendoza, and an encomendero of the de Nava family, encomenderos of Ixcatlan from about 1546-1603.
Details the reception by Hernan Cortes by a native Mexican chieftan on his way towards the Conquest of the capital, Mexico.
Choral settings of sacred texts in Nahuatl, Latin, and Spanish, including "Requiem eternam dona eis domine...," "Victoria victoria aqui canvencido [convencido]," and "Dominus dixit ad me filius meus est..." One note in Spanish states the manuscript was written by the Maestro Tomas Pascual, 22 December 1635 (fol. 5r).
Catechism written in Taxco (Mexico), partly in two columns.
Contains a history of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Nahuatl and Spanish, dated Amecameca, May 6, 1712) and various Catholic religious texts (prayers, sermons, "Doctrina Christiana", poems) in Nahuatl, some translated from published sources.
Manuscript notebook comprised chiefly of one or more cycles of Spanish sermons and sermon notes, referenced by feast day and accompanied by Scriptural readings in Latin; as well as brief extracts from other devotional texts and other notes in Spanish. Written down and corrected in an unruled bound book over a period of years, probably in the 1590s by a Franciscan friar working in or near Tlatelolco and Puebla (specifically Tecali, Huexotzingo, and Tlaxcala), New Spain.
The map shows the approximate geographical distribution of the places where the manuscripts were composed or the places mentioned in them, most of which are located in the central region of Mexico.
This section displays examples of each letter of the alphabet found in the manuscripts with the purpose of facilitating their reading and analysis.