We want to give them laws: Royal Ordinances in a Mid-Sixteenth Century Nahuatl Text

Resumen

Over ten years ago in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl # 18 (1986), John Frederick Schwaller detailed the colonial Nahuatl manuscripts held by the Newberry Library of Chicago, the Latin American Library of Tulane University, and the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. Among the Nahuatl texts at the last location are two of fundamental importance for Nahuatl Studies. The first is the "Huehuetlatolli, Documento A" (as the noted Mexican scholar Ángel María Garibay Kintana called it). This outstanding example oftraditional oratory appeared first in Tlalocan #1 (1943), prepared by Garibay K. himself. More recently it was published as The Bancroft Dialogues (1987), translated and edited by Frances Karttunen and james Lockhart. The second key text is a set of confraternity rules dated 18 September 1552 which bear the name of the Franciscan philologist fray Alonso de Molina. A critical edition of this document is currently being prepared for publication.