Galleria
Museum of Natural and Cultural History
1680 E. 15th Ave., UO campus
El Códice de Cuauhtlanzinco. Estrategias de indios para el acceso al uso del poder y control de los recursos naturales
Speaker: Alberto Sarmiento Tepoxtecatl, from the state of Puebla, Mexico, who shares the names of two of the four caciques who appear in the manuscript
The speaker comes from the community of modern-day Cuautlancingo, Puebla, Mexico. The original Códice de Cuauhtlantzinco was a pictorial manuscript depicting the period of the Spanish conquest in the small indigenous community of that name. It represents an intriguing viewpoint, one that highlights the benefits for Native people of alliances with Spaniards—reminiscent of the perspectives of Tlaxcalteca, who became famous for helping the Spanish defeat their historic enemies, the Mexica. Each scene, like a storyboard for a play, has a Nahuatl-language text. The MNCH copy was once in the collection of the first anthropologist at the University of Chicago, Frederick Starr.