Lee offers a more realistic portrait of the legendary Aztec ruler Nezahualcoyotl, derived from examination of original Nahuatl codices and poetry, as well as Spanish chronicles.

Nezahualcoyotl (1402-1472), the "poet-king" of Texcoco, has been described as one of the most important pre-Hispanic figures in Nahua history. Since the conquest, European chroniclers have continually portrayed him as a symbol of Aztec civilization and culture, a wise governor and lawmaker, poet and patron of the arts, and proto-monotheist. Their chronicles have served as sources for anthropologists, historians, and literary critics who focus on these contrived images and continually reproduce the colonial propaganda on Nezahualcoyotl. This, as Jongsoo Lee argues, subsequently leads to a misrepresentation of the history, religion, literature, and politics of pre-Hispanic Mexico that are altered to support such images of Nezahualcoyotl. Lee provides a new assessment of Nezahualcoyotl that critically examines original codices and poetry written in Nahuatl alongside Spanish chronicles in an effort to paint a more realistic portrait of the legendary Aztec figure. Urging scholars away from sources that reinforce a Judeo-Christian perspective of pre-Hispanic history, Lee offers a revision of the colonial images of Nahua history and culture that have continued over the last five hundred years.

Around 1542, descendants of the Aztec rulers of Mexico created accounts of the pre-Hispanic history of the city of Tetzcoco, Mexico, one of the imperial capitals of the Aztec Empire. Painted in iconic script ("picture writing"), the Codex Xolotl, the Quinatzin Map, and the Tlohtzin Map appear to retain and emphasize both pre-Hispanic content and also pre-Hispanic form, despite being produced almost a generation after the Aztecs surrendered to Hernán Cortés in 1521. Yet, as this pioneering study makes plain, the reality is far more complex. Eduardo de J. Douglas offers a detailed critical analysis and historical contextualization of the manuscripts to argue that colonial economic, political, and social concerns affected both the content of the three Tetzcocan pictorial histories and their archaizing pictorial form. As documents composed by indigenous people to assert their standing as legitimate heirs of the Aztec rulers as well as loyal subjects of the Spanish Crown and good Catholics, the Tetzcocan manuscripts qualify as subtle yet shrewd negotiations between indigenous and Spanish systems of signification and between indigenous and Spanish concepts of real property and political rights. By reading the Tetzcocan manuscripts as calculated responses to the changes and challenges posed by Spanish colonization and Christian evangelization, Douglas's study significantly contributes to and expands upon the scholarship on central Mexican manuscript painting and recent critical investigations of art and political ideology in colonial Latin America.

From the migration of the Aztecs to the rise of the empire and its eventual demise, this book covers Aztec history in full, analyzing conceptions of time, religion, and more through codices to offer an inside look at daily life. This book focuses on two main areas: Aztec history and Aztec culture. Early chapters deal with Aztec history—the first providing a visual record of the story of the Aztec migration and search for their destined homeland of Tenochtitlan, and the second exploring how the Aztecs built their empire. Later chapters explain life in the Aztec world, focusing on Aztec conceptions of time and religion, the Aztec economy, the life cycle, and daily life. The book ends with an account of the fall of the empire, as illustrated by Aztec artists. With sections concerning a wide variety of topics—from the Aztec pantheon to war, agriculture, childhood, marriage, diet, justice, the arts, and sports, among many others—readers will gain an expansive understanding of life in the Aztec world.

For many years, scholars of the conquest worked to shift focus away from the Spanish perspective and bring attention to the often-ignored voices and viewpoints of the Indians. But recent work that highlights the “Indian conquistadors” has forced scholars to reexamine the simple categories of conqueror and subject and to acknowledge the seemingly contradictory roles assumed by native peoples who chose to fight alongside the Spaniards against other native groups. The Native Conquistador—a translation of the “Thirteenth Relation,” written by don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl in the early seventeenth century—narrates the conquest of Mexico from Hernando Cortés’s arrival in 1519 through his expedition into Central America in 1524. The protagonist of the story, however, is not the Spanish conquistador but Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s great-great-grandfather, the native prince Ixtlilxochitl of Tetzcoco. This account reveals the complex political dynamics that motivated Ixtlilxochitl’s decisive alliance with Cortés. Moreover, the dynamic plotline, propelled by the feats of Prince Ixtlilxochitl, has made this a compelling story for centuries—and one that will captivate students and scholars today.

The Aztec Empire did not recoil from the face of an impending doom, they struggled faithfully. Destined to emerge from their humble beginnings, it grew into a highly-complex devoted civilization refusing to live at the mercy of more neighboring powerful rulers. Their powerful pocheca combed the valley for luxury items while markets dotted their lands. Inside you will find... ✓ Introduction ✓ How the Aztecs Are Portrayed and How Their History Survives ✓ Defining Moments and their Search to Expand and Save the World ✓ Their Philosophy: its Impact on Social Life and How it Served the Kings ✓ Conclusion Isolated from the Old World until the devastating Spanish conquest, the Aztec mācēhualtin (commoners) and nobles enhanced their positions while kings and relentless warriors dealt with the political realities of powerful dynasties and rivaling kingdoms. They developed a philosophy, an order and a society built on loyalty, stoic honor and sacrifice as they embraced the temporary nature of things. Investigate the era of the Fifth Sun and what defined the Aztecs and their relationship with the divine.

Kelli D. Zaytoun draws on Gloria Anzaldúa's thought to present a radically inclusive and expansive approach to selfhood, creativity, scholarship, healing, coalition-building, and activism. Zaytoun focuses on Anzaldúa's naguala/ shapeshifter, a concept of nagualismo. This groundbreaking theory of subjectivity details a dynamic relationship between “inner work” and "public acts" that strengthens individuals' roles in social and transformative justice work. Zaytoun's detailed emphasis on la naguala, and Nahua metaphysics specifically, brings much needed attention to Anzaldúa's long-overlooked contribution to the study of subjectivity. The result is a women and queer of color, feminist-focused work aimed at scholars in many disciplines and intended to overcome barriers separating the academy from everyday life and community. An original and moving analysis, Shapeshifting Subjects draws on unpublished archival material to apply Anzaldúa's ideas to new areas of thought and action.

The Serpent's Plumes analyzes contemporary Nahua cultural production, principally bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish xochitlajtoli, or "poetry," written from the 1980s to the present. Adam W. Coon draws on Nahua perspectives as a decolonizing theoretical framework to argue that Nahua writers deploy unique worldviews—namely, ixtlamatilistli ("knowledge with the face," which highlights the value of personal experiences); yoltlajlamikilistli ("knowledge with the heart," which underscores the importance of affective intelligence); and tlaixpan ("that which is in front," which presents the past as lying ahead of a subject rather than behind). The views of ixtlamatilistli, yoltlajlamikilistli, and tlaixpan are key in Nahua struggles and effectively challenge those who attempt to marginalize Native knowledge production.

In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism ? the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research ? were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders. While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus' ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop's fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.

Bringing to bear her extensive knowledge of the cultures of Renaissance Europe and sixteenth-century Mexico, Mónica Domínguez Torres here investigates the significance of military images and symbols in post-Conquest Mexico. She shows how the 'conquest' in fact involved dynamic exchanges between cultures; and that certain interconnections between martial, social and religious elements resonated with similar intensity among Mesoamericans and Europeans, creating indeed cultural bridges between these diverse communities. Multidisciplinary in approach, this study builds on scholarship in the fields of visual, literary and cultural studies to analyse the European and Mesoamerican content of the martial imagery fostered within the indigenous settlements of central Mexico, as well as the ways in which local communities and leaders appropriated, manipulated, modified and reinterpreted foreign visual codes. Military Ethos and Visual Culture in Post-Conquest Mexico draws on post-structuralist and post-colonial approaches to analyse the complex dynamics of identity formation in colonial communities.