Mimiapan, Manuscrito Techialoyan de

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This manuscript was given the number 711 in the Robertsons’ census of Techialoyan manuscripts from 1975 (published in the Handbook of Middle American Indians). As explained in an article in Tlalocan , this manuscript consists of twenty-four leaves of amatl (native paper), painted on both sides. It begins with an eight-page Nahuatl text. The supposed author of the text places himself in Tenochtitlan. The manuscript also mentions a man named don Melchor Moctezuma Tlacahuepan, who is said to have been appointed the local ruler in 1544 and the one who established the colonial tribute arrangements. We also see the role of a friar who apparently introduced Christianity to the local people. Many indigenous men and some women also appear in this manuscript. Some of the men are ancestors dressed in hides, and some are town-founder types dressed in the cotton clothing of the Spanish colonial era. The children and siblings of the highest indigenous lord are shown and named. They are all dons and doñas. Curiously, a genealogy that appears in this manuscript points to an ancestor described as a Tepotzoteca; none of the portraits of his descendants are labeled with names. Another featured pre-Hispanic ancestor is Acolnahuatl (intending Acolnahuacatl?), and again, the patterns of descent are not clarified. This manuscript offers a view of changes set in motion at the local level as a result of Spanish colonization, but it comes from the late colonial period. It strives to establish the antiquity of the town, and it tries to document the various areas where the town (or a given neighborhood) might have held land, the dimensions of those properties, and the boundaries with neighbors. Two interesting pages show strips of different kinds of land, labeled with specific names in Nahuatl. This manuscript has an association with San Miguel Mimiapan, part of the larger municipality of Xonacatlan, on the northeastern slopes of the Toluca valley, of the state of Mexico. In the Spanish colonial era, the town was called San Miguel Mimiahuapan, a spelling that appears fairly consistently in this manuscript. This is not to be confused with the San Miguel Mimiahuapan of the state of Tlaxcala. This manuscript belongs to the genre called primordial titles and is an example of the subset called Techialoyan codices or Techialoyan manuscripts. Techialoyans are mass produced, late-seventeenth or early eighteenth-century, Nahua revivalist manuscripts that strive to recapture ancient ways of documenting community history, elite indigenous lineages, and territorial extensions. (Stephanie Wood) ---- The lead scholars on this project are Florencio Barrera, who has provided the transcriptions of the Nahuatl texts and glosses, along with the translations to Spanish, and Stephanie Wood. Stephanie Wood has added an English translation of the Nahuatl, and she has edited the Nahuatl transcription and Spanish translation in a minor way , She has also added the image analysis and descriptions of full pages and their details. The digital images of this manuscript have kindly been provided by Sean Galvin of Ireland, in whose private collection the manuscript currently resides. Ellen Heenan (University of Oregon) has processed the images using PhotoShop and has inserted them into our Filemaker Pro database so that they could be annotated (2016).

Title variants: 
Cócide Techialoyan de San Miguel Mimiapan (o Mimiahuapan)
Principal editor: 
Florencio Barrera and Stephanie Wood

Transcriptions and Translations

Analytic Transcription English Translation Literal Transcription Spanish Translation Standardized Transcription
[f. 7v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] altepemanque [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] town founders [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] fundadores del pueblo
[f. 7v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] mimiahuatzitzin [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Venerable people of Mimiahuapan. [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Mimiahuatzitzin
[f. 7v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] mimiahuatzitzin [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Venerable people of Mimiahuapan. [f. 7v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Mimiahuatzitzin
[f. 8r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] niz motenehua huytztepec mani matlacpual mecatl tlali ymax[ca] xa miquel tlaxilacaleque huytlatztoc [f. 8r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here at [the place] called Huytztepec are 200 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, the property of the inhabitants of the tlaxilacalli of San Miguel, stretching out. [f. 8r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí se llama Huytztepec se extienden 200 mecates de tierras propiedad de los habitantes del barrio de San Miguel, por donde pasa el lindero
[f. 8r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] niz motenehua huytztepec mani matlacpual mecatl tlali ymax[ca] xa miquel tlaxilacaleque huytlatztoc [f. 8r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here is [the place] called Huytztepec. There are 200 cords [mecatl, in Nahuatl mecates in Spanish] of land property of the inhabitants of the tlaxilacalli of San Miguel, stretching out. [f. 8r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí se llama Huytztepec se extienden 200 mecates de tierras propiedad de los habitantes del barrio de San Miguel, por donde pasa el lindero
[f. 8v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] yztacmetitlan mani maquilpual mecatl tlali meyotoc [f. 8v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] At Iztacmetitlan there are 100 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land planted in magueyes. [f. 8v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] En Iztacmetitlan se extienden 100 mecates de tierras y hay magueyes
[f. 8v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] yztacmetitlan mani maquilpual mecatl tlali meyotoc [f. 8v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] At Iztacmetitlan there are 100 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land planted in magueyes. [f. 8v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] En Iztacmetitlan se extienden 100 mecates de tierras y hay magueyes
[f. 9r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] yn tlazopili acolnahuatl tlalmazeuhqui mimiauhuapa hane altepemanque [f. 9r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] The venerable noble Acolnahuatl, land-winner (i.e. conqueror) and resident of Mimiahuapan; the founders of the town. [Notes: The term for citizen (householder, resident, etc.), “hane,” should read “chane.” It is not unusual in the Techialoyan genre to find “h” for “ch.” And, one would expect the final term in this text to be in the singular, altepemanqui, town founder.] [f. 9r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] El noble Acolnahuatl Tlalmazeuhqui mimiauhuapa [...] habitante del pueblo
[f. 9r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] yn tlazopili acolnahuatl tlalmazeuhqui mimiauhuapa hane altepemanque [f. 9r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] The venerable noble Acolnahuatl, land-winner (i.e. conqueror) and citizen of Mimiahuapan; the founders of the town. [Notes: The term for citizen (householder, resident, etc.), “hane,” should read “chane.” It is not unusual in the Techialoyan genre to find “h” for “ch.” And, one would expect the final term in this text to be in the singular, altepemanqui, town founder.] [f. 9r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:]El noble Acolnahuatl Tlalmazeuhqui mimiauhuapa [...] habitante del pueblo
[f. 9v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] tocolhuan mimiahuatzitzin [f. 9v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Our ancestors, venerable people of Mimiahuapan, founders of the town. [f. 9v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Nuestros antepasados mimiahuatzitzin habitantes del pueblo