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. 16r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] ahuacuauhtlan xan …lome tlatqui… niz motenehua tototlan mani macu…al mecatl tlali mimiahuapan tlat… [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Ahuacuauhtlan belongs to St. Bartholomew. Here is [the place] called Tototlan, where there are 100 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, the property of Mimiahuapan. [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Ahuacuauhtlan pertenece a San Bartolomé, aquí donde está el puesto del agua de los pájaros se extienden 100 mecates de tierra perteneciente a Mimiapan[...].
[f. 16r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] ahuacuauhtlan xan […]lome tlatqui[…] [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Ahuacuauhtlan belongs to St. Bartholomew. [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Ahuacuauhtlan pertenece a San Bartolomé, aquí donde está el puesto del agua de los pájaros se extienden 100 mecates de tierra perteneciente a Mimiapan [...].
[f. 16r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] niz motenehua tototlan mani macuypual mecatl tlali mimiahuapan tlatquitl [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here is [the place] called Tototlan, where there are 100 mecates of land, the property of Mimiahuapan. [f. 16r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Ahuacuauhtlan pertenece a San Bartolomé, aquí donde está el puesto del agua de los pájaros se extienden 100 mecates de tierra perteneciente a Mimiapan [...]
[f. 16v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] atlan mani yetzontli mecatl tlali ymaxca xan paltolometlaca nenemi coaxohtli neztoc necocanpa huytlatztoc OOO [f. 16v, Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:]. At Atlan there are 1,200 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, the property of the people of San Bartolomé. The boundary runs along and appears there on both sides stretched out. 000 [f. 16v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] En Atlan se extienden 1,200 mecates de tierra que es propiedad de San Bartolomé, donde pasa el lindero marcados de ambos lados tendidos 000
[f. 16v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] atlan mani yetzontli mecatl tlali ymaxca xan paltolometlaca nenemi coaxohtli neztoc necocanpa huytlatztoc OOO [f. 16v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] At Atlan there are 1,200 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, the property of the people of San Bartolomé. The boundary runs along and appears there on both sides stretched out. 000 [f. 16v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] En Atlan se extienden 1,200 mecates de tierra que es propiedad de San Bartolomé, donde pasa el lindero marcados de ambos lados tendidos 000
[f. 17r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] nican yxtlahuatl ypan […] ne[…] canpa yetzontli mecatl […] xohnamiqui xan paltolomen coaxohpixque ze tecpatl […]catl nenemi coaxohtli ne[…]toc [f. 17r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here on the plain … on both sides there are 1,200 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] [of land] meeting the boundary of San Bartolomé. They are guardians of the boundary. 1 Flint […]. The boundary runs along, visible. [f. 17r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí sobre la llanura […] de ambos lados 1,200 mecates de [tierras] […] esto une con los linderos de San Bartolomé, 1 Pedernal, […] Caña, los linderos corren a lo largo
[f. 17r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] nican yxtlahuatl ypan … ne…canpa yetzontli mecatl … xohnamiqui xan paltolomen coaxohpixque ze tecpatl … catl nenemi coaxohtli ne…toc [f. 17r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here on the plain […] on both sides there are 1,200 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] [of land] meeting the boundary of San Bartolomé. They are guardians of the boundary. 1 Flint […]. The boundary runs along, appearing. [f. 17r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí sobre la llanura […] de ambos lados 1,200 mecates de [tierras] […] esto une con los linderos de San Bartolomé, 1 Pedernal, […] Caña, los linderos corren a lo largo
[f. 17v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] niz atl ynehicoayan mani caxtolpu… mecatl tlali mocoaxohnamiqui …catlantlaca mani yntlal neztim… nenemi coaxohtli necocanpa [f. 17v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here at Atl Ynechicoyan [or, the confluence of the waters] there are 300 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, meeting the boundary with the people of [...]. It is their land. The boundary runs along on both sides. [f. 17v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí en el paraje de la confluencia de las aguas se extienden 300 mecates de tierras, une con la propiedad de Xonacatlán, se extiende la tierra donde aparece extendido por ambos lados los linderos
[f. 17v., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] niz atl ynehicoayan mani caxtolpu… mecatl tlali mocoaxohnamiqui …catlantlaca mani yntlal neztim… nenemi coaxohtli necocanpa [f. 17v., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] Here at Atl Ynechicoyan [or, the confluence of the waters] there are 300 cords [mecatl in Nahuatl; mecates in Spanish] of land, meeting the boundary with the people of [...]. It is their land. The boundary runs along on both sides. [f. 17v., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] Aquí en el paraje de la confluencia de las aguas se extienden 300 mecates de tierras, une con la propiedad de Xonacatlán, se extiende la tierra donde aparece extendido por ambos lados los linderos
[f. 18r., Transcription of the Nahuatl by Florencio Barrera:] xa miquel mimiahpan xanta malia tlaxilacali [f. 18r., Nahuatl-to-English translation by Stephanie Wood:] San Miguel Mimiapan [and] neighborhood [tlaxilacalli] of Santa María [Note: The spelling here, “Mimiahpan” comes closest to the modern spelling, Mimiapan. The longer spelling “Mimiahuapan,” with its additional syllable, is used across most of the manuscript.] [f. 18r., Nahuatl-to-Spanish translation by Florencio Barrera:] San Miguel Mimiapan, barrio de Santa María