30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreWas there advice on how to be a good ruler in Aztec codices?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Madeleine Ogden: Was there advice on how to be a good ruler in Aztec codices? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Yes, but not in the painted native pictographic codices. Books 4, 6 and 10 of the monumental Florentine Codex - compiled in the middle of the 16th century by Bernardino de Sahagún with the crucial help of native Nahua informants - all contain extracts from the ‘wisdom of the ancients’ known as huehuetlahtolli memorised by Nahua scholars from the teachings of Mexica elders passed down orally to them by their parents and grandparents.
Book 6 specifically contains chapters relating to newly elected rulers - both how the ruler should treat (usually his) citizens, and how the people should treat the ruler.
To give one example, the following is taken from A Scattering of Jades: Stories, Poems and Prayers of the Aztecs compiled and translated by Thelma D. Sullivan:-
Upon his election the ruler was counselled with the wisdom of the ancients, the ‘Huehuehtlatolli’. He was told:
’You are the substitute, the surrogate of Tloque Nahuaque, the lord of the near and far [a disguise of Tezcatlipoca].
You are the seat [the throne from which he rules], you are his flute [the mouth through which he speaks],
he speaks within you,
he makes you his lips, his jaws, his ears...
He also makes you his fangs, his claws,
for you are his wild beast, you are his eater of people,
you are his judge.’
In other words, as Sullivan puts it, ‘The people in the Aztec world sustained the ruler, but he was also their slave.’
Sources:-
• Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2006) Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Facts on File, New York
• Sullivan, Thelma D. (translator) and Knab, Timothy J. (editor) (2003) A Scattering of Jades: Stories, Poems and Prayers of the Aztecs, University of Arizona Press
• Silva Galeana, Librado (transcription/translation) and León-Portilla, Miguel (introductory study) (1991) Huehuehtlahtolli: testimonios de la antigua palabra, SEP, Mexico City.
Image from the Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994.
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