Article suitable for older students

How the Spaniards distorted the Florentine Codex Nahuatl text

21st Aug 2021

Sample double page from the Florentine Codex Book 12 of the Spanish invasion

Though compiled by a Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún after the invasion, the encyclopaedic nature of the twelve books of the Florentine Codex and Sahagún’s reliance on the testimonies of Nahua eye-witnesses to the invasion and the inclusion of a Nahuatl text supported by over 2,000 illustrations has always given the work a kind of unshakeable super-status of its own. Few are aware, however, that the Spanish text is anything but a direct transcription of the Nahuatl. In places, Sahagún deliberately altered the Nahuatl version of events. Here we give an example... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

We draw here heavily on the work of José Rabasa, Long Term Visiting Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts - specifically his book Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You (2011), which deals in detail with Book XII, the only strictly historical book of the twelve. The original edition, he writes, ‘consisted of a Nahuatl version derived from testimonies by elders who witnessed the conquest, a Spanish version whose language and syntax bear no resemblance to the original Nahuatl and often chooses to paraphrase or elide whole passages, and a visual version that should be read as a text of its own and not merely as an illustration’ (see main picture, above). In 1585, incidentally, some 16 years after the final publication, Sahagún revised Book XII, seemingly with the intention of providing Spanish readers with ‘a less offensive version.’ The visual text goes, and the Nahuatl has also since been lost. Perhaps this reveals Sahagún’s bias even more starkly. Take, for instance, the encounter of the Spaniards near the volcano Popocatépetl (picture 1)...

‘The Nahuatl text reads, “And when they had given the things [golden banners, banners of precious feathers, and golden necklaces], they seemed to smile, to rejoice and be very happy. Like monkeys they grabbed the gold. It was as though their hearts were put to rest, brightened, freshened. For Gold was what they greatly thirsted for; they were gluttons for it, starved for it, piggishly wanting it.” The Spanish version of the Florentine Codex translates... “There they received them and gave them the present of gold that they brought, and according to the external signs that the Indians saw in the Spaniards, it seemed to them that they were pleased and greatly rejoiced over the gold, for they held it in great esteem.” The 1585 Spanish emendation reduces the passage to... “They gave the Captain their gifts, placing them on the ground: all received them with great joy.”’
Spanish censorship, albeit to different degrees...!

Info source:-
• Rabasa, José (2011) Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You: ‘Elsewheres’ and Ethnosuicide in the Colonial Mesoamerican World, University of Texas Press.

Pictures source:-
• Main image: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• All images from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994.