Tlachco Codex

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This manuscript resides in the private collection of Sean Galvin in Ireland, who generously made digital photographs available for dissemination and study. This is a record of an investigation into Indigenous people's complaints about tribute demands in kind and in labor, including mine work in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico, in the sixteenth century. Although written (or perhaps just glossed) in Spanish, the drawings were made by Indigenous painters. One section of text refers to eggs, fish, and melons that were provided as foodstuffs. Elsewhere, large numbers of hens (whether chickens or turkeys, it is not clear) had to be provided, along with bundles of tribute cloth, thin sheets, maize, and what appear to be rings (an early manifiestation of Taxco's silversmithing?) to the Spanish overlords and their wives. Both Indigenous men and women are indicated as laborers, including “Indian women who make bread (i.e. tortillas),” shown alongside a grinding stone for making the tortilla dough, and others who had to work as servants in the houses of Spaniards. Men are shown (in tears?) carrying the wives of Spanish colonial officials in hammocks attached to poles. (Stephanie Wood)

Principal editor: 
Stephanie Wood
Provenance: 
TEST

Transcriptions and Translations

Analytic Transcription English Translation Literal Transcription Spanish Translation Standardized Transcription
estas son ocho mantas del[-] gadas q. dimos de tributo....
todas estas son gallinas q. son CLXXX All of these are hens, amounting to 180.
arieles (?) que emos dado a él y a su muger en vezes Rings that we have given to him and to his wife at [different] times.