Anales de Cuauhtitlán (Anonymous, c. 1570)
Metadata: Tena, R. Anales de Cuauhtitlan. México, D.F: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. 2011. Original lost. Facsimile version by Primo Feliciano Velázquez (1945). Set of photographs of the original in Legajo 79 of the Fondo del Paso y Troncoso in the Archivo Histórico of the BNAH
The text of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan is part of the larger Codex Chimalpopoca along with two other texts: the Leyenda de los soles, and the Ordenanza del señor Cuauhtémoc. Castizo historian Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl compiled and copied the texts from original documents circa 1630. The original authors could be indigenous scribes who worked with Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, and might have written the Anales de Cuauhtitlan during the 1570s. These compile historical events as seen from the perspective of the altepetl of Cuauhtitlan, located north of the Central Valley of Mexico. The annals begin with the year 635, and end in 1519 with the arrival of the Spaniards. Rafael Tena (2011) identifies nine different parts in these annals beginning with the story of origin of Cuauhtitlan, followed by the Saga de Quetzalcóatl. The third component is a continuation to the Anales, and the fourth is a piece on the fall of Tollan. The fifth is a story of the pilgrimage of the Mexica, followed by a continuation of the Anales, and a section on tlatoqueh “rulers” Tezozomoctli and Nezahualcoyotl. The eighth section is a continuation of the Anales, and the last is a section on the Triple Alliance. There is also an appendix composed by four historical summaries: one on the Tlatoloyan or alliances in Anahuac, another on the Tlatoque “rulers” of Anahuac during the arrival of the Spaniards, a piece about the towns subject to the Triple Alliance and their tributes, and the last one on the Tlatoque of Tenochtitlan and their conquests.[1]
like Cuauhtinchan was an altepetl under the tributary system of Tenochtitlan, located 25 miles north of the Mexica capital
[1] Previous editions of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan include: José Fernando Ramírez (1885) as a supplement of the Anales del Museo Nacional, a publication of the Anales de Cuauhtitlan, Noticias históricas de México y sus contornos – a semi-complete paleography of the Nahuatl text and translation into Spanish by Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia, Gumesindo Mendoza and Felipe Sánchez Solís. Walter Lehmann (1938): Die Geschichte der Königreiche von Colhuacan und Mexico, paleography and translation into German of the Anales de Cuauhtitlán and the Leyenda de los soles. Primo Feliciano Velázquez (1945): Códice Chimalpopoca, a translation into Spanish and photographic reproduction of the original texts of Anales y la Leyenda de los Soles. John Bierhorst (1992): two volumes of the Codex Chimalpopoca: 1) History and Mythology of the Aztecs (English translation from Nahuatl), and 2) The Text in Nahuatl with a Glossary and Grammatical Notes.