Mexican codices are manuscripts created by Mesoamerican peoples prior to Spanish contact and during the early Spanish colonial period. Made of deer hide or bark paper, each pre-Spanish codex typically folded like an accordion and could contain images on both sides.
After the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521, the codex tradition continued under the auspices of the Spanish missionaries and provided Indigenous peoples with a voice amid the dramatic changes that were taking place all around them. The colonial period codices, which look more like European-style books, allowed the Indigenous elite to revisit and reimagine their histories prior to the arrival of the conquistadors and the imposition of Spanish colonialism.
Adjusting to new realities, Indigenous peoples became active players in the preservation and revitalization of their lifeways as they took advantage of new techniques in manuscript development to manifest their voices.
In this presentation, ethnohistorian Michael M. Brescia, PhD, discusses what the codices tell us - and don’t tell us - about the political, economic, social, and cultural rhythms of daily life in the Maya, Mixtec, and Aztec cultures. Dr. Brescia is Curator of Ethnohistory in the Arizona State Museum (ASM), University of Arizona (UA), and has faculty affiliations with the University's Department of History and its James E. Rogers College of Law. He teaches a wide range of courses at the UA including Mexican and Borderlands history, the comparative history of North America, and historical research and method. He is co-author of "North America: An Introduction" with John C. Super, and of the 4th edition of "Mexico and the United States: Ambivalent Vistas" with Dirk Raat; and he was lead curator of three major exhibitions at ASM including the award-winning "Many Mexicos: Vistas de la Frontera." Michael’s research has garnered international and national recognition over the years including, for example, a Fulbright, a visiting professorship in Mexico, and visiting research fellowships in Australia and California. And in 2021 Michael received the Dan Shilling Humanities Public Scholar Award from Arizona Humanities for his scholarly efforts to make history and culture more accessible to the general public.
The illustration for this video is a page from Codex Borgia, a ca. 16th century, central Mexico codex of either the Aztec or Mixtec.