The Names of the Veintenas in the Colonial Codices; Strategies of Graphic Reconfiguration of the Nahua Calendar

Abstract

This text analyzes the graphic repertoires used in colonial manuscripts that explain the function of the pre-Hispanic Mexican annual calendar (xiwitl). The study reveals the use of three figurative cycles, but only one of these repertoires appears in all the sources examined: a system of signs which gives the names of the veintenas. This glyphic assembly seems to have been in use from pre-Columbian times, however it needed to be resignified before being incorporated into colonial sources produced for non-indigenous readers. In this study I follow the transformation of the visual codes that permitted the reconfiguration of the xiwitl through contact with Christian cosmographies.