Introduction to SotLoA

The following is still VERY MUCH under construction.

Historical background.

The codex I have translated [below] is known by the Spanish phrase scrawled across the top of its first page: Romances de los señores de la Nueva España. In English, this title is normally rendered Ballads of the Lords of New Spain, but in an attempt to decolonize my version, I have opted to replace both “ballads” and “New Spain” as not reflecting the pre-invasion contents. Instead, I suggest Songs of the Lords of Anahuac, which in Nahuatl would be In incuica Anahuac tlahtohqueh.

The manuscript consists of forty-two folios on which thirty-six cuicatl—songs—were compiled in Nahuatl somewhere around 1582, a date attested in the Relación of Juan Bautista de Pomar, which was attached to the compilation. Presently, the codex is housed at the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas.

These cuicatl are of a particular genre called netotiliztli: orally composed ballads that praise the deeds of great figures of the past and that were accompanied by elaborate dances. About a dozen of these netotiliztli also appear in slightly different form in the longer codex Cantares Mexicanos (Songs of Mexico).

The pieces selected by the compiler of the codex are mainly from Tetzcoco, the capital of Acolhuacan, a loose confederation of city-states on the eastern shore of Moon Lake (later Lake Texcoco) that mostly shared a common ethnicity, a fusion of both Toltec and Chichimec culture. Tetzcoco…