Notes

1 According to the 2000 Mexican census, 1.45 million Nahuatl speakers live in Mexico today. Most are in the central highlands surrounding Mexico City, in the state of Guerrero along the Pacific coast, and in the Huasteca region of Veracruz—although other communities of Nahuatl speakers are scattered throughout Mexico, and in El Salvador as well. The same census recorded some 240,000 speakers of Otomí. Most lived to the west and north of Mexico City, as well as in the town of Ixtenco in Tlaxcala. See also Brumfiel et al. 1994.

2 Mundy 1998, 22-23.

3 Taube 2010.

4 Berdan 2001.

5 Molina 1555, 178r, 164v; Boone 1998, 113.

6 Gibson 1952, 12, 15; note that salt was also produced from the saline waters of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, though apparently for mostly local use in the Valleys of Mexico and Puebla( Smith 1990, 154). The most valued salt in Postclassic Mesoamerica was made from seawater in Yucatan, and traded widely (Kepecs 2003).

7 Lockhart 1992, 14-58.

8 Lockhart 1992, 95-110.

9 Lockhart 1992, 95.

10 Nicholson 1967; Kranz 2001, 213-214; Cosentino 2002, 191-193, 211-212.

11 Note that the relative ranking of these altepetl shifted in the colonial period, so that Ocotelolco became the highest ranked altepetl and symbolic “beginning” to the cycles of succession. However, the order of succession remained the same, so this shift in rank took place within a larger structure of continuity; Lockhart 1992, 21-23; see also Gibson 1952: 1-15 for a discussion of whether prehispanic Tlaxcala did indeed only have four main altepetl.

12 Hicks 1979; Isaac 1983; Clendinnen 1991, 34; Smith 2003: 171.

13 Smith 1986, 78.

14 Smith 1986.

15 Kranz 2001, 176-182.

16 Gibson 1952, 103-115; Lockhart 1992, 35-40.

17 Gibson 1952, 114.

18 One folio also covers the year 1627 (Lockhart, Berdan, and Anderson 1986: x).

19 Lockhart, Berdan, and Anderson 1986: 79-84.

20 Lockhart, Berdan, and Anderson 1986, 94, 108.

21 Lockhart, Berdan, and Anderson 1986, 51.

22 Motolinia 1985, 108-109; see also Gibson 1952, 34.

23 Burkhart 2001, 10-11.

24 Nicholson 1971; Townsend 1979; for Maya parallels see Houston and Stuart 1996; Vail 2000.

25 Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City, Inquisición, Libro 37, Expediente 3, 21v.

26 Hvidtfeldt 1958; see also the “Clothing: Skirt, Huipil” Nahua tutorial.

27 “Cada día se leuantauan muy de mañana en rriyendo el alua, y ellas mismas ponían su ofrenda a los dioses sobre vn altar que thenían en los patios de sus cassas. En aquel altar estaua vn brasero rredondo con sus brasas y allí la señora ofrescía su ynçienso al mesmo fuego que los thenía por dios, y tanbién o en rreuerencia del sol y de los otros dioses” (Motolinía 1996, 433; translated in Smith 2002, 98.)

28 Brumfiel 1998; Smith 2002; Brumfiel and Overholtzer 2009.

29 Carrasco 1999, 112-113.

30 Mundy 1998, 20-21.

31 This palace is sometimes referred to as the Palace of Axayacatl, the emperor who succeeded Moctezuma I and who seems to have enlarged the constructions of his predecessor; see Evans 2004, 20-23.

32 Lockhart 1992, 25.

33 Lockhart 1992; see also Monaghan 1996.

34 Mundy (1998, 23-24) interprets this protrusion as the place sign for Culhuacan, the largest city on the southern shores of the lake. Culhuacan was built at the western base of the Hill of the Star, so our interpretations are in agreement.

35 Mundy 1998, 14.

36 Mundy 1998, 14-16.

37 Mundy 1998, 24.

38 Smith 1990, 154; Kepecs 2003.

39 See Lockhart 1992, 18-19 and Smith 2003, 148 on the basic spatial layout of Nahua settlements.

40 Smith and Heath-Smith 1994, 353.

41 Smith and Heath-Smith 1994: 253.

42 Smith 1992, 327.

43 Smith 1992, 169-177, 373-375.

44 See map in Smith 1992, 345; see also Smith 2010, 147.

45 Smith 1992, 187-207, 309-319. For more on Postclassic central Mexican palaces in general, see Evans 1988 and Evans 2004.

46 Smith 1992, 309, 311.

47 Molina 1555, 45v (Casa. calli. techan), 190v (Patio qualquiera. ythualli); on the excavations, see Smith 1992: 149-165.

48 Smith et al. 1989, 198.

49 Lockhart 1992: 64.

50 Lockhart 1992: 66, 69.

51 Smith 1992, 241-251; Elson and Smith 2001; Hamann 2008.

52 “en cinquenta y dos años apagauan todo el fuego que no quedaua ning[un]o en toda la ti[er]ra y quebrauan todas las ollas y cantaros que auian seruido y los comales y vasijas q[ue] tenian todo lo q[ue]brauan…” Costumbres, fiestas, enterram[ien]tos y diversas formas de proceder de los indios de nueva españa, 1553, Biblioteca de El Escorial, San Lorenzo el Escorial, Ms. K III 8, 387r.

53 Smith 1992, 321-327; Smith and Heath-Smith 1994, 356.

54 Smith and Heath-Smith 1994, 360-365.

55 McCafferty and McCafferty 1994.

56 Smith and Heath-Smith 1994, 359.

57 Houston 1994; Boone 2000, 27.

58 See the cautious reference to manuscript production in Smith and Heath-Smith 1994, 359.