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173 N o t e s o f M i d d l e A m e r i c a n A r c h a e o l o g y a n d E t h n o l o g y Carnegie Institution of Washington Division of Historical Research No. 44 November 14, 1944 The Graphic Style of the Tlalhuica R. H. Barlow The chief purpose of the present note is to make the codex available as a touchstone for the Tlalhuica art style. A summary comment on the subject matter of the codex, however, will not come amiss. The tracing measures 80 by 88 cm. It has been colored by hand with a cream background suggesting native paper, which agrees with Sr. Mena’s note, and a few details are painted in weak greens, browns, pinks, and grays. It is obviously a colonial production but one which follows native styles, and it deals with matters of genealogy, tribute, and landowning. Left Hand of the Codex. Down the left margin six chiefs sit on mat “thrones,” all with closed eyes denoting that they are dead. In the center of the codex a vertical column of ten other figures faces them, only the bottom one being painted with an open (living ) eye. This personage is clearly the descendant of so many generations, the last figure in a 300-year stretch, if we assume the conventional number of thirty years to a generation. On this basis the first figure in the central column would be the founder of the dynasty in Chichimec times, around A.D. 1200. It will be noted that the areas of matting are drawn as if to represent a great variety of weaves. Between these two columns of dignitaries are six human heads, two of them female, as the coiffure indicates, and eight turkey heads accompanied by an equal number of what appear to be eggs. Each egg in turn bears the fern-shaped symbol for 400. In the top row in front of the female heads are two rolls of paper tied about (Fig. 44.1i) and a sharp-pointed One of the means by which the boundaries of prehispanic Mexican cultures may be traced is by mapping the codical and petroglyphic styles of different zones. Connections between these areas and linguistic or ethnic groups will then often become clear. It is true that we now know with certainty that the Nuttall and Vindobonensis group come from such towns as Tilantongo and Teozacualco in Oaxaca, as Caso has established on the basis of the unpublished codex of the latter town. This same style of painting obtained as far west as Tecomaixtlahuacan (Schmieder 1930, Appendix I), and other frontiers can doubtless be defined A second distinctive style, that of the Borgia group, has been linked to the Tlaxcala area via the altars of Tizatlan. But a number of art styles remain to be defined geographically (the Huamantla style, for example) and the graphic traditions of Morelos have never been examined. A good specimen of the style I shall call Tlalhuica , for reasons advanced below, is afforded by the Codex of Xochitepec, Morelos, a tracing of which was generously loaned the writer by Sr. Guillermo Echaniz (Fig. 44.2). This codex was seen and traced by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, and the tracing exhibited in Madrid in 1892, though it does not appear in the published catalogue of that exhibition. Later the tracing came into the hands of Sr. Ramon Mena, who wrote a one-page explanation identifying it as coming from Xochitepec, Morelos. It was purchased from him by Sr. Echaniz. Where the original is, does not seem to be known. r. H. Barlow 174 tepetl glyph; and in the second row, immediately below the latter, a house decorated with checkerboard painting. In the left central part of the codex, below the turkey heads, six squares, one of them having two divisions, denote six milpas. As these do not have the glyphs of their proprietors painted inside them, it is possible that their ownership was under discussion, giving occasion to the painting of the codex. In the lower left-hand corner a person of authority in a Spanish hat sits on a Spanish chair above another tepetl sign, toward which two streams flow from two smaller plots of land. These two small plots seem to be property of the two masculine heads drawn close to them, heads which are accompanied by a symbol...

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