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The Nahua Scribes: How the Conquered Wrote Their Own Conquest
Description
We've heard the Spanish version of the conquest — but what about the voices of the conquered? In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the indigenous scribes and chroniclers who recorded their own history in the aftermath of the fall of Tenochtitlan. From the Florentine Codex — a monumental twelve-book encyclopedia produced by Bernardino de Sahagún and his Nahua collaborators — to the annals of Chimalpahin and the poetic Cantares Mexicanos, we see how Nahua scholars used alphabetic writing in their own language to preserve their culture, challenge Spanish narratives, and offer a perspective often lost in the standard story. We'll meet the tlacuiloque, the painter-scribes who adapted European techniques to record pre-Hispanic traditions, and learn how these sources complicate our understanding of the conquest. A story of resistance, adaptation, and the enduring power of the written word — in Nahuatl.