alcalde (Osu7v)
This detail from the Codex Osuna (folio 7 verso, image 17) is included here as an iconographic example of a town council officer called an alcalde, which is a term that was taken into Nahuatl as a loan word. It could refer to a person on a Spanish town council or an Indigenous town council. Here, it refers to a Spaniard. This Spaniard is fully dressed in dark clothing. He is shown in profile, facing toward the viewer’s left. His left arm is raised, and he is pointing with his index finger. A red and white speech scroll appears as though it came from his mouth. He carries a staff of office, carries a sword, wears a hat, and he has a beard.
Stephanie Wood
The group of Spaniards visible in the contextualizing image is referred to in the Nahuatl text as “yn castilteca” (Castillians, reflecting another term taking into Nahuatl from Spanish). There were never huge numbers of Spaniards inside Indigenous communities in the Spanish colonial period. They would make visits in the sixteenth century with the purpose of introducing changes to landholding, local governance, and tribute (tax) collection, for example. But they preferred to live in Mexico City or in their own provincial towns.
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
cabildos, oficios, oficiales coloniales, hombres, españoles
alcalde, a town council officer, judge, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/alcalde
caxtilteca, Spaniards or Castilians, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/caxtilteca
el alcalde
Stephanie Wood
Library of Congress Online Catalog and the World Digital Library, Osuna Codex, or Painting of the Governor, Mayors, and Rulers of Mexico (Pintura del Gobernador, Alcaldes y Regidores de México), https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_07324/. The original is located in the Biblioteca Nacional de España.
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