Cortés (LTlaxUT2b)
This iconographic example is included here for possible comparisons with Nahuatl hieroglyphs. It has a focus on “don Hernando Cortés, Capitán” as he was riding his horse through the regions of Tlaxcallan and soliciting allies for his planned seizure of power in Tenochtitlan, which he would have secured by 1521. In this scene, he is riding a horse with woven black straps covering its rear end. He sits on a saddle and puts his foot into a stirrup. He holds the reins of the probably brown leather tackle in his right hand. Around the horse’s neck is a possibly brown leather collar with a scalloped shape and seemingly decorated with bells. Cortes wears a black tunic and jacket with dark gray tights and shoes. He wears a large hat with a wavy brim and a large white feather stuck into the far side.
Stephanie Wood
The contextualizing image shows Cortés approaching an Indigenous noble named Tepoloateuctli (or Tepoloatecuhtli, the Lord Who Makes People Perish). This name is close to that of another person who appears in this manuscript, Tlehuexoloteuctli. But they are distinct individuals. Also appearing in the contextualizing image is Marina (a.k.a., Malintzin and Malinche). She is busy doing her interpreting here, gesturing with both hands and pointing both index fingers toward Tepoloateuctli. These people are on a road that has human footprints made from shod feet and from horse hoof prints or horseshoes. The clothing in this scene is annotated in other records that come from this manuscript, but what is new here is a handheld bouquet of flowers or feathers that is tied in two places for the ease of grasping. This may be a gift being presented to Cortés by Tepoloateuctli.
Stephanie Wood
don hrdo. cortes. capitan.
don Hernando Cortés, Capitan
Stephanie Wood
1540s
Jeff Haskett-Wood
encuentro, alianza, entrada, expedición, caballo, nobles, interprete, interpretes, textiles, mapilhuia
Cortés, leader of the Spanish invasion of 1519, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/cortes
Cortés
Stephanie Wood
Benson Latin American Collection, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, The University of Texas at Austin https://collections.lib.utexas.edu/catalog/utblac:3c754fd0-b27f-4af7-9cf...
The Benson Library has kindly provided the digital images and permission to put them into our Mapas Project in 2015. Use and reproduction from this project: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/, but please also cite the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, ed. Stephanie Wood, (Eugene, Ore.: Wired Humanities Projects, ©2020-present). Version 1.0.
