visorrey (Osu1v)
This painting of a viceroy (visorrey, a loanword from Spanish) is included here as an example of iconography that might be useful for reading and interpreting hieroglyphs. It comes from the Codex Osuna, folio 1 verso (Image 5). This colonial ruling figure was don Luis de Velasco, as the gloss indicates. He is seated on a carved wooden curule chair, a symbol of his authority. He also carries a sword, gestures with both hands, and a speech scroll comes from his mouth. Having a voice was an Indigenous symbol for authority. He is speaking and gesturing to the standing Indigenous man that is visible in the contextualizing image, don Esteban, a juez (judge-governor) who was one of several elite Indigenous men recruited to help with early colonial adjustments in Indigenous communities. Here, however, he registers vigorous complaints against the colonial government. [See: Elizabeth Hill Boone, “Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking,” in Native Traditions in the Postconquest World, eds. Elizabeth Hill Boone and Tom Cummins (1998), p. 168.]
Stephanie Wood
Don Luis de Velasco was one of the viceroys of New Spain who is most fondly remembered in Indigenous-language histories (títulos primordiales) from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, recalled especially for recognizing townships, supporting the creation of cabildos, and recognizing usufruct parcels for agriculture. Here, however, he is shown to be demanding large quantities of lime (cal, in Spanish) for construction. The loanword virrey (which also means viceroy) was taken into Nahuatl as a loanword. Another viceroy, Mendoza, had his own hieroglyphic name that Nahua tlacuilos used for him. See an example below.
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
virreyes, oficios, visorreyes, visorey, visorrey, gobernadores españoles
visorrey, viceroy (a loanword taken into Nahuatl from Spanish), https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/visorrey
virrey
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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