alcalde (Osu9v)
This iconographic example of a Nahua town council member called an alcalde (a loanword from Spanish) comes from the Codex Osuna, folio 9 verso (or image 21). It shows a man standing in a three-quarter view, facing toward the viewer’s left. He has the standard man’s haircut. He wears a white (probably cotton) cape with a red border. It is tied in a knot on his left shoulder. Under the cape he has white trousers and a white long-sleeved shirt. In his right hand he holds a staff of office that is taller than he is. Drawing from the Nahuatl text, the viceroy had apparently given him this staff in recognition of the Indigenous town council in Mexico City.
Stephanie Wood
Glyphs for the word alcalde have yet to enter this collection (as of June 2024). But there is a glyph for the name of an alcalde (see below). Alcaldes were members of the town councils (cabildos) that the colonizers introduced into Indigenous communities. Indigenous towns had a degree of local self-governance by having their own cabildos.
Stephanie Wood
1551–1565
Jeff Haskett-Wood
alcaldes, oficiales, títulos, cabildos de indígenas, jueces, juez, oficios
alcalde, a town council officer, a magistrate, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/alcalde
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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