History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca

The Codex Chimalpopoca is a colonial era Nahuatl compilation of Aztec historical annals and creation mythology, and this University of Arizona Press edition is a scholarly translation by John Bierhorst, a specialist translator of Nahuatl. Its authority rests on Bierhorst's academic training in the language and colonial manuscript tradition rather than on any claim the compilation itself is contemporary with the events it describes, since it was written down generations after the conquest by Nahua scribes preserving older oral material. Use it for what the Aztec historical and mythological tradition itself records, in this careful modern rendering, not as an eyewitness account of the pre conquest events it narrates. Its limit is the layered nature of the source text itself: the compilation blends distinct annals of uneven date and reliability, and Bierhorst's introduction is the place to check which passage belongs to which strand.