Tlaxcaltecaness of the Cantares mexicanos: paleography and translation

Abstract

On the occasion of the exact 500 years of the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico-Tlatelolco in this year of 2021, a historical success popularly known as “Conquest of Mexico”, we present the paleography and the first translation of the last song of the colonial manuscript Cantares Mexicanos preserved in the National Library of Mexico into Brazilian Portuguese directly from the Classical Nahuatl. The song appears in the folios 83 (front) to 85 (front) and deals with the protagonism of the Tlaxcaltecas in the process of conquest of the Mexica or Tenochca, the leading people of the Triple Alliance in the Mesoamerican territory since 1428, thus deconstructing the almost unquestionable historical fact of the absolute victory by the Spaniards, and of the defeat of all Mesoamerican peoples. On the contrary, the song, entitled Tlaxcaltecaness in translation, strengthens the indispensability of the Tlaxcaltecas and other independent Nahua peoples as allies, as well as that of the interpreter Malinche, whose link with Hernán Cortés was central to the seizure of power, which makes them equally conquerors.