Testaments of Toluca
By: edited and translated with commentary and an introductory study by Caterina Pizzigoni.
Contributors: Pizzigoni, Caterina.
Series: UCLA Latin American studies -- v. 90; Nahuatl studies series -- no. 8; Nahuatl series -- no. 8.
Publisher: Stanford University Press; UCLA Latin American Center Publications
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif; [Los Angeles]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 250
ISBN-13: 9780804756075
Subjects: Nahuas -- History -- Sources; Nahuas -- Mexico -- Toluca de Lerdo -- History -- Sources; Wills -- Mexico -- Toluca de Lerdo; Toluca de Lerdo (Mexico) -- History -- Sources
Genres: Sources.
Description: "Testaments written in their own language, Nahuatl, have been crucial for reconstructing the everyday life of the indigenous people of central Mexico after Spanish contact. Those published to date have largely been from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Testaments of Toluca presents a large body of Nahuatl wills (98) from 1652 to 1783 from an important valley not much studied, thus greatly enlarging our perspective on the evolution of indigenous society and culture in central Mexico. Each testament is transcribed, translated, and accompanied by a commentary on the testator's situation and on interesting terminology. A substantial introductory study fully analyzes the testamentary genre as seen in this corpus (a first) and summarizes the content of the documents in realms such as gender, kinship, household, and land. Wills are very human documents, and the apparatus draws out this aspect, telling us much about indigenous life in central Mexico in the third century after Spanish contact. All this makes the book of potential interest to a broad spectrum of readers."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 249-250).