Title: Conchas y caracoles en las pictografías de la obra de fray Bernardino de Sahagún
Description: Lourdes Suárez Diez is professor-researcher Emerita in the Ethnohistory Department of INAH and has been a pioneer in the investigation of the archaeological materials elaborated in shell, has developed multiple works throughout his career, whose main research topics are evidently the prehispanic techniques of manufacture applied to shell objects; the analysis of the functions of the shells in the cultures of ancient Mexico, as well as the study of the conchiological material embodied in the Mesoamerican codices of the Altiplano of Mexico. The foregoing leads us to the publication where Dr. Suarez exposes us, from her experience working with these materials, the identification she makes concretely in the illustrations of two documents: The first memorials and the Florentine Codex. In the first one, he concentrates on the study of the first chapter, where the festivities and rituals of the solar calendar of the Nahuas and of the first gods identified by Sahagún are discussed, since it is in this where the objects of shell and shell are spoken. his representations. The author explains throughout the book that the conchiological material was given multiple uses and formed part of ritual scenes, architectural elements, musical instruments, characteristic ornaments of deities, was raw material to elaborate them, and was part of exchange in networks of trade and tribute given to the mexicas. What is reflected in the documents of Sahagun and his study shows how this material had an undeniable sacred connotation and a strong symbolic charge in the religion of the highlands. It is interesting the description that Dr. Suárez makes of the trappings of the gods and their ornaments because she mentions that generally the shapes of shell objects are not discussed in Sahagún's text despite being represented, which made identification tasks difficult , but his experience in these materials allowed him to propose and present the elements he identifies as shell representations. As for the Florentine Codex, it goes deeper in terms of content and highlights the eleventh book: natural history, since it is pointed out that it is the richest in shell illustrations, whose drawings are very well laid out; also explains that it is in this part of the document where it is possible to observe a taxonomy that describes different species of mollusks that I can identify and infer their origin; He was also able to observe the biological knowledge of the people who drew them, who had very advanced knowledge of these animals since it was evident that they distinguished both gastropod and pelecypod species, as well as their ecological niches. Presents a proposal to identify the materials manufactured in shell and snails, based on the evidence identified during the years of archaeological work, and reviewing the different representations of the illustrated objects, comparing them with archaeological material and also with the descriptions made by the friar Throughout the translations and annotations in the documents, which gave the basis to identify what she interpreted as reliable, cultural and symbolic representations of shell and snail objects as both the informants and some of the cartoonists who worked on the documents were people immersed in the Mexica society at that time, so Sahagun obtained the information firsthand. The book gives us the possibility of approaching the complex system of symbolism and religious ideas in which Mexica society enveloped the elements of this material, as the author tells us, these artifacts were endowed with symbolic charges given culturally, associating them with the wind, to the water, to the music and portrayed them in most of their daily life as in the architecture on battlements finishing off the teocalli, in musical instruments in ritual scenes, in beads finishing the net clops or forming necklaces, earrings and bezotes, pointing out the category of the warrior that carried them; in addition to the symbolism that he had as part of the writing, in the form of beads-disk and olive snails when he finished off the glyph of the water and the illustrations of tears.
Subjects: Illustrations, Criticism, interpretation, Shells, Mollusks, Aztecs, Ethnozoology, Religion, Antiquities, Natural history, Códice florentino, Historia de la conquista de México (Bernardino, de Sahagún), Symbolic aspects
Places: Mexico
People: Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590)