Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl : the once and future lord of the Toltecs / by H.B. Nicholson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nicholson, H. B. (Henry B.)

Series:

Mesoamerican Worlds

Mesoamerican worlds

Mesoamerican worlds Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Quetzalcoatl (Mesoamerican deity).

Quetzalcoatl.

Quetzalcoatl (Mesoamerican deity)--History--Sources.

Aztec mythology.

Aztecs--History--Sources.

Aztecs.

Toltec mythology.

Toltecs--History--Sources.

Toltecs.

Manuscripts, Mexican (Pre-Columbian)--History and criticism.

Manuscripts, Mexican (Pre-Columbian).

Aztec mythology--History--Sources.

Aztecs--History and criticism.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Sources.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (lxi, 360 p., [8] p. of plates ) ill. (some col.), 1 map ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl: The Once and Future Lord of the Toltecs

Place of Publication:

Boulder : University Press of Colorado, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is the most comprehensive survey and discussion of the primary documentary sources and the relevant archaeological evidence concerning the most enigmatic figure of ancient Mesoamerica. Probably no indigenous New World personage has aroused more interest or more controversy than this Lord of Tollan, capital of the Toltec Empire, who was merged with the prominent Feathered Serpent god, Quetzalcoatl. Speculation began soon after the Spanish Conquest brought Europeans in contact with this ambiguous figure, and scholarly inquiry has continued unabated to the present. The extant literature on this famous man/god is enormous and steadily growing. Professor Nicholson sorts through this wealth of material, classifying, summarizing, and analyzing all known primary accounts of the career of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl, in the Spanish, Nahuatl, and Mayan languages, which Spanish missionaries and Spanish-educated natives recorded after the Conquest. In a new Introduction, he updates the original source material presently available to scholars concerned with this figure. After careful consideration of the evidence, he concludes that, in spite of the obvious myth surrounding this renowned Toltec priest-ruler, at least some of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl's recorded life and deeds are drawn from historical fact. Nicholson also contends that the tradition of his expected return probably played a role in the peaceable reception of Cortés by Moctezuma II in Mexico's Tenochtitlan in the fall of 1519. Including new illustrations and an index, constitutes a major contribution to Mesoamerican ethnohistory and archaeology.

Contents:

I. Central Mexico : Nahuatl

A. Earliest accounts of the basic Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

1. The Historia de los Mexicanos por sus pinturas

2. The Juan Caño Relaciones

3. The Histoyre du Mechique

4. The Leyenda de los soles

5. The Historia general (universal) de las cosas de (la) Nueva España of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún

6. The Anales de Cuauhtitlan

B. Important supplementary accounts of the basic Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

1. Motolinía

2. A Toltec elegy

3. Fray Andrés de Olmos

4. The Codices Telleriano-Remensis and Vaticanus A

5. The Crónica X

6. The Historia de Tlaxcala of Diego Muñoz Camargo

C. Sources supplying important fragments of information

1. The second Carta de Relación of Fernando Cortés

2. The Relación sobre la conquista de México of Andrés de Tapia

3. Letter of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza to his brother, Diego de Mendoza

4. Viceroy Mendoza's letter to Oviedo

5. The Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca

6. The Relación de Cholula of Gabriel de Rojas

D. Sources providing only scraps of information

1. The anonymous conqueror

2. The Relación de Coatepec Chalco of Francisco de Villacastín

3. The Relación de Ahuatlan y su partido of Salvador De Cárdenas

4. The Relación de Tetzcoco of Juan Bautista Pomar

5. The Crónica Mexicayotl

E. Late, probably distorted, versions of the basic Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

1. The Historia de los Indios de Nueva España e islas de tierra firme of Fray Diego Durán

2. The Relación del origen de los Yndios (Códice Ramirez) of Juan de Tovar

3. The Muñoz Camargo/Torquemada account of Quetzalcoatl

4. The writings of Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl

5. The Memorial Breve acerca de la Fundación de la Ciudad de Culhuacan of Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin.

II. Central Mexico : non-Nahuatl

III. Oaxaca

A. La Mixteca

B. Zapotecapan

IV. Chiapas

1. Fray Francisco Núñez de la Vega

2. Pablo Félix Cabrera

3. Ramón de Ordóñez y Aguiar

V. Highland Guatemala

1. The Popol Vuh

2. Título de los señores de Totonicapan

3. Títúlos de los antiguos nuestros antepasados, los que ganaron estas tierras de Otzoyá antes de que viniera la fe de Jesucristo entre ellos, en el año de mil y trescientos

4. Papel del origen de los señores

5. The Fuentes y Guzmán genealogy

6. The Annals of the Cakchiquels

7. The Historia de los Xpantzay

VI. The Pipil

VII. Nicaragua

VIII. Tabasco-Campeche

IX. Yucatan

1. The "catechism" of Francisco Hernández in Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas's Apologética historia de las Indias

2. Fray Diego de Landa's Historia de las cosas de Yucatán

3. The Historical recollections of Gaspar Antonio Chi

4. Historical references in the Books of Chilan Balam

X. Archaeological evidence possibly relevant to the Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

XI. Some interpretations of the basic data presented

A. The basic Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

B. The possible historicity of the Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl of Tollan tale

C. Supplementary aspects of the tale

1. Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl vis-à-vis the "Toltec problem"

2. Chronological aspects

3. Geographical aspects

4. Nomenclatural and etymological aspects

XII. Conclusions.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [293]-342) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786610501168

1-280-50116-2

0-87081-710-8

OCLC:

1024270893