Tributes of Tzintzuntzan and Tlalpujava : manuscript, 1542-1552.

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Decoration: The drawings are arranged in about 16 parallel horizontal lines. The drawings are outlined in black ink. The only other colors used are gray (used to color the hair of the Indians shown) and a faded yellow (used to color two different types of food). The drawings depict items of tribute and are typical of the conventionalized representations in Mexican Indian pictorial manuscripts of the mid-16th century. Among the items shown are (from top to bottom) 100 bowls (shown by five platters each surmounted by the Indian sign for 20, a flag-like device known as "pantli"), 30 large bowls (the decorated containers surmounted by the "pantli" numeral and the ten attached circles), two turkeys (only their heads are shown), one load of maize, two loads of cotton, other objects representing various foods and articles of clothing, and 45 Indians (for service in the mines). At the bottom and inverted with respect to the other drawings is a 60 day calendar with every seventh day surmounted by a cross (representing Sundays). The calendar has to do with the periodicity of the tribute and is mentioned in the text.

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The manuscript is no. 7 of List No. 3 of the collection given to the Institute for Advanced Study by Robert Garrett in 1942. It was described as lot no. 243 in the Sotheby and Co. auction catalog of November 9-10, 1936 (Sotheby and Co., 1936: 36). The description in that catalog is in error in stating, "Ö MS. in Otom ̕dialectÖ" but correctly reports the dates 1542 and 1552 that appear in the Spanish texts on the manuscript. It was purchased by Garrett in November of 1936 through or from the London firm of Bernard Quaritch. With the manuscript as a single page typescript description in French from which circumstance it would appear that it was in France before the 1936 sale. On the verso of the manuscript is the inscription, "No 10 / 3 Inventario"; this is the Boturini collection inventory number that was applied in either 1743 or 1745. Short descriptions of the manuscript appear in five different inventories of the Boturini collection and are quoted below. Aside from the Boturini inventory number there are no other indications on the manuscript of prior ownership. Garrett deposited this manuscript at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1942 at which time he described them briefly in the "Garrett Collection List No. 3." Garrett donated the item along with several other manuscripts to the Princeton University Library in 1949.

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The manuscript depicts the tribute of Tarascan and Otomí Indians of the mines of Tzintzuntzan and Tlalpujava (Michocan, Mexico) in traditional Mexican Indian colonial picture writing and Spanish. The Indian drawings are on the recto only; the Spanish texts begin on the recto and continue on the verso. The main text is dated 1542 and this is thus the date of the drawings; a later legal statement is dated 1552. The manuscript bears four different texts in Spanish. The first occupies 21 lines on the recto (the first six of which are very faded) and continues for six lines on the verso, followed by various signatures. The second, third, and fourth texts are on the verso and occupy 10, 4 and 11 lines, respectively. The first, second, and fourth texts are by different 16th century hands. In addition to these texts, a single line of gloss on the recto appears to read: "Información y comutación (?) de los Yndios Tarascos del pueblo de Acámbaro (?) que está en encomienda."

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