Stories in Red and Black: Pictorial Histories of the Aztecs and Mixtecs - Paperback

by Elizabeth Hill Boone (Author)

Winner, Arvey Award, Association for Latin American Art, 2001
Honorable Mention, Honorable Mention, George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award, Art Libraries Society of North America, 2001

The Aztecs and Mixtecs of ancient Mexico recorded their histories pictorially in images painted on hide, paper, and cloth. The tradition of painting history continued even after the Spanish Conquest, as the Spaniards accepted the pictorial histories as valid records of the past. Five Pre-Columbian and some 150 early colonial painted histories survive today.

This copiously illustrated book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Mexican painted history as an intellectual, documentary, and pictorial genre. Elizabeth Hill Boone explores how the Mexican historians conceptualized and painted their past and introduces the major pictorial records: the Aztec annals and cartographic histories and the Mixtec screenfolds and lienzos.

Boone focuses her analysis on the kinds of stories told in the histories and on how the manuscripts work pictorially to encode, organize, and preserve these narratives. This twofold investigation broadens our understanding of how preconquest Mexicans used pictographic history for political and social ends. It also demonstrates how graphic writing systems created a broadly understood visual "language" that communicated effectively across ethnic and linguistic boundaries.

Front Jacket

The Aztecs and Mixtecs of ancient Mexico recorded their histories in long oral narratives and in images painted on hide, paper, and cloth, which served to keep the fundamental features of the stories pure. The tradition of painting history continued even after the Spanish Conquest, for the indigenous rulers and important native families still needed documents to support their respective positions, and the Spaniards accepted the pictorial histories as valid records of the past. Out of the wealth of documentation that once existed, five Pre-Columbian and some 150 early colonial painted histories survive today.

This extensively and beautifully illustrated book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Mexican painted history as an intellectual, documentary, and pictorial genre. Elizabeth Hill Boone explores how the Mexican historians conceptualized and painted their past and introduces readers to the major pictorial records: the Aztec annals and cartographic histories and the Mixtec screenfolds and lienzos.

Boone focuses her analysis on the kinds of stories told in the histories and on how the manuscripts work pictorially to encode, organize, and preserve these narratives. This twofold investigation broadens our understanding of how preconquest Mexicans understood and presented themselves and how they used pictographic history for political an social ends. It also demonstrates how graphic writing systems developed, like mathematical or musical notation, to convey meaning directly and without a detour through speech, creating a broadly understood corpus of visual conventions that communicated effectively across ethnic and linguistic boundaries.

This book will be important readingnot only for scholars of ancient Mexico, but also for avocational students of Pre-Columbian history who want to learn to read the Aztec and Mixtec codices and learn their stories and legends. Likewise, it offers food for thought to scholars in a variety of disciplines who think comparatively about histories and/or graphic systems of communication.

Author Biography

A recipient of Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle, Elizabeth Hill Boone holds the Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art at Tulane University.