182 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy
Mendoza. 61 These four leaders offer an indigenous coun-
terpart to the royal government seated above it. This third
register begins on the left with the ruler of Tlatelolco, where
we see don Diego de Mendoza Imauhyantzin; next to him
to the right is the ruler of Tenochtitlan, Cecetzin, again;
then follows Tlacopan, where we see don Antonio Cortés
Totoquihuaztli, and finally, at the far right, is Tetzcoco,
represented by don Hernando de Pimentel. 62 Glyphs that
render their names, or parts of their names, are attached to
their heads. And as in other manuscripts, they are seated
on the traditional seat of authority, the tepotzoicpalli, with
the glyphic toponyms of their polities connected to the
bases of their seats. The artist renders them conservatively,
in static profile, in contrast to the dynamic and unsettled
postures of the figures seated above, a visual choice also
made in other native manuscripts of the period.
Although we know that the celebration of the oath took
place on the Plaza Mayor, and that standard protocol would
call for the indigenous leader of Tenochtitlan, Cecetzin, to
be preeminent, this manuscript from rival Tlatelolco shows
the scene differently. Don Diego de Mendoza, the ruler of
that polity, is shown in a position of greater prominence:
his tepotzoicpalli is slightly larger than those of this three
companions, and while they wear fringed tilmatli that are
not decorated (although Totoquihuaztli’s tilmatli is tinged
a slight pink), his carries a band of bold black ring shapes,
framed by two black bands, the same pattern that indig-
enous buildings of authority, like the tecpan of Mexico-
Tenochtitlan, carried on their façades. Since don Diego
was most likely the patron of this manuscript, his status
here may have been enhanced at his request, a visual record
of the jockeying for power that valley elites engaged in both
before and after the Conquest.
We can read in this image the political subjugation of
indigenous lords to their new Spanish masters seated above.
But of course, the event was about everyone’s—Spaniards’
and indigenes’ alike—subjugation to the newly anointed
king. Notwithstanding, the fourth register, at the bottom
of the page, makes it clear that this is a Nahua-inflected cel-
ebration carried out in the Spanish Plaza Mayor, translated
into indigenous terms, just as the oath that these seated lords
took was translated into Nahuatl. A meticulous depiction
of an eagle is at the left of the scene, but this is no ordinary
eagle. The body of this “eagle” is red, and the upper part of
his wings and tail are yellow. The wing and tail feathers are
blue-green. They are the same color as the feathers above in
what appears to be either a quetzal-feather headdress, or a
quetzalpatzactli, a quetzal-feather back device, that here has
been repurposed as a standard, attached to the pole hold-
ing the pennant that flies above the scene with yet another
feathered bird affixed to its top. 63
What we are witnessing in this eagle seems to be not
any real bird, but an elaborate bird costume, very similar to
the bird costume worn by the adjacent dancing figure, on
the left of the fourth register, an indigenous man wearing
a Spanish-style tunic over pants as well as closed shoes,
whose face appears out of the beak of the costume. In front
of him, to the right, are two other costumed figures, both
dressed as winged ocelots. They carry objects in both their
outstretched hands: the outermost figures carry a paddle-
shaped object marked with an s, while the other objects
are leaves, flowers, or feathers. The left figure carries an
oversized blossom and leaf of the huacalxochitl flower, and
the center figure, just its leaf. Such were the accouterments
of ritual dances called mitotes: if we compare these figures
to a scene of pre-Hispanic ritual dancers in the Floren-
tine Codex in figure 8.4, we see a similarity to the figure
at center left who carries the huacalxochitl flower and leaf.
Three of the dancers in the Florentine carry bouquets of
large-petal flowers (perhaps the yolloxochitl) that bear some
resemblance to that carried by the central figure in the Tla-
telolco Codex. The figure at right of the Tlatelolco Codex
carries an oval red feather fan at whose base is a tight ring
of blue feathers; from its handle, four pendants ending
with feathers dangle.figuRe 8.4. Unknown creator, dances of the merchants in honor of
Huitzilopochtli, detail, Florentine Codex, bk. 9, ch. 8, fol. 30v, ca. 1575–- Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Palat. 219, c.
338v. By concession of the Ministry for Heritage and Cultural Activities;
further reproduction by any means is forbidden.