Barbara_E._Mundy]_The_Death_of_Aztec_Tenochtitlan

154 • The deaTh of azTec TenochTiTLan, The Life of mexico ciTy

(as the symbol of a saint) as collection point for tribute
goods. What these pages seem to show is that “Moyotlan,”
as rendered here, is less a defined geographic entity than
two very different social contracts. In one of these, people
were connected by shared livelihoods in a shared space; in
another, they were bound vertically to overlords, the con-
nections between them materialized in a flow of goods that
was increasingly a one-way current.
On two other pages, we see another tension between
proper nouns (figures 7.9 and 7.10). Folios 9v and 10v show

the luxury goods produced by two groups: indigenous

sculptors and indigenous painters, who use a distinct

logogram to identify themselves at the top register of

each page, below the count of turquoise years. The sculp-

tors represent themselves with a small bent arm holding

a sculptor’s tool in front of a decorated band, while the

painters represent themselves as an arm with a paintbrush,

also in front of a decorated rectangle, presumably a sheet

of paper. (The facing pages are either blank or missing and

thus not reproduced here.) These artisans do not identify

figuRe 7.9. Unknown creator,

tribute paid by the sculptors of

Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Genaro García

30, fol. 9v, ca. 1553–1554. Nettie Lee

Benson Latin American Collection,

University of Texas Libraries,

University of Texas at Austin.