PLace-names in mexico-TenochTiTLan • 163the city in which Guzmán plays a starring role, the Codex
Osuna. The codex, whose image of the tecpan we saw in
relation to its construction under Huanitzin in chapter 5
(see figure 5.5), was compiled in 1565 during the official
inquiry conducted by Gerónimo de Valderrama, whom
Philip II had appointed to serve as general inspector
(visitador general de Nueva España), a position with wide-
ranging powers. 58 One of his charges was to organize and
rationalize the system of tribute. His inquiry offered a
forum for airing the long-simmering disputes within the
city. One section of the Osuna was created at the behest
of the city’s indigenous governors to complain of abuses—
usually unrecompensed labor and goods—that the city’s
indigenous residents had given to Crown officials. In other
words, its content mirrors that of the Genaro García 30, but
instead of commoners complaining about their indigenous
overlords, we find those very indigenous lords complaining
about their Spanish higher-ups. Those held responsible
included Viceroy Luis de Velasco, and particular blame was
placed on the judges of the audiencia, including Zorita.
Although dated to 1565, during the reign of Luis de
Santa María Cipactzin (r. 1563–1565), this later lord is not
depicted in the Codex Osuna. Instead, it is Esteban de
Guzmán, who had ruled a decade earlier (r. 1554–1557),
who appears twice in the manuscript. It is quite possible
that this part of the Osuna was drawn up ca. 1555 and then
the original, or a copy, was given to Valderrama a decade
later during his investigation of abuses. 59 Folio 1v is the
reverse of what is now the opening page of the document
but originally was an internal page of a much longer com-
pilation, as is revealed by the pagination, which runs from
463 to 501 (figure 7.14). This page registers a complaint
from ten or so years before, that is, sometime around 1555,
when Viceroy Velasco commanded that lime (a neces-
sary ingredient for stucco, concrete, and whitewash) be
brought into the city for repairs on the palace where the
viceroy lived, as well as on the Chapultepec aqueduct that
ran along the Tacuba causeway. While the text and images
below show us the counters, the bags of lime, and the
Chapultepec place-name that was their destination, the
top of the page is dominated by an exchange between the
viceroy, at left, seated in the curule chair used by Spanish
officials, and Guzmán, standing at right, holding a staff
of office of about six feet long. Both the men speak, their
speech scrolls being the only application of a light blue,
likely Maya blue, on the page; following a convention of
this manuscript, Velasco speaks in a straight scroll to show
his Spanish words, whereas Guzmán’s mouth emits the
more elegant curled scroll of Nahuatl speakers. The visual
trope of facing figures in a delimited space like this one
has a long tradition in Mesoamerican pictorials to show
alliances. The position of their hands—they each point
toward the other with the index finger of their left hand—
is often used in colonial manuscripts to show two figures in
conversation. 60 Most interestingly, Guzmán’s position does
not convey submission (he is not kneeling), nor is he sim-
ply accepting an order, in which case his hand would more
likely be downward turned, with his palm facing toward
Velasco. While much suggests their equality, there are
other elements that suggest an unequal balance of power
between the two figures. First is the presence of Velasco’s
curule chair, a typical sign used to show a Spanish author-
ity figure. Second is his sword, whose sheathed blade is vis-
ible behind the chair; the right to wear a sword was closely
curtailed by law, and rarely do indigenous authority figures
carry swords. Instead, they carry staffs. Another page in
this manuscript makes this clear by showing indigenous
deputies kneeling one at a time before Viceroy Velasco as
they receive their staffs (figure 7.15). The staff in Guzmán’s
hand was also conferred upon him by the viceroy as a mark
of his authority within a political hierarchy established by
the Crown. 61
These images in the Codex Osuna establish Guzmán as
something of a New Man within the still-developing polit-
ical hierarchy of the colony because this is one of the first
images where a native governor is shown in relation to the
viceroy—not a coincidence, but a sign that Guzmán was
actively constructing a role for native leaders that under-
scored their relationship to royal power (see figures 5.5 and
7.14). To begin, he wears clothes that are modifications of
Spanish clothing types: long pants with a long-sleeved
and belted tunic covering his torso; Velasco, on the other
hand, wears the costume of a court official: tight-fitting
leggings under breeches and a kind of greatcoat cover-
ing all. But Guzmán also wears the most distinctive and
expensive item of indigenous male dress, the tilma, “c l o a k .”
Other period portraits of Guzmán, such as the ones in the
Plano Parcial and the Beinecke Map, show him to wear
a cloak with a red border and red stripes, and a parallel
example of a vividly striped cloak can be found worn by
Tocuepotzin, a high-ranking Tetzcocan noble (see figures
4.5, 5.2, and 7.12). If the goal of the cloak was to distinguish
him in a crowd, the deep cherry-red border or stripes set
off against the fine white cotton (which may have even had