228 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
Figure 6.5 This scene from the Codex Vienna
depicts part of the story of Nine Wind, the Mixtec
equivalent of the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl.
Reprinted with permission from Codex
Vindobonensis Mexicanus I.Graz, Austria:
Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,
1963, folio 48c.some scholars believe that it may be a forgery. The Mayan codices, like the Borgia
Group, are ritual and divinatory in content. The most famous and complete one,
the Codex Dresden,is thirty-nine leaves in length and is believed to date to the thir-
teenth century A.D. (Figure 6.6). It is particularly notable for its complex and very ac-
curate astronomical calculations relating to lunar and solar eclipses and the cycles
of Venus and Mars.
Thousands more of these Precolumbian books might have come down to us if
not for the repressive policies of the Spanish colonial regime. Colonial authorities
confiscated and burned many native books, thinking that the Devil’s hand lay be-
hind the strange pictures and unfamiliar writing. The religious rituals that went along
with some of the texts were also suppressed. With no one performing these rituals,
there was no incentive to replace the confiscated texts. Native peoples who wanted
to keep their ancient books had to hide them. In these hiding places the books often
rotted away or were eventually forgotten. In some places, though, books of divination
survived along with the shamans who consulted them.