Codices & Manuscripts at the University of Alberta
- Latin American history and culture [microform] : an archival record. Series 9. Collections from the Latin American Library, Tulane University part 1 : Viceregal and ecclesiastical Mexican collection This collection of colonial Latin American manuscripts contains diverse records from church, state, and other sources for the time period 1534-1919, however, the highest concentration of documents are from the late eighteenth century to 1820.
- Archivo General de Centro America, 1544-1821. Guatemala "The Archivo General de Centroamérica (Central American Archives) 1544-1821, in Guatemala, is the most comprehensive collection found anywhere in the world of historical records spanning the period of Spanish rule in the Americas. The holdings of the Archivo include myriad types of documents covering a host of cultural, legislative, judicial, fiscal, economic, religious, military, agricultural and commercial matters pertaining to the Kingdom of Guatemala, an area which, from the time of the Conquest in 1544 through 1821, embraced modern-day Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Mexican State of Chiapas."--Publisher's website.
- Biblioteca hispano-americana, 1493-1810 (Bibliography) Contents: t. 1. 1493-1600.--t. 2. 1601-1650.--t. 3. 1651-1700.--t. 4. 1701-1767.--t. 5 1768-1810.--t. 6. Prólogo. Sin fecha determinada, siglo XVII-XIX. Adiciones. Ampliaciones. Dudosos. Manuscritos.--t. 7. Algo más de León Pinelo. Nuevas adiciones. Sin fecha determinada. Ultimas adiciones. Ampliaciones. Notas biográficas
Archival Sources
- Latin American Studies at the Center for Research Libraries Includes: North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) archive of Latin Americana Princeton University Latin American pamphlet collection Archivo General de Centro America, [1544-1821] British parliamentary papers on Central and South America, 1800-1899 Confidential U.S. diplomatic post records Despatches from United States Ministers to Mexico, 1823-1906 Conquistadors : the struggle for colonial power in Latin America, 1492-1825
- Cuban Heritage Collection The Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami collects, preserves, and provides access to primary and secondary sources of enduring historical, research, and artifactual value which relate to Cuba and the Cuban diaspora from colonial times to the present.
- Gustavo Gorriti's Sendero Luminoso first series Collection inventories at Princeton University
- Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America (AILLA) AILLA is a digital language archive of recordings, texts, and other multimedia materials in and about the indigenous languages of Latin America. AILLA's mission is to preserve these materials and make them available to Indigenous Peoples, researchers, and other friends of these languages now and for generations to come.
- SALALM Latin American & Caribbean Digital Primary Sources This site hosts a database of listings that provide links to open access digitized collections of primary sources that relate to Latin America and the Caribbean. The materials listed are freely available to the public and were created or are hosted at an academic institution associated with SALALM (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials), either through institutional membership or through the personal membership of a staff member. Currently, the listings may be searched by country, genre/format, hosting institution, and collection title. Questions about the content of the listed collections or their links should be directed to the host library or archive. Please note that digital collections may be continuously added to. You are encouraged to revisit for updates and to revisit our site for newly added content to the database.
Official & Government Information
- North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) archive The NACLA Archive of Latin Americana contains "ephemera and serials relating to socioeconomic and political conditions in Latin America from the 1960s through the 1980s." It contains "primary sources such as serials, reports, fliers, pamphlets, posters, manuscripts, and correspondence." The publications generally provide a left-wing ideological perspective covering progressive and human rights issues, but also includes documentation of the political right, the military governments, and the Church. See also separate entries by title
Books
Mesoamerican Codices by
Religious manuscripts from ancient andearly colonial Mexico offer a direct pathway into indigenous worldviews throughthe uniquely Mesoamerican medium of pictography. During the thousands of yearspreceding Spanish invasion, a complex calendrical system developed in theregion, forming the basic organizing principle of this pictorial language. Thisbook offers new interpretations and insights on both calendrics and the relatediconography of Mesoamerican religious manuscripts, based on the author's fieldwork in the Sierra Mazateca in northern Oaxaca. Detailed calendrical analysisis included, along with audio recordings of chants, prayers, and ceremoniesavailable as an online download. The author's novel approach questions acceptednotions of divination, chronology, and the dichotomy between ritual andhistorical time.
ISBN: 9781407359670Publication Date: 2022-06-30
The Florentine Codex by
Honorable Mention, 2021 LASA Mexico Humanities Book Prize, Latin American Studies Association, Mexico Section In the sixteenth century, the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún and a team of indigenous grammarians, scribes, and painters completed decades of work on an extraordinary encyclopedic project titled General History of the Things of New Spain, known as the Florentine Codex (1575-1577). Now housed in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence and bound in three lavishly illustrated volumes, the codex is a remarkable product of cultural exchange in the early Americas. In this edited volume, experts from multiple disciplines analyze the manuscript's bilingual texts and more than 2,000 painted images and offer fascinating, new insights on its twelve books. The contributors examine the "three texts" of the codex--the original Nahuatl, its translation into Spanish, and its painted images. Together, these constitute complementary, as well as conflicting, voices of an extended dialogue that occurred in and around Mexico City. The volume chapters address a range of subjects, from Nahua sacred beliefs, moral discourse, and natural history to the Florentine artists' models and the manuscript's reception in Europe. The Florentine Codex ultimately yields new perspectives on the Nahua world several decades after the fall of the Aztec empire.
ISBN: 9781477318416Publication Date: 2019-09-10
Deciphering Aztec Hieroglyphs by
A portal to the ancient hieroglyphic script of the Aztec Empire. For more than three millennia the cultures of Mesoamerica flourished, yielding the first cities of the Western Hemisphere and developing writing systems that could rival those of the East in their creativity and efficiency. The Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs reigned over one of the greatest imperial civilizations the Americas had ever seen, and until now their intricate and visually stunning hieroglyphs have been overlooked in the story of writing. In this innovative volume Gordon Whittaker provides the reader with a step-by-step, illustrated guide to reading Aztec glyphs, as well as the historical and linguistic context needed to appreciate and understand this fascinating writing system. He also tells the story of how this enigmatic language has been deciphered and gives a tour through Aztec history as recorded in the richly illustrated hieroglyphic codices. This groundbreaking guide is essential reading for anyone interested in the Aztecs, hieroglyphs, or ancient languages.
ISBN: 9780520380370Publication Date: 2021-04-19
Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems by
Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems challenges the adequacy of Western academic views on what writing is and explores how they can be expanded by analyzing the sophisticated graphic communication systems found in Central Mesoamerica and Andean South America. By examining case studies from across the Americas, the authors pursue an enhanced understanding of Native American graphic communication systems and how the study of graphic expression can provide insight into ancient cultures and societies, expressed in indigenous words. Focusing on examples from Central Mexico and the Andes, the authors explore the overlap among writing, graphic expression, and orality in indigenous societies, inviting reevaluation of the Western notion that writing exists only to record language (the spoken chain of speech) as well as accepted beliefs of Western alphabetized societies about the accuracy, durability, and unambiguous nature of their own alphabetized texts. The volume also addresses the rapidly growing field of semasiography and relocates it more productively as one of several underlying operating principles in graphic communication systems. Indigenous Graphic Communication Systems reports new results and insights into the meaning of the rich and varied content of indigenous American graphic expression and culture as well as into the societies and cultures that produce them. It will be of great interest to Mesoamericanists, students, and scholars of anthropology, archaeology, art history, ancient writing systems, and comparative world history. The research for and publication of this book have been supported in part by the National Science Centre of Poland (decision no. NCN-KR-0011/122/13) and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Contributors: Angélica Baena Ramírez, Christiane Clados, Danièle Dehouve, Stanis?aw Iwaniszewski, Michel R. Oudijk, Katarzyna Szoblik, Loïc Vauzelle, Gordon Whittaker, Janusz Z. Wo?oszyn, David Charles Wright-Carr
ISBN: 9781607328766Publication Date: 2020-01-17
Their Way of Writing by
Writing and recording are key cultural activities that allow humans to communicate across time and space. Whereas Old World writing evolved into the alphabetic system that is now employed around the world, the indigenous peoples in the Americas autonomously developed alternative systems that conveyed knowledge in a tangible medium. New World systems range from the hieroglyphic script of the Maya, to the figural and iconic pictographies of the Aztecs, Mixtecs, and Zapotecs in Mexico and the Moche in Peru, to the abstract knotted khipus of the Andes. Like Old World writing, these systems represented a cultural category that was fundamental to the workings of their societies, one that was heavily impregnated with cultural value. The fifteen contributors to Their Way of Writing: Scripts, Signs, and Pictographies in Pre-Columbian America consider substantive and theoretical issues concerning writing and signing systems in the ancient Americas. They present the latest thinking about these graphic and tactile systems of communication. Their variety of perspectives and their advances in decipherment and understanding constitute a major contribution not only to our understanding of Pre-Columbian and indigenous American cultures but also to our comparative and global understanding of writing and literacy.
ISBN: 9780884023685Publication Date: 2011-10-31
Northern New Spain: A Research Guide (Paleography) by
This research guide was first conceived to fulfill multiple needs of the research team of the Documentary Relations of the Southwest (DRSW) project at the Arizona State Museum. In performing research tasks, it became evident that reference material was scattered throughout scores of books and monographs. A single complete source book was simply not available. Hence, the editors of the DRSW project compiled this guide. The territory under study comprises all of northern Mexico in colonial times.
ISBN: 9780816535170Publication Date: 2016-10-11
Oral History in Latin America by ISBN: 9780415717588Publication Date: 2017-04-10
Paleographic Tools
- The Huexotzinco Codex - Lesson Plan Students will analyze a set of pictograph documents created by native peoples of Puebla, Mexico in 1531. Students will take on the role of historians, study the documents, and create a scenario to explain what these documents were for, who created them, and why. The codex was an accounting of excess taxation and students will decode the images and tabulate the quantities of goods paid to the local government.