Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol.

65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167

ISSN 0071-1675

ARTÍCULOS

Nahua Perspectives and Linguistic Expressions

in the Colonial Pictographic Catechisms:
The Examples of Counting and Making
Perspectivas y expresiones lingüísticas nahuas
en los catecismos pictográficos coloniales:
los ejemplos de contar y hacer

Elizabeth Hill BOONE

Tulane University (Estados Unidos)
[email protected]

Abstract
The pictographic catechisms from colonial Mexico usually employ figural representations
that depict the persona, actions, and objects expressed in the Catholic doctrinal texts. Al-
though some images work via rebus to represent Nahua words and phrases, others represent
ideas and actions that could be expressed by a range of words related to the same concept,
usually some variation of the same indigenous root. This paper examines this process and
shows how such symbolic images could convey a richer meaning not necessarily obvious in
the specific words they signified. Rather, the images touched upon fundamental understand-
ings and perspectives that were grounded in the practice of ordinary Nahua life. Two expres-
sions in particular, those related to counting (pohua) and making (chihua), exemplify how
Nahua understandings of the fundamental cultural actions shaped the expression of Catho-
lic knowledge. These occur in a catechism from the colonial barrio of San Sebastián Atzacualco
in Mexico City that is particularly rich in Nahuatl linguistic signification.
Keywords: Pictographic catechisms, Catholic doctrine, Nahua linguistic expressions,
counting, weaving, Atzacualco

Resumen
Los catecismos pictográficos coloniales suelen emplear representaciones figurativas que describen
las personas, las acciones y los objetos expresados en los textos doctrinales católicos. Aunque
algunas imágenes funcionan vía rebus para representar palabras y frases nahuas, otras represen-
tan ideas y acciones que podrían ser expresadas por una gama de palabras relacionadas con un
mismo concepto, generalmente alguna variación de la misma raíz indígena. Este artículo exa-
mina este proceso y muestra cómo tales imágenes simbólicas pueden transmitir un significado
más rico que no es necesariamente obvio en las palabras específicas que significan. Más bien,
las imágenes tocaban significados y perspectivas fundamentales que se basaban en la prácti-
ca de la vida cotidiana de los nahuas. Dos expresiones en particular, las relacionadas con
contar (pohua) y hacer (chihua), ejemplifican cómo la comprensión nahua de acciones culturales

Fecha de recepción: 2 de marzo 2022 | Fecha de aceptación: 22 de junio 2022 

© 2023 unam. Esta obra es de acceso abierto y se distribuye bajo la licencia
Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.es 
144 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

fundamentales dio forma a la expresión del conocimiento católico. Éstas aparecen en un ca-
tecismo del barrio colonial de San Sebastián Atzacualco en la Ciudad de México que es particu-
larmente rico en significado lingüístico náhuatl.
Palabras clave: Catecismos pictográficos, doctrina católica, expresiones lingüísticas nahuas,
contar, tejer, Atzacualco

Throughout his long and distinguished career, Alfredo López Austin

brought to light the perceptions, understandings, and labors of Nahua men
and women. His focus was not on the aspirations and achievements of the
political lords, but instead on the worldviews, ideologies, and situations
of the population as a whole. Brilliantly, he has allowed us to understand how
the Nahuas thought and to know something about the circumstances that
shaped their daily lives. In this present essay, I pay tribute to Alfredo by
showing how the mundane human tasks of counting items and making
things came to be translated after the conquest into pictographic images
that functioned purposefully in sacred Catholic orations and doctrinal texts.
The painters who were versed in indigenous pictography drew on their
Nahua linguistic roots to advance Catholic efforts.
When the Catholic catechism was introduced into Mexico shortly fol-
lowing the conquest, it represented a challenge for indigenous pictography,
which had to confront, recognize, and eventually accommodate and em-
brace these new texts. Pictography had previously recorded and commu-
nicated indigenous ideologies by means of images organized in spatial gram-
mars, in a pictographic writing system that recorded data, relationships,
and systems but did not usually preserve the linear streams of linguistic
texts. In contrast, Catholicism, as a religion of the book, was grounded in
the “word” and was inextricably tied to texts written linguistically. The
friars brought with them printed cartillas and doctrinas written in Latin and
Spanish to spread knowledge of essential Catholic texts; soon they had ver-
sions printed in indigenous languages. As they taught and preached across
languages, they sometimes also employed didactic lienzos featuring images
of Catholic entities and events as visual aids. But they and the early indig-
enous converts both recognized the value of having a detailed pictograph-
ic expression of the catechism as an aid to instruction and memory. Indig-
enous painters accommodated this need by rendering the catechistic texts
by means of serial images; these they organized horizontally across the
pages of small books in the same way that the catechism was written in

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 145

Europe. This process effectively pulled the figuration of Mexican pictogra-

phy out of its spatially constructed syntax and repurposed it to approach
linear word writing.
Although some of the new images that were created for the pictograph-
ic catechisms conveyed phonetic information via rebus (where sounds were
identified by images of items whose names resemble these sounds), many
more were symbolic, representing ideas and actions that could be expressed
by a range of words related to the same concept, usually some variation of
the same indigenous root. This paper examines this process and shows how
such symbolic images could convey a richer meaning not necessarily pres-
ent in the specific words they signified. Rather, the images touched upon
fundamental understandings and perspectives that were grounded in the
practice of ordinary Nahua life. Two expressions in particular, those re-
lated to counting (pohua) and making (chihua), exemplify how Nahua phe-
nomena shaped the expression of Catholic knowledge.1

Pictographic catechisms

About 30 pictographic catechisms survive today: these include about 24

principal ones that date to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as well
as some half dozen nineteenth-century copies (see Figure 1).2 Although no
surviving examples can be securely and uncontestably dated to the six-
teenth century, three chroniclers describe their properties and use during
that century when the friars first arrived. Bartolomé de Las Casas ca. 1555
and Geronimo Mendieta in the 1590s both describe pictorial catechisms
that employed symbolic images and phonetic hieroglyphs, the phonetic
hieroglyphs rendering the sounds of Latin words. According to Las Casas
(1967, 505) the indigenous painters use figures and symbols to represent
the Christian doctrine by means of rebus. He gives as an example, the word

1
  This essay develops arguments advanced briefly by Burkhart and Boone in Boone,
Burkhart and Tavárez (2017, 56-57, 64, 164, 182, 219, 231). I am very grateful to Louise
Burkhart for her important comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this essay. The
Nahuatl readings are drawn from her knowledge. I am also grateful to Bérénice Gaillemin,
whose 2013 dissertation is a comprehensive analysis of the pictorial catechisms, especially
their graphic vocabulary; she read a version of this article and offered thoughtful and valu-
able suggestions.
2
  See Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez (2017, 1-31) for a descriptive summary and census
of the surviving corpus.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

146 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

Figure 1. Pictographic catechism from the Mexico City barrio of San Sebastián
Atzacualco, f. 2v-3r. Each page 15x10.5 cm, Bibliothèque nationale de France,
Fonds Mexicain 399. Used with permission

Amen, which he said was signified by juxtaposing the signs for water (atl)
and maguey (metl). Mendieta (1971, 246) notes how the phrase Pater Nos-
ter was represented by a banner (pantli) and nopal cactus (nochtli). None
of the existing catechisms has this kind of rebus or this degree of phoneti-
cism, however, nor do any clearly cue Latin texts. Instead, their pictography
aligns more closely to José de Acosta’s 1585 description of a catechism
expressed in figural iconography, whereby images visually represented
beings and concepts. Acosta gives the examples of God and the Virgin
represented by figural likenesses and the phrase “I a sinner, I confess” by
a figure kneeling before a friar (Acosta 1590, 409). When it is possible to
discover the specific language of a catechism, the language most often be-
ing cued is Nahuatl, the principal language spoken in central Mexico at the
time of the conquest.3

3
  Burkhart (personal communication 2018) pointed out that two (bnf 78 and its cognate
bnf 76) are presumed to cue Otomi, as Soustelle (1936, 16) proposed. Gaillemin (2013,

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 147

The corpus of pictographic catechisms is heterogeneous, which suggests

that different versions were developed somewhat independently by differ-
ent authors in different places over time; other variations then arose
through copying. Five major families of cognates have survived, and there
are another five individual exemplars.4 They vary in physical size, date, and
figural style; they employ different pictorial and ideographic conventions;
and they differ in their use of phoneticism. Most of the complete picto-
graphic catechisms—those that are not clearly fragmentary—contain the
basic orations and laws of the Catholic catechism, but they also include
various other texts and order them differently. They are largely unsigned
and undated, but excepting those that were created in the nineteenth-cen-
tury out of antiquarian interest, most probably date to the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, although a sixteenth-century date is possible for some.
Physically most are like small manuscript books in the European bookmak-
ing tradition, sized so that one could carry them around easily.
As one would expect, the iconography of the images derives from both
European and Precolumbian traditions. Images that pertain to entities and
things that are specifically Christian—God and Jesus Christ, for example—
tend to follow European Catholic conventions (see Figure 2a, b), and these
are the great majority. Other images, however, derive from indigenous
Mexican conventions or reflect Precolumbian conceptual paradigms; for
example, a speech scroll is used to signal speech, and a banner can signify
the quantity of twenty (see Figure 3a, b). Indigenous conventions also
qualify and shape some forms that are otherwise European, in a subtle
conflation of traditions; jaguar spots, for example, can decorate thrones to
signify the elite quality of these seats and the high status of those who oc-
cupy them (see Figure 4). Additionally, a number of signifying images are
unique creations, not clearly derived from one tradition or the other but
representing a new iconography developed out of the particularly colonial
situation. The two examples discussed here—pertaining to counting and
making—occur in a catechism that is particularly rich in Nahuatl linguistic
signification; it is a manuscript from the ancient barrio of San Sebastián

538-40) determined that the nineteenth-century catechisms of the García Icazbalceta Group
have a syntax close to Spanish and the others correspond to the syntax of Nahuatl, although
she also notes that some manuscripts (e.g., Humboldt Fragment 16) are composed of symbols
and illustrative scenes that could have been understood by speakers of multiple languages.
4
  Anne Norman’s pioneering study organized the manuscripts into families and unique
works (1985, 455-58); her table is updated in Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez (2017, 22-29).

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

148 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

           a                    b      

Figure 2. Glyphs of the European tradition: a) God the Father (P361), b) Christ
on the cross to signify Jesus Christ (P53). Atzacualco catechism f. 12r and 3v.
Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

  a 
 b 

Figure 3. Glyphs of the indigenous tradition: a) speech scroll to signify speech

acts, rulership, and command/commandments, here with a cross to signify holy
speakership (P70); b) two banners on suns to signify forty (2 x 20) days (P355).
Atzacualco catechism f. 14r and 11r. Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

Figure 4. Mixed glyph: Friar seated on a jaguar-spotted throne hearing confession

(P508). Atzacualco catechism f. 15v. Drawing by Mary Kate Kelly

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 149

Atzacualco in Tenochtitlan/Mexico City, probably painted in the seven-

teenth century and now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (bnf 399)
(see Figure 1).5
Other pictographic examples of the culturally mixed symbols for count-
ing and making also appear in other members of the corpus, and I discuss
the major representatives here. Most of them, like the corpus of picto-
graphic catechisms in general, are identified by the name of the institution
that houses them or the individuals with whom they have been associated
(erroneously or not). The comparative examples include three cognates
with the Atzacualco manuscript—Brown 25, Bodmer, and Tulane—and five
manuscripts that represent different families, some with their own set of
cognates— bnf 77, bnf 78, Egerton, Gante I, and Libro de Oraciones.6 Fol-
lowing the convention established by Justino Cortés Castellanos (1987) for
the Gante I catechism that consecutively numbers the individual picto-
graphs, I refer to the pictographs with a P prefix (e.g., P224); for those
manuscripts whose pictographs have not yet been numbered, I refer to the
page and register.

Pohua and the concept of counting, pertaining

A pictographic convention that draws on both European and indigenous

figuration is the composite glyph that involves the Nahuatl word family of
pohua. The composite glyph is composed of a hand pointing down toward

5
  Sometime after it was painted, glosses were added to seventy-two of its figures er-
roneously identifying these figures as Spanish and Nahua rulers, nobles, and officials. The
glosses do not pertain to the content of the catechism itself.
6
  Locations and major explanatory publications are: Brown 25: John Carter Brown Li-
brary, Codex Indianorum 25, unpublished, image online through library catalog. Bodmer:
Foundation Marin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 905 (Bernand 2009). Tulane: Tulane University
Latin American Library, Ms. Collection 49(8), unpublished, images online through library
catalog. bnf 77: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Mexicain 77, Nahuatl text transcri-
bed in Thouvenot (1994); images http://amoxcalli.org.mx (077 Testeriano 2). bnf 78: Bi-
bliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Mexicain 78 (Resines Llorente 1992, 255-374; 2007b,
119-48). Egerton: British Museum, Egerton Ms 2898 (Berger 2002). Gante I: Biblioteca Na-
cional de España, Ms. Vit 26-9 (Cortés Castellanos 1987; 1992; Resines Llorente 2007a; 2007b,
75-81). Libro de Oraciones: Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, 35-53
(Basich de Canessi 1963; Anders 1988; Dean 1989; Resines Llorente 1996). See Boone,
Burkhart and Tavárez (2017, 22-29) for fuller descriptions and more complete publication
information.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

150 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

several small disks or short vertical lines, qualified by a feather, and a small
affix like an H (which has serifs on the bottom of the verticals but not the
top) (see Figure 5). In the Atzacualco catechism this construction repre-
sents the Nahuatl phrase itech pohui (to him pertain) (Figure 5a) or itech-
tzinco pohui (to him-honorific pertain) (see Figure 5b), which appears six
times in the catechism.7 For example, it is used in the longer expression
“The first seven Articles of the Faith pertain to our Lord God as a deity.”
Louise Burkhart has suggested that the disks or short lines may cue pohui
through its transitive form pohua “to count” (Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez
2017, 231). Indeed, the pointing hand is the kind of gesture one might use
to count out a number of items before one.
The verb pohua covers a range of meanings. Molina (1970, second
pagination 82v) translates poa thusly:

Poa.nite. contar a algunos, o encartarlos, o tener respecto a otro

Poa.nitla. contar cosa de cuentra o numero, o relatar proceso e historia, o leer, […]
Poa.itechnic. aplicar algo a otro, dandole su parte delo que se reparte

Thus, poa not only has the meaning of reading and relating, but also of
counting and pertaining. It is the last definition, the concept of pertaining,
that the Atzacualco author required. He reached it by picturing the action
of counting, which conjures up the same root and sound, and he added to
this gesture two figural qualifiers to approach the intended meaning more
closely, as explained below.
Pohua’s counting definition is a principal one; it cues the semantic
arena of the Spanish contar, which also embraces reading and thus by
extension also the reading of painted books. Most obvious is the use of
pohua in the term tonalpohualli, literally day-count, which is the cycle
of 260-days in the divinatory calendar. The tonalpouhqui, the one who
counts the days, is the diviner who reads out the fates of the tonalpohualli
(Molina 1970, second pagination 149v). An artist of Bernardino de Sa-
hagún’s Florentine Codex pictures him holding a divinatory book and read-
ing the fate for a young child born on the day 10 Rabbit; in this illustration
the diviner points down to indicate the day sign in much the same way
the hand points to the disks in the Atzacualco catechism (see Figure 6).

7
  The “pertaining” construction in the Atzaqualco catechism is at P224, P229, P236,
P287, P432, and P436. Glyphs P229, P432, and P436 use short vertical lines rather than disks.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 151

  a 
 b 
Figure 5. a) Composite glyph for in itechtzinco pohui (that to him pertain)
(P236), and b) the fuller phrase in itechtzinco pohui in totecuyo Dios (that to him
pertain our lord God) (P236-238). Atzacualco catechism f. 8v.
Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

Figure 6. An aged day keeper reading the fate of a child who was born on the day
10 Rabbit, here pointing to a divinatory book. Florentine Codex, Bk. 4, f. 34v
(vol. 1, f. 277v). Manuscript in the public domain. World Digital Library,
General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún:
The Florentine Codex, image 566

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

152 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

Similarly, Sahagún (1950-82, bk. 10: 31) uses the term tlapouhqui (a coun-
ter of things) to refer to soothsayers: “In qualli tlapouhqui tetonalpouiani,”
(translated by Anderson and Dibble as “The good soothsayer [is] one who
reads the day signs for one”).8 Pohua also figures in xiuhpohualli (literally
year count), the cycle of 52-years. The xiuhpouhqui is then the one who
reads the year count, who reads out the annals histories.9
Counting is implicated in the act of divination not just by the counting
of the days but also by the counting of grains. According to several Nahuatl
texts and accounts of the chroniclers written in Spanish, the first human
couple created the calendar and other divinatory systems.10 Cipactonal, the
male, is said to have devised the tonalpohualli, while Oxomoco, the female,
invented the practice of divining by scattering and counting grains of maize.11
Usually the two appear together in figural representations. They are thus
carved together on a boulder near Yauhtepec, where the woman extends
her cup of grains while the man points with a bone awl toward a divinatory
codex, which he is either writing or reading (Anders and Jansen 1988, 112).
They are painted together in the Codex Borbonicus, where, surrounded by
year signs and augural lords, the woman scatters her grains (see Figure 7);
in the Florentine Codex, it is Cipactonal who divines with scattered maize,
while Oxomoco reads the fates in knotted cords (Códice Florentino 1979, bk.
4: f. 3v [1: f. 246v]). In the Codex Magliabechiano (f. 78r) a female physician
divines by casting both maize and beans.12 Since the hand in the Atzacualco
catechism points to three disks, the gesture may refer to the counting of
individual separate items, as in the counting of maize grains.
However, the Atzacualco author intended the sign to signify pohui, the
transitive form of pohua, which means “to be counted” or “to count [for
something]” (Burkhart personal communication 2018; Molina 1970, first

 8
  See also Molina 1970, second pagination 132v.
 9
  Motolinía (1951, 74) describes features of the year count annals history.
10
  Sahagún (1950-82, bk. 4: 4), History and Mythology of the Aztecs (1992, 25), “Historia
de los mexicanos por sus pinturas” (1979, 25), Mendieta (1971, 97), Ruiz de Alarcón (1984,
56, 151), Serna (1953, 252, 263). See also discussion in Seler (1963, 1: 114, 138; 1990-96, 2:
45), López Austin (1988, 1: 238), and Boone (2005, 13-15).
11
  See Tedlock (1982, 62-64, 153, 158-70) for divination by mixing, dividing, arranging,
and counting seeds among the Quiche Maya of Momostenango. For rituals involving the
precise counting and arrangement of objects among the Tlapanec and Mixe see Schultze Jena
(1938, 140-51), Loo (1982), and Lipp (1985).
12
  The Magliabechiano text (f. 77v) explains that the arrangement of the fallen objects
indicated the fate of the illness (Boone 1983, 214-15).

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 153

Figure 7. Oxomoco (left) and Cipactonal (right) in the tonalamatl section

of the Codex Borbonicus, page 21, Bibliothèque
de l’Assemblée Nationale, France. Used with permission

pagination 8v). He therefore added two affixes—the feather and the H—to
guide the reader. Bérénice Gaillemin (2013, 324, 341-42) proposed that
the feather (ihhuitl) could refer to pohui by way of a homophony of the hui
of the second syllables (Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez 2017, 231). Indeed,
as Gaillemin (2013, 341-45) has shown, the feather itself also carries con-
notations related to numbers, counting, and increase, likely derived from
its Aztec use to signify the quantity of 400 (or, metaphorically, innumer-
able). As she notes, elsewhere in the Atzacualco catechism the feather
rises vertically from a hand pointing straight to the right to signify the
conjunction “and;” in Gante I it signifies totality (e.g., Figure 12f); and in

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

154 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

Figure 8. The phrase itech cruz (on the cross), with reference to Christ’s having
died on the cross (P738), where the H signals that the feather
is to be read as itech rather than ihhuitl. Atzacualco catechism f. 24r.
Drawing by Mary Kate Kelly

bnf 78 and Atzacualco it contributes to the graphic expression of counting

and pertaining.13
However, in the Atzacualco catechism, the author consistently adds the
H to the graphic construction, which points to a specific phonetic reading.
The added H suggests that the feather should be read as itech, for the feath-
er corresponds to itech in four other instances when it is added before a
cross to signify in itech cruz (“on the cross”) (see Figure 8) (P323, P329,
P738, P757); twice the H is also present (P738, 757). Throughout the cat-
echism, the H is often employed as a phonetic complement that cues x or
ech (Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez 2017, 64). Therefore, as part of the itech
pohui construction it likely tells the viewer to read the feather as itech
rather than ihhuitl (see Figure 8). Indeed, as Burkhart (personal commu-
nication 2018) pointed out pohui only means “pertain” when it is combined
with the postposition tech to mean “it counts toward [the subject of tech]”
or “is counted in connection with” that subject.
Thus, in order to signify the abstract concept of “pertain,” which
would be difficult to represent visually, the author began with the funda-
mental pohua/counting glyph, which carries the relevant Preconquest
Nahua associations of “counting” and “pertaining.” To this he added the

13
  Soustelle (1936, 16) suggested that in the Otomi catechism bnf 76 the feather refers
phonetically to the Otomi verbal prefix xi-.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 155

feather, which carries its own associations with quantities and counting.
Since the feather could be read variably as ihhuitl or itech, he applied the
H affix then to specify the desired itech reading. The glyphic elements in
the compound work together via Nahua understandings of counting, read-
ing, relating, and pertaining.

Chihua and the concept of making and doing

The Atzacualco catechism, like most others, signifies many phrases that em-
ploy forms of the verb family “to make/create” and “to do” in English, “hac-
er” in Spanish, and “chihua” in Nahuatl. The catechisms speak often of good
and sinful works and deeds, and they invoke God as the “creator of heaven
and earth” and the “maker of all things;” his other title— “all powerful”—
comes as a variation of this. Moreover, they close their prayers with versions
of Amen, translated into Nahuatl as ma iuh mochihua “may it thus be done.”
Some manuscripts signify doing and making by figural action or gesture.
For example, bnf 78 presents a figure holding a stick angled to the ground,
which suggests the action of digging or working the soil and, by extension,
working/doing in general.14 In this way the painter signifies “God as maker
[of heaven and earth]” in both the Apostles Creed and the fifth Article of
the Faith by using the image of a profile, bearded God—identified with the
triangular halo of the trinity or a tripartite aura—holding such a stick as well
as a smaller figure also holding a stick (P131, P385) (see Figure 9a). For this
phrase, Gante I employs a profile figure pointing distinctly to the right, with
two to four dots over the finger for emphasis, as if to direct attention to the
hand as a principal agent of making things (P82, P545) (see Figure 9b).15
In other instances—for example, when the text says that Christ be-
comes or “is made” man—Gante I uses the glyph of a hand holding an
indistinct rectangular shape bifurcated horizontally (P29, P161, P354, P384,
P392, P827) (see Figure 10a). Cortés Castellanos (1987, 206-07) and Resines

14
  It is not decidedly a digging stick, for some other figural images hold a similar stick
as they walk (e.g., the “living” man [P165]), but the stick does appear elsewhere when a
“doing/making” word might be called for (e.g., when Christ is made in the womb of Mary
[P138, P144]).
15
  A variation is the use of the pointed, dotted finger to signify a speech act, as when a
kneeling confessor points before the seated priest (P797, P864) and a seated priest points
and thereby advises the confessor (P951).

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

156 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

 a b 
Figure 9. Figural images that signify God as the maker [of heaven and earth].
a) holding a stick and a small figure also with a stick (bnf 78 P131, f. 4r),
b) pointing with dots for emphasis (Gante I P82, pg. 9).
Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

Llorente (2007a, 90) have suggested that this rectangular shape may be a
fabric cloth or cape or a piece of paper, although it is not possible to iden-
tify the form with any certainty.16 In bnf 77 the glyph for doing/making is
occasionally a hand pointing diagonally to the upper right and flanked by
three differently colored triangles (see Figure 10b).17 This construction may
well be related to the similar Gante I glyph, but it too is equally indecipher-
able. Both Gante I and bnf 78 use other glyphs to signify the concept of
making/doing in other contexts, so this glyph of a gesturing hand that seems
to hold geometric items is only one of the options available to the scribes.
A number of catechisms, including occasionally bnf 78 and Gante I,
signify the “make/do” verb family with distinct and somewhat more ab-
stracted symbols. In particular, many, including the Atzacualco catechism,
use images related to fabric production and weaving.18 Since the verbs “to
make/do” (chihua) and “to weave” (ihquiti) are very different in Nahua
(Gaillemin, personal communication, 2022), the connection between the
two is cognitive rather than phonetic.19 Cloth production was a particularly
labor-intensive occupation in Aztec Mexico, where all fabric was hand wo-

16
  The form differs from the glyph for a paper document—e.g., the Commandments
(P681) —which more clearly pictures the pages of an open book with rows of text.
17
  It appears on f. 1r registers 5 and 7, f. 1v registers 3 and 6, f. 3v register 1, and f. 4v
register 1.
18
  The late manuscripts of the García Icazbalceta group use what appears to be a wing
(León 1900; Resines Llorente 2007b, 201-02), for reasons unknown.
19
  Gaillemin (2013, 277-81, 368, 562-63) has analyzed the full range of images used in
the catechisms to signify expressions involving making and doing.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 157

 a b 

Figure 10. Gestural glyphs for making/creating/doing.

a) Gante I (P29, pg. 5). b) bnf 77 (f. 3v, register 1). Drawing by Mary Kate Kelly

ven from threads that were hand spun, from cotton that was laboriously
picked, cleaned, and carded. Before the conquest, woven cloth was a major
and valuable commodity sent regularly as tribute to Tenochtitlan.20 The
symbol employed by the Atzacualco author is a vertically concave arc that
cups a round form qualified by parallel lines angled to the right (see Figure
11a). Burkhart and I have interpreted this as a ball of spun thread cupped
by a form that preserves and echoes the ball’s roundness (Boone, Burkhart
and Tavárez 2017, 56-57). The edges of the arc turn back on themselves and
work visually with the diagonal lines to impart energy to the glyph.
This identification of the symbol as a ball of thread finds support in
related symbols for making/doing employed in several other catechisms.
Two cognates of the Atzacualco catechism (Brown 25 and Tulane [see
Figure 11c, d]) use an elongated diamond shape that resembles a spindle
covered by its thread; these glyphs likewise feature parallel lines to sug-
gest the continuous wrapping of the thread. Another cognate, Bodmer,
employs what appears to be an abstracted, somewhat degenerated repre-
sentation of a thickly threaded spindle that is rounded on the top and
pointed on the bottom where the spindle meets the cup on which it twirls
(see Figures 11b). The same glyph appears in Gante I in the phrase “May
it thus be done” (see Figure 12f). In these instances, angled lines similarly
indicate the winding of the thread around the core. A triangular base com-
pletes the glyph in Bodmer and Gante I.21

20
  For example, cotton mantles are included as tribute from many provinces in the
Codex Mendoza and Matrícula de Tributos.
21
  Cortés Castellanos (1987, 198-99) identified this motif in Gante I (where it appears
before Christ’s initial in the Amen ending) as a baton, which he felt was in harmony with

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

158 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

a         b         c           d

   e         f          g           h 

Figure 11. Symbols for words and phrases involving chihua (making, doing):
a) Atzacualco (P215, f. 7v); b) Bodmer (f. 27r, register 4); c) Brown (f. 2r, register
4); d) Tulane (f. 4r, register 4); e) and; f) Libro de Oraciones (f. 1v, register 4;
f. 2r, register 4); g) bnf 78 (P75, f. 2v); h) “works” in bnf 78 (P50, f. 2r).
Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

a           b          c           d

      e                      f

Figure 12. Glyph compounds for “Maker of all Things” or “All Powerful” as a title
of God: a) Atzacualco (P131, f. 5v); b) Bodmer (f. 14v, register 3); c) Brown
(f. 2r, register 4); d) Tulane (f. 2r, register 2); e) Libro de Oraciones
(f. 4v, register 1); f) Gante I (P81-82, pg. 8). Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 159

There are variations in other manuscripts that also seem to carry a

fundamental reference to fabric production. In the Libro de Oraciones the
motif is a rectangular piece of woven cloth, usually pictured with a fringed
edge and having a stepped pattern (see Figure 11e, f).22 In bnf 78 it is a
white scalloped oval that has a red disk in its center and two red and two
green oblongs extending out like a St. Andrews cross (see Figure 11g); this
is used on the occasions when a symbol rather than a figure in action is
used to signify making/doing, as in the phrase “as is done.” Resines Llorente
(1992, 276, 280; 2007b, 201-02) and Gaillemin (2011, 216) have identified
this motif as a flower, and, indeed, the red center and green oblongs point
in this direction. But elsewhere in the bnf 78 manuscript, flowers are con-
sistently represented in the form of a green stem with a red and yellow
bloom (e.g., P104, P74). Given the use of fabric imagery in the other man-
uscripts, I suggest that the scalloped form in bnf 78 more likely refers to a
ball of cotton, which would fit the general fabric template. The red oval
center and the oblongs might then be visual vestiges of the rust colored
center and bracts of picked cotton. When, in bnf 78, three of these cotton-
like scalloped ovals are grouped together they signify the plural “deeds”
(P50, P567) or “works [of mercy]” (P467) (see Figure 11h).
The figural images and symbols for “do/make” frequently coordinate
with glyphs that signify “all” or “many” to yield the title of God as the
“maker of all things” or “all powerful.”23 In the Atzacualco catechism and
its cognates (Brown 25, Bodmer, and Tulane), “all” and “many” are sym-
bolized by a set of four or five parallel lines, sometimes joined (see Figure
12a-d).24 The Libro de Oraciones employs a related device: a hand point-
ing up to three sets of five or six short parallel lines, each set grouped by
an arc, this being a version of the frequent practice of tallying units of

Christ’s persona and works. Resines Llorente (2007a, 87) described but did not attempt to
identify it. Gaillemin (2011, 216) read it as a flower (xochitl), noting the flower that is part
of the Amen in Egerton that signifies mochicha. This would be an attractive identification,
given Gaillemin’s interpretation of the element in bnf 78 as a flower, but it does not hold
when the motif appears apart from the Amen construction, and it fails to explain the ball in
bnf 399 and the tall diamond-shaped “making/doing” motifs in Brown 25 and Tulane.
22
  Anders (1988) and Dean (1989) associated this rectangular motif in Libro de Ora-
ciones with the concepts of making and doing, but they did not identify it.
23
  León (1900, 728) was the first to identify the motif in Brown 26. Normann (1985,
295) first recognized the reading in Atzacualco (bnf 399), Brown 25, and Tulane. Dean (1989,
219) and Anders (1988, 238) recognized it in Libro de Oraciones.
24
  In the cognates the lines are joined together through the middle.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

160 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

five (see Figure 12e).25 Gante I symbolizes “all” with a feather, the com-
mon Aztec symbol for 400 or innumerable (see Figure 12f).26 Consis-
tently in these manuscripts the “all” glyph precedes the “do/make” glyph.
Burkhart has linked this glyphic phrase in the Atzacualco catechism to
ixquich ihueli (“able to do everything”), equivalent to “todopoderoso/all
powerful,” according to the Nahuatl text that the Atzacualco catechism
tracks (Boone, Burkhart and Tavárez 2017, 175). In this expression, then,
the pictographer reached the phrase “all powerful” through the metaphor
of the universal maker.
The individual versions of the doing/making glyphs usually then reap-
pear at the end of many prayers to help signify the closing word Amen,
translated as “may it thus be done”—ma iuh mochihua in Nahuatl (see Figure
13). The “make/do” symbol clearly signifies mochihua. The glyph often fol-
lows the head or body of a rodent, which represents the subordinating con-
junction “as/so/like” (iuh in Nahuatl).27 This construction is employed
throughout the Atzacualco catechism, Bodmer, Tulane, bnf 78, and Libro
de Oraciones, among others (see Figure 13 a-e).28 Although this rodent has
usually been identified as a mouse (quimichin in Nahuatl), Gaillemin (2011,
215-17; 2013, 366-69) has recently suggested it is better interpreted as an
ahuizotl (water beast), which she felt is a better phonographic match to iuh.29
Together the rodent and do/make glyph signify Amen in the Atzacualco
manuscript, Bodmer, Brown 25, Tulane, bnf 78, and Libro de Oraciones.
Given the heterogeneity of the corpus of pictographic catechisms, one
expects variations in how the Amen is ultimately signified and how the
closing phrase of Catholic prayers are expressed. Several manuscripts add

25
  This device is employed to tally units of five in the Codex Xolotl and in various plans
of property holdings: e.g., Humboldt Fragment 8, Codex Santa María Asunción, and Codex
Vergara. See Williams and Harvey 1997.
26
  The feather glyph appears throughout the tribute section of the Codex Mendoza to
signify the quantity of 400.
27
  This reading was first made by Orozco y Berra (1877, 203).
28
  These catechisms that use the rodent to signify “as” in the Amen also use the rodent
elsewhere to cue the word “as,” which appears in statements such as Christ creating his
kingdom “on earth as in heaven” in the Our Father.
29
  Orozco y Berra (1877, 203) was the first to identify the rodent as a rat, which he
correctly noted stood for the subordinating conjunction “as” (como or ansi in Spanish) in
the catechism he studied; that catechism (Orozco y Berra) uses a bird’s wing to represent
“Amen.” Most other scholars (e. g., Normann 1985, 254-59; Van Acker 1995, 413) have agreed
with the rat/mouse identification. Bernand (2009, 36) inexplicably identified the animal in
the Bodmer as an ocelotl.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 161

        a                 b      

         c                 d      

        e                 f      g 

Figure 13. Pictograms for the phrase “Amen” and variants: translated as ma iuh
mochihua (“may it thus be done”): a) Atzacualco (P125-126, f. 6r); b) Bodmer
(27r, register 4); c) Tulane (f. 4r, register 4); d) Libro de Oraciones (f. 2r, register 6);
e) bnf 78 (P65-66, f. 2r); f) Gante I (P48, pg. 7); g) Egerton (f. 2r, register 4).
Drawings by Mary Kate Kelly

to the “may it thus be done” glyphs a capital letter A and sometimes also a
cross, symbol, and/or Christ’s monogram (e.g., Bodmer, Tulane, Libro de
Oraciones [see Figure 13b-d]); bnf 78 follows with just an IS as Christ’s
initials (see Figure 13e). Gante I and its cognates omit the rodent and fea-
ture only the stylized spindle, to signify only “done,” adding at the end a
final cartouche with Christ’s initials or a cross (see Figure 13f).30 bnf 77

30
  As explained earlier, Gante I does not use this spindle to signify “done” or
“make” elsewhere in the catechism, but reserves it solely for the Amen. However, two
manuscripts in the Gante group—Harvard and Orozco y Berra—do employ the rodent

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

162 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

uses only the “done” glyph (see Figure 10b). Uniquely, Egerton uses none
of these motifs to signify Amen but instead relies on phonetic rebuses to
represent the Nahuatl voicing. It uses an upright hand (maitl) to cue the
ma and a flower (xochitl) to cue the mochihua, yielding the phrase “ma iuh
mochihua,” or “may it thus be done” (see Figure 13g) (Galarza and Monod
Becquelin 1980, 96-97, 120-21; Berger 2002, 72). Burkhart (personal com-
munication 2018) points out that the flower can read as “something grow-
ing,” since mochihua can also mean “it is growing,” a nice analogy to “making/
doing.” As a concluding phrase to every prayer in these catechisms, Amen
can be compressed into a single compound glyph (bnf 77, Gante I) or
stretched out into a long statement of four images signifying “As is, Done,
Amen, Jesus Christ” (Bodmer, Tulane, and Libro de Oraciones).
At the core of these words and phrases that relate to “doing,” “making/
creating,” and “deeds/works” is a glyph that, although it varies somewhat
from manuscript to manuscript, references the products and process of
fabric making and weaving. It thus invokes weaving as a fundamental met-
aphor for creating and making, as well as things created and made. This
conceptual link is found in other areas of indigenous ideology as well, as
Cecelia Klein (1982) has shown. In arguing that Mesoamericans conceived
of the heavens and surface of the earth as woven, in opposition to the
tangled disorder of the underworld, Klein (1982, 6) proposed weaving as
a paradigm for much Preconquest Mesoamerican thought. Relevant here
to us the connection she noticed between weaving and creation, that Maya
and Aztec creation and fertility goddesses, for example, were great weavers
(Klein 1982, 15). Klein (1982, 25-29) and Alfredo López Austin (2016,
35-39) after her have also suggested that the Mesoamerican universe was
conceptualized as being folded like cloth.
These making/doing glyphs that allude to fabric production are notable
for uniting the symbolic vocabularies of a number of pictographic cate-
chisms, including those within a family of cognates and those that belong
to separate families. These include Atzacualco and its cognates Bodmer and
Tulane, was well as the separate manuscripts Gante I, bnf 78, and Libro de
Oraciones. It is one of the only sets of abstract symbols to appear so exten-
sively. In contrast, the other glyphs that are found throughout the corpus
tend to be figural images of Catholic being and concepts, such as versions

for “as” in other contexts, although not as part of the Amen (Orozco y Berra 1877, 203;
León 1900, 728-29).

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 163

of God, Jesus, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Mary, and the sacraments. The re-
markably wide distribution of the doing/making symbol points to the fun-
damental importance of indigenous labor.
Most of the pictography in the colonial Mexican glyphic catechisms is
highly iconic in that its images represent figurally an aspect of what they
signify. They picture the sacred actors and acts, e.g., confession. Despite
written testimonies from sixteenth-century friars that describe rebus
glyphs, there is relatively little use of rebus in the surviving corpus. The
Atzacualco catechism is the exception in that it often employs phonetic
complements to cue different sounds, thereby signaling to the reader which
voicing is desired. The pohua [counting] glyph is one such example, where
the feather and the H affix work together to signify that the glyph is to be
read as “pertaining” rather than “counting.” The chihua [making/doing]
glyphs in their several variations remain ideographic, so the reader relies
on the context to reach the desired word or phrase in each passage. Both
glyphs, however, carry with them associations that continue to channel
Preconquest indigenous thought and action.
Pictographic catechisms are themselves a uniquely colonial blend of
European and indigenous methods of graphic discourse. Physically they
are small books in the European book tradition with texts displayed lin-
early across the pages in registers. And their purpose was specifically to
document the laws and orations of the Catholic faith. However, these cath-
olic texts are expressed in glyphs and figural images that reflect and draw
on the deep tradition of Mexican pictography and painted codices. Although
many of the images naturally stem from European Catholic iconography,
others come directly from preconquest figuration, and still others were
novel creations that reflect indigenous cultural practices and ways of think-
ing that continued after the conquest. The concepts of counting/pertaining
and making/doing are two that represent the conceptual transport from
the preconquest to the colonial world. They add to the well-established
understanding that Nahua cognitive patterns, ways of expression, and prac-
tice continued vigorously after the conquest and profoundly shaped the
early colonial world. Such transfers as these helped to mold European Ca-
tholicism into Mexican Catholicism, experienced, expressed, and under-
stood according to Nahua cultural traditions.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

164 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

Bibliography

Documents

BnF 77: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Mexicain 77.

BnF 78: Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Mexicain 78.
Bodmer: Foundation Marin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 905.
Brown 25: John Carter Brown Library, Codex Indianorum 25.
Egerton: British Museum, Egerton Ms 2898.
Gante I: Biblioteca Nacional de España Ms. Vit 26-9.
Libro de Oraciones: Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, 35-53.
Tulane: Tulane University Latin American Library, Ms. Collection 49.

Published Works

Acosta, José de. 1590. Historia natural y moral de las Indias. Seville: Juan de León.
Anders, Ferdinand. 1988. “¿Hizo o no hizo? Von der Aussagekraft Mexikanischer
Schrift.” In Continuity and Identity in Native America: Essays in Honor of Benedikt
Hartmann, edited by Maarten Jansen, Peter van der Loo, and Roswitha Man-
ning, 193–249. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Anders, Ferdinand, and Maarten Jansen. 1988. Shrift und Buch im alten Mexiko.
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.
Basich de Canessi, Zita (ed.). 1963. Un catecismo del siglo xvi. Mexico City: Edito-
rial Offset.
Bernand, Carmen. 2009. Teotl: Dieu en images dans le Mexique colonial. Paris/Co-
logny: Presses Universitaires de France/Fondation Martin Bodmer.
Berger, Uta. 2002. Gebetbücher in mexikanischer Bilderschrift: Europäische Ikonog-
raphie im Manuskript Egerton 2898 aus der Sammlung des Britischen Museums,
London. Münster: lit.
Boone, Elizabeth Hill. 1983. The Codex Magliabechiano and the Lost Prototype of the
Magliabechiano Group. Los Angeles/Berkeley: University of California Press.
Boone, Elizabeth Hill. 2005. “In Tlamatinime: The Wise Men and Women of Aztec
Mexico.” In Painted Books and Indigenous Knowledge in Mesoamerica: Manuscript
Studies in Honor of Mary Elizabeth Smith, edited by Elizabeth Hill Boone, 9-25.
New Orleans: Tulane University.
Boone, Elizabeth Hill, Louise Burkhart, and David Tavárez. 2017. Painted Words:
Nahua Catholicism, Politics, and Memory in the Atzaqualco Pictorial Catechism.
Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 165

Codex Borbonicus: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Y120). 1974. Graz: Akademische

Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.
Codex Magliabechiano, CL XIII. 3 (B.R. 232), Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Fi-
renze. 1970. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.
Cortés Castellanos, Justino. 1987. El catecismo en pictogramas de Fr. Pedro de Gan-
te. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española.
Cortés Castellanos, Justino. 1992. Catecismo de fray Pedro de Gante. Madrid: Testimonio.
Dean, Carolyn. 1989. “Praying with Pictures: A Reading of the Libro de Oraciones.”
Journal of Latin American Lore 15 (2): 211–74.
Gaillemin, Bérénice. 2011. “Images mémorables pour un texte immuable: Les ca-
téchismes pictographiques testériens (Mexique, xvie–xixe siècles).” Gradhiva:
Revue d’anthropologie et d’histoire des arts 13: 204–25.
Gaillemin, Bérénice. 2013. “‘L’art ingénieux de peindre la parole et de parler aux
yeux’: Élaboration et usages des catéchismes en images du Mexique (xvie–xixe
siècles).” PhD dissertation, Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre-La Défense, Paris.
Galarza, Joaquín, and Aurore Monod Becquelin. 1980. Doctrina christiana: méthode
pour l’analyse d’un manuscrit pictographique mexicain du xviiie siècle avec ap-
plication a la première prière: le Pater Noster. Paris: Société d’Ethnographie.
“Historia de los mexicanos por sus pinturas”. 1979. In Teogonía e historia de los
mexicanos: Tres opúsculos del siglo xvi, edited by Ángel María Garibay K., 23-90.
México: Porrúa.
History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. 1992. Translated by
John Bierhorst. Tucson/London: University of Arizona Press.
Klein, Cecelia F. 1982. “Woven Heaven, Tangled Earth: A Weaver’s Paradigm of
the Mesoamerican Cosmos.” In Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the
American Tropics, edited by Anthony F. Aveni and Gary Urton, 1–35. New York:
New York Academy of Sciences.
Las Casas, Bartolomé de. 1967. Apologética historia sumaria. Edited by Edmundo
O’Gorman. 2 vols. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Insti-
tuto de Investigaciones Históricas.
León, Nicolás. 1900. “A Mazahua Catechism in Testera-Amerind Hieroglyphics.”
American Anthropologist 2 (4): 722–40.
Lipp, Frank. 1985. “Mixe Ritual: an Ethnographic and Epigraphical Comparison.”
Mexicon 7 (5): 83-87.
Loo, Peter van der. 1982. “Rituales con manojos contados en el Grupo Borgia y
entre los Tlapanecos de hoy día.” In Coloquio internacional: Los indígenas de
México en la época prehispánica y en la actualidad, edited by Maarten Jansen and
Ted Leyenaar, 232-43. Leiden: Rutgers B. V.
López Austin, Alfredo. 1988. The Human Body and Ideology: Concepts of the Ancient
Nahuas. 2 vols. Translated and edited by Thelma Ortiz de Montellano and
Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

166 ELIZABETH HILL BOONE

López Austin, Alfredo. 2016. “El tiempo-espacio divino.” In La cosmovisión de la

tradición mesoamericana, Segunda parte. Arqueología Mexicana, Edición Especial
69: 23-39.
Mendieta, Gerónimo de. 1971. Historia eclesiástica indiana. Edited by Joaquín Gar-
cía Icazbalceta. Facsimile of the 1870 edition. México: Porrúa.
Molina, Alonso de. 1970. Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y
castellana. Edited by Miguel León-Portilla. Facsimile of the 1571 edition. México:
Porrúa.
Motolinía, o Toribio de Benavente. 1951. Motolinía’s History of the Indians of New
Spain. Translated and edited by Francis Borgia Steck. Washington, D. C.: Acad-
emy of American Franciscan History.
Normann, Anne Whited. 1985. “Testerian Codices: Hieroglyphic Catechisms for Na-
tive Conversion in New Spain.” PhD dissertation, Tulane University, New Orleans.
Orozco y Berra, Manuel. 1877. “Doctrinas en geroglíficos.” Anales del Museo Na-
cional, época 1 (1): 202–16, and 1 plate.
Resines Llorente, Luis. 1992. Catecismos americanos del siglo xvi. Vol. 1. León:
Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo.
Resines Llorente, Luis. 1996. “Estudio sobre el catecismo pictográfico tolucano.”
Estudio agustiniano 31: 245–98.
Resines Llorente, Luis. 2007a. Catecismos pictográficos de Pedro de Gante, incomple-
to, y mucagua. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española.
Resines Llorente, Luis. 2007b. Diccionario de los catecismos pictográficos. Vallado-
lid: Diputación de Valladolid.
Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando. 1984. Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today
Live among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629. Translated and edited
by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1577. General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray
Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex / Historia general de las cosas
de Nueva España. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS 218-220. World Digital
Library, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667837.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1950–82. Florentine Codex, General History of the Things
of New Spain. Edited and translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. An-
derson. 13 vols. Santa Fe: The School of American Research/University of Utah.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1979. Códice Florentino. 3 vols. México: Archivo General
de la Nación.
Schultze Jena, Leonhard. 1938. Indiana. III. Bei den Azteken, Mixteken un Tlapa-
neken der Sierra Madre del sur von Mexiko. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer.
Seler, Eduard. 1963. Comentarios al Códice Borgia. Translated by Mariana Frenk. 3
vols., including a facsimile of the codex. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675

 COUNTING AND MAKING IN THE COLONIAL PICTOGRAPHIC CATECHISMS 167

Seler, Eduard. 1990-96. Collected Works in Mesoamerican Linguistics and Archaeol-

ogy. 5 vols. Translated and edited by Charles P. Bowditch and Frane E. Com-
parato. Culver City: Labyrinthos.
Serna, Jacinto de la. 1953. “Manual de ministros de indios para el conocimiento de
sus idolatrias, y extirpación de ellas.” In Tratado de las idolatrías, supersticiones,
dioses, ritos, hechicerías y otras costumbres gentílicas de las razas aborígenes de
México. 2nd edition. Edited by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, 40-368. México:
Ediciones Fuente Cultural.
Soustelle, Jacques. 1936. “Notas sobre un documento otomí de la Biblioteca Nacio-
nal de París.” El México antiguo, Revista internacional de arqueología, etnología,
folklore, prehistoria, historia antigua y lingüística mexicanas 4 (1-2): 13-20.
Tedlock, Barbara. 1982. Time and the Highland Maya. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press.
Thouvenot, Marc. 1994. “P077A: Manuscrit Testeriano no. 77.” SUP-INFOR. Edi-
tions sur Support Informatiques, www.sup-infor.com/navigation.htm [ac-
cessed 10 May 2018].
Van Acker, Geertrui. 1995. “Dos alfabetos amerindios nacidos del diálogo entre dos
mundos.” Amerindia: Revue d’ethnolinguistique amérindienne 19–20: 403–20.
Williams, Barbara J., and H. R. Harvey. 1997. The Códice de Santa María Asunción:
Facsimile and Commentary: Households and Lands in Sixteenth-Century Tepet-
laoztoc. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Sobre la autora

Elizabeth Hill Boone es doctora en historia del arte por la Universidad de

Texas en Austin. Es profesora emérita de historia del arte en la Universidad
de Tulane, miembro de la Academia Americana de las Artes y las Ciencias
y miembro correspondiente de la Academia Mexicana de la Historia. Sus
intereses de investigación incluyen los sistemas de escritura y notación y
la forma en que se registra gráficamente el conocimiento, especialmente
en el México prehispánico, pero también un siglo después de la invasión
española. Entre sus libros más recientes se encuentran Painted Words: Na-
hua Catholicism, Politics, and Memory in the Atzaqualco Pictorial Catechism
(2017, con Louise Burkhart y David Tavárez) y Descendants of Aztec Pic-
tography: The Cultural Encyclopedias of Sixteenth-Century Mexico (2021).

Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl vol. 65 (enero-junio 2023): 143-167 | issn 0071-1675