Christianizing the Nahua
Bernardino de Sahagún
“Aztec Religious Ceremony: Atamalqualiztli (The Eating of Water
Tamales),” in Primeros Memoriales (facsimile edition)
Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma, 1993 [Tepeapulco, Mexico, 1559-61]
Between 1559 and 1561, Father Sahagún interviewed learned indigenous noblemen in the small town of Tepeapulco. The elders showed him a variety of pictorial documents when answering his questions about Aztec religion and culture. Four indigenous noblemen fluent in Spanish, Nahuatl, and Latin (Sahagún's former students from the Franciscan Colegio de Santa Cruz in Tlatelolco, Mexico City) assisted him as scribes and made the manuscript's drawings.
Although Sahagún pursued his work in order to create tools for eliminating Aztec religious practices, his work is now a major source of information about Aztec religious knowledge and practice. Atamalqualiztli involved multiple Aztec deities and took place every eight years.
Newberry Library: Ayer folio F1219.73 .S24 1993