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Phillips.] 616 [Oct. 19, 
Notes upon the Codex Ramirez, with a translation of the same, By Henry 
Phillips, Jr. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, October 19, 1883.) 
Perhaps one of the most valuable fragments of antiquity that has sur- 
vived the bigoted fury of the Spanish ecclesiastics is the Codex Ramirez, a 
history of the Mexicans as shown forth by their hieroglyphical and sym- 
bolical writings. It was prepared shortly after the Conquest by the orders 
and for the use of Sefior Ramirez de Fuen Leal, Bishop of Cuenca, Presi- 
dent of the Chancelleria, to be used in deciding upon questions of all na- 
ture that were likely to arise before that tribunal. He caused the Aztec sages 
and priests to come together before him, and to agree upon an explanation 
of the characters and signs in which the law, history and mythology of the 
Mexicans were written. Asan authentic exposition of such, it is unique 
and of the greatest value to students. 
Brinton (Am. Hero Myths, 78), calls it ‘‘the most valuable authority 
we possess ;’’ Pinelo (Vol. IT, 603), refers to its having been used by Her- 
rera ; Chavero (Anales del Museo Nacional, III, iv, 120), ‘‘se considera 
como la mejor fuente, acaso la unica verdaderamente autorizada, para cono- 
cer los hechos pasados en Tenochtitlan.’? When Bishop Ramirez returned to 
Spain, he took with him this MS., which now exists in Madrid in a volume 
of twelve leaves folio entitled Libro de oro y Thesoros Indicos, and bears 
upon it various memoranda attesting its authenticity. 
The work is extremely difficult to understand, and full of obscurities 
arising partly from errors in transcription, partly from the use of anti- 
quated expressions, and a most involved and puerile style, and partly from 
incorrect and vulgar orthographies. 
In the following translation I have endéavored to reproduce the sim- 
plicity and meaning of the original, adding copious notes of explanation 
and conjecture wherever a passage seemed to demand it. 
(Norr.—7z is pronounced likethe MayaQ; X like the sound of sh in English ; 
t between two “1’’s is dropped; o and w were pronounced almost identical (Mo- 
lina). Anales de Museo Nacional, I, v1, 242.) 
HISTORY OF THE MEXICANS AS TOLD BY THEIR PAINTINGS. 
CHAPTER 1ST. 
Of the Creation and Beginning of the World and of the Original and Supe- 
rior Deities, 
Through symbols and writings formerly used, through the traditions of 
the old and of those who in the ‘days of their infidelity were priests and 
pontiffs, and through the narrations of the lords and chief men to whom 
they were accustomed to teach the law and educate in their temples in 
order to render them learned, brought together before me with their books 
and hieroglyphics, which according to what is demonstrated are believed 
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