>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington,DC.
>> Juan Felipe Herrera: Hello,
I am Juan Felipe Herrera,
US Poet Laureate.
I'm right here at the
Library of Congress
in the Hispanic Division
Reading Room.
And I'm with Catalina Gomez,
a Reference Librarian,
and she's showing me this
Huexotzinco Codex which is going
to be a part of the El Jardin, which
is part of the Casa de Colores.
Now of course El Jardin is
about bringing our
resources available right here
to the public at large.
And Catalina, can you tell us
more about this Huexotzinco Codex?
>> Catalina Gomez: Sure.
So this is the Huexotzinco Codex.
This is part of a testimony that
the Nahua Indians in the town
of Huexotzinco in Mexico.
They produced this
testimony as part of a lawsuit
against the Spanish Crown in Mexico.
The Viceroys, basically
the Treasurer in this part
of Mexico during the conquest,
his name was Nuño de Guzman,
he was heavily taxing the Indians.
And they began a lawsuit to protest
against this excessive taxation.
So this document was
presented as part
of this testimony in Mexico first.
It's we have here 8 sheets, I
believe the entire Codex is larger,
but these are 8 sheets
of this document.
And it's, they basically list
all of the objects and items
that they were being taxed,
using a very particular numerical
and symbolic numerical
symbols basically.
And we see here large amount
of turkeys, a lot of corn,
slaves that they had
to sell in order
to get feathers to make banners.
We have a really remarkable banner
that they're saying that they had
to make and it's actually the first
presentation of the Virgin Mary
that an indigenous
group ever produced.
Documents show that some years
later the King actually ordered
that the Crown to return
two-thirds of all these taxes back
to the people of Huexotzinco.
And again, this Codex was
produced in the year of 1531,
so it's ten years after the
conquest, which was in 1521.
This is actually a facsimile
copy of the original.
The Library of Congress has
the original codex here.
This is a facsimile copy
which was actually made
out of the same paper amati paper.
>> Juan Felipe Herrera: I'm looking
forward to this, I really am.
It's going to be fabulous.
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.