INTERLUPE, The Codexes and Guadalupe

The Codexes and Guadalupe

Coordinator.- R. F. Xavier Escalada S. J.

This sections will present the documents which give testimony of the Guadalupan event, starting with an image and a description of the Escalada Codex, from 1548. In the same way, it will provide brief notes extracted from the "Enciclopedia Guadalupana", published by the same author.

Codice 1548

CODEX 1548

It is the oldest document that exists about the Guadalupana.

The date, 1548, can be clearly seen in the highest part of the center.

It drawn on an animal's skin; it measures 20 x 13.3 cm.

It has three inscriptions in the Nahuatl language:

1.- "Also in 1531 our beloved mother was seen by Cuautlactoactzin, our child, of Guadalupe in Mexico".

2.- "Cuautlactoactzin died with dignity".

3. Glyph and drawing: "Judge Antón Valeriano".

Friar Bernardino de Sahagún's signature, which was declared authentic by Dr. Charles E. Dibble. and by Documentology and Graphology of the Bank of México.

It illustrates the double scene on the top of the Tepeyac and the appearance on the hill, with the flowers, the evidence Bishop Zumárraga asked for.

The Virgin appears with all the elements that She has nowadays.

The glyph of Antonio Valeriano is identical to the one in the Aubin Codex, which we already had.

It mentions twice Juan Diego's indigenous name, Cuauhtlatoatzin, from which we only had information from Siguenza and Gongora.

It annuls the argument which denies the existence of appearances and of anything written before 1647.

It has plenty of proofs that show the scientific authenticity of the appearances of the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego, on December 9 - 12, 1531.

Tira de Tepexpan

Tira de Tepexpan

It is considered that it could have been done by several authors during successive epochs and that it was finished at the end of the XVI century. It seems that it belonged to a collection of F. Alva Ixtlixóchitl and later to other people, including F. M. Waldeeck J.M.A. Aubin and E. Goupil. At present, it is in the collection of Mexican documents of the National Library in Paris, France, under numbers 13 and 14.

It is a series of pictographies, to which arabic characters and Nahuatl phrases, written in the Spanish language, were added. It also has representative figures of historical facts.

Among the pictographies which correspond to the years 1530 - 1531, there are characters that presbyter Mariano Cuevas, in his historical Guadalupan Album, interprets as a procession headed by Friar Juan de Zumárraga, Hernán Cortes and Ramírez de Fuenleal, in which the image of the Guadalupana was taken to the primitive hermit. This has been questioned by historians who say that the figures correspond to the arrival of Cortés from Spain and the departure of Zumárraga and Fuenleal to Europe.

Nevertheless, in the 1531 pictogram, in the tenochca register, there is a figure of an eagle, from whose peak a turkish blue volute comes out, with some red points inside. Its meaning has not been cleared out yet. The only thing that has been established, by the people who have interpreted the codex, is that the glyphic may correspond to Cuauhtlatoa or Cuauhtlatoani, which means "the one who speaks like an eagle" or "the one who commands in a virile fashion". We dare to put forward, for the first time, this hypothesis: Cuauhtlatoa is the Náhuatl name for Juan Diego. Therefore, this pictography is a testimony of his presence in 1531 and of his participation in a very important event, since only very relevant historical facts are registered in the codex. On the other hand, the volute which comes out of the peak, with red points that, in our opinion, look like rubies, would indicate that "THE EAGLE THAT SPEAKS" is narrating a precious event in 1531. Finally, the size of the eagle, in comparison with the rest of the human figures, outstands the importance of the event which is recorded.

Reproduced from: Hernández I,J.H. Revista Histórica, Vol. I, No. 3, Pags 17 - 19, 1984.

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