¹ On the history and holdings of the library of the University of Alcalá in the sixteenth century, see Garcia Oro 1992 and Méndez Aparicio 2007: 22-27. The University of Alcalá was officially founded in 1499.

² Coe (1989) collects a number of sixteenth-century discussions of Mesoamerican screenfolds as “books” (libros).

³ A 1537 Latin inscription on the Ñudzavui Codex Vienna describes it as a “Codex” (Anders et al. 1992, 22). A 1605 catalog reference to the Ñudzavui Codex Bodley describes it as a “Liber lingua mexicana” (book in the Mexican language; Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2004, 29).The entry for the Borgia group Codex Cospi in a 1677 museum catalog describes it as a “LIBRO MESSICANO” (Anders et al. 2004: 14).

⁴ William Robertson refers to a Mesoamerican screenfold as a codex in his 1787 The History of America, Volume 3 (page 412). The term codex is also used to describe Mesoamerican manuscripts by Alexander von Humboldt, both in the original French edition of his 1810 Vues des Cordillères (page 89) as well as in an 1814 English translation (Humboldt 1814: 17, 3-37, 80-84, 145, 159, 167-168). Examples from later in the nineteenth century are too numerous to mention.

⁵ For recent proposals to rename these documents see Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2004, 2011; cf. Boone 2007: 12; Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2000, 5; Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2011, 67.

⁶ On the provenience of the various Borgia group manuscripts, see Boone 2007.

⁷ “se hallaron muchos libros a su modo, en hojas o telas de especiales cortezas de árboles que se hallaban en tierras calientes y las curtían y aderezaban a modo de pergaminos de una tercia, poco más o menos de ancho y unas tras otras las surcían y pegaban en una pieza tan larga como la habían menester donde todas sus historias escribían con unos caracteres tan abreviados, que una sola plana exresaban el lugar, sitio, provincia, año, mes y día con todos los demás nombres de dioses, ceremonias y sacrificios, o victorias que habían celebrado, y tenido y para esto a los hijos de los señores, y a los que escogían para su sacerdocio enseñaban, e instruían desde su niñez haciéndoles decorar aquellos caracters y tomar de memoria las historias y de estos mesmos instrumentos he tenido en mis manos, y oídolos explicar algunos viejos con bastante admiración y solían poner estos papeles, o como tablas de cosmografía pegados a lo largo en las salas de los señores, por grandeza y vanidad, preciándose de tratar en sus juntas y vistas de aquellas materias, así lo hicieran los católicos de las vidas de los santos…” (Burgoa 1989 [1670]: 210). Engilsh translation by Byron Hamann.

⁸ For an excellent treatment of the importance of nose ornaments and other costume elements in understanding Mixtec codical narratives, see Pohl 1994—the nose-piercing ritual is discussed on pages 83-93.

⁹ On the performance of screenfolds, singing, and singing with the feet, see Monaghan 1994.

¹⁰ The prehispanic wall paintings in the palaces in Mitla resemble screenfolds frescoed directly on long architectural panels. As quoted above, in the seventeenth century the Dominican chronicler Burgoa claimed that indigenous histories were hung on the walls of palaces and performed. Furthermore, the visual contents of these documents strongly support the argument that they were meant to be viewed unfolded: visual patterns emerge by looking at a whole series of pages at once that are hidden when only one or two pages at a time. See Pohl 1999, Hamann 2004, Bakewell and Hamann 2011, as well as the “Introduction to the Codex Nuttall” Ñudzavui tutorial.

¹¹ Johnson 2005.

¹² Smith 1994.

¹³ Smith 1966, 2005; Monaghan 1997; Hermann Lejarazu 2003.

¹⁴ Alvarado 1593: 138r; see also Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2004: 268; Jansen and Pérez Jiménez 2011: 12.

¹⁵ C. A. Burland describes the traces of varnish still surviving on many of the pages of the Mixtec Codex Egerton and the Borgia group Codices Fejérváry-Mayer and Laud. See Burland 1965: 6, 8,9-15,19; Burland 1966, 10, 17,20; Burland 1971, 21, 23, 25. Textual references to the varnishing of painted surfaces also appear in Fray Francisco de Alvarado’s Spanish to Mixtec vocabulary and Alonso de Molina’s 1571 Spanish/Nahuatl vocabulary (Alvarado 1593, 32v, 140r; Molina 1571, 18v.

¹⁶ See also Saunders 1998; Hamann 2008, 58-68; Hamann 2013; and the “Introduction to the Lienzo de Tlaxcala” Nahua tutorial.

¹⁷ In sixteenth century Dzaha Ñudzavui (Rain Speech, the language of the Ñudzavui), the verb for “to write” was taa; the verb for “to weave or braid” was tãã. See Mark King (1994, 108). Similarly, Barbara and Dennis Tedlock (1985) note a number of fascinating intertextual parallels between speaking, writing, and weaving among the Quiché Maya.