Sources for America’s History: Printed Page 40

P1-1  |The Aztec God Tlaloc with Maize
Meal of Maize and Beans, the Sixth Month of the Aztec Solar Calendar (c. 1585)

Much of what we know about the native peoples of the Americas comes filtered through European eyes. Such is the case with this source, a sixteenth-century image from a Jesuit codex (or book) that describes the history and culture of the Aztecs. In this image, Tlaloc, an Aztec god, is shown holding a stalk of corn (or maize), an important indigenous American crop previously unknown to Europeans. This commodity became part of the cross-Atlantic “Columbian Exchange” of foods, goods, and ideas.

image
Source: Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Question

    What does the composition of the image suggest about the importance of maize in Aztec society? What might be the significance of the pictorial elements in this illustration?

  2. Question

    In what way does this image reveal the extent of the cultural contact between native Aztecs and European colonists?

  3. Question

    How might a historian use this image to discuss the European interest in Native American culture and the trade in American commodities?