Born in Amecameca, Mexico, Chimalpahin created volumes of material in Nahuatl on the history of the indigenous peoples of Mexico during the precontact and early Spanish imperial periods.
Born of humble birth and originally known as Domingo Francisco de Anton Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin, he later moved to Mexico City and replaced Anton with Munon and made some claims to indigenous nobility. He wrote in Nahuatl and provided detailed accounts of the precontact and colonial history of Mexico. Chimalpahin’s work provided the world with important information concerning Nahauatl observations, philosophy, and worldview. He produced most of his writing in the early 17th century while living in Mexico City. Most of his historical narratives took the form of annals listing events that occurred year by year, with little other organization. Chimalpahin filled most of these annals with significant ethnohistoric details he garnered from interviews with Nahuatl elders, the use of pictorial codices, the study of indigenous and town records, and other books detailing Native history. His histories cover about a thousand years and focus mainly on his hometown of Amaquemaecan and the larger Chalco region. His most famous works include Relaciones and Diario, and for the most part they describe Chalco and its dynastic lineages. Chimalpahin produced a multitude of other writings, and periodically through the centuries scholars have found a host of other manuscripts attributed to him. Only the histories of fray Bernardino de Sahagun rival Chimalpahin’s collections for information on this time period. Chimalpahin’s work has proven more valuable because it provides the indigenous view.
Further reading: James Lockhart, “Chimalpahin,” in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 2, ed. Barbara A. Tenenbaum (New York: Scribner’s, 1996), 138; Susan Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdom of Chalco (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991).
—Dixie Ray Haggard
World History
