The Book of the Dead from Huexotzinco (1619-1640)

The Book of the Dead from Huexotzinco (El libro de los difuntos) is a Nahuatl-language death registry maintained by the Indigenous people of Huexotzinco, Mexico, between 1619 and 1640. On its fragile vellum pages are the names of over twenty-five hundred Indigenous men, women, and children who succumbed to the waves of epidemic disease that followed the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico. The registry was created during a “golden age” of Nahuatl record-keeping, when the Nahua were inte...