1993/12/06 by Geoffrey Kimball · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Medicine · #Latin American history and culture #Homosexuality #Nahuatl #CONQUEST #Sodomy #Meaning (existential) #History #Male Homosexuality #Subject (documents) #Psychology #Literature #Art #Ancient history #Psychoanalysis #Archaeology #Medicine #Men who have sex with men
paper · doi:10.1300/j082v26n01_02
openalex publication_date 1993/12/06 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Male and female homosexuality among the Aztecs during the period immediately prior to the Spanish Conquest has been studied infrequently, even though a Nahuatl document, the Florentine Codex, written shortly after the Spanish Conquest, contains a number of texts on the subject. The Florentine Codex has been translated into English; however, the translators use biased and erroneous translations in the sections of the manuscript which mention homosexuality, and the actual meaning is unavailable to anyone who does not know Nahuatl. This paper is a new translation and an introductory study of the available texts on homosexuality in the Florentine Codex. The attitudes of the Aztecs toward homosexual men and women can be inferred from these texts, and there are tantalizing fragments which given an indication of how homosexuality fit into Aztec society.