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Codex Chapman

Motherly Love

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El Quehacer
Introduction
In the Nahua life, women obtained many roles that revolved around holding responsibility with being a housewife and taking care of the house to community engagements/involvements. Nahua women were skilled in many forms and areas including farming, cultivating maize, beans, and other crops essential to their livelihood. Thus, in this section we will focus on the roles Nahua women took in motherhood, as healers, weavers, and housewives.
Housewives
At the heart of Nahua households hold the housewives, the women who do all duties combined from cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, and all womanhood chores obtained. They embody what it means to have community building and become nurturing people to only their intimate family members but to the community as a whole, they become a lending hand to all. They are in charge of preparing meals with the usage of many plants and maize funded through nature, storytelling, sewing/weaving, and ensuring traditions are withheld when staying at home.

On the image titles, “A Comer: Book 4, Folio 69v), with the first dimension focusing on the servers, who helped serve the food to the people attending the feast. Whilst we also see the different food being made that consisted of the help of parteras,women who support women in this birthing process, in holding ritual practices of welcoming a newborn child by feasting with food and companies.

Motherhood
The Nahua motherhood played the importance in Nahua life of its cultural reverence for life, family, and community. In the Nahua society, motherhood was embodied as spiritual, social, and communal dimensions to shape the identity of both the women and their child. Centering to Nahua motherhood is the concept of tlazolli, which corresponded with the meaning of caring/nurturing. It is evident that in the (community) of motherhood, the mother ought to be the first person to emphasize its love, care, and safety to the child. Attributing in guiding their children, to extending basic needs, and enclosing emotional support, education, and spiritual/ritual introductions. Within the Nahua community, the mothers are known to be well connected to the natural world as they view the birth of a child very sacredly, being practiced with rituals and ceremonies with the help of parteras, who support women in this birthing process.

The image titled “Motherly Love: Book 4, Folio 49r vividly depicts the bathing of a child. Where the first dimension distinguishes the child laying on the floor as the mother and helper both bath the child. A common expression we note within the love of motherhood is the caretaking of their children. Seen in this image, the mother is humming to keep the child calm, nurturing them in the gentlest way to avoid any crying or fear as newborns are unfamiliar to nature and water. The bond built between Nahua mothers and their children is strongly retainable through the imported lessons established embodying love, wisdom, and care.
La Curadora
Nahua women also withheld the occupation of being viewed as healers/physicians within their communities expressing traditions of healing, remedies, wisdom, and connections spiritually. A lot of these healing practices were inherited through traditions that have been passed down generation- by- generation. Due to the matter of equipment during this time, medication of pills/antibiotics or such did not yet exist so it was dependent on herbal remedies obtained from nature. These healers were developed through the concept of curanderas, which were women who helped heal people with herbal medicine, rituals, and spiritual guidance. The main source of medicine curanderas utilized were medicinal plants and herbs like copal and sage.

In the image, “Curadora: Book 12, Folio 53v” the female healer is attending people that have been infected with the smallpox epidemic of 1520. The smallpox epidemic of 1520 was a disease that was being spread around from the awakening of the European conquest where 5 to 8 million people died from these diseases (National Library of Medicine). It had lasted a full sixty days here, where after the sixty day mark it ended. Radicalmente, la ocurrencia de esto fue nada grave, “hubo alivio, hubo conocimiento, hubo recuperación, ya iba para Chalco el mal de las pústulas. Muchos quedaron lisiados, pero no quedaron lisiados por completo. Vino a establecerse en Teotl Ehco, y fue a haber alivio en Panquetzaliztli. Entonces se debilitaron mucho los mexicas, los tiahcahuan [guerreros] (Alcántara Rojas and Navarrete Linares 2023, Folio 53v).” Actualmente, las curadoras fueron de gran importancia en la curación de los impactados, como vemos en la imagen de Curadora, en cual la mujer está atendiendo un paciente al igual cuidando a los demás en las camas. In the Nahua community, “many people 's faces were spoiled by it, their faces and noses were made rough. Some lost an eye or were blinded (Lockhart 1993, Folio53v).”

Another big aspect to curadoras, were the physicians which equally distributed the same efforts in helping heal people. A physician was seen to be a knower of herbs, of roots, of trees, of stones and be well experienced in these, as well as be trusted in the professional skill (Anderson & Dribble 1953-1982, Folio 53v). Donde se ve que una buena médica que sabe curar a los enfermos que vuelverlos de muerte a vida, haciéndoles mejorar o convalecer con las curas que hace. Sabe sangrar, dar la purga, echar melecina y untar el cuerpo, ablandar palpando lo que parece duro en alguna parte del cuerpo y frotarlo con la mano; concertar los huesos; jasar y curar bien las llagas y la gota y el mal de los ojos, y cortar la carnaza dellos (López Austin & García Quintana 2000).”
La Tejadora
In the many roles women obtained was the weaver in which in the Nahua community being a woman weaver obtained a strong character to its roots and culture. Being a woman weaver held a tradition, spirituality, and a form of art of the indigenous Mesoamerican culture by transcending a connectivity between the past, present, and future by weaving together a form of story, symbols, and history. Weaving was not just viewed as a habitable skill but rather a form of living and as a sacred practice. Nuhua women would inherit from their mothers, grandmothers, and other important female figures in their lives to then hope to be able to do the same, honoring and passing down this tradition of skill and sacred practice.

As seen in the “Tejadora: Book 10, Folio 129v” image, a woman weaver is seen to be weaving items to sell. Particularly, “even though they would weave clothes in many different styles and designs, they would sell them cheaply (Anderson & Dibble 1953–1982, 129v).” Women, as evident in this image, often found themselves weaving outdoors with nature to enhance that specialty of connectivism as well as enhance the people with the clothes being weaved. Although their clothes weren’t of high price and poorly valued, they still incorporated the same love and pride they uphold in the weaving traditions obtained by their ancestors as this is something the Nuahua women held sacredly.
Conclusion
Essentially, the roles Nahua women obtained were drastically similar within each and can make a great correlation within each occupation. Understanding that Nahua women did not have the highest or so-called wealthiest jobs fitting under the stereotypical duties in womanhood was shown and demonstrated through the Florentine Codex. Where we paid focus on the housewives dealing with the house duties, introducing the ideal works of motherhood as a Nahua woman, the healing woman obtained, and what woman weavers upheld as their works. Thus, it was through the insights we took from the Florentine Codex that we were able to understand the roles women took during this 16th century time period, through the Nahuatl language usage and being able to translate it helping understand the true meaning behind each work.
Work Cited
Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 4: The Soothsayers", fol. 69v, Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/4/folio/69v/images/b4003161-197b-4881-b0a8-6bc218ebd13d Accessed 6 May 2024

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 4: The Soothsayers", fol. 29r, (Anderson & Dibble 1953–1982) nahuatl translation Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/4/folio/29r Accessed 6 May 2024.

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 129v, (López Austin & García Quintana 2000) spanish transcription Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/129v Accessed 6 May 2024.

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 12: The Conquest of Mexico", fol. 53v, Lockhart, James. We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/12/folio/53v Accessed 6 May 2024.

Available at Digital Florentine Codex/Códice Florentino Digital, edited by Kim N. Richter and Alicia Maria Houtrouw, "Book 10: The People", fol. 38r, (López Austin & García Quintana 2000) spanish transcription Getty Research Institute, 2023. https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/en/book/10/folio/38r Accessed 6 May 2024.

Acuna-Soto, R., Stahle, D. W., Cleaveland, M. K., & Therrell, M. D. (2002, April). Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th century Mexico. Emerging infectious diseases. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730237/#:~:text=The%20native%20people%20of%20Mexico,to%208%20million%20people%20perished.