Obras Historicas

This electronic book contains the English language literal translation of the Mesoamerican Creation Myth and the Royal Kings and Chiefs genealogy and history. This account comprehends the Giants, Olmecs, Xicalancas, Toltecs, Chichimecas, Aculhuas, Tepanecas, Otomies, Tenochcas and Tlatelocas. It is a literal translation to modern English of the ancient manuscript Obras Historicas, written in the 1600s by Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (1578 - 1650).

Only the first ten chapters are translated because these concern with the origin and subsequent genealogies of these people. The first chapter, has a fiction-like quality in that the account origin is the Sky and this beginning dictates the branching of the genealogies of the first kings, princes and princesses in these Mesoamerican regions. This is history as written by these peoples; the genealogies of the Sky are mingled and intertwined with the lives of the peoples in these regions. Their history does not have an origin or focus point without the account of their Sky gods.

This is a literal translation, and I have not added my own interpretation, being an artist engaging in educated amateur research with a California certification in translation, as opposed to a scholar. However, I lived in Mexico thirty years before the drug cartel destroyed this pristine, green and lush country endowed with a temperate and propitious climate. I was exposed to many indigenous tribes in the second school that I attended (preparatoria), the first school (primaria y secundaria) being a private one exclusively.

This exposure allowed me to understand various indigenized forms of the Spanish language that were not known to me as a Northern European of Mexican nationality. I know now that I am probably the only one in my family who could have provided this translation, being the only one that befriended Europeans, Mexicans and many Indigenous people alike.

I plan to make another translation, which is looser and easier to read, however, it also will not be an interpretation. This first edition is a very strict translation, as I was concerned in altering any aspect of it. I owe it to these peoples to provide a strict, literal translation and subsequent translations that are easier to read. I also plan to provide an audiobook narrated with my own voice.

Sheila Marie

Artist,
Graduate Student Researcher,
Certified Translator,
Editor in Chief