This page provides access to the transcriptions of 102 Colonial Northern Zapotec calendrical manuals. These documents, which recorded cosmological and divinatory knowledge in a sprawling manual format, were written in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and surrendered to Bishop of Oaxaca fray Ángel Maldonado in 1704-5. They are currently preserved at the Archivo General de Indias (AGI), México 882 in Seville, Spain.

The AGI archivists grouped these 102 manuals into 99 cuadernos, “booklets,” and this numbering system is preserved for ease of consultation. However, some numbers refer to different manuals grouped under the same number. Thus, Manuals 85-1 and 85-2 are completely different documents, while Manual 56-1st section and Manual 56-2nd section refer to two parts of a single manual that were separated by archivists.

Each manual is represented by a transcription of its Northern Zapotec feast day names, along with annotations regarding a a cycle of four latag, “places” referring to intercardinal directions, a five-element cycle, the tracking of the movement of days across the cosmos and across a cosmological landscape featuring quiag, “mountains,” yego “rivers,” and yag, “trees.” Other notes are also included, and not all calendars have annotations across the aforementioned categories. Comparisons with Nahua and Colonial Valley Zapotec day names are provided as well, in a different column color. You are free to download and use these transcriptions, and asked to provide a citation to this site.

Manuals 1 to 25

Manuals 26 to 50

Manuals 51 to 75

Manuals 76 to 99

The images provided for Manuals 1, 6, 11, 23, 37, 42, 53, 54, 66-1, 70, 72, 85-1, 94, 97, and Songbooks 100, 101, 102 and 103 are reproduced here with the permission of the Archivo General de Indias. You will find digitized images for these manuals and other records from AGI México 882 at PARES (Portal de Archivos Españoles, a site maintained by Spain's Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte.