Visualizing Martial Mothers, Eagle-Women, and Water Warriors in the Florentine Codex

Military histories of the Spanish invasion of Tenochtitlan (1519–21), home to the Mexica-led Triple Alliance (or so-called Aztec Empire), have primarily focused upon men and their armories, often juxtaposing ironclad Spaniards against Nahua opponents dressed as Eagle and Jaguar Warriors. Indigenous women appear to lack this battle garb, known by specialists as military “devices” (tlahuiztin in Nahuatl), unlike precolonial depictions of warrior matriarchs and precolonial records showing women as unruly community defenders. This study challenges assumptions about Nahua material culture through critical engagement with a key source in Nahuatl studies, the sixteenth-century Florentine Codex, an encyclopedic collection consisting of “three texts”: the original Nahuatl, an accompanying Spanish translation, and thousands of illuminations created by Nahua scholar-artists. By utilizing ethnolinguistic and visual analytic methodologies, this essay reveals an inextricable link between Nahua women’s maternity, maturation, and martial ability in conventional and supernatural warfare.