Codex Nuttall

I have supplied this by having the initial and dominant year and day signs of the Codex (1 Reed 1 Crocodile original: "I Acatl 1 Cipactli". In the central Mexican calendar, these signs represent the starting point of the narrative; Acatl is the Reed and Cipactli is the Crocodile or Earth Monster.) reproduced in color, on the outer cover, to which the first page is attached. In thus using a calendar sign I have followed the precedent afforded by the Selden Manuscript No. 2, preserved at the Bodleian Library, on the outer page of which a year-sign is painted.

The cursive native method of designating a year-sign was to combine one of the four chief calendar signs (in the present case AcatlNahuatl for "Reed" or "Cane." = cane) to what somewhat resembles a monogram composed of an A and an O. The first (like an A) is a reproduction of one of the four painted conventionalized rays which, on the Cosmical Tablet popularly known as the Calendar stone of Mexico, for instance, radiate at equal distances from the circle, which signifies the whole. The native all-pervading philosophical conception of the Cosmos as a "Four in One," conveyed by the four rays attached to the circle, is conspicuously carried out in the four year-signs of the native Calendar, each of which also symbolizes one of the four elements. The combination of one of the four year-signs and one of the symbolical rays, to a complete circle, clearly expressed the fourth part of the quadruplicate whole.1

DIRECTIONS FOR READING THE CODEX

THE text of the Codex reads from right to left, therefore, when the book lies closed, with the conventionalized ray of the year-sign pointing upwards, the left end of the cover is to be raised and carried over to the right, thus disclosing page 1, which begins in the lower right-hand corner. On page 3 an ingenious use of red lines begins. They are employed to form divisions and cause the text to wind up and down the pages in a narrow course This "snake-like" or zigzag reading order is known as boustrophedon. which widens, now and then, when a large group of personages and some marked event is depicted. On page 11 a red line is carried in zigzag down the entire page and clearly separates one portion of the text from that which follows, beginning with the group formed by a man and a woman between twin mountains which are covered with snow.

The next marked division of the text by means of a continuous line occurs on page 33. When page 43 is reached, the transition to page 44 on the reverseThe back side of the long, folded deer-skin strip. is effected by the following manipulation, which those who intend to study the Codex should not fail to master as soon as possible. Close the book so that the cover with the year-sign again lies uppermost and the latter points in the same direction as when the book was first opened. Then turn the book around, without lifting or opening it, until the point of the conventionalized ray points downwards. Then again lift the left end of the cover, let it drop to the right, and page 44 will be disclosed.

On looking through the Codex it will be seen that although printed in one, page 19 on the obverseThe front side of the strip., and page 76 on the reverse occupy two pages each, which will be respectively designated as a and b. On reaching page 84 it will be realized that, although the text seems to

1 See The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations, Zelia Nuttall, Peabody Museum Papers, Vol. II, p. 251. Nuttall frequently referenced her own extensive theories regarding the common origins of astronomical and mathematical systems across global civilizations.