The Mesoamerican shelf gathers the public texts, source dossiers, and support pages currently held under this tradition room. Use this page as a doorway into the shelf rather than as a complete history of the tradition.

Main Doorways

• Cantares Mexicanos holds the current public body of this shelf: a set of Nahua songs translated from the Cantares Mexicanos manuscript. Start with Song I - Beginning of Songs, Song XVI - The Flower-Song Debate, and Song XXXIX - We Only Came to Borrow.
• Kaqchikel holds the Xajilá family historical chronicle in Daniel G. Brinton's complete selected 1885 edition. Start with the Kaqchikel introduction, then use its reader guide before entering the chronicle.

Suggested Use

Begin with the introduction if one is present, then move into the rooms or individual texts listed above. For technical terms, names, and recurring concepts, use the local glossary on this shelf together with the central Good Works Glossary.

When moving among Mesoamerican rooms, keep specific peoples and languages named. Kaqchikel, K'iche', Tz'utujil, Nahuatl, and other languages may meet in history without becoming versions of one another. In the Xajilá chronicle, distinguish the Kaqchikel family text from Brinton's English translation and commentary; distinguish the complete 1885 edition from the incomplete manuscript and Brinton's half-dossier selection; and treat its colonial alphabet as a historical witness rather than a current teaching standard.