Review of History of the Chichimeca Nation

by John P. Pratt
5 Oct 2019, Atonement (10.VII 7 REED, Toltec), 1 Flower (SR), Tabernacles (E,US)

Ixtlilxochitl's history of ancient Mexico is now in English. It confirms my previously determined dates, but omits many Toltec traditions.

For the first time ever, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl's History of the Chichimeca Nation has been published in English.[1] This history of the Toltecs, Chichimecs, and Aztecs up through the time of the Spanish conquest was written about 1625 by an Aztec prince who had inherited many of the ancient histories of his ancestors. He wrote it in Spanish, but it has been largely ignored and never even translated into any other language until now. He wrote it to preserve their history which had been burned by the Spanish, but unfortunately it has remained almost entirely unknown. Hopefully its availability in English will change that.

First English translation!
The new translation by Amber Brian and associates was just published on 17 Sep 2019. This article reviews only one aspect of it, namely, its contribution to understanding the Toltec Calendar. This volume is the last of five versions of the history of his ancestors which Ixtlilxochitl wrote. A translation of the first few chapters of his first version of 1610, called the Sumaria Relacion, was given in an earlier article,[2] which included the history up through the period of the Toltecs only (to about AD 1000). That account contained numerous arithmetic mistakes in his calculations of years AD which were corrected by me in that article. In his last version of the history Ixtlilxochitl corrected those mistakes so that his years of events now agree with me concerning which 52-year round is indicated. That is a huge improvement over his first version which had most dates incorrect by either 52 or 104 years (one or two 52-year Aztec rounds). On the other hand, nearly all dates still differ slightly in that his AD years are one year too early to match the Aztec/Toltec calendar. That could be explained by him getting one date wrong and the calculating all others relative to it. As an example, he has the reign of Chalchiuhtianetzin, the first Toltec king, which began in the year 7 REED, to be in AD 510, whereas counting back from the arrival of Cortez in 1519 being just after the beginning of the year 1 REED, that earlier year 7 REED would have begun in the spring of AD 511.[3]

The one disappointing aspect of this history is not the fault of the translators. The author himself chose to leave out many of the details of the Toltec history which had been included in his first version of 1610. What took several chapters in the translation used in my earlier article only takes three chapters in this later volume. In particular, the lengths of the four world ages being 1,716 years is omitted entirely, as well as the dates of the Creation and the Flood. Those traditions were the key to decoding the secret of exactly how the Toltec Calendar was intercalated at the end of each of those ages. Thus, it is very fortunate that those chapters of his first preliminary version had been translated to English previously.

In conclusion, the good news is that the new translation looks wonderful and constitutes a huge milestone in the understanding of the Toltec, Chichimec and Aztec histories. It also confirms the date corrections made in my work to the first version of Ixtlilxochitl's history. The bad news is that the Aztec author deleted many of the calendar details of the Toltecs from what later blossomed into a 300-page, 95-chapter history. Those details were crucial to understanding the workings of the Toltec Calendar. Thus, it is wonderful that the first few chapters of the earlier version had already been translated and published in English and are now found on my website, to witness the highly sophisticated Toltec Calendar, which in the opinion of this author, is a sacred calendar revealed to the Toltecs by Quetzalcoatl, the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

Notes

Amber Brian, Bradley Benton, Peter B. Villella, & Pablo G. Loaeza, translators, History of the Chichimeca Nation: Don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl's Seventeeth-Century Chronicle of Ancient Mexico (3 Oct 2019).
Pratt, John P., "Ixtlilxochitl's Toltec History" (1 Aug 2019).
His king list is given on p. 37 of the new translation (see note 1). My regnal dates for the Toltec kings are given in Table 2 of the article referenced in note 2. It is interesting that this year is also 7 REED, being exactly 29 rounds after the first Toltec king began to reign.