ABSTRACT
Don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli, who was the Nahua tlatoani of Tlalmanalco, fought in Mendoza’s army in 1541, an experience that he recounted in his relacion. When Acazitli comes home to his province of Chalco, his whole community greets him as a returning conqueror as he passes under triumphal arches that Europeans had built for their caesars since the time of the Roman Empire. Acazitli’s original relación was in Nahuatl, a version no longer in existence; this translation comes from a Spanish translation from a legal case of 1641. The letter opens with an exact description of Acazitli’s warrior costume, weapons, and clothes and evokes the pictorial representations of warrior ranks in the Nahua-illustrated Codex Mendoza. The Nahuas believed that they were the descendants of wandering Chichimecas from the north who eventually settled in cities and towns in the Valley of Mexico.
