Update: Five New Hymns in “Hymns & Prayers”
I’ve been busy over the past several days scouring the Web for English translations of more hymns, especially more modern ones than the public domain Rig Veda Americanus that you can download. And I’ve had some good luck with this, amazingly enough. There are now hymns to the Sun, Huitzilopochtli, Xipe Totec, Cihuacoatl, and Chicomecoatl that you can read! I recommend swinging by the Hymns & Prayers page to see the new songs. Please note that they’ve visible via Google Book Search’s Limited Preview function, and follow the special orange-highlighted instructions in each entry on how to pull up those specific pages that have the songs. I’ve found another source of a truckload more hymns that I’ll be adding in the next few days, but I’ve got to get the complete list of desired pages for that one hashed out before I can add it. So… watch for another Update notice when that one goes up.
In other update news, I straightened out some links and added some new ones over in the History sections. I also finished off Huitzilopochtli’s little page in the section of The Gods, including adding a snapshot of Him as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus.
Oh, and I also found a real gem — a public domain PDF of the commentary on the Codex Fejéváry-Mayer by significant Mesoamericanist Dr. Eduard Seler. It’s even in English, too! That’s over in the Codices subsection of Sacred Texts.
So if you haven’t browsed through the static pages of this blog in a few days, you might want to swing by and check out the new stuff!
Tlacatecco 
I’m jealous of your blog. I don’t have access to as many resources as you. 😦
And also, my Spanish version has to start from the beginning because its not well known to people who speak Spanish so much.
Oh the hymns to Huitzilpochtli, Chicomecoatl, and etc called the Rig Veda Americanus is in free domain and can be found here:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/aztec/rva/index.htm
April 20, 2008 at 5:49 PM
Aww, don’t be jealous my friend! Frankly, I’m jealous of *you* — there are so, so many interesting papers and books on this subject that you can understand that I can’t, because they’re in Spanish. There’s this study on Huitzilopochtli in Spanish that looks sweet, but I can’t read it… at least I have Boone’s paper.
As far as Spanish-language resources, I’d start dredging Google. I’ve seen early Spanish editions of Sahagun, Duran, Acosta, Olmos, Motolinia, and the infamous “Heathen Superstitions” essay scanned and in public domain. I’ve seen others, too. I’d love to electronically translate and post at least extracts from those, but every translator I’ve found chokes on the antique Spanish.
Don’t worry about having to start from scratch regarding an audience — I can tell from my hit statistics that most of my traffic is everyone over at Black and Red. You might want to check out the comment discussions on Danza Azteca videos over on YouTube — I’ve seen some of the Spanish-speaking viewers indicating that they have a religious interest in the ancient dances. You might be able to draw some visitors that way, and by linking to the vids — I’m getting some viewers from the Spanish-speaking side of WordPress finding me via the “danza” tag.
RE: the hymns to Huitzilopochtli and Chicomecoatl — you’re exactly right about them also being in the RVA. Though I’ve got a link to a PDF version of the RVA, I wanted to highlight the Lobanov translations because they’re much newer and smoother reading than Brinton’s. I should probably post the index to the RVA though, so that people know right on the front end that it may have a particular song they want. Thanks for making me think of that!
April 21, 2008 at 1:21 AM