Abstract
The Codex Ríos Human Corporeal Almanac and Codex Mexicanus Zodiac Man are two almanacs made in Early Colonial Mexico (after 1521). During this time period in Mexican history, there were many documents that tried to blend Indigenous and European pictorial conventions, knowledge and worldviews together as each culture encountered and tried to understand each other, as can be seen with the Codex Ríos and Codex Mexicanus almanacs. These two almanacs combine elements of Indigenous and European traditions, such as the Pre-Columbian corporeal almanacs and the European Zodiac Man. In Pre-Columbian Central Mexico, there was a type of almanac similar in appearance to the zodiac man called a corporeal almanac, in which Aztec calendrical symbols were paired with bodily organs that were used for many purposes. Zodiac men were a type of medical diagram popular in European medical books, farmer’s almanacs and books of hours from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries. These diagrams featured a model with Greco-Roman zodiac signs matched with different portions of the body to determine when it was the optimal time to blood let in accordance with the Four Humors Theory based on the movement of the stars. In my research, I use the concept of Double Mistaken Identity described by James Lockhart in his book, Of the Things of the West Indies in order to determine the lengths of which each culture tried to understand each other through creating the Codex Ríos Human Corporeal Almanac and the Codex Mexicanus Almanac, and how successful their endeavors truly were.