The conquest and colonization of Mexico was a catastrophic event for the Nahua; it profoundly disrupted family, community, society, and worldview. The Spanish instituted social, political, and religious changes that filtered into every aspect of daily life. Despite these sweeping changes, the Nahua were a literate society and those who were educated continued to document traditional history and traditional customs either at the request of Spaniards or for their own use. For the anthropologist and ethnohistorian, these manuscripts are the best resources available to study both Prehispanic and Colonial Nahua culture. These manuscripts are not without their drawbacks, however, when used to reconstruct Prehispanic beliefs and practices. What they do allow scholars to study is the process of culture change. This study focuses on manuscripts that treat the traditional Central Mexican calendar. Taken as a group these pictorial and prose manuscripts allow us to examine closely the ways in which particular aspects of the traditional calendar are influenced, adapted, changed, or abandoned as particular elements of the Western, Catholic calendar are introduced. These manuscripts reveal a long process of study, analysis, adoption and adaptation of the European calendar on the part of Nahua intellectuals. As do studies of other types of Nahua manuscripts and documents, this study of change in the Nahua calendrical system demonstrates a wide and often subtle variability in reactions to European introductions
