The Bancroft Dialogues. ed., Frances Karttunen and James Lockhart. UCLA Latin American Studies, 65. UCLA Latin American Center Publications. University of California, Los Angeles, 1987.

Translation, with preliminary study, of manuscript preserved in Bancroft Library at Berkeley. A collection of conversations and speeches in Hahuatl, most of them with Spanish headings. Most speakers of noble lineage. Examples of how nearly everyone, in way proper to his or her estate, greets everyone else, etc. time is after the conquest, but memory of pre-conquest times still very much alive. Dialogues in present form probably teaching material for Jesuits in 17c. Text as Jesuits and Carochi have left it constitutes sampler of conventional discourse between Hahuatl speakers of different age and rank, demonstrating correct use of polite and honorific forms. Text probably already being used to teach proper usage when Carochi came on scene. bulk of text probably first set down in Texcoco under Franciscan auspices in second half of 16c. First version most likely produced around 1570-80. The indigenous aide who may have been responsible for contents probably drew on indigenous genre Huehuehtlahtolli, "ancient discourse, inherited wisdom". Set speeches, the purpose of which was to instruct young in details of correct behavior, and correct way of talking. Known exemplars of genre include book Six of Florentine Codex, and large collection appended to one of manuscripts of fray Andres de Olmos' 16c Arte de la lengua mexicana. Huehuehtlahtolli constitute a genre, rather than a collection of variants derived fr some canonical text. In tradition of oral lit, huehuehtlahtolli were created every time they were delivered. It is a mark of durability of oral tradition in Mesoamerica that centuries after wedding speech of dialogues, Nahuatl speakers have continued to deliver comparable maxims for proper deportment on occasion of marriage. . . . They are not belles lettres, but they are no less polished, no less evocative of a specific human moment and of eternally human situations.

The Art of Nahuatl Speech. The Bancroft Dialogues/Frances Karttunen/James Lockhart/1987/Nahuas/16c/source/document/Mexico/new Spain/language/aristocracy/Spanish/Aztecs/conquest/Atlantic World/Nahuatl/conduct manual/etiquette/speech/advice/conduct books