Indian Languages Database
Record Details
[Testerian Catechism]. [Catecismo Testerino]
[s.l.]: [s.n.], [17--]
Physical Description: [20] leaves ; 11 cm. (16mo)
Call number: Codex / Ind / 25
Accession number: 8269
Notes: Ms. codex. Manuscript catechism in Testerian hieroglyphs written on watermarked European paper. Includes some Spanish glosses; Normann’s comparative study of extant manuscripts suggests that this catechism was prepared for Nahuatl speakers.
See Ann Whited Normann, Testerian codices: hieroglyphic catechisms for native conversion in New Spain (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985), 292-298, 304-334. In the early period of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, before religious instructors had learned the languages of the indigenous peoples, they used pictorial stories describing basic teachings to spread the Christian Gospel. These catechisms were called Testerians, after Father Jacobo de Testera, a Franciscan priest who pioneered this method of teaching
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Languages: Nahuatl
Genre: Catechisms and Creeds
Region: Spanish America