Tlacaélel, the power behind the throne

The full entry is in Spanish, and here is why

What you have read above is this project's own summary of tlacaélel, the power behind the throne. The full entry — the part that rests on the sixteenth-century sources — has not been translated, and that is a decision rather than an omission.

We chose not to touch the primary text. Those sections quote Sahagún, Durán and the codices in their own words, often in sixteenth-century Castilian. A quotation carried across stops being a quotation: it loses the register, the ambiguity and the exact wording someone might want to check against a facsimile.

In Spanish the entry carries:

• El que rechazó la corona
• El que reescribió el pasado
• El sol que debe alimentarse

Read the full entry in the original Spanish → Nahuatl names and terms are identical in both versions.