How were Indigenous oral traditions recorded after European contact in the Americas?

Following European contact in the Americas, Indigenous oral traditions were recorded through a complex process of cultural exchange and adaptation. In Mesoamerica, where pre-Columbian writing systems like hieroglyphics and pictographs already existed, a significant shift occurred as Indigenous artists and scribes collaborated with Spanish ecclesiastics to adapt the Latin alphabet to native languages, such as Nahuatl.12

This cooperation led to the creation of extensive colonial manuscripts. For example, friars like Bernardino de Sahagún worked with Indigenous aides to document history and culture, resulting in works like the Codex Florentino that blended European perspective with Indigenous illustrative conventions. Similarly, Indigenous authors utilized these new tools to preserve their own perspectives; Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala’s El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno combined Spanish text with Quechua syntax and original drawings to critique colonial rule and record native customs.34

In other regions, such as the Andes, where recordkeeping did not traditionally rely on paper, the transition to alphabetic writing was slower, though similar efforts to document cultural and linguistic evolution eventually emerged. While many early colonial texts were religious in nature, these efforts were foundational in preserving oral histories, myths, and folktales that had been transmitted for centuries.1567