Nahuatl Wills

The writings on Nahuatl Last Will and Testaments are very interesting in that they are a very foreign to the Nahuatl people but were brought by the Spaniards into the New World all the same, however the Nahuatl take on this new idea and bend it to their will and use it in order to continue their ways of life. like the town councils, which were merely a renaming of the city elders and chiefs, the people wrote, or had written for them by notaries, Last Wills and Testaments, but they are molding these specifically Spanish imports. The Nahuatl used the Spanish form of passing things onto those left behind after one died in order to perpetuate their own beliefs, such as the dichotomy of what belonged to women and the importance of social roles in Nahuatl society. For example they Nahuatl women perpetuated the women’s role in society even in the items they left their daughters after they passed on, such as combs or cookware, which perpetuated the pre-conquest ideals of women at the home and hearth and men as protectors and warriors. it also further proves that women were not as helpless and non-entities as much of history or a Man’s world would have individuals believe. the Nahuatl women not only held property but also passed it onto their heirs as a women or man of today’s culture might do. they passed on what they believed their heirs would need most to help them live happily and successfully.