This essay considers the possibility that the Matrícula de Tributos was made from a collection of folios that incorporates material from several related documents, some from as early as the eve of the Spanish invasion in 1521, and others from as late as the 1560s. The diverse styles identifiable throughout the manuscript, as well as the many interventions of different kinds in its pages, support this claim. This article further asks whether the Matrícula de Tributos might be the last extant exemplar of a larger group of taxation-related documents that circulated through Mexico on the eve of the Spanish invasion and well into the second half of the sixteenth century. Finally, the essay considers the possibility of placing the Matrícula de Tributos within the context of documents that kept or presented a record of pre-Conquest tributary practices for purposes that may have been as diverse as presenting evidence of past tributary obligations or as a means to assert authority and other political claims among the surviving native elite.

这篇文章考虑了这样一种可能性，即Matrícula de Tributos是由一组对开本组成的，这些对开本包含来自多个相关文件的材料，其中一些早在 1521 年西班牙入侵前夕，而另一些则可追溯到 1560 年代。整个手稿中可识别的不同风格，以及其页面中不同类型的许多干预，支持这一说法。本文进一步询问Matrícula de Tributos是否可能是在西班牙入侵前夕并一直持续到 16 世纪下半叶在墨西哥流传的一大群与税收相关的文件中现存的最后一个范例。最后，本文考虑了放置Matrícula de Tributos的可能性在保存或展示征服前朝贡实践记录的文件的背景下，其目的可能与提供过去朝贡义务的证据一样多样化，或者作为在幸存的本土精英中维护权威和其他政治主张的手段。