The calli of the Nahuas in Old Mexico: Home, family, genre

This article studies three important issues regarding the method used by Woodrow Borah and S.F. Cook for the evaluation of the population size in Mexico and Latin America, namely the nature and composition of the old rural nahua (aztec) family. To that end a documentary source is used here--the Libros de Tributo--which was not used by the said authors due to the fact that they had no command of the nahuatl language, while no complete translation or transcription of this document was available at the time. It is argued here that the Old Mexico nahuas lived in big homes of extended families (calli). This these was supported by Borah and Cook, but was not taken into account within the wide field of the History of the Family, in particular the way it was developed by the Cambridge University's 'Laslett school'.