Boxer Codex

The Boxer Codex is a late-16th-century Spanish manuscript produced in the Philippines. It contains 75 colored illustrations of the peoples of China, the Philippines, Java, the Moluccas, the Ladrones, and Siam. About 270 pages of Spanish text describe these places, their inhabitants and customs. An additional 88 smaller drawings show mythological deities and demons, and both real and mythological birds and animals copied from popular Chinese texts and books in circulation at the time. The English historian Charles Ralph Boxer purchased the manuscript in 1947 from the collection of Lord Ilchester in London. Boxer recognized the importance of what he called the "Manila Manuscript" and published a paper in 1950 with a detailed description of the codex. He made the manuscript freely available to other researchers for study, and it became known as the Boxer Codex. Boxer eventually sold it to Indiana University, where it is held by the Lilly Library. TOC The manuscript was written circa 1590 and contains illustrations of ethnic groups in the Philippines, across Southeast Asia, and in East Asia and Micronesia at the time of early Spanish contact. It also contains Taoist mythological deities and demons, and both real and mythological birds and animals copied from popular Chinese texts and books in circulation at the time. Aside from a description of and historical allusions to what is now the Philippines and various other Far Eastern countries, the codex also contains 97 hand-drawn color paintings and illustrations depicting peoples, birds and animals (both real and mythological) of the Philippines, the Indonesian Archipelago, Japan, Taiwan, China and mainland Southeast Asia. The first illustration is an oblong fold-out, 74 are full-page colored illustrations and the remaining are arranged four to a page on 22 pages (with some of the quarters remaining blank). Most of the drawings appear to have been copied or adapted from materials brought to the Philippines from China by Martin de Rada: the Shānhǎi Jīng (山海经, The Classic of Mountains and Seas), and books from the shenmo (神魔) genre, which depict deities and demons.