The Problem of a Descendant as a Source

Ixtlilxóchitl is the main authority for the claim that Nezahualcóyotl worshipped a single invisible creator, built him a temple with no image in it, and was reluctant about human sacrifice. He is also that ruler's descendant, a baptised Christian writing under Spanish authority, and a petitioner with an interest in his ancestors reading as noble rather than as idolaters.

Historians split on what to do with that. One position holds that he preserved genuine Texcocan court tradition, including the philosophical songs, and that the pre conquest Nahua world contained real theological argument which the friars flattened. The other holds that the monotheistic Nezahualcóyotl is largely his construction, assembled from Christian categories to make a lineage presentable, and that the songs cannot be assigned to any named author at all. The dispute is not settled and probably cannot be settled from the texts alone, because the pictorial sources he used record events, names and dates rather than doctrine, and the alphabetic song collections were written down after the conquest by scribes who were themselves converts. What is not in dispute is the value of his dynastic and territorial material, which anchors much of what is known about the Acolhua polity and its relations with Tenochtitlan.