In 1992, to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the New World, San Francisco’s Mexican Museum produced an exhibit titled The Chicano Codices: Encountering Art of the Americas. Artist Delilah Montoya created Codex Delilah, Six-Deer: Journey from Mexicatl to Chicana, a work that depicts the adventures of an indigenous girl (Six-Deer) as she pursues spiritual knowledge and power through various geographic locations and periods. Montoya, a photographic printmaker, sought to construct a historical account of the first contact between American Natives and Europeans and to reveal the processes this event set in motion. The artist fashioned the narrative from a mestiza viewpoint and acknowledged Mexicana and Chicana contributions to history. Six-Deer traverses a period of 520 years (1492–2012), which transforms her understanding of herself from a Mexicatl to a Chicana. Montoya ultimately hoped that her work would encourage more recuperation and retrieval of these lost words, lost lives, and lost legacies.
Excerpt from Leimer, Ann Marie. 2005. “Crossing the Border with La Adelita: Lucha-Adelucha as Nepantlera in Delilah Montoya’s Codex Delilah.”Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social 5(2): 12-59..
