The World of the Boxer Codex

Boxer Codex, transcribed and edited by Isaac Donoso and translated and annotated by National Artist for Literature Carlos Quirino, together with Ma. Luisa Garcia and Mauro Garcia, is a sixteenth-century codex that was eventually named after its last owner, the British scholar Charles R. Boxer. The sumptuously bound and illustrated manuscript contained a collection of eyewitness accounts of various cultures and places in East and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines. These accounts—rich with anthropological detail about precolonial customs and beliefs and lavishly illustrated with depictions of native peoples in their traditional costumes—were compiled into a book with the purpose of convincing the king of Spain to launch further expeditions in the region.