Huei tlamahuiçoltica

[10][11] The Nican Mopohua section by Valeriano of Lasso de la Vega's account is related in a poetic style, typical of the most elegant formal classical Nahuatl in its full beauty.

Scholar Richard Nebel insists that the Nican Mopohua is not necessarily a historical account, but a document designed to convert the Nahua and "bring about a state of harmony between different peoples, cultures, and religions, in order that, during a period of radical change, new possibilities of coexistence could be envisaged".

[4] Because the apparition, and the purportedly miraculous transposition of the Virgin's image onto Diego's tilma ("mantle") of ayatl (ayate), i. e. maguey cloth, are largely credited with the conversion of the Native American Mexica (Aztecs) and other peoples of Mexico to Catholicism, all documents pertaining to the alleged miracle have been the subject of scrutiny by the Roman Catholic Church, the colonial Spanish Crown and after 1820 the Mexican government, scholars of Latin American religion and history, scholars of classical Nahuatl, and independent Guadalupanos, skeptics, and historians the world over.

Sousa, Poole and Lockhart, in their 1998 edition and translation, suggested that the most reasonable hypothesis was that Laso de la Vega's core narrative was based on Sánchez's earlier Image of the Virgin Mary, with an early 17th-century engraving by Samuel Stradanus as a secondary source.

The fourth section, called the "Nican Motecpana" (Nahuatl: "Here is an ordered account"), relates the fourteen miracles ascribed to the image of the Virgin that remained stamped on Juan Diego's tilma after the apparition.

The responsibility for the composition and authorship of the Huei tlamahuiuçoltica is assigned by many contemporary Nahuatl scholars and historians to Luis Laso de la Vega, vicar of the chapel at Tepeyac.

[18] There is some possibility that Laso de la Vega had collaborators in the composition of the work, but there is insufficient material evidence to demonstrate whether one or more hands were involved in the construction of the Nahuatl-language text.

Luis Becerra Tanco (1603–1672), a secular priest, affirmed that the Nahuatl account was based on long-standing oral tradition in a deposition for the inquiries of Francisco de Siles, who was commissioned to compile documentation of the continuity of the Virgin's popular cult since the time of her apparition.

[4] Some contemporary scholars hold the notion that Becerra Tanco, Florencia, and Sigüenza y Góngora endeavored to authenticate the events of the narrative by placing its original authorship in hands that were both native to Mexico and of greater antiquity than the mid-17th century.

Since Mexican petitioners to the Vatican for official recognition of the miracle relied on Sigüenza y Góngora's testimony that the story predated the publication of both the Nican Mopohua and Image of the Virgin Mary, ecclesiastical writers have continued to cite Valeriano as its author.