Study the... DIGGING STICK

The digging stick’s common name in Náhuatl was uictli; after the Conquest it took on the name coa - some have claimed that coa could be a Spanish corruption of the Náhuatl word cuahuitl meaning pole, though there are no known references to it in Náhuatl other
than as a borrow word from the Spanish.
There was more than one type of digging stick - you can learn more about these in our in-depth feature on the uictli (follow link below, or right). And the uictli wasn’t just used for farming: it could also represent construction and repair work of all kinds.

Pic 1: The digging stick at the centre of a mural by Diego Rivera on the theme of pre-Hispanic agriculture

A successful harvest didn’t just depend on solid hard work, however: whether the earth would deliver up its life-giving fruits in plenty depended too on climate, fate and the goodwill of the gods. In the Florentine Codex there are several pictures of the digging stick - some where different types of soil are discussed, and some, as in Picture 4, where the farmer’s good fortune is linked to a particularly favourable date on which to be born: One Rabbit. A farmer born on this day could look forward to seeing rich fruits from his labours:-

Pic 3: A digging stick in use in the ‘chinampas’

Scholars are now coming to realise that ordinary-looking artefacts like the uictli actually have ‘deeper’ levels of meaning: they appear in certain sequences in the codices that form ‘chapters’ relating to key themes of every-day life: birth, partners, travel, planting, marriage, public service, and... behaviour. In picture 5 the digging stick, alongside its twin tool the woodcutter’s axe (remember them in Picture 2?!) represents peaceful, settled farming, made possible by the hard work of the ‘good’ citizen, in contrast with baddies who loiter, gamble, thieve, gossip, drink alcohol, and worse...

Pic 5: The digging stick represents a good citizen... Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, p. 29

Amongst the Inca of South America, the act of planting and the ‘passing of the sun underneath the world’ - as seen passing through 4 pillars on a hill overlooking their great mountain city of Cuzco - were connected both in meaning and in time of year: always in mid-August, when, as an Inca legend says, the earth mother, Pachamama, ‘opens up’. She is then at her most fertile and can be penetrated both by the tiller (with his plow - in Mexico, the digging stick) and the sun (with his rays).

Pic 7: Rain god Tlaloc using his digging stick to cultivate corn - detail adapted from Codex Borgia, plate 20