Study the... PETATE

Illustration of Aztec petate reed mat bed

Every Aztec person slept on a petate! It was one of the few basic items to be found in every single Aztec home, rich or poor. Yet it was far more important than just a simple bed: read on... (Written/compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

In Náhuatl it was called a petlatl; this word has changed slightly - to ‘petate’- and become part of every-day Mexican Spanish. Petates are still widely found today throughout the countryside in Mexico: used not just for beds but also as mats to lay out produce to sell in the market (as in Aztec times). You can imagine, they’re also great today to take to the beach or hills for a picnic...!

The petate was so much a part of Aztec life that it appears in several codices. In Picture 3 you can see a couple getting married, sitting symbolically on a petate. The marriage is shown by the tying of the two tunics together. The old folk round about them are giving them plenty of advice for the future... Most Aztec people used the petate as a bed at night and as a seat during the day (set on a low platform made of earth, or occasionally of wood). A family’s clothes and few valuables were kept in a wickerwork chest called petlacalli (literally, a ‘mat house’). The modern Mexican Spanish word ‘petaca’ comes from this.

In Picture 4 you can see the emperor Moctezuma II in his palace in Tenochtitlan, sitting on a petate. He also used a chair similar to a modern seat, called icpalli - more about this in our ‘Study the ICPALLI’ page...

There were whole neighbourhoods in Tenochtitlan that specialised in making petates, out of common reed from the lakeside. Fine ones could include lengths of reed coloured with natural dyes mixed in with the plain ones to create lovely patterns. See one in our mini-feature ‘A people’s bed’ (follow link below).

The Aztecs used elegant, flowery speech, full of metaphors, very often with two words or phrases combining to form a single idea. A good example involves the humble petate: ‘mat, seat’ meant throne, as did ‘Eagle Mat, Jaguar Mat’. Eagle and Jaguar Knights were two of the highest ranks in the army, and the Florentine Codex refers to the privilege enjoyed by ‘those who took four captives [in war]... from then on they could sit on the mats they used and icpalli [seats] in the hall where the other captains and valiant men sat.’ So Ocelopetlatl, Cuauhpetlatl - literally ‘The jaguar mat, the eagle mat’ meant throne or what we nowadays would call ‘seat of power’.

The Aztecs enjoyed playing a board game called patolli, using beans as counters. The game was played on a roll-out petate mat that could be carried around everywhere. The game was highly popular, and bets were regularly placed on the outcome - the Aztecs seem to have been particularly keen on gambling and betting, partly perhaps because they were highly superstitious, and linked good and bad luck closely to the signs and numbers in their ritual calendar.

Confirming its life-long importance to the Aztecs, the petate was pressed into service from the cradle to the grave: the midwife placed the new-born babe carefully on the mat before taking it to be ritually washed - and, at the other end of life, the dead body of an Aztec was placed, with gifts, rolled in the position of a foetus, in a petate, to be buried or cremated as a death bundle, often under the house where he or she had lived.

Picture sources:-
Main picture of a petate: drawn specially for Mexicolore by Felipe Dávalos ©2008
Interior of farmer’s house today: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
Aztec house model, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City: photo by Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore
Images from the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) - scanned from our copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London, 1938
Moctezuma (Tovar Manuscript) - scanned from our copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1972
Patolli (Codex Magliabecchiano) - scanned from our copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1970
Burial (Codex Tudela) - scanned from our copy of the Testimonio Compañía Editorial facsimile edition, Madrid, 2002

Now that you’ve learnt more about the petate, download the activity sheet on it (click on the PDF icon below) and get to work...!

Moctezuma slept on a whole pile of petates: maybe that’s where the saying ‘One petate, two petates, three petates, four...’ comes from!

Aztec limerick no. 56: (ode to the petate):-
The Mesoamerican reed mat
Was ubiquitous, rolled up or laid flat.
Whether sleeping or kneeling,
Gaming or healing,
The whole world, through life, on it sat.

‘Home smoky home!’‘A people’s bed’‘El petate, más que una cama, un artefacto con profundo simbolismo’ ({red{italicin Spanish}})

Comments (4)

enrique marmolejo

28th Oct 2019

great article!, we mexicans, sometimes use the words: se petateo, when someone has already died, now I know it comes from the time when people where buried in a petate

Veronica

3rd Aug 2014

Where can I buy a petate online?

Mexicolore

Nowhere that we know of, I’m afraid. Let us know if you find a source!

tecpaocelotl

13th Jan 2010

I’ve seen a lot of southern places do that with petates; where my mom is from, they still have it on the floor, but they’re mostly being replaced by beds. Anyway, do they set it up like that because of scorpions? That’s the reason why no one really use petates any more.

Aztecs

Maya

Study the... PETATE

Comments (4)

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