30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreDid long-distance merchants (pochteca) stay at inns or hostels?
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Antoine Thibaut: Your website is really interresting and probably my favourite about aztec culture. I’m reading a lot about aztec society but i still have a question with no answer.
For weeks i’ve been reading a lot about pochteca and great commercial expeditions... but I’m wondering how these expeditions rested? Did precolombian society have inns? And if they did, were these big enough for all the carriers to stay there? These caravans couldn’t really travel from one city to the other in only one day... if they were so numerous, how did they rest (sleep, feed) in smaller villages (or out in the open)? (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Thanks for writing in and for your kind words! This is an excellent and intriguing question. Whilst there is a mass of literature relating to Mexica (Aztec) professional long-distance merchants (pochteca), it’s exceptionally hard to find concrete information on the details of their expeditions. All talk about ‘caravans’ of merchants, porters - and sometimes protective armed guards - going on long-distance trading expeditions to far-away lands but very few enter into detail about the logistics of these trips. You might imagine that the encyclopaedic Florentine Codex - which devotes an entire book (out of twelve in total) to The Merchants would provide the answer...
But no, Book 9 of the Codex contains 21 chapters, but most of these describe in detail merchants’ banquets and other celebratory feasts and the skills of specialist Aztec craftsmen - particularly featherworkers and lapidaries.
That said, some respected historians do specifically mention merchants’ hostelries:-
• ‘The roads used by the pochtecah were maintained, and lodging houses were kept along the routes’ (Manuel Aguilar-Moreno)
• The cross-country roads used by messengers and trading caravans were unsurfaced tracks. Some maintenance work was carried out; in jungle country the roads were kept free of vegetation, and everywhere the surfaces were repaired after the rains. Fallen trees were removed, pot-holes filled in, and steps cut on the steeper sections. Canoes or wooden bridges were provided at river crossings, and for the convenience of travellers there were rest houses along the route...’ (Warwick Bray)
• ‘The larger regional association of merchants maintained a large commercial centre in Tochtepec, the strategic garrison town in what is now the state of Oaxaca. There each of the twelve local organisations had its own hostel, storehouse, and small temple. From Tochtepec [Tuxtepec] the caravans set out to the tropical lowlands along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and to Tochtepec they returned before going back to their home’ (Rudolph van Zantwijk).
In his extensive study of pochteca organisations van Zantwijk points to a key underlying factor: the main routes followed by Aztec long-distance merchants could be counted on the fingers of one hand. These veritable ‘beaten tracks’ carried traffic of all kinds, from messengers to merchants to entire armies, so it would be logical to assume that they were peppered with hostels and supply centres used by myriad travellers (see pic 4).
It seems highly likely, in summary, that in ancient times these well-trodden trading routes would have been supported by a vast network of what today we might call ‘service stations’, providing rest, refreshments and maintenance - all of which Mexica merchants would no doubt have been willing to pay handsomely for...
Sources quoted/recommended:-
• Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2006) Handbook to Life in the Aztec World, Facts on File, New York
• Arqueología Mexicana 129, Sept-Oct 2014
• Arqueología Mexicana 122, Jul-Aug 2013
• Bray, Warwick (1968) Everyday Life of the Aztecs, B. T. Batsford Ltd./Dorset Press, New York
• Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de (1959) Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book 9 ‘The Merchants’, trans. Dibble & Anderson, School of American Research and University of Utah
• Van Zantwijk, Rudolph (1985) The Aztec Arrangement: The Social History of Pre-Spanish Mexico, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Picture sources:-
• Pic 1: drawing scanned from Bray, Everyday Life... (see above)
• Pic 2: image from the Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence) scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 3: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 4: illustration scanned from Arqueología Mexicana no. 129, Mexico DF.
Comments (4)
Taytay
6th Jul 2023
Oh okay! I had no idea that this was form of Xipe Totec! Thank you so much!:D
Taytay
3rd Jul 2023
Oh I’m referring to the god next to him! However, both of them are holding the yellow symbol.
Mexicolore
The great German historian referred to these six figures as ‘the six celestial walkers’. In their study of the Codex Borgia, Gisele Díaz and Alan Rodgers write that ‘The fifth [your one!] is the Red Tezcatlipoca (his skin is yellow but he carries the quetzal bird characteristic of the red form of the deity), who walks with a jewelled staff.’ Frustratingly, they don’t mention the ‘yellow arrowhead’ that you’re interested in... We’ll keep looking for more on this.
Taytay
28th Jun 2023
Hi! I had a question about a merchant god- Zacatzontli!
On page 55 of the Codex Borgia, Zacatzontli holds a staff that has what looks like a giant yellow arrowhead going through it at a diagonal angle (this yellow-arrowhead thing has a green/blue circle at it’s top if that helps).
Do you know what this is? I can’t figure it out.
Mexicolore
That page depicts a series of six deities, all in a pose suggesting walking/travelling. We think you’re referring to the last (top left) who we take to be the old god of fire. He carries a large fire-serpent (xiuhcóatl) as a walking stick.
Antoine T.
2nd Jul 2022
Thank you a lot for your answer. That will be really helpful.
Mexicolore
You’re welcome - it’s what we’re here for...
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