30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreDid the Aztecs know about peccaries?
The peccary; Florentine Codex Book XI
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Alex: Did the Aztecs have knowledge of peccaries? They appear often in Mayan culture, but not so much in Aztec, despite the range of the animal meaning the Aztecs should have encountered it. (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Yes! Whilst, as you say, not as important as in Maya culture, the peccary - called coyametl in Nahuatl, similar to but smaller than the jabalí or puerco espín in Spanish - features in the Florentine Codex (Book XI), in the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Codex Mendoza, and in the works of Francisco Hernández in the 16th century. According to one 19th century account, the peccary was the earth god of the Huichol people. The entry for peccary in the Florentine Codex comes straight after the entry for coati: ‘It is bristly, stiff-haired, of coarse bristles... its food is acorns, American cherries, maize, roots, fruit, just like what a pig eats. Hence they call the peccary a pig. And hence is a pig called pitzotl, because when it eats it makes a smacking sound, as it it sucks.’
Sources:-
• Florentine Codex Book 11 - Earthly Things by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1963), translated by Charles E. Dibble & Arthur J. O. Anderson, School of American Research and University of Utah
• Macazaga Ordoño, César (1982) Diccionario de Zoología Nahuatl, Editorial Innovación, Mexico City
• Miller, Mary & Taube, Karl (1993) The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London.
Picture 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.
Comments (1)
Alex
19th Apr 2024
That’s very fascinating, thank you for taking the time to answer that. In addition, I’m curious if peccaries were ever kept (by Aztecs), similarly to livestock, or in Moctezuma’s zoo; and if so, why there doesn’t seem to be many appearances of peccaries in Aztec art.
Mexicolore
We’ve tried to find the answer to this for you, but so far without success - apologies! We’ll keep your question on file and come back to it if/when we learn more...
The peccary; Florentine Codex Book XI
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