Did the Mexica use scent or perfume on their bodies?

Very interesting question, and in trying to answer it we’ve consulted one of the world’s leading experts in this area, and member of our Panel of Experts, Élodie Dupay García, to whom we’re most grateful.
It’s true that the first image that comes to mind here is the burning of richly smelling copal incense in a long sahumador (perfumer, censer or incense ladle) in a ritual offering to Mexica deities. Some censers and incense burners still retain today the remains of organic materials in them, and evidence for the practice is widely available in murals and codices. On a small domestic scale copal was burnt on a daily basis in Aztec homes before dawn in offerings to deity images, before being cast to the four winds. Institutionally the same - formal - ritual took place in Mexica temples four times a day and five times a night. Second to copal was rubber - both tree resins sent in tribute or trade: copal from what is today the state of Guerrero, rubber from the Maya lowlands - followed by tobacco.

Pic 1: A Mexica priest carries copal incense in a ‘sahumador’ and aromatic ingredients in an incense bag to a large incense burner as an offering to the gods; Codex Tudela fol. 50r (detail)

Of course the gods needed to be ‘fed’ as part of the Mexica belief in their duty of ‘debt payment’; the ‘food’ consisted of the fruits of human blood sacrifice and of sacred foods such as maize and cacao. It was, however, the AROMAS of these offered gifts that both attracted and ‘fed’ the gods. We give scant thought to the smell of freshly spilt and burnt human (and animal) blood and perhaps we pay insufficient attention to the rich aromatic fragrances of many Mexican flowers, herbs and trees - which collectively gave pleasure - and prestige - to the nobility in both Central Mexico and Maya territories. Yet these invisible sources of pleasure were also conveyed visually in the codices: in part by the simple act of holding bouquets of sweet smelling flowers to the nose (picture 4)...

Pic 3: Offerings of aromatic flowers and tobacco to Huitzilopochtli; Florentine Codex Book 9

The smoking of aromatic tobacco and the breathing in of floral scents was a valued privilege and an important status symbol for both Aztec and Maya nobles, merchants and warriors. The very concept of prosperity and happiness was encapsulated in the Nahuatl paired couplet tzopelic ahuiyac, meaning ‘the fine-tasting, the good-smelling’. Possibly reflecting the wealth of aromatic flowers and plants in the lands of the Maya - the seeds of many of which were exported to Central Mexico to be planted in the gardens of Mexica nobles and royalty - we have perhaps more examples from Maya than from Aztec territory.
We know for certain that the bodies of dead Maya kings, queens and nobles were treated with perfumes to stave off the nasty smells of decomposing flesh, at least for several days whilst funerary preparations were carried out, but also for the purpose of purifying the body and imbuing it with spiritual vitality. Red pigments and liberal quantities of cinnabar and copal resin have been found on the corpses of Pakal and the Red Queen. Even today the Maya tradition of ritually washing the bones of ancestors resting in cemeteries remains widespread.

Pic 5: The element flowing from the corolla (head) of a flower is most probably its perfume; Codex Borgia pl. 56 (detail, top)

A huge range of flowers were used to obtain perfumed waters in this way, including jasmine (and night-blooming jasmine), lily, May flower (‘Christmas orchid’) and frangipani - belonging to the genus Plumeria. One of Mexico’s best known flowers, the Plumeria rubra L. (called Raven flower or Cacaloxochitl in Nahuatl) was used by the Mexica to perfume a lotion used for the relief of fatigue of those in public office. The white variant, known as tizaxochitl in Nahuatl, is the Plumeria acutifolia.
In order for the perfume to be usable as a lotion on human skin, the liquid has to precipitate into semi-solid form via an ‘excipient’, a substance - filler, colouring agent, preservative - that, aided by the inclusion of salt, can fix the fragrance to extend its usable life as an aromatic oil. Common excipients in Mesoamerica were resins (such as copal), rubber and animal fats. The result is a product with cosmetic properties that unites colour and aroma in a single substance.

Pic 7: ‘Cacaloxochitl’ (‘Plumeria rubra L.’), Badianus Manuscript (L); Plumeria rubs today (R)

Sources:-
• Élodie Dupay García (2015a): ‘Olores y sensibilidad olfativa en Mesoamérica’, Arqueología Mexicana vol. XXIII no. 135, 24-29
• Do., (2015b): ‘De vírgulas, serpientes y flores: Iconografía del olor en los códices del Centro de México’, Arqueología Mexicana vol. XXIII no. 135, 50-55
• Marisa Vázquez de Agredos, Vera Tiesler, Arturo Romano Pacheco (2015): ‘Perfumando al difunto: Fragancias y tratamientos póstumos entre la antigua aristocracia maya’, Arqueología Mexicana vol. XXIII no. 135, 30-35
• Miguel García González (2015): ‘Efluvios mensajeros: El copal y el yauhtli en los sahumadores del Templo Mayor’, Arqueología Mexicana vol. XXIII no. 135, 44-49
• Doris Heyden (1983): Mitología y simbolismo de la flora en el méxico prehispánico, UNAM, Mexico City
• The Badianus Manuscript/An Aztec Herbal of 1552, facsimile edition (The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1940)
• Florentine Codex (Book 2), translated/edited by Charles E Dibble and Arthur J O Anderson, School of American Research & University of Utah, 1974.

Pic 9: A bouquet of flowers - detail from Codex Mendoza folio 70r