Article suitable for older students

Jade bead in the mouth: afterlife insurance

5th Feb 2022

Placing a jade bead in the mouth of the deceased, a Maya and Aztec custom; illustration by Steve Radzi

Many books on both the Mexica (Aztecs) and the Maya briefly mention the custom of placing a jade bead in the mouth of the deceased ‘as an offering to protect the soul in its journey through the afterlife’ (Manuel Aguilar-Moreno, Handbook to Life in the Aztec World). How ancient was this tradition and what exactly did the jade piece symbolise? (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

The earliest known discovery to date of jade beads placed in the mouths of dead individuals comes from the Valley of Oaxaca - specifically from the oldest known settled Zapotec community, at San José Mogote, dating from around 1150-850 BCE, and recorded by Joyce Marcus of the University of Michigan (see picture 1). Substantiated by reports from the earliest colonial chroniclers, the custom was clearly both widespread and ancient throughout Mesoamerica, as world renowned scholars such as Michael Coe and Karl Taube have shown, covering the whole gamut of major civilisations, from Olmec to Aztec. Bishop Diego de Landa mentions the practice amongst the Maya (‘they placed [with the corpse] some of the stones which they use for money, so that they should not be without something to eat in the other life’ (Coe 1988: 225)...

... and in the Appendix to Chapter 1 in Book 3 of the Florentine Codex Fray Bernardino de Sahagún both describes the custom (‘And when the rulers and noblemen died, they put green stones in their mouths. And if they were only commoners, [they used] only greenish stones or obsidian. It was said that they became their hearts’ and provides a rare illustration of the practice (see picture 2).
Sahagún’s reference to differences in social status is corroborated by Marcus in her report on the Valley of Oaxaca burials. She writes:-
’Burials show a continuum of status, with men and women buried with variable amounts of jade, magnetite, and marine shell. While some individuals might be buried with only one jade bead in the mouth, others had up to three beads and two jade ear spools’ (1999: 83).

Was the jade bead simply, as many writers have assumed, the equivalent of ‘money’, to ‘pay’ for the long, four-year journey to the underworld? Some scholars have pinpointed a more specific function, particularly with regard to the Aztec belief in a series of nine challenges faced by the spirit of the deceased on the protracted journey to Mictlan. Based on the Florentine Codex the eminent Mexican archaeologist Alfonso Caso suggested ‘A jade bead was placed in his mouth to serve as his heart, which he would doubtless leave as a pawn in the seventh hell, where the wild beasts devoured the hearts of men’ (1958: 62). Ethnologist Fernando Horcasitas explained this more lyrically:-
’Just before reaching his destination, he would be attacked by a jaguar demanding his heart. The deceased would then take the stone bead out of his mouth and offer it to the jaguar. Having thus given up his most prized possession, symbol of his heart and of his stoic existence on earth, the Aztec could enter into the Land of the Dead’ (1979: 32).

It shouldn’t be surprising that, as the rarest and most precious of all minerals, jade symbolised the human heart in ancient Mesoamerica. However jade has also been associated (since Middle Formative Olmec times) with maize, the most sacred of foods: in Coe’s words ‘the piece of jade or jade bead was a symbolic ear of maize for consumption in the other world’ (1988: 225). After surveying the testimonies of early Spanish chroniclers who had witnessed Maya burials, Coe goes on to suggest a further connection with breath, air and wind - (the renewal of) life itself, since ‘the mouth is not only a consumer of food, it is also the ingress and egress of human breath’ (ibid). The breath spirit of the deceased, jade ‘embodies the concept of of life essence in Mesoamerican thought’ (Taube 2005: 30), a belief personified by the Classic Maya wind god (see picture 4): Taube has documented several examples of Maya jade figures portraying both wind god, with his characteristic T-shaped wind symbol, and maize god, with volutes (symbols of speech, music, song, breath...) -

- what’s more, these volutes further denote the ‘breath essence of the precious stone’ itself (ibid: 32). In other words, jade as a precious living stone was believed to exhale and inhale breath and moisture, a connection the Mexica put to good use when prospecting for jade and other precious stones, scouring the landscape early in the morning for signs of vapour emanating from rocks (learn more by following the ‘Smoke signals’ link, below).

Sources/references:-
• Caso, Alfonso (1958): The Aztecs: People of the Sun, University of Oklahoma Press
• Coe, Michael (1988): ‘Ideology of the Maya Tomb’, in Maya Iconography edited by Elizabeth P. Benson and Gillett G. Griffin, Princeton University Press
• Florentine Codex Book 3 - The Origin of the Gods (1978): Anderson & Dibble (trans.), University of Utah
• Horcasitas, Fernando (1979): The Aztecs then and now, Editorial Minutiae Mexicana, Mexico City
• Marcus, Joyce (1999): ‘Men’s and Women’s Ritual in Formative Oaxaca’, in Social Patterns in Pre-Classic Mesoamerica, edited by David C. Grove and Rosemary A. Joyce, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C.
• Taube, Karl A. (2005): ‘The Symbolism of Jade in Classic Maya Religion’, Ancient Mesoamerica, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 23-50.

Picture sources:-
• Main picture: colour illustration for Mexicolore by, thanks to and © Steve Radzi (mayavision.com)
• Pic 1: Illustrations scanned from Marcus (1999), op cit; graphics by Mexicolore
• 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 public domain
• Pic 4: illustration scanned from Reading Maya Art by Andrea Stone and Marc Zender, Thames & Hudson Ltd., London, 2011
• Pic 5: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore.

Ode to jade beads (Aztec limerick no. 33)
On your journey to Mictlan you’ll need
Warm clothing, food, drink… and a bead;
We know it sounds funny
But the jade was like money
To pay for your soul to be freed.

Q. What would Londoners suggest as today’s equivalent to a jade bead offering?
A. A travel pass on the Underground!

‘Smoke signals’