30 May 2025 / 10 House
Mice: Aztec spies!
The codex picture above comes from a section on travel by merchants. Can you SPY the chirpy-looking mouse at the bottom of the trader’s travelling staff? You guessed it...
To the superstitious Aztecs or Mexica people, the humble little mouse was bad news. It eats the things humans eat, and ‘it hunts out articles of value, it gnaws, it shreds, it finds its way into places and damages everything...’
The famous Florentine Codex says: ‘Hence also the eavesdropper is also called mouse, because no matter where, he continually enters the house, he hears and acquires the information and inquires into one’s affairs. Hence is said the saying “I mouse him”; that is to say, “I eavesdrop on one”.
Little surprise, maybe, that the mouse became a symbol for the Aztec ’disguised merchant’, basically a spy in the guise of a trader, who brought valuable information on potential new sources of wealth - and how these were defended - to the ruler of the day in Tenochtitlan. But the risks were high: if caught, well, see for yourself (above)...
The ‘mice’ were secret agents, trained to dress and speak like the locals, blending in wherever possible, constantly on the lookout for military intelligence of all kinds. The ‘disguised merchants’, though, at least did SOME trading. If any of them brought back gems of info they were given handsome rewards, from fine cotton capes and gold lip plugs to whole plots of land (where they could play ‘I spy...’)