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Spinning bowl

7th Nov 2024

Spinning bowl

An Aztec woman with her spinning equipment; Codex Mendoza

‘The small spinning bowl - tzahualcaxitl in Nahuatl - in which the spindle was twirled to create the motion for twisting the fluffed-up cotton fibres into thread was an indispensable part of a woman’s work equipment’. Just as it featured in miniature form at a baby girl’s naming ceremony as a symbolic gift, in some circumstances it would accompany her into the afterlife... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

‘It is illustrated in Sahagún [the Florentine Codex] - along with the workbasket, spindle, backstrap loom, and huipilli [woman’s garment] - as one of the symbols of womanhood [pic 1].
’Sahagún, when relating the fate of female sacrificial victims, says that they burned their weaving equipment - including the spindle bowl - because “it was said that they would be required there where they were to go”. Commoners used spinning bowls of clay, but princesses are reputed to have required “golden bowls for spindles”.
’Archaeological specimens - of clay, not gold - have been found in the Valley of Teotihuacan and elsewhere’ (Berdan & Rieff Anawalt, 1997: 155).
The ceramic example shown here (pic 2) was discovered in Temple R of the sacred precinct of Tlatelolco, Tlatelolco Archaeological Zone, Mexico City, and photographed by Salvador Guilliem Arroyo.

Quote/reference from The Essential Codex Mendoza by Frances Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt (1997), University of California Press.

Picture sources:-
• Main: image from the Codex Mendoza scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark 1938 facsimile edition, London
• Pic 1: image from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 2: photo downloaded from ‘Mexica Textiles: Archaeological Remains from the Sacred Precincts of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco’ by Leonardo López Luján and Salvador Guilliem Arroyo, ResearchGate, November 2017.

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Spinning bowl

An Aztec woman with her spinning equipment; Codex Mendoza

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