Article suitable for older students

Special feasts meant special foods

11th Aug 2023

Ritual Aztec offerings, all relating to maize, Codex Magliabechiano fol. 32 (detail)

The Maya call(ed) themselves the people of maize; Mexico is the home of this wonderful cereal grain which has been the mainstay of the Mesoamerican diet for millennia. ‘Even for the lords it was the staple, and the rest was sauce. But among the Aztec elite maize appeared in so many forms that it is hard to imagine them suffering from the monotony which we envisage when told of a culture which has a single staple food and eats it every meal of every day’ (Sophie Coe). Thanks to Sahagún and his Nahua informants we know the repertoire of Mexica cuisine was astonishingly broad. What few people realise is that even the SHAPES OF TORTILLAS were ritually synchronised with the calendar round of feasts... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

The gods constantly require(d) sustenance - not just in the form of precious (human) blood but also foods, with sacred maize topping the list. In the main picture (above), offerings in the form of maize kernels, dough balls and tortillas lie beneath an abstract representation of the maize deity Teteo Innan (Goddess Mother - see her in person in pic 3, below) during the feast of Ochpaniztli (‘The Sweeping’) (Morán 2016: 97).
The Mexica saw this essentially as ‘debt payment’ to the gods, part of an eternal and reciprocal engagement with them: humans providing sustenance to the gods and at the same time consuming these same gift offerings in communion with them and with their local community, in the form of tortillas, tamales, food effigies, and sacrificed slaves (Mazzetto 2021: 33).

Special occasions (ie festivals) required special tortillas - and there’s no doubt that, as with tamales (follow the link below to learn more), there were many kinds, as we shall see...
We start with baby tortillas. In the entry on ‘Offerings’ (Tlamanaliztli in Nahuatl) in Book 2 of the Florentine Codex we’re told that ‘thus did the young [unmarried] women make offerings: before dawn their mothers, their fathers woke them. So they went making offerings carried in the palms of their hands - little tortillas, very small ones; thus they went quickly laying gifts [before the gods]...’ (1951: 194).
Whilst Sahagún says these teenage girls made tortilla offerings ‘in their homes’ and ‘took the gifts in bowls’, his compatriot, Fray Diego Durán mentions ‘maidens of penitence’, specifically chosen - alongside boys of the same age - to serve Huitzilopochtli.

These youngsters even dressed appropriately, wearing garlands of popcorn (momochitl) and carrying maize bundles (ocholli). The smooth heads of the ‘cloistered virgins’ on entering Huitzilopochtli’s service represented young, fresh, green ears of corn (elotl): ‘they were not only dressed with maize but in their service to Huitzilopochtli were transformed into this essential grain’ (Morán 2016: 43). We should point out, incidentally, that this practice was limited to the veintena (‘month’) of Toxcatl. Similar ‘young’ tortillas - xilo(l)tlaxcalli - were offered to goddess of young maize Xilonen during the festival of Hueytecuihuitl (Great Feast Day of the Lords) (Mazzetto 2021: 34).
Durán adds, intriguingly, that the carefully chosen Huitzilopochtli maidens also prepared ‘small tortillas fashioned in the manner of hands and feet’ (Durán 1971: 83). The former were called macpaltlaxcalli and the latter xopaltlaxcalli (ibid; Robelo 1951: 75).

Referring to the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli (‘Flaying of the Men’), dedicated to Xipe Totec, Durán further mentions ‘a certain type of twisted, honeyed tortilla’ or cocoltlaxcalli. ‘It was made of a special corn. The Indians hang this corn with its leaves from the ceiling in bunches called ocholli. Tortillas made from this corn and never from another and eaten on this day were called cocolli, which means “twisted bread”. Chains were made of these tortillas. People made chains of these; they adorned and girded themselves with them to dance all day’ (1971: 415-6).
According to Book 2 of the Florentine Codex yet another type of tortilla was associated with this important festival (which involved a high level of human sacrifice), as well as with the feast of Izcalli, dedicated to fire god Xiuhtecuhtli: bracelet tortillas - macuextlaxcalli - made of uncooked maize. Sahagún writes that during the ceremony ‘a great quantity of bracelet tortillas were heaped up before him [the deity impersonator]’ (1951: 161).
And there are still more to come...!

In Book 8 of the Florentine Codex reference is made to ‘the foods the Lords ate’ (chapter 13), and in the middle of the rich menu is one of the most mysterious tortilla shapes: ‘tortillas shaped like hip guards’ or queceoatlaxcalli; no further context is given, but one immediately associates the shape with the body protection worn by ritual ballgame players round the waist.
The symbolism of our next example, on the other hand, is clear: butterfly-shaped tortillas or papalotlaxcalli. These are mentioned specifically (Florentine Codex, Book 1) in connection with ceremonies dedicated to appeasing the fierce Cihuapipiltin - supernatural female warriors who had died in childbirth and as goddesses were charged with carrying the Sun down each afternoon.
Reflecting the Aztec belief that the souls of brave warriors who died in battle returned to earth later as butterflies or hummingbirds, warriors’ wives made offerings of butterfly tortillas which they dedicated to their menfolk in neighbourhood temples. These would later be consumed in a feast dedicated to those warriors who had met their deaths. Mazzetto (2021: 32) explains:-
’Las tortillas-mariposas eran una representación comestible del guerrero, tanto así que eran a su vez incineradas, compartiendo el mismo destino ultramundiano’. Butterflies were also associated symbolically with fire, which would carry the souls of brave warriors to the Sun.

Before we present the (to us) most fascinating tortilla shape - it should be clear by now that the Nahuatl word for tortilla is tlaxcalli - we include a contrasting and mundane example, the folded tortilla or tlacuelpacholtlaxcalli, also known as nenepanolli. These were prepared exclusively for nobles, and are mentioned in Sahagún’s Primeros Memoriales as offerings in the feast of Panquetzaliztli. They appear to be a variant of the twisted cocoltlaxcalli (Mazzetto, op cit). Reflecting the profundity of Mexica mythology and the interconnectedness of all aspects of the cosmos, ‘foods created with maize also functioned as omens. If a woman was making tortillas and they doubled over, this would indicate that she would have a guest...’ (Morán, op cit: 32).

Finally, it’s time for our ‘star’ turn (pun intended), the S-shaped tortilla, known as xonecuiltlaxcalli, mentioned in the Florentine Codex (Book 2) in connection with the feast of Tlacaxipeualiztli, in Book 1 as part of the offerings to the Cihuapipiltin, and in Book 7 in the fourth chapter ‘which telleth of the stars’ on feast days dedicated to Macuilxochitl/Xochipilli under the day sign Xochitl (Flower) (Simeon 1999: 779). Sahagún describes them as being ‘at both ends, twisted and rounded over. They were eaten on the day Xochitl, everywhere, in each house. It was done in all places; in men’s dwellings everywhere, they were made’ (1953: 13).
The word xonecuilli (plural xonecuilin) literally means ‘twisted foot’ (Robelo 1951: 471). It could directly refer to anyone who limped, but figuratively it could refer to several things: the twisted, notched staff held by procession and dance leaders (pic 7) and by merchants, according to Torquemada (ibid, and Simeon op cit), lightning rays, the northern polar constellation of seven stars (Brotherston 2005: 9) representing Mixcóatl (god of the Milky Way) (Robelo op cit) - and to the S-shaped tortilla...

In his 1898 study of the Codex Borbonicus Francisco del Paso y Troncoso (1985: 139), commenting on the Ochpaniztli festival scene in pages 29-30 of the Borbonicus, suggests that the Xonecuilli symbol in the priest’s banner (pic 7) reflects the shape of the S-shaped tortilla, which he says is depicted on page 81 of the Codex Zouche-Nuttall (pic 8) - although a more recent study by Hermann Lejarazu (2006: 84) suggests that this image (part of the story of the conquests of Mixtec ruler 8-Deer) represents the toponym for the Valley of Burning Tobacco.
Far more important here - in terms of the symbolism of the Xonecuilli - is the magisterial study of the sequence of 18 Aztec feasts by Gordon Brotherston (2005). Ochpaniztli, to which two full pages of the Borbonicus are devoted, was an agricultural festival in honour of Teteu Innan; it required the most extensive preparations, since the goddess blessed the harvest at this time.

The choreography of the feasts sequence is presented uniquely in Borbonicus, and Brotherston interprets the symbols in terms both of human activity (the farming year) and ancient knowledge of the calendars: the Mesoamericans were aware of the minuscule but important ‘slip’ between solar and sidereal cycles (relating to the wobble of Earth on its axis as we process round the fixed stars in the sky). Using ciphers, he notes that Xonecuilli, with its seven stars, represents the seven ‘fat’ 20-day ‘months’ of the year, following the eleven ‘thin’ months represented by the Firedrill constellation (pic 9). Noting the presence of TWO Xonecuilli symbols (the other features on another banner held by a priest on page 29 - see pic 11L), he suggests a reading based on astronomical and hence calendrical movement:-
’Borbonicus alludes to the night sky in Ochpaniztli in the “S” image of the septentrion [northerly - from the Latin meaning “seven plow oxen”, the principal stars in Ursa Major] Xonecuilli, which is carried forward through the Feast indicating the forward movement of the constellations and the corresponding precession of the equinoxes’ (2005: 52).

The importance of all this is brought down to earth in human terms with the link between the calendar and the agricultural cycle: a good illustration of this is found in the Tovar Manuscript - in the Etzalcualiztli festival, dedicated to rain gods, a Mexica farmer stands, in water, grasping both sacred maize plant and watering vessel, with a Xonecuilli S-figure prominently displayed on his shoulder (pic 10). Brotherston summarises his reading of the feasts sequence thus:-
’[The 18 feasts] characteristically invoke the quarters of the sidereal year through the S-shaped polar constellation Xonecuilli, indicating its advance over the shorter solar year’ (2005: 9).

So the humble tlaxcalli (its root is the Nahuatl word [i]xca meaning to bake something) has a symbolic value that truly reaches to the stars...

Sources/references/further reading:-
• Brotherston, Gordon (2005) Feather Crown: The Eighteen Feasts of the Mexica Year, British Museum Research Publication no. 154, London
• Coe, Sophie D. (1994) America’s First Cuisines, University of Texas Press, Austin
• Del Paso y Troncoso, Francisco (1985) Descripción, Historia y Exposición del Códice Borbónico, Siglo Veintiuno Editores, Mexico City
• Durán, Diego (1971) Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman
• Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain - Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Books 1 (1970), 2 (1981), 7 (1953) & 8 (1979), trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson & Charles E. Dibble, School of American Research / University of Utah, Santa Fe
• Hermann Lejarazu, Manuel A. (2006) ‘Códice Nuttall, lado 1: La Vida de 8 Venado’, Arqueología Mexicana special edition no. 23, December, Mexico City
• Mazzetto, Elena (2021) ‘Cocinando para los dioses y los hombres: los alimentos rituales en las fiestas religiosas de los antiguos nahuas’, Arqueología Mexicana, Mexico DF, no. 168, May-June, pp. 26-35
• Morán, Elizabeth (2016) Sacred Consumption: Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture, University of Texas Press
• Robelo, Cecilio A. (1951) Diccionario de Mitología Nahuatl, Mexico, Ediciones Fuente Cultural, 2nd. edition.
• Simeon, R. (1999) Diccionario de la lengua nahuatl o mexicana. Mexico: Siglo veinteuno.

FOOTNOTE: Most but perhaps not all readers will be aware that the Nahuatl word tlaxcalli gave its name to the small central Mexican state of Tlaxcala (originally Tlaxcallan), whose toponym features a tortilla (pic 12). The word means Place of Bread, or ‘Amongst Tortillas’.

Image sources:-
• Main and pix 3 & 5: images from the Codex Magliabechiano scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA 1970 facsimile edition, Graz, Austria
• Pic 1: photo by Ana Laura Landa/Mexicolore
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Mendoza (original in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark facsimile edition, London, 1938
• Pic 4: illustration for Mexicolore by, © and with thanks to Steve Radzi/mayavision.com
• Pic 6: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pix 7 & 11(L): images from our own copy of the facsimile edition of the Codex Borbonicus, ADEVA, Graz, Austria, 1991
• Pic 8: image from the Codex Zouche-Nuttall scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1987
• Pic 9: images scanned from our own copy of Primeros Memoriales by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Facsimile Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1993
• Pic 10: image scanned from Manuscrit Tovar, ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1972
• Pic 11 (R): image downloaded from Wikimedia (Xonecuilli) - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xonecuilli.JPG
• Pic 12: illustration by Mabarlabin, from Wikipedia.

Aztec limerick no. 52 (ode to tortillas)
If you think all tortillas are round
Look what Aztec scholars have found:
From celestial ‘S’...
To butterfly, no less,
Odd shapes, linked to ritual, abound!

Learn more about tamales...