Armadillos - the view from La Huasteca

The hunting of armadillos and their medicinal properties in Chicontepec.
The armadillo is a piltecuanitzin or ‘wild animal’ that inhabits the Huasteca region of Veracruz, Mexico. In the indigenous Nahua communities of Chicontepec the armadillo is known as calolo, probably because it has a carapace or shell that resembles its calli or house: calolo in Nahuatl means ‘animal with its house’. Possibly in earlier times it was called calolyo, meaning ‘something with its house’, referring just to this little creature, the word losing its ‘y’ in time. In other regions it’s known as ayotochin – a combination of ayotl (tortoise) and tochtli or tochin (rabbit), due to its similarity to both.

Pic 1: An ‘ayotochtli’, Florentine Codex Book 11

The calolo lives typically in the woods around Chicontepec. On locating an armadillo burrow, a hunter will light a fire at the entrance to the burrow; once the smoke penetrates the burrow interior, the calolo cannot withstand the smoke and emerges struggling for fresh air, at which point the dogs pursue it. Success for the hunters is usually assured. The meat will be eaten and some of it sold to local residents for 20 pesos. Those who have tasted armadillo meat, as I did as a child, say it tastes like pork.

Pic 3: A Nahua milpa and woods near Chicontepec

The son of an armadillo hunter who lives in Chicontepec, José Luis, told me that when someone has a chronic cough, or even pneumonia, the ill person, called a cocoxquetl, has to eat armadillo heart. When questioned as to whether the heart must be cooked, José Luis replied that the yollotl or heart should be eaten raw to aid recovery.
Another Chicontepec resident, José Domingo, informed me that when an armadillo is killed and someone has pneumonia, a woman will boil ipancacalo calolo, the carapace or shell of the armadillo in water, and the cocoxquetl must drink a cupful of ipancacalo calolo iayo (‘armadillo shell water’). I was previously unaware of these two medicinal treatments but have every reason to believe in their effectiveness.

Pic 5: Close-up of an armadillo carapace

Finally, the Nahuas of Chicontepec view the armadillo as a cualli tlapiyalli or beneficial animal, believing that its medicinal properties will bring them good health. Armadillo hunters do not hunt for sport, nor for profit. I believe they search out the calolo because the community sees it as part of their traditional medicine.
In communities and in the hills around Chicontepec the calolo population is stable, and not in danger of extinction, since it doesn’t constitute a staple in the basic Nahua diet. At the same time the presence of armadillos in Chicontepec is not seen as a pest: like the skunk it does not interfere with the cultivation of maize. On the contrary, these creatures are seen in a positive light, as the bearers of pahtli (medicine).

Pic 7: Hunted armadillos nailed to a tree