Article suitable for older students

Opossum

9th Jul 2023

Opossum or tlacuache, Florentine Codex Book XI

‘The mythic personality of the opossum (Didelphis marsupialis) permeates the entire Mesoamerican tradition, from the earliest clay figurines to the indigenous narratives of the present day’ (López Austin, 2001, vol. 2, 414). Commonly known today in Mexico as tlacuache (from the Nahuatl tlacuatzin), the opossum would have been the only marsupial mammal - that is, an animal that carries her offspring in a pouch on her body - known to the Mexica/Aztecs (and the first encountered by Europeans). Its unusual characteristics would inevitably lead to it starring in a wide range of myths and folktales... (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

A truly ancient inhabitant of the Americas, belonging to the largest order of marsupials in the Western Hemisphere, comprising close to 90 species, the large common American opossum can grow to the size of a domestic cat, lives generally in woods and its unusually broad diet includes insects, small vertebrates, fruits and leaves - and it loves maize! Tlacuatzin derives from the Nahuatl verb for ‘to eat’, tlacua, with the suffix -tzin being a diminutive, the word thus meaning an ‘eater’. The opossum is as much at home in a treetop as in a cave - as such it would traditionally be considered in Mesoamerica as ‘a traveller between the sky and the depths of the underworld’ (López Austin, op cit, 415). Being not only a good climber but excelling at opening things and reaching into inaccessible places, the opossum is often seen today by farmers as a pest.

In ancient Mesoamerica the opossum was indeed considered a thief, but almost in a sympathetic, culture hero way, rather like Robin Hood. According to myth, it was the opossum who brought fire to humans, ‘stealing’ it from the gods, alongside the maguey plant and its intoxicating juice pulque. In return, the opossum asked people ‘never to eat me’ - something the Huichol people today continue to respect and uphold. In its endeavour the opossum used its long, hairless, tail to ‘catch’ the fire: ‘When his tail had caught fire, he ran as far as he could, sharing the fire. And that’s why opossums today have a bald tail’ (Bierhorst, 2002:78).

Its reputation as a thief gave the opossum an affinity with Quetzalcoatl - it was he that stole bones from the Lord of Mictlan (the land of the dead) in order to create humans, who abducted Mayahuel (goddess of the maguey or century plant) and who, as a semi-divine priest-king became drunk from pulque and was shamed into leaving his home city of Tollan (Tula). The opossum is particularly fond of ‘honey-water’ (aguamiel in Spanish, tlachique in Nahuatl), the unfermented sap that can be sucked out of the centre of the maguey plant and which later is encouraged to become pulque - earning the creature its reputation for being a drunkard.

Pulque has since ancient times been associated with the moon. In his classic study The Rabbit on the Face of the Moon, Alfredo López Austin reported a folk belief from Culiacan: on nights with a full moon, ‘passers-by can suffer a real scare if they suddenly run into an opossum. The animal will abruptly rise before the person by coiling its tail as if it were a spring’ (1996:83). The ‘spring’ is in fact a helix, a spiral-shaped form (think of rope...) representing the path taken by the gods and their influences, including time itself (by giving names to the days) (ibid: 85).
The opossum was the creator of the helix. ‘In the myths, the opossum not only stole fire and pulque but also created the cosmic path’s helicoidal shape’.
Intriguingly, the helix is closely associated with Quetzalcóatl, in his disguise as Ehécatl, the wind god, his body twisted into a tightly coiled rope, as if imitating the shape and action of a spiralling tornado or ‘twister’... (see pic 4 and accompanying animation of a sculpted monkey figurine with the wind god’s mask, in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City).

The mythological connections don’t end there. One of the special behaviours of the opossum is to adopt a ‘play dead’ position, gaping jaws wide open, pretending to be lifeless to an approaching predator, only to spring back to life when the danger has passed. This resonated with Quetzalcóatl, who shared a special bond with medical practitioners, who would invoke the memory of this god when setting broken bones. This is because he dropped, but then saved, the bones of humankind as he tripped over a quail while escaping from Mictlan (follow the links below to learn more...) (Re-)birth - both Quetzalcóatl and the opossum experienced their own destruction and reconstitution in different ways, both closely associated with (a new) dawn - naturally evokes maternity. Here the opossum stars once more with its ‘portable cradle’ (pouch) in which it carries its young (note the baby opossums under their mother in the main picture, above, from the Florentine Codex). Moreover, the opossum is said to cry when its young are in danger (pic 5): El tlacuache no hace ningún daño, no es malo. No muerde, ni araña, aun cuando sea atrapado. Y cuando es agarrado, chilla, llora, salen lágrimas de sus ojos. Y especialmente cuando la tlacuacha es apresada con sus hijos. Mucho llora por ellos. Ella los ha colocado en su bolsa, ella es quien los saca de ella (León-Portilla 2007: 80).

As León-Portilla says, the opossum has a gentle, protective nature (at the same time a very strong body). Female opossums have two uteri and two vaginas; their babies are born prematurely and complete their natal growth in their mother’s pouch (Read & Gonzalez, 2000:218). It is the properties of its tail (tlaquacuitlapilli), though, that are its most valued feature.
‘Its tail is a medicine which expels, which extracts, wherever something has got in, especially in an opening in a bone, which cannot come out. [Salve] of opossum tail is spread on it thickly; it is spread on many times. Even if it is very well lodged, this draws it out; it gradually removes it. And [women] who have difficulty in childbirth, who cannot deliver the child, drink [the infusion]. Thus the little child is born quickly’ (Florentine Codex, Book XI, 12).

The recipe for aiding birth - also recommended for treating constipation and a cough - is further spelt out in the 16th century Badianus Manuscript or Códice de la Cruz-Badiano, which has a chapter on women’s medicine, ‘a subject almost universally ignored at the time by authors on the New World’ (Bleichmar 2017:30):-
‘If a woman has difficulty in labour, in order to bring forth the foetus with little effort, she should drink a medicine of the quauhalahuac tree [soap tree], and the herb cihuapahtli [Woman Medicine] crushed in water, the small stone eztetl, and the tail of the small animal named tlaquatzin…’ (1940:316).
Clearly a well-established and enduring treatment, the recipe features again, a century later, in a treatise by the Spanish Jesuit scholar Juan Eusebio Nieremberg:-
‘A drachma of the tlacuatzin’s powdered tail, mixed with water and drunk on its own at various intervals, would cleanse the urinary tract, stimulate the production of urine and milk, increase the libido, heal fractures and colic, speed up delivery and cause the period to start. Additionally, when applied on the body, the powdered tail could help the extraction of thorns and soften the belly’ (Marcaida, 2021:184).

Incidentally, the image from Nieremberg’s treatise (1635) was a new woodcut (pic 6), showing a female opossum and her offspring, which appear to be emerging from her pouch. It bears the initials CJ, by well-known Flemish Baroque wood engraver Christoffel Jegher.
Why might the concoction - still in use today - work? Professor Bernard de Montellano documents that the remedy is in fact a scientifically proven ‘oxytocic’ (1990:191). He notes that since the opossum offspring were ‘outside’ the uterus, by sympathetic magic it might also help the human child to get ‘outside’ the mother’ (ibid:186).
Another possible explanation is the presence of ‘prostaglandins’ involved in heat dissipation and regulation, an important concern in parturition, during which increased body temperature can be dangerous. The tails of fellow marsupials kangaroos have similar qualities (187).

Not all opossum folklore is positive, however. López Austin quotes a peasant from Tepexpan who mentions the danger of wandering around the countryside at night. ‘The opossums are the thieves’ naguales [animal companion spirits]’ (1996:82); and a Tzotzil (Maya) folk belief from Chiapas that ‘the “opossum” force comes into the world as the dangerous month mol ‘uch, which dries up the crops if worshippers do not place on the top of the entrances to their houses, all wrapped in maize leaves, offerings that include everything pleasing to the invisible marsupial – a small ear of corn, a small tortilla, a few beans, a cigarette, salt, and a little bowl of posol (fermented maize dough). The opossum force-essence, satisfied with the offering, will not attack the maize in the fields’ (ibid: 82-83).

Finally, Mexicans today have incorporated the opossum into their every-day language, as in the phrase tener más mañas que un tlacuache: said of a person who’s particularly astute and cunning (referring to the opossum’s tactic of ‘playing dead’...) (Montemayor, 2007:295).

Note: The opossum also features strongly in Maya mythology, representing the feminine force of creation, the four ‘bacab’ gods that hold up the sky, the earth-lunar goddess, the twilight that precedes dawn, and more. For a far more detailed study, read ‘The Myths of the Opossum’ by López Austin - see top.

Sources/references:-
• (The) Badianus Manuscript, (Codex Barberini, Latin 241), Vatican Library, An Aztec Herbal of 1552 (1940), introduction, translation and annotations by Emily Walcott Emmart, The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore
• Bierhorst, John (2002) The Mythology of Mexico and Central America, OUP
• Bleichmar, Daniela (2017) Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin, Yale University Press, London
• Florentine Codex Book XI - Earthly Things (1963) translated by Charles E. Dibble & Arthur J.O. Anderson, School of American Research and the University of Utah, Santa Fe
• León-Portilla, Miguel (2007) Animales del Nuevo Mundo, Nostra Ediciones SA, Mexico City
• López Austin, Alfredo (1996) The Rabbit on the Face of the Moon: Mythology in the Mesoamerican Tradition, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City
• ----- (2001) ‘Opossums’ in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, vol. 2, Editor in Chief Davíd Carrasco, OUP
• Marcaida, José Ramón (2021) ‘Opossum’ in New World Objects of Knowledge: A Cabinet of Curiosities editors Mark Thurner & Juan Pimentel, University of London Press
• Montellano, Bernard R. Ortiz de (1990) Aztec Medicine, Health and Nutrition, Rutgers University Press, London
• Montemayor, Carlos (2007) Diccionario del Náhuatl en el Español de México, UNAM, Mexico City
• Read, Kay Almere & González, Jason J. (2000) Mesoamerican Mythology, OUP
• Seler, Eduard (2008) Las Imágenes de Animales en los Manuscritos Mexicanos y Mayas, Casa Juan Pablos, Mexico City

Picture sources:-
• Main pic, pix 3 & 8: images from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Pic 1: photo by Ana Carla AZ - Wikipedia (Didelphis)
• Pic 2: image from the Codex Vaticanus scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, 1972
• Animation by Mexicolore, based on original photos from the Archivo Zabé
• Pic 4: photo (L) by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore; others from Wikipedia
• Pic 5: illustration scanned from Animales del Nuevo Mundo (see above)
• Pic 6: image courtesy of Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano
• Pic 7: image scanned from our own copy of The Badianus Manuscript (see above)
• Pic 9: image scanned from our copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, Graz, Austria, 1971
• Pic 10: photo by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Pic 11: image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Graz, Austria, 1987.

In rural Mexico today, local people compare the astuteness of the opossum to that of the largest cat: ‘Its wisdom is so great that it knows the names of the days, in contrast with the jaguar, who can only say “the day after tomorrow”’ (López Austin, 2001).
This is typical of the age-old ‘small, shrewd character who faces up to the mighty jaguars’ folktale theme.

Study the Aztec Wind God See our full feature on Quetzalcóatl

Comments (1)

Max

28th Aug 2023

I love opossums

Opossum or tlacuache, Florentine Codex Book XI

Aztecs

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Opossum

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