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‘Codex Corner’: old age

15th Oct 2023

An elderly Aztec midwife bathes a young child; Codex Mendoza fol. 57r (detail)

Did the Aztecs use any particular devices to depict old age in their writing? Yes. One predictable, the other perhaps not so... In the daily life section of the Codex Mendoza, old age is always indicated by wrinkled skin and grey hair, as in the picture, right of a senior Mexica midwife bathing a young child. (Written by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

In other, more ‘stylised’ codices that date from before the Spanish invasion in the 16th century, the concept of old age is depicted by showing a single tooth in the mouth of the elderly person. The examples we show here are taken from the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer (pic 1) and the Codex Vindobonensis (pic 2). In picture 1, two aged goddesses are pictured, appearing to grasp the ‘antennae’ of a large spider’s web, above a skull figure clearly representing death. The simple addition of a round white circle (for a tooth) in their mouths gives away their old age... Clever, huh!

In picture 2, a bearded old man follows an elderly woman; here the single tooth in each mouth is shown more realistically.

Info from The Essential Codex Mendoza by Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, University of California Press, London, 1997.

Picture sources:-
• Main pic: image scanned from our own copy of the James Cooper Clark 1938 facsimile edition of the Codex Mendoza, London
• Pic 1: image scanned from our own copy of the Codex Fejérváry-Mayer, ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1971
• Pic 2: image scanned from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition of the Codex Vindobonensis, Graz, Austria, 1974.

Aztecs

Maya

‘Codex Corner’: old age

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