Beanz meanz money!

How exactly did the Aztec people buy and sell goods? Most of us know that they bartered, exchanging one item for another; and most of us know that they used cacao (cocoa) beans as a simple rate of exchange. But just how much was a cocoa bean worth? Professor Frances Berdan (one of our ‘Ask the Experts’ panel members) has kindly supplied the following information, for which we all thank her warmly!

20 cocoa beans = 1 trip for a porter

'One problem with trying to match like with like is that not all cacao beans were the same - they differed in origin and quality, and therefore their values went up and down. So for example the market prices listed in a 1545 document from Tlaxcala indicate that 200 full cacao beans = 230 shrunken ones. This list of prices also includes examples such as the following (all in cacao beans): one small rabbit = 30, one turkey egg = 3, one turkey cock = 300, one good turkey hen = 100 full cacao beans or 120 shrunken ones, one newly picked avocado = 3, one fully ripe avocado = 1, one large tomato = 1, one cacao bean = 20 small tomatoes, one cacao bean = 5 long narrow green chiles, a large strip of pine bark for kindling = 5... This was in 1545, but the relative idea is there.

1 cocoa bean= 5 long narrow green chiles

'There isn't a lot of information, and although cacao beans continued to be used as currency in the colonial period, the quachtli rapidly fell out of use (perhaps because of their high relative value, or their closer equivalency to the Spanish tomin (a unit of mass used for precious metals).'

3 cocoa beans = 1 avocado

Warwick Bray (another expert on our panel) points out ('Everyday Life of the Aztecs', p. 112) that cocoa beans generally formed 'the every day small change', and that for expensive items the units of exchange were mantles (cloaks, capes), copper axe-blades, or quills full of gold dust. He adds his own list of the cost in cotton capes of relatively expensive goods:-

1 x dugout canoe = 1 x quachtli

100 sheets of paper = 1 x quachtli

1 x gold lip plug = 25 x quachtli

1 x warrior's costume and shield = about 64 x quachtli

1 x feather cloak = 100 x quachtli

1 x string of jade beads = 600 x quachtli

65 cocoa beans = 1 plain white cotton cape

But we end on a more honest note. The Florentine Codex also includes (Book 10) illustrations of Aztec women selling cotton cloaks, and you can easily see the difference between a simple plain white one and far more elaborately embroidered ones - costing loads more beans...

Selling cloaks, Florentine Codex