"A Curious Ambivalence": The Iconography of Long-Distance Trade Goods in Postclassic Mexico

Summary

The Postclassic Mexica maintained what Sophia and Michael Coe (2005) refer to as a "curious ambivalence" regarding cacao: despite its prevalence in everyday life as currency, the plant rarely appears in artistic programs and consumption was highly restricted via sumptuary laws that controlled social behavior. The visual scarcity of this crop extends into divine imagery – for instance, cacao remained an important aspect of Ek’ Chuah, the Postclassic Maya merchant god, but does not appear among the connotations of his almost-identical Mexica counterpart known as Yacatecuhtli. This disconnection between visual versus economic consumption resonates with ethnohistorical evidence of an anxiety over cacao due to its luxurious and foreign nature – and by extension the larger tensions inherent in relationships with long-distance trade goods. In this work, I examine not only what foreign goods appear in the visual vocabulary of the Mexica, but the connotations of ‘place’ in their artistic contexts. In addition, I argue that the dearth of cacao iconography reflects larger tensions. As the Mexica expanded the boundaries of their empire in search of foreign products, the imperial artistic program broadcasts a complicated narrative of a people wrestling with identity in the face of increasing connections with far-flung places.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21699