The Pochteca
Aztec Stories
Story 1 about Pochteca in Far Away Lands “When the merchants went into Tzinacantlan before the people of Tzinacantlan had been conquered, to enter so that they did not look like Mexicans, in order to disguise themselves, they took on the appearance of the natives. As was the manner of cutting the hair of the people of Tzinacantlan, of Cimatlan, of the Otomi, of the Chontal, just so did the merchants cut their hair to imitate them. And they learned their tongue to enter in disguise. And no one at all could tell whether they were perchance Mexicans when they were anointed with ochre.
And there at Tzinacantlan was where amber occurred and the very long quetzal feathers; because this very place was where all the quetzal birds descended. They came down when spring set in and here ate the acorns of the oak trees. And the blue cotingas and the blue honeycreepers came here to eat the fruit of the black fig tree.
And when they caught the blue cotinga, they could not seize it with their hands. They only swiftly plucked, they grasped, a handful of green grass; with it they seized the bird. For if only with the hands one were to take it, then the blue cotinga's feathers were blemished; the blue became as if soiled.
And the skins of wild animals of all kinds also occurred there at Tzinacantlan, in the land of the mountain people.
These disguised merchants were the first who secured all the things mentioned which occurred there. And for it they took along obsidian blades with leather handles, obsidian points, needles, shells, cochineal, alum, red ochre, and strands of rabbit fur not yet spun into thread. All these were the personal goods of the disguised merchants. For it, they secured all that has been mentioned: amber, of which were made the labrets and curved lip plugs which the great warriors, the great chieftains required thote who no longer dreaded war; who scorned it; who knew well how war was waged, how captives were taken. And they secured the long quetzal feathers, and the blue cotinga and blue honeycreeper feathers.
And when, somewhere, the Mexicans, the disguised merchants, were discovered, then they were slain, for they were considered ominous; or they barely escaped ambush (Haemig 1978).”
Caption: On the left is a Quetzal Headress, which was the main bird Pochteca's tried to capture taken by Judi Kadish.
On the right is a picture of a male Quetzal taken by Lowell Thomas.
Story 2 about the Pochteca coming home from a successful trip
"Not by day but by night they moved swiftly entered by boat. And ass to their goods, no one could see how much there was; perhaps they carefully hid-covered up-all the boats. Not at one's own home did one arrive, but perhaps at the house of his uncle or his aunt, or of his elder sister...And when he had quickly come to unload what he had acquired, then swiftly he took away his boat. When it dawned, nothing remained.(Berdan 2005)"
Story 3 about the Pochteca's judgment at the market place
" And thus did the principal merchants, the disguised merchants, conduct themselves; quite apart did they pronounce their judgements; independently were sentences meted out. A merchant, a vanguard merchant, who did wrong, they did not take to someone else; the principal merchants, the disguised merchants themselves alone pronounced judgment, exacted the punishment, executed the death penalty (Berdan 2005)"
"These same [principal merchants] pronounced judgement upon who decieved others in the market place, who cheated them in buying and selling. Or they punished the theif. And they regulated well everything: all in the market place which was sold; what the price would be (Berdan 2005)."
Caption: Aztec food market at Tlatelolco. Taken from Latin American Studies Program, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
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