Xi Colli

THE XICOLLI: "Godly Jackets" of the AztecsAuthor(s): PATRICIA RIEFF ANAWALTSource: Archaeology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (October 1976), pp. 258-265Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41706087 .

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Three views of the Churubusco idol, showing the xicolli in detail. Photograph by H.B. Nicholson.

THE XICOLLI

"Godly Jackets" of the Aztecs

By PATRICIA RIEFF ANAWALT

When ancient rich

Cortés

and Mexico varied

landed in empire

1519 on the

largely he

shores found

of a ancient Mexico in 1519 he found a

rich and varied empire largely controlled by the powerful Aztec ruler Motecuzoma. Suspecting that the conquistador

might be the god Quetzalcoatl, whose return had long been predicted, the confused emperor did not resist the advancing enemy. The Spaniards approached and easily entered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. By 1521 the

PATRICIA RIEFF ANAWALT received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is Consulting Curator of Costumes and Textiles at the Museum of Cultural History, UCLA. She is presently preparing a book tracing the development of Mesoamerican Indian costume from the time of Spanish contact to the present day.

Ms. Anawalt is also a lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America and discusses Aztec ritual life on her scheduled tour (see inside cover for complete listing).

Ms. Anawalt would like to express her appreciation to the following individuals: Frances Berdan, Christopher Donnan, Henry B. Nicholson, and Hasso von Winning.

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A modern version of the xicolli, photographed in 1930. Variations of the garment have continued in use until the present. Photograph, Irmgard W. Johnson.

conquerors had destroyed the Indians' magnificent capital city, and had toppled the powerful Aztec empire.

Accompanying the conquistadors were zealous missionaries, dedicated to converting the indigenous people to Christianity. This task was not easily accomplished because the Indians tenaciously clung to their own traditions. A number of missionaries who were deeply committed to the evangelizing of the Indians carefully recorded the heathen practices and made detailed observations about the societies in which they occurred. Today these writings provide invaluable ethnographic information for modern scholars. Together with archaeological remains and native pictorial documents, the chronicles of the missionaries along with the eye-witness accounts of the Spanish conquerors and administrators constitute a basic source of evidence for ancient Mesoamerican culture.

Students of art and archaeology have always expressed great interest in iconography, the meaning and significance of various motifs depicted on extant remains. In the profoundly religious world of Mesoamerica, iconographie studies are particularly rewarding, and a large amount of research continues to be done. One area which deserves attention is the field of costume. In ancient Mesoamerica, dress was strictly controlled by the dictates of an all-encompassing religion and state. Thus the appearance of a distinctive garment immediately signals the presence of a special person, god or activity. A prime example is the xicolli or godly jacket, a sacred garment which figured prominently in certain human sacrificial ceremonies as well as some other facets of Aztec life. Scholars once thought this ritual garment was worn only by gods, priests and nobles. A closer look at certain historical accounts of Aztec life, however, shows that the xicolli was more a mark of ceremonial significance than of social status, and that members of the lower classes also used the costume under special conditions. Thus, the study of the xicolli helps clarify the roles of certain segments of Aztec society.

The xicolli was a sleeveless, fringed jacket which tied at the neck. Worn exclusively by the males, it could be made of cotton or agave fiber, depending on the status of the wearer; Aztec sumptuary laws restricted the use of cotton to the upper classes. The xicolli came

in various colors and was probably patterned. The only original example to survive to the twentieth century was discovered about 1850, in a cave on the escarpment of Malinaltenango, near Tenancingo about fifty miles southwest of Mexico City. It was in the collection of the Berlin Museum für Völkerkunde until it was destroyed by fire in 1945. The garment measured 23 by 29 inches and was made of agave fiber cord. The jacket's donor, Herr Seiffort, the Prussian General Counsel to Mexico from 1846 to 1850, speculated that the Indians hid the costume from the Spanish in the sixteenth century at the time of the Conquest.

Although this extant example can give detailed information on the form and design of the garment, it can yield nothing on its use and significance. For such information one must turn to the sixteenth-century records, both the pictorial manuscripts or codices of the Aztecs themselves, and the writings of the Spanish missionaries. The term "codex" is used by Mesoamerican archaeologists to signify a pictorial manuscript painted in Mexico before the Spanish conquest or during the early Spanish Colonial period. The Precolumbian examples rank among the

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foremost intellectual and artistic achievements of Mesoamerican civilization. They were composed of bark paper or long strips of animal hide folded horizontally like an accordion. Many were religious/divinatory manuals containing calendric computations; others were more secular, devoted to the recounting of history, the tracing of geneologies and the tallying of tribute payment. Since the Mesoamerican writing system was pictographic, it could not record subde detail, nor handle abstractions beyond a limited scope. These manuscripts, therefore, served chiefly as memory prompters for the recitation of historical, ritual, and religious information as well as the recording of tribute.

Codices of the Colonial period were written on European paper and were often bound in book form. They continued the earlier native tradition of using pictographs but often added text, either in the native language or in Spanish. Drawn by native artists they contained a great amount of information about Indian life. One group of colonial pictorials is included in the Florentine Codex , so named because the original is in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence; it is a primary source for any examination of the xicolli. A massive compilation of Aztec ethnography and linguistics, it was written by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan missionary who came to the New World at the age of thirty. When he arrived in Mexico in 1529, eight years after the fall of the Aztec Empire, the Spaniards had already begun to build Mexico City on the ruins of the fabled Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.

From the ruins of the city's massive temples and fallen idols, Sahagún was able to glimpse the greatness, beauty and splendor of the pre-Conquest Indian world. As was the case with many of his colleagues, his work among the Indians gave him firsthand knowledge of their daily lives - their habits, patterns of behavior and basic beliefs. Sensitive to the need to learn the native language called Nahuail , Sahagún soon possessed an invaluable key to understanding the complex Aztec world.

The young Franciscan quickly grasped the strength of the native culture and recognized the difficulty of replacing the Indian gods, in whose honor the great temples and idols had been constructed. He reasoned that to combat

pagan beliefs it was first necessary to understand them. Thus, he set out to record, in Nahvatl , all that seemed useful for converting the inhabitants to Christianity. In his missionary efforts he won only modest success. As a recorder, however, he made a lasting contribution to the world of scholarship.

The Florentine Codex has become an invaluable aid in understanding ancient Aztec life. It contains a number of references to the xicolli. Careful study of these citations indicates that six different social groups had access to the garment: l)gods and their impersonators; 2)priests; 3)nobles; 4)sacrificial captives of warriors; 5)merchants and their sacrificial slaves; and 6)administrators. The garment's use was restricted to ceremonial contexts. Delineating these gives important insights into the relations among various levels of Aztec society.

The use of the xicolli by the gods and their imitators is probably what gives the garment its pervasive religious character. Sahagún recounts how Motecuzoma, mistaking Cortés for the returning Quetzalcoatl, sent lavish gifts to the conquistador when he first arrived off the coast of Mexico at present-day Veracruz. Among these gifts were four complete deity costumes; the two outfits designated for Quetzalcoatl included xicolli. Archaeological evidence also shows other gods wearing this garment. The Churubusco idol, a statue which is presendy part of the collection of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico City, is a representation of an Aztec fire deity. The figure wears the familiar short, fringed jacket. Because the sculpture can be viewed in the round, one can observe how the garment hung on the body. This is fortunate since many depictions of the xicolli are confusing. If the garment is shown from the side or if the opening of the jacket is obscured by pectorals, only its characteristic fringe can identify the costume. In the manuscripts this is often the case when elaborately dressed god- impersonators are depicted wearing xicolli.

Reports of the great Aztec public ceremonies indicate that the gods were brought to life through costumed human impersonators. As was appropriate, many of these colorfully arrayed individuals wore the xicolli. The impersonator of Tezcatzoncatl, one of the pulque (a fermented drink)

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Human impersonator of the God Tezcatzoncatl wearing a xicclli. After, Codex Magliabechiano , Folio 54.

deities, is depicted in the Codex Magliabechiano , an early colonial codex dealing with religious matters. He is so bedecked with, ritual paraphernalia that one must be familiar with the characteristic length and fringe of the xicolli to recognize it for what it is. A further diagnostic feature of the costume is also apparent in this depiction: here the garment extends, much like a sleeve, beyond the shoulder to cover the upper arm.

The Aztecs believed that they were the chosen people, responsible for maintaining the universe through the care and propitiation of the gods. The sun itself could not rise and travel its course across the heavens without regularly receiving the most worthy and precious of godly food - the blood and hearts of men. Of necessity, then, human sacrifice was an integral part of Aztec ritual life. Not all human blood rituals, however, were

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Aztec priests wearing the xicolli while performing a human sacrifice. After, Codex Magi ia bee hiano% Folio 70.

Inauguration stone of the Temple Mayor of Tenochtitlan. After, Eduard Seier, Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Amerikanischen Sprach - und Alterumskunde II (Graz 1960) figure 47.

necessarily fatal. In addition to demanding dramatic death ceremonies, the religion also called for regular self-inflicted sacrifices of blood from all the members of society, including men, women and even babies. By puncturing the fleshy parts of the body, for example, ear lobes, upper arms, calves, genitals, with maguey spikes or pointed bones, blood was drawn and sprinkled on paper or rubber, which was then burned, carrying the offering to the gods. In Aztec art, one of the identifying marks of the priests was a smear of blood from the temple to the ear lobe, the sign of repeated autosacrifice.

Sahagún mentions the xicolli most frequently in connection with the priests, who officiated at all levels of this demanding and pervasive religion. In ceremonial scenes the priests were usually pictured wearing the customary Aztec male attire, i.e., a cloak tied around the neck and a loincloth wrapped around the lower torso. In at least one vivid sacrificial scene in the Codex Magliabechiano , however, they wear the xicolli. Furthermore,

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Aztec priest wearing a xi colli. After, Codex Mendoza , III, Folio 63.

they were often shown going about their priestly chores dressed in the xicolli, carrying a long-handled incense burner in one hand and a bag of incense in the other. On their backs some priests carried a gourd which, according to Sahagún, contained tobacco pellets to be chewed for strength when they arose in the cold, dark hours of the night to bathe in icy pools and perform other penitential duties.

In addition to the priests, members of the noble class also wore the xicolli, but only on high state occasions. At least one piece of archaeological evidence confirms this assumption. The carved dedication stone of the massive Temple Mayor at Tenochtitlan shows two emperors, Tizoc, during whose reign the final enlargement of the temple was begun in 1483, and his younger brother Auitzod, under whom it was finished in 1487.

263



The wearing the flayed human skin. After, Florentine Codex , Book 2:2.

The brothers are clad in identical xicolli, and each carries the incense bag of the priest. The two rulers are pictured performing autosacrifice by perforating their ears with bones, causing blood to cascade into the gaping mouth of the earth deity. The two emperors were not the only ones to shed blood in honor of the temple. The sixteenth-century Dominican missionary, Fray Diego Durán, reports that during the inauguration ceremony of the towering shrine, 20,000 death sacrifices were performed!

Members of the warrior class also had the right to wear the xicolli. They were the main participants in one of the most spectacular of all Aztec human sacrificial ceremonies, the so-called "Feast of the Flaying of Men." This festival took place in the spring when the soil was being prepared for planting. At this time, those valiant warriors who had taken captives from various battles offered their victims to the gods. Following the sacrifice, each warrior

flayed his captive's skin and donned it, an act believed to represent the renewal of vegetation. The flayed skins were worn for a period of up to twenty days, during which time the reeking celebrants cavorted while a progressively less enthusiastic populace looked on. Sahagún reports that after the skins were buried at the temple and the warriors were ritually purified, each victorious hero returned home and erected a pole in front of his house. The thigh bone of the unfortunate captive was placed on top of the pole, along with paper for a mask, a small bunch of heron feathers and a cord xicolli. Here the xicolli, while retaining its religious significance, also served the more secular function of presenting visual proof of the warrior's contribution to the welfare of his society as a whole.

I n ancient Aztec society the merchants or pochteca appear to have been an emerging middle class whose place in Aztec life was still ambiguous. This group controlled the long-distance trade which provided exotic luxury goods so necessary to the sharply stratified Aztec society. Although their services were highly valued, their growing influence was unsettling to the entrenched nobility. Still, because of the importance of the pochteca, the emperor allowed them to partake in some of the great religious festivals, but always following the participation of the well-established and honored warrior class. Since the merchants did not take part in the military engagements, where most of the sacrificial victims were taken, they had to purchase their human offerings from the slave market. Prior to sacrifice the merchants ritually bathed the slaves and dressed them in feathered plumes, jade and gold ornaments, in addition to the luxurious xicolli. It was only natural that the slaves should dori such godly costume because, at the moment of sacrifice, they were supposedly a physical substitution for the deities. What is less easily explained is Sahagún's statements that the merchants wore similar costumes at these rites. Perhaps the wearing of the xicolli by the sponsoring pochteca is equivalent to the warrior's house pole: visual proof of their participation in one of their state's most vital religious functions.

The final group of commoners associated

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with the xicolli are administrators known as achcacauhtin. These were the emperoťs official executioners, who apparently wore the garment as a badge of office. In one passage of the Florentine Codex , Sahagiin describes them performing their duty by killing some youths guilty of drunkenness. The Aztecs held intoxication, in other than a ritual context, as a capital offense for anyone under seventy - by that time a citizen had earned the right to drink. In another section, the achcacauhtin are described wearing the xicolli while taking part in a welcoming procession. The ruler Ahuitzotl and his representatives went out to meet a merchant group returning after a four-year expedition and siege in Soconusco, the rich cacao- producing area to the southeast. The traders, long given up for dead, had finally managed to fight their way out of their besieged fortress and were returning triumphantly to Tenochtitlan. The emperor and an impressive entourage marched out in full regalia to officially greet them on one of the great causeways spanning Lake Tetzcoco.

Although the Florentine Codex contains no drawing of the achcacauhtin wearing the xicolli, the Codex Mendoza , a post-conquest pictorial dealing with history, tribute and the daily life of the Aztecs, seems to present a similar group. One page shows "executors" of the Aztec ruler slaying a local lord who foolishly allowed his vassels to murder two Aztec merchants. The emissaries wear the familiar fringed xicolli, here drawn with a sleeve-like fold over the arm. The opening of the jacket is indicated by a vertical line extending from neck to hem. Six figures on the page wear this costume, and four of them carry the staff and fan signifying an ambassadorial mission. Sahagún relates that the achcacauhtin were commoners, as were the merchants, slaves and at least some of the warriors. Their xicolli, therefore, must not have been made of cotton, the status fabric. No doubt the xicolli of the commoners was made out of agave-fibered cord and was precisely the type of garment in the Berlin Museum.

By clarifying the role of the xicolli in Aztec culture, scholars are better equipped to seek out its origins among earlier Mesoamerican groups. There is ample evidence that the garment was used by the Toltec, Mixtee and Lowland Maya. On the other hand, it should

be noted that the xicolli, or derivatives of it, have remained fashionable to this day, in the very areas of Mexico that underwent some of the strongest sixteenth century missionary effort: Mexico City, Tlaxcala, and Texcoco. Apparently, even the Spanish Conquest was no match for the tenacity of this modest looking garment.

In April of 1931, a xicolli-like garment was photographed being worn by a man at the Xochimilco animal market not far from Mexico City. Its use in that area continued at least into the 1960's, worn on cold days by the old men, many of whom still spoke Nahuatl. In 1963 I myself bought a commercial version of the same costume in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. Although it is a longer version of the 1931 cortorinas and has pockets added for the convenience of tourists, it is essentially the same as its Precolumbian predecessor, with almost identical measurements: 22 by 29 inches. I saw a similar jacket on a Mexico City taxi-cab driver in 1974, and other modern versions of the Aztec "godly jacket" are often seen on the streets of Los Angeles.

Fray Bernardino de Sahagún would hardly be surprised at the survival of this pagan artifact; he understood only too well how difficult it was to supplant not only the religious but also the practical aspects of Aztec culture. We should at least be thankful that the wearing of flayed human skins, so popular among Aztec warriors, has not enjoyed a similar comeback.

For Further Reading on the Aztecs: Henry B. Nicholson, "Religion in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico," Handbook of Middle American Indians 10 (1971) 395-446; Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs (Stanford 1970); Muriel Porter Weaver, The Aztecs, Maya, and Their Predecessors : Archaeology of Mesoamerica (New York 1972). Sixteenth-century sources: Fray Diego Durán, The Azteca: The History of the Indies of New Spain , translated by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas (New York 1964), Book of Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar , translated by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden (Norman 1971); Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain , translated by Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe 1950-69).

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