The Aztecs of central Mexico were the first true civilization the Spaniards encountered during their conquest of Latin America. Fortunately for us, the Europeans' fascination with this culture, totally alien to their experience, led them to document it amply, on a level unparalleled elsewhere in the Americas. The vast corpus of material recorded by missionaries, other clerics, and administrators allows modern scholars to explore many aspects of Aztec culture outside of archaeology. One of the most fascinating aspects is the tie between religious ritual and food consumption, the subject of Elizabeth Morán's book.
The Aztecs ruled several million subjects from Tenochtitlan, a metropolis of perhaps 200,000 inhabitants on the swampy floor of the Basin of Mexico. Many of Tenochtitlan's residents were farmers who practiced intensive agriculture on urban garden plots (chinampas), but the city nevertheless had to import most of its food. Much of it came to them as tribute extracted from conquered provinces.
For the Aztecs, food was not simply sustenance. It was “ inherently sacred because it was a gift (from the gods)” (101). Tenochtitlan's Templo Mayor was the conceptual navel of the Aztec universe. In an unusual arrangement, the grand temple's pyramid base supported two smaller temples; one was dedicated to Tlaloc, god of water and fertility, the essential elements for successful food production, and the other to Huitzilopochtli, the tribal patron deity who had guided the Aztec on their mythic migrations to Tenochtitlan, and, perhaps more importantly, the god of war. He above all others awarded them military success that yielded both food tribute and human captives for sacrifice to the gods. The foodstuffs included staples like maize, beans, and amaranth, as well as exotic tropical foods, especially cacao (chocolate). Thus, it comes as no surprise that food played an integral role in the elaborate round of calendric religious observances and life cycle celebrations. Food was served during every ritual, fashioned into deity images, and treated as both a gift both the gods and one which came from them. The presence of food had to be repaid with reverence.
Morán's book is the first systematic, in-depth treatment of the interwoven roles of food and ritual in Aztec life. In it, she examines both the documentary sources, written texts and illustrations, and the archaeological record. She interprets her information by employing the techniques of art history. The documentary sources include numerous accounts, written and pictorial, of sixteenth-century events, with glosses or captions that help to explain them. Manuscripts with pictorial elements are particularly valuable because the drawings were meant to instruct people who lacked firsthand knowledge of indigenous culture. The archaeological data include ceramic and stone objects used in household life and ritual and monumental stone sculptures placed in temples and other arenas of public ceremonies. They depict ceremonies, deities and rituals, often with illustrations of the actual plants.
The relatively short but succinct book contains an introduction, four data chapters, and a summary. It is primarily descriptive and well illustrated with sixteenth-century drawings that support the text. Chapter 1 concerns ceremonial consumption in everyday life, while Chapter 2 examines food in public rituals and festivals attended by large groups. The role of food in Aztecs myth and its place in their vision of the cosmos is the subject of Chapter 3. Taken together, these three chapters clearly demonstrate that food was much more than sustenance for the Aztecs. It defined their very existence and their role in the order of the universe.
The Spanish conquest brought unprecedented change to every aspect of Aztec life and culture, including the forced imposition of Catholicism and the introduction of a host of new foods. In the excellent Chapter 4, Morán shows how the natives responded by gradually accepting new foods and Catholic religious beliefs, adapting them to their own lifeways and worldview. Catholicism became the official religion, but old gods and beliefs survived, especially in household settings. The result was a syncretism of modern Mexican folk Catholicism. New foods—wheat, European varieties of beans, and the entire European domesticated animal complex—were slowly integrated into household ritual. The chicken joined the turkey as a preferred animal sacrifice, but chickens did not replace turkey. Wheat rolls and tamales served as foods for the saints who replaced the traditional household deities, and ancient death observances became the modern Day of the Dead celebration. In these ways, mestizo culture was born and went on to become the foundation of modern Mexican society. Today, as in the past, feasting and food are as much a part of religion as are incense, pilgrimages, and simple daily offerings to the spirit world.
In bringing these changes together in a well-constructed narrative, supported by visual artifacts, Morán has made available to us a welcome addition to the literature on a long-neglected topic.
