Teocuitlatl, "Divine Excrement": The Significance of "Holy Shit" in Ancient Mexico Author(s): Cecelia F.

Klein Source: Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 3, Scatological Art (Autumn, 1993), pp. 20-27 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777364 . Accessed: 01/03/2011 14:00
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Teo

Excrement" cuitlati,,"Divine

Mexico TheSignificance "HolyShit"in Ancient of

E Cecelia Klein

a n 1984theAmerican folklorist Dundes Alan published

provocativeanalysis of Germanfolk sayings about excrement. The book's title, Life Is Like a ChickenCoop Ladder,exemplifiesthe consistentlynegative role playedby anal excretionsin the lore he collected, for it derives froma popular Germanexpression:"Life is like a chicken (coop) ladder-short and shitty."I That the word beschissen, or for "shitty,"is here a metaphor the hardshipsand unpleasant trivia thatobstructourrise to success and happinessis made clearerin another versionof the same expression:"Lifeis like a chicken (coop)ladder-A person can'tget ahead because of all the shit [in one's way]."2 The use of dungto signify thatwhich is bad or undesirable is widespreadin the Euro-Americanworld, and dates back to the entrenchmentof Christianity. In large part, such symbolismhas been confined, as in Germany, however, to the realm of popular,as opposed to elite, culture. In the arena of institutionalizedreligion, in particular,excrement, like sex, has been traditionallytaboo. When mentionof it does surface in Christiandiscourse, it predictablysignifies

20

FIG.

maneatingexcrement, CodexBorgia, 10 (detaill After 1 Defecating pl. Karl AntonNowotny, CodexBorgia,Biblioteca (Graz, ed., ApostolicaVaticana 19761)

the oppositeof sacred. Dante, forexample,vividly describes in the flatterershe encountered the eighth circle of Hell as "a in excrement that seemed as it had flowedfrom peopledipped culturetoday,"HolyShit"funchumanprivies."3In Western tions as an exclamationof surprise or dismay precisely because it has no referencebeyonditself;its poweras a profanity derivesfromthe paradoxembeddedin it.4 Forus, excrement is neverdivine. This was not the case, however,in pre-Hispanic Mexwhere the human body and its productswere not perico, ceived as separatefromandantitheticalto the "mind,"social values, and the supernatural-and where metaphortended was Thereexcrement conceived to be replacedby metonym.5 of as powerful ambivalent,capablebothof signifyingand and causing not just bad, but good as well. For this reason, excrementplayed an importantrole in certain visual and verbaldiscourses that helped the Mexicansto structuretheir relationsto each otherand to the simultaneously physicaland spiritual world in which they lived. In ancient Mexico the was not paradoxical,and excreconceptof divine excrement ment could be, indeed, divine. is The ambivalentnatureof humanexcrement manifest in some of the divinatoryalmanac scenes that formpart of several pre-Hispanic Mexican painted screenfold manuscripts. In Codex Borgia (pl. 10), for example, as in the cognate scene in the less artfullypainted CodexVaticanusB (pl. 29), a nearly naked man not only defecates but also seems to be eating some of his own excrement(fig. 1).6 Both scenes are remarkable depicting the man'sexcrementas for passing into-in the VaticanusB case, wrappingaroundas if containing-the cross-sectionof a neckedjar containinga rabbit. We know that the motif of a jar with a rabbitrepresented the moonin the centuries immediatelypreceding the conquest, as according to myth a primordialgod of the intoxicatingbeveragepulque long ago brokethe moon'sface with a cup shaped like a rabbit.' Thus, in these almanac scenes a figurewhois eating partof his ownwasteproductsis to apparentlyofferingthe remainder the moon. How do we explain such depictions? While these manuscriptswere almost certainly painted in south Central Mexico during the century or two before the conquest, we knowneithertheir exact provenance the language spoken nor their makers. On the basis, however,of what we know by

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about the Nahuatl-speakingAztecs of CentralMexico, who by the time of the conquesthad expandedtheircontrolovera large part of Mexico, we can be fairly certain that the divinatoryalmanacscenes qualified the auguryof the dayby either illustrating the fate of one who transgressed in a particular way on that day, or prescribing rites that could offsetthatfate-or both. In the scenes beforeus, the targeted transgressionsmay have involved drunkenness,which, except on certain ritual occasions and for the elderly, was were proscribedby Aztec law. Violatorsof this proscription in severelypunished, being said to have "wallowed ordure."8 Since pulque and drunkennesswere associated with rabbits and the moon,the figureof a mandefecatingon the moonmay augur eitherthe inadvisabilityof drinking-or the fate of a personborn-on the day in question. But the depictionmaywarnof sexual licentiousnessas well. Drunkennesswas closely associated with carnal vices, which themselveswererepresentedin the erraticwanderings and fecundity of the rabbit.9 Aztec sexual behavior was subject to legal restrictions,at least amongthe nobility,with femaleadultery,abortion,incest, and sodomypunishableby death. Most, if not all, of the numerousotherCodex Borgia and Codex Vaticanusalmanac scenes depicting excrement probablytargetjust such transgressions,for amongthe various vices associated with excrementin Aztec times, excessive and misdirected sexual acts reigned paramount.Promiscuous women, for example-especially prostitutesand adulterers, as well as sodomites-were typically characterized in terms of body waste.10Their carnal vices were all referred to as tlaello or tlazolli, meaning filth, garbage, refuse, orordure,with, in the wordsof AlfredoL6pezAustin, "a strongexcrementalsense."1" Supernaturalpatronage of these asocial individuals was affordedby exclusivelyfemaledeities, all of whomwere associated with the moon. The most importantwas the goddess Tlazolteotl,whose name, althoughusuallytranslatedas "Goddessof Filth," could also read as "Divine Filth," even "Divine Excrement." The name is based not on the Nahuatl wordfor excrementper se, cuitlatl, but on tlazolli, a word literally meaning "old, dirty, deteriorated,worn-outthing," which was used to connote filth, garbage, or refuse, all of which subsumed human waste products.12 Codices Telleriano-Remensis 20) and VaticanusA (pl. 39) show (pl.

21

FIG. 2 Goddessof filthwith excrement-curl nose ornament, CodexF6jervaryed., Mayer, 41 (detail).AfterCottieA. Burland, CodexFEjervary-Mayer pl. 12014M, Cityof Liverpool Museums(Graz, 19711

the goddess of filth holding a vase filled with a tiny person (pl. eating excrement,while in CodexF jervary-Mayer 41), a manuscriptbelieved to come from southeasternMexico, a related goddess wears an ocher-coloredcurl-the generic sign for excrement-as her nose ornament(fig. 2).13 Tlazolteotl was also addressed as Tlaelquani, which means "Eater of Ordure"according to Thelma Sullivan.14 Sullivanaccountsforthe nameby suggestingthat Tlazolteotl was a goddess of the fertile earth that "receives all organic wastes-human and animal excrement. . and so forthwhich when decomposed are transformed into humus." Humus, she adds, was called tlazollalli ("earthfilth") and was associated with the revitalization the soil.15 of The Aztecs had anotherword for soil that had been fertilized with human excrement: tlalauiyac.16 Herbert Harveysuggests that this wordalludes to the Aztec practice of collecting human excrement for use as fertilizer from public privies set up along the major roads.17 It is even possible that Tlazolteotl was a patroness of this fertilizer industry.l8Human excrementwas also used in salt productionas well as tanning, however, it is thus significantthat and SullivanrelatesTlazolteotlto the salt goddess, Uixtociuatl.19 The close cognitive relationof urine to excrementis evident in the almanacs underdiscussion where several of the defecating figures are simultaneouslyurinating (fig. 3). Noting
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22 and urinating manwith deathfigure,CodexBorgia, 13 F 1G. 3 Defecating pl. (detail)AfterNowotny, CodexBorgia. ed.,

that urine, itself a metaphorfor impurity, is salty, Sullivan suggests that Uixtociuatlrepresentedurine as well.20 Since the state also collected urine, whichwas used as a mordant in it is not surprisingthat there was a separateNahuatl dyeing, word for soil that had been urinated upon (axixtlalli).21 Amongthe Mixe today myths often representurinationas a fertilizingact, comparingit to wateror rainfall.22 The body wastes or "filth"associated with Tlazolteotl thus representednot just transgressionsof the Aztec sexual code, but also the meansforoffsettingthem, fortransforming or convertingthem into something healthy and fertile. This has to be the explanationfor the curious name Tlaelquani, "Eaterof Ordure,"and of all almanac figures who consume their own excrement. Support comes from Bernardinode Sahagin's claim that Tlazolteotlwas called Tlaelquani because "sheheardall confessions, she removed corruption."23 The Aztecs are well documentedas having believed that a to last-minute"confession" Tlaelquaniof one'ssexual transcould stave off the imminent threat of physical gressions
danger or death.24 Such "pentitents" reportedly not only

conquest, oftenforSpanishchurchpatrons,whereexcrement is used exclusively, as it is in Christian imagery,to signify vice. In Codex Telleriano-Remensis, a mid-sixteenthfor centuryAztec codex with a Spanish commentary, exama priest performing piousact of letting bloodfromhis the ple, ear bears lumps of dung on both his bone perforator his and incense bag (fig. 4). The accompanyingtext identifies the priest'sactions as taking place on the day 7 Eagle, a day of bad omen, when prostitutesmade sacrifices to the moon.28 Excrementhere, therefore,surely representsfemale sexual transgressions,which the picture suggests will be atonedfor by sheddingbloodfromself-inflicted wounds.Wehaveseen, that in the strictly indigenousscheme of things the however, real offeringsto the moon goddess were the lumps of excrementembodyingthe offenses themselves. The hope was that she wouldcounteractthe damagethat the offenseshad effeciii~~:~

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removed theirclothes so as to expose Tlaelquanito their"evil odor,"but swallowedtheir own stench, their own filth, as well.25They did this because, in Aztec thought,filth could be used to wardoff or offset filth, restoringboth moraland physical equilibrium.26 Excrementthus not only embodied the cause of an individual'sbad healthand potentialdemise, but also constituted the means to preventor cure them. As an anomalous had substance, it therefore both negativeandpositive connotations.27 This must be kept in mind in viewingmanuscripts that were painted by acculturatednatives after the Spanish
FALL 1993

!!i;i~iii:i-!!

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CodexTellerianoFIG. 4 Autosacrificial priestwith lumpsof excrement, AfterE.T.Hamy, CodexTelleriano-Remensis ed., Remensis, 21 (detail). pl. Duc ... Nationale(Paris: de Loubat, manuscrit mexicain Biblioth6que 18991

10

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ted by literally consuming their materialmanifestationand thus convertingthem into fertilizinghumus. Similarly,a womannamed, accordingto the commentator, Ixnextli appears in the same manuscript holding a substance clearly labeled in Spanish as mierda, "filth"or "excrement" (fig. 5). Ixnextli, we are told in the attendant here as crying because Ixnextliliterally glosses, is portrayed means"Ashes[in the] Eyes."Herblindnesswas, accordingto the Catholiccommentator, punishment having"gathered for a that is, for excessive sexuality. Throughoutpreflowers," for Hispanic Mexicothe flowerwas indeed a metaphor female sexuality and genitalia;Tlazolteotl,for example, is depicted in CodexVaticanus(pl. 74) and CodexBorgia(pl. 74) with her naked body in frontalview and her legs widespread, a stylized floweremanatingfromhergenitalregion. Notingthat Ixnextliis nowhereelse mentioned,Jose CorunaNufiezidentifies the figure in Codex Telleriano-Remensison iconographic groundswith the Aztec moon and fertility goddess Xochiquetzal, whose name means "Precious Flower."29 Xochiquetzal, like Tlazolteotl, was a patronessof sexuality and harlots. were furtherassoCertainvarieties of flower,however, ciated in Aztec thoughtwithvenerealdisease. A womanborn on the day 1 Flowerwhoviolatedsexual morescouldexpect to be afflicted with piles and genital infections by Xochiquetzal.30 Just sitting on or stepping over, as well as urinatsexual ing upon, certain flowerscaused infectionof women's Skin complaints characterizedby pustules were, organs.31 like hemorrhoids,attributedto what were regarded as immoral sexual acts, including sodomy, an apparently fair claim thatin the Amerassumptiongiven William Sherman's icas venereal diseases manifested themselves as pus-filled tumorsthat sometimes covered the entire body.32What is significantis that Xochiquetzalhad the powerto cure as well as cause such diseases, and that her medicine, as we will This ambivalentpower shortlysee, was urine orexcrement.33 attributed to body wastes was completely missed by the codex commentator, who in his text comparesIxnextlito the biblical Eve.34 In Judeo-Christian discourse the apple that caused Eve'sfateful fall into sin had no subsequentrestorative powerscomparableto those of excrementforthe Aztecs. Ixnextli's blindness was clearly itself a metaphorfor excessive sexuality and so was cognitivelylinked to excre-

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23

FIG. 5 lxnextli CodexTelleriano-Remensis, pl.11 holdingvase of excrement, AfterHamy, CodexTelleriano-Remensis. ed., (detail).

ment. Sexual vice is similarly expressed in CodexLaud(pl. 18), wherethe eyes of the moongoddess of filth are covered by a bandage (fig. 6).35 Loss of vision in these cases may specifically signify sexual treachery,as Tlazolteotlis sometimes described as a "deceiver"whose own carnal vices cause all worldlydeceptions.36 Dirt and excrement,in turn, are frequentlymentionedas signs of deception, and an Aztec ruler who deceived someone was called teuhio, tlazollo, "dirty," "filthy."37Eventoday,the Mayaof highlandChiapas say that a local witch's sexual parts, which she exposes in order to lure unsuspecting men into the forest, are "only excrement."38 association in these cases between sexuThe ality, deception, and excrementsurely relates to the Aztec belief that diseases of the eye were caused by sexual impropriety, and explains why glaucomaand ectropion(a disease of the eyelid)weretreatedwith powderedhumanfecal matter or urine.39 that It is noteworthy the blindfoldedCodexLaudmoon goddess also holds an ax in one hand, and that she sits atopa clearly fallen victim. Forin anotherauguralscene in Codex Borgia (pl. 12), a naked man who is swallowinghis own furtherempties his bowelsontoa blindfolded excrement deity seated beneatha smokingax. This god has been identifiedas Tezcatlipoca-Ixquimilli,a male deity of night and punishment, whose name means roughly "SmokingMirrorwith In CoveredEyes."40 the cognate scene in CodexVaticanusB 91), the defecating figure also urinates on the sightless (pl.
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24

Laud Misc.6781)BodleianLibrary Oxford (MSLaud FIG. 6 Blindfolded ed., goddess of filthwith ax, CodexLaud, 18 (detaill AfterCottieA. Burland, CodeK pl. (Graz, 19661

god below him (fig. 7). Underthe name of Titlacauan,moreover,Tezcatlipocawas addressed as "wretchedsodomite,"a label thatidentifiedhim with the mostabhorred sexual crime of all.41 The Aztecs believed that sodomycaused piles and and the sodomitewas described as "a defilehemorrhoids, ment, a corruption,filth; a taster of filth, revolting, detestable."42 As we have seen, sexual crimes were not entirely privatematters,forthey were consideredpotentiallyharmful to society as a whole. The ax that appears in the scenes we have been looking at is in fact a warningthat if one does not rectify-that is, devour-his sexual errors,he can expect to havethemforciblyexcised. This becomes clearerin cognate scenes in the Codex Borgia(pl. 15) and CodexVaticanusB (pls. 38-40) almanacs, where the blindfoldedTezcatlipocaIxquimilli appears, as do other gods, pulling a wrinkled yellowbandfroma hole in a naked man'slowerabdomen(fig. 8).43 Previousscholars have variouslyidentified these tubular forms as strips of skin or umbilical cords, but all the evidence indicates that they representthe lowerintestines or the dangerouscontentsthereof.44 Their yellowcolorand the abdominalperforations fromwhich they issue testify to this, as does the fact thatone of the men is archedovera sacrificial stone, a gaping bloody hole in his chest signifying that his hearthas just been removed(fig. 8, left). In CodexVaticanus B (pl. 41), the same amorphousocher-coloredmaterial is being pulled from the mouth of a skeletal female, a sure reference to the material'salimentarynature. Finally, another disemboweled figure in a related series in Codex F6jervary-Mayer 27) is held by a ropearoundthe neck, a (pl. that his condition is directly related to his prisoner sign status. That these victims have been found guilty of a sexual
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7 Mandefecatingand urinating blindfolded of punishment, on god CodexVaticanus pl. 91 (detaill AfterFerdinand B, Anders, Codex ed., Vaticanus 3773 (CodexVaticanus Biblioteca (Graz, B0 ApostolicaVaticana 19721
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25 8 Scenesof disembowelment: disembowelment sacrificed of man(left);disembowelment manby blindfolded of punishment of god (right)Codex Vaticanus pls. 38-39 (detaill AfterAnders,ed., CodexVaticanus 3773 (CodexVaticanus B, B).
FIG.

crime is stronglysuggested by the stylized flowersattached to the tips of the offendingorgan.45I have argued at length elsewhere that these scenes relate to several reportsthat in some places, at least, adulterersand sodomiteswereliterally disemboweled in punishment.46Tlaxcalans, for example, allegedly removedthe entrails of any man who sodomized another, and then buried him in hot ashes.47 The Aztec penchantfor brandingenemy warriorshomosexualsmay account as well forthe fact thatnumerousMesoamerican paintwiththeir ings and relief sculptures depict defeatedwarriors entrails either spilling or being pulled out.48 The weapon often used, we can infer, was an ax. The Aztecs feared a nocturnalapparitionof Tezcatlipoca,whose chest and belly had been brokenopen and who made the sound of chopping wood. The apparition'sname, Ioaltepuztli, means "Night

better illustrated than in the Aztec perceptionof gems and minerals as excrement. Mica (and later lead), for example, was identifedas the moon'sexcrement,while goldwas called coztic teocuitlatl, "yellowsacred excrement,"and tonatiuh icuitl, "theexcrementof the sun."52Tonatiuh,the sun, was a god, and gold representedthe traces of the body wastes that he deposited during the night as he passed through the underworld.53 Sahagdn'sinformantsexplained that "sometimes, in some places, there appearsin the dawnsomething like a little bit of diarrhea," which is "very yellow, very it wonderful"; is called the sun's excrementbecause it is "good, fine, [and] precious."54 Gold was thus the most precious metal in ancient Mexico, being elaboratelyworked into a variety of highly valued, elite items. Gold dust stored in quills, moreover, Ax."49 servedto standardizethe currenciesused in markettransacExcrementwas thereforeinvested throughmetonymy tions, and was also used formedicinal purposes. In particufor with real power;it was morethan a meremetaphor certain lar, gold in the formof dust or filings was literally eaten by odious acts. This may explain why the infuriated Aztecs patients with skin pustules or hemorrhoids,which, as we destroyedan altarfouled by excrementplaced there by their have seen, were attributed to sexual vices. Pustules were Colhuaenemies, and why their enemies at Tlatelolcothrew called nanaoatl in Nahuatl; the large ones were tlacazolexcrementat them in battle.50Forexcrementwas associated nanaotl, "filthypustules," and the smallerones, tecpilnanawithbothimmaturity deathin Mesoamerica,and as such oatl, "noblepustules." The latter were particularlypainful and could reduce warriorsto infancy, thereby weakening and and allegedly caused a curious twisting of the hands and even killing them. The land of the dead, which was located feet.55 The use of gold both to prevent and to cure these deep beneath the earth's surface in the underworld,was symptomswas related to the Aztec legend of the mythical conceived of as the bowels, the intestines of the personified figureNanauatzin,"OurDearPustules,"accordingto Selera earthwhere, accordingto Sahag6n, "theplace will be made god of syphilis, who is represented by figures in Codex excrement."51 Borgia(pls. 10, 42) that have twisted hands and feet.56 But this power,as we have seen, could be positive as Nanauatzin'simportance stemmed from his humble well as negative, forwhathad the powerto disrupthealth and actions during the dark days of the Creation,when the gods also had the powerto restorethem. This is nowhere had gatheredto find some way to light the universe. Unlike harmony
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he the othergods, Nanauatzin no incense to offer; burned had his ownscabs instead and then immolatedhimself in order to rise as the sun.57 Gold dust could be effective against sexually caused diseases, then, precisely because it represented the excrement of the sun, which had been itself created out of the pustule-riddenbody of Nanauatzin.58 Fromthe momentof the Spanish conquest, which was motivatedby a desire for gold, the significance of the metal became ambivalentin Mexico, for although, as Sahagiin's informants noted, it was "theleaderof all richeson earth, ... thatwhich is sought, . . . thatwhich is cherished,"it had for that very reason become an "instrumentof torment,""a Deception here deadly thing" that was also "a deceiver."59 seems to refer to immoralmeans of acquiring wealth and power,because the "deadlything"was furtheridentifiedas An of "theproperty the lords, the property the ruler." Aztec of like a ruler, was man who through "deception" grew rich, described as tlazollo, "filthy."60 Thus was the Nahuatlword forexcrement,cuitlatl, also used at times to signify excess or greed, with the added connotationsof laziness and "soft tissues."61 The direct referenceappearsto be to overeating, which would have violated Aztec codes of moderation.But the emphasishere on the link between gold and torment may well reflect the historical realities of native experienceduring the conquest and its aftermath.62 The dialectic is clearly rooted in indigenous beliefs about excrement, for excrement, as we have seen, could it indeed be a deadly thing symbolicof deception. Moreover, for often served as a metaphor povertyand low social status. A memberof the very lowest class among the Aztecs was called tlacotli, fromtlaco, "tocorrupt,""tosin," "todo evil"; the name reveals that, like illness, povertyand powerlessof ness were attributedto immoralacts. Members the tlacotli to serveothersin class werelegally and contractually obliged could be debt paymentfortheir errors,and if uncooperative, collaredand sold forsacrifice in the market.Theircondition, like that of all commonersand laborers, was equated with to dung, andto be freed of slaverywas referred as cuitlatlaza, "tothrow[away]excrement."63 Significantly,such a slave was declared legally free if he could escape his masterin the marketplaceand, having made it beyondits limits, manageto step on a pile of human excrement." There is simply no parallel to this restorative, positive meaning of human waste in Westerninstitutional social and religiouspractice. In ancientMexico,dungdid not things and merely symbolize unpleasant and opprobrious conditionsin steady oppositionto the good and spiritual. In Mexico,in contrastto Euro-America,dungwas nevertrivial. Among the Aztecs, at least, excrement'simportance may or derivein partfromits rolein nourishment, fromfearof the occasional famines that plagued CentralMexico, as well as the dysenteryand diarrheaendemic at the time of the conquest.65 But the multivalence of the symbol, like its wide geographicdistributionand its embeddedness in an entire
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moralcode, furtherindicates a fundamental cognitive function. Forthroughout ancient Mexico, excrementworkedas a metonymof the gods, and of the sun and moon, to help to structureand reinforcesocial values in binaryterms drawn from the forms and processes of the human body. Social behavior thus channeledand controlled was an through ideolin which human feces articulated the undesirablityof ogy excess and indulgence as opposed to abstinence and selfsacrifice;of deception-metaphorized as blindness-as opposed to honor,expressed as vision;of sickness and deathas opposed to good health and long life; and of poverty and powerlessnessversus wealth and rulership. In Mexico, in otherwords, the expression"HolyShit" wouldhave had no surprisevalue, because it wouldnot have containeda paradox.In Mexico, excrement,the symbol par excellence of immoralityand its undesirable physical and social consequences, was ambivalent, and as such, could also be divine.
Notes 1. Alan Dundes, LifeIs Like a ChickenCoopLadder(NewYork: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1984), 9. Mythanksto KarlTaubeforbringingthis book to my attention,and to DonaldCosentinoforlending it to me. I am also gratefulto PeterKlein, PeterVanDer Loo, Elizabeth Boone, and Dana Leibsohn for sharing their diverse expertises with me. A DumbartonOaks Pre-ColumbianStudies Fellowshipin spring 1992 provided the opportunity complete this article, a preliminaryversionof which was presented to at the 1990 College Art Association session on scatology chaired by Gabriel Weisberg. 2. Ibid., 10. 3. Dante Alighieri, Inferno(London:J. M. Dent, 1954), 197 (canto 18). 4. RobertL. Chapman, ed., New Dictionary of AmericanSlang (New York:Harper and Row,1986), 213; "holyshit: an exclamationof surprise, dismay, discovery,etc." 5. Forthe importanceof metonymyin ancient Mexico, see Louise M. Burkhart,The Mexico(TucSlipperyEarth: Nahua-ChristianMoralDialogue in Sixteenth-Century son: Universityof Arizona Press, 1989), 99. al 6. Forfacsimiles of CodexBorgia, see EduardSeler, Comentarios C6diceBorgia, 3 vols. (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1963), vol. 3; and Karl Anton ed., CodexBorgia, BibliotecaApostolicaVaticana(Graz:Akademische-und Nowotny, Verlagsanstalt,1976). Fora facsimile of CodexVaticanusB, see FerdinandAnders, 3773 (CodexVaticanus BibliotecaApostolicaVaticana(Graz: ed., CodexVaticanus B), Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,1972). Anales de Cuauhtitlany 7. PrimoFelicianoVelizquez, trans., CodiceChimalpopoca: leyendasde los soles (MexicoCity: Institutode Investigacionesde Hist6ricas, Universidad Nacional Aut6nomade Mexico, 1975), 122; and Louise M. Burkhart,"Moral Deviance in Sixteenth-CenturyNahua and Christian Thought:The Rabbit and the Lore12, no. 2 (1986): 116. In anothersource a rabbit Deer,"JournalofLatin American alone is thrown in the moon's face, where it has remained. See Bernardino de Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex:General Historyof the ThingsofNew Spain, trans. Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, 13 vols. (Santa Fe: School of American Research and Universityof Utah, 1950-82), 7:3-4. 8. Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 4:11; 6:71. 9. Burkhart, "MoralDeviance," 116. I use the words "vice" and "transgression" interchangeablyin this article in place of the word"sin"preferredby earlier scholars in orderto mitigate as much as possible all Judeo-Christianovertones. The Aztec words that colonial Spaniards translated as pecado (sin) were tlatlacolli and tlapilchiualiztli. Tlatlacolli more literally means something that harms a thing or causes it to deteriorate;tlapilchiualiztli, a defect or bad action. 10. Aztec prostitutes were described, for example, as "shitty";see Alfredo L6pez Austin, Una viejahistoriade la mierda(MexicoCity:EdicionesToledo,1988), 28; and Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 5:191; 6:74, 92. 11. L6pez Austin, Mierda, 27. According to Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 6:92, an Aztec nobleman's daughterwas urged not to covet carnal experience, "as it is said, in the excrement, the refuse." 12. The etymologyof cuitlatl is unknown, but the wordis itself the rootof a numberof otherNahuatl words. 13. Seler, Comentarios, 1:117, discusses the sign forcuitlatl. Fora facsimile of Codex CorunaNufiez, ed., Antiguedadesde M6xicobasadas see Telleriano-Remensis, Josb en la recopilaci6n LordKingsborough,4 vols. (MexicoCity:Secretariade Hacienda de 3738 y CreditoPiblico, 1964), vol. 1. For Codex VaticanusA, see CodexVaticanus

(Cod. Vat.A, "Cod. Rios") der Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana(Graz: Akademische is Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1979). The best facsimile of Codex F6jervary-Mayer 1214 M, City of LiverpoolMuseums Cottie A. Burland, ed., CodexFijervary-Mayer (Graz:Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,1971). in 14. ThelmaD. Sullivan, "Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina: GreatSpinnerand Weaver," The The Art and Iconographyof Late Post-Classic CentralMexico, ed. Elizabeth Hill Boone (Washington,D.C.: DumbartonOaks, 1982), 15. 15. Ibid. 16. H. R. Harvey,"PublicHealth in Aztec Society,"Bulletin of theNewYorkAcademy of'Medicine57 (1981): 158; and Sahagfin, FlorentineCodex, 6:124; 11:255. 17. Harvey."Public Health," 158. 18. The job of collecting body wastes forfertilizermaynot havebeen as unpleasantas we might think, since the Aztec diet, based largely on corn and amaranth,did not contain high quantities of the amino acids that cause fecal odor;see Harvey,"Public Health," 164, 165 n. 6. Excrementmay also have been burnedas fuel, at least on the battlefield. Younggirls taunted young men who had never been to war with the cry, "Artthou notjust a woman, like me? Nowherehath thy excrementbeen burned";see Sahagin, FlorentineCodex, 2:63-64. 19. Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano,Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 128: and Sullivan, "TlazolteotlIxcuina," 23. 20. Sullivan, "Tlazolteotl-Ixcuina,"23. 21. Harvey, "Public Health," 158. 22. Frank J. Lipp, The Mixe of Oaxaca: Religion, Ritual and Healing (Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1991), 76. 23. Sahagun, FlorentineCodex, 1:23-24. 24. Alfredo L6pez Austin, The Human Body and Ideology:Conceptsof the Ancient 2 and BernardOrtizde Montellano, vols. Nahuas, trans. ThelmaOrtizde Montellano (Salt Lake City: Universityof Utah Press, 1988), 1:269. 25. Sahaguin,FlorentineCodex, 1:25; 6:31. 26. Burkhart. The SlipperyEarth, 121, 209 n. 15; and L6pez Austin, Mierda, 27. 27. L6pezAustin, Mierda, 32. See also SarahC. Blaffer,TheBlack-ManofZinacantan: A CentralAmericanLegend (Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1972), 115-16, and L6pez Austin, Mierda, 26. 28. CorunaNufiez, Antiguedadesde Maico, 1:230. (This commentary accompanies the facsimile of Codex Telleriano-Remensis. ) 1:190. 29. CoronaNufiez, Antiguedades de M&xico, 30. Ortizde Montellano, AztecMedicine,133-34. See also Doris Heyden,Mitologiay simbolismode la flora en el M&xico prehispdnico(MexicoCity: UniversidadNacional de Aut6noma M6xico, 1983), 105, 107-8, regardingthe identificationof flowerswith female sexual organs and sex itself. 31. Ortizde Montellano, AztecMedicine, 141; and Sahagfin, FlorentineCodex, 5:183. CentralAmerica 32. William L. Sherman,ForcedNative Laborin Sixteenth-Century (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 306. See also Sahag6n, Florentine Codex, 1:31, where the male "pleasure" deities Macuilxochitl (Five Flower) and Xochipilli (FlowerPrince) are blamed for piles, hemorrhoids,suppuratinggenitals, and all diseases of the groin. That on 33. See, e.g., HernandoRuiz de Alarc6n, Treatise the HeathenSuperstitions TodayLive among the Indians Native to This New Spain, trans. and ed. J. Richards Andrews and Ross Hassig (Norman:Universityof OklahomaPress, 1984), 30; and Lipp, The Mixe of Oaxaca, 185. 1:190. 34. CorunaNufiez, Antiguedades de Marico, 35. Cottie A. Burland, ed., Codex Laud (MS Laud Misc. 678), Bodleian Library Oxford(Graz:Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt,1966). 1:216. 36. CorunaNufiez, Antiguedades de M&xico, 37. Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex,6:243. Lipp, TheMixe of Oaxaca, 76, mentionsthat the Mixtec say that to dream of feces portendsconcealed backbiting, falseness, and impendingsocial discord. 38. Blaffer, The Black-Man, 14, 115. This witch also stops drunks and makes them urinate (ibid., 101). 39. L6pez Austin, The Human Body, 1:179; and idem, Mierda, 63. L6pez Austin indicates that urine was morecommonlyused medicinally than excrement,and that it was often drunk, but thinks that its use may derive from Spanish medicine. I doubt this given the consistent role that urine played in native discourse. 40. Seler, Comentarios,1:200. 41. Sahag6in,FlorentineCodex, 3:12; and Juan Bautista Pomar,Relaci6n de Tezcoco (Siglo XVI), ed. Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta (MexicoCity: Biblioteca Enciclopddica del Estado de M6xico, 1975), 32. 42. Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 10:37-38. 43. Seler, Comentarios,1:200. 44. See, e.g., ibid., 1:198, 200, for reference to these bands as "strips." 45. Ibid., 1:198. 46. Cecelia F. Klein, "Snares and Entrails: Mesoamerican Symbols of Sin and Punishment,"Res 19-20 (1990-91): 81-103. 47. Fernandode Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Obrashist6ricas, 2 vols. (MexicoCity: Secretaria de Fomento,1891-92), 1:324-25. See Klein, "Snaresand Entrails," for discussion and illustrationof these disembowelments. 48. Klein, "Snares and Entrails." See also Cecelia F. Klein, "Fighting with Femi-

ninity: Gender and War in Aztec Mexico," in GenderingRhetorics: Postures of Dominanceand Submissionin Human History, ed. Richard C. Trexler(Binghamton: State Universityof New Yorkat Binghamton, Centerfor Medievaland Early Renaissance Studies, in press). 49. Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 5:157-59. The Aztecs were also hauntedby a spook called Cuitlapanton,"Little Shit," who appeared at night at "the latrines and dung tookthe formof a verysmall heaps."An omenof death who mockedmen, Cuitlapanton girl "pressed down like dung." In Acolhuacan she was called "little squashed one"; see ibid., 5:179-80. 50. D. HernandoAlvarado Tezozomoc, Cr6nica mexicana/C6diceRamirez, ed. D. Manuel Orozco y Berra, 2nd ed. (Mexico City: Editorial Porr6a, 1975), 392; and Burkhart,The SlipperyEarth, 89. 51. Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 6:29, 33. See also Klein, "Snaresand Entrails"; and Codex,6:32, an L6pezAustin, Mierda,48-49, 69. Accordingto Sahag6n, Florentine Aztec commoner who had transgressedwas told, "thoucasteth thyself into excrement, into filth . . . even as if thou wert a baby, a child, who playeth with the dung, the excrement." This may explain why the two yellow stripes that characterizedthe face paintingof the Aztec nationalpatronand wargod Huitzilopochtliwerereputedlyof an 1:117.The materialwouldhave threatened infant'sexcrement;see Seler, Comentarios, the enemy with infantile weakness or with death. 52. Sahag6n, Florentine Codex, 11:233. The Aztec name for silver, which was regarded as a variant of gold, was iztac teocuitlatl, "white sacred excrement." Sahag6n, ibid., 9:75-76, says that before the Spaniards arrived, silver was little used. Mica was metzli cuitlatl, the "excrementof the moon," and lead, which has neverbeen foundin excavationsin Mexico, in the colonial periodwas temetzli,"moon stone." See Alonso de Zorita, Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and SummaryRelationof the Lordsof NewSpain, trans. BenjaminKeen (NewBrunswick, N.J.: Rutgers UniversityPress, 1963), 301 n. 42. The association of excrementwith stones also appears in the Aztec riddle, "Whatis a tiny colored stone sitting on the road? Dog excrement"; Sahag6n, FlorentineCodex, 6:240. The Huichol say that see the stars are "brilliantstones"that were scattered over the night sky when the moon defecated; see L6pez-Austin, Mierda, 77. The Mayaand Tarascans seem to have shared with the Aztecs the idea that gold was the sun'sexcrement;see L6pez-Austin, Mierda, 69. 53. The modernMazatecsay that the sun showersgold (thatis, defecates) on the dead as he passes at night throughthe underworld; L6pez Austin, Mierda, 71. see 54. Sahag6in, of FlorentineCodex,11:33. This passage also refersto the "mother" gold who "appearswhere she has 'rained her water,'" and adds that "her urine stains deeply." In Codex Borgia (pls. 54, 69) stylized streams of black liquid that may representurine are edged with the ocher-coloredcurls that usually representexcrement. Lipp, TheMixe ofOaxaca, 152-53, has linked these images to a modernMixe belief thatthe dead in the underworld forcedto defecate on the banks of a scalding are river of urine and then eat and drink the ordurein orderto "washthe earth." 55. Sahag6in,FlorentineCodex, 10:157. 56. Seler, Comentarios,1:148; 2:77-79. 57. Sahag6in,FlorentineCodex, 7:4-7. 58. "Forthis reason pustule medicine, his excrement,sometimesappearedon earth"; ibid., 7:234. Pustules that throbbed, in turn, were called cuitlachapan, "pounding excrement." 59. Sahag6in,FlorentineCodex, 11:234. 60. Ibid., 11:243. 61. L6pezAustin, TheHumanBody, 1:198. Comparethis use of excrementto allude to overeatingand abundanceto L6vi-Strauss's assumptionthatexcrementis "thereverse of food"; see Claude L6vi-Strauss, "The ProperUse of Excrement,"in The Naked Man, trans. John and Doreen Weightman(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 329. 62. In recent times people in manyparts of ruralMexicohave told of a man or woman who became rich by finding a load of excrementthat later turned into gold or money; see L6pezAustin, Mierda,69, 75, 78-79. This mayreflect the postconquesttransfer to the Americas of the European association of feces with moneythat was noted by Freud, although in some Mexican tales the dung is discovered in the underworld. 63. When a ruler was installed, he addressed Tezcatlipoca for help as follows: thouhast mistakenme foranother,I whoam a commoner; whoam a laborer. I "Perhaps In excrement, in filth hath my lifetime been";see Sahag6in,FlorentineCodex, 6:41. 64. Diego Durnin,Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar, trans. FernandoHorcasitas and Doris Heyden (Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1971), 284-85. See also L6pez Austin, The Human Body, 1:401-2; and idem, Mierda, 27. 65. Harvey, "Public Health," 159-60. Karl Anton Nowotny,Tlacuilolli: Die MexikanischenBilderhandschriften (Berlin: VerlagGebr. Mann, 1961), 26, suggests that the man in Codex Borgia(pl. 13) who is both defecating and urinatingonto a skeletal figure while confrontinga bundled corpse is very sick (seefig. 3).

27

CECELIA F. KLEIN is professor of pre-Columbian

art history

at the Universityof California, Los Angeles. She has been writing on gender and body symbolism in Aztec art.
ART JOURNAL